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Invasive pests are slipping unnoticed into northern Europe in huge shipments of cut flowers and potted plants, with potential to damage food crops and the natural environment.
Continental European snakes, geckos and Italian wall lizards are making their way to northern Europe undetected among imports of ornamental olive trees destined for gardens and green spaces.
These hitchhiking intruders can become invasive pests that cause extensive damage to the natural environment – as has happened in previously snake-free islands of the Mediterranean like Majorca.
They’re also a red flag for a bigger problem: the range of potentially serious agricultural and environmental pests being unwittingly imported to Britain and mainland Europe on ornamental plants and cut flowers, simply because they are difficult to detect in high-volume, fast-moving shipments of plants.
In a study published today in the journal Bioscience, researchers say that despite regulations and border checks, imported cut flowers and pot plants present a growing risk because the sheer volume of trade makes it difficult to monitor and control.
Insects, fungi, reptiles, spiders and various agricultural pests are being transported live across the world on ornamental plants destined to brighten up our homes and gardens.
The multi-billion dollar global market for ornamental plants is growing fast and geographically expanding, and improved standards are urgently needed, the researchers say.
The changing climate means that disease-carrying insects like mosquitoes, which decades ago would have arrived in northern Europe and died from the cold, might now survive. It is also enabling some ornamental plants themselves to become invasive pests as growing conditions change.
Professor William Sutherland in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology, who was involved in the study, said:
Dr Silviu Petrovan in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and senior author of the paper, added:
The Sheffield frog
Petrovan, a frog specialist, became interested in the topic when he was asked to identify a live frog found in roses in a florists’ shop in Sheffield. At first he thought it was a prank, because he didn’t recognise it as any European species. When he realised it was a tree-frog that must have arrived with the cut roses from Colombia via Ecuador, he was stunned. He said of the experience:
With no comprehensive international database on the types and numbers of pests found on imported ornamental plants, it is difficult to fully assess the extent of the problem.
To gain a snapshot, the team analysed records of pests found in ornamental plants at customs in The Netherlands over 2017-2018, and reported to DEFRA in the UK over 2021-2023. In both cases, over 80% of the pests intercepted were insects.
Beyond the pests
The study highlights many other concerning environmental and health issues connected with the global ornamental plant trade. These include:
Suppliers do not always operate within the law. Orchids and cacti are amongst the high-value plants sometimes illegally stripped from tropical habitats and included in shipments. Regulations to prevent the trade in protected wild plants are challenging to enforce on a large scale.
Dr Amy Hinsley, a researcher at the Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade at the University of Oxford, who was involved in the study, said:
But an industry that employs so many people is not all bad: the ornamental plant trade is important for economies worldwide and supports many people and their families in rural areas. In 2022 the export value of cut flowers and foliage was US$10 billion, and for live plants and bulbs was $13 billion.
said Petrovan, adding: “We need to push to make the industry more sustainable through things like certifications and better regulation, and to work with those involved in the trade to better understand the risks and how to mitigate them.”
Alice Hughes at the University of Hong Kong, who was also involved in the research, said: “We need to be responsible consumers. While certification standards are being developed, buying plants rather than cut flowers can reduce many of the risks that stem from importing cut flowers. They last much longer and also reduce the emission costs.”
source: cam.ac.uk
The crystal-clear images show light being emitted from these millimetre-sized pebbles within the belts that orbit 74 nearby stars of a wide variety of ages – from those that are just emerging to those in more mature systems like our own Solar System.
The REASONS (REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars) study, led by Trinity College Dublin and involving researchers from the University of Cambridge, is a milestone in the study of exocometary belts because its images and analyses reveal where the pebbles, and the exocomets, are located. They are typically tens to hundreds of astronomical units (the distance from Earth to the Sun) from their central star.
In these regions, it is so cold (-250 to -150 degrees Celsius) that most compounds are frozen as ice on the exocomets. What the researchers are therefore observing is where the ice reservoirs of planetary systems are located. REASONS is the first programme to unveil the structure of these belts for a large sample of 74 exoplanetary systems. The results are reported in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
This study used both the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) in Hawai‘i to produce the images that have provided more information on populations of exocomets than ever before. Both telescope arrays observe electromagnetic radiation at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths.
“Exocomets are boulders of rock and ice, at least one kilometre in size, which smash together within these belts to produce the pebbles that we observe here with the ALMA and SMA arrays of telescopes,” said lead author Luca Matrà from Trinity College Dublin. “Exocometary belts are found in at least 20% of planetary systems, including our own Solar System.”
“The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts,” said co-author Dr Sebastián Marino from the University of Exeter. “Some are narrow rings, as in the canonical picture of a ‘belt’ like our Solar System’s Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. But a larger number of them are wide, and probably better described as ‘disks’ rather than rings.”
Some systems have multiple rings/disks, some of which are eccentric, providing evidence that yet undetectable planets are present and their gravity affects the distribution of pebbles in these systems.
“The power of a large study like REASONS is in revealing population-wide properties and trends,” said Matrà.
For example, the study confirmed that the number of pebbles decreases for older planetary systems as belts run out of larger exocomets smashing together, but showed for the first time that this decrease in pebbles is faster if the belt is closer to the central star. It also indirectly showed – through the belts’ vertical thickness – that objects as large as 140 km across and even Moon-size objects are likely present in these belts.
“We have been studying exocometary belts for decades, but until now only a handful had been imaged,” said co-author Professor Mark Wyatt from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy. “This is the largest collection of such images and demonstrates that we already have the capabilities to probe the structures of the planetary systems orbiting a large fraction of the stars near to the Sun.”
“Arrays like the ALMA and SMA used in this work are extraordinary tools that are continuing to give us incredible new insights into the universe and its workings,” said co-author Dr David Wilner from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian “The REASONS survey required a large community effort and has an incredible legacy value, with multiple potential pathways for future investigation.”
Reference:
L. Matrà et al. ‘REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars. REASONS: A population of 74 resolved planetesimal belts at millimetre wavelengths.’ Astronomy & Astrophysics (2025). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202451397
Adapted from a Trinity College Dublin media release.
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.
source: cam.ac.uk
Listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about thatAlice Paver
Research led by the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with Nottingham Trent University, raises serious concerns about bias in the UK criminal justice system due to negative stereotyping of accents.
These stereotypes, the researchers argue, can affect all parts of the system from arrest to sentencing, and undermine not only suspects and defendants, but also the testimony of witnesses. The study is particularly concerned about accented speakers being incorrectly selected from voice identification parades.
The findings, published in Frontiers in Communication, suggest that despite progress in equality and diversity in some parts of British life, including ‘working-class’ and regional accents becoming more prominent on television and radio, harmful stereotypes remain.
“Our findings bring into sharp focus the disadvantage that speakers of some accents may still face in the criminal justice system,” said lead author, Alice Paver, from the University of Cambridge’s Phonetics Laboratory and Jesus College, Cambridge.
“Voices play a powerful role in the criminal justice system and police officers, lawyers and juries are all susceptible to judging voices based on stereotypes, whether they’re aware of it or not. As things stand, listeners think some accents sound guiltier than others and we should all be concerned about that.”
The researchers, from Cambridge and Nottingham Trent University, asked 180 participants (~50:50 gender split) from across the UK to listen to recordings of ten regionally-accented male voices: Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Newcastle and Standard Southern British English (SSBE), also referred to as RP.
Participants were then asked to rate the voices on 10 social traits – ‘Educated’, ‘Intelligent’, ‘Rich’, ‘Working class’, ‘Friendly’, ‘Honest’, ‘Kind’, ‘Trustworthy’, ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Confident’; as well as on 10 morally ‘good’, ‘bad’ and ‘ambiguous behaviours’, which included a range of crime types.
These behaviours included: ‘Return a lost wallet to its owner’, ‘Stand up for someone who is being harassed’, ‘Cheat on a romantic partner’, ‘Report a relative to the police for a minor offence’, ‘Drive dangerously’, ‘Physically assault someone’, ‘Shoplift’, ‘Touch someone sexually without consent’, ‘Vandalize a shop front.’
The study used a wider range of recorded accents, behaviours and criminal offences than previous research which has tended to focus on criminal behaviour in general or the binary of white versus blue-collar crime. This study included crimes which are not class stratified, such as a driving offence and a sexual offence, and is the first to identify links between listener perceptions of morality, criminality, and social traits.
To ensure their results would be valid in a criminal justice context, the researchers created voice samples in a similar way to how they are constructed for voice ID parades. The aim was to mimic, as closely as possible, how a juror or earwitness would experience them.
The results show that people with non-standard accents are more likely to be associated with criminal behaviour but that there is significant variation in perceptions between accents.
The RP-like accent was perceived as the least likely to behave in criminal ways, while the Liverpool and Bradford accents were the most likely.
Alice Paver said: “The strongest connection we found was between people’s perceptions of class or status, negative traits such as aggression, and how they think someone is going to behave, particularly when it comes to crime. This is the first time that a concrete link between traits and behaviours has been made in the context of accent judgements.”
Unlike previous findings, the researchers did not observe a relationship between ‘solidarity traits’ (such as kindness and trustworthiness) and any behaviours. Status proved a much more important predictor of behaviours, re-enforcing the link between social class and expectations of behaviour in the UK.
However, non-English accents, in particular Belfast’s and Glasgow’s, were rated significantly less likely to behave in criminal ways than almost all other accents. They were also thought most likely to ‘stand up for someone being harassed’ (‘honourable behaviour’) and least likely to exhibit ‘morally bad’ behaviours.
Alice Paver said: “Our findings show that perceptions of speakers of regional accents and how status, social attractiveness and morality interact are much more complex than previously assumed. We need a much more nuanced understanding of how accents are evaluated when it comes to different crime types.”
The London and Liverpool accents were rated most likely to touch someone sexually without consent, but they were very closely followed by the RP accent. Participants thought the RP accent was more likely to commit a sexual assault than any of the other offences tested.
“This finding simultaneously undermines certain traditional stereotypes about both higher status and working-class men,” Alice Paver said. “This may indicate shifting perceptions of the ‘type’ of man who can and does commit sexual offences.”
The Glasgow and Belfast speakers were thought the least likely to commit this sexual offence.
The study found that participants perceived this sexual offence as distinct from other criminal behaviours. Poor ratings for it clustered with those for non-criminal ‘morally bad’ behaviours, namely ‘being unfaithful to a romantic partner’ and ‘lying on a CV’.
Previous studies have found that the Newcastle accent rates highly for traits such as friendliness, but this study recorded less positive ratings for kindness, honesty, friendliness and trustworthiness.
By contrast, the Birmingham accent, which has rated poorly in previous research across these measures, performed better than Bradford, Bristol, Liverpool, London and Newcastle in this study.
“Although relatively stable over time, language attitudes can change,” Alice Paver said. “This might be the case for the Birmingham and Newcastle accents. But previous studies have often asked people what they think of an accent label whereas we played them an actual voice. That’s a very different stimulus so we’re not surprised people reacted differently.”
The study contributes to the Improving Voice Identification Procedures project. Its team of researchers is currently drafting revised guidelines for voice identification parades aimed at police officers and legal professionals.
They support the use of pre-tests to screen for bias against foil or suspect voices to make sure that they don’t stand out as sounding unduly guilty or untrustworthy.
“Jurors are not currently made aware of or warned against letting voice- or accent-based prejudice sway their decisions,” Paver said. “If we’re asked to judge whether someone is guilty or not, and they’ve got a particular accent, we need to be sure we’re not making that judgment because we think they sound like a bad guy.”
The researchers hope that future studies will examine even more offence types; further explore the relationships between perceptions of criminality and other, non-criminal, behaviours; and make use of a broader range of voices for each accent to tease apart the effect of individual voices and the strength of regional accents.
The research was carried out in collaboration with Professor Natalie Braber and Dr David Wright of Nottingham Trent University’s School of Arts and Humanities, and Dr Nikolas Pautz, of NTU’s Dept. of Psychology.
This research was supported by the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council as part of the project Improving Voice Identification Procedures (IVIP), reference ES/S015965/1. Additional funding was provided by the Isaac Newton Trust.
A. Paver, D. Wright, N. Braber and N. Pautz, ‘Stereotyped accent judgements in forensic contexts: listener perceptions of social traits and types of behaviour’, Frontiers in Communication (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fcomm.2024.1462013
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.
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This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep upAmy Orben
The work has been commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 found the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions suitable to inform policy.
The project – led by a team at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with researchers at several leading UK universities – is aimed at improving policymakers’ understanding of the relationship between children’s wellbeing and smartphone use, including social media and messaging. It will help direct future government action in this area.
Project lead Dr Amy Orben from the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit (MRC CBU) at the University of Cambridge said: “There is huge concern about the impact of smartphone use on children’s health, but the evidence base remains fairly limited. While the government is under substantial time pressure to make decisions, these will undoubtedly be better if based on improved evidence.
“This is a complex and rapidly evolving issue, with both potential harms and benefits associated with smartphone use. Technology is changing by the day, and scientific evidence creation needs to evolve and innovate to keep up.
“Our focus will be on deepening our causal understanding of the effects of new technologies, particularly over short timescales, to ensure that decisions are informed, timely and evidence-based.”
Dr Orben will lead a Project Delivery Team, with Consortium Members from the universities of Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and York and the London School of Economics. It will aim to identify which research methods and data sources will be most effective at identifying potential causal relationships between social media, smartphones, and the health and development of children and young people
Deputy project lead Dr Amrit Kaur Purba, also from the MRC CBU at Cambridge, said: “The impact of social media on young people is a pressing issue, and our project will ensure the research community is in a strong position to provide policymakers with the causal and high-quality insights they need. While we don’t expect this to be straightforward, our research will leverage diverse expertise from across the UK to deliver a comprehensive and informed response to make recommendations for how research in this area should be supported in future.”
The researchers will review and summarise existing research on the impact of smartphones and social media on children and young people’s mental health, wellbeing, physical health, lifestyle and health behaviours, and educational attainment. The review will recognise the diversity of perspectives that exist in this area and consider where further research could add valuable new insights to the evidence base.
They will assess the various methods and data available to understand the causal impacts, including recognising that online habits and emerging technologies are changing at a rapid pace, and considering how the experiences of vulnerable children and young people – for example, LGBTQ+ young people and those with special needs or mental health issues – can be captured in future research projects.
This will allow the team to recommend and outline how future research studies could deliver robust and causal evidence on the impact of smartphones and social media on child development factors in the next two to three years.
Technology Secretary Peter Kyle, said: “The online world offers immense opportunities for young people to connect and learn. Ensuring they can do so in an environment which puts their safety first is my priority and will guide this government’s action on online safety.
“That’s why we have launched new research, led by the University of Cambridge with support from other top UK universities, to better understand the complex relationship between technology and young people’s wellbeing.
“This vital research will build a trusted evidence base for future action, helping us to protect and empower the next generation towards a safer and more positive digital future.”
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Launched on 19 December 2013, Gaia’s fuel tank is now approaching empty – it uses about a dozen grams of cold gas per day to keep it spinning with pinpoint precision. But this is far from the end of the mission. Technology tests are scheduled for the weeks ahead before Gaia is moved to its ‘retirement’ orbit, and two massive data releases are tabled for around 2026 and the end of this decade, respectively.
“Today marks the end of science observations and we are celebrating this incredible mission that has exceeded all our expectations, lasting for almost twice its originally foreseen lifetime,” said ESA Director of Science Carole Mundell.
“The treasure trove of data collected by Gaia has given us unique insights into the origin and evolution of our Milky Way galaxy, and has also transformed astrophysics and Solar System science in ways that we are yet to fully appreciate. Gaia built on unique European excellence in astrometry and will leave a long-lasting legacy for future generations.”
“Today marks the last day of science data collection from Gaia, these observations to form part of the final data release,” said Dr Nicholas Walton from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, lead of the UK Gaia Project team and ESA Gaia Science Team member. “Our Gaia team in the UK is now working hard on the incredibly complex data analysis for the upcoming Gaia data releases. These will enable a wealth of new discovery, adding to the science from one of the world’s most productive science discovery machines.”
Gaia delivers best Milky Way map
Gaia has been charting the positions, distances, movements, brightness changes, composition and numerous other characteristics of stars by monitoring them with its three instruments many times throughout the mission.
This has enabled Gaia to deliver on its primary goal of building the largest, most precise map of the Milky Way, showing us our home galaxy like no other mission has done before.
Gaia’s repeated measurements of stellar distances, motions and characteristics are key to performing ‘galactic archeology’ on our Milky Way, revealing missing links in our galaxy’s complex history to help us learn more about our origins. From detecting ‘ghosts’ of other galaxies and multiple streams of ancient stars that merged with the Milky Way in its early history, to finding evidence for an ongoing collision with the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy today, Gaia is rewriting the Milky Way’s history and making predictions about its future.
Warning! More ground-breaking science ahead
The Gaia scientific and engineering teams are already working on the preparations for Gaia Data Release 4 (DR4), expected in 2026.
“This is the Gaia release the community has been waiting for, and it’s exciting to think this only covers half of the collected data,” said Antonella Vallenari, Deputy Chair of DPAC based at the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Astronomical Observatory of Padua, Italy. “Even though the mission has now stopped collecting data, it will be business as usual for us for many years to come as we make these incredible datasets ready for use.”
“Over the next months we will continue to downlink every last drop of data from Gaia, and at the same time the processing teams will ramp up their preparations for the fifth and final major data release at the end of this decade, covering the full 10.5 years of mission data,” said Rocio Guerra, Gaia Science Operations Team Leader based at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) near Madrid in Spain.
Gaia’s retirement plan
While today marks the end of science observations, a short period of technology testing now begins. The tests have the potential to further improve the Gaia calibrations, learn more about the behaviour of certain technology after ten years in space, and even aid the design of future space missions.
After several weeks of testing, Gaia will leave its current orbit around Lagrange point 2, 1.5 million km from the Earth in the direction away from the Sun, to be put into its final heliocentric orbit, far away from Earth’s sphere of influence. The spacecraft will be passivated on 27 March 2025, to avoid any harm or interference with other spacecraft.
Wave farewell to Gaia
During the technology tests Gaia’s orientation will be changed, meaning it will temporarily become several magnitudes brighter, making observations through small telescopes a lot easier (it won’t be visible to the naked eye). A guide to locating Gaia has been set up here, and amateur astronomers are invited to share their observations.
“Gaia will treat us with this final gift as we bid farewell, shining among the stars ahead of its well-earned retirement,” said Uwe Lammers, Gaia Mission Manager.
“It’s a moment to celebrate this transformative mission and thank all of the teams for more than a decade of hard work operating Gaia, planning its observations, and ensuring its precious data are returned smoothly to Earth.”
Adapted from a European Space Agency press release.
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.
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source: https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-igcse-sanskrit-0499/
 Dear ColleagueWe currently offer Cambridge IGCSE Sanskrit (0499) in our June exam series. Where a qualification receives consistently lower numbers of entries, as in the case of Cambridge IGCSE Sanskrit, we review it against a range of criteria to determine whether it is feasible to continue offering the qualification. Cambridge IGCSE Sanskrit does not meet enough of these criteria. We have therefore decided to withdraw the qualification. The last exam will be in June 2027. You may want to consider Cambridge O Level Sanskrit (3216) as an alternative. Please note that Cambridge O Level Sanskrit (3216) is only available in the November exam series. If you are a Cambridge Associate, please share this communication with your centres that make entries for this syllabus. If you have any questions about these changes, or are interested in offering Cambridge O Level Sanskrit (3216), please contact us at info@cambridgeinternational.org. We look forward to a continuing and successful working relationship with you and your school. Best wishes Customer Services Team |
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More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthyBarbara Sahakian
Researchers from the UK and China drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
Social relationships play an important role in our wellbeing. Evidence increasingly demonstrates that both social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health and an early death. Despite this evidence, however, the underlying mechanisms through which social relationships impact health remain elusive.
One way to explore biological mechanisms is to look at proteins circulating in the blood. Proteins are molecules produced by our genes and are essential for helping our bodies function properly. They can also serve as useful drug targets, allowing researchers to develop new treatments to tackle diseases.
A team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge, UK, and Fudan University, China, examined the ‘proteomes’ – the suite of proteins – in blood samples donated by over 42,000 adults aged 40-69 years who are taking part in the UK Biobank. This allowed them to see which proteins were present in higher levels among people who were socially isolated or lonely, and how these proteins were connected to poorer health.
The team calculated social isolation and loneliness scores for individuals. Social isolation is an objective measure based on, for example, whether someone lives alone, how frequently they have contact with others socially, and whether they take part in social activities. Loneliness, on the other hand, is a subjective measure based on whether an individual feels lonely.
When they analysed the proteomes and adjusted for factors such as age, sex and socioeconomic background, the team found 175 proteins associated with social isolation and 26 proteins associated with loneliness (though there was substantial overlap, with approximately 85% of the proteins associated with loneliness being shared with social isolation). Many of these proteins are produced in response to inflammation, viral infection and as part of our immune responses, as well as having been linked to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and early death.
The team then used a statistical technique known as Mendelian randomization to explore the causal relationship between social isolation and loneliness on the one hand, and proteins on the other. Using this approach, they identified five proteins whose abundance was caused by loneliness.
Dr Chun Shen from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, said: “We know that social isolation and loneliness are linked to poorer health, but we’ve never understood why. Our work has highlighted a number of proteins that appear to play a key role in this relationship, with levels of some proteins in particular increasing as a direct consequence of loneliness.
Professor Jianfeng Feng from the University of Warwick said: “There are more than 100,000 proteins and many of their variants in the human body. AI and high throughput proteomics can help us pinpoint some key proteins in prevention, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis in many human diseases and revolutionise the traditional view of human health.
“The proteins we’ve identified give us clues to the biology underpinning poor health among people who are socially isolated or lonely, highlighting why social relationships play such an important part in keeping us healthy.”
One of the proteins produced in higher levels as a result of loneliness was ADM. Previous studies have shown that this protein plays a role in responding to stress and in regulating stress hormones and social hormones such as oxytocin – the so-called ‘love hormone’ – which can reduce stress and improve mood.
The team found a strong association between ADM and the volume of the insula, a brain hub for interoception, our ability to sense what’s happening inside our body – the greater the ADM levels, the smaller the volume of this region. Higher ADM levels were also linked to lower volume of the left caudate, a region involved in emotional, reward, and social processes. In addition, higher levels of ADM were linked to increased risk of early death.
Another of the proteins, ASGR1, is associated with higher cholesterol and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, while other identified proteins play roles in the development of insulin resistance, atherosclerosis (‘furring’ of the arteries) and cancer progression, for example.
Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said: “These findings drive home the importance of social contact in keeping us well. More and more people of all ages are reporting feeling lonely. That’s why the World Health Organization has described social isolation and loneliness as a ‘global public health concern’. We need to find ways to tackle this growing problem and keep people connected to help them stay healthy.”
The research was supported by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, Shanghai Rising-Star Program, National Key R&D Program of China, Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project, 111 Project, Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, and Zhangjiang Lab.
Reference
Shen, C et al. Plasma proteomic signatures of social isolation and loneliness associated with morbidity and mortality. Nat Hum Behav; 3 Jan 2025; DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-02078-1
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The approach will quickly show which variants of a pathogen are most worrying in terms of the potential to make people ill. This means a vaccine can be specifically targeted against these variants, to make it as effective as possible.Henrik Salje
The new approach uses samples from infected humans to allow real-time monitoring of pathogens circulating in human populations, and enable vaccine-evading bugs to be quickly and automatically identified. This could inform the development of vaccines that are more effective in preventing disease.
The approach can also quickly detect emerging variants with resistance to antibiotics. This could inform the choice of treatment for people who become infected – and try to limit the spread of the disease.
It uses genetic sequencing data to provide information on the genetic changes underlying the emergence of new variants. This is important to help understand why different variants spread differently in human populations.
There are very few systems in place to keep watch for emerging variants of infectious diseases, apart from the established COVID and influenza surveillance programmes. The technique is a major advance on the existing approach to these diseases, which has relied on groups of experts to decide when a circulating bacteria or virus has changed enough to be designated a new variant.
By creating ‘family trees’, the new approach identifies new variants automatically based on how much a pathogen has changed genetically, and how easily it spreads in the human population – removing the need to convene experts to do this.
It can be used for a broad range of viruses and bacteria and only a small number of samples, taken from infected people, are needed to reveal the variants circulating in a population. This makes it particularly valuable for resource-poor settings.
The report is published today in the journal Nature.
“Our new method provides a way to show, surprisingly quickly, whether there are new transmissible variants of pathogens circulating in populations – and it can be used for a huge range of bacteria and viruses,” said Dr Noémie Lefrancq, first author of the report, who carried out the work at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics.
Lefrancq, who is now based at ETH Zurich, added: “We can even use it to start predicting how new variants are going to take over, which means decisions can quickly be made about how to respond.”
“Our method provides a completely objective way of spotting new strains of disease-causing bugs, by analysing their genetics and how they’re spreading in the population. This means we can rapidly and effectively spot the emergence of new highly transmissible strains,” said Professor Julian Parkhill, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine who was involved in the study.
Testing the technique
The researchers used their new technique to analyse samples of Bordetella pertussis, the bacteria that causes whooping cough. Many countries are currently experiencing their worst whooping cough outbreaks of the last 25 years. It immediately identified three new variants circulating in the population that had been previously undetected.
“The novel method proves very timely for the agent of whooping cough, which warrants reinforced surveillance given its current comeback in many countries and the worrying emergence of antimicrobial resistant lineages,” said Professor Sylvain Brisse, Head of the National Reference Center for whooping cough at Institut Pasteur, who provided bioresources and expertise on Bordetella pertussis genomic analyses and epidemiology.
In a second test, they analysed samples of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis. It showed that two variants with resistance to antibiotics are spreading.
“The approach will quickly show which variants of a pathogen are most worrying in terms of the potential to make people ill. This means a vaccine can be specifically targeted against these variants, to make it as effective as possible,” said Professor Henrik Salje in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Genetics, senior author of the report.
He added: “If we see a rapid expansion of an antibiotic-resistant variant, then we could change the antibiotic that’s being prescribed to people infected by it, to try and limit the spread of that variant.”
The researchers say this work is an important piece in the larger jigsaw of any public health response to infectious disease.
A constant threat
Bacteria and viruses that cause disease are constantly evolving to be better and faster at spreading between us. During the COVID pandemic, this led to the emergence of new strains: the original Wuhan strain spread rapidly but was later overtaken by other variants, including Omicron, which evolved from the original and were better at spreading. Underlying this evolution are changes in the genetic make-up of the pathogens.
Pathogens evolve through genetic changes that make them better at spreading. Scientists are particularly worried about genetic changes that allow pathogens to evade our immune system and cause disease despite us being vaccinated against them.
“This work has the potential to become an integral part of infectious disease surveillance systems around the world, and the insights it provides could completely change the way governments respond,” said Salje.
The research was primarily funded by the European Research Council.
Reference: Lefrancq, N. et al: ‘Learning the fitness dynamics of pathogens from phylogenies.’ January 2025, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08309-9
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Former University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, an Honorary Fellow of Wolfson College and Homerton College, is made Knight Grand Cross (GBE) for services to cancer research, clinical research, medicine and to charities.
Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, who has been President of Wolfson College since October 2024, becomes a Dame (DBE) for services to chemical sciences and inclusion and diversity. Professor Uchegbu is a renowned expert in the field of pharmaceutical science and was most recently Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at University College London. Her research has focussed on methods that can be used to help drugs reach their target more effectively and reduce the likelihood of uncomfortable side effects. While at UCL she spearheaded a project to improve outcomes for both staff and students from under-represented ethnic groups. She is is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
She said: “I’m absolutely thrilled. I wouldn’t say I’m humbled – I know people say that, but when I saw the letter at the Porters’ Lodge what I felt was an overwhelming sense of gratitude and pride. In my wildest dreams I never believed I would get such an award.”
Professor Ashley Moffet, Professor of Reproductive Immunology, is made Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (CMG) for services to reproductive health. A Fellow of King’s College, she is the foremost international authority on the immunology of human reproduction and her work on genetic research has helped explain high rates of pre-eclampsia and maternal mortality in Ugandan populations. She is a Fellow of both the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
She said: “I am delighted by this honour that is a tribute to the hard work and dedication of my many colleagues both here in Cambridge and in Uganda who are working together so tirelessly to support women in the field of maternal health.”
Professor Gilly Carr is Professor of Conflict Archaeology and Holocaust Heritage and receives an OBE for services to Holocaust research and education. Professor Carr, a Fellow of St Catharine’s College, is a member of both the UK delegation of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the academic advisory board for the UK Holocaust Memorial Centre. Professor Carr has a particular research interest in wartime incarceration, internment and imprisonment. 2024 saw the publication of her latest book, ‘A Materiality of Internment‘, which drew on over 15 years of research and interviews with more than 65 former internees.
She said: “I am absolutely thrilled for my research and teaching to be recognised in this way. I’ve been working hard on behalf of victims of Nazism and the Holocaust for 15 years and for this to be seen as nationally important and worthwhile encourages me to continue my work with vigour.”
Professor Rachel Oliver, who also receives an OBE, is a materials engineer, inventor and commercial spinout founder. A Fellow of Robinson College, she is currently Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and Chief Scientific Officer of Poro Technologies Ltd (Porotech). Her research is in understanding and engineering the small-scale structure of semiconductor materials to enable new technologies to develop. Professor Oliver is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineering and is a passionate advocate for equality, diversity and inclusion in science and engineering.
She said: “I am delighted to receive this honour and it is vital that I acknowledge the fabulous teams that I work with both in the University of Cambridge and at Porotech, a company that spun out from my research group. I hope I can encourage more people to get involved in semiconductors in the UK. The semiconductor ecosystem has been an exciting place to work throughout my career, but never more so than right now, with both research and industry rapidly growing and stepping up to address some of the most pressing challenges we face.”
Dr James Biddulph, former headteacher of the University of Cambridge Primary School, has been awarded an MBE for services to education. Dr Biddulph was the inaugural headteacher of the school from 2015 until 2023, and under his leadership it attained an Outstanding Ofsted rating in 2018.
Eleanor Sharpston KC, an Emeritus Fellow of King’s College, has been made Dame Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (DCMG) for services to Justice and to the Education of Law in the UK and Europe. Dame Eleanor has combined a career as a barrister (specialising in European Union and European Convention on Human Rights law) with an academic career first at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge where she continues as a Yorke Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Law Faculty. She was also Arthur Goodhart Visiting Professor in Legal Science from 2023 to 2024.
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Public awareness of what is coming is the key to ensuring we don’t go down the wrong pathJonnie Penn
The near future could see AI assistants that forecast and influence our decision-making at an early stage, and sell these developing ‘intentions’ in real-time to companies that can meet the need – even before we have made up our minds.
This is according to AI ethicists from the University of Cambridge, who say we are at the dawn of a “lucrative yet troubling new marketplace for digital signals of intent”, from buying movie tickets to voting for candidates. They call this the Intention Economy.
Researchers from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) argue that the explosion in generative AI, and our increasing familiarity with chatbots, opens a new frontier of ‘persuasive technologies’ – one hinted at in recent corporate announcements by tech giants.
‘Anthropomorphic’ AI agents, from chatbot assistants to digital tutors and girlfriends, will have access to vast quantities of intimate psychological and behavioural data, often gleaned via informal, conversational spoken dialogue.
This AI will combine knowledge of our online habits with an uncanny ability to attune to us in ways we find comforting – mimicking personalities and anticipating desired responses – to build levels of trust and understanding that allow for social manipulation on an industrial scale, say researchers.
“Tremendous resources are being expended to position AI assistants in every area of life, which should raise the question of whose interests and purposes these so-called assistants are designed to serve”, said LCFI Visiting Scholar Dr Yaqub Chaudhary.
“What people say when conversing, how they say it, and the type of inferences that can be made in real-time as a result, are far more intimate than just records of online interactions”
“We caution that AI tools are already being developed to elicit, infer, collect, record, understand, forecast, and ultimately manipulate and commodify human plans and purposes.”
Dr Jonnie Penn, an historian of technology from Cambridge’s LCFI, said: “For decades, attention has been the currency of the internet. Sharing your attention with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram drove the online economy.”
“Unless regulated, the intention economy will treat your motivations as the new currency. It will be a gold rush for those who target, steer, and sell human intentions.”
“We should start to consider the likely impact such a marketplace would have on human aspirations, including free and fair elections, a free press, and fair market competition, before we become victims of its unintended consequences.”
In a new Harvard Data Science Review paper, Penn and Chaudhary write that the intention economy will be the attention economy ‘plotted in time’: profiling how user attention and communicative style connects to patterns of behaviour and the choices we end up making.
“While some intentions are fleeting, classifying and targeting the intentions that persist will be extremely profitable for advertisers,” said Chaudhary.
In an intention economy, Large Language Models or LLMs could be used to target, at low cost, a user’s cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, online history, and even preferences for flattery and ingratiation, write the researchers.
This information-gathering would be linked with brokered bidding networks to maximize the likelihood of achieving a given aim, such as selling a cinema trip (“You mentioned feeling overworked, shall I book you that movie ticket we’d talked about?”).
This could include steering conversations in the service of particular platforms, advertisers, businesses, and even political organisations, argue Penn and Chaudhary.
While researchers say the intention economy is currently an ‘aspiration’ for the tech industry, they track early signs of this trend through published research and the hints dropped by several major tech players.
These include an open call for ‘data that expresses human intention… across any language, topic, and format’ in a 2023 OpenAI blogpost, while the director of product at Shopify – an OpenAI partner – spoke of chatbots coming in “to explicitly get the user’s intent” at a conference the same year.
Nvidia’s CEO has spoken publicly of using LLMs to figure out intention and desire, while Meta released ‘Intentonomy’ research, a dataset for human intent understanding, back in 2021.
In 2024, Apple’s new ‘App Intents’ developer framework for connecting apps to Siri (Apple’s voice-controlled personal assistant), includes protocols to “predict actions someone might take in future” and “to suggest the app intent to someone in the future using predictions you [the developer] provide”.
“AI agents such as Meta’s CICERO are said to achieve human level play in the game Diplomacy, which is dependent on inferring and predicting intent, and using persuasive dialogue to advance one’s position,” said Chaudhary.
“These companies already sell our attention. To get the commercial edge, the logical next step is to use the technology they are clearly developing to forecast our intentions, and sell our desires before we have even fully comprehended what they are.”
Penn points out that these developments are not necessarily bad, but have the potential to be destructive. “Public awareness of what is coming is the key to ensuring we don’t go down the wrong path,” he said.
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Of 3,500 proposals reviewed by the ERC, only 14% were selected for funding – Cambridge has the highest number of grants of any UK institution.
ERC Starting Grants – totalling nearly €780 million – support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities.
The awards help researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years but additional funds can be made available.
In total, the grants are estimated to create 3,160 jobs for postdoctoral fellows, PhD students and other staff at host institutions.
Cambridge’s recipients work in a wide range of fields including plant sciences, mathematics and medicine. They are among 494 laureates who will be leading projects at universities and research centres in 24 EU Member States and associated countries. This year, the UK has received grants for 50 projects, Germany 98, France 49, and the Netherlands 51.
Adrian Baez-Ortega (Dept. of Veterinary Medicine, Wellcome Sanger Institute) for Exploring the mechanisms of long-term tumour evolution and genomic instability in marine transmissible cancers
Claudia Bonfio (MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology) for Lipid Diversity at the Onset of Life
Tom Gur (Dept. of Computer Science and Technology) for Sublinear Quantum Computation
Leonie Luginbuehl (Dept. of Plant Sciences) for Harnessing mechanisms for plant carbon delivery to symbiotic soil fungi for sustainable food production
Julian Sahasrabudhe (Dept. of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics) for High Dimensional Probability and Combinatorics
Richard Timms (Cambridge Institute for Therapeutic Immunology and Infectious Disease) for Deciphering the regulatory logic of the ubiquitin system
Hannah Übler (Dept. of Physics) for Active galactic nuclei and Population III stars in early galaxies
Julian Willis (Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry) for Studying viral protein-primed DNA replication to develop new gene editing technologies
Federica Gigante (Faculty of History) for Unveiling Networks: Slavery and the European Encounter with Islamic Material Culture (1580– 1700) – Grant hosted by the University of Oxford
Professor Sir John Aston FRS, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research at the University of Cambridge, said:
“Many congratulations to the recipients of these awards which reflect the innovation and the vision of these outstanding investigators. We are fortunate to have many exceptional young researchers across a wide range of disciplines here in Cambridge and awards such as these highlight some of the amazing research taking place across the university. I wish this year’s recipients all the very best as they begin their new programmes and can’t wait to see the outcomes of their work.”
Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said:
“The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our early-career talent under our Horizon Europe programme. The new ERC Starting Grants winners aim to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges. In this call, I am happy to see one of the highest shares of female grantees to date, a trend that I hope will continue. Congratulations to all!”
President of the European Research Council, Prof. Maria Leptin, said:
“Empowering researchers early on in their careers is at the heart of the mission of the ERC. I am particularly pleased to welcome UK researchers back to the ERC. They have been sorely missed over the past years. With fifty grants awarded to researchers based in the UK, this influx is good for the research community overall.”
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Changing the way children travel to school can have significant effects on their levels of physical activity at the same time as bringing other co-benefits like improving congestion and air qualityJenna Panter
Car travel contributes to air pollution, a major cause of heart and lung diseases including asthma attacks. Beyond this, it limits children’s opportunities for physical activity, hindering their development and mental health, and increasing their risk of obesity and chronic illnesses.
Despite UK guidelines recommending a daily average of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for school-aged children and adolescents, less than half (45%) of children aged 5-16 met these levels in 2021. One in three children aged 10-11 in the UK are overweight or obese.
In April 2019, London introduced the ULEZ to help improve air quality by reducing the number of vehicles on the road that do not meet emissions standards. According to Transport for London, the central London ULEZ reduced harmful nitrogen oxides by 35% and particulate matter by 15% in central London within the first 10 months of its introduction.
In a study published on 5 September in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, a team led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Queen Mary University of London examined the impact of the ULEZ on how children travelled to school. The research was part of the CHILL study (Children’s Health in London and Luton).
The study examined data from almost 2,000 children aged 6 to 9 years attending 84 primary schools in London and the control area, Luton. 44 schools were located with catchment areas within or bordering London’s ULEZ, and these were compared to a similar number in Luton and Dunstable (acting as a comparison group). The inclusion of the comparison site enabled the researchers to draw more robust conclusions and increased confidence in attributing the observed changes to the introduction of the ULEZ.
The researchers collected data from the period June 2018 to April 2019, prior to ULEZ implementation, and again in the period June 2019 to March 2020, the year after implementation of the ULEZ but prior to COVID-19-related school closures.
Among those children in London who travelled by car prior to the introduction of the ULEZ, 4 in 10 (42%) switched to active modes, while one in 20 (5%) switched from active to inactive modes.
In contrast, only one in 5 (20%) children in Luton swapped from car travel to active modes, while a similar number (21%) switched from active to car travel. This means that children in London within the ULEZ were 3.6 times as likely to shift from travelling by car to active travel modes compared to those children in Luton and far less likely (0.11 times) to switch to inactive modes.
The impact of the ULEZ on switching to active travel modes was strongest for those children living more than half a mile (0.78km) from school. This was probably because many children who live closer to school already walked or cycled to school prior to the ULEZ and therefore there was more potential for change in those living further away from their school.
The study’s first author, Dr Christina Xiao from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, said: “The introduction of the ULEZ was associated with positive changes in how children travelled to school, with a much larger number of children moving from inactive to active modes of transport in London than in Luton.
“Given children’s heightened vulnerability to air pollution and the critical role of physical activity for their health and development, financial disincentives for car use could encourage healthier travel habits among this young population, even if they do not necessarily target them.”
Joint senior author Dr Jenna Panter from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, said: “The previous Government was committed to increasing the share of children walking to school by 2025 and we hope the new Government will follow suit. Changing the way children travel to school can have significant effects on their levels of physical activity at the same time as bringing other co-benefits like improving congestion and air quality, as about a quarter of car trips during peak morning hours in London are made for school drop-offs.”
After ULEZ was introduced in Central London, the total number of vehicles on the roads fell by 9%, and by one-third (34%) for vehicles that failed to meet the required exhaust emission standards, with no clear evidence of traffic moving instead to nearby areas.
Joint senior author Professor Chris Griffiths from the Wolfson Institute of Population Health, Queen Mary University of London, said: “Establishing healthy habits early is critical to healthy adulthood and the prevention of disabling long term illness, especially obesity and the crippling diseases associated with it. The robust design of our study, with Luton as a comparator area, strongly suggests the ULEZ is driving this switch to active travel. This is evidence that Clean Air Zone intervention programmes aimed at reducing air pollution have the potential to also improve overall public health by addressing key factors that contribute to illness.”
Due to the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions in late March 2020, the study was paused in 2020/2021 and results are only reported for the first year of follow-up. However, as both London and Luton, the study areas, were similarly affected, the researchers believe this disruption is unlikely to have affected the results. The study has restarted following up with the children to examine the longer-term impacts of the ULEZ. This will identify if the changes they observed in the year following the introduction of the ULEZ persist.
The study was conducted in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London, Imperial College, University of Bedfordshire, University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford and University of Southern California and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research Public Health Research (NIHR), NIHR Applied Research Collaboration North Thames, and Cambridge Trust.
Reference
Xiao, C et al. Children’s Health in London and Luton (CHILL) cohort: A 12-month natural experimental study of the effects of the Ultra Low Emission Zone on children’s travel to school. IJBNPA; 5 Sept 2024; DOI: 10.1186/s12966-024-01621-7
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Atherosclerosis can potentially be prevented by lowering cholesterol levels, but we clearly need to start thinking about this much earlier on in lifeZiad Mallat
The research also suggests that people who are taking lipid-lowering drugs such as statins to lower their cholesterol levels should remain on them, even if their cholesterol levels have fallen, as stopping treatment could increase their risk of atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis is one of the major causes of heart and circulatory disease. It involves the hardening and narrowing of the vessels that carry blood to and from the heart. It is caused by the build-up of abnormal material called plaques – collections of fat, cholesterol, calcium and other substances circulating in the blood.
Atherosclerosis is largely considered a disease of the elderly and so most screening, prevention and intervention programmes primarily target those with high cholesterol levels, generally after the age of 50.
But in a study published today in Nature, a team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge shows that high cholesterol levels at a younger age – particularly if those levels fluctuate – can be even more damaging than high cholesterol levels that only begin in later life.
To study the mechanisms that underlie atherosclerosis, scientists often use animal modes, such as mice. The mice will typically be fed a high fat diet for several weeks as adults to see how this leads to the build up of the plaques characteristic of the condition.
Professor Ziad Mallat and colleagues at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute at the University of Cambridge decided to explore a different approach – to see whether giving mice the same amount of high fat food but spread over their lifetime changed their atherosclerosis risk.
“When I asked my group and a number of people who are experts in atherosclerosis, no one could tell me what the result would be,” said Professor Mallat, a British Heart Foundation (BHF) Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine.
“Some people thought it would make no difference, others thought it would change the risk. In fact, what we found was that an intermittent high fat diet starting while the mice were still young – one week on, a few weeks off, another week on, and so on – was the worst option in terms of atherosclerosis risk.”
Armed with this information, his team turned to the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study, one of the largest follow-up studies into cardiovascular risk from childhood to adulthood. Participants recruited in the 1980s returned for follow-up over the subsequent decades, and more than 2,000 of them had received ultrasound scans of their carotid arteries when they were aged around 30 years and again at around 50 years.
Analysing the data, the team found that those participants who had been exposed to high cholesterol levels as children tended to have the biggest build of plaques, confirming the findings in mice.
“What this means is that we shouldn’t leave it until later in life before we start to look at our cholesterol levels,” Professor Mallat said. “Atherosclerosis can potentially be prevented by lowering cholesterol levels, but we clearly need to start thinking about this much earlier on in life than we previously thought.”
The mouse studies showed that fluctuating levels of cholesterol appeared to cause the most damage. Professor Mallat says this could explain why some people who are on statins but do not take them regularly remain at an increased risk of heart attack.
“If you stop and start your statin treatment, your body is being exposed to a yo-yo of cholesterol, which it doesn’t like, and it seems this interferes with your body’s ability to prevent the build-up of plaques,” he added.
The reason why this is so damaging may come down to the effect that cholesterol has on specific types of immune cells known as ‘resident arterial macrophages’. These reside in your arteries, helping them to clear damaged cells and fatty molecules known as lipids, which include cholesterol, and stopping the build-up of plaques.
When the team examined these macrophages in their mouse models, they found that high cholesterol levels – and in particular, fluctuating cholesterol levels – changed them physically and altered the activity of their genes. This meant that the cells were no longer protective, but were instead detrimental, accelerating atherosclerosis.
The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation.
Reference
Takaoka, M et al. Early intermittent hyperlipidaemia alters tissue macrophages to boost atherosclerosis. Nature; 4 Sept 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07993-x
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This report highlights the need for a radical repurposing of NHS funding to resource primary care for that ambition to be achievedStephen Barclay
These are among the conclusions of Time to Care: findings from a nationally representative survey of experiences at the end of life in England and Wales, a new report funded by end-of-life charity Marie Curie and produced by King’s College London’s Cicely Saunders Institute, Hull York Medical School at University of Hull, and the University of Cambridge.
Time to Care aims to describe the outcomes, experiences, and use of care services by people affected by dying, death, and bereavement in England and Wales. It is the final report from the Marie Curie Better End of life programme.
The report found one in five dying people had no contact with their GP in the last three months of life.
Half of people surveyed (49%) said their dying loved one visited A&E at least once in their final three months of life, and one in eight people who died in hospital had been there less than 24 hours.
Half of respondents (49%) in the study were also unhappy with at least one aspect of the care the person who died received and of those one in eight people made a formal complaint. Fewer than half of respondents said they had a key contact person to co-ordinate their care. This meant responsibility for care fell on informal carers (family and friends), who often felt unprepared and unsupported.
Professor Stephen Barclay, from the Department of Public Health & Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, a researcher on the project and a practicing GP, said: “GPs, Community Nurses and the wider Primary Care Team have a central and often under-recognised role in the care of people approaching and at the end of their lives. But they are under enormous pressure with increasing workloads, diminishing workforces and inadequate investment over recent years.
“Increasing numbers of people have been dying in the community during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, at home or in care homes. This important survey, undertaken at a time when the NHS was beginning to recover from the worst of the pandemic, reveals how clinical teams in all settings are struggling to meet the needs of this vulnerable patient group.
“The out-of-hours period, which comprises two-thirds of the week, is particularly difficult for patients and their families. Across the UK, GPs and Community Nurses want to provide excellent palliative and end of life care, but the necessary ‘time to care’ is currently often squeezed. The new UK Government’s focus on care close to home is welcome. This report highlights the need for a radical repurposing of NHS funding to resource primary care for that ambition to be achieved.”
The research report is based on a survey sent by the Office for National Statistics in 2023 to a nationally representative sample of people who had registered the death of a family member in the prior six to 10 months. Only non-sudden causes of death were included. Responses were received from 1179 people, making this the largest nationally representative post-bereavement survey in England and Wales for a decade.
Professor Katherine Sleeman, from King’s College London and lead researcher on the project, said: “This study reveals patchy and inconsistent provision of care for people approaching the end of life. While there were examples of excellent care – including in the community, in care homes, and in hospitals – the overall picture is of services that are overstretched, and of health and care staff lacking the time they need to consistently provide high-quality care. This means that dying people miss out on treatment and care for their symptoms, and families are left feeling unprepared and unsupported which has lasting emotional repercussions into bereavement.
The researchers say the findings are concerning, considering the ageing population and the expected increase in palliative care needs across the UK. By 2048, there will be an additional 147,000 people in the UK who need palliative care before they die, an increase of 25%.
“Without a corresponding increase in capacity of primary and community care teams to support these people as they approach the end of life, the quality of care is likely to further suffer,” said Professor Sleeman. “It has never been more important to ensure high-quality palliative care for all who need it.”
Annette Weatherley, Marie Curie Chief Nursing Officer, added: “The findings are shocking. Too many people are dying in avoidable pain, struggling with breathlessness and other debilitating symptoms because of the difficulties they face accessing the end-of-life care they need from overstretched GPs and other health and care workers.
“Without urgent action, gaps in access to palliative and end of life care will only grow.
“It is a critical time to improve palliative and end of life care. People at the end of life should be able to have the very best possible care. There is only one chance to get it right at the end of life. Yet, as the evidence shows, too many people are being failed by a system faced with extreme financial and workforce pressures. It’s time for Governments to step up and fix care of the dying.”
Professor Stephen Barclay is a fellow at Emmmanuel College, Cambridge.
Adapted from a press release by Marie Curie
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A cancer drug that unlocks the anti-inflammatory power of the immune system could help to reduce the risk of future heart attacks, according to research part-funded by the British Heart Foundation. By repurposing an existing drug, researchers hope it could soon become part of routine treatment for patients after a heart attack.
The findings will be presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in London by Dr Rouchelle Sriranjan, NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology at the University of Cambridge.
High levels of inflammation in blood vessels are linked to an increased risk of heart disease and heart attacks. After a heart attack, the body’s immune response can aggravate existing inflammation, causing more harm and increasing risk even further. However, NICE guidelines don’t currently recommend the use of any anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce future risk.
Now, a team of researchers, led by Dr Joseph Cheriyan from Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, have found that low doses of an anti-inflammatory drug called aldesleukin, injected under the skin of patients after a heart attack, significantly reduces inflammation in arteries.
The researchers are currently following up patients to investigate the longer-term impact of this fall in inflammation. To date, in the two and a half years after their treatment, there have been no major adverse cardiac events in the group that received aldesleukin, compared to seven in the group that received the placebo.
Professor Ziad Mallat, BHF Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Cambridge who developed the trial, said: “We associate inflammation with healing – an inbuilt response that protects us from infection and injury. But it’s now clear that inflammation is a culprit in many cardiovascular conditions.
“Early signs from our ongoing trial suggest that people treated with aldesleukin may have better long-term outcomes, including fewer heart attacks. If these findings are repeated in a larger trial, we’re hopeful that aldesleukin could become part of routine care after a heart attack within five to 10 years.”
Aldesleukin is already used to treat kidney cancer, as high doses stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells. The Cambridge team previously found that doses one thousand times lower than those used in cancer treatment increased the number of regulatory T cells – a type of anti-inflammatory white blood cell – in patients’ blood compared to a placebo.
In the current trial at Addenbrooke’s and Royal Papworth hospitals in Cambridge, 60 patients admitted to hospital with a heart attack or unstable angina received either low dose aldesleukin or placebo. Patients received an injection once a day for the first five days, then once per week over the next seven weeks. Neither the participants nor their doctors knew whether they had received the drug or placebo.
At the end of treatment, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans showed that inflammation in the artery involved in patients’ heart attack or angina was significantly lower in the group treated with aldesleukin, compared to those who received the placebo.
The anti-inflammatory effect of aldesleukin appeared even more striking in the most inflamed arteries, leading to a larger reduction in inflammation levels in these vessels and a bigger difference between the two groups by the end of the study.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist said: “Thanks to research, we have an array of effective treatments to help people avoid heart attacks and strokes and save lives. But, even after successful heart attack treatment, unwanted inflammation in the coronary arteries can remain, which can lead to life-threatening complications.
“A treatment to reduce inflammation after a heart attack could be a game-changer. It would help doctors to interrupt the dangerous feedback loop that exacerbates inflammation and drives up risk. This research is an important step towards that treatment becoming a reality.”
The study was predominantly funded by the Medical Research Council, with significant support from the BHF and National Institute for Health and Care Research Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (NIHR-BRC).
Originally published by the British Heart Foundation.
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The sight of vineyards in Britain is becoming more common as hotter summers create increasingly suitable conditions for growing grapes. But behind this success story is a sobering one: climate change is shifting the regions of the world suitable for growing crops.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have uncovered a looming issue: as the land suitable for producing our food moves northwards, it will put a squeeze on the land we need to grow trees. The timber these trees produce is the basis of much of modern life – from paper and cardboard to furniture and buildings.
They say that the increasing competition between land for timber production and food production due to climate change has, until now, been overlooked – but is set to be an emerging issue as our demand for both continues to increase.
Under the worst-case scenario for climate change, where no action is taken to decarbonise society, the study found that over a quarter of existing forestry land – around 320 million hectares, equivalent to the size of India – will become more suitable for agriculture by the end of the century.
Most forests for timber production are currently located in the northern hemisphere in the US, Canada, China and Russia. The study found that 90% of all current forestry land that will become agriculturally productive by 2100 will be in these four countries.
In particular, tens of millions of hectares of timber-producing land across Russia will become newly suitable for agriculture – more than in the US, Canada and China put together – with conditions becoming favourable for potato, soy, and wheat farming.
“There’s only a finite area of suitable land on the planet where we can produce food and wood – two critical resources for society. As climate change worsens and agriculture is forced to expand northwards, there’s going to be increasing pressure on timber production,” said Dr Oscar Morton, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences who co-led the study.
“We’ve got to be thinking fifty years ahead because if we want timber in the future, we need to be planting it now. The trees that will be logged by the end of this century are already in the ground – they’re on much slower cycles than food crops,” said Dr Chris Bousfield, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and co-leader of the study.
Global food demand is projected to double by 2050 as the population grows and becomes more affluent. Global wood demand is also expected to double in the same timeframe, in large part because it is a low-carbon alternative to concrete and steel for construction.
Shifting timber production deeper into boreal or tropical forests are not viable options, because the trees in those regions have stood untouched for thousands of years and logging them would release huge amounts of carbon and threaten biodiversity.
“A major environmental risk of increasing competition for land between farming and forestry is that wood production moves into remaining areas of primary forest within the tropics or boreal zones. These are the epicentres of remaining global wilderness and untouched tropical forests are the most biodiverse places on Earth. Preventing further expansion is critical,” said David Edwards, Professor of Plant Ecology in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences and senior author of the study.
To get their results, the researchers took satellite data showing intensive forestry across the world and overlaid it with predictions of suitable agricultural land for the world’s key crops -including rice, wheat, maize, soy and potato – in the future under various climate change scenarios.
Even in the best-case scenario, where the world meets net zero targets, the researchers say there will still be significant future changes in the regions suitable for timber and crop production.
The study is published today in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Timber production contributes over US $1.5 trillion per year to national economies globally. Heatwaves and associated wildfires have caused huge recent losses of timber forests around the world. Climate change is also driving the spread of pests like the Bark Beetle, which attacks trees.
Climate change is expected to cause areas in the tropics to become too hot and inhospitable for growing food and make large areas of southern Europe much less suitable for food and wood production.
“Climate change is already causing challenges for timber production. Now on top of that, there will be this increased pressure from agriculture, creating a perfect storm of problems,” said Bousfield.
“Securing our future wood supply might not seem as pressing as securing the food we need to eat and survive. But wood is just as integrated within our daily lives and we need to develop strategies to ensure both food and wood security into the future,” said Morton.
Reference:
Bousfield, C.G., et al, ‘Climate change will exacerbate land conflict between agriculture and timber production.’ Nature Climate Change (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-024-02113-z
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