Published today in the journal Nature Genetics, the findings are the result of work by the OncoArray Consortium, a huge endeavour led by scientists in the UK, the USA and Australia. This particular study involved 418 researchers from almost 300 different departments worldwide.

According to Cancer Research UK, there were 7,378 new cases of ovarian cancer in the UK in 2014. Around nine out of ten of these cases was epithelial ovarian cancer. The peak rate of cases is among women aged 75-79 years old.

“We know that a woman’s genetic make-up accounts for about one third of her risk of developing ovarian cancer. This is the inherited component of disease risk,” explains Professor Paul Pharoah from the University of Cambridge, UK, one of the joint leads. “We’re less certain of environmental factors that increase our risk, but we do know that several factors reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, including taking the oral contraceptive pill, having your tubes tied and having children.”

Inherited faults in genes such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 account for about 40 per cent of the inherited component.  These faults are rare in the population (carried by about one in 300 people) and are associated with high lifetime risks of ovarian cancer – about 50 per cent for BRCA1 and 16 per cent for BRCA2 on average – as well as a high risk of breast cancer. Variants that are common in the population (carried by more than one in 100 people) are believed to account for most of the rest of the inherited component of risk.

Before the OncoArray Consortium, researchers had identified 27 common variants across the genome associated with ovarian cancer risk.  However, some of these are associated only with rare subtypes of ovarian cancer.  The magnitude of the associated risk however is modest: together, the variants account for only about 4 per cent of the inherited component of disease.

The OncoArray Consortium studied the genomes of over 25,000 people with epithelial ovarian cancer and compared them to almost 41,000 healthy controls. They then analysed results from a further 31,000 BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers, which included almost 4,000 epithelial ovarian cancer patients. This enabled them to identify a further 12 variants associated with risk and confirm the association of 18 of the previously published variants; some of the other variants failed to replicate.

In total, there are now known to be 30 risk variants, accounting for 6.5 per cent of the inherited component of risk.

“Ovarian cancer is clearly a very complex disease – even the 30 risk variants that we now know increase risk of developing the disease account for just a small fraction of the inherited component,” says Dr Catherine Phelan from the Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, USA. “We believe that there will likely be many more genetic variants involved, each with extremely small effects.  Most of these are likely to be common, but some will be rare.”

The researchers point out that while the common view is of our genes influencing disease risk, in fact most of the variants discovered to date do not fall in our genes, but rather in ‘non-coding’ regions of the human genome, so named because, unlike our genes, they do not provide the code to make proteins. Instead, these regions are often involved in regulating the activity of our genes.

Because the variants are common, some women will carry multiple risk variants.  However, even in combination these variants do not have a large effect on risk, say the researchers. Women carrying the greatest number of these risk variants will still have a lifetime risk of ovarian cancer of just 2.8 per cent.  To put this into context, family cancer clinics commonly offer surgery to remove the ovaries – and hence prevent the possibility of disease – to women with a lifetime risk of 10 per cent or more.

However, these variants also affect the risk of ovarian cancer in women who carry a fault in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes and this might be sufficient to affect the decision of a carrier about when or if to have preventive surgery.

“In some ways, the hard work starts now,” says Dr Simon Gayther from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA. “We really have little idea of the functional effect these variants have at the molecular or cellular level and so there are few clues as to how they might affect risk. If we can understand how they work, we will be in a better position to treat – and possibly prevent – ovarian cancer.”

The research was carried out by the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium and the Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2, two consortia that are part of the larger OncoArray Consortium. The consortia used a customised Illumina genotyping array, which allowed them to analyse around 533,000 variants and has been used to genotype over 500,000 samples, including the samples in this study of ovarian cancer

Reference
Phelan, CM et al. Identification of twelve novel susceptibility loci for different histotypes of epithelial 1 ovarian cancer. Nature Genetics; 27 Mar 2017; DOI: 10.1038/ng.3826

Human pluripotent stem cells are ‘master cells’ that have the ability to develop into almost any type of tissue, including brain cells. They hold huge potential for studying human development and the impact of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and heart disease.

In a human, it takes nine to twelve months for a single brain cell to develop fully. It can take between three and 20 weeks using current methods to create human brain cells, including grey matter (neurons) and white matter (oligodendrocytes) from an induced pluripotent stem cell – that is, a stem cell generated by reprogramming a skin cell to its ‘master’ stage. However, these methods are complex and time-consuming, often producing a mixed population of cells.

The new platform technology, OPTi-OX, optimises the way of switching on genes in human stem cells. Scientists applied OPTi-OX to the production of millions of nearly identical cells in a matter of days. In addition to the neurons, oligodendrocytes, and muscle cells the scientists created in the study, OPTi-OX holds the possibility of generating any cell type at unprecedented purities, in this short timeframe.

To produce the neurons, oligodendrocytes, and muscle cells, the team altered the DNA in the stem cells. By switching on carefully selected genes, they reprogrammed the stem cells and created a large and nearly pure population of identical cells. The ability to produce as many cells as desired combined with the speed of the development gives an advantage over other methods. The new method opens the door to drug discovery, and potentially therapeutic applications in which large amounts of cells are needed.

Study author Professor Ludovic Vallier from the Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Centre Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge says: “What is really exciting is we only needed to change a few ingredients – transcription factors – to produce the exact cells we wanted in less than a week. We over-expressed factors that make stem cells directly convert into the desired cells, thereby bypassing development and shortening the process to just a few days.”

OPTi-OX has applications in various projects, including the possibility to generate new cell types which may be uncovered by the Human Cell Atlas. The ability to produce human cells so quickly means the new method will facilitate more research.

Joint first author, Daniel Ortmann from the University of Cambridge, adds: “When we receive a wealth of new information on the discovery of new cells from large scale projects, like the Human Cell Atlas, it means we’ll be able to apply this method to produce any cell type in the body, but in a dish.”

Dr Mark Kotter, lead author and clinician, also from Cambridge, says: “Neurons produced in this study are already being used to understand brain development and function. This method opens the doors to producing all sorts of hard-to-access cells and tissues so we can better our understanding of diseases and the response of these tissues to newly developed therapeutics.”

The research was supported by Wellcome, the Medical Research Council, the German Research Foundation, the British Heart Foundation, The National Institute for Health Research UK and the Qatar Foundation.

Reference
Matthias Pawlowski et al. Inducible and deterministic forward programming of human pluripotent stem cells. Stem Cell Reports; 23 Mar 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.stemcr.2017.02.016

Adapted from a press release by the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

The finding that moderate drinking is not universally associated with a lower risk of all cardiovascular conditions suggests a more nuanced approach to the role of alcohol in prevention of cardiovascular disease is necessary, say the researchers.

Moderate drinking is thought to be associated with a lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease compared with abstinence or heavy drinking.

In the UK, moderate drinking is defined as no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, the equivalent of 7 pints of ordinary strength beer or just over one and a half bottles of ordinary strength wine.

There is, however, a growing scepticism around this observation, with some experts pointing out several shortcomings in the evidence, for example grouping non-drinkers with former drinkers, who may have stopped drinking due to poor health.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge and University College London set out to investigate the association between alcohol consumption and 12 cardiovascular diseases by analysing electronic health records for 1.93 million healthy UK adults as part of the CALIBER (ClinicAl research using LInked Bespoke studies and Electronic health Records) data resource.

All participants were free from cardiovascular disease at the start of the study, and non-drinkers were separated from former and occasional drinkers to provide additional clarity in this debate.

The researchers looked at the effect of different levels of drinking on the risk of ‘first presenting’ to a doctor with a number of cardiovascular diseases; for example, did moderate drinking make it more or less likely that an individual’s first diagnosis of cardiovascular disease was a heart attack.

After several influential factors were accounted for, moderate drinking was associated with a lower risk of several, but not all, cardiovascular conditions, including angina, heart failure and ischaemic stroke (the most common type of stroke, when a blood clot blocks the flow of blood and oxygen to the brain), compared with abstaining from alcohol.

“This doesn’t mean that it is advisable for individuals to take up drinking as a means of lowering their cardiovascular risk,” says Dr Steven Bell from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. “Alcohol consumption is associated with other diseases, such as liver disease and certain types of cancer. There are other, safer and more effective ways, such as being more physically active, maintaining a healthy diet and stopping smoking.

“Ultimately an individual’s decision to drink, and at what level, should not be considered in isolation of other health behaviours or risk factors and instead be motivated by their own personal circumstances.”

Heavy drinking (exceeding recommended limits) conferred an increased risk of a range of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure, cardiac arrest (when the heart malfunctions and stops beating suddenly) and ischaemic stroke compared with moderate drinking. However, it carried a lower risk of heart attack (when blood flow to the heart is blocked) and angina.

Again, the authors explain that this does not mean that heavy drinkers will not go on to experience a heart attack in the future, just this was less likely to be their first diagnosis compared with moderate drinkers.

This is an observational study, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. Added to which, the authors point to some study limitations that could have introduced bias.

Nevertheless, they say it is the first time this association has been investigated on such a large scale and their findings have implications for patient counselling, public health communication, and disease prediction tools.

In a linked editorial, researchers at Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in the US say this study “sets the stage for ever larger and more sophisticated studies that will attempt to harness the flood of big data into a stream of useful, reliable, and unbiased findings that can inform public health, clinical care, and the direction of future research”.

Reference
Bell, S et al. Association between clinically recorded alcohol consumption and initial presentation of 12 cardiovascular diseases: population based cohort study using linked health records. BMJ; 23 Mar 2017; DOI: 10.1136/bmj.j909

Adapted from a press release from The BMJ.

The audience of an event at this year’s Cambridge Science Festival found themselves staring into the face of a fellow Cambridge resident – one who spent the last 700 years buried beneath the venue in which they sat.

The 13th-century man, called Context 958 by researchers, was among some 400 burials for which complete skeletal remains were uncovered when one of the largest medieval hospital graveyards in Britain was discovered underneath the Old Divinity School of St John’s College, and excavated between 2010 and 2012.

The bodies, which mostly date from a period spanning the 13th to 15th centuries, are burials from the Hospital of St John the Evangelist which stood opposite the graveyard until 1511, and from which the College takes its name. The hospital was an Augustinian charitable establishment in Cambridge dedicated to providing care to members of the public.

“Context 958 was probably an inmate of the Hospital of St John, a charitable institution which provided food and a place to live for a dozen or so indigent townspeople – some of whom were probably ill, some of whom were aged or poor and couldn’t live alone,” said Professor John Robb, from the University’s Division of Archaeology.

In collaboration with Dr Chris Rynn from the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, Robb and Cambridge colleagues have reconstructed the man’s face and pieced together the rudiments of his life story by analysing his bones and teeth.

The work is one of the first outputs from the Wellcome Trust-funded project ‘After the plague: health and history in medieval Cambridge’ for which Robb is principle investigator. The project is analysing the St John’s burials not just statistically, but also biographically.

“Context 958 was over 40 when he died, and had quite a robust skeleton with a lot of wear and tear from a hard working life. We can’t say what job specifically he did, but he was a working class person, perhaps with a specialised trade of some kind,” said Robb.

“One interesting feature is that he had a diet relatively rich in meat or fish, which may suggest that he was in a trade or job which gave him more access to these foods than a poor person might have normally had. He had fallen on hard times, perhaps through illness, limiting his ability to continue working or through not having a family network to take care of him in his poverty.”

There are hints beyond his interment in the hospital’s graveyard that Context 958’s life was one of adversity. His tooth enamel had stopped growing on two occasions during his youth, suggesting he had suffered bouts of sickness or famine early on. Archaeologists also found evidence of a blunt-force trauma on the back of his skull that had healed over prior to his death.

Click on images below to enlarge:

The face of Context 958. Image credit: Dr. Chris Rynn, University of Dundee1 of 4

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“He has a few unusual features, notably being buried face down which is a small irregularity for medieval burial. But, we are interested in him and in people like him more for ways in which they are not unusual, as they represent a sector of the medieval population which is quite hard to learn about: ordinary poor people,” said Robb.

“Most historical records are about well-off people and especially their financial and legal transactions – the less money and property you had, the less likely anybody was to ever write down anything about you. So skeletons like this are really our chance to learn about how the ordinary poor lived.”

The focal point of the ‘After the Plague’ project will be the large sample of urban poor people from the graveyard of the Hospital of St John, which researchers will compare with other medieval collections to build up a picture of the lives, health and day-to-day activities of people living in Cambridge, and urban England as a whole, at this time.

“The After the Plague project is also about humanising people in the past, getting beyond the scientific facts to see them as individuals with life stories and experiences,” said Robb.

“This helps us communicate our work to the public, but it also helps us imagine them ourselves as leading complex lives like we do today. That’s why putting all the data together into biographies and giving them faces is so important.”

The Old Divinity School of St John’s College was built in 1877-1879 and was recently refurbished, now housing a 180-seat lecture theatre used for College activities and public events, including last week’s Science Festival lecture given by Robb on the life of Context 958 and the research project.

The School was formerly the burial ground of the Hospital, instituted around 1195 by the townspeople of Cambridge to care for the poor and sick in the community. Originally a small building on a patch of waste ground, the Hospital grew with Church support to be a noted place of hospitality and care for both University scholars and local people.

The strategy of using people’s need for healthcare against them by violently denying access sets a dangerous precedent that the global health community must urgently address, say an international team of researchers.

The authors of a new report published today (15 March) in The Lancet – marking six years since the conflict began – have “triangulated” various data sources to provide new estimates for the number of medical personnel killed so far: 814 from March 2011 to February 2017.

However, they also say this is likely to be a “gross underestimate” due to limitations of evidence-gathering and corroboration in the conflict areas.

There were 199 attacks on health facilities in 2016 alone – an increase from 91 in 2012, when the Syrian government effectively criminalised medical aid for the opposition. The government and its allies, including Russia, have been responsible for at least 94% of attacks, say the experts – threatening the foundation of medical neutrality.

Besieged areas are denied medicine, and remaining medics are delivering what care they can in brutal conditions. Despite explicit protections under International Humanitarian Law, attacks on health workers have included imprisonment, abduction, torture and execution.

The authors of the latest report, including researchers from Cambridge’s departments of sociology and politics, say the conflict has exposed serious shortcomings in global governance.

They call for the systematic documentation of attacks on health workers and, critically, the perpetrators via the WHO, allowing for greater accountability. UN policies and practices should also be reviewed and strengthened, including operational capacity to deliver support to health workers across conflict lines.

The research team also calls for global solidarity with health workers in the Syrian conflict, including support to increase awareness among donors and politicians.

“Syria has become one of the most dangerous places on earth to be a healthcare worker,” says Dr Adam Coutts, report co-author from Cambridge’s Department of Sociology.

“Thousands of health workers have left and relocated to neighbouring countries and further afield such as Europe. This poses significant challenges for current healthcare provision in Syria but also for future health system rebuilding in a post conflict situation.”

Between 2011 and 2015, it is estimated that 15000 doctors, or half of the pre-war numbers, left the country. In Eastern Aleppo, approximately 1 doctor remained for every 7000 residents, compared with 1 in 800 in 2010.

The exodus of older, experienced doctors has left critical gaps. Younger, less experienced physicians – many of whom are students with no experience in trauma management or emergency medicine – have become indispensable. However, this increases risk for patients and warns of a serious shortage of skilled doctors in future.

In non-government controlled areas, the few health workers left face massive numbers of trauma victims, shortages of medicines, epidemics of infectious disease and chemical attacks. In areas under siege, surgical supplies and essential medicines are seldom allowed in, patients rarely evacuated, and public health measures such as water chlorination and measles vaccination are sometimes blocked.

The bulk of Syria’s remaining health workers are in government-controlled areas, where they also face mortar attacks from rebel areas and travel restrictions. Some report being forced to breach ethical principles under pressure.

Sophie Roborgh, one of the report’s authors from the Department of Politics and International Studies, conducts research on violence against health workers and medical infrastructure in conflict, and how health workers deal with it – professionally and personally.

“Healthcare workers that remain have been forced to adjust their entire lives around the threats and pressures they face,” she says. “There is such a shortage of staff that some physicians and other medical staff actually live full-time in hospitals.

“One medic showed me pictures on his phone of his colleague’s young children, who spend much time with their father, helping to mop up blood in operation rooms. Another told me how he celebrated his wedding in the hospital.

“We are trying to uncover which measures of support for these health workers are actually effective, in the hope that we can eventually move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to a more specific, evidence-based model for conflict situations.”

Coutts says that practical policy options to assist displaced Syrian healthcare workers require evidence of where they are and what skills and training capacities they have. This information is not currently available and is badly needed.

“It is vital that the international community design policies and interventions to help displaced healthcare workers find and sustain employment in neighbouring host countries,” says Coutts.

“Due to visa and right-to-work issues, Syrian doctors and allied health professionals are unable to practice in countries such as Lebanon and Jordan. This is currently an untapped and essential workforce that could be used to support the already overstretched humanitarian response and public services in host communities.”

One of the challenges facing modern society is what it does with its waste products. As natural resources decline in abundance, using waste for energy is becoming more pressing for both governments and business.

Biomass has been a source of heat and energy since the beginning of recorded history.  The planet’s oil reserves are derived from ancient biomass which has been subjected to high pressures and temperatures over millions of years. Lignocellulose is the main component of plant biomass and up to now its conversion into hydrogen has only been achieved through a gasification process which uses high temperatures to decompose it fully.

Dr Moritz Kuehnel, from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, joint lead author on a new research paper published in Nature Energy, says:

“Lignocellulose is nature’s equivalent to armoured concrete. It consists of strong, highly crystalline cellulose fibres, that are interwoven with lignin and hemicellulose which act as a glue. This rigid structure has evolved to give plants and trees mechanical stability and protect them from degradation, and makes chemical utilisation of lignocellulose so challenging.”

The new technology relies on a simple photocatalytic conversion process. Catalytic nanoparticles are added to alkaline water in which the biomass is suspended. This is then placed in front of a light in the lab which mimics solar light. The solution is ideal for absorbing this light and converting the biomass into gaseous hydrogen which can then be collected from the headspace. The hydrogen is free of fuel-cell inhibitors, such as carbon monoxide, which allows it to be used for power.

The nanoparticle is able to absorb energy from solar light and use it to undertake complex chemical reactions. In this case, it rearranges the atoms in the water and biomass to form hydrogen fuel and other organic chemicals, such as formic acid and carbonate.

Joint lead author, Dr David Wakerley, also of the Department of Chemistry, says:

“There’s a lot of chemical energy stored in raw biomass, but it’s unrefined, so you can’t expect it to work in complicated machinery, such as a car engine. Our system is able to convert the long, messy structures that make up biomass into hydrogen gas, which is much more useful. We have specifically designed a combination of catalyst and solution that allows this transformation to occur using sunlight as a source of energy. With this in place we can simply add organic matter to the system and then, provided it’s a sunny day, produce hydrogen fuel.”

A piece of paper placed in front of a solar light source

The team used different types of biomass in their experiments. Pieces of wood, paper and leaves were placed in test tubes and exposed to solar light. The biomass didn’t require any processing beforehand.

The technology was developed in the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. The head of the laboratory, Dr. Erwin Reisner, adds:

“Our sunlight-powered technology is exciting as it enables the production of clean hydrogen from unprocessed biomass under ambient conditions. We see it as a new and viable alternative to high temperature gasification and other renewable means of hydrogen production.

Future development can be envisioned at any scale, from small scale devices for off-grid applications to industrial-scale plants, and we are currently exploring a range of potential commercial options.”

With the help of Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University, a UK patent application has been filed and talks are under way with a potential commercial partner.

Reference

David Wakerley et al: Solar-driven reforming of lignocellulose to H2 with a CdS/CdOx photocatalyst

Nature Energy 13th March 2017 DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.21

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology used a combination of imaging and up to 100,000 measurements of where different parts of the DNA are close to each other to examine the genome in a mouse embryonic stem cell. Stem cells are ‘master cells’, which can develop – or ‘differentiate’ – into almost any type of cell within the body.

Most people are familiar with the well-known ‘X’ shape of chromosomes, but in fact chromosomes only take on this shape when the cell divides. Using their new approach, the researchers have now been able to determine the structures of active chromosomes inside the cell, and how they interact with each other to form an intact genome. This is important because knowledge of the way DNA folds inside the cell allows scientists to study how specific genes, and the DNA regions that control them, interact with each other. The genome’s structure controls when and how strongly genes – particular regions of the DNA – are switched ‘on’ or ‘off’. This plays a critical role in the development of organisms and also, when it goes awry, in disease.

The researchers have illustrated the structure in accompanying videos, which show the intact genome from one particular mouse embryonic stem cell. In the film, above, each of the cell’s 20 chromosomes is coloured differently.

In a second video, below, regions of the chromosomes where genes are active are coloured blue, and the regions that interact with the nuclear lamina (a dense fibrillar network inside the nucleus) are coloured yellow. The structure shows that the genome is arranged such that the most active genetic regions are on the interior and separated in space from the less active regions that associate with the nuclear lamina. The consistent segregation of these regions, in the same way in every cell, suggests that these processes could drive chromosome and genome folding and thus regulate important cellular events such as DNA replication and cell division.

Professor Ernest Laue, whose group at Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry developed the approach, commented: “Knowing where all the genes and control elements are at a given moment will help us understand the molecular mechanisms that control and maintain their expression.

“In the future, we’ll be able to study how this changes as stem cells differentiate and how decisions are made in individual developing stem cells. Until now, we’ve only been able to look at groups, or ‘populations’, of these cells and so have been unable to see individual differences, at least from the outside. Currently, these mechanisms are poorly understood and understanding them may be key to realising the potential of stem cells in medicine.”

The research, by scientists at the Departments of Biochemistry, Chemistry and the Wellcome-MRC Stem Cell Institute at the University of Cambridge, together with colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, is published today in the journal Nature.

Dr Tom Collins from Wellcome’s Genetics and Molecular Sciences team said: “Visualising a genome in 3D at such an unprecedented level of detail is an exciting step forward in research and one that has been many years in the making. This detail will reveal some of the underlying principles that govern the organisation of our genomes – for example how chromosomes interact or how structure can influence whether genes are switched on or off. If we can apply this method to cells with abnormal genomes, such as cancer cells, we may be able to better understand what exactly goes wrong to cause disease, and how we could develop solutions to correct this.”

The research was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the European Union and the Medical Research Council.

Reference
Stevens, TJ et al. 3D structures of individual mammalian genomes studied by single-cell Hi-C. Nature; 13 March 2017; DOI: 10.1038/nature21429

The robber fly Holcocephala is a relatively small fly – at 6mm in length, it is similar in size of the average mosquito. Yet it has the ability to spot and catch prey more than half a metre away in less than half a second – by comparison to its size, this would be the equivalent of a human spotting its prey at the other end of a football pitch. Even if the prey changes direction, the predator is able to adapt mid-air and still catch its prey.

An international team led by researchers from the University of Cambridge was able to capture this activity by tricking the fly into launching itself at a fake prey – in fact, just a small bead on a fishing line. This enabled the team to witness the fly’s remarkable aerial attack strategy. Their findings are published today in the journal Current Biology.

To read more, see our article on Medium.

See the world through the eyes of a robber fly in the Plant and Life Sciences Marquee at the Cambridge Science Festival, Saturday 18 March 2017.

Reference
Wardill, TJ et al. A novel interception strategy in a miniature robber fly with extreme visual acuity; Current Biology; 9 March 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.050

The results from the final biomedical research trial on captive chimpanzees for the foreseeable future have been published today in the journal Scientific Reports.

The trial was of a vaccination for Ebola: the first orally administered vaccine for any disease developed specifically for the purpose of conserving wild apes.

In addition to poaching and forest loss, diseases such as Ebola and anthrax have devastated wild ape populations. Ebola alone is estimated to have killed one third of the world’s wild gorillas over the last three decades.

Now, new findings have shown an effective oral vaccine for Ebola in chimpanzees, and that the captive animals involved in the trial exhibited very few signs of stress as a result. Researchers say the work demonstrates a model that could be harnessed for other diseases and ape species in the wild.

However, after decades using chimpanzees to test vaccines destined for humans, changes in the law have seen enforced retirement of captive populations and the closing of chimpanzee research facilities in the US – the last developed country where biomedical testing on chimpanzees was legal.

In what researchers describe as a “horrible irony”, they say these reforms – a victory for long-standing campaigns by animal welfare groups – will ultimately prove detrimental to chimpanzees and gorillas in the wild, as any vaccination for wild animals must be tested in captivity first to ensure its safety.

Consequently, the promising new vaccine model may never progress to the point where it can be used to inoculate endangered wild apes, say the research team from the universities of Cambridge, UK, and Thomas Jefferson and Louisiana, US.

“In 2014 the world was gripped by fears of an Ebola virus pandemic. Yet few people realise that Ebola has already inflicted pandemic scale mortality on our closest relatives,” says lead researcher Dr Peter Walsh from the University of Cambridge.

“African apes are also threatened by naturally occurring pathogens like anthrax, and the increasing overspill of human pathogens such as measles. A glimmer of hope lies in the fact that many of the disease threats are now vaccine preventable.

“We have developed a very promising tool for inoculating ape species against the myriad deadly diseases they face in the wild, but continued progress relies on access to a small number of captive animals.

“This may be the final vaccine trial on captive chimpanzees: a serious setback for efforts to protect our closest relatives from the pathogens that push them ever closer to extinction in the wild.”

Previous attempts to vaccinate wild apes have resorted to administering individual animals with hypodermic darts – a laborious task feasible for only a small number of apes habituated to human approach. By contrast, oral vaccines encased in appealingly edible baits could be distributed across wild ape territories to inoculate large numbers over longer periods.

Such an approach has already proved successful in other species: almost eliminating fox rabies (and the consequent need to cull foxes) across continental Europe.

The latest study was carried out with ten chimpanzees in one of the last remaining chimpanzee research facilities in the US in New Iberia, Louisiana. Six received the oral vaccine, while four were injected as a control group.

All the animals displayed a robust immunity without side effects after 28 days – when the trial was terminated due to new Endangered Species Act regulations banning biomedical research on chimpanzees.

Throughout the trial, scientists closely monitored animal behaviour and physiology for signs of severe stress. Other than very minor weight loss (2% of body mass), they say that signs of trauma were “entirely absent”.

“Some pressure groups argue that all research on captive chimpanzees is tantamount to torture, not just because of procedures but also due to confinement,” says Walsh.

“Enclosures and animal care are now of a very high standard, with chimpanzees housed in large social spaces. The modest traces of stress we detected during our trial were akin to the values observed in college students anticipating exams.”

Captive chimpanzee trials are technically still legal in the US in instances that benefit the species. However, Walsh says that the limited funds available for conservation research makes it unviable for biomedical facilities to retain populations, while zoos and sanctuaries are either “ideologically opposed” or unwilling to risk any public backlash from testing.

Further work to enhance the vaccine, such as ensuring effectiveness after exposure to high tropical forest temperatures, may now never get done due to the closure of captive chimpanzee facilities.

“In an ideal world, there would be no need for captive chimpanzees,” says Walsh. “But this is not an ideal world. It is a world where diseases such as Ebola, along with rampant commercial poaching and habitat loss, are major contributors to rapidly declining wild ape populations.

“Oral vaccines offer a real opportunity to slow this decline. The major ethical debt we owe is not to a few captive animals, but to the survival of an entire species we are destroying in the wild: our closest relatives.”

Outflowing gas is a common features of the supermassive black holes that reside at the centre of large galaxies. Often millions of times more massive than the Sun, these black holes feed off the surrounding gas that swirls around them. Space telescopes observe this as a bright light from the innermost part of the disc around the black hole.

Occasionally the black holes consume too much gas and release an ultra-fast wind. These winds are an important characteristic to study because they could have a strong influence on regulating the growth of the host galaxy by clearing the surrounding gas away and therefore suppressing the birth of stars.

Using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s NuStar telescopes, scientists have now made the most detailed observation yet of such an outflow. The winds recorded from the black hole reach 71,000 km/s – a quarter of the speed of light – putting it in the top 5% of fastest known black hole winds.

XMM-Newton focused on the black hole for 17 consecutive days, revealing the extremely variable nature of the winds.

“We often only have one observation of a particular object, then several months or even years later we observe it again and see if there’s been a change,” says Dr Michael Parker of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, UK, lead author on a paper published in Nature this week which describes the discovery.

“Thanks to this long observation campaign, we observed changes in the winds on a timescale of less than an hour for the first time.”

The changes were seen in the increasing temperature of the winds, a signature of their response to greater X-ray emission from the disc right next to the black hole.

Furthermore, the observations also revealed changes to the chemical fingerprints of the outflowing gas: as the X-ray emission increased, it stripped electrons in the wind from their atoms, erasing the wind signatures seen in the data.

“The chemical fingerprints of the wind changed with the strength of the X-rays in less than an hour, hundreds of times faster than ever seen before,” says co-author Professor Andrew Fabian, also from the Institute of Astronomy, and principal investigator on the project.

“It allows us to link the X-ray emission arising from the material falling into the black hole, to the variability of the outflowing wind farther away.”

Dr Parker adds: “Black hole winds are one of the mechanisms for feedback, where the energy coming out from the black hole regulates the growth of the host galaxy. Understanding these winds is crucial to understanding how galaxies, including our own, grow.”

Michael Parker et al: “The response of relativistic outflowing gas to the inner accretion disk of a black hole” Nature 2 March 2017

Adapted from a press release by the European Space Agency

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and University of Surrey have identified early biomarkers of disease during examinations of Huntington’s disease sheep still at a pre-symptomatic stage of the disease.

Up until this point, the five-year-old sheep had displayed no signs of the illness, but the comprehensive study identified clear metabolic changes in the animals carrying the genetic variant. These new findings reveal that Huntington’s disease affects important metabolic processes in the body prior to the appearance of physical symptoms.

Huntington’s disease affects more than 6,700 people in the UK. It is an incurable neurodegenerative disease: patients typically die 10-25 years after diagnosis.

The disease is caused by a mutation in the huntingtin gene. Genetic information is coded in DNA that is made up of a repeated string of four molecules known as nucleotides, or bases – A, C, G and T. Changes in the genetic code of the hutingtin gene leads directly to disease. The gene contains a repeated string of CAG bases: in healthy individuals, the CAG repeat is around 20 CAGs long, but if the repeat has 36 or more CAGs, an individual will develop Huntington’s disease. The sheep model of Huntington’s disease, which carries a CAG repeat in the disease-causing range, has been developed to increase knowledge about the condition.

During this study, researchers took blood samples from the normal and Huntington’s disease animals every two hours over a 24-hour period and assessed their metabolic profiles using a targeted metabolomics approach established at the University of Surrey. Unlike previous research in this area, which was affected by to external environmental factors that impacted upon metabolic profiling, sheep in this study were monitored in a well-controlled setting, negating any outside influences.

Blood measurements found startling differences in the biochemistry of the sheep carrying the disease-causing variant, compared to the normal sheep. Significant changes were observed in 89 of the 130 metabolites measured in their blood, with increased levels of the amino acids, arginine and citrulline, and decreases in sphingolipids and fatty acids that are commonly found in brain and nervous tissue.

The alterations in these metabolites, which include key components of the urea cycle and nitric oxide pathways (both vital body processes), suggest that both of these processes are dysregulated in the early stages of Huntington’s disease, and that the illness affects the body long before physical symptoms appear.

The identification of these biomarkers may help to track disease in pre-symptomatic patients, and could help researchers develop strategies to remedy the biochemical abnormalities.

Professor Debra Skene from the University of Surrey said: “Metabolic profiling has revealed novel biomarkers that will be useful to monitor Huntington’s disease progression.

“Our research shows that this disease affects the body in a number of ways before the tell-tale signs of Huntington’s disease become visible.”

Professor Jenny Morton from the University of Cambridge said: “Despite its devastating impacts on patients and their families, there are currently limited treatments options, and no cure for Huntington’s disease.  The development of objective and reliable biomarkers that can be rapidly measured from blood samples becomes immeasurably important once clinical trials for therapies begin.

“The more we learn about this devastating illness the better chance we have of finding a cure.”

The research was funded by the CHDI Foundation and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Reference
Skene,  DJ et al. Metabolic profiling of presymptomatic Huntington’s disease sheep reveals novel biomarkers. Scientific Reports; 22 Feb 2017; DOI: 10.1038/srep43030

Adapted from a press release by the University of Surrey.

The team has been using the TRAPPIST–South telescope at the European Space Observatory’s (ESO) La Silla Observatory, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal, the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope as well as two other telescopes supported by the UK’s STFC, the William Herschel Telescope and the Liverpool Telescope. All the planets, labelled TRAPPIST-1b, c, d, e, f, g and h in order of increasing distance from their parent star, have sizes comparable to Earth.

The astronomers identified the planets thanks to periodic drops in the brightness of the central star. As the planets passed in front of the star, they cast a shadow, events known as transits, from which the team could measure the planet’s orbital periods and calculate their sizes and masses. They found that the inner six planets were comparable in size, mass and temperature to the Earth raising the possibility that they host liquid water on their surface.

With just 8% the mass of the Sun, TRAPPIST-1 is very small in stellar terms, only marginally bigger than the planet Jupiter — and though nearby in the constellation Aquarius, it is invisible visually with anything less than powerful telescopes. Astronomers expected that such dwarf stars might host many Earth-sized planets in tight orbits, making them promising targets in the hunt for extraterrestrial life. TRAPPIST-1 is the first such system to be discovered.

Co-author Dr Amaury Triaud, of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, explains: “Stars like TRAPPIST-1 belong to the most common type of stars that exist within our Galaxy. The planets that we found are likely representative of the most common sort of planets in the Universe.

“That the planets are so similar to Earth bodes well for the search for life elsewhere. Planets orbiting ultra-cool dwarfs, like TRAPPIST-1, likely represent the largest habitable real estate in the Milky Way!”

The seven planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system. Credit: ESO

The team determined that all the planets in the system were similar in size to Earth and Venus in our Solar System, or slightly smaller. The density measurements suggest that at least the innermost six are probably rocky in composition.

The planetary orbits are not much longer than that of Jupiter’s Galilean moon system, and much smaller than the orbit of Mercury in the Solar System. However, TRAPPIST-1’s small size and low temperature means that the energy input to its planets is similar to that received by the inner planets in our Solar System; TRAPPIST-1c, d and f receive similar energy inputs to Venus, Earth and Mars, respectively.

All seven planets discovered in the system could potentially have liquid water on their surfaces, though their orbital distances make some of them more likely candidates than others. Climate models suggest the innermost planets, TRAPPIST-1b, c and d, are probably too hot to support liquid water, except maybe on a small fraction of their surfaces. The orbital distance of the system’s outermost planet, TRAPPIST-1h, is unconfirmed, though it is likely to be too distant and cold to harbour liquid water — assuming no alternative heating processes are occurring. TRAPPIST-1e, f, and g, however, are of more interest for planet-hunting astronomers, as they orbit in the star’s habitable zone and could host oceans of surface water.

These new discoveries make the TRAPPIST-1 system an even more important target in the search for extra-terrestrial life. Team member Didier Queloz, from the University of Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, is excited about the future possibilities: “Thanks to future facilities like ESO’ Extremely Large Telescope, or NASA/ESA’s soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space telescope, we will be capable to measure the structure of the planets’ atmospheres, as well as their chemical composition. We are about to start the remote exploration of terrestrial climates beyond our Solar system.”

The discovery is described in Nature, which also includes a science fiction short story, written by Laurence Suhner. Amaury Triaud comments: “We were thrilled at the idea of having artists be inspired by our discoveries right away. We hope this helps convey the sense of awe and excitement that we all have within the team about the TRAPPIST-1 system.”

The star draws its name from the TRAPPIST-South telescope, which made the initial discovery. TRAPPIST is the forerunner of a more ambitious facility called “SPECULOOS” that includes Cambridge as core partner, conducted by researchers of the “Cambridge Centre for Exoplanet Research” in the broad research context related to “Universal Life”. SPECULOOS is currently under construction at ESO’ Observatory of Cerro Paranal. SPECULOOS will survey 10 times more stars for planets, than TRAPPIST could do. We expect to detect dozens of additional terrestrial planets.

Michaël Gillon et al: “Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1” Nature 23rd Feb. 2017

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7642/full/nature21360.html

Link to a science-fiction short story: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v542/n7642/full/542512a.html

Cambridge Exoplanet Research Centre: http://exoplanets.phy.cam.ac.uk

For additional information, images, videos, a graphic novel and short stories, visit www.trappist.one

Adapted from a press release by the European Space Observatory (ESO)

University of Cambridge researchers have set out to compile a database of communication routes that will allow UK expats residing in EU nations to receive reliable, up-to-the-minute advice throughout the negotiation process once Article 50 is triggered.

The work is part of an effort to mitigate rash Brexit-induced decisions fuelled by an information vacuum that could see thousands of over-65s in particular arriving back in the UK without necessarily having property or pensions on return.

Such a sudden reverse migration could increase pressures on already overstretched health and social care services in the UK, at a time when significant numbers of key workers in these sectors may themselves be returning to EU homelands as a result of Brexit-related insecurities.

Researchers say that fears over future rights held by UK citizens who have settled on the continent – about everything from possible legal status and rights to work, as well as access to welfare, healthcare and pensions – could be exacerbated by misinformation resulting from rumour, speculation and tabloid bombast.

They say there is an urgent need to create a ‘one stop shop’ for trustworthy information channels that cover the various types of UK migrants currently within the remaining EU: from students and young families in the cities to retirees on Mediterranean coastlines.

The research, funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), will take place over the next six weeks. Researchers say the final product will be shared widely with trusted parties such as government agencies, legal charities and citizen advice bureaux, but will not be released fully into the public domain for fear of exploitation by commercial and lobby organisations.

“UK citizens abroad need to be empowered to make sound, informed decisions during Brexit negotiations on whether to remain in their adopted homelands or return to the UK,” says lead researcher Dr Brendan Burchell from Cambridge’s Department of Sociology.

“However, at the moment there is a missing link: there is no database of the conduits through which high quality information can be communicated that targets specific countries or sub-groups of UK migrants. This is what we aim to build over the coming weeks.”

The team of researchers will be scouring the internet and interrogating local charities and expat organisations to compile the most comprehensive list of information channels used by UK citizens in each of the other EU27 countries. These will include legal, health, financial and property advice services, English language local newspapers, Facebook pages, blogs, chat rooms and so on.

Last year, the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ website reported that there are around 1.2 million UK-born people living in EU nations. Over 300,000 of those live in Spain, of which one-third receive a UK state pension.

Burchell says that talk of migratory influxes into the UK has been almost entirely limited to EU nationals during the heated debates around Brexit. Little consideration has been given to returning UK nationals from EU countries such as France and Spain – many of whom are increasingly elderly baby-boomer retirees that may not have lived in the UK for a decade or more.

“Without access to well-grounded information that updates throughout the Brexit process, the current void will be increasingly filled with dangerous speculation and even so-called ‘fake news’ from partisan groups or those that would seek to prey upon the anxiety of UK over-65s to make quick money through lowball property sales or investment scams,” says Dr Burchell.

Professor Maura Sheehan, an economist from Edinburgh Napier University’s Business School in also working on this project, believes that if panic is sparked it could lead to a domino effect in certain expatriate communities.

“Housing markets in areas along the Mediterranean coast could collapse as retirees try to sell up, but with no new UK expats looking to buy. Life savings could get swept away in the confusion,” she says.

“Meanwhile there is no slack in UK social infrastructure for ageing expats returning en masse with expectations of support. The NHS has yet to emerge from its current crisis, there is a desperate shortage of housing, and social care is badly underfunded.

“The idea that we could see socially isolated baby-boomer expats back in the UK with health conditions, financial woes and even ending in destitution as a result of bad decisions based on misinformation should not simply be written off as so-called ‘remoaner’ hysteria.”

Anyone who would like to suggest material for the database or find out more about the project can contact the team on brexit_expat_info@magd.cam.ac.uk.

inset image by Ville Miettinen (cc: Att-SA)

It was Charles Darwin, who, in 1859 published his revolutionary theory that all life forms are descended from one common ancestor. This theory has informed evolutionary biology ever since but it was a chance encounter between an astronomer and an biologist over dinner at King’s College in Cambridge that got the astronomer thinking about how it could be applied to stars in the Milky Way.

Writing in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dr Paula Jofré, of the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, describes how she set about creating a phylogenetic “tree of life” that connects a number of stars in the galaxy.

“The use of algorithms to identify families of stars is a science that is constantly under development. Phylogenetic trees add an extra dimension to our endeavours which is why this approach is so special. The branches of the tree serve to inform us about the stars’ shared history“ she says.

The team picked twenty-two stars, including the Sun, to study. The chemical elements have been carefully measured from data coming from ground-based high-resolution spectra taken with large telescopes located in the north of Chile. Once the families were identified using the chemical DNA, their evolution was studied with the help of their ages and kinematical properties obtained from the space mission Hipparcos, the precursor of Gaia, the spacecraft orbiting Earth that was launched by the European Space Agency and is almost halfway through a 5-year project to map the sky.

Stars are born from violent explosions in the gas clouds of the galaxy. Two stars with the same chemical compositions are likely to have been born in the same molecular cloud. Some live longer than the age of the Universe and serve as fossil records of the composition of the gas at the time they were formed.  The oldest star in the sample analysed by the team is estimated to be almost ten billion years old, which is twice as old as the Sun. The youngest is 700 million years old.

In evolution, organisms are linked together by a pattern of descent with modification as they evolve. Stars are very different from living organisms, but they still have a history of shared descent as they are formed from gas clouds, and carry that history in their chemical structure. By applying the same phylogenetic methods that biologists use to trace descent in plants and animals it is possible to explore the ‘evolution’ of stars in the Galaxy.

“The differences between stars and animals is immense, but they share the property of changing over time, and so both can be analysed by building trees of their history”, says Professor Robert Foley, of the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at Cambridge.

With an increasing number of datasets being made available from both Gaia and more advanced telescopes on the ground, and on-going and future large spectroscopic surveys, astronomers are moving closer to being able to assemble one tree that would connect all the stars in the Milky Way.

Paula Jofré et al. ‘Cosmic phylogeny: reconstructing the chemical history of the solar neighbourhood with an evolutionary tree’ is published by Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI 10.1093/mnras/stx075

The funding will come from the first Cancer Research UK Grand Challenge awards – set up to help scientists solve some of the hardest unanswered questions in cancer research, and to revolutionise the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Teams based at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute – both part of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre – have been awarded two of the four grants.

Professor Greg Hannon will lead a team at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, part of the University of Cambridge. Working with researchers in America, Switzerland, Canada and Ireland, they aim to build 3D versions of breast tumours, which can be studied using virtual reality, allowing scientists and doctors to study every cell and aspect of a tumour in unprecedented detail.

This new way of studying breast cancer could change how the disease is diagnosed, treated and managed. The virtual reality experience will include a ‘superman mode’ which will allow users to fly inside the tumour, point at every cell and find out exactly what kind of cell it is and what it’s doing.

Professor Hannon said: “This is an enormous challenge. I liken it to the idea of putting a man on Mars – there’s so much technology that you have to develop to do it. All sorts of things are happening in tumours that we can’t study using the technology we have. But with our project, we hope to change that.

“We want to create an interactive, faithful, 3D map of tumours that can be studied in virtual reality that scientists can ‘walk into’ and look at it in great detail. By doing this, we could learn more about tumours and begin to answer questions that have eluded cancer scientists for many years.”

At the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Professor Sir Mike Stratton will lead a team aiming to build a deeper understanding of what causes cancer.

It’s already known that things in our environment, and behaviours like smoking and drinking alcohol, cause cancer by damaging the DNA in our cells. This damage occurs in distinctive patterns known as mutational fingerprints that are unique to their cause. For example, cancers caused by UV exposure have a different mutational fingerprint to cancers caused by tobacco.

There are at least 50 cancer-associated mutational fingerprints but researchers only know what causes around half of them. Professor Stratton’s team hope to fill in the missing gaps and determine the as yet unknown causes of cancer.

They’ll do this by studying 5,000 pancreatic, kidney, oesophageal and bowel cancer samples, which come from five continents. This will generate as much cancer DNA sequence data as the whole world has produced so far. This work could help prevent more cancers and reduce the global burden of the disease.

Professor Stratton said: “The main aim of our Grand Challenge is to understand the causes of cancer. Every cancer retains an archaeological trace, a record in its DNA, of what caused it. It’s that record that we want to explore to find out what caused the cancer.

“We’re going to sequence the DNA of thousands of cancer samples that have been collected from many different countries around the world, and study them to see what archaeological trace they contain. By doing this, we hope to figure out what caused those cancers.

“The thing that’s really exciting me is the challenge of making it all happen. And I’m looking forward to seeing the answers this work brings.”

The Cambridge projects were selected by an international panel of experts from a shortlist of nine exceptional, multi-disciplinary collaborations from universities, institutes and industry across the globe.

Sir Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, said: “Cancer Research UK set up the Grand Challenge awards to bring a renewed focus and energy to the fight against cancer. We want to shine a light on the toughest questions that stand in the way of progress. We’re incredibly excited to be able to support these exceptional teams as they help us achieve our ambition.

“Cancer is a global problem, and these projects are part of the global solution. Together, we will redefine cancer – turning it from a disease that so many people die from, to one that many people can live with. We will reduce the number of people worldwide affected by cancer and achieve our goal of beating cancer sooner.”

Adapted from a press release by Cancer Research UK

A University of Cambridge researcher has identified a recipe for the new breed of wildly successful online charity campaigns such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge – a phenomenon he has labelled “viral altruism” – and what might make them stick in people’s minds.

However, he says the optimistic use of global digital networks to propel positive social change is balanced by the shallow, short-lived nature of engagement with anything viral.

Writing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, social psychologist Dr Sander van der Linden has outlined the key psychological levers he says underpin the new wave of viral altruism that is increasingly taking over our Facebook feeds.

These include the power of social norms, particularly the appeal of joining a social consensus and the desire to conform to prosocial behaviour (such as appearing charitable), having a clear moral incentive to act, and the appetite for a ‘warm glow’: the positive emotional benefit derived from feeling compassionate.

One of the most important ingredients – and the hardest to achieve – is ‘translational impact’: the conversion of online token support, or ‘clicktivism’, into sustained real world contributions, whether financial donations or a long-term commitment to an issue.

This, he says, involves a shift in motivation from the ‘extrinsic’ – incentives conditional on outside social pressures – to the ‘intrinsic’: an incentive that has been internalised to become a “new personal normal” for an individual.

Part of van der Linden’s initial research has been to pull together data such as Google and Wikipedia searches as well as donations to indicate the longevity and engagement levels of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge campaign.

The Challenge reached unprecedented ‘virality’ during August 2014. The formula of videoing ice-cold water being poured over your head and posting it to social media while publicly nominating others to do the same in support of a motor neurone disease charity reached approximately 440 million people worldwide, with over 28 million joining in.

‘Brightly but briefly’

Yet van der Linden found that the Challenge burned brightly but briefly: with online interest and donations reverting to pre-viral levels in mere weeks. The engagement was also superficial: estimates suggest that 1 in 4 participants did not mention the ALS charity in their videos and only 1 in 5 mentioned a donation.

And, while the 2014 campaign caused a significant spike in donations – some $115m – when the ALS charity attempted to reboot the Ice Bucket Challenge the following year it raised less than 1% of the previous summer.

Other examples of viral altruism considered to be successful also appear to have an equally brief “half-life”. The Facebook organ donor initiative elicited more than 60% of its total online registrations in the first two days before numbers rapidly dropped off. Save Darfur was one of the largest campaigns on Facebook; after joining, most members never donated money or recruited anyone else.

Van der Linden believes converting the brief social pressures of viral altruism into self-sustaining personal motivations is the key to leveraging new digital networks for long-term engagement with the big issues of our time, such as climate change.

However, he argues that it may be the very viral nature of ‘viral altruism’ that acts as a barrier to this.

“Society now has the ability to connect and mobilise over a billion Facebook users to action on specific social issues in a fast and low-cost manner, but it is becoming clear this entails viral phenomena which by their very nature are ephemeral and superficial,” says van der Linden, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

Hyper-viral paradox

“Just as a flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long, so a rapid social consensus spike reaches an equally rapid saturation point.

“Once the social tipping point of a campaign has passed, momentum can decay quickly and the purpose can get diluted. Once the ALS campaign had reached peak virality, many people were just pouring cold water over their heads without necessarily referencing the charity.

“Paradoxically, increasing meaningful engagement through viral altruism might actually require deliberately hindering the hyper-viral nature at some point with a stabilising force. Perhaps introducing aspects to a campaign that increasingly require more commitment – slowing growth and encouraging deeper engagement. If we want people to internalise a new normal, we need to give them a window big enough to do that.

“Deeper engagement seems especially vital. Something as simple as a single phrase connecting a campaign to its cause can make a difference. For example, those who mentioned the ALS charity in their Ice Bucket Challenge video were five times more likely to donate money than those who did not.”

SMART recipe

Van der Linden has set out his recipe for viral altruism using the acronym SMART: Social influences; Moral imperatives; Affective Reactions; Translational impact.

The ALS campaign managed to exploit a two-pronged approach to ‘social influences’. People were influenced by the example of those in their network, and wanted to join the burgeoning consensus. The nature of the campaign also meant that many were publicly challenged to participate by their social network, and risked the ‘social sanction’ of being seen to lack compassion if they then didn’t.

Helping people with a debilitating disease was seen as a ‘moral imperative’. Van der Linden says that having ‘identifiable victims’ such as scientist Prof Stephen Hawking allowed people to relate to the cause.

Campaigns that allow for the creation of a shared identity between the individual and the cause over time appear to be more successful in achieving translational impact.

Sander van der Linden

‘Affective Reactions’ is the response to strong emotional content. “Empathy is an emotional contagion,” says van der Linden. “We are evolutionarily hard-wired to ‘catch’ other people’s feelings. Responding with an altruistic act give us a ‘warm glow’ of positivity. Similarly, people often respond to social injustice, such as genocide, with strong moral outrage.”

However, where almost all campaigns stumble is ‘Translational impact’, he says. “Extrinsic incentives, such as competitions or network pressure, can actually undermine people’s intrinsic motivation to do good by eroding moral sentiment. Motivation to participate can get sourced from a desire to ‘win’ a challenge or appear virtuous rather than caring about the cause itself.”

Climate change is an example of a major global issue that currently scores pretty much zero for the SMART recipe, says van der Linden.

“Climate change often fails to elicit strong emotional engagement, there is little to no societal pressure to act on climate change in our daily lives, most people do not view it as a fundamental moral issue, and the long-term nature of the problem requires more than a one-off donation.”

He suggests that using the SMART recipe could be a way to reverse engineer more effective climate change campaigns that harness viral altruism, but the problem of translating impact remains.

One of the more impactful campaigns van der Linden highlights is ‘No-Shave November‘: the month-long growing of a moustache to raise awareness of men’s health. Starting with just 30 people in 2003, the campaign didn’t experience viral hypergrowth, but developed over years to reach about 5 million members by 2014 – by which time the charity reported 75% of participants were more aware of health issues facing men.

“Campaigns that allow for the creation of a shared identity between the individual and the cause over time appear to be more successful in achieving translational impact.”

For the past 15 years, scientists have been eagerly anticipating the data from Gaia. The first portion of information from the satellite was released three months ago and is freely accessible to everyone. This dataset of unprecedented quality is a catalogue of the positions and brightness of a billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy and its environs.

What Gaia has sent to Earth is unique. The satellite’s angular resolution is similar to that of the Hubble Space Telescope, but given its greater field of view, it can cover the entire sky rather than a small portion of it. In fact, Gaia uses the largest number of pixels to take digital images of the sky for any space-borne instrument. Better still, the Observatory has not just one telescope but two, sharing the one metre wide focal plane.

Unlike typical telescopes, Gaia does not just point and stare: it constantly spins around its axis, sweeping the entire sky in less than a month. Therefore, it not only measures the instantaneous properties of the stars, but also tracks their changes over time. This provides a perfect opportunity for finding a variety of objects, for example stars that pulsate or explode – even if this is not what the satellite was primarily designed for.

The Cambridge team concentrated on the area around the Magellanic Clouds and used the Gaia data to pick out pulsating stars of a particular type: the so-called RR Lyrae, very old and chemically un-evolved. As these stars have been around since the earliest days of the Clouds’ existence, they offer an insight into the pair’s history. Studying the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC respectively) has always been difficult as they sprawl out over a large area. But with Gaia’s all-sky view, this has become a much easier task.

Around the Milky Way, the clouds are the brightest, and largest, examples of dwarf satellite galaxies. Known to humanity since the dawn of history (and to Europeans since their first voyages to the Southern hemisphere) the Magellanic Clouds have remained an enigma to date. Even though the clouds have been a constant fixture of the heavens, astronomers have only recently had the chance to study them in any detail.

The Magellanic Clouds can be seen just above the horizon and below the arc of the Milky Way – D Erkal

Whether the clouds fit the conventional theory of galaxy formation or not depends critically on their mass and the time of their first approach to the Milky Way. The researchers at Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy found clues that could help answer both of these questions.

Firstly, the RR Lyrae stars detected by Gaia were used to trace the extent of the Large Magellanic Cloud. The LMC was found to possess a fuzzy low-luminosity ‘halo’ stretching as far as 20 degrees from its centre. The LMC would only be able to hold on to the stars at such large distances if it was substantially bigger than previously thought, totalling perhaps as much as a tenth of the mass of the entire Milky Way.

An accurate timing of the clouds’ arrival to the galaxy is impossible without knowledge of their orbits. Unfortunately, satellite orbits are difficult to measure: at large distances, the object’s motion in the sky is so minute that it is simply unobservable over a human lifespan. In the absence of an orbit, Dr Vasily Belokurov and colleagues found the next best thing: a stellar stream.

Streams of stars form when a satellite – a dwarf galaxy or a star cluster – starts to feel the tidal force of the body around which it orbits. The tides stretch the satellite in two directions: towards and away from the host. As a result, on the periphery of the satellite, two openings form: small regions where the gravitational pull of the satellite is balanced by the pull of the host. Satellite stars that enter these regions find it easy to leave the satellite altogether and start orbiting the host. Slowly, star after star abandons the satellite, leaving a luminous trace on the sky, and thus revealing the satellite’s orbit.

“Stellar streams around the Clouds were predicted but never observed,” explains Dr Belokurov. “Having marked the locations of the Gaia RR Lyrae on the sky, we were surprised to see a narrow bridge-like structure connecting the two clouds. We believe that at least in part this ‘bridge’ is composed of stars stripped from the Small Cloud by the Large. The rest may actually be the LMC stars pulled from it by the Milky Way.”

The researchers believe the RR Lyrae bridge will help to clarify the history of the interaction between the clouds and our galaxy.

“We have compared the shape and the exact position of the Gaia stellar bridge to the computer simulations of the Magellanic Clouds as they approach the Milky Way”, explains Dr Denis Erkal, a co-author of the study. “Many of the stars in the bridge appear to have been removed from the SMC in the most recent interaction, some 200 million years ago, when the dwarf galaxies passed relatively close by each other. “We believe that as a result of that fly-by, not only the stars but also hydrogen gas was removed from the SMC. By measuring the offset between the RR Lyrae and hydrogen bridges, we can put constraints on the density of the gaseous Galactic corona.”

Composed of ionised gas at very low density, the hot Galactic corona is notoriously difficult to study. Nevertheless, it has been the subject of intense scrutiny because scientists believe it may contain most of the missing baryonic – or ordinary – matter. Astronomers are trying to estimate where this missing matter (the atoms and ions that make up stars, planets, dust and gas) is. It’s thought that most, or even all, of these missing baryons are in the corona. By measuring the coronal density at large distances they hope to solve this conundrum.

During the previous encounter between the Small and Large Magellanic Cloud, both stars and gas were ripped out of the Small Cloud, forming a tidal stream. Initially, the gas and stars were moving at the same speed. However, as the Clouds approached our Galaxy, the Milky Way’s corona exerted a drag force on both of them. The stars, being relatively small and dense, punched through the corona with no change in their speed. However, the more tenuous neutral hydrogen gas slowed down substantially in the corona. By comparing the current location of the stars and the gas, taking into account the density of the gas and how long the Clouds have spent in the corona, the team estimated the density of the corona. Dr. Erkal concludes, “Our estimate showed that the corona could make up a significant fraction of the missing baryons, in agreement with previous independent techniques. With the missing baryon problem seemingly alleviated, the current model of galaxy formation is holding up well to the increased scrutiny possible with Gaia.”

Reference
Vasily Belokurov et al. “Clouds, Streams and Bridges. Redrawing the blueprint of the Magellanic System with Gaia DR1”. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society; 8th Feb. 2017; DOI:10.1093/mnras/stw3357

In the study, published today in the journal Social Science and Medicine, researchers from the Cambridge Centre for Health Services Research report how the theme of ‘wasting doctors’ time’ arose so often during interviews conducted with patients about their experiences of primary care that they chose to study this topic in its own right.

“‘Am I wasting the doctor’s time?’ is a question that many patients ask themselves when deciding whether or not to visit the doctor,” explains Dr Nadia Llanwarne, who led the study. “We already knew that this worry existed among some patients, but this is the first study entirely dedicated to the subject that reports the existence of this worry among a variety of patients, young and old, healthy and sick, visiting their GP for a wide range of complaints.”

As part of the study, Dr Llanwarne and colleagues filmed patients’ consultations with their GPs and then interviewed 52 patients across GP surgeries in London, the east of England and south west England about their experience. It was in these interviews that the issue of timewasting arose.

The researchers identified three threads common to the issue of timewasting present across patients’ narratives in general practice: the experience of a conveyor belt approach to care, the intimation that ‘other patients’ waste time, and uncertainty among patients over what is worthy of their doctor’s time.

The authors consider the reasons why people appear concerned about timewasting. Patients spoke of the pressured context in which their consultations take place: the demand on services, the NHS’s limited resources, the lack of time, and busy doctors. Understanding the time pressures that doctors face, patients described how these challenges influenced their decision to see their GP.

In an overstretched NHS, time becomes all the more precious, and this has meant that public campaigns often refer to appropriate and inappropriate users. For decades, doctors have expressed frustration that too many patients visit unnecessarily. As a result of these judgments cast upon them, patients voice the pressure to consult only when necessary and speak openly of ‘timewasters’.

“Patients are keen to avoid this label, but neither the patients, nor the doctors, are able to clearly define what precise problems might attract such a label,” says Dr Llanwarne. “This is because some patients will present with what seems on the surface a minor problem, but once through the door of the doctor’s consulting room, they may open up about more serious complaints. With some symptoms it may be very difficult for the patient to know whether these are serious enough or not to need review by the doctor.

“Recognising this worry about timewasting among patients is important because it could influence whether a patient chooses to see the doctor or not. If a patient decided to hold off seeing the doctor for fear of wasting resources, this could have serious implications for their health.”

Dr Llanwarne adds: “It’s important for patients to not delay contacting their doctor simply because of worry about wasting doctors’ time. And it’s important for doctors to be attentive to the fact that many patients will be worried about this. Doctors can then ensure they allay patients’ concerns when they do seek help.”

The study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

Reference
Llanwarne, N et al. Wasting the doctor’s time? A video-elicitation interview study with patients in primary care. Social Science & Medicine; e-pub 18 January 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.01.025

New research indicates that Baltic hunter-gatherers were not swamped by migrations of early agriculturalists from the Middle East, as was the case for the rest of central and western Europe. Instead, these people probably acquired knowledge of farming and ceramics by sharing cultures and ideas rather than genes with outside communities.

Scientists extracted ancient DNA from a number of archaeological remains discovered in Latvia and the Ukraine, which were between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. These samples spanned the Neolithic period, which was the dawn of agriculture in Europe, when people moved from a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled way of life based on food production.

We know through previous research that large numbers of early farmers from the Levant (the Near East) – driven by the success of their technological innovations such as crops and pottery – had expanded to the peripheral parts of Europe by the end of the Neolithic and largely replaced hunter-gatherer populations.

However, the new study, published today in the journal Current Biology, shows that the Levantine farmers did not contribute to hunter-gatherers in the Baltic as they did in Central and Western Europe.

The research team, which includes scientists from the University of Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin, say their findings instead suggest that the Baltic hunter-gatherers learned these skills through communication and cultural exchange with outsiders.

The findings feed into debates around the ‘Neolithic package’ – the cluster of technologies such as domesticated livestock, cultivated cereals and ceramics, which revolutionised human existence across Europe during the late Stone Age.

Advances in ancient DNA work have revealed that this ‘package’ was spread through Central and Western Europe by migration and interbreeding: the Levant and later Anatolian farmers mixing with and essentially replacing the hunter-gatherers.

But the new work suggests migration was not a ‘universal driver’ across Europe for this way of life. In the Baltic region, archaeology shows that the technologies of the ‘package’ did develop – albeit less rapidly – even though the analyses show that the genetics of these populations remained the same as those of the hunter-gatherers throughout the Neolithic.

Andrea Manica, one of the study’s senior authors from the University of Cambridge, said: “Almost all ancient DNA research up to now has suggested that technologies such as agriculture spread through people migrating and settling in new areas.”

“However, in the Baltic, we find a very different picture, as there are no genetic traces of the farmers from the Levant and Anatolia who transmitted agriculture across the rest of Europe.”

“The findings suggest that indigenous hunter-gatherers adopted Neolithic ways of life through trade and contact, rather than being settled by external communities. Migrations are not the only model for technology acquisition in European prehistory.”

The researchers analysed eight ancient genomes – six from Latvia and two from Ukraine – that spanned a timeframe of three and a half thousand years (between 8,300 and 4,800 years ago). This enabled them to start plotting the genetic history of Baltic inhabitants during the Neolithic.

DNA was extracted from the petrous area of skulls that had been recovered by archaeologists from some of the region’s richest Stone Age cemeteries. The petrous, at the base of the skull, is one of the densest bones in the body, and a prime location for DNA that has suffered the least contamination over millennia.

While the sequenced genomes showed no trace of the Levant farmer influence, one of the Latvian samples did reveal genetic influence from a different external source – one that the scientists say could be a migration from the Pontic Steppe in the east. The timing (5-7,000 years ago) fits with previous research estimating the earliest Slavic languages.

Researcher Eppie Jones, from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge, was the lead author of the study. She said: “There are two major theories on the spread of Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world. One is that they came from the Anatolia with the agriculturalists; another that they developed in the Steppes and spread at the start of the Bronze Age.

“That we see no farmer-related genetic input, yet we do find this Steppe-related component, suggests that at least the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family originated in the Steppe grasslands of the East, which would bring later migrations of Bronze Age horse riders.”

The researchers point out that the time scales seen in Baltic archaeology are also very distinct to the rest of Europe, with a much more drawn-out and piecemeal uptake of Neolithic technologies, rather than the complete ‘package’ that arrives with migrations to take most of Europe by storm.

Andrea Manica added: “Our evidence of genetic continuity in the Baltic, coupled with the archaeological record showing a prolonged adoption of Neolithic technologies, would suggest the existence of trade networks with farming communities largely independent of interbreeding.

“It seems the hunter-gatherers of the Baltic likely acquired bits of the Neolithic package slowly over time through a ‘cultural diffusion’ of communication and trade, as there is no sign of the migratory wave that brought farming to the rest of Europe during this time.

“The Baltic hunter-gatherer genome remains remarkably untouched until the great migrations of the Bronze Age sweep in from the East.”

Researchers working on ancient DNA extracted from human remains interred almost 8,000 years ago in a cave in the Russian Far East have found that the genetic makeup of certain modern East Asian populations closely resemble that of their hunter-gatherer ancestors.

The study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is the first to obtain nuclear genome data from ancient mainland East Asia and compare the results to modern populations.

The findings indicate that there was no major migratory interruption, or “population turnover”, for well over seven millennia. Consequently, some contemporary ethnic groups share a remarkable genetic similarity to Stone Age hunters that once roamed the same region.

The high “genetic continuity” in East Asia is in stark contrast to most of Western Europe, where sustained migrations of early farmers from the Levant overwhelmed hunter-gatherer populations. This was followed by a wave of horse riders from Central Asia during the Bronze Age.  These events were likely driven by the success of emerging technologies such as agriculture and metallurgy

The new research shows that, at least for part of East Asia, the story differs – with little genetic disruption in populations since the early Neolithic period.

Despite being separated by a vast expanse of history, this has allowed an exceptional genetic proximity between the Ulchi people of the Amur Basin, near where Russia borders China and North Korea, and the ancient hunter-gatherers laid to rest in a cave close to the Ulchi’s native land.

The researchers suggest that the sheer scale of East Asia and dramatic variations in its climate may have prevented the sweeping influence of Neolithic agriculture and the accompanying migrations that replaced hunter-gatherers across much of Europe. They note that the Ulchi retained their hunter-fisher-gatherer lifestyle until recent times.

“Genetically speaking, the populations across northern East Asia have changed very little for around eight millennia,” said senior author Andrea Manica from the University of Cambridge, who conducted the work with an international team, including colleagues from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, and Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin in Ireland.

“Once we accounted for some local intermingling, the Ulchi and the ancient hunter-gatherers appeared to be almost the same population from a genetic point of view, even though there are thousands of years between them.”

The new study also provides further support for the ‘dual origin’ theory of modern Japanese populations: that they descend from a combination of hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists that eventually brought wet rice farming from southern China. A similar pattern is also found in neighbouring Koreans, who are genetically very close to Japanese.

However, Manica says that much more DNA data from Neolithic China is required to pinpoint the origin of the agriculturalists involved in this mixture.

The team from Trinity College Dublin were responsible for extracting DNA from the remains, which were found in a cave known as Devil’s Gate. Situated in a mountainous area close to the far eastern coast of Russia that faces northern Japan, the cave was first excavated by a soviet team in 1973.

Along with hundreds of stone and bone tools, the carbonised wood of a former dwelling, and woven wild grass that is one of the earliest examples of a textile, were the incomplete bodies of five humans.

If ancient DNA can be found in sufficiently preserved remains, sequencing it involves sifting through the contamination of millennia. The best samples for analysis from Devil’s Gate were obtained from the skulls of two females: one in her early twenties, the other close to fifty. The site itself dates back over 9,000 years, but the two women are estimated to have died around 7,700 years ago.

Researchers were able to glean the most from the middle-aged woman. Her DNA revealed she likely had brown eyes and thick, straight hair. She almost certainly lacked the ability to tolerate lactose, but was unlikely to have suffered from ‘alcohol flush’: the skin reaction to alcohol now common across East Asia.

While the Devil’s Gate samples show high genetic affinity to the Ulchi, fishermen from the same area who speak the Tungusic language, they are also close to other Tungusic-speaking populations in present day China, such as the Oroqen and Hezhen.

“These are ethnic groups with traditional societies and deep roots across eastern Russia and China, whose culture, language and populations are rapidly dwindling,” added lead author Veronika Siska, also from Cambridge.

“Our work suggests that these groups form a strong genetic lineage descending directly from the early Neolithic hunter-gatherers who inhabited the same region thousands of years previously.”

Researchers have identified traces of what they believe is the earliest known prehistoric ancestor of humans – a microscopic, bag-like sea creature, which lived about 540 million years ago.

Named Saccorhytus, after the sack-like features created by its elliptical body and large mouth, the species is new to science and was identified from microfossils found in China. It is thought to be the most primitive example of a so-called “deuterostome” – a broad biological category that encompasses a number of sub-groups, including the vertebrates.

If the conclusions of the study, published in the journal Nature, are correct, then Saccorhytus was the common ancestor of a huge range of species, and the earliest step yet discovered on the evolutionary path that eventually led to humans, hundreds of millions of years later.

Modern humans are, however, unlikely to perceive much by way of a family resemblance. Saccorhytus was about a millimetre in size, and probably lived between grains of sand on the seabed. Its features were spectacularly preserved in the fossil record – and intriguingly, the researchers were unable to find any evidence that the animal had an anus.

The study was carried out by an international team of academics, including researchers from the University of Cambridge in the UK and Northwest University in Xi’an China, with support from other colleagues at institutions in China and Germany.

Simon Conway Morris, Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology and a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, said: “We think that as an early deuterostome this may represent the primitive beginnings of a very diverse range of species, including ourselves. To the naked eye, the fossils we studied look like tiny black grains, but under the microscope the level of detail is jaw-dropping. All deuterostomes had a common ancestor, and we think that is what we are looking at here.”

Degan Shu, from Northwest University, added: “Our team has notched up some important discoveries in the past, including the earliest fish and a remarkable variety of other early deuterostomes. Saccorhytus now gives us remarkable insights into the very first stages of the evolution of a group that led to the fish, and ultimately, to us.”

Most other early deuterostome groups are from about 510 to 520 million years ago, when they had already begun to diversify into not just the vertebrates, but the sea squirts, echinoderms (animals such as starfish and sea urchins) and hemichordates (a group including things like acorn worms). This level of diversity has made it extremely difficult to work out what an earlier, common ancestor might have looked like.

The Saccorhytus microfossils were found in Shaanxi Province, in central China, and pre-date all other known deuterostomes. By isolating the fossils from the surrounding rock, and then studying them both under an electron microscope and using a CT scan, the team were able to build up a picture of how Saccorhytus might have looked and lived. This revealed features and characteristics consistent with current assumptions about primitive deuterostomes.

Dr Jian Han, of Northwest University, said: “We had to process enormous volumes of limestone – about three tonnes – to get to the fossils, but a steady stream of new finds allowed us to tackle some key questions: was this a very early echinoderm, or something even more primitive? The latter now seems to be the correct answer.”

In the early Cambrian period, the region would have been a shallow sea. Saccorhytus was so small that it probably lived in between individual grains of sediment on the sea bed.

The study suggests that its body was bilaterally symmetrical – a characteristic inherited by many of its descendants, including humans – and was covered with a thin, relatively flexible skin. This in turn suggests that it had some sort of musculature, leading the researchers to conclude that it could have made contractile movements, and got around by wriggling.

Perhaps its most striking feature, however, was its rather primitive means of eating food and then dispensing with the resulting waste. Saccorhytus had a large mouth, relative to the rest of its body, and probably ate by engulfing food particles, or even other creatures.

A crucial observation are small conical structures on its body. These may have allowed the water that it swallowed to escape and so were perhaps the evolutionary precursor of the gills we now see in fish. But the researchers were unable to find any evidence that the creature had an anus. “If that was the case, then any waste material would simply have been taken out back through the mouth, which from our perspective sounds rather unappealing,” Conway Morris said.

The findings also provide evidence in support of a theory explaining the long-standing mismatch between fossil evidence of prehistoric life, and the record provided by biomolecular data, known as the “molecular clock”.

Technically, it is possible to estimate roughly when species diverged by looking at differences in their genetic information. In principle, the longer two groups have evolved separately, the greater the biomolecular difference between them should be, and there are reasons to think this process is more or less clock-like.

Unfortunately, before a point corresponding roughly to the time at which Saccorhytus was wriggling in the mud, there are scarcely any fossils available to match the molecular clock’s predictions. Some researchers have theorised that this is because before a certain point, many of the creatures they are searching for were simply too small to leave much of a fossil record. The microscopic scale of Saccorhytus, combined with the fact that it is probably the most primitive deuterostome yet discovered, appears to back this up.

The findings are published in Nature. Reference: Jian Han, Simon Conway Morris, Qiang Ou, Degan Shu and Hai Huang. Meiofaunal deuterostomes from the basal Cambrian of Shaanxi (China). DOI: 10.1038/nature21072.

Inset image: Photographs of the fossils show the spectacularly detailed levels of preservation which allowed researchers to identify and study the creature. Credit: Jian Han.

The research adds to increasing evidence that household pets may have a major influence on child development, and could have a positive impact on children’s social skills and emotional well-being.

Pets are almost as common as siblings in western households, although there are relatively few studies on the importance of child-pet relationships.

‘‘Anyone who has loved a childhood pet knows that we turn to them for companionship and disclosure, just like relationships between people,” says Matt Cassells, a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the Department of Psychiatry, who led the study. “We wanted to know how strong these relationships are with pets relative to other close family ties. Ultimately this may enable us to understand how animals contribute to healthy child development”

This study, published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, was conducted in collaboration with the WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, part of Mars Petcare and co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council as part of a larger study, led by Prof Claire Hughes at the University of Cambridge Centre for Family Research. Researchers surveyed 12 year old children from 77 families with one or more pets of any type and more than one child at home. Children reported strong relationships with their pets relative to their siblings, with lower levels of conflict and greater satisfaction in owners of dogs than other kinds of pets.

‘‘Even though pets may not fully understand or respond verbally, the level of disclosure to pets was no less than to siblings,” says Cassels. “The fact that pets cannot understand or talk back may even be a benefit as it means they are completely non-judgmental.

“While previous research has often found that boys report stronger relationships with their pets than girls do, we actually found the opposite. While boys and girls were equally satisfied with their pets, girls reported more disclosure, companionship, and conflict with their pet than did boys, perhaps indicating that girls may interact with their pets in more nuanced ways.’’

“Evidence continues to grow showing that pets have positive benefits on human health and community cohesion,” says Dr Nancy Gee, Human-Animal Interaction Research Manager at WALTHAM and a co-author of the study. “The social support that adolescents receive from pets may well support psychological well-being later in life but there is still more to learn about the long term impact of pets on children’s development.”

Reference
​Cassells, M et al. One of the family? Measuring early adolescents’ relationships with pets and siblings. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology; 24 Jan 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2017.01.003

Adapted from a press release by WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition.