All posts by Adam Brinded

Sustainable solar cell material shown to be highly promising for medical imaging

Using X-rays to see inside the human body has revolutionised non-invasive medical diagnostics. However, the dose of X-rays required for imaging is far higher than background levels, due to the poor performance of the detector materials currently available. This can cause harm to patients, and in some cases even cancer.

Bismuth oxyiodide crystals
Bismuth oxyiodide crystals
Credit: John Freeman

A team of researchers, jointly led by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, have discovered that a solar cell material – bismuth oxyiodide (BiOI) – is capable of detecting X-ray dose rates over 250 times lower than the current best performing detectors used commercially. This has the potential to make medical imaging safer, and open up new opportunities in non-invasive diagnostics, such as X-ray video techniques. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

“We have developed BiOI single crystals into X-ray detectors that work over 100 times better than the current state-of-the-art for medical imaging,” said Dr Robert Hoye from the University of Oxford, who led the work. “BiOI is nontoxic, stable in air, and can be grown cost-effectively and at scale. We are very excited by the potential BiOI has to make the next generation of non-invasive diagnostics more accessible, safer, and more effective.”

BiOI is a nontoxic semiconductor that absorbs visible light and is stable in air. Owing to these qualities, over the past decade there has been a surge of interest in this material for solar cells (turning sunlight into clean electricity), photoelectrochemical cells (turning sunlight into fuels) and energy harvesting to power smart devices, among many other applications.

BiOI contains two heavy elements – bismuth and iodine – which allows the material to strongly absorb X-rays. However, previous attempts to make BiOI into X-ray detectors were ineffective due to significant energy losses from defects arising from the nanocrystalline nature of the detectors made.

The researchers developed and patented a method to grow high-quality single crystals of BiOI using a scalable vapour-based approach. The low defect density in these crystals led to stable and ultra-low dark currents, which was critical to substantially improve the sensitivity and detection limit of this material to X-rays.

“Showing that these simply-processed, low-temperature grown, stable crystals can give such high sensitivity for X-ray detection is quite remarkable,” said Professor Judith Driscoll from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, who co-led the work. “We began working on this material, BiOI, several years ago, and we find it outshines other rival materials in a range of optoelectronic and sensing applications, when toxicity and performance are considered together.”

The researchers formed an interdisciplinary team to understand why BiOI works so well as an X-ray detector. They used advanced optical techniques to resolve processes taking place over a trillionth of a second, and coupled these with simulations to link these processes with what is happening at the atomic level.

Through this study, the team revealed the unusual way in which electrons couple to vibrations in the lattice. Unlike other bismuth-halide compounds, the electrons in BiOI remain delocalised, meaning that electrons can easily and rapidly move within the lattice of BiOI. At the same time, the unusual electron coupling with lattice vibrations results in an irreversible energy loss channel that would still be present even if the material were defect-free.

The researchers found that these losses can be overcome by cooling down the sample to reduce thermal energy, or by applying an electric field to rip away electrons from the lattice. The latter case is ideally matched with how X-ray detectors operate. By applying a small electric field, electrons can be transported over a millimetre length-scale, allowing the efficient extraction of electrons generated in the single crystals through the absorption of X-rays.

“We have built a microscopic quantum mechanical model of electrons and ions that can fully explain the remarkable optoelectronic properties of BiOI that make it such a good material for X-ray detection,” said Dr Bartomeu Monserrat from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, who co-led the project. “This gives us a roadmap for designing even more materials with similarly advantageous properties.

This work offers important insights into how delocalised charge-carriers can be achieved in bismuth-halide compounds. The researchers are now working on applying these insights to design materials with similarly advantageous properties as BiOI, as well as how to tune the composition of BiOI to improve its transport properties further. They are also working on bringing the unique benefits of BiOI to society by devising routes to increase the size of the BiOI detectors, while preserving the exceptional properties found in single crystals.

The study also involved researchers from Imperial College London, Queen Mary University London, Technical University Munich and CNRS in Toulouse.

Reference:
R A Jagt, I Bravić, et al. ‘Layered BiOI single crystals capable of detecting low dose rates of X-rays.’ Nature Communications (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38008-4

Adapted from a story by the University of Oxford


source: cam.ac.uk

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Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society

Seven outstanding Cambridge researchers have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences and the oldest science academy in continuous existence.

The Royal Society, London
The Royal Society, London
Credit: Courtesy of The Royal Society

These individuals have pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond.Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science, engineering and medicine.

The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote and support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity.

This year, a total of 80 researchers, innovators and communicators from around the world have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society for their substantial contribution to the advancement of science. These include 59 Fellows, 19 Foreign Members and two Honorary Fellows.

Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society said: “I am delighted to welcome our newest cohort of Fellows. These individuals have pushed forward the boundaries of their respective fields and had a beneficial influence on the world beyond. This year’s intake have already achieved incredible things, and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. I look forward to meeting them and following their contributions in future.” 

The Fellows and Foreign Members join the ranks of Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Lise Meitner, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and Dorothy Hodgkin.

The Cambridge Fellows are:

Professor Cathie Clarke FRS

Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics, Institute of Astronomy, and Fellow of Clare College

Clarke studies astrophysical fluid dynamics, including accretion and protoplanetary discs and stellar winds. She was the first to demonstrate how protoplanetary disc formation around low-mass young stars is determined by their radiation field. In 2017 she became the first woman to be awarded the Eddington Medal by the Royal Astronomical Society and in 2022 she became director of the Institute of Astronomy.

She said: “It’s a great honour to join the many Cambridge astrophysicists who have held this title. I would like to particularly pay tribute to the many junior colleagues, PhD students and postdocs who have contributed to my research.”

Professor Christopher Jiggins FRS

Professor of Evolutionary Biology (2014), Department of Zoology, and Fellow of St John’s College

Jiggins studies adaption and speciation in the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). In particular he is interested in studying how species converge due to mimicry as a model for understanding the predictability of evolution and the genetic and ecological causes of speciation. He demonstrated the importance of hybridisation and movement of genes between species in generating novel adaptations. He also works on the agricultural pest cotton bollworm and carries out genomic studies of the insect bioconversion species, black soldier fly.

He said: “I am amazed and delighted to receive this honour, and would thank all the amazing students, and postdocs that I have been lucky enough to work with over the years.”

Dr Philip Jones FRS

Senior Group Leader, Wellcome Sanger Institute and Professor of Cancer Development, University of Cambridge, and Fellow of Clare College

Jones studies how normal cell behaviour is altered by mutation in aging and the earliest stages of cancer development. He focuses on normal skin and oesophagus, which become a patchwork of mutant cells by middle age. He has found that different mutations can either promote or inhibit cancer development giving hope of new ways to prevent cancer in the future. He is also a Consultant in Medical Oncology at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

He said: “I am delighted to be elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society. This honour is a tribute to the dedication of my research team and collaborators and support of my mentors and scientific colleagues over many years.”

Dr Lori Passmore FRS

Group Leader, Structural Studies Division, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and Fellow of Clare Hall

Passmore a cryo-electron microscopist and structural biologist who works at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology and at the University of Cambridge. She is known for her work on multiprotein complexes involved in gene expression and the development of new supports for cryo-EM studies. She also studies the molecular mechanisms underlying Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disease resulting in an impaired response to DNA damage.

She said: “I am so honoured to be recognised alongside such an exceptional group of scientists. I am grateful to all the trainees, collaborators and colleagues whom I have worked with over the past years – science is truly collaborative and this is a recognition of all the courageous work of many people.”

Professor Peter Sewell FRS

Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science and Technology, and Fellow of Wolfson College

Sewell’s research aims to put the engineering of the real-world computer systems that we all depend on onto better foundations, developing techniques to make systems that are better-understood, more robust and more secure. He and his group are best known for their work on the subtle relaxed-memory concurrency behaviour and detailed sequential semantics of processors and programming languages. He co-leads the CHERI cybersecurity project, for which his team have established mathematically-proven security properties of Arm’s Morello industrial prototype architecture.

He said: “This honour is a testament to the work of many excellent colleagues over the years, without whom none of this would have been possible.”

Professor Ivan Smith FRS

Professor of Geometry, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, and Fellow of Caius College

Smith is a mathematician who deals with symplectic manifolds and their interaction with algebraic geometry, low-dimensional topology and dynamics. In 2007, he received the Whitehead Prize for his work in symplectic topology, highlighting the breadth of applied techniques from algebraic geometry and topology, and in 2013 the Adams Prize. 

He said: “I am surprised, delighted and hugely honoured to be elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I’ve been very fortunate to work in a rapidly advancing field, learning it alongside many inspirational and generous collaborators, who should definitely share this recognition.”

Professor William Sutherland CBE FRS

Miriam Rothschild Chair of Conservation Biology, Department of Zoology and Professorial Fellow of St Catharine’s College

Sutherland is a conservation scientist who is interested in improving the processes by which decisions are made. This has involved horizon scanning to identify future issues to reduce the surprises of future developments. His main work has been the industrial-scale collation of evidence to determine which interventions are effective and which are not and then establishing processes for embedding evidence in decision making. He has developed a free, online resource, Conservation Evidence, summarising evidence for the effectiveness of conservation actions to support anyone making decisions about how to maintain and restore biodiversity and an open access book Transforming Conservation: a practical guide to evidence and decision making.

He said: “I am delighted that our work on the means of improving decision making in conservation and elsewhere has been recognised in this way and thank my numerous collaborators.”


source: cam.ac.uk

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Obesity accelerates loss of COVID-19 vaccination immunity, study finds

The protection offered by COVID-19 vaccination declines more rapidly in people with severe obesity than in those with normal weight, scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh have found. The study suggests that people with obesity are likely to need more frequent booster doses to maintain their immunity.

Patient receiving a COVID-19 vaccination
Patient receiving a COVID-19 vaccination in their arm
Credit: Steven Cornfield

This poses a major challenge for health servicesSadaf Farooqi

Clinical trials have shown that COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at reducing symptoms, hospitalisation and deaths caused by the virus, including for people with obesity. Previous studies have suggested that antibody levels may be lower in vaccinated people who have obesity and that they may remain at higher risk of severe disease than vaccinated people with normal weight. The reasons for this have, however, remained unclear.

This study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, shows that the ability of antibodies to neutralise the virus declines faster in vaccinated people who have obesity. The findings have important implications for vaccine prioritisation policies around the world.

During the pandemic, people with obesity were more likely to be hospitalised, require ventilators and to die from COVID-19. In this study, supported by the NIHR Bioresource and funded by UKRI, the researchers set out to investigate how far two of the most extensively used vaccines protect people with obesity compared to those with a normal weight, over time.

A team from the University of Edinburgh, led by Prof Sir Aziz Sheikh, looked at real-time data tracking the health of 3.5 million people in the Scottish population as part of the EAVE II study. They looked at hospitalisation and mortality from COVID-19 in adults who received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine (either Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 mRNA or AstraZeneca ChAdOx1).

They found that people with severe obesity (a BMI greater than 40 kg/m2) had a 76% higher risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes, compared to those with a normal BMI. A modest increase in risk was also seen in people with obesity (30-39.9kg/m2), which affects a quarter of the UK population, and those who were underweight. ‘Break-through infections’ after the second vaccine dose also led to hospitalisation and death sooner (from 10 weeks) among people with severe obesity, and among people with obesity (after 15 weeks), than among individuals with normal weight (after 20 weeks).

Prof Sir Aziz Sheikh said: “Our findings demonstrate that protection gained through COVID-19 vaccination drops off faster for people with severe obesity than those with a normal body mass index. Using large-scale data assets such as the EAVE II Platform in Scotland have enabled us to generate important and timely insights that enable improvements to the delivery of COVID-19 vaccine schedules in a post-pandemic UK.”

The University of Cambridge team – jointly led by Dr James Thaventhiran, from the MRC Toxicology Unit and Prof Sadaf Farooqi from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science – studied people with severe obesity attending the Obesity clinic at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, and compared the number and function of immune cells in their blood to those of people of normal weight.

They studied people six months after their second vaccine dose and then looked at the response to a third ‘booster’ vaccine dose over time. The Cambridge researchers found that six months after a second vaccine dose, people with severe obesity had similar levels of antibodies to the COVID-19 virus as those with a normal weight.

But the ability of those antibodies to work efficiently to fight against the virus (known as ‘neutralisation capacity’) was reduced in people with obesity. 55% of individuals with severe obesity were found to have unquantifiable or undetectable ‘neutralising capacity’ compared to 12% of people with normal BMI.

“This study further emphasises that obesity alters the vaccine response and also impacts on the risk of infection,” said Dr Agatha van der Klaauw from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and first author of the paper. “We urgently need to understand how to restore immune function and minimise these health risks.”

The researchers found that antibodies produced by people with severe obesity were less effective at neutralising the SARS-CoV-2 virus, potentially because the antibodies were not able to bind to the virus with the same strength.

When given a third (booster) dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the ability of the antibodies to neutralise the virus was restored in both the normal weight and severely obese groups. But the researchers found that immunity again declined more rapidly in people with severe obesity, putting them at greater risk of infection with time.

Dr James Thaventhiran, a Group Leader from the MRC Toxicology Unit in Cambridge and co-lead author of the SCORPIO study said: “It is promising to see that booster vaccines restore the effectiveness of antibodies for people with severe obesity, but it is concerning that their levels decrease more quickly, after just 15 weeks. This shows that the vaccines work as well in people with obesity, but the protection doesn’t last as long.”

Prof Sadaf Farooqi from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science and co-lead author of the SCORPIO study said: “More frequent booster doses are likely to be needed to maintain protection against COVID-19 in people with obesity. Because of the high prevalence of obesity across the globe, this poses a major challenge for health services”.

Reference

A A van der Klaauw et al., ‘Accelerated waning of the humoral response to COVID-19 vaccines in obesity’, Nature Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02343-2


source: cam.ac.uk

The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

New, handwritten Maimonides texts discovered at Cambridge University Library

By Stuart Roberts

Two pages from Maimonides’ notebook in which he has listed words in Judaeo-Arabic and given Judaeo-Romance translations beneath.

A Visiting Researcher to Cambridge has found previously unknown evidence of the legendary Jewish philosopher writing in a Romance dialect in manuscript fragments dating from the 12th century.

A scrap of 900-year-old paper – part of Cambridge’s Cairo Genizah collection of more than 200,000 fragments of writing chronicling life over 1,000 years in Egypt and the Middle East – has been identified as containing the handwriting of the legendary Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides.

The pages are a glossary of basic terms relating to herbs, basic foods and colours and were identified by José Martínez Delgado, a visiting professor to Cambridge University Library’s Genizah Research Unit, from the Department of Semitic Studies at the University of Granada.

Around 60 fragments written by Maimonides have been found in the Cairo Genizah manuscripts, and most are written in Maimonides’ customary Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic language written with the Hebrew alphabet). His writings include letters, legal rulings, and early drafts of his important works.

What makes this fragment unique, however, is the fact that Maimonides has added the translation in a Romance dialect below some words. It is the first evidence for Maimonides knowing Romance, an evolving dialect version of Latin that is a pre-cursor to what would eventually become modern-day Spanish dialects and language.

The discovery has been covered widely in the Spanish press this week.

Maimonides was born in Cordoba in 1135. His codification of Jewish law (the Mishneh Torah) is still considered a cornerstone of Jewish law and ethics. Through such works, Maimonides attempts to show that every part of Jewish law serves a rational purpose and that nothing was demanded for the sake of obedience alone.

A fragment from the Mishneh Torah, also in Maimonides’ hand, part of the Cambridge Genizah archive.

He influenced thinkers as diverse as Newton and Aquinas and set forth the philosophic foundations of Jewish belief and wider philosophy in works such as the Guide of the Perplexed. Maimonides also served as Head of the Jews in Egypt and was renowned for his medical and scientific knowledge. In addition to being one of the Jewish faith’s most important thinkers and philosophers, Maimonides was also physician to the court of the Muslim sultan Saladin.

Maimonides must have written these fragments – later deposited in the Cairo Genizah from where Cambridge’s collection derives – sometime between 1168 when he arrived in Egypt and 1204, the year of his death.


“Something about the handwriting in these Cambridge fragments seemed familiar. At last, I realised what I was looking at. I had seen this handwriting before. I quickly sent a message to my friend Amir Ashur (at Tel Aviv University).

“I didn’t say what I was thinking – I just asked him to look at the fragment, too. Then came confirmation of my suspicions. Amir had seen what I had seen. We were looking at Maimonides’ handwriting, in some sort of Romance dialect.”

José Martínez Delgado


Dr Solomon Schechter with the Genizah collection in the old University Library at the Old Schools, Cambridge University.

Added Martínez Delgado: “The glossary covers four semantic categories: colours, flavours and aromas, actions, and food. Why was Maimonides collecting these words? What does it tell us about him?

The sequence of the words is interesting, as we are seeing him ‘at work’, writing a progression of words that make sense to him. The terms don’t follow alphabetical order – they are arranged logically by basic associations (bread, water), and opposites (white, black). The category of colours (white, black, blue, red, green, yellow, purple), ends in ‘light’ and ‘dark’ and then moves to flavours and aromas. The connection between these is presumably the senses, moving from sight to taste to smell.

“The list of foods moves from basic foods (bread, water) to vegetables, to edible seeds (wheat, chickpea), to seeded fruits (olive, fig), to dried fruits/nuts (acorn, pistachio), to foods from other natural products (milk, honey). The list of actions first describes the basic actions undertaken by all animals (eat, sleep), and then moves to actions, feelings and emotions that are more specific to people. Interestingly, although the words are in a Romance dialect, the plurals seem to be Italian, so it is a very mixed text.

“As to why he was collecting the words? He was a physician, with students, so perhaps he was gathering the terms for a medical or educational reason, or testing himself on his vocabulary!”


“The Cairo Genizah fragments have been in Cambridge for over 120 years, but the work of cataloguing and interpreting them is still ongoing.

 “Each discovery like this builds on our knowledge of Egypt in the Middle Ages and the lives of Jews living in Islamic lands. It’s a treasure trove for historians, but for many people it also represents a tangible link to the heritage of the Jewish community and its religious traditions.

“Through the Littman Genizah Educational Programme at Cambridge University Library we aim to make the manuscripts available to new audiences, from schools to adult learners. I will never tire of seeing the excitement and emotion on peoples’ faces when they see these manuscripts in person.”

Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee
Research Associate at the Genizah Research Institute


The Genizah collection is one of the greatest treasures among the world-class collections at Cambridge University Library.  

From the 9th to the 19th century, the Jewish community of Fustat (Old Cairo) deposited more than 200,000 unwanted writings in a purpose-built storeroom in the Ben Ezra synagogue.

This sacred storeroom was called the Genizah. A Genizah was a safe place to store away any old or unusable text that, because it contained the name of God, was considered too holy to simply throw out.

But when the room was opened in the late 19th century, alongside the expected Bibles, prayer books and works of Jewish law – scholars discovered the documents and detritus of everyday life: shopping lists, marriage contracts, divorce deeds, a 1,000-year-old page of child’s doodles and alphabets, Arabic fables, works of Muslim philosophy, medical books, magical amulets, business letters and accounts. Practically every kind of written text produced by the Jewish communities of the Near East throughout the Middle Ages had been preserved in that sacred storeroom.

Among the highlights of the remarkable collection are the earliest known example of a Jewish engagement deed (Shtar Shiddukhin, from 1119), showing the complex legal relations that existed around marriage, early fragments of the Bible in different languages, and an 11th century pre-nuptial agreement where the groom, Toviyya – who clearly had a poor reputation – was required to make a series of promises about his future behaviour.


source: cam.ac.uk

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Cambridge University excels in BUCS Athletics Championships and secures historic Varsity Boxing win

CUABC winners lift the trophy
CUABC winners lift the trophy. Credit Anthony Sajdler Photography

Cambridge University athletes showcased their talent and competitive spirit in two thrilling sports events recently, the British Universities & Colleges Sports (BUCS) Outdoor Athletics Championships and the Amateur Boxing Varsity.

The BUCS Outdoor Athletics Championships, held in Manchester, saw Cambridge athletes from Cambridge University Athletic Club and Cambridge University Hare and Hounds, clinch five medals. Some of the notable results included:

  • Angus Harrington of St. John’s College securing a gold medal in the 800m event, making him the BUCS Champion for the 2022-23 season. 
  • Jeremy Dempsey from Girton College claiming the silver medal in the highly competitive 1500m race. 
  • Reese Robinson of Jesus College displaying remarkable skill in the Triple Jump event, earning a well-deserved bronze medal. 
  • Niamh Bridson Hubbard from Magdalene College also securing a bronze medal in the 1500m event.
  • Mary Adeniji of Newnham College impressed with a bronze medal in the Long Jump.

In addition to the medalists, several other Cambridge students reached the finals and narrowly missed out on podium finishes, underscoring the depth of talent within the university.

The weekend included six students who are part of Cambridge’s UCAPP programme, showcasing the university’s commitment to nurturing exceptional athletic talent. 

The BUCS success followed another great triumph for Cambridge University Amateur Boxing Club (CUABC) in the 114th Amateur Boxing Varsity in March. The Amateur Boxing Varsity stands as the longest-running amateur boxing fixture in the world since its inception in 1897.

Cambridge’s Varsity Squad, comprising 12 fighters, travelled to Oxford where victory for the CUABC boxers unfolded in front of a boisterous crowd of 750 Oxford supporters. The final score was 6-3 and included 3 early stoppages by technical knockout. 

Cambridge’s victory further extended their lead in the overall score, with the tally now standing at 58-56 in Cambridge’s favour, reflecting the close competition between the two universities.


source: cam.ac.uk


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Carbon emissions from fertilisers could be reduced by as much as 80% by 2050

Researchers have calculated the carbon footprint for the full life cycle of fertilisers, which are responsible for approximately five percent of total greenhouse gas emissions – the first time this has been accurately quantified – and found that carbon emissions could be reduced to one-fifth of current levels by 2050.

Our work gives us a good idea of what’s technically possible, and where interventions would be meaningful – it’s important that we aim interventions at what matters the most, in order to make fast and meaningful progress in reducing emissionsAndré Cabrera Serrenho

Spraying fertiliser on wheat crop – North Yorkshire – England.
Credit: SteveAllenPhoto via Getty Images

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, found that two-thirds of emissions from fertilisers take place after they are spread on fields, with one-third of emissions coming from production processes.

Although nitrogen-based fertilisers are already known to be a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, this is the first time that their overall contribution, from production to deployment, has been fully quantified. Their analysis found that manure and synthetic fertilisers emit the equivalent of 2.6 gigatonnes of carbon per year – more than global aviation and shipping combined.

Carbon emissions from fertilisers urgently need to be reduced; however, this must be balanced against the need for global food security. Earlier research has estimated that 48% of the global population is fed with crops grown with synthetic fertilisers, and the world’s population is expected to grow by 20% by 2050.

The Cambridge researchers say that a combination of scalable technological and policy solutions are needed to reduce fertiliser emissions while maintaining food security. However, they estimate that if such solutions could be implemented at scale, the emissions from manure and synthetic fertilisers could be reduced by as much as 80%, to one-fifth of current levels, without a loss of productivity. Their results are reported in the journal Nature Food.

“Incredibly, we don’t actually know how many chemicals we produce globally, where they end up, where and how they accumulate, how many emissions they produce, and how much waste they generate,” said co-author Dr André Cabrera Serrenho from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering.

Serrenho and his co-author Yunhu Gao undertook a project to accurately measure the total impacts of fertilisers, one of the two main products of the petrochemical industry. Of all the products made by the petrochemical industry, the vast majority – as much as 74% – are either plastics or fertilisers.

“In order to reduce emissions, it’s important for us to identify and prioritise any interventions we can make to make fertilisers less harmful to the environment,” said Serrenho. “But if we’re going to do that, we first need to have a clear picture of the whole lifecycle of these products. It sounds obvious, but we actually know very little about these things.”

The researchers mapped the global flows of manure and synthetic fertilisers and their emissions for 2019, along all stages of the lifecycle, by reconciling the production and consumption of nitrogen fertilisers and regional emission factors across nine world regions.

After completing their analysis, the researchers found that unlike many other products, the majority of emissions for fertilisers occur not during production, but during their use.

“It was surprising that this was the major source of emissions,” said Serrenho. “But only after quantifying all emissions, at every point of the lifecycle, can we then start looking at different mitigation methods to reduce emissions without a loss of productivity.”

The researchers listed and quantified the maximum theoretical impact of different mitigation methods – most of these are already known, but their maximum potential effect had not been quantified.

Emissions from the production of synthetic fertilisers are mostly from ammonia synthesis, partly due to chemical reactions used in the production process. The most effective mitigation at the production stage would be for the industry to decarbonise heating and hydrogen production. Additionally, fertilisers could be mixed with chemicals called nitrification inhibitors, which prevent bacteria from forming nitrous oxide. However, these chemicals are likely to make fertilisers more expensive.

“If we’re going to make fertilisers more expensive, then there needs to be some sort of financial incentive to farmers and to fertiliser companies,” said Serrenho. “Farming is an incredibly tough business as it is, and farmers aren’t currently rewarded for producing lower emissions.”

The single most effective way to reduce fertiliser-associated emissions, however, would be to reduce the amount of fertilisers that we use. “We’re incredibly inefficient in our use of fertilisers,” said Serrenho. “We’re using far more than we need, which is economically inefficient and that’s down to farming practices. If we used fertiliser more efficiently, we would need substantially less fertiliser, which would reduce emissions without affecting crop productivity.”

The researchers also looked at the mix of fertilisers used around the world, which varies by region. The researchers say that replacing some of the fertilisers with the highest emissions, such as urea, with ammonium nitrate worldwide could further reduce emissions by between 20% and 30%. However, this would only be beneficial after decarbonising the fertiliser industry.

“There are no perfect solutions,” said Serrenho. “We need to rethink how we produce food, and what sorts of economic incentives work best. Perhaps that means paying farmers to produce fewer emissions, perhaps that means paying more for food. We need to find the right mix of financial, technological and policy solutions to reduce emissions while keeping the world fed.”

Serrenho and Gao estimate that by implementing all the mitigations they analysed, emissions from the fertiliser sector could be reduced by as much as 80% by 2050.

“Our work gives us a good idea of what’s technically possible, what’s big, and where interventions would be meaningful – it’s important that we aim interventions at what matters the most, in order to make fast and meaningful progress in reducing emissions,” said Serrenho.

The research was part of the C-THRU project, led by Professor Jonathan Cullen, where researchers from four UK and US Universities are working to bring clarity to the emissions from the global petrochemical supply chain.

Reference:
Yunhu Gao and André Cabrera Serrenho. ‘Greenhouse gas emissions from nitrogen fertilisers could be reduce by up to one-fifth of current levels by 2050 with combined interventions.’ Nature Food (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-023-00698-w



The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.  All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Researchers build more detailed picture of the movement of Greenland Ice Sheet

Researchers have found that the movement of glaciers in Greenland is more complex than previously thought, with deformation in regions of warmer ice containing small amounts of water accounting for motion that had often been assumed to be caused by sliding where the ice meets the bedrock beneath.

The international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used computer modelling techniques based on earlier fibre-optic measurements from the Greenland Ice Sheet to build a more detailed picture of the behaviour of the world’s second-largest ice sheet.

Their results, reported in the journal Science Advances, could be used to develop more accurate predictions of how the Greenland Ice Sheet will continue to move in response to climate change.

Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased sixfold since the 1980s and is now the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise. Around half of this mass loss is from surface meltwater runoff, while the other half is driven by the discharge of ice directly into the ocean by fast-flowing glaciers that reach the sea.

The RESPONDER project, funded by the European Research Council, is exploring the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet using a combination of physical measurements and computer modelling.

The current research builds on earlier observations reported by the RESPONDER team in 2021 using fibre-optic cables. In that work, the team found that the temperature of ice sheets does not vary as a smooth gradient, but is far more heterogeneous, with areas of highly localised deformation warming the ice further.

The borehole measurements also showed that the ice at the base contains small amounts – up to roughly two percent – of water. In some parts of the ice sheet, this mixed ice-water layer, called temperate ice, was around eight metres thick, but in other parts it was up to 70 metres thick.

“The addition of even tiny amounts of water softens the ice considerably, transforming it into a unique material with substantially altered mechanical characteristics,” said first author Dr Robert Law, who completed the work while based at Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute and is now based at the University of Bergen. “We wanted to know why the thickness of this layer varied so much, because if we don’t fully understand it, our models of ice sheet behaviour won’t fully capture the physical processes occurring in nature.”

“The textbook view of glacier motion is that it occurs with a neat partitioning of basal sliding and internal deformation, and that both are well understood,” said co-author and RESPONDER project leader Professor Poul Christoffersen, who is based at SPRI. “But that’s not what we observed when we looked carefully in boreholes with new techniques. With less detailed observations in the past, it was difficult to get a really good picture of how the ice sheet moves and even more challenging to replicate it with computer models.”

Law, Christoffersen and their colleagues from the UK, US, Switzerland and France developed a model based on their earlier borehole measurements that can account for all of the new observations.

Importantly, they accounted for natural variations in the landscape at the base of the ice, which, in Greenland, is full of rocky hills, basins and deep fjords. The researchers found that as a glacier moves over a large obstacle or hill, there is a deformation and heating effect which sometimes extends several hundred metres from the ice sheet base. Previously, this effect was omitted in models.

“The stress on the ice base is highest at the tops of these hills, which leads to more basal sliding,” said Law. “But so far most models have not accounted for all of these variations in the landscape.”

By incorporating these variations, the model developed by the researchers showed that a variable layer of temperate ice forms as the glacier moves over the landscape, whether the glacier itself is fast- or slow-moving. The thickness of this temperate ice layer agrees with the earlier borehole measurements, but diverges significantly from standard modelling methods used to predict sea level rise from ice sheets.

“Because of this hilly landscape, the ice can go from sliding across its base almost entirely to hardly sliding at all, over short distances of just a few kilometres,” said Law. “This directly influences the thermal structure — if you’ve got less basal sliding then you’ve got more internal deformation and heating, which can lead to  the layer of temperate ice getting thicker, altering the mechanical properties of the ice over a broad area. This temperate basal ice layer can actually act like a deformation bridge between hills, facilitating the fast motion of the much colder ice directly above it.”

The researchers hope to use this improved understanding to build more accurate descriptions of ice motion for the ice sheet models used in predicting future sea level rise.

The research was funded in part by the European Union and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Robert Law et al. ‘Complex motion of Greenland ice sheet outlet glaciers with basal temperate ice.’ Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.eabq5180

Here come the girls: getting more women into STEM

Professor Dame Athene Donald has quite the list of firsts under her belt: first female postdoc in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Cornell University, first female lecturer in Cambridge’s Physics Department, first female professor in any of Cambridge’s Physical Sciences and first female Master at Churchill College.

She is considered by many to be a role model for future generations of young female scientists. She’s a Fellow of the Royal Society, has been awarded several prizes by the Institute of Physics (CV Boys Prize, Mott Medal, and Faraday Medal), and in 2009, was awarded the L’Oréal-UNESCO Award for Europe for Women in Science.

Professor Dame Athene Donald

So it may seem surprising that when asked what attracted her to study physics, she says simply that it just made sense to her: there was no moment of inspiration, no female scientist that served as a role model, just a young girl who understood.

She acknowledges that she was fortunate enough to attend a girls’ grammar school where she was taught by a teacher who had qualified in physics at Oxford, but says of her teacher: “She was always capable of answering my questions, but it wasn’t so much she inspired me, it was that she didn’t turn me off.”

From Camden to Churchill

After studying at Camden School for Girls, Donald arrived at Girton College, Cambridge in 1971 – at the time an all-women college – Donald was not the first in her family to go to university, though most had studied subjects such as Law.

She would go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in Natural Science (Theoretical Physics), followed by a PhD in 1977 for research on electron microscopy of grain boundary embrittled systems. This meant trying to understand why some trace elements would migrate and segregate to the boundaries between individual crystals in a sample.

“Because there were no mixed colleges, there was essentially a cap on the number of women in the university,” Donald says. “There weren’t many girls.”

After heading to Cornell University in the United States, where she spent four years as a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Donald returned to Cambridge and has been here ever since.

“I did not know at the time I was the first female lecturer in the department.”

At the time, Donald thought little of being in a minority, and it was not until the late 1990s that she realised that being a woman might be a disadvantage.

“People didn’t necessarily take me seriously, and at first, I assumed it was because I was working in an area that wasn’t mainstream physics,” she says. “I worked on food, on starch, so I was accused of doing domestic science.”

Professor Dame Athene Donald

In the late 90s, Donald saw a report from MIT about the status of women in their science faculty and started to question how much being a woman had put her at a disadvantage.

“I suddenly realised all the things that were happening to me were very similar, the sense that you were not quite taken seriously, or that your voice wasn’t as persuasive, or the feeling that ‘I’m just not good enough’, that it’s my fault. I realised the problems were perhaps systemic, and that was very uncomfortable.”

She recalls several instances that demonstrate the bias experienced by women in science: a driver collecting her at a railway station saying “I was expecting a man”, letters addressed to “Sir Donald…”, a meeting of a research council’s grant giving committee, where she was greeted by a disgruntled member complaining that the meeting papers were out late. “Obviously, they thought I was part of the secretariat,” she reflects.

In October 2014, Donald became the first female Master of Churchill College.

Nigel Hall sculpture at Churchill College

Science… not just for boys

Later this year will see the release of Donald’s first book, Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science, which highlights the obstacles faced by women in science and explores historical attitudes towards women doing science, and what progress has, or has not, been made.

There is a widely-recognised shortage of women in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths). According to a report released by the Institute of Physics in 2017, for more than two decades only a fifth of A-level physics students have been girls.

Tackling the problem means starting far earlier than you might think. “You have to start really early, because this idea of gendering of subjects starts incredibly early. So, get rid of boys’ and girls’ toys, for instance,” she suggests.

Front cover of Professor Dame Athene Donald’s new book: Not just for the boys: Why we need more women in science

As an example of quite how ingrained attitudes are, Donald mentions Katharine Birbalsingh, head of the Michaela Community School in north-west London and (until very recently) the chair of the government’s Social Mobility Commission. Birbalsingh raised eyebrows in April 2022 when she told MPs that the low uptake of physics at A-Level was because girls did not like hard maths.

At the time, Donald told the Guardian that the comments made by Birbalsingh were “terrifying” and “quite damaging” and that it is not “a case of campaigning for more girls to do physics, it’s a case of making sure that girls aren’t discouraged by remarks like this”.

“We want girls to be free to pursue what they are good at,” she says, “and, equally, boys should also be able to go into professions like nursing. We are not in a society like that.”

Part of the problem is the ingrained unconscious assumption about what a stereotypical scientist looks like, she adds, “such as the myth of the lone scientist with sticking up hair and holding a test tube”.

woman in black framed eyeglasses holding pen
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

A 2020 report published by Teach First, a charity aimed at addressing educational disadvantage in England and Wales, found that only half of British adults (49%) can name a female scientist, dead or alive. They also point out that not a single female scientist is mentioned in the GCSE science curriculum.

“If you are a 12-year-old girl and you’re not being exposed to this, then you may think I don’t belong”, Donald points out.

Where are the scientists like Marie Curie, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, whose discovery of radio pulsars changed astronomy? Why are children not learning about people such as Fabiola Gianotti, Director General of CERN?

There are also inherent problems with the system, including the age at which young people make decisions about their GCSEs and A-levels, she adds.

“You are very impressionable at 14 and the pressure and recognition from our peers is important at that age,” says Donald. “If a boy in your class says ‘That’s a bit nerdy’, then you may choose not to do [science] and then regret it later. I think it’s tough unless you’ve got parental support or teacher support.”

“You have to tackle the problem in schools to give those girls who want to do science the courage to do it.”

A female future

To see what is possible, we should look to the way STEM subjects are viewed in high-income countries versus low- and middle-income countries.

A study by Drawing the Future released in 2018 suggested that the most popular job for children in the UK was either a sportsman or sportswoman and that “the general trends suggest that in some developing countries children have more practical and high professional ambitions such as a Doctor or Teacher.

Donald points out that in low- and middle-income countries, the formal lines of female and male jobs are different and much less apparent. There, children see science and engineering as a way of improving their own lives and country.

A series of conversations with distinguished professional women, hosted by the Master of Churchill College, Professor Dame Athene Donald

She is hopeful that attitudes here may change, though. “The young today are so concerned about climate change that attitudes may be changing, and the pandemic may be instrumental in that shift, too.”

When Donald’s book appears on bookshelves in May, she hopes it will make people stop and think about the shortage of women in STEM and how we might address it. While the issues may not be new to some, there will be others – including those who can effect change – who do not appreciate how ingrained and systemic the problems are.

“If we’re going to change society, we need these people to think harder,” she says. “I hope this book is not only read by young girls hoping to study science but also by those who can really make a difference – policy makers, teachers, and parents. These are the people who can help change attitudes and encourage more girls into science.”

“If we’re going to change society, we need these people to think harder.”


Published: Friday 10th February 2023
With thanks to:

Dame Professor Athene Donald


Words: Zoe Smith
Photography: Lloyd Mann


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Cambridge Festival launches extensive programme for 2023

Could a new theory of the Universe be Stephen Hawking’s biggest legacy? How has popular music addressed political conflict? Are the big tech firms the new colonialists? And is the education system making the crisis in mental health in young women and girls worse?

These are a few of the questions set to be addressed during one of the largest festivals of its kind in the country, the annual Cambridge Festival, which launches its 2023 programme on Monday 13 February. Bookings open on the same day.

Coordinated by the University of Cambridge, the Festival, which runs from 17 March until 2 April, packs a hefty cultural punch with over 360 in person and online, mostly free events. Subjects range from politics and technology to health and climate change. There are five core themes: Power, Society, Health, Environment and Discovery.

Some of the highlights this year include talks about several new books. An event tipped to be hugely popular is the talk about one of the most widely anticipated new books of the year, ON THE ORIGIN OF TIME: STEPHEN HAWKING’S FINAL THEORY (31 March). Due to be published by Penguin in April, the book is a striking new vision of the Universe by Stephen Hawking and his close collaborator cosmologist Professor Thomas Hertog. During his talk, Professor Hertog discusses his book and the theory.  

He commented: “Holed up in the theoretical physics department at Cambridge, Stephen Hawking and I worked shoulder to shoulder for 20 years, developing a new theory of the cosmos that could account for the emergence of life. Peering into the extreme quantum physics of cosmic holograms and venturing far back in time to our deepest roots, we were startled to find a deeper level of evolution in which the physical laws themselves transform until particles, forces, and even time itself fades away. Once upon a time, perhaps, there was no time?”

A further event, focussing on another new book due out later this year, explores how popular music has addressed political conflict. In COMBAT ROCK: POPULAR MUSIC AND THE NORTHERN IRELAND CONFLICT (22 March), Dr Sean Campbell (Anglia Ruskin University) examines how popular musicians engaged with the Northern Ireland conflict in the period between the IRA hunger strikes (1980–81) and the British government’s ‘broadcasting ban’ (1988).

Another current conflict, the war in Ukraine and climate disasters have focused people’s minds on issues of food security. In HOW CAN WE IMPROVE OUR FOOD SECURITY? (27 March), experts address the practical and political problems around food security and look to what history can teach us. With Professor Tim Lang, a former consultant to the WHO and the UN, and a special advisor to four House of Commons Select Committee inquiries; Anoop Tripathi, a PhD student whose current research seeks to find a way to increase rice yields; David Christian Rose, Professor of Sustainable Agricultural Systems; and Dr Emelyn Rude, founding editor of Eaten: the Food History Magazine. The event chair is Dr Nazia Mintz Habib, Research Centre Director for the Centre for Resilience and Sustainable Development.

Staying with the topic of food, in GROWING UP IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT: WHAT REALLY INFLUENCES WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE EAT? (29 March), Dr Eleanor Winpenny, Dr Tiago Canelas and Mr Struan Tait from the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge present evidence from recent research in the UK and abroad, investigating how people’s diet changes as they go through adolescence and early adulthood, and the different lifestyle changes that appear to drive changes in diet. They discuss their most recent research, international new research (soon to be published), and the launch of a new pilot study.

Young people come into focus again as part of the next event, CLIMATE CHANGE: FROM DESPAIR TO ACTION (30 March). We know that climate change is speeding up and that it is a threat to the future of the planet, but can our political structures adapt to the pace of change? How can we better confront climate misinformation around the world? What role can technology play? And how can we educate young people for the challenges to come? With Professor Laura Diaz Anadon, a Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group III on Mitigating Climate Change; Professor Peter Sutoris, an environmental anthropologist; Samira Patel, a PhD student in Polar Studies at the University of Cambridge; and Dr Ramit Debnath, the inaugural Cambridge Zero Fellow. The event chair is Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero.

Moving onto one of the big issues of the day; big tech. Are the big tech firms, whose income is higher than many countries’ GDP, now acting like the colonialists of the past as they assert their power both in space and on Earth? Are governments able to restrain them? These questions and more are debated in BIG TECH: THE NEW COLONIALISTS? (29th March). With Dr Sebastián Lehuedé from Harvard University and University of Cambridge, and Professor Jaideep Prabhu, Alina Utrata, a PhD Candidate in Politics and International Studies, and tech law academic Dr Jennifer Cobbe from the University of Cambridge.  

In a related event, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: CAN SYSTEMS LIKE CHATGPT AUTOMATE EMPATHY? (31 March), Dr Marcus Tomalin (University of Cambridge), considers some of the social and ethical implications of creating automated systems that imitate human-like empathetic responses convincingly despite having no actual capacity for empathy. As part of his talk, Dr Tomalin explains how these systems, such as Chat-GPT, Siri and Alexa, work and how they are designed to seem empathetic.

The media comes under scrutiny in this next event. In IS POPULISM DESTROYING THE MEDIA? (20 March, online), Emily Maitlis, former BBC Newsnight anchor, and Ayala Panievsky, a PhD Gates-Cambridge scholar whose research focuses on the future of journalism, explore the impact of populism on the media. Is it affecting how and what journalists write? How can we ensure reporters don’t self-censor in an age where accurate information is vital? The event chair is Dorothy Byrne, former Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4. 

Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash

Assisted dying is one of the many controversial topics explored during the Festival. In THE BARON DE LANCEY LECTURE 2023 – ASSISTED DYING: SLIPPERY SLOPES AND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES (16 March), Professor Emily Jackson (London School of Economics) discusses the practical pitfalls in trying to legislate to legalise assisted dying. Not only are supporters and opponents of legalisation often talking past each other, but also as one problem is solved, another may be created.

Photo by Silvestri Matteo on Unsplash

Another controversial topic examined is whether the education system makes the crisis in mental health in young women and girls worse. Unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression and eating disorders in young women and girls have prompted government demands for universities and schools to offer greater support. But a major event, THE CRISIS IN MENTAL HEALTH IN YOUNG WOMEN AND GIRLS: DOES OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM MAKE IT WORSE? WHAT SHOULD WE DO? hosted by Murray Edwards Policy Centre for the Wellbeing of Young Women and Girls, asks if the demands of our educational system are in fact key drivers of distress.

Two of the country’s leading thinkers in this area Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Tamsin Ford examine some potential solutions. The event is chaired by Murray Edwards College President Dorothy Byrne, who was Head of News and Current Affairs at Channel 4.

Finally, on a lighter note, Festival favourite Jack Ashby, Assistant Director of the Museum of Zoology in Cambridge, presents two lively talks about the weird and wonderful animals of Australia. During DON’T CALL ME WEIRD: AUSTRALIA’S AMAZING MAMMALS (26 March), he explains why he thinks Australia’s mammals are the best in the world. From the platypus, the only mammals that can produce venom, detect electricity and lay eggs, to wombats who poop cubes, defend themselves with reinforced rears, and whose teeth never stop growing. In PLATYPUS MATTERS: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF AUSTRALIAN MAMMALS (29 March), Jack returns to explore how the world sees Australian mammals and what this means for their conservation.

koala on tree during daytime

Photo by Mikaela Egan on Unsplash

Commenting on the programme launch, Cambridge Festival Manager, David Cain said: “We’re incredibly excited to be revealing this year’s Cambridge Festival programme. Since its launch in 2020, the Festival has tackled some of our biggest challenges and delved into many controversial subjects. Through a series of interdisciplinary events, the aim is to understand where we have come from and where we’re headed; to provoke conversation and encourage everyone to see things in a new or different way.

“The Festival is often meaty and though-provoking, but it also has a lighter element with performance, comedy, and loads of fun things for kids and families to do.

“Have a look through the programme, I’m positive there will be something there to spark interest no matter what age you are.”


The full programme launches and bookings open on Monday 13 February via the Festival website:  www.festival.cam.ac.uk


Keep up to date with the Festival on social media: Instagram @Camunifestivals | Facebook: @CambridgeFestival | Twitter: @Cambridge_Fest


Sign up to our mailing list: https://www.festival.cam.ac.uk/sign-festival-updates


The Festival sponsors and partners are AstraZeneca and RAND Europe. The Festival media partners are BBC Radio Cambridgeshire and Cambridge Independent.

The largest penguin that ever lived

Fossil bones from two newly-described penguin species, one of them thought to be the largest penguin to ever live – weighing more than 150 kilograms, more than three times the size of the largest living penguins – have been unearthed in New Zealand.

An international team, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, reported the discovery in the Journal of Paleontology. The paper’s senior author, Alan Tennyson from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, discovered the fossils in 57 million-year-old beach boulders in North Otago, on New Zealand’s South Island, between 2016 and 2017.

The fossils were then exposed from within the boulders by Al Manning. They have been identified as being between 59.5 and 55.5 million years old, marking their existence as roughly five to 10 million years after the end-Cretaceous extinction which led to the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

The team used laser scanners to create digital models of the bones and compare them to other fossil species, flying diving birds like auks, and modern penguins. To estimate the size of the new species, the team measured hundreds of modern penguin bones and calculated a regression using flipper bone dimensions to predict weight.

They concluded that the largest flipper bones belong to a penguin that tipped the scales at an astounding 154 kg. In comparison, emperor penguins, the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins, typically weigh between 22 and 45 kg.

“Fossils provide us with evidence of the history of life, and sometimes that evidence is truly surprising,” said co-author Dr Daniel Field from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “Many early fossil penguins attained enormous sizes, easily dwarfing the largest penguins alive today. Our new species, Kumimanu fordycei, is the largest fossil penguin ever discovered—at approximately 350 pounds, it would have weighed more than [basketball player] Shaquille O’Neal at the peak of his dominance!”

Skeletal illustrations of Kumimanu fordycei, Petradyptes stonehousei, and a modern emperor penguin showing the sizes of the new fossil species. Credit: Dr Simone Giovanardi.

The team named the new species Kumimanu fordycei in honour of Dr R. Ewan Fordyce, Professor Emeritus at the University of Otago. “Ewan Fordyce is a legend in our field, but also one of the most generous mentors I have ever known,” said first author Dr Daniel Ksepka from the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. “Without Ewan’s field programme, we wouldn’t even know that many iconic fossil species existed, so it is only right he have his own penguin namesake.”

Multiple specimens of a second penguin species were also found, providing a detailed view of the skeleton. Dubbed Petradyptes stonehousei, it weighed in at 50kg, smaller than Kumimanu fordycei but still well above the weight of an emperor penguin. The name combines the Greek ‘petra’ for rock and ‘dyptes’ for diver, a play on the diving bird being preserved in a boulder. ‘Stonehousei’ honours the late Dr Bernard Stonehouse (1926-2014), the first person to observe the full breeding cycle of the emperor penguin, a major milestone in penguin biology.

These two newly-described species show that penguins got very large early in their evolutionary history, millions of years before they fine-tuned their flipper apparatus. The team observed that the two species retained primitive features such as more slender flipper bones and muscle attachment points that resemble those of flying birds.

Emperor penguins on Snow Hill. Credit: Denis Luyten

When asked why early penguins grew to titanic proportions, Ksepka speculated it made them more efficient in the water. “Size conveys many advantages,” he said. “A bigger penguin could capture larger prey, and more importantly it would have been better at conserving body temperature in cold waters. It is possible breaking the 100lb size barrier allowed the earliest penguins to spread from New Zealand to other parts of the world.”

“When we start thinking of these finds not as isolated bones but as parts of a whole living animal then a picture begins to form,” said co-author Dr Daniel Thomas from Massey University in Auckland. “Large, warm-blooded marine animals living today can dive to great depths. This raises questions about whether Kumimanu fordycei had an ecology that penguins today don’t have, by being able to reach deeper waters and find food that isn’t accessible to living penguins.”

Kumimanu fordycei would have been an utterly astonishing sight on the beaches of New Zealand 57 million years ago, and the combination of its sheer size and the incomplete nature of its fossil remains makes it one of the most intriguing fossil birds ever found,” said Field, who is also the Curator of Ornithology at Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology. “Hopefully future fossil discoveries will shed more light on the biology of this amazing early penguin.”

The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Te Papa Collection Development Fund. Daniel Field is a Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge.

 Reference:
Daniel T. Ksepka et al. ‘Largest-known fossil penguin provides insight into the early evolution of sphenisciform body size and flipper anatomy.’ Journal of Paleontology (2023). DOI: 10.1017/jpa.2022.88


With thanks to:
Bruce Museum
Massey University


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

COVID has increased trust in genetics, study finds

A survey of over 2,000 British adults finds that trust in genetics is high and went up significantly during the pandemic. It also finds that there is a hunger for more coverage of genetics.

These results really challenge us to double our efforts. We need to rise to the new opportunity and the challenge created by the outcomes of this survey.Anne Ferguson-Smith

The pandemic has gone hand-in-hand with a much-increased public profile of science − genetics in particular. Be it the prominence of PCR testing or the development of vaccines, genetics has been in the spotlight in an unprecedented way. Given this, researchers from the Universities of Bath, Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, and Aberdeen wanted to know what the public felt about genetics and whether this new exposure of the science had made a difference.

The Genetics Society funded and commissioned a survey of over 2,000 randomly selected British adults through a public polling company Kantar Public. The researchers found that as a baseline most people were trusting of genetic technologies before the pandemic. Nearly half (45%) reported they trusted it to work for the societal good, 37% were neutral on this question, while 18% said they did not, and only very few (1-2%) were strongly distrusting.

When asked if their trust in genetics had gone up through the pandemic, four times more people said their trust had increased than those who reported that it had gone down. Trust in science more generally had strongly gone up with a third of people saying it had increased.

The results suggest that not only has trust in science gone up, but people want to hear more about it. Less than 10% thought that there was too much coverage of science in the media, while 44% reported that they want to hear more about it.

Anne Ferguson-Smith, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and International Partnerships and Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics at Cambridge University and President of the Genetics Society said: “These results really challenge us to double our efforts. We need to rise to the new opportunity and the challenge created by the outcomes of this survey”.

Co-lead Professor Laurence Hurst of the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath said: “this is potentially important to know – scientists have a tendency to stick in their labs, but it looks like, for the most part, the public not only trust us but that this trust has gone up somewhat and many want to hear more from us about our work.”

Professor Jonathan Pettitt, co-lead from the University of Aberdeen said: “It is hard to see any upsides to the pandemic but perhaps this is one? We never knew that so many people wanted to hear more from scientists.”

Co-lead Professor Alison Woollard of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Oxford said: “We think we have established the limits of science communication. Despite all the talk of PCR over the last many months, we found that 30% hadn’t heard the term or knew it was a tool for testing for the virus. It is hard to see how any science can have more exposure than PCR has had. We need to be realistic and understand that, no matter what, we will never reach everyone. For informing people about things like vaccines this is important to know.”

Dr Adam Rutherford from the UCL department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment said: “We often hear that trust in science is at a low point, but what we found is that most people do trust the science of genetics as the basis of how we address global issues such as pandemics. However, scientists should not be complacent: we also found that the exposure of genetics during the pandemic made those suspicious of science more distrusting, despite the evidence. In a world where these voices can easily be amplified, we must be vigilant that our processes, methodologies and results are clearly and transparently communicated.”

Dr Cristina Fonseca, project coordinator for the Genetics Society, said “having a representative random survey is really vital and allows us insight into the true diversity of opinions.”

This article was adapted from a press release from the Genetics Society.



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source: cam.ac.uk

Small-scale octopus fisheries can provide sustainable source of vital nutrients for tropical coastal communities

Credit: Blue Ventrues

Undernourished coastal communities in the tropics – where children’s growth can be stunted by a lack of micronutrients – can get the vitamins and minerals they need from sustainable small-scale octopus fisheries, say researchers.

Just a small serving of something very, very micronutrient rich, like octopus, can fill critical nutritional gaps.Dr David Willer, Department of Zoology

Research led by Cambridge scientists, and published in Nature Food, shows that tropical small-scale octopus fisheries offer a sustainable source of food and income to communities that face food insecurity, where the prevalence of undernourishment can exceed 40% and stunting in children under five commonly exceeds 30%. 

The high micronutrient density of octopus – including vitamin B12, copper, iron and selenium – means that human populations only need to eat a small quantity to supplement a diet primarily comprising staple plant crops. The new research shows that just a small amount of production in a tropical small-scale octopus fishery can deliver the micronutrient needs to a relatively large number of people.

The fast growth and adaptability of octopuses to environmental change can also facilitate sustainable production, and catch methods in the fisheries – primarily consisting of hand techniques, small-scale lines, pots and traps – are less environmentally harmful than those of large industrial fishing.

Dr David Willer, lead author, from the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow at Murray Edwards College, said: “Worldwide, nearly half of people’s calories come from just three crops – rice, wheat, and maize – which are high energy, but relatively low in key nutrients. Just a small serving of something very, very micronutrient rich, like octopus, can fill critical nutritional gaps. And, of course, if you get better nutrition as a child you’re much more physically and mentally prepared for later life, which can lead to better jobs, better employment and better social development.

“These small fisheries also provide an income and a livelihood, often to women whose economic status is enhanced as a result. Small-scale octopus fisheries revolve around local communities and potentially that gives them a greater resilience against market pressures and other disruptions to global food supply and trade.”

Small-scale fisheries, across all sectors, currently provide more than two-thirds of the fish and seafood destined for human consumption worldwide, and employ over 90% of fishers involved in capture fisheries. 47% of the workforce employed in these fisheries are women.

Based on a global review of data from global seafood databases and published literature, and written in partnership with science-led social enterprise Blue Ventures, the research found that in many cases tropical small-scale octopus fisheries are operating using relatively low impact techniques, and when combined with local and national management approaches can provide a more sustainable source of seafood. Successful approaches include periodic fishery closures, size restrictions, and licences. The need for knowledge transfer of fishing gears is also crucial so that the message on fish sustainability and securing the food supply and economic stability is spread widely. 
 



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Interfering in big decisions friends and family take could violate a crucial moral right, philosopher argues

Two people speaking, sat at a table
wo people speaking, sat at a table Credit: Charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

We have a moral duty to allow others to make ‘transformative choices’ such as changing careers, migrating and having children, a new study argues. This duty can be outweighed by competing moral considerations such as preventing murder but in many cases we should interfere with far greater caution.

The ability to see that the person we’ve become is the product of decisions that we made for ourselves is very importantFarbod Akhlaghi

If you’ve told an adult friend or family member that they should not take a job, not date someone, not try skydiving or not move abroad, you may have violated a crucial moral right to ‘revelatory autonomy’ and ‘self-authorship’, according to a philosopher at Christ’s College, Cambridge.

Dr Farbod Akhlaghi’s study, published in the journal Analysis, is the first of its kind to suggest that we have a moral right to ‘revelatory autonomy’, that is the right to discover for ourselves who we’ll become as a result of making ‘transformative choices’, choices to have experiences that teach us what that experience will be like for us whilst also changing our core preferences, values and desires.

Dr Akhlaghi says: “The ability to see that the person we’ve become is the product of decisions that we made for ourselves is very important.

“I’m not telling people what to do. I’m just highlighting part of what is morally at stake in these very common interactions and trying to develop a framework for us to understand them. I hope some may find this helpful, as these will always be difficult moments for all of us.”

Traditionally, philosophers interested in ‘transformative experiences’ have focused on the decision-maker not on the people who are in a position to influence that person’s choices. But Dr Akhlaghi thinks that these neglected interactions present ‘an urgent ethical challenge’:

“There are lots of different reasons why we might seek to intervene – some selfish, others well meaning – but whatever our motivation, we can cause significant harm, including to the people we love most.”

While Akhlaghi accepts that advice can be offered without crossing the moral line, he warns that it is all too easy to slip into various forms of interference, such as forcing, coercing, manipulating or even ‘rationally persuading’ someone away from a transformative choice, in ways that may violate their right to revelatory autonomy.

Akhlaghi says: “Rational persuasion is probably the most common form of interference. Giving, when asked, factual information about a choice that you have knowledge about and the other person does not, can be justified. But while rational persuasion respects someone’s ability to reason, even this form of engagement can involve disrespecting their autonomous self-authorship.

For example, Akhlaghi continues: “Offering reasons, arguments or evidence as if one is in a privileged position with respect to what the other person’s experience would be like for them disrespects their moral right to revelatory autonomy.”

Initially inspired to consider this area of moral philosophy by personal experiences, Dr Akhlaghi examines and rejects a number of other conditions under which it could be argued that trying to prevent someone from making transformative choices is morally justified.

For example

Dissuading someone from becoming a parent because you think parenthood would make their life worse is problematic because becoming a parent is a positive experience for some and not for others, and no one can know that outcome in advance, even if the person doing the dissuading has experienced being a parent themselves.

A different example in the study relates to dissuading someone from making a career change that involves a big pay cut because you think that they would struggle to afford their expensive tastes. This is just as problematic, Akhlaghi says, because:

“We can only know what the future person’s interests are and whether their present interests will be fulfilled after a transformative choice has been made.”

“The person who changes job might manage to afford their expensive tastes and we don’t even know if that future person would still have these tastes. This highlights another problem – whose interests matter morally when trying to justify interfering: those of the present or the future person?”

Is it ever right to interfere?

“It is only permissible to interfere to try to prevent a transformative choice,” Akhlaghi argues “if someone’s right to revelatory autonomy is outweighed by competing moral considerations.”

A would-be killer’s right to revelatory autonomy is, for instance, plausibly outweighed by the wrongness of killing others solely to discover who they would become by doing so. Equally, protecting a friend from gratuitous self-mutilation would plausibly outweigh their right to autonomously discover what it would be like to harm themselves in this way.

Akhlaghi suggests that the more likely it is that a choice will affect someone’s ‘core preferences, identity and values’, the stronger the moral reasons would need to be to justify interfering in their decision. For instance, interfering in someone’s decision to go to university or not, would require far stronger moral reasons than them choosing whether to eat a cheeseburger or not.

Finally, Akhlaghi clarifies that his study concerns voluntary choices to have ‘transformative experiences.’ Some such experiences are instead either the unintended consequences of something we did, or ones we are forced into as, for example, children might be by a divorce. These raise different but related problems he hopes to explore in future work.

Reference

Farbod Akhlaghi, ‘Transformative experience and the right to revelatory autonomy‘, Analysis (2022), DOI: 10.1093/analys/anac084



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Sugary drinks tax may have prevented over 5,000 cases of obesity a year in year six girls alone

Child’s hands pouring a drink into a glass. Credit: ti-ja (Getty Images)

The introduction of the soft drinks industry levy – the ‘sugary drinks tax’ – in England was followed by a drop in the number of cases of obesity among older primary school children, according to Cambridge researchers. Taking into account current trends in obesity, their estimates suggest that around 5,000 cases of obesity per year may have been prevented in year six girls alone.

We urgently need to find ways to tackle the increasing numbers of children living with obesity, otherwise we risk our children growing up to face significant health problems. That was one reason why the UK’s soft drinks industry levy was introduced, and the evidence so far is promisingNina Rogers

The study, published today in PLOS Medicine, looked at the impact of the levy on reception age children and those in year six, but found no significant association between the levy and obesity levels in year six boys or younger children from reception class.

The research was supported by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and the Medical Research Council.

Obesity has become a global public health problem. In England, one in ten reception age children (four to five years old) is living with obesity and this figure doubles to one in five children in year six (10 to 11 years). Children who are obese are more likely to suffer from serious health problems including high blood pressure, type II diabetes and depression in childhood and in later life.

In the UK, young people consume significantly more added sugars than is recommended – by late adolescence, they typically consume 70g of added sugar per day, more than double the recommended amount (30g). A large source of this is sugar-sweetened drinks. Children from deprived households are more likely to be at risk of obesity and to be heavy consumers of sugar-sweetened drinks.

In April 2018, to protect children from excessive sugar consumption and tackle childhood obesity, the UK governments introduced a two-tier sugar tax on soft drinks – the soft drinks industry levy. The tax was targeted at manufacturers of the drinks to incentivise them to reduce the sugar content of soft drinks.

Researchers from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge tracked changes in the levels of obesity in children in England in reception year and year six between 2014 and 2020. Taking account of previous trends in obesity levels, they compared changes in levels of obesity 19 months after the sugar tax came into effect.

The team found that the introduction of the sugar tax was associated with an 8% relative reduction* in obesity levels in year six girls, equivalent to preventing 5,234 cases of obesity per year in this group alone. Reductions were greatest in girls whose schools were in deprived areas, where children are known to consume the largest amount of sugary drinks – those living in the most deprived areas saw a 9% reduction.

However, the team found no associations between the sugar tax coming into effect and changes in obesity levels in children from reception class. In year 6 boys, there was no overall change in obesity prevalence.

Dr Nina Rogers from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “We urgently need to find ways to tackle the increasing numbers of children living with obesity, otherwise we risk our children growing up to face significant health problems. That was one reason why the UK’s soft drinks industry levy was introduced, and the evidence so far is promising. We’ve shown for the first time that it is likely to have helped prevent thousands of children each year becoming obese.

“It isn’t a straightforward picture, though, as it was mainly older girls who benefited. But the fact that we saw the biggest difference among girls from areas of high deprivation is important and is a step towards reducing the health inequalities they face.”

Although the researchers found an association rather than a causal link, this study adds to previous findings that the levy was associated with a substantial reduction in the amount of sugar in soft drinks.

Senior author Professor Jean Adams from the MRC Epidemiology Unit said: “We know that consuming too many sugary drinks contributes to obesity and that the UK soft drinks levy led to a drop in the amount of sugar in soft drinks available in the UK, so it makes sense that we also see a drop in cases of obesity, although we only found this in girls. Children from more deprived backgrounds tend to consume the largest amount of sugary drinks, and it was among girls in this group that we saw the biggest change.”

There are several reasons why the sugar tax did not lead to changes in levels of obesity among the younger children, they say. Very young children consume fewer sugar-sweetened drinks than older children, so the soft drinks levy would have had a smaller effect. Similarly, fruit juices are not included in the levy, but contribute similar amounts of sugar in young children’s diets as sugar-sweetened beverages.

It’s unclear why the sugar tax might affect obesity prevalence in girls and boys differently, however, especially since boys are higher consumers of sugar-sweetened beverages. One explanation the researchers put forward is the possible impact of advertising – numerous studies have found that boys are often exposed to more food advertising content than girls, both through higher levels of TV viewing and in how adverts are framed. Physical activity is often used to promote junk food and boys, compared to girls, have been shown to be more likely to believe that energy dense junk foods depicted in adverts will boost physical performance and so are more likely to choose energy-dense, nutrient-poor products following celebrity endorsements.

The study was a collaboration involving researchers from the University of Cambridge, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and University of Bath.

*A relative reduction is the difference between the expected incidence of obesity had the sugar tax not been introduced and the actual incidence.

Reference
Rogers, NT et al. Associations between trajectories of obesity prevalence in English primary school children and the UK soft drink industry levy: an interrupted time series analysis of surveillance data. PLOS Med; 26 Jan 2023; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1004160



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The naturalist with autism named on the 2023 New Year Honours

Dara McAnulty is an award-winning author and environmental campaigner. This month he was awarded a BEM for services to nature and the autistic community.

I’ve always loved the natural world and wanted to understand how it works. This is intertwined with my love of science, which I’ve based a lot of my writing on, and is the main driver for everything I do in life.

I study Natural Sciences. The course allows students to pick a mixture of modules from physics, chemistry or biology. The flexibility is good for me because I’ve always struggled to choose exactly what I want to do.

The workload is intense – there’s a lot of time when you’re in lectures, supervisions or the lab – but I like that because I enjoy doing lots of work. It’s a massive jump up from school where I barely needed to study to understand anything. Here you have to put in the effort.

I didn’t expect to get into Cambridge. But I was getting decent grades, so I picked it as the top option. I also thought I’d be bored at other universities if I wasn’t needing to work as hard as I do here – I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I had a lot of free time.

There’s something in the air at Cambridge. There’s this massive number of smart people who are making a huge difference in the world. They are using what they’re learning to do so much cool stuff. It’s inspiring.

You fall into these strange and wonderful conversations that you just wouldn’t have anywhere else. You realise that although we’re all studying different courses they interlink in unexpected ways. You find that your expertise can help another person in a completely different field.

I’m only just starting my second term but there’s been so many highlights so far. One of my favourite moments was rowing in the Fairbairn Cup, a boat race on the Cam organised by Jesus College. Another was meeting up with Robert Macfarlane (a massively respected nature writer and a member of the English Faculty here) and finding a jay feather together. And then just being taught by incredible people who are so knowledgeable about their subject areas and not afraid to go into unusual concepts and ideas that I’ve never been exposed to before.

I grew up at the foot of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland, and I feel as close to nature as I do to my heartbeat. I was diagnosed with autism when I was five and I started writing the Diary of a Young Naturalist when I was 14. It expresses how I feel about the quiet places of the countryside, my days and moments with wildlife.

I’ve had a wee bit of a chance to explore the countryside around Cambridge. I’ve been to the Grantchester Fens and Paradise Nature Reserve which are both lovely. On the way to the Botanic Gardens – where there’s an almost-sad-looking-stream – I saw a beautiful kingfisher which made my week.

My favourite spot in Cambridge is the Reaches. As you’re coming up the river the boathouses disappear, then the buildings and suddenly you’re out in the Fens and can see for ages and ages. Because we get up ridiculously early to row, the sun is rising and it’s so beautiful.

I find the lack of hills disturbing – I think Robert Macfarlane put it quite well when he referred to ‘horizontigo’. We both love mountains. I’ve grown up by them the whole of my life so it’s very strange to go out in the countryside and see nothing for tens of miles until the horizon.

I think I’d probably go insane if I lived right in the centre of Cambridge but at Queens’ I can be out in the Fens or parkland in five minutes. Its location is partly why I choose it. I also like that it’s a medium sized College.

Settling in went smoothly. Queens’ makes sure that everyone is feeling welcome and is really good when it comes to mental health. It also helps that Queens’ is just a five-minute walk away from everything.

I do miss my family a lot when I’m away. But the good thing about Cambridge is that I don’t have enough time to feel homesick because it keeps you rushing about. It’s important to get that bit of independence and learn how to function properly as a human in the world. I’ll just take every day as it comes and keep going one step at a time.

I’ve learnt that if you’re feeling a little bit down, sometimes getting outside can really help. Trying to make a bit of time to have those quiet moments when you can piece together all the things that are going on helps to settle the mind. It’s easy to get into the mindset of: “I’m alone; I have to get through this by myself” but no, you don’t need to do that, instead go and talk to someone because in fact people genuinely do care.

From my personal experience I’d also say – and this is going to sound so clichéd – when people tell you that you can’t do something – have a go anyway. Even if it doesn’t work out at least you gave it a try. We only get a certain amount of time in our lives, and we’ve got to try to make every little thing count.

Being named on the New Year Honours list felt bizarre. When I first saw the email I thought it was a scam. But no, it was in fact real. I’ve not entirely processed it yet, but it was incredible.


Published 30 January 2023
With thanks to:

Dara McAnulty


Words:
Charis Goodyear

Photography:
Lloyd Mann


The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

source: cam.ac.uk

Just Like Humans, More Intelligent Jays have Greater Self-Control

 

Jay
source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

A study has found that Eurasian jays can pass a version of the ‘marshmallow test’ – and those with the greatest self-control also score the highest on intelligence tests.

 

It’s just mind-boggling that some jays can wait so long for their favourite food.”

Alex Schnell

This is the first evidence of a link between self-control and intelligence in birds.

Self-control – the ability to resist temptation in favour of a better but delayed reward – is a vital skill that underpins effective decision-making and future planning.

Jays are members of the corvid family, often nicknamed the ‘feathered apes’ because they rival non-human primates in their cognitive abilities. Corvids hide, or ‘cache’, their food to save it for later. In other words, they need to delay immediate gratification to plan for future meals. The researchers think this may have driven the evolution of self-control in these birds.

Self-control has been previously shown to be linked to intelligence in humans, chimpanzees and – in an earlier study by these researchers – in cuttlefish. The greater the intelligence, the greater the self-control.

The new results show that the link between intelligence and self-control exists across distantly related animal groups, suggesting it has evolved independently several times.

Of all the corvids, jays in particular are vulnerable to having their caches stolen by other birds. Self-control also enables them to wait for the right moment to hide their food without being seen or heard.

The results are published today in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

To test the self-control of ten Eurasian jays, Garrulus glandarius, researchers designed an experiment inspired by the 1972 Stanford Marshmallow test – in which children were offered a choice between one marshmallow immediately, or two if they waited for a period of time.

Instead of marshmallows, the jays were presented with mealworms, bread and cheese. Mealworms are a common favourite; bread and cheese come second but individuals vary in their preference for one over the other.

The birds had to choose between bread or cheese – available immediately, and mealworm that they could see but could only get to after a delay, when a Perspex screen was raised. Could they delay immediate gratification and wait for their favourite food?

A range of delay times was tested, from five seconds to five and a half minutes, before the mealworm was made available if the bird had resisted the temptation to eat the bread or cheese.

All the birds in the experiment managed to wait for the worm, but some could wait much longer than others. Top of the class was ‘JayLo’, who ignored a piece of cheese and waited five and a half minutes for a mealworm. The worst performers, ‘Dolci’ and ‘Homer’, could only wait a maximum of 20 seconds.

“It’s just mind-boggling that some jays can wait so long for their favourite food. In multiple trials, I sat there watching JayLo ignore a piece of cheese for over five minutes – I was getting bored, but she was just patiently waiting for the worm,” said Dr Alex Schnell at the University’s Department of Psychology, first author of the report.

The jays looked away from the bread or cheese when it was presented to them, as if to distract themselves from temptation. Similar behaviour has been seen in chimpanzees and children.

 

 

JayLo patiently ignores the cheese (in right box) to wait for the worm (in left box).

The researchers also presented the jays with five cognitive tasks that are commonly used to measure general intelligence. The birds that performed better in these tasks also managed to wait longer for the mealworm reward. This suggests that self-control is linked with intelligence in jays.

“The birds’ performance varied across individuals – some did really well in all the tasks and others were mediocre. What was most interesting was that if a bird was good at one of the tasks, it was good at all of them – which suggests that a general intelligence factor underlies their performance,” said Schnell.

The jays also adjusted their self-control behaviour according to the circumstances: in another experiment where the worm was visible but always out of reach, the jays always ate the immediately available bread or cheese. And the length of time they were willing to wait for the worm fell if it was pitted against their second most preferred food as the immediate treat, compared to their third. This flexibility shows that jays only delay gratification when it is warranted.

Research by other scientists has found that children taking the Stanford marshmallow test vary greatly in their self-control, and this ability is linked to their general intelligence. Children that can resist temptation for longer also get higher scores in a range of academic tasks.

This research was approved by the University of Cambridge Animal Ethics Review Committee, and performed in accordance with the Home Office Regulations and the ASAB Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research and Teaching.

The research was funded by the Royal Society, Fyssen Foundation, and European Research Council.

Reference

Schnell, A.K., Boeckle, M., Clayton, N.S. ‘Waiting for a better possibility: delay of gratification in corvids and its relationship to other cognitive capacities.’ Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, October 2022.


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Companies’ ‘Deforestation-Free’ Supply Chain Pledges Have Barely Impacted Forest Clearance in the Amazon

An area of the Amazon rainforest cleared for soya production
source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

More companies must make and implement zero-deforestation supply chain commitments in order to significantly reduce deforestation and protect diverse ecosystems, say researchers.

 

Zero-deforestation pledges are a great first step, but they need to be implemented to have an effect on forests.

Rachael Garrett

Corporate pledges not to buy soybeans produced on land deforested after 2006 have reduced tree clearance in the Brazilian Amazon by just 1.6% between 2006 and 2015.

This equates to a protected area of 2,300 km2 in the Amazon rainforest: barely the size of Oxfordshire.

The findings, made by tracing traders’ soy supplies back to their source, are published today in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The work involved a team from the University of Cambridge, Boston University, ETH Zurich and New York University.

The researchers also discovered that in the Cerrado, Brazil’s tropical savannah, zero-deforestation commitments have not been adopted effectively – leaving over 50% of soy-suitable forests and their biodiversity without protection.

Brazil has the largest remaining tropical forests on the planet, but these are being rapidly cleared to rear cattle and grow crops including soybean. Demand for soy is surging around the world, and an estimated 4,800 km2 of rainforest is cleared each year to grow soybeans.

The majority of soy is consumed indirectly by humans: soybean is widely used as feed for factory-farmed chickens, pigs, fish and cattle. It also accounts for around 27% of global vegetable oil production, and as a complete protein source it often forms a key part of vegetarian and vegan diets.

By 2021, at least 94 companies had adopted zero-deforestation commitments – pledging to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. But the study revealed that many of these commitments are not put into practice.

And the researchers say that adoption of zero-deforestation commitments is lagging among small and medium sized food companies.

“Zero-deforestation pledges are a great first step, but they need to be implemented to have an effect on forests – and right now it’s mainly the bigger companies that have the resources to do this,” said Professor Rachael Garrett, Moran Professor of Conservation and Development at the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, a joint senior author of the report.

She added: “If soybean traders actually implemented their global commitments for zero-deforestation production, current levels of forest clearance in Brazil could be reduced by around 40 percent.”

Deforestation is the second largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions after fossil fuel use. It also causes the loss of diverse animal and plant life, threatens the livelihoods of indigenous groups, and increases inequality and conflict.

The researchers say that the supply chains of other food products including cattle, oil palm and cocoa supply chains are more complex than soy, making them even more difficult to monitor.

“If supply chain policies intend to contribute to the task of tackling deforestation in Brazil, it’s crucial to expand zero-deforestation supply chain policies beyond soy,” said Garrett, who is also Professor of Environmental Policy at ETH Zurich.

A ‘soy moratorium’ was the first voluntary zero-deforestation commitment in the tropics – by signing it, companies agreed not to buy soybeans produced on land deforested after 2006. But while the commitment was implemented in the Brazilian Amazon, most Brazilian soy is produced in the Cerrado – which is rich in biodiversity.

The researchers say their findings suggest private sector efforts are not enough to halt deforestation: supportive political leadership is also vital to conservation efforts.

“Supply chain governance should not be a substitute for state-led forest policies, which are critical to enable zero deforestation monitoring and enforcement, have better potential to cover different crops, land users, and regions,” said Garrett.

In 2021, the COP26 Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use committed to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. It was signed by over 100 countries, representing 85% of global forests.

This research was funded by the US National Science Foundation, NASA Land-Cover and Land-Use Change Program, and US Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

Reference

Gollnow, F., Cammelli F., Carlson, K.M., and Garrett, R. D. ‘Gaps in Adoption and Implementation Limit the Current and Potential Effectiveness of Zero-Deforestation Supply Chain Policies for Soy.’ October 2022, Environmental Research Letters. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac97f6


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UK police fail to meet ‘legal and Ethical Standards’ In Use of Facial Recognition

source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

Researchers devise an audit tool to test whether police use of facial recognition poses a threat to fundamental human rights, and analyse three deployments of the technology by British forces – with all three failing to meet “minimum ethical and legal standards”.

 

Building a unique audit system enabled us to examine the issues of privacy, equality, accountability, and oversight that should accompany any use of such technologies by the police

Gina Neff

A team from the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy created the new audit tool to evaluate “compliance with the law and national guidance” around issues such as privacy, equality, and freedom of expression and assembly.

Based on the findings, published in a new report, the experts are joining calls for a ban on police use of facial recognition in public spaces.

“There is a lack of robust redress mechanisms for individuals and communities harmed by police deployments of the technology,” said the report’s lead author Evani Radiya-Dixit, a visiting fellow at Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre.

“To protect human rights and improve accountability in how technology is used, we must ask what values we want to embed in technology.”

Researchers constructed the audit tool based on current legal guidelines – including the UK’s Data Protection and Equality acts – as well as outcomes from UK court cases and feedback from civil society organisations and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

They applied their ethical and legal standards to three uses of facial recognition technology (FRT) by UK police. One was the Bridges court case, in which a Cardiff-based civil liberties campaigner appealed against South Wales Police’s use of automated FRT to live-scan crowds and compare faces to those on a criminal “watch list”.

The researchers also tested the Metropolitan Police’s trials of similar live FRT use, and a further example from South Wales Police in which officers used FRT apps on their smartphones to scan crowds in order to identify “wanted individuals in real time”.

In all three cases, they found that important information about police use of FRT is “kept from view”, including scant demographic data published on arrests or other outcomes, making it difficult to evaluate whether the tools “perpetuate racial profiling” say researchers.

In addition to lack of transparency, the researchers found little in the way of accountability – with no clear recourse for people or communities negatively affected by police use, or misuse, of the tech. “Police forces are not necessarily answerable or held responsible for harms caused by facial recognition technology,” said Radiya-Dixit.

Some of the FRT uses lacked regular oversight from an independent ethics committee or indeed the public, say the researchers, and did not do enough to ensure there was a reliable “human in the loop” when scanning untold numbers of faces among crowds of thousands while hunting for criminals.

In the South Wales Police’s smartphone app trial, even the “watch list” included images of people innocent under UK law – those previously arrested but not convicted – despite the fact that retention of such images is unlawful.

“We find that all three of these deployments fail to meet the minimum ethical and legal standards based on our research on police use of facial recognition,” said Radiya-Dixit.

Prof Gina Neff, Executive Director at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, said: “Over the last few years, police forces around the world, including in England and Wales, have deployed facial recognition technologies. Our goal was to assess whether these deployments used known practices for the safe and ethical use of these technologies.”

“Building a unique audit system enabled us to examine the issues of privacy, equality, accountability, and oversight that should accompany any use of such technologies by the police,” Neff said.

Officers are increasingly under-resourced and overburdened, write the researchers, and FRT is seen as a fast, efficient and cheap way to track down persons of interest.

At least ten police forces in England and Wales have trialled facial recognition, with trials involving FRT use for operational policing purposes – although different forces use different standards.

Questions of privacy run deep for policing technology that scans and potentially retains vast numbers of facial images without knowledge or consent. The researchers highlight a possible “chilling effect” if FRT leads to a reluctance to exercise fundamental rights among the public – right to protest, for example – for fear of potential consequences.

Use of FRT also raises discrimination concerns. The researchers point out that, historically, surveillance systems are used to monitor marginalised groups, and recent studies suggest the technology itself contains inherent bias that disproportionately misidentifies women, people of colour, and people with disabilities.

Given regulatory gaps and failures to meet minimum standards set out by the new audit toolkit, the researchers write that they support calls for a “ban on police use of facial recognition in publicly accessible spaces”.

 


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‘Stressed’ Cells Offer Clues To Eliminating Build-Up Of Toxic Proteins in Dementia

Nurse taking care of elderly sick woman in wheelchair
source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

It’s often said that a little stress can be good for you. Now scientists have shown that the same may be true for cells, uncovering a newly-discovered mechanism that might help prevent the build-up of tangles of proteins commonly seen in dementia.

 

We were astonished to find that stressing the cell actually eliminated the aggregates – not by degrading them or clearing them out, but by unravelling the aggregates, potentially allowing them to refold correctly

Edward Avezov

A characteristic of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – collectively known as neurodegenerative diseases – is the build-up of misfolded proteins. These proteins, such as amyloid and tau in Alzheimer’s disease, form ‘aggregates’ that can cause irreversible damage to nerve cells in the brain.

Protein folding is a normal process in the body, and in healthy individuals, cells carry out a form of quality control to ensure that proteins are correctly folded and that misfolded proteins are destroyed. But in neurodegenerative diseases, this system becomes impaired, with potentially devastating consequences.

As the global population ages, an increasing number of people are being diagnosed with dementia, making the search for effective drugs ever more urgent. However, progress has been slow, with no medicines yet available that can prevent or remove the build-up of aggregates.

In a study published today in Nature Communications, a team led by scientists at the UK Dementia Research Institute, University of Cambridge, has identified a new mechanism that appears to reverse the build-up of aggregates, not by eliminating them completely, but rather by ‘refolding’ them.

“Just like when we get stressed by a heavy workload, so, too, cells can get ‘stressed’ if they’re called upon to produce a large amount of proteins,” explained Dr Edward Avezov from the UK Dementia Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

“There are many reasons why this might be, for example when they are producing antibodies in response to an infection. We focused on stressing a component of cells known as the endoplasmic reticulum, which is responsible for producing around a third of our proteins – and assumed that this stress might cause misfolding.”

The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a membrane structure found in mammalian cells. It carries out a number of important functions, including the synthesis, folding, modification and transport of proteins needed on the surface or outside the cell. Dr Avezov and colleagues hypothesised that stressing the ER might lead to protein misfolding and aggregation by diminishing its ability to function correctly, leading to increased aggregation.

They were surprised to discover the opposite was true.

“We were astonished to find that stressing the cell actually eliminated the aggregates – not by degrading them or clearing them out, but by unravelling the aggregates, potentially allowing them to refold correctly,” said Dr Avezov.

“If we can find a way of awakening this mechanism without stressing the cells – which could cause more damage than good – then we might be able to find a way of treating some dementias.”

The main component of this mechanism appears to be one of a class of proteins known as heat shock proteins (HSPs), more of which are made when cells are exposed to temperatures above their normal growth temperature, and in response to stress.

Dr Avezov speculates that this might help explain one of the more unusual observations within the field of dementia research. “There have been some studies recently of people in Scandinavian countries who regularly use saunas, suggesting that they may be at lower risk of developing dementia. One possible explanation for this is that this mild stress triggers a higher activity of HSPs, helping correct tangled proteins.”

One of the factors that has previous hindered this field of research has been the inability to visualise these processes in live cells. Working with teams from Pennsylvania State University and the University of Algarve, the team has developed a technique that allows them to detect protein misfolding in live cells. It relies on measuring light patterns of a glowing chemical over a scale of nanoseconds – one billionth of a second.

“It’s fascinating how measuring our probe’s fluorescence lifetime on the nanoseconds scale under a laser-powered microscope makes the otherwise invisible aggregates inside the cell obvious,” said Professor Eduardo Melo, one of the leading authors, from the University of Algarve, Portugal.

The research was supported by the UK Dementia Research Institute, which receives its funding from the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, as well as the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

Reference
Melo, EP, et al. Stress-induced protein disaggregation in the Endoplasmic Reticulum catalysed by BiP. Nature Comms; 6 May 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30238-2


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Professor Stephen J Toope To Lead Global Research Organisation

source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

Professor Stephen J Toope will become the next President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) after completing his five-year term of office as Vice-Chancellor at the University of Cambridge.

 

While I look forward to this new challenge, I am immensely proud of what we as a university community have achieved in a remarkable five years.

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor

Based in Toronto, and working across national and disciplinary boundaries, CIFAR brings together some of the world’s best researchers to address the most pressing and complex issues facing individuals and societies.

Under Professor Toope’s leadership at Cambridge, sustainability and widening student access have been key areas of focus for the University, with several new and exciting research and teaching initiatives launched. These include the ambitious climate initiative Cambridge Zero, and the creation of the landmark Cambridge Foundation Year. Professor Toope has also led the university sector in pushing towards a carbon-neutral endowment fund, and has overseen remarkable progress on a £500 million Student Support Initiative. During his tenure, the “Dear World… Yours, Cambridge” fundraising campaign for the collegiate University surpassed its £2 billion target. He has guided the University through a global pandemic and into a programme of recovery that will help build the Cambridge of the future.

Professor Toope said: “CIFAR is an extraordinary organisation, and I am honoured to be offered this opportunity to lead it. While I look forward to this new challenge, I am immensely proud of what we as a university community have achieved in a remarkable five years. The University of Cambridge is without question a force for good in the world. It has been a great privilege to work with so many gifted people carrying out such extraordinary work.”

Professor Toope will take on the new role from 1 November 2022. The process to recruit a new Vice-Chancellor is under way.


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Programmes To Host Scholars and Students Affected By The War On Ukraine

source: www.cam.ac.uk

The humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Ukraine continues to galvanise our community. Led by the Ukraine Taskforce, the Collegiate University has developed a number of programmes to support scholars and students affected by the war.

 

I know many within the University have worked tirelessly to put these programmes in place

Kamal Munir

In October, the University hopes to welcome upwards of 20 students affected by the war on Ukraine. They will be funded by a range of scholarships including The Rowan Williams Cambridge Studentship, which is a programme established by the Cambridge Trust to support undergraduate and postgraduate students applying to study at Cambridge from a conflict zone.

The Rowan Williams Scholarships will be fully-funded covering tuition fees and maintenance and will also assist with students’ upfront expenses such as travel, visa costs and the immigration health surcharge. The Cambridge Trust is working with other funders to maximise the number of offers we can make. All recipients of these funds must have a conditional offer from the University to be considered for funding.

The School of Clinical Medicine has made a twinning agreement with Kharkiv National Medical University to accept medical students on six week clinical placements in Cambridge. Students will be placed at either Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust or Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Each student will be hosted by a member of the University or one of the hospitals, who have volunteered to provide accommodation during their visit. Ten students will take part initially, with further cohorts expected to follow. The first students are expected to arrive within the next one to two months, subject to the government granting visiting visas.

The Collegiate University has so far submitted two applications to the British Academy and Council for At-Risk Academics (Cara) Researchers at Risk Fellowship Scheme. If successful, the fellowships will bring two scholars and their dependents to Cambridge for up to two years. These applications were generously supported by Darwin College and Trinity College.

The University is also in conversations with Ukrainian institutions to establish non-residential scholarships for up to fifteen Ukrainian scholars who have been displaced by the war and are living in Ukraine or neighbouring countries. The scholarships will provide a stipend, formal links to Cambridge academics and remote access to resources that will enable them to continue academic study.

Some 21 students currently studying in Cambridge have been identified as having been directly affected by the war. They are being supported through the University’s Ukrainian Conflict Student Hardship Fund.

In response to conversations with Ukrainian university representatives, the University Library and Cambridge University Press and Assessment are identifying specific ways in which they can assist in partnership with their national professional bodies. Cambridge University Press and Assessment has made the majority of its academic journal content free to institutions registered in Ukraine.

Additional programmes are in development, and the University remains ready to sponsor and host displaced doctoral students and academic staff as soon as the government visa scheme enables the University to act as a visa sponsor. Thank you to those University institutions that have come forward with offers of support.

“I have been heartened by the generosity displayed by colleagues across Cambridge who have raised funds or proposed activities to support those affected by the tragic war on Ukraine,” said Professor Kamal Munir, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for University Community and Engagement. “I know many within the University have worked tirelessly to put these programmes in place and we will continue to identify opportunities for the Collegiate University to provide further support in the medium to long-term.”


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Protected Areas Saw Dramatic Spikes In Fires During COVID Lockdowns, Study Finds

source: www.cam.ac.uk

 

Scientists suggest that some staffing of protected areas should be considered “essential services” in future crises.

 

When all staff were pulled out of protected areas in March 2020 the fires spiked dramatically

Andrew Balmford

The number of fires inside protected conservation areas across the island of Madagascar shot up dramatically when COVID-19 lockdowns led to the suspension of any on-site management for five months during 2020.

The findings suggest that governments should consider keeping some staff in protected areas at all times as an “essential service”, even during periods of health crisis and travel restriction, argue the scientists behind the study.

They say that more attention must be paid to the management of protected areas, not just expanding their coverage, at the long-delayed convention to set international biodiversity goals later this year.

Madagascar is a renowned biodiversity “hotspot”, home to species such as its famous lemur populations that don’t exist anywhere else. The island is also a frontline in the fight between wildlife protection and habitat loss.

The study, published today in Nature Sustainability, is the first to gauge the effects of the pandemic on protected conservation areas.

An international team of scientists led by Cambridge and Helsinki universities used historical and contemporary fire and weather data to predict rates of burning in Madagascar’s protected areas for every month during 2012-2020.

They compared this data modelling to counts of actual blazes collected by satellites to detect periods when fires raged far beyond what might be expected from the climate and previous patterns of burning.

When the first lockdowns of 2020 halted the on-site management of protected areas, the numbers of fires – much of it in threatened forest habitat – soared by 209% in March, 223% in April, 78% in May, 248% in June and 76% in July.

However, burning quickly returned to normal levels as predicted by the modelling once management operations resumed – despite continued border closures and economic hardships as a result of the ongoing pandemic.

Researchers describe this scale of burning inside protected areas as “unprecedented” in recent Malagasy history. The only comparable periods were during two spells of civil unrest in 2013 and 2018 in the run-up to elections, but even then the fieriest month was just a 134% increase in burning.

“The disruption caused by COVID-19 clearly demonstrates the dramatic impact that interruptions to the management of protected areas can have on habitats,” said senior author Prof Andrew Balmford from the University of Cambridge.

“Over the last twenty years, excess fires in Malagasy protected areas have been limited to occasional blocks of one or two months.

“When all staff were pulled out of protected areas in March 2020 the fires spiked dramatically and continued at a ferocious level for an unprecedented five months, falling away exactly as staff started to return,” he said.

While the team says they cannot know for sure what caused all the fires during the early months of COVID-19, lead author Dr Johanna Eklund from the University of Helsinki said that local communities already struggling economically would have come under further pressure from lockdowns.

“Madagascar has very high rates of poverty, and has a history of conflict between the livelihoods of vulnerable people and saving unique biodiversity,” said Eklund, currently a visiting researcher at Cambridge.

“The pandemic increased economic insecurity for many, so it would not be surprising if this led some to encroach on protected lands while on-site management activities were on hold.”

Eklund suggests that a lack of on-site patrolling to prevent any fires from spreading combined with communities resorting to “swidden” – or slash-and-burn – agriculture may be behind much of the spike in lockdown fires. These techniques clear vegetation for crops and cattle-grazing but are illegal inside protected areas.

“Importantly, the study did not measure fires outside conservation sites, so we cannot measure how much protected areas actually mitigated burning compared to areas without protection,” Eklund said.

The team used imaging data from NASA satellite systems capable of detecting “thermal anomalies” and noted for near real-time fire management alerts.

Eklund, who has conducted research in Madagascar for close to a decade, realised she could still remotely assist those protecting the forests. “Satellites pick up fires really well and show where protected areas are under pressure.”

Co-author Domoina Rakotobe, former coordinator for the Malagasy organisation Forum Lafa, the network of terrestrial protected area managers, added: “The high levels of burning during the lockdowns clearly shows the value of on-the-ground management, with protected area teams working with communities to support local livelihoods and safeguard natural resources.”


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Taste of The Future: Robot Chef Learns To ‘Taste As You Go’

 

A robot ‘chef’ has been trained to taste food at different stages of the chewing process to assess whether it’s sufficiently seasoned.

 

If robots are to be used for certain aspects of food preparation, it’s important that they are able to ‘taste’ what they’re cooking

Grzegorz Sochacki

Working in collaboration with domestic appliances manufacturer Beko, researchers from the University of Cambridge trained their robot chef to assess the saltiness of a dish at different stages of the chewing process, imitating a similar process in humans.

Their results could be useful in the development of automated or semi-automated food preparation by helping robots to learn what tastes good and what doesn’t, making them better cooks.

When we chew our food, we notice a change in texture and taste. For example, biting into a fresh tomato at the height of summer will release juices, and as we chew, releasing both saliva and digestive enzymes, our perception of the tomato’s flavour will change.

The robot chef, which has already been trained to make omelettes based on human taster’s feedback, tasted nine different variations of a simple dish of scrambled eggs and tomatoes at three different stages of the chewing process, and produced ‘taste maps’ of the different dishes.

The researchers found that this ‘taste as you go’ approach significantly improved the robot’s ability to quickly and accurately assess the saltiness of the dish over other electronic tasting technologies, which only test a single homogenised sample. The results are reported in the journal Frontiers in Robotics & AI.

The perception of taste is a complex process in humans that has evolved over millions of years: the appearance, smell, texture and temperature of food all affect how we perceive taste; the saliva produced during chewing helps carry chemical compounds in food to taste receptors mostly on the tongue; and the signals from taste receptors are passed to the brain. Once our brains are aware of the flavour, we decide whether we enjoy the food or not.

Taste is also highly individual: some people love spicy food, while others have a sweet tooth. A good cook, whether amateur or professional, relies on their sense of taste, and can balance the various flavours within a dish to make a well-rounded final product.

“Most home cooks will be familiar with the concept of tasting as you go – checking a dish throughout the cooking process to check whether the balance of flavours is right,” said Grzegorz Sochacki from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, the paper’s first author. “If robots are to be used for certain aspects of food preparation, it’s important that they are able to ‘taste’ what they’re cooking.”

“When we taste, the process of chewing also provides continuous feedback to our brains,” said co-author Dr Arsen Abdulali, also from the Department of Engineering. “Current methods of electronic testing only take a single snapshot from a homogenised sample, so we wanted to replicate a more realistic process of chewing and tasting in a robotic system, which should result in a tastier end product.”

The researchers are members of Cambridge’s Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory run by Professor Fumiya Iida of the Department of Engineering, which focuses on training robots to carry out the so-called last metre problems which humans find easy, but robots find difficult. Cooking is one of these tasks: earlier tests with their robot ‘chef’ have produced a passable omelette using feedback from human tasters.

“We needed something cheap, small and fast to add to our robot so it could do the tasting: it needed to be cheap enough to use in a kitchen, small enough for a robot, and fast enough to use while cooking,” said Sochacki.

To imitate the human process of chewing and tasting in their robot chef, the researchers attached a conductance probe, which acts as a salinity sensor, to a robot arm. They prepared scrambled eggs and tomatoes, varying the number of tomatoes and the amount of salt in each dish.

Using the probe, the robot ‘tasted’ the dishes in a grid-like fashion, returning a reading in just a few seconds.

To imitate the change in texture caused by chewing, the team then put the egg mixture in a blender and had the robot test the dish again. The different readings at different points of ‘chewing’ produced taste maps of each dish.

Their results showed a significant improvement in the ability of robots to assess saltiness over other electronic tasting methods, which are often time-consuming and only provide a single reading.

While their technique is a proof of concept, the researchers say that by imitating the human processes of chewing and tasting, robots will eventually be able to produce food that humans will enjoy and could be tweaked according to individual tastes.

“When a robot is learning how to cook, like any other cook, it needs indications of how well it did,” said Abdulali. “We want the robots to understand the concept of taste, which will make them better cooks. In our experiment, the robot can ‘see’ the difference in the food as it’s chewed, which improves its ability to taste.”

“Beko has a vision to bring robots to the home environment which are safe and easy to use,” said Dr Muhammad W. Chughtai, Senior Scientist at Beko plc. “We believe that the development of robotic chefs will play a major role in busy households and assisted living homes in the future. This result is a leap forward in robotic cooking, and by using machine and deep learning algorithms, mastication will help robot chefs adjust taste for different dishes and users.”

In future, the researchers are looking to improve the robot chef so it can taste different types of food and improve sensing capabilities so it can taste sweet or oily food, for example.

The research was supported in part by Beko plc and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Centre of Doctoral Training on Agri-Food Robotics (Agriforwards CDT). EPSRC is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Fumiya Iida is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

 

Reference:
Grzegorz Sochacki, Arsen Abdulali, and Fumiya Iida. ‘Mastication-Enhanced Taste-Based Classification of Multi-Ingredient Dishes for Robotic Cooking.’ Frontiers in Robotics & AI (2022). DOI: 10.3389/frobt.2022.886074


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New Report Assesses Global Anti-Deforestation Measures

Deforestation
source:www.cam.ac.uk

 

Comprehensive scientific report shows progress and effects on climate, nature and people.

 

REDD+ will only be effective if we learn the lessons from existing efforts and interventions in the forest sector, and the challenges they have faced.

Bhaskar Vira

A major scientific assessment, published by the Global Forest Expert Panels (GFEP) Programme, led by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), has evaluated the world’s progress on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.

The report analyses the past 10 years of REDD+ implementation – a global action plan to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation primarily in tropical and sub-tropical regions – with respect to forest governance, carbon measurements and effects on biodiversity and livelihoods. The findings are presented during World Forestry Congress week, taking place this week in Seoul.

One major conclusion is that while REDD+ has provided a convenient umbrella for many forest and land use related activities aimed at reducing deforestation and forest degradation – and associated greenhouse gas emissions – the interlinkages and complexities of relationships between forests, land use and climate are profound.

The report, which aims to inform ongoing policy discussions on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, comes at a pivotal time: Human-induced climate change and increases in extreme weather events are impacting nature and people faster and more severely than had been expected 20 years ago.

However, there is still a chance to reverse this trend and avoid further global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This requires drastic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2, most of which stem from burning fossil fuels.

Forests also play an important role in the global carbon cycle: they absorb carbon as they grow and emit carbon when they are destroyed. Every year nearly one-third of the global carbon emissions produced by humans can be absorbed by forests, yet deforestation and forest degradation are responsible for up to 10% of the annual man-made CO2 emissions.

In addition, interest in forests as a ‘nature-based solution’ has probably never been higher and the number of initiatives aimed at conserving, sustainably managing and restoring forests has increased considerably.

“This report is being launched at a very important moment, and feeds directly into international discussions on climate change and biodiversity,” said lead author Professor Bhaskar Vira, Head of Cambridge’s Department of Geography. “There is an urgent focus on the role of land use and forests as part of our transitions towards a net zero future, and on the contributions that forests can make to biodiversity and livelihoods.

“REDD+ will only be effective if we learn the lessons from existing efforts and interventions in the forest sector, and the challenges they have faced. This report offers key insights into the ways in which new and innovative sources of funding and finance should be organised and governed to ensure equitable and sustainable future pathways that benefit all, especially the Indigenous Peoples and local communities who live in and around forests.”

In addition to promoting forest protection and carbon sink enhancement, a key focus of REDD+ is to move the scope of interventions beyond climate impacts towards an integrated view of climate, biodiversity and livelihoods. REDD+ can deliver numerous environmental benefits, including reduced soil erosion, enhanced water quality and quantity, and increased resilience to drought and floods. It can potentially deliver important biodiversity benefits, although the availability of up-to-date biodiversity data remains a major challenge.

“Such benefits have significant economic importance and may increase both the value of REDD+ programs and people’s willingness to engage with them. However, in the implementation of REDD+, greater attention to biodiversity and livelihood outcomes is needed,” said lead author and IUFRO President John Parrotta of the USDA Forest Service.

Evidence from social evaluations of REDD+ interventions indicates that, where direct and indirect benefits are clearly visible to local stakeholders, and have been delivered, community engagement is strong and projects have achieved positive carbon and social outcomes, at least in the short term. Furthermore, explicit attention to rights and tenure issues provides more transparent mechanisms for the reporting and monitoring of environmental and social co-benefits, as well as better, more equitable outcomes, particularly for more vulnerable communities.

Case studies from Indonesia show that insecure tenure can exacerbate distrust between resource users and the government, and can keep local people from further participating in REDD+ activities. Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean suggests that deforestation is lower in areas where Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ collective land rights are recognised.

“Since 2012, implementation of REDD+ has advanced considerably in many countries but ultimately it is REDD+ governance that determines its performance. Yet, governance is distributed across a complex landscape of institutions with different sources of authority and power dynamics that influence its outcomes,” said GFEP Programme Coordinator Christoph Wildburger.

REDD+ is being applied in a wide diversity of contexts with an equally wide diversity of governance strategies, which are changing over time. Brazil, for example, was initially a leading global source of deforestation, then a world leader in reducing deforestation, and is now experiencing rising deforestation once again. While Brazil’s federal government has played a key role in these swings in deforestation rates, a number of Brazilian states are pursuing their own REDD+ initiatives with positive outcomes. Ghana, a relatively small country where deforestation has been strongly linked to the production of cocoa for export, is pursuing the ‘world’s first commodity-driven’ REDD+ strategy with private sector investments in ‘climate smart cocoa’. Both Brazil and Ghana illustrate the important role that actors other than national governments may play in shaping REDD+, such as sub-national state actors or private companies trading in forest risk commodities like cocoa.

Adapted from an IUFRO press release.


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Cognitive impairment from severe COVID-19 equivalent to 20 years of ageing, study finds

Cognitive impairment from severe COVID-19 equivalent to 20 years of ageing, study finds

Senior woman wearing face mask lying on hospital bed
Senior woman wearing face mask lying on hospital bed Credit: RUBEN BONILLA GONZALO

 

Cognitive impairment as a result of severe COVID-19 is similar to that sustained between 50 and 70 years of age and is the equivalent to losing 10 IQ points, say a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.

 

Cognitive impairment is common to a wide range of neurological disorders, but the patterns we saw – the cognitive ‘fingerprint’ of COVID-19 – was distinct from all of these

David Menon

The findings, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, emerge from the NIHR COVID-19 BioResource. The results of the study suggest the effects are still detectable more than six months after the acute illness, and that any recovery is at best gradual.

There is growing evidence that COVID-19 can cause lasting cognitive and mental health problems, with recovered patients reporting symptoms including fatigue, ‘brain fog’, problems recalling words, sleep disturbances, anxiety and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) months after infection. In the UK, a study found that around one in seven individuals surveyed reported having symptoms that included cognitive difficulties 12 weeks after a positive COVID-19 test.

While even mild cases can lead to persistent cognitive symptoms, between a third and three-quarters of hospitalised patients report still suffering cognitive symptoms three to six months later.

To explore this link in greater detail, researchers analysed data from 46 individuals who received in-hospital care, on the ward or intensive care unit, for COVID-19 at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. 16 patients were put on mechanical ventilation during their stay in hospital. All the patients were admitted between March and July 2020 and were recruited to the NIHR COVID-19 BioResource.

The individuals underwent detailed computerised cognitive tests an average of six months after their acute illness using the Cognitron platform, which measures different aspects of mental faculties such as memory, attention and reasoning. Scales measuring anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder were also assessed. Their data were compared against matched controls.

This is the first time that such rigorous assessment and comparison has been carried out in relation to the after effects of severe COVID-19.

COVID-19 survivors were less accurate and with slower response times than the matched control population – and these deficits were still detectable when the patients were following up six months later. The effects were strongest for those who required mechanical ventilation. By comparing the patients to 66,008 members of the general public, the researchers estimate that the magnitude of cognitive loss is similar on average to that sustained with 20 years ageing, between 50 and 70 years of age, and that this is equivalent to losing 10 IQ points.

Survivors scored particularly poorly on tasks such as verbal analogical reasoning, a finding that supports the commonly-reported problem of difficulty finding words. They also showed slower processing speeds, which aligns with previous observations post COVID-19 of decreased brain glucose consumption within the frontoparietal network of the brain, responsible for attention, complex problem-solving and working memory, among other functions.

Professor David Menon from the Division of Anaesthesia at the University of Cambridge, the study’s senior author, said: “Cognitive impairment is common to a wide range of neurological disorders, including dementia, and even routine ageing, but the patterns we saw – the cognitive ‘fingerprint’ of COVID-19 – was distinct from all of these.”

While it is now well established that people who have recovered from severe COVID-19 illness can have a broad spectrum of symptoms of poor mental health – depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, low motivation, fatigue, low mood, and disturbed sleep – the team found that acute illness severity was better at predicting the cognitive deficits.

The patients’ scores and reaction times began to improve over time, but the researchers say that any recovery in cognitive faculties was at best gradual and likely to be influenced by a number of factors including illness severity and its neurological or psychological impacts.

Professor Menon added: “We followed some patients up as late as ten months after their acute infection, so were able to see a very slow improvement. While this was not statistically significant, it is at least heading in the right direction, but it is very possible that some of these individuals will never fully recover.”

There are several factors that could cause the cognitive deficits, say the researchers. Direct viral infection is possible, but unlikely to be a major cause; instead, it is more likely that a combination of factors contribute, including inadequate oxygen or blood supply to the brain, blockage of large or small blood vessels due to clotting, and microscopic bleeds. However, emerging evidence suggests that the most important mechanism may be damage caused by the body’s own inflammatory response and immune system.

While this study looked at hospitalised cases, the team say that even those patients not sick enough to be admitted may also have tell-tale signs of mild impairment.

Professor Adam Hampshire from the Department of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, the study’s first author, said: “Around 40,000 people have been through intensive care with COVID-19 in England alone and many more will have been very sick, but not admitted to hospital. This means there is a large number of people out there still experiencing problems with cognition many months later. We urgently need to look at what can be done to help these people.”

Professor Menon and Professor Ed Bullmore from Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry are co-leading working groups as part of the COVID-19 Clinical Neuroscience Study (COVID-CNS) that aim to identify biomarkers that relate to neurological impairments as a result of COVID-19, and the neuroimaging changes that are associated with these.

The research was funded by the NIHR BioResource, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and the Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, with support from the NIHR Cambridge Clinical Research Facility.

Reference
Hampshire, A et al. Multivariate profile and acute-phase correlates of cognitive deficits in a COVID-19 hospitalised cohort. eClinicalMedicine; 28 Apr 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101417


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