Her speechwriting files for Bruges, including drafts and contributions from outsiders, are among more than 40,000 pages of Lady Thatcher’s papers for the year 1988 being opened to the public at Churchill College from Monday.

They show that rather than acting as a call-to-arms for Eurosceptics and attacking the principles behind the single market – of which Thatcher was something of a devotee – her speech was more concerned with the perceived power grab by European Commission chief Jacques Delors, and a possible move to a more ‘federal’ European ‘super-state’.

Historian Chris Collins of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, the only person to date to have read all 40,000 pages of material being released, said: “She wanted her speech to be about direction, rather than point scoring – and she edges back from attacking the Commission, approaching it in a more intellectual style.

“I know she was uncomfortable about the venue, but we are very lucky in that few of her speeches remain in such a complete form as this.

“When you read her papers for 1988, you see her sheer level of enthusiasm for the single market. She goes up hill and down dale with deep enthusiasm because this is practical Europe, this is how it works together. The role of speechwriter Hugh Thomas – a committed Europhile – is also crucial to consider when looking at this speech from a historical perspective.”

The 1988 papers are the latest of Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister from 1979-90 to be made available to scholars, researchers and the general public – alongside the papers of Sir Winston Churchill and hundreds of other leading figures at the Churchill Archives Centre.

As well as Lady Thatcher’s papers surrounding the Bruges speech in September 1988, her personal papers also reveal the emergence of plans for a possible fourth term in office, with no obvious end to Thatcherism in sight at that point.

However, 1988 was not without its problems as the government experienced a large number of backbench rebellions on controversial measures, including many with manifesto authority. When Thatcher met with the Executive of the 1922 Committee in January, she was warned that one of the things they wanted to raise with her was the ‘problem of a large majority in the House of Commons and an inadequate Opposition, leading the government being perceived as dictatorial and insensitive to criticism’.

“Unsurprisingly, when this point was indeed made to her face, Thatcher made an indignant response,” said Collins. “There followed a series of rebellions over benefits and the poll tax which she took very personally as relationships with the Conservative parliamentary party frayed.”

Away from frontline politics, the archives for 1988 also reveal that her husband Denis went through a showbiz reception guest list with a fine toothcomb, querying whether certain celebrities such as Paul McCartney and David Attenborough should be invited to Number 10 for a gathering of those who would be easily recognised by the public and do Mrs Thatcher much good on TV.

The original list of 45 personalities was too low on numbers thought Lady Thatcher and a much longer list of more than 200 names was drawn up by former culture secretary, John Whittingdale – then political secretary to the Prime Minister.

“He (Whittingdale) was not the grizzled elder statesman of the present day,” said Collins. “This was the young man whose evening was spent watching Meatloaf at the Hammersmith Odeon and whose idea of a good party was to invite Paul McCartney, Freddie Mercury and the Jaggers.

Whittingdale, perhaps, did not count on the scrutinous eye of Denis Thatcher – who attacked the proposed guest list with no small amount of red ink, marking ticks against those he ‘would personally like to see included’ and question marks beside ‘those who, I believe, do not help.”

He went on to say: “Whilst I accept of course that not everyone who comes to our receptions are necessarily on ‘our’ side I find it both unpleasant and embarrassing to entertain those who publicly insult the PM. This list needs some careful checking in this regard.”

His favourite name of those listed was comedian Eric Sykes who gained an expansive four ticks. Others to receive enthusiastic backing from Denis included Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Dame Judi Dench, Nick Faldo and Rolf Harris.

McCartney and Attenborough were not alone in having question marks placed next to their name. Sebastian Cow, Shirley Bassey and magician Paul Daniels all fell foul of Denis’ red pen.

In the end, the longer guest list was dropped in favour of the original 45 from the British Winter Olympic Squad – minus Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, who was double booked and unable to attend.

Britain has seen a dramatic transformation in recent years in its attitude towards food. We have gone from being a country ridiculed for its bland, carb-heavy cuisine, for whom the chicken tikka masala was the height of exoticness, to becoming a nation obsessed with food.

But alongside this obsession with food has come a growing understanding of the impact that our diet has on our bodies – not only on our waistlines, but also on conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and even dementia.

This relationship between our diet and our weight is simple: you eat too much, you get fat. Hence, some would argue, the solution should be equally simple: you eat less, you lose weight. 

If only it were this easy. Anyone who has tried to shed a few pounds – and, crucially, to keep them off – knows that the answer is rarely so straightforward. In fact, even the food – and volume – that we ‘choose’ to eat is influenced by a surprising number of factors.

Read more

The team, led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge, previously created a much simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in culture, using two types of stem cells – the body’s ‘master cells’ – and a 3D scaffold on which they can grow.

Now, in a study published today in Nature Cell Biology, Professor Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues have developed the embryo-like structures further, using not just two but three types of stem cells which let them reconstruct a process known as gastrulation, an essential step in which the embryonic cells being self-organising into the correct structure for an embryo to form.

Once a mammalian egg has been fertilised by a sperm, it divides multiple times to generate a small, free-floating ball comprising three types of stem cells. At the stage of development known as the ‘blastocyst’ stage, the particular stem cells that will eventually make the future body – the embryonic stem cells (ESCs) – cluster together inside the embryo towards one end. The other two types of stem cell in the blastocyst are the extra-embryonic trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), which will form the placenta, and primitive endoderm stem cells (PESCs) that will form the yolk sac, ensuring that the foetus’s organs develop properly and providing essential nutrients.

In March 2017, Professor Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues published a study that described how, using a combination of genetically-modified mouse ESCs and TSCs, together with a 3D ‘jelly’ scaffold known as an extracellular matrix, they were able to grow a structure capable of assembling itself and whose development and architecture very closely resembled the natural embryo. There was a remarkable degree of communication between the two types of stem cell: in a sense, the cells were telling each other where in the embryo to place themselves.

However, a key step in the life of the embryo – gastrulation, described by the eminent biologist Lewis Wolpert as “truly the most important time in your life” – was missing. Gastrulation is the point at which the embryo transforms from being a single layer to three layers: an inner layer (endoderm), middle layer (mesoderm) and outer layer (endoderm), determining which tissues or organs the cells will then develop into.

“Proper gastrulation in normal development is only possible if you have all three types of stem cell. In order to reconstruct this complex dance, we had to add the missing third stem cell,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. “By replacing the jelly that we used in earlier experiments with this third type of stem cell, we were able to generate structures whose development was astonishingly successful.”

By adding the PESCs, the team was able to see their ‘embryo’ undergo gastrulation, organising itself into the three body layers that all animals have. The timing, architecture and patterns of gene activity reflected that of natural embryo development.

Image: Synthetic embryo like structure with embryonic part generated from the embryonic stem cells (pink) and and extra-embryonic tissues in blue. (Credit: Zernicka-Goetz lab, University of Cambridge)

“Our artificial embryos underwent the most important event in life in the culture dish,” adds Professor Zernicka-Goetz. “They are now extremely close to real embryos. To develop further, they would have to implant into the body of the mother or an artificial placenta.”

The researchers say they should now be in a position to better understand how the three stem cell types interact to enable the embryo to develop, by experimentally altering biological pathways in one cell type and seeing how this affects the behaviour of one, or both, of the other cell types.

“We can also now try to apply this to the equivalent human stem cell types and so study the very earliest events in human embryo development without actually having to use natural human embryos,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. 

By applying these studies side-by-side, it should be possible to learn a great deal about the fundamental aspects of the first stages of mammalian development. In fact, such comparisons should enable scientists to study events that happen beyond day 14 in human pregnancies, but without using 14-day-old human embryos; UK law permits embryos to be studied in the laboratory only up to this period.

“The early stages of embryo development are when a large proportion of pregnancies are lost and yet it is a stage that we know very little about,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. "Now we have a way of simulating embryonic development in the culture dish, so it should be possible to understand exactly what is going on during this remarkable period in an embryo’s life, and why sometimes this process fails.”

The research was funded by the European Research Council and Wellcome.

Reference
Sozen, B et al. Self-assembly of embryonic and two extra-embryonic stem cell types into gastrulating embryo structures. Nature Cell Biology; 23 Jul 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41556-018-0147-7

The new chair, which will be based at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology, will build on the University’s strengths in computer science and engineering, and will be a focus point for the wide range of AI-related research taking place across the University. Cambridge researchers are designing systems that are cybersecure, model human reasoning, interact in affective ways with us, uniquely identify us by our face and give insights into our biological makeup.

The first DeepMind Chair is expected to take up their position in October 2019, following an international search by the department. The chair will have full academic freedom to pursue research in the field of machine learning.

Cambridge has a long tradition of excellence in computer science, and is home to the largest technology cluster in Europe. The DeepMind Chair will build on this tradition by enhancing Cambridge’s capacity in AI-related research, and will contribute to the UK’s standing as a global hub in this rapidly-growing area.

The gift is part of a wider DeepMind programme to encourage uptake of machine learning, to support the wider academic ecosystem. As part of these efforts, DeepMind will give a donation to support four Master’s students from underrepresented groups wishing to study machine learning and computer science at Cambridge. More information will be made available this coming autumn, for scholarships beginning in the 2019 academic year.

Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s co-founder and CEO, completed his undergraduate degree in computer science at Queens’ College, Cambridge and received his PhD from UCL, while numerous other employees continue to give back to Cambridge through teaching and mentorship.

“I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge, so it’s now a real honour for DeepMind to be able to contribute back to the Department of Computer Science and Technology and support others through their studies,” said Hassabis. “My hope is that the DeepMind Chair in Machine Learning will help extend Cambridge’s already world-leading teaching and research capacities, and support further scientific breakthroughs towards the development of safe and ethical AI.”

“This gift will not only enhance Cambridge’s strengths in the field of AI research, but will benefit the UK more broadly, as AI has such transformative potential in so many aspects of our lives,” said Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. “Our researchers are not only developing these new technologies, but are working to ensure that they benefit humanity. This new Professorship is an important piece of that puzzle.”

“This new Professorship will build on our existing strengths and become an important focus for research and teaching in applied AI,” said Professor Ann Copestake, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Technology. “The interdisciplinary environment in the University will help the development of ethical and sustainable AI-based solutions to complex social, economic and environmental challenges.”

Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries Margot James MP said: “The UK already has a global standing in AI and this new post at Cambridge is another string to our bow. Through our Industrial Strategy and £1bn AI sector deal, we are creating the right environment for the technology to be developed in the UK. I welcome any initiative which will help us achieve our aim of making sure it improves our economy and society.”

Research casts doubt on the widely-held view that spiralling military expenditure across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) “crowded out” investment in healthcare and public services, leading to civil unrest that eventually exploded in the Arab Spring revolutions.

The so-called “guns versus butter” or “welfare versus warfare” hypotheses – that prioritised military spending resulted in neglect of health and education, thereby creating conditions that fomented public rebellion – is considered by many experts to be a root cause of the uprisings that gripped the region during 2011.

However, a team of researchers who analysed economic and security data from MENA nations in the 16 years leading up to the Arab Spring found no evidence of a trade-off between spending on the military and public services, specifically healthcare.

The researchers from Cambridge and the Lebanese American University argue that much of the evidence for the ‘guns versus butter’ causal link come from analyses of wealthy European nations, which has then been assumed to hold true for the Middle East. 

They say the study’s findings, published today in the journal Defence and Peace Economics, provide a “cautionary note” against a reliance on simplistic correlations based on data from OECD nations to draw important policy conclusions about the causes of turmoil in the Middle East.  

“Our research finds reports of this apparent spending trade-off prior to the Arab Spring to be somewhat spurious,” said Dr Adam Coutts, based at Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology.

“Academics and policy-makers should be careful in assuming that models and results from studies of other regions can be transplanted onto the Middle East and North Africa,” he said.

“Determining the cause of unrest is a rather more complex task than some experts may suggest. Historical experiences and political economy factors need to be considered.”    

While only Saudi Arabia is in the top ten global nations for military spending in terms of hard cash, when calculated as a share of GDP six of the top ten military spenders are MENA nations.

Coutts and colleagues ran World Bank data through detailed statistical models to explore the trade-off between spending on military and on welfare – health, in this case – of 18 different MENA nations from 1995 up to the start of the Arab Spring in 2011.

The team also looked at casualties resulting from domestic terror attacks in an attempt to estimate security needs that might have helped drive military spending in a region plagued by terrorism. 

They found no statistically significant evidence that increased military spending had an impact on health investment. “Contrary to existing evidence from many European nations, we found that levels of military expenditure do not induce or affect cuts to healthcare in the Middle East and North Africa,” said co-author Dr Adel Daoud from Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research.

The researchers also found no evidence for casualties from terrorism affecting either health or military spending – perhaps a result of the routine nature of such occurrences in the region.

“There may have been a policy adaptation in which regional conflicts and security threats are no longer the main influence on government security and military spending decisions,” said Daoud.

Adam Coutts added: “It has been argued that Arab populations accepted an ‘authoritarian bargain’ over the last forty years – one of societal militarisation in return for domestic security – and that this came at the expense of their welfare and social mobility.

“However, health and military spending cannot be predicted by each other in this troubled region. Policy analysts should not single out military spending as a main culprit for the lack of investment in public goods.

“Once again we find that straightforward explanations for unrest in the Middle East and North Africa are tenuous on close analysis.”

Two inspectors visited the school to carry out their assessments.

They found;

• From the opening in 2015, the headteacher has led the school with a tenacious, yet compassionate determination to ensure that all pupils succeed, whatever their starting points. 
• Leaders at all levels, including governors, are relentless in their pursuit of high-quality learning experiences for pupils across every aspect of the exceptionally well-considered curriculum. 
• The school’s research-informed curriculum is ambitious, innovative and inclusive. It aims to ‘develop compassionate citizens in a positive social climate of high expectations.’ In doing so, it challenges pupils very effectively to achieve well.
• Pupils are regularly challenged to achieve their best, through carefully planned activities and teachers’ skilful questioning.
• Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. Staff provide high-quality support for vulnerable pupils in a nurturing environment and so typically these pupils make excellent progress. The welfare and care of all pupils is of paramount importance.
• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• Working relationships between staff and parents are excellent. Parents are kept well informed about their children’s progress. Most are regular participants in the ‘family Friday’ sessions which allow them to join in with their children’s learning and to discuss it with school’s staff.
• Pupils with complex needs receive high-quality care across all aspects of the school day.

Headteacher, Dr. James Biddulph, welcomed the report saying:

"It is a privilege to lead such a dedicated and passionate team of educators, including teachers and teaching assistants, ably supported by a superb administrative team.  They have each risen to the massive challenge set us by the University and UK government to create a school that could contribute to innovating curricula and thinking about what constitutes a truly brilliant education for our children.  We look forward to more collaboration with our colleagues in other schools to continue our own learning and contribute to the learning of others." 

School pupils enjoying a picnic in the grounds

The school opened at Eddington, at the University of Cambridge’s North-West Cambridge site, in September 2015 with just 120 pupils. It was the first operational building serving the local community. There will be pupils 630 in September 2021, when it’s expected to reach full capacity. The school has been designed to provide diverse learning spaces. All the classrooms open up to the school grounds to promote outdoor learning opportunities. Currently there are 31 staff. Staff training is highly valued and teachers have access to advice and support of the University’s Faculty of Education. In January, the school was named as a regional hub for the Chartered College of Training (CCT).

The University of Cambridge’s Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Graham Virgo, says:

"When we opened in 2015, we were expected to be a local community primary school as well as establish ourselves as the first University Training School in the UK for primary. The challenge has been enormous and demonstrates the University's commitment to impact positively on society locally, as well as nationally. I am delighted that the hard work of many people, particularly the headteacher, the teaching staff, teaching assistants and pupils themselves, has been recognised through this outstanding OFSTED report."

The school is already working with colleagues as far afield as India and is planning a number of new projects to consider how research informed practice can be disseminated through primary schools. As the headteacher commented, in remarks to the inspectors, “We are not the finished article…we never will be.”

More information can be found here.

There’s a familiar story that goes something like this: the post-war consensus was one of heavy regulation, dominant trade unions and the same job for life; then, in the 1980s, free market forces were unleashed, and regulation came to be viewed as a ‘market distortion’ that stifled productivity.

By the start of the 1990s, deregulation was a cornerstone of the emergent ‘Washington Consensus’, and worker protection and unions were in steep decline. Legal reforms to ‘free up’ the labour market were declared a route to prosperity by international bodies such as the OECD and World Bank.

Now, a decade on from a global economic crash, and the mood music may again be changing. Issues of inequality and migrant labour are destabilising politics, while all-conquering technology companies are driving new and more flexible – as well as precarious – ways of working.

Last year, for the first time in a generation, both major UK parties went into an election with manifestos that argued free market forces alone were not sufficient to achieve the desired levels of productivity and social cohesion.

From time limits on working to minimum wages, from dismissal rights for workers to legal support for strikes, the extent to which labour regulations engender flourishing or sclerotic economies is a major policy question that is now firmly back on the table.

Helpfully, a research project compiling the largest ever dataset of employment regulations from countries representing over 95% of world GDP (117 nations) tracked across a 44-year period (from 1970 to 2013) is now beginning to publish findings. The team has made the data open access for other researchers to use.

Ten years (with various intermissions) in the making, the project involved around 20 legal, economic and statistical researchers – from senior academics to PhD students and postdocs – pulling together numerous data sources before refining the analysis with sophisticated regression models based on equations created by Cambridge economists in the 1990s.     

One constant, however, has been Simon Deakin, Director of the Centre for Business Research, Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law and Co-Chair of the University’s Public Policy Strategic Research Initiative.

“What we’ve ended up with is a vast dynamic dataset – a concrete product with implications for big policy debates, not least whether legislating to strengthen worker rights helps or hinders different types of economies,” says Deakin.

“Complex data of this nature may well prove helpful when exploring crucial issues for the future of society, such as how to combine social justice with economic growth. It’s really a question of the kind of global society we want.”

The datasets tell a story that contrasts to some extent with the familiar political story that most of us recognise.

It goes something like this: despite the massive deregulation that accompanied economic liberalisation in the 1980s – spreading through former Soviet territories as well as into the global South during the 1990s – employment protection laws became gradually stronger over time pretty much everywhere.

“Even during the Thatcher years – while trade union laws were certainly dismantled – we don’t see significant weakening in individual protection laws governing areas such as termination of employment, for example,” says Deakin.  

Moreover, after controlling for all other effects, the data suggest that this increase in employment protection that most countries and regions experienced during much of post-war history appeared to have no negative impact on their economies.

In fact, the team found small but positive correlations between stronger protective legislation and beneficial social and economic outcomes. This was seen in overall levels of employment, in increased labour productivity and in the amount of national income going to workforce wages rather than to capital profit.

Some of these positives may be the result of a “virtuous circle” in the long run, argues Deakin. Employment regulations can create short-term shocks: labour costs go up, leading to recruitment freezes or even lay-offs.

In the medium term, however, firms invest in new technologies and in training workers to use them. This improves morale, job security and productivity, while workers and their employers co-invest in learning and sharing knowledge – it’s called a “capital deepening” effect. “Innovation is connected to the way we regulate the labour market,” Deakin suggests.  

He offers some important caveats. The positive coefficients seen in the data are small, conclusions can’t be drawn about any single nation and empirically it’s not straightforward to infer causation from correlation. “This is the first time anyone’s done this for so many countries over such a long period; much more work is needed to extend the analysis, including studies of individual countries.”

In addition, the bigger picture remains one of widening inequality and shrinking labour share – as illustrated by another time-series dataset the researchers have been working on: the shifting legal protections of shareholders.

“Labour rights are fighting a constant headwind across the decades,” says Deakin. “Worker protections gradually get a bit stronger over time, while shareholder rights start to rocket from the early 1990s – across the West but also in China and Russia.

“When you put these datasets together you can see labour weakening significantly compared with capital. However, we can say that the labour share would have gone down even further were it not for the strengthening in employment protection law.”

The only dip of real note in the otherwise steady uptick of global employment regulation is found in Europe following the 2008 crash. The data show that labour protection laws became entangled in the Eurozone’s austerity drive, particularly in “debtor nations” such as Greece and Portugal.

“A reactionary resurgence of Washington-Consensus-style thinking post-crash resulted in minor rolling back of employment protections in Europe, but this approach is short-termist and I doubt there’s any real economic evidence for its effectiveness,” he says.

While liberalising legislation is often combined with new worker protections, as seen in Italy’s Jobs Act of 2014 or Germany’s controversial Hartz IV in the mid-2000s, reforms such as these loosened rules around ‘nonstandard’ employment: fixed-term and temporary work.

The rise of this type of work – along with new notions of self-employment through digital platforms – make up the so-called gig economy of often-piecemeal and insecure employment.

How labour relations in this economy are regulated may prove to be a crucible for policymaking in many countries in the future. Deakin sees potential similarities within the dataset and beyond.

“The gig economy is an issue that’s exploded in recent years, but our data show similar debates around labour law when part-time and agency work dramatically expanded 30 years ago and people needed better protection.

“You could even argue similarities to the late 18th century with factory expansion. At various points in history, labour law comes under pressure from technological innovation, an oversupply of labour or a loss of collective power. Traditional forms of regulation start to look worn.

“But the law evolves. We’re starting to see this with the designation of Uber drivers as ‘limb b’ workers: dependent to some extent on an employer, with accompanying rights.” There are parallels between ‘limb b’ and the introduction of part-time and temporary work in the 1980s, argues Deakin – “but the law caught up then and will do so again”.

“The law, society and technology often evolve out of sync. Sometimes the law actually triggers advancement, such as the commercialisation of intellectual property rights contributing to innovation in IT and pharmaceuticals. You need to take a broad historical perspective to gauge these interactions, which is exactly what our research allows.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of work in the University's research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

The findings, published today in JCI Insight, help to explain, for example, why male babies in the womb may be more vulnerable to the effects of poor growth, and why being pregnant with a girl may lead to an increased risk of severe pre-eclampsia for the mother.

A team led by researchers at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, performed detailed scientific studies of more than 4,000 first time mothers and analysed samples of placenta and maternal blood.

They found that the genetic profile of the placentas of male and female babies were very different in relation to the baby’s sex. Many of the genes that differed according to the sex of the baby in the placenta had not previously been seen to differ by sex in other tissues of the body.

The team found that one of these uniquely sex-related placental genes controlled the level of a small molecule called spermine. Spermine is a metabolite – a substance involved in metabolism – that plays an important role in all cells and is even essential for the growth of some bacteria.

Female placentas had much higher levels of the enzyme that makes spermine, and mothers pregnant with baby girls had higher levels of a form of spermine in their blood compared to mothers pregnant with baby boys.

Placental cells from boys were also found to be more susceptible to the toxic effects of a drug that blocked spermine production. This provided direct experimental evidence for sex-related differences in the placental metabolism of spermine.

The researchers also found that the form of spermine which was higher in mothers pregnant with a girl was also predictive of the risk of pregnancy complications: high levels were associated with an increased risk of pre-eclampsia (where the mother develops high blood pressure and kidney disease), whereas low levels were associated with an increased risk of poor fetal growth.

The patterns observed were all consistent with previous work which has shown that boys may be more vulnerable to the effects of fetal growth restriction and that being pregnant with a girl may lead to an increased risk of severe preeclampsia.

“In pregnancy and childbirth, the sex of the baby is at the forefront of many parents’ minds, but we do not even think of the placenta as having a sex. This work shows that the placenta differs profoundly according to sex,” says Professor Gordon Smith from the University of Cambridge, who led the study.

“These differences alter elements of the composition of the mother’s blood and may even modify her risk of pregnancy complications. Better understanding of these differences could lead to new predictive tests and possibly even new approaches to reducing the risk of poor pregnancy outcome.”

The work was supported by NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre and the Medical Research Council.

Reference
Gong, S et al. Placental polyamine metabolism differs by fetal sex, fetal growth restriction, and preeclampsia. JCI Insight; 12 July 2018; DOI: 10.1172/jci.insight.120723

The Templeton World Charity Foundation Project, spearheaded by Professor Sarah Coakley, the Norris-Hulse Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, saw three postdoctoral researchers placed into science labs around the University with the aim of addressing the ever-widening gap between those working in the fields of science and those working in fields of philosophy and theology.

For three years, Daniel De Haan, Natalja Deng and Peter Woodford worked side-by-side with colleagues from the Department of Experimental Psychology, the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (DAMTP) and the Department of Zoology respectively – taking part in cutting-edge research, and being mentored by world-leading thinkers in their subject fields.

It is hoped that the huge success of this project – which saw unusually deep philosophical engagement with working scientists – will be a catalyst for similar experiments both in Cambridge and beyond.

Professor Coakley said: “Top level, path-breaking science can often go on in universities without any connections to the history and philosophy of science which is coming at the same material from a different direction. The philosophical questions are enormously pressing so we were delighted that some truly leading scientists at Cambridge were open to the possibility of having our three young researchers embedded with them.”

Dr Peter Woodford, who worked both in Cambridge’s Zoology labs and in the field in Africa to look at cooperation among meerkats, what makes them behaves the way they do, and how we as humans understand the value of selflessness, altruism and the care of others.

He said: “It was obviously a unique experience for any philosopher to have, seeing what animals are doing in their natural environment and asking why animals do what they do – that’s a central question of philosophy as well as science. The value of pursuing these big questions is to understand what we believe and why we believe it in a better way.”

Dr Natalja Deng, who worked on the cosmology strand of the project, alongside colleagues in DAMPT, said: “What does it mean to ask if God exists? And what does it mean to say that the universe had a beginning? If you ask yourself questions like this, you are doing philosophy.

“In order to do that, you need to talk to both theologians and physicists. They may not be used to talking to one another, but that’s all the more reason to bring them together in conversation. We were an experiment for this.”

Dr De Haan looked at the connections between cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy for his strand of the project. As with his other Templeton colleagues, Daniel received formal training in his chosen subject areas to ensure they were up to date with the latest research and scientific developments in that particular field.

He said: “It was enormously helpful to spend time seeing what the day-to-day routines are, working in a lab and attending lectures. The people in my lab were open to the idea of having someone around from a different background and a different perspective.

“Academics in the humanities as well as the sciences are beginning to appreciate some of the difficulties arising from the extreme degrees of specialisation – where we are losing the ability to talk to each other.”

Added Coakley: “I’m more happy than I could have hoped. This was a unique experiment in how to create a new generation of scholars to learn this agility early in their careers and we have shown that if it’s possible in one of the top universities in the world for scientific and mathematical endeavour, it should be possible in other places, too.”

There has been no shortage of surprises during this year’s competition, and this shines through in the language data. Expressions such as premature exit reflect that several of the predicted favourites haven’t fared as well as expected, with the odd unforgivable blunder making an appearance, too.

Building on similar research conducted during the 2014 World Cup, the Press has mined over 12 million words of media coverage, to analyse the language used when discussing the various teams over the course of this year’s tournament.

Comparison with the language collected in 2014 shows that, whilst traditionally successful teams such as Brazil have gone from stylish to nervous and Argentina from having flair to struggling, World Cup 2018 underdogs such as England have gone from being inexperienced to confident.

The data reflects that several teams have defied expectations – the word underdogs features frequently in media reports, along with related language like plucky, determined, and punch above their weight also making an appearance.

As fans root for their home teams, the verb overcome is commonly found alongside words such as obstacles, hurdles and adversity. Even England’s long-standing penalty curse has been overcome, whereas previous champions Germany fell victim to the curse of the holders.

The introduction of Video Assisted Referee (VAR) technology has seemingly been met with mixed feelings, as it is commonly associated with words such as controversy, overturn and incident.

Despite the introduction of VAR, however, bad behaviour still abounds; the word histrionics is prominent in the data – often found alongside adjectives such as ridiculous, headline-grabbing, and amateurish. A new term has even been coined this year: neymaresque.

As well as analysing the language used by journalists and media commentators, The Press has also been asking fans to submit the words they would use to describe their national teams.

Laura Grimes, senior ELT research manager at Cambridge University Press, said: “It’s been great to see the correlation between the language used by the media and the descriptive words submitted by football fans. We’ve combined these two datasets to select the three words most strongly associated with each team.

“The huge amount of language data we’ve collected and analysed gives us fascinating insight into the mood surrounding the World Cup. It’s been a dramatic and surprising tournament and this is certainly reflected by the language used in the media, as well as by football fans.”

The Press is still inviting submissions for the public’s top three words to describe each national team. To contribute, simply visit www.cambridge.org/word-cup, click on any country and enter the three words you feel best describes this team.

Once submitted, you’ll be taken to a page that is updated in real time and shows the most popular words that have been submitted in a word cloud.

Loneliness is a common condition affecting around one in three adults. It damages your brain, immune system, and can lead to depression and suicide. Loneliness can also increase your risk of dying prematurely as much as smoking can – and even more so than obesity. If you feel lonely, you tend to feel more stressed in situations that others cope better in, and even though you might get sufficient sleep, you don’t feel rested during the day.

Loneliness has also increased over the past few decades. Compared to the 1980s, the number of people living alone in the US has increased by about one-third. When Americans were asked about the number of people that they can confide in, the number dropped from three in 1985 to two in 2004.

In the UK, 21% to 31% of people report that they feel lonely some of the time, and surveys in other parts of the world report similarly high estimates. And it’s not just adults who feel lonely. Over a tenth of kindergarteners and first graders report feeling lonely in the school environment.

So many people feel lonely these days. But loneliness is a tricky condition, because it doesn’t necessarily refer to the number of people you talk to or the number of acquaintances you have. You can have many people around you and still feel lonely. As the comedian Robin Williams put it in the film World’s Greatest Dad:

I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.

What is loneliness?

Loneliness refers to the discrepancy between the number and quality of the relationships that you desire and those you actually have. You can have only two friends, but if you get along really well with them and feel that they meet your needs, you’re not lonely. Or you can be in a crowd and feel all alone.

But loneliness is not just about how you feel. Being in this state can make you behave differently, too, because you have less control over yourself – for example, you’re more likely to eat that chocolate cake for lunch instead of a meal or order take-out for dinner and you will also feel less motivated to exercise, which is important for mental and physical health. You’re also more likely to act aggressively towards others.

Sometimes people think that the only way out of loneliness is to simply talk to a few more people. But while that can help, loneliness is less about the number of contacts that you make and more about how you see the world. When you become lonely, you start to act and see the world differently. You begin noticing the threats in your environment more readily, you expect to be rejected more often, and become more judgemental of the people you interact with. People that you talk to can feel this, and as a result, start moving away from you, which perpetuates your loneliness cycle.

Studies have shown that (non-lonely) people who hang out with lonely people are more likely to become lonely themselves. So loneliness is contagious, just as happiness is – when you hang out with happy people, you are more likely to become happy.

There is also a loneliness gene that can be passed down and, while inheriting this gene doesn’t mean you will end up alone, it does affect how distressed you feel from social disconnection. If you have this gene, you are more likely to feel the pain of not having the kinds of relationships that you want.

It’s particularly bad news for men. Loneliness more often results in death for men than for women. Lonely men are also less resilient and tend to be more depressed than lonely women. This is because men are typically discouraged from expressing their emotions in society and if they do they are judged harshly for it. As such, they might not even admit it to themselves that they’re feeling lonely and tend to wait a long time before seeking help. This can have serious consequences for their mental health.

How to escape it

To overcome loneliness and improve our mental health, there are certain things we can do. Research has looked at the different ways of combating this condition, such as increasing the number of people you talk to, improving your social skills, and learning how to compliment others. But it seems the number one thing is to change your perceptions of the world around you.

It’s realising that sometimes people aren’t able to meet up with you, not because there is something inherently wrong with you, but because of other things going on in their lives. Maybe the person that you wanted to have dinner with wasn’t able to accept your invitation because it was too short notice for them and they had already promised someone else they would have drinks. People who aren’t lonely realise this and, as a consequence, don’t get down or start beating themselves up when someone says no to their invitations. When you don’t attribute “failures” to yourself, but rather to circumstances, you become much more resilient in life and can keep going.

Getting rid of loneliness is also about letting go of cynicism and mistrust of others. So next time you meet someone new, try to lose that protective shield and really allow them in, even though you don’t know what the outcome will be.

Olivia Remes, PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

They are among 76 distinguished scholars to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of their work in the fields of archaeology, history, law, politics and prison reform.

The Cambridge academics made Fellows of the Academy this year are:

• Christopher Evans (Department of Archaeology) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on some of the most important archaeological field projects undertaken in this country since the growth of development-led archaeology
• Professor Martin Jones (Department of Archaeology) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work in the field of in the field of archaeobotany
• Professor Joya Chatterji (Faculty of History) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on South Asian history, specifically the history of the India/Pakistan Partition of 1947
• Professor Brian Cheffins (Faculty of Law) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on the application of economic analysis to the area of company law
• Professor David Runciman (Department of Politics and International Studies) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of his work on the history of political thought (from Hobbes through to late nineteenth and twentieth century political thought); theories of the state and political representation; and contemporary politics and political theory
• Professor Alison Liebling (Director of the Prisons Research Centre) is to be elected to the fellowship in recognition of her work on studying prisons, specifically the internal social order of prisons.

They join the British Academy, a community of over 1400 of the leading minds that make up the UK’s national academy for the humanities and social sciences. Current Fellows include the classicist Dame Mary Beard, the historian Sir Simon Schama and philosopher Baroness Onora O’Neill, while previous Fellows include Sir Winston Churchill, C.S Lewis, Seamus Heaney and Beatrice Webb.

Christopher Evans said: “As having something of a renegade academic status, I am only delighted and honoured to be elected to the Academy.”

Professor Martin Jones said: “It is a real privilege to join the Academy at a time when the humanities and social sciences have more to offer society than ever before."

This year marks the largest ever cohort of new Fellows elected to the British Academy for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences.

As well as a fellowship, the British Academy is a funding body for research, nationally and internationally, and a forum for debate and engagement.

Professor Sir David Cannadine, President of the British Academy, said: “I am delighted to welcome this year’s exceptionally talented new Fellows to the Academy. Including historians and economists, neuroscientists and legal theorists, they bring a vast range of expertise, insights and experience to our most distinguished fellowship.

“The election of the largest cohort of Fellows in our history means the British Academy is better placed than ever to help tackle the challenges we all face today. Whether it’s social integration or the ageing society, the future of democracy or climate change, Brexit or the rise of artificial intelligence, the insights of the humanities and social sciences are essential as we navigate our way through an uncertain present into what we hope will be an exciting future.

“I extend to all of our new Fellows my heartiest congratulations and I look forward to working closely with them to build on the Academy’s reputation and achievements.”

Her speechwriting files for Bruges, including drafts and contributions from outsiders, are among more than 40,000 pages of Lady Thatcher’s papers for the year 1988 being opened to the public at Churchill College from Monday.

They show that rather than acting as a call-to-arms for Eurosceptics and attacking the principles behind the single market – of which Thatcher was something of a devotee – her speech was more concerned with the perceived power grab by European Commission chief Jacques Delors, and a possible move to a more ‘federal’ European ‘super-state’.

Historian Chris Collins of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, the only person to date to have read all 40,000 pages of material being released, said: “She wanted her speech to be about direction, rather than point scoring – and she edges back from attacking the Commission, approaching it in a more intellectual style.

“I know she was uncomfortable about the venue, but we are very lucky in that few of her speeches remain in such a complete form as this.

“When you read her papers for 1988, you see her sheer level of enthusiasm for the single market. She goes up hill and down dale with deep enthusiasm because this is practical Europe, this is how it works together. The role of speechwriter Hugh Thomas – a committed Europhile – is also crucial to consider when looking at this speech from a historical perspective.”

The 1988 papers are the latest of Margaret Thatcher’s reign as Prime Minister from 1979-90 to be made available to scholars, researchers and the general public – alongside the papers of Sir Winston Churchill and hundreds of other leading figures at the Churchill Archives Centre.

As well as Lady Thatcher’s papers surrounding the Bruges speech in September 1988, her personal papers also reveal the emergence of plans for a possible fourth term in office, with no obvious end to Thatcherism in sight at that point.

However, 1988 was not without its problems as the government experienced a large number of backbench rebellions on controversial measures, including many with manifesto authority. When Thatcher met with the Executive of the 1922 Committee in January, she was warned that one of the things they wanted to raise with her was the ‘problem of a large majority in the House of Commons and an inadequate Opposition, leading the government being perceived as dictatorial and insensitive to criticism’.

“Unsurprisingly, when this point was indeed made to her face, Thatcher made an indignant response,” said Collins. “There followed a series of rebellions over benefits and the poll tax which she took very personally as relationships with the Conservative parliamentary party frayed.”

Away from frontline politics, the archives for 1988 also reveal that her husband Denis went through a showbiz reception guest list with a fine tooth-comb, querying whether certain celebrities such as Paul McCartney and David Attenborough should be invited to Number 10 for a gathering of those who would be easily recognised by the public and do Mrs Thatcher much good on TV.

The original list of 45 personalities was too low on numbers thought Lady Thatcher and a much longer list of more than 200 names was drawn up by former culture secretary, John Whittingdale – then political secretary to the Prime Minister.

“He (Whittingdale) was not the grizzled elder statesman of the present day,” said Collins. “This was the young man whose evening was spent watching Meatloaf at the Hammersmith Odeon and whose idea of a good party was to invite Paul McCartney, Freddie Mercury and the Jaggers.

Whittingdale, perhaps, did not count on the scrutinous eye of Denis Thatcher – who attacked the proposed guest list with no small amount of red ink, marking ticks against those he ‘would personally like to see included’ and question marks beside ‘those who, I believe, do not help'.

He went on to say: “Whilst I accept of course that not everyone who comes to our receptions are necessarily on ‘our’ side I find it both unpleasant and embarrassing to entertain those who publicly insult the PM. This list needs some careful checking in this regard.”

His favourite name of those listed was comedian Eric Sykes who gained an expansive four ticks. Others to receive enthusiastic backing from Denis included Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Dame Judi Dench, Nick Faldo and Rolf Harris.

McCartney and Attenborough were not alone in having question marks placed next to their name. Sebastian Coe, Shirley Bassey and magician Paul Daniels all fell foul of Denis’ red pen.

In the end, the longer guest list was dropped in favour of the original 45 and the British Winter Olympic Squad – minus Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, who was double booked and unable to attend.

Britain has seen a dramatic transformation in recent years in its attitude towards food. We have gone from being a country ridiculed for its bland, carb-heavy cuisine, for whom the chicken tikka masala was the height of exoticness, to becoming a nation obsessed with food.

But alongside this obsession with food has come a growing understanding of the impact that our diet has on our bodies – not only on our waistlines, but also on conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and even dementia.

This relationship between our diet and our weight is simple: you eat too much, you get fat. Hence, some would argue, the solution should be equally simple: you eat less, you lose weight. 

If only it were this easy. Anyone who has tried to shed a few pounds – and, crucially, to keep them off – knows that the answer is rarely so straightforward. In fact, even the food – and volume – that we ‘choose’ to eat is influenced by a surprising number of factors.

Read more

The team, led by Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge, previously created a much simpler structure resembling a mouse embryo in culture, using two types of stem cells – the body’s ‘master cells’ – and a 3D scaffold on which they can grow.

Now, in a study published today in Nature Cell Biology, Professor Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues have developed the embryo-like structures further, using not just two but three types of stem cells which let them reconstruct a process known as gastrulation, an essential step in which the embryonic cells being self-organising into the correct structure for an embryo to form.

Once a mammalian egg has been fertilised by a sperm, it divides multiple times to generate a small, free-floating ball comprising three types of stem cells. At the stage of development known as the ‘blastocyst’ stage, the particular stem cells that will eventually make the future body – the embryonic stem cells (ESCs) – cluster together inside the embryo towards one end. The other two types of stem cell in the blastocyst are the extra-embryonic trophoblast stem cells (TSCs), which will form the placenta, and primitive endoderm stem cells (PESCs) that will form the yolk sac, ensuring that the foetus’s organs develop properly and providing essential nutrients.

In March 2017, Professor Zernicka-Goetz and colleagues published a study that described how, using a combination of genetically-modified mouse ESCs and TSCs, together with a 3D ‘jelly’ scaffold known as an extracellular matrix, they were able to grow a structure capable of assembling itself and whose development and architecture very closely resembled the natural embryo. There was a remarkable degree of communication between the two types of stem cell: in a sense, the cells were telling each other where in the embryo to place themselves.

However, a key step in the life of the embryo – gastrulation, described by the eminent biologist Lewis Wolpert as “truly the most important time in your life” – was missing. Gastrulation is the point at which the embryo transforms from being a single layer to three layers: an inner layer (endoderm), middle layer (mesoderm) and outer layer (endoderm), determining which tissues or organs the cells will then develop into.

“Proper gastrulation in normal development is only possible if you have all three types of stem cell. In order to reconstruct this complex dance, we had to add the missing third stem cell,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. “By replacing the jelly that we used in earlier experiments with this third type of stem cell, we were able to generate structures whose development was astonishingly successful.”

By adding the PESCs, the team was able to see their ‘embryo’ undergo gastrulation, organising itself into the three body layers that all animals have. The timing, architecture and patterns of gene activity reflected that of natural embryo development.

Image: Synthetic embryo like structure with embryonic part generated from the embryonic stem cells (pink) and and extra-embryonic tissues in blue. (Credit: Zernicka-Goetz lab, University of Cambridge)

“Our artificial embryos underwent the most important event in life in the culture dish,” adds Professor Zernicka-Goetz. “They are now extremely close to real embryos. To develop further, they would have to implant into the body of the mother or an artificial placenta.”

The researchers say they should now be in a position to better understand how the three stem cell types interact to enable the embryo to develop, by experimentally altering biological pathways in one cell type and seeing how this affects the behaviour of one, or both, of the other cell types.

“We can also now try to apply this to the equivalent human stem cell types and so study the very earliest events in human embryo development without actually having to use natural human embryos,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. 

By applying these studies side-by-side, it should be possible to learn a great deal about the fundamental aspects of the first stages of mammalian development. In fact, such comparisons should enable scientists to study events that happen beyond day 14 in human pregnancies, but without using 14-day-old human embryos; UK law permits embryos to be studied in the laboratory only up to this period.

“The early stages of embryo development are when a large proportion of pregnancies are lost and yet it is a stage that we know very little about,” says Professor Zernicka-Goetz. "Now we have a way of simulating embryonic development in the culture dish, so it should be possible to understand exactly what is going on during this remarkable period in an embryo’s life, and why sometimes this process fails.”

The research was funded by the European Research Council and Wellcome.

Reference
Sozen, B et al. Self-assembly of embryonic and two extra-embryonic stem cell types into gastrulating embryo structures. Nature Cell Biology; 23 Jul 2018; DOI: 10.1038/s41556-018-0147-7

The new chair, which will be based at Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science and Technology, will build on the University’s strengths in computer science and engineering, and will be a focal point for the wide range of AI-related research taking place across the University. Cambridge researchers are designing systems that are cybersecure, model human reasoning, interact in affective ways with us, uniquely identify us by our face and give insights into our biological makeup.

The first DeepMind Chair is expected to take up their position in October 2019, following an international search by the department. The chair will have full academic freedom to pursue research in the field of machine learning.

Cambridge has a long tradition of excellence in computer science, and is home to the largest technology cluster in Europe. The DeepMind Chair will build on this tradition by enhancing Cambridge’s capacity in AI-related research, and will contribute to the UK’s standing as a global hub in this rapidly-growing area.

The gift is part of a wider DeepMind programme to encourage uptake of machine learning, to support the wider academic ecosystem. As part of these efforts, DeepMind will give a donation to support four Master’s students from underrepresented groups wishing to study machine learning and computer science at Cambridge. More information will be made available this coming autumn, for scholarships beginning in the 2019 academic year.

Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s co-founder and CEO, completed his undergraduate degree in computer science at Queens’ College, Cambridge and received his PhD from UCL, while numerous other employees continue to give back to Cambridge through teaching and mentorship.

“I have many happy memories from my time as an undergraduate at Cambridge, so it’s now a real honour for DeepMind to be able to contribute back to the Department of Computer Science and Technology and support others through their studies,” said Hassabis. “My hope is that the DeepMind Chair in Machine Learning will help extend Cambridge’s already world-leading teaching and research capacities, and support further scientific breakthroughs towards the development of safe and ethical AI.”

“This gift will not only enhance Cambridge’s strengths in the field of AI research, but will benefit the UK more broadly, as AI has such transformative potential in so many aspects of our lives,” said Professor Stephen Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. “Our researchers are not only developing these new technologies, but are working to ensure that they benefit humanity. This new Professorship is an important piece of that puzzle.”

“This new Professorship will build on our existing strengths and become an important focus for research and teaching in applied AI,” said Professor Ann Copestake, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Technology. “The interdisciplinary environment in the University will help the development of ethical and sustainable AI-based solutions to complex social, economic and environmental challenges.”

Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries Margot James MP said: “The UK already has a global standing in AI and this new post at Cambridge is another string to our bow. Through our Industrial Strategy and £1bn AI sector deal, we are creating the right environment for the technology to be developed in the UK. I welcome any initiative which will help us achieve our aim of making sure it improves our economy and society.”

Research casts doubt on the widely-held view that spiralling military expenditure across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) “crowded out” investment in healthcare and public services, leading to civil unrest that eventually exploded in the Arab Spring revolutions.

The so-called “guns versus butter” or “welfare versus warfare” hypotheses – that prioritised military spending resulted in neglect of health and education, thereby creating conditions that fomented public rebellion – is considered by many experts to be a root cause of the uprisings that gripped the region during 2011.

However, a team of researchers who analysed economic and security data from MENA nations in the 16 years leading up to the Arab Spring found no evidence of a trade-off between spending on the military and public services, specifically healthcare.

The researchers from Cambridge and the Lebanese American University argue that much of the evidence for the ‘guns versus butter’ causal link come from analyses of wealthy European nations, which has then been assumed to hold true for the Middle East. 

They say the study’s findings, published today in the journal Defence and Peace Economics, provide a “cautionary note” against a reliance on simplistic correlations based on data from OECD nations to draw important policy conclusions about the causes of turmoil in the Middle East.  

“Our research finds reports of this apparent spending trade-off prior to the Arab Spring to be somewhat spurious,” said Dr Adam Coutts, based at Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology.

“Academics and policy-makers should be careful in assuming that models and results from studies of other regions can be transplanted onto the Middle East and North Africa,” he said.

“Determining the cause of unrest is a rather more complex task than some experts may suggest. Historical experiences and political economy factors need to be considered.”    

While only Saudi Arabia is in the top ten global nations for military spending in terms of hard cash, when calculated as a share of GDP six of the top ten military spenders are MENA nations.

Coutts and colleagues ran World Bank data through detailed statistical models to explore the trade-off between spending on military and on welfare – health, in this case – of 18 different MENA nations from 1995 up to the start of the Arab Spring in 2011.

The team also looked at casualties resulting from domestic terror attacks in an attempt to estimate security needs that might have helped drive military spending in a region plagued by terrorism. 

They found no statistically significant evidence that increased military spending had an impact on health investment. “Contrary to existing evidence from many European nations, we found that levels of military expenditure do not induce or affect cuts to healthcare in the Middle East and North Africa,” said co-author Dr Adel Daoud from Cambridge’s Centre for Business Research.

The researchers also found no evidence for casualties from terrorism affecting either health or military spending – perhaps a result of the routine nature of such occurrences in the region.

“There may have been a policy adaptation in which regional conflicts and security threats are no longer the main influence on government security and military spending decisions,” said Daoud.

Adam Coutts added: “It has been argued that Arab populations accepted an ‘authoritarian bargain’ over the last forty years – one of societal militarisation in return for domestic security – and that this came at the expense of their welfare and social mobility.

“However, health and military spending cannot be predicted by each other in this troubled region. Policy analysts should not single out military spending as a main culprit for the lack of investment in public goods.

“Once again we find that straightforward explanations for unrest in the Middle East and North Africa are tenuous on close analysis.”

Two inspectors visited the school to carry out their assessments.

They found;

• From the opening in 2015, the headteacher has led the school with a tenacious, yet compassionate determination to ensure that all pupils succeed, whatever their starting points. 
• Leaders at all levels, including governors, are relentless in their pursuit of high-quality learning experiences for pupils across every aspect of the exceptionally well-considered curriculum. 
• The school’s research-informed curriculum is ambitious, innovative and inclusive. It aims to ‘develop compassionate citizens in a positive social climate of high expectations.’ In doing so, it challenges pupils very effectively to achieve well.
• Pupils are regularly challenged to achieve their best, through carefully planned activities and teachers’ skilful questioning.
• Provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is outstanding. Staff provide high-quality support for vulnerable pupils in a nurturing environment and so typically these pupils make excellent progress. The welfare and care of all pupils is of paramount importance.
• The behaviour of pupils is outstanding.
• Working relationships between staff and parents are excellent. Parents are kept well informed about their children’s progress. Most are regular participants in the ‘family Friday’ sessions which allow them to join in with their children’s learning and to discuss it with school’s staff.
• Pupils with complex needs receive high-quality care across all aspects of the school day.

Headteacher, Dr. James Biddulph, welcomed the report saying:

"It is a privilege to lead such a dedicated and passionate team of educators, including teachers and teaching assistants, ably supported by a superb administrative team.  They have each risen to the massive challenge set us by the University and UK government to create a school that could contribute to innovating curricula and thinking about what constitutes a truly brilliant education for our children.  We look forward to more collaboration with our colleagues in other schools to continue our own learning and contribute to the learning of others." 

School pupils enjoying a picnic in the grounds

The school opened at Eddington, at the University of Cambridge’s North-West Cambridge site, in September 2015 with just 120 pupils. It was the first operational building serving the local community. There will be pupils 630 in September 2021, when it’s expected to reach full capacity. The school has been designed to provide diverse learning spaces. All the classrooms open up to the school grounds to promote outdoor learning opportunities. Currently there are 31 staff. Staff training is highly valued and teachers have access to advice and support of the University’s Faculty of Education. In January, the school was named as a regional hub for the Chartered College of Training (CCT).

The University of Cambridge’s Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Graham Virgo, says:

"When we opened in 2015, we were expected to be a local community primary school as well as establish ourselves as the first University Training School in the UK for primary. The challenge has been enormous and demonstrates the University's commitment to impact positively on society locally, as well as nationally. I am delighted that the hard work of many people, particularly the headteacher, the teaching staff, teaching assistants and pupils themselves, has been recognised through this outstanding OFSTED report."

The school is already working with colleagues as far afield as India and is planning a number of new projects to consider how research informed practice can be disseminated through primary schools. As the headteacher commented, in remarks to the inspectors, “We are not the finished article…we never will be.”

More information can be found here.

The game, called Wired, is available to download and play for free from today, and teaches the key mathematical concepts unpinning electricity. Electricity affects all of us every day, but is difficult to teach as it is abstract, difficult to visualise and requires lots of practice to master.

“A video game is an ideal way to teach students about electricity as it allows players to visualise the underlying concepts and the relationships between them,” said Diarmid Campbell from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, and the game’s designer. “It provides a structure for incremental challenges, each one building on previous ones, and there is a set of tried and tested motivational techniques that can encourage people to push through tricky areas.”

Campbell spent close to two decades in the gaming industry, developing titles for PlayStation, Xbox and PC. He is now a senior teaching associate at Cambridge, and develops video games to inspire more teenagers to study engineering.

Players of Wired will get an intuitive understanding of circuits, the logic of switches, voltage, current and resistance. They do this not by analysing circuits, as in textbooks, but by wiring up circuits to solve problems.

“Most educational games are delivered through the classroom and only need to be more fun than the lesson they are replacing,” said Campbell. “Wired will be delivered through gaming websites, so it needs to be at least as fun as other video games that people play. We are not gamifying education; we are edu-fying, and perhaps even edifying, a game.”

In many areas of physics, people already have an intuitive understanding of how things behave before they learn about them more formally. For instance, people have been throwing balls around since they were toddlers so when they learn about projectiles and Newton’s laws of motion they have an intuition to guide them in how to apply the equations.

Since electricity is invisible and isn’t something we encourage kids to play with, this intuition isn’t there in the same way. Students can learn the mathematics, but may not have the intuition to know how to apply it. “Students are often told that electricity behaves like water flowing through pipes – which gets you some of the way there, but actually, people don’t really understand how water behaves either,” said Campbell. “How many people can tell you why the shower changes temperature when you flush the toilet?”

According to Campbell, Wired bridges this gap, giving players an intuitive understanding of how electricity behaves and gets players solving problems that are not usually encountered until A-level physics.

The project was supported by The Underwood Trust.

The game is currently available on Mac and Windows.

An installable version can be downloaded at:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/885470/Wired/

A browser version of the game can be played at:
https://wiredthegame.com/