The researchers behind the study argue that if government policy made menu labelling mandatory, it could encourage restaurants to produce healthier options, leading to public health benefits.

Obesity levels worldwide have almost tripled since 1975, making it one of the most pressing public health challenges today. Poor diet is a leading contributor to obesity as well as to diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Food from restaurants and fast food takeaways tends to be high in energy, fat, sugar and salt compared to food prepared at home. Some health campaigners have called for restaurants to improve the nutritional information available to customers. Mandatory menu labelling for large restaurant chains was introduced in the US in May 2018. In the UK, the government included voluntary menu labelling in its Public Health Responsibility Deal in 2011. A proposal for compulsory menu labelling was included in last year’s Childhood Obesity Plan and a public consultation closed last December, but no announcement on a final policy has been made so far.

The assumption behind such measures is that providing customers with clearer information on the energy content of food served will allow them to make more informed, and hence ‘better’, choices. But it is also possible that menu labelling could change what outlets serve, as nutritionally-poor food could lead to bad publicity.

Researchers at the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), University of Cambridge, set out to determine whether there were differences in the energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with ,versus without, voluntary menu labelling in their stores. Their results are published today in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

The team first looked at energy and nutritional information on the websites of the most popular 100 UK restaurant chains during March and April 2018. Of these 100 restaurants, 42 provided some form of energy and nutritional information online, but only 14 provided menu labelling in stores.

Items from restaurants with in-store menu labelling had on average 45% less fat and 60% less salt than items from other restaurants.

“This is the first study to look at differences in nutritional content of food from restaurants with and without menu labelling in the UK,” said Dolly Theis from CEDAR and the MRC Epidemiology Unit at Cambridge. “It suggests that on the whole, restaurants that provide information on calories on menus also serve healthier food, in terms of fat and salt levels. As well as providing useful information for customers, mandatory menu labelling could also encourage restaurants to improve the nutritional quality of their menus.”

The researchers say that it is possible that menu labelling encourages restaurants to change the content of their food and also that those chains with ‘healthier’ offerings are more likely to label their menus. Twelve of the 14 restaurants that provided voluntary menu labelling were in the top 50 restaurants by sales – larger chains may come under more scrutiny from governments, the media, campaign groups and the public to provide both menu labelling and healthier options.

Across all menu categories, at least three-quarters of individual menu items were below the daily maximum recommended intake for energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt. However, some individual items contained more than twice the daily recommended amount for energy, fat, saturated fat, sugar or salt. In one case, an individual dish contained 5,961Kcal – almost three times the daily recommended maximum for an average adult woman.

Dr Jean Adams added: “We found some restaurant items that hugely exceeded the daily recommended intake for energy, fats, sugar and salt. More than a quarter of UK adults eat meals out at least once a week, so such large or nutritionally-imbalanced portions could contribute to poor dietary intake at a population level.”

The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, Economic and Social Research Council, Medical Research Council, National Institute for Health Research, and Wellcome.

Reference
Theis, DRZ and Adams, J. Differences in energy and nutritional content of menu items served by popular UK chain restaurants with versus without voluntary menu labelling: a cross-sectional study. PLOS ONE; 16 Oct 2019; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222773

I try to understand how and why new diseases emerge. As cities grow and climates change, new and poorly-understood diseases are causing outbreaks more and more frequently. I build models to help understand how this happens, from how zoonotic diseases – that is, diseases that ‘jump’ from animals to people – circulate in wildlife to how we can detect rare viruses once they make that jump into people. This work is sometimes theoretical but sometimes directly applicable to public health; next month I expect to be deployed to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to work as an epidemiologist on the Ebola outbreak response.

I do primarily computational work, so most days I code and run simulations and write. However, to get to know more of my (very interdisciplinary) team and understand the data I use, I also went to Australia for fieldwork last year. While there, my work looked completely different: I caught bats, collected samples, and climbed a few trees to try to find out what they were eating. Catching bats requires such obscure skills as stringing up flag poles, detangling claws from nets, writing labels in the dark, and feeling vibrations through strings from impacts 20 meters away. I also had a few too many close encounters with spiders the size of my fist.

My hope is that eventually we will understand how to better prevent, detect, and stop outbreaks. Once these sorts of diseases start spreading among people--as we’ve seen in recent years with Ebola--outbreaks can get out of control quickly. Prevention can take a number of forms, including changing how we interact with our environments to protect the health of wildlife and developing health capacity to make sure we notice an outbreak as soon as it starts.

One of my favourite parts of doing a PhD here has been the freedom to do pursue truly interdisciplinary and international work. I’ve learned about my own field in a deep way, but I’ve also been able to learn from collaborators in ecology, virology, computer science, and anthropology, and I think my work is much better for it.

Be stubborn and support other women. There are real frustrations with being a woman in STEM, but in my experience it's easier to get through them if you stand up for what you're passionate about, what you're good at, and where you want to go. And if you are successful, please support other women trying to do the same! Being part of supportive circles of women and LGBTQ+ scientists has been invaluable to me, and I hope one day I get to help make the road a little smoother for others.

The study, by researchers from the University of Cambridge and University of Strathclyde, looked at four different types of law enforcement interventions, the first evaluation of the their effectiveness for this particular type of cybercrime.

They found that while high-profile arrests and sentencing of cybercriminals only lead to a short drop in the number of attacks taking place, the takedown of infrastructure and targeted messaging campaigns were strongly associated with a sharper and longer-term reduction in attack numbers. The results will be presented today (21 October) at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference in Amsterdam.

For just a few dollars, almost anyone can become involved in cybercrime through the use of ‘booter’ service websites, where users can purchase targeted denial of service (DoS) attacks. A DoS attack generates large amounts of traffic which overwhelm end users or web services, taking them offline.

DoS attacks have been used in the past as a protest tactic, but because of booter services and the relative ease of using them, they are commonly used by users of gaming sites, as a form of retaliation against other users – the largest booter provider carries out between 30,000 and 50,000 such attacks every day.

While DoS attacks are usually targeted at a specific end users, they can often cause collateral damage, knocking out other users or systems.

“Law enforcement are concerned that DoS attacks purchased from a booter site might be like a ‘gateway drug’ to more serious cybercrime,” said Ben Collier from Cambridge’s Department of Computer Science & Technology, the paper’s first author. “A big problem is that there is still relatively little evidence as to what best practice looks like for tackling cybercrime.”

“Even people running booter services think that booting is lame,” said Dr Daniel Thomas from Strathclyde’s Department of Computer and Information Sciences. “This makes the market particularly vulnerable to disruption.”

Collier and his colleagues from the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre used two datasets with granular data about the attacks from booter sites, and modelled how the data correlated with different intervention tactics from the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US, and other international law enforcement agencies.

While operating a booter service or purchasing a DoS attack is illegal in most jurisdictions, earlier research has found that most booter operators were unconcerned about the possibility of police action against them.

The researchers found that arrests only had a short-term effects on the volume of DoS attacks – about two weeks – at which point activity went back to normal. Sentencing had no widespread effect, as attackers in one country weren’t affected by sentences in another country.

Taking down infrastructure – as the FBI did at the end of 2018 – had a far more noticeable effect, and suppressed the booter market for months. “This FBI action also reshaped the market: before, it was what you’d expect in a mature ecosystem, where there several large booter services and lots of smaller ones,” said Collier. “But now there’s really just one large booter service provider, and you’re starting to see a few smaller ones start to come back.”

The most interesting results were around targeted messaging. From late December 2017 to June 2018, the NCA bought targeted Google adverts aimed at young men in the UK. When a user searched for booter services, a targeted advert popped up, explaining that DoS attacks are illegal.

“It’s surprising, but it seems to work, like a type of digital guardianship,” said Collier. “At the exact moment you get curious about getting involved in cybercrime, you get a little tap on the shoulder.

“It might not work for people who are already involved in this type of cybercrime, but it appeared to dramatically decrease the numbers of new people getting involved.”

While the researchers say this evidence suggests that targeted online messaging has the potential to be a potent tool for preventing crime, it also poses questions about what accountability structures might be required for its wider use as a police tactic.

This has already had direct policy impact, and the FBI and NCA have used this research to inform their strategies for dealing with booter services.

The research was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Reference:
Ben Collier, Daniel Thomas, Richard Clayton and Alice Hutchings. ‘Booting the Booters: Evaluating the Effects of Police Interventions in the Market for Denial-of-Service Attacks.’ Paper presented at the ACM Internet Measurement Conference 2019. Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The University of Cambridge will be a partner in a new transatlantic research alliance announced today to help more people beat cancer through early detection.

Cancer Research UK will invest up to £40 million over the next five years into the International Alliance for Cancer Early Detection (ACED).

ACED is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Canary Center at Stanford University, the University of Cambridge, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, UCL and The University of Manchester. Stanford and the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute will also significantly invest in the Alliance, taking the total potential contributions to more than £55 million.

Early detection is essential to help more people beat cancer – a patient’s chance of surviving their disease improves dramatically when cancer is found and treated earlier.

Understanding the biology of early cancers and pre-cancerous states will allow doctors to find accurate ways to spot the disease earlier and where necessary treat it effectively. It could even enable ‘precision prevention’ – where the disease could be stopped from ever occurring in the first place.

UK statistics highlight the major improvements in survival that could be achieved. 5-year survival for six different types of cancer is more than three times higher if the disease is diagnosed at stage one, when the tumour tends to be small and remains localised, compared with survival when diagnosed at stage four, when the cancer tends to be larger and has started to invade surrounding tissue and other organs.*

Advances in early detection technologies will help decrease late-stage diagnosis and increase the proportion of people diagnosed at an early and treatable stage, so a future for more patients can be secured.

Great strides have been made through existing screening programmes, such as for bowel, breast and cervical cancer, and increasing public awareness and GP urgent referral of patients with suspicious symptoms. However, for many cancer types, no screening tools exist and new technologies for detecting cancer have been slow to emerge. 

Previously, researchers taking on this challenge have faced many barriers, including lack of funding and collaboration opportunities, meaning research has been small scale and disconnected. Individual research groups have chipped away at big challenges with limited success. By combining the ‘firepower’ of some of the leading research institutions in the world in early detection, ACED will accelerate breakthroughs, leading to quicker benefits for patients.

However, like looking for a needle in a haystack the very low levels of tell-tale early cancer signs make it incredibly difficult to detect cancer early. Scientists in the Alliance will work together at the forefront of technological innovation to translate research into realistic ways to improve cancer diagnosis, which can be implemented into health systems. Potential areas of research include:

• Developing new improved imaging techniques and robotics, to detect early tumours and pre-cancerous lesions
• Increasing understanding of how the environment surrounding a tumour influences cancer development
• Developing less invasive and simpler detection techniques such as blood, breath and urine tests, which can monitor patients who are at a higher risk of certain cancers
• Searching for early stress signals sent out from tumours or surrounding damaged tissue as a new indication of cancer
• Looking for early signs of cancer in surrounding tissue and fluids to help diagnose hard to reach tumours
• Harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence and big data to look for signs of cancer that are undetectable to humans.

The Cambridge ACED centre is led by clinician-scientist Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald and physicist Dr Sarah Bohndiek who also lead the CRUK Cambridge Centre’s Early Detection Programme.

In Cambridge, scientists will design, develop and deliver a clinical facility that will enable early phase clinical trials of new diagnostic technologies.

Called Clinical Infrastructure for Research in Early Detection (CuRED), this facility will be key to test and validate early diagnostics and accelerate adoption of the most promising early detection approaches by doctors.

Ongoing research in Cambridge includes the development of sophisticated imaging tools to detect pre-cancerous lesions.

"Early detection is an area of research that hasn’t been given the attention it deserves," said Professor Fitzgerald. "This alliance will allow the field to gain momentum, so the sum of its members will be greater than its parts.

“In Cambridge we will work on essential clinical trials that will result in faster implementation of new early detection strategies and diagnostics, making a real difference to the lives of patients.”

Michelle Mitchell, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, said: “Now is the time to be ambitious and develop effective new ways to detect cancer earlier. It’s an area of research where we have the potential to completely change the future of cancer treatment, turning it into a manageable and beatable disease for more people.

“Real progress in early detection can’t be achieved by a single organisation. Benefits for patients will only be realised if early cancer detection leaders from around the world come together. No more siloes, no more missed opportunities; let us tackle this problem together and beat cancer.”

The Prime Minister said: “Every two minutes, someone in the UK has their world turned upside down when they are diagnosed with cancer. Thanks to the pioneering work of UK researchers and our world-beating NHS, more people are surviving than ever.

“However, there is more to do to detect and cure this disease earlier. That is why I am pleased to welcome this new UK-US alliance, driven by Cancer Research UK.

“This is the transatlantic partnership at its very best. Our brilliant scientists will be able to work together to develop detection technologies and implement them in our health service, so we can find cancer earlier and ultimately save people’s lives.”

It’s crucial that new early detection advances can also be quickly implemented into the health service to save and transform lives. The Alliance will be a globally unique platform that is able to test and validate early detection innovations in real-world hospital and healthcare settings. The partners will engage with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the research field to ensure discoveries can achieve economies of scale and reach patients as soon as possible.

The Alliance will also be in a unique position to train and develop a new generation of early cancer detection research leaders, learning from the very best that both countries and all five centres have to offer.

The benefits of investing in early detection research are clear. And through ACED the global early detection research community will grow and develop technological innovations that radically improve outcomes for people diagnosed with cancer. 

* Based on 5-year age-standardised net cancer survival in England of adults diagnosed between 2013 and 2017, followed up to 2018; cancer sites for persons: colorectal, kidney, lung. For women specifically: breast, uterine and ovary.

Adapted from CRUK press release.

The carbon-neutral device sets a new benchmark in the field of solar fuels, after researchers at the University of Cambridge demonstrated that it can directly produce the gas – called syngas – in a sustainable and simple way.

Rather than running on fossil fuels, the artificial leaf is powered by sunlight, although it still works efficiently on cloudy and overcast days. And unlike the current industrial processes for producing syngas, the leaf does not release any additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The results are reported in the journal Nature Materials.

Syngas is currently made from a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, and is used to produce a range of commodities, such as fuels, pharmaceuticals, plastics and fertilisers.

“You may not have heard of syngas itself but every day, you consume products that were created using it. Being able to produce it sustainably would be a critical step in closing the global carbon cycle and establishing a sustainable chemical and fuel industry,” said senior author Professor Erwin Reisner from Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry, who has spent seven years working towards this goal.

The device Reisner and his colleagues produced is inspired by photosynthesis – the natural process by which plants use the energy from sunlight to turn carbon dioxide into food.

On the artificial leaf, two light absorbers, similar to the molecules in plants that harvest sunlight, are combined with a catalyst made from the naturally abundant element cobalt.

When the device is immersed in water, one light absorber uses the catalyst to produce oxygen. The other carries out the chemical reaction that reduces carbon dioxide and water into carbon monoxide and hydrogen, forming the syngas mixture.

As an added bonus, the researchers discovered that their light absorbers work even under the low levels of sunlight on a rainy or overcast day.

“This means you are not limited to using this technology just in warm countries, or only operating the process during the summer months,” said PhD student Virgil Andrei, first author of the paper. “You could use it from dawn until dusk, anywhere in the world.”

The research was carried out in the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable SynGas Chemistry in the University’s Department of Chemistry. It was co-funded by the Austrian government and the Austrian petrochemical company OMV, which is looking for ways to make its business more sustainable.

“OMV has been an avid supporter of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for the past seven years. The team’s fundamental research to produce syngas as the basis for liquid fuel in a carbon neutral way is ground-breaking,” said Michael-Dieter Ulbrich, Senior Advisor at OMV.

Other ‘artificial leaf’ devices have also been developed, but these usually only produce hydrogen. The Cambridge researchers say the reason they have been able to make theirs produce syngas sustainably is thanks the combination of materials and catalysts they used.

These include state-of-the-art perovskite light absorbers, which provide a high photovoltage and electrical current to power the chemical reaction by which carbon dioxide is reduced to carbon monoxide, in comparison to light absorbers made from silicon or dye-sensitised materials. The researchers also used cobalt as their molecular catalyst, instead of platinum or silver. Cobalt is not only lower-cost, but it is better at producing carbon monoxide than other catalysts.

The team is now looking at ways to use their technology to produce a sustainable liquid fuel alternative to petrol.

Syngas is already used as a building block in the production of liquid fuels. “What we’d like to do next, instead of first making syngas and then converting it into liquid fuel, is to make the liquid fuel in one step from carbon dioxide and water,” said Reisner, who is also a Fellow of St John’s College.

Although great advances are being made in generating electricity from renewable energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaics, Reisner says the development of synthetic petrol is vital, as electricity can currently only satisfy about 25% of our total global energy demand. “There is a major demand for liquid fuels to power heavy transport, shipping and aviation sustainably,” he said.

“We are aiming at sustainably creating products such as ethanol, which can readily be used as a fuel,” said Andrei. “It’s challenging to produce it in one step from sunlight using the carbon dioxide reduction reaction. But we are confident that we are going in the right direction, and that we have the right catalysts, so we believe we will be able to produce a device that can demonstrate this process in the near future.”

The research was also funded by the Winton Programme for the Physics of Sustainability, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Reference:
Virgil Andrei , Bertrand Reuillard and Erwin Reisner. ‘Bias-free solar syngas production by integrating a molecular cobalt catalyst with perovskite-BiVO₄ tandems.’ Nature Materials (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-019-0501-6

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
The University of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the University’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

Research by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) simulated real-world investment scenarios in order to analyse the extent the investing public values sustainability.

The ‘virtual investment experiment’ offered a unique, science-based rating format developed by CISL to help people understand easily the sustainable performance of funds. The study found a strong preference for sustainable investing even with a 2-3 per cent sacrifice in returns.

The study also found that participants under 35 and inexperienced savers had a stronger preference for sustainable investment; while income, gender and education had no effect on preference. It also showed there was stronger preference for avoiding funds rated poorly for sustainability than for actively choosing funds with high sustainability, indicating avoiding negative environmental and social impacts is more influential in decision-making than the pursuit of positive impacts.

“The study shows that people want more from their capital than only financial returns,” said Dr Jake Reynolds, Executive Director, Sustainable Economy, CISL. “Given the right information, they will avoid investments which harm people or the environment.

“In the real world most savers are not provided with that information; meaning they are unable to make positive choices. Given what we know about climate change, destruction of nature and high levels of inequality, that needs to change.”

‘Walking the talk: Understanding consumer demand for sustainable investing’ is a collaboration between CISL, the Department of Psychology and the Psychometrics Centre, and was commissioned by the Investment Leaders Group (ILG), which is convened by CISL.

The behaviour of a sample of 2,000 US citizens was analysed to reveal insights into how their decision-making was influenced by the availability of information on the environmental and social performance of funds alongside traditional financial data.

Participants were asked to choose between pairs of funds whose fund factsheets included additional information related to sustainability. In order to simulate real-world behaviours, participants knew they had a chance of receiving a financial investment of $1,000 in the fund of their choice.

The typical fund factsheets’ additional clear social and environmental impact information was based on a unique rating format called the Investment Impact Framework developed by CISL for the ILG. The Framework applies sound science to the measurement and communication of social and environmental fund performance.

“Our findings pave the way for more informed and more effective dialogue between the finance sector and the public about how capital should be invested,” said John Belgrove, Chair of the ILG and Senior Partner at Aon. “This couldn’t come at a more significant or appropriate time - when the world is looking to financial institutions to work towards the systemic change needed to tackle environmental and social sustainability, and climate change.”

Originally published on the CISL website.

The scientists used sophisticated simulations to show how powerful jets from supermassive black holes are disrupted by the motion of hot gas and galaxies, preventing gas from cooling, which could otherwise form stars. Their results are reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Typical clusters of galaxies have several thousand member galaxies, which can be very different from our own Milky Way and vary in size and shape. These systems are embedded in very hot gas known as the intracluster medium (ICM), all of which live in an unseen halo of so-called ‘dark matter’.

A large number of galaxies have supermassive black holes in their centres, and these often have high-speed jets of material stretching over thousands of light years that can inflate very hot lobes in the ICM.

The researchers, based at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology and Institute of Astronomy performed state-of-the-art simulations looking at the jet lobes in fine detail and the X-rays emitted as a result. The model captures the birth and cosmological evolution of the galaxy cluster, and allowed the scientists to investigate with unprecedented realism how the jets and lobes they inflate interact with a dynamic ICM.

They found that the mock X-ray observations of the simulated cluster revealed the so-called “X-ray cavities” and “X-ray bright rims” generated by supermassive black hole-driven jets, which itself is distorted by motions in the cluster remarkably resemble those found in observations of real galaxy clusters.

“We have developed new computational techniques, which harness the latest high-performance computing technology, to model for the first time the jet lobes with more than a million elements in fully realistic clusters. This allows us to place the physical processes that drive the liberation of the jet energy under the microscope,” said Dr Martin Bourne of the Institute of Astronomy, who led the team

As galaxies move around in the cluster, the simulation shows they create a kind of ‘weather’, moving, deforming and destroying the hot lobes of gas found at the end of the black hole jets. The jet lobes are enormously powerful and if disrupted, deliver vast amounts of energy to the ICM.

The Cambridge team believe that this cluster weather disruption mechanism may solve an enduring problem: understanding why ICM gas does not cool and form stars in the cluster centre. This so-called “cooling flow” puzzle has plagued astrophysicists for more than 25 years.

The simulations performed provide a tantalizing new solution that could solve this problem. Dr Bourne commented: “The combination of the huge energies pumped into the jet lobes by the supermassive black hole and the ability of cluster weather to disrupt the lobes and redistribute this energy to the ICM provides a simple and yet elegant mechanism to solve the cooling flow problem.”

A series of next-generation X-ray space telescopes will launch into orbit over the next decade. These advanced instruments should help settle the debate – and if intergalactic weather really does stop the birth of stars.

Reference:
Martin A Bourne et al. 'AGN jet feedback on a moving mesh: lobe energetics and X-ray properties in a realistic cluster environment.' Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2019). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz2604

Originally published on the Royal Astronomical Society website.

There is increasing interest around the world in using timber as a lighter, more sustainable construction alternative to steel and concrete. While wood has been used in buildings for millennia, its mechanical properties have not, as yet, measured up to all modern building standards for major superstructures. This is due partly to a limited understanding of the precise structure of wood cells.

The research, published today in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, has also identified the plant Arabidopsis thaliana as a suitable model to help direct future forestry breeding programmes.

Dr Jan Lyczakowski, the paper’s first author from Cambridge University’s Department of Biochemistry, who is now based at Jagiellonian University, said, “It is the molecular architecture of wood that determines its strength, but until now we didn’t know the precise molecular arrangement of cylindrical structures called macrofibrils in the wood cells. This new technique has allowed us to see the composition of the macrofibrils, and how the molecular arrangement differs between plants, and it helps us understand how this might impact on wood density and strength.”

The main building blocks of wood are the secondary walls around each wood cell, which are made of a matrix of large polymers called cellulose and hemicellulose, and impregnated with lignin. Trees such as the giant sequoia can only achieve their vast heights because of these secondary cell walls, which provide a rigid structure around the cells in their trunks.

The team from Cambridge University’s Department of Biochemistry and Sainsbury Laboratory (SLCU) adapted low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) to image the nanoscale architecture of tree cell walls in their living state. This revealed the microscopic detail of the secondary cell wall macrofibrils, which are 1000 times narrower than the width of a human hair.

To compare different trees, they collected wood samples from spruce, gingko and poplar trees in the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Samples were snap-frozen down to minus 200°C to preserve the cells in their live hydrated state, then coated in an ultra-thin platinum film three nanometres thick to give good visible contrast under the microscope.

“Our cryo-SEM is a significant advance over previously used techniques and has allowed us to image hydrated wood cells for the first time”, said Dr Raymond Wightman, Microscopy Core Facility Manager at SLCU. “It has revealed that there are macrofibril structures with a diameter exceeding 10 nanometres in both softwood and hardwood species, and confirmed they are common across all trees studied.”

Cryo-SEM is a powerful imaging tool to help understand various processes underlying plant development. Previous microscopy of wood was limited to dehydrated wood samples that had to be either dried, heated or chemically processed before they could be imaged.

The team also imaged the secondary cell walls of Arabidopsis thaliana, an annual plant widely used as the standard reference plant for genetics and molecular biology research. They found that it too had prominent macrofibril structures. This discovery means that Arabidopsis could be used as a model for further research on wood architecture. Using a collection of Arabidopsis plants with different mutations relating to their secondary cell wall formation, the team was able to study the involvement of specific molecules in the formation and maturation of macrofibrils.

Dr Matthieu Bourdon, a research associate at SLCU, said, “The variants of Arabidopsis allowed us to determine the contribution of different molecules - like cellulose, xylan and lignin - to macrofibril formation and maturation. As a result, we are now developing a better understanding of the processes involved in assembling cell walls.”

The wealth of Arabidopsis genetic resources offers a valuable tool to further study the complex deposition of secondary cell wall polymers, and their role in defining the fine structure of cell walls and how these mature into wood.

“Visualising the molecular architecture of wood allows us to investigate how changing the arrangement of certain polymers within it might alter its strength,” said Professor Paul Dupree, a co-author of the study in Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry. “Understanding how the components of wood come together to make super strong structures is important for understanding both how plants mature, and for new materials design.”

“There is increasing interest around the world in using timber as a lighter and greener construction material,” added Dupree. “If we can increase the strength of wood, we may start seeing more major constructions moving away from steel and concrete to timber.”

Professor Dupree and Dr Lyczakowski are involved in the Leverhulme Trust funded Natural Material Innovation Centre where a team of biochemists, plant scientists, architects, mathematicians and chemists at the University of Cambridge is working towards better understanding of wood structure, modification and application. The researchers are hoping they can make wooden skyscrapers, and even wooden cars, a reality by re-engineering the structure of wood in order to make better materials for construction and manufacturing. Their work was recently showcased at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London.

This study was supported by the Leverhulme Trust Centre for Natural Material Innovation, US Department of Energy, BBSRC, ERC and Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

Reference

J. Lyczakowski et al. ‘Structural imaging of native cryo-preserved secondary cell walls reveals the presence of macrofibrils and their formation requires normal cellulose, lignin and xylan biosynthesis.’ Frontiers in Plant Science (2019) DOI:10.3389/fpls.2019.01398

However, the scientists who led the study stress that it is not possible to say whether obesity causes these brain changes or whether the children are obese because their brain structures are different.

Around 124 million children worldwide are thought to be obese. In the UK, almost one in five children are overweight or obese when they start primary school and this figure increases to one in three by the time they begin secondary school. Children who are overweight or obese are more likely to become obese adults, and have an increased risk of poorer health outcomes in later life including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Previous studies have linked being overweight with scoring lower on various measures of executive function, an umbrella term for several functions such as self-control, decision making, working memory (temporarily holding information for processing) and response to rewards. Broadly speaking, executive function refers to a set of processes that enable planning, problem solving, flexible reasoning and regulation of behaviours and emotions.

To examine if this link existed in children, researchers at the University of Cambridge and Yale University analysed data from 2,700 children between the ages of 9-11 years who had been recruited as part of the National Institutes of Health Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (NIH ABCD) Study. The results of their study are published today in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

In particular, the researchers looked at the thickness of the cortex, the outer layer of the brain – our so-called ‘grey matter’ – and compared it to each child’s body mass index (BMI). They also analysed results from tests of executive function.

The team found an association between increased BMI and significant reductions in the average (mean) thickness of the cortex, as well as thinning in the pre-frontal region of the cortex, an area associated with cognitive control. This relationship remained after accounting for factors including age, sex, race, parental education, household income and birth-weight.

Image: The brain areas highlighted in blue represent regions where cortical thickness is related to BMI. The lighter the blue, the more pronounced the relationship – in other words, the thinner the cortex is in children with a higher BMI. (Credit: Lisa Ronan, University of Cambridge)

The researchers also found that increased BMI was associated with poorer performance at tests to measure executive function.

“We saw very clear differences in brain structure between children who were obese and children who were a healthy weight,” says the study’s first author Dr Lisa Ronan from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.

“It’s important to stress that the data does not show changes over time, so we cannot say whether being obese has changed the structure of these children’s brain or whether innate differences in their brains lead them to become obese.”

The NIH ABCD Study will follow these children as they grow older and Dr Ronan hopes this will enable them to see whether structural differences in the brain change over time and exactly how they relate to obesity. In particular, it may help them understand whether managing a child’s weight will make a difference to their executive function.

When the team used waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio as a measure of obesity, they found that these, too, were associated with reduced executive function, but the link between cortical thickness was more complicated, with some regions showed reduced thickness while others showed increased thickness.

“This unique and openly available dataset has allowed us to examine the relationships between brain structure, cognitive functions and body weight,” adds Professor Paul Fletcher, also at Cambridge’s Department of Psychiatry. “The links that we observed suggest that there are very real structural brain and cognitive differences in children who are obese. The findings contribute a small part towards our growing understanding of the causes and consequences of obesity in children.”

The research was supported by the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund and Wellcome.

Reference
Ronan, L., Alexander-Bloch, A. & Fletcher, P. Childhood obesity, cortical structure and executive function in healthy children. Cerebral Cortex; 24 Oct 2019; DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz257

My research explores the neurophysiological bases of cognitive and emotional resilience in children growing up in poverty. It’s part of a large project in our lab: the Resilience, Education, and Development (RED) study. Poverty, lack of resources, and the stresses from this sort of deprivation are global issues.

Ultimately, we are interested in what underlies the ability to positively adapt to adversity at the brain level and how it manifests behaviourally, such as through educational outcomes or mental health. We will assess children via brain scans, cognitive tests in the form of iPad games, and mental health through various questionnaires for both children and parents. In this way, we hope to get insights into behavioural profiles and environmental factors that may link to brain physiology and areas that may be unique to the resilient children.

My first year has involved a lot of study design, recruitment, and experimental sessions for the RED project. There are multiple aspects of the study, but mainly I have been involved in designing an fMRI task to tap into different brain areas that are involved in both cognitive and emotional processing as well as running the study sessions, which are for children between seven and nine years old and involve structural and functional brain scans, plus behavioural games and assessments.

It's not every day you can pop into an MRI scanner and get a really cool 3D image of your own brain. It also really puts things into perspective about resilience in children when they are able to complete your study scan tasks. In particular, doing the resting state scan - a functional scan during which children are not completing any games or watching anything to capture their ‘brain at rest’ and are instructed not to fall asleep. I most definitely fell asleep.

I think there is a much more interest now in bridging the gap between science and policy but there is still much to be learned for how to properly translate one for the other - also considering how research works at a global scale. I hope my research will be translated into evidence-based policies and interventions to support the well-being of children from all backgrounds.

I’m a big advocate for the importance of looking at the ethical, legal, and social implications of any neuroscientific research. Especially with the rise in neurotechnologies that mimic - or try to mimic – human cognition, I think these are serious discussions that we must have alongside this scientific progress.

I have been extremely fortunate with my supervisor, the welcoming nature of my department, as well as the community provided by the Gates Cambridge Scholars. They all provide a level of support that I think is so important for postgraduate students, which is often overlooked despite the rising number of mental health issues in postgrads throughout the world. Furthermore, Cambridge itself is very unique in its global diversity. It is enlightening to be able to discuss perspectives and cultural insights about one particular idea or topic.

Stand your ground: there are always going to be people who tell you that it is impossible to do A, B, or C in consideration of other personal life choices you want to make. In the end, no one knows your capabilities better than yourself - be resilient, embrace and grow from failures, self-reflect, know when to say no to keep standing your ground to accomplish what motivated you to consider a STEM career in the first place.

The Vice-Chancellor said: “There is no place for racism or racial harassment of any kind at Collegiate Cambridge.

“We are determined to nurture the right culture at Cambridge, and will intensify efforts to equip staff and students with the confidence to talk about race, and identify and challenge racism whenever they encounter it.

“We will ensure all members of our community can access help when they need it, and know decisive action will be taken when behaviour falls short of what we expect. 

“Collegiate Cambridge is becoming increasingly diverse, with more than 25% of our student community drawn from BAME backgrounds. We have introduced decisive measures to promote and support diversity across our staff and student community.

“But we must build on these to remain a place where all members of our community can thrive and feel safe, and supported to do their best work.

“We will continue to work closely with students and staff on how we can enhance our efforts to make Cambridge truly inclusive.”

This follows the publication yesterday of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report Tackling racial harassment: universities challenged, which found students who experienced racial harassment were left feeling angry, upset, depressed, anxious and vulnerable with 8% expressing suicidal thoughts.

In response to the report, University of Cambridge Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations Professor Eilís Ferran described the ‘the urgent need to address the issues university staff and students are facing’. 

Last academic year, the University of Cambridge launched a race equality action plan as part of its Race Equality Charter application that commits universities to improving the representation, progression and success of BAME staff and students.

In February, the University announced David and Claudia Harding’s unprecedented £100 million gift to help attract the most talented postgraduate and undergraduate students, from the UK and around the world. David, together with University Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope and Sir Mark Welland, Master of St Catharine’s College, met 25 students from 14 countries.

The students are studying subjects in 17 University Faculties and Departments, at 14 Colleges. Their PhD research topics include cancer therapy, quantum gravity, street crime, and homelessness.

The Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Programme - funded by the David and Claudia Harding Foundation - will ultimately fully fund, in perpetuity, more than 100 PhD students in residence across the University at any one time. Scholarships are available to the most talented students for research in any discipline.

St Catharine’s, of which David Harding is an alumnus, received £25 million of the gift to support postgraduate scholars on the Programme at the College.

Undergraduates are also benefitting from the donation. In collaboration between the University and the Colleges, The Harding Collegiate Cambridge Challenge Fund, worth £20 million, aims to encourage further donations from alumni for financial support to undergraduates. A further £1 million is set aside to stimulate innovative approaches to attracting undergraduate students from under-represented groups.

David Harding said: “My education at Cambridge formed the foundation of my career, and indeed, my life. I am delighted that, through the Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars Programme, Claudia and I are able to assist others to join one of the greatest universities in the world. We are extremely pleased that our gift to Cambridge is already enabling more outstanding students from around the globe to research and study here.

“The breadth and depth of talent within the first cohort of Harding Scholars is incredibly impressive, and we look forward very much to following their progress in the years to come. And that isn’t simply because we want each and every one of them to excel, although of course we do. It’s because we know that through their research, innovation and ideas, the Harding Scholars will become leaders in our society, and key contributors in tackling the world’s greatest challenges – something Cambridge has done with outstanding success for more than 800 years.”

Professor Sir Mark Welland, Master of St Catharine’s College, said: “It was an enormous pleasure to host the first Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars, together with David Harding and the Vice-Chancellor, at St Catharine’s. Research students make a tremendous contribution to the University’s social impact. Their presence also enriches both academic and social life within their respective colleges. St Catharine’s was delighted to welcome its first Harding Distinguished Postgraduate Scholars this year. We look forward to welcoming more in the future.”

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University, said: “I wish to extend my sincerest congratulations to the remarkable PhD students joining the Cambridge community. The new ideas and energy they will bring – incubated in our unique environment of research, learning and cross-disciplinary collaboration – have the potential to change the world for the better.”

A study of human activity within thousands of conservation spaces in over 150 countries suggests that – on average across the world – protected areas are not reducing the “anthropogenic pressure” on our most precious natural habitats.

Protected areas are vital to preserving diverse life on Earth, as well as mitigating climate change by conserving carbon-sequestering vegetation, say Cambridge scientists. They argue that the findings show the effects of chronic underfunding and a lack of involvement of local communities.

“Rapidly establishing new protected areas to meet global targets without providing sufficient investment and resourcing on the ground is unlikely to halt the unfolding extinction crisis,” said lead author Dr Jonas Geldmann from the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute.  

The research, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is by far the largest analysis of its kind to date. Scientists used satellite evidence of “night lights” and agriculture, as well as census and crop yield data, to assess levels of human encroachment in 12,315 protected areas between 1995 and 2010.

The scientists matched every satellite ‘pixel’ (64 square kilometres) of each protected area to a local pixel of commensurate soil type, elevation, and so on – but without conservation status. This allowed researchers to gauge the effect of protected areas when compared to an “appropriate sample” of unprotected land.

The majority of protected areas in every global region had suffered increases in human pressure. However, across the Northern Hemisphere and Australia, protection had – on average – proved effective at slowing human encroachment when compared with unprotected habitats.

In regions such as South America, Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, home to the world’s richest biodiversity as well as some of its poorest communities, pressure from damaging human activity inside protected areas was “significantly higher” on average than in matched areas across fifteen years of data.

The researchers found a link between increased human encroachment on protected areas and nations with fewer roads and a lower rank on the Human Development Index. 

“Our study suggests that protected areas in more remote and wild parts of the tropics have experienced alarming increases in human pressure since 1995,” said Geldmann. “These places house a disproportionately high amount of the Earth’s biodiversity, and play an irreplaceable role in maintaining our most threatened species.”

Previous studies to compare protected and unprotected land have been limited to forests, and shown that protected areas reduce deforestation. The new research confirms that protected areas are more effective in places like the Amazon, but have struggled to safeguard many other habitats such as savannahs.

Rises in human activity were found to be particularly acute in the protected areas of East and Central Africa. In Sub-Saharan grasslands, for example, cropland inside protected areas had increased at almost double the rate seen in matched unprotected land. In African mangroves, pressure from agriculture had increased by around 13% more inside protected areas than outside.

While in the remote grassland habitats of South East Asia, agriculture had increased by 8% more in protected areas compared to similar non-protected areas. Likewise, some forested areas in South America, particularly outside the Amazon, saw agricultural encroachment increase around 10% more in protected areas.

“Our study shows that agriculture is the driving force behind threats to protected areas, particularity in the tropics,” said Geldmann. “Our data does not reveal the causes, but we suspect factors that play a major role include rapid population growth, lack of funding, and higher levels of corruption. Additionally, most unprotected land suitable for agriculture is already farmed.”

“We think that what we are seeing are the effects of establishing protected areas on paper, but not following through with the right funding, management and community engagement that is needed,” Geldmann said.

“Important ambitions to protect 17% of land by the end of this decade, expected to increase to 30% at a pivotal meeting next year in China, will not mean much if not accompanied by enough resources to ensure the preservation of precious habitats.”

The research team argue that protected area designation can sometimes undermine the rights of local communities, which in turn can end up encouraging over-exploitation and paving the way for opportunistic “outsiders”. Other studies have shown that supporting indigenous people to manage reserves themselves can reduce habitat loss.

Previous studies by the Cambridge team established that autistic individuals experience higher levels of self-harm, including suicidal thoughts and feelings, and higher rates of childhood maltreatment. This new study shows that the findings hold true even for those with a higher genetic likelihood of autism rather than a formal diagnosis.

The team calculated the genetic likelihood for autism in 100,000 individuals from the UK Biobank Study who had their DNA analysed and who had also provided self-reported information about childhood maltreatment, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. They found that individuals with higher number of genetic variants associated with autism are more likely to report childhood maltreatment, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Those with the highest genetic predisposition to autism on average have a 28% increase in childhood maltreatment, and a 33% increase in self-harm and suicidal ideation, compared to those with the lowest genetic predisposition to autism.

Dr Varun Warrier, who led the study, said: “While we have found an association between a genetic likelihood for autism and adverse life events, we cannot conclude the former causes the latter. We suspect this association reflects that genes partly influence how many autistic traits you have, and some autistic traits such as difficulties in social understanding may lead to a person to be vulnerable to maltreatment. This research highlights the risks of such adverse outcomes for those with a high number of autistic traits, if adequate safe-guarding and support aren’t provided.”

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge, said: “This new study extends our earlier work by showing that individuals who carry more of the genes associated with autism have higher risks for maltreatment and self-harm. Our work highlighting unacceptably high rates of suicide in autistic people was published 5 years ago, yet almost no new support has been provided. Governments need to provide far greater support for autistic individuals and for those with a high number of autistic traits.”

He added: “Autistic individuals may need a variety of interventions – there’s no ‘one size fits all’ – and these may include an individual support worker, a mentor, opportunities to build social and communication skills and self confidence through activities that the person enjoys, peer support groups, and supported employment schemes. Schools may also need to increase safe-guarding given the risks of victimisation.”

This study was supported by the Autism Research Trust, the Medical Research Council, Wellcome, and the Templeton World Charity Foundation., Inc. It was conducted in association with the NIHR CLAHRC for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Reference
Warrier, V and Baron-Cohen, S. Childhood trauma, life-time self-harm, and suicidal behaviour and ideation are associated with polygenic scores for autism. Molecular Psychiatry; 29 Oct 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41380-019-0550-x

Metered-dose inhalers contain liquefied, compressed gases that act as a propellant to atomise the drug being delivered and to pump it out to the user. Originally chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were used as the propellant but these potent greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances are now banned. Instead they have been replaced by hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) propellants.

While HFAs are not damaging to the ozone layer, they are still potent greenhouse gases, and currently metered-dose inhalers contribute an estimated 3.9% of the carbon footprint of the National Health Service in the UK. In 2017, around 50 million inhalers were prescribed in England, of which seven out of ten were metered-dose inhalers, compared to only one in ten in Sweden.

There have been calls to switch away from HFA inhalers because of their environmental impact. Effective alternatives are already available, such as dry powder inhalers and aqueous mist inhalers.  Switching to inhalers with a lower carbon footprint is a key part of the NHS Sustainable Development Unit’s strategy. However, a significant barrier to moving to alternative inhalers is the higher “up-front” price of some dry powder inhalers.

In a study published today in BMJ Open, a team of researchers studied NHS prescription data from England in 2017 and collated carbon footprint data on inhalers commonly used in England in order to compare the financial and environmental costs of different inhalers.

Information on the amount of HFA propellant in metered-dose inhalers is not publicly available, so the researchers estimated the contents of the inhalers by reviewing publications, patents, and inhaler performance studies for information on weights of empty and full inhalers. They calculated the carbon footprint by multiplying the estimated weight of HFA propellant by its global warming potential (a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere over a specific time, relative to carbon dioxide).

The team found that the carbon footprints of metered-dose inhalers were between 10-37 times those of dry powder inhalers. At 2017 prescription levels, replacing one in ten metered-dose inhalers in England with the cheapest equivalent dry powder inhalers could lead to a reduction in drug costs of £8.2million annually and would reduce carbon dioxide equivalent emissions by 58kilotonnes, roughly the same as would arise from 180,000 return car journeys from London to Edinburgh.*

At the individual level each metered-dose inhaler replaced by a dry powder inhaler could save the equivalent of between 150 and 400kg of CO2 annually, which is similar to many actions that environmentally-concerned individuals are taking at home already such as installing wall insulation at home, recycling, or reducing meat consumption.

“Any move towards ‘greener’ inhalers would need to ensure that replacements were cost effective,” said Dr Alexander Wilkinson, Consultant in Respiratory Medicine from East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust. “By switching to less expensive brands, we’ve shown that it would still be possible to make a positive impact on carbon emissions while at the same time reducing drug costs.

“It’s important to stress that patients shouldn’t stop using their usual treatments to reduce their carbon footprint. Instead we recommend patients review their condition and treatment at least annually with their healthcare professional and at this point discuss whether a more environmentally-friendly inhaler is available and appropriate in their situation.”

Other actions people can take to reduce the carbon footprint of their inhalers include: making sure they are using their inhaler correctly, as errors in technique are common; returning used inhalers to pharmacies for proper disposal as metered dose inhalers have some propellant left in them when they are finished; and, if their inhaler doesn’t have a dose counter, making sure they know how many doses it contains to avoid running out, or throwing away half-full inhalers.

“Climate change is a huge and present threat to health that will disproportionately impact the poorest and most vulnerable on the planet, including people with pre-existing lung disease,” said Dr James Smith, Consultant in Public Health from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge.

“Our study shows that switching to inhalers which are better for the environment could help individuals, and the NHS as a whole, reduce their impact on the climate significantly. This is an important step towards creating a zero carbon healthcare system fit for the 21st century.”

Reference
Wilkinson, AJK et al. The costs of switching to low global-warming potential inhalers. An economic and carbon footprint analysis of NHS prescription data in England. BMJ Open; 30 Oct 2019; DOI: bmjopen-2018-028763 

*Emissions calculation

Emissions for average car (tailpipe emissions + well-to-tank emissions per mile travelled) = 0.285kgCO2e + 0.073kgCO2e per mile = 0.358 kgCO2e per mile
kg saved by replacing 1/10 of inhalers = 58,000,000
Equivalent no. of miles in average car = 58,000,000/0.358=162,011,170
London to Edinburgh = 450 miles
No. of return journeys = 162,011,170/(2x450)=180,012

A bold response to the world’s greatest challenge
The University of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the University’s research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

The two Master's programmes, in Anthropocene Studies and Holocene Climates, will welcome their first students in October 2020 and will be hosted in the Department of Geography. They are among the first Master's degrees in the world to study the connected issues of global change, past, present and future from such a cross-disciplinary vantage point. Students on both programmes will complete a common course in interdisciplinary thinking and analysis.

The programmes will provide students with deep insights into the processes and outcomes of global change in the past and equip them with the tools to understand and question the processes of human and planetary change and transformation taking place now and into the future.

Applications to both programmes are now open, and potential students can find out more at the upcoming postgraduate open day on Friday, 1 November.

The MPhil in Anthropocene Studies will provide students with the knowledge and skills to study, explore and critique the implications, tensions and challenges inherent in the idea of the Anthropocene: the proposed ‘age of humans’ which reflects the enormous impact of humanity on our planet.

What does it mean for humanity to be considered a geological force? Who might promote, and who might resist, this proposed language signifying the age of humans? How might this idea change how people think ethically about the environment, themselves and their actions in the world? How can the sciences, social sciences and humanities each contribute towards understanding the profound challenges that the Anthropocene signifies?

The Anthropocene Studies programme is led by prominent geographer and climate change scholar Professor Mike Hulme. He established the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in 2000 and is the author of the book ‘Why We Disagree About Climate Change’.

“The academic discipline of geography is perfectly placed to scrutinise the contested idea of the Anthropocene … and to do so in a fresh and holistic manner,” he said. “Geographers recognise and value the multiple ways people come to create and know their worlds and we explore the interactions between human life and environmental change that lie at the heart of the Anthropocene provocation.”

The Holocene Climates MPhil, led by Professor Ulf Büntgen, will develop students’ expertise at the interface of climate and history in a new way, beginning from the premise that exchange and dialogue across different disciplines should be normal practice.

The programme will focus on the generation, interpretation and integration of different forms of evidence of past climate change and variability, addressing questions such as: How and why has climate varied during the Holocene? How have such changes and subsequent environmental factors interacted with ecological and societal processes and systems? How might this evidence of past climate change guide today’s responses to future change?

Together with his colleagues, Professor Büntgen conducts fieldwork all over the world, researching the causes and consequences of changes in the Earth’s climate system across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.

“With its academic expertise, sub-disciplinary breadth and state-of-the-art laboratory infrastructure, Cambridge’s Department of Geography offers a unique opportunity to address a multitude of interrelated questions associated with the entanglements of the volcano-climate-human nexus throughout the Holocene,” he said. “Due to their conceptual understanding of the complexity of past climate variability and human history, geographers are in the pole position to reach out to other disciplines within the natural and social sciences and even the humanities.”

The two programmes will enhance students’ careers, whether inside or outside academia, public or private sectors, national or international organisations, or in developed or developing world contexts. The degrees are designed to accommodate students with a wide range of first-degree backgrounds and are open to international, EU and UK students.

Cambridge researchers are working across the sciences, engineering, humanities and social sciences to develop solutions to climate change. In addition, the University is shortly due to launch Cambridge Zero, an ambitious climate change initiative bringing together the wide range of climate-related research happening at the University.

I was educated at state schools in Southampton before coming to Cambridge, where I gained my BA and PhD. I spent six years as a Postdoc at the University of Edinburgh, and have been a University Teaching Officer at Cambridge for the last 22 years.

I am interested in processes that happen during the solidification of partially molten rock. It's these processes, happening in batches of magma trapped under volcanoes, that ultimately control the explosivity of volcanic eruptions. The roots of volcanoes can be accessed if their tops have been eroded away, so I look at ancient volcanic regions, mainly in East Greenland and Scotland, where the rocks at the surface were originally buried several kilometres deep, so I can see what went on in the crust at that time. My approach involves careful field observation, followed by microscopic analysis of grain sizes and shapes and the ways grains fit together, to decode the solidification history.

Last summer we spent six weeks in East Greenland, working on a 60 million-year-old body of igneous rock called the Skaergaard Intrusion. I've been working on this for 12 years now, but on this trip, we saw masses of really novel things and I made many important breakthroughs in understanding - that was pretty thrilling.

I guide my group in their science and help them write their papers. I sometimes have time for my own research, which involves optical microscopy (I have rather less time for this than I would like!). One of the great things about Cambridge is that it has an excellent museum collection of rocks I can dip into when chasing up particular hunches and ideas. Most years I supplement this museum-based work by going into the field to collect new observations and samples - this is usually in the summer, and involves being away for up to several months though the usual time is a couple of weeks.

A key moment that helped define the development of my career happened when I was waiting for an experiment to heat up during my time in Edinburgh: I was quietly knitting a sock, watching the temperature climb on the dial... and out of nowhere I suddenly had a brainwave that made sense of everything I had been working on for the previous year. I learned from this and now find that spending time knitting, running, breastfeeding(!) and other quiet activities is the best way to trigger insights into my research.

The Sixties are generally remembered as an era of freedom, innovation and visionary experience. It’s the period, after all, that gave us The Beatles, the Summer of Love, the civil rights movement, the Woodstock Festival and the Apollo 11 Moon-Landing. Scores of autobiographies, hagiographies and cultural histories have helped to further embellish this iconic status by presenting the Sixties as the crucible of the Hippie ‘dream’, a loosely defined, youth-led attempt to establish an alternative, harmonious, post-war world. It’s a glorious story, but one that tends to end in tragedy.

At ‘the end of the Sixties’, or so the story goes, the Hippie dream ‘dies’. It’s brought to a crashing halt in the latter half of 1969 thanks to the terrible murders perpetrated by Charles Manson and ‘the Family’, the deaths attributed to the so-called ‘Zodiac Killer’ and the violence at The Rolling Stones’ concert at the Altamont Speedway. These events appear to hold up a dark mirror to the positive social and cultural advances of the preceding years. 

While this narrative may suit the matrix of popular culture and nostalgia that constitutes the Sixties, it bears little resemblance to the historical actuality of the 1960s. The decade did indeed usher in a wave of progressivism and it also had its shadow-side, but such negativity was not limited to its final days. If anything the darkness, so to speak, was present from the start and across the 1960s it hovered particularly close to the decade’s much-vaunted counterculture.

Assassinations, nuclear tensions, globalised conflict, civil unrest, the growth of apocalyptic religious groups: the 1960s were suffused with violence, anxiety and a sense of looming doom. A fraught and difficult decade, the 1960s left a social, cultural and economic legacy of which still exerts a powerful influence on the contemporary world. 

The Sixties, by contrast, continue to exist in a bubble of comforting misremembrance, regularly offering up another anniversary, exhibition or reunion tour. Altamont and the Manson murders were of course very real events with a terrible human cost, but they have both become part of a narrative of disaster that helps to shore up this exceptionalism. What else are we to expect from such a supernova of an era as the Sixties than a spectacular curtain fall?

Imagining the disastrous end of both the hippie ‘dream’ and the wider countercultural project is ultimately a tool of celebration. If only Manson and the Family, hadn't appeared, the unique work of the Sixties would have carried on and given rise to a beautiful future.

For those invested in the period’s nostalgia industry, framing the sixties as a kind of cultural Shangri-La, a lost world that we strive to return to is, surely, better than acknowledging the pedestrian reality of how the 1960s actually ended. That’s the real horror: the slow, inconsequential shift of a dynamic counterculture into adulthood, suburbia and ‘proper’ jobs (the 1970s, in other words). Although misleading, this vision of flower power ending in blood-soaked catastrophe retains its grip on the public imagination. Case in point, the recent release of Quentin Tarantino’s Manson-era epic Once Upon A Time in Hollywood (2019).

The end of the 1960s did not mark the ‘death’ of the Hippie ‘dream’. As the 1970s took hold, the countercultural impetus merely recalibrated and flowed in different directions. That has not stopped contemporary culture from obsessively revisiting and repeating the events of 1969, as if they signal some kind of terminus, yet to be fully understood.

Meanwhile, the world of the early twenty-first century continues to plough headlong into its own deeply troubling period of postmodern politics, creepingly malevolent soft power and weaponised ‘fake news’. When we live in such interesting times, why dwell on the illusions and disillusions of the 1960s and its double?

Fifty years ago protests took place across reasonably well-defined battle lines against clearly identifiable targets. Now, in today’s sphere of edited reality and policies that change as fast as they can be tweeted it's difficult to pinpoint where the source of power is, let alone how to protest against it. To navigate this type of situation it's important to understand the mechanics at play – how representations are manipulated and how agendas are embedded in seemingly innocuous narratives. This is what the 1960s can teach us.

By interrogating and unpacking the link between the decade and the era, the 1960s and the Sixties, we can observe, in process, the forces that transform recent history into modern myth. It's also useful to be shocked by how much things have changed. If you are curious, look into the details of the Manson case and think about what it meant in 1969 to ‘follow’ someone. What you find might make you spend a little less time on Twitter. 

There’s little that the left and the right agree on these days. But surely one thing is beyond question: that national governments must protect citizens from the gravest threats and risks they face. Although our government, wherever we are in the world, may not be able to save everyone from a pandemic or protect people and infrastructure from a devastating cyberattack, surely they have thought through these risks in advance and have well-funded, adequately practiced plans?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is an emphatic no.

Not all policy areas are subject to this challenge. National defence establishments, for example, often have the frameworks and processes that facilitate policy decisions for extreme risks. But more often than not, and on more issues than not, governments fail to imagine how worst-case scenarios can come about – much less plan for them. Governments have never been able to divert significant attention from the here and happening to the future and uncertain.

A recent report published by Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk argues that this needs to change. If even only one catastrophic risk manifests – whether through nature, accident or intention – it would harm human security, prosperity and potential on a scale never before seen in human history. There are concrete steps governments can take to address this, but they are currently being neglected.

The risks that we face today are many and varied. They include:

• Tipping points in the environmental system due to climate change or mass biodiversity loss.
• Malicious, or accidentally harmful, use of artificial intelligence.
• Malicious use of, or unintended consequences from, advanced biotechnologies.
• A natural or engineered global pandemic.
• Intentional, miscalculated, or accidental use of nuclear weapons.

Each of these global catastrophic risks could cause unprecedented harm. A pandemic, for example, could speed around our hyper-connected world, threatening hundreds of millions – potentially billions – of people. In this globalised world of just-in-time delivery and global supply chains, we are more vulnerable to disruption than ever before. And the secondary effects of instability, mass migration and unrest may be comparably destructive. If any of these events occurred, we would pass on a diminished, fearful and wounded world to our descendants.

So how did we come to be so woefully unprepared, and what, if anything, can our governments do to make us safer?

A modern problem

Dealing with catastrophic risks on a global scale is a particularly modern problem. The risks themselves are a result of modern trends in population, information, politics, warfare, technology, climate and environmental damage.

These risks are a problem for governments that are set up around traditional threats. Defence forces were built to protect from external menaces, mostly foreign invading forces. Domestic security agencies became increasingly significant in the 20th century, as threats to sovereignty and security – such as organised crime, domestic terrorism, extreme political ideologies and sophisticated espionage – increasingly came from inside national borders.

Unfortunately, these traditional threats are no longer the greatest concern today. Risks arising from the domains of technology, environment, biology and warfare don’t fall neatly into government’s view of the world. Instead, they are varied, global, complex and catastrophic.

As a result, these risks are currently not a priority for governments. Individually, they are quite unlikely. And such low-probability high-impact events are difficult to mobilise a response to. In addition, their unprecedented nature means we haven’t yet been taught a sharp lesson in the need to prepare for them. Many of the risks could take decades to arise, which conflicts with typical political time scales.

Governments, and the bureaucracies that support them, are not positioned to handle what’s coming. They don’t have the right incentives or skill sets to manage extreme risks, at least beyond natural disasters and military attacks. They are often stuck on old problems, and struggle to be agile to what’s new or emerging. Risk management as a practice is not a government’s strength. And technical expertise, especially on these challenging problem sets, tends to reside outside government.

Perhaps most troubling is the fact that any attempt to tackle these risks is not nationally confined: it would benefit everyone in the world – and indeed future generations. When the benefits are dispersed and the costs immediate, it is tempting to coast and hope others will pick up the slack.

Time to act

Despite these daunting challenges, governments have the capability and responsibility to increase national readiness for extreme events.

The first step is for governments to improve their own understanding of the risks. Developing a better understanding of extreme risks is not as simple as conducting better analysis or more research. It requires a whole-of-government framework with explicit strategies for understanding the types of risks we face, as well as their causes, impacts, probabilities and time scales.

With this plan, governments can chart more secure and prosperous futures for their citizens, even if the most catastrophic possibilities never come to pass.

Governments around the world are already working towards improving their understanding of risk. For example, the United Kingdom is a world leader in applying an all-hazard national risk assessment process. This assessment ensures governments understand all the hazards – natural disasters, pandemics, cyber attacks, space weather, infrastructure collapse – that their country faces. It helps local first responders to prepare for the most damaging scenarios.

Finland’s Committee for the Future, meanwhile, is an example of a parliamentary select committee that injects a dose of much-needed long-term thinking into domestic policy. It acts as a think tank for futures, science and technology policy and provides advice on legislation coming forward that has an impact on Finland’s long-range future.

And Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures is leading in “horizon scanning”, a set of methods that helps people think about the future and potential scenarios. This is not prediction. It’s thinking about what might be coming around the corner, and using that knowledge to inform policy.

But these actions are few and far between.

We need all governments to put more energy towards understanding the risks, and acting on that knowledge. Some countries may even need grand changes to their political and economic systems, a level of change that typically only occurs after a catastrophe. We cannot – and do not have to – wait for these structural changes or for a global crisis. Forward-leaning leaders must act now to better understand the risks that their countries face.

Gabriel Recchia, Research Associate, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, and Haydn Belfield, Research Associate, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The mechanism, identified in mice, was discovered by researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute.

It has long been known that the human liver is one of the organs that can regenerate its own tissue after short-term injury. But chronic damage in conditions such as alcohol abuse, fatty liver disease and certain viral infections, leads to impaired regeneration and cirrhosis (scarring), with eventual loss of liver function. 

The molecular mechanisms by which adult liver cells trigger the regenerative response, and how this fails in chronic liver disease, remain largely unknown. Around 30 million people across Europe suffer from chronic liver diseases, for which there is currently no cure, with liver transplants being the only treatment for liver failure. Scientists are therefore exploring how to trigger the intrinsic regenerative capacity of the liver, as an alternative means to restore function.

Researchers used mice and liver organoids ('mini-livers' generated in the lab from mouse liver cells) to study adult liver regeneration. They discovered that a molecule called TET1 is produced in healthy adult liver cells during the first steps of regeneration, and that this process is mimicked in liver organoids, where it has a role in stimulating organoid growth. The work is described in a paper published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

Dr Luigi Aloia, first author of the paper and postdoctoral researcher at the Gurdon Institute, said: “We now understand how adult liver cells respond to the changes caused by tissue injury. This paves the way for exciting future work to boost cell regeneration in chronic liver disease, or in other organs where regeneration is minimal such as the brain or pancreas." 

TET1 and similar molecules are known to be essential in the developing embryo, where cells divide and differentiate to produce all the different organs of the body. But this study is the first to demonstrate that the activity of TET1 underpins regeneration in adult mouse liver tissue.

The adult liver is formed by two main types of cells: hepatocytes, which perform many of the liver's functions, and ductal cells, which form the network of tiny ducts delivering bile to the intestine. After acute (short-term) damage hepatocytes are able to regenerate, but after more severe injury they are not. After severe or chronic injury, the ductal cells become capable of generating both new hepatocytes and new ductal cells to replenish the liver tissue, through induction of an identity-switching process known as plasticity.

The researchers, in collaboration with colleagues in the UK and Germany, explored the molecular mechanism that provides ductal cells with this power to regenerate the liver tissue. They showed that TET1 activates a chemical switch - known as an epigenetic modification - on the ductal cell's DNA. This switch allows genes to 'turn on' so that the cell can respond to changes in the environment such as damage, and activate the regeneration program when needed. 

Dr Meritxell Huch, who led the research, said: "Our finding pinpoints TET1 as the protein that enables plasticity of the ductal cells and their regenerative capacity in response to injury. Because the epigenetic switch activated by TET1 does not modify the genetic sequence of the cell, but the mechanism by which the genes are expressed, it represents a target that could be modified by drugs." 

The work was funded by the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and the Royal Society; Luigi Aloia holds a Horizon 2020 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship.

 
Reference
Aloia, L et al. ‘Epigenetic remodelling licences adult cholangiocytes for organoid formation and liver regeneration’ (2019) Nature Cell Biology. DOI: 10.1038/s41556-019-0402-6.