Friends and former colleagues have paid tribute to Cambridge graduates - and members of the Learning Together programme community - Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones, who were killed at London Bridge. Among the three people injured, whose identities have not been publicly released, is a member of University staff. We have collated some of the messages below:

"Saskia’s warm disposition and extraordinary intellectual creativity was combined with a strong belief that people who have committed criminal offences should have opportunities for rehabilitation. Though she completed her MPhil  in Criminology in 2018, her determination to make an enduring and positive impact on society in everything she did led her to stay in contact with the Learning Together community. They valued her contributions enormously and were inspired by her determination to push towards the good. 

"All of us at the Institute will miss Jack’s quiet humour and rigorous intellect. His determined belief in rehabilitation inspired him to join the Institute as a staff member to work in the Learning Together research team after completing his MPhil in Criminology in 2017. Jack’s passion for social and criminal justice was infectious. He was deeply creatively and courageously engaged with the world, advocating for a politics of love. He worked tirelessly in dark places to pull towards the light."
Professor Loraine R Gelsthorpe, Director of the Institute of Criminology

I facilitated at a @JustisTogether course @Cambridge_Uni with #JackMerritt as coordinator, and saw first hand how worthwhile prisoner rehabilitation work is and what a kind man he was. My prayers for him and his family @butwhatifitsall#LondonBridgeAttackpic.twitter.com/uWTVaucCsF

— Nabila Idris (@NabilaIdris) December 1, 2019

"Jack. Your brilliant smile, your pragmatism, your commitment to prison education and reform inspired everyone who worked with you. I will miss your sense of humour and your focus while working together with  students in the toughest situations. You always remembered everyone's names, and their needs in the group. I saw the quiet courage and reassurance you imparted to those around you. From prison inmates to guards, students to colleagues, you ignited camaraderie and respect  for each other in all of us. Thank you for everything you did, every day, to make our world a more kind, more equal place." 
Dr Preti Taneja, leader of Jesus College's Writing Together programme

“Saskia’s passion for justice and her desire to pursue Criminology were apparent from the first encounter, when she telephoned the Institute to confirm her place on the MPhil course. She was a bright, determined woman possessing deep connection with the work of Learning Together, the loss of her talent is a tragedy for us all.

“I have had the great privilege of knowing Jack and am honoured to have had him not only as a colleague, but a like-minded friend. His lightness, sense of justice and unwavering integrity made him one of the best young men I have known. To also witness his deep creativity, resurface and find expression at the 2018 Learning Together alumni event and celebration, brought great joy to many and is a memory I hold very dear.”​
Rebecca L Greene, Honorary Artist in Residence, Institute of Criminology

A year ago I met Jack Merritt, who died in the London Bridge attack. His work on rehabilitation was difficult, inspiring and profoundly necessary, especially for the many of us with lives touched by serious crime.

May you RIP @JackmerrittJackhttps://t.co/o0iSBr5UEP

— Maria Farrell (@mariafarrell) November 30, 2019

"I just wanted to say that without Jack we would not have been able to do what we have been doing, he found hope and love and support for people that society had forgotten and he made it possible for us to help tell these people's stories as well. My heart goes out to his family, friends and colleagues and I will not forget his belief in the good of people even in the darkest of places."
Matt Brown, of video production company MBP

"Jack was one of the rare people we meet in the journey we call life. He was one of my best and dearest friends. Every time I met him, he greeted me with a big hug, a casual ‘you alright mate?’ and a smile that glinted behind his eyes. His kindness and love was boundless. He was also devoted to helping people that society had forgotten. He approached his work with care, wisdom and dedication. He had a natural gift of knowing what to say to make you feel better. He was at total ease in himself, with a humble confidence, which meant he could navigate both the prison wings and the corridors of Cambridge. He had an uncanny ability to bring calmness and perspective to difficult and challenging situations – of which he faced many – and yet his strength and compassion never faltered. He was steadfast in his commitment to social justice and his loss has impacted many of us. He will never be forgotten; we will carry him in our hearts always."
Ellie Brown, Doctoral Candidate, Institute of Criminology
 

Preventative medicine programmes such as the UK National Health Service’s Health Check and Healthier You programmes are aimed at improving our health and reducing our risk of developing diseases. While such strategies are inexpensive, cost effective and scalable, they could be made more effective using personalised information about an individual’s health and disease risk.

The rise and application of ‘big data’ in healthcare, assessing and analysing detailed, large-scale datasets makes it increasingly feasible to make predictions about health and disease outcomes and enable stratified approaches to prevention and clinical management.

Now, an international team of researchers from the UK and USA, working with biotech company SomaLogic, has shown that large-scale measurement of proteins in a single blood test can provide important information about our health and can help to predict a range of different diseases and risk factors.

Our bodies contain around 30,000 different proteins, which are coded for by our DNA and regulate biological processes. Some of these proteins enter the blood stream by purposeful secretion to orchestrate biological processes in health or in disease, for example hormones, cytokines and growth factors. Others enter the blood through leakage from cell damage and cell death. Both secreted and leaked proteins can inform health status and disease risk.

In a proof-of-concept study based on five observational cohorts in almost 17,000 participants, researchers scanned 5,000 proteins in a plasma sample taken from each participant. Plasma is the single largest component of blood and is the clear liquid that remains after the removal of red and white blood cells and platelets. The study resulted in around 85 million protein targets being measured.

The technique involves using fragments of DNA known as aptamers that bind to the target protein. In general, only specific fragments will bind to particular proteins – in the same way that only a specific key will fit in a particular lock. Using existing genetic sequencing technology, the researchers can then search for the aptamers and determine which proteins are present and in what concentrations.

The researchers analysed the results using statistical methods and machine learning techniques to develop predictive models – for example, that an individual whose blood contains a certain pattern of proteins is at increased risk of developing diabetes. The models covered a number of health states, including levels of liver fat, kidney function and visceral fat, alcohol consumption, physical activity and smoking behaviour, and for risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The accuracy of the models varied, with some showing high predictive powers, such as for percentage body fat, while others had only modest prognostic power, such as for cardiovascular risk. The researchers report that their protein-based models were all either better predictors than models based on traditional risk factors or would constitute more convenient and less expensive alternatives to traditional testing.

Many of the proteins are linked to a number of health states or conditions; for example, leptin, which modulates appetite and metabolism, was informative for predictive models of percentage body fat, visceral fat, physical activity and fitness.

One difference between genome sequencing and so-called ‘proteomics’ – studying an individual’s proteins in depth – is that whereas the genome is fixed, the proteome changes over time. It might change as an individual becomes more obese, less physically active or smokes, for example, so proteins will be able to track changes in an individual's health status over a lifetime.

“Proteins circulating in our blood are a manifestation of our genetic make-up as well as many other factors, such as behaviours or the presence of disease, even if not yet diagnosed,” said Dr Claudia Langenberg, from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge. “This is one of the reasons why proteins are such good indicators of our current and future health state and have the potential to improve clinical prediction across different and diverse diseases.”

“It’s remarkable that plasma protein patterns alone can faithfully represent such a wide variety of common and important health issues, and we think that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr Stephen Williams, Chief Medical Officer of SomaLogic, who led the study. “We have more than a hundred tests in our SomaSignal pipeline and believe that large-scale protein scanning has the potential to become a sole information source for individualised health assessments.”

While this study shows a proof-of-principle, the researchers say that as technology improves and becomes more affordable, it is feasible that a comprehensive health evaluation using a battery of protein models derived from a single blood sample could be offered as routine by health services.

“This proof of concept study demonstrates a new paradigm that measurement of blood proteins can accurately deliver health information that spans across numerous medical specialties and that should be actionable for patients and their healthcare providers,” said Peter Ganz, MD, co-leader of this study and the Maurice Eliaser Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the UCSF and Director of the Center of Excellence in Vascular Research at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. “I expect that in the future we will look back at this Nature Medicine proteomic study as a critical milestone in personalising and thus improving the care of our patients.”

Reference
Williams, SA et al. Plasma protein patterns as comprehensive indicators of health; Nat Med; 2 Dec 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-019-0665-2

Competing interests
The research was a collaboration with SomaLogic Inc, which has a commercial interest in the results. Several co-authors were or are employees of SomaLogic. The company has provided funding to the University of Cambridge. Dr Peter Ganz is a member of the SomaLogic Medical Advisory board, for which he receives no remuneration of any kind.

Funding
The research was supported by the UK Medical Research Council, US National Institutes on Aging, British Heart Foundation, National Institute for Health Research, the Norwegian Ministry of Health, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Norwegian Research Council, Central Norway Regional Health Authority, Nord-Trondelag County Council, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. SomaScan assays and the Covance study were funded by SomaLogic, Inc.

We’re seeing a transformational change in the propulsion and power sectors. Aviation and power generation have brought huge benefits – connecting people across the world and providing safe, reliable electricity to billions – but reducing their carbon emissions is now urgently needed.

Electrification is one way to decarbonise, certainly for small and medium-sized aircraft. In fact, more than 70 companies are planning a first flight of electric air vehicles by 2024. For large aircraft, no alternative to the jet engine currently exists, but radical new aircraft architectures, such as those developed by the Cambridge-MIT Silent Aircraft Initiative and the NASA N+3 project, show the possibility of reducing CO₂ emissions by around 70%.

A common thread in these technologies and those needed for renewable power is their reliance on efficient, reliable turbomachinery – a technology that has been central to our work for the past 50 years. Currently we’re working on applications that include the development of electric and hybrid-electric aircraft, the generation of power from the tides and low-grade heat, like solar energy, and hydrogen-based engines.

We’re also working on existing technologies as a way of reducing the carbon emissions, like wind turbines, and developing the next generation of jet engines such as Rolls-Royce’s UltraFan engine, which will enable CO₂ emission reductions of 25% by 2025. A great example is Dr Chez Hall’s research on a potential replacement for the 737. This futuristic aircraft architecture involves an electrical propulsion system being embedded in the aircraft fuselage, allowing up to 15% reduction in fuel burn.

A key element of meeting the decarbonisation challenge is to accelerate technology development. And so, over the past five years, our primary focus has been the process itself – we've been asking ‘can we develop technology faster and cheaper?’ The answer is yes – at least 10 times faster and 10 times cheaper. Our solution is to merge the digital and physical systems involved. In 2017, we undertook a pioneering trial of a new method of technology development. A team of academic researchers and industrial designers were embedded in the Whittle and given four technologies to develop.

The results were astonishing. In 2005, a similar trial took the Whittle two years. In 2017, the agile testing methods took less than a week, demonstrating a hundred times faster technology development.

We describe it as ‘tightening the circle’ between design, manufacture and testing. Design times for new technologies have been reduced from around a month to one or two days using augmented and machine-learning-based design systems. These make use of in-house flow simulation software that is accelerated by graphics cards developed for the computer gaming industry.

Manufacturing times for new technologies have been cut from two or three months to two or three days by directly linking the design systems to rows of in-house 3D printing and rapid machining tools, rather than relying on external suppliers. Designers can now try out new concepts in physical form very soon after an idea is conceived.

Testing times have been reduced from around two months to a few days by undertaking a ‘value stream analysis’ of the experimental process. Each sequential operation was analysed, enabling us to remove over 95% of the tasks, producing a much leaner process of assembly and disassembly. Test results are automatically fed back to the augmented design system, allowing it to learn from both the digital and the physical data.

There’s a natural human timescale of about a week whereby if you go from idea to result then you have a virtuous circle between understanding and inspiration. We’ve found that when the technology development timescale approaches the human timescale – as it does in our leaner process – then innovation explodes.

The New Whittle Laboratory will house the National Centre for Propulsion and Power, due to open in 2022 with funding from the Aerospace Technology Institute. A national asset, the Centre is designed to combine a scaled-up version of the agile test capability with state-of-the-art manufacturing capability to cover around 80% of the UK’s future aerodynamic technology needs.

Key to the success of the Whittle Laboratory has been its strong industrial partnerships – with Rolls-Royce, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Siemens for over 50 years, and with Dyson for around five years. So another component of the new development will be a ‘Propulsion and Power Challenge Space’. Here, teams from across the University will co-locate with industry to develop the technologies necessary to decarbonise the propulsion and power sectors.

The length and depth of these partnerships have so many benefits. They’ve enabled technology strategy to be shared at the highest level, and new projects to be kicked off quickly, without the need for contract lawyers. Joint industry–academic technology transfer teams move seamlessly between industry and academia, ensuring that technologies are successfully transferred into product.

Most importantly, the partnerships provide a source of ‘real’ high-impact research projects. It’s these long-term industrial partnerships that have made the Whittle the world’s most academically successful propulsion and power research laboratory.

We are at a pivotal moment, in terms of both Cambridge’s history of leading technology development in propulsion and power, and humanity’s need to decarbonise these sectors. Just 50 years ago, at the opening of the original Whittle Laboratory, research and industry faced the challenge of making mass air travel a reality. Now the New Whittle Laboratory will enable us to lead the way in making it green.

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.

Read more about our research linked with Sustainable Earth in the University's research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Working in collaboration with the Italcementi HeidelbergCement Group and other partners, the Cambridge scientists developed a photocatalyst that degrades up to 70% more atmospheric nitrogen oxides (NO_x) than standard titania nanoparticles in tests on real pollutants.

Atmospheric pollution is a growing problem, particularly in urban areas and in developing countries. According to the World Health Organization, one out of every nine deaths worldwide can be attributed to diseases caused by air pollution. Organic pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides and volatile compounds, are the main cause of this, and they are mostly emitted by vehicle exhausts and industry.

While researchers are developing new technologies and energy sources that will drastically reduce the volume of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere in the first place, they are also on the hunt for new ways to remove more pollutants from the atmosphere. Photocatalysts such as titania are one way to do this. When titania is exposed to sunlight, it degrades harmful nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds present at the surface, oxidising them into inert or harmless products.

Now, in a study published in the journal Nanoscale, the researchers demonstrated that a composite of titania and graphene – a two-dimensional form of carbon - has significantly more powerful photodegradation properties than bare titania.

Researchers from the Cambridge Graphene Centre prepared and tested the composite, confirming its ability to photocatalytically degrade pollutant molecules, then researchers at Italcementi applied the coating to concrete to investigate its potential for environmental remediation.

“We decided to couple graphene to the most-used photocatalyst, titania, to boost the photocatalytic action,” said co-author Marco Goisis from Italcementi. “Photocatalysis is one of the most powerful ways we have to depollute the environment because the process does not consume the photocatalysts. It is a reaction activated by solar light.”

By performing liquid-phase exfoliation of graphite – a process that creates graphene – in the presence of titania nanoparticles, using only water and atmospheric pressure, the scientists created the new graphene-titania nanocomposite.

They found that it passively removes pollutants from the air when coated on the surface of materials. If applied to concrete on the street or the walls of buildings, the harmless photodegradation products could be washed away by rain or wind, or manually cleaned off.

To measure the photodegradation effects, the team tested the new photocatalyst against NO_x and recorded a 70% improvement in photocatalytic degradation of nitrogen oxides compared to standard titania. They also used rhodamine B as a model for volatile organic pollutants, as its molecular structure closely resembles those of pollutants emitted by vehicles, industry and agriculture. They found that 40% more rhodamine B was degraded by the graphene-titania composite than by titania alone, in water under UV irradiation.

“Coupling graphene to titania gave us excellent results in powder form – and it could be applied to different materials, of which concrete is a good example for the widespread use, helping us to achieve a healthier environment. It is low-maintenance and environmentally friendly, as it just requires the sun’s energy and no other input,” said Goisis.

But there are challenges to be addressed before this can be used on a commercial scale. Cheaper methods to mass-produce graphene are needed. Interactions between the catalyst and the host material need to be deepened as well as studies into the long-term stability of the photocatalyst in the outdoor environment.

Ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy measurements revealed an electron transfer process from titania to the graphene flakes, decreasing the charge recombination rate and increasing the efficiency of reactive species photoproduction – meaning more pollutant molecules could be degraded.

Based on this concept, scientists are also working on another product – an electrically conductive graphene concrete composite, which was showcased at Mobile World Congress in February this year. When included as a layer in flooring, it releases heat when an electrical current is passed through it. This could be used to heat buildings or streets without using water from a tank or boiler. It could also be used to create self-sensing concrete, which could detect stress or strain in concrete structures and monitor for structural defects, providing warning signals if the structural integrity is close to failure.

“An ever-increasing number of companies recognise the potential for graphene in new and improved technologies,” said Professor Andrea Ferrari, Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre and co-author on the current paper. “This work has demonstrated a clear application of graphene for the degradation of environmental pollutants. This can not only have commercial benefits but, more importantly, a cleaner and healthier environment.”

Reference:
Gloria Guidetti et al. ‘Photocatalytic activity of exfoliated graphite-TiO2 nanocomposites.’ Nanoscale (2019). DOI: 10.1039/c9nr06760d

Adapted from a story by the Cambridge Graphene Centre

It was my mother who first got me interested in science. When I was very young, back when I was growing up China, she used to tell me bedtime stories about the origins of thunder and lightning, how radios work, or how eggs became chickens. This apparently had a profound effect on me. Eggs would regularly go missing from the kitchen and turn up buried snugly under some blankets in bed. Or the new radio would be found dismantled, presumably taken apart by someone who wanted a better look inside...

My PhD research was in medicinal chemistry. My aim was to design anti-cancer drugs that could penetrate deep into solid tumours. To achieve this, I synthesised a library of novel DNA intercalators and anti-cancer platinum complexes and studied their bio-distribution and metabolism within 3D-tumour models using a variety of chemical imaging techniques. My research was very much directed by the problem, which gave me opportunities to travel around the world to work in different labs and disciplines. I was able to arrive at new drug design strategies using this approach.

Environmental sustainability is important to me, so that’s why I moved into artificial photosynthesis. My PhD research was highly interdisciplinary and I developed a deep appreciation of how different approaches can breathe fresh ideas into old problems and can often catalyse breakthroughs. Artificial photosynthesis for sustainable fuel development is also a highly interdisciplinary field, and as a research area, it aligns with my personal values about the importance of environmental sustainability.

I came to the Department of Chemistry more than five years ago as a Marie Curie Incoming International Fellow to work on artificial photosynthesis in Professor Erwin Reisner’s group. I was excited by the notion that, coming from quite a different background, I would be able to bring unique perspectives into the field. I also liked the idea of being immersed in a new learning experience. It turned out to be more challenging – and at the same time more fulfilling – than I expected.

We’ve designed new catalytic systems to turn sunlight into 'solar fuels'. In my postdoctoral research, I was interested in turning sunlight into chemical fuels we call 'solar fuels'– sustainable and green alternatives to our current unsustainable and polluting carbon-based fuels. Plants have been carrying out this for millions of years through the process of photosynthesis, enabled by a set of special proteins that make up the photosynthetic electron transport chain. I coordinated a team that studied these enzymes and the reactions that they carry out. We incorporated them into several prototype systems that can use sunlight to turn water into hydrogen. We hope this work will help make such fuels available to everyone in future.

We still need to understand the basic chemistry and physics behind many components of photosynthesis. There are many fundamental questions that remain to be answered both within biological and artificial photosynthetic systems. Mainly, these relate to the flow of electrons and how they can be more efficiently generated and used in catalysis. During my postdoctoral research, I wired photosystem II, nature’s water oxidation enzyme that kick-starts photosynthesis, to custom-made electrodes to study enzyme functionality and to perform light-driven fuel forming reactions. This allowed me to understand the ‘bottlenecks’ of different types of photosynthetic systems, and where improvements need to be made.

My BBSRC Fellowship allows me to drive my own research vision with my own research group. I started my own research group in 2018, and my focus is to develop new tools and approaches for studying photosynthesis (both biological and artificial) and utilising it in renewable energy generation and agricultural/sensor technologies. I’m supported by a generous grant that enables me to have postdocs and the necessary equipment – in particular, a sophisticated 3D printer that can print a large variety of materials, from living cells to metals.

The Fellowship will also help me build my leadership skills. It aims to get Fellows on the trajectory to leading our own research groups confidently and successfully. We have a BBSRC mentor that comes to visit our lab once a year. I’ve also attended workshops where I learned about the economy of science and leadership. I really like that this scheme offers not just money but the necessary support to help me become a well-rounded leader in science. I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity.

I hope my career will lead to the uncovering of many ‘unknown unknowns’. I want to drive innovative and high-value research that addresses important problems in our world today, and I want to achieve this while fostering a healthy and positive lab culture. Like any scientist, I hope my career will lead to the uncovering of many ‘unknown unknowns’ that will leave a positive impact on the world.

It’s important to me that we inspire more students – both girls and boys – to choose science. I still turn up to meetings and workshops where I am either the only woman or one of the few women present. However, this is happening less and less, and I feel that there is a real effort being made by our institutions to be inclusive and to lower barriers. The old barriers still exist, but I’m optimistic since I know how determined women can be.

In the meantime, I think we shouldn’t forget about positive action being needed to foster men to challenge their own status quo to become strong counterparts of the future.

Professor Loraine R Gelsthorpe, Director of the Institute of Criminology, said:

It is with great sadness that the Institute of Criminology acknowledges the deaths of both Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt who were killed in the course of events on and near London Bridge whilst participating in a Learning Together event organised by the Institute.

Saskia’s warm disposition and extraordinary intellectual creativity was combined with a strong belief that people who have committed criminal offences should have opportunities for rehabilitation. Though she completed her MPhil in Criminology in 2018, her determination to make an enduring and positive impact on society in everything she did led her to stay in contact with the Learning Together community. They valued her contributions enormously and were inspired by her determination to push towards the good.

All of us at the Institute will miss Jack’s quiet humour and rigorous intellect. His determined belief in rehabilitation inspired him to join the Institute as a staff member to work in the Learning Together research team after completing his MPhil in Criminology in 2017. Jack’s passion for social and criminal justice was infectious. He was deeply creatively and courageously engaged with the world, advocating for a politics of love. He worked tirelessly in dark places to pull towards the light.

We are grateful to other members of the Learning Together community who bravely risked their own lives to hold off the attacker until the police arrived. These men included Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service staff and several people who have spent time in prison. They worked together selflessly to bring an end to this tragedy and to save further lives.

Our thoughts and prayers are with their families, friends, and colleagues and students at the Institute and University more widely who were at the event, as well as others who were there and who have been affected and injured.

We would like to thank everyone for their messages of support.

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said:

I am devastated to learn that among the victims of the London Bridge attack were staff and alumni of the University of Cambridge, taking part in an event to mark five years of the Learning Together programme. What should have been a joyous opportunity to celebrate the achievements of this unique and socially transformative programme, hosted by our Institute of Criminology, was instead disrupted by an unspeakable criminal act.

I am sad beyond words to report that course coordinator Jack Merritt and former student Saskia Jones were killed. Both were Cambridge graduates. Among the three people injured, whose identities have not been publicly released, is a member of University staff.

Our University condemns this abhorrent and senseless act of terror. Our condolences, our thoughts and our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families. We will be providing all the support we can to our colleagues, including counselling for staff and students who are affected by the event. We are grateful to the Metropolitan Police, to local emergency services, and to those members of the public – including students, staff, alumni and other participants at the event – who selflessly intervened to contain the incident.

Updated 16:50 on 1 Dec 2019

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor:

I am devastated to learn that among the victims of the London Bridge attack were staff and alumni of the University of Cambridge, taking part in an event to mark five years of the Learning Together programme. What should have been a joyous opportunity to celebrate the achievements of this unique and socially transformative programme, hosted by our Institute of Criminology, was instead disrupted by an unspeakable criminal act.

I am sad beyond words to report that course co-ordinator Jack Merritt and former student Saskia Jones were killed. Both were Cambridge graduates. Among the three people injured, whose identities have not been publicly released, is a member of University staff.

Our University condemns this abhorrent and senseless act of terror. Our condolences, our thoughts and our deepest sympathies are with the victims and their families. We will be providing all the support we can to our colleagues, including counselling for staff and students who are affected by the event. We are grateful to the Metropolitan Police, to local emergency services, and to those members of the public – including students, staff, alumni and other participants at the event – who selflessly intervened to contain the incident.

The facts in relation to suicide are stark: 800,000 people die globally by suicide every year, the equivalent of one every 40 seconds. Suicide is the second leading cause of death globally among 15-29 year olds. More adolescents die by suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease combined. As many as one in three adolescents think about ending their lives and one in three of these will attempt suicide.

“Imagine having a disease that we knew killed almost a million people a year, a quarter of them before the age of thirty, and yet we knew nothing about why some individuals are more vulnerable to this disease,” said Dr Anne-Laura van Harmelen, co-first author from the University of Cambridge. “This is where we are with suicide. We know very little about what’s happening in the brain, why there are sex differences, and what makes young people especially vulnerable to suicide.”

A team of researchers, including Hilary Blumberg, MD, John and Hope Furth Professor of Psychiatric Neuroscience at Yale, carried out a review of two decades’ worth of scientific literature relating to brain imaging studies of suicidal thoughts and behaviour. In total, they looked at 131 studies, which covered more than 12,000 individuals, looking at alterations in brain structure and function that might increase an individual’s suicide risk.

Combining the results from all of the brain imaging studies available, the researchers looked for evidence of structural, functional, and molecular alterations in the brain that could increase risk of suicide. They identified two brain networks – and the connections between them – that appear to play an important role.

The first of these networks involves areas towards the front of the brain known as the medial and lateral ventral prefrontal cortex and their connections to other brain regions involved in emotion. Alterations in this network may lead to excessive negative thoughts and difficulties regulating emotions, stimulating thoughts of suicide.

The second network involves regions known as the dorsal prefrontal cortex and inferior frontal gyrus system. Alterations in this network may influence suicide attempt, in part, due to its role in decision making, generating alternative solutions to problems, and controlling behaviour.

The researchers suggest that if both networks are altered in terms of their structure, function or biochemistry, this might lead to situations where an individual thinks negatively about the future and is unable to control their thoughts, which might lead to situations where an individual is at higher risk for suicide.

“The review provides evidence to support a very hopeful future in which we will find new and improved ways to reduce risk of suicide,” said Professor Hilary Blumberg. “The brain circuitry differences found to converge across the many studies provide important targets for the generation of more effective suicide prevention strategies. “It is especially hopeful that scientists, such as my co-authors on this paper, are coming together in larger collaborative efforts that hold terrific promise.”

The majority of studies so far have been cross-sectional, meaning that they take a ‘snapshot’ of the brain, rather than looking over a period of time, and so can only relate to suicidal thoughts or behaviours in the past. The researchers say there is an urgent need for more research that looks at whether their proposed model relates to future suicide attempts and at whether any therapies are able to change the structure or function of these brain networks and thereby perhaps reduce suicide risk.

The review highlighted the paucity of research into suicide, particularly into sex differences and among vulnerable groups. Despite suicidal thoughts often first occurring as early as during adolescence, the majority of studies focused on adults.

“The biggest predictor of death by suicide is previous suicide attempt, so it’s essential that we can intervene as early as possible to reduce an individual’s risk,” said co-first author Dr Lianne Schmaal from the University of Melbourne. “For many individuals, this will be during adolescence. If we can work out a way to identify those young people at greatest risk, then we will have a chance to step in and help them at this important stage in their lives.”

Even more striking, despite the fact that transgender individuals are at increased risk for suicide, just one individual in the 131 samples included for the review was identified to be transgender.

“There are very vulnerable groups who are clearly not being served by research for a number of reasons, including stigma and the need to prioritise treatment,” said van Harmelen. “We urgently need to study these groups and find ways to help and support them.”

In 2018, the researchers launched the HOPES (Help Overcome and Prevent the Emergence of Suicide) study, supported by the mental health research charity MQ. HOPES brings together data from around 4,000 young people across 15 different countries in order to develop a model to predict who is at risk of suicide. Over the course of the project, the team will analyse brain scans, information on young people's environment, psychological states and traits in relation to suicidal behaviour from young people from across the world, to identify specific, universal risk-factors.

The research was supported by the mental health charity MQ Brighter Futures Award Program, National Institutes of Health, Department of Veterans Affairs, NHMRC, Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Brain and Behavior Foundation, Robert E. Leet and Clara M. Guthrie Patterson Trust, and For the Love of Travis Foundation.

Reference
Schmaal, L, van Harmelen, A.-L. et al. Imaging suicidal thoughts and behaviors: a comprehensive review of 2 decades of neuroimaging studies. Molecular Psychiatry; 2 Dec 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41380-019-0587-x

The University of Cambridge will provide essential contributions to the DUNE experiment, a global science project that brings the scientific community together to work on trying to answer some of the biggest questions in physics.

DUNE (the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment) is hosted by the United States Department of Energy’s Fermilab, and will be designed and operated by a collaboration of over 1,000 physicists from 32 countries.

The project aims to advance our understanding of the origin and structure of the universe. It will study the behaviour of particles called neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos. This could provide insight as to why we live in a matter-dominated universe while anti-matter has largely disappeared.

“DUNE has the unique potential to answer fundamental questions that overlap particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology,” said Professor Stefan Söldner-Rembold of the University of Manchester, who leads the international DUNE collaboration as one of its spokespeople.

The investment, from UK Research and Innovation’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), is a four-year construction grant to 13 educational institutions, and to STFC’s Rutherford Appleton and Daresbury Laboratories. This grant, of £30m, represents the first of two stages to support the DUNE construction project in the UK which will run until 2026 and represent a total investment of £45m.

Various elements of the experiment are under construction across the world, with the UK taking a major role in contributing essential expertise and components to the experiment and facility. UK scientists and engineers will design and produce the principle detector components at the core of the DUNE detector, which will comprise four large tanks each containing 17,000 kg of liquid argon.

The UK groups are also developing a high-speed data acquisition system to record the signals from the detector, together with the sophisticated software needed to interpret the data and provide the answers to the scientific questions.

“DUNE could help to change the way we understand the universe,” said Dr Melissa Uchida, who leads the neutrino group at Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “This announcement has allowed the UK to take a leading role in many aspects of the experiment, making the UK the biggest DUNE contributor outside the USA. Our group will deliver hardware and software, as well as calibration and analysis effort for DUNE and we are ready and excited to meet the challenges ahead.”

DUNE will also watch for supernova neutrinos produced when a star explodes, which will allow the scientists to observe the formation of neutron stars and black holes and will investigate whether protons live forever or eventually decay, bringing us closer to fulfilling Einstein’s dream of a grand unified theory.

The other UK universities involved in the project are Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Imperial College London, Lancaster, Liverpool, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield, Sussex, UCL and Warwick.

A team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, used atmospheric data from 19 exoplanets to obtain detailed measurements of their chemical and thermal properties. The exoplanets in the study span a large range in size – from ‘mini-Neptunes’ of nearly 10 Earth masses to ‘super-Jupiters’ of over 600 Earth masses – and temperature, from nearly 20C to over 2000C. Like the giant planets in our solar system, their atmospheres are rich in hydrogen, but they orbit different types of stars.

The researchers found that while water vapour is common in the atmospheres of many exoplanets, the amounts were surprisingly lower than expected, while the amounts of other elements found in some planets were consistent with expectations. The results, which are part of a five-year research programme on the chemical compositions of planetary atmospheres outside our solar system, are reported in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“We are seeing the first signs of chemical patterns in extra-terrestrial worlds, and we’re seeing just how diverse they can be in terms of their chemical compositions,” said project leader Dr Nikku Madhusudhan from the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, who first measured low water vapour abundances in giant exoplanets five years ago.

In our solar system, the amount of carbon relative to hydrogen in the atmospheres of giant planets is significantly higher than that of the sun. This ‘super-solar’ abundance is thought to have originated when the planets were being formed, and large amounts of ice, rocks and other particles were brought into the planet in a process called accretion.

The abundances of other elements have been predicted to be similarly high in the atmospheres of giant exoplanets - especially oxygen, which is the most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. This means that water, a dominant carrier of oxygen, is also expected to be overabundant in such atmospheres.

The researchers used extensive spectroscopic data from space-based and ground-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope in Chile and the Gran Telescopio Canarias in Spain. The range of available observations, along with detailed computational models, statistical methods, and atomic properties of sodium and potassium, allowed the researchers to obtain estimates of the chemical abundances in the exoplanet atmospheres across the sample.

The team reported the abundance of water vapour in 14 of the 19 planets, and the abundance of sodium and potassium in six planets each. Their results suggest a depletion of oxygen relative to other elements and provide chemical clues into how these exoplanets may have formed without substantial accretion of ice.

“It is incredible to see such low water abundances in the atmospheres of a broad range of planets orbiting a variety of stars,” said Madhusudhan.

“Measuring the abundances of these chemicals in exoplanetary atmospheres is something extraordinary, considering that we have not been able to do the same for giant planets in our solar system yet, including Jupiter, our nearest gas giant neighbour,” said Luis Welbanks, lead author of the study and PhD student at the Institute of Astronomy.

Various efforts to measure water in Jupiter’s atmosphere, including NASA’s current Juno mission, have proved challenging. “Since Jupiter is so cold, any water vapour in its atmosphere would be condensed, making it difficult to measure,” said Welbanks. “If the water abundance in Jupiter were found to be plentiful as predicted, it would imply that it formed in a different way to the exoplanets we looked at in the current study.”

“We look forward to increasing the size of our planet sample in future studies,” said Madhusudhan. “Inevitably, we expect to find outliers to the current trends as well as measurements of other chemicals.”

These results show that different chemical elements can no longer be assumed to be equally abundant in planetary atmospheres, challenging assumptions in several theoretical models.

“Given that water is a key ingredient to our notion of habitability on Earth, it is important to know how much water can be found in planetary systems beyond our own,” said Madhusudhan.

Reference:
L. Welbanks, N. Madhusudhan, N. Allard, et al. ‘Mass-Metallicity Trends in Transiting Exoplanets from Atmospheric Abundances of H₂O, Na, and K.’ The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2019). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ab5a89

My PhD is on the impact of road traffic on bird populations in Great Britain. I first came to Cambridge as an undergraduate; where I studied Natural Sciences and specialised in Zoology. I then worked as a research assistant in Cambridge before going on to do a Master’s in Wildlife Conservation at the University of Reading. In 2015, I returned to Cambridge to start my PhD with the Zoology Department.

I divide my time between Cambridge and Galápagos. While my PhD is based largely in Cambridge and focuses on the impacts of roads, I also run a project in Galápagos. I visited the islands in 2015 after completing my Master’s degree and became interested in an introduced bird species, the Smooth-billed Ani. I decided to set up a project with them and have been running it ever since, in collaboration with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park. Our aims are to quantify the impact this bird is having on native fauna and ecosystems, to analyse whether control or eradication is needed; and to consider how either of these might best be achieved.

I feel particularly lucky to be part of the David Attenborough Building. For my PhD, I work with the University and several NGOs, all of which have an office in the same building. I am constantly running up and down the stairs to ask people questions. It is wonderful to be part of such a collaborative environment. 

My work is incredibly varied. One big undertaking of mine in the past couple of years was to gather as much information as possible on the introduction and potential impacts of the Smooth-billed Ani in Galápagos for a review paper. As most of this was unpublished it involved visiting or contacting various libraries and universities and going through old archives. I found a lot of information that otherwise might have never surfaced, so it was very rewarding work. I have also undertaken fieldwork, designing and building traps to catch Anis and then analysing their diets. Meanwhile, my PhD research involves a huge amount of number-crunching and statistics, which I also really enjoy.

I think having confidence in yourself is really important. During my Master’s project, I spent two months in the Norfolk Broads, studying the impact of Marsh Harriers on Lapwings and other wading birds. This was the biggest research project I had done at that stage, and I knew I would have much less input from my supervisors than I did as an undergraduate. I remember arriving in the Norfolk Broads on the first day, unpacking in my little room with no wifi, knowing I would have hardly any contact with another person for the next two months. I knew the results I wanted to achieve and had a rough idea of how to do it but I felt quite out of my depth. I realised that I had to take control of my own work, trust my own abilities and not rely on supervisors as much as I was used to. Over those two months, I began to really build respect for my own ideas as well as those of others. I grew so much as a scientist and as a person and thoroughly enjoyed the whole project. If you can learn to have confidence in yourself and your abilities, everything becomes less intimidating.

Collaboration is key. I have really seen, over the last few years, how much of a difference good collaboration and communication can make. In research, there are usually many different ways of doing things, and being able to bounce ideas around and combine the knowledge and experience of multiple people can be hugely beneficial. I have learnt so much and met many brilliant scientists from collaborating on projects. The hardest part is preventing yourself from agreeing to the tens of new project ideas that come out of each existing one!

The three higher education institutions have formed the Responsible Investment Network – Universities (RINU), which launches with an article in Times Higher Education.

“Joining the Responsible Investment Network - Universities is the next step forward in the University of Cambridge’s commitment to the global energy transition, and we look forward to working with RINU members on supporting the decarbonisation of the modern economy,” University of Cambridge Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope said. 

UK investor activist charity ShareAction will run the network with support from the UK’s largest social impact investor, Big Society Capital, and SOS-UK, the National Union of Students’ sustainability charity. The universities are united in their ambitions to create positive change through their investment practices. They will share ideas on topics such as stewardship of their investments, engaging with their asset managers, educating students and staff, and social impact investment.

The founding members of the network have seized an opportunity to use their endowments to further their missions and take action on global threats such as climate change and ecosystem breakdown as well as local issues including inequality and homelessness. This is often encouraged by students and other stakeholders who want universities to take a proactive approach to the management of their investments.

The network offers access to research and advocacy opportunities relevant to universities’ core portfolios – but also support in exploring the social investment market.

“We’re excited to be supporting the launch of this network. University endowments have the potential to create positive impact on society and the environment by making impact investments. These can also help universities to better align their financial assets with their values. We believe impact investments that don’t require profit maximisation or sacrifice financial returns present the greatest opportunities for universities. We’ve already invested alongside a number of UK universities and look forward to working with others, whether they’re expanding or just beginning to navigate the social impact investing market,” Katie Fulford-Smith, Engagement Manager at Big Society Capital said.

The network will also work with universities to improve how they educate and consult with their students on how and where their endowment is invested. To achieve this, the project is working with SOS-UK.

“Responsible investment is the sustainability issue that students know least about at their universities. We are really hopeful that this new network will start to change that, supporting universities to put their investments to use for the public good, and shedding light on how universities manage their money,” ​Zamzam Ibrahim, President, Students’ Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK), said.

ShareAction is building on the success of the Charities Responsible Investment Network, a group of 19 charities working together to align their investments with their charitable goals.

“I am delighted by the range of universities in the founding group, and their enthusiasm to share ideas and act boldly. The national conversation about responsible investment within higher education has focused mainly on whether to divest from fossil fuels or not. It’s an important debate, and over half of UK universities have divested, but it’s not the only strategy at their disposal. RINU is all about working with both investment staff and university stakeholders, who understand the urgency of social and environmental threats, and who are looking together for a range of solutions,” Lily Tomson, ShareAction’s Head of Networks said.

Trees help to mitigate climate change by taking carbon out of the atmosphere and storing it. The bigger the tree, the more carbon it stores. New research has discovered the tallest known tree in the Amazon, towering above the previous record holder at a height of 88.5 metres. This giant could store as much carbon as an entire hectare of rainforest elsewhere in the Amazon.

A group of giant trees was discovered by Professor Eric Gorgens, a researcher at the Federal University of the Jequitinhonha and Mucuri Valleys (UFVJM), Brazil using LIDAR – a method of remote sensing using a laser scanner on an aircraft. They are growing in a remote region of northern Brazil, far from human activity, and may be over 400 years old. Intriguingly, they are all the same species, called Dinizia excelsa, known in Portuguese as Angelim vermelho. 

Toby Jackson, a plant scientist in the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, joined Gorgens on an expedition to visit the giants. The team validated the tallest tree’s height, and collected samples from the understory to try to understand what makes this site so special. 

Jackson wrote an account of his expedition for The Conversation

Reference: 
Gorgens, E.B. et al: 'The giant trees of the Amazon basin. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment', Aug 2019. DOI: 10.1002/fee.2085

I have used classroom debates about climate change in my higher education teaching for over a decade--with environmental science and geography students and with final year undergraduates and Master’s students. For a wicked problem like climate change, where there is no single correct position on how to deal with the challenge, nor why it should be dealt with this way, nor by whom, I have found that structured debates become effective learning devices for students.

Stylised debating positions allow the interweaving of both descriptive (‘this is known’) and prescriptive (‘this is right’) arguments. In other words, through debate students learn not only about the state of academic knowledge on a topic but also see how scientific knowledge is politically and ethically sterile unless it is interpreted using strong normative reasoning. To paraphrase Hannah Arendt, it is necessary to pass judgment on the facts to be able to act politically in the world. Furthermore, through debate students learn that such reasoning often leads to disagreement. But they also learn that disagreement, far from being innately destructive, can be an opportunity for self-reflection and personal learning

There is rising concern about the narrowness of students’ educational experiences and their lack of exposure to people and/or views with which they disagree. There is also growing evidence of online echo chambers and strong social sorting feeding the rise of identity politics and populism in many societies. We owe our students a learning experience which exposes and explains the reasons for answering in different ways the challenging questions posed by climate change.

It is for these reasons that I have developed a new student textbook - Contemporary Climate Change Debates: A Student Primer, published this month by Routledge - that will help students develop their own well-informed position without being told what to think. The 15 selected debates illustrate the range of cultural, economic, epistemic, ethical, legal, political, social and technological challenges raised by climate change. Each chapter addresses one of these debates, with invited leading and emerging scholars answering either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to each question, laying out the evidential and normative grounds—the descriptive and prescriptive bases--for their competing positions.

The authors are selected from 12 different countries, drawing equally across gender and from a variety of disciplinary and value commitments. Questions of perspective, identity, value, judgment and prescription are central to many of the disagreements fostered by climate change. My approach leans more on the humanities tradition than on that of the natural or social sciences, but its appeal is to students of climate change across the sciences, social sciences and humanities.

Examining these questions, and understanding how and why different scholars analyse and answer them in different ways, is a crucial learning experience for any student of climate change whether at high school, college or university. Students should be able to arrive at answers to complex questions, giving credible and reasonable accounts of their reasoning, without mere appeal to the authority of others or to calling down your own social identity. To quote philosopher Richard Foley, scholars and students alike “… should minimise the reliance on the opinions of others ‘floating in their brains’ and should instead to the extent possible arrive at conclusions there are able to defend on their own”.

It is important in a democracy to learn to disagree well, to realise that people with whom you disagree are not necessarily misguided, malicious or out to harm you. Their own life experience, education, moral or value commitments, might just mean that they see and interpret the world differently. Being able to recognise this, being able to engage in respectful debate and to learn from your antagonist, is the essence of learning. It helps break a deepening and polarising partisanship which is anathema for democratic deliberation.

Using labels to denigrate one’s opponent without considering in detail the reasons for their views, is a tactic used to ‘win an argument’ without in fact winning the argument. Calling out your opponent as a climate ‘denier’ or ‘contrarian’—or indeed as a climate ‘alarmist’ or ‘zealot’--does nothing to encourage constructive dialogue. Rather what is needed is a clear articulation of the different values that are at stake in the dispute and then to engage in political processes to explore and reach decisions about what to do. Simply listening to “the science” provides no shortcut to this challenging and often messy task. Debating with people who see, think and feel differently about climate change is essential.

Trees of recovering tropical forests were found to have tougher leaves, with lower concentrations of the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen – both essential for plant and tree growth - than trees of old-growth forests. This suggests that multiple cycles of logging and recovery irreversibly remove phosphorus from the forest system, and are pushing the nutrient content towards ecological limits.

“Old-growth tropical forests that have been the same for millions of years are now changing irreversibly due to repeated logging,” said Dr Tom Swinfield, a plant scientist in the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, and first author of the paper published in the journal Global Change Biology.  

Soil nutrients including phosphorus come from rocks, and are taken up by trees through their roots. Cutting down the trees causes these nutrients to be lost through soil erosion, gas emissions, and removal of nutrients in the extracted timber. The researchers estimate that as much as 30% of the available phosphorus in the soil is being removed from tropical forest systems by repeated logging. 

“We see that as the logged forests start recovering, they’re actually diverging from the old growth forests in terms of their leaf chemistry and possibly also species composition, as the amount of available nutrients goes down,” said Swinfield. “At the moment the trees can cope, but the fact that they’re changing indicates phosphorus levels in the soil are dropping. This could affect the speed at which forests recover from future disturbances.”

The researchers created high definition images of a forest landscape in north-eastern Borneo using LIDAR-guided imaging spectroscopy from an aircraft. This is a method of remote sensing, using a laser scanner and high fidelity camera, which takes hundreds of measurements across the light spectrum. They combined this information with nutrient measurements from 700 individual trees in the forest. This allowed them to map the concentrations of nutrients in the trees’ leaves over an area containing repeatedly logged forest and old-growth forest, and compare the two. 

This is the first landscape-scale study of how leaf function changes in response to logging. Selective logging is carried out extensively across millions of hectares of forest in the tropics, so that degraded forests are now more widespread than old-growth forests. The study suggests that each consecutive harvest reduces the level of nutrients in the system, and newly established trees have to adapt to conserve the scarce resources available to them.

“Phosphorus limitation is a really serious global issue: it’s one of the areas where humans are using a vital resource beyond sustainable levels,” said Professor David Coomes, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute, who led the project. The researchers found that differences from old-growth forest become more pronounced as logged forests grow larger over time, suggesting exacerbated phosphorus limitation as forests recover. 

This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council.

Reference
Swinfield, T. et al: ‘Imaging spectroscopy reveals the effects of topography and logging on the leaf chemistry of tropical forest canopy trees.’ Global Change Biology, Dec 2019. DOI: 10.1111/GCB.14903.

The research, published in the journal NeuroImage, used a method called dual electroencephalograhy (EEG) to look at brain signals in both mums and babies while they were interacting with each other. They found that mums and babies tend to synchronise their brain waves – an effect known as interpersonal neural connectivity - particularly in the frequency of 6-9 hertz, the infant alpha range. 

By looking at the qualities and structure of the interpersonal neural connectivity using a mathematical method of network analysis, the researchers could see how information flowed within each separate brain, and also how the two brains operated together as a network. 

Mothers and babies tend to spend a lot of time together in a positive emotional state, in which their brains are very connected. The study found that positive interaction, with lots of eye contact, enhances the ability of mother and infant brains to operate as a single system. This promotes efficient sharing and flow of information between mother and infant. 

“From our previous work, we know that when the neural connection between mothers and babies is strong, babies are more receptive and ready to learn from their mothers,” said Dr Vicky Leong in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology, who led the study. “At this stage of life, the baby brain has the ability to change significantly, and these changes are driven by the baby’s experiences. By using a positive emotional tone during social interactions, parents can connect better with their infants, and stimulate development of their baby’s mental capacity.”

The results also suggest that babies of depressed mothers may show less evidence of learning because of a weakened neural connection between mother and infant. Mothers who experience a persistently low or negative mental state due to clinical depression tend to have less interaction with their baby. Their speech is often flatter in tone, they make much less eye contact, and they are less likely to respond when their baby tries to get their attention. 

“Our emotions literally change the way that our brains share information with others - positive emotions help us to communicate in a much more efficient way,” said Dr Leong. “Depression can have a powerfully negative effect on a parent’s ability to establish connections with their baby. All the social cues that normally foster connection are less readily available to the child, so the child doesn’t receive the optimal emotional input it needs to thrive.” 

Emotional communication between parents and their children is crucial during early life, yet little is known about its neural underpinnings. This is the first brain imaging study of two related individuals to investigate if and how babies’ interpersonal neural connectivity with their mothers is affected by the emotional quality of their social interaction.

As a social species, humans share emotional states with others. This work shows how emotions change the connection between two individuals at a neural level. The researchers say that their findings apply to many other types of affiliative bond, including between couples, close friends, and siblings, where each person is highly attuned to the other. The strength of the effect is likely to depend on how well the two people know each other and the level of trust between them.

Reference
Santamaria, L. et al: Emotional valence modulates the topology of the parent-infant inter-brain network. Neuroimage (2019). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116341

The spread of hate speech via social media could be tackled using the same "quarantine" approach deployed to combat malicious software, according to University of Cambridge researchers.

Definitions of hate speech vary depending on nation, law and platform, and just blocking keywords is ineffectual: graphic descriptions of violence need not contain obvious ethnic slurs to constitute racist death threats, for example.

As such, hate speech is difficult to detect automatically. It has to be reported by those exposed to it, after the intended "psychological harm" is inflicted, with armies of moderators required to judge every case.

This is the new front line of an ancient debate: freedom of speech versus poisonous language.

Now, an engineer and a linguist have published a proposal in the journal Ethics and Information Technology that harnesses cyber security techniques to give control to those targeted, without resorting to censorship.

Cambridge language and machine learning experts are using databases of threats and violent insults to build algorithms that can provide a score for the likelihood of an online message containing forms of hate speech.

As these algorithms get refined, potential hate speech could be identified and "quarantined". Users would receive a warning alert with a "Hate O'Meter"– the hate speech severity score – the sender's name, and an option to view the content or delete unseen.

This approach is akin to spam and malware filters, and researchers from the 'Giving Voice to Digital Democracies' project believe it could dramatically reduce the amount of hate speech people are forced to experience. They are aiming to have a prototype ready in early 2020.

"Hate speech is a form of intentional online harm, like malware, and can therefore be handled by means of quarantining," said co-author and linguist Dr Stefanie Ullman. "In fact, a lot of hate speech is actually generated by software such as Twitter bots."

"Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google generally respond reactively to hate speech," said co-author and engineer Dr Marcus Tomalin. "This may be okay for those who don't encounter it often. For others it's too little, too late."

"Many women and people from minority groups in the public eye receive anonymous hate speech for daring to have an online presence. We are seeing this deter people from entering or continuing in public life, often those from groups in need of greater representation," he said.

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told a UK audience that hate speech posed a "threat to democracies", in the wake of many women MPs citing online abuse as part of the reason they will no longer stand for election.

While in a Georgetown University address, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke of "broad disagreements over what qualifies as hate" and argued: "we should err on the side of greater expression".

The researchers say their proposal is not a magic bullet, but it does sit between the "extreme libertarian and authoritarian approaches" of either entirely permitting or prohibiting certain language online.

Importantly, the user becomes the arbiter. "Many people don't like the idea of an unelected corporation or micromanaging government deciding what we can and can't say to each other," said Tomalin.

"Our system will flag when you should be careful, but it's always your call. It doesn't stop people posting or viewing what they like, but it gives much needed control to those being inundated with hate."

In the paper, the researchers refer to detection algorithms achieving 60% accuracy – not much better than chance. Tomalin's machine learning lab has now got this up to 80%, and he anticipates continued improvement of the mathematical modeling.

Meanwhile, Ullman gathers more "training data": verified hate speech from which the algorithms can learn. This helps refine the "confidence scores" that determine a quarantine and subsequent Hate O'Meter read-out, which could be set like a sensitivity dial depending on user preference.

A basic example might involve a word like 'bitch': a misogynistic slur, but also a legitimate term in contexts such as dog breeding. It's the algorithmic analysis of where such a word sits syntactically - the types of surrounding words and semantic relations between them - that informs the hate speech score.

"Identifying individual keywords isn't enough, we are looking at entire sentence structures and far beyond. Sociolinguistic information in user profiles and posting histories can all help improve the classification process," said Ullman.

Added Tomalin: "Through automated quarantines that provide guidance on the strength of hateful content, we can empower those at the receiving end of the hate speech poisoning our online discourses."

However, the researchers, who work in Cambridge's Centre for Research into Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH), say that – as with computer viruses – there will always be an arms race between hate speech and systems for limiting it.

The project has also begun to look at "counter-speech": the ways people respond to hate speech. The researchers intend to feed into debates around how virtual assistants such as 'Siri' should respond to threats and intimidation.

The work has been funded by the International Foundation for the Humanities and Social Change.

Despite increases in overall life expectancy there is still an inequality, with lower life expectancy observed more often in disadvantaged groups. It is well known that those in higher social classes have a typical life expectancy several years longer than those with the lowest. Similarly, life expectancy and levels of good health vary between UK cities and regions, with large variations in expected years of life in good health.

In research published in BMJ Open, a team led by researchers at the Cambridge Institute of Public Health examined whether there was a link between living in an area of deprivation and subsequent hospital use. To do so, they examined data from almost 25,000 individuals (11,000 men and 14,000 women) from the EPIC-Norfolk cohort across almost two decades, between 1999 and 2018.

The researchers used the Townsend Index to measure the deprivation of individuals’ residential areas, stratifying people into five levels. The Index looks at levels of unemployment, number of households without a car, the percentage of households not owner-occupied, and the percentage of households with more than one person per room.

Participants completed a lifestyle questionnaire that included questions about their own and their partner’s current and past employment and a list of qualifications. The researchers used the employment information to assign each participant to either non-manual or manual social classes. Non-manual social class included those individuals who worked in professional, managerial, technical and non-manual skilled occupations; manual social class included those who worked in skilled, partly skilled and unskilled manual occupations. The qualifications marked were used to assign participants to lower or higher educational attainment categories.

The researchers found that people who lived in areas of highest deprivation spent the most time in hospital, but the risk of a long hospital stay is seen disproportionately in people who also had low educational attainment or were in manual social class. While the average amount of time spent in hospital over the two decade period was around 28 days for people with high educational attainment, for those with low educational attainment, the average was around 37 days, rising steeply to 43 days in the group living in areas of highest deprivation.

The picture relating to social class was similar, though the differences between social classes was not as pronounced as those between educational attainments. Those individuals in non-manual social classes spent between 29 and 31.5 days in hospital; in manual social classes, people in areas of less deprivation spent around 32 days in hospital, rising to 39.5 days in areas of highest deprivation.

“Regardless of your age and gender, or even lifestyle factors such as smoking and obesity, living in an area of high deprivation is a significant risk factor for spending time in hospital,” said Dr Robert Luben from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author. “People living in areas at or below the national average for deprivation were more likely to spend more than 20 days in hospital or be admitted to hospital on more than seven occasions during the two decades that we examined.”

Senior author Professor Kay-Tee Khaw, also from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, said: “People working in a manual occupation or with lower education level and living in more deprived areas had the greatest risk of hospitalisation. This suggests that hospitalisation is greatest when poorer individual socioeconomic factors are combined with residential deprivation.

“It isn’t clear why this should be the case, though we can speculate that it could in part be down to better education improving an individual’s ability to live a healthier life.”   

Previous research from the group has examined the link between lifestyle factors, education and hospitalisation. This is the first to look at the link between deprivation at an area level and hospitalisation.

“It clearly is not enough just to focus on educating people and improving lifestyle factors at an individual level,” added Dr Luben. “A poor environment affects those least able to cope. Effective NHS and government policy also needs to address deprivation infrastructural levels – improving housing, transport, access to recreation and green space, for example.”

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK.

Reference
Luben, R et al. Residential area deprivation and risk of subsequent hospital admission in a British population: the EPIC-Norfolk cohort. BMJ Open; 16 Dec 2019; DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031251

I grew up in the Scottish Highlands, where the environment informs everything that we do. It’s in our songs and our poetry, and sometimes it’s a daily battle just to get to work because of the elements. I didn’t appreciate that was special until I left for university, and realised that, actually, it’s quite unusual to grow up in that environment and be so connected to your landscape.

I’ve always been interested in plants because my parents are both professional gardeners. My Mum runs a daffodil nursery and my Dad worked for the National Trust for Scotland managing gardens, but I think growing up where I did and the natural environment was my real inspiration. I went to Aberdeen University and did a Bachelor of Science degree in Plant Sciences.

I knew I wanted to do something with plants, but I wasn’t exactly sure what. My degree allowed me to learn about a whole range of subtopics from ecology to microbiology to physiology and everything in between. I graduated with first-class honours, then I went to the Royal Botanical Garden in Edinburgh and did a Master’s degree in taxonomy. I love going out into the wilds to identify and make an inventory of all the species I can see but all my knowledge was self-taught or passed on from other enthusiasts. The Master’s degree gave me a formal understanding of the theory behind species concepts and the skills to identify plants anywhere in the world. I’ve always particularly liked rhododendrons and was lucky enough to work on them for my summer project. It allowed me to work in the herbarium, run DNA analyses and visit living collections across Scotland. It was hard work but so rewarding.

My PhD is modelling the impacts of a plant pathogen, Phytophthora austrocedri, on native UK juniper. I split my time between Cambridge and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford. Juniper is a great species to work on because it grows in beautiful places across the UK and people really care about it. I collected all my own field data. I taught myself the skills to process the data and write statistical models to understand factors contributing to disease persistence and spread. It’s a challenging PhD because my background is purely ecological rather than mathematical, so there are a lot of things I need to learn, but it also means I approach the work with a different perspective.

Juniper is now a red-listed species in the UK. We only have three conifers native to the UK: Scots pine, yew and juniper. This means juniper has evolved lots of relationships with other species, some of which depend on it solely for their habitat or their food source. Juniper is a keystone species for biodiversity, so if you protect it you’re also protecting all these other species and interactions too. However, juniper populations are declining nationally both in terms of extent and quality – and that’s before the pathogen that can kill populations very quickly was introduced – so juniper is a priority species for conservation action.

I’m helping conservationists and public bodies decide where action should be targeted. These organisations have a limited budget, so want to limit infection between different populations and target restorative action to populations at lower risk from being wiped out by the pathogen. I’m researching why some populations are dying very quickly when others are not showing such severe symptoms even though the pathogen is present. Can environmental difference such as a soil type or rainfall explain that or is it related to characteristics of the juniper populations themselves such as age or density? I want my research to be used directly to improve the health of juniper populations and make sure we retain this important species in our landscape.

I have five supervisors, three women and two men. I’m funded primarily by the Scottish Forestry Trust with additional contributions from the Forestry Commission, Forest Research, the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and my former employer Scottish Natural Heritage. My project is a collaboration between Cambridge University, the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and Forest Research so I get to meet so many passionate people with really different specialisms and experience: brilliant for generating fascinating ideas.

The best day I’ve had so far was out at one of my study sites in the Lake District. The site has really challenging terrain with lots of steep scree slopes that I had to run up and down every couple of months in rain, gales and blizzards. But the last time I visited it was under a blue sky, the bird song in the woodland was deafening and I took a deliberate detour to get to the highest point and look across the whole juniper population. It was a really special and reinvigorated my determination to generate research that can help save juniper.  

We spend a lot of time thinking ‘I’m not 100% confident about that so I won’t go for it’ when we should just try it. Be curious. Don’t limit yourself by thinking that’s not for me or ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at it’. “Yes” gets easier with practice – just go for it! I don’t know what the future holds for me but I want to continue working in ecosystem conservation, ideally back in Scotland among the landscapes I love.