Researchers at the University of Cambridge, who led the study, say that even simple interventions such as these could contribute towards tackling levels of obesity.

Unhealthy eating, including eating more calories than are needed, plays a major role in the increasing rates of obesity. This in turn increases the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease and many cancers, contributing to increasing rates of premature death worldwide.

The environments in which we live and work influence the types of food and drink that we consume. Local areas of deprivation in particular magnify this effect – people living in less affluent areas or with lower socioeconomic status tend to have reduced access to healthy foods and higher rates of obesity.

One important environment where interventions could be implemented is cafeterias, such as those in schools, universities, and workplaces. The workplace is the most common place to eat outside of the home, typically 15% of working adults’ energy intake.

In the largest study of its kind, a team from the University of Cambridge tested the impact on calories purchased of changing both portion sizes and availability of some higher calorie food and drink in 19 workplace cafeterias over a six month period. The results of their study are published today in PLOS Medicine.

The team recruited workplace cafeterias based in the distribution centres of a major UK supermarket chain.

Over a 25-week-long period, the team, working with the caterers, replaced some higher calorie food and drink products with lower calorie ones – for example, swapping bacon and cheese burgers with grilled chicken burgers. This led to a 4.8% reduction in the average number of calories purchased a day.

Next, as well as reducing the availability of high calorie food and drink products, the team reduced the portion size of some higher calorie products by about 14% in volume – for example by serving a smaller slice of lasagne or portion of chips or reducing the number of meatballs in a portion.

When both the availability and size of high calorie food and drink portions were changed, this led to an 11.5% reduction in the average number of calories purchased per day compared to the baseline. For the typical worker, this would be equal to eating about 50kcal fewer per day.

Dr James Reynolds from the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “On average, UK adults consume 200-300 excess calories a day. This study shows that reducing portion sizes and the availability of higher calorie options in cafeterias could make an important contribution to reducing excess calories in strategies to tackle obesity.

“If cafeterias in workplaces, schools, and universities implemented these changes, this could help reduce overconsumption of calories and help in widespread efforts to reduce population-level obesity.”

The workplaces where the cafeterias were located were predominantly staffed by those working in manual occupations, who have – on average – worse health outcomes and higher body mass indexes (BMIs) compared to those in non-manual occupations.

Senior author Professor Dame Theresa Marteau, Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, added: “Many of the measures introduced to reduce calorie consumption, such as mass media campaigns, have little overall impact, but can exacerbate health inequalities, helping mainly those who work in non-manual jobs. We need to find interventions that works across the board. Our study suggests that making relatively simple changes to menus in workplace and other cafeterias could make an important contribution to tackling obesity in all groups.”

The study took place over a longer time period and used more sites than previous studies. Sustained behaviour change is known to be a major obstacle to reducing body mass index (BMI), but the researchers found no evidence that the effect of the intervention diminished with time during their study.

The cafeterias experienced a small drop in the amount of money taken at the till – 2.6% when just the availability of options was reduced and a 5.7% drop when the portion sizes were also decreased. The researchers suggest this may have been a temporary effect, as the drop decreased over time, and may in part be due to the fixed menu and product list that was required for the study.

Dr Reynolds added: “Cafeterias should be able to compensate for a small drop in revenue by changing which products they sell or by additional strategies to make healthier food options more appealing.”

The study was funded by Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK.

Reference
Reynolds, JP et al. Impact of decreasing the proportion of higher energy foods and reducing portion sizes on food purchased in worksite cafeterias: a stepped-wedge randomised controlled trial. PLOS Medicine; 14 Sept 2021; DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003743

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, used a combination of statistical techniques and radar data to predict the flight path of a drone, and whether it intends to enter a restricted airspace, for instance around a civilian airport.  

Their solution could help prevent a repeat of the Gatwick incident, as it can spot any drones before they enter restricted airspace and can determine, early, if their future actions are likely to pose a threat to other aircraft.

This new predictive capability can enable automated decision-making and significantly reduce the workload on drone surveillance system operators by offering actionable information on potential threats to facilitate timely and proportionate responses.

Real radar data from live drone trials at several locations was used to validate the new approach. Some of the results will be reported today (15 September) at the Sensor Signal Processing for Defence Conference in Edinburgh.

Drones have become ubiquitous over the past several years, with widespread applications in agriculture, surveying and e-commerce, among other fields. However, they can also be a nuisance or present a potential safety risk, especially with the wide availability of cheap and increasingly more capable platforms.

A few days before Christmas 2018, reported drone sightings near the perimeter of Gatwick Airport caused hundreds of flights to be disrupted due to the possible risk of collision. No culprit was found.

“While we don’t fully know what happened at Gatwick, the incident highlighted the potential risk drones can pose to the public if they are misused, whether that’s done maliciously or completely innocently,” said paper co-author Dr Bashar Ahmad, who carried out the research while based at Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “It’s crucial for future drone surveillance systems to have predictive capabilities for revealing, as early as possible, a drone with malicious intent or anomalous behaviour.”

To aid with air traffic control and prevent any possible collisions, commercial airplanes report their location every few minutes. However, there is no such requirement for drones.

“There needs to be some sort of automated equivalent to air traffic control for drones,” said Professor Simon Godsill from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, who led the project. “But unlike large and fast-moving targets, like a passenger jet, drones are small, agile, and slow-moving, which makes them difficult to track. They can also easily be mistaken for birds, and vice versa.”

“We need to spot threats as early as possible, but we also need to be careful not to overreact, since closing civilian airspace is a drastic and highly disruptive measure that we want to avoid, especially if it ends up being a false alarm,” said first author Dr Jiaming Liang, also from the Department of Engineering, who developed the underlying algorithms with Godsill.

There are several potential ways to monitor the space around a civilian airport. A typical drone surveillance solution can use a combination of several sensors, such as radar, radio frequency detectors and cameras, but it’s often expensive and labour-intensive to operate.

Using Bayesian statistical techniques, the Cambridge researchers built a solution that would only flag those drones which pose a threat and offer a way to prioritise them. Threat is defined as a drone that’s intending to enter restricted airspace or displays an unusual flying pattern.

“We need to know this before it happens, not after it happens,” said Godsill. “This way, if a drone is getting too close, it could be possible to warn the drone operator. For obvious safety reasons, it’s prohibited to disable a drone in civilian airspace, so the only option is to close the airspace. Our goal is to make sure airport authorities don’t have to do this unless the threat is a real one.”

The software-based solution uses a stochastic, or random, model to determine the underlying intent of the drone, which can change dynamically over time. Most drones navigate using waypoints, meaning they travel from one point to the next, and a single journey is made of multiple points.

In tests using real radar data, the Cambridge-developed solution was able to identify drones before they reached their next waypoint. Based on a drone’s velocity, trajectory and other data, it was able to predict the probability of any given drone reaching the next waypoint in real time.

“In tests, our system was able to spot potential threats in seconds, but in a real scenario, those seconds or minutes can make the difference between an incident happening or not,” said Liang. “It could give time to warn incoming flights about the threat so that no one gets hurt.”

The Cambridge researchers say their solution can be incorporated into existing surveillance systems, making it a cost-effective way of tracking the risk of drones ending up where they shouldn’t. The algorithms could, in principle, also be applied to other domains such as maritime safety, robotics and self-driving cars.

Reference:
Jiaming Liang et al. ‘Detection of Malicious Intent in Non-cooperative Drone Surveillance.’ Paper presented at the Sensor Signal Processing for Defence conference. Edinburgh, UK. 14-15 September 2021. https://sspd.eng.ed.ac.uk/

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and reported in the journal Physical Review D, suggests that some unexplained results from the XENON1T experiment in Italy may have been caused by dark energy, and not the dark matter the experiment was designed to detect.

They constructed a physical model to help explain the results, which may have originated from dark energy particles produced in a region of the Sun with strong magnetic fields, although future experiments will be required to confirm this explanation. The researchers say their study could be an important step toward the direct detection of dark energy.

Everything our eyes can see in the skies and in our everyday world – from tiny moons to massive galaxies, from ants to blue whales – makes up less than five percent of the universe. The rest is dark. About 27% is dark matter – the invisible force holding galaxies and the cosmic web together – while 68% is dark energy, which causes the universe to expand at an accelerated rate.

“Despite both components being invisible, we know a lot more about dark matter, since its existence was suggested as early as the 1920s, while dark energy wasn’t discovered until 1998,” said Dr Sunny Vagnozzi from Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology, the paper’s first author. “Large-scale experiments like XENON1T have been designed to directly detect dark matter, by searching for signs of dark matter ‘hitting’ ordinary matter, but dark energy is even more elusive.”

To detect dark energy, scientists generally look for gravitational interactions: the way gravity pulls objects around. And on the largest scales, the gravitational effect of dark energy is repulsive, pulling things away from each other and making the Universe’s expansion accelerate.

About a year ago, the XENON1T experiment reported an unexpected signal, or excess, over the expected background. “These sorts of excesses are often flukes, but once in a while they can also lead to fundamental discoveries,” said Dr Luca Visinelli, a researcher at Frascati National Laboratories in Italy, a co-author of the study. “We explored a model in which this signal could be attributable to dark energy, rather than the dark matter the experiment was originally devised to detect.”

At the time, the most popular explanation for the excess were axions – hypothetical, extremely light particles – produced in the Sun. However, this explanation does not stand up to observations, since the amount of axions that would be required to explain the XENON1T signal would drastically alter the evolution of stars much heavier than the Sun, in conflict with what we observe.

We are far from fully understanding what dark energy is, but most physical models for dark energy would lead to the existence of a so-called fifth force. There are four fundamental forces in the universe, and anything that can’t be explained by one of these forces is sometimes referred to as the result of an unknown fifth force.

However, we know that Einstein’s theory of gravity works extremely well in the local universe. Therefore, any fifth force associated to dark energy is unwanted and must be ‘hidden’ or ‘screened’ when it comes to small scales, and can only operate on the largest scales where Einstein's theory of gravity fails to explain the acceleration of the Universe. To hide the fifth force, many models for dark energy are equipped with so-called screening mechanisms, which dynamically hide the fifth force.

Vagnozzi and his co-authors constructed a physical model, which used a type of screening mechanism known as chameleon screening, to show that dark energy particles produced in the Sun’s strong magnetic fields could explain the XENON1T excess.

“Our chameleon screening shuts down the production of dark energy particles in very dense objects, avoiding the problems faced by solar axions,” said Vagnozzi. “It also allows us to decouple what happens in the local very dense Universe from what happens on the largest scales, where the density is extremely low.”

The researchers used their model to show what would happen in the detector if the dark energy was produced in a particular region of the Sun, called the tachocline, where the magnetic fields are particularly strong.

“It was really surprising that this excess could in principle have been caused by dark energy rather than dark matter,” said Vagnozzi. “When things click together like that, it’s really special.”

Their calculations suggest that experiments like XENON1T, which are designed to detect dark matter, could also be used to detect dark energy. However, the original excess still needs to be convincingly confirmed. “We first need to know that this wasn’t simply a fluke,” said Visinelli. “If XENON1T actually saw something, you’d expect to see a similar excess again in future experiments, but this time with a much stronger signal.”

If the excess was the result of dark energy, upcoming upgrades to the XENON1T experiment, as well as experiments pursuing similar goals such as LUX-Zeplin and PandaX-xT, mean that it could be possible to directly detect dark energy within the next decade.

Reference:
Sunny Vagnozzi et al. ‘Direct detection of dark energy: the XENON1T excess and future prospects.’ Physical Review D (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.104.063023

The research was sparked by the pandemic and set out to build an AI tool to predict how much extra oxygen a COVID-19 patient may need in the first days of hospital care, using data from across four continents. 

The technique, known as federated learning, used an algorithm to analyse chest x-rays and electronic health data from hospital patients with COVID-19 symptoms. 

To maintain strict patient confidentiality, the patient data was fully anonymised and an algorithm was sent to each hospital so no data was shared or left its location.  

Once the algorithm had ‘learned’ from the data, the analysis was brought together to build an AI tool which could predict the oxygen needs of hospital COVID-19 patients anywhere in the world.

Published today in Nature Medicine, the study dubbed EXAM (for EMR CXR AI Model), is one of the largest, most diverse clinical federated learning studies to date. 

To check the accuracy of EXAM, it was tested out in a number of hospitals across five continents, including Addenbrooke’s Hospital.  The results showed it predicted the oxygen needed within 24 hours of a patient’s arrival in the emergency department, with a sensitivity of 95 per cent and a specificity of over 88 per cent. 

“Federated learning has transformative power to bring AI innovation to the clinical workflow,” said Professor Fiona Gilbert, who led the study in Cambridge and is Honorary Consultant Radiologist at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and Chair of Radiology at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine. 

“Our continued work with EXAM demonstrates that these kinds of global collaborations are repeatable and more efficient, so that we can meet clinicians’ needs to tackle complex health challenges and future epidemics.”

First author on the study, Dr Ittai Dayan, from Mass General Bingham in the US, where the EXAM algorithm was developed, said:

“Usually in AI development, when you create an algorithm on one hospital’s data, it doesn’t work well at any other hospital. By developing the EXAM model using federated learning and objective, multimodal data from different continents, we were able to build a generalizable model that can help frontline physicians worldwide.”

Bringing together collaborators across North and South America, Europe and Asia, the EXAM study took just two weeks of AI ‘learning’ to achieve high-quality predictions.

“Federated Learning allowed researchers to collaborate and set a new standard for what we can do globally, using the power of AI,'' said Dr Mona G Flores, Global Head for Medical AI at NVIDIA. “This will advance AI not just for healthcare but across all industries looking to build robust models without sacrificing privacy.”

The outcomes of around 10,000 COVID-19 patients from across the world were analysed in the study, including 250 who came to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in the first wave of the pandemic in March/April 2020. 

The research was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). 

Work on the EXAM model has continued. Mass General Brigham and the NIHR Cambridge BRC are working with NVIDIA Inception startup Rhino Health, cofounded by Dr Dayan, to run prospective studies using EXAM. 

Professor Gilbert added: “Creating software to match the performance of our best radiologists is complex, but a truly transformative aspiration. The more we can securely integrate data from different sources using federated learning and collaboration, and have the space needed to innovate, the faster academics can make those transformative goals a reality.”

Reference
Dayan, I et al. Federated learning for predicting clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Nat Med; 15 Sept 2021; DOI: 10.1038/s41591-021-01506-3

The Earthshot Prize was launched in October 2020 by Prince William and designed and incubated by The Royal Foundation, an international centre for philanthropy led by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Working in partnership with organisations and individuals around the world, it strives to research, develop, and scale the most impactful solutions to society’s greatest challenges. The Earthshot Prize is designed to incentivise changes that will repair our planet over the next ten years.

In 2020 Darwin College was one of around 200 organisations across the world invited to submit nominations for the Prize. Sanergy, one of Darwin’s four nominations, has been selected as a finalist. It harnesses a natural method of converting human waste to create environmentally sustainable animal food, biofuel and fertilizer and therefore provides a novel and scalable solution to achieving a waste-free world.

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “Congratulations to Earthshot Prize finalist Sanergy, nominated by Darwin College. Sanergy’s work in building sanitation designed for vulnerable urban communities and converting it into organic agricultural products is a shining example of the kind of contribution to society the University of Cambridge champions in its own research and seeks to support with its innovations and partnerships around the world.”  

David Auerbach, Co-founder of Sanergy, said: “The rapid growth of cities around the world has created a sanitation and waste management crisis which affects the health of millions of people and the future of our planet. We’re honoured to appear as a Finalist for The Earthshot Prize to bring attention to this issue and showcase our solution: Sanergy’s circular economy model for safe sanitation and waste management. Being part of the inaugural Earthshot Prize will help Sanergy further scale to safely repurpose one million tonnes of waste per year by 2026 within Kenya and other developing countries, improving the life of millions.”

Dr Mike Rands, Master of Darwin College, said: “I warmly congratulate Sanergy on becoming one of 15 Finalists for the Earthshot Prize 2021. As part of our commitment to addressing global environmental challenges, Darwin College was delighted to nominate Sanergy for an Earthshot Prize. This Nairobi-based initiative has created an innovative and scalable solution to building a waste-free world that is commercially viable and environmentally sustainable. Sanergy is truly inspirational; it has the potential to transform urban waste management globally.”

Dr Emily Shuckburgh, Fellow of Darwin College and Director of Cambridge Zero said, “As we head towards two-thirds of the global population living in urban areas, many in informal settlements, finding sustainable development solutions is paramount. Sanergy is providing a cleaner living environment for some of the world’s poorest people with an innovative model to remove and use urban waste - without the need for expensive sewers - that has a transformative impact on health and wellbeing. They are a very worthy finalist in the Earthshot Prize and I am particularly pleased that Darwin College nominated them for such global recognition.”

Adapted from a story on the Darwin College website.

Communities once reliant on the coal industry are now more politically disenchanted, with residents less likely to vote, than places with similar levels of deprivation but without the “narrative of decline” that holds sway in former mining areas. 

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Cardiff Business School used survey data on social and political attitudes gathered across Britain between 2009-2019, a decade dominated by austerity and Brexit.

The team identified neighbourhoods that had seen large numbers employed by the coal industry in the early 1980s. Survey respondents from these areas were “matched” to respondents with similar personal characteristics, income levels and education from locations with comparable levels of poverty – but no history of mining.

The overall trend revealed that people now living in communities once dependent on coalmining are less engaged in – and feel far less knowledgeable about – politics than those in equivalent “left behind” neighbourhoods.

Residents of coalfield areas are less likely than their socio-economic counterparts to have voted in the last election, are much less likely to say they intend to vote in future, and believe the same to be true of their neighbours.

They are also more cynical about the overall effectiveness of democracy, and more likely to believe that “public officials don’t care”. 

Self-reported mental health was found to be significantly lower in former mining communities than in similarly deprived areas, while scepticism towards climate change was slightly higher, as was a positive attitude towards working mothers.

The study, published in the journal Applied Geography, used responses from over 14,000 individuals who were surveyed every year.  

“Narratives of decline loom large in the current identity of old mining areas, even though the working lives of most residents started long after the pits closed,” said study co-author Dr Maria Abreu from the University of Cambridge.

“For people in communities that saw sudden and rapid economic decay, there appears to be an increased insularity and distrust of political systems compared to those who are also deprived, but do not have a shared local history of decline.”

The study shows an uptick of political engagement over the Brexit campaign period, with ex-mining areas leaning towards Leave. But even Brexit doesn’t raise political interest to the level seen in comparable locations beyond the referendum campaign period.

In fact, political engagement continues to climb in other ‘left behind’ areas, while in the former mining communities it drops off again after 2017.

This discontent with contemporary politics also extends to newer populist and nationalist parties. While they favoured Leave in the referendum, those in coalfield communities are still less likely to vote for UKIP, the SNP or Plaid Cymru than those in other areas with similar social and economic struggles. 

“It seems that the modern Left may not have lost the people in former mining communities to populism or emerging nationalist parties, but rather apathy and cynicism,” said Abreu, from Cambridge’s Department of Land Economy.

In addition, and contrary to cinematic depictions and public perceptions, the research didn’t detect any greater sense of community cohesion in former mining neighbourhoods compared to other economically depressed areas.

“It’s been over thirty years since large numbers of people went underground for work, plenty of time for strong social relationships to dwindle,” said co-author Dr Calvin Jones from Cardiff Business School. “Loss of solidarity among these communities may have been compounded by austerity in recent years.”

“However, it is also possible that the other deprived communities to which we compared former mining areas – from housing estates to rundown seaside towns – actually have higher levels of social cohesion than might be expected.”

The study used individual-level data from the last decade, collected by the Understanding Society survey (UK Longitudinal Household Survey). The researchers broke this down into small census areas – neighbourhoods of around 1,500 people – and combined it with other socio-economic data to match individuals living in coalmining areas to those in other areas with comparable levels of deprivation, welfare spending, and ruralness.

To define former coalmining communities, Abreu and Jones used 1981 census data to identify areas where at least 10% of adult males had been employed in the “Energy and Water” sector, and overlaid this with geological maps to whittle down to those neighbourhoods within 10 miles of bedrock coal deposits.

Communities that met these criteria are dotted across much of the north and midlands, with particular concentrations found in South Wales, northeast England and Tyneside, the Lanarkshire coalfields south of Glasgow, and the midlands between Nottingham and Leeds.  

The Vice-Chancellor said: “I take a great deal of pride in our accomplishments, which were built together as a collegiate Cambridge community. I am especially proud of our joint leadership across collegiate Cambridge to deliver on our dual mission of education and research through the unprecedented COVID crisis. We kept the University on track and safe during its hardest years since World War II.”

The Vice-Chancellor continued: “But at the same time, the upheaval of COVID has led me to reassess my own years ahead from a personal perspective. As an expat living far from home, being separated from my children and grandchildren by closed borders has been hard. Being near my own family and friends is more important than ever. It remains of course an extraordinary experience to serve this great University as its Vice-Chancellor, and a tremendous honour to work with colleagues across the collegiate University and beyond – one that I am proud and enthusiastic to continue for another full year.”

“Indeed, there is still much to do through our programme of recovery from the pandemic,” the Vice-Chancellor added. “I am fully committed to focusing on the priorities set by the University Council. The leadership transition next year will not detract from my commitment to the important work we have underway this year. The strength of our senior leadership and all our University community, the guidance of the Council, and the eventual choice of a highly able successor will allow me to pass the baton without missing a beat.”

Under Professor Toope’s  leadership, Cambridge established the first-ever Priorities Framework for the University, launched and embedded Cambridge Zero across the University, led the university sector by pushing towards a carbon-neutral endowment fund, widened student access and participation, made remarkable progress on an ambitious £500 million Student Support Initiative, and created a new Foundation Year.

Mark Lewisohn, the Deputy Chair of the University Council, said: “The University Council is deeply grateful to Professor Toope who, as Vice-Chancellor and Chair of the Council, has had a profound impact on the University. Under his leadership, the University has become more transparent and more robust in its processes and has launched several new and exciting research and teaching initiatives. Stephen’s focus on sustainability, which has led to the creation of Cambridge Zero, will be an important part of his legacy, as will his efforts to make Cambridge more accessible to students from all backgrounds. We look forward to working with Professor Toope in the year ahead as we continue to make progress on our agreed priorities.”

Lord Sainsbury of Turville, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “I totally understand and fully respect Professor Toope’s decision, taken for the best of reasons, to complete his term of office in September 2022. I know this is not a decision he will have made lightly, but he can do it in the knowledge that he has left his mark on the University, and contributed to making it an even better place to study, work and undertake research. His leadership throughout the pandemic has been essential to getting Cambridge through the biggest crisis of our times, and I am grateful for his dedication and commitment over the past four years.” 

The process to recruit a new Vice-Chancellor will be underway shortly.

The findings have important implications for the healthcare and support of autistic individuals. The results are published in the journal Autism Research.  

For many years it was wrongly assumed that autistic individuals are uninterested in sexual or romantic relationships, but this is not the case. In recent years, small studies have suggested that autistic individuals are more likely to experience a wider diversity of sexual orientations and are less likely to have sexually transmitted infections (STIs). However, the existing evidence has been limited in size and scope.

In the largest study to date on these topics, the team at the Autism Research Centre used an anonymous, self-report survey to study the sexual activity, sexual orientation, and sexual health of autistic adults. Overall, 1,183 autistic and 1,203 non-autistic adolescents and adults (aged 16-90 years) provided information about their sexual activity, sexual orientation, and medical history of STIs.

The results showed that the majority of autistic adults (70% of autistic males and 76% of autistic females) engage in sexual activity—although they do so to a lesser degree than their non-autistic peers (89% of both non-autistic males and females report engaging in sexual activity). In contrast to previous findings, the results also found that there were no differences in likelihood of ever contracting an STI, or the age at which participants first engaged in sexual activity, between autistic and non-autistic individuals.

In addition, the study found that autistic adults and adolescents are approximately eight times more likely to identify as asexual and ‘other’ sexuality than their non-autistic peers. And there were sex differences in sexual orientation: autistic males are 3.5 times more likely to identify as bisexual than non-autistic males, whereas autistic females are three times more likely to identify as homosexual than autistic females.

When comparing autistic females and males directly, autistic females were more likely to be sexually active; more likely to identify as asexual, bisexual, and ‘other’ sexuality; and were less likely to identify as heterosexual.

Elizabeth Weir, a PhD candidate at the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, and the lead researcher of the study, said: “Understanding the intersectional identities of autistic individuals who are asexual, bisexual, homosexual, or ‘other’ sexuality is key. It is particularly important that healthcare providers and educators use language that is affirming and accepting of all sexual orientations and gender identities when providing sexual education and sexual health screening checks to autistic and non-autistic people alike.” 

Dr Carrie Allison, Director of Strategy at the Autism Research Centre and a member of the team, said: “We must ensure that autistic individuals are receiving equal access to healthcare and support in their choices in their personal lives, to enjoy fulfilling lives and good mental health.”

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre and a member of the team, said: “This new study is an important example of applied health research with policy relevance for health and social care services.”

Reference
Weir, E., Allison, C., & Baron-Cohen, S. The sexual health, orientation, and activity of autistic adolescents and adults. Autism Research (2021). DOI: 10.1002/aur.2604

According to psychologists, in addition to our physiological immune system we also have a behavioural one: an unconscious code of conduct that helps us stay disease-free, including a fear and avoidance of unfamiliar – and so possibly infected – people.

When infection risk is high, this “parasite stress” behavior increases, potentially manifesting as attitudes and even voting patterns that champion conformity and reject “foreign outgroups” – core traits of authoritarian politics.

A new study, the largest yet to investigate links between pathogen prevalence and ideology, reveals a strong connection between infection rates and strains of authoritarianism in public attitudes, political leadership and lawmaking.

While data used for the study predates COVID-19, University of Cambridge psychologists say that greater public desire for “conformity and obedience” as a result of the pandemic could ultimately see liberal politics suffer at the ballot box. The findings are published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

Researchers used infectious disease data from the United States in the 1990s and 2000s and responses to a psychological survey taken by over 206,000 people in the US during 2017 and 2018. They found that the more infectious US cities and states went on to have more authoritarian-leaning citizens.

The US findings were replicated at an international level using survey data from over 51,000 people across 47 different countries, comparing responses with national-level disease rates.        

The most authoritarian US states had rates of infectious diseases – from HIV to measles – around four times higher than the least authoritarian states, while for the most authoritarian nations it was three times higher than the least.

This was after scientists accounted for a range of other socioeconomic factors that influence ideology, including religious beliefs and inequalities in wealth and education. They also found that higher regional infection rates in the US corresponded to more votes for Donald Trump in the 2016 US Presidential Election.     

Moreover, in both nations and US states, higher rates of infectious disease correlated with more “vertical” laws – those that disproportionately affect certain groups, such as abortion control or extreme penalties for certain crimes. This was not the case with “horizontal” laws that affect everyone equally.

“We find a consistent relationship between prevalence of infectious diseases and a psychological preference for conformity and hierarchical power structures – pillars of authoritarian politics,” said study lead author Dr Leor Zmigrod, an expert in the psychology of ideology from the University of Cambridge.

“Higher rates of infectious diseases predicted political attitudes and outcomes such as conservative voting and authoritarian legal structures. Across multiple geographical and historical levels of analysis we see this relationship emerge again and again.”

“We found that pathogen rates from over twenty years ago were still relevant to political attitudes as recently as 2016. If COVID-19 increases the allure of authoritarian politics, the effects could be long-lasting,” said Zmigrod, from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.

The study also tested whether the link to authoritarianism held for zoonotic diseases – those only acquired from animals – but found it related solely to human-to-human disease transmission, further suggesting this is part of a “behavioural immune system” say researchers.   

In 2017, Cambridge psychologists worked with TIME Magazine to launch a two-part personality survey. Part one was based on the Harry Potter novels, but participants could also opt in to a second part used for scientific research, which included a textbook measure of authoritarianism.

Participants were presented with pairs of personality traits and asked which quality was most important for a child to possess e.g. independent or respectful, obedient or self-reliant. Over a quarter of a million people completed this section and provided their postal – or zip – codes.

For disease levels in US states, scientists used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from between 1993 and 2007. These included rates of pathogens such as viral hepatitis, herpes, HIV, measles and chicken pox.

For US cities, the Cambridge team calculated rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea from 2002 to 2010. For the 47 nations, an index of nine infectious diseases ranging from tuberculosis to malaria was used.

“These findings are a warning sign that disease-avoiding behaviors have profound implications for politics,” added Zmigrod. “COVID-19 might shape people’s tendencies towards conformity and obedience, and this could be converted into authoritarian political preferences, voting patterns, and laws.”

“Health and politics may be more intertwined than we previously envisioned.”

Professors Holger Babinsky, Andrea Ferrari, Rob Miller and Rachel Oliver have been elected in this year’s intake, which consists of 60 Fellows, four International Fellows and five Honorary Fellows, with each individual having made exceptional contributions to their sectors in their own way, as innovation leaders, inspiring role models, or through remarkable achievements in business or academia.

Professor Holger Babinsky is Professor of Aerodynamics in the Department of Engineering and a Fellow of Magdalene College. He researches fundamental and applied aerodynamics with application to aeronautics, road vehicles and energy production.

“I am delighted to receive this remarkable honour and feel very lucky to be recognised by my peers for doing something I love,” said Babinsky. “I am also truly grateful to the University, the Engineering Department and all my colleagues and students for providing the environment and support that allowed me to grow as a researcher and educator.”

Professor Andrea Ferrari is Professor of Nanotechnology in the Department of Engineering. He is Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre and of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Graphene Technology, and a Fellow of Pembroke College.

“The Cambridge Graphene Centre allows our partners to meet, and effectively establish joint industrial-academic activities to promote innovative and adventurous research with an emphasis on applications,” said Ferrari. “It is often at the interface between academia and industry that new challenges for fundamental research are generated.  I am pleased the Royal Academy of Engineering has recognised the translational potential of our work and I see this as a further encouragement to develop state of the art facilities that will lead to world-class research, technology and innovation.”

Professor Rob Miller is Professor of Aerothermal Technology in the Department of Engineering. He is Director of the Whittle Laboratory and a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. Much of the research of the Whittle Laboratory is geared toward solving one of technology’s biggest puzzles: how to achieve zero-carbon flight.

“I am deeply grateful to all the colleagues and students that I have worked with, especially at the Whittle Laboratory and at Rolls-Royce, without whose support this would not have been possible,” said Miller. “Throughout my career I have benefited from working closely with industry. I believe that it is only through these partnerships, between industry and academia, that engineers can meet society’s greatest challenge, climate change.”

Professor Rachel Oliver is Professor of Materials Science in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, Director of the Cambridge Centre for Gallium Nitride and a Fellow of Robinson College. When she’s not making atomic-scale changes to create super-efficient light bulbs and cut carbon emissions, she has her sights set on helping to improve equality and diversity in science.

“It’s fantastic that the Academy engages with everything from the nanoscale materials engineering, which is my focus, all the way up to the much grander scale of wind turbines and jet engines,” said Oliver. “All of these varied aspects of engineering are hugely important for sustainability, which is a big current focus for the Academy. I’m also looking forward to having the opportunity to engage with the work the Academy does to increase equity in the engineering profession, since I'm passionate about making fascinating and fulfilling careers in engineering accessible to the widest possible range of talented people.”

This year’s new Fellows are the first to reflect the Academy’s Fellowship Fit for the Future initiative announced in July 2020, to drive more nominations of outstanding engineers from underrepresented groups ahead of its 50th anniversary in 2026. This initiative will see the Academy strive for increased representation from women, disabled and LGBTQ+ engineers, those from minority ethnic backgrounds, non-traditional education pathways and emerging industries, and those who have achieved excellence at an earlier career stage than normal.

These new Fellows will be admitted to the Academy, which comprises nearly 1,700 distinguished engineers, at its AGM on 22 September. In joining the Fellowship, they will add their capabilities to the Academy’s mission to create a sustainable society and an inclusive economy for all.

Sir Jim McDonald FREng FRSE, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering, says: “Our Fellows represent the best of the best in the engineering world, and we welcome these 69 excellent and talented professionals to our community of businesspeople, entrepreneurs, innovators and academics.

“This year’s new Fellows are the most diverse group elected in the history of our institution. The engineering profession has long suffered from a diversity shortfall and the Academy is committed to changing that, including by ensuring that our own Fellowship community is as inclusive as it can be. It is well established that diverse organisations tend to be more agile and more innovative, and as the UK’s National Academy for engineering and technology, we have a responsibility to reflect the society we serve in addressing the shared challenges of our future.”

Simon will join us on 1 December from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), where he is currently Director of Development; he will also be an Official Fellow at Girton College.  Sonita is Master of Jesus College.

Musical performance has thrived at Cambridge for centuries, and provision today ranges from world-renowned choirs to flourishing student-led jazz and musical theatre.  Sonita, Simon and the CMP team will work with partners across the University and beyond to shape the future of this vibrant scene. 

In addition to securing and enhancing Cambridge’s traditional musical strengths the CMP will over time develop provision and facilities for rock and pop, electronic music and other genres which have historically been less well served, and will launch programmes for those wishing to get involved with music for the first time.  Fostering an environment in which excellence and inclusivity sit side by side, it will support performance at all levels, in all genres, for the most diverse possible cross-section of students, as well as for staff and local residents.

Commenting on his appointment, Simon said ‘I was thrilled when at the height of the pandemic the University signalled its commitment to musical performance by creating the CMP.  It is a huge honour to have been invited to become the Centre’s inaugural Director, and also to be joining Girton as a Fellow.  Cambridge has launched many of the biggest careers in music, and I am committed to maintaining its long tradition of musical excellence.  At the same time the wellbeing and social benefits of music-making are well known, and I look forward to working with colleagues to extend them even further across the University.’

Simon has a track record of strengthening cultural organisations’ financial health, artistic ambition and societal impact.  At the CBSO he has overseen a fourfold increase in annual philanthropic income while also championing initiatives to broaden the orchestra’s contribution to society including the establishment of the music-specialist Shireland CBSO School in Sandwell.  He was previously Head of External Relations at the Academy of Ancient Music, where he helped establish the orchestra’s concert series at the Barbican Centre and its record label and education programme.  He has been involved with music at Cambridge on a voluntary basis for almost 20 years, including eight as chair of the Cambridge University Musical Society.

Sonita Alleyne will chair the University’s new Music Performance Committee, which has been formed to oversee the CMP.  A journalist, businesswoman and entrepreneur, she founded the production company Somethin' Else and led it as Chief Executive from 1991 until 2009.  She brings a wealth of governance experience from non-executive roles ranging from DCMS to the disability arts charity Artsline to newspaper group Archant.  In her five-year tenure on the BBC Trust, Sonita championed diversity, inclusivity and the Corporation’s strategies to represent all communities of the UK.  She became Master of Jesus College in 2019.  Sonita has a broad-ranging and eclectic taste in music.

Sonita commented: ‘I’m delighted to be working with Simon and the CMP team as we establish the Centre for Music Performance. The CMP will sit at the heart of the University to support, teach and mentor students from the beginner to the very highest levels of excellence. By supporting a broad range of musical genres the CMP will create a creative environment in which the widest possible range of musical endeavours can flourish.’

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen J Toope, said: ‘At a time of unprecedented stress for the performing arts, I am proud that Cambridge is creating a new Centre for Music Performance. A step-change in the visibility, breadth, reach and role of music performance, it will nurture the highest aspirations of the very best performers, besides offering a wonderful array of opportunities to those with previously limited experience. In the long run the Centre will be a stimulus for interdisciplinarity, research excellence and all-round personal development. I am thrilled to see the CMP go ahead at Cambridge.’

For more information about the Centre for Music Performance please contact Chloe Davidson at cnd26@cam.ac.uk.

In 2014, UNAIDS set an ambitious target of 90-90-90 by 2020 – that is, 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status; 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy; and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression. 

According to the Cambridge and PHE team, in 2019 there were an estimated 105,200 people living with HIV in the UK, of whom 94% were aware of their HIV status. In addition, 98% of those living with diagnosed HIV were on treatment, and 97% of these were virally suppressed. In other words, England had already reached the UNAIDS goals.

In a publication today in The Lancet Public Health, the researchers extended their analysis of evidence from multiple surveillance, demographic, and survey datasets relevant to HIV in England from estimating HIV prevalence in a single year to estimating the trends over time in HIV prevalence. Trends in the number of people living with HIV, the proportion of people unaware of their HIV infection, and the corresponding prevalence of undiagnosed HIV are reported.

According to their analysis, the estimated number of people in England living with HIV aged 15-74 years who were unaware of their infection halved from 11,600 in 2013 to 5,900 in 2019, with a corresponding fall in prevalence from 0.29 to 0.14 per 1,000 people.

At the same time, the increase in the number of people living with diagnosed HIV resulted in the total number of people living with HIV rising from 83,500 to 92,800 over the same period. The percentage of people living with HIV whose infection was diagnosed therefore steadily increased from 86% in 2013 to 94% in 2019, reaching the UNAIDS target in 2016 – and even earlier, in 2013, for Black African heterosexuals.

Professor Daniela De Angelis from the MRC Biostatistics Unit, the study’s senior author, said: “Overall, we see a positive picture for the HIV epidemic in England, with a dramatic fall in the number of people living with undiagnosed HIV. We estimate we are already several years ahead of the UNAIDS 2020 goals and are on target to reach 95% diagnosed by 2025 and to eliminate HIV infections by 2030.

Dr Anne Presanis from the MRC Biostatistics Unit added: “Examined more closely, the situation is not as positive for everyone. We estimate that areas of England outside London have not seen as steep a decrease in undiagnosed HIV prevalence as in London, and there is evidence of missed opportunities to diagnose HIV infections among some population subgroups.”

In England, gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, and Black African heterosexuals remain disproportionately affected by HIV, with considerably higher undiagnosed HIV prevalence per population in 2019 than heterosexuals in other ethnic groups. However, undiagnosed HIV prevalence rates within these communities have seen dramatic falls: for gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, prevalence fell from 13.9 to 5.4 per 1,000, and for Black African heterosexuals prevalence fell from 3.3 to 1.7 per 1,000 population.

London saw more dramatic falls in the prevalence of undiagnosed HIV during the study period than other regions of England, down from 0.74 to 0.31 per 1,000, compared to a decrease from 0.20 to 0.11 per 1,000 outside London.

Although sexual health clinics provide free and confidential HIV testing to all clinic attendees, the researchers estimated that among heterosexuals in an ethnic group other than Black African, undiagnosed prevalence in clinic attendees in 2019 was more than 30 times greater than in those who had not attended in the past year. This implies that sexual health clinics are missing opportunities for testing attendees. This is in line with findings from Public Health England that among individuals outside those subgroups at greatest risk of HIV infection, the proportion declining a HIV test had increased to more than one in four (27%) in 2016.

The researchers say their estimates have important implications for efforts to eliminate HIV transmission in England and the UK.

Dr Valerie Delpech, head of the HIV Team at Public Health England said: “This research is good news and shows that combination prevention, and in particular HIV testing and early treatment, is working in England. The increasing use of pre-exposure prophylaxis among persons at higher risk of HIV has further amplified our response to end HIV transmission. Nevertheless, further reducing the number of people who remain undiagnosed with HIV infection will become very challenging in the coming years. This is particularly the case for heterosexuals who may not consider themselves at risk of HIV.

“The priority must be to ensure that all sexual health clinic attendees are offered and encouraged to accept a HIV test, regardless of ethnicity, rather than the 73% that currently do test. If we can increase the number of clinic attendees unaware of their HIV status who get tested and diagnosed, as well as improve partner notification, the prospect of eliminating HIV transmission becomes increasingly likely.”

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and Public Health England.

Reference
Presanis AM, et al. Trends in undiagnosed HIV prevalence in England and implications for eliminating HIV transmission by 2030: an evidence synthesis model. Lancet Public Health; 23 Sept 2021; DOI: 10.1016/S2468-2667(21)0042-0

Researchers from the University of Cambridge used computer modelling to study potential new phases of matter known as prethermal discrete time crystals (DTCs). It was thought that the properties of prethermal DTCs were reliant on quantum physics: the strange laws ruling particles at the subatomic scale. However, the researchers found that a simpler approach, based on classical physics, can be used to understand these mysterious phenomena.

Understanding these new phases of matter is a step forward towards the control of complex many-body systems, a long-standing goal with various potential applications, such as simulations of complex quantum networks. The results are reported in two joint papers in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review B.

When we discover something new, whether it’s a planet, an animal, or a disease, we can learn more about it by looking at it more and more closely. Simpler theories are tried first, and if they don’t work, more complicated theories or methods are attempted.  

“This was what we thought was the case with prethermal DTCs,” said Andrea Pizzi, a PhD candidate in Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, first author on both papers. “We thought they were fundamentally quantum phenomena, but it turns out a simpler classical approach let us learn more about them.”

DTCs are highly complex physical systems, and there is still much to learn about their unusual properties. Like how a standard space crystal breaks space-translational symmetry because its structure isn’t the same everywhere in space, DTCs break a distinct time-translational symmetry because, when ‘shaken’ periodically, their structure changes at every ‘push’.

“You can think of it like a parent pushing a child on a swing on a playground,” said Pizzi. “Normally, the parent pushes the child, the child will swing back, and the parent then pushes them again. In physics, this is a rather simple system. But if multiple swings were on that same playground, and if children on them were holding hands with one another, then the system would become much more complex, and far more interesting and less obvious behaviours could emerge. A prethermal DTC is one such behaviour, in which the atoms, acting sort of like swings, only ‘come back’ every second or third push, for example.”

First predicted in 2012, DTCs have opened a new field of research, and have been studied in various types, including in experiments. Among these, prethermal DTCs are relatively simple-to-realise systems that don’t heat quickly as would normally be expected, but instead exhibit time-crystalline behaviour for a very long time: the quicker they are shaken, the longer they survive. However, it was thought that they rely on quantum phenomena.

“Developing quantum theories is complicated, and even when you manage it, your simulation capabilities are usually very limited, because the required computational power is incredibly large,” said Pizzi.

Now, Pizzi and his co-authors have found that for prethermal DTCs they can avoid using overly complicated quantum approaches and use much more affordable classical ones instead. This way, the researchers can simulate these phenomena in a much more comprehensive way. For instance, they can now simulate many more elementary constituents, getting access to the scenarios that are the most relevant to experiments, such as in two and three dimensions.

Using a computer simulation, the researchers studied many interacting spins – like the children on the swings – under the action of a periodic magnetic field – like the parent pushing the swing - using classical Hamiltonian dynamics. The resulting dynamics showed in a neat and clear way the properties of prethermal DTCs: for a long time, the magnetisation of the system oscillates with a period larger than that of the drive.

“It’s surprising how clean this method is,” said Pizzi. “Because it allows us to look at larger systems, it makes very clear what’s going on. Unlike when we’re using quantum methods, we don’t have to fight with this system to study it. We hope this research will establish classical Hamiltonian dynamics as a suitable approach to large-scale simulations of complex many-body systems and open new avenues in the study of nonequilibrium phenomena, of which prethermal DTCs are just one example.”

Pizzi’s co-authors on the two papers, who were both recently based at Cambridge, are Dr Andreas Nunnenkamp, now at the University of Vienna, and Dr Johannes Knolle, now at the Technical University of Munich.

Meanwhile, at UC Berkeley, Norman Yao’s group has also been using classical methods to study prethermal DTCs. Remarkably, the Berkeley and Cambridge teams have simultaneously addressed the same question. Yao’s group will be publishing their results shortly.

Reference:
Andrea Pizzi, Andreas Nunnenkamp, Johannes Knolle. ‘Classical Prethermal Phases of Matter.’ Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.140602
Andrea Pizzi, Andreas Nunnenkamp, Johannes Knolle. ‘Classical approaches to prethermal discrete time crystals in one, two, and three dimensions.’ Physical Review B (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.104.094308

The study, published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface and led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, is based on time series models developed using classical statistical methods. The models produce nowcasts and forecasts of the daily number of new cases and deaths that have already proved successful in predicting new COVID-19 waves and spikes in Germany, Florida and several states in India.

The study is co-authored by Andrew Harvey and Paul Kattuman, whose time series model reflecting epidemic trajectories, known as the Harvey-Kattuman model, was introduced last year in a paper published in Harvard Data Science Review.

“The basic R rate quickly wanes in usefulness as soon as a pandemic begins,” said Kattuman, from Cambridge Judge Business School. “The basic R rate looks at the number of infections expected to result from a single infectious person in a completely susceptible population, and this changes as immunity builds up and measures such as social distancing are imposed.”

In later stages of a pandemic, the researchers conclude that use of the effective R rate which takes these factors into account is also not the best route: the focus should be not on contagiousness, but rather on the growth rate of new cases and deaths, examined alongside their predicted time path so a trajectory can be forecasted.

“These are the numbers that really help guide policymakers in making the crucial decisions that will hopefully save lives and prevent overcrowded hospitals as a pandemic plays out – which, as we have seen with COVID-19, can occur over months and even years,” said Kattuman. “The data generated through this time-series model has already proved accurate and effective in countries around the world.”

The study examines waves and spikes in tracking an epidemic, noting that after an epidemic has peaked, daily cases begin to fall as policymakers seek to prevent new spikes morphing into waves. The monitoring of waves and spikes raises different issues, primarily because a wave applies to a whole nation or a relatively large geographical area, whereas a spike is localised.

Therefore, a localised outbreak in a country with low national infection numbers can result in a jump in the national R rate, as occurred in the Westphalia area of Germany in June 2020 after an outbreak at a meat processing factory. However, this sort of jump does not indicate that there has been a sudden change in the way the infection spreads and so has few implications for overall policy.

The Harvey-Kattuman model has been adapted into two trackers. The two Cambridge academics worked with the National Institute of Economic and Social Research to produce a UK tracker which is published biweekly by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. In addition, they produce an India tracker which is published by the Centre for Health Leadership and Excellence at Cambridge Judge Business School. District-level pandemic trajectory forecasts using the model are used by public health policymakers in three states in India – Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerala – to identify regions at high risk and to frame containment and relaxation policies.

Reference:
Andrew Harvey and Paul Kattuman. ‘A Farewell to R: Time Series Models for Tracking and Forecasting Epidemics.’ Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2021.0179

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, identified a loss pathway in organic solar cells which makes them less efficient than silicon-based cells at converting sunlight into electricity. In addition, they identified a way to suppress this pathway by manipulating molecules inside the solar cell to prevent the loss of electrical current through an undesirable state, known as a triplet exciton.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature, suggest that it could be possible for organic solar cells to compete more closely with silicon-based cells for efficiency.

Organic solar cells, which are flexible, semi-transparent, and cheap, can greatly expand the range of applications for solar technology. They could be wrapped around the exteriors of buildings and can be used for the efficient recycling of the energy used for indoor lighting, neither of which are possible with conventional silicon panels. They are also far more environmentally friendly to produce.

“Organic solar cells can do lots of things that inorganic solar cells can’t, but their commercial development has plateaued in recent years, in part due to their inferior efficiency,” said Dr Alexander Gillett from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, the paper’s first author. “A typical silicon-based solar cell can reach efficiencies as high as 20 to 25%, while organic solar cells can reach efficiencies of around 19% under laboratory conditions, and real-world efficiencies of about 10 to 12%.”

Organic solar cells generate electricity by loosely mimicking the natural process of photosynthesis in plants, except they ultimately use the energy of the sun to create electricity rather than convert carbon dioxide and water into glucose. When a light particle, or photon, hits a solar cell, an electron is excited by the light and leaves behind a ‘hole’ in the material’s electronic structure. The combination of this excited electron and hole is known as an exciton. If the mutual attraction between the negatively charged electron and the positively charged hole in the exciton, akin to the attraction between the positive and negative poles of a magnet, can be overcome, it is possible to harvest these electrons and holes as an electrical current.

However, electrons in solar cells can be lost through a process called recombination, where electrons lose their energy - or excitation state - and fall back into the empty ‘hole’ state. As there is a stronger attraction between the electron and hole in carbon-based materials than in silicon, organic solar cells are more prone to recombination, which in turn affects their efficiency. This necessitates the use of two components to stop the electron and hole from recombining rapidly: an electron ‘donor’ material and an electron ‘acceptor’ material.

Using a combination of spectroscopy and computer modelling, the researchers were able to track the mechanisms at work in organic solar cells, from the absorption of photons to recombination. They found that a key loss mechanism in organic solar cells is caused by recombination to a particular type of exciton, known as a triplet exciton.

In organic solar cells, triplet excitons present a difficult problem to overcome, as it is energetically favourable for them to form from the electrons and holes. The researchers found that by engineering strong molecular interactions between the electron donor and electron acceptor materials, it is possible to keep the electron and hole further apart, preventing recombination into triplet excitons from occurring.

Computational modelling suggests that by tuning the components of the organic solar cells in this way, the timescales of recombination to these triplet exciton states could be reduced by an order of magnitude, allowing for more efficient solar cell operation.

“The fact that we can use the interactions between components in a solar cell to turn off the triplet exciton loss pathway was really surprising,” said Gillett. “Our method shows how you can manipulate molecules to stop recombination from happening.”

“Now, synthetic chemists can design the next generation of donor and acceptor materials with strong molecular interactions to suppress this loss pathway,” said co-author Dr Thuc-Quyen Nguyen from the University of California, Santa Barbara. “The work shows the path forward to achieve higher device efficiency.”

The researchers say their method provides a clear strategy to achieve organic solar cells with efficiencies of 20% or more by stopping recombination into triplet exciton states. As part of their study, the authors were also able to provide design rules for the electron donor and electron acceptor materials to achieve this aim. They believe that these guidelines will allow chemistry groups to design new materials which block recombination into triplet excitons, enabling organic solar cells with efficiencies closer to silicon to be realised.

Reference:
Alexander J. Gillett et al. ‘The role of charge recombination to triplet excitons in organic solar cells.’ Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03840-5

The Academy of Social Sciences is composed of individual Fellows, Learned Societies, and a number of affiliates who together form a community of around 90,000 social scientists. The Academy seeks to promote the social sciences in the United Kingdom for public benefit.

Jennifer Howard-Grenville is the Diageo Professor in Organisation Studies at the Cambridge Judge Business School and a Fellow of Trinity Hall. She currently serves as Deputy Editor for one of the management field’s top journals, Academy of Management Journal.

In an effort to understand how businesses can adapt their actions and strategies to effectively meet the challenges of sustainability, Howard-Grenville’s research focuses on how people generate and navigate change within and beyond their organisations. She is a leading voice, through her writing and editorial work, in encouraging management and business scholarship that considers societal grand challenges, including sustainability. Reflecting her commitment to interdisciplinary understanding to drive change in these areas, Howard-Grenville is involved in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, Cambridge Zero, and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. 

Howard-Grenville said: “I am delighted and honoured to be elected to the Fellowship. I am particularly grateful to the community of scholars in organisation studies and more widely in the social sciences who are working to contribute our collective knowledge to tackling some of the most urgent issues facing business and society. As someone with training across disciplines, it is especially heartening to see the increasing engagement of researchers across career stages with others outside their disciplinary boundaries, and to see the increasing importance of social science insights in decision making about global challenges.

Elisabete A Silva is Professor of Spatial Planning at the Department of Land Economy, Director of the Lab of Interdisciplinary Spatial Analysis (LISA), University of Cambridge and a Senior Member of Robinson College. She also lectures and is the course coordinator of ‘Urban and Environmental Planning I’ and ‘Spatial Analysis and Modelling.’

Silva’s research focuses on the application of new technologies to spatial planning, in particular city and metropolitan dynamic modelling through time. The LISA lab which she directs, is a Geographic Information Lab that brings together data, software and expertise for spatial analysis in Land Economy's related subjects.

Silvia said: “I am delighted that my work has been recognised by the Academy and feel that I would like to pay tribute to those that helped me during the past 30 years, including my PhD students, colleagues in research projects, former PhD supervisors, colleagues that mentored me and my family for all their support and love. I will use this recognition to promote the use of spatial analysis, modelling and planning in the social sciences.”

Bhaskar Vira is Head of the Department of Geography, Professor of Political Economy and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. He was Founding Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute. He is closely involved with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative and the Global Food Security Interdisciplinary Research Centre. He also works with the Centre for Science and Policy, Cambridge Zero and the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, and has contributed to multiple international science-policy panels.

Vira’s research crosses disciplinary boundaries, and spans the fields of political economy, development studies and environmental studies. His work examines the social, political and economic dimensions of natural resource management, and the relationship between natural ecosystems and human well-being.

Vira is currently leading a programme of research on agrarian change and rural transformations in India, as part of the GCRF TIGR2ESS project“Transforming India's Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable Food Supplies” and is also convening a programme on Decent Work and Youth Livelihoods, which is hosted at the Department of Geography.

“I am truly honoured to receive this recognition by my peers and by the Academy of Social Sciences,” said Vira. “I am particularly grateful to generations of colleagues and students at the Department of Geography and at Fitzwilliam College, who have provided such a welcoming and nurturing environment, as well as to colleagues across the wider University, especially in the social sciences.

“It has been a privilege to work with research collaborators around the world, and their thinking and work has been a source of inspiration, for which I am very grateful. For someone who has been slightly disrespectful of disciplinary boundaries, this is also a recognition of the importance of the social sciences, and the role that they play in responding to contemporary global challenges.”

The report, Mental Health of Children and Young People in England 2021, showed that among six to 16 year olds, the proportion with a probable mental disorder remained at one in six (17%) in 2021. Among 17 to 19 year olds, the rate was also one in six (17%).

Figures were statistically similar in 2020 and 2021. In 2020, the rate of probable mental disorders was also one in six for both these age groups.

Both years showed an increase from 2017, when one in nine (12%) six to 16 year olds and one in ten (10%) 17 to 19 year olds had a probable mental disorder.

This report looks at the mental health of children and young people in England in 2021 and how this has changed since 2017 and 2020. Views on family life, education and services and experiences during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic have also been collected. The findings draw on a sample of 3,667 children and young people aged between six and 23 years old, who were surveyed in 2017 and 2021.

The survey was carried out earlier this year by the Office for National Statistics, the National Centre for Social Research, University of Cambridge and University of Exeter.

Professor Tamsin Ford, Head of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and one of the study authors, said: “We can be reassured that the mental health of children and young people has not deteriorated further, but this survey suggests there has been no improvement. We need to work hard to prevent further deterioration and to ensure that those who need it have access to effective support.”

This publication reports individual level change in mental health over time for the same group of children and young people. Some change may be due to different rates of mental health conditions being present at different ages. It shows 39% of children now aged six to 16 experienced a deterioration in their mental health between 2017 and 2021, while 22% saw an improvement.

Among young people now aged 17 to 23, 53% experienced a decline in mental health since 2017 and 15% experienced an improvement over that time. 

Girls now aged between 11 and 16 were more likely to have experienced a decline in mental health (43%) than boys the same age (34%). This trend was also seen among those now aged 17 to 23, where young women were more likely to have experienced deterioration (61%) than young men (44%).

Other topics covered in the report included eating and sleeping problems, loneliness, social media usage and household circumstances.

Adapted from a press release by NHS Digital.

In their roles as consumers, investors, role models, organisational participants, and citizens, people in this group can help shape the choices available to themselves and others, providing options that either exacerbate or mitigate climate change.

Most research into how we can reduce our climate impact has focused on changing the consumer behaviour of the masses - recycling and switching off lights at home, for example. The authors say that the focus must shift to finding ways of motivating people of high socioeconomic status to change many kinds of behaviours, because what they do can have a much greater impact on carbon emissions. 

The study defines high socioeconomic status as a person’s position in the structure of society, including not only their wealth and income, but also their ‘social resources’, which include social class, occupation, and social network. It encompasses a much broader spectrum of people than just the super-rich, including everyone with an annual income of US $109,000 and above.

“High socioeconomic status people aren’t just those with more money, but those with better social networks. Their connections can enable them to influence behaviours and policies to help mitigate climate change – and we need to find ways to encourage them to do this,” said Dr Kristian Nielsen, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Psychology, first author of the paper.

He added: “By saying it’s only the super-rich that need to change their behaviour, we ignore the power that others have to help tackle climate change though their influence.”

The climate impact of air travel is now well known, but over 50% of greenhouse gas emissions from flying are caused by just 1% of the world’s population. The study highlights the need to change social norms associated with frequent flying - usually by people of high socio-economic status - but also to look beyond their role as consumers. 

“People of higher socioeconomic status could also act as role models, making more climate-friendly choices that influence others – for example driving electric cars or eating a vegan diet. You don’t need a massive income to be a role model, you just need to be well-connected,” said Nielsen. 

Investments also provide an opportunity for those of higher socioeconomic status to mitigate climate change. Although attention has focused on shifting the investment of large pension funds away from fossil fuel companies, the researchers say that the investment portfolios of individuals - particularly those with immense wealth - can also have a very significant influence. 

In addition, high socioeconomic status individuals - whether owners or employees - can help to mitigate climate change through their organisations, for example by changing suppliers, business culture and investments.  

And as citizens, people of high socioeconomic status have the networks to help them organise social movements, and better access politicians and decision-makers. Their financial resources also help: making donations helps smooth the path to advancing social change. 

“Our study focused on people of high socioeconomic status because they have generated many of the problems of fossil fuel dependence and associated climate change, which affect the rest of humanity. And they are also well positioned to do something about it,” said Nielsen.

He added: “When certain people change their behaviour for the good of the climate it can have spill-over effects that go way beyond the effects of the average person, and lead to systemic change.” 

This research was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation. 

Reference
Nielsen, K.S. et al: ‘High socioeconomic status people are key to locking in or rapidly reducing energy-driven greenhouse gas emissions.’ Nature Energy, Sept 2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00900-y

From October

Newnham students portrait exhibition
Newnham College, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DF

To mark Black History Month and its 150th anniversary, Newnham College is holding an exhibition of Black students' portraits in the Iris Café. This new portrait collection was commissioned by Newnham students, supported by the College’s Curator Laura Dennis. 
The portraits are by award-winning British-Barbadian photographer Myah Jeffers, who worked with the students to create a display that challenges the traditional academic portrait.
The exhibition and the café are open to the public. The Iris Café is open 8am-5pm, Monday to Friday, and the exhibition itself can be visited during the weekend too. 
More information here.

Throughout October

Exhibition of the works of Black alumni and students
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL

The Shakeshaft Library, at St Catharine’s College, will showcase the works of Black alumni and students.

Downing’s Early Black Cantabs
Downing College, Regent Street, Cambridge CB2 1DQ

Archive exhibition celebrating Downing College’s early black students, dating back more than 100 years. This exhibition shares research carried out in support of the Black Cantabs Research Society by the College Archivist.
Online exhibition here.
The exhibition in the Maitland Robinson Library, Regent Street, is still available by appointment, although access is currently limited due to COVID-19. Please contact the College Archivist, Jenny Ulph, for more information or to arrange to see the exhibition.

Friday 1 October & Sunday 31 October 

Flying the flag of The Bahamas
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL

The College will fly the flag of The Bahamas to commemorate its earliest known Black student, Alfred F. Adderley CBE. More information here.

Wednesday 6 October

Hughes Hall social night, 5pm-8pm  
Hughes Hall, Cambridge CB1 2EW

A Black History Month social night will be an opportunity for the College community to socialise and get to know each other better. For more information, email mcr.equality.bame@hughes.cam.ac.uk. 

Thursday 21 October

Master’s Lodge event with David Dabydeen 
Selwyn College, Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9DQ

Roger Mosey will be hosting a Master’s Lodge event over Zoom with Selwyn alumnus and Honorary Fellow David Dabydeen. 

Friday 22 October

Hughes Hall Formal Hall, 7pm-11pm
Hughes Hall, Cambridge CB1 2EW

Black History Month Formal Hall, hosted by Dr Othman Cole, Hughes Hall Fellow and Race Equality Champion. For more information, email mcr.equality.bame@hughes.cam.ac.uk.

Open Mic Night/Poetry Readings
Selwyn College, Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9DQ

This event will be similar to previous JCR open mic nights and, depending on COVID regulations, will either be carried out in the JCR, MCR or College bar. 

Panel discussion: This too, is Cambridge, 5.30pm to 7pm
Selwyn College, Grange Road, Cambridge CB3 9DQ

The University’s Race Equality Network is hosting a special panel discussion centred on the experiences of Black staff at the University of Cambridge, with a range of voices from libraries, colleges and departments.

Speakers:
Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College
Professor Franklin Aigbirhio, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Senior Research Fellow at Magdalene College
Jennifer Skinner, African Studies Library Manager
Dr Kenny Monrose, Department of Sociology, Fellow at Wolfson College

Schedule:  
5pm to 5.30pm - Meet and greet with tea and pastries
5.30pm to 5.35pm - Welcome and introduction, Dr Rabia Dada-Oughton (Co-chair, Race Equality Network)
5.35pm to 6.15pm - Panel discussion
6.15pm to 7pm - Audience Q&A
7pm - 8pm - Drinks reception with canapés

More information here.

Saturday 23 October

Spoken word event and Q&A
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL

Spoken word event and Q&A with Malik Al Nasir, St Catharine's College postgraduate student and author of Letters from Gil (2021, William Collins) More information here.

Sunday 24 October

Choral Evensong
St Catharine’s College, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL

Choral Evensong service live-streamed from the Chapel at St Catharine’s College, featuring the works of Black composers of traditional Anglican choral music, and guest speaker Chine McDonald, alumna and author of God Is Not a White Man: And Other Revelations (2021, Hachette). More information here.

Delivering the Annual Address to the University, Prof Toope said Cambridge was determined to be a champion of free speech; a University that is thinking carefully about how and why it engages with the world; and a University committed to taking academic achievement to new heights.

He said: “Impact is not just a buzzword, or an aspiration – it is a concrete outcome, and Cambridge has it in spades. It is about the technologies we create, and the discoveries we make. It is about the ideas we develop, and the shared cultural legacies we interpret and pass on. It is about making a difference in the world – even when that difference is not immediate. It is at the heart of the story we need to be telling about our University. It is what we will continue to pursue as we set out on our journey of renewal and recovery.”

During his address, Prof Toope also reflected on the challenges and successes of the past year, describing the University’s resourceful and resilient response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, and paying tribute to Cambridge researchers’ work in leading the national COVID-19 Genomics UK consortium (COG-UK) to understand how the COVID virus is transmitted, and how it evolves.

The work of Cambridge Zero - the University’s flagship climate change initiative – which has been taking an active role in advising the government and shaping the international climate agenda ahead of COP26 was also highlighted, as was the launch of the Cambridge Foundation Year, offering talented students from backgrounds of educational and social disadvantage a new route to university.

Navigating the complexities of international engagement