Quantum memory is a major building block to be addressed in the building of a quantum internet, where quantum information is securely stored and sent via photons, or particles of light.

Researchers from the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with colleagues from UT Sydney in Australia, have identified a two-dimensional material, hexagonal boron nitride, that can emit single photons from atomic-scale defects in its structure at room temperature.

The researchers discovered that the light emitted from these isolated defects gives information about a quantum property that can be used to store quantum information, called spin, meaning the material could be useful for quantum applications. Importantly, the quantum spin can be accessed via light and at room temperature.

The finding could eventually support scalable quantum networks built from two-dimensional materials that can operate at room temperature. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

Future communication networks will use single photons to send messages around the world, which will lead to more secure global communication technologies.

Computers and networks built on the principles of quantum mechanics would be both far more powerful and more secure than current technologies. However, in order to make such networks possible, researchers need to develop reliable methods of generating single, indistinguishable photons as carriers of information across quantum networks.

“We can send information from one place to another using photons, but if we’re going to build real quantum networks, we need to send information, store it and send it somewhere else,” said Dr Hannah Stern from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, the study’s co-first author, along with Qiushi Gu and Dr John Jarman. “We need materials that can hold onto quantum information for a certain amount of time at room temperature, but most current material platforms we’ve got are challenging to make and only work well at low temperatures.”

Hexagonal boron nitride is a two-dimensional material that is grown by chemical vapour deposition in large reactors. It’s cheap and scalable. Recent efforts have revealed the presence of single photon emitters and the presence of a dense ensemble of optically accessible spins, but not individually isolated spin-photon interfaces operating under ambient conditions.

“Usually, it’s a pretty boring material that’s normally used as an insulator,” said Stern, who is a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College. “But we found that there are defects in this material that can emit single photons, which means it could be used in quantum systems. If we can get it to store quantum information in spin, then it’s a scalable platform.”

Stern and her colleagues set up a hexagon boron nitride sample near a tiny gold antenna and a magnet of set strength. By firing a laser at the sample at room temperature, they were able to observe lots of different magnetic field-dependent responses on the light being emitted from the material.

The researchers found that when they shone the laser on the material, they were able to manipulate the spin, or inherent angular momentum, of the defects, and use the defects as a way of storing quantum information.

“Typically, the signal is always the same in these systems, but in this case, the signal changes depending on the particular defect we’re studying, and not all defects show a signal, so there is a lot to still discover,” said co-first author Qiushi Gu. “There’s a lot of variation across the material, like a blanket draped over a moving surface – you see lots of ripples, and they’re all different.”

Professor Mete Atature, who supervised the work, adds “now that we have identified optically accessible isolated spins at room temperature in this material, the next steps will be to understand their photophysics in detail and explore the operation regimes for possible applications including information storage and quantum sensing. There will be a stream of fun physics following this work.”

The research was supported in part by the European Research Council. Mete Atature is a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. 

Reference:
Hannah L. Stern, Quishi Gu, John Jarman, et al. ‘Room-temperature optically detected magnetic resonance of single defects in hexagonal boron nitride.’ Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28169-z

The finding comes from a limited study with three groups of 15 and 16-year-old state school students taking Latin GCSE, and raises the possibility that there may be a case for expanding ancient literature’s use in the wider curriculum.

Almost all students involved in the study claimed they enjoyed aspects of Virgil’s epic – especially the fast-paced action and mythological themes – even though they had mixed feelings about the other poetry they studied at school.

Ironically, students taking Latin GCSE only ever read about 100 lines of the Aeneid’s 12 books, and the study suggests that despite their enthusiasm most will probably emerge with a “distorted” view of it. The students surveyed were, for example, only reading extracts from Book Nine, in which Aeneas, the eponymous hero, never actually appears.

The research is reported in a newly-published collection of essays, The Aeneid and the Modern World. It was undertaken by Dr Frances Foster, from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, whose work explores how young people perceive the ancient world and its literature.

“If you’re a 15-year-old studying the Aeneid, what you’re actually studying is a tiny segment of one book,” Foster said. “It’s rather like watching part of an episode in a television series without ever seeing the rest.”

“If we can establish that other students enjoy it as much as this research group did, it might be worth exploring whether literature from the ancient world can be made more widely available, not least to the majority of children who never learn Latin.”

About 12,000 students in England take an ancient language to GCSE, mostly at selective or independent schools. Those taking Latin (the majority) have an option to study extracts from one book of the Aeneid.

By contrast, English Literature is usually mandatory up to age 16, and covers texts which are variously branded ‘heritage’, ‘high-quality’, ‘challenging’ or ‘prestige’ – such as the works of Shakespeare. Other studies show that many students experience fear, embarrassment and low confidence when studying these, and that some leave school unenthusiastic about literature in general as a result.

Foster’s research sought to explore how students relate to the Aeneid, which is similarly seen as a ‘prestige’ text, given that they only study a decontextualised extract from it.

After establishing from a survey of Latin teachers and an exam board that most teachers do choose the Virgil option, she then undertook a close analysis of three GCSE Latin groups at state comprehensive schools. Students completed a questionnaire which asked them which aspects of the Aeneid they enjoyed, if any; what they found challenging; and their views on poetry in general. Foster also interviewed their teachers, and observed lessons.

Surprisingly, all but one student claimed to enjoy at least something about the Aeneid, even though just 39% said they enjoyed studying poetry in English lessons, while most were ambivalent and 16% actively disliked it.

Their favourite aspects included the fast-moving narrative, graphic and often violent plotlines and – for 84% ­– “learning about mythology”; a slightly odd result given that Book Nine is notably short of mythological features.

“Other research also suggests younger readers can’t get enough of mythology,” Foster explained. “The appeal seems to be the combination of monsters, weird fantasy stuff, and action – basically what you would find in a lot of computer games. What they seemed to like was the idea that the Aeneid is a mythological text. Their teachers had introduced it on these terms, so that was how they perceived it.”

Foster speculates that another, related reason for the Aeneid’s appeal may be that reading Roman literature often involves an immediate ‘payoff’. “Because a lot happens in the story, you get a lot of reward for struggling through it, even though the Latin is difficult,” she said. “Compare that with some English novelists, where you might slave over pages in which very little seems to happen.”

The study suggests there is a disjuncture between why teachers opt to cover the Aeneid and what students gain from it. While teachers saw it as ‘cultural capital’, Foster argues that students who only read small fragments of the poem are likely, at most, to come away knowing part of the plot, some characters, and that the Aeneid is a famous Roman poem. “What makes it distinctive – even pre-eminent – among ancient texts is potentially being lost on many of the next generation,” she writes.

Teachers also reported successful lessons which connected the Aeneid to other subjects. One, for example, helped his class to understand the use of emotive description in a passage describing the death of a key character by comparing it to the work of First World War poets, as well as the final scenes of Blackadder Goes Forth. He reported that some students were moved to tears during the lesson.

Foster argues that although students only have a limited, bite-sized encounter with Roman literature through Latin GCSE, the evidence indicates that they still show signs of forming “a connection with it”.

“Obviously most children never get the chance to read it at all and there are real constraints on what schools can do to change that,” she said. “There might just be ways, though, in which translations could be introduced into English, Drama, and other subjects. Ultimately, if this is high-level poetry that students actually like, perhaps we ought to be finding ways to give them the chance to do it.”

The Aeneid and the Modern World is published by Routledge.

From Breakthrough to Blockbuster: The Business of Biotechnology, published today, shows how the small, inexperienced entrepreneurial companies making up the biotech industry have created more life-changing medicines than all of the large pharmaceutical companies combined.

The book, published by Oxford University Press, was written by Cambridge Judge Business School Associate Professor Nektarios Oraiopoulos, biotechnology entrepreneur Dr Lisa Drakeman, and Cambridge Judge Fellow Donald Drakeman.

From Breakthrough to Blockbuster describes how academic researchers and investors have worked together over the past half-century to create an industry consisting of thousands of small entrepreneurial companies, most with fewer than 50 employees.

The book’s surprising discovery is that despite the high cost of drug development and the complex regulatory environment, the biotech industry’s ability to tolerate and manage risk outweighs the pharmaceutical industry’s advantages of scale, scope, experience, and massive resources.

The story of how these small entrepreneurial companies have discovered most of the important new medicines while spending less than the highly experienced pharmaceutical industry can provide valuable insights for any industry seeking to innovate in uncertain and ambiguous conditions, the authors say.

The book also provides practical insights such as how entrepreneurs should describe their companies to investors.

As Oraiopoulos explains: “The driving force was to bring together the complex reality of running a biotech company with the insights offered by the academic literature.”

The book is designed for a wide range of audiences including students, scholars, practitioners and policymakers. Stefan Scholtes, also from Cambridge Judge Business School, wrote about the book: “How is it possible that a few thousand small companies, many of them short-lived, can out-compete the mighty pharma majors at their own game? Understanding this puzzle is of fundamental importance for industry leaders and policymakers alike.”

Originally published on the Cambridge Judge Business School website.

• Although covering less than 4% of England’s farmed area, the Fens produce more than 7% of England’s total agricultural production, worth £1.23 billion. But they are threatened by climate change and their ancient peat soils are drying out, releasing millions of tonnes of CO₂.
• The Cairngorms are home to over a quarter of the UK’s endangered species, from capercaillies to ospreys.
• The Lake District is a national treasure and a UNESCO World Heritage Site but future changes in agricultural subsidies present both challenges and opportunities for the landscape

The Cambridge Centre for Landscape Regeneration project will work with farmers, local communities and conservation groups to tackle environmental threats in these areas. This major countryside regeneration project will be led by Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI), Cambridge Zero and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), in partnership with the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) and the Endangered Landscape Programme.

Professor Emily Shuckburgh OBE, Director of Cambridge Zero said: "We aim to make a demonstrable difference to the way landscape restoration is designed, implemented, scaled up and supported by policy, ensuring solutions are resilient, inclusive and sustainable."

Funding for the work with farmers, landowners, conservation groups and local communities to address ecological threats such as extinction, flooding, drought and pollution comes from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) as part of its £40 million 'Changing the Environment' programme.

The UK’s vegetable garden

The Fens contain almost half of the UK’s grade-1 agricultural land and support a farming industry worth around £3 billion across the food chain. Farming there directly employs over 10,000 people and supports around 80,000 jobs more widely.

The area is the vegetable garden of UK horticulture with 33% of England's fresh vegetables grown here. More than a half of UK-grown lettuce and over 75% of UK-grown celery are produced in the Fens. Alongside salads, key vegetable crops such as carrots, leeks, potatoes, onions and beetroot are also extensively grown on the Fens.

Yet this fertile landscape faces a host of existential environmental challenges. It is estimated that only 1% of the original wetlands in the Fens remain intact and 30% of the peatlands have been lost – emitting millions of tonnes of carbon in the process.

Just as alarmingly, the region is projected to run out of water in five to 10 years, while simultaneously being threatened by rising sea levels.

Project researchers have been working closely with farmers in the region to find environmental solutions that work for them and their communities. Fourth-generation Fens farmer and Fenland SOIL steering committee member Tom Clarke said: "Farming in the Fens faces a triple threat – a climate challenge, a nature challenge, and a food security challenge. The best defence is for farming is to be less defensive about some of the problems it has contributed to. We farmers instead need to work in a positive and pragmatic way to find opportunities and solutions for the farmers of the future."

Agriculture in this eastern region of England is of vital importance not just to the whole UK, but also to local people who rely on it for a living. That is why simply rewilding the Fens to preserve and restore its ecosystem is not an option. The funding from NERC will support this work and will enable researchers to find the best ways of protecting the ecosystem and its farmers.

National treasures endangered

The Cairngorms and the Lake District are both national treasures, but their ecology is severely imperiled. The beauty of these popular tourist destinations obscures significant degradation and wildlife loss.

The Cairngorms are under particular threat from climate change, as well as deforestation, erosion and the loss of iconic species which cannot be found anywhere else in the UK.

Teams there are working to expand and restore ancient Caledonian pinewoods. These spectacular forests have suffered from a significant loss of biodiversity and the encroachment of non-native tree species.

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: "The interlinked extinction and climate crises pose a major threat to our future. Harnessing the full-breadth of expertise across Cambridge, this project will develop evidence-informed solutions and provide tools for government and stakeholders to regenerate landscapes for the benefit of climate, nature, the economy and society."

Whole-systems solutions

Professor David Coomes, Director of the Conservation Research Institute within CCI, said: "The emphasis of the Cambridge University Centre for Landscape Regeneration project will be on whole-systems approaches, as these are critical to addressing the root challenges of landscape regeneration”. This means taking a holistic, long-term view that encompasses the whole ecology of a region.

One example is the work done by Cairngorms Connect – the UK’s biggest habitat restoration project, and a partnership of a private landowner, two government agencies and an NGO (the RSPB). Their focus is 130km2 of biodiverse native pinewood habitats in the Cairngorms, Scotland. The partners’ 200-year vision will expand the forest to its natural limit, thereby doubling its area. Within the existing forest they are creating more natural character by pulling down trees to simulate naturally occurring deadwood – a vital feature of a healthy forest. This deadwood benefits a wide range of animals, from invertebrates, fungi and lichens, to bird species – many of which are rare elsewhere in the UK.

Professor Jeremy Wilson, RSPB Director of Science said: "As a partner in the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, we are excited by this opportunity to tackle the problem of restoring some of our most precious but fragile landscapes for the benefit of nature, people and the climate. As one of the largest nature conservation land managers in the UK, our nature reserves are at the heart of these landscapes and the insights from this cutting-edge research will underpin our restoration work for decades to come."

In the Fens, a group of farmers is experimenting with raising the water table to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This offers a natural experiment to find out not only how such measures affect crop yields, but also its impact on the communities of insects and spiders on which bird populations and crop pollination depend.

In another example, farmers in the Fens are relaxing the usually drastic clearance of fen ditches and providing more farm reservoirs. This enables the storage of winter water for summer irrigation and also provides ideal habitats for fish and wetland birds such as herons and the Marsh Harrier – a species reduced almost to extinction in Britain in the 20th century.

A team of researchers, led by Dr Sarah Cassidy from the University of Nottingham and Professor Simon Baron-Cohen from the Autism Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, are the first to examine evidence of autism and autistic traits in those who died by suicide in England. They analysed Coroners’ inquest records of 372 people who died by suicide and also interviewed family members of those who died. The research is published today in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The researchers found that 10% of those who died by suicide had evidence of elevated autistic traits, indicating likely undiagnosed autism. This is 11 times higher than the rate of autism in the UK. The research team worked with Coroners’ offices in two regions of England to identify the records.

The team first examined the coroners’ inquests for each death by suicide for signs of elevated autistic traits indicating possible undiagnosed autism, or a definite diagnosis of autism. Evidence of autism was then checked by an independent researcher to make sure that these decisions were reliable. The researchers then spoke to 29 of the families, to gather further evidence to corroborate the elevated autistic traits in those who died. After speaking with the families, the researchers found evidence of elevated autistic traits in more people who died by suicide (41%), which is 19 times higher than the rate of autism in the UK.

Previous research by the same group has shown that up to 66% of autistic adults have thought about taking their own life, and 35% have attempted suicide. Around 1% of people in the UK are autistic, yet up to 15% of people hospitalised after attempting suicide have a diagnosis of autism. Previous research has also found that both diagnosed autistic people and those with elevated autistic traits are more vulnerable to mental health problems, suicidal thoughts and behaviours. The new research goes beyond this by examining Coroner’s records related to people who have ended their own life.

Autism is a lifelong developmental condition diagnosed on the basis of difficulties in social and communication skills and in adapting to unexpected change, alongside heightened sensory sensitivity, unusually deep interests in specific topics, and a preference for predictability. There are many barriers to obtaining an autism diagnosis, including limited availability of diagnostic services, leading to long waiting lists. Even post-diagnosis, there are insufficient support services for autistic people.

Dr Sarah Cassidy commented: “Many adults in the UK find it very difficult to obtain an autism diagnosis and appropriate support post-diagnosis. Our study shows that undiagnosed autistic people could be at increased risk of dying by suicide.

"It is urgent that access to an autism diagnosis and appropriate support post diagnosis is improved. This is the top autism community priority for suicide prevention, and needs to be addressed immediately by commissioners of services and policy makers.”

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen added: “Even a single suicide is a terrible tragedy for the person and a traumatic loss for their families and friends. Suicide rates are unacceptably high in autistic people and suicide prevention has to be the number one goal to reduce the worrying increased mortality in autistic people.

“Autistic people on average die 20 years earlier than non-autistic people, and two big causes of this are suicide and epilepsy. We published the preliminary data on elevated suicide rates back in 2014 as a wake-up call to governments, and yet nothing has been done.”

Currently evidence of an autism diagnosis or elevated autistic traits are not usually included in Coroners’ inquests in England. This study highlights the need for Coroners to begin to systematically gather evidence of autism and autistic traits in inquests, to help prevent future deaths. There is also an urgent need to work with the autism community to co-design suicide prevention services.

Reference
Cassidy, S et al. Autism and autistic traits in those who died by suicide in England. BJPsych; 15 Feb 2022; DOI: 10.1192/bjp.2022.21

Adapted from a press release from the University of Nottingham

Writing in The Lancet Psychiatry, a group of clinicians and scientists set out their priorities for tackling the pervasive problem of gambling addiction, or ‘gambling disorder’.

Gambling disorder is a recognised mental health condition, a form of addiction that can have a serious impact on the lives of individuals and their families. It can lead to financial, emotional, and relationship problems, including interpersonal violence, and in some cases, engagement in illicit activities to fund their addiction.

Between four and nine people in 1,000 are estimated to experience problem gambling. The disorder appears to be more common in men compared to women and often develops during adolescence and young adulthood. For reasons that are unclear, some groups appear to be disproportionately affected – for example, in the UK, some research suggests it is more common among Black British people.

People with gambling disorders have high rates of other mental health conditions, including anxiety and mood disorders, substance abuse disorders, impulse control disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), though these are often undiagnosed. It is also associated with a considerably increased risk of suicide. 

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge said: “Gambling disorders are a serious problem in the UK yet remain low on the list of priorities in UK healthcare. There’s a chronic lack of investment and only belated acknowledgment of the problem, which means that the true extent of gambling-related harm and the related resource pressure are ignored or unrecognised.

“While in the past, gambling largely took place in establishments such as betting shops or casinos, it has now become much easier to access in secret, particularly on smartphones and computers, so we’re seeing numbers increase particularly among adolescents and women. In short, it’s no longer necessary to leave your home to gamble.”

In 2020, a group of clinicians and scientists set up the National UK Research Network for Behavioural Addictions (NUK-BA) to identify unmet needs in terms of research and treatment provision for behavioural addictions, including gambling disorder, in the UK. The organisation does not accept any funding from the gambling industry.

In their article today, experts writing on behalf of NUK-BA say there is “a marked lack of dedicated explicit independent funding for research into Gambling Disorder”. The limited funding available now tends to be linked to the gambling industry: at present, funds for gambling research in the UK are collected by a voluntary levy on companies, and these funds are then administered through a specific organisation whose existence is dependent on this industry funding.

Professor Sam Chamberlain from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton said: “To many in the research world, funding that’s linked to the gambling industry – even when it’s administered through a third party – is compromised. It creates potential conflicts of interest and institutional rules that mean many universities, researchers and clinicians in the UK cannot accept funding administered through this route.

“With so little understood about gambling disorder, we clearly need much more research if we’re going to help those affected. For the purposes of transparency and to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest, this research needs be funded by independent bodies, such as the government or independent charities, and not by the gambling industry.”

The NUK-BA has called for the government to implement a 1% statutory levy on industry earnings and says this should be administered by an independent research body unrelated to the gambling industry, such as the Medical Research Council, part of UK Research & Innovation, a non-departmental government body.

In their article, the NUK-BA sets out its top priorities for UK research into gambling disorder:

1. Conduct independent longitudinal research on prevalence of gambling disorder and at-risk gambling, and gambling harms, including in vulnerable and minority groups.
2. Select and refine the optimal pragmatic measurement tools.
3. Identify predictors – vulnerability and resilience markers – of disordered gambling in people who gamble recreationally, including in vulnerable and minority groups, longitudinally.
4. Conduct randomised controlled trials on psychological interventions and drug treatments for gambling disorder.
5. Optimise our understanding of the neurobiological basis of gambling disorder, including genetics, impulsivity and compulsivity, and other biomarkers.
6. Develop clinical guidelines based upon the best possible contemporary research evidence to guide effective clinical interventions.

The researchers argue that our understanding of the prevalence and course of gambling disorder is further limited by a lack of appropriate expert consultation, noting that despite the Gambling Commission stating in its recent consultation that experts had been consulted, not a single member of NUK-BA group reported having been consulted.

Professor Henrietta Bowden-Jones, from the National Problem Gambling Clinic & National Centre for Gaming Disorders and the University of Cambridge, said: “The UK is fortunate to have world leading experts in the study of addiction as well as behavioural addiction. This places us in an excellent position to further our understanding and to develop new treatments. With sufficient independent funding, we will be able to make great progress in preventing problem gambling and improving the quality of life and wellbeing of those recovering from behavioural addictions and their families.”

Reference
Bowden-Jones, HL et al. Gambling Disorder in the United Kingdom: key research priorities and the urgent need for independent research funding. Lancet Psychiatry; 15 Feb 2022; DOI: 10.1016/S2215-0366(21)00356-4

Instead of using refrigerant gases with high global warming potential, Barocal’s technology uses new solid-state, temperature-changing materials. Cheap and non-toxic, these are organic materials that release and absorb heat at different pressures as they change volume. Known as barocaloric materials, they are more efficient than fluid refrigerants. And, as they are solids, they are more environmentally friendly and easier to recycle at the end of a product’s lifetime.

“Heating and cooling accounts for 38% of the UK’s CO₂ emissions,” said Dr Xavier Moya, who co-founded Barocal based on his research in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. “So the government’s commitment to a 78% cut in carbon emissions by 2035 means there is a growing need for new low-carbon domestic heating systems.”

"Current alternatives such as hydrogen boilers and traditional heat pumps," he added, "are expensive and not practical for many homes. Barocal's revolutionary new heat pump, based on non-vapour compression technology, holds the promise of a cost-effective, efficient and environmentally-friendly solution for domestic and commercial heating systems as well as air-conditioning and refrigeration."

The £1.3 million investment in Barocal was led by IP Group plc. Cambridge Enterprise participated in the funding as part of a new sustainability initiative which, over the next four years, will support at least 15 of the University’s spin-outs and start-ups working on technologies that will rapidly cut emissions of global warming gases.

Through this initiative, Cambridge Enterprise recently joined in a £1 million investment in Carbon Re, a climate tech start-up using artificial intelligence to cut CO₂ emissions in the global cement industry and other energy-intensive sectors.

Investment Manager at Cambridge Enterprise, Chris Gibbs, said: "Barocal is the latest example of our early investments in transformative sustainable technologies. Our mission is to support entrepreneurs and academics with the potential to disrupt industries for the benefit of society and the planet."

In 2019, Barocal was the sole European finalist in the Global Cooling Prize—an international innovation competition designed to stimulate invention and production of super-efficient and climate-friendly residential cooling solutions. Established by a coalition led by the Government of India along with the Rocky Mountain Institute, the competition attracted 139 teams from 31 countries.

The work on the technology began as a joint project among Cambridge’s Department of Materials and Metallurgy, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and the University of Barcelona. Barocal has a licence for the technology from Cambridge Enterprise.

The low-cost jelly-like materials, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, can sense strain, temperature and humidity. And unlike earlier self-healing robots, they can also partially repair themselves at room temperature.

The results are reported in the journal NPG Asia Materials.

Soft sensing technologies could transform robotics, tactile interfaces and wearable devices, among other applications. However, most soft sensing technologies aren’t durable and consume high amounts of energy.

“Incorporating soft sensors into robotics allows us to get a lot more information from them, like how strain on our muscles allows our brains to get information about the state of our bodies,” said David Hardman from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, the paper’s first author.

As part of the EU-funded SHERO project, Hardman and his colleagues have been working to develop soft sensing, self-healing materials for robotic hands and arms. These materials can detect when they are damaged, take the necessary steps to temporarily heal themselves and then resume work – all without the need for human interaction.

“We’ve been working with self-healing materials for several years, but now we’re looking into faster and cheaper ways to make self-healing robots,” said co-author Dr Thomas George-Thuruthel, also from the Department of Engineering.

Earlier versions of the self-healing robots needed to be heated in order to heal, but the Cambridge researchers are now developing materials that can heal at room temperature, which would make them more useful for real-world applications.

“We started with a stretchy, gelatine-based material which is cheap, biodegradable and biocompatible and carried out different tests on how to incorporate sensors into the material by adding in lots of conductive components,” said Hardman.

The researchers found that printing sensors containing sodium chloride – salt – instead of carbon ink resulted in a material with the properties they were looking for. Since salt is soluble in the water-filled hydrogel, it provides a uniform channel for ionic conduction – the movement of ions.

When measuring the electrical resistance of the printed materials, the researchers found that changes in strain resulted in a highly linear response, which they could use to calculate the deformations of the material. Adding salt also enabled sensing of stretches of more than three times the sensor’s original length, so that the material can be incorporated into flexible and stretchable robotic devices.

The self-healing materials are cheap and easy to make, either by 3D printing or casting. They are preferable to many existing alternatives since they show long-term strength and stability without drying out, and they are made entirely from widely available, food-safe, materials.

“It’s a really good sensor considering how cheap and easy it is to make,” said George-Thuruthel. “We could make a whole robot out of gelatine and print the sensors wherever we need them.”

The self-healing hydrogels bond well with a range of different materials, meaning they can easily be incorporated with other types of robotics. For example, much of the research in the Bio-Inspired Robotics Laboratory, where the researchers are based, is focused on the development of artificial hands. Although this material is a proof-of-concept, if developed further, it could be incorporated into artificial skins and custom-made wearable and biodegradable sensors.

This work was supported by the Self-HEaling soft RObotics (SHERO) project, funded under the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme of the European Commission.

Reference:
David Hardman, Thomas George-Thuruthel, and Fumiya Iida. ‘Self-Healing Ionic Gelatin/Glycerol Hydrogels for Strain Sensing Applications.’ NPG Asia Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41427-022-00357-9

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has awarded the first Transition Grant to Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. The project CHARM (chemometric histopathology via coherent Raman imaging for precision medicine) has received over €3.2 million to develop new medical imaging technologies. EIC funding will help the transition to industrial applications of graphene-enabled ultrafast lasers of the Cambridge Graphene Centre.

The EIC is Europe’s leading innovation programme to identify, develop and scale up breakthrough technologies and game-changing innovations. The Transition scheme is designed to further advance research results generated by other EU-funded initiatives, such as the European Research Council (ERC) Proof of Concept projects.

CHARM will develop a medical device based on high-speed, low-cost Raman digital imaging and artificial intelligence, to transform cancer diagnosis and treatment. Raman spectroscopy is a non-destructive technique used to investigate materials through their vibrational modes. It allows high speed, label-free imaging. The CHARM technology will analyse the molecular composition of patient tissue samples to distinguish cancerous from healthy cells, without the need for chemical staining.

CHARM is a European collaboration between the Cambridge Graphene Centre at the University of Cambridge, its spin-off Cambridge Raman Imaging, Politecnico Di Milano, Consiglio Nazionale Delle Ricerche ans INsociety in Italy, Jena University Hospital in Germany, and Inspiralia in Spain.

CHARM builds on the results of the ERC Proof of Concept grant GYNCOR, led by Professor Andrea Ferrari, Director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre. Within this ERC project, Cambridge researchers developed and patented a graphene-enabled laser technology that CHARM will transition to a medical device.

The EIC funding will help mature and validate the technology, as well as build a strong business case to accelerate the way towards commercialisation. On top of funding research and innovation, the EIC offers awardees business advancement services, including coaching, mentoring, and partnering events. CHARM will also have fast-track access to the EIC Accelerator programme, which financially supports later phases, such as commercialisation and scale-up.

“Funding from the European Union is an integral part of the Cambridge Graphene Centre’s success,” said Ferrari. “The European Research Council and the European Innovation Council are two of the most prestigious funding programmes worldwide. The University of Cambridge has a very strong track record in receiving ERC funds. I am sure this first EIC transition grant will pave the way for many more to follow. We all need to join the call to ‘stick to science’ and ensure that open and barrier-free collaboration among Europe’s research and innovation actors, who all share the same values, continues without unnecessary delays and interruptions.”

Originally published on the Cambridge Graphene Centre website. 

A new study from the University of Cambridge and the not-for-profit research institute RAND Europe shows that investing in languages education in the UK will return more than the investment cost, even under conservative assumptions. 

By quantifying the wider economic benefits to the UK economy of extending languages education in schools, researchers found that the benefit-to-cost ratios for increasing Arabic, Mandarin, French or Spanish education are estimated to be at least 2:1, meaning that spending £1 could return about £2. 

Researchers used a macroeconomic model to examine UK economic performance between now and 2050 if more pupils aged between 11 and 16 – Key Stage 3 (KS3) and Key Stage 4 (KS4) – learned to speak one of four different languages so they could later use it effectively in business. The modelling was based on the Government’s successful Mandarin Excellence Programme, in which extra hours are devoted to language learning without affecting other EBacc subjects, and lessons are fast-paced and engaging.

The analysis showed that a ten percentage point increase in UK pupils learning Arabic in KS3/KS4 could cumulatively increase UK GDP by between £11.8bn and £12.6bn over 30 years, compared against a baseline scenario in which the current levels of language provision in schools do not change. This corresponds to about 0.5% of the UK’s GDP in 2019.

An increase in pupils learning Mandarin would increase GDP by between £11.5bn and £12.3bn. For French, the benefit is between £9.1bn and £9.5bn, and an increase in Spanish is estimated to be between £9.1bn and £9.7bn.

Wendy Ayres-Bennett, the study’s lead author and Professor of French Philology and Linguistics at Cambridge said: “Languages play a significant role in international trade, and having a common language can, all else being equal, reduce trade barriers and foster trade. This study provides a new economic estimate for some of the UK’s untapped language potential.”

“However, the UK has experienced a sharp decline overall in the uptake of languages since 2004. At a time when the UK Government seeks to reset its global economic relationships, such a decline in language skills could impact on the UK’s ability to compete on a global stage.” 

Researchers calculated the benefit-to-cost ratio by applying a range of education cost estimates per pupil per year for each of the four languages under consideration: £600 to £800 for Arabic; £480 to £720 for Mandarin; and £240 to £600 each for French and Spanish. 

The resulting findings of a 2:1 benefit-to-cost ratio for each language demonstrated that there are identifiable returns for investing in languages education, not just in economic terms but also in producing workers with the language skills needed for the UK to compete internationally.

The report notes that while the UK does have a comparative advantage because of the global nature of English as a lingua franca, English is not the sole driver in certain key trade sectors such as mining and energy and services – and other languages matter equally, if not more, in reducing trade barriers.

UK exports are predicted to rise if there is an increase in the number of languages shared with its trading partners. The report shows that the removal of language barriers with trading partners in Arabic-, Chinese-, French- and Spanish-speaking countries could increase UK exports annually by about £19bn.

Marco Hafner, report co-author and senior economist at RAND Europe, said: “The analysis presented in this study demonstrates that investing in languages education could recoup its cost. But the idea behind the analysis was not in any way to substitute or diminish education in STEM or other EBacc subjects and replace them with languages. The intent is to demonstrate the value of improving the quality and quantity of languages education of secondary school pupils across the UK.”

Reference

W Ayres-Bennett et al., 'The economic value to the UK of speaking other languages', RAND Corporation (2022).

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, many countries imposed strict lockdown measures, with workplaces and businesses closing and people forced to remain at home. Measures also included school closures, with exceptions for young people whose parents were classified as essential workers and those considered ‘vulnerable’, for example children under the care of social services and those in families or social situations deemed by schools to be of concern.

Several studies have reported that the lockdown had a negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people, but this effect has not been uniformly reported, with a number of studies suggesting that some young people may have benefited from lockdown.

Emma Soneson, a PhD student and Gates Scholar at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, said: “The common narrative that the pandemic has had overwhelmingly negative effects on the lives of children and young people might not tell the full story. In fact, it seems as though a sizeable number of children and young people may have experienced what they felt was improved wellbeing during the first national lockdown of 2020.

“After hearing from patients in our clinical practice and informally from several parents and young people that they thought the lockdown was beneficial for their or their child’s mental health, we decided to look at this trend.”

Ms Soneson and colleagues explored this issue using the OxWell Student Survey, a large, school-based survey of students aged eight to 18 years living in England. More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, during the tail end of the first national lockdown, answering questions about their experiences of the pandemic, school, home life, and relationships, among others. The results of their research have been published in European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The team found that one in three students thought their mental wellbeing had improved during the first lockdown. In fact, an almost identical number of students fell into each of the three categories: their mental wellbeing had improved; there had been no change; or they had experienced a deterioration to their wellbeing.

The highest proportions of students who reported improved mental wellbeing were among  those who were in school every day (39%) and most days (35%), while the highest proportion of students who reported worse wellbeing were those who attended just once or twice (39%).

Students who felt they had had better wellbeing during lockdown were more likely than their peers to report positive lockdown experiences of school, home, relationships, and lifestyle. For example, compared with their peers, a greater percentage of students reporting better wellbeing also reported decreases in bullying, improved relationships with friends and family, less loneliness, better management of schoolwork, more sleep, and more exercise during lockdown compared with before.

Professor Peter Jones, also from Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said: “What we’ve seen is a complex mix of factors that affect whether a child’s mental health and wellbeing was affected by the lockdown. These range from their mental health before the pandemic through to their relationships with their families and peers, and their attitudes towards school.”

While previous studies have reported young people worrying about the impact of lockdown on friendships, nearly half of those who reported improved mental wellbeing in this new study reported feeling less left out and lonely and having better relationships with friends and family. In part, this may be because access to digital forms of social interaction can mitigate the negative effects of reduced face-to-face contact. With many parents and carers at home, there was also potential for improved family relationships.

One specific aspect of peer relationships that changed during the pandemic was bullying. The researchers found that most young people who had been bullied in the past year reported that the bullying had reduced. The proportion that reported that they were bullied less than before lockdown was higher for those who reported improved wellbeing (92%) than for those who reported no change (83%) or deterioration in their wellbeing (81%).

For approximately half of the young people who reported improved mental wellbeing, lockdown was associated with improvements in sleep and exercise – for example, 49% of those who reported improved mental wellbeing reported sleeping more, compared with 30% of those who reported no change and 19% of those who reported deterioration.

Family relationships also clearly played a part: the proportion of students who reported that they were getting along with household members better than before lockdown was higher for the group who reported improved mental wellbeing (53%) than for the groups who reported no change (26%) or deterioration (21%), with a similar pattern for getting along with friends (41%, 26%, and 27% respectively).

Professor Mina Fazel from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford said: “While the pandemic has undoubtedly had negative consequences for many, it is important to keep in mind that this is not the case for all children and young people. We are interested in how we can learn from this group and determine if some of the changes can be sustained in order to promote better mental health and wellbeing moving forward.”

Some of the school-related factors that may have influenced how a young person responded to the lockdown include: the increased opportunities for flexible and tailored teaching that encouraged different styles of learning; smaller class sizes and more focused attention from teachers for those attending school; and later waking times and more freedom during the school day.

The research was supported by the Gates Cambridge Trust, the National Institute for Health Research, the Westminster Foundation and UK Research and Innovation.

Emma Soneson is a PhD student at Clare College, Cambridge.

Reference
Soneson, E et al. Happier During Lockdown: A descriptive analysis of self-reported wellbeing in 17,000 UK school students during Covid-19 lockdown. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; 17 Feb 2022; DOI: 10.1007/s00787-021-01934-z

In July 2020, following the first months of the pandemic, the UK government established new rules for travellers to and from England, in order to reduce the number of COVID-19 cases being imported into the country. Between 4 July 2020 and 1 February 2021, it established ‘travel corridors’ to countries deemed to be low risk for COVID-19, meaning that travellers returning from these countries did not need to quarantine. However, the majority of people returning from countries outside these corridors were required to quarantine for 14 days at home.

In research published today in Nature Communications, a team of scientists from the University of Cambridge, Wellcome Sanger Institute, COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium and UKHSA (formerly Public Health England) examined the effectiveness of this policy by analysing contact-tracing data from NHS Test and Trace and genome sequences made available through COG-UK.

The team compared the number of contacts reported per case prior to a COVID-19 diagnosis between individuals returning from a country with a requirement to quarantine and those who did not need to quarantine on return. They tracked the spread of genomes from imported cases.

The researchers identified 4,207 positive COVID-19 cases in England between 27 May 2020 and 13 September 2020 related to international travel – with more than half (51%) of all imported cases coming from just one of three countries, Greece, Croatia, and Spain.

Travellers with COVID-19 returning from countries that required them to quarantine had fewer contacts than those returning from countries within the travel corridors, and so were less likely to pass on the infection to others. Using mathematical modelling, they estimate that individuals travelling from a country requiring quarantine had an average (mean) of 3.5 contacts, 40% fewer than someone returning from a country that did not require quarantine measures (who had an average of 5.9 contacts).

The number of contacts per case was greatest in the 16-20 age group who had travelled to countries with no requirement for quarantine, with a mean of 9.0. When quarantine was required, this fell to 4.7, similar to that of other age groups.

Genomic sequencing allowed a number of unique imported SARS-CoV-2 genomes to be identified that could be monitored to see how widely they had spread. The cluster size – that is, the number of related cases of onward transmission – for genomes imported from a country without a requirement to quarantine on return was significantly higher than for those related to countries with mandatory quarantine in place.

Dr Dinesh Aggarwal from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “Although the pandemic now looks very different to how it was in 2020 – with the emergence of new variants offset by increased vaccination – there are still important lessons that can be learned about the effectiveness of quarantine, in particular for future pandemic preparedness.

“Our study shows that while travel restrictions are effective in reducing the number of imported COVID-19 cases, they do not eliminate them entirely. It’s likely that one of the main reasons that quarantine measures helped is that they put people off travelling during this period.”

For the most common destinations – barring Spain – the number of imported cases dropped when the government removed a country from the ‘safe’ list and reintroduced mandatory quarantine.

The majority of importations from Greece came at the end of August and continued into September, a period during which there was no requirement to quarantine for travellers returning from the county – this was the source of greatest imported SARS-CoV-2 cases during the study period.

Dr Ewan Harrison from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, senior author, added: “Genomics has proven to be an invaluable tool in monitoring how the coronavirus spreads and helping inform infection control measures. By applying it to travel-related cases, it could help governments rapidly refine their travel policies and consider if any quarantine measures are appropriate.”

The research was supported by Wellcome, UK Research and Innovation, and the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) Consortium

Dr Aggarwal is a PhD student at Churchill College.

Reference
Aggarwal, D, Page, AJ, Schaefer et al. Genomic assessment of quarantine measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 importation and transmission. Nat Comms; 23 Feb 2022: DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28371-z

The funding will support the commercial development of Semarion’s SemaCyte® cell assaying platform. It will also enable further expansion of the team, as Semarion recruits scientists and engineers, and establishes additional research partnerships with biopharma partners for bespoke solutions to cell screening challenges.

SemaCytes, developed by Semarion, are a novel class of cell carrier materials, created using microchip fabrication technologies, nanomagnetism and smart materials. By facilitating workflow automation, assay miniaturisation and cell barcoding, this technology improves the quality and reproducibility of cell screening data while reducing the time and cost of drug discovery workflows.

Semarion was co-founded at the Cavendish Laboratory in 2018 by Jeroen Verheyen (CEO), Tarun Vemulkar (CTO), and Professor Russell Cowburn. Verheyen’s background in cell model development and Vemulkar’s experience in advanced materials and microfabrication drive Semarion’s vision to address foundational bottlenecks in drug discovery by integrating expertise across disciplines. Previously, the company received pre-seed funding and business support from Cambridge-based healthcare accelerator, Start Codon, which supported the transition of the company out of the University.

This investment round was led by Parkwalk Advisors, with the University of Cambridge Seed Funds, Martlet Capital, and angel investors also contributing.

Jeroen Verheyen, Co-Founder & CEO, Semarion, said: “This is a crucial step towards the commercialisation of our SemaCyte cell assaying platform. We were excited to see our product testers appreciate its truly unique feature. We aim to keep working closely with biopharma partners to address their unmet cell screening needs. I would like to thank all our investors and supporters for believing in the Semarion team and the SemaCyte technology.”

Dr Del Trezise, Advisor and Non-Executive director at Semarion said: “Our investors have identified the potential of Semarion’s technology, which is uniquely positioned to address a significant market opportunity and revolutionise drug discovery approaches. I look forward to working with the team to support the Company as it progresses to the next stage of commercial and scientific expansion."  

Imagine a field of wheat that extends to the horizon, being grown for flour that will be made into bread to feed cities’ worth of people. Imagine that all authority for tilling, planting, fertilising, monitoring and harvesting this field has been delegated to artificial intelligence: algorithms that control drip-irrigation systems, self-driving tractors and combine harvesters, clever enough to respond to the weather and the exact needs of the crop. Then imagine a hacker messes things up.

A new risk analysis, published today in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, warns that the future use of artificial intelligence in agriculture comes with substantial potential risks for farms, farmers and food security that are poorly understood and under-appreciated.

“The idea of intelligent machines running farms is not science fiction. Large companies are already pioneering the next generation of autonomous ag-bots and decision support systems that will replace humans in the field,” said Dr Asaf Tzachor in the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), first author of the paper.

“But so far no-one seems to have asked the question ‘are there any risks associated with a rapid deployment of agricultural AI?’” he added.

Despite the huge promise of AI for improving crop management and agricultural productivity, potential risks must be addressed responsibly and new technologies properly tested in experimental settings to ensure they are safe, and secure against accidental failures, unintended consequences, and cyber-attacks, the authors say. 

In their research, the authors have come up with a catalogue of risks that must be considered in the responsible development of AI for agriculture – and ways to address them. In it, they raise the alarm about cyber-attackers potentially causing disruption to commercial farms using AI, by poisoning datasets or by shutting down sprayers, autonomous drones, and robotic harvesters. To guard against this they suggest that ‘white hat hackers’ help companies uncover any security failings during the development phase, so that systems can be safeguarded against real hackers.

In a scenario associated with accidental failure, the authors suggest that an AI system programmed only to deliver the best crop yield in the short term might ignore the environmental consequences of achieving this, leading to overuse of fertilisers and soil erosion in the long term. Over-application of pesticides in pursuit of high yields could poison ecosystems; over-application of nitrogen fertiliser would pollute the soil and surrounding waterways. The authors suggest involving applied ecologists in the technology design process to ensure these scenarios are avoided.

Autonomous machines could improve the working conditions of farmers, relieving them of manual labour. But without inclusive technology design, socioeconomic inequalities that are currently entrenched in global agriculture - including gender, class, and ethnic discriminations - will remain. 

“Expert AI farming systems that don’t consider the complexities of labour inputs will ignore, and potentially sustain, the exploitation of disadvantaged communities," warned Tzachor.  

Various ag-bots and advanced machinery, such as drones and sensors, are already used to gather information on crops and support farmers’ decision-making: detecting diseases or insufficient irrigation, for example. And self-driving combine harvesters can bring in a crop without the need for a human operator. Such automated systems aim to make farming more efficient, saving labour costs, optimising for production, and minimising loss and waste. This leads to increasing revenues for farmers as well as to greater reliance on agricultural AI. 

However, small-scale growers who cultivate the majority of farms worldwide and feed large swaths of the so-called Global South are likely to be excluded from AI-related benefits. Marginalisation, poor internet penetration rates, and the digital divide might prevent smallholders from using advanced technologies, widening the gaps between commercial and subsistence farmers. 

With an estimated two billion people afflicted by food insecurity, including some 690 million malnourished and 340 million children suffering micronutrient deficiencies, artificial intelligence technologies and precision agriculture promise substantial benefits for food and nutritional security in the face of climate change and a growing global population.

“AI is being hailed as the way to revolutionise agriculture. As we deploy this technology on a large scale, we should closely consider potential risks, and aim to mitigate those early on in the technology design,” said Dr Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Executive Director of CSER and co-author of the new research.

This research was funded by Templeton World Charity Foundation, Inc.

Reference
Tzachor, A. et al: ‘Responsible Artificial Intelligence in Agriculture Requires Systemic Understanding of Risks and Externalities.’ Nature Machine Intelligence, February 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s42256-022-00440-4

A team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, combined dating and microscopic analysis of the Chelyabinsk meteorite — which fell to Earth and hit the headlines in 2013 — to get more accurate constraints on the timing of ancient impact events.

Their study, published in Communications Earth & Environment, looked at how minerals within the meteorite were damaged by different impacts over time, meaning they could identify the biggest and oldest events that may have been involved in planetary formation.

“Meteorite impact ages are often controversial: our work shows that we need to draw on multiple lines of evidence to be more certain about impact histories – almost like investigating an ancient crime scene,” said Craig Walton, who led the research and is based at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

Early in our Solar System’s history, planets including the Earth formed from massive collisions between asteroids and even bigger bodies, called proto-planets.

“Evidence of these impacts is so old that it has been lost on the planets — Earth, in particular, has a short memory because surface rocks are continually recycled by plate tectonics,” said co-author Dr Oli Shorttle, who is based jointly at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences and Institute of Astronomy.

Asteroids, and their fragments that fall to Earth as meteorites, are in contrast inert, cold and much older— making them faithful timekeepers of collisions.

The new research, which was a collaboration with researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Open University, recorded how phosphate minerals inside the Chelyabinsk meteorite were shattered to varying degrees in order to piece together a collision history.

Their aim was to corroborate uranium-lead dating of the meteorite, which looks at the time elapsed for one isotope to decay to another.

“The phosphates in most primitive meteorites are fantastic targets for dating the shock events experienced by the meteorites on their parent bodies,” said Dr Sen Hu, who carried out the uranium-lead dating at Beijing’s Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Previous dating of this meteorite has revealed two impact ages, one older, roughly 4.5-billion-year-old collision and another which occurred within the last 50 million years.

But these ages aren’t so clear-cut. Much like a painting fading over time, successive collisions can obscure a once clear picture, leading to uncertainty among the scientific community over the age and even the number of impacts recorded.

The new study put the collisions recorded by the Chelyabinsk meteorite in time order by linking new uranium-lead ages on the meteorite to microscopic evidence for collision-induced heating seen inside their crystal structures. These microscopic clues build up in the minerals with each successive impact, meaning the collisions can be distinguished, put in time order and dated.

Their findings show that minerals containing the imprint of the oldest collision were either shattered into many smaller crystals at high temperatures or strongly deformed at high pressures.

The team also described some mineral grains in the meteorite that were fractured by a lesser impact, at lower pressures and temperatures, and which record a much more recent age of less than 50 million years. They suggest this impact probably chipped the Chelyabinsk meteorite off its host asteroid and sent it hurtling to Earth.

Taken together, this supports a two-stage collision history. “The question for us was whether these dates could be trusted, could we tie these impacts to evidence of superheating from an impact?” said Walton. “What we’ve shown is that the mineralogical context for dating is really important.”

Scientists are particularly interested in the date of the 4.5-billion-year-old impact because this is about the time we think the Earth-Moon system came to being, probably as a result of two planetary bodies colliding.

The Chelyabinsk meteorite belongs to a group of so-called stony meteorites, all of which contain highly shattered and remelted material roughly coincident with this colossal impact.

The newly acquired dates support previous suggestions that many asteroids experienced high energy collisions between 4.48 – 4.44 billion years ago. “The fact that all of these asteroids record intense melting at this time might indicate Solar System re-organisation, either resulting from the Earth-Moon formation or perhaps the orbital movements of giant planets.”

Walton now plans to refine dating over the window of the Moon-forming impact, which could tell us how our own planet came to being.

Reference:
Walton, C.R. et al. ‘Ancient and recent collisions revealed by phosphate minerals in the Chelyabinsk meteorite.’ Communications Earth & Environment (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-022-00373-1

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, have previously shown that biological catalysts, or enzymes, can produce fuels cleanly using renewable energy sources, but at low efficiency.

Their latest research has improved fuel production efficiency by 18 times in a laboratory setting, demonstrating that polluting carbon emissions can be turned into green fuels efficiently without any wasted energy. The results are reported in two related papers in Nature Chemistry and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Most methods for converting CO2 into fuel also produce unwanted by-products such as hydrogen. Scientists can alter the chemical conditions to minimise hydrogen production, but this also reduces the performance for CO2 conversion: so cleaner fuel can be produced, but at the cost of efficiency.

The Cambridge-developed proof of concept relies on enzymes isolated from bacteria to power the chemical reactions which convert CO2 into fuel, a process called electrolysis. Enzymes are more efficient than other catalysts, such as gold, but they are highly sensitive to their local chemical environment. If the local environment isn’t exactly right, the enzymes fall apart and the chemical reactions are slow.

The Cambridge researchers, working with a team from the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, have developed a method to improve the efficiency of electrolysis by fine-tuning the solution conditions to alter the local environment of the enzymes.

“Enzymes have evolved over millions of years to be extremely efficient and selective, and they’re great for fuel-production because there aren’t any unwanted by-products,” said Dr Esther Edwardes Moore from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, first author of the PNAS paper. “However, enzyme sensitivity throws up a different set of challenges. Our method accounts for this sensitivity, so that the local environment is adjusted to match the enzyme’s ideal working conditions.”

The researchers used computational methods to design a system to improve the electrolysis of CO2. Using the enzyme-based system, the level of fuel production increased by 18 times compared to the current benchmark solution.

To improve the local environment further, the team showed how two enzymes can work together, one producing fuel and the other controlling the environment. They found that by adding another enzyme, it sped up the reactions, both increasing efficiency and reducing unwanted by-products.

“We ended up with just the fuel we wanted, with no side-products and only marginal energy losses, producing clean fuels at maximum efficiency,” said Dr Sam Cobb, first author of the Nature Chemistry paper. “By taking our inspiration from biology, it will help us develop better synthetic catalyst systems, which is what we’ll need if we’re going to deploy CO2 electrolysis at a large scale.”

“Electrolysis has a big part to play in reducing carbon emissions,” said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research. “Instead of capturing and storing CO2, which is incredibly energy-intensive, we have demonstrated a new concept to capture carbon and make something useful from it in an energy-efficient way.”

The researchers say that the secret to more efficient CO2 electrolysis lies in the catalysts. There have been big improvements in the development of synthetic catalysts in recent years, but they still fall short of the enzymes used in this work.

“Once you manage to make better catalysts, many of the problems with CO2 electrolysis just disappear,” said Cobb. “We’re showing the scientific community that once we can produce catalysts of the future, we’ll be able to do away with many of the compromises currently being made, since what we learn from enzymes can be transferred to synthetic catalysts.”

“Once we designed the concept, the improvement in performance was startling,” said Edwardes Moore. “I was worried we’d spend years trying to understand what was going on at the molecular level, but once we truly appreciated the influence of the local environment, it evolved really quickly.”

“In future we want to use what we have learned to tackle some challenging problems that the current state-of-the-art catalysts struggle with, such as using CO2 straight from air as these are conditions where the properties of enzymes as ideal catalysts can really shine,” said Cobb.

Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. Sam Cobb is a Research Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge. Esther Edwardes Moore completed her PhD with Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The research was supported in part by the European Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Reference:
Samuel J. Cobb et al. ‘Fast CO2 hydration kinetics impair heterogeneous but improve enzymatic CO2 reduction catalysis.’ Nature Chemistry (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-021-00880-2

Esther Edwardes Moore et al. ‘Understanding the Local Chemical Environment of Bioelectrocatalysis.’ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2114097119

Did the Romans alter their legionary fortress at Eboracum in the late Antique period? What was the settlement around it like and how did this change? Did Eboracum receive a makeover when emperors came to town?

These are just some of the questions which Cambridge archaeologist Professor Martin Millett and his colleagues hope to answer without lifting a single spade or trowel.

Over summer 2022, a vehicle equipped with specialist radar equipment will survey 20km of streets around York – the first time a project on this scale has been undertaken in the UK. The team behind the scheme are working with City of York Council to access as much of the city centre road network as possible, including some pedestrianised streets, during the survey, with minimal disruption to the public.

Alongside the road surveys, a different radar system will scan the green spaces in the city centre, particularly around the Yorkshire Museum and York Minster.

The initiative is a joint project between Universities of Cambridge and Reading, York Archaeology and the York Museums Trust funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC). The 30-month-long project aims to collate everything archaeologists and historians know about the whole of Roman York into a single database which will then be made freely available to the public.

Among many other things, the team will be looking for evidence of Eboracum's architecture and infrastructure being enhanced during periods of imperial residence (AD 208–11 and AD 305-06), or following York’s promotion to colonial status in the early 3rd century. They are also hoping to find evidence for changes in the organization and use of land in the immediate environs of York through the Roman period.

Alongside the research there will be a series of public engagement projects including volunteer-run research projects, an art initiative and a project for schools around the country linking research findings to geography, physics, geology and archaeology.

The radar mapping exercise will start in the summer, with dry weather being crucial to the success of the scanning, as the radar can only penetrate down to the water table, which is notoriously high for much of the year in York.

Project leader Martin Millett, Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge and a trustee of York Archaeological Trust, said: “This is a key initiative where we hope to learn much more about the layout of the Roman city without having to dig a single trench.”

Co-investigator Dr John Creighton of the University of Reading said: “Over many years, various investigations have opened small windows into different parts of the Roman city, but we hope that this scanning will reveal far more about the city including details where the roads and significant buildings in the city were located, particularly around Micklegate.”

The wider research will bring together not only the results of archaeological excavations over the last 50 years, but also other less formal sources of information, including historic press reports of Roman finds, notebooks and published reports from the 18th century onwards. It is hoped that volunteers from across the community will be involved.

Cllr Darryl Smalley, Executive Member for Culture, Leisure and Communities at City of York Council, said: “This exciting new project will provide a new basis for understanding of Roman York and will enhance the ways in which the City can assess the impact of planning and future development on this valuable but hidden heritage.”

Updates on the project will be posted on yorkarchaeology.co.uk/romanyork

Professor Millett recently led the team which successfully mapped a complete Roman city, Falerii Novi, in Italy, using the same technology. This research received global media coverage. Find out more here.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) at Cambridge Judge Business School has announced the launch of the Cambridge Digital Assets Programme (CDAP), a research initiative in collaboration with 16 leading banks, public sector agencies and private organisations to study the rapid digitisation of assets and value transfer systems.

Over an initial period of two years, the CCAF will work with public and private organisations to create the data, tools, and insights necessary to facilitate an evidence-based public dialogue about the opportunities and risks presented by the growing digital asset ecosystem.

The CDAP’s institutional research collaborators are: Accenture, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub, British International Investment (BII), Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), EY, Fidelity, UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Goldman Sachs, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), Invesco, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), Mastercard, MSCI, Visa, and the World Bank. 

The programme builds on the CCAF’s work in creating digital tools such as the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) and the Global Cryptoasset Benchmarking Study series. It is designed to address the broader ecosystem trends and issues through research that can help guide public opinion, inform regulation and policy discussion, as well as support evidence-based decision making by individuals and institutions.

Supporters of the programme include prominent public and private stakeholders from a variety of sectors to promote diversity in views and facilitate exchange of insight. These supporters will also provide input and guidance to ensure practical and meaningful research output.

“The growing adoption of digital assets increasingly blurs the lines between roles, responsibilities and applicable rules, stretching the boundaries of long-term institutional arrangements,” said Bryan Zhang, Executive Director, CCAF. “The Cambridge Digital Assets Programme aims to meet the resulting need for greater clarity by providing data-driven insights through collaborative research involving public and private sector stakeholders.”

The programme's research will be centred around three distinct but related areas. The first is the environmental implications and broader ESG (environmental, social and governance) considerations of digital assets and their associated services. The second area will look at the processes and configurations of Distributed Financial Market Infrastructure (dFMI), including the evolving constellation of networks, platforms, applications, and services. The third research stream will focus on emergent money systems – the “asset” side of the ecosystem – comprising crypto-assets, stable-coins, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), as well as enterprise and consumer tokens.

“We've spent a lot of time developing a consistent framework that consolidates our efforts in the digital assets space and ensuring that we have the right collaborations in place to deliver insight and clarity,” said Michel Rauchs, Digital Assets Lead, CCAF. “We believe this programme will provide decision-makers with the objective analysis and empirical evidence that they need to navigate the digital assets maze.”

Each research stream will convene a dedicated working group of CCAF researchers, domain experts, and representatives from supporting institutions of the programme. 

Originally published on the Cambridge Judge Business School website.

Scientists studying the Scottish salmon farming industry say that using only fish by-products - such as trimmings - for salmon feed, rather than whole wild-caught fish, would deliver significant nutritional and sustainability gains.

This would allow 3.7 million tonnes of fish to be left in the sea, and enable global annual seafood production to increase by 6.1 million tonnes.

The study, led by a team of scientists from the Universities of Cambridge, Lancaster and Liverpool and environmental NGO Feedback Global is published today in the journal PLOS Sustainability and Transformation. 

As the world’s fastest growing food sector, aquaculture is often presented as a way to relieve pressure on wild fish stocks. But many aquaculture fish - such as Atlantic salmon - are farmed using fish oil and meal made from millions of tonnes of wild-caught fish, most of which is food-grade and could be eaten directly to provide vital nutrition.

The team collected data on fish nutrient content, fishmeal and fish oil composition, and salmon production, and examined the transfer of micronutrients from feed to fish in Scotland's farmed salmon industry. They found that over half of the essential dietary minerals and fatty acids available in wild fish are lost when these fish are fed to farmed salmon. 

Dr David Willer, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and first author of the paper, said: “Fish and seafood provide a vital and valuable micronutrient-rich food source to people worldwide, and we must make sure we are using this resource efficiently. Eating more wild fish and using alternative feeds in salmon farms can achieve this.”

The team developed various alternative production scenarios where salmon were only produced using fish by-products, and then added more wild-caught fish, mussels or carp for human consumption. All scenarios produced more seafood that was more nutritious than salmon, and left 66-82% of feed fish in the sea. 

Feedback’s Dr Karen Luyckx said: “If we want to feed a growing global population well and sustainably, we must stop catching wild fish to feed farmed fish. Until the salmon industry kicks its wild-caught fish oil and fishmeal habit, chefs and retailers should help citizens switch away from unsustainable salmon by offering ultra-nutritious mussels and small oily fish instead.”

Based on their findings on the Scottish salmon industry, the researchers collected global salmon, fishmeal and oil production data to apply their alternative scenarios at a global scale. One scenario shows that farming more carp and less salmon, using only feed from fish by-products, could leave 3.7 million tonnes of wild fish in the sea while producing 39% more seafood overall. 

The authors caution that not enough is known about the source and species composition of fishmeal, but there are positive signs that the use of plant-based feeds is growing. 

Dr James Robinson of Lancaster University said: “Aquaculture, including salmon farming, has an important role in meeting global food demand, but nutritious wild fish should be prioritised for local consumption rather than salmon feed, particularly if it is caught in food-insecure places. 

“Support for alternative feeds can help this transition, but we still need more data on the volumes and species used for fishmeal and fish oil, as this can show where salmon farming places additional pressure on fish stocks.”

Ultimately, the authors call for a reduction in marine aquaculture feeds, as this will offer opportunities to produce more nutritious seafood while reducing pressure on marine ecosystems. 

Willer added: “If we want to feed the growing global population well and sustainably, we must stop catching wild fish to feed farmed fish. There is an urgent need for the food industry to promote consumption of more sustainable seafood species - like mussels or carp - that don’t require other fish as feed.”

This research was funded by the Cambridge Philosophical Society, via a Henslow Fellowship to David Willer.

Reference
Willer, D.F., et al: ‘Maximising sustainable nutrient production from coupled fisheries-aquaculture systems.’ PLOS Sustainability and Transformation, 2022. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pstr.0000005

Adapted from a press release by Feedback Global.
 

Their perspectives are documented in a newly-published study, which argues that Ancient History’s position as a minority subject in the curriculum is reinforcing its image as the preserve of a privileged elite. Since 2009, any school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland has had the option to offer Ancient History GCSE, but very few do so. Fewer than 1,000 candidates (about 0.1%) sit the exam every year, and only a fraction are from state schools.

The study, by academics at the University of Cambridge, surveyed students at three state-funded comprehensive schools which do teach the subject. All of the students said they felt stigmatised by their peers for taking Ancient History, and that it was generally perceived as “posh”, “academic”, “boring”, “elitist” and “snobby”. Some said these views were shared by members of their own family.

The researchers argue that making Ancient History more widely available in schools would resolve this image problem. There is also some evidence that it might even be a popular move. Despite their concerns, students who took the subject also said they found it interesting and rewarding. Many were particularly interested in the stranger and more distant aspects of the ancient world.

Dr Frances Foster, from the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said:  “These were three very different schools, in very different communities and with varying levels of deprivation, but every single student we spoke to had experienced resistance to the idea of studying Ancient History from relatives or friends.”

“The message we got was generally: ‘This is really cool stuff, but it’s not meant for people like us.’ Once they stepped outside the classroom, they were uncomfortable even disclosing that they did Ancient History because they were worried about being seen as different, or about people assuming they went to a posh school. We ought to be emphasising that they have a right to study this subject just as much as anyone.”

The students were asked to answer a questionnaire about their background and any opportunities they had to learn about Ancient History outside school (for example by visiting museums). They then took part in a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups, which explored their feelings about the subject.

Their comments disclosed widespread discomfort with being given what they knew was unequal access to a subject associated with social privilege. In many cases, either the students, or their relatives and peers, appeared to view Ancient History as both ‘very academic’ and ‘prestigious’ specifically because so few people study it.

One interviewee told the researchers: “People perceive it as posh because it’s not common… a lot of private schools have the option of taking it but I don’t know any other school in this area that has Latin or Ancient History.” Another said: “It’s perceived as quite an intelligent subject because a lot of schools don’t offer it. When you say, ‘I do Ancient History’, people kind of judge you and think, oh, you must go to a posh school.”

Many students were aware that this was a misconception, but they consistently felt that by taking the subject they had nonetheless been branded “clever”, “upper class” or even “unlucky” by their peers.

Despite this, many also expressed considerable interest in various source materials, the age of the subject matter, and the sophistication of the ancient world. The study also explores cases such as that of a girl from a Middle Eastern Family who explained how she had been able to feel more connected to her own heritage through learning about the Persian Empire. Two other students spoke enthusiastically about how the ancient world had inspired Winston Churchill during his own political career.

“They were really interested that texts which had survived for two millennia might still be useful to governments in another time and country,” Foster said. “Part of Ancient History’s attraction for students seems to be that the stories and objects they are studying were features of people’s lives two thousand years ago, but have come down to us. Another part is the very different nature of societies in the ancient world – the fact that so much of it is just plain weird.”

All the students said they would feel more comfortable taking Ancient History if it was more widely available. As the study’s authors note, several organisations – including the Classical Association, Classics for All, and the University’s own Cambridge Schools Classics Project – have actively campaigned for some time to increase access to Ancient History partly because of concerns about its marginal status.

Their report also points out that, because the GCSE course does not require knowledge of ancient languages, it can be delivered by History teachers even in schools which do not teach Classics.

“At the moment young people’s access to the ancient world is defined largely by chance – whether or not their school happens to offer it,” Foster said. “As long as that remains the case, students will be told it’s not for them, it’s not going to get them a job, and they would be better off doing something else. Ancient History was put on the GCSE curriculum to make it more accessible. If we value that principle, we should be worried that so many of the students who actually get to study it feel so uncomfortable about the idea.”

The study is published open access in The Curriculum Journal.