“Social isolation is a serious yet underrecognized public health problem that is often associated with old age,” said study author Professor Jianfeng Feng of Fudan University in Shanghai, China. “In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation, or the state of being cut off from social networks, has intensified. It’s more important than ever to identify people who are socially isolated and provide resources to help them make connections in their community.”

The study looked at over 460,000 people across the United Kingdom with an average age of 57 at the beginning of the study who were followed for nearly 12 years before the pandemic. Of those, almost 42,000 (9%) reported being socially isolated, and 29,000 (6%) felt lonely. During the study, almost 5,000 developed dementia.

Researchers collected survey data from participants, along with a variety of physical and biological measurements, including MRI data. Participants also took thinking and memory tests to assess their cognitive function. For social isolation, people were asked three questions about social contact: whether they lived with others; whether they had visits with friends or family at least once a month; and whether they participated in social activities such as clubs, meetings or volunteer work at least once a week. People were considered socially isolated if they answered no to at least two questions.  

Of the 42,000 people with social isolation, 649 (1.55%) developed dementia, compared to 4,349 (1.03%) of those people who were not socially isolated.

After adjusting for factors including age, sex, socioeconomic status, alcohol intake and smoking, and other conditions like depression and loneliness, researchers found that socially isolated individuals had lower volume in the brain’s gray matter in various regions involved with learning and thinking. Researchers found that people who were socially isolated were 26% more likely to develop dementia than those with no social isolation. Researchers also looked at loneliness, but after adjusting, saw no strong correlation with developing dementia.

Professor Barbara Sahakian from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, a study co-author, added: “People who reported high levels of social isolation were more likely to show significant differences in brain volume, in regions that we know as also associated with cognition problems and risk of dementia. This is very concerning and suggests to us that social isolation may be an early indicator of an increased risk of dementia.”

People who reported higher levels of social isolation were more likely to have lower gray matter volume in areas of the brain associated with learning and thinking. Overall, the results showed that lower gray matter volumes were associated with higher social isolation.

A limitation of the study was that participants reported fewer health conditions and were less likely to live alone than the general population, so the results may not apply to the general population.

The study was a collaboration between Fudan University, the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick. It was supported by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, National Natural Sciences Foundation of China, the municipal government of Shanghai, ZJ Lab, Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology, and the Wellcome Trust.

Reference
Shen, C et al. Associations of Social Isolation and Loneliness With Later Dementia. Neurology; 8 June 2022; DOI: 10.1212/WNL.0000000000200583

The Gates Cambridge Trust– which oversees the University of Cambridge's leading international postgraduate scholarship programme – has announced that its new Provost, its first female leader, will be Professor Eilís Ferran.

Professor Ferran has a wealth of experience both as a distinguished academic and as a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Institutional and International Relations. She succeeds Professor Barry Everitt as Provost on 1 October 2022.

Currently Professor of Company and Securities Law at the University of Cambridge and the Tom Ivory Professorial Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Professor Ferran was the University’s Pro –Vice-Chancellor from 2015 to 2021 and, as academic strategic lead for staff and for significant international partnerships, she led the modernisation of career paths, oversaw the University’s response as an employer to COVID-19 and was instrumental in the establishment of the Strategic Partnerships Office. She was also the University's lead for equality and diversity matters.

Professor Ferran, who is a Fellow of the British Academy and an Honorary Bencher of Middle Temple, served as Chair of the Law Faculty from 2012 to 2015. In her current research, she is focusing on the intersection between governance and risk management in financial market infrastructures, on the civil liabilities of credit rating agencies, and on the post-Brexit evolution of financial regulation in the UK.

The Gates Cambridge Trust oversees the Gates Cambridge Scholarships, which were established in 2000 by a donation of US$210m (about £170m) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the University of Cambridge – which remains the largest ever single donation to a UK university. The scholarships fund outstanding international postgraduate students who are selected on the basis of their intellectual ability, capacity for leadership, and a commitment to improving the lives of others.

There are almost 300 Scholars at Cambridge pursuing the full range of academic subjects who form a diverse community integrated within the University, and a global network of more than 1,600 alumni spread across the world improving the lives of others in myriad ways. Since the first class in 2001, Gates Cambridge has awarded 2,081 scholarships to scholars from 111 countries who represent more than 700 universities globally, and more than 80 academic departments and all 31 Colleges at Cambridge.

Bill Gates said: “For more than 20 years, the Gates Cambridge Scholarship has educated future leaders who are dedicated to improving the lives of others around the world. I’m confident that Professor Ferran will build on that legacy in the years ahead as she serves as Provost.”

The University’s Vice-Chancellor and Chair of the Gates Cambridge Trustees, Professor Stephen J Toope, said: “The Gates Cambridge Scholarship programme supports extraordinary students driven by academic excellence and a strong sense of leadership in tackling some of the world’s greatest challenges. I’m incredibly proud of what the Trust has achieved in its first 22 years, and very grateful for Professor Barry Everitt’s inspiring leadership over the past 9 years in post. I’m delighted with the appointment of Professor Eilís Ferran, who I have worked with for many years. She is an exceptional and inclusive leader who will continue to develop this unique programme in new and exciting ways.”

President of the Gates Cambridge Scholars’ Council Ariel de Fauconberg said: “As a distinguished academic in her field with a demonstrated commitment to the University’s international engagement, we are excited for Professor Ferran to bring her wealth of experience to the leadership of this extraordinary scholarship programme in the years ahead.”

Dr Halliki Voolma and Dr Sanjana Mehta, Co-Chairs of the Gates Cambridge Alumni Association Board, said “We are delighted with the appointment of Professor Ferran as the first female Provost and are confident that her experience in building international strategic partnerships and passion for furthering equality and diversity will help us pave new avenues for fostering our global alumni community.”

Professor Ferran said: “I am thrilled to be appointed as the next Provost. I look forward to working with the scholars, alumni, staff and trustees to drive forward the founders’ vision for improving lives through this exceptional programme.”

In a lecture at Homerton College, Cambridge, he warned that senior academics would be tempted to take jobs abroad unless the impasse over allowing British researchers access to EU funds is broken.

Professor Toope said the failure of the UK Government and the EU to reach agreement over Horizon Europe, the prestigious EU funding mechanism, was already having an impact at Cambridge.

“It has taken a few years, but our concerns – about the loss of connectivity, the loss of researcher mobility, the loss of research funding – are now coming to pass,” he said in the annual Kate Pretty Lecture.

“Earlier this year we were celebrating Cambridge colleagues winning more European Research Council grants than peers at any other UK institution.

“Yet two weeks ago a Cambridge astrophysicist had to step down from the leadership of a pan-European project because the UK’s association with the Horizon Europe network has not been ratified.

“And we learned only last week that European funding has now dried up, too, for Cambridge’s Comparative Cognition Laboratory, raising the likelihood of its closure in July.

“Great Britain – and Cambridge in particular – have long been a magnet for some of the world’s finest minds. But for the first time there is the very real and hugely worrying prospect of a brain drain, as colleagues with large European collaborations and significant European grants talk about leaving the UK. The UK – we are frequently told – is a ‘Science Superpower’. I worry that, if we’re not careful, we may sleepwalk in the opposite direction."

Professor Toope said the UK and the EU needed to move fast to prevent inflicting serious damage on world-leading academic research.

“Hopes for the UK’s association to the Horizon Europe framework programme are fading fast. But I remain hopeful that the UK Government and our European partners will recognise how much our scientific communities need each other.

“And I remain hopeful that we can still agree on some mechanism to ensure that UK researchers can continue to contribute leadership and expertise to European collaborations."

Professor Toope said that Cambridge remained a “proudly global institution” with strong international representation among its students, staff and alumni. Cambridge academics carried out research with major impact on people’s lives on every continent and in dozens of different countries. 

Read the Vice-Chancellor's speech - University matters? The University of Cambridge in an increasingly complex world.

The announcement follows hot on the heels of Cambridge’s recent success in the UK Research Excellence Framework, where it was rated as the highest scoring institution covering all the major disciplines.

The QS World University Rankings 2023 include over 1,400 institutions from around the world. Its rankings compare institutions on a host of different criteria, including: academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, and international student ratio & international faculty ratio.

Cambridge achieved an overall score of 98.8 out of 100, and the maximum score for academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty/student ratio, international faculty ratio and employer outcomes.

Professor Stephen J Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, said: “I am extremely proud of the imagination, vision and hard work of Cambridge’s researchers, staff and students, which are reflected in today’s results. Together with this year’s very positive REF results, the QS World Rankings have helped cement the University of Cambridge’s reputation as a truly world-leading institution.”

In the previous rankings, Cambridge was joint third, but this time round it has moved up a place, overtaking Oxford to be second only to MIT in Boston, USA.

In a study published in Genetics in Medicine, researchers analysed genetic data collected on over 200,000 UK men aged 40-70 from UK Biobank, a biomedical database and research resource containing anonymised genetic, lifestyle and health information from half a million UK participants. They found 356 men who carried either an extra X chromosome or an extra Y chromosome.

Sex chromosomes determine our biological sex. Men typically have one X and one Y chromosome, while women have two Xs. However, some men also have an extra X or Y chromosome – XXY or XYY.

Without a genetic test, it may not be immediately obvious. Men with extra X chromosomes are sometimes identified during investigations of delayed puberty and infertility; however, most are unaware that they have this condition. Men with an extra Y chromosome tend to be taller as boys and adults, but otherwise they have no distinctive physical features.

In today’s study, the researchers identified 213 men with an extra X chromosome and 143 men with an extra Y chromosome. As the participants in UK Biobank tend to be ‘healthier’ than the general population, this suggests that around one in 500 men may carry an extra X or Y chromosome.

Only a small minority of these men had a diagnosis of sex chromosome abnormality on their medical records or by self-report: fewer than one in four (23%) men with XXY and only one of the 143 XYY men (0.7%) had a known diagnosis.

By linking genetic data to routine health records, the team found that men with XXY have much higher chances of reproductive problems, including a three-fold higher risk of delayed puberty and a four-fold higher risk of being childless. These men also had significantly lower blood concentrations of testosterone, the natural male hormone. Men with XYY appeared to have a normal reproductive function.

Men with either XXY or XYY had higher risks of several other health conditions. They were three times more likely to have type 2 diabetes, six times more likely to develop venous thrombosis, three times as likely to experience pulmonary embolism, and four times more likely to suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The researchers say that it isn’t clear why an extra chromosome should increase the risk or why the risks were so similar irrespective of which sex chromosome was duplicated.

Yajie Zhao, a PhD student at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge, the study’s first author, said: “Even though a significant number of men carry an extra sex chromosome, very few of them are likely to be aware of this. This extra chromosome means that they have substantially higher risks of a number of common metabolic, vascular, and respiratory diseases – diseases that may be preventable.”

Professor Ken Ong, also from the MRC Epidemiology Unit at Cambridge and joint senior author, added: “Genetic testing can detect chromosomal abnormalities fairly easily, so it might be helpful if XXY and XYY were more widely tested for in men who present to their doctor with a relevant health concern.

“We’d need more research to assess whether there is additional value in wider screening for unusual chromosomes in the general population, but this could potentially lead to early interventions to help them avoid the related diseases.”

Professor Anna Murray, at the University of Exeter, said: “Our study is important because it starts from the genetics and tells us about the potential health impacts of having an extra sex chromosome in an older population, without being biased by only testing men with certain features as has often been done in the past.”

Previous studies have found that around one in 1,000 females have an additional X chromosome, which can result in delayed language development and accelerated growth until puberty, as well as lower IQ levels compared to their peers.

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council.

Reference
Zhao, Y. et al. Detection and characterisation of male sex chromosome abnormalities in the UK Biobank study. Genetics in Medicine; 9 Jun 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.gim.2022.05.011

Do you understand how your cookies and data are being used? Do the benefits of using digital technology outweigh the negatives and the risks? How much of your digital self are you willing to sacrifice?

These are just some of the questions at the heart of a unique project about to take place in Cambridge. On 16th and 17th June, FAUST SHOP, a pop-up installation and performance in the Grafton Centre’s Sook Space will ask visitors to think about their daily interactions with digital technology. And before they leave, it will ask them if they want to reclaim their digital soul.

Stepping into the FAUST SHOP, visitors will be immersed in stories that blur the boundary between virtual spaces and reality. They will encounter characters in the flesh as well as on-screen through motion capture and digital art. 

The venue, Sook Space, already employs AI-driven analytics using smart footfall cameras. FAUST SHOP will add a thermal imaging camera attachment to allow real-time capture of visitor’s “souls” as textures which can be collected and bought back as a special type of non-fungible token (NFT). All visitors will receive a special offer to either give their digital soul to Faust’s new lands or ‘take away’ the digital double they created during their visit. Information collected will then be emailed to them. The installation will also showcase digital objects donated by members of the public to share their personal relationships with digital technology.

The thought-provoking project, led by Cambridge Digital Humanities researcher Dr Annja Neumann, involves post-graduate students, researchers and artists from the University of Cambridge and the School of Creative Industries at Anglia Ruskin University.

The FAUST SHOP is a performance-based research project that uses site-specific theatre to explore agency and get people thinking about the goods and evils of technology.

Neumann says: “We all rely on digital technology now but how often do we stop to consider the impact that it is having on us? We’ll be offering visitors the opportunity to pause, experience their relationship with technology and before they leave, to choose whether to re-claim their digital soul.” 

“This is the information that we trail behind us as we make our way through the online world. AI-driven technology produces a digital twin by drawing on our connections, cursor and eye movements, steps, interests, search terms, beliefs, and clicks on the ‘I agree’ button. 

“How do we feel about this ghostly self? What would we do to rescue it? How happy are we to let it linger on forever in a place like this? Digital technology offers us the world but what does it take away from us and what does it want in return? These are the really big questions we’re asking people to think about.”

A performance for the digital age

The FAUST SHOP installation accompanies ‘New Lands’, a ticketed (£5) twice-daily (40 tickets per performance) 1-hour 'augmented theatrical experience' in the same space. ‘New Lands’ adapts Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s world-famous Faust to the digital age.

Dr Neumann said: “I’m amazed how relevant Goethe’s Faust feels today when the tragic play speaks about how technology moves us.”

The team are using structured light and LiDAR scanners to create 3D digital twins of the actors, and optical motion capture to map their movement onto their virtual twins. One of the performers will be wearing a wireless, inertial motion capture suit under their costume and custom developed software will bring the virtual characters and environment to life.

Audiences will follow Faust as he makes a pact with the Devil, offering his soul for unlimited data and worldly pleasures. Working with the devil, Faust embarks on the work of a god: the creation of a new land. The pact gives Faust access to new technologies that lead to the creation of digital doubles and him winning a new space to live in. Faust’s new lands eventually expand into the space of the Faust Shop where the audience receives a special offer: to buy back their digital soul.

Alexander Mentzel, an MPhil candidate at Cambridge University and Co-director/Co-writer of FAUST SHOP: New Lands, said: 

"In our adaptation of the story, Faust's magical new world unfolds across virtual and physical space, generated by the inputs of the audience themselves. So they will see a world of digital agents and hybrid actors rising up from a sea of data."

"We’re interested in creating an environment that is at times seductive and at times alienating, allowing the audience during the performance to question whether they're just passively watching or whether they're actually complicit in the action. And by the end, they'll have to decide if they want to sign themselves over to this new world or reclaim their digital soul."

Dr Annja Neumann is Isaac Newton Trust Research Fellow in Digital Humanities at Cambridge Digital Humanities, an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Cambridge and an Affiliated Lecturer in German Studies at Cambridge.

The FAUST SHOP: New Lands is part of Dr Neumann’s performance-based research project Re-staging public spaces. The series of public events presented by the FAUST SHOP are funded by Cambridge Digital Humanities, the School of Creative Industries at Anglia Ruskin University and supported by virtual architects Space Popular and commercial partner Sook Space.
 

In a study published in The Lancet Planetary Health, a team led by a researcher at the University of Cambridge analysed current scientific literature and found that the evidence paints a bleak picture for the future as extreme events drive economic instability, food insecurity, and mental stress, and disrupt infrastructure and exacerbate gender inequality.

Between 2000 and 2019, floods, droughts, and storms alone affected nearly 4 billion people worldwide, costing over 300,000 lives. The occurrences of these extreme events represent a drastic change, with the frequency of floods increasing by 134%, storms by 40%, and droughts by 29% over the past two decades. These figures are expected to rise further as climate change progresses.

Extreme weather and climate events have been seen to increase gender-based violence, due to socioeconomic instability, structural power inequalities, health-care inaccessibility, resource scarcity and breakdowns in safety and law enforcement, among other reasons. This violence can lead to long-term consequences including physical injury, unwanted pregnancy, exposure to HIV or other sexually transmitted infections, fertility problems, internalised stigma, mental health conditions, and ramifications for children.

To better understand the relationship between extreme events and gender-based violence, researchers carried out a systematic review of existing literature in this area. This approach allows them to bring together existing – and sometimes contradictory or under-powered – studies to provide more robust conclusions.

The team identified 41 studies that explored several types of extreme events, such as storms, floods, droughts, heatwaves, and wildfires, alongside gender-based violence, such as sexual violence and harassment, physical violence, ‘witch’ killing, early or forced marriage, and emotional violence. The studies covered countries on all six of the major continents and all but one focused on cisgender women and girls.

The researchers found evidence that gender-based violence appears to be exacerbated by extreme weather and climate events, driven by factors such as economic shock, social instability, enabling environments, and stress.

According to the studies, perpetrators of violence ranged from partners and family members, through to religious leaders, relief workers and government officials. The relationship between extreme events and gender-based violence can be expected to vary across settings due to differences in social gender norms, tradition, vulnerability, exposure, adaptive capacity, available reporting mechanisms, and legal responses. However, the experience of gender-based violence during and after extreme events seems to be a shared experience in most contexts studied, suggesting that amplification of this type of violence is not constrained geographically.

“Extreme events don’t themselves cause gender-based violence, but rather they exacerbate the drivers of violence or create environments that enable this type of behaviour,” said Kim van Daalen, a Gates Cambridge Scholar at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge.

“At the root of this behaviour are systematic social and patriarchal structures that enable and normalise such violence. Existing social roles and norms, combined with inequalities leading to marginalisation, discrimination, and dispossession make women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities disproportionately vulnerable to the adverse impacts of extreme events.”

Experiencing gender-based violence can also further increase vulnerability. When faced with the likelihood of experiencing harassment or sexual violence in relief camps, for example, some women or sexual and gender minorities choose to stay home or return to their homes even before doing so is safe, placing them in additional danger from extreme events and furthering restrict their already limited access to relief resources.

Extreme events could both increase new violence and increase reporting, unmasking existing violence. Living through extreme events led some victims to feel they could no longer endure abuse or to feel less inhibited to report the abuse than before the event. However, the researchers also noted that reporting remains  plagued by a number of factors including silencing of victims – particularly in countries where safeguarding a daughter’s and family’s honour and marriageability is important – as well as fears of coming forward, failures of law enforcement, unwillingness to believe victims, and the normalisation of violence.

Van Daalen added: “Disaster management needs to focus on preventing, mitigating, and adapting to drivers of gender-based violence. It’s crucial that it’s informed by the women, girls, and sexual and gender minority populations affected and takes into account local sexual and gender cultures and local norms, traditions, and social attitudes.”

Examples of such interventions include providing post-disaster shelters and relief services – including toilets and bath areas – designed to be exclusively accessed by women, girls, and sexual and gender minorities or providing emergency response teams specifically trained in prevention of gender-based violence.

Likewise, empowerment initiatives for women and sexual and gender minorities that challenge regressive gender norms to reduce vulnerability could bring opportunities to negotiate their circumstances and bring positive change. For example, women’s groups using participatory- learning-action cycles facilitated by local peers have been used to improve reproductive and maternal health by enabling women to identify and prioritise local challenges and solutions. Similar programmes could be adapted and applied in extreme event management to empower women as decision makers in local communities.

Reference
Van Daalen, KR. Extreme events and gender-based violence: a mixed-methods systematic review. Lancet Planetary Health; 14 June 2022; DOI: 10.1016/PIIS2542-5196(22)00088-2

Researchers at the University of Cambridge analysed data from almost 1,700 children, collected when they were aged three and seven. Those with better peer play ability at age three consistently showed fewer signs of poor mental health four years later. They tended to have lower hyperactivity, parents and teachers reported fewer conduct and emotional problems, and they were less likely to get into fights or disagreements with other children.

Importantly, this connection generally held true even when the researchers focused on sub-groups of children who were particularly at risk of mental health problems. It also applied when they considered other risk factors for mental health – such as poverty levels, or cases in which the mother had experienced serious psychological distress during or immediately after pregnancy.

The findings suggest that giving young children who might be vulnerable to mental health issues access to well-supported opportunities to play with peers – for example, at playgroups run by early years specialists – could be a way to significantly benefit their long-term mental health.

Dr Jenny Gibson, from the Play in Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) Centre at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, said: “We think this connection exists because through playing with others, children acquire the skills to build strong friendships as they get older and start school. Even if they are at risk of poor mental health, those friendship networks will often get them through.”

Vicky Yiran Zhao, a PhD Student in PEDAL and first author of the study added: “What matters is the quality, rather than the quantity, of peer play. Games with peers that encourage children to collaborate, for example, or activities that promote sharing, will have positive knock-on benefits.”

The researchers used data from 1,676 children in the Growing up in Australia study, which is tracking the development of children born in Australia between March 2003 and February 2004. It includes a record, provided by parents and carers, of how well the children played in different situations at age three. This covered different types of peer play, including simple games; imaginative pretend play; goal-directed activities (such as building a tower from blocks); and collaborative games like hide-and-seek.

These four peer play indicators were used to create a measure of ‘peer play ability’ – the underlying ability of a child to engage with peers in a playful way. The researchers calculated the strength of the relationship between that measure and reported symptoms of possible mental health problems – hyperactivity, and conduct, emotional and peer problems – at age seven.

The study then analysed two sub-groups of children within the overall cohort. These were children with high ‘reactivity’ (children who were very easily upset and difficult to soothe in infancy), and those with low ‘persistence’ (children who struggled to persevere when encountering a challenging task). Both these traits are linked to poor mental health outcomes.

Across the entire dataset, children with a higher peer play ability score at age three consistently showed fewer signs of mental health difficulties at age seven. For every unit increase in peer play ability at age three, children’s measured score for hyperactivity problems at age seven fell by 8.4%, conduct problems by 8%, emotional problems by 9.8% and peer problems by 14%. This applied regardless of potential confounding factors such as poverty levels and maternal distress, and whether or not they had plentiful opportunities to play with siblings and parents.

The effect was evident even among the at-risk groups. In particular, among the 270 children in the ‘low persistence’ category, those who were better at playing with peers at age three consistently had lower hyperactivity, and fewer emotional and peer problems, at age seven. This may be because peer play often forces children to problem-solve and confront unexpected challenges, and therefore directly addresses low persistence.

The benefits of peer play were weaker for the high reactivity sub-group, possibly because such children are often anxious and withdrawn, and less inclined to play with others. Even among this group, however, better peer play at age three was linked to lower hyperactivity at age seven.

The consistent link between peer play and mental health probably exists because playing with others supports the development of emotional self-control and socio-cognitive skills, such as the ability to understand and respond to other people’s feelings. These are fundamental to building stable, reciprocal friendships. There is already good evidence that the better a person’s social connections, the better their mental health tends to be. For children, more social connections also create a virtuous cycle, as they usually lead to more opportunities for peer play.

The researchers suggest that assessing children’s access to peer play at an early age could be used to screen for those potentially at risk of future mental health problems. They also argue that giving the families of at-risk children access to environments which promote high-quality peer play, such as playgroups or small-group care with professional child minders, could be an easily deliverable and low-cost way to reduce the chances of mental health problems later.

“The standard offer at the moment is to put the parents on a parenting course,” Gibson said. “We could be focusing much more on giving children better opportunities to meet and play with their peers. There are already fantastic initiatives up and down the country, run by professionals who provide exactly that service to a very high standard. Our findings show how crucial their work is, especially given that the other risk factors jeopardising children’s mental health could often be down to circumstances beyond their parents’ control.”

The study is published in Child Psychiatry & Human Development.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge used a combination of biochemistry and atmospheric chemistry to test the ‘life in the clouds’ hypothesis, which astronomers have speculated about for decades, and found that life cannot explain the composition of the Venusian atmosphere.

Any life form in sufficient abundance is expected to leave chemical fingerprints on a planet’s atmosphere as it consumes food and expels waste. However, the Cambridge researchers found no evidence of these fingerprints on Venus.

Even if Venus is devoid of life, the researchers say their results, reported in the journal Nature Communications, could be useful for studying the atmospheres of similar planets throughout the galaxy, and the eventual detection of life outside our Solar System.

“We’ve spent the past two years trying to explain the weird sulphur chemistry we see in the clouds of Venus,” said co-author Dr Paul Rimmer from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “Life is pretty good at weird chemistry, so we’ve been studying whether there’s a way to make life a potential explanation for what we see.”

The researchers used a combination of atmospheric and biochemical models to study the chemical reactions that are expected to occur, given the known sources of chemical energy in Venus’s atmosphere.

“We looked at the sulphur-based ‘food’ available in the Venusian atmosphere – it’s not anything you or I would want to eat, but it is the main available energy source,” said Sean Jordan from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, the paper’s first author. “If that food is being consumed by life, we should see evidence of that through specific chemicals being lost and gained in the atmosphere.”

The models looked at a particular feature of the Venusian atmosphere – the abundance of sulphur dioxide (SO2). On Earth, most SO2 in the atmosphere comes from volcanic emissions. On Venus, there are high levels of SO2 lower in the clouds, but it somehow gets ‘sucked out’ of the atmosphere at higher altitudes.

“If life is present, it must be affecting the atmospheric chemistry,” said co-author Dr Oliver Shorttle from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences and Institute of Astronomy. “Could life be the reason that SO2 levels on Venus get reduced so much?”

The models, developed by Jordan, include a list of metabolic reactions that the life forms would carry out in order to get their ‘food’, and the waste by-products. The researchers ran the model to see if the reduction in SO2 levels could be explained by these metabolic reactions.

They found that the metabolic reactions can result in a drop in SO2 levels, but only by producing other molecules in very large amounts that aren’t seen. The results set a hard limit on how much life could exist on Venus without blowing apart our understanding of how chemical reactions work in planetary atmospheres.

“If life was responsible for the SO2 levels we see on Venus, it would also break everything we know about Venus’s atmospheric chemistry,” said Jordan. “We wanted life to be a potential explanation, but when we ran the models, it isn’t a viable solution. But if life isn’t responsible for what we see on Venus, it’s still a problem to be solved – there’s lots of strange chemistry to follow up on.”

Although there’s no evidence of sulphur-eating life hiding in the clouds of Venus, the researchers say their method of analysing atmospheric signatures will be valuable when JWST, the successor to the Hubble Telescope, begins returning images of other planetary systems later this year. Some of the sulphur molecules in the current study are easy to see with JWST, so learning more about the chemical behaviour of our next-door neighbour could help scientists figure out similar planets across the galaxy.

“To understand why some planets are alive, we need to understand why other planets are dead,” said Shorttle. “If life somehow managed to sneak into the Venusian clouds, it would totally change how we search for chemical signs of life on other planets.”

“Even if ‘our’ Venus is dead, it’s possible that Venus-like planets in other systems could host life,” said Rimmer, who is also affiliated with Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “We can take what we’ve learned here and apply it to exoplanetary systems – this is just the beginning.”

The research was funded by the Simons Foundation and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Sean Jordan, Oliver Shorttle and Paul B. Rimmer. ‘Proposed energy-metabolisms cannot explain the atmospheric chemistry of Venus.’ Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30804-8

Currently, scientists use individual genetic changes to develop mutational signatures, which can be used to understand the origin of a cancer, and to predict how a cancer progresses. However, so far, there has not been a framework to interpret the larger, more complex patterns of genetic changes seen in chromosome instability in the same way.

Our genetic code is stored on 23 pairs of chromosomes, the ‘chapters’ that make up to the genome. But when our genome gets copied, these chromosomes can become unstable and segments of DNA can get duplicated, deleted or re-arranged.

Chromosomal instability is a common feature of cancer, occurring in around 80% of tumours, but this jumble of fragments can be difficult to read, making it hard to understand exactly what types or 'patterns' of instability are present in any given tumour. Instead, tumours are divided into broad categories of having either high or low amounts of chromosomal instability.

Cancers with high levels of chromosomal instability are extremely deadly, often having survival rates of less than 10%. As such, understanding and treating chromosomal instability is central to improving the outcomes for millions of cancer patients worldwide.

Now, for the first time, scientists at the University of Cambridge and the National Cancer Research Center, Madrid, have published a robust framework to allow them to analyse chromosomal instability in human cancers.

Dr Florian Markowetz and colleagues investigated patterns of chromosomal instability across 7,880 tumours, representing 33 types of cancer, such as liver and lung cancer, from The Cancer Genome Atlas. By analysing the differences in the number of repetitions of sequences of DNA within the tumours, they were able to characterise 17 different types of chromosomal instability. These chromosomal instability signatures were able to predict how tumours might respond to drugs, as well as helping in the identification of future drug targets.

This research has led to the formation of Tailor Bio, a spin-out company from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, which aims to build a new pan-cancer precision medicine platform. This platform will allow the team to develop better drugs for a wide range of cancers and to group patients according to their cancer type more accurately, ensuring they get the best, most targeted treatment for their tumour.

Dr Markowetz, Senior Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: “The more complex the genetic changes that underlie a cancer, the more difficult they are to interpret and the more challenging it is to treat the tumour. This is tragically clear from the very low survival rates for cancers that arise as a result of chromosomal instability.

“Our discovery offers hope that we can turn things around, providing much more sophisticated and accurate treatments. With Tailor Bio, we are now working hard to bring our technology to patients and develop it to a level where it can transform patients’ lives.”

Reference
Drews, RM et al. A pan-cancer compendium of chromosomal instability. Nature; 15 Jun 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04789-9

The process works a bit like a pacemaker, periodically providing a shock to the system that revives decomposed molecules inside the batteries. Their results, reported in the journal Nature Chemistry, demonstrated a net lifetime 17-times longer than previous research.

“Organic aqueous redox flow batteries promise to significantly lower the costs of electricity storage from intermittent energy sources, but the instability of the organic molecules has hindered their commercialisation,” said co-author Michael Aziz from Harvard. “Now, we have a truly practical solution to extend the lifetime of these molecules, which is an enormous step to making these batteries competitive.”

Over the past decade researchers have been developing organic aqueous flow batteries using molecules known as anthraquinones – composed of naturally abundant elements such as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen – to store and release energy.

Over the course of their research, the team discovered that these anthraquinones decompose slowly over time, regardless of how many times the battery has been used.

In previous work, the researchers found that they could extend the lifetime of one of these molecules, named DHAQ but dubbed the ‘zombie quinone’ in the lab, by exposing the molecule to air. The team found that if the molecule is exposed to air at just the right part of its charge-discharge cycle, it grabs oxygen from the air and turns back into the original anthraquinone molecule — as if returning from the dead.

But regularly exposing a battery’s electrolyte to air isn’t exactly practical, as it drives the two sides of the battery out of balance — both sides of the battery can no longer be fully charged at the same time.

To find a more practical approach, the researchers developed a better understanding of how the molecules decompose and invented an electrical method of reversing the process.

Researchers from Professor Clare Grey’s group in Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, carried out in situ nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) – essentially ‘MRI for batteries’ – measurements and discovered the recomposition of active materials by an electric method, the so-called deep discharge.

The team found that if they performed a deep discharge, in which the positive and negative terminals of the battery get drained so that the voltage difference between the two becomes zero, and then flipped the polarity of battery, forcing the positive side negative and the negative side positive, it created a voltage pulse that could reset the decomposing molecules back to their original form.

“Usually, in running batteries, you want to avoid draining the battery completely because it tends to degrade its components,” said co-first author Yan Jing from Harvard. “But we’ve found that this extreme discharge where we actually reverse the polarity can recompose these molecules — which was a surprise.”

“Getting to a single-digit percentage of loss per year is really enabling for widespread commercialisation because it’s not a major financial burden to top off your tanks by a few percent each year,” said Aziz.

The research team also demonstrated that this approach works for a range of organic molecules. Next, they aim to explore how much further they can extend the lifetime of DHAQ and other inexpensive anthraquinones that have been used in these systems.

“The most surprising and beautiful thing to me is that this organic molecule can transform in such a complex way, with multiple chemical and electrochemical reactions occurring simultaneously or sequentially,” said co-first author Dr Evan Wenbo Zhao, who carried out the work while he was based at Cambridge, and is now based at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. “Yet, we are able to unpick many of these reactions and let them happen in a controlled fashion that favours the operation of a redox flow battery.”

The research was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation, the Centre of Advanced Materials for Integrated Energy Systems (CAM-IES); the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), both of which are part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Yan Jing et al. ‘Electrochemical Regeneration of Anthraquinones for Lifetime Extension in Flow Batteries.’ Nature Chemistry (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41557-022-00967-4

Adapted from a Harvard University press release.

The study also provides a crucial reference for foetal tissue generation in the lab - such tissue is in short supply but is needed for drug screening and studies into stem cell-based treatments to regenerate body tissues in diseases like Parkinson’s, for example.

Embryos develop from a clump of cells into highly organised structures. However, until now the signals orchestrating this transformation have remained hidden from observation inside the womb.

Measuring gene activity in three dimensions, researchers have generated molecular maps of the second week of gestation as it has never been seen before. Their work is published today in the journal Nature.

“This work will provide a definitive laboratory reference for future studies of early embryo development, and the embryonic origins of disease,” said Dr Thorsten Boroviak in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and senior author of the study.

The second week of gestation is one of the most mysterious, yet critical, stages of embryo development. Failure of development during this time is one of the major causes of early pregnancy loss and birth defects.

In previous work, Boroviak showed that the first week of development in marmoset monkeys is remarkably similar to that in humans. But with existing methods he could not explore week two of development, after the embryo implants into the womb.

A new laser-assisted technique enabled the team to track down the earliest signals driving the establishment of the body axis - when the symmetrical structure of the embryo starts to change. One end becomes committed to developing into the head, and the other end becomes the ‘tail’.

The team discovered that asymmetric signals come from the embryo itself and from transient structures that support the embryo during its development – the amnion, yolk sac, and precursors of the placenta.

“Our virtual reconstructions show the developing embryo and its’ supporting tissues in the days after implantation in incredible detail,” said Boroviak.

The blueprint unlocks new ways of studying human reproduction and development. In the future, the team plans to use their new technique to investigate origins of pregnancy complications and birth defects using engineered embryo models. Understanding more about human development will help scientists to understand how it can go wrong and take steps towards being able to fix problems.

The pre-implantation period, before the developing embryo implants into the mother’s womb, has been studied extensively in human embryos in the lab. On the seventh day the embryo implants into the womb to survive and develop. Very little was previously known about the development of the human embryo once it implants, because it becomes inaccessible for study.

Boroviak’s team used implanted embryos of the marmoset, a small New World monkey, in their study because they are very similar to human embryos at this early stage of development.

This research was funded by Wellcome. It was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the Central Institute for Experimental Animals (CIEA). All animal studies were performed according to the German Animal Protection Law and approved by German Primate Center.

Reference

Bergmann, S. Penfold C.A. and Slatery E. et al: ‘Spatial profiling of early primate gastrulation in utero.’ Nature, June 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04953-1  

Urgent action is needed to clear the backlog of people with a common heart condition who are waiting for lifesaving treatment, according to research published in the journal BMJ Open. The researchers have warned that a lack of action could result in thousands of people dying while waiting for treatment.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to thousands of heart procedures being postponed and record waiting lists. Previous work has estimated that 4,989 people in England with severe aortic stenosis missed out on life-saving treatment between March and November 2020.

Aortic stenosis develops when the heart’s aortic valve becomes narrowed, restricting blood flow out of the heart. Prompt treatment is vital for people diagnosed with severe aortic stenosis, as around 50 percent will die within two years of symptoms beginning.

Now, an international team of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge, has modelled the impact that increasing treatment capacity and using a quicker, less invasive treatment option would have on waiting lists. Even in the best-case scenario, they found that the waiting list would take nearly a year to clear and over 700 people would die while waiting for treatment. The research was funded by the British Heart Foundation and the EPSRC Cambridge Centre for Mathematics of Information in Healthcare.

The traditional treatment for aortic stenosis involves replacing the narrowed valve, most commonly through open-heart surgery (a surgical aortic valve replacement, SAVR). However, a newer keyhole procedure called a transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is increasingly being used and is now recommended for patients aged 75 and over.

The researchers investigated the impact that increasing treatment capacity and converting a proportion of operations to the quicker TAVI procedure would have on the backlog. They looked at how long it would take to clear the backlog and the number of people who would die while waiting for treatment.

They found that the best and most achievable option involved a combination of increasing capacity by 20 percent and converting 40 percent of procedures from SAVR to TAVI. This would clear the backlog within 343 days with 784 deaths while people wait for treatment.

“This simple yet relevant model tackles the critical question of how to clear waiting lists and is easy to interpret in practice,” said study co-author Professor Houyuan Jiang from Cambridge Judge Business School.

The team say they want to see greater collaboration at local and national levels to agree the changes needed that can ensure that people with severe aortic stenosis receive life-saving treatment as quickly as possible.

Before the pandemic around 13,500 SAVR and TAVI procedures were performed each year across the UK. Increasing capacity by 20 percent would represent one or two additional TAVI procedures each week per centre.

“We think that with local and national collaboration this increase is achievable,” said study co-author Professor Mamas Mamas from Keele University. “Furthermore, we have created an algorithm that NHS Trusts can use to work out the best approach locally.

“Since November 2020 the UK has been hit with further waves of COVID-19 which have led to extreme pressure on the NHS and additional delays to treatment. We expect that number of people waiting for treatment in recent months will be even higher than the figure we used in our study. Doing nothing is simply not an option. If we continue as we are currently thousands of people will die from untreated aortic stenosis.”

“Our approach does not put the onus on only management or doctors, but creates a joint solution that is easier to implement in practice,” said co-author Professor Feryal Erhun, from Cambridge Judge Business School.

“As this modelling study shows, even increased use of this quicker and less invasive procedure won’t be enough to overcome the impact of COVID-19 related delays and stop people with aortic stenosis dying while waiting for treatment,” said Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation and consultant cardiologist. “Cardiac care can’t wait. The NHS desperately needs additional resources to help it tackle the backlog of care and ensure that heart patients receive the treatment and care they need.”

Reference:
Christian Philip Stickels et al. 'Aortic stenosis post-COVID-19: a mathematical model on waiting lists and mortality.' BMJ Open (2022). DOI: 10.1136/bmjopen-2021-059309

Adapted from a BHF press release.

Motor neurone degenerative diseases (MNDs) are a large family of neurological disorders. Currently, there are no treatments available to prevent onset or progression of the condition. MNDs are caused by changes in one of numerous different genes. Despite the number of genes known to cause MNDs, many patients remain without a much-needed genetic diagnosis.

The team behind the current work developed a hypothesis to explain a common cause of MNDs stemming from their discovery of 15 genes responsible for MNDs. The genes they identified are all involved in processing lipids - in particular cholesterol – inside brain cells. Their new hypothesis, published in the journal Brain, describes the specific lipid pathways that the team believe are important in the development of MNDs.

Now, the team has identified a further new gene – named TMEM63C– which causes a degenerative disease that affects the upper motor neurone cells in the nervous system.  Also published in Brain, their latest discovery is important as the protein encoded by TMEM63C is located in the region of the cell where the lipid processing pathways they identified operate. This further bolsters the hypothesis that MNDs are caused by abnormal processing of lipids including cholesterol.

“This new gene finding is consistent with our hypothesis that the correct maintenance of specific lipid processing pathways is crucial for the way brain cells function, and that abnormalities in these pathways are a common linking theme in motor neurone degenerative diseases,” said study co-author Professor Andrew Crosby from the University of Exeter. “It also enables new diagnoses and answers to be readily provided for families affected by some forms of MND”

MNDs affect the nerve cells that control voluntary muscle activity such as walking, speaking and swallowing. There are many different forms of MNDs that have different clinical features and severity. As the condition progresses, the motor neurone cells become damaged and may eventually die. This leads to the muscles, which rely on those nerve messages, gradually weakening and wasting away.

If confirmed, the theory could lead to scientists to use patient samples to predict the course and severity of the condition in an individual, and to monitor the effect of potential new drugs developed to treat these disorders.

In the latest research, the team used cutting-edge genetic sequencing techniques to investigate the genome of three families with individuals affected by hereditary spastic paraplegia – a large group of MNDs in which the motor neurons in the upper part of the spinal cord miscommunicate with muscle fibres, leading to symptoms including muscle stiffness, weakness and wasting. These investigations showed that changes in the TMEM63C gene were the cause of the disease. In collaboration with the group led by Dr Julien Prudent at the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit at the University of Cambridge, the team also undertook studies to learn more about the functional relevance of the TMEM63C protein inside the cell.

Using state-of-the-art microscopy methods, the Cambridge team’s work showed that a subset of TMEM63C is localised at the interface between two critical cellular organelles, the endoplasmic reticulum and the mitochondria, a region of the cell required for lipid metabolism homeostasis and proposed by the Exeter team to be important for the development of MNDs.

In addition to this specific localisation, Dr Luis-Carlos Tabara Rodriguez, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Prudent’s lab, also uncovered that TMEM63C controls the morphology of both the endoplasmic reticulum and mitochondria, which may reflect its role in the regulation of the functions of these organelles, including lipid metabolism homeostasis.

“From a mitochondrial cell biologist point of view, identification of TMEM63C as a new motor neurone degenerative disease gene and its importance to different organelle functions reinforce the idea that the capacity of different cellular compartments to communicate together, by exchanging lipids for example, is critical to ensure cellular homeostasis required to prevent disease,” said Prudent.

“Understanding precisely how lipid processing is altered in motor neurone degenerative diseases is essential to be able to develop more effective diagnostic tools and treatments for a large group of diseases that have a huge impact on people’s lives,” said study co-author Dr Emma Baple from the University of Exeter. “Finding this gene is another important step towards these important goals.”

The Halpin Trust, a charity who support projects which deliver a powerful and lasting impact in healthcare, nature conservation and the environment, part-funded this research. Claire Halpin, who co-founded the charity with her husband Les, said “The Halpin Trust are extremely proud of the work ongoing in Exeter, and the important findings of this highly collaborative international study. We’re delighted that the Trust has contributed to this work, which forms part of Les’s legacy. He would also have been pleased, I know.”

Reference:
Luis-Carlos Tábara et al. ‘TMEM63C mutations cause mitochondrial morphology defects and underlie hereditary spastic paraplegia.’ Brain (2022). DOI: 10.1093/brain/awac123

Adapted from a University of Exeter press release.

In a new compendium of academic analysis, researchers argue that despite decades of investment in ‘positive education’ – such as programmes to teach children happiness and mindfulness– schools still lack a proper framework for cultivating pupil wellbeing.

The critique appears in Wellbeing and Schooling, a book launched on 21 June. It compiles work by members of the European Health and Wellbeing Education research network, which engages specialists from around the world.

It argues that many education systems, including in the UK, treat wellbeing education reductively, generally viewing it as a means to drive up attainment. It links this viewpoint to the prevalence of one-size-fits-all models such as the ‘happiness agenda’: a sequence of initiatives which have tried to promote ‘happier living’ in British schools in recent years. These typically focus on training pupils to adopt a positive mindset. Commonly recommended methods include keeping gratitude journals and recording happy memories.

The authors suggest that such approaches, while useful, have limited impact. Instead, they say wellbeing should be “an educational goal in its own right”. Fulfilling that requires a more nuanced approach, in which pupils engage purposefully with the circumstances that influence their wellbeing, as well as their own feelings.

Their book presents various examples from around the world of how this has been achieved. They range from system-wide strategies, such as the use of ‘Transition Years’ in Ireland and South Korea; to small-scale programmes and pilot studies, such as a project co-created by parents and teachers in New Zealand which drew on indigenous Maori heritage.

Wellbeing is typically conceptualised as having two dimensions: a ‘hedonic’ aspect, which refers to feelings and personal satisfaction, and a ‘eudaimonic’ aspect; a sense of meaningful purpose. Ros McLellan, an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, who co-edited the book, said most wellbeing education focused only on the hedonic dimension.

“If education doesn’t also guide children towards doing things that they find worthwhile and meaningful, we’re failing them,” McLellan said. “We limit their prospects of becoming successful, flourishing citizens. Life satisfaction is also more complex than we tend to acknowledge. It’s about dealing with both positive and negative experiences. Just running lessons on how to be happy won’t work. At worst, it risks making children who aren’t happy feel as if that’s their own fault.”

There is some evidence that wellbeing education, as presently realised, is failing to cut through. The Children’s Society has reported that 306,000 10 to 15-year-olds are unhappy with their lives, while one in eight feels under pressure at school. Other research on pupil stress raises questions about why the standard policy justification for wellbeing education remains the “positive impact on behaviour and attainment”.

One chapter in the book, co-authored by Professor Venka Simovska, from Aarhus University, Denmark (together with Catriona O`Toole), raises concerns that the happiness agenda overlooks the fact that some pupils inevitably find it difficult to suppress negative emotions, and fails to reflect whether focusing solely on positive feelings is beneficial for wellbeing.

“Students are faced with ever-increasing exhortations to be upbeat, to persist in the face of challenges, to display a growth mindset, to be enterprising and resilient,” the researchers write. “Repeated over time, this can give rise to an atmosphere of toxic positivity, particularly for those whose life experiences and living conditions do not lend themselves to feelings of cheery enthusiasm.”

As an alternative, they point to the recent revival in Scandinavia and elsewhere of Bildung, a German educational philosophy that links independent personal development to wider notions of purpose and social responsibility.

Informed by this tradition, schools in Denmark have applied a participatory and action-oriented pedagogical model to health and wellbeing education. The model starts by encouraging students to discuss an issue, for example how they feel when in school, then the teacher guides the students to critically explore the dynamics – either within their school or beyond – which might influence this, and envision creative possibilities for positive transformation.

Teachers and students together then develop programmes which address these structural influences and try to bring about change. The result has been school-level projects that address issues such as social inequality, marginalisation and discrimination related to health and wellbeing. “One could describe it as a form of citizenship education, but focused on school-related or wider societal determinants of wellbeing,” Simovska said.

The book also underlines the need to avoid generic, often Eurocentric, responses to promoting wellbeing in school, to consider complexities of culturally sensitive and multicultural environments, and to focus on both local circumstances and the specific needs of different demographic groups.

One chapter examines Ireland’s use of an optional ‘Transition Year’, in which students focus on developmental activities and work experience, partly to help them become more “fulfilled citizens”. This has inspired the introduction of ‘Free Years’ in South Korea. The South Korean model, however, necessarily involved adaptations to address local issues. Most obviously, Free Years, introduced in 2013, are compulsory, reflecting deep nationwide concerns in South Korea “about student wellbeing and stress in a high-stakes academic environment” – manifest in rising rates of school violence and youth suicide.

Another chapter reports how researchers at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, orchestrated a series of wānanga – traditional Maori knowledge-sharing gatherings – for parents and teachers on New Zealand’s South Island, to examine local communities’ ideas and priorities for wellbeing.

Teachers used these to devise effective strategies for helping pupils to develop positive relationships and express emotions, often drawing on Maori culture. In one particularly touching example, a primary school teacher introduced a symbolic Maori Stone into her classroom, to which children could ‘transfer’ thoughts and feelings. She found it became a useful tool for working through moments of unrest and disagreement.

McLellan believes such cases illustrate how a more nuanced approach to wellbeing education is particularly feasible in primary settings. “Arguably, it’s important we start as young as we can,” she said. “The examples in the book also show what amazing things teachers and schools can do, if we give them the resources and space to implement really effective, comprehensive, socio-ecological and culturally sensitive wellbeing education.”

Wellbeing and Schooling: Cross Cultural and Cross Disciplinary Perspectives is published by Springer, within the book series of the European Educational Research Association’s book series titled Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational research. The book will be launched at an event on 21 June.

The University of Cambridge and KPMG have today unveiled a new partnership to understand how the world of work is changing, starting with what really works when it comes to supporting employees’ mental wellbeing.

The partnership is a global first and sees the University of Cambridge bring together researchers from different disciplines to better understand the factors that affect mental wellbeing at work. It will show how different kinds of supports can boost individual mental wellbeing, enhance productivity and promote a healthy workforce for the future. 

KPMG will open its doors to Cambridge researchers, who will assess the effectiveness of the mental wellbeing initiatives the firm currently offers to its c.16,000 UK employees. This will develop an evidence base of what works and how new support measures can be developed and evaluated to meet employees’ future needs. The firm will use these insights to invest in and evolve its package of mental wellbeing support.

The firm will also share its research with the wider business community, to help them support their own workforce and reduce attrition and wellbeing related absence. It also aims to provide empirical evidence clearly demonstrating the link between employee mental wellbeing and improved productivity. 

Jon Holt, Chief Executive of KPMG UK, said: “Mental wellbeing is a global issue and a leading concern on the minds of the business leaders I speak to. Businesses need research and data to help them invest in the right areas to support their staff through a huge period of change, as we emerge from the pandemic and introduce new ways of working.

“But mental wellbeing at work is an under researched area and it is hard to access empirical data evidencing clear links between mental wellbeing policies and better employee health. 

“This partnership with the very best academics in their field seeks to address this and provide real answers on what works. It aims to help leaders support their people to thrive at work, which in turn will lift productivity and deliver wider benefits to the economy.”

Professor Gordon Harold, who is leading the Mental Wellbeing programme for the partnership, said: "Mental health is the bedrock of a healthy, productive and positive society. By 2030 depression will be a leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally, with significant implications for individuals, society and the future of work. Promoting positive mental health and supporting those who experience or are at risk of mental ill health is now a national and global priority.”

Professor Andy Neely, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations at the University of Cambridge said: “Work – what we do, how and where we do it and what it means for individuals, organisations and wider society – is changing. This ambitious partnership will bring together Cambridge researchers from a wide range of disciplines to reimagine the world of work and to co-create with KPMG effective strategies and interventions that will benefit both its workforce and those of organisations worldwide.

“Finding the best ways to support mental wellbeing at work is an urgent and important task, and the starting point for this partnership which will explore more broadly how can we enable meaningful work that addresses society’s needs.” 

The announcement is part of KPMG’s £300m three-year strategy to transform and grow its business, as it invests in new insight and services to support its clients and its people.  

It also forms part of a wider partnership between KPMG and the University of Cambridge, which aims to examine the big issues affecting work and society, such as the impact of digital technologies, the global distribution of work and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), and to provide evidence-based, actionable insights. In September last year, the firm unveiled a training programme with Cambridge Judge Business School, which will deliver ESG training to KPMG’s 227,000 global workforce.

Read more about the Future of Work partnership here.

Published 21 June 2022

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London, developed a mathematical model to help predict the risk of disease transmission in a train carriage, and found that in the absence of effective ventilation systems, the risk is the same along the entire length of the carriage.

The model, which was validated with a controlled experiment in a real train carriage, also shows that masks are more effective than social distancing at reducing transmission, especially in trains that are not ventilated with fresh air.

The results, reported in the journal Indoor Air, demonstrate how challenging it is for individuals to calculate absolute risk, and how important it is for train operators to improve their ventilation systems in order to help keep passengers safe.

Since COVID-19 is airborne, ventilation is vital in reducing transmission. And although COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted in the UK, the government continues to highlight the importance of good ventilation in reducing the risk of transmission of COVID-19, as well as other respiratory infections such as influenza.

“In order to improve ventilation systems, it’s important to understand how airborne diseases spread in certain scenarios, but most models are very basic and can’t make good predictions,” said first author Rick de Kreij, who completed the research while based at Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. “Most simple models assume the air is fully mixed, but that’s not how it works in real life.

“There are many different factors which can affect the risk of transmission in a train – whether the people in the train are vaccinated, whether they’re wearing masks, how crowded it is, and so on. Any of these factors can change the risk level, which is why we look at relative risk, not absolute risk – it’s a toolbox that we hope will give people an idea of the types of risk for an airborne disease on public transport.”

The researchers developed a one-dimensional (1D) mathematical model which illustrates how an airborne disease, such as COVID-19, can spread along the length of a train carriage. The model is based on a single train carriage with closing doors at either end, although it can be adapted to fit different types of trains, or different types of transport, such as planes or buses.

The 1D model considers the essential physics for transporting airborne contaminants, while still being computationally inexpensive, especially compared to 3D models.

The model was validated using measurements of controlled carbon dioxide experiments conducted in a full-scale railway carriage, where CO2 levels from participants were measured at several points. The evolution of CO2 showed a high degree of overlap with the modelled concentrations.

The researchers found that air movement is slowest in the middle part of a train carriage. “If an infectious person is in the middle of the carriage, then they’re more likely to infect people than if they were standing at the end of the carriage,” said de Kreij. “However, in a real scenario, people don’t know where an infectious person is, so infection risk is constant no matter where you are in the carriage.”

Many commuter trains in the UK have been manufactured to be as cheap as possible when it comes to passenger comfort – getting the maximum number of seats per carriage. In addition, most commuter trains recirculate air instead of pulling fresh air in from outside, since fresh air has to be either heated or cooled, which is more expensive.

So, if it’s impossible for passengers to know whether they’re sharing a train carriage with an infectious person, what should they do to keep themselves safe? “Space out as much as you reasonably can – physical distancing isn’t the most effective method, but it does work when capacity levels are below 50 percent,” said de Kreij. “And wear a high-quality mask, which will not only protect you from COVID-19, but other common respiratory illnesses.”

The researchers are now looking to extend their 1D-model into a slightly more complex, yet still energy-efficient, zonal model, where cross-sectional flow is characterised in different zones. The model could also be extended to include thermal stratification, which would offer a better understanding of the spread of an airborne contaminant.

The research was funded in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Rick JB de Kreij et al. ‘Modelling disease transmission in a train carriage using a simple 1D-model.’ Indoor Air (2022). DOI: 10.1111/ina.13066

The University’s Chancellor, Lord Sainsbury of Turville, presided over the congregation, which is held inside the Senate House and conducted in both English and Latin. Around 400 staff, students and other guests were also in attendance.

The honorary graduands this year are:

Professor Kwame Appiah - Kwame studied philosophy as an undergraduate at Clare College and did his PhD there. He is an Honorary Fellow at the College. He is also the present Leslie Stephen Lecturer. A Professor of both Philosophy and Law at New York University, Appiah has taught philosophy, African studies, and African American studies at the University of Ghana and at Yale, Cornell, Duke and Harvard Universities.

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr - The filmmaker, literary scholar, and institution builder, Henry Louis Gates Jr, came to Clare College, of which he is an Honorary Fellow, to study for his PhD. Currently Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard, Gates is known for pioneering theories of African and African American literature and has created more than 20 films, including a ground-breaking genealogy and genetics series, Finding Your Roots. Gates, affectionately known as Skip, said “All honours are a blessing, of course, but it is difficult to imagine one more meaningful than recognition from one’s alma mater.”

Professor Edith Heard - The epigeneticist and developmental biologist, Edith Heard, is an Honorary Fellow of Emmanuel College, where she read natural sciences before obtaining her PhD at Imperial College London, investigating gene amplification in rat cells. She is currently Professor of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory, Collège de France, and Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). Edith said: “Today we are living in a truly exciting time for the life sciences. I believe that the University of Cambridge and EMBL are two great institutions that exemplify how science and technology can come together to advance discovery and inspire the next generation of scientists.”

Professor Sir Roger Penrose - The mathematical physicist and philosopher of science, Roger Penrose, studied mathematics at University College London before coming to Cambridge and St John’s College, of which he is now an Honorary Fellow, to complete a PhD on tensor methods in algebraic geometry. He is now Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics Emeritus in the University of Oxford. Knighted and appointed to the Order of Merit, Roger Penrose received the Nobel Prize for Physics, jointly with Reinhard Genzei and Andrea Ghez.

Professor Elizabeth Robertson - The developmental biologist Elizabeth Robertson came to Cambridge after reading zoology at the University of Oxford and worked for her PhD in the Department of Genetics and as a graduate student at Darwin College, of which she is now an Honorary Fellow. Currently a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow and Professor of Developmental Biology in the Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford, Robertson is a pioneer in developmental genetics.

Professor Sir Simon Schama - The historian and art historian, Simon Schama, was an undergraduate at Christ’s College, of which he is an Honorary Fellow, winning a starred first in history and going on to a Fellowship and to direct studies in the subject. A recent Leslie Stephen Lecturer, he is presently University Professor of Art History and History at Columbia University. A prolific scholar, writer and critic, his  television work has included work as writer and presenter of sixty BBC documentaries. He said “this is a celebration of the empire of knowledge which is the only empire worth belonging to.”

Dr Ali Smith - The author, playwright, academic and journalist, Ali Smith, is an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, of Clare Hall and of Lucy Cavendish College, as well as Senior Fellow Commoner in the Creative Arts at Trinity College. After reading English language and literature at the University of Aberdeen, coming first in her class and winning their Bobby Aitken Memorial Prize for Poetry, she first came to Cambridge and Newnham to begin work on a PhD in American and Irish modernism. Ali is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Professor Wole Soyinka - The playwright, poet, novelist and political activist, Wole Soyinka is an Honorary Fellow of Churchill College and has held visiting appointments at Cambridge, Legon, Atlanta, and Yale. He is presently Professor Emeritus, Dramatic Literature of the Obafemi Awolowo University. His numerous plays, poems, novels, essays and short stories won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1986.

Professor Sir John Walker - The biochemist and molecular biologist, John Walker, is an Emeritus Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and Honorary Professor of Molecular Bioenergetics. While working at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge he developed protein sequencing to interpret early DNA sequences leading to the discovery of triple over-lapping genes in bacteriophages, and proof of modifications of the genetic code in mitochondria. His investigation of the enzymatic process creating adenosine triphosphate led to a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded jointly with two other scientists.

Dr Judith Weir - The composer Judith Weir was born in Cambridge to Scottish parents and first studied composition with Sir John Tavener. Now an Honorary Fellow of King’s College and of Trinity College she is the first female Master of the Queen’s Music. Internationally acclaimed for orchestral and chamber music, but perhaps better known for operas and theatrical work, her compositions often draw on sources from medieval history and the traditional stories and music of Scotland. She is President of the Royal Society of Musicians.

Their Royal Highnesses were greeted by Vice-Chancellor Professor Stephen J Toope and Fitzwilliam Director Luke Syson, who accompanied them up the Museum's grand staircase to view the contemporary portrait by award-winning British artist Jamie Coreth.

“The University of Cambridge was delighted to welcome Their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, on their visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum to unveil a new portrait,” Professor Toope said.

The first official joint portrait of The Duke and Duchess, was commissioned in 2021 by the Cambridgeshire Royal Portrait Fund, held by the Cambridge Community Foundation, as a gift to Cambridgeshire.

With this brief in mind, Coreth worked to incorporate the City of Cambridge into the portrait by painting the background with the tones and colours of many of the historical stone buildings that are synonymous with the city. The portrait also includes the use of a hexagonal architectural motif which can be seen on buildings across Cambridge.

"It is very exciting to be the place where the public can see this splendid double portrait of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, by Jamie Coreth, the first ever painted. We’re particularly pleased that its display at the Fitzwilliam will jump start a new phase in programming for children around art and creativity," Luke Syson Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum said. 

Members of the public will be able to view the portrait at the Fitzwilliam for an initial period of three years, after which the artwork will be exhibited in other community spaces and galleries around Cambridgeshire. The painting will also be loaned to the National Portrait Gallery for a short time in 2023 to mark the Gallery’s reopening.

During their visit, Their Royal Highnesses met with Jamie Coreth, supporters of the project, and Lady Sibyl Marshall – the wife of the late Sir Michael Marshall, who originally proposed the idea to create the portrait.

Cambridge researchers studying cognition, behaviour and the brain have concluded that people with dyslexia are specialised to explore the unknown. This is likely to play a fundamental role in human adaptation to changing environments.

They think this ‘explorative bias’ has an evolutionary basis and plays a crucial role in our survival.

Based on these findings − which were apparent across multiple domains from visual processing to memory and at all levels of analysis − the researchers argue that we need to change our perspective of dyslexia as a neurological disorder.

The findings, reported today in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, have implications both at the individual and societal level, says lead author Dr Helen Taylor, an affiliated Scholar at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and a Research Associate at the University of Strathclyde.

“The deficit-centred view of dyslexia isn’t telling the whole story,” said Taylor. “This research proposes a new framework to help us better understand the cognitive strengths of people with dyslexia.”

She added: “We believe that the areas of difficulty experienced by people with dyslexia result from a cognitive trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge, with the upside being an explorative bias that could explain enhanced abilities observed in certain realms like discovery, invention and creativity.”

This is the first-time a cross-disciplinary approach using an evolutionary perspective has been applied in the analysis of studies on dyslexia.

“Schools, academic institutes and workplaces are not designed to make the most of explorative learning. But we urgently need to start nurturing this way of thinking to allow humanity to continue to adapt and solve key challenges,” said Taylor.

Dyslexia is found in up to 20% of the general population, irrespective of country, culture and world region. It is defined by the World Federation of Neurology as “a disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing and spelling commensurate with their intellectual abilities”.

The new findings are explained in the context of ‘Complementary Cognition’, a theory proposing that our ancestors evolved to specialise in different, but complementary, ways of thinking, which enhances human’s ability to adapt through collaboration.

These cognitive specialisations are rooted in a well-known trade-off between exploration of new information and exploitation of existing knowledge. For example, if you eat all the food you have, you risk starvation when it’s all gone. But if you spend all your time exploring for food, you’re wasting energy you don’t need to waste. As in any complex system, we must ensure we balance our need to exploit known resources and explore new resources to survive.

“Striking the balance between exploring for new opportunities and exploiting the benefits of a particular choice is key to adaptation and survival and underpins many of the decisions we make in our daily lives,” said Taylor.

Exploration encompasses activities that involve searching the unknown such as experimentation, discovery and innovation. In contrast, exploitation is concerned with using what's already known including refinement, efficiency and selection.

“Considering this trade-off, an explorative specialisation in people with dyslexia could help explain why they have difficulties with tasks related to exploitation, such as reading and writing.

“It could also explain why people with dyslexia appear to gravitate towards certain professions that require exploration-related abilities, such as arts, architecture, engineering, and entrepreneurship.”

The researchers found that their findings aligned with evidence from several other fields of research. For example, an explorative bias in such a large proportion of the population indicates that our species must have evolved during a period of high uncertainty and change. This concurs with findings in the field of paleoarchaeology, revealing that human evolution was shaped over hundreds of thousands of years by dramatic climatic and environmental instability.

The researchers highlight that collaboration between individuals with different abilities could help explain the exceptional capacity of our species to adapt.

The findings are published today in the journal, Frontiers in Psychology.

The research was funded by the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship, University of Strathclyde.

Reference

Taylor, H. and Vestergaard M. D: 'Developmental Dyslexia: Disorder or Specialization in Exploration?' Frontiers in Psychology (June 2022). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889245