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The technique – known as deep brain stimulation – is to be trialled at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, and King’s College Hospital, London. The team behind the Brain-PACER: Brain Pacemaker Addiction Control to End Relapse study is currently recruiting individuals with severe alcohol or opioid addiction who are interested in taking part.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a neurosurgical procedure that delivers ongoing stimulation to the brain. DBS acts as a brain pacemaker to normalise abnormal brain activity. It is well-tolerated, effective and widely used for neurological disorders and obsessive compulsive disorder.

Although there have been several proof-of-concept studies that suggest DBS is effective in addictions, Brain-PACER – a collaboration between the University of Cambridge, Kings College London and the University of Oxford – is the first major, multicentre study to use DBS to treat craving and relapse in severe addiction.

Chief Investigator Professor Valerie Voon, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said: “While many people who experience alcohol or drug addiction can, with the right support, control their impulses, for some people, their addiction is so severe that no treatments are effective. Their addiction is hugely harmful to their health and wellbeing, to their relationships and their everyday lives.

“Initial evidence suggests that deep brain stimulation may be able to help these individuals manage their conditions. We’ve seen how effective it can be for other neurological disorders from Parkinson’s to OCD to depression. We want to see if it can also transform the lives of people with intractable alcohol and opioid addiction.”

The primary aim of the Brain-PACER study is to assess the effects of DBS to treat alcohol and opioid addiction in a randomised controlled trial study. Its mission is twofold: to develop effective treatments for addiction and to understand the brain mechanisms that drive addiction disorders.

DBS is a neurosurgical treatment that involves implanting a slender electrode in the brain and a pacemaker under general anaesthesia. These electrodes deliver electrical impulses to modulate neural activity, which can help alleviate symptoms of various neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Keyoumars Ashkan, Professor of Neurosurgery at King’s College Hospital and the lead surgeon for the study, said: “Deep brain stimulation is a powerful surgical technique that can transform lives. It will be a major leap forward if we can show efficacy in this very difficult disease with huge burden to the patients and society.”

During surgery, thin electrodes are carefully placed in precise locations of the brain. These locations are chosen based on the condition being treated. For addiction, the electrodes are placed in areas involved in reward, motivation, and decision-making.

Harry Bulstrode, Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Clinical Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, said: "We see first-hand how deep brain stimulation surgery can be life-changing for patients with movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor. Thanks to this trial, I am now hopeful that we can help patients and their families – who have often struggled for years – by targeting the parts of the brain linked to addiction."

Dr David Okai, Visiting Senior Lecturer from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, added: “DBS is safe, reversible and adjustable, so it offers a flexible option for managing chronic conditions. We hope it will offer a lifeline to help improve the quality of life for patients whose treatment until now has been unsuccessful.”

Details on the trial, including criteria for participation and how to sign up, can be found on the Brain-PACER website.

The research is supported by the Medical Research Council, UK Research & Innovation.

People suffering from severe alcohol and opioid addiction are to be offered a revolutionary new technique involving planting electrodes in the brain to modulate brain activity and cravings and improve self-control.

We’ve seen how effective deep brain stimulation can be for neurological disorders from Parkinson’s to OCD to depression. We want to see if it can also transform the lives of people with intractable alcohol and opioid addictionValerie VoonShamir R, Noecker A and McIntyre CGraphic demonstrating deep brain stimulation

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YesLicence type: Attribution

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern, which could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing.

The semiconductor they developed emits circularly polarised light—meaning the light carries information about the ‘handedness’ of electrons. The internal structure of most inorganic semiconductors, like silicon, is symmetrical, meaning electrons move through them without any preferred direction.

However, in nature, molecules often have a chiral (left- or right-handed) structure: like human hands, chiral molecules are mirror images of one another. Chirality plays an important role in biological processes like DNA formation, but it is a difficult phenomenon to harness and control in electronics.

But by using molecular design tricks inspired by nature, the researchers created a chiral semiconductor by nudging stacks of semiconducting molecules to form ordered right-handed or left-handed spiral columns. Their results are reported in the journal Science.

One promising application for chiral semiconductors is in display technology. Current displays often waste a significant amount of energy due to the way screens filter light. The chiral semiconductor developed by the researchers naturally emits light in a way that could reduce these losses, making screens brighter and more energy-efficient.

“When I started working with organic semiconductors, many people doubted their potential, but now they dominate display technology,” said Professor Sir Richard Friend from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, who co-led the research. “Unlike rigid inorganic semiconductors, molecular materials offer incredible flexibility—allowing us to design entirely new structures, like chiral LEDs. It’s like working with a Lego set with every kind of shape you can imagine, rather than just rectangular bricks.”

The semiconductor is based on a material called triazatruxene (TAT) that self-assembles into a helical stack, allowing electrons to spiral along its structure, like the thread of a screw.

“When excited by blue or ultraviolet light, self-assembled TAT emits bright green light with strong circular polarisation—an effect that has been difficult to achieve in semiconductors until now,” said co-first author Marco Preuss, from the Eindhoven University of Technology. “The structure of TAT allows electrons to move efficiently while affecting how light is emitted.”

By modifying OLED fabrication techniques, the researchers successfully incorporated TAT into working circularly polarised OLEDs (CP-OLEDs). These devices showed record-breaking efficiency, brightness, and polarisation levels, making them the best of their kind.

“We’ve essentially reworked the standard recipe for making OLEDs like we have in our smartphones, allowing us to trap a chiral structure within a stable, non-crystallising matrix,” said co-first author Rituparno Chowdhury, from Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory. “This provides a practical way to create circularly polarised LEDs, something that has long eluded the field.”

The work is part of a decades-long collaboration between Friend’s research group and the group of Professor Bert Meijer from the Eindhoven University of Technology. “This is a real breakthrough in making a chiral semiconductor,” said Meijer. “By carefully designing the molecular structure, we’ve coupled the chirality of the structure to the motion of the electrons and that’s never been done at this level before.”

The chiral semiconductors represent a step forward in the world of organic semiconductors, which now support an industry worth over $60 billion. Beyond displays, this development also has implications for quantum computing and spintronics—a field of research that uses the spin, or inherent angular momentum, of electrons to store and process information, potentially leading to faster and more secure computing systems.

The research was supported in part by the European Union’s Marie Curie Training Network and the European Research Council. Richard Friend is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge. Rituparno Chowdhury is a member of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
 

Reference:
Rituparno Chowdhury, Marco D. Preuss et al. ‘Circularly polarized electroluminescence from chiral supramolecular semiconductor thin films.’ Science (2025). DOI:10.1126/science.adt3011

Researchers have advanced a decades-old challenge in the field of organic semiconductors, opening new possibilities for the future of electronics.

It’s like working with a Lego set with every kind of shape you can imagine, rather than just rectangular bricksRichard FriendSamarpita Sen, Rituparno ChowdhuryConfocal microscopy image of a chiral semiconductor

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Yes

Using real world data from 1,600 patients, available through a database created for speeding up research and innovation, the team also found that its reliability differs significantly in winter compared to autumn.

Asthma is a common lung condition that can cause wheezing and shortness of breath, occasionally severe. Around 6.5% of people over six years old in the UK are affected by the condition. Treatments include the use of inhalers or nebulisers to carry medication into the lungs.

The majority of asthma attacks occur at nighttime or early in the morning. Although this may in part be due to cooler nighttime air and exposure to dust mites and allergens, it also suggests that circadian rhythms – our ‘body clocks’ – likely play a role.

Researchers at the Victor Phillip Dahdaleh Heart and Lung Research Institute, a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (RPH), wanted to explore whether these circadian rhythms may also have an impact on our ability to diagnose asthma, using routinely performed clinical testing.

Typically, people with suspected asthma will be offered a spirometry test, which involves taking a deep breath in, then breathing out hard and fast for as long as possible into a tube to assess lung function. They will then be administered the drug salbutamol via an inhaler or nebuliser, and shortly afterwards retake the spirometry test.

Salbutamol works by opening up the airways, so a positive test result – that is, a difference in readings between the initial and follow-up spirometry tests – means that the airways must have been narrower or obstructed to begin with, suggesting that the patient could have asthma.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) has recently set up the Electronic Patient Record Research and Innovation (ERIN) database so that researchers can access patient data in a secure environment to help in their research and speed up improvements in patient care.

Using this resource, the Cambridge team analysed data from 1,600 patients referred to CUH between 2016 and 2023, adjusted for factors such as age, sex, body mass index (BMI), smoking history, and the severity of the initial impairment in lung function.

In findings published today in Thorax, the researchers found that starting at 8.30am, with every hour that passed during the working day, the chances of a positive response to the test – in other words, the patient’s lungs responding to treatment, suggesting that they could have asthma – decreased by 8%.

Dr Ben Knox-Brown, Lead Research Respiratory Physiologist at RPH, said: “Given what we know about how the risk of an asthma attack changes between night and day, we expected to find a difference in how people responded to the lung function test, but even so, we were surprised by the size of the effect.

“This has potentially important implications. Doing the test in the morning would give a more reliable representation of a patient's response to the medication than doing it in the afternoon, which is important when confirming a diagnosis such as asthma.”

The researchers also discovered that individuals were 33% less likely to have a positive result if tested during autumn when compared to those tested during winter.

Dr Akhilesh Jha, a Medical Research Council Clinician Scientist at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at CUH, said that there may be a combination of factors behind this difference.

“Our bodies have natural rhythms – our body clocks,” Jha said. “Throughout the day, the levels of different hormones in our bodies go up and down and our immune systems perform differently, for example. Any of these factors might affect how people respond to the lung function test.

“The idea that the time of day, or the season of the year, affects our health and how we respond to treatments is something we’re seeing increasing evidence of. We know, for example, that people respond differently to vaccinations depending on whether they’re administered in the morning or afternoon. The findings of our study further support this idea and may need to be taken into account when interpreting the results of these commonly performed tests.”

Reference
Knox-Brown, B et al. The effect of time of day and seasonal variation on bronchodilator responsiveness: The SPIRO-TIMETRY study. Thorax; 12 March 2025; DOI: 10.1136/thorax-2024-222773

A lung function test used to help diagnose asthma works better in the morning, becoming less reliable throughout the day, Cambridge researchers have found.

Throughout the day, the levels of different hormones in our bodies go up and down and our immune systems perform differently. Any of these factors might affect how people respond to the lung function testAkhilesh JhaKoldunov (Getty Images)Man testing breathing function by spirometry - stock photo

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Yes

Too Hot to Think Straight, Too Cold to Panic, a new report from Cambridge Judge Business School, BCG and the University of Cambridge’s climaTraces Lab argues that failing to invest comes with significant economic consequences. 

Allowing global warming to reach 3°C by 2100 could reduce cumulative economic output by 15% to 34%. Alternatively, investing 1% to 2% in mitigation and adaptation would limit warming to 2°C, reducing economic damages to 2% to 4%. This net cost of inaction is equivalent to 11% to 27% of cumulative GDP—equivalent to three times global health care spending, or eight times the amount needed to lift the world above the global poverty line by 2100.

“Research on climate change impacts across all regions and sectors is expanding rapidly,” said Kamiar Mohaddes, an Associate Professor in Economics and Policy at Cambridge Judge Business School and Director of the climaTRACES Lab.

Read: The compelling economic case

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) offer a strong case for investing in climate mitigation and adaptation to avoid damage to the global economy. 

Research on climate change impacts across all regions and sectors is expanding rapidlyKamiar MohaddesFront page of report

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Yes

25 new spinouts were formed in 2023-24, taking Cambridge Enterprise’s total portfolio to 174 companies. In the same period, it has helped with the submission of more than 450 patent applications and more than 750 approvals for commercial and research licences.  

New initiatives designed to further boost the number of high-potential spinouts emerging from the University, include the Technology Investment Fund (TIF) which during its first nine months has invested more than £2 million across 20 projects.

Founders at the University of Cambridge, a Cambridge Enterprise initiative to support University entrepreneurs, launched two new programmes, START 1.0 and SYNC in 2023-24. START 1.0 is an accelerator programme for very early-stage founders. Its first cohort included 11 companies, working to address global challenges ranging from climate change to healthcare with seven securing further funding within six months. SYNC is a new co-founder matching programme that will support, accelerate and scale new founders and companies from the University.

Dr Jim Glasheen, Chief Executive, Cambridge Enterprise, said: “Cambridge Enterprise remains committed to ensuring the innovations that spring from the University achieve their broader positive impact on society, and to our vital role in activating and enhancing the globally recognised Cambridge innovation ecosystem.”

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, added: “Cambridge Enterprise is crucial in translating the University’s research into positive social and economic change. From the full spectrum of innovation services that it provides for the University to its critical role in enabling transformational impact from University research, Cambridge Enterprise sets the standard for university innovation.”

Reflecting on the success of Cambridge Enterprise's innovation activities, its Chair, Ajay Chowdhury, said: “Cambridge Enterprise is in an incredibly strong position, with consultancy and research tools revenues at an all-time high, new initiatives to accelerate innovation and spinout formation, record levels of venture investment and great achievements for our portfolio companies.”

In partnership with the University and Cambridge Innovation Capital, Cambridge Enterprise leads Innovate Cambridge, an inclusive, ambitious innovation roadmap for Cambridge to encourage collaboration and action to help Cambridge realise its potential as a globally leading cluster. In October 2024, a ten-year plan for the city and region was unveiled at the Innovate Cambridge Summit, attended by over 400 leaders.

Read Cambridge Enterprise's Annual Review 2024

In its 2024 Annual Review, Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s innovation arm, reports significant growth across a wide range of activities supporting the translation of University research into societal benefit and helping Cambridge realise its potential as a globally leading cluster.

Cambridge Enterprise is crucial in translating the University’s research into positive social and economic change.Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Innovation, University of CambridgeUniversity building

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Yes

The men’s match saw Cambridge open the scoring with a fifth-minute penalty from George Bland (King’s), but Oxford responded with two tries, both converted, to establish a 21-6 lead. Despite the early setback, Cambridge rallied before halftime with tries from Matt Riddington (St Edmund’s) and Alex Christey (St John’s), both converted by Bland, to narrow the gap to 21-18.

Oxford extended their lead early in the second half but Cambridge refused to relent. A try from Ryan Santos (Jesus), followed by a decisive score from Luke John (Emmanuel), turned the tide in Cambridge’s favour. Bland’s conversion and a late penalty sealed a dramatic 35-28 victory, marking the Light Blues’ third consecutive Varsity Match win. 

The women’s match proved to be a tougher challenge and despite a valiant defensive effort, the Light Blues were unable to contain a strong Oxford side. The Dark Blues scored two early tries and added a third before halftime to give Oxford a 15-0 lead.

Cambridge showed renewed determination in the second half, with Zoe Wright (Clare) scoring a try after a quick tap penalty. Phoebe Jackson’s (Jesus) conversion brought the score to 15-7, but Oxford crossed the line twice more to secure a 27-7 victory for the Dark Blues. While the women’s team didn’t go home with the trophy their relentless tackling and commitment to the game earned them praise.

Congratulations to all four teams who competed on the day, their Coaches and everyone working behind the scenes. It was a day that demonstrated the spirit and determination that define University sports and The Varsity Matches.

Varsity women's match

Cambridge men’s team:

Bland; Santos, John, Riddington, Andrew; Bottomley, Holdroyd; Collins, Gompels, Edwards, Beaumont, Kantolinna, Hughes, Christey, Tosa. 

Replacements: Petty (Collins, 40), Hide (Holdroyd, 55), Allinson (Bottomley, 55), Jones (Beaumont, 55), Day (Santos, 77). Not used: Du Roy, Addai, Evans.

Cambridge women’s team: 

Smith; Embil, Yau, Jackson, Chaoui; McGregor, Glazier; Jones, Warner, Heathfield, Harding, Wright, Millar, Martin, Brown.

Replacements: Haspel (McGregor, 31). Latimer (Harding, 40), Crozier (Martin, 40), Lord (Chaoui, 40), Ubom (Jones, 41), Weatherhogg (Heathfield, 71), Newton-Ingham (Smith, 74), Chadirchi (Warner, 79).

Cambridge University experienced a day of two halves at The Varsity Matches on Saturday 8 March, with the men’s team securing a thrilling 35-28 victory over Oxford University’s Dark Blues while the women’s side fell to a 27-7 defeat in a hard-fought contest at Saracens’ StoneX Stadium.

 

CURUFC

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YesLicence type: Attribution

Researchers studying British Labrador retrievers have identified multiple genes associated with canine obesity and shown that these genes are also associated with obesity in humans.  

The dog gene found to be most strongly associated with obesity in Labradors is called DENND1B. Humans also carry the DENND1B gene, and the researchers found that this gene is also linked with obesity in people.  

DENND1B was found to directly affect a brain pathway responsible for regulating the energy balance in the body, called the leptin melanocortin pathway.  

An additional four genes associated with canine obesity, but which exert a smaller effect than DENND1B, were also mapped directly onto human genes. 

“These genes are not immediately obvious targets for weight-loss drugs, because they control other key biological processes in the body that should not be interfered with.

But the results emphasise the importance of fundamental brain pathways in controlling appetite and body weight,” said Alyce McClellan in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, and joint first author of the report.  

“We found that dogs at high genetic risk of obesity were more interested in food,” said Natalie Wallis in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience, and joint first author of the report.  

She added: “We measured how much dogs pestered their owners for food and whether they were fussy eaters. Dogs at high genetic risk of obesity showed signs of having higher appetite, as has also been shown for people at high genetic risk of obesity.”  

The study found that owners who strictly controlled their dogs’ diet and exercise managed to prevent even those with high genetic risk from becoming obese - but much more attention and effort was required.  

Similarly, people at high genetic risk of developing obesity will not necessarily become obese, if they follow a strict diet and exercise regime - but they are more prone to weight gain. 

As with human obesity, no single gene determined whether the dogs were prone to obesity; the net effect of multiple genetic variants determined whether dogs were at high or low risk. 

The results are published today in the journal 'Science'. 

“Studying the dogs showed us something really powerful: owners of slim dogs are not morally superior. The same is true of slim people. If you have a high genetic risk of obesity, then when there’s lots of food available you’re prone to overeating and gaining weight unless you put a huge effort into not doing so,” said Dr Eleanor Raffan, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience who led the study. 

She added: “By studying dogs we could measure their desire for food separately to the control owners exerted over their dog’s diet and exercise. In human studies, it’s harder to study how genetically driven appetite requires greater willpower to remain slim, as both are affecting the one person.” 

The current human obesity epidemic is mirrored by an obesity epidemic in dogs. About 40-60% of pet dogs are overweight or obese, which can lead to a range of health problems. 

Dogs are a good model for studying human obesity: they develop obesity through similar environmental influences as humans, and because dogs within any given breed have a high degree of genetic similarity, their genes can be more easily linked to disease. 

To get their results, the researchers recruited owners with pet dogs in which they measured body fat, scored ‘greediness’, and took a saliva sample for DNA. Then they analysed the genetics of each dog. By comparing the obesity status of the dog to its DNA, they could identify the genes linked to canine obesity. 
Dogs carrying the genetic variant most associated with obesity, DENND1B, had around 8% more body fat than those without it.  

The researchers then examined whether the genes they identified were relevant to human obesity. They looked at both large population-based studies, and at cohorts of patients with severe, early onset obesity where single genetic changes are suspected to cause the weight gain.  

The researchers say owners can keep their dogs distracted from constant hunger by spreading out each daily food ration, for example by using puzzle feeders or scattering the food around the garden so it takes longer to eat, or by choosing a more satisfying nutrient composition for their pets. 

Raffan said: “This work shows how similar dogs are to humans genetically. Studying the dogs meant we had reason to focus on this particular gene, which has led to a big advance in understanding how our own brain controls our eating behaviour and energy use.”  

The research was funded by Wellcome, the BBSRC, Dogs Trust, Morris Animal Foundation, MRC, France Genomique consortium, European Genomic Institute for Diabetes, French National Center for Precision Diabetic Medicine, Royal Society, NIHR, Botnar Foundation, Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Endowment, Leducq Fondation, Kennel Club Charitable Trust. 

Reference 
Wallis, N.J. et al: ‘Canine genome-wide association study identifies DENND1B as an obesity gene in dogs and humans.’ Science, March 2025. DOI: 10.1126/science.ads2145  
 

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have discovered genes linked to obesity in both Labradors and humans. They say the effects can be over-ridden with a strict diet and exercise regime.

Dogs at high genetic risk of obesity showed signs of having higher appetite, as has also been shown for people at high genetic risk of obesity.Natalie WallisJames Barker on UnsplashLabrador licking nose

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YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

In the battle against climate disinformation, native advertising is a fierce foe. A study published in the journal npj Climate Action by researchers from Boston University (BU) and the University of Cambridge, evaluates two promising tools to fight misleading native advertising campaigns put forth by big oil companies.

Many major news organisations now offer corporations the opportunity to pay for articles that mimic in tone and format the publication’s regular reported content. These ‘native advertisements’ are designed to camouflage seamlessly into their surroundings, containing only subtle disclosure messages often overlooked or misunderstood by readers. Fossil fuel companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to shape public perceptions of the climate crisis.

“Because these ads appear on reputable, trusted news platforms, and are formatted like reported pieces, they often come across to readers as genuine journalism,” said lead author Michelle Amazeen from BU’s College of Communication. “Research has shown native ads are really effective at swaying readers’ opinions.”

The study is the first to investigate how two mitigation strategies — disclosures and inoculations — may reduce climate misperceptions caused by exposure to native advertising from the fossil fuel industry. The authors found that when participants were shown a real native ad from ExxonMobil, disclosure messages helped them recognise advertising, while inoculations helped reduce their susceptibility to misleading claims.

“As fossil fuel companies invest in disguising their advertisements, this study furthers our understanding of how to help readers recognise when commercial content is masquerading as news and spreading climate misperceptions,” said co-author Benjamin Sovacool, also from BU.

“Our study showed that communication-led climate action is possible and scalable by countering covert greenwashing campaigns, such as native advertising, at the source,” said co-author Dr Ramit Debnath from Cambridge’s Department of Architecture. “The insights we’ve gained from this work will help us design better interventions for climate misinformation.”

The research builds on a growing body of work assessing how people recognise and respond to covert misinformation campaigns. By better understanding these processes, the researchers hope that they can prevent misinformation from taking root and changing people’s beliefs and actions on important issues like climate change.

‘The Future of Energy’ ad

Starting in 2018, readers of The New York Times website encountered what appeared to be an article, titled “The Future of Energy,” describing efforts by oil and gas giant ExxonMobil to invest in algae-based biofuels. Because it appeared beneath the Times’ masthead, in the outlet’s typical formatting and font, many readers likely missed the small banner at the top of the page mentioning that it was an ad sponsored by ExxonMobil.

The ad, part of a $5-million-dollar campaign, neglected to mention the company’s staggering carbon footprint. It also omitted key context, The Intercept reported, like that the stated goal for algae-based biofuel production would represent only 0.2% of the company’s overall refinery capacity. In a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Massachusetts cited the ad as evidence of the company’s “false and misleading” communications, with several states pursuing similar cases.

Putting two interventions to the test

The researchers examined how more than a thousand participants responded to “The Future of Energy” ad in a simulated social media feed.

Before viewing the ad, participants saw one, both, or neither of the following intervention messages:

An inoculation message designed to psychologically ‘inoculate’ readers from future influence by broadly warning them of potential exposures to misleading paid content. In this study, the inoculation message was a fictitious social media post from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reminding people to be wary of online misinformation.

A disclosure message with a simple line of text appearing on a post. In this study, the text “Paid Post by ExxonMobil” accompanied the piece. Studies have shown that more often than not, when native ads are shared on social media, this disclosure disappears.

Bolstering psychological resilience to native ads

The team found that the ad improved opinions of ExxonMobil’s sustainability across the study’s many participants, regardless of which messages they saw, but that the interventions helped to reduce this effect. Some of the key findings include:

The presence of a disclosure more than doubled the likelihood that a participant recognised the content as an ad. However, the participants who had seen a disclosure and those who had not were equally likely to agree with the statement “companies like ExxonMobil are investing heavily in becoming more environmentally friendly.”

Inoculation messages were much more effective than disclosures at protecting people’s existing beliefs on climate change, decreasing the likelihood that participants would agree with misleading claims presented in the ad.

“Disclosures helped people recognise advertising. However, they didn’t help them recognise that the material was biased and misleading,” said Amazeen. “Inoculation messaging provides general education that can be used to fill in that gap and help people resist its persuasive effects. Increasing general awareness about misinformation strategies used by self-interested actors, combined with clearer labels on sponsored content, will help people distinguish native ads from reported content.”

Reference:
Michelle A. Amazeen et al. ‘The “Future of Energy”? Building resilience to ExxonMobil’s disinformation through disclosures and inoculation.’ npj climate action (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44168-025-00209-6

Adapted from a Boston University story.

A sneaky form of advertising favoured by oil giants influences public opinion with climate action misperceptions, but researchers are studying potential solutions.

rob dobi vai Getty ImagesFueling the Fire of Misinformation - stock photo

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Yes

The pledge, made in February 2020 by the UK’s nine leading game shooting and rural organisations, aimed to benefit wildlife and the environment and ensure a market for the healthiest game meat food products. 

But a Cambridge team, working with the University of the Highlands and Islands, has consistently shown that lead shot was not being phased out quickly enough to achieve a complete voluntary transition to non-toxic ammunition by 2025. In a final study, published today in the journal Conservation Evidence, the team concludes that the intended transition has failed.

The team has closely monitored the impact of the pledge every year since its introduction, recruiting expert volunteers to buy whole pheasants from butchers, game dealers and supermarkets across Britain and recover embedded shotgun pellets for analysis. 

In 2025, the study - called SHOT-SWITCH - found that of 171 pheasants found to contain shot, 99% had been killed with lead ammunition. 

This year, for the first time, the team also analysed shotgun pellets found in red grouse carcasses shot in the 2024/25 shooting season and on sale through butchers’ shops and online retailers. In all 78 grouse carcasses from which any shot was recovered, the shot was lead. 

“Many members of the shooting community had hoped that the voluntary pledge away from lead ammunition would avert the need for regulation. But the voluntary route has now been tested - with efforts made by many people - and it has not been successful,” said Professor Rhys Green in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and lead author of the report.

Eating game meat killed using lead shot will expose people unnecessarily to additional dietary lead. Lead is toxic to humans even in very small concentrations; the development of the nervous system in young and unborn children is especially sensitive to its effects. As a result, many food safety agencies now advise that young children and pregnant women should avoid, or minimise, eating game meat from animals killed using lead ammunition.

Discarded shot from hunting also poisons and kills many tens of thousands of the UK’s wild birds each year.

Despite proposing the voluntary change, many shooting organisations and some individual shooters do not support proposed regulatory restrictions on lead ammunition.

Green said: “Private individuals pay a lot of money to shoot pheasants on some private estates - and people don’t like to change their habits. It’s a bit like wearing car seatbelts, or not smoking in pubs. Despite the good reasons for doing these things, some people were strongly against using regulation to achieve those changes, which are now widely accepted as beneficial. The parallel with shooting game with lead shotgun ammunition is striking.” 

Danish shooters now say that the legal ban on lead introduced in Denmark around 30 years ago was justified. They say it has not reduced the practicality or popularity of their sport, and has increased its acceptability to wider society.

“Although a few large UK estates have managed to enforce non-lead ammunition on pheasant shoots, some have had to be quite draconian in order to do it, with the estate gamekeepers insisting on loading the guns for the shooters,” added Green.

In the 2020/21 and 2021/22 shooting seasons, over 99% of the pheasants studied were shot using lead ammunition. This figure dropped slightly to 94% in 2022/23 and 93% in 2023/24, with the remaining pheasants killed by ammunition made of steel or a metal called bismuth, before rising to 99% again in 2024/25.

Retail pressure

The researchers also checked up on a pledge made by Waitrose in 2019 to stop selling game killed with lead ammunition. 

They found that the retailer had been largely let down by suppliers, and that some of their shooters continued to shoot using lead despite making assurances to the contrary. As a result, Waitrose did not sell oven-ready pheasants at all between 2021 and 2023. It sold pheasants again in January 2024 and the 2024/25 season, but the researchers showed that the majority had been killed using lead shot.

In 2022 the National Game Dealers Association (NGDA), which buys game and sells it to the public and food retailers, also announced it would no longer sell game of any kind that had been shot using lead ammunition. But this pledge has since been withdrawn. The researchers bought 2024/25 season pheasants from three NGDA member businesses and found that all had been shot with lead ammunition.

Inside influence 

The researchers also analysed all articles relating to the voluntary transition published in the magazine of the UK’s largest shooting organisation, the British Association for Shooting and Conservation. They found that articles near the beginning of the five-year pledge communicated clear, frequent and positive messages about the effectiveness and practicality of non-lead shotgun ammunition.

But by 2023, mentions of the transition and encouragement to follow it had dropped dramatically. 

The upshot

At the request of the Defra Secretary of State, the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has assessed the risks to the environment and human health posed by lead in shot and bullets. Its report, published in December 2024, proposes that the UK Government bans the use of lead shot and large calibre bullets for game shooting because of the risks they pose to the environment and health. This recommendation is currently under review by Defra ministers, with a response due in March 2025.

Steel shotgun pellets are a practical alternative to lead and can be used in the vast majority of shotguns, as can other safe lead-free alternatives. But the results of this study indicate UK hunters remain unwilling to make the switch voluntarily.

Since 2010, UK governments have preferred voluntary controls over regulation in many areas of environment and food policy and have suggested that regulation be used only as a last resort.

“Shooting organisations did a lot of questionnaire surveys when the pledge was introduced in 2020, and the results suggested many shooters thought the time had come to switch away from lead ammunition. Those responses stand in contrast to what we’ve actually measured for both pheasant and grouse,” said study co-author Dr Mark Taggart at the University of the Highlands and Islands.

Toxic lead

A previous study led by Green and colleagues found that pheasants killed by lead shot contained many fragments of lead too small to detect by eye or touch, and too distant from the shot to be removed without throwing away a large proportion of otherwise useable meat. This means that eating pheasant killed using lead shot is likely to expose consumers to raised levels of lead in their diet, even if the meat is carefully prepared to remove whole shotgun pellets and the most damaged tissue.

Lead has been banned from use in paint and petrol for decades. It is toxic to humans when absorbed by the body and there is no known safe level of exposure. Lead accumulates in the body over time and can cause long-term harm, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease and kidney disease in adults. Lead is known to lower IQ in young children and affect the neurological development of unborn babies.

The studies were part-funded by the RSPB, Waitrose & Partners, and an anonymous donor. They were supported by a group of unpaid volunteers, who are co-authors of the reports.
 

References

Green, R.E. et al: ‘The proportion of common pheasants shot using lead shotgun ammunition in Britain has barely changed despite five years of voluntary efforts to switch from lead to non-lead ammunition.’ March 2025, Conservation Evidence. DOI: 10.52201/CEJ22/EXYS6184

Green, R.E. et al.: ‘Sampling of red grouse carcasses in Britain indicates no progress during an intended five-year voluntary transition from lead to non-lead shotgun ammunition.’ February 2025, Conservation Evidence. DOI: 10.52201/CEJ22/YYWM1722
 

A voluntary pledge made by UK shooting organisations in 2020 to replace lead shot with non-toxic alternatives by 2025 has failed, analysis by Cambridge researchers finds.

The voluntary route has now been tested - with efforts made by many people - and it has not been successful.Rhys GreenAndy Hay, RSPBAdult pheasant

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YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

They say that discovering the mechanism will support ongoing clinical trials, and could lead to the targeted use of aspirin to prevent the spread of susceptible types of cancer, and to the development of more effective drugs to prevent cancer metastasis. 

The scientists caution that, in some people, aspirin can have serious side-effects and clinical trials are underway to determine how to use it safely and effectively to prevent cancer spread, so people should consult their doctor before starting to take it.

Studies of people with cancer have previously observed that those taking daily low-dose aspirin have a reduction in the spread of some cancers, such as breast, bowel, and prostate cancers, leading to ongoing clinical trials. However, until now it wasn’t known exactly how aspirin could prevent metastases.

Professor Rahul Roychoudhuri in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, who led the work, said: “Despite advances in cancer treatment, many patients with early stage cancers receive treatments, such as surgical removal of the tumour, which have the potential to be curative, but later relapse due to the eventual growth of micrometastases – cancer cells that have seeded other parts of the body but remain in a latent state. 

“Most immunotherapies are developed to treat patients with established metastatic cancer, but when cancer first spreads there’s a unique therapeutic window of opportunity when cancer cells are particularly vulnerable to immune attack. We hope that therapies that target this window of vulnerability will have tremendous scope in preventing recurrence in patients with early cancer at risk of recurrence.”

The study is published today in the journal 'Nature'.  

The scientists say their discovery of how aspirin reduces cancer metastasis was serendipitous. They were investigating the process of metastasis, because, while cancer starts out in one location, 90% of cancer deaths occur when cancer spreads to other parts of the body.

The scientists wanted to better understand how the immune system responds to metastasis, because when individual cancer cells break away from their originating tumour and spread to another part of the body they are particularly vulnerable to immune attack. The immune system can recognise and kill these lone cancer cells more effectively than cancer cells within larger originating tumours, which have often developed an environment that suppresses the immune system. 

The researchers previously screened 810 genes in mice and found 15 that had an effect on cancer metastasis. In particular, they found that mice lacking a gene which produces a protein called ARHGEF1 had less metastasis of various primary cancers to the lungs and liver. 

The researchers determined that ARHGEF1 suppresses a type of immune cell called a T cell, which can recognise and kill metastatic cancer cells. 

To develop treatments to take advantage of this discovery, they needed to find a way for drugs to target it. The scientists traced signals in the cell to determine that ARHGEF1 is switched on when T cells are exposed to a clotting factor called thromboxane A2 (TXA2).

This was an unexpected revelation for the scientists, because TXA2 is already well-known and linked to how aspirin works. 

TXA2 is produced by platelets - a cell in the blood stream that helps blood clot, preventing wounds from bleeding, but occasionally causing heart attacks and strokes. Aspirin reduces the production of TXA2, leading to the anti-clotting effects, which underlies its ability to prevent heart attacks and strokes. 

This new research found that aspirin prevents cancers from spreading by decreasing TXA2 and releasing T cells from suppression. They used a mouse model of melanoma to show that in mice given aspirin, the frequency of metastases was reduced compared to control mice, and this was dependent on releasing T cells from suppression by TXA2.

Dr Jie Yang in the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge, first author of the report, said: “It was a Eureka moment when we found TXA2 was the molecular signal that activates this suppressive effect on T cells. Before this, we had not been aware of the implication of our findings in understanding the anti-metastatic activity of aspirin. It was an entirely unexpected finding which sent us down quite a different path of enquiry than we had anticipated.” 

“Aspirin, or other drugs that could target this pathway, have the potential to be less expensive than antibody-based therapies, and therefore more accessible globally.”

In the future, the researchers plan to help the translation of their work into potential clinical practice by collaborating with Professor Ruth Langley, of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit at University College London, who is leading the Add-Aspirin clinical trial, to find out if aspirin can stop or delay early stage cancers from coming back. 

Professor Langley, who was not involved in this study, commented: “This is an important discovery. It will enable us to interpret the results of ongoing clinical trials and work out who is most likely to benefit from aspirin after a cancer diagnosis.” 

“In a small proportion of people, aspirin can cause serious side-effects, including bleeding or stomach ulcers. Therefore, it is important to understand which people with cancer are likely to benefit.”

The research was principally funded by the Medical Research Council, with additional funding from the Wellcome Trust and European Research Council. 

The Add-Aspirin clinical trial is funded by Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Medical Research Council and the Tata Memorial Foundation of India. 

Reference: J. Yang, et al: “Aspirin prevents metastasis by limiting platelet TXA2 suppression of T cell immunity.” Nature, March 2025. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08626-7

Adapted from a press release by the Medical Research Council.

Scientists have uncovered the mechanism behind how aspirin could reduce the metastasis of some cancers by stimulating the immune system.

Aspirin has the potential to be less expensive than antibody-based therapies, and therefore more accessible globally.Jie YangTetra Images on Getty

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YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

More than 160 students from across the region met at the Hancock Museum in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to hear more about the application process and what it’s like to study for a degree at either Cambridge or Oxford.

Presentations focused on the unique elements of a Cambridge and Oxford education, the importance of super-curricular study to university applications, advice on writing personal statements, admissions tests and interview guidance.

Cambridge and Oxford Universities used to jointly host an annual regional conference for would-be applicants but these were disbanded during the Covid pandemic.

This latest roadshow was the brainchild of Elaine Effard, who is Corpus Christi’s North East Access and Outreach Coordinator (based in South Shields) and Richard Petty, Senior Access Officer for North-East England at Oxford.

“We are all passionate about working with students in the North-East of England to make sure that they’re best equipped to make competitive applications to Oxford, Cambridge and other higher education providers. We also strongly believe that increased North-East representation at Oxbridge is a fundamental good,” said Elaine. 

outreach1920.jpg

Students attending were full of appreciation for the event.

One said: “I enjoyed hearing the experiences of the students as it gave me a good insight as to what different aspects of the university are like, such as workload, finance and community.”

Another added: “It gave an in-depth view on super-curricular activities that I wouldn’t have accessed otherwise, and a range of options for super curricular activities.”

The other two Cambridge Colleges present were Jesus and King’s, both of whom, like Corpus, have connections with the North-East. Oxford was represented by the Oxford for North East team of colleges, which are Christ Church, Trinity, and St Anne’s. 

Corpus Christi is one of three Cambridge Colleges with school liaison officers based in the region they aim to attract more applications from. Both Queens' and Selwyn Colleges have staff based in Bradford.

Three Cambridge Colleges have teamed up to co-host an outreach event in the North-East of England with the aim of encouraging more applications from students in the area. They were joined by colleagues from Oxford. 

We are all passionate about working with students in the North-East of EnglandElaine EffardOutreach officers on steps of museum

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Yes

A study involving over 3,000 participants – both patients and clinicians – found that these misdiagnoses (sometimes termed “in your head” by patients) were often associated with long term impacts on patients’ physical health and wellbeing and damaged trust in healthcare services.

The researchers are calling for greater awareness among clinicians of the symptoms of such diseases, which they recognise can be difficult to diagnose, and for more support for patients.

Autoimmune rheumatic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and vasculitis are chronic inflammatory disorders that affect the immune system and can damage organs and tissues throughout the body. They can be very difficult to diagnose as people report a wide range of different symptoms, many of which can be invisible, such as extreme fatigue and depression.

Dr Melanie Sloan from the University of Cambridge led a study exploring patient-reported experiences from two large groups, each of over 1,500 patients, and in-depth interviews with 67 patients and 50 clinicians. The results are published today in Rheumatology.

Patients who reported that their autoimmune disease was misdiagnosed as psychosomatic or a mental health condition were more likely to experience higher levels of depression and anxiety, and lower mental wellbeing. For example, one patient with multiple autoimmune diseases said: “One doctor told me I was making myself feel pain and I still can’t forget those words. Telling me I’m doing it to myself has made me very anxious and depressed.”

More than 80% said it had damaged their self-worth and 72% of patients reported that the misdiagnosis still upset them, often even decades later. Misdiagnosed patients also reported lower levels of satisfaction with every aspect of medical care and were more likely to distrust doctors, downplay their symptoms, and avoid healthcare services. As one patient reported, it “has damaged my trust and courage in telling doctors very much. I even stopped taking my immunosuppressive medicine because of those words”.

Following these types of misdiagnoses, patients often then blamed themselves for their condition, as one individual described: “I don’t deserve help because this is a disease I’ve brought on myself. You go back to those initial diagnosis, you’ve always got their voices in your head, saying you’re doing this to yourself. You just can’t ever shake that. I’ve tried so hard.”

One patient described the traumatising response their doctor’s judgement had on them: “When a rheumatologist dismissed me I was already suicidal, this just threw me over the edge. Thankfully I am terrible at killing myself, it’s so much more challenging than you think. But the dreadful dismissiveness of doctors when you have a bizarre collection of symptoms is traumatizing and you start to believe them, that it’s all in your head.”

Dr Melanie Sloan, from the Department of Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge, said: “Although many doctors were intending to be reassuring in suggesting a psychosomatic or psychiatric cause for initially unexplainable symptoms, these types of misdiagnoses can create a multitude of negative feelings and impacts on lives, self-worth and care. These appear to rarely be resolved even after the correct diagnoses. We must do better at helping these patients heal, and in educating clinicians to consider autoimmunity at an earlier stage.”      

Clinicians highlighted how hard it was to diagnose autoimmune rheumatic diseases and that there was a high risk of misdiagnosis. Some doctors said they hadn’t really thought about the long-term problems for patients, but others talked about the problems in regaining trust, as one GP from England highlighted: “They lose trust in anything that anyone says…you are trying to convince them that something is OK, and they will say yes but a doctor before said that and was wrong.”

However, there was evidence that this trust can be rebuilt. One patient described having been “badly gaslit by a clinician”, but that when they told the clinician this, “She was shocked and had no idea … She was great. Took it on the chin. Listened and heard. Apologised profusely…For me, the scar of the original encounter was transformed into something much more positive.”

Mike Bosley, autoimmune patient and co-author on the study, said: “We need more clinicians to understand how a misdiagnosis of this sort can result in long-standing mental and emotional harm and in a disastrous loss of trust in doctors. Everyone needs to appreciate that autoimmune conditions can present in these unusual ways, that listening carefully to patients is key to avoiding the long-lasting harm that a mental health or psychosomatic misdiagnosis can cause.”

The study authors recommend several measures for improving support for patients with autoimmune rheumatological diseases. These are likely to apply for many other groups of patients with chronic diseases that are often misunderstood and initially misdiagnosed.

They propose that clinicians should talk about previous misdiagnoses with patients, discuss and empathise with their patients as to the effects on them, and offer targeted support to reduce the long-term negative impacts. Health services should ensure greater access to psychologists and talking therapies for patients reporting previous misdiagnoses, which may reduce the long-term impact on wellbeing, healthcare behaviours, and patient-doctor relationships. Education may reduce misdiagnoses by encouraging clinicians to consider systemic autoimmunity when they assess patients with multiple, seemingly unconnected, physical and mental health symptoms.

Professor Felix Naughton, from the Lifespan Health Research Centre at the University of East Anglia, said: “Diagnosing autoimmune rheumatic diseases can be challenging, but with better awareness among clinicians of how they present, we can hopefully reduce the risk of misdiagnoses. And while there will unfortunately inevitably still be patients whose condition is not correctly diagnosed, with the correct support in place, we may be able to lessen the impact on them.”

The research was funded by LUPUS UK and The Lupus Trust.

Reference
Sloan, M, et al. “I still can’t forget those words”: mixed methods study of the persisting impacts of psychosomatic and psychiatric misdiagnoses. Rheumatology; 3 Mar 2025; DOI: 10.1093/rheumatology/keaf115

A ‘chasm of misunderstanding and miscommunication’ is often experienced between clinicians and patients, leading to autoimmune diseases such as lupus and vasculitis being wrongly diagnosed as psychiatric or psychosomatic conditions, with a profound and lasting impact on patients, researchers have found.

These types of misdiagnoses can create a multitude of negative feelings and impacts on lives, self-worth and careMel SloanAnnie SprattA person laying in a bed under a blanket

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

Rare earth elements are vital components in many everyday and high-tech devices, from smartphones and lightbulbs to clean energy solutions like wind turbines and electric vehicles.

With the global shift towards low-carbon energy sources, the demand for rare earths is soaring. While there are rare earth deposits around the world, China dominates the global supply chain, accounting for 70% of rare earth ore extraction and 90% of rare earth ore processing. The UK and EU currently have no domestic source or refining capabilities, leading to concerns over the security of supplies.

“These are critical raw materials; critical both because we need them in almost every gadget and technology, but also because the supply chain is so precarious,” said Professor Sally Gibson from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences.

US President Trump’s recent statements about accessing rare earth deposits in Greenland and Ukraine have once again highlighted the need for countries to find new ways to secure these vital minerals.

“We really need to identify rare earth deposits which have a security of supply,” said Gibson, who currently holds a £1-million project to investigate how rare earth element deposits form, research that could help guide efforts to pinpoint new, economically viable sources.

Rare earth deposits are typically associated with a type of igneous rock called carbonatite. Packed full of calcium, these rocks are unlike other magmas because their chemistry is rich in CO2 and rare earth elements.

Gibson has been studying carbonatites for around 30 years. “Carbonatites have long been seen as geological curiosities, things that no one was that interested in in terms of big-picture science,” she said.

But that outlook has changed in recent years, she added, as the need for rare earths has come to the fore. “How these rocks form is becoming an increasingly important question.”

It’s a question that many geoscientists are asking, but what makes Gibson’s project unique is that, rather than focusing on how individual localities or ‘provinces’ of rare earth deposits form, she is zooming out and examining their global distribution.

Gibson and her colleagues are also looking deeper into Earth’s interior for clues that might explain the surface expression of carbonatites. Project co-lead, Professor Sergei Lebedev, also from Cambridge Earth Sciences, is a geophysicist who uses earthquake waves to ‘see’ into the Earth’s interior, similar to how sonar pings can pick out features on the seabed.

“By combining the geophysical and geochemical evidence, we are learning more about both the deep dynamics and evolution of the Earth’s continents, and the generation of carbonatites and the associated mineral resources,” Lebedev said.

The REE-LITH project was inspired by Gibson and Lebedev’s hunch that differences in the properties of Earth’s lithosphere – the outermost layers of our planet’s structure – might play a guiding role in where carbonatites form, and perhaps their level of rare earth element enrichment.

“We know that lithospheric thickness matters for other special igneous rocks that host diamonds,” said Gibson. “Typically, diamond-hosting ‘kimberlite’ rocks only occur in areas where the lithosphere is particularly thick. I thought it was time we tested if there was a similar relationship for carbonatites.”

Mapping Rare Earths

Over the last year, the team, which includes postdoctoral researchers Siyuan Sui and Emilie Bowman from Cambridge, have been building their new map, drawing on a bank of data on carbonatites and related rare earth deposits and combining this with information about the lithosphere.

As part of this mission, Sui has been using new seismic data extracted from earthquakes to create computer-generated images of the lithosphere, its thickness and other properties. Alongside this, Bowman has been running statistical analyses of geochemical data on magmas to test their relationship to associated rare earth deposits. 

When the researchers started to plot occurrences of carbonatites on a map of lithosphere thickness, they quickly saw a pattern.

“We can already tell that carbonatites occur in specific areas, limited to the steep margins that border Earth’s thickest and oldest lithosphere,” said Gibson. “These regions are typically found in the cores of our planet’s major continents.”

Gibson said that while the resolution of their map is increasing, and they can narrow down the regions where carbonatites should occur, they now need to establish why only certain carbonatites generate economically important rare earths. “Having some kind of model that could predict the most likely locations for rare earth deposits is really the ultimate goal for many geologists,” she said.

Collaboration will be key to unlocking that mystery, Gibson said. Her project brings together researchers from across Cambridge Earth Sciences, drawing on the extensive bank of seismic data collected by geophysicists at the Bullard Laboratory and the Department’s expertise in igneous petrology and geochemistry. The team also includes collaborators at the Universities of St Andrews and Exeter.

“Without that multidisciplinary approach, we wouldn’t have been able to pick out these global-scaled patterns in carbonatite occurrence,” she said.

Cambridge geoscientists are developing an atlas that could lead to a more complete understanding of how viable rare earth element deposits form and help locate more secure sources, by mapping the global distribution of critical metals deposits within unusual igneous rocks.

These are critical raw materials; critical both because we need them in almost every gadget and technology, but also because the supply chain is so precariousSally GibsonCambridge Earth SciencesProfessor Sally Gibson (centre) and colleagues

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Yes

These are some of the questions being addressed by a new initiative launched today at the University of Cambridge, which seeks to address the urgent challenge of managing the risks of future engineered pandemics.

The Engineered Pandemics Risk Management Programme aims to understand the social and biological factors that might drive an engineered pandemic and to make a major contribution to building the UK’s capability for managing these risks. It will build a network of experts from academia, government, and industry to tackle the problem.

Increased security threats from state and non-state actors, combined with increased urbanisation and global mobility, means the threat of deliberate pathogen release must be taken seriously as must other intertwined aspects of pandemic risk such as mis- and disinformation, the erosion of trust in a number of institutions and an increasingly volatile geopolitical context. Further potential risks are posed by recent developments in gene-editing tools and artificial intelligence, which have rapidly advanced technological capability that may make it easier to engineer potential pandemic pathogens.

Professor Clare Bryant from the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge said: “There is a great opportunity to take a joined-up approach to managing the risks posed by engineered pandemics. We need experts and agencies across the spectrum to work together to develop a better understanding of who or what might drive such events and what their likely impact would be. And we need evidence-informed policies and networks in place that would help us respond to – or better still, prevent – such an eventuality.”

• The aims of the Engineered Pandemics Risk Management Programme are:
• To develop the conceptual underpinnings for the risk management of engineered pandemics based on interdisciplinary research
• To support the capability of the UK’s engineered pandemic risk policy and practice, including building and maintaining networks that connect government, academia and industry.
• To strengthen the international networks that will support this work globally

There are four main strands of work:

Social determinants of engineered pandemic threat

This strand will look at the actors who have the potential to engineer harmful pathogens, either deliberately or accidentally. It will ask questions such as: What could motivate bioterrorism in the coming decades? Who might the relevant actors be? What are the kinds of engineered pandemic that someone might want to create?

Dr Rob Doubleday, Executive Director of the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge, said: “The common narrative is that there’s a wide range of potential actors out there who want to create bioweapons but don’t yet have the technical means. But in fact, there’s been very little work to really understand who these people might be, and their relationship to emerging technology. To explore these questions, we need a broad network including social scientists, biosecurity researchers, criminologists, experts in geopolitics and counterterrorism.”

The strand will also look at the governance of scientific research in areas that may facilitate an engineered pandemic, whether unwittingly or maliciously, aiming to deliver a policy framework that enables freedom of intellectual research while managing real and apparent risk in infectious disease research.

Professor Bryant said: “As scientists, we’re largely responsible for policing our own work and ensuring integrity, trustworthiness and transparency, and for considering the consequences of new knowledge and how it might be used. But with the rapid progress of genomic technologies and AI, self-regulation becomes more difficult to manage. We need to find governance frameworks that balance essential scientific progress with its potential misapplication.”

Biological determinants of engineered pandemic threat

Recognising that the most likely cause of an engineered pandemic would be the deliberate release of a naturally-occurring pathogen – viral or bacterial, for example – rather than a man-made pathogen, this strand aims to understand what might make a particular pathogen infectious and how our immune systems respond to infection. This knowledge will allow researchers to screen currently available drugs to prevent or treat infection and to design vaccines quickly should a pandemic occur.

Modelling threats and risk management of engineered pandemics

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted practical problems of dealing with pandemic infections, from the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) to ensuring a sufficient supply of vaccine doses and availability of key medications. Modelling the potential requirements of a pandemic, how they could be delivered, how ventilation systems could be modified, what biosafety measures could be taken, for example, are all key challenges for managing any form of pandemic. This strand will address how existing modelling approaches would need to be adapted for a range of plausible engineered pandemics.

Policy innovation challenges

Working with the policy community, the Cambridge team will co-create research that directly addresses policy needs and involves policy makers. It will support policy makers in experimenting with more joined-up approaches through testing, learning and adapting solutions developed in partnership.

The Engineered Pandemics Risk Management Programme is supported by a £5.25 million donation to the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge. The team intends it to form a central component of a future Pandemic Risk Management Centre, for which it is now fundraising.

Professor Joanna Page, Director of CRASSH, said: “Cambridge has strengths across a broad range of disciplines – from genetics and immunology to mathematical modelling to existential risk and policy engagement – that can make a much-needed initiative such as this a success.”

To find out more, visit the Engineered Pandemic Risk Management website.

Covid-19 showed us how vulnerable the world is to pandemics – but what if the next pandemic were somehow engineered? How would the world respond – and could we stop it happening in the first place?

There is a great opportunity to take a joined-up approach to managing the risks posed by engineered pandemicsClare BryantMartin SanchezIllustration showing global pandemic spread

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YesLicence type: Public Domain

More fires, taking hold over more months of the year, are causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

Fires on peatlands, which are carbon-rich, can almost double global fire-driven carbon emissions. Researchers found that despite accounting for only a quarter of the total UK land area that burns each year, dwarfed by moor and heathland, wildfires that burn peat have caused up to 90% of annual UK fire-driven carbon emissions since 2001 – with emissions spikes in particularly dry years.

Peat only burns when it’s hot and dry enough - conditions that are occurring more often with climate change. The peatlands of Saddleworth Moor in the Peak District, and Flow Country in northern Scotland, have both been affected by huge wildfires in recent years.

Unlike heather moorland which takes up to twenty years to regrow after a fire, burnt peat can take centuries to reaccumulate. The loss of this valuable carbon store makes the increasing wildfire frequency on peatlands a real cause for concern. 

The researchers also calculated that carbon emissions from fires on UK peatland are likely to rise by at least 60% if the planet warms by 2oC. 

The findings, which are broadly relevant to peatlands in temperate climates, are published today in the journal 'Environmental Research Letters'.

“We found that peatland fires are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of the carbon emissions caused by UK wildfires, which we project will increase even more with climate change,” said Dr Adam Pellegrini in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences, senior author of the study.

He added: “Peatland reaccumulates lost carbon so slowly as it recovers after a wildfire that this process is limited for climate change mitigation. We need to focus on preventing that peat from burning in the first place, by re-wetting peatlands.”

"We found that in dry years, peatland wildfires were able to burn into the peat and release significant quantities of carbon into the atmosphere. In particularly dry years this contributed up to 90% of the total wildfire-driven carbon emissions from the UK," said Dr Sarah Baker, lead author of the study which she conducted while at the University of Cambridge. Baker is now based at the University of Exeter.

The researchers found that the UK’s ‘fire season’ - when fires occur on natural land - has lengthened dramatically since 2011, from between one and four months in the years 2011-2016 to between six and nine months in the years 2017-2021. The change is particularly marked in Scotland, where almost half of all UK fires occur.

Nine percent of the UK is covered by peatland, which in a healthy condition removes over three million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. 

The researchers estimate 800,000 tonnes of carbon were emitted from fires on UK peatlands between 2001 and 2021. The 2018 Saddleworth Moor fire emitted 24,000 tonnes of carbon, and the 2019 Flow Country fire emitted 96,000 tonnes of carbon from burning peat.

To get their results, the researchers mapped all UK wildfires over a period of 20 years – assessing where they burn, whether peat burned, how much carbon they emit, and how climate change is affecting fires. This involved combining data on fire locations, vegetation type and carbon content, soil moisture, and peat depth. Using UK Met Office model outputs, the team also used simulated climate conditions to project how wildfires in the UK could change in the future.

The study only considered land where wildfires have occurred in the past, and did not consider the future increases in burned area that are likely to occur with hotter, drier UK summers.

An average of 5,600 hectares of moor and heathland burns across the UK each year, compared to 2,500 hectares of peatland.

“Buffering the UK’s peatlands against really hot, dry summers is a great way to reduce carbon emissions as part of our goal to reach net zero. Humans are capable of incredible things when we’re incentivised to do them,” said Pellegrini.

The research was funded by Wellcome, the Isaac Newton Trust and UKRI.

Reference: Baker, S.J. et al: ‘Spikes in UK wildfire emissions driven by peatland fires in dry years.’ February 2025, Environmental Research Letters. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/adafc6.
 

A new study led by the University of Cambridge has revealed that as our springs and summers get hotter and drier, the UK wildfire season is being stretched and intensified.

Peatland fires are responsible for a disproportionately large amount of the carbon emissions caused by UK wildfires, which we project will increase even more with climate changeAdam PellegriniSarah BakerFire on UK moorland

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YesLicence type: Attribution-Noncommerical

The UK government should resist allowing AI companies to scrape all copyrighted works unless the holder has actively “opted out”, as it puts an unfair burden on up-and-coming creative talents who lack the skills and resources to meet legal requirements.

This is according to a new report from University of Cambridge experts in economics, policy and machine learning, who also argue the UK government should clearly state that only a human author can hold copyright – even when AI has been heavily involved.

A collaboration between three Cambridge initiatives – the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and ai@cam – the report argues that unregulated use of generative AI will not guarantee economic growth, and risks damaging the UK’s thriving creative sector. 

If the UK adopts the proposed ‘rights reservation’ for AI data mining, rather than maintaining the legal foundation that automatically safeguards copyright, it will compromise the livelihoods of many in the sector, particularly those just starting out, say researchers.

They argue that it risks allowing artistic content produced in the UK to be scraped for endless reuse by offshore companies.

“Going the way of an opt-out model is telling Britain’s artists, musicians, and writers that tech industry profitability is more valuable than their creations,” said Prof Gina Neff, Executive Director at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.

“Ambitions to strengthen the creative sector, bolster the British economy and spark innovation using GenAI in the UK can be achieved – but we will only get results that benefit all of us if we put people’s needs before tech companies.”

'Ingested' by technologies

Creative industries contribute around £124.6 billion or 5.7% to the UK’s economy, and have a deep connection to the tech industry. For example, the UK video games industry is the largest in Europe, and contributed £5.12 billion to the UK economy in 2019.

While AI could lead to a new generation of creative companies and products, the researchers say that little is currently known about how AI is being adopted within these industries, and where the skills gaps lie.

“The Government ought to commission research that engages directly with creatives, understanding where and how AI is benefiting and harming them, and use it to inform policies for supporting the sector’s workforce,” said Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning and Chair of ai@cam.

“Uncertainty about copyright infringement is hindering the development of Generative AI for public benefit in the UK. For AI to be trusted and widely deployed, it should not make creative work more difficult.”

In the UK, copyright is vested in the creator automatically if it meets the legal criteria. Some AI companies have tried to exploit “fair dealing” – a loophole based around use for research or reporting – but this is undermined by the commercial nature of most AI.

Now, some AI companies are brokering licensing agreements with publishers, and the report argues this is a potential way to ensure creative industries are compensated.

While rights of performers, from singers to actors, currently cover reproductions of live performances, AI uses composites harvested from across a performer’s oeuvre, so rights relating to specific performances are unlikely to apply, say researchers.

Further clauses in older contracts mean performers are having their work “ingested” by technologies that didn’t exist when they signed on the dotted line.

The researchers call on the government to fully adopt the Beijing Treaty on Audio Visual Performance, which the UK signed over a decade ago but is yet to implement, as it gives performers economic rights over all reproduction, distribution and rental.

"The current lack of clarity about the licensing and regulation of training data use is a lose-lose situation. Creative professionals aren't fairly compensated for their work being used to train AI models, while AI companies are hesitant to fully invest in the UK due to unclear legal frameworks,” said Prof Diane Coyle, the Bennett Professor of Public Policy.

“We propose mandatory transparency requirements for AI training data and standardised licensing agreements that properly value creative works. Without these guardrails, we risk undermining our valuable creative sector in the pursuit of uncertain benefits from AI."

'Spirit of copyright law'

The Cambridge experts also look at questions of copyright for AI-generated work, and the extent to which “prompting” AI can constitute ownership. They conclude that AI cannot itself hold copyright, and the UK government should develop guidelines on compensation for artists whose work and name feature in prompts instructing AI.

When it comes to the proposed ‘opt-out’ solution, the experts it is not “in the spirit of copyright law” and is difficult to enforce. Even if creators do opt out, it is not clear how that data will be identified, labelled, and compensated, or even erased.

It may be seen as giving “carte blanche” to foreign-owned and managed AI companies to benefit from British copyrighted works without a clear mechanism for creators to receive fair compensation.

“Asking copyright reform to solve structural problems with AI is not the solution,” said Dr Ann Kristin Glenster, Senior Policy Advisor at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and lead author of the report.

“Our research shows that the business case has yet to be made for an opt-out regime that will promote growth and innovation of the UK creative industries.

“Devising policies that enable the UK creative industries to benefit from AI should be the Government’s priority if it wants to see growth of both its creative and tech industries,” Glenster said.

The UK government’s proposed ‘rights reservation’ model for AI data mining tells British artists, musicians, and writers that “tech industry profitability is more valuable than their creations” say leading academics.

We will only get results that benefit all of us if we put people’s needs before tech companiesGina NeffKal Visuals - Unsplash

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YesLicence type: Attribution

The team, led by the University of Cambridge, developed printed fabric sensors that can monitor breathing by detecting tiny movements in the skin, even when the pyjamas are worn loosely around the neck and chest.

The sensors embedded in the smart pyjamas were trained using a ‘lightweight’ AI algorithm and can identify six different sleep states with 98.6% accuracy, while ignoring regular sleep movements such as tossing and turning. The energy-efficient sensors only require a handful of examples of sleep patterns to successfully identify the difference between regular and disordered sleep.

The researchers say that their smart pyjamas could be useful for the millions of people in the UK who struggle with disordered sleep to monitor their sleep, and how it might be affected by lifestyle changes. The results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Sleep is vital for human health, yet more than 60% of adults experience poor sleep quality, leading to the loss of between 44 and 54 annual working days, and an estimated one percent reduction in global GDP. Sleep behaviours such as mouth breathing, sleep apnoea and snoring are major contributors to poor sleep quality, and can lead to chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression.

“Poor sleep has huge effects on our physical and mental health, which is why proper sleep monitoring is vital,” said Professor Luigi Occhipinti from the Cambridge Graphene Centre, who led the research. “However, the current gold standard for sleep monitoring, polysomnography or PSG, is expensive, complicated and isn’t suitable for long-term use at home.”

Home devices that are simpler than PSG, such as home sleep tests, typically focus on a single condition and are bulky or uncomfortable. Wearable devices such as smartwatches, while more comfortable to wear, can only infer sleep quality, and are not effective for accurately monitoring disordered sleep.

“We need something that is comfortable and easy to use every night, but is accurate enough to provide meaningful information about sleep quality,” said Occhipinti.

To develop the smart pyjamas, Occhipinti and his colleagues built on their earlier work on a smart choker for people with speech impairments. The team re-designed the graphene-based sensors for breath analysis during sleep, and made several design improvements to increase sensitivity.

“Thanks to the design changes we made, the sensors are able to detect different sleep states, while ignoring regular tossing and turning,” said Occhinpinti. “The improved sensitivity also means that the smart garment does not need to be worn tightly around the neck, which many people would find uncomfortable. As long as the sensors are in contact with the skin, they provide highly accurate readings.”

The researchers designed a machine learning model, called SleepNet, that uses the signals captured by the sensors to identify sleep states including nasal breathing, mouth breathing, snoring, teeth grinding, central sleep apnoea (CSA), and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). SleepNet is a ‘lightweight’ AI network, that reduces computational complexity to the point where it can be run on portable devices, without the need to connect to computers or servers.

“We pruned the AI model to the point where we could get the lowest computational cost with the highest degree of accuracy,” said Occhinpinti. “This way we are able to embed the main data processors in the sensors directly.”

The smart pyjamas were tested on healthy patients and those with sleep apnoea, and were able to detect a range of sleep states with an accuracy of 98.6%. By treating the smart pyjamas with a special starching step, they were able to improve the durability of the sensors so they can be run through a regular washing machine.

The most recent version of the smart pyjamas are also capable of wireless data transfer, meaning the sleep data can be securely transferred to a smartphone or computer.

“Sleep is so important to health, and reliable sleep monitoring can be key in preventative care,” said Occhipinti. “Since this garment can be used at home, rather than in a hospital or clinic, it can alert users to changes in their sleep that they can then discuss with their doctor. Sleep behaviours such as nasal versus mouth breathing are not typically picked up in an NHS sleep analysis, but it can be an indicator of disordered sleep.”

The researchers are hoping to adapt the sensors for a range of health conditions or home uses, such as baby monitoring, and have been in discussions with different patient groups. They are also working to improve the durability of the sensors for long-term use.

The research was supported in part by the EU Graphene Flagship, Haleon, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

Reference:
Chenyu Tang, Wentian Yi et al. ‘A deep learning-enabled smart garment for accurate and versatile monitoring of sleep conditions in daily life.’ PNAS (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2420498122

Researchers have developed comfortable, washable ‘smart pyjamas’ that can monitor sleep disorders such as sleep apnoea at home, without the need for sticky patches, cumbersome equipment or a visit to a specialist sleep clinic.

We need something that is comfortable and easy to use every night, but is accurate enough to provide meaningful information about sleep qualityLuigi OcchipintiLuigi OcchipintiIllustration and photograph of 'smart pyjamas'

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Yes

The long-running programme provides families with opportunities to explore local museums through a variety of illuminated and themed activities after regular closing times. 

This year’s events include nighttime nature hunts, torchlit trails, and space-themed science and storytelling sessions. Highlights include:  

- A night time explorer activity at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, where visitors can search for dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals that once roamed Cambridgeshire.  

- An aquatic adventure at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, inspired by the mythical realm of Poseidon, God of the sea, and the journey of Greek hero Odysseus.  

- A nocturnal orchid hunt at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden, showcasing species from around the world and their unique adaptations.  

- A magic lantern display at the Museum of Cambridge, where visitors can create their own Victorian-style lanterns to guide them through the exhibits.  

The full programme for Twilight at the Museums is available on the University of Cambridge Museums website: http://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/theme/twilight.

All events are free or low-cost, with a mix of book-ahead and drop-in activities. Many venues are within walking distance of each other, allowing families to visit multiple locations in one evening.  

 

David Cahill Roots, Head of Collections’ Programmes and Collaborations at the University of Cambridge, said: “We’re delighted to bring back Twilight at the Museums this half term. Families will be able to experience the magic and excitement of exploring their local museums as the night falls, as well as enjoying hands-on activities, crafts, and performances. Remember to wrap up warm and bring your torch to see what you can discover!”  

In addition to the evening events, daytime activities will also be available across the museums during the half term. These include a chance to ‘meet’ fossil hunter Mary Anning at the Sedgwick Museum and a penguin-themed craft workshop at the Polar Museum, inspired by chalk drawings from Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton.  

The University of Cambridge Museums will also host one of their regular Disability Friendly Openings, providing a quieter environment and sensory activities tailored for children with special educational needs and disabilities, as well as their families.  

Participating organisations in Twilight at the Museums 2025 include:  

- The Centre for Computing History  

- Cambridge Museum of Technology  

- Cambridge Science Centre  

- Cambridge University Botanic Garden  

- The Fitzwilliam Museum  

- Great St Mary's Church

- Museum of Cambridge  

- Museum of Classical Archaeology  

- The Norris Museum (St Ives)  

- Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences  

- Whipple Museum of the History of Science  

- Museum of Zoology  

For further updates, follow the University of Cambridge Museums on social media (@camunivmuseums) and the hashtag #TwilightAtTheMuseums.

Read the full programme of events and plan your visit here: http://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/theme/twilight.

 

From Monday 17 to Sunday 23 February 2025, the University of Cambridge Museums will host their annual Twilight at the Museums event series, offering events and after-hours access at museums and galleries across Cambridge.

Families will be able to experience the magic and excitement of exploring their local museums as the night falls, as well as enjoying hands-on activities, crafts, and performances.David Cahill Roots, Head of Collections’ Programmes and Collaborations

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Yes

Some efforts to preserve or rewild natural habitats are shifting harmful land use to other parts of the world – and this could drive an even steeper decline in the planet’s species, according to a team of conservation scientists and economists led by the University of Cambridge.   

Researchers from over a dozen institutions worldwide have come together to call on the global community to acknowledge the “biodiversity leak”: the displacement of nature-damaging human activities caused by ringfencing certain areas for protection or restoration.

They argue that rewilding productive farmland or forestry in industrialised nations that have low levels of biodiversity may do more harm than good on a planetary scale.

Exploratory analysis by the team suggests that reclaiming typical UK cropland for nature may be five times more damaging for global biodiversity than the benefit it provides local species, due to the displacement of production to more biodiverse regions.   

While this “leakage” has been known about for decades, it is largely neglected in biodiversity conservation, say the researchers. They argue it undermines actions ranging from establishing new nature reserves to the EU’s environmental policies.

Writing in the journal Science, the experts point out that even the UN’s landmark Global Biodiversity Framework – aiming for 30% of the world’s land and seas to be conserved – makes no mention of the leakage problem.

“As nations in temperate regions such as Europe conserve more land, the resulting shortfalls in food and wood production will have to be made up somewhere,” said Prof Andrew Balmford, from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. 

“Much of this is likely to happen in more biodiverse but often less well-regulated parts of the world, such as Africa and South America. Areas of much greater importance for nature are likely to pay the price for conservation efforts in wealthy nations unless we work to fix this leak.”

“The first thing we need to do is collectively acknowledge that these leaks exist,” said co-author Prof Brendan Fisher from the University of Vermont. “If protesting a logging concession in the US increases demand for pulp from the tropics, then we are unlikely to be helping biodiversity.”

Co-author Dr Ben Balmford of the University of Exeter said: “This issue demands far greater attention from a sector that seeks to shape how 30% of an ever hungrier and more connected planet is managed.”

‘Leakage’ is already a major issue for carbon credits tied to forest preservation, say researchers. But they argue it’s a real problem for biodiversity conservation efforts too.

While protected areas can slow deforestation inside their borders, there’s evidence it can simply shift to neighbouring areas. Production can also be displaced much further. Efforts to protect the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests resulted in increased logging in other North American regions, for example.

Yet a survey of site managers of tropical conservation projects conducted by the Cambridge team found that 37% had not come across the concept of leakage, and less than half of the projects were attempting to curb any displacement damage.*

The researchers explored how leakage caused by protected areas could affect global biodiversity by applying real-world food and biodiversity data to two hypothetical conservation projects.

They found that rewilding a sizeable area of Brazilian soybean farms would push production to nations such as Argentina and USA, but because Brazil is so important for biodiversity, the local conservation gains could be around five times greater than the displacement harms.

The opposite would be true if the equivalent area of UK arable farmland was reclaimed for nature. Here, production would be displaced to Australia, Germany, Italy and Ukraine.**

As the UK has fewer species than these other countries, damage from ‘leakage’ could be five times greater than the local benefit to British biodiversity. 

The experts offer a number of ways to help plug the biodiversity leak. They call on governments and the conservation sector to take leakage far more seriously when making environmental policy at national and global level.

They also point out that leakage could be reduced if conservation projects work with others to reduce demand – especially for high-footprint commodities such as red meat.

There’s scope to limit leakage by targeting conservation to areas high in biodiversity but where current or potential production of food or timber is limited, say researchers. One example is restoring abandoned tropical shrimp farms to mangroves.

However, we should also be much more cautious about restoring natural habitats on currently productive farmland in less biodiverse parts of the world, they argue.

Beyond planning where to conserve, major conservation initiatives should work with partners in other sectors to support local farmers, so that overall levels of production are maintained in the region despite protected areas. The team cite examples ranging from forest-friendly chocolate to herding practices that protect snow leopards.

Where local yield increases are difficult, larger-scale programmes could establish long-range partnerships with suppliers in the same markets to make up shortfalls in production.

“Without attention and action, there is a real risk that the biodiversity leak will undermine hard-won conservation victories,” said co-author Dr Fiona Sanderson of the Royal Society for Protection of Birds, who works on reducing the impacts of cocoa production in Sierra Leone.

Lead author from Cambridge, Prof Andrew Balmford, added: “At its worst, we could see some conservation actions cause net global harm by displacing production to regions which are much more significant for biodiversity.” 

*Survey of 100 practitioners involved in area-based tropical conservation projects, including directors, managers, coordinators, and researchers. Respondents came from 36 countries across all five continents. Further details: https://zenodo.org/records/14780198

** Two hypothetical habitat restoration programs covering 1000km2 of Brazilian soy-producing land, and restoring 1000km2 of arable farmland in the UK that produces wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

Researchers call on the international community to recognise and start tackling the “biodiversity leak”. 

Areas of much greater importance for nature are likely to pay the price for conservation efforts in wealthy nations unless we work to fix this leakAndrew BalmfordMichael Duff, © RSPB-images.comThe Gola Rainforest Project in Sierra Leone. This conservation project has limited leakage while slowing deforestation by supporting nearby farmers such as Mallo Samah to increase their yields and get higher prices for their cocoa.

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Yes

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, say their solar-powered reactor could be used to make fuel to power cars and planes, or the many chemicals and pharmaceuticals products we rely on. It could also be used to generate fuel in remote or off-grid locations.

Unlike most carbon capture technologies, the reactor developed by the Cambridge researchers does not require fossil-fuel-based power, or the transport and storage of carbon dioxide, but instead converts atmospheric CO2 into something useful using sunlight. The results are reported in the journal Nature Energy.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been touted as a possible solution to the climate crisis, and has recently received £22bn in funding from the UK government. However, CCS is energy-intensive and there are concerns about the long-term safety of storing pressurised CO2 deep underground, although safety studies are currently being carried out.

“Aside from the expense and the energy intensity, CCS provides an excuse to carry on burning fossil fuels, which is what caused the climate crisis in the first place,” said Professor Erwin Reisner, who led the research. “CCS is also a non-circular process, since the pressurised CO2 is, at best, stored underground indefinitely, where it’s of no use to anyone.”

“What if instead of pumping the carbon dioxide underground, we made something useful from it?” said first author Dr Sayan Kar from Cambridge’s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry. “CO2 is a harmful greenhouse gas, but it can also be turned into useful chemicals without contributing to global warming.”

The focus of Reisner’s research group is the development of devices that convert waste, water and air into practical fuels and chemicals. These devices take their inspiration from photosynthesis: the process by which plants convert sunlight into food. The devices don’t use any outside power: no cables, no batteries – all they need is the power of the sun.

The team’s newest system takes CO2 directly from the air and converts it into syngas: a key intermediate in the production of many chemicals and pharmaceuticals. The researchers say their approach, which does not require any transportation or storage, is much easier to scale up than earlier solar-powered devices.

The device, a solar-powered flow reactor, uses specialised filters to grab CO2 from the air at night, like how a sponge soaks up water. When the sun comes out, the sunlight heats up the captured CO2, absorbing infrared radiation and a semiconductor powder absorbs the ultraviolet radiation to start a chemical reaction that converts the captured CO2 into solar syngas. A mirror on the reactor concentrates the sunlight, making the process more efficient.

The researchers are currently working on converting the solar syngas into liquid fuels, which could be used to power cars, planes and more – without adding more CO2 to the atmosphere.

“If we made these devices at scale, they could solve two problems at once: removing CO2 from the atmosphere and creating a clean alternative to fossil fuels,” said Kar. “CO2 is seen as a harmful waste product, but it is also an opportunity.”

The researchers say that a particularly promising opportunity is in the chemical and pharmaceutical sector, where syngas can be converted into many of the products we rely on every day, without contributing to climate change. They are building a larger scale version of the reactor and hope to begin tests in the spring.

If scaled up, the researchers say their reactor could be used in a decentralised way, so that individuals could theoretically generate their own fuel, which would be useful in remote or off-grid locations.

“Instead of continuing to dig up and burn fossil fuels to produce the products we have come to rely on, we can get all the CO2 we need directly from the air and reuse it,” said Reisner. “We can build a circular, sustainable economy – if we have the political will to do it.”

The technology is being commercialised with the support of Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm. The research was supported in part by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the European Research Council, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Cambridge Trust. Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

Reference:
Sayan Kar et al. ‘Direct air capture of CO2 for solar fuels production in flow.’ Nature Energy (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-025-01714-y

For more information on energy-related research in Cambridge, please visit the Energy IRC, which brings together Cambridge’s research knowledge and expertise, in collaboration with global partners, to create solutions for a sustainable and resilient energy landscape for generations to come. 

Researchers have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source.

We can build a circular, sustainable economy – if we have the political will to do itErwin ReisnerSayan KarSolar-powered flow reactor

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Yes