An action-packed programme of free interactive events for the whole family will showcase how UCL engineers are creating the future, in fields such as artificial intelligence, space exploration, robotics, and medicine.

University College London's (UCL) HyperMile Racing Team proudly announces a pioneering advancement in automotive technology aimed at revolutionising efficiency in the Shell Eco-Marathon.

Engineers and physicists at UCL have developed a new fabrication process for building quantum computers, achieving an almost zero failure rate with the potential for scaling up.

The human brain can take advantage of brain resources originally devoted to the hand to represent a prosthetic limb, a new UCL-led study concludes. Among people with only one hand, the brain area that enables us to recognise hands can also recognise a prosthetic hand, particularly among those who use a prosthesis regularly, according to the Brain paper. The study provides the first account of how artificial limbs are represent...

Within the University College London (UCL), the Electrochemical Innovation Laboratory (EIL) team are using ZEISS Xradia 810 Ultra X-ray microscopy to study the inner-workings of batteries and fuel cells. ZEISS Xradia 810 Ultra enables the team of researchers to study the evolution of microstructure down to 5nm resolution, revealing the fine details of lithium ion batteries in 3D.

The first drug targeting the cause of Huntington’s disease was safe and well-tolerated in its first human trial, and successfully lowered the level of the harmful huntingtin protein in the nervous system. After over a decade in pre-clinical development, this first human trial of huntingtin-lowering drug began in late 2015, led by Professor Sarah Tabrizi (UCL Institute of Neurology) and sponsored by Ionis Pharmaceuticals.

A team involving UCL scientists has developed a new device that could revolutionise our understanding of the brain by allowing researchers to map the activity of complex neural networks that control behaviour and decision making, in a way never before possible. The Neuropixels probes are described in a paper published in Nature. Neuropixels - tiny silicon probes thinner than a human hair – can simultaneously record the activity of...

It was previously thought that molecules and dust would be completely obliterated by the tremendous explosions of supernovae. Yet, for the first time, scientists have discovered that this is not actually the case. A group of scientists, including those funded under the European Research Council (ERC) financed projects SNDUST and COSMICDUST, have identified two previously undetected molecules; formylium (HCO+) and sulphur monoxide (SO), found...

Using superparamagnetic iron-oxide particles (SPIONs) together with DARPin proteins, a UCL-led consortium is aiming to successfully bring effective thermotherapy-based treatment to glioblastoma patients. When thinking of cancer treatment options, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or the recently popularised immunotherapy immediately come to mind. Thermotherapy — in which body tissue is exposed to elevated temperatures to kill cancer cells and...

A research team has successfully used magnets implanted behind a person’s eyes to treat nystagmus, a condition characterised by involuntary eye movements. The case study, published in Ophthalmology and led by UCL and University of Oxford academics, described the implantation of a newly developed set of magnets in the socket beneath each eye of one patient with nystagmus. It’s the first description of a successful use of an oculom...

Nearly half of all cancers in women originate in the female reproductive organs. To improve disease outcome, efficient diagnostic tools and personalised interventions are urgently needed. Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, and its high metastatic potential results in significant mortality. Ovarian cancer, although low in prevalence, has an overall poor survival rate given the asymptomatic early stage of the disease and delayed...

The discovery of glowing stardust in a distant galaxy could shed more light for astronomers on the characteristics of our early Universe. Cosmic dust is forged inside stars and then scattered across the cosmos when they die, most spectacularly in supernova explosions. This dust is the key building block in the formation of new stars and planets. In the early Universe however — before the first generations of stars died out —...

A huge mass of glowing stardust in a galaxy seen shortly after the Universe's formation has been detected by a UCL-led team of astronomers, providing new insights into the birth and explosive deaths of the very first stars. The galaxy is the most distant object ever observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and was seen when the Universe was only 4% of its present age, at about 600 million years old, when the first ...

2D nanomaterials have been made by dissolving layered materials in liquids, according to UCL-led research. The liquids can be used to apply the 2D nanomaterials over large areas and at low costs, enabling a variety of important future applications. 2D nanomaterials have the potential to revolutionise technology through their remarkable physical properties, but their translation into real world applications has been limited due to the challen...

A new record for the fastest ever data rate for digital information has been set by UCL researchers in the Optical Networks Group. They achieved a rate of 1.125 Tb/s as part of research on the capacity limits of optical transmission systems, designed to address the growing demand for fast data rates.