UCL in the media
How many of us are really suffering with long Covid?
Professor Christina Pagel (UCL Mathematics) analyses the new figures: ‘In March 2023 they just used the date of a person’s first confirmed Covid infection to calculate duration’.
Women should give up vaping if they want to get pregnant, study suggests
Dr Helen O’Neill (UCL EGA Institute for Women's Health) said: ‘Most people are not aware of any link between lifestyle vices and fertility. But it’s important people understand there is so much that can be done to increase your chance of having family’.
Read: The Guardian; More: The Telegraph (£), Daily Mail, Evening Standard, The Times (£)
Nigerian Pastor; Muslim Drag Queen; Humanism
Professor Nichola Raihani (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) explores what it means to her to be Humanist. She said: ‘Humans have evolved to be an inordinately cooperative species’.
Thinking doesn't have to feel so hard
Dr Matthew Botvinick (UCL Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit) explained most people don't contemplate whether or not to make coffee in the morning. They just go ahead and brew a cup because it's part of their routine.
Forget the age-old smoker's cough, now doctors are seeing patients with 'vaper's cough' (and it can sound very different!)
Professor Lion Shahab (UCL Epidemiology & Health Care) said: 'developing a cough is a normal response to stopping smoking as the cilia in the lungs recover and become functional again.’ 'So, if a smoker switches to vaping, something similar may be going on.'
The best new books on economics
Dr Brian Klaas (UCL European & International Social & Political Studies) is profiled in the best new books on economics with his new book ‘Fluke’.
Climate change increases chances of zoonotic disease ‘spillover’
Professor Sir Alimuddin Zumla (UCL Infection & Immunity) warns that the number of new infectious diseases with epidemic potential has increased nearly fourfold over the past six decades.
Second global AI safety summit faces tough questions, lower turnout
Professor Jack Stilgoe (UCL Science and Technology Studies) warns against pinning the future of AI on scientific breakthroughs and lucrative financing efforts. He said: “The failure of the technology to live up to the hype is inevitable”
Read: Hindustan Times; More: Reuters, Daily Mail, US News & World Report, Decan Herald
Expert stresses the importance of people-to-people exchanges in education
Chinese children learning English and British children learning Chinese will be the "bedrock" of the relationship between the two countries, according to Katharine Carruthers (IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education & Society).
Scientists and comedians join forces to get climate crisis message across
Comedian Jo Brand and Professor Mark Maslin (UCL Geography) team up in the video series Climate Science Translated to discuss climate science in down-to-earth language that pulls no punches.