Latest news with #QueenMaryUniversity
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Arctic, feathered … or just weird: what have we learned since Walking with Dinosaurs aired 25 years ago
It brought dinosaurs stomping and roaring into the sitting rooms of millions of viewers. Now, 25 years after the series first aired, a new, updated Walking With Dinosaurs is back on the BBC this weekend. In the intervening years, science has not stood still. About 50 species have been discovered each year since 1999 and the advent of powerful imaging techniques and digital reconstruction have led to major advances in our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived. Here are some of the biggest developments. By the 1990s, a handful of feathered dinosaur fossils had been identified but they were not well preserved and their wider significance remained unclear. 'The public wasn't ready for it,' said Dr Dave Hone, a palaeontologist at Queen Mary, University of London. 'Now we're at the point where we've got dozens of species definitively feathered and probably a hundred plus where we're very confident they had feathers because all their relatives do. That pushes feathers right down the family tree, which is a pretty big shift.' Feathers matter, not only in terms of appearance, but they have added weight to the argument that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded and shape our understanding of dinosaur behaviour and evolution. 'Undoubtedly the most surprising discovery regarding dinosaurs in the last 25 years has been the discovery of the feathered dinosaurs in Liaoning province in China, and the realisation that many of the theropod dinosaurs at least had a covering of feathers and not reptilian scales,' said Dr John Nudds, a senior lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Manchester. 'These were probably initially for insulation of eggs, possibly also for display, and were later modified for flight. This has proved beyond reasonable doubt that birds evolved from dinosaurs and in fact are dinosaurs. Picture a Jurassic landscape and you're probably thinking of a jungle with a few simmering volcanoes in the background. But scientists now believe that dinosaurs lived in much more varied climates, including in the planet's coldest extremes. The recent analysis of hundreds of fossils, including those of baby dinosaurs, recovered from northern Alaska suggests that they reproduced in the region and that was probably their permanent home rather than a stop on a seasonal migratory route. The region would have been plummeted into darkness for four months of the year and experienced temperatures well below freezing. T-rex, diplodocus, stegosaurus: the top trumps of the dinosaur kingdom have remained unchanged in popular imagination for decades. But no shortage of unique and charismatic species have been unearthed in the past 25 years, many of which palaeontologists would like to see brought to wider attention. 'One of the weirdest ones is deinocheirus,' said Prof Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. The species had been tentatively identified based on the discovery of a gigantic pair of arms in the 1960s, but it was only in 2014 when a pair of more complete skeletons were described that its unusual features came into full focus. 'It looks like the offspring of a night of passion between a radiator and a duck,' said Barrett. 'It's got a duck-like head, a huge sail on its back, sideways claws, it looks like it has been put together by a committee.' 'Absolutely staggering numbers of new species have been found,' said Hone, citing Yi qi, a feathered gliding dinosaur, as a personal favourite. 'It's basically a hybrid of a bird and a flying squirrel,' he said. Discoveries during the past two decades have also seen larger-than-ever species unearthed. Patagotitan (announced in 2014) has an estimated length of 37 metres and estimated weight of 69 tonnes, taking the title for largest known land animal, and Dreadnoughtus (unearthed in 2005) also lives up to its battleship-scale physique. 'Some of these things are pushing 60-70 tonnes in weight,' said Barrett. 'We're having to figure out the challenges they would've faced moving around and eating.' As old dinosaur debates have been set to rest, new ones have unfolded. The discovery of a series of spinosaurus fossils has opened up new battleground over whether these dinosaurs may have been adapted to living and hunting in the water. Dinosaurs have previously been assumed to only live and hunt on land (plesiosaurs and pliosaurs are marine reptiles, not dinosaurs). 'The big question is was it a pursuit predator? Or did it hunt like an enormous heron and grab fish with its mouth?' said Dr Jeremy Lockwood, a GP-turned-palaeontologist based on the Isle of Wight who discovered a relevant specimen nicknamed 'the horned crocodile-faced hell heron'. 'It's a furious controversy that's livened up the world of palaeontology.' At 15-metre snout to tail, spinosaurus is longer than any other meat-eating dinosaur, has conical teeth like those seen in crocodiles, a long newt-like tail and dense bones that might help it sink in order to swim underwater. Computer simulations have raised questions about its hydrodynamic properties, however, with one suggesting it would have rolled over on its side when submerged, according to Lockwood. 'I can see both points of view but I wouldn't dream of settling on one,' he said. Among the most important discoveries of the past decade is that of soft-shelled eggs, complete with fossilised embryos, as old as 200m years. 'All the eggs we'd had until then were like hen eggs,' said Hone. The latest evidence suggests that many dinosaur species laid soft-shelled eggs, something like those laid by lizards or crocodiles today. Even more intriguingly, analysis of the teeth of embryos within some of the eggs, suggests that they gestated for up to six months. This opens up a new vista on the reproductive lives of dinosaurs, suggesting that they may have buried eggs in nests or burrows. 'Are they looking after a nest for months at a time? Or digging a hole and buggering off and coming back a year later to see if their babies have hatched?' said Hone. 'All of the options are really weird.'
The Guardian
25-05-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Arctic, feathered … or just weird: what have we learned since Walking with Dinosaurs aired 25 years ago
It brought dinosaurs stomping and roaring into the sitting rooms of millions of viewers. Now, 25 years after the series first aired, a new, updated Walking With Dinosaurs is back on the BBC this weekend. In the intervening years, science has not stood still. About 50 species have been discovered each year since 1999 and the advent of powerful imaging techniques and digital reconstruction have led to major advances in our understanding of what dinosaurs looked like and how they lived. Here are some of the biggest developments. By the 1990s, a handful of feathered dinosaur fossils had been identified but they were not well preserved and their wider significance remained unclear. 'The public wasn't ready for it,' said Dr Dave Hone, a palaeontologist at Queen Mary, University of London. 'Now we're at the point where we've got dozens of species definitively feathered and probably a hundred plus where we're very confident they had feathers because all their relatives do. That pushes feathers right down the family tree, which is a pretty big shift.' Feathers matter, not only in terms of appearance, but they have added weight to the argument that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded and shape our understanding of dinosaur behaviour and evolution. 'Undoubtedly the most surprising discovery regarding dinosaurs in the last 25 years has been the discovery of the feathered dinosaurs in Liaoning province in China, and the realisation that many of the theropod dinosaurs at least had a covering of feathers and not reptilian scales,' said Dr John Nudds, a senior lecturer in palaeontology at the University of Manchester. 'These were probably initially for insulation of eggs, possibly also for display, and were later modified for flight. This has proved beyond reasonable doubt that birds evolved from dinosaurs and in fact are dinosaurs. Picture a Jurassic landscape and you're probably thinking of a jungle with a few simmering volcanoes in the background. But scientists now believe that dinosaurs lived in much more varied climates, including in the planet's coldest extremes. The recent analysis of hundreds of fossils, including those of baby dinosaurs, recovered from northern Alaska suggests that they reproduced in the region and that was probably their permanent home rather than a stop on a seasonal migratory route. The region would have been plummeted into darkness for four months of the year and experienced temperatures well below freezing. T-rex, diplodocus, stegosaurus: the top trumps of the dinosaur kingdom have remained unchanged in popular imagination for decades. But no shortage of unique and charismatic species have been unearthed in the past 25 years, many of which palaeontologists would like to see brought to wider attention. 'One of the weirdest ones is deinocheirus,' said Prof Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. The species had been tentatively identified based on the discovery of a gigantic pair of arms in the 1960s, but it was only in 2014 when a pair of more complete skeletons were described that its unusual features came into full focus. 'It looks like the offspring of a night of passion between a radiator and a duck,' said Barrett. 'It's got a duck-like head, a huge sail on its back, sideways claws, it looks like it has been put together by a committee.' 'Absolutely staggering numbers of new species have been found,' said Hone, citing Yi qi, a feathered gliding dinosaur, as a personal favourite. 'It's basically a hybrid of a bird and a flying squirrel,' he said. Discoveries during the past two decades have also seen larger-than-ever species unearthed. Patagotitan (announced in 2014) has an estimated length of 37 metres and estimated weight of 69 tonnes, taking the title for largest known land animal, and Dreadnoughtus (unearthed in 2005) also lives up to its battleship-scale physique. 'Some of these things are pushing 60-70 tonnes in weight,' said Barrett. 'We're having to figure out the challenges they would've faced moving around and eating.' As old dinosaur debates have been set to rest, new ones have unfolded. The discovery of a series of spinosaurus fossils has opened up new battleground over whether these dinosaurs may have been adapted to living and hunting in the water. Dinosaurs have previously been assumed to only live and hunt on land (plesiosaurs and pliosaurs are marine reptiles, not dinosaurs). 'The big question is was it a pursuit predator? Or did it hunt like an enormous heron and grab fish with its mouth?' said Dr Jeremy Lockwood, a GP-turned-palaeontologist based on the Isle of Wight who discovered a relevant specimen nicknamed 'the horned crocodile-faced hell heron'. 'It's a furious controversy that's livened up the world of palaeontology.' At 15-metre snout to tail, spinosaurus is longer than any other meat-eating dinosaur, has conical teeth like those seen in crocodiles, a long newt-like tail and dense bones that might help it sink in order to swim underwater. Computer simulations have raised questions about its hydrodynamic properties, however, with one suggesting it would have rolled over on its side when submerged, according to Lockwood. 'I can see both points of view but I wouldn't dream of settling on one,' he said. Among the most important discoveries of the past decade is that of soft-shelled eggs, complete with fossilised embryos, as old as 200m years. 'All the eggs we'd had until then were like hen eggs,' said Hone. The latest evidence suggests that many dinosaur species laid soft-shelled eggs, something like those laid by lizards or crocodiles today. Even more intriguingly, analysis of the teeth of embryos within some of the eggs, suggests that they gestated for up to six months. This opens up a new vista on the reproductive lives of dinosaurs, suggesting that they may have buried eggs in nests or burrows. 'Are they looking after a nest for months at a time? Or digging a hole and buggering off and coming back a year later to see if their babies have hatched?' said Hone. 'All of the options are really weird.'
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- General
- Daily Mail
Fury as residents left 'trapped' in iconic London tower block after the lifts break for nearly a week
Residents of an iconic 26-storey London tower block have been left 'trapped' after their lifts broke for nearly a week. Those living on the top floor of the Grade II listed Balfron Tower have had to trek 84 metres up and down stairs - the height of 17 double-decker London buses - every time they need to leave their homes. Tenants have claimed they are living in a death trap, with some with disabilities have been left stranded in their flats. They said one of the lifts is frequently temperamental and the second stopped working completely last week. One is the designated fire safety lift. Vasundhata Gupte, 22, lives on the 15th floor and is forced to scale the stairs despite recovering from a hamstring injury. She has already had to miss some of her course at Queen Mary 's University. She told Metro: 'I am coming back from recovery sessions for my leg, but I then have to walk up 15 flights of stairs so what is even the point in trying to fix it.' Peter Yu, 58, has a spinal cord injury and says it is 'excruciatingly painful' for him to climb to his flat, which is also on the 15th floor. He and his dog have not been able to leave his rooms since the lifts shut down. The business owner has had to survive on frozen leftovers alone and his only access to the outside is through his small balcony. 'At the end of the day, it's a safety issue,' he told London Centric. He continued to Metro: 'What if there is a fire? What if I have a heart attack? Who will come and get me? Lives are at stake here.' Sophie Rushton, who lives on the 21st floor, added that her flatmate, who has mobility issues, and her friend on the 24th floor have both been forced to temporarily move out. She is able to climb the stairs but said it was exhausting having to carry her 14-year-old dog up and down every time he needed to go to the toilet. She said: 'My housemate has had to temporarily move out of the flat because he has mobility issues and he knows there is no way he can manage the stairs – it's the same with my friend on the 24th floor.' The tower is thought to be the inspiration for the dystopian novel High-Rise, which was turned into a 2015 film starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons and Sienna Miller. The block in the story descends into anarchy following a series of disputes, including failing lifts. It was designed by celebrated architect Erno Goldfinger - the inspiration for the James Bond villain of the same surname - and is the sister block of the Trellick Tower in Notting Hill. The towering brutalist structure was built in 1967, before being refurbished and sold by local housing association Poplar HARCA in the 2010s. The block of flats in Poplar, east London is managed by Way of Life, with Mr Yu's three-bedroom flat costing £3,500 a month in rent and Ms Gupte's two-bedroom flat costing £2,500. In an email to residents sent on Thursday, the company said 'major components within both lifts require replacement parts, which is highly unusual.' They added that the chaos was 'incredibly unfortunate' and they were 'unsure of the exact length of time that the lifts will be out of service.' Way of Life said they had offered to help residents with their shopping but Mr Yu said the member of staff had 'point blank refused' to take his beyond the seventh floor. A spokesperson told Metro that the lift was back up and working - but moments later residents told them that they had broken down again. A post from an anonymous resident said they were 'begging for help' as there was 'no end in sight' after being trapped in their flat. Posting on Reddit, they said: It's now been over a week, and the building management cannot tell us when they will be fixed. We are living in total uncertainty and isolation. 'There are elderly residents, people with disabilities—including myself—who have effectively been trapped in our homes for days. I have not been able to leave my home. 'This situation is inhumane and deeply distressing. I don't know who to turn to anymore. Is there anyone I can call for real help?' In desperation, they added: 'Please—if someone sees this—tell me what to do. I am running out of strength.'
Time of India
13-05-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Study suggests health differences between men, women involve social factors, not only biological
New Delhi: Genetics may not solely explain the biology which cause different health risks, symptoms and outcomes between men and women -- social factors such as neighbourhood and lifestyle too need to be looked at, according to a study. The research, led by Queen Mary University, UK, analysed genetic links between nearly 6,000 proteins and diseases in 56,000 people. A "very small" fraction -- around 100 proteins -- were found to be responsible for differing levels of majority of the 6,000 proteins studied between men and women. Findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, "clearly show that with very few exceptions, protein regulating genetic variants identified so far behave in a very similar way in males and females," Claudia Langenberg , director of Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, Queen Mary University, said. "This provides evidence for an important implicit assumption -- that insights arising from studying these (genetic) variants apply to both sexes," Langenberg said. The study highlights the importance of looking beyond genetics and medical factors, such as hormones, and looking at non-medical, social factors -- where people work and live, education, lifestyle, finances -- when comparing health risks and outcomes between men and women, the authors said. The study's findings are "essential to guide precision medicine approaches and identify where one size may not fit all", Langenberg said. Precision, or personalised, medicine takes into account one's genes, environment and lifestyle for preventing or treating a disease. "For the first time in history, we are able to study human biology at this level of detail -- across genes, proteins, and more. This is the largest study to date exploring the similarities and differences in how our genetic code regulates blood protein levels between sexes," lead author Mine Koprulu, a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary University's Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, said. "Our findings highlight the need to better understand the factors that impact health differences -- at the genetic level and beyond -- to create more tailored and equitable healthcare for everyone," Koprulu said. For the study, data from the UK Biobank and 'Fenland Study' -- which is examining how genetics interact with environmental factors in metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes -- was analysed. "Our results that collectively add to an emerging body of literature, that strong differences in health between the sexes later in life cannot be fully explained by sex-differential or even sex-discordant effects of genetic susceptibility in individual genetic (regions)," the authors wrote.
WIRED
10-05-2025
- Health
- WIRED
Diabetes Is Rising in Africa. Could It Lead to New Breakthroughs?
May 10, 2025 6:00 AM Growing rates of type 2 diabetes across the African content offer scientists hope of creating new, more inclusive treatments. Research indicates the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa with type 2 diabetes could surge by 2045. Photograph: XinhuaAcross the African continent, the focus on disease has long been on infectious killers such as HIV and tuberculosis. But in early February, around 700 policymakers, academics, and philanthropists convened in Kigali, Rwanda, to discuss the alarming rise of noncommunicable diseases in the region. Of particular concern: spiraling rates of type 2 diabetes. Earlier this year, a new study indicated that the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa with type 2 diabetes rose from 4 million in 1980 to 23.6 million in 2021, with projections suggesting that these cases will more than double to 54.9 million by 2045, driven, as in many other parts of the world, by rapid lifestyle changes including shifting diets and declining physical activity. It's a problem that needs urgent attention, but it could also provide an opportunity to better understand this deadly disease and even lead to more effective—and inclusive—treatments. Segun Fatumo, a genetics professor at Queen Mary University of London who is currently leading studies of type 2 diabetes in Uganda and Malawi, says many of these patients are drug naïve, meaning their disease progression has yet to be altered by medication. 'This gives researchers a rare window into the natural history of the disease—how it develops, progresses, and responds to different environmental and genetic factors,' he says. 'It's like being able to study a book from the first chapter, rather than jumping in halfway through.' The remarkable genetic diversity across the African continent may also represent an opportunity for diabetes research. 'Because human populations have lived in Africa the longest, they've had more time to accumulate genetic diversity, and this diversity is a scientific gold mine,' says Fatumo. Research in sub-Saharan African populations has already challenged some basic understandings regarding the biology of type 2 diabetes. While the disease has traditionally been linked to obesity, with a steady accumulation of visceral fat in the liver and the pancreas progressively impacting the pancreas' ability to produce insulin and control blood sugar levels, it appears that this isn't the driving factor in many African patients. In 2019, a major genetics study of more than 5,000 type 2 diabetes patients in Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya pointed to a particular gene called ZRANB3 as being associated with the disease. The study indicates that some individuals carry variants of ZRANB3 which mean that they either produce fewer insulin-producing beta cells or struggle to maintain an adequate number of these cells, making them less responsive to surges in blood sugar. The gene may therefore represent a potential new drug target, says Tinashe Chikowore, a researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School who is also leading studies of type 2 diabetes patients in the region. 'We now need to find out just how many diabetics carry this African-specific mutation, both in sub-Saharan African populations and those of African ancestry around the world,' he says. African men also appear to be particularly at risk of the disease. Earlier this year, the Lancet Global Health medical journal published a study of more than 6,500 middle-aged adults from four sub-Saharan African countries which found that, after family history, simply being male was one of the biggest predictors of type 2 diabetes risk. Chikowore says there are many possible explanations for this, ranging from as yet undiscovered genetic variants to the physiological structure of the pancreas. The latter theory arises from research carried out in East Africa, which found that some men develop type 2 diabetes despite having a healthy weight. An ongoing study led by Uganda's Medical Research Council, in partnership with UK researchers, is measuring the size of the pancreas in such men and assessing its function. 'These cases don't appear to be related to fat, so we want to try and understand what's going on,' says Chikowore. 'Is it genetics? Or due to how the pancreas has developed? Some scientists think that it's related to malnutrition in early life, impacting the development of the beta cells so they don't produce as much insulin.' As well as revealing the path to new treatments, understanding these cases could lead to improved screening tools. Currently, the gold-standard methods of diagnosing and assessing the progression of type 2 diabetes are fasting plasma glucose tests, which measure blood sugar after fasting, and the HbA1c blood test, which detects levels of a chemical compound called HbA1c that indicates blood sugar levels over time. But such tests are being shown to be ineffective in some populations. Last year a major study highlighted that a significant number of people of African ancestry are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes much later than they might be, because they carry deficiencies in an enzyme called G6PD. This genetic variation is relatively common in parts of sub-Saharan Africa because it confers protection against severe malaria, but it also reduces levels of HbA1c, making it look like a person's blood sugar levels are healthier than they actually are. The study showed that many of these patients end up experiencing preventable complications such as diabetic retinopathy, which can cause blindness. Meanwhile, researchers like Julia Goedecke, a professor and chief specialist scientist at the South African Medical Research Council, have found that using fasting plasma glucose as a way of diagnosing type 2 diabetes in African women tends to be ineffective, because it assumes the patient is carrying a significant amount of liver fat. 'Fasting glucose is often used as a marker of diabetes risk, but that's because liver fat's a big driver of fasting glucose levels,' says Goedecke. 'In Africans it's actually a poor marker, because most women who present with diabetes have low liver fat, so you often miss diabetes if you only take a fasting glucose value.' Instead of liver fat, Goedecke's research has indicated that many of these cases are being driven by an impaired ability to clear insulin from the bloodstream, causing people to already have abnormally high insulin levels. Goedecke and others are now carrying out a study which includes men and women from the South African township of Soweto, various communities across Ghana, and Ghanaian immigrants to Germany and the Netherlands. They will regularly assess a range of biological characteristics over a number of years. 'We hope this data will also give us a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the disease, and ideas for interventions to try and prevent it,' she says. While research into diabetes across Africa should have direct impacts for patients in the region, Chikowore believes it could also benefit everyone with the disease. Understanding why sub-Saharan African women seem to be more resilient to gaining liver fat, for instance, could lead to the development of drugs that can improve metabolic health in other ethnic groups. 'With diversity, you have both ends of the spectrum: people who are susceptible and people who are protected,' he says. 'And we have higher chances of finding those people in Africa than anywhere else.' As an example of what might be possible, Chikowore cites how genetic studies in African populations led to the development of a new class of cholesterol-lowering medications, with one company even exploring gene editing to treat patients. 'Imagine if we could one day do the same for diabetes,' he says. 'A genetically informed drug which can make people diabetes-proof. I think that's what the world is looking for.'
