̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Gates Cambridge

Making an impact: Gates Cambridge turns 25

cjb250 — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 09:42:36 +0000

What unites a wildlife cameraman, a quantum physicist and the co-founder of a solar energy business? For Gates Cambridge Scholars, it's the desire to improve the lives of others.

Gender inequality ingrained in global climate negotiations, say researchers

cjb250 — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 08:52:16 +0000

In an article published today in Lancet Planetary Health, a team of researchers – including several from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge – argue that much more needs to be done to mitigate the impacts of climate change on women, girls and gender-diverse individuals.

Focusing specifically on the intersection between climate change, gender, and human health, the researchers call on countries to work harder to ensure there is gender equity within their delegations to climate conferences and to ensure climate strategies identify gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities and address their root causes.

As the world prepares for COP29, concerns about gender representation and equality have reignited following the initial appointment of 28 men and no women to the COP29 organising committee in January 2024.

̽��ֱ��effects of climate change – from heavy rains, rising temperatures, storms and floods through to sea level rises and droughts – exacerbate systemic inequalities and disproportionately affect marginalised populations, particularly those living in low-income areas.

While the specific situation may be different depending on where people live or their social background (like their class, race, ability, sexuality, age, or location), women, girls, and gender minorities are often at greater risk from the impacts of climate change. For example, in many countries, women are less likely to own land and resources to protect them in post-disaster situations, and have less control over income and less access to information, resulting in increased vulnerability to acute and long-term climate change impacts.

They are also particularly at risk from climate-related threats to their health, say the researchers. For example, studies have linked high temperatures to adverse birth outcomes such as spontaneous preterm births, pre-eclampsia and birth defects. Extreme events, which are expected to become more likely and intense due to climate change, also take a severe toll on women's social, physical, and mental well-being. Numerous studies highlight that gender-based violence is reported to increase during or after extreme events, often due to factors related to economic instability, food insecurity, disrupted infrastructure and mental stress.

Dr Kim Robin van Daalen, a former Gates Cambridge Scholar at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and researcher at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), said: “Given how disproportionately climate change affects women, girls and gender minorities – a situation that is only likely to get worse – we need to ensure that their voices are heard and meaningfully included in discussions of how we respond to this urgent climate crisis. This is not currently happening at anywhere near the level it needs to.”

̽��ֱ��team summarised the inclusion of gender, health and their intersection in key decisions and initiatives under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and analysed gender representation among representatives of Party and Observer State delegations at COPs between 1995-2023. Progress has been slow, they say.

They highlight how previous scholars have consistently noted that emphasis remains mainly on achieving a gender ‘number-based balance’ in climate governance, over exploring gender-specific risks and vulnerabilities and addressing their root causes. They also discuss how there remains limited recognition of the role climate change has in worsening gendered impacts on health, including gender-based violence and the lack of safeguarding reproductive health in the face of climate change.

Although the situation is slowly improving, at COP28, almost three-quarters (73%) of Party delegations were still majority men, and only just over one in six (16%) showed gender parity (that is, 45-55% women). In fact, gender parity has only been achieved in the ‘Western European and Other’ UN grouping (which also includes North America, Australia and New Zealand). Based on current trends, several countries - particularly those in the Asia-Pacific and Africa regions - are expected to take at least a decade from COP28 before reaching gender parity in their delegations.

Dr Ramit Debnath, former Gates Cambridge Scholar and now an Assistant Professor at Cambridge, said: “ ̽��ֱ��urgency of climate action, as well as the slow understanding of climate, gender, and health connections, is cause for concern. Institutions like the UNFCCC must recognize these disparities, design appropriate methods to improve gender parity in climate governance, and keep these representation gaps from growing into societal and health injustices.”

Beyond ensuring that their voices are heard, more equitable inclusion of women has consistently been suggested to transform policymaking across political and social systems, including the generation of policies that better represent women’s interests. Previous recent analyses of 49 European countries revealed that greater women’s political representation correlates with reduced inequalities in self-reported health, lower geographical inequalities in infant mortality and fewer disability-adjusted life-years lost across genders.

Similar positive findings have been reported related to environmental policies, with women’s representation in national parliaments being associated with increased ratification of environmental treaties and more stringent climate change policies. For example, women legislators in the European parliament and US House of Representatives have been found to be more inclined to support environmental legislation than men.

Dr Ronita Bardhan, Associate Professor at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: "Achieving equitable gender representation in climate action is not just about fairness - it's a strategic necessity with significant co-benefits. We can shape climate policies and infrastructure that address a broader spectrum of societal needs, leading to more inclusive solutions enhancing public health, social equity, and environmental resilience."

While the researchers’ analyses focused on achieving gender balance, studies on women’s involvement in climate governance suggest that increased representation does not by itself always lead to meaningful policy changes. Even when formally included, women’s active participation in male-dominated institutions is often constrained by existing social and cultural norms, implicit biases and structural barriers.

Dr van Daalen added: “If we’re to meaningfully incorporate gender into climate policy and practice, we need to understand the risks and vulnerabilities that are gender-specific and look at how we can address them and their root causes at all phases of programme and policy development.

“But we also need to resist reducing women to a single, homogenous group, which risks deepening existing inequalities and overlooks opportunities to address the needs of all individuals. It is crucial to recognise the diversity of women and their embodiment of multiple, intersecting identities that shape their climate experiences as well as their mitigation and adaptation needs.”

̽��ֱ��team also highlights that gender-diverse people face unique health and climate-related risks due to their increased vulnerability, stigma, and discrimination. For example, during and after extreme events, transgender people in the United States report being threatened or prohibited access to shelters. Similarly, in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Samoa, gender-diverse individuals often face discrimination, mockery, and exclusion from evacuation centres or access to food. Yet, say the researchers, there are major gaps in knowledge about the health implications of climate change for such groups.

Find out how Cambridge's pioneering research in climate and nature is regenerating nature, rewiring energy, rethinking transport and redefining economics - forging a future for our planet.

Reference
Van Daalen, KR et al. Bridging the gender, climate, and health gap: the road to COP29. Lancet Planetary Health; 11 Nov 2024; DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00270-5

Climate governance is dominated by men, yet the health impacts of the climate crisis often affect women, girls, and gender-diverse people disproportionately, argue researchers ahead of the upcoming 29th United Nations Climate Summit (COP29) in Azerbaijan.

Given how disproportionately climate change affects women, girls and gender minorities, we need to ensure that their voices are heard and meaningfully included in discussions of how we respond to this urgent climate crisis

Kim van Daalen

Hansel ohioma

Surviving the flood at Ahoada in Rivers state Nigeria

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Changemakers in cancer: Oluwasegun Alofaranmi

zs332 — Mon, 15 Jul 2024 07:00:08 +0000

As a young medical student in Nigeria, Segun was shocked by the disproportionate rate of death from treatable cancers across Africa. To help bring about change, he’s supporting knowledge sharing and skills training for students in Africa. He also co-founded an initiative to provide career guidance and mentoring for schoolchildren in Nigeria. In Cambridge, he hopes his PhD will lead to a way to enhance immune cells to deliver a ‘kiss of death’ to cancer.

CamFest Speaker Spotlight: Tristan Dot

zs332 — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 08:49:35 +0000

Am I Normal? and Dreamy Cops are two art installations that investigate notions of AI, including computer vision, surveillance, the human body and normativity. ̽��ֱ��artist, Tristan Dot, is a Gates Cambridge scholar studying for a PhD in digital art history at Cambridge Digital Humanities. 11:00am-5:45pm on 15th March, Faculty of English, West Road.

AI at Cambridge Festival 2024

sb726 — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 10:38:08 +0000

Election disruption, deepfakes, the metaverse and more will be explored and debated by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� researchers.

Social media posts around solar geoengineering ‘spill over’ into conspiracy theories

sc604 — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 16:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed tweets 2009 and 2021 tagged with #geoengineering. They used a combination of natural language processing, deep learning and network analysis to explore how public emotions, perceptions and attitudes have changed over a 13-year period.

̽��ֱ��researchers found that there is a large amount of ‘spillover’ between geoengineering and conspiracy theories, especially around ‘chemtrails’, a conspiracy theory dating back to the 1990s. ̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that negative emotions related to geoengineering have a contagion effect, transcending regional boundaries and engaging with wider conspiracies. Their results are reported in the journal iScience.

As the climate crisis worsens, the search for solutions has accelerated. Some potential, albeit untested and controversial, solutions involve geoengineering, where various technologies could be used to alter weather or climate. Solar radiation management (SRM) is one hypothetical geoengineering solution where temperature rise might be addressed by reflecting some sunlight back into space. Possible forms this technology could take include cirrus cloud thinning or spraying aerosols into the stratosphere. But there are few, if any, opportunities for researchers to test these potential solutions.

“ ̽��ֱ��amount of funding that’s been made available for geoengineering research, and especially outdoor experiments, is tiny,” said first author Dr Ramit Debnath, Cambridge Zero Fellow at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge. “When you ask funders why this is, the reason often given is that the research is too controversial.”

“There are significant and well-founded concerns around geoengineering, but fundamentally we’re interested in furthering knowledge in this area,” said senior author Dr Shaun Fitzgerald, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair in Cambridge’s Department of Engineering. “In order to do that, we need to have more informed discussions. We don’t want to dismiss any concerns expressed on social media, but we do want to put them into context.”

“ ̽��ֱ��views expressed on social media don’t necessarily translate directly into wider public views, but there is still a lot we can learn by studying conversations that are happening,” said Debnath. “We wanted to know whether people who were tweeting about geoengineering were in fact, a vocal minority, and if so, what else are these people talking about?”

̽��ֱ��researchers analysed a large dataset of more than 800,000 English-language tweets sent in the 13-year period between 2009 and 2021. ̽��ֱ��researchers used natural language processing techniques to analyse the emotions expressed in the tweets and assigned each tweet a ‘toxicity score’. ̽��ֱ��researchers then conducted a network analysis to determine how tweets about geoengineering interact with other hashtag networks and conspiracy theories.

“ ̽��ֱ��chemtrail conspiracy theory is particularly popular among conspiracy theorists based in the United States, and our analysis found that tweets about chemtrails are the common link between geoengineering and conspiracies,” said Debnath. “Most of these tweets are sent by American users, but they spill over across regional and national boundaries.”

̽��ֱ��‘chemtrail’ conspiracy theory dates back to the 1990s. Believers in this patently false conspiracy allege that condensational trails (contrails) from aircraft are intentionally seeded with various chemical or biological compounds for nefarious purposes including population control or military testing. Those who believe the chemtrails conspiracy theory also allege that aircraft could be used for intentional weather and climate modification.

̽��ֱ��researchers say that the common link between the chemtrails conspiracy and conspiracy theories around geoengineering is the idea that bad actors are ‘weaponising’ the weather with chemicals.

Their analysis also showed that positive emotions rose on global and country scales following events related to SRM governance, and negative emotions increased following the announcement of SRM projects or experiments.

̽��ֱ��researchers say their work could help inform future discussions around SRM and other forms of geoengineering by putting social media discussions in context. “It’s a small echo chamber, but it’s quite a noisy one,” said Debnath.

While the controversy around geoengineering will continue on social media, the team says what they really need is quality data and research. “There are risks associated with geoengineering, but how do these compare with the risks of letting climate change continue unabated?” said Fitzgerald. “I worry that knowledge hasn’t progressed in this area. What happens if some rogue entity decides to go for a huge deployment of SRM, and people end up suffering because of it? This is why it’s so important to have informed discussions backed up by quality research.”

̽��ֱ��researchers say their study provides a data-driven glimpse into the structure of online climate misinformation that has a strong contagion effect, leading to strengthening of conspiracy theories in the public domain. Understanding such links with respect to climate action is critical for the design of counteraction strategies.

̽��ֱ��research was supported in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Cambridge Centre for Climate Repair, Cambridge Zero and Quadrature Climate Foundation, and the Google Cloud Climate Innovation Challenge Award. This study is part of an ongoing project co-led by Dr Ramit Debnath with Cambridge Zero on improving public understanding of climate change.

Ramit Debnath will be speaking about climate change misinformation at the Cambridge Festival on 30th March.

Reference:
Ramit Debnath et al. ‘Conspiracy spillovers and geoengineering.’ iScience (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106166

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge have analysed more than 800,000 tweets and found that negative emotions expressed about geoengineering – the idea that the climate can be altered using technology – can easily fall into conspiracy.

Milamai via Getty Images

Person using a smartphone

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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‘Cocktail’ vaccines could offer increased protection against future COVID-19 variants of concern

cjb250 — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 16:40:15 +0000

In research published in Nature Communications, scientists show that the omicron variant of the virus is immunologically distinct from other variants such as the vaccine variant and the alpha and delta variants – that is, exposure to it has a different effect on the neutralising antibody response and hence protection to other variants. But also, sub-variants of omicron are themselves distinct from each other. Their research further suggests that a combination of infection plus vaccination could provide increased protection against future variants.

Since SARS-CoV-2 was first identified in 2020, new variants of the virus have emerged as its genetic code evolves. Some of these variants threaten to spread faster, be more virulent or evade the protection of the vaccine – these are known as ‘variants of concern’.

Antonia Netzl, a PhD student at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, together with colleagues at Cambridge and Innsbruck, analysed data on people’s immune responses to different variants and vaccinations. They used these to create ‘antigenic maps’ and ‘antibody landscapes’ to explore the differences between variants.

A more recent variant of concern is the omicron variant, but since its emergence in December 2021 several sub-lineages have evolved, including BA.1, BA.2, BA.4, BA.5, and BA.2.12.1. Of these, BA.5 became the dominant variant in many countries earlier this year, though new dominant variants have subsequently supplanted it.

Netzl and colleagues found, using their maps, that not only was omicron immunologically distinct from alpha and delta, but its sub-variants BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5 were also distinct from each other. ̽��ֱ��antibody landscapes, an illustration of people’s immune profile, allowed the researchers to see how vaccination and/or infection with another variant increased virus neutralisation against other viruses.

Netzl, a Gates Cambridge Scholar, said: “We found that people who had been exposed to BA.1 were better protected against BA.2, but the reverse wasn’t true.

“But the good news was that we also found that two distinct exposures – for example, vaccination plus infection with a different variant – increased antibody levels against all variants. So, people who had been vaccinated and then infected with delta, for example, were better protected against omicron than those who had only been vaccinated or infected and not both.”

Netzl says this suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby offering some protection against all currently circulating variants as well as yet-unknown variants.

“Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variants. ̽��ֱ��bivalent vaccines, which contain the original prototype variant and an omicron variant in a single vaccine dose, could provide this increased protection.”

̽��ֱ��findings are supported by clinical trials and have already been put into practice with the roll-out of the bivalent Prototype+omicron BA.4/5 and Prototype+omicron BA.1 vaccines.

Although infection by multiple different variants gives the unvaccinated protection too, Netzl points out that vaccinations offer effective protection and reduce the severity of infection.

“People should still make sure they get themselves vaccinated, even if they have already had COVID once. Vaccination is important for boosting our immune response and thereby reducing the risk of infection and symptom severity.”

Netzl said the research, alongside the real-world clinical trials, gives a strong basis to the investigations in vaccine development and design.

This research was carried out at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Janine Kimpel Group at the ̽��ֱ�� of Innsbruck. ̽��ֱ��co-lead authors were Antonia Netzl and Annika Rössler.

Reference
Rössler, A, Netzl, A, et al. BA.2 and BA.5 omicron differ immunologically from both BA.1 omicron and pre-omicron variants. Nat Comm; 13 Dec 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35312-3

COVID-19 vaccinations that combine two or more distinct variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus could offer protection against both current and future ‘variants of concern’, say scientists at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Medical ̽��ֱ�� of Innsbruck.

Our work suggests that an update of the vaccine variant will be beneficial for increasing antibody levels and thereby protection against all currently circulating variants

Antonia Netzl

SamuelFrancisJohnson

Coronavirus

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New study suggests climate change may be affecting animal body size

mjg209 — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 10:25:06 +0000

New evidence shows that some mammals increase in size in warmer settings, upsetting established norms and suggesting that climate change may be having an unexpected impact on animal body size.

̽��ֱ��study*, published in Scientific Reports, finds that recent changes in treeshrew body size subvert two of the most studied ecogeographical rules about body size variation within species.

According to Bergmann’s rule, named after nineteenth century German biologist Carl Bergmann who described the pattern in 1847, individuals have larger body sizes in colder climates (typically at higher latitudes).

̽��ֱ��second rule, named Foster’s rule after a 1964 study by mammalogist J. Bristol Foster, predicts that island populations of small-bodied species are on average larger in size than their mainland counterparts.

̽��ֱ��researchers, led by Maya Juman [2022], a Gates Cambridge scholar and PhD student at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, tested the rules across space and time simultaneously in the Northern Treeshrew, a small mammal native to South and Southeast Asia. They used a dataset of museum specimens collected across a wide spatial and temporal range, along with associated historical climate data. They found that both rules have inverted rapidly over time: body size variation in specimens collected in the late 19th century followed the patterns predicted by Bergmann’s and Foster’s rules, but the pattern reversed in the 20th century.

According to the study, the size of Northern Treeshrews on the mainland has consistently increased over time in warmer settings, with temperature being the most important predictor of body size, although not the only one. Rainfall, for example, also plays a role, with areas of higher precipitation seeing a more pronounced relationship between temperature and body size.

̽��ֱ��researchers also discovered an interaction between the two rules: Bergmann’s rule is upheld in island populations but not mainland ones, so the island rule is upheld at higher latitudes but not closer to the equator. ̽��ֱ��study demonstrates the complex array of dynamic and potentially interdependent factors that affect body size, which is linked to critical physiological, ecological and behavioural traits.

̽��ֱ��researchers, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Yale ̽��ֱ��, the ̽��ֱ�� of Alaska Fairbanks, and McGill ̽��ֱ��, call for experts to re-examine ecogeographical rules in light of global warming to see whether climate change may be rewriting the rules themselves. “Our study is the first to demonstrate a rule reversal over time in any species,” said Juman. “We need to revisit some of our assumptions about size variation as our climate continues to rapidly change.”

*Recent and rapid ecogeographical rule reversals in Northern Treeshrews by Maya M. Juman (Cambridge; Yale), Virginie Millien (McGill), Link E. Olson ( ̽��ֱ�� of Alaska) and Eric J. Sargis (Yale). Picture credit: Burmese tree shrew ( Tupaia belangeri ) in Planckendael by Vassil. Courtesy of Wikimedia commons.

A new study finds treeshrews increase in size in warmer settings, contrary to established norms.

Our study is the first to demonstrate a rule reversal over time in any species. We need to revisit some of our assumptions about size variation as our climate continues to rapidly change.

Maya Juman

Burmese tree shrew ( Tupaia belangeri ) in Planckendael by Vassil.

Burmese tree shrew ( Tupaia belangeri ) in Planckendael by Vassil. Courtesy of Wikimedia commons

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