Research Horizons: Recent Episodes
Cambridge University
Welcome to Cambridge University's research collection, where you can find out about some of the research, discoveries and innovations that take place here. Whether you are at Cambridge, thinking about applying, or just curious about what happens at this famous University, this collection gives you a chance to find out something you didn't already know about the world around you!
Carrying out fieldwork in high-security subterranean data centres, Alex Taylor explores fears of technological failure in our data-dependent society. Alex is a PhD student in the Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.
Genetics of a canine transmissible tumour show how the world’s oldest cancer “metastasised” through the global dog population – and captured, maintained and rearranged its mitochondrial DNA along the way.
Strakova et al. eLife 2016;5:e14552
More info here:
http://www.tcg.vet.cam.ac.uk/
Cambridge University Library is celebrating its 600th anniversary with an exhibition of priceless treasures communicating 4,000 years of human thought. To celebrate, we have made six films on the six distinct themes featured in Lines of Thought. The second film in the series looks at Gravity; by following the discussions of generations of great scientific minds, from Copernicus to Hawking via Newton and Einstein, we begin to understand our place among the stars. To see more of the exhibits in this theme, visit the Virtual Exhibition: https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/case/gravity/
From 3000-year-old Chinese oracle bones to Penguin paperbacks of the 20th century, the collections at Cambridge University Library chart the technological revolutions that have changed the world around us.
The objects in the film all feature in the Library's spectacular new exhibition Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/news/lines-of-thought-revolutions-in-communications#sthash.N7v4PP1M.dpuf
Research provides insight into feasibility of virus becoming airborne transmissible.
It might be possible for human-to-human airborne transmissible avian H5N1 influenza viruses to evolve in nature, new research has found.
Currently, avian H5N1 influenza, also known as bird flu, can be transmitted from birds to humans, but not (or only very rarely) from human to human. However, two recent papers by Herfst, Fouchier and colleagues in Science and Imai, Kawaoka and colleagues in Nature reveal that potentially with as few as five mutations (amino acid substitutions), or four mutations plus reassortment, avian H5N1 can become airborne transmissible between mammals, and thus potentially among humans. However, until now, it was not known whether these mutations might evolve in nature.
The Cambridge researchers first analysed all of the surveillance data available on avian H5N1 influenza viruses from the last 15 years, focusing on birds and humans. They discovered that two of the five mutations seen in the experimental viruses (from the Fouchier and Kawaoka labs) had occurred in numerous existing avian flu strains. Additionally, they found that a number of the viruses had both of the mutations.
Britain has had a long history of interaction with India from the 17th century until the present day. During that time, a large number of Britons who lived in the region documented their lives using diaries, letters and photos, many of which have found their way into the archive of the Centre of South Asian Studies in Cambridge.
Centre of South Asian Studies: http://www.s-asian.cam.ac.uk Centre of South Asian Studies Archive: http://www.s-asian.cam.ac.uk/archive/...
Howler monkeys are about the size of a small dog, weighing around seven kilos, yet they are among the loudest terrestrial animals on the planet, and can roar at a similar acoustic frequency to tigers.
Evolution has given these otherwise lethargic creatures a complex and powerful vocal system. For males, a critical function of the roar is for mating: to attract females and scare off rival males.
But not all male howler monkeys have been equally endowed. The bigger a male howler’s vocal organ, and the deeper and more imposing roar they possess, the smaller their testes and the less sperm they can produce.
Dr Jacob Dunn from Cambridge's Division of Biological Anthropology describes this evolutionary 'trade-off' and how it relates to Darwin's work on sexual selection.
Find out more here: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/calls-vs-balls-monkeys-with-more-impressive-roars-produce-less-sperm
The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, J is for Jay – a surprisingly clever corvid with the ability to mimic human voices and much more.
Jays are corvids – members of the crow family. The jays we see in Britain are Eurasian jays. With their pinkish plumage, and characteristic flash of blue, they will be familiar to many people as woodland birds that are increasingly seen in gardens, even in cities.
Professor Nicky Clayton (Department of Psychology) has carried out pioneering research into the thinking power of corvids. Her observations have revealed these crows to be extremely clever. In Aesop’s Fables, the wise old crow drops pebbles into a pitcher of water to raise the level and allow her to drink. Clayton’s work has revealed that real-life crows can, if they need to, use pebbles in just this way. - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/j-is-for-jay#sthash.4jNKba3W.dpuf
This set of 29 papier mache models of horses' teeth (Wh. 6135) was made by Dr Louis Auzoux in France in the 1890s. The original wooden case opens out to reveal four rows of spaces for sets on each side. A hinged wooden flap holds the teeth in place. The models demonstrate the appearance of horses’ teeth at different ages, the effects of wind sucking and crib biting, and the fraudulent ways of making a horse seem older or younger by the appearance of its teeth.
As a medical student in Paris, Auzoux noticed that there was often a shortage of human remains available for dissection. To deal with the shortage of bodies, he began producing accurate anatomical models that could be taken apart piece by piece. With financial support from the French state, Auzoux founded a factory for producing anatomical models. The models became a commercial success and were used by schools, universities and hospitals, as well as by private individuals who could rent models at low costs. Responding to changing trends in scientific research and education, the company branched out and began producing models of human embryos, animals and plants.
The horses’ teeth are on display in the Main Gallery of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.
The museum is open Monday to Friday 12:30-4:30pm. The Museum is not always open during University vacations and visitors are advised to check beforehand. Admission is free.
Produced by Veronica Balzano and Nick Saffell
Fumiya Iida’s research looks at how robotics can be improved by taking inspiration from nature, whether that’s learning about intelligence, or finding ways to improve robotic locomotion. A robot requires between ten and 100 times more energy than an animal to do the same thing. Iida’s lab is filled with a wide array of hopping robots, which may take their inspiration from grasshoppers, humans or even dinosaurs. One of his group’s developments, the ‘Chairless Chair’, is a wearable device that allows users to lock their knee joints and ‘sit’ anywhere, without the need for a chair.
One of the most important maps of the UK ever made – described as the ‘Magna Carta of geology’ – is to go on permanent public display in Cambridge after being restored to its former glory.
- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-magna-carta-of-scientific-maps#sthash.cfVPSGJz.dpuf
William Smith’s 1815 Geological Map of England and Wales, which measures 8.5ft x 6ft, demonstrated for the first time the geology of the UK and was the culmination of years of work by Smith, who was shunned by the scientific community for many years and ended up in debtors’ prison. Today, exactly 200 years since its first publication, a copy of Smith’s map – rediscovered after more than a century in a museum box – will go on public display at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. Aside from a copy held at The Geological Society in London, the Cambridge map is believed to be the only such map on public display anywhere in the world.
Animal research plays an essential role in our understanding of health and disease and in the development of modern medicine and surgical techniques. As part of our commitment to openness, this film examines how mice are helping the fight against cancer. It takes a in-depth look at the facilities in which they are housed, exploring issues of animal welfare and the search for replacements.
We welcome comments about this article. However, as with discussions on all of our news and feature pages, comments will be moderated so please do not post contributions that are offensive or contain profanities and do stay on topic. We do not moderate comments in real-time so do bear with us if there is a delay before they appear.
On display at the Whipple Library, Cambridge, is a book described as the 'most important book in the history of scientific racism' Current research into this book is revealing how racist ideas travelled between the United States and Europe in the 19th century.
Crania Americana, published in Philadelphia in 1839 by Samuel George Morton, is being studied by Cambridge University PhD student James Poskett at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
His research has uncovered, for the first time, just how influential this book was in scientific circles that included the likes of Charles Darwin and James Cowles Prichard.
www.hps.cam.ac.uk/library/Fpage.html
Cambridge scientists are part of a resolution revolution. Building powerful instruments that shatter the physical limits of optical microscopy, they are beginning to watch molecular processes as they happen, and in three dimensions. Here, Professor Clemens Kaminski describes how a new era of super-resolution microscopy has begun.
The developments earned inventors Eric Betzig and William E Moerner (USA) and Stefan Hell (Germany) the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and are based on clever physical tricks that work around the problem of light diffraction.
Among the scientists in Cambridge who are using the techniques, Kaminski’s team in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology designs and builds super-resolution microscopes to study Alzheimer’s disease. “The technology is based on a conceptual change, a different way of thinking about how we resolve tiny structures. By imaging blobs of light as separate points in time, we are able to discriminate them spatially, and thus prevent image blur.” Their work is funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Alzheimers Research UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust.
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=cambridgeuniversity
A tiny sketchbook that brings to life one of the most famous voyages in history has been digitised and made available online for the first time.
The intricate pencil drawings and watercolours in the sketchbook were made by Conrad Martens, shipmate to Charles Darwin as they travelled around South America on the voyage of HMS Beagle.
Now, for the first time, all of Martens’ Beagle sketches have been made freely available online through Cambridge University Library’s Digital Library: http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/
Martens made the drawings between the summer of 1833 and the early months of 1835. Cambridge University Library owns his two sketchbooks from this period and has made the above audio slideshow to celebrate their addition to the Digital Library.
“These drawings were made almost two centuries ago but even now, they still really vividly bring to life one of the most famous voyages in the world and arguably the most famous in the history of science,” said Dr Alison Pearn, Associate Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project.
“Each of these pages is only 14cm by 20cm. It’s wonderful that everyone now has the opportunity to flick through these sketchbooks in their virtual representation and to follow the journey as Martens and Darwin saw it unfold.”
The first sketchbook begins just before Martens heard that the Beagle was looking for a new ship’s artist, capturing street life in Montevideo in August 1833. The later sketches give a sense of how hard and difficult the journey must have been both on sea and land in uncharted territory.
Martens did not have much time to make his sketches and the notebooks are littered with hastily-scribbled notes to himself about colours, textures and the geology of the landscapes before him.
“Darwin described the Beagle voyage as the most formative experience of his life and to see it through the eyes of one of his companions is a very vivid reminder of the reality of that journey,” added Pearn. “Martens sketches are a visual counterpart to Darwin’s letters home. Both bring to life a really remarkable adventure in a vast and remote part of the world.”
http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=cambridgeuniversity
A transformational new treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS) - the result of over three decades of research in Cambridge -- has now been approved by the EU agency responsible for regulating new drugs.
In recognition of the highly effective new treatment, the University of Cambridge has produced this video which explores the history of the drug, showing the many challenges as well as successes experienced during the course of this development.
For more information, visit: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/drug-developed-in-cambridge-approved-for-treatment-of-multiple-sclerosis
Fashion conveys complex messages. The recreation of an outfit taken from one of an extraordinary series of Renaissance portraits reveals how one man made his mark on society.
In 1530 Matthäus Schwarz, an accountant in the German city of Augsburg, was man in his prime: slim, smart and successful. In a portrait that shows him in an outfit made for the occasion of the Imperial Diet of Augsburg, he is every inch the fashionable man about town, ready to step out of his door and join the party.
In the painting Schwarz wears a doublet made in panes of brilliant red and yellow silk over a shirt cut from fine linen. His slender calves are shown off in yellow leather hose and his knees are cross-gartered. On his feet are slim shoes and on his head is a flat black beret made in felted wool. At his waist are belts carrying the sword and red purse that complete the picture.
Now an experimental project undertaken by Dr Ulinka Rublack, Reader in Early Modern History at the University of Cambridge, has brought this portrait alive in a historically accurate reconstruction of the outfit it depicts. The project reveals the role of dress in conveying complex social and political messages and the way in which fashion had a profound effect on mood and behaviour.
Atomic-level engineering is at the forefront of modern, greener jet engine design.
The increasing demand for more people to fly while reducing carbon emissions is one of the greatest aeronautical engineering challenges. Efficiency requires engines to run hotter and faster, but the best materials are already running close to their limits. At the Cambridge Rolls-Royce UTC, we design metal alloys that are able to withstand the extreme conditions inside the gas turbine engine.
The jet engine is a tough engineering environment. The hot gas stream exceeds 1800⁰C, and the forces on the rotating turbine blades are equivalent to hanging 15 hatchback cars from each one. But to reach the full potential of the engine we must develop new materials to withstand even higher temperatures and stresses. We study how atomic arrangements in metals influence their properties and performance. By engineering the position, size and type of atoms in metal alloys, we can radically change their capabilities. This knowledge is enabling us to design new materials for modern jet engines.
Researchers have captured the first 3D video of a living algal embryo turning itself inside out, from a sphere to a mushroom shape and back again. The results could help unravel the mechanical processes at work during a similar process in animals, which has been called the “most important time in your life.” Read more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/upside-down-and-inside-out
How does a Killer T Cell Kill its target?
Our new film captures the behaviour of cytotoxic T cells – the body’s ‘serial killers’ – as they hunt down and eliminate cancer cells before moving on to their next target.
An aircraft with a parallel hybrid engine – the first ever to be able to recharge its batteries in flight – has been successfully tested in the UK, an important early step towards cleaner, low-carbon air travel.
One hundred years after the start of the First World War, few Cambridge residents are likely to be aware that the University Library stands on the site of a former military hospital. The First Eastern General, set up within days of the outbreak of the war, treated tens of thousands of returning casualties between 1914 and 1919. Dr Sarah Baylis looks at the lost history of the First Easter, examining what life was like is this 'small city on the Backs', its impact on Cambridge and how it was possible that a building of such significance should have been so widely forgotten. It underlines the military hospital's central role in Cambridge as a site of profound individual and collective experience.
Technology developed in Cambridge at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology lies at the heart of a commercial process that can turn toothpaste tubes and drinks pouches into both aluminium and fuel in just three minutes. The process recycles a form of packaging – plastic-aluminium laminates – whose only fate was landfill or incineration. Now, in a commercial-scale plant, built and operated by Cambridge spin-out Enval Limited, up to 2,000 tonnes of packaging are recycled a year – roughly the amount handled by regional waste handlers – and it generates enough energy to run itself. The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
In June 1910, Dr Edward Wilson set sail to Antarctica on board the Terra Nova on the British Antarctic Expedition led by Captain Scott. A supremely talented artist, Wilson sketched what he saw – including the majestic albatross.
The expedition ended in tragedy. The members of the British expedition perished on their return from the pole having discovered that the Norwegians had got there first. Wilson’s sketchbook was retrieved from the tent where he and his companions spent their last days.
Today, around 1,900 of Wilson’s drawings and sketches are held by Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI), which holds a unique collection of materials illustrating polar exploration, history and science.
“Wilson is one of the greatest artists of the heroic age of polar exploration,” explains Heather Lane, former Keeper of the Polar Museum at SPRI. “He captured with stunning accuracy both the anatomical structure and the fragile beauty of living things."
SPRI: http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/
A new generation of pollution monitors developed by the University of Cambridge, together with academic and industrial partners, could help gather the evidence essential to tackle poor air quality.
Air pollution is the world’s largest single environmental health risk, causing one in every eight deaths according to figures released in 2014 by the World Health Organization. The new sensors are small enough to carry, stable enough to be installed as static detectors long-term around a city, and sensitive enough to detect small changes in air quality on a street-by-street basis.
Research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, European Union and Medical Research Council; film funded by the NERC Impact Acceleration Account
Dr Amy Milton from Cambridge’s Department of Psychology relates how Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby’s bleak portrayal of drug addiction, motivated her to dedicate her academic career to finding treatments for addiction.
Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peak inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
Having decided to become a doctor at the age of 10, Professor Carol Brayne’s love of the novels of Charles Dickens and George Eliot fired up her determination to tackle social inequalities in healthcare. Today she is Director of the Cambridge Institute of Public Health. Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
A PhD student in cell biology at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, Guy Pearson draws a link between the pursuit of Fancy Day in Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree and the pursuit of scientific discovery.
Here he talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
Dr Juliet Foster’s ongoing fascination with the portrayal of mental illness in literature was triggered by reading The Madness of a Seduced Woman by Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. Today she carries out research in Cambridge’s Department of Psychology.
Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
As a mineral scientist, Professor Simon Redfern from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences travels widely, and likes his visits to be about more than just the rocks. A recent trip to Kazakhstan was enlivened by reading Jamila by Chinghiz Aitmatov, a novella set in post-war Soviet Kyrgyzstan, on the borders of Kazakhstan.
Here he talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
Karen Yu’s growing love of science as a young girl was galvanised by reading the novelisation of the Star Wars movies (Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker by George Lucas). Her desire to build her own fusion reactor eventually morphed into a PhD in industrial photonics, using lasers for nanoscale manufacturing (if not for lightsabers), at Cambridge’s Department of Engineering.
Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
Professor Clare Bryant from Cambridge’s Department of Veterinary Medicine explains how reading AS Byatt’s Possession at a crucial point in her early career reminded her of the excitement of research and persuaded her not to turn her back on her life as a scientist.
Here she talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
As a child, Dr Paul Coxon from Cambridge’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, was fascinated by the madcap inventions of the boy hero in Jan Wahl’s SOS Bobmobile (illustrated by Fernando Krahn) – and he still likes to tinker with his own inventions in the lab today.
Here he talks about this favourite book as part of ‘Novel Thoughts’, a series exploring the literary reading habits of eight Cambridge scientists. From illustrated children’s books to Thomas Hardy, from Star Wars to Middlemarch, we find out what fiction has meant to each of the scientists and peek inside the covers of the books that have played a major role in their lives.
‘Novel Thoughts’ was inspired by research at St Andrew’s University by Dr Sarah Dillon (now a lecturer in the Faculty of English at Cambridge) who interviewed 20 scientists for the ‘What Scientists Read’ project. She found that reading fiction can help scientists to see the bigger picture and be reminded of the complex richness of human experience. Novels can show the real stories behind the science, or trigger a desire in a young reader to change lives through scientific discovery. They can open up new worlds, or encourage a different approach to familiar tasks.
View the whole series: Novel Thoughts: What scientists read https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoEBu2Q8ia_OJey8wqE7pyczqsQ8BFrx3
Read about Novel Thoughts http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/novel-thoughts-what-cambridge-scientists-read
It was thought that no bronzes by Michelangelo had survived - now experts believe they have found not one, but two - with a tiny detail in a 500-year-old drawing providing vital evidence.
They are naked, beautiful, muscular and ride triumphantly on two ferocious panthers. And now the secret of who created these magnificent metre-high bronze male nudes could well be solved. A team of international experts led by the University of Cambridge and Fitzwilliam Museum has gathered compelling evidence that argues that these masterpieces, which have spent over a century in relative obscurity, are early works by Michelangelo, made just after he completed the marble David and as he was about to embark on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
If the attribution is correct, they are the only surviving Michelangelo bronzes in the world.
On a July day in 1930, British Airship R100 took to the air from a Bedfordshire airfield on its first transatlantic flight. As it made its way across the Atlantic Ocean, 2,000ft in the air, a window opened and Squadron Leader Booth, wearing a pair of rubber gloves, leaned out. In his hand was a Petri dish.
This film tells the story of a remarkable experiment, the brain child of Cambridge mycologist Dr W. A. R. Dillon Weston, and his passion for crafting models of fungi spun out of glass.
Dr Ruth A. Horry from the University of Cambridge’s Department of History and Philosophy of Science tells the story she has been researching, and shows us some of the 90 glass models now housed in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/the-flying-scientist-who-chased-spores
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/whale-tale-a-dutch-seascape-and-its-lost-leviathan
Earlier this year a conservator at the Hamilton Kerr Institute made a surprising discovery while working on a painting owned by the Fitzwilliam Museum. As Shan Kuang removed the old varnish from the surface, she revealed the whale that had been the intended focus of the scene.
In 1873 the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, was given a number of Dutch landscape paintings by a benefactor called Richard Kerrick. Among these works of art was a beach scene painted by the artist Hendrick van Anthonissen early in the 17th century. Anthonissen depicts groups of people clustered on a sandy beach at the small town of Scheveningen. Other figures stand on the cliffs and, on the shore, several boats have been pulled up on the sand.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/whale-tale-a-dutch-seascape-and-its-lost-leviathan
Seventy years after Allied soldiers stormed the beaches of Normandy, Cambridge University's Churchill Archives Centre has released a short film (free to embed) commemorating the 'forgotten architect' of D-Day.
Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay was part of General Eisenhower's inner circle during the months and years of top secret planning that led to Operation Overlord, launched on June 6, 1944.
Ramsay was in overall command of Operation Neptune, the unimaginably complex naval and landing operations of D-Day, as more than 4,000 ships and landing craft, nearly 200,000 men and thousands of aircraft took part in the first wave of Normandy landings. However, Ramsay has become one of D-Day's forgotten men; a fatal plane crash in 1945 robbing him of the chance of penning his memoirs or taking his place alongside other venerated Allied leaders such as Eisenhower and Churchill at the end of hostilities.
Today, the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge, is home to the personal archive of Admiral Ramsay, as well as those of Churchill and other distinguished military and political figures. The Ramsay archive includes his D-Day diary, invasion maps, photographs and correspondence -- as well as eyewitness accounts from the Dunkirk evacuation, another watershed occasion in British naval history overseen by Ramsay.
An anti-fraud laser detector could be used to identify counterfeit banknotes, pharmaceuticals and luxury goods.
The prototype was developed with support from the Cambridge Innovation and Knowledge Centre
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/anti-fraud-lasers-and-inks-for-transparent-electronics
Ground-breaking new sensing technologies in the world's first 'smart tunnel' are providing engineers with an inexpensive and efficient method of monitoring, maintaining and protecting the UK's infrastructure, now and well into the future.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/the-making-of-a-smart-tunnel
Graphene-based electronic ink paves the way for wearable, printed electronics and sensors, such as heart monitors.
The prototype in this film was developed with support from the Cambridge Innovation and Knowledge Centre.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/anti-fraud-lasers-and-inks-for-transparent-electronics
On display at the Whipple Library, Cambridge, is a book described as the 'most important book in the history of scientific racism' Current research into this book is revealing how racist ideas travelled between the United States and Europe in the 19th century.
Crania Americana, published in Philadelphia in 1839 by Samuel George Morton, is being studied by Cambridge University PhD student James Poskett at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science.
His research has uncovered, for the first time, just how influential this book was in scientific circles that included the likes of Charles Darwin and James Cowles Prichard.
www.hps.cam.ac.uk/library/Fpage.html
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman turned a Yorkshire clergyman into a literary celebrity. Three hundred years after his birth on 24 November 1713, Laurence Sterne's quirky take on the novel continues to inspire. Dr Mary Newbould explores Sterne's lasting impact.
The makers of the beef extract called Bovril were pioneers in the dark arts of marketing. Cambridge University historian Lesley Steinitz explains how that famous black gloop won a cherished place in the heart of the nation.
A century and a half ago, a revolution took place in the food industry. A boom in the urban population fuelled a need for the mass production of affordable, non-perishable foodstuffs sold in cans and jars. Advances in processing and manufacturing collided with a burgeoning interest in science: the result was the emergence of branded convenience foods, cleverly marketed as nourishing and nutritious.
In December 2013 Professor Michael Green of Cambridge University and Professor John Schwarz of California Institute of Technology were awarded the 2014 Fundamental Physics Prize, one of a series of annual 'Breakthrough Prizes' set up to raise the profile of the physical and biological sciences. Their shared $3 mn prize was given for “opening new perspectives on quantum gravity and the unification of forces”. - See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/strings-that-surprise-how-a-theory-scaled-up#sthash.GfvjTToz.dpuf
A space mission to create the largest, most-accurate, map of the Milky Way in three dimensions will revolutionise our understanding of the galaxy and the universe beyond.
On 19th December 2013, a rocket blasted into the sky from a launch site in French Guiana and travelled 1.5 million km to reach its destination in orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft is called Gaia. Its mission, funded by the European Space Agency and involving scientists from across Europe, is to make the largest, most precise, three-dimensional map of the Milky Way ever attempted.
It will be a census of a billion stars spread across our galaxy. The results, says Professor Gerry Gilmore from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy and the Principal Investigator for UK involvement in the mission, "will revolutionise our understanding of the cosmos as never before."
http://www.gaia.ac.uk
http://sci.esa.int/gaia/
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a novel genetic cause of severe obesity which, although relatively rare, demonstrates for the first time that genes can reduce basal metabolic rate -- how the body burns calories.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/novel-genetic-mutations-cause-low-metabolic-rate-and-obesity
The Darwin Correspondence Project is researching Charles Darwin's letters and has so far located more than 15,000 he either sent or received. The full texts of these are being published in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (20 vols to date, CUP 1985-), and are also going online on the Project's website with 7500 currently available to read for free (www.darwinproject.ac.uk). Around half the original letters are in the Darwin archive in Cambridge University Library where the Project is based, with the rest spread in archives and private collections around the world; more are discovered every year. The research presented here was carried out as part of the "Darwin & Gender" project.
Researchers can measure an avalanche from start to finish for the first time. This process means that more accurate field data can be gathered from avalanches, enabling communities around the world which are vulnerable to avalanches to make better preparataions for their impact.
A noisy restaurant, a busy road, a windy day -- all situations that can be intensely frustrating for the hearing impaired when trying to pick out speech in a noisy environment. What if hearing device wearers could choose to filter out all the troublesome sounds and focus on the voices they want to hear? Dr Richard Turner from the University of Cambridge's Department of Engineering believes that this is fast becoming a possibility. He is developing a system that identifies the corrupting noise and 'rubs it out'.
Emptied of their contents and filled with water, ostrich eggshells enabled some of our earliest ancestors to colonise arid areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, making hunting trips into areas where rain rarely falls. Archaeologists have also found evidence that these communities decorated the ostrich eggs they used as flasks. This discovery makes fragments of decorated eggshell some of the world's earliest examples of art and the capacity for abstract thought.
Study of a unique rock collection -- and its astonishingly beautiful microscopic crystal structures -- could change our understanding of how the Earth works. The collection of igneous rocks, housed at the University of Cambridge's Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, dates back to at least the early 1800s and contains around 160,000 rocks and about 250,000 slide-mounted rock slices that are thin enough to let light through. A research team in Cambridge is using the collection to provide new information of the composition of the rocks. Because the rocks were made deep within the Earth, and then spewed out of volcanoes, they can be used to further understanding of the Earth's mantle structure. Studying these deep layers is crucial to understanding the inner workings of our planet and the driving forces behind the movement of tectonic plates.
www.sedgwickmuseum.org
Previously believed to be only man-made, a natural example of a functioning gear mechanism has been discovered in a common insect - the plant-hopper Issus - showing that evolution developed interlocking cogs long before we did.
Professor Malcolm Burrows talks about finding the bugs that led to the science, and working with artists Elizabeth Hobbs and Emily Tracy and members of the community in the London borough of Hackney to produce the film 'Waterfolk'.
For more information about the natural gear system, visit http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/functioning-mechanical-gears-seen-in-nature-for-the-first-time
For more information about the Waterfolk project, visit http://www.floatingcinema.info/events/water-folk.1
Folic acid deficiency can cause severe health problems in offspring, including spina bifida, heart defects and placental abnormalities. A study out today reveals that a mutation in a gene necessary for the metabolism of folic acid not only impacts the immediate offspring but can also have detrimental health effects on the next several generations. The new research, which also sheds light on the molecular mechanism of folic acid (also known as folate) during development
Research provides insight into feasibility of virus becoming airborne transmissible.
It might be possible for human-to-human airborne transmissible avian H5N1 influenza viruses to evolve in nature, new research has found.
In 2010, Dr Stephen Leonard embarked on a year-long trip to live with the Inugguit of north-west Greenland, the northernmost settled people on Earth. His aim was to record the language, stories and songs of these communities. The traditional life of the community and its future is potentially threatened by a number of factors, one of which is climate change. Dr Leonard lived as a member of those communities, travelled on hunts, and recorded and filmed as he went. Here he talks about some of his experiences and reflects on a year spent in the midst of a fading culture.
Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology reopens after a 18-month closure for redevelopment. Home to some of the most important collections of its kind in the UK, the museum has undergone a stunning transformation.
An endangered Greek dialect which is spoken in north-eastern Turkey has been identified by researchers as a "linguistic goldmine" because of its startling closeness to the ancient language, as Cambridge researcher Dr Ioanna Sitaridou explains.
One of the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christian burial sites in Britain has been discovered in a village outside Cambridge. The grave of a teenage girl from the mid 7th century AD has an extraordinary combination of two extremely rare finds: a 'bed burial' and an early Christian artefact in the form of a stunning gold and garnet cross.
The girl, aged around 16, was buried on an ornamental bed -- a very limited Anglo-Saxon practice of the mid to later 7th century -- with a pectoral Christian cross on her chest, that had probably been sewn onto her clothing. Fashioned from gold and intricately set with cut garnets, only the fifth of its kind ever to be found, the artefact dates this grave to the very early years of the English Church, probably between 650 and 680 AD.
An innovative project at the University of Cambridge will uncover some of the hidden histories of illuminated manuscripts, thanks to the application of techniques more commonly found in scientific laboratories. The MINIARE project will help conservators repair priceless works of art and provide new insights into the cultural, social and economic circumstances of their production. And, crucially for objects of such rarity and fragility, none of the techniques involves touching the manuscripts or removing samples. www.miniare.org
An insect not much bigger than a grain of rice is able to repeatedly jump on the surface of water using specialised paddles on their hind legs, new research reveals.
The pygmy mole cricket, which is really more closely related to a grasshopper than a cricket, is only 5mm (1/4 inch) long and weighs less than 10mg. They live in burrows that they dig into the muddy banks alongside fresh water, to include creeks and ponds, in more tropical habitats. On land they can jump as far as 1 metre and as high as 0.7 metre, but accuracy is sacrificed for speed and they often end up in the nearby water.
Professor Malcolm Burrows, from the University of Cambridge's Department of Zoology, first encountered pygmy mole crickets (family Tridactylidae) while eating his lunch near a pond in Cape Town, South Africa. Upon hearing sporadic noises coming from the water, he observed something he had never seen before in his 48 years of research -- an insect that was jumping on the surface of the water.
After collecting a few of the creatures and bringing them back to the lab, he analysed them jumping using a high speed camera. He and his engineer colleague, Dr Gregory Sutton, discovered that, unlike other animals that use the surface tension of water such as pond skater insects (also known as water striders) or basilisk (Jesus) lizards to traverse water, the pygmy mole cricket relies on its powerful hind legs to thrust a small ball of water down to propel itself off the surface.
In order to escape the water, where they are easy prey for fish, the pygmy mole cricket rapidly (the legs are extended in about 1 millisecond at an angular velocity of 130,000 degrees per second) push their powerful hind legs into the water. As they push downward, specialised spring-loaded paddles and spurs fan out to increase the surface area (which is increased by 2.4 times). This enables them to propel a ball of water downwards, launching them upwards into the air. Once the thrust has been applied, the paddles then rapidly snap closed to reduce the drag. On water, the jumps can reach distances of 33mm (5.4 times the length of their body) and 100mm high.
When you bury family members in a cemetery, you expect them to stay there. Not so 200 years ago, however, when body snatchers prowled the nation's burial grounds looking for subjects. An acute shortage of bodies eligible for dissection by student doctors in the late 17th century drove this cottage industry until the Anatomy Act of 1832, when dead bodies of all the unclaimed poor could legally undergo dissection. But what was the fate of these bodies after they were exhumed? A new book by Cambridge researcher Dr Piers Mitchell and colleagues from around the UK has brought together, for the first time, archaeological evidence of the fate of the corpses that helped improve understanding of how the human body worked.
The research described here has been published in 'Anatomical Dissection in Enlightenment England and Beyond: autopsy, pathology and display' (2012), edited by Piers Mitchell, Ashgate Publishing Company.
In this video interview with John Gurdon, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday 8th October, he talks about the research that revolutionised a field, his hopes for the future, and that now legendary school report.
New research at the University of Cambridge has lifted the lid on an unusual Spanish globe. Until now, the globe in the University of Cambridge's Whipple Museum of the History of Science has been shrouded in mystery: where, when and why was it made? Who would have used it? Most fundamentally, what is it -- some kind of scientific instrument or a child's toy?
The globe (c. 1907) is unlike any other currently known. Inside are beautiful illustrations, encyclopaedic entries and a planetarium that re-enacts the revolution of the planets around the sun at the turn of a cog. Research by Seb Falk in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science has brought us closer to understanding the puzzling object. Remarkably, his work highlights how it symbolises a wave of change that swept 19th-century Spain into the modern world -- from increasing trade in scientific instrumentation to a move of the education system towards interactive learning.
The Whipple Museum holds an internationally important collection of scientific instruments and models, dating from the Middle Ages to the present.
(www.hps.cam.ac.uk/whipple/)
Fryderyk Chopin is one of the most enduring composers of all time, universally celebrated for the originality and expressive power of his music. But Chopin is as frustrating as he is fascinating, because he rarely left behind just one version of his works. More often, there are three, four or more versions -- any number of which might be an authoritative representation of how he wanted the piece to sound. Listeners, performers and researchers alike may find this liberating as well as bewildering because there are so many options from which to choose.
John Rink, Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge, is director of a project that is transforming the way in which we understand Chopin's work by bringing this compositional cornucopia together in one place. Launched in 2005 with funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Online Chopin Variorum Edition will eventually provide digital images of all the available primary sources of Chopin's music -- including sketches, complete manuscripts, first editions and later impressions. Thousands of pages from these documents are already available, and the entire site is free of charge. Users anywhere in the world can explore, compare and combine elements from the composer's music, comment on it as they go, and ultimately construct their own version of the Chopin work to an extent that has never before been possible.
In this film John Rink explains why Chopin's music retains such a hold on us. Referring to the composer's boundless genius, he describes the sources and provides examples of interesting and revelatory changes of mind on Chopin's part. His demonstrations on a Pleyel "pianino" from 1846 are accompanied by images of manuscripts and editions alike, along with action shots of the OCVE website.
"Music does not exist in a single, correct version," John Rink notes. "It constantly changes over time. Chopin reminds us of that because he himself kept changing his music. Whenever we perform or listen to it, our experience is different from the last. By putting his compositions into a digital space, we can model and capture that evolutionary process. In doing so, we breathe new life into Chopin's music and witness for ourselves his compositional genius at work."
www.ocve.org.uk
Scientists at Cambridge University take a closer look at algae and examine its potential as a renewable source of energy. In the near future algae could be used as a sustainable, carbon neutral biofuel.
The Balfour Chair of Genetics was established at Cambridge in 1912. As part of its centenary celebrations the Department of Genetics has produced a short film following the development of the subject in the University over the past 100 years.
In the early 20th century the establishment of genetic research in Britain was driven primarily by William Bateson. As Steward of St John's College and later Professor of Biology in the University, Bateson played a key role in demonstrating the applicability of Mendel's laws to a variety of organisms, particularly animals. As well as laying the foundations for a renewed interest in the study of heredity, it was Bateson who coined the term Genetics. In 1912, largely as a result of Bateson's championing of the subject, the University established the Balfour Professorship of Genetics that in time would lead to the formation of the modern Department of Genetics. The first incumbent of the Chair was Reginald Punnett, known to students of biology throughout the world for his eponymous square. In the hundred years since this event Genetics has passed from being an eccentric mixture of mathematics, gardening and biology to become the core of the biological sciences. Our film tells the story of the role of Cambridge and the Department of Genetics in this journey.
Some of the world's oldest engravings of the human form -- prehistoric rock art from the Italian Alps -- have been brought to life by the latest digital technology.
P • I • T • O • T • I • is an innovative research project that applies insights from the new technologies of computer graphics to prehistoric pictures, specifically the rock art of Valcamonica, Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
It brings to life some of the earliest human figures in European rock art -- some made from as early as 7,000 BC -- with interactive graphics, 3D printing and video games, exploring the potential links between the world of archaeology and the world of film, digital humanities and computer vision.
A multimedia digital rock art exhibition with video projections, an ambient cinema and an interactive touch screen table is on display at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, 7-23 March 2013.
P • I • T • O • T • I • is a joint venture between the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici and the University of St Pölten (Austria).
The placenta is the interface between the mother and her baby, which means it is not only key to a successful pregnancy, it determines the future health of every one of us. In this film Professor Graham Burton discusses how the Trophoblast Centre was established to generate a fresh approach into placental research. The Centre focuses on common complications during pregnancy that have their roots in poor placental development -- such as miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, stillbirth and low birth weight - and maternal-fetal interactions during pregnancy.
Saturday 23 June 2012 marks the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing - mathematical genius, hero of the WWII code breakers of Bletchley Park, and father of modern computing.
Alan Turing was a mathematician, cryptographer and pioneer of computer science who possessed one of the greatest brains of the 20th century. His life was one of secret triumphs shadowed by public tragedy.
Presented by Dr James Grime, Enigma Project Officer at the University's Millenium Mathematics Project
In 2010, Dr Stephen Leonard embarked on a year-long trip to live with the Inughuit of north-west Greenland who live in the northernmost permanently inhabited settlement in the world. His aim was to record the marginal language, stories and songs of these communities - all of which are potentially threatened by a range of factors, one of which is climate change. Dr Leonard lived as a member of those communities, travelled on hunts, and recorded and filmed as he went. Here is lecture he gave at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in October 2011.
Dr Leonard's research was funded by the British Academy and the World Oral Literature Project
The remarkable story of a daring World War II operation in which hundreds of people fleeing the Japanese advance through Burma were rescued by elephant is to be told in full for the first time. The expedition was organised by Gyles Mackrell, a British tea planter who shot amateur films during its course.
Stills reproduced by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum (C4322/C5021/C5348/CI293)