Topic description and stories

Digital technologies are opening up new fields of study and generating research questions that breach traditional disciplinary boundaries.

From the casebooks of the most notorious astrologer doctors in all England

16 May 2019

A ten-year project to study and digitise some 80,000 cases recorded by two famous astrological physicians has opened a “wormhole” into the worries...

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‘Murder map’ reveals medieval London’s meanest streets

28 Nov 2018

First digital map of the murders recorded by the city's Coroner in early 1300s shows Cheapside and Cornhill were homicide ‘hot spots’, and Sundays...

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Suffering from pre-eclampsia, this young mother had to undergo a Caesarean to deliver her twin boys, seen here in the arms of her mother (Malawi)

Under pressure: the battle to have a baby in Africa

16 Feb 2017

A complication of pregnancy that causes the mother’s blood pressure to rise – often fatally – is more common in women of African descent than any...

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Moon1

Elvis is alive and the Moon landings were faked: the (conspiracy) theory of everything

25 Oct 2016

As a global population we are awash with conspiracy theories. But what effect do these really have on the public as we go about our day-to-day lives...

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'Syrian Hero Boy'

The Whistle: verifying digital evidence of human rights violations

12 Oct 2016

Smartphones and social media have made it easy for accidental witnesses “in the wrong place at the wrong time” to capture and share violations and...

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When is a book not a book?

10 Oct 2016

The e-book has made continued inroads into the publishing world but the printed book has defied predictions of its death. Research by Professor John...

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Estimated to be worth millions on the open market, the ‘Manual of Calligraphy and Painting’ was made in 1633 by the Ten Bamboo Studio in Nanjing.

Oracle bones and unseen beauty: wonders of priceless Chinese collection now online

22 Jul 2015

A banknote from 1380 that threatens decapitation, a set of 17th-century prints so delicate they had never been opened, and 3000-year-old ‘oracle...

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Footprints

How to read a digital footprint

23 Jun 2015

Researchers are using social media data to build a picture of the personalities of millions, changing core ideas of how psychological profiling works...

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Encoffining body, Changchun, 1911

Visions of plague

05 Dec 2014

A new research project is compiling the largest database of plague imagery ever amassed, focusing on a pandemic that peaked in the early 20th century...

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Equatorie of the Planetis

Heavens above

27 May 2014

A 600-year-old astronomical document is now moving into the modern era, with a symposium at the Whipple Museum tomorrow (Wednesday 28 May) to mark...

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Illuminating Cambridge worldwide

07 Mar 2014

Arts Council England grants £87,582 to create online digital archive of Fitzwilliam Museum manuscripts.

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The longitude problem: 300-year-old archive opened to the world

18 Jul 2013

It was the conundrum that baffled some of the greatest and most eccentric experts of the 18th century - and captivated the British public during an...

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