Topic description and stories

Unveiling Darwin's treasures: specimens from historic voyage make television debut

21 Mar 2024

200-year-old plant specimens from the Voyage of the Beagle, held in the University's herbarium archives, make their television debut.

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From peonies to pineapples: Doctor Darwin's Diary

08 Nov 2022

From peonies to pineapples: explore the Darwin family garden in the UL's latest acquisition.

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Returned ‘Tree of Life’ notebooks go on display

08 Jul 2022

‘Darwin in Conversation’ reveals how the famed naturalist’s global network of correspondents shaped his ideas around the evolution of life on planet...

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Samurai, Darwin, the Poet Laureate and some very Curious Cures

13 Jan 2022

A year of wonder in store at Cambridge University Library during 2022.

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Darwin's missing notebooks

24 Nov 2020

Cambridge University Library has launched a public appeal for help in tracking down two missing notebooks belonging to Charles Darwin - one of which...

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'Outstanding international importance'

30 Jan 2020

Cambridge University Library's world-class Special Collections recognised with Arts Council England Designation

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Charles Darwin

Lines of Thought: From Darwin to DNA

29 Jul 2016

Darwin’s stuffed pigeons, the letter which first coined the term ‘genetics’ and a paper by Crick and Watson which helped decode DNA all feature in...

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Priceless treasures: in a shot commissioned to celebrate Cambridge University Library’s 600th anniversary, Professor Stephen Hawking is pictured with Newton’s annotated first edition of Principia Mathematica.

Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World

10 Mar 2016

Some of the world’s most valuable books and manuscripts – texts which have altered the very fabric of our understanding – will go on display in...

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Newton, Darwin, Shakespeare – and an envelope of ectoplasm: Cambridge University Library at 600

23 Dec 2015

In 2016, Cambridge University Library will celebrate 600 years as one of the world's greatest libraries with a spectacular exhibition of priceless...

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Deinonychus

Opinion: Six amazing dinosaur discoveries that changed the world

30 Nov 2015

David Norman (Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences) discusses the fossil discoveries that really made a difference to science.

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A black howler monkey chorus

Calls vs. balls: monkeys with more impressive roars produce less sperm

22 Oct 2015

Evolutionary ‘trade-off’ between size of throat and testes discovered in howler monkeys furthers Darwin’s theory of sexual selection and corresponds...

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Comparison of embryos of fish, salamander, turtle, chick, pig, cow, rabbit and human embryos at three different stages of development.

Haeckel’s embryos: the images that would not go away

06 Jul 2015

A new book tells, for the first time in full, the extraordinary story of drawings of embryos initially published in 1868. The artist was accused of...

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