Topic description and stories

An iron meteorite from the core of a melted planetesimal (left) and a chondrite meteorite, derived from a ‘primitive’, unmelted planetesimal (right).

How did the building blocks of life arrive on Earth?

11 Oct 2024

Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results...

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Composite graphic showing planets, vegetation, DNA and book

Explore life in the Universe with new postgraduate programme

18 Sep 2023

A new postgraduate programme will train researchers to understand life's origins, search for habitable planets and consider the most profound...

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Artist Concept of an Early Earth

Seawater could have provided phosphorous required for emerging life

27 Sep 2022

The problem of how phosphorus became a universal ingredient for life on Earth may have been solved by researchers from the University of Cambridge...

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Composition of Earth’s mantle revisited thanks to research at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source

First global map of flow within the Earth’s mantle finds the surface is moving up and down “like a yo-yo”

09 May 2016

Researchers have compiled the first global set of observations of flow within the Earth’s mantle – the layer between the crust and the core – and...

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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.  Credit: Graham CopeKoga

Understanding gravity - from Newton to Hawking

29 Apr 2016

The most important publication in the history of science – Isaac Newton’s own annotated copy of Principia Mathematica – and other seminal works by...

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Energy city

Cambridge Ideas - The future of energy?

30 Jul 2012

Today, we consume a truly vast amount of energy - with demand continuing to skyrocket at an alarming rate.

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Deep into the Patagonia Glacier

Ice Age, interrupted

09 Jan 2012

Research shows that a new Ice Age could well have been upon us in the next millennium were it not for increases in CO2 due to humans, despite the...

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icy world

Cambridge Ideas: This Icy World

30 Mar 2011

Cambridge University glaciologist Professor Julian Dowdeswell has spent three years of his life in the polar regions. //-->

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Cambridge Ideas - How Many Lightbulbs?

11 Nov 2010

Cambridge University physicist, David Mackay, in a passionate, personal analysis of the energy crisis in the UK, in which he comes to some surprising...

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Coalport China Museum - former Coalport Chinaworks - by the River Severn

Reassessing the industrial revolution

21 Sep 2010

It was the dawn of an age of prosperity and transformed Britain into an economic superpower but our rose-tinted view of the industrial revolution...

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Forest

First biodiversity symposium looks to future

16 Sep 2010

Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s (CCI), inaugural symposium, held on Wednesday, focused on how to conserve natural capital and the...

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