Topic description and stories

Fish bellies, fava beans and food security

05 Apr 2024

Cambridge Zero and Cambridge Global Food Security gather academics and experts to share solutions for the planet’s looming food production problem.

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Cuttlefish

Ageing cuttlefish can remember the details of last week’s dinner

18 Aug 2021

Cuttlefish can remember what, where, and when specific things happened – right up to their last few days of life, researchers have found.

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Sexton beetle and larva.

Neglected baby beetles evolve greater self-reliance

28 Sep 2018

A new study reveals that when burying beetle larvae are denied parental support, they evolve bigger jaws to compensate.

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Breeder meerkats age faster, but their subordinates still die younger

31 Aug 2018

Despite rapidly ageing, dominant animals live longer because their underlings are driven out of the group – becoming easy targets for predators. The...

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Bridging the divide: philosophy meets science

12 Jul 2018

A unique three-year project to bridge the divide between science and philosophy – which embedded early-career philosophers into some of Cambridge’s...

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Birds learn from each other’s ‘disgust’, enabling insects to evolve bright colours

18 Dec 2017

A new study of TV-watching great tits reveals how they learn through observation. Social interactions within a predator species can have “...

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Dermal denticles on the tail of the Little Skate, as used in the latest research.

Ancient fish scales and vertebrate teeth share an embryonic origin

20 Nov 2017

Latest findings support the theory that teeth in the animal kingdom evolved from the jagged scales of ancient fish, the remnants of which can be seen...

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Left: Early skate embryo labeled with fluorescent dye. Right: Image of a hatchling skate

Deeper origin of gill evolution suggests 'active lifestyle' link in early vertebrates

09 Feb 2017

Fish embryo study indicates that the last common ancestor of vertebrates was a complex animal complete with gills – overturning prior scientific...

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Atypical welcome

Languages still a major barrier to global science, new research finds

29 Dec 2016

Over a third of new conservation science documents published annually are in non-English languages, despite assumption of English as scientific ‘...

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Why mole rats are more flexible than we previously thought

30 Aug 2016

One of the most interesting facts about mole rats – that, as with ants and termites, individuals specialise in particular tasks throughout their...

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Members of a chacma baboon troop, studied as part of the long-term Tsaobis Baboon Project.

Darwin’s 'true century' was delayed until animal biographies illuminated social evolution

14 Jun 2016

Over the last fifty years, long-term studies following individual animals over entire lifespans have allowed insight into the evolutionary influence...

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Zebra Finch

Genes discovered that enable birds to produce the colour red

20 May 2016

Latest research suggests a new mechanism for how sexual displays of red beaks and plumage might be ‘honest signals’ of mate quality, as genes that...

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