Topic description and stories

Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club Openweight crew rowing during the 2017 Boat Race on the river Thames in London. The Cambridge women’s crew beat Oxford in the race. The members of this crew were among those analysed in the study.

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

29 Nov 2017

The first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of...

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Would you live in a city made of bone?

23 Jun 2016

The cities of today are built with concrete and steel – but some Cambridge researchers think that the cities of the future need to go back to nature...

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Hunter-gatherer bone mass (left) compared with agriculturalist bone mass (right)

Hunter-gatherer past shows our fragile bones result from physical inactivity since invention of farming

22 Dec 2014

Latest analysis of prehistoric bones show there is no anatomical reason why a person born today could not develop the skeletal strength of a...

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Body builders: collagen scaffolds

04 Jun 2014

Miniature scaffolds made from collagen – the ‘glue’ that holds our bodies together – are being used to heal damaged joints, and could be used to...

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Cod skeleton indicating anatomical categories used in the study

Cod bones reveal 13th-century origin of London’s global fish trade

28 May 2014

Researchers have uncovered the medieval tipping-point when local fishing could no longer support the demands of the burgeoning metropolis, and...

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Image shows C57BL/6 mice, the common strain of laboratory mouse, in a Cambridge animal house. This breed of animal was used in the 'heavy mouse' study.

World's first ‘heavy mouse’ leads to first lab-grown tissue mapped from atomic life

15 May 2014

Molecular ‘fingerprint’ for tissue taken from first isotope-enriched mouse has huge potential for scientific breakthroughs, as well as improved...

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From athletes to couch potatoes: humans through 6,000 years of farming

08 Apr 2014

Research into lower limb bones shows that our early farming ancestors in Central Europe became less active as their tasks diversified and technology...

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One of the pre-Dynastic Egyptians analysed in the project

Biographies in bone

26 Mar 2014

The diet and journeys taken by those who lived in the Sahara Desert thousands of years ago are being analysed through their teeth and bones.

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Knee With Patella Right x-ray 0003

Shock-absorbing 'goo' discovered in bone

24 Mar 2014

New findings show that much of the mineral from which bone is made consists of ‘goo’ trapped between tiny crystals, lubricating and allowing movement...

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The winning entries for the Zeiss engineering photos competition 2013

Inspiring images: Engineering captured on camera

16 Oct 2013

From rainbow coloured liquid-crystal molecules, to tunnels deep under the ground, this year’s entries from the University of Cambridge Department of...

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Illustration by Sarah Castor-Perry for 'Where Did Humans Go During the Last Ice Age?'

Big ideas in small packages

20 Mar 2013

A video project demonstrates how academic research can be communicated in an engaging format that puts across complex ideas in a nutshell.

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Rendering of the Ichthyostega backbone structure

Reassembling the backbone of life using a particle accelerator

14 Jan 2013

New research shows for the first time the intricate three-dimensional structure of the backbone in the earliest four-legged animals (tetrapods)...

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