Topic description and stories

Map of depth-integrated anthropogenic carbon

Giant underwater waves affect the ocean’s ability to store carbon

16 Mar 2023

Underwater waves deep below the ocean’s surface – some as tall as 500 metres – play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon...

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Fluid mechanics and the energy transition

14 Oct 2022

Decarbonisation of the energy system is the greatest challenge we face. At Cambridge’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, world-leading...

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Visualisation of droplets from a cough

Two-metre COVID-19 rule is ‘arbitrary measurement’ of safety

23 Nov 2021

A new study has shown that the airborne transmission of COVID-19 is highly random and suggests that the two-metre rule was a number chosen from a...

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Desert under blue sky

A new model could help stall shifting sand dunes, protecting infrastructure and ecosystems

26 Oct 2021

Cambridge scientists have used downscaled laboratory models to show how sand dunes move through a landscape, revealing the conditions that determine...

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Microscope images showing two species of algae which swim using tiny appendages known as flagella

Algae use their ‘tails’ to gallop and trot like quadrupeds

03 May 2016

Species of single-celled algae use whip-like appendages called flagella to coordinate their movements and achieve a remarkable diversity of swimming...

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Overlaid waveforms of the flagellar beating of two somatic cells of Volvox carteri held on separate glass micropipettes.

Microscopic rowing – without a cox

29 Jul 2014

New research shows that the whip-like appendages on many types of cells are able to synchronise their movements solely through interactions with the...

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Tea kettle whistle. Homepage banner image: Dwayne Bent (Att-SA)

How the kettle got its whistle

24 Oct 2013

Researchers have finally worked out where the noise that makes kettles whistle actually comes from – a problem which has puzzled scientists for more...

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