Topic description and stories

Saffron: a Cambridge spice

17 Jan 2023

An investigation into the local histories of saffron in Cambridgeshire.

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Call of the wild collector

28 Aug 2020

Walking at ‘botanist pace’ on Mount Terror in South Africa, Dr Ángela Cano likes to stop and smell the succulents. She then measures, photographs...

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Viburnum tinus fruits

Metallic blue fruits use fat to produce colour and signal a treat for birds

06 Aug 2020

Researchers have found that a common plant owes the dazzling blue colour of its fruit to fat in its cellular structure, the first time this type of...

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Marchantia - a primitive plant form used as the 'chassis' for designing new plants

From foundry to factory: building synthetic plants

20 Jun 2014

A movement is under way that will fast-forward the design of new plant traits. It takes inspiration from engineering and the software industry, and...

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Willow trees in bud

Researchers identify first ‘coppicing response’ gene in willow

07 Jan 2014

Scientists have, for the first time, discovered a gene that contributes to the ‘coppicing response’ of willows - the ability to make new growth when...

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Arabidopsis Thaliana planted in Laboratory

Researchers show how plants tell the time

23 Oct 2013

Plants use sugars to tell the time of day, according to research published in Nature today.

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Rice terraces in the Philippines

A step towards increasing crop productivity

09 Oct 2013

A breakthrough in understanding the evolutionary pathways along which some crops have become significantly more productive than others may help...

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 Scanning electron micrograph image of sunflower head developing.

Plants and patterning: how shapes are made

11 Mar 2013

A Cambridge Science Festival lecture on Wednesday (13 March 2013) will look at how plants grow through repeating patterns and discuss what we can...

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Structure of the Fenna-Matthews-Olson complex

Unlocking nature’s quantum engineering for efficient solar energy

06 Jan 2013

Quantum scale photosynthesis in biological systems which inhabit extreme environments could hold key to new designs for solar energy and nanoscale...

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Heliamphora nutans

Ants aquaplaning on a pitcher plant

19 Dec 2012

A Venezuelan pitcher plant uses wettable hairs to make insects slip into its deadly traps...

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Pollia condensata fruit

African fruit ‘brightest’ thing in nature but does not use pigment to create its extraordinary colour

11 Sep 2012

Unique blue fruit’s colour does not fade even after a century

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Xenopus laevis oocytes

Cambridge success in Wellcome Image Awards

29 Jun 2012

University of Cambridge researchers created four out of the 16 winning images in the recent Wellcome Image Awards 2012.

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