̽»¨Ö±²¥

Dozens of common plants are toxic. Archaeologists have long suspected that our Palaeolithic ancestors used plant poisons to make their hunting weapons more lethal.  Now Dr Valentina Borgia has teamed up with a forensic chemist to develop a technique for detecting residues of deadly substances on archaeological objects.

Scientists at the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge have successfully created ‘mini-lungs’ using stem cells derived from skin cells of patients with cystic fibrosis, and have shown that these can be used to test potential new drugs for this debilitating lung disease.

̽»¨Ö±²¥dottyback changes its colour to match surrounding damselfish species, enabling it to counter the defences of its damselfish prey by disguising itself as a harmless part of their community, then swoop in to hunt their young.

Nobel laureate Sir Venkatraman (Venki) Ramakrishnan has been confirmed as President Elect of the Royal Society.

Newspaper reports suggest that France may be considering health warnings – or even an outright ban – on breast implants, following a cancer scare. Should women be concerned? Dr Suzanne Turner from the Department of Pathology, ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge, looks at the truth behind the headlines.

Modern scientific methods for mapping the evolution of species are being applied to centuries-old hand-copied music, providing new inspiration for how it is performed.

When viruses such as influenza and Ebola jump from one species to another, their ability to cause harm can change dramatically, but research from the ̽»¨Ö±²¥ of Cambridge shows that it may be possible to predict the virus’s virulence by looking at how deadly it is in closely-related species.

̽»¨Ö±²¥first 3D reconstruction of the skull of a 360 million-year-old near-ancestor of land vertebrates has been created by scientists.

Many animals, including humans, acquired essential ‘foreign’ genes from microorganisms co-habiting their environment in ancient times, according to research published in the open access journal Genome Biology. ̽»¨Ö±²¥study challenges the conventional view that animal evolution relies solely on genes passed down through ancestral lines and suggests that, at least in some lineages, the process is still ongoing.

Families come in many guises. Some parents are same-sex; others are single by choice. Growing numbers of children are conceived through assistive reproductive technology. What do these developments mean for the parents and children involved? Professor Susan Golombok’s book, Modern Families, examines ‘new family forms’ within a context of four decades of empirical research.