Topic description and stories

Rise and evolution of the Daleks

Opinion: How we built a robot that can evolve – and why it won’t take over the world

18 Dec 2015

Fumiya Iida (Department of Engineering) discusses the "mother" robot he has built with his colleagues, and why reacting to developments in robotics...

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‘Virtual fossil’ reveals last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals

18 Dec 2015

New digital techniques have allowed researchers to predict structural evolution of the skull in the lineage of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, in an...

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Deinonychus

Opinion: Six amazing dinosaur discoveries that changed the world

30 Nov 2015

David Norman (Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences) discusses the fossil discoveries that really made a difference to science.

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Sperm cells

Opinion: ̽»¨Ö±²¥biggest sperm come in the smallest packages – and other odd facts about male sex cells

19 Nov 2015

Jacob Dunn (Division of Biological Anthropology) discusses why sperm are the most diverse cells found among animals.

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Evolution website sets out to tackle great scientific unknowns

18 Nov 2015

Ever wondered if a fly can ride a bicycle, or whether you could survive only on water? A new website on evolution, created by Cambridge scientists...

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Hank  ̽»¨Ö±²¥Cat Eating Tuna Fish

Opinion: Why cats are fussy eaters but dogs will consume almost anything

13 Nov 2015

Hannah Rowland (Department of Zoology) discusses why different animals have different tastes when it comes to food.

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Left: Skull of a Yamnaya, the people who migrated to Central Asia in early Bronze Age and developed the Afanasievo culture.  ̽»¨Ö±²¥Afanasievo are one of the Bronze Age groups carrying Y. pestis. Right: Scanning Electron Micrograph Of A Flea

Plague in humans ‘twice as old’ but didn’t begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals

22 Oct 2015

New research dates plague back to the early Bronze Age, showing it had been endemic in humans across Eurasia for millennia prior to the first...

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A black howler monkey chorus

Calls vs. balls: monkeys with more impressive roars produce less sperm

22 Oct 2015

Evolutionary ‘trade-off’ between size of throat and testes discovered in howler monkeys furthers Darwin’s theory of sexual selection and corresponds...

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Young chimpanzee playing with branches.

Young male chimpanzees play more than females with objects, but do not become better tool users

07 Oct 2015

Research into differences between chimpanzees and bonobos in ‘preparation’ for tool use reveals intriguing sex bias in object manipulation in young...

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Ant's foot showing a fluid trail

How the stick insect sticks (and unsticks) itself

07 Oct 2015

New research shows the fluid found on insects’ feet does not help them adhere to vertical and inverted surfaces, as previously thought, but may in...

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Female (left) and male (right)

Love’s Labours: study shows male lizards risk becoming lunch for a bird in order to attract a mate

22 Sep 2015

New research shows male lizards are more likely than females to be attacked by predators because the bright colours they need to attract a mate also...

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Zebras, Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

Predators might not be dazzled by stripes

12 Aug 2015

New research using computer games suggests that stripes might not offer the ‘motion dazzle’ protection thought to have evolved in animals such as...

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