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From Albatross to Zebrafish, the Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge’s connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. The articles are now being made available as a series of podcasts, and in our new publication on Medium. https://medium.com/cambridge-animal-alphabet

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, J is for Jay – a surprisingly clever corvid with the ability to mimic human voices and much more. Jays are corvids – members of the crow family. The jays we see in Britain are Eurasian jays. With their pinkish plumage, and characteristic flash of blue, they

Content warning: this film contains images of blood and surgery For people with organ failure, transplantation is the only option. A lack of suitable organs for transplantation means patients die every day. Researchers in the University’s Department of Surgery are using large animal models to understand why donated organs become damaged and unsuitable for transplantation, and to test promising

New three-dimensional reconstructions show how some of the earliest animals on Earth developed, and provide some answers as to why they went extinct. http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/how-some-of-the-first-animals-lived-and-died A bizarre group of uniquely-shaped organisms known as rangeomorphs may have been some of the earliest animals to appear on Earth, uniquely suited to ocean conditions 575

COVID-19 is caused by a virus that jumped from animals to humans - and then spread rapidly. The risk of this happening again, causing another pandemic, is very real. Cambridge researchers have looked at all the major ways this might happen, to work out what might be done to reduce the risk. Read more here:

Science writer David Adam has obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). In the second of a series of films, he meets researchers at the University of Cambridge to find out what animals – rats and marmosets – can teach us about the condition and how this can help in the development of new treatments.

An experiment on coral reefs provides the first evidence of a fish that uses other animals for motion camouflage to approach prey without detection. Coral reefs around the world are being degraded due to the warming climate, pollution and overfishing. The researchers say the strategy of hiding behind other moving fish may help animals adapt to the impacts of environmental change. Researchers: Dr

Give and Take explores the complex nature of gift giving for humans and their close animal relatives. The film brings biology, psychology, political studies, philosophy and theology into dialogue. Interviewees include Cambridge’s Professor Claire Hughes (Psychology), Professor Nicky Clayton (Psychology) and Dr Andrew Davison (Theology and Natural Sciences). Giving figures prominently in many

Walking you dog in the snow? Cambridge University vet Charlotte has some advice if you are about to go out or if they have just come back in.

Entomics Biosystems, a company set up by a group of Cambridge students, is developing a sustainable feed of the future – based on maggots and food waste.

New research led by Gates Cambridge Scholar Alison Greggor, shows urban birds are less afraid of litter than their country cousins. It suggests they may learn that it is not dangerous and shows how some animals can learn to adapt to human-dominated environments.

Scientists in the Sampaziotis Lab have identified an off-patent drug that can be repurposed to prevent COVID-19 – and may be capable of protecting against future variants of the virus – in research involving a unique mix of ‘mini-organs’, donor organs, animal studies and patients. Find out more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05594-0

Pain in The Machine is a short documentary that considers whether robots should feel pain. Once you've watched our film, please take a moment to complete our short survey https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/PainintheMachineSurvey Pain is a feeling that most would describe as being unpleasant, both physically and emotionally. Why then do humans and other animals have pain, and how is it useful?

Fumiya Iida’s research looks at how robotics can be improved by taking inspiration from nature, whether that’s learning about intelligence, or finding ways to improve robotic locomotion. A robot requires between ten and 100 times more energy than an animal to do the same thing. Iida’s lab is filled with a wide array of hopping robots, which may take their inspiration from grasshoppers,

Howler monkeys are about the size of a small dog, weighing around seven kilos, yet they are among the loudest terrestrial animals on the planet, and can roar at a similar acoustic frequency to tigers. Evolution has given these otherwise lethargic creatures a complex and powerful vocal system. For males, a critical function of the roar is for mating: to attract females and scare off rival males.

The University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge is one of the largest and most important natural history collections in the UK, with an extraordinarily rich history dating back to 1814. On 23rd June 2018 the Museum reopens after a five-year, £4.1million redevelopment to reveal thousands of incredible specimens from across the animal kingdom.​ The refurbished galleries bring the Museum into the

Read more about the research here: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/male-dogs-four-times-more-likely-to-develop-contagious-cancer-on-nose-or-mouth-than-females Animation Credit: Emma Werner Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumour (CTVT) is an unusual cancer – it is infectious and can spread between dogs when they come into contact. The living cancer cells physically ‘transplant’ themselves

These Curious Objects are Asante gold weights and come from 19th or 20th century Ghana. They were made of brass, but we're used to measure gold dust which was the universal currency in West Africa at the time. Weights often featured animals, fish, weapons and tools – or human figures as demonstrated here. Their significance as an art form transcends their function and reflects wider Asante

In Ilott v The Blue Cross [2017] UKSC 17 the Supreme Court considered the competing claims of the animal charities included in a woman's will and her estranged adult daughter, who was excluded from the will but living in necessitous circumstances. In this video, Brian Sloan considers the outcome of the case, which raised fundamental principles of succession law, and its broader implications.

In Kenya, Dr Lauren Evans, a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Geography, is also researching the conflicts that arise when elephants and humans share the same rural landscape. She is an associate director of Space for Giants, a Kenyan-based elephant conservation charity that seeks to ensure a future for elephants through human-elephant conflict mitigation, anti-poaching, securing

Hello and welcome back to Mind Over Chatter! This second series is all about the future - and in this first episode we’re going to be considering what the future even is… Have you ever wondered how time works? It turns out, the answer is a lot more complicated than we thought. Please fill out our survey https://forms.gle/r9CfHpJVUEWrxoyx9 to tell us what your mind thinks about our chatter.