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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

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

Dr John Robb is an archaeologist and has been studying how people have understood the human body over the last 10,000 years. "It may seem surprising to think the human body has a history. We take it for granted it's a material thing, it's just there" Over time his research shows the body has been seen and portrayed in different ways: the body as an animal, the body politicised, God's body, the

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

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

Darwin and the evolution of why? Professor Daniel C Dennett (Centre for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA) Summary: We human beings are the only living things that can represent, transmit and criticize reasons for doing things and making things. This creates a perspective for us that we can then use to interpret all the rest of the life on the planet, cautiously.

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

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.

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