Research Horizons Cambridge University

Carrying out fieldwork in high-security subterranean data centres, Alex Taylor explores fears of technological failure in our data-dependent society. Alex is a PhD student in the Division of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

Genetics of a canine transmissible tumour show how the world’s oldest cancer “metastasised” through the global dog population – and captured, maintained and rearranged its mitochondrial DNA along the way.

Strakova et al. eLife 2016;5:e14552

More info here:

http://www.tcg.vet.cam.ac.uk/

Cambridge University Library is celebrating its 600th anniversary with an exhibition of priceless treasures communicating 4,000 years of human thought. To celebrate, we have made six films on the six distinct themes featured in Lines of Thought. The second film in the series looks at Gravity; by following the discussions of generations of great scientific minds, from Copernicus to Hawking via Newton and Einstein, we begin to understand our place among the stars. To see more of the exhibits in this theme, visit the Virtual Exhibition: https://exhibitions.lib.cam.ac.uk/linesofthought/case/gravity/

From 3000-year-old Chinese oracle bones to Penguin paperbacks of the 20th century, the collections at Cambridge University Library chart the technological revolutions that have changed the world around us.

The objects in the film all feature in the Library's spectacular new exhibition Lines of Thought: Discoveries that Changed the World
- See more at: http://www.cam.ac.uk/news/lines-of-thought-revolutions-in-communications#sthash.N7v4PP1M.dpuf

Research provides insight into feasibility of virus becoming airborne transmissible.

It might be possible for human-to-human airborne transmissible avian H5N1 influenza viruses to evolve in nature, new research has found.

Currently, avian H5N1 influenza, also known as bird flu, can be transmitted from birds to humans, but not (or only very rarely) from human to human. However, two recent papers by Herfst, Fouchier and colleagues in Science and Imai, Kawaoka and colleagues in Nature reveal that potentially with as few as five mutations (amino acid substitutions), or four mutations plus reassortment, avian H5N1 can become airborne transmissible between mammals, and thus potentially among humans. However, until now, it was not known whether these mutations might evolve in nature.

The Cambridge researchers first analysed all of the surveillance data available on avian H5N1 influenza viruses from the last 15 years, focusing on birds and humans. They discovered that two of the five mutations seen in the experimental viruses (from the Fouchier and Kawaoka labs) had occurred in numerous existing avian flu strains. Additionally, they found that a number of the viruses had both of the mutations.