The man we love to hate: it’s time to reappraise Thomas Robert Malthus

18 May 2016

Thomas Robert Malthus, who was born 250 years ago, became notorious for his ‘principle of population’.  He argued that, because poverty was inevitable, some people would not find a seat at ‘nature’s table’ and would perish. In a new book, historians at Cambridge and Harvard set the life and work of this contentious thinker within a wider context – and look in particular at his engagement with the world beyond Europe.

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Cookery class - March 2009

Meals for one: how eating alone affects the health of the elderly

19 October 2013

EPIC-Norfolk, a long-term study of health and ageing that recently celebrated its 20th birthday, provides researchers with a wealth of data. Annalijn Conklin, a PhD candidate in the Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR), discusses what we can learn from the study about the impact of isolation, and a drop in quality of diet, on the older population. 

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Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, on the Kenya-Somalia border. The Horn of Africa frequently experiences severe drought and hundreds of thousands of people have trekked to Dadaab seeking food, water, shelter and safety.

Feeding seven billion

21 November 2012

With the world’s population already estimated to be over seven billion and rising fast, the challenge of how to produce enough food has never been more pressing. Three public debates will give people the chance to hear from and question politicians, researchers and journalists on the issues at stake.

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Vegetables

Food security: your questions answered

31 August 2011

Over the past month, the University of Cambridge has been profiling research that addresses one of the biggest challenges of the 21st century – how to guarantee enough food, fairly, for the world’s rapidly expanding population. As part of this, we asked whether you had a question that you wanted us to answer, and put them to a panel of academics who specialise in research to do with food security. Here's what they had to say. Thanks to everyone who sent questions in!

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