Topic description and stories

Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club Openweight crew rowing during the 2017 Boat Race on the river Thames in London. The Cambridge women’s crew beat Oxford in the race. The members of this crew were among those analysed in the study.

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

29 Nov 2017

The first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of...

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Would you live in a city made of bone?

23 Jun 2016

The cities of today are built with concrete and steel – but some Cambridge researchers think that the cities of the future need to go back to nature...

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Hunter-gatherer bone mass (left) compared with agriculturalist bone mass (right)

Hunter-gatherer past shows our fragile bones result from physical inactivity since invention of farming

22 Dec 2014

Latest analysis of prehistoric bones show there is no anatomical reason why a person born today could not develop the skeletal strength of a...

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Body builders: collagen scaffolds

04 Jun 2014

Miniature scaffolds made from collagen – the ‘glue’ that holds our bodies together – are being used to heal damaged joints, and could be used to...

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From athletes to couch potatoes: humans through 6,000 years of farming

08 Apr 2014

Research into lower limb bones shows that our early farming ancestors in Central Europe became less active as their tasks diversified and technology...

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The Flying Dutchman and Voltigeur by John F Herring Sr. (1795 - 1865)

Solved: two of the historic riddles of horse racing

02 Jun 2012

The identity of the winner of the 1880 Epsom Derby – the classic race to be run today - was famously disputed. Now analysis of DNA from the bones of...

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Ancient bat bones

A lost world? How zooarchaeology can inform biodiversity conservation

10 Feb 2012

A new study of tropical forests will provide a 50,000-year perspective on how animal biodiversity has changed, explored through an archaeological...

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backache

Back ache: it’s been a pain for millions of years

21 Mar 2011

Research by a Cambridge archaeologist shows that back pain caused untold misery long before we started staring into screens and slumping on sofas.

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New imaging technology predicts fracture risk

27 Oct 2010

A new method for identifying which bones have a high risk of fracture, and for monitoring the effectiveness of new bone-strengthening drugs and...

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Magnet

Magneto-active porous materials get close to the bone

01 May 2010

The most common cause of artificial joint failure is loosening of the prosthetic implant. Dr Athina Markaki is designing materials to anchor them...

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collagen

Collagen mechanics: learning from nature

01 Sep 2008

Because of their unique structure, biological tissues exhibit physical and mechanical properties that are unlike anything in the world of engineering...

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fishbone

Cod history

01 May 2008

The humble cod may be about to have its biggest impact on history since sparking “war” with Iceland in 1972.

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