Research Horizons

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