Charlotte Connelly, Curator of the Polar Museum at SPRI, spoke on the BBC Today programme (at 2h46s) about the Weddell Sea expedition in search of Shackleton's lost ship, Endurance.
Cambridge Geography alumnus and former staff member on Radio 4's In Our Time
3rd February, 2022
Cambridge Geography alumnus and former staff member Dr David Beckingham is on Radio 4's In Our Time programme today, 3rd February 2022. David discusses his research on the temperance movement in the UK in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
David completed some of this research on alcohol regulation whilst working in Cambridge and it featured in the Part IB Citizenship, Cities and Civil Society paper. David is now Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Nottingham.
UK plants flowering a month earlier due to climate change
2nd February, 2022
Climate change is causing plants in the UK to flower a month earlier on average, which could have profound consequences for wildlife, agriculture and gardeners.
Using a citizen science database with records going back to the mid-18th century, a research team, involving members of the Department Ulf Büntgen, Alma Piermattei, Paul Krusic, and Alan Crivellaro, and led by the University of Cambridge, has found that the effects of climate change are causing plants in the UK to flower one month earlier under recent global warming.
They found that the average first flowering date from 1987 to 2019 is a full month earlier than the average first flowering date from 1753 to 1986. The same period coincides with accelerating global warming caused by human activities. The results are reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Earliest human remains in eastern Africa dated to more than 230,000 years ago
13th January, 2022
The age of the oldest fossils in eastern Africa widely recognised as representing our species, Homo sapiens, has long been uncertain. Now, dating of a massive volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reveals they are much older than previously thought.
An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, has reassessed the age of the Omo I remains – and Homo sapiens as a species. Earlier attempts to date the fossils suggested they were less than 200,000 years old, but the new research shows they must be older than a colossal volcanic eruption that took place 230,000 years ago. The results are reported in the journal Nature.
Members of the Department, Dr Céline Vidal (lead author), Professor Clive Oppenheimer, Professor Christine Lane, were all part of the team.
© 2022 University of Cambridge
