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Illusion involving a hidden thumb confounds capuchin and squirrel monkeys for the same reason as humans - it misdirects the expected outcomes of actions they can carry out. This mirroring in our neural motor system might explain why the French drop worked for the capuchins and squirrel monkeys but not for marmosets Nicola Clayton By performing a famous magic trick for three species of monkey with differing hand structures, scientists have discovered that - in order to deceive - a conjuror needs the same anatomy as their audience.

Parents who frequently exercise harsh discipline with young children are putting them at significantly greater risk of developing lasting mental health problems, new evidence shows.

Increasing the proportion of non-alcoholic drinks on sale in online supermarkets could reduce the amount of alcohol people purchase, suggests a study published today led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. We all know that drinking too much alcohol is bad for us, but we are often unaware of how much we are influenced by the environment around us Theresa Marteau The team used a simulated supermarket that presented shoppers with varying proportions of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and asked them to select drinks to purchase for their next online shop.

Researchers have mapped the complete trajectory of placental development, helping shed new light on why pregnancy disorders happen. This can help us improve laboratory models to continue investigating pregnancy disorders, which cause illness and death worldwide. Anna Arutyunyan Researchers from the University of Cambridge, the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), Switzerland, EMBL's European

Scientists in Cambridge and Berlin have used a form of gene therapy to increase levels of the so-called -cold shock protein- in the brains of mice, protecting them against the potentially devastating impact of prion disease. Essentially, the cold shock protein enables the brain to protect itself - in this case, against the damage nerve cells in the brain during prion disease Giovanna Mallucci The discovery is a step towards harnessing the protective effects of cooling the brain to treat patients with acute brain injury and even to prevent dementias, such as Alzheimer-s.

Cambridge scientists have come up with a system of measuring animal welfare that enables reliable comparison across different types of pig farming. This means that animal welfare can now, for the first time, be properly considered alongside other impacts of farming to help identify which farming systems are best.

Individuals who are obese may be more susceptible to severe COVID-19 because of a poorer inflammatory immune response, say Cambridge scientists. During the pandemic, the majority of younger patients I saw on the COVID wards were obese. I would have said that it was most likely due to excessive inflammation.

Underwater waves deep below the ocean's surface - some as tall as 500 metres - play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon, according to new research.

In the search for life elsewhere in the scientists have traditionally looked for planets with liquid water at their surface. But, rather than flowing as oceans and rivers, much of a planet's water can be locked in rocks deep within its interior. We wanted to investigate whether these planets, after such a tumultuous upbringing, could rehabilitate themselves and go on to host surface water Claire Guimond Scientists from the University of Cambridge now have a way to estimate how much water a rocky planet can store in its subterranean reservoirs.

Cambridge researchers have observed a highly unusual behaviour in the endangered freshwater mussel, Unio crassus. Who'd have thought that a mussel, that doesn't even have a head or a brain, knows to move to the river margin and squirt jets of water back into the river during springtime? David Aldridge In spring, female mussels were seen moving to the water's edge and anchoring into the riverbed, with their back ends raised above the waterline.

Researchers have built the first ever map showing every single neuron and how they are wired together in the brain of the fruit fly larva. Now we can start gaining a mechanistic understanding of how the brain works. Marta Zlatic This will help scientists to understand the basic principles by which signals travel through the brain at the neural level and lead to behaviour and learning.

Researchers have developed an algorithm that uses computer vision techniques to accurately measure trees almost five times faster than traditional, manual methods. Ground-based measurements are hugely valuable, but also time-consuming. We wanted to know whether we could automate this process. Amelia Holcomb The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the algorithm, which gives an accurate measurement of tree diameter, an important measurement used by scientists to monitor forest health and levels of carbon sequestration.

Researchers argue that the findings hold lessons for social media companies and the -perverse incentives- driving political polarisation online. Shifting the motivations to post on social media could help rebuild some of the shared reality lost to political polarisation Sander van der Linden Offering a tiny cash reward for accuracy, or even briefly appealing to personal integrity, can increase people's ability to tell the difference between misinformation and the truth, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have analysed more than 800,000 tweets and found that negative emotions expressed about geoengineering - the idea that the climate can be altered using technology - can easily fall into conspiracy. The researchers analysed tweets 2009 and 2021 tagged with #geoengineering.

Three years into a five-year pledge to completely phase out lead shot in UK game hunting, a Cambridge study finds that 94% of pheasants on sale for human consumption were killed using lead. If UK game hunters are going to phase out lead shot voluntarily, they are not doing very well so far Rhys Green The pledge, made in 2020 by nine major UK game shooting and rural organisations, aims to protect the natural environment and ensure a safer supply of game meat for consumers.

Researchers have calculated the carbon footprint for the full life cycle of fertilisers, which are responsible for approximately five percent of total greenhouse gas emissions - the first time this has been accurately quantified - and found that carbon emissions could be reduced to one-fifth of current levels by 2050.

Childhood mental health problems resulting from early-life adversity drive poorer cognitive performance in adolescence, study suggests Early-life adversity has long-term effects on children's mental health, which in turn affects cognitive functioning as teenagers, say researchers. However, if mental health improves over time this outcome can be alleviated.

Scientists may have solved the question of why Ashkenazi Jews are significantly more susceptible to a rare genetic disorder known as Gaucher disease - and the answer may help settle the debate about whether they are less susceptible to tuberculosis (TB). We-d unknowingly landed in a debate that's been going on in human genetics for decades: are Ashkenazi Jews somehow less likely to get TB infection? The answer appears to be yes.

A collaboration between scientists at Cambridge and UCL has led to the discovery of a new form of ice that more closely resembles liquid water than any other and may hold the key to understanding this most famous of liquids. Our discovery of MDA raises many questions on the very nature of liquid water and so understanding MDA-s precise atomic structure is very important Michael Davies The new form of ice is amorphous.

Researchers have theorised a new mechanism to generate high-energy -quantum light-, which could be used to investigate new properties of matter at the atomic scale. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, along with colleagues from the US, Israel and Austria, developed a theory describing a new state of light, which has controllable quantum properties over a broad range of frequencies, up as high as X-ray frequencies.