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Researchers have come up with a new way to identify more infectious variants of viruses or bacteria that start spreading in humans - including those causing flu, COVID, whooping cough and tuberculosis. The approach will quickly show which variants of a pathogen are most worrying in terms of the potential to make people ill.

An MRI-based imaging technique developed at the University of Cambridge predicts the response of ovarian cancer tumours to treatment, and rapidly reveals how well treatment is working, in patient-derived cell models. We can image a tumour pre-treatment to predict how likely it is to respond, and then we can image again immediately after treatment to confirm whether it has indeed responded Kevin Brindle The technique, called hyperpolarised carbon-13 imaging, can increase the detected signal in an MRI scanner by more than 10,000 times.

Cambridge scientists have developed a urine test for early detection of lung cancer. The test, the first of its kind, detects 'zombie' cells that could indicate the first signs of the disease. Researchers hope that early detection, through the simple urine test, could enable earlier treatment interventions, significantly improving patient outcomes and prognosis.

Major 25-year study reveals a "dual pathway" for when people start carrying. Carrying a concealed firearm is now a common event in the life course for Americans Charles Lanfear Around a third (32%) of people who grew up in Chicago have carried a concealed firearm on the city streets at least once by the time they turn 40 years old, according to a major study of gun usage taking in a quarter of a century of data.

A team of astronomers has found that Venus has never been habitable, despite decades of speculation that our closest planetary neighbour was once much more like Earth than it is today. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, studied the chemical composition of the Venusian atmosphere and inferred that its interior is too dry today for there ever to have been enough water for oceans to exist at its surface.

What can exploding stars teach us about how blood flows through an artery' Or swimming bacteria about how the ocean's layers mix' A collaboration of researchers, including from the University of Cambridge, has reached a milestone toward training artificial intelligence models to find and use transferable knowledge between fields to drive scientific discovery.

Northerners, Scots and Irish excel at detecting fake accents to guard against outsiders, study suggests People from Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and the north-east of England are better at detecting someone imitating their accent than people from London and Essex, new research has found. Cultural, political, or even violent conflict are likely to encourage people to strengthen their accents as they try to maintain social cohesion Jonathan Goodman People from Belfast proved most able to detect someone faking their accent, while people from London, Essex and Bristol were least accurate.

An elusive particle that first formed in the hot, dense early universe has puzzled physicists for decades. Following its discovery in 2003, scientists began observing a slew of other strange objects tied to the millionths of a second after the Big Bang. Appearing as 'bumps' in the data from high-energy experiments, these signals came to be known as short-lived 'XYZ states.' They defy the standard picture of particle behaviour and are a problem in contemporary physics, sparking several attempts to understand their mysterious nature.

Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. A team of researchers from the UK and Australia analysed charcoal and pollen contained in ancient mud to determine how Aboriginal Tasmanians shaped their surroundings.

Scientists say the findings might shed light on the link between loneliness and mental health conditions such as anxiety disorders, which are on the rise in young people. People in their late teens experience an increased sensitivity to threats after just a few hours left in a room on their own - an effect that endures even if they are interacting online with friends and family.

A drug commonly used to treat glaucoma has been shown in zebrafish and mice to protect against the build-up in the brain of the protein tau, which causes various forms of dementia and is implicated in Alzheimer's disease.

Researchers have developed a machine learning algorithm to accurately detect heart murmurs in dogs, one of the main indicators of cardiac disease, which affects a large proportion of some smaller breeds such as King Charles Spaniels. The research team, led by the University of Cambridge, adapted an algorithm originally designed for humans and found it could automatically detect and grade heart murmurs in dogs, based on audio recordings from digital stethoscopes.

Rising numbers of houses and flats listed as short-term lets on Airbnb are associated with higher rates of crimes such as burglaries and street robberies right across London, according to the most detailed study of its kind. There may be social consequences to turning large swathes of city neighbourhoods into hotels with little regulation Charles Lanfear Latest research has revealed a "positive association" between the number of properties listed as Airbnb rentals and police-reported robberies and violent crimes in thousands of London neighbourhoods between 2015 and 2018.

The transition from water to land is one of the most significant events in the history of life on Earth. Now, a team of roboticists, palaeontologists and biologists is using robots to study how the ancestors of modern land animals transitioned from swimming to walking, about 390 million years ago. Writing in the journal Science Robotics , the research team, led by the University of Cambridge, outline how 'palaeo-inspired robotics' could provide a valuable experimental approach to studying how the pectoral and pelvic fins of ancient fish evolved to support weight on land.

Researchers have used the chemical fingerprints of zinc contained in meteorites to determine the origin of volatile elements on Earth. The results suggest that without 'unmelted' asteroids, there may not have been enough of these compounds on Earth for life to emerge. Volatiles are elements or compounds that change into vapour at relatively low temperatures.

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe the 'inside-out' growth of a galaxy in the early universe, only 700 million years after the Big Bang. This galaxy is one hundred times smaller than the Milky Way, but is surprisingly mature for so early in the universe. Like a large city, this galaxy has a dense collection of stars at its core but becomes less dense in the galactic 'suburbs'.

Damage to the brainstem - the brain's 'control centre' - is behind long-lasting physical and psychiatric effects of severe Covid-19 infection, a study suggests. Using ultra-high-resolution scanners that can see the living brain in fine detail, researchers from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford were able to observe the damaging effects Covid-19 can have on the brain.

Multi-disciplinary archaeological survey at the site of Oued Beht, Morocco, reveals a previously unknown 3400-2900 BC farming society, shedding new light on North Africa's role in Mediterranean prehistory. For over thirty years I have been convinced that Mediterranean archaeology has been missing something fundamental Prof Cyprian Broodbank Archaeological fieldwork in Morocco has discovered the earliest, previously unknown 3400-2900 BC farming society from a poorly understood period of north-west African prehistory.

Cambridge researchers have shown that reducing the serving size for beer, lager and cider reduces the volume of those drinks consumed in pubs, bars and restaurants, which could have wider public health benefits. While we may all'enjoy a drink, the less we drink the better our health Theresa Marteau Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease worldwide.

Cambridge researchers have shown that reducing the serving size for beer, lager and cider reduces the volume of those drinks consumed in pubs, bars and restaurants, which could have wider public health benefits. While we may all'enjoy a drink, the less we drink the better our health Theresa Marteau Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease worldwide.