News

Vitamin B12-containing algae boosts fertiliser digestate potentialAnaerobic digestion is a process widely used to convert organic waste into biogas (methane), and is a key facilitator of the circular economy. After gas production, the residue that remains is full of nutrients including degraded organic substances, plus ammonia, phosphate and other …

Predicting hidden toxins in vital food supply chainsThe implications of aflatoxin, a highly toxic compound, entering food systems are far reaching for human and animal health. Produced by fungal species of the genus Aspergillus, aflatoxin contamination of staple crops such as maize is monitored and highly regulated throughout the supply chain to pr…

Fire consumes timber forests at unprecedented rate, threatens supplyNew research by Chris Bousfield and David Edwards in the Department of Plant Sciences, with David Lindenmayer in the Fenner School of Enviornment and Society at Australian National University, quantifies for the first time the severe destruction that fire causes to timber-producing…

New Cambridge-Africa Alborada grants to help boost pathogen responses in African nationsThe department is delighted by the award of two new grants that will enable our researchers to contribute to sustainable crop and food system development in East and West Africa. Funded by the Cambridge – Africa Alborada research fund, the two grants will facili…

Cambridge Zero and the Centre for Landscape Regeneration (CLR) welcomed the next generation of climate leaders in summer 2023 to support projects across the University from agricultural research to education. Redirect

The A to B of pigmentation evolution in CaryophyllalesceaeMajor steps taken towards solving a classic mystery of plant evolutionA new study by Boas Pucker, Nat Walker-Hale and Jasmina Dzurlic in Samuel Brockington’s Evolution and Diversity group, working in partnership with colleagues at the Technical University of Braunsweig, Germany, and the Univ…

New Cambridge MPhil nurtures future leaders in crop science Students from seven nations form the inaugural cohort of the new MPhil in Biological Sciences (Crop Science) in the Department of Plant Sciences. This new and exciting MPhil course is a joint initiative between the Department of Plant Sciences, the Crop Science Centre and NIAB, enabling st…

A new way to price carbon credits could encourage desperately needed investment in forest preservation and boost vital progress towards net-zero.Our new approach has the potential to address market concerns around nature-based solutions to carbon offsetting.Srinivasan KeshavA new approach to valuing the carbon storage potential of natural habitats …

Bumblebees make decisions ‘on the fly’ to maximize amount of energy collected in timeResearch has found that bumblebees make foraging choices to collect the most sugar from flowers in the shortest time – even if that means using more energy in the process – to provide an immediate energy boost for the colony.    It’s amazing that even with a brain …

Whitefly transmission efficiency of a potentially devastating pathogen of cassava - a staple food-source for millions across sub-Saharan Africa – is substantially higher than previously thought.A new approach developed by the Epidemiology and Modelling Group, using model-based Bayesian methods to analyse access period experiments, is uncovering evi…

Breeding for resistance against soil-borne phytopathogenic fungi unintentionally affects the diversity of viruses and viroids in the Phaseolus vulgaris rhizosphereA study by Dr Lucas Braga and colleagues in the Ecosystems and Global Change group shows that breeding for resistance against Fusarium oxysporum affects the diversity of viruses and viroi…

Savannas and grasslands in drier climates around the world store more carbon than scientists previously thought and are helping to slow the rate of climate warming, according to a new study.Because drier savannas are more sensitive to changes in fires, the decreases in burned area in those ecosystems has resulted in soils storing more carbon than t…

New model boosts understanding of how petals develop nanoscale patterns that provide optical guides for pollinatorsThe nanoscopic patterns found on the surface of petal and leaf epidermal cells are known to influence several types of interaction with visiting insects, for example by providing optical and tactile clues for pollinators, by altering p…

The Plant Sciences department contributes to new MPhil in Planetary Sciences and Life in the UniverseThis week sees the launch of Cambridge’s new MPhil qualification in Planetary Sciences and Life in the Universe. The new programme will be jointly taught and led by astronomers, chemists, zoologists, plant biologists, and earth scientists. Applicati…

ARIA, the UK’s new R&D funding agency, has announced its line-up of new programme directors – and three of them are current or former researchers from the University of Cambridge.