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Chemicals found in everyday fruits could minimise organ damage after heart attack and stroke

Scientists have identified chemicals found in some everyday fruit that could protect vital organs from long-term damage following a heart attack or stroke, according to new research carried out in mice. The researchers now hope the chemicals will provide a starting point for developing new injectable drugs that could be used to prevent some of the long-term damage caused by heart attack and stroke.

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The man with a thousand brains

Forty million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s and this is only set to increase. But tiny brains grown in culture could help scientists learn more about this mysterious disease – and test new drugs.

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Getting up close and personal with print

A copy of the first western printed book, the prayer book of Henry VIII’s last wife and an unpublished poem by Carol Ann Duffy go on display in a celebration of the 15th century at Cambridge University Library. 

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The ‘ultimate’ stem cell

In the earliest moments of a mammal’s life, the developing ball of cells formed shortly after fertilisation ‘does as mother says’ – it follows a course that has been pre-programmed in the egg by the mother. Extraordinary as this is, what happens then is even more remarkable.

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Travellers under open skies: writers, artists and gypsies

In her new book Representations of the Gypsy in the Romantic Period, Sarah Houghton-Walker provides a fascinating insight into writers’ and artists’ portrayals of wanderers. Her study focuses on a period when gypsies’ fragile place in the landscape, and on the margins of society, came increasingly under threat.  

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