An email from the University of Cambridge

In this edition: three great events, new research and the Student Conference on Conservation Science...


Zoology alumni newsletter

Dear {cudar.best_name},

We are delighted to announce the launch of our fundraising campaign for 2019, which focusses on two key areas for the Department: support for research and for students to attend the final-year Field Course. If you would like to make a donation, of whatever size, we would be most grateful.

I would like to draw your attention to THREE great events happening this year:

Saturday 25 May 2019
Field Outing to Totternhoe Quarry in the Chilterns, led by Dr Ed Turner

Saturday 7 September 2019
Zoology Alumni and Friends Open Day, with Prof Nick Davies as the headline act

Friday 27 September 2019
Zoology Happy Hour 25th Anniversary Party

Yours,

William Foster
Director of Alumni Relations

Celebrating 20 years of the Student Conference on Conservation Science

Starting today, we are hosting the Student Conference for Conservation Science for the 20th time. The series gives opportunities for young conservation researchers from around the world to present their work and meet other young researchers. They also receive training in a range of new skills and meet the large numbers of practitioners from Cambridge's conservation community and beyond.

The SCCS is a joint venture between the University, the RSPB, and the Tropical Biology Association and its conservation supporters. It serves as a flagship event for the Cambridge Conservation Initiative.

So far more than 3,200 delegates from 133 countries have taken part, with more than 440 receiving SCCS bursaries and taking part in the Arcadia-funded post-conference internship scheme.

This year's event will be the last run by founder-organiser Rhys Green and also sees the retirement of long-time administrator Shireen Green.

Special events to mark the 20th conference include plenary talks from former SCCS-delegate Amy Hinsley, from Rhys Green himself, and from the chair of the Paris climate talks Christiana Figueres, as well as a student-focused question-and-answer session with Sir David Attenborough.

Follow the SCCS on Twitter

Alumni outing to Totternhoe Quarry in the Chilterns

Saturday 25 May 2019

Join us for a tour of Totternhoe Quarry, near Dunstable, a magnificent flower-rich chalk grassland nature reserve (SSSI) on the northern escarpment of the Chilterns. The tour will be led by Dr Edgar Turner, Curator of Insects in the University Museum of Zoology, leading expert on the diverse butterfly and insect fauna of this reserve. See the scarce Duke of Burgundy Fritillary and hear about Ed's research on conserving this species in the sites where they live.

The tour will start at 2pm.

How you can support us in 2019

Zoology Research Support Fund

Although our core research funding will always be provided by large grants to individual zoologists, we urgently need a fund that will enable us to support the research of scientists – at all levels from postgraduates to senior academics – who have a short-term, immediate need for financial support, usually for relatively modest amounts.

Part II Tropical Field Course Bursary Fund

Our first Tropical Field Course took place in 2018 in Panama and was an enormous success. But we can only offer this course if we can fund bursaries to enable all students to attend, regardless of their financial circumstances. To secure the long-term success of this excellent course we need to build up resources that will support bursaries beyond the next two years.

Cambridge team reaches the final of global Solution Search contest

A team of researchers, including our own PhD student Emma Garnett (Part II 2010–11) and staff at the University, have been selected as one of 10 finalists in a global contest designed to identify, reward and spotlight innovative solutions for dealing with climate change.

The shortlisted project is a collaboration between the University's catering services and research scientists to develop experimentally-tested ways of minimising food-related carbon emissions. One example: the reduction and removal of ruminant meat from meals, whilst providing tasty plant-based alternatives.

See the 10 finalists

Zoology Happy Hour t-shirt competition

The Happy Hour team have an exciting announcement: this year is the 25th anniversary of Zoology Happy Hour!

To celebrate, the Department is holding a Happy Hour Spectacular on 27 September 2019, the details of which will be in the next newsletter.

Meanwhile... how does becoming immortalised as part of Zoology Happy Hour sound? This is your chance! As part of the celebration, we are launching the Happy Hour t-shirt design competition, open to all members of the Department including you, our alumni! Just send us your design (four colours maximum) to happyhour25@gmail.com to enter by 30 April 2019.

Find out more

Research news

Living fossils from the Côte d’Azur doing well in the Department

A recent paper in Nature reveals the 'genome regulatory landscape' of amphioxus, thought by many to be one of the very few living fossils and the only living example of the evolutionary transition between invertebrates and vertebrates.

To study this wonderful animal in its sea-water niche, the Department's Dr Èlia Benito-Gutiérrez has created a bespoke permanently-running amphioxus facility in Cambridge: this little piece of the French Riviera is the only such facility in the world outside of a marine station.

Green glow of Mozart1 in a Drosophila testis

Testes that glow in the night

Microtubules are essential for many processes in cells but how they are formed at the right place and at the right time is not well understood. Recent work from Dr Paul Conduit’s lab has shown that the complexes that control the formation of microtubules vary in different parts of the fly Drosophila.

This image, taken by lead author and PhD student Corinne Tovey, shows the green glow of Mozart1 in a Drosophila testis, a component of the complex that promotes microtubule formation. Mozart1 isn't found in stem cells nor mitotically dividing spermatogonia.

Spanish Flu: what have we learnt since 1918–19?

Spanish Flu killed 50–100 million people in just three years, making it one of the worst natural disasters in human history.

Now a group of Cambridge academics, including Professor Derek Smith from Zoology and Professor Julia Gog (Senior Research Fellow in Zoology 2006–12), has made a film exploring the great flu pandemic of 1918 and the shadow it still casts over humanity.

Watch film

Alumni news

Professor Rhys Green (Part II 1972–73)

What Prof Rhys Green really likes doing is working out new fieldwork methods to uncover the private lives of animals, in order to make a real difference to their conservation.

After his undergraduate career at Cambridge, in which he taught Nick Davies how to ring birds, Rhys completed a PhD in the Department of Applied Biology with John Flowerdew. He then worked on partridge ecology at the Game Conservancy, before moving to the RSPB. In 1999 the RSPB seconded him as a RSPB Research Fellow to the Conservation Science Group in the Department of Zoology. That same year, Rhys was one of the founder-organizers of the Student Conferences on Conservation.

Read Q and A

Biographies of zoologists

Dame Anne McLaren: pioneer of developmental biology

Anne McLaren (1927–2007), whose photograph has recently been displayed in the Balfour Library's distinguished scientists' portrait series, was a pivotal figure in the study of mammalian developmental biology.

On her nominal retirement in 1992 she moved to the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute as a member of the Department of Zoology, where she remained highly active in research until her death in 2007.

New publications

Mammalian Evolution, Diversity and Systematics

This book, edited by Frank Zachos and Robert Asher, Senior Lecturer and Curator of Mammals in the University Museum of Zoology, is the introductory volume in the new Mammalia series of the Handbook of Zoology. It will be essential reading for ecologists and conservationists, and all those interested in the biology of our closest relatives.

Dates for your diary

1) Alumni Day 2019

Date: Saturday 7 September 2019
Venue: Department of Zoology

2) Happy Hour's 25th Anniversary

A party to celebrate the silver anniversary of the weekly Happy Hour social event.

Date: 5.30pm, Friday 27 September 2019
Venue: Department of Zoology

Details of both events in the next newsletter.

Our campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge is raising funds to attract the brightest minds, create the finest facilities and give the freedom to create more world-changing ideas. To do this, we need your help.

Department of Zoology

Call: +44 (0)1223 336600
Email: alumni@zoo.cam.ac.uk

Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, United Kingdom

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