Cambridge University news stories on Newser

Rare Chinese Artifacts Stolen in Museum Heist

Rob Quinn — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:30:00 CDT

A gang who broke into a Cambridge University museum after hours made off with some small but incredibly valuable Chinese artifacts. The 18 items stolen, most of them made of jade, were worth close to $30 million in total, the Daily Mail reports. The items, including a 16th-century carved buffalo,...

New College Rankings: An Ivy Deadheat

Matt Cantor — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:34:27 CDT

US News and World Report has released its latest college rankings, and it’s full of the usual suspects, with Harvard, Princeton, and Yale topping the list; not much has changed since last year . Among liberal arts colleges , Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore lead the pack. The magazine also presents its best...

Cambridge Named Best University ... Again

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 15:03:53 CDT

For all the Harvard grads out there, don't kick yourself—but your school has come in second around the world... again. The Independent reports that QS World University Rankings has given the prize of best university to Cambridge for the second year in a row. Filling out the top five,...

Assange: Web Is Massive Spying Machine

Mary Papenfuss — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:38:03 CDT

The Internet is the "greatest spying machine the world has ever known," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has warned in a speech. While the Web holds great promises of increasing transparency in government operations, it will more likely be used by officials to spy on their own citizens, he told students...

Banks Badger Whiz Who Found Credit Card PIN Flaw

Mary Papenfuss — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 03:44:00 CST

British banks are badgering a top Cambridge math student whose doctoral thesis exposes security flaws in bank credit card payment systems. Omar Choudary reveals how easy it is to use "chip-and-PIN" credit cards (similar to a US bank debit card) without a PIN number. Now banks are complaining that he...

Half of 6-Year-Old Brit Girls Wish They Were Skinnier

Harry Kimball — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:56:00 CST

Half of the 6-year-old girls in Britain would like to be a lot skinnier than they are. That’s the conclusion of a Cambridge study that asked the pint-size participants to choose an ideal body from digitally altered photographs of themselves. Fifty percent went with the skinniest image, which was three...

Asia, UK Challenge US Supremacy in Higher Ed

Nick McMaster — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:36:25 CDT

The United States is home to more top-level universities than any other country in the world, this year’s survey by Times Higher Education confirms, but its advantage may not last forever. Although 54 of the top 200 schools are in the US, Asia is making remarkable progress: Japan has 11...

Scientists Locate Brain's Sentimental Center

Mat Probasco — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:45:00 CDT

It turns out sex and sentimentality are linked after all, reports Reuters. Scientists have pinpointed areas of the brain that determine an individual's warm and fuzzy feelings—which they say are the same regions that control sex and some food urges. Researchers hope the findings may help explain brain evolution...

Egg From Darwin Voyage Comes to Light

Rob Quinn — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 09:46:33 CDT

The only egg known to have survived from Charles Darwin's round-the-world voyage on the Beagle has surfaced in Cambridge University's zoology museum, the BBC reports. A volunteer sorting through the museum's vast egg collection found the egg—from an ostrich-like bird in Uruguay—and realized it bore the naturalist's signature.