iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Claire Richardson @clairehistory.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Thought the Edwardian police in Peterborough just walked around bopping burglars on the head with their truncheons? Think again! These officers had skills!

The Chief Constable of Peterborough has brought before the Watch Committee the question of giving a course of instruction in ju-jitsu to the members of the police force.

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Very excited for this talk by Dr Grace Exley, Munby Fellow at @theul.bsky.social and a Natural History Humanities Postdoctoral Research Associate at @camglamresearch.bsky.social!

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Come work with us! We're hiring three colleagues: Research Associate, Collections and Participation: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/collect... Research Associate, Collections and Participation – Digital: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/collect... Natural History Engagement Coordinator: www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/natural...

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Cambridge University Library @theul.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Bryan Deighton, Conservator (Books & Paper) at Cambridge University Library, has completed a project to conserve a 19th-century album filled with medieval manuscript fragments. 🔎Learn more about the work, which was made possible by a grant from @thenmct.bsky.social: loom.ly/PkeRIVs

A conservator using a fine brush to repair a hole in a medieval manuscript fragment with a Japanese paper disc.

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Cambridge University Botanic Garden @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

The Glasshouse Artists are bringing their first exhibition, The Struggle for Light, to the Garden! Inspired by little-known artist and scientist, Mary Merrifield, the immersive exhibition explores the struggle for women’s creative freedoms. 📅 24-30 August 🕙 10am-6pm bit.ly/4qoYBns

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Another of the magnificent Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins wall charts we unfurled at @theul.bsky.social, previously held by what is now Earth Sciences. More primeval action going on in the background of this 'post-Tertiary' scene than I'd really clocked before.

A sturdy mammoth rears up in the foreground of a scene of large and dangerous mammals.

Detail showing sabre-teeth and hyaenas feasting.

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Hard to beat a day spent unfurling long-furled geological wall charts held in the @theul.bsky.social, from painted Humboldtian vistas to a full set of Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins's diagrams of extinct animals. A treasure trove.

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Department of Plant Sciences Cambridge @camplantsci.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

We're excited to be collaborating with @ox.ac.uk on a major new project to digitise over a million natural history specimens for climate research. Read more: tinyurl.com/ynb2rk7z @docbroc.bsky.social @jackdashby.bsky.social @cambridgebiosci.bsky.social @cam.ac.uk 🧪 #DigitalCollections #DiSSCoUK

Narcissus specimens held by the Cambridge University Herbarium. Credit: Cambridge University Herbarium.

Matt Lowe and Jack Ashby with some of the moth collection, Cambridge University Museum of Zoology. (C) University of Cambridge.

Plant specimen from University of Leicester Herbarium. (C) Leicester LTR Herbarium.

Zoë Simmons, Head of Life Collections at the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford, holding a drawer of Orange-Tip Butterflies (Anthocharis cardamines), with some specimens over 100 years old

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University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge @zoologymuseum.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

📢Major new partnership between Oxford & Cambridge museums will release over a million digitised specimen records of British plants & insects. ow.ly/rXlt50ZnG37 Department of Plant Sciences Cambridge, UK Research and Innovation, Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford #DiSSCoUK

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

Today! #eshs-hss

Illustrations of Didymograptus specimens drawn by Ethel Wood in the Monograph of British Graptoites

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Dr Jill Whitelock @jillwhitelock.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Delighted to welcome ‘Global Plant Lives’ Global Humanities Summer School students to @theul.bsky.social today for a session co-hosted by @theulspeccoll.bsky.social and our Natural History Humanities initiative at @camglamresearch.bsky.social. Phones came out to snap this Brachystelma barberæ!

Colour illustration of Brachystelma barberæ; a group of people taking a photo of the illustration.

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

In just over a week, me and my @camglamresearch.bsky.social colleagues Grace Exley and Kimberly Glassman will head to Edinburgh for our #ESHS-HSS panel 'Old Collections, New Stories: Doing Natural History Humanities in Cambridge and Beyond'. I'll be talking about women, illustration, and graptolites

Mounted specimen of the graptolite Phyllograptus ilicifolius var. grandis in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences. Attached illustration of the same by Ethel Wood.

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Liz Hide @themuseumofliz.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

Making Deep Time Visible in Stone and Space great blog by Stefanie Jovanovic-Kruspel @nhmwien.bsky.social on how architects of C19th natural history museums worked with geologists to express deep time thro their buildings, incl @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social valuepast.hypotheses.org/6678

A carved stone mammoth on the side of a building

A lizard-like dinosaur carved in wood on the edge of a library shelf

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

It’s World Bee 🐝 Day! A day to celebrate these amazing insects, and to reflect on how we can support wild populations of 🐝 🐝 for the future. Museum collections are key in showing where bees used to be, setting baselines to understand impacts of stressors and set restoration/conservation targets

A tray of pinned bumblebee specimens from the UMZC

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

🏝️ Island Archives and Natural History Collections: A practice-based workshop exploring accumulation and dispersal 18-19 May Alison Richard Building, CB3 9DP bit.ly/4dq0wCg A workshop that will foreground creative exploration about the context of Island environments

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Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

Liz Smith & Mike Hawkins from @theul.bsky.social share the incredible knowledge and legacy data extracted via the Darwin Correspondence Project, and how it’s being harvested, used, and repurposed. #BHLDay2026 🧪🌱📖

Two people standing on stage speaking to an audience.

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Lovely to be able to talk to @biodivlibrary.bsky.social colleagues this week about our Natural History Humanities research initiative, including all things insect humanities. #EntHist

Hand-coloured printed illustration of butterflies from Johann Jacob Roemer, ‘Genera insectorum Linnaei et Fabricii’ (1789). Cambridge University Library, S391.b.78.1.

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 29/04/2026

On Wednesday 6 May, Decolonising Plant Knowledge is back with an exciting afternoon of talks exploring how the ‘decolonisation of plant knowledge’ is currently activated in different forms of plant conservation and regeneration. 🪴 🌿 Find out more and register to attend: bit.ly/4tLJzcx

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From ‘The Little Book of Herbs’ to live pharmacies - CRASSH

Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities

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Cambridge Archaeological Unit @cambridgearch.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

We are excited to announce the launch of Fen to Fire, a living reconstruction of the Late Bronze Age Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement that we’ve worked to create with digital artist Guy Schofield and pupils from Cromwell Community College in Chatteris.

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Owen Garling @ojgarling.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Fantastic PhD studentship opportunity - Spitting Image: political satire in Britain in the 20th and 21st centuries. Working across @exeter.ac.uk and @theul.bsky.social in partnership with the @camglamresearch.bsky.social and drawing on the Roger Law archive. #PhDsky

ccc.cam.ac.uk

University of Exeter and University of Cambridge Libraries & Archives - Collections Connections Communities

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Soldierflies and Allies Recording Scheme @uk-soldierflies.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Good to see that people have been enjoying watching bee-flies for almost 400 years 😀 #BeeFlyWatch

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Art at the Alison Richard Building @artatarb.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

📣 Call for art Artists and creatives - submit your work to CRASSH's 25th anniversary exhibition! The theme is 'Knowledge in a Fractured World' and can be interpreted broadly, from personal to global Deadline 31 July 2026 Find out more at bit.ly/4svggKv

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Cambridge University Library @theul.bsky.social · 24/03/2026

An extraordinary herbarium containing almost 300 pressed plants is now available to explore online. It has been digitised with support from the Isaac Newton Trust and Trinity College, Cambridge. Edward Hanmer’s Herbarium (MS Add.10547): loom.ly/J1Zj8OM @camdiglib.bsky.social

A composite image made of many layers of pressed flowers on a Cambridge blue background.

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Today is the International Day of Happiness, a chance to reflect on what makes us happy. Right now, working with all my amazing new colleagues @zoologymuseum.bsky.social @camzoology.bsky.social makes me 😍. This leopard seal is also very happy, and would love to have you visit. What makes you happy?

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Please share - and there’s an Information session online next week, 24 March 11:00–12:00 pm BST. Register your interest via the link on this webpage: www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Would you like to run your own Research Network at CRASSH? Applications are now open for Networks in 2026-27 You will receive funding of up to £2,000 per academic year, plus logistical assistance and a platform for events ➡️ The deadline for applications is 5 May 2026 bit.ly/3BknsiZ

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

A pleasure to host a @camglamresearch.bsky.social workshop yesterday @theul.bsky.social on ‘Discovering pressed plants in books and how to care for them’, led by @annalsvensson.bsky.social.

Montage of three images showing pressed plants in printed books.

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Dr Jill Whitelock @jillwhitelock.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Lovely to be able to share this 18th-century bound herbarium for a workshop on botany and the book, funded by the Isaac Newton Trust and Trinity College, Cambridge. We’ve also digitised the volumes, so everyone can take a look! cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-...

Montage showing pressed plant specimens from an 18th-century bound herbarium.

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Cambridge University History Faculty @camhistory.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

1/ Explore the NEW website for the Legacies of Enslavement Special Initiative ⬇️ A central online hub for all research, collaboration and public engagement exploring @cam.ac.uk's historical links to slavery & the wider afterlives of enslavement and colonialism. 🔗 www.hist.cam.ac.uk/news/new-web...

Thomas Malton the Younger, 1748–1804, King's Parade, Cambridge, between 1798 and 1799, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1996.22.25.

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Apply for CRASSH events funding! 💫 Have you got an idea that may: - Foster the exchange of ideas across disciplines and cultures? - Forge new collaborations ? - Bring academic research to wider publics? - Explore research and artistic practice? Apply by 17 May 2026 bit.ly/3CaV97M

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Brad Scott @trichocolea.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

"Wild-sea Holley by ye passage as you goe from portsmouth into Cornwall" collected by William Paine, 1737, from @cuherb.bsky.social. Now, this is in fact from Plymouth, and in modern parlance it is Eryngium campestre @jillwhitelock.bsky.social @timpurches.bsky.social 1/3

Plant specimens in the bound herbarium collected by William Paine titled "Plants collected in ye County's of Hants, Sussex, Surrey, Bucks, Berks, Middlesex & Oxon Anno 1737". The specimen of Navelwort (modern Umbilicus rupestris) beside it also appears to be from the same location)

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Owen Garling @ojgarling.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

There's lots of talk about the growth of Cambridge. But what materials will the buidings be made of? This @camglamresearch.bsky.social roundtable is focusing on the potential of local stone and the university's collections of natural materials. 📆 27 March 2026. 12.00 - 2.00 Please share! 👇👇👇👇👇

ccc.cam.ac.uk

Collections Lab: Building Stones: collections as resources for sustainable construction - Collections Connections Communities

The John Watson Building Stones Collection at the Cambridge University Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences comprises of approximately 2,500 specimens of building stones, in extensive use throughout Brit...

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

The zoology collection in Turin shares the same building as the herbarium, and I thought this was the most beautiful display @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Join us for a Collections Lab at the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social: ‘Building Stones: collections as resources for sustainable construction’, 27 March 2026, 12.00-2.00 pm. www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/events/item/... @camunivmuseums.bsky.social

Photograph of the John Watson Building Stones Collection at the Cambridge University Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

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Mark Brown @markjfbrown.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

It’s LGBTQ+ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️⚧️ History Month, so let’s celebrate diversity in nature. Our penguin 🐧 and giraffe 🦒 both represent animal groups famous for their same-sex relationships and behaviour. If you want to learn more about non-binary nature, come on one of our tours @zoologymuseum.bsky.social

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Cambridge Digital Library @camdiglib.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Cambridge Digital Library is home to 130 collections containing 1.5 million images of 160,000 items (6593 of which have transcription), that originate from at least 2000 places around the globe... 👀 Have you ever wondered what that looks like? 😮 Enjoy some data fireworks! - cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

For #FossilFriday, a cute Didymograptus deflexus collected by William Kinsey Dover and his sister Sarah Anne Willes Dover of Keswick, now in the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social. One for the graptolite fans.

Mounted slab with a v-shaped graptolite on it, surrounded by curatorial labels.

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

New blogpost: ‘Journeying with Mai: Activating Pacific arts and heritage at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’, by Dr Eve Haddow, Senior Curator in Anthropology. www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/blog/journey...

Discussing musical instruments from Tahiti and Aotearoa New Zealand in the MAA collections. (L-R) Tahe Drollet, Rosanna Raymond, Eve Haddow, Miriama Bono, and Salvador Brown. Photograph by Rachel Hand

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

The early twentieth century is about the last time a professional illustrator might not have a dinosaur reference at hand and instead relied on the author's similes. Thus this Megalosaurus/Allosaurus in the Je Sais Tout serial of The Lost World. Conan Doyle says the dinosaur resembled a toad.

Illustration of a giant toad studded with arrows beside a dead body.

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Dr Jamie Gallagher @jamiebgall.co.uk · 29/01/2026

Before dashing off from Cambridge I nipped in to Sedgwick museum. One of the few places to get my pins in-person how cute!

Pins: a trex and a triceratops. Both silver metal skeletons.

A display of pride pins including pronoun badges and colourful test tubes. There are home made pride flags next to them.

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University of Cambridge Museums @camunivmuseums.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

"Getting to spend my last summer before university doing something I love while also preparing for my future was amazing." Great to read the experiences of one of our Museum Experience Interns based at @maacambridge.bsky.social last summer. Applications for our next internship will open in March.

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Suzanne Paul @suzpaul.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Love this - great way of showing how this kind of folding book actually worked.

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

The Ambivalent Archives network are back this term with a number of really exciting events, starting with the participatory workshop 'Photo-Embroidery: Archiving the landscapes that we carry within'. Find out more about the programme at bit.ly/4quHtfq

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CRASSH @crasshlive.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

📺 Reclaiming indigenous history from Amazonian soil and palaeobotany 🌿 Archaeological research is transforming perceptions of the Amazon rainforest, revealing the extent of anthropogenic soils and inviting a critical rethinking of early plant use in South America bit.ly/4sCT5OV

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CRASSH | Reclaiming indigenous history from Amazonian soil and palaeobotany

Decolonising Plant Knowledge Research Network

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

I like the idea of UCL students in the 1970s trying solemnly to examine the chunky Polacanthus toy and dweeb Spinosaurus. From the historic collections of the @uclgrantmuseum.bsky.social.

Colourful toy dinosaurs on display, including a big blue Brachiosaurus.

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Cambridge University Botanic Garden @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

🪴From 11 Feb-12 Apr, Talking Plants invites you to the Glasshouse Range to scan QR codes, ask questions and get a unique response inspired by that plant’s story. 🌱An interactive exhibition using AI to explore the stories of living plants – included with Garden admission. 🌿So, what would you ask?

Close-up of a vibrant jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) with its distinctive turquoise, claw-shaped flowers hanging in a cascade.

Close-up image of a passion flower in bloom, showing detailed yellow filaments and green petals, against a blurred natural background.

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University of Cambridge Museums @camunivmuseums.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

It’s time to get glowing! #TwilightAtTheMuseums is back 🌟 Explore Cambridge museums after hours this February half term and celebrate 20 years of Twilight. See all events and book your visit from today: www.museums.cam.ac.uk/theme/twilight

A brightly coloured illustration with central text reading Twilight at the Museums, come and explore Cambridge museums after hours this half term, surrounded by museum icons including a book, globe, torch, lantern, camear, flower and dinosaur head.

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Cambridge Collections Connections Communities @camglamresearch.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

Congratulations to Kimberly Glassman, Research Associate at the Fitz and a CCC Natural History Humanities postdoc, on her publication ‘Deciphering botanical notation in William Jackson Hooker’s Flora Boreali-Americana (1829–1840)’, based on her PhD research. www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/...

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