Department of Plant Sciences help re-create a 10th Century incense recipe

10th Century recipe for incense re-created from manuscript which features in British Museum show

CPS Council member Professor John Carr from the Plant Virology & Molecular Plant Pathology Group in the Department of Plant Sciences recently helped staff and students at Corpus Christi College to re-create a 10th Century pre-Norman recipe for incense, working from a translation of an ancient manuscript from the collection of the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

The recipe was found by Professor Philippa Hoskin, Director of the Parker Library, who wondered if we could re-create a recipe from the manuscript which is to feature in the Silk Roads exhibition at the British Museum, London from 26 September to 23 February 2025. Images from the student-led project can be viewed here.

Images by Fiona Gilsenan at Corpus Christi College.

Professor John Carr from the Plant Virology & Molecular Plant Pathology Group in the Department of Plant Sciences with Dr Betty Chung from the Pathology Department and Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Photo: Professor John Carr from the Plant Virology & Molecular Plant Pathology Group in the Department of Plant Sciences with Dr Betty Chung from the Pathology Department and Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Professor John Carr and students in the chapel of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge with Dr Betty Chung back left, front right is Robbie Waddell, a PhD student in the MRC Mitochondrial Unit. Next to Dr Chung (middle) is Jennifer Palmer a PhD student in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Satish Viswanathan (foreground), a PhD student in Plant Sciences.

Photo: Professor John Carr and students in the chapel of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge with Dr Betty Chung back left, front right is Robbie Waddell, a PhD student in the MRC Mitochondrial Unit. Next to Dr Chung (middle) is Jennifer Palmer a PhD student in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Satish Viswanathan (foreground), a PhD student in Plant Sciences.

Tagged with:

Share this article:

Themes

Publications

Discover our Journals & Books

From Darwin’s paper on evolution to the development of stem cell research, publications from the Society continue to shape the scientific landscape.

Membership

Join the Cambridge Philosophical Society

Become a Fellow of the Society and enjoy the benefits that membership brings. Membership costs £20 per year.

Join today

Upcoming Events

Show All

14

10

Diagnostics Without Frontiers: A Regenerable Supply Chain For PCR In Low Resource Countries

Professor Lisa Hall, CBE

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Michaelmas Term

The dynamics of infectious disease (ID) require fast accurate diagnosis for effective management and treatment. Without affordable, accessible diagnostics, syndromic or presumptive actions are often followed, where positive cases may go undetected in the community, or mistreated due to wrong diagnosis. In many low and middle income countries (LMICs), this undermines effective clinical decision-making and infectious disease containment.

View Details

28

10

Surging cylinders, flapping wings and gust encounters: Force production in unsteady flows

Professor Holger Babinsky

  • 18:00 - 19:00 Bristol-Myers Squibb Lecture Theatre Michaelmas Term

Unsteady effects occur in many natural and technical flows, for example around flapping wings or during aircraft gust encounters. If the unsteadiness is large, the resulting forces can be quite considerable. However, the exact physical mechanisms underlying the generation of unsteady forces are complex and their accurate prediction remains challenging. One strategy is to identify the dominant effects and describe these with simple analytical models, first proposed a hundred years ago. When used successfully, this approach has the advantage that it also gives us a conceptual understanding of unsteady fluid mechanics.  

In this lecture I will explain some of these ideas and demonstrate how they can still be useful today. As a practical example, I will show how the forces experienced in a wing-gust encounter can be predicted – and how the predictions can be used to mitigate the gust effects. The lecture will be illustrated with images and videos from simple, canonical, experiments.
 

View Details