Cambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house and the second-largest university press in the world, it holds letters patent as the Queen's Printer. The Press's mission is "to further the University's mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education and research at the highest international levels of excellence". Cambridge University Press is a department of the University of Cambridge and is both an academic and educational publisher. With a global sales presence, publishing hubs, offices in more than 40 countries, it publishes over 50,000 titles by authors from over 100 countries, its publishing includes academic journals, reference works and English language teaching and learning publications. It prints and sells Bibles. Cambridge University Press is a charitable enterprise that transfers part of its annual surplus back to the University of Cambridge.

Cambridge University Press is both the oldest publishing house in the world and the oldest university press. It originated from letters patent granted to the University of Cambridge by Henry VIII in 1534, has been producing books continuously since the first University Press book was printed. Cambridge is one of the two privileged presses. Authors published by Cambridge have included John Milton, William Harvey, Isaac Newton, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking. University printing began in Cambridge when the first practising University Printer, Thomas Thomas, set up a printing house on the site of what became the Senate House lawn – a few yards from where the Press's bookshop now stands. In those days, the Stationers' Company in London jealously guarded its monopoly of printing, which explains the delay between the date of the university's letters patent and the printing of the first book. In 1591, Thomas's successor, John Legate, printed the first Cambridge Bible, an octavo edition of the popular Geneva Bible.

The London Stationers objected strenuously. The university's response was to point out the provision in its charter to print "all manner of books", thus began the press's tradition of publishing the Bible, a tradition that has endured for over four centuries, beginning with the Geneva Bible, continuing with the Authorized Version, the Revised Version, the New English Bible and the Revised English Bible. The restrictions and compromises forced upon Cambridge by the dispute with the London Stationers did not come to an end until the scholar Richard Bentley was given the power to set up a'new-style press' in 1696. In July 1697 the Duke of Somerset made a loan of £200 to the university "towards the printing house and presse" and James Halman, Registrary of the University, lent £100 for the same purpose, it was in Bentley's time, in 1698, that a body of senior scholars was appointed to be responsible to the university for the Press's affairs. The Press Syndicate's publishing committee still meets and its role still includes the review and approval of the press's planned output.

John Baskerville became University Printer in the mid-eighteenth century. Baskerville's concern was the production of the finest possible books using his own type-design and printing techniques. Baskerville wrote, "The importance of the work demands all my attention. Caxton would have found nothing to surprise him if he had walked into the press's printing house in the eighteenth century: all the type was still being set by hand. A technological breakthrough was badly needed, it came when Lord Stanhope perfected the making of stereotype plates; this involved making a mould of the whole surface of a page of type and casting plates from that mould. The Press was the first to use this technique, in 1805 produced the technically successful and much-reprinted Cambridge Stereotype Bible. By the 1850s the Press was using steam-powered machine presses, employing two to three hundred people, occupying several buildings in the Silver Street and Mill Lane area, including the one that the press still occupies, the Pitt Building, built for the Press and in honour of William Pitt the Younger.

Under the stewardship of C. J. Clay, University Printer from 1854 to 1882, the Press increased the size and scale of its academic and educational publishing operation. An important factor in this increase was the inauguration of its list of schoolbooks. During Clay's administration, the Press undertook a sizeable co-publishing venture with Oxford: the Revised Version of the Bible, begun in 1870 and completed in 1885, it was in this period as well that the Syndics of the press turned down what became the Oxford English Dictionary - a proposal for, brought to Cambridge by James Murray before he turned to Oxford. The appointment of R. T. Wright as Secretary of the Press Syndicate in 1892 marked the beginning of the Press's development as a modern publishing business with a defined editorial policy and administrative structure, it was Wright who devised the plan for one of the most distinctive Cambridge contributions to publishing - the Cambridge Histori

The Europe/Africa Zone was one of three zones of regional competition in the 1998 Fed Cup. Venue: La Manga Club, Spain Date: 14–18 AprilThe sixteen teams were divided into four pools of four teams; the top teams of each pool play-off in a two-round knockout stage to decide which nations progress to World Group II play-offs. The three nations winning the least rubbers were relegated to Europe/Africa Zone Group II for 1999. Belarus and Poland advanced to World Group II Play-offs. Israel and Hungary relegated to Group II in 1999. Venue: Ali Bey Club, Turkey Date: 5–9 MayThe twenty-two teams were divided into two pools of five and six; the top teams from each pool advanced to Group I for 1999. Denmark, Finland and Georgia advanced to Group I in 1999. Fed Cup structure Fed Cup website

Heliofungia actiniformis is a solitary species of mushroom coral, a large polyp stony coral in the family Fungiidae. This coral is found in shallow water in the Indo-Pacific region, it is a zooxanthellate species. It is a popular coral in the reef aquarium trade. Although fixed to the substrate as a juvenile, this coral becomes detached and is free-living as an adult, it is oval with a diameter of up to 20 centimetres and height of 7 centimetres. The corallum is solid; the septa are in several orders. The early order septa are larger than order ones and have more prominent, lobe-like or triangular teeth. All the septa are granulate, continue to the underside of the corallum as fine ridges known as costae. There is an attachment scar in the centre of the underside; the polyp is thick and fleshy and has a single mouth surrounded by thick tentacles with knobs on the end. The tentacles superficially resembles a large sea anemone. Heliofungia actiniformis is native to the eastern Indian Ocean and the central Indo-Pacific region, the northwestern and eastern coasts of Australia, the China Sea and the island groups of the West Pacific.

Its depth range is between about 25 metres. It occurs on reef slopes or on reef flats. H. actiniformis is a zooxanthellate coral, containing tiny photosynthetic, symbiotic organisms in its tissues. During the day these supply the coral with much of its metabolic needs; the coral feeds on zooplankton which are caught by the tentacles. Besides reproducing sexually by liberating eggs and sperm into the water column, this coral sometimes buds off a new polyp. Polyps of H. actiniformis provide a micro-habitat to a wide range of associated fauna from cleaner shrimps to juvenile fishes. Many corals can be increased in number by detaching pieces of a colony and attaching them to the substrate; that is not possible with large polyp stony corals such as Heliofungia actiniformis, but it is hoped to remedy this by placing collecting devices above them when spawning is about to occur, mixing the eggs and sperm under controlled conditions and nurturing the larvae in tanks. The technique has been applied to Acropora formosa.

It is hoped that the resulting offspring will be able to be used to repopulate damaged reefs or to relieve the pressure of collecting corals from the wild for the reef aquarium trade. Although this coral is common in some localities, it is vulnerable to the degradation processes which are occurring on coral reefs, it is susceptible to coral diseases and to coral bleaching and is to be threatened by climate change. It is collected for the aquarium trade, being one of the top 10 exported corals from Indonesia, the largest exporter of the species. In 2005, about 50,000 individuals were exported from Indonesia. For these reasons, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as "vulnerable". Media related to Heliofungia actiniformis at Wikimedia Commons