All posts tagged biology
The Schoolchild who Discovered a New Jellyfish Species
The thing I love the most about scientific discovery is that anyone can do it. Literally anyone could, tomorrow, turn over a stone or look at a seemingly empty spot in the night sky and find something which no human [...]
Combating the rise of the superbugs: The health and scientific challenges of antibiotic resistance
It’s hard to imagine the world prior to antibiotics, a world where even a deep laceration could frequently spell significant illness or even death due to infection. Thankfully, since the discovery of penicillin in 1929 by Alexander Fleming, we now [...]
Asteroids, extinctions, and biodiversity: Wiping the slate clean for new life to flourish
The recent meteor strike in Russia has been a rather sobering reminder that Earth has been regularly battered during its history, by space rocks. Actually, the amount of meteoritic material constantly landing on Earth is startling – on average, over [...]
The bacteria that live inside hurricanes
Seven miles above the Earth’s surface, where the weather is born, lies the troposphere – the lowest layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Up there, where the clouds dance around, are bacteria that can make it rain, and are important for the [...]
Weekly Science Picks
Another week, another collection of weekly science picks! Those of us over here in Northern Europe have been enjoying snowy weather this past few days, with more expected on the way. At the same time, many of us have been [...]
Unknown Corals of the Deep
Corals are some of the most beautiful things to be found under the sea, blossoming in clusters like gardens off tropical coasts worldwide. Easily the grandest display is to be found in Australia with the Great Barrier Reef, and it [...]
Citizen Science
Citizen Scientists An interesting report released last week from the UK Environmental Observation Framework reveals the benefit of citizen scientists to governmental environmental organisations. The Nerc Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the Natural History Museum in London, reviewed 234 projects – [...]
Weekly Science Picks
Ah, the weekend! Time to kick back, relax, and look back over everything that’s happened over the past few days. And I’m rather happy to say that some quite interesting things have happened, including the Leonid meteor shower which peaked [...]
The evolution of human mortality
How long until we live forever? The general consensus is that we are getting older and living longer. Despite consequences and kryptonite, it is getting easier to stay alive. Heaven can wait, it seems. Every year each baby born is [...]
Weekly Science Picks
It’s been an interesting week for science news, and I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to give this week’s science picks! This made me spend a little while sipping contemplatively on a cup of vanilla iced coffee and wondering [...]
New Associate EMBO Member from Australia
Fifty-five life scientists from Europe and around the world, on 9 May 2012 in Heidelberg, Germany, were recognised by EMBO (Excellence in Life Sciences) for their excellence in research. Forty-eight of the researchers are from Europe and neighbouring countries while seven scientists from Argentina, [...]
Synthetic Biology Explained
An excellent video explaining what is synthetic biology. Starts off slow, but builds to some interesting conclusions about where synthetic biology is now headed. It ends with some speculation that is almost science fiction-like in implications – like replacing our kidneys and [...]