Physics Disruptive Science & The Electron Microscopy Revolution I recently met a Nobel Laureate at uni. It was an event organised by a group of structural biology students trying to get experience for their Master’s project, so the invitee was naturally an expert in their field – the cryoelectron microscopist Richard Henderson. Albeit a rather impromptu decision, I
Chemistry Turbulent Waters - A Driving Force For The Origin Of Life Even before life, there was chemistry. Molecules like carbon dioxide, methane, water, etc. floated around Earth's atmosphere and swirled in the oceans below, occasionally bumping into each other to bond, change, or otherwise break apart. Somehow, these seemingly trivial dynamics led to the origin of life. Whether they
Biology Walking Through Forestry And Leaf Morphogenesis Ever wondered why leaves have different shapes? Because there's a bunch of them. Southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) have smooth ovate leaves; common hollies (Ilex aquifolium) sport elliptical leaves with widely spaced spines around the edges; and the ones in sugar maples (Acer saccarum) are hierarchically lobed. Amongst the
Biology The Scientific Side Of Sharks Sharks aren't always dangerous. Encompassing a group of over 500 different species, sharks are an incredibly diverse group of fish and belong to the Class Chondrichthyes. While 143 of these are currently listed as vulnerable to critically endangered by the IUCN - mostly attributed to overfishing - most
Biology Which Is The Best Model Organism? Science is complicated. From the unimaginable scales of the universe to the numerous interactions between molecules in space, just the physical aspects of science can be practically impossible for us to accurately interpret. Even for veterans and experts in their field of study, much of the time their investigations focus
Biology Building Bubbles: Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis In all forms of organised systems, communication and transport go hand-in-hand. Human civilisation itself displays this in a myriad instances. When we need a quick meal at home, we might call the local Thai restaurant to get a tasty takeaway curry sent to us. Likewise, sending a package to a
Biology 3D Bioprinters; Life From Scratch Imagine this - you walk into a restaurant beneath a cool sunset evening and take a seat at the bar, after which you start looking through the thin menu that a passing waiter provided you with. Besides the usual meal categories and food labels that you've known this
Biology A Kingdom Of Sleeping, Dreaming Animals How long do you usually sleep at night? From my own experience in university, most working adults and students would answer with 'some seven hours or so'. According to the CDC, this also ties in to basic human needs. Namely, the average adult apparently requires at least seven
Biology A Hunter Of The Sea - The Nimble Octopus Nothing is quite so remarkable as an octopus, some zoologists and oceanographists might argue. It is neither as flashy as the paradise fish, as colossal as the Atlantic blue whale, nor even as distributed amongst wildlife at the beach as commonplace sea crabs would be - and yet its anatomy
Biology The Sunny, Biodiverse Wildlife Inhabiting The Beach What would a holiday be without a beach? Without the gentle lapping of waves upon the feet, the grains of sand on the skin and the necessary hermit crab pinching the unsuspecting ear while sun-bathing? For most, it would probably be a very ordinary one. Especially with the changes aflicted
Biology Sculpting Marble In Nature - The Effects Of Coccolith Formation The world and its living inhabitants are connected, with geophysical processes ubiquitously affecting natural ecosystems and vice versa. Over the span of millennia and eons, the ponderous drift of tectonic plates might alter the size and location of continents around the oceans to separate populations of the same species from
Biology Sugar: A Sweet Poison Or A Chemically Diverse Nutrient? As a matter of fact, sugars are not inherently bad. It is a common misconception that featuring sugar in your diet has all sorts of ill consequences - higher risks of obesity, heart disease and diabetes being the most widely known - but this idea is simply not true. Not
Biology Cell Motility - The Crawling Mechanism Of Actin Assembly Cells, when going about their everyday business, do not think. Like a great symphony orchestra played by a million synchronised musicians, cells might appear to carry an intelligent consciousness to them - though of course they do not. They are mindless machines that function based on the incredible chemistry and
Biology Coding For Change - The Genetics Of Natural Selection If there is one predominant theme underlying all of biochemistry, botany and zoology - indeed, all of biology - it would be statistics. The molecules that make us do not have a consciousness of their own, nor some intelligent purpose that drives them. Instead, particles simply follow the rules and
Biology Dogs & Pups - The Science Behind Our Best Friends I love dogs. You love dogs. In fact, it would probably not be an understatement to say that most of the world loves dogs - even if some breeds can be rather difficult to take care of. My own experience with them is limited to the times when my family
Biology The Struggle & Growth Of Plant Hormones No multicellular organism functions without controlled communication between its cells. They need to communicate to call for deficient nutrients when required, warn neighbours of present threats, and simply face the perpetual whims of our changing world. And the principal way that cells communicate with each other is, of course, via
Biology Prion Proteins & The Deadly Diseases Associated With Them A pathogen does not need to be alive to cause infection. In fact, a very large percentage of the most dangerous and frightening diseases we know of are caused by such pathogens. But we have seen this before. Though there is a divide in opinions, for example, most biologists think
Biology Magpies, Ravens & Crows - The Evidence & Evolution Behind Corvid Cognition How frequently do you see crows and ravens roaming the streets? For my part, I tend to see them practically every time I walk outside in London. Murders of crows (which is what dark-humoured Englishmen labelled groups of them) tend to line up neatly beside the river Thames and around
Biology Collagen Proteins - A Fibrous Family That Supports Life In biochemistry, perhaps the most abundant and varied family of molecules we know of are the proteins. This is certainly true for cellular biology, with the typical cell being able to hold some 42 million proteins in its cytoplasm at each point in time. Proteins are not just muscle-builders -
Biology The Resilient Tardigrade - How Does It Survive Our Experiments? There are numerous dynamic, complex and interconnected ecosystems living on our planet. We have seen beautifully biodiverse rainforests populating the land, with endless expanses of aquatic lifeforms residing in the oceans, seas and rivers. The variety is mindboggling - but it only becomes more perplexing when you realise that even
Biology Unique, Youthful And Cute - The Regenerative Axolotl Here's a question for you. Out of all the myriad creatures in the Animal Kingdom, which would would you say are the cutest of them all? Not an incredibly scientific prospect, I know, but certainly a widely disputed one! (Truly, you'd be surprised from the furious
Biology Tumours In Trees - How Agrobacteria Genetically Modify Plants If you go out to walk often, particularly in forested areas, you may have noticed a few trees with large bulks of mass growing from their trunks before. Demorphed and decrepid, these protuberances happen rarely in large dicotyledonous plants like oak trees, and they are neither intended nor adaptive features
Biology Bioluminescent Fungi & A Light-Generating Metabolism Truffles, in my opinion, are delicious. Though admittedly quite expensive, their mushrooms can be used to produce some of the most exquisite and unique tastes in pretty much all types of cuisine - particularly of the Italian kind. (Got to love truffle oil ravioli!) That said, I must admit that
Biology Complex Communities - The Mechanisms Of A Beehive Following on from the previous post on fruits, I thought it might be a good idea to give some background to how flowers can start to reproduce in the first place, via pollination. One particularly interesting method of this, I think, is how various insect species can work in symbiosis
Biology Looking At The Gut And The Ecosystem Inside It Gastroenterology is not a new field of study, but scientists, pharmas and clinics around the globe have only recently started realising just how significant it is to our health. Partly, this has to do with an increasing interest in how our diet can influence our fitness, weight and longevity -
