Sleep is a phenomenon that ties us irrefutably to our relatives in the rest of the animal kingdom. The requirement to sleep is not only present in the most complex of organisms, such as Homo sapiens, but also in more primitive species, such as the jellyfish Cassiopoiea and the nematode C. Elegans. Even in light…
10 million people in the UK suffer from some sort of phobia. At the heart of these anxiety-related disorders are aversive memories, which are formed when the brain makes a link between an object, animal, place, or situation and a traumatic event experienced at the same time. Currently, treatment for these phobias involves gradually exposing…
Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the Royal Society and 2009 Nobel Prize winner, is already well known in the scientific community for his publications about the ribosome. What I wasn’t expecting however, was that his part-memoir, part-popular science book contained far more about the pace, people and progress of science than could ever be gleaned from…
In the 1982 classic Bladerunner, synthetic beings on the boundary between life and artifice known as replicants serve as humanity’s slaves. Made from the same organic material as us, they are expertly bioengineered to be improved versions of the humans they are based on. Masterful manipulation of life in this way could be a reality…
Antibodies are proteins generated by the immune system capable of recognising short peptide fragments (known as epitopes) with a remarkably high degree of specificity. This specificity makes them a powerful tool for research, allowing us to identify, track, and quantify specific proteins in a wide range of assays. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) can be generated for…
Since China first announced the emergence of a new virus, 2019-novel coronavirus or 2019-nCOV, the pathogen has spread and international cases have emerged. This virus is in the same family as both the common cold and the more deadly MERS and SARS viruses. Governments and health organisations are now mobilising to contain the spread of…
A dark alley. At the end of it the silhouette of a person, child like, facing you. A chuckle in the distance. Suddenly, one arm jerks up. Then it begins to walk, closing in with sudden movements of each limb, as if pulled by strings… Now, would that be creepy at all? There is no…
Photograph: @Juansharks/Juan Oliphant/AFP/Getty Images By Laura Perry Images of Deep Blue – the largest great white shark in the world – took the internet by storm in January. But is touching a 6-metre apex predator ever a good idea? And what is being done to help protect these real-life sea monsters? The film ‘Deep Blue…
By Abigail Pavey The power to create, destroy or modify life has always been a source of great debate between scientists and among society as a whole. But what happens when scientists decide to go undercover and do what they please? In November 2018, Chinese researcher He Jiankui announced to the world that he had…
Dickinsonia was a giant of the Ediacaran era – growing up to 1.4m in length at a time when most life on Earth was confined to the microscopic. Further to this, the “pancake-like” entity achieved this 17 million years before Cambrian explosion, the notorious event 541 million years ago when most life on Earth started…
