January 28, 2010
When our lives are in danger, some humans go on the run, seeking refuge in other countries far away from the threats of home. Animals too migrate to escape danger but one group - the pond-living bdelloid rotifers - have taken this game of hide-and-seek to an extreme.
If they are threatened by…
January 28, 2010
In 1912, Antarctic explorer Captain Lawrence Oates willingly walked to his death so that his failing health would not jeopardise his friends' odds of survival. Stepping from his tent into a raging blizzard, he left his men with the immortal words, "I am just going outside and may be some time." It…
January 27, 2010
Dinosaur books have become more colourful affairs of late, with the dull greens, browns and greys of yesteryear replaced by vivid hues, stripes and patterns. This has largely been a question of artistic licence. While fossils may constrain an artist's hand in terms of size and shape, they haven't…
January 26, 2010
Colour? Science journalists care not for colour.
It's been more than a week since ScienceOnline 2010. Like many other people who went, I'm recovering from the disease that has become known as Scio10 plague, or sciflu, or Ed Yong plague (curse you, Skloooot!) and the depression of not being…
January 25, 2010
Look in any biomedical laboratory, and you will find HeLa cells. Over 50 million tonnes of these cells have been grown in churning vats of liquid all over the world. They have been one of the most important tools in modern medicine, pushing forward our understanding of cancer and other diseases,…
January 25, 2010
Millions of years before humans invented sonar, bats and toothed whales had mastered the biological version of the same trick - echolocation. By timing the echoes of their calls, one group effortlessly flies through the darkest of skies and the other swims through the murkiest of waters. It's…
January 23, 2010
To me, this portrait sums up the essence of the Cape buffalo, an imposing animal with a reputation for being grumpy and unpredictable.
Of all the debatably named "Big Five", this was the one we saw most often and frequently in very large herds indeed. With those massive bony lumps (they're called…
January 21, 2010
In a Japanese laboratory, a group of scientists is encouraging a rapidly expanding amoeba-like blob to consume Tokyo. Thankfully, the blob in question is a "slime mould" just around 20cm wide, and "Tokyo" is represented by a series of oat flakes dotted about a large plastic dish. It's all part of…
January 21, 2010
The partnerships between flowering plants and the animals that pollinate them are some of the most familiar in the natural world. The active nature of animals typically casts the plants as the passive partners in this alliance, but in reality, they're just as involved. That becomes particularly…
January 19, 2010
Deep beneath the ocean's surface lie the "black smokers", undersea chimneys channelling superheated water from below the Earth's crust. Completely devoid of sunlight, they are some of the most extreme environments on the planet. Any creature that can survive their highly acidic water, scorching…
January 18, 2010
The mighty insect colonies of ants, termites and bees have been described as superorganisms. Through the concerted action of many bodies working towards a common goal, they can achieve great feats of architecture, agriculture and warfare that individual insects cannot.
That's more than just an…
January 18, 2010
Now that is how you do a conference. Massive thanks to Bora and Anton for organising ScienceOnline 2010, one of the most enjoyable science shindigs I've had the pleasure of attending. I'll stick up more on the conference later, after I'm done recovering from the horrendous American plague that I…
January 14, 2010
I've just flown from London to North Carolina, a trip of around 6,200km. As flights go, it's a pathetic one, a mere jaunt in the park compared to the epic voyage of the Arctic tern. Every year, this greatest of animal travellers makes a 70,000 km round-trip, in a relentless, globe-trotting pursuit…
January 13, 2010
Men who think that size really matters should probably not think too hard about the Y chromosome. This bundle of genes is the ultimate determinant of manliness, and it happens to be a degenerate runt. Over a few hundred million years, it has shrunk considerably, jettisoning around 97% of its…
January 12, 2010
For something intangible, a glance can be a powerful thing. It can carry the weight of culture and history, it can cause psychological harm, and it can act as a muzzle. Consider the relatively simple act of a man staring at a woman's body. This is such a common part of modern society that most of…
January 11, 2010
Next week, I'll be chairing a session at the Science Online 2010 conference called Rebooting science journalism in the age of the web. I'll be shooting the breeze with Carl Zimmer, John Timmer and David Dobbs about the transition of journalism from sheets of plant pulp to wires and wi-fi. The title…
January 10, 2010
Weaver birds are the artisans extraordinaire of the bird world. As their name suggests, they fashion intricate nests out of plant material, carefully threaded and woven into a solid structure. All of it is done, quite literally, without lifting a finger.
These birds were all building nests in a…
January 10, 2010
If you read this blog regularly, then chances are you care about science and about writing. If that's the case, you can help to get an incredible piece of science writing into the bestseller charts.
My colleague, the gifted Rebecca Skloot, has finished her debut book The Immortal Life of Henrietta…
January 7, 2010
If someone at âyour workplace offends a client or a customer, they'd probably get an earful from their colleagues or boss. If someone annoys a friend of yours, you'd probably have a go at them. This capacity to punish those who behave badly, even if they haven't wronged us personally, pervades all…
January 6, 2010
The latest issue of Eureka, the Times's monthly science supplement, is out today. I've been incredibly supportive of the venture and it's great to see that a major national newspaper is increasing its science coverage, rather than cutting back on it. For this issue (the fourth, I think), I've…
January 6, 2010
Cast your mind back 40 million years and think about your ancestors. You're probably picturing creatures that looked like a bit like today's monkeys, but they're only part of your family tree. To see your other ancestors, you'd have to whip out an imaginary microscope. Meet your great-great-great-…
January 6, 2010
Around 395 million years ago, a group of four-legged animals strode across a Polish coast. These large, amphibious creatures were among the first invaders of the land, the first animals with true legs that could walk across solid ground. With sprawling gaits and tails held high, they took…
January 5, 2010
If you looked at the penis of a Drosophila fly under a microscope (for reasons best known only to yourself), you'd see an array of wince-inducing hooks and spines. These spines are present in all Drosophila and they're so varied that a trained biologist could use them to identify the species of…
January 4, 2010
We spend a lot of time wondering about what other people think of us. Do they find us attractive, intelligent, capable or trustworthy? Considering how often we mull over such questions and how confidently we arrive at conclusions, we are remarkably bad at answering them. We have a nasty tendency to…
January 3, 2010
This is the last animal we saw on our South African safari, and we found it sitting on top of our conditioner. Thank goodness it wasn't a leopard.
I reckon it's a foamy nest frog, so named for its tendency to lay its eggs into a nest of foamy bubbles overhanging a body of water. I always thought…
January 1, 2010
At Science Online 2010, due to begin in a few weeks, I will be chairing a panel of veteran bloggers/journalists in a discussion on rebooting science journalism in the age of the web. Joining me will be Carl Zimmer, John Timmer and David Dobbs. We'll be chatting about how science journalism and…
December 31, 2009
This has been A Good Year TM. I won an award, had fun reporting on the eye-opening World Conference of Science Journalists, finally joined Twitter, spoke at Science Online London and was promoted at work.
On top of that, this blog has gone from strength to strength thanks to the promotional efforts…
December 31, 2009
If you search for decent definitions of evolution, the chances are that you'll see genes mentioned somewhere. The American Heritage Dictionary talks about natural selection acting on "genetic variation", Wikipedia discusses "change in the genetic material of a population... through successive…
December 30, 2009
I don't really like end-of-the-year lists. They seem a bit too self-knowing and forced, and there are just so many of them, particularly because we're heralding the end of a decade too. I half-expect someone to create a Top Ten Years of the Decade list (and Time Out would probably put 1977 in there…
December 29, 2009
Many of us have just spent the Christmas season with a persistent and irritating ringing noise in our ears. But now that the relatives have gone home for the year, it's worth remembering that a large proportion of the population suffers from a more persistent ringing sensation - tinnitus. It…
