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The biology of grandmothers
lifespan. In most species – including all of our primate cousins – individuals continue breeding (or try to) until they drop dead. Humans do things differently. Unlike any of the other great-ape species, we have almost no overlap in breeding careers...
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In it for the long run
your career, be taken up by numerous successors and still be running 167 years after you set it up, long after you are dead? Not only that, can you imagine establishing such an experiment not in the laboratory, but out in the ‘real world’? That is...
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Staring death in the face
humour' important to people in your line of work? There has to be gallows humour, but it is never disrespectful to the dead. At the crime scene in Kosovo I mentioned earlier, we had SO13, the anti-terrorist police force, as our security. They told me...
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Toads on roads
John P Sumpter explores one of the hundreds of schemes to help toads avoid heavy traffic in the UK September 12th 2022 How many people love toads? The correct answer is ‘more than you might think’. The evidence comes from the many hundreds of...
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Member profiles: Tuberculosis, teaching and science education
history, and I’m obsessive about genealogy. I have compiled a vast family tree and I enjoy ‘finding the living among the dead’, using DNA matching to unearth distant cousins. My Society and Me Ros Roberts CBiol FRSB on what four decades of membership...
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Algae versus the superbugs
this process has been shown to work equally well for heavy metal removal, regardless of whether the algal cells are alive or dead[8]. This mechanism can remove antibiotics and heavy metals from wastewater asa standalone process or as a precursor for...
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A whole new world
of the lytic granules and the surface of the whole cell are made up of similar fat molecules), so that their contents – the deadly enzymes – are expelled from the immune cell on to the diseased cell. In a few minutes or so, the diseased cell visibly...
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‘I’m ridiculously positive about the media’s coverage of COVID-19’
with journalists’ questions, and journalists are putting good questions to them on behalf of the public. When someone drops dead three hours after getting their vaccine – which will happen when you’re vaccinating millions of 80 and 90 year olds – and a...
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If you go down to the woods today...
as an active ingredient. A magnifying glass can be used to check that the legs have stopped moving (and the tick is dead) before brushing them off. A tick removal tool (left) and a pair of tweezers. The latter are sometimes referred to as 'tick...
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RSB's plant health series heads to Californian vineyards
which means when growers cut down and clear away trees that are already infected, the fungus can survive for years on dead, woody roots left in the soil. Consequently, newly planted trees can become infected when their roots come into contact with these...
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Policy Lates
University of Greenwich Further information See our news article for a summary of the event. Algal Biofuels: Full bloom or dead in the water? November 2013 The Society of Biology partnered with the Royal Society of Chemistry for our latest Policy Lates...
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The sense behind senescence
How costly is the trait now? All of that fitness has been accrued; it hardly matters at all if the individual were to drop dead. Put simply, the cost of death – and hence the selection pressure on avoiding it – declines over time. For students of...
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Animal Super Powers: The Most Amazing Ways Animals Have Evolved
why it has benefitted a given species. There’s a whole section dedicated to drinking blood and another on creatures that eat dead animals, which is packed with fascinating facts (who knew that Old World vultures have a role in protecting other animals...
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The Disease Detective
to deal with. Two elements linked almost every victim of the mystery epidemic. One factor was funerals: many of the dead had been present at the funeral of a sick person or had close contact with someone who had. The other factor was a presence at the...
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Reports
that they would consider attending an event of this nature again in the future. Samantha Hill AMRSB Conversations with the Dead: Old Trails Lead to New Discoveries 25 March 2019 The South Wales branch of the Royal Society of Biology in collaboration...
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‘I’m ridiculously positive about the media’s coverage of COVID-19’
with journalists’ questions, and journalists are putting good questions to them on behalf of the public. When someone drops dead three hours after getting their vaccine – which will happen when you’re vaccinating millions of 80 and 90 year olds – and a...
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"I've jostled the system"
remember very vividly the effect of liver fluke. We were moving a herd of young ewes and suddenly one of them just dropped dead. It looked fine on the outside, but when we opened it up, it essentially had no liver. There were so many immature forms of...
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Tardigrades in space
it is a unique assemblage of particular proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and other metabolites, it is indistinguishable from dead or inorganic matter. So is a tun 'alive'? And doesadding water to a tardigrade tun turn non-life into life? Tardigrade...
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A worm's world
in nutrient release and cycling and act as a source of food for many larger animals. As decomposers, they help break down dead organic matter and as they burrow beneath the surface of the ocean floor they introduce oxygen into sediments, a process known...
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Anatomy Museum: Death and the Body Displayed
are lots of lovely corpses – and bits of them – in Elizabeth Hallam's new book. If you are not comfortable with pictures of dead human bodies, this may not be ideal bedtime reading. However, the topic is covered sensitively and with due reference to...
