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Soaking up the Pressure
Glass sponge found in the Antarctic (image courtesy of Julian Gutt) Deep below the polar ice, centuries-old sponges capture carbon and support an enormous variety of marine life. These mysterious animals are flexible enough to thrive in this changeable...
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Billion-Dollar Fish: The Untold Story of Alaska Pollock
Sea. Sometimes referred to as ‘white gold’ by fishers, Alaska pollock is the preferred prey for a large crowd of hungry sea animals, such as halibut, cod, sea lions, seals and a variety of seabird species – as well as humans. So popular is Alaska...
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RSB BioArtAttack3D 2023 competition winners announced
With over 300 photos of fabulous artworks submitted by the competition’s entrants this year featuring models of birds, arachnids, and forests, the winners have been selected. With over 300 photos of fabulous artworks submitted by the competition’s...
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An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles: Campfire Conversations with Alfred Russel Wallace on People and Nature Based on Common Travel in the Malay Archipelago
Paul Spencer Sochaczewski Explorer's Eye Press, £16.95 To those unacquainted with Alfred Russel Wallace, he may appear at first glance another of history's nearly men, like Scheele or Semmelweis, famous for not being as famous as perhaps he should be....
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Deep trouble
Above: the SHINKAI 6500 submersible at the Edmond hydrothermal vent field on the Central Indian Ridge. Chong CHEN / JAMSTEC. Next year, the first commercial-scale mining operations in international waters are due to start, helping feed a growing demand...
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What is 'fire melanism'?
6th September 2024 Richard Pallardy explores ‘fire melanism’ – the tendency for black or dark animals to become more common in burnt landscapes In the classic Disney version of 101 Dalmatians, the titular spotted pups roll themselves in soot to...
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Aliens in Antarctica
and Screaming Sixties. These create a barrier to the continent, preventing much biological life from arriving by air or sea and colonising the land. The species that do arrive, via whatever means, are faced with year-round low temperatures, short...
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Sensing success at iGEM
A team of scientists from the University of Nottingham explain their competition project – a novel system to detect botulinum toxins in food The Biologist 66(6) p26-29 Every October thousands of students from around the world gather in Boston, USA, for...
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Planktonia: diving at night for answers
Above: Paper nautilus and pyrosomes, photographed by Mike Bartick In an exclusive extract from Planktonia, a new book exploring the remarkable species that float in our oceans, we meet the scientists and photographers working to capture these life...
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Buried Alive
Above: A rainbow captured over the drilling rig of the research vessel JOIDES Resolution. Image courtesy of IODP JRSO Yuki Morono explains why the discovery of living bacteria in 100 million year old sediment may force us to rethink the minimum levels...
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Digital discovery
February 22nd 2022 Laetitia Gunton explains the painstaking work required to digitise millions of museum specimens – and why it’s worth the effort Walk into any natural history museum and the diversity of specimens and objects on show is amazing, yet...
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Salt Survivors
Joe Zaccai looks at new research on the substances that enable halophile bacteria to function in high salt concentrations The Biologist 64(2) p24-27 Extremophile microorganisms, which thrive in physically or geochemically extreme conditions, arguably...
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How to...explore rock pools
periwinkles to pink, candy-striped topshells. Sheltering alongside these are a variety of animals including fish, crabs, sea anemones, isopods, sponges and seasquirts, to name but a few. Common starfish and mussels, by Steve Trewhella. Between a rock...
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A dog eat dog world
Owls eating other owls, coyotes eating foxes, and killer whales eating sharks – Richard Pallardy explores when predators become prey 13th December 2021 It was once believed that the dramatic interactions described above were rare – an anomaly in...
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Crazy horses
Seahorses have a unique breeding mechanism that involves males becoming pregnant. Francisco Otero-Ferrer and William V Holt FRSB explain how this unusual arrangement can help scientists conduct studies that would otherwise be impossible The Biologist...
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Engineering with algae
Understanding how diatoms create their amazingly intricate shells could revolutionise a range of industries, from nanotechnology to computing. However, despite massive interest, the process remains deeply mysterious, as Tom Ireland explains The...
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Tardigrades in space
SEM images by Hiroki Higashiyama and Kazuharu Arakawa Mark Blaxter and Kazuharu Arakawa look at the remarkable physiology of tardigrades, and why their recent appearance on Star Trek caused a stir among those who study them The Biologist 64(1) p14-17...
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Making Waves
gathering evidence that species change and evolve by natural selection. He also observed that mountains rise from the sea and coral reefs flourish in warm shallows. Other famous scientists sailed on her: Captain Robert FitzRoy, for example, was a...
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Zone 3: Scientists At Work
Welcome to Zone 3 of Science at Home! This zone is full of interviews and short films about what it is like to be a scientist. We've got researchers from all areas of science talking about the research they are doing, their career paths, achievements,...
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What is the real cost of the Suez Canal?
Invasive species travelling through this waterway are causing health and economic problems across the Mediterranean – we must properly assess the impact of such bioinvasions, says Bella Galil The Biologist 65(6) p7 Three Libyan fishers died this summer...
