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The Ecology of Malaria Vectors
Jacques Derek Charlwood CRC Press 2020, £63.00 I feel somewhat pipped at the post in writing this review: the foreword to The Ecology of Malaria Vectors already lays out the important position statement, that this book represents not only a future...
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If you go down to the woods today...
eager to feed on your blood. We are talking about ticks of course, tiny parasitic arachnids second only to mosquitoes as vectors of human disease. According to research by scientists at Kunming Medical University in China, more than 14% of people...
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Insectpedia: A Brief Compendium of Insect Lore
idiosyncratic. ‘K’ is for Kissing Bugs not ‘A’ for assassin bugs, their alternative name, some species of which are vectors of Chagas disease. ‘K’ is also for Kinsey, Alfred C, the human ‘sexologist’ who studied gall wasps. Other entomologists make an...
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Wounded Planet: How Declining Biodiversity Endangers Health and How Bioethics Can Help
The important dilemmas highlighted by Wounded Planet include whether we should drain swamps or use pesticides to reduce vectors of disease even if these measures may reduce biodiversity, with potential longer-term health impacts. In order to answer...
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Accelerating Evolution
in mice[5,6]. Most of the research on CRISPR gene drives thus far has focused on controlling populations of mosquito as vectors of human disease and significant progress has been made towards achieving this goal. Demonstrations of the technology in...
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The Atlas of Disease: Mapping Deadly Epidemics and Contagion from the Plague to the Zika Virus
Sandra Hempel White Lion Publishing, £19.99 (hardback) This is a lavishly produced and beautifully illustrated coffee-table book firmly ensconced in the ‘public understanding of science’ genre. The author, Sandra Hempel, an esteemed medical journalist,...
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Why an oral vaccine could be key to fighting COVID-19
Dr Elliot Bland, business development director at Stabilitech, is developing a potential vaccine stable enough to post to citizens as a capsule, rather than one requiring healthcare professionals and needles Stabilitech is a UK-based biopharma company...
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Sowing the seeds of plant science
The Biologist looks at how a series of DEFRA-sponsored studentships are helping to build resilience and capacity in the UK plant health sector This year the RSB is again partnering with DEFRA to offer 12 plant health undergraduate studentships. The...
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Dangerous drivers
An exclusive book extract from award-winning author Matthew Cobb FRSB explores the potentially dangerous power of gene drives September 12th 2022 Matthew Cobb FRSB is a professor of zoology at the University of Manchester and a member of The...
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The Threat of a Plant Disease Pandemic
Preparation for future pandemics should not just focus on human infections, but also those affecting the crops that millions rely on Feb 22nd 2021 Hunger and disease are inextricably linked. Not only does poor nutrition cause disease, but outbreaks of...
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Something in the air
Tom Ireland speaks to ecologist Dr Fabian Roger about using airborne DNA to detect species living nearby Dr Fabian Roger is an ecologist and postdoctoral researcher interested in new methods to discover and monitor biodiversity. In recent work, he and...
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Viruses That Kill Cancer
Researchers are getting closer to producing oncolytic viruses that can selectively infect and kill malignant cells, leaving healthy cells unaffected Feb 22nd 2021 For many years the word virus has been associated with infections, disease and death....
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Descriptive Taxonomy: The Foundation of Biodiversity Research
Mark F Watson, Chris H C Lyal and Colin Pendry (eds) Cambridge University Press, £65.00 Mark F Watson, Chris H C Lyal and Colin Pendry (eds) Cambridge University Press, £65.00 Once viewed as a discipline at the dry and dusty end of biology, taxonomy...
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Biological Invasions And Animal Behaviour
Judith S Weis & Daniel Sol (Eds) Cambridge University Press, £69.99 Most researchers agree that humans have directly or indirectly introduced species not native to a habitat or ecosystem, which has produced dramatic changes in the coevolution of both...
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Lyme: The First Epidemic Of Climate Change
Mary Beth Pfeiffer Island Press, £20.99 Lyme disease was first described from symptoms that arose in a number of patients in the vicinity of Lyme, Connecticut, in the 1970s. By 2015, the number of cases in the US had risen to 380,000 a year. In 2006,...
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Aliens in Antarctica
The introduction of just one flightless midge to Antarctica could have a huge effect on the region’s simple terrestrial ecosystems. Researchers and other visitors must be careful not to further disrupt the planet’s most isolated continent, write...
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Freshwater Mollusks of the World: A Distribution Atlas
Charles Lydeard and Kevin S Cummings (Eds) Johns Hopkins University Press, £99.99 You might think that the spelling of ‘mollusks’ suggests a US focus to this book, but while it is true that the editors are based in Kentucky and Illinois, contributing...
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My Lab Unlocked: Professor Bruce Whitelaw FRSB
Professor Bruce Whitelaw FRSB on realising the possibilities of genetic editing in livestock and wildlife 6th Feb 2022 My lab aims to develop meaningful applications of genetic engineering technologies. Our overriding focus is on farmed animals – in...
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Plagues upon the Earth: Disease and the Curse of Human History
Kyle Harper Princeton University Press, £28.00 Presented as a germ’s-eye view of history from human origins to global pandemics, this wonderful book is prefaced by a short quote from John Donne (1611) “This new world may be safer … There is no health;...
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Something in the air
Tom Ireland speaks to ecologist Dr Fabian Roger about using airborne DNA to detect species living nearby Dr Fabian Roger is an ecologist and postdoctoral researcher interested in new methods to discover and monitor biodiversity. In recent work, he and...
