Biology Science Blog

News - Page 4

Anthony Carlisle: author, surgeon and discoverer of electrolysis

by Anita Sedgwick, project officer for Biology: Changing the World. The winners of the project’s ‘top ten’ poll were announced on the 9th June, and included Anthony Carlisle. Naked guardsmen and gothic novels aren’t the things that spring to mind when you’re first asked to think of a typical surgeon, but then Anthony Carlisle was far from typical. Born in 1768 in Stillington, a village in County Durham, he started his medical career training with his uncle in York. He then trained with a surgeon in the City of Durham before moving to London, where he became a Surgeon at Westminster Hospital in 1793. He held this position until his death in 1840. Carlisle had a full and varied career. He specialised in bones of the inner ear, structure of the spleen and thyroid gland, and studied the effects of inbreeding, electrochemistry, the spread of cholera and evolution. Within his surgical work, he…

Are robot animals the future?

Michelle Reeve from the Royal Veterinary College is trying to make an eight-legged robot as part of her PhD As a child, did you dream of a future world where robots were part of our everyday life? With robots such as Johnny 5, Terminator’s T-800, and of course R2-D2 and C-3PO as major characters in popular sci-fi films, I think many of us shared this vision of the future. Today we see little sign of this robotic world we were promised, but progress is slowly being made. Robots hoover our homes, and many robots now work on production lines. Reasons for this slow progress are abundant, but the main one is simply this: it is very difficult to design, build, and run a robot that works reliably. (Shame the films didn’t show that part!) Oddly enough, biology may be the answer. In studying animal movement, biologists…

How do we value our natural capital?

Daija Angeli, project officer for the Society of Biology’s special interest group the Natural Capital Initiative, attended a meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee on the valuation of natural capital on 25th February 2014. Here is what she learned: How do we value our nature? The concept of natural capital is often used to describe the economic value of nature, and has been explored as a way to ensure that nature is protected and to assign priorities. This was the focus of discussion at a recent meeting of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, which tackles issues where science and politics meet. Three talks by experts on natural capital spoke about recent research and policy developments before chair Andrew Miller MP opened the debate to the audience. Environmental economist Julian Harlow (Defra) pondered not how, but why we value natural capital. We have failed to protect the environment based on…

Creative Commons Licences: Copyright or Copywrong?

By Michael Walsh, BBSRC Policy Fellow at the Society of Biology, discusses the new Creative Commons licences and the Society’s advice to members. Copyright exists as a form of protection around something which you have created. Most people might immediately think of its relevance in the arts with examples such as literature or film, but it is equally important in the sciences: for example experimental techniques can also be subject to copyright. Copyright places restrictions on whether or not someone can copy all or part of your work, which is important for claiming ownership and making sure that you are acknowledged or rewarded, but sometimes this can be a bad thing. When a scientist puts their work out into the world, the current system generally has the author sign over some or all of their rights to the publisher, and then an article is published under whichever restrictions…

What Twitter can bring to science writing

Rebecca Nesbit, press officer at the Society of Biology, is running evening courses on writing for a non-technical audience along with The Biologist’s managing editor Tom Ireland. Last year we ran our first course on writing for a non-technical audience, and I was struck by the diversity of people who attended. We had representatives from academia, from conservation charities and from industry. Their reasons for coming were equally diverse – to help attract donations, to explore alternative careers, to help raise the profile of their business… There are many situations where scientists write for non-specialist audiences – in magazines, on websites, as lay summaries of academic papers – but social media is particularly popular. There has been lots of discussion recently about how and why scientists should write for social media channels, and with our next courses coming up in February it seemed like the time to take a look…

GM: is opinion more important than science?

by Rebecca Nesbit, Society of Biology Today’s announcement by Environment Secretary Owen Paterson that the British public should be persuaded of the benefits of genetically modified has predictably caused controversy. The top message from anti-GM campaigners seems to be ‘you’re wrong about GM – the public don’t want it’. GM Freeze, quoted in the Telegraph, says: “The message is clear: the public do not want GM.” While there is no doubt some truth in this, the fact that ‘the public’ have reservations about GM has no bearing on whether GM is safe and effective; public opinion is not evidence for risks from GM.  But could ‘people don’t want GM’ be a valuable argument for the Government ignoring scientific evidence about potential benefits? I found a prime example of the conflict between science and public opinion in this article on GM from the Daily Mail. The piece is scientifically flawed, most notably…

Would you be fooled by a fly? Play a game to find out!

Christopher Taylor, a PhD student at the University of Nottingham, invites you to play an insect game to assist with his research. In the natural world, not everything is what it seems. Deception is rife, and it can be hard to know whether to trust your senses. What first looks like a dead leaf might turn out to be a katydid. Or a tasty-looking worm might actually be an angler fish’s lure. Telling the difference between a fake and the real thing can be a matter of life or death. One type of deception is known as Batesian mimicry, whereby a harmless animal – the mimic – resembles a more dangerous one – the model – so that a predator will leave it well alone. Examples are treehoppers that look like ants, moths that look like hornets, and even caterpillars that look like snakes. It is easy to see how natural selection…

Experiences from a Life Science Careers Conference

Katie Rule is a second year BSc Human Biology student at the University of South Wales and hopes to go into a career in molecular biology. She tells us about her experience at a Society of Biology Life Sciences Careers Conference on 23rd October 2013. This year my university was lucky enough to hold one of the three annual Life Sciences Careers Conferences and it was brilliant! As a student trying to find which pathway is most suited for you in science, it was amazing to get the opportunity to meet representatives from so many different societies. There were representatives from Society for General Microbiology, Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, Biochemical Society, British Pharmacological Society and loads more. Each society brought lots of freebies with them which was great…I am a student after all! The talks provided by people in different scientific careers were extremely informative and gave us all an insight…

Preventing plant disease

Michelle Hulin won the Best Biology Student category of the SET Awards 2013 for her final year project “Preventing Global Disease Spread of a Major Commodity Crop” whilst studying at the University of Bath.  Here she blogs about her project and her experience of winning the Award which was judged by the Society of Biology.  With the human population predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050, food production must double which will inevitably put our agricultural system under great stress. Plants play an essential role in our day to day lives, providing us food, fibre and other commodities. However, plant pests and pathogens are a major threat to our crops, with fungal pathogens alone causing losses of 10-16% of global food production. Whilst studying Biology (BSc) at the University of Bath, I realised that as the next generation of scientists our research may contribute towards resolving these issues. During my degree I…