Across the country, tiny blood-sucking parasites are settling in for the new school year. Head lice infestation, officially known as pediculosis, is common in primary school-aged children. But don’t worry…
I should admit straight up that I’m no fan of cats. Like any zoologist I treasure the rare glimpses I have had of lions, leopards, serval and even ocelot. But I have never understood the devotion of so…
Travelling to the London Olympics? What do you expect to bring back? Some amazing sporting memories? A medal? How about some bed bug bites, or, worse still, a few bugs to kick off an infestation at home…
The question of why human beings have virtually no body hair – as discussed yesterday on The Conversation – has puzzled evolutionary theorists since Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871). It’s puzzling because…
Writing almost 140 years ago in his book Naturalist in Nicaragua, the European naturalist Thomas Belt engaged in a lively debate about why certain breeds of dogs in tropical America were hairless. The…