The skin and bones of long-dead tigers from the days of the British Raj have helped reveal how the latest threat to the endangered species is their own DNA. Taking DNA samples from game hunters’ trophies…
In our lab we have a phone that rings several times a day. The conversation is always the same. A man from somewhere in the UK is desperate to know the answer to one question: “Am I a Viking?” An answer…
A leading molecular biologist and her children are visiting Sydney’s Royal Easter Show, but it’s 2053 now and things are slightly different. “Will there be chickens at the Easter Show?” asks Emily, the…
Are you a mutant? Am I? The advent of personal genomics makes this question less like a Marvel Comics story idea than it did in the past. But, as Spiderman’s uncle Ben might have put it: with great power…
We have plenty of resources that could stop us falling off the edge.
Chris Philavanh
With world population exceeding seven billion, there is renewed interest in the limits to growth concept first articulated by the Club of Rome in the 1970s. How can a growing population with growing affluence…
The definition of the word gene has evolved as our knowledge has advanced.
Katy.Tresedder
There’s a very confusing exchange in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more…
It seems Architeuthis dux is the only species of giant squid.
NHK/NEP/Discovery Channel
As many as 21 species of giant squid live and die under the surface of our oceans. At least, that’s what we thought. A paper published today by my colleagues and I in Proceedings of the Royal Society B…
The use of the term “junk DNA” has always been controversial.
Nick Kidd
A controversy at last: most of our DNA is junk, no it isn’t, yes it is. Actually, I think it is – up to 90% really is junk. Last year The Conversation published an article with an exciting headline: Human…
Scientists have linked common genetic markers with major psychiatric disorders including autism and schizophrenia, in the largest ever genetic study of psychiatric illness. The study findings, published…
Maybe we’re not as different as we’d like to think.
pcgn7
We humans tend to consider ourselves apart from other species. But we’re not really so different. So what makes us unique? I’d say it’s language, though not everyone would agree. Some people insist it’s…
Your genetic make up interacts with what you eat to either promote or harm good health.
Mark Lucock
A month ago, I returned to Australia from a trip to Burma. After four weeks in the country, I’d acclimatised to the culture, cuisine and people. My conditioning was so complete that on my return, I was…
DNA has been called many things: the king of molecules, the blueprint of life, and less excitingly but perhaps more accurately, the genetic code. DNA’s double helix, discovered in 1953 by James Watson…
You could fill this with coffee … or the equivalent of millions of DVDs.
raindog/Flickr
Biological systems have been using DNA as an information storage molecule for billions of years. Vast amounts of data can thus be encoded within microscopic volumes, and we carry the proof of this concept…
The Indian Myna is an invasive species – but has its behaviour changed in Australia?
Wikimedia Commons.
Plants and animals that are seemingly harmless in their native habitats can become quite aggressive or even destructive in a new location. Think of the rats that have been a source of human and animal…
There are a lot of components to biology – bioinformatics helps us makes sense of them all.
Image from Shutterstock.com
Bioinformatics underpins and enables research across the life sciences. This ranges from high-volume reductionist science (genomics, proteomics and the other “omics”, regulation of gene activity, epigenetics…
In order to drag themselves onto land, fish-like creatures needed limbs.
Thierrry
In the late Devonian period, roughly 365 million years ago, fish-like creatures started venturing from shallow waters onto land. Among the various adaptations associated with the switch to land life was…
Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford