In Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a group of our ape-like ancestors encounter a towering black rectangle somewhere in an African desert. Something in them changes. A seed is sown. Everything…
“DNA is your blood in you, we can use DNA as evidence if someone’s been stabbed. We can run tests in suspects.” (Girl, 12, central Queensland) “DNA has to do with blood types and fingerprints, it helps…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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