Science & Pandas

Science & Pandas

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The revolution of cry-electron microscopy in life sciences research

Disruptive Science & The Electron Microscopy Revolution

I recently met a Nobel Laureate at uni. It was an event organised by a group of structural biology students trying to get experience for their Master’s project, so the invitee was naturally an expert in their field – the cryoelectron microscopist Richard Henderson. Albeit a rather impromptu decision, I

Prebiotic chemistry extends physics' attempt to solve the origin of life

Turbulent Waters - A Driving Force For The Origin Of Life

Even before life, there was chemistry. Molecules like carbon dioxide, methane, water, etc. floated around Earth's atmosphere and swirled in the oceans below, occasionally bumping into each other to bond, change, or otherwise break apart. Somehow, these seemingly trivial dynamics led to the origin of life. Whether they

Leaf morphogenesis research

Walking Through Forestry And Leaf Morphogenesis

Ever wondered why leaves have different shapes? Because there's a bunch of them. Southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) have smooth ovate leaves; common hollies (Ilex aquifolium) sport elliptical leaves with widely spaced spines around the edges; and the ones in sugar maples (Acer saccarum) are hierarchically lobed. Amongst the

Elasmobranchs like sharks, stingrays and skates are studied for their cartilaginous endoskeleton by both ecologists and devel

The Scientific Side Of Sharks

Sharks aren't always dangerous. Encompassing a group of over 500 different species, sharks are an incredibly diverse group of fish and belong to the Class Chondrichthyes. While 143 of these are currently listed as vulnerable to critically endangered by the IUCN - mostly attributed to overfishing - most

Chemical reactions are filled with possibilities, now explained via models like variational transition state theory and tran

The Chaotic Transition States In Chemical Reactions

Usually, the smaller the object, the more jittery and excited it is. Parents will be well aware of how hyperactive little children can be, for example, with puppy-owning families exemplifying just how well they can imitate and get along with their dog. Smaller creatures like mice are even more pronounced

Which is the best model organism of them all? The fruit fly, brewer's yeast or something else?

Which Is The Best Model Organism?

Science is complicated. From the unimaginable scales of the universe to the numerous interactions between molecules in space, just the physical aspects of science can be practically impossible for us to accurately interpret. Even for veterans and experts in their field of study, much of the time their investigations focus

Cells absorbing substances via clathrin-mediated endocytosis, which forms bubble-like vesicles in the cytoplasm

Building Bubbles: Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis

In all forms of organised systems, communication and transport go hand-in-hand. Human civilisation itself displays this in a myriad instances. When we need a quick meal at home, we might call the local Thai restaurant to get a tasty takeaway curry sent to us. Likewise, sending a package to a

3D bioprinters using bioinks and building life from scratch

3D Bioprinters; Life From Scratch

Imagine this - you walk into a restaurant beneath a cool sunset evening and take a seat at the bar, after which you start looking through the thin menu that a passing waiter provided you with. Besides the usual meal categories and food labels that you've known this

Nuclear warfare could be used by Putin in Russia in the face of Ukraine joining the EU and NATO

Nuclear Bombs - A Powerful Science Used For Devastation

I've been thinking about nukes recently, likely as a result of the terrible humanitarian catastrophe taking place in Ukraine at the time of writing. In this way, I am also probably not alone. Knowing that a missile could obliterate your home and country at any time - and

Owl sleeping and dreaming via Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and such similar to mammals

A Kingdom Of Sleeping, Dreaming Animals

How long do you usually sleep at night? From my own experience in university, most working adults and students would answer with 'some seven hours or so'. According to the CDC, this also ties in to basic human needs. Namely, the average adult apparently requires at least seven

Octopuses from the order Octopoda of the class Cephalopoda being interesting

A Hunter Of The Sea - The Nimble Octopus

Nothing is quite so remarkable as an octopus, some zoologists and oceanographists might argue. It is neither as flashy as the paradise fish, as colossal as the Atlantic blue whale, nor even as distributed amongst wildlife at the beach as commonplace sea crabs would be - and yet its anatomy

Mixture of synthetic chemicals forms paint to colour on canvas

Paint, Colours, And The Synthetic Chemistry Behind Them

Every artist was first an amateur, according to American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is true; even the likes of Pablo Picasso or Frida Kahlo had to have a starting point for their painter's careers, a time when they had yet to make a face out of a

Green sea turtles on the beach at Ascension Island, in the South Atlantic Ocean, moving towards the sea

The Sunny, Biodiverse Wildlife Inhabiting The Beach

What would a holiday be without a beach? Without the gentle lapping of waves upon the feet, the grains of sand on the skin and the necessary hermit crab pinching the unsuspecting ear while sun-bathing? For most, it would probably be a very ordinary one. Especially with the changes aflicted

SEM image of coccolithophores with calcite coccolith shells in ocean

Sculpting Marble In Nature - The Effects Of Coccolith Formation

The world and its living inhabitants are connected, with geophysical processes ubiquitously affecting natural ecosystems and vice versa. Over the span of millennia and eons, the ponderous drift of tectonic plates might alter the size and location of continents around the oceans to separate populations of the same species from

Sugar being bad for you in excess but having a very interesting organic chemistry

Sugar: A Sweet Poison Or A Chemically Diverse Nutrient?

As a matter of fact, sugars are not inherently bad. It is a common misconception that featuring sugar in your diet has all sorts of ill consequences - higher risks of obesity, heart disease and diabetes being the most widely known - but this idea is simply not true. Not

Supermassive black hole in centre of galaxy, featuring accretion disc, photon sphere, astrophysical jet due to electromagnet

Galactic Colossi - The Formation And Mechanics Of Black Holes

Black holes are one of the most mind-boggling, cryptic secrets found in the universe; and, even with the many years of research gone into understanding them, we still have much left to uncover. Einstein predicted them, physical mathematicians corrobarated his claim, and recent telescopic images confirmed them - yet scientists

The bending of spacetime in the special and general theories of relativity, as explained by Albert Einstein

Review: The Theory Of Relativity And The Universe

Our planet spins at a velocity of over 1600 kilometres per hour at the equator. When we stand parallel to and in line with the equator, we also move at the same velocity - and we only go faster by walking there in the same direction! If you stand some

Cell motility due to F-actin treadmilling in the direction of an extracellular stimulus

Cell Motility - The Crawling Mechanism Of Actin Assembly

Cells, when going about their everyday business, do not think. Like a great symphony orchestra played by a million synchronised musicians, cells might appear to carry an intelligent consciousness to them - though of course they do not. They are mindless machines that function based on the incredible chemistry and

Natural selection arising from meiotic division with crossing over and mutations, causing speciation and genetic variation

Coding For Change - The Genetics Of Natural Selection

If there is one predominant theme underlying all of biochemistry, botany and zoology - indeed, all of biology - it would be statistics. The molecules that make us do not have a consciousness of their own, nor some intelligent purpose that drives them. Instead, particles simply follow the rules and

Domestic dog, Canis familiaris, being affectionate, adorable and lovable in Christmas holidays

Dogs & Pups - The Science Behind Our Best Friends

I love dogs. You love dogs. In fact, it would probably not be an understatement to say that most of the world loves dogs - even if some breeds can be rather difficult to take care of. My own experience with them is limited to the times when my family

Pavel Jungwirth et al discovering how to turn water metallic by infusing it with electrons and metal cations

The Alchemy Of Today: Turning Water Into A Metal

Every year, research journals publish thousands of articles worldwide, but only a select few can truly take the scientific community by storm. In regards to the physical sciences, one only has to look so far as Claude E. Shannon's 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' from 1948

Phytohormones (aka plant hormones) and their interactions to influence plant growth and development

The Struggle & Growth Of Plant Hormones

No multicellular organism functions without controlled communication between its cells. They need to communicate to call for deficient nutrients when required, warn neighbours of present threats, and simply face the perpetual whims of our changing world. And the principal way that cells communicate with each other is, of course, via

Prion diseases like Creutzfeldt-jakob disease and Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome being deadly

Prion Proteins & The Deadly Diseases Associated With Them

A pathogen does not need to be alive to cause infection. In fact, a very large percentage of the most dangerous and frightening diseases we know of are caused by such pathogens. But we have seen this before. Though there is a divide in opinions, for example, most biologists think

Crow standing by a river with outstanding intelligence and cognition

Magpies, Ravens & Crows - The Evidence & Evolution Behind Corvid Cognition

How frequently do you see crows and ravens roaming the streets? For my part, I tend to see them practically every time I walk outside in London. Murders of crows (which is what dark-humoured Englishmen labelled groups of them) tend to line up neatly beside the river Thames and around

Accelerated discovery and its implications in research and molecular/scientific development

Research With AI - The Potential Of Accelerated Discovery

If there is one thing that research industries could use more of, it is more advanced technology to do more research. It is a time-proven fact that the process of exploring our universe never ends - and it goes from understanding the mechanisms that throttle life into us to the