- Bjoern Brembs
Flies are creatures of habit - at least that's what the latest research on the fruit fly Drosophila has found. In this article Bjoern Brembs explains how a marine snail started him on the road to uncover the brain basis of learning...
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- Catherine Zentile
The buzz of a bumblebee is one of the quintessential sounds of summer time. But this ‘slender sound’ and ‘faint utterance’ that was so admired by Wordsworth is under threat because bumblebees are in crisis: of the 25 species native to Britain, three have already been declared extinct. But why are they suffering and what can we do to stem the problem...?
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- Alexandra Cheung
We tend to think of parasites as evolutionary cheats, surreptitiously taking advantage of their hosts’ hard work while they sit back and enjoy an easy life. But a closer look reveals that it's not all sun and sangria...
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- Chris Smith
Beating your head against a hard surface can be a sign of frustration, yet for a woodpecker it’s a fact of life. So why don't nature's headbangers develop brain damage or a permanent migraine?
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- Becky Poole
Why re-invent the wheel when Nature has already come up with the best solution? Becky Poole explores the field of biomimetics - quite literally how engineers are borrowing from biology...
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- Robinson Fulweiler
Climate change has been blamed with altering the environment – from animal migrations to sea level. Now it's also affecting nutrient cycling. Excess nitrogen discharged into estuaries used to be removed by a bacterial process in the sediments. But recent research shows a dramatic change...
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- Nick Heath
By now we’re familiar with apocalyptic visions of a scorched and flooded world ravished by global warming. But this gloomy prognosis is now set to take a nosedive beneath the ocean waves.
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- Ruth Williams
The life of a laboratory animal is not generally an enviable one. However, for some fruitflies in San Francisco it must be pretty pleasant work. Ruth Williams looks at hangover flies - fruitfly mutants lacking the ability to handle their beer.
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- Klaus Jost
Underwater photographer Klaus Jost photographs the great white shark using a neoprene seal as bait in 'shark alley' off Geyser island, South Africa. In thi
s article he also discusses conservation eforts to save the great white from extinction.
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- Helen Scales
CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) aims to regulate the trade in animal and plant species threatened with extinction throu
gh worldwide trade, legal or illegal. Helen has a look at its workings.
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