Bad news for malaria

Scientists have uncovered new insight into malaria, the deadly disease that affects around 500 million people every year. Sub Saharan African suffers the worst, with an annual death toll of 1 million people annually, mostly children aged between six months and three years. It was that statistic of ...

Deceptive orchids smell like bees

Orchids living on Hainan Island in China have evolved to smell like upset bees. That might sound bizarre except this particular whiff attracts hornets that come looking for a bee to take away and feed to their growing young – but instead they bumble from one deceptive orchid to another, unwittingly...

Urgent need for soil maps

Good quality, healthy soil is the stuff that underpins healthy human populations by ensuring we all have enough to eat. They also play a vital role in regulating the climate. But get it wrong, and it can spell disaster. Now a group of scientists publishing in the journal Science have highlighted th...

Ocean therapy

Scientists have discovered a possible new painkiller inside a type of soft coral living on Green Island, a small volcanic peak just off the coast of Taiwan. Dr Zhi-Hong and colleagues from the National Sun Yat-Sen Univeristy in China have a paper in the British Journal of Pharmacology in which they...

This week in science history - The discovery of Aspirin

This week in science history saw, in 1897, Felix Hoffman first synthesise a stable form of acetylsalicylic acid for medical use, better known as aspirin...