Plants hide too!

The animal kingdom is full of species that do their best to hide from predators by adopting all sorts of clever camouflage to help them blend with their surroundings and not get spotted. And now it seems that some plants might do something similar. Many plants are brightly coloured to attract pollin...

Osmotic power plant

Osmosis is a process that is vital to the whole of life.  It is based on a partially permeable membrane which will allow water through but not allow salts or other dissolved substances.  If you put salty water on one side and fresh water on the other water will move through the membrane fr...

New gene-screen "knocks-out" pathogen targets

Scientists have discovered a quick way to flush out how pathogens like bacteria and viruses target our cells.  The system could show researchers where to target their efforts in developing the next generation of antimicrobials. The research is presented in Science by Whitehead Institute-based s...

Why the strange head?

The peculiar shape of hammerhead sharks is a biological conundrum that has long puzzled scientists. Now American scientists have uncovered some of the secrets of these odd hammer-shaped heads, showing that having eyes spaced far apart on their wide heads lets hammerhead sharks see better than more c...

Moved by the Power of Speech

It's often said that someone can move you with the words they use. Now scientists have shown that this really is true, both metaphorically and physically. Research published this week shows that the sensation of the breath of a speaker on our skin can alter sound perception.

This Week in Science History - The Royal Society

This week in Science History saw on the 28th of November 1660, the first meeting of the Royal Society, the oldest continuously running Academy for Sciences in the world...