News
American researchers have discovered that the Arctic Circle may contain as much as 30% of the world's undiscovered natural gas deposits and upto 13% of undiscovered oil, or double what we first thought. Writing in the journal Science, US Geological Survey (USGS) scientist Donald Gautier and his coll...
We hear a lot about good fats and bad fats, and it can all get a bit confusing. Now researchers in the US have studied the effects off the ratio of different fats in humans, and their effects on gene activity.
Over the past century, we've seen significant changes in our Western diet, includin...
This week scientists have uncovered what they think is the world’s oldest example of a leprosy victim. This is a paper in the journal PLoS One and the pictures are absolutely stunning; to an osteoarchaeologist at least.
Gwen Robins and her colleagues, based at the Appalachian State University...
When we need new cells in our body, for example, to replace dead or damaged cells, they don't just appear from nowhere – they are created by the division of one cell into two new daughters. This process is called mitosis. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have used a clever laser techniqu...
Questions

Do viruses have a metabolism?
We put this question to Chris Smith
Chris - This is interesting in terms of biomimetics because people are talking about using viruses and their ability to infect cells and inject their DNA and RNA into cells for gene therapy so it’s an important question. And the answer is no. Viruses are not alive they don’t have a metabolism, they’re nothing more than an infectious bag of genes which is able to put those genes into a cell and make the cell produce all the viral products to make more viruses. That’s all they do.

Does your DNA change through life?
We put this question to Kat Arney.
Kat - I could talk about this one for hours but basically yes it does. You pick up mistakes in your DNA as you go through your life due to damage from things like tobacco smoke, from the sun, and just from your own metabolism. That’s eventually what causes things like cancer. And also, you get what are called epigenetic changes. These are changes to kind of the code around your DNA. So yes, your DNA is very different when you’re older from when you’re younger.
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Interviews
Julie Segre takes us on a tour of the diverse species of bacteria her team have discovered crawling over our skin.
Aerosols and spray cans from the bottom of the bombardier beetle; Andy McIntosh tells us more.
Chris Elvin tells us about the super-springy protein that his lab managed to synthesise.
Forget wind turbines made from vast sheets of metal - make them from fast-growing bamboo! Jim Platts tells us more.
Kitchen Science
Find out some of the science behind that tasty cinema snack! Why is it that you always find tiny popcorn at the bottom of your bowl?
QotW
We ask how the mega-fast growing blooms of sunflowers track the sun and whether they can do the same with the moon.
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