Author Archives: Natasha Little
Tackling environmental waste by engineering microbes to clean up after us
Nikolaus Muldal, microbiology graduate from the University of Sheffield, sheds light on the exciting field of synthetic biology and how it might help us clean up our environment. Imagine the scene: 640 Olympic sized swimming pools overflowing with plastic rubbish. One group of researchers found this to be an unfortunate reality with over four million … Continue reading
Scientists design new tool to help fight antibiotic resistance
By Ellie Welch, science media researcher at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Science and Technology Facilities Council, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The first working model of a bacterial membrane has been created by researchers at the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source in collaboration with Newcastle University. This model of E. coli will be an important tool … Continue reading
Statistics and Biology – a match made in heaven?
Dr Jennifer Rogers, research fellow at The University of Oxford, discusses the interplay between statistics and biological research for World Statistics Day. “The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard” is the now infamous quote from John Tukey and it is one that I whole heartedly get … Continue reading
What do you mean ‘it’s unnatural’?
By Anna Wilkinson, Programme Officer, Nuffield Council on Bioethics Nature is important to us. Most people agree we need to take care of the natural environment and it is only the hardest of hearts that finds themselves unmoved by the beauty and complexity of the natural the world. Caring about naturalness might be different though. … Continue reading
Science technicians: an invisible workforce?
By Ian Selmes RSci MRSB I have been a technician for 44 years. Thirty seven of these have been spent working in microbiology laboratories in four departments in three universities: London, Oxford, and now Newcastle. Science is a dynamic process. Technicians need to update their skills if they are not to erode and eventually become … Continue reading
Bees are a political issue
Dr Barbara Knowles MBE FRSB is senior science policy adviser at the Royal Society of Biology, and an active conservation volunteer working to protect biodiversity in farmed landscapes. These are her views, not necessarily those of the Society. Bees and neonic insecticides are in the news again as the Secretary of State for Defra decided … Continue reading
Science Fact for Fiction
Helen Pennington, a doctoral training student at Imperial College London, discusses the role of science in science fiction. Science fiction has repeatedly predicted scientific, technological or financial advances. For example, Edward Bellamy predicted the use of universal credit and credit cards in the 1888 novel Looking Backward; and Jules Verne described many of the aspects … Continue reading
Science should not be a niche area for politicians… and vice versa!
by Zoe Self, postdoctoral researcher at the Royal Veterinary College While I was delighted to be invited by the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) to attend the Society of Biology’s Parliamentary Links Day, I must admit I was a little nervous, not so much for the prestige of the occasion but for my ignorance regarding … Continue reading
Links Day 2015 Keynote Speakers
Parliamentary Links Day is an annual event organised in Parliament by the Society of Biology on behalf of the science community, which aims to strengthen dialogue between scientists and politicians. Watch the speeches by: Jo Johnson MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science; Nicola Blackwood MP, chair of the House of Commons Science and … Continue reading
Can Eating Insects Save the World?
By Diane Fresquez, an American journalist living in Brussels. Diane writes for Zester Daily and is the author of ‘A Taste of Molecules: In Search of the Secrets of Flavour’. At the Brussels airport last week, en route to Glasgow, I struck up a conversation with a young Flemish woman about edible insects, as one does. … Continue reading