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Weighing up the risks
How should individuals and governments respond to the possibility of new outbreaks?
In
‘Epidemics’, September 2007
Industrial relations
Love them or loathe them, pharmaceutical companies have an important role to play in disease control.
In
‘Epidemics’, September 2007
Who gets the medicine?
If there is not enough medicine to go round, who should be first in line – and who should decide?
In
‘Epidemics’, September 2007
Flesh-eating zombies, alien killers and grey goo
New diseases have inspired numerous works of fiction.
In
‘Epidemics’, September 2007
The end of civilisation
A handful of Europeans conquered the Americas. Their most devastating weapon was one they did not even know existed.
In
‘Epidemics’, September 2007
Are humans different?
Can biological mechanisms explain all aspects of human biology or do we need to call upon special processes?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Applying evolution
Evolution by natural selection is such a powerful concept that it is being adopted far and wide.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Memes
Passing cultural information from person to person.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Rock stars: The fossil record comes to life
Fossils allow us to glimpse the past. We can trace evolutionary relationships and surmise how life has changed over millions of years.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Close cousins
Chimps are our closest relatives. Genome sequence comparisons are beginning to identify the key genes that distinguish us from them.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Creating variation
Evolutionary change by natural selection (or genetic drift) requires variation in DNA. Where does this variation come from?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Letters begin
Is DNA (or RNA) sequence the only way information can be encoded and passed on from generation to generation? No - 'epigenetic' changes can be inherited too.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Taxing taxonomy
Taxonomy provides a way of characterising living things and documenting family relationships.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Extinction events
Species die out all the time. Occasionally, though, the Earth experiences mass extinctions.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Directed evolution
For thousands of years humans have tried to harness the best from nature, by modifying crops, animals, or even decorative plants or flowers.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Balancing selection
Natural selection should weed out 'bad' alleles from the gene pool. So why do some still hang around?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Cancer: the selfish cell
The emergence of cancers in the body is a form of natural selection.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Micro- or macro-
Genetic changes create variation. But do they really create new species?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
We all stand together
In symbiotic relationships, organisms do not evolve independently but as a pair - or even as a group. Eventually, they may even merge to become a single entity.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
A lot like us
Humans tend to see things from a human perspective. Does this distort our view of the world?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
Life, the universe and everything
Biologists ponder the odds on life emerging on Earth. Physicists find its existence in the universe as perplexing.
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007
The power of prayer
Do religious beliefs provide a selective advantage?
In
‘Evolution’, January 2007