The Society for General Microbiology (SGM) has launched Microbiology Online – a new web site for biology teachers and technicians in schools and colleges. The site is packed with information and resources to support microbiology teaching at all key stages and post-16 level.
In return for completing an on-line feedback form the SGM are offering schools the chance to win either a World of Microbes teaching pack for KS2 or a bioreactor kit worth £105, which is suitable for KS3/4 and post-16. T
Markus Landgraf of the European Space Agency and colleagues (*) have found the first direct evidence that a bright disc of dust surrounds our Solar System, starting beyond the orbit of Saturn.
Remarkably, their discovery gives astronomers a way to determine which other stars in the Galaxy are most likely to harbour planets and allows mission planners to draw up a ’short-list’ of stars to be observed by ESA’s future planet-search missions, Eddington and Darwin.
The discovery of th
Match up folds to fight stubborn paper.
No road journey is complete without a wrestle with the map. Now a US computer scientist has worked out why the map usually wins.
Erik Demaine of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge has come up with an origami algorithm that predicts when a stubborn street plan will be re-foldable. “It’s the meeting of paper folding and computer science,” he says.
The rules governing whether a sheet of paper divided into a g
Obesity epidemic sweeps into developing world
Obesity is spreading to all corners of the globe, researchers warned the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. Sedentary lifestyles and fast food are causing previously unaffected populations to fall foul of fat.
“Obesity is no longer confined to Western, industrialized societies,” said anthropologist Marquisa LaVelle of the University of Rhode Island, Providence. Guatemalans in the United S
Bleak forecast for sea level in 2100.
Sea level could rise by up to 30 centimetres over the next century, a new estimate predicts. That’s almost twice as much as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected last year.
“My grandchildren will almost certainly be affected,” says Mark Meier of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who made the revised estimate. Such a rise could push shorelines back by 30 metres, he said, flooding coasts and submerging islands.
Sophisticated jewellery appeared with social events.
Our early ancestors glammed-up for a get-together. Humans worldwide began wearing jewellery at the same time as groups started meeting up, say US researchers. The finding counters the idea that ’modern’ behaviour swept the globe when modern humans migrated out of Africa.
Mary Stiner and her colleagues unearthed ancient necklaces at three sites in Asia, Africa and Europe. Residents of Kenya around 40,000 years ago
Interstellar travellers should be “motivated, tolerant and nice”.
One hundred and sixty fertile, motivated, English speakers could make it to distant stars, researchers have worked out. But generations down the line, returning voyagers may speak an alien tongue.
Travel to planets orbiting other stars will soon be technically possible, the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences in Boston heard last week. But the 200-year odyssey will require a cer
In the powerful, fast-fading realm of gamma-ray bursts, scientists say they have detected for the first time a lingering afterglow of the shortest types of bursts, which themselves disappear within a second.
This afterglow, radiating in X rays, may provide crucial insight into what triggers the mysterious bursts, the most energetic explosions in the Universe, second only to the big bang in total power. Previously, scientists had only detected the afterglow of longer bursts, which can last fr
Nearly fifty years ago, researchers discovered that when cells in laboratory cultures are infected by a virus, they secrete a substance that protects other cells from infection. In 1957 Alick Issaks and Jean-Jacques Lindenmann traced this effect to a protein called interferon, a molecule now known to play a key role in the immune system. Human and animal cells produce it in a rapid “first wave” response to infections. Since its discovery, scientists have sought to use this natural substance to cure a
A computerised navigation system has been developed to enable wheelchair users to select the most accessible routes around a town centre. It means a journey can be planned that avoids obstacles like cobbled streets, steep areas and steps.
The work has been carried out by a team led by Professor Hugh Matthews, at University College Northampton, with funding from the Swindon based Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The ‘Wheelyroute’ system, believed to be the first
Snails can teach us a great deal about how we form memories, according to a group of neuroscientists at the University of Sussex.
Research by Dr Ildikó Kemenes, Professor Paul Benjamin, Professor Michael O’Shea and colleagues shows that nitric oxide plays a vital role in the formation of long-term memory in snails. This is of crucial importance because the gas has already been shown to play such a role in humans and other mammals.
Ideally, scientists would like to use mammals to st
Light-sensitive ’plastic’ magnets could replace your hard drive.
A ’plastic’ magnet that responds to light could lead to new ways of storing and reading large amounts of computer data. Light would be used to store information in cheap, fast and high-capacity ’magneto-optic’ memories.
The light-switchable magnet is the first to be made from organic (carbon-based) molecules. This means its discoverers, Arthur Epstein of Ohio State University in Columbus and Joel Miller of the
Conservation-oriented parks and reserves are fairly common on land, but comparatively few marine regions receive protection from human activities. This situation has, for the most part, elicited little concern, owing to the widely held belief that the large geographic ranges of most marine species would ensure their survival. But new research on restricted-range marine life—that is, species limited to small areas—challenges that idea, identifying 10 regions where further damage to coral reefs could l
After nearly 12 years of incredible scientific discoveries, the ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope orbiting Earth is about to have another service visit. The purpose is to upgrade Hubble system and to install newer and more powerful instruments that will astoundingly increase Hubble’s discovery capabilities and extend the longevity of the observatory.
As a unique collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA), and NASA, Hubble has had a phenomenal scientific impact. The unsurpassed sha
Yellow fever has been written off in the past as a global threat. Yet the failure to eradicate this disease has left the door open for new, large, outbreaks as vaccination of travellers and tropical populations declines, according to an article in the February issue of Microbiology Today magazine from the Society for General Microbiology.
“Yellow fever virus attracts less public attention than, for instance, lassa and ebola, but it remains the greater threat. Containment through effective m
Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc., multinational manufacturer and distributor of life science research products and clinical diagnostics, has announced the creation of a complete solution for automated BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease) testing. This highly scalable platform is the first testing system of its kind, providing both screening and confirmation testing capabilities all in one package, and will enable laboratories to reduce staffing costs and increase the speed and security
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