We’ve all heard of genes, but how do they actually work? Geneticist Kat Arney and her scientific guests will draw on stories ranging from six-toed cats to fish hips, exploring how DNA is packed, unpacked and read. Kat will be talking to epigeneticist Professor Anne Ferguson-Smithfrom Cambridge University and Dr Ben Lehner, Group Leader at the Centre […]
Emma Brown looks at how new genetic research on the mysterious and fragile world of the American eel might help conservation projects
Rachel David looks at what draws us together
In the first online-only feature from I, Science Issue 30, Jess Norris finds out how our genes and environment – and our smell – affect who we fall in love with
“Where Did You Come From? From Genealogy to Genes … From Family History to the History of our Species “
Circadian rhythms run the biological world like clockwork. Madeleine Hurry explains how they work, from the genes in a bacterium to the human brain
Arutyun Arutynyan visits the Royal Institution for an exploration of culture; do Chimpanzees have culture? How is our culture affecting us? And where will it lead us?..
Our DNA endures a constant bombardment of damaging agents, so how does it cope? …
Will patents, especially gene patents, restrict new research and innovation? …
Perplexing, isn’t it? Homo sapiens, as a species, have made it. There are now over 7 billion of us swarming across the planet …
In 2000, the human genome, a manuscript containing all the genes that make us human, was completed at a cost of $3 billion dollars. At a cost of nearly $1 a letter, this makes it the costliest script ever bought (its worthiest competitor being Audubon’s ‘Birds of America’, sold for $11.5 million). What, apart from […]
Should we all be sequencing our own genomes? It’s often said that “it’s what’s inside that counts”. From a medic’s point of view, past the external stigmata of disease, this is widely true. For a geneticist it is sacred. Genomes constitute an entire instruction manual for building an organism. They contain hidden heirlooms from our […]
Darwin’s Origin of Species was not the only landmark literature to be published in the late 19th century; it was framed by contrasting books considering the moral behaviour of man. One Self Help considered humans to be so flawed and innately immoral that the only way to achieve goodness was to remove all traces of […]
Picking up a penny won’t make you an instant millionaire. But what if it was the penny that made up the exact price of a lottery ticket you were going to buy, and that ticket won you the lottery, and hence made you a millionaire? Small and singular changes can result in massive consequences. However, […]