Category: Interesting Science

We should curb our contact with wildlife and livestock to prevent future pandemics, a new report says. Our relationship with the environment has been getting more and more complex. Wildfires, floods, extreme weather changes and now, a pandemic – the challenges are multiple and require immediate action. Now, a report by UN established organisation IPBES (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) says humankind needs a new approach to stop future outbreaks before they become global. Its authors call on people to stop encroaching on wild land and eat less meat. This is hardly surprising. If you trace back the origin of past pandemics, quite often you will get to an animal source. The virus that caused the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic is likely to have sprung from North American domestic and wild birds. HIV jumped onto humans from chimpanzees, most likely when humans came into contact with the chimpanzees’ infected blood while hunting them. Even recent diseases like Ebola, zika and, of...

The hedgehog. Erinaceinae. These lovable spiny creatures which are a common site in our gardens and hedgerows, are Britain’s only spiny mammal. The UK is home to the West European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus). This species is just one of seventeen different species worldwide from Europe, Asia, Africa and New Zealand. They were named for their peculiar foraging methods. These mammals search through hedges and undergrowth in search of creatures that compose most of their diet such as worms, insects, centipedes, snails, mice and sometimes even snakes! As they look for their food they snort and grunt in the hedgerows - ‘hedgehog’. Their specialised coat can contain over 6,000 spines and hangs around their body in a loose ‘skirt’, concealing the grey fur on their undersides, long legs and short stubby tail. Their spines are hollow and naturally fall out when a baby hedgehog (called a hoglet) grows adult spines. This process is called ‘quilling’ just like when our baby teeth fallout and...

According to the Oxford dictionary bioluminescence is the ‘biochemical emission of light by living organisms’. It is a clever mechanism used by organisms to attract mates, find food and to respond to attacks. About 80% of bioluminescent species live in the deep sea and it is estimated that most species that live 700 meters below sea level can produce their own light. To produce their own glow-in-the-dark magic trick they use variations of a chemical reaction using three ingredients: an enzyme called luciferase, oxygen and luciferin. This enzyme allows the oxygen to bond to the organic molecule luciferin. The high-energy molecule that is created releases the energy in the form of light. These light producing molecules are interestingly good antioxidants and so it was believed that once they were used as such until they were eventually adapted for signalling. This is because as the oxygen content of the sea increased organisms were forced to dive to deeper depths away from...