Tickling Worms – Surprises from Basic Research
Research, at least my research, has never been linear. I have found that my lab and I often double back on problems after years of inactivity or go off in entirely new directions as dictated by the work and people's interests This lack of direction r....
More details | Watch nowHow to Model the Action of Complex Biological Systems on a Molecular Level
Despite the enormous advances in structural studies of biological systems we are frequently left without a clear structure function correlation and cannot fully describe how different systems actually work. This introduces a major challenge for compu....
More details | Watch nowPhysical perspective on cytoplasmic streaming
Professor Ray Goldstein FRS is the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems at the University of Cambridge. Here he describes a biological example of topological inversion, with relevance to engineering problems in human technology.
More details | Watch nowCuckoos and their victims
The sight of a little warbler feeding an enormous cuckoo chick has astonished observers since ancient times. It was once thought that cuckoos were unable to raise their own young because of defective anatomy and behaviour, and so other birds were onl....
More details | Watch nowBacterial cell walls, antibiotics and the origins of life
The cell wall is a crucial structure found in almost all bacteria. It is the target for our best antibiotics and fragments of the wall trigger powerful innate immune responses against infection. Surprisingly, many bacteria can switch almost effortl....
More details | Watch nowGreen Fluorescent Protein: Lighting up Life
The accidental discovery of this wonderful tool has changed the face of biology.
More details | Watch nowThe End of Disease
Understanding the Cell cycle
The biology of Striga
One of the major parasites is striga, a weed that sucks the juice and nutrients from cereal crops such as millet, sorghum and maize and causes great yield losses. A single striga plant can produce hundreds of thousands of seeds. The seeds are so tiny....
More details | Watch now‘Witch Weed’ – breaking the spell
Striga (witchweed) is a parasitic weed that seriously constrains the productivity of staples such as maize, sorghum, millet and upland rice on some farms in Uganda. Kilimo Trust supported this initiative to try and control its spread.
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