Category: Comics
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Gender-altering fish
Some species of fish, such as clownfish, gropers and eels, are able to change their gender. For instance, all blue gropers are born as females (and they are brown to reddish-brown). Each area typically only has one or two male blue gropers, and if the dominant male blue groper dies,…
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Carnivorous plant to the rescue
A recent study has found that an enzyme in the carnivorous plant, monkey cups, has enzymes which are very potent at breaking down gluten at a pH similar to the human stomach. The use of the enzyme has shown beneficial effects in mice. Maybe one day people with a gluten…
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Why you should become a scientist
There have been many studies that show that chocolate may be good for you. Some suggest that eating more chocolate is associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, others show that chocolate may even improve brain function by increasing blood flow to the brain. Like I need an excuse…
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Longest-living vertebrate
Greenland sharks are now the longest-living vertebrate animals (that we know!). By using radiocarbon dating on the eye lens cells of 28 Greenland sharks, researchers found that the oldest of the bunch was 392 (plus/minus 120) years old. Further reading: —————————- Eye lens radiocarbon reveals centuries of longevity in…
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Gender in languages
Many languages have a grammatical gender system. In these languages, objects that innately do not inherently have a gender are assigned a gender. However, they do not always agree! Sometimes, one language assigns masculine to a noun while another language assigns feminine. For instance, fork is feminine in German, but…
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What really happened?
One of the perks of working in science is that occasionally you get to listen to really cool talks about dinosaurs!
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Pregnancy
During pregnancy, the mother’s body needs to physically adjust to make room for the baby. Organs get squeezed into a space that is much smaller than normal – the liver and lungs move upwards, and the bladder gets squashed (see interactive video here http://www.msichicago.org/experiment/make-room-for-baby/). On top of that, when the…
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Which gene have you got?
Whilst one of the forms for the gene ALDH2, is rare amongst Europeans and Africans it is present in 30-50% of Chinese and Japanese. This variation is known to cause alcohol flush – i.e. face going bright red after drinking alcohol. On the other hand, 40-80% of the Chinese and…
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What is in food
I thought it was interesting how different people may see food content differently. We are taught the main food content being protein, carbohydrate and fat when we are younger. Then we are told that there are other important nutrients, like vitamins. Even under the category “protein”, there are different amino acids;…
the Runaway Lab Book 