IB Biology in the News

In hotter climate, rice poses methane risk - Holy Kaw!

An artist's concept of NASA's Curiosity rover searching for interesting samples on the Martian surface. CREDIT: NASA/ JPL-Caltech There's growing buzz about data gleaned by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, specifically over the issue of methane detection on the Red Planet. On one hand, methane can be geological in origin.

By Jonathan Allen NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Pollution from factories and mines is putting the health of 125 million people at risk worldwide and is as dangerous in the developing world as malaria or tuberculosis, according to a report published on Tuesday by two environmental advocacy groups.

Scientists in the US have created embryos with genes from one man and two women, using a provocative technique that someday could be used to prevent babies from inheriting certain rare incurable diseases. The researchers at Oregon Health & Sciences University said they are not using the embryos to produce children, and it is not clear when or even if the technique will be put to use.

The National Institutes of Health have a budget of approximately $31 billion. Within the NIH there is a center that uses taxpayer money to fund all sorts of studies on New Age therapies - the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). Below are just a some of the questionable [...]

Obnoxious insurance commercials notwithstanding, the gecko has contributed a fair amount to human culture. In particular, scientists have long been fascinated by the reptiles' foot pads, which give them the remarkable ability to climb on walls and ceilings.

By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Pesticides used in farming are also killing worker bumblebees and damaging their ability to gather food, meaning colonies that are vital for plant pollination are more likely to fail when they are used, a study showed on Sunday.

By Matthew Cobb Some religious folk accept that micro-evolution can be observed - shifts in allele frequency due to natural selection - but argue vociferously that no one has ever seen one species evolve out of another. We know that one reason for this apparent lack of evidence for speciation is due to the time-scales...

This is an interesting post about the accuracy of the molecular clock in estimating speciation events particularly humans. There is a link to info on Fossil dating .