I recently read an article by Claire Bernish1 that said that the release of GM mosquitoes was the cause of the Zika virus outbreak in Brazil – this immediately set alarm bells ringing. As it turns out, any real evidence to support these claims was lacking and Christie Wilcox, writing for Discover magazine,2 has done a fantastic job in… Read More What is the cause of the Zika outbreak in the Americas?
Last week the Guardian newspaper reported on the findings from the UK House of Lords’ science and technology committee into the development and use of GM insects. According to the committee’s chairman, Lord Selborne: “GM insect technologies have the potential not only to save countless lives worldwide, but also to generate significant economic benefits for UK plc, where… Read More Genetically modified insects and the precautionary principle
The title of this blogpost is taken from the latest BBC television series that has just finished screening in the UK. The premise for this series is based on the model developed for the hugely successful The Great British Bake Off, in which contestants compete against each other day-after-day to produce a variety of baked goods that are then judged… Read More The Great Pottery Throw Down
Best stay out of the way. There are more than 500 species of Bombardier beetle (a form of ground beetle – Carbidae) in the tribes Brachinini, Paussini, Ozaenini, or Metriini all displaying the highly effective defence mechanism of releasing a superheated pulsing jet of noxious chemicals sprayed directly at would-be predators. I have always been fascinated by the ammunition of… Read More The Little Bombardier
I want to share an amazing experience with you and to start to think about some of the issues raised in thinking about deep-sea biodiversity. Back in 2012 I was incredibly fortunate to join an artist, Michelle Atherton, on a 4-hour-long submarine dive off the coast of Roatán, Honduras. We travelled up to 2,000 feet (610 metres) below sea level into the mesopelagic… Read More Deep-sea biodiversity. A taster.
The order Phasmatodea contains more than 3,000 extant species of insect found throughout the world, especially the warmer zones. These herbivorous (mostly arboreal) insects are most well-known for their crypsis, or camouflage, where their colour, shape and behaviour enable them to masquerade as twigs or leaves (hence their common names of stick and leaf insects).… Read More What’s (not just) brown and sticky? Adaptive radiation in Stick and Leaf Insects in the order Phasmatodea.
A few years ago I read an op-ed piece in the journal Nature that celebrated the potential demise of mosquitoes as scientists prepared to release genetically modified mosquitoes in Brazil in an attempt to eradicate populations carrying malaria. What most struck me about the piece was that the author concluded that mosquitoes performed no ecological function and that the… Read More Mosquito extinction. Is it really a good thing?
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