I visited the Festival of Science and Arts at London’s Southbank last Friday.  Part of the event is the Royal Society’s annual summer science exhibition, which gives visitors the opportunity to meet some of the scientists who are leading the country in cutting-edge research.  It is well worth a visit, and you have until this […]

For those of you who are football fans, many of the results from the group stages of the World Cup such as past winners Italy and France exiting from the competition at this early stage will have come as a surprise.  Other countries (including England) have not lived up to the promise of the qualifying […]

Get ready for vampire mania as the new movie in the Twilight Saga – Eclipse, is premiering tonight in the USA.  It hits screens in the UK on July 9th so now is a perfect time to teach a little vampire biology. The PowerPoint I have designed for this occasion contains two starters – one for […]

With Glastonbury commencing on Wednesday, the festival season is well and truly underway.  In this post I will attempt to use the famous music festival as a way of connecting exothermic reactions to Ozzy Osbourne (not literally). Music festivals generally involve camping and camping involves heating food over naked flames next to a highly flammable […]

In order to keep science interesting and relevant to students it always good to show them the latest breakthroughs in science and in this post I’ve got a couple of examples related to cells, tissues and organs that would be suitable for KS4 and KS5 biology students.

Nope, not a CD of the latest repetitive football anthem but the vuvezela – a plastic horn that gets blown by South African football fans at matches. This instrument/weapon of torture is fast becoming one of the most talked about subjects in this year’s World Cup. The reason for the scientific interest is that it […]

With all of the publicity surrounding the BP leak, crude oil is earning a very bad reputation indeed.  Hopefully some good will come out of the tragedy by persuading governments to look more seriously at using renewable sources of energy.

Not the two things with the most obvious of connections I agree, but bear with me. Spare a thought if you will for all of those body parts that are going to get bashed, smashed and generally knocked around for the next few weeks.  I am of course, referring to the hands, shins and other, […]

Ten years into the new millennium shouldn’t we be closer to cracking the problem that is malaria?  It is one of the world’s biggest killers but it is proving incredibly difficult to eradicate.

The PB&C milkshake may look harmless enough but it has caused outrage amongst some people including UK TV chef, Jamie Oliver.  Not because of its taste, which by all accounts sounds delicious (the PB&C stands for its main constituents-peanut butter and chocolate) but because this drink packs a whopping 2010 calories per serving.