on the origins of smell

I am old enough to remember when olfactory receptors were discovered, and have written about them a fair few times since then (heck I even h...

let's celebrate trees

My last feature of the year is a seasonal offering with the radical suggestion that we should celebrate old trees growing in their natural e...

aurochs dead and alive

My latest feature in Current Biology is about a big beast of the Pleistocene that has been extinct for almost four centuries, but is also pr...

Last year's feature about #kelp both as a casualty and as a potential saviour in the #climateCatastrophe is in the #OpenArchives now. #FreeAccess for all.
https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/11/brown-algae-and-blue-carbon.html #science #ecology #conservation
brown algae and blue carbon

There is another COP climate summit coming up this week, and to fend off the evil spirits of fossil fuel dependency I've written another cli...

last year's feature on reconstructions of how #animals of the deep past moved, eg how #pterosaurs were able to fly, is now in the #OpenArchives. https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/10/flapping-pterosaurs.html
#science #evolution #FreeAccess #biomechanics #movement
flapping pterosaurs

Today's issue of Current Biology is a special theme issue on physics and biology, so there's lots of exciting stuff there from this particu...

a whale of a tale

The rise of cetaceans (whales and dolphins) to become the dominating megafauna of the oceans happened remarkably quickly, within only 50 mil...

last year's #dodo feature is now in the #openArchives It's about what we can learn from #extinct species about #conservation and #extinction today https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/09/dodo-and-company.html
#science #SixthExtinction
dodo and company

Here in Oxford we feel a special cultural connection to the dodo ( Raphus cucullatus ) - seeing that an important specimen of the extinct s...

travelling pathogens

When humans travel, they tend to bring their infectious diseases along. With Covid and air travel we have seen that an outbreak can become a...

the AI tipping point is nigh

I am slightly allergic to the whole AI hype and the tendency to use it for everything regardless of risks and side effects (a hundred years ...

a new capital in the jungle

This August, Indonesia is due to inaugurate its new capital, Nusantara, located in a remote site surrounded by the rainforest of Borneo. I t...