51- RuBisCO, C4 and CAM
Photosynthesis has proven a useful tool in life's arsenal, but it isn't perfect. This is because one of its enzymes- RuBisCo for short- is not equipped to deal with our oxygenated world and as such so...
26 Sep 202110min
50- Kin Selection and Hamilton's Rule
Altruism- or actions by organisms which ultimately provide a benefit to other organisms- have been puzzling evolutionary scientists since Darwin's time. As such, attempts have been made to explain how...
19 Sep 20216min
49- The Wallace Line
If Alfred Russell Wallace (1823- 1913) is thought of at all, he is an after-thought to his far more famous counterpart Charles Darwin and the theory of natural selection. However, he has also had an i...
12 Sep 20215min
48- The Creation of Chromosome 2
It's a well-known fact that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes- 46 chromosomes in total. However, chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes, as do the other 'great apes'. Why is this? Well, it centres around h...
5 Sep 20219min
47- Sibling Species
Moving away from previous topics somewhat, we're going to dive back into ecological theory and discuss the concept of sibling species. What is a sibling species? Well, they're species which appear bro...
29 Aug 20214min
46- Ediacaran Biota
Today, we're going to be discussing the Ediacaran fauna. This is a faunal assemblage that came before the Cambrian Explosion (535-525 Mya) but is less well known. Unlike the Cambrian Explosion- which ...
22 Aug 20217min
45- The DNA of Louis XVI
Almost no French king is more famous than Louis XVI, reigning during the turbulent times of the French Revolution at the tail-end of the eighteenth century. Previous studies have attempted to characte...
14 Aug 20216min
44- Point Mutations and Almonds
Point mutations can have a huge impact on the genome depending on where in the genetic code they occur. To illustrate this, we're going to be looking at a case study in the form of almonds- formerly p...
8 Aug 20214min
