Dr Pontus Skoglund, winner of this year’s Balfour Lecture for early career researchers, uses ancient DNA to unlock the secrets of human evolution, old diseases and population migration.
All in Animals
Louisa Zoliewski: From chubby mice to everyday toxins
Dr Louisa Zoliewski was awarded the inaugural Bruce Cattanach prize for her PhD thesis on the genetics of fat distribution. She tells us how her skills and knowledge have led her to a career in genetic toxicology within the biotech industry.
Owen Greenwood: Trapping skinks in paradise
PhD student Owen Greenwood tells us about his genetic conservation work on the critically endangered Bermuda skink, supported by the 2023 Heredity Fieldwork Grant.
Rebecca Coffey: Evolutionary tales and Just So Stories
Author Rebecca Coffey chats about wasp facial recognition genes, how yeast epigenetics explain the Dutch Hunger Winter and a dinner party tale of spider cannibalism.
Nature’s genetic engineers
Some organisms don’t stick with the genome they’ve got they alter it along the way through programmed chromosome elimination and genome editing.
Thomas Boothby: Surviving at the extremes of life
Prof. Thomas Boothby studies how tardigrades survive extreme conditions and how we can use these adaptations to improve human health, both on Earth and in space.
João Pedro de Magalhães: Old whale, new tricks
João Pedro de Magalhães studies some of the longest lived animals in the world, like the bowhead whale which can live for 200 years, to understand how we can improve human ageing.
Linda Goodman: Stealing secrets from sleepy squirrels
Dr Linda Goodman tells us about the research Fauna Bio are doing into the hibernation adaptations of 13-lined ground squirrels, and how it might help humans recover from heart attacks.
Sexing chicks: How genetically modified female-only chickens could transform the egg industry
New GM technology that selects only female chicks to hatch could improve animal welfare - but what might be the real cost?
Why Y bye-bye? Is the Y chromosome disappearing and will men really go extinct?
The Y chromosome is shrinking - but this doesn’t mean that males will vanish altogether. For the Amami spiny rat, this has already happened - so how do they cope?
Hot stuff: how climate change is affecting sex ratios
For species whose sex is influenced by temperature, like turtles and toads, climate change could cause a catastrophic shift in the balance of males to females.
Elizabeth Clare: bats, cats and naked mole rats
One of the pioneers in the field of environmental DNA is Professor Elizabeth Clare at York University, Toronto Ontario. Her lab has been developing techniques for sucking eDNA out of the air in zoos, prairies and bat roosts for use in conservation.
Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser: Digging up DNA from the depths
The Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project is a collaborative effort spanning multiple disciplines of genetics, marine biology and archaeology, hoping to use eDNA to locate the remains of military service personnel. Dr Sally Le Page sits down with Dr Kirstin Meyer-Kaiser, a marine biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and one of the leads on this project to find out more.
Charles Konsitzke: using eDNA to find missing people
Charles Konsitzke is another lead on the Missing in Action Recovery and Identification Project, and he told Sally Le Page about how human eDNA is currently being used to locate the bodies of missing people around the world.
The greatest shoal on Earth
Popularly known as the “greatest shoal on Earth”, the KwaZulu-Natal sardine run involves tens to hundreds of millions of Pacific sardines packed into high density shoals to make the annual trip from the coast of South Africa to spend the winter in the Indian Ocean.
For sheer size and spectacle, this marine migration is no less impressive than the wildebeests on terra firma. But unlike the Serengeti herds, which migrate in search of food, the underlying reason for the sardine run is much less clear.
Know your place - the genetics (and epigenetics) of bee societies
Bees have long fascinated geneticists. These eusocial insects live in highly ordered societies, with distinct roles, or castes, within them - a place for every bee, and every bee in its place. But how does a hive of genetically near-identical individuals end up diversifying into such different roles?
On the wing: genetic compasses
Every year, tiny songbirds - some weighing as little as 3 grams - set off on an incredible journey. Often travelling alone and at night, they fly as much as 15,000km between their winter and summer homes, yet somehow manage to return to the same location every year. But how do these birds know where to go?
EPAS1: The mountain gene
Tibetans have lived in the thin mountain air for more than 6,000 years thanks to a gene variant they originally inherited from the ancient Denisovans. The thin air has favoured the persistence of one particular version of a gene called EPAS1, which allows these mountain-dwellers to get along just fine despite the shortage of oxygen. But it’s not only high-altitude humans who have traces of ancestral ‘ghosts’ in their DNA, it’s their pets too.
Tarang Mehta: super fish for fish suppers
Across the world, over 3 billion people, or nearly half the global population, rely on fish as a significant source of animal protein, and since 2012, more of our fish has come from aquaculture or fish farms rather than catching wild fish. Dr Tarang Mehta is a molecular evolution scientist at the Earlham Institute who has been looking at future-proofing one group of fishes in particular, tilapia, which is already a hugely important fish for people around the world.
How to bee a queen
How can you find your place within a rigid social structure, and is it possible to rise up the ranks and the beehive and become queen? Dr Sally Le Page explores the evolution of societies.