More Annotations

Favourite Annotations

Text

WE USE COOKIES ON THIS SITE TO ENHANCE YOUR EXPERIENCE By clicking any link on this page you are giving your consent for us

to set cookies.

No, give me more info OK, I agree skip to content Bringing cutting-edge science into the classroom

and beyond

Search

* Resources

* Issues

* About us

LATEST ISSUE

PLANTS

May 2016

Join us to find out just what’s going on under the surface of the weird and wonderful world of plants.

PICK OF THE WEEK

HYDROPONICS AND THE FUTURE OF FARMING

May 2016

With the world’s population nearing 7.5 billion, it’s clear that farming needs to become more productive. Our pick this week looks at one potential solution – hydroponics, where you grow plants intensively without using soil. Like many technologies, it has pros and cons. How useful do you think it could be?

SIGN UP FOR UPDATES

Get an email when we add new resources.

FAST FACTS

*

#110:

Duckweed has a high protein content and can increase its biomass by up to 50 per cent per day. It’s been used by some as animal feed, and scientists are seeing how safe and nutritious it could be as a sustainable protein source for humans.

SOURCE:

Wellcome Trust

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

*

#85:

Alcohol is sometimes given to people with antifreeze (methanol) poisoning, as it competes with the enzymes that break down methanol into toxic products that include methanoate.

SOURCE:

methanol.org

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Microbiology

* Health, infection and disease

* Medicine

* Immunology

*

#88:

When tomato plants are wounded or attacked by herbivores, they release an 18-amino-acid polypeptide called systemin into their circulation. This triggers the activation of genes for defence throughout the

plant.

SOURCE:

Ryan CA, Pearce G. Systemin: a polypeptide signal for plant defensive genes. Annu Rev Cell Dev Biol 1998;14:1–17 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Microbiology

* Ecology and environment

* Immunology

*

#83:

Up to 85 per cent of people with asthma are allergic to house dust

mites.

SOURCE:

Gregory LG, Lloyd CM. Orchestrating house dust mite-associated allergy in the lung. Trends Immunol 2011;32(9):402–11 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Microbiology

* Ecology and environment

* Immunology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#82:

Mint-flavoured things taste cold because the menthol in mint causes the activation of an ion channel protein that also responds to low

temperatures.

SOURCE:

Mental Floss

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Cell biology

* Microbiology

*

#81:

Spider silk is a strong, naturally occurring protein. There are seven types, including dragline (to attach the spider to the web) and swathing (for wrapping prey).

SOURCE:

School of Chemistry, University of Bristol ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Microbiology

* Ecology and environment

* Immunology

*

#19:

Losing a gene can be a good thing. A mutated caspase-12 gene has been selected for during human history; it may make us less likely to

suffer from sepsis.

SOURCE:

Xue Y et al. Am J Hum Genet 2006;78:659–70 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* History

* Health, infection and disease

*

#38:

Wimbledon’s seats are 6 cm wider than the original 1922 models.

SOURCE:

Times, 10 June 2004

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#39:

World Health Organization figures suggest 25–70 per cent of European adults are overweight (depending on the country) and 5–30 per cent

are obese.

SOURCE:

World Health Organization ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#41:

In a recent study of keyhole surgery, surgeons who played a musical instrument were significantly faster at suturing than those who did

not.

SOURCE:

Boyd T et al. JSLS 2008;12:292–4 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#3:

The adult brain contains around 100 billion neurons and even more

support cells.

SOURCE:

Magill’s Medical Guide. 1998. p. 221 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Cell biology

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

*

#4:

Your brain uses less power than your refrigerator light – just 12

watts.

SOURCE:

Times, 28 March 2008 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Physiology

*

#5:

There are no pain receptors in the brain, so brain surgery or injury can occur without causing pain. The scalp and skull, however, are

sensitive to pain.

SOURCE:

Introduction to Psychology: Gateways to mind and behavior, by Coon D,

Mitterer JO

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

*

#8:

Around 13 per cent of all deaths worldwide were caused by cancer in 2008 – some 7.6 million people.

SOURCE:

International Agency for Research on Cancer, GLOBOCAN 2008 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Immunology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#13:

The World Health Organization estimates that climate change is the cause of around 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses per year. This is expected to double by 2030.

SOURCE:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#22:

Of the 1.42 million offenders that were sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales in 2006, 80 per cent were male.

SOURCE:

Office for National Statistics ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#23:

Even allowing for size differences, women have disproportionately smaller feet than men.

SOURCE:

Voracek M et al. Percept Mot Skills 2007;104:1123–38 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

*

#42:

Human eggs are made in the embryo, so the egg cell that fused with a sperm to become you was actually produced around six months before

your mum was born.

SOURCE:

Developmental Biology, by Scott F Gilbert ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Cell biology

* Genetics and genomics * Statistics and maths

*

#16:

_Mus spretus_ and _Mus domesticus_ look similar, but crosses between these two species of mouse fail to produce offspring because of a single genetic incompatibility.

SOURCE:

Pilder SH et al. Genetics 1991;129:237–46 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* History

*

#18:

In an average meal, you eat around 150,000 km of DNA.

SOURCE:

Iowa State University Office of Biotechnology ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#14:

Starfish are our distant cousins. Sea urchins and other echinoderms are the closest relatives of the vertebrates.

SOURCE:

Sodergren E et al. Science 2006;314:941–52 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* History

*

#34:

Jelly containing fresh pineapple, papaya and kiwi won’t set as the proteases in them break down the protein gelatin in the jelly. The proteases also digest some of the proteins in your mouth and tongue when you eat these fruits, causing tingling and stinging.

SOURCE:

The Naked Scientists ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Microbiology

* Immunology

*

#55:

Stem cell therapies are already in use in the form of bone marrow transplants – the first of which was performed in 1956.

SOURCE:

Biotechnology Learning Hub ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Cell biology

* Health, infection and disease

* Medicine

* History

*

#58:

Tissues with large but variable energy demands, such as skeletal muscle, spermatozoa and the brain, store energy for instant availability as phosphocreatine. This reversibly transfers a phosphate group to adenosine diphosphate (ADP) to make adenosine triphosphate

(ATP).

SOURCE:

The Universal Protein Resource ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Exercise, Energy and Movement’

* Physiology

* Microbiology

*

#60:

A ban on performance-enhancing polyurethane swimming suits was implemented by FINA (the international governing body for swimming) on 1 January 2010, after 29 world records were set in the first five days of the FINA world championships in Rome 2009.

SOURCE:

BBC News

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Exercise, Energy and Movement’

* Physiology

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#61:

The UK’s programme to vaccinate girls against HPV was launched in 2008. In its first three years, more than 65 per cent of girls born between 1 September 1990 and 31 August 1998 completed the three-dose

course.

SOURCE:

Department of Health ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Immunology

*

#63:

In 2015, the UK government committed to having 5,000 more GPs working

by 2020.

SOURCE:

Gov.uk

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Careers

* Health, infection and disease

*

#67:

More than 100,000 cancers – equivalent to one-third of those diagnosed in the UK each year – are caused by smoking, unhealthy diets, alcohol and excess weight.

SOURCE:

Cancer Research UK

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

* Immunology

*

#71:

Facilitating subjects at A level are those required more often than not for degree courses. They include biology, chemistry, maths, physics, geography, history and some languages.

SOURCE:

Russell Group

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Cell biology

* Careers

* History

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#73:

All mammals have a wrinkled cortex, but the human cortex is much larger in area (in proportion to the overall brain) than any other

animal’s.

SOURCE:

Dana Foundation

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Inside the Brain’

* Neuroscience

*

#75:

The human brain accounts for 2 per cent of the total mass of the body, but 20 per cent of its oxygen consumption at rest.

SOURCE:

Clarke DD, Sokoloff L. Regulation of Cerebral Metabolic Rate. In Basic Neurochemistry: Molecular, cellular and medical aspects (6th edn), edited by Siegel GJ et al. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Inside the Brain’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Physiology

*

#76:

Drowsy driving is dangerous: if you’re awake for 24 hours, the effect on driving is equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.1 per cent, greater than the UK legal limit.

SOURCE:

New York Times blog

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Number Crunching’

* Cell biology

* Statistics and maths

*

#77:

In a class of 23 people, the chance that two people will have the same birthday is just over 50 per cent.

SOURCE:

mathforum.org

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Number Crunching’

*

#78:

On average, one in five in vitro fertilisation (IVF) pregnancies is a multiple pregnancy, compared to one in 80 for women who conceive

naturally.

SOURCE:

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Number Crunching’

*

#79:

More than 99 per cent of the population has a greater than average

number of legs.

SOURCE:

plus.maths.org

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Number Crunching’

*

#80:

Although Grenada won only one medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games, it comes top in the medal table per capita (per person living there). The USA, which won the most medals, is ranked 49th when you count

medals this way.

SOURCE:

Medals Per Capita

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Number Crunching’

* Physiology

* Ecology and environment

*

#50:

Radiology and pathology, which rely on visual interpretation (eg of X-rays), have low diagnostic error rates of about 2–5 per cent. In the higher-stress environment of A&E, the rate can reach 12 per cent.

SOURCE:

Berner ES, Graber ML. Am J Med 2008;121(5A):S2–S23 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Careers

* Health, infection and disease * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#74:

A 2011 study suggests that the increase in general intelligence seen during adolescence can be attributed to increases in mental speed.

SOURCE:

Coyle TR et al. Psychol Sci 2011;22(10):1265–9 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Inside the Brain’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Psychology

*

#72:

The world’s largest brain bank is at Harvard, where there are over

7,000 brains.

SOURCE:

National Geographic

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Inside the Brain’

* Neuroscience

*

#70:

In the UK, 28 million pints of beer are consumed every day, which equates to 100 litres per person every year.

SOURCE:

British Beer and Pub Association ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

*

#69:

In 2008, the UK produced 288 million tonnes of waste. Nearly 15 per cent of it came from households.

SOURCE:

The Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

*

#68:

In 2010, the UK medical biotechnology sector contained 942 companies that employed 36,700 people and had a combined turnover of £5.5

billion.

SOURCE:

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Careers

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#66:

Staff and students at Askham Bryan College near York are working to create an ‘ark’ where the tansy beetle can feed on its sole food source, the tansy plant.

SOURCE:

Askham Bryan College ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Careers

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#65:

The circulation figures for UK national daily papers fell by 21.5 per cent between January 2007 (11,824,647) and January 2012 (9,039,691). By contrast, online newspapers are booming: three national papers reported all-time web traffic highs in October 2011.

SOURCE:

Guardian

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Careers

*

#64:

There are two kinds of radiographers. Diagnostic radiographers help diagnose diseases or injuries, including broken bones, in hospitals and surgeries. Therapeutic (radiotherapy) radiographers use radiation to help treat people with cancer.

SOURCE:

National Health Service ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Physiology

* Careers

* Health, infection and disease * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#62:

The Brazilian footballer Socrates completed doctorates in medicine and philosophy. He was also a trained paediatrician.

SOURCE:

sport.co.uk

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Careers From Biology’

* Psychology

* Careers

* Medicine

*

#59:

Extrapolating from current data, women will be finishing before men in the 100 m sprint at the 2156 Olympics. However, this ignores many factors that make this very unlikely, including that men and women may reach a physiological limit regarding sprint speed.

SOURCE:

Tatem et al. Nature 2004;431:525 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Exercise, Energy and Movement’

* Physiology

*

#56:

Studies have shown that smokers have significantly reduced bone mass compared to non-smokers. This increases the likelihood of needing a hip replacement by 31 per cent in women and 40 per cent in men.

SOURCE:

Ward KD, Klesges RC. Calc Tissue Int 2001;68:259–70 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Exercise, Energy and Movement’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#54:

Scientists have created a nanotechnology-based therapy that can repair brain damage and partially restore the eyesight of blind animals

within a few weeks.

SOURCE:

Ellis-Behnke RG et al. PNAS 2006;103:5054–9 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#53:

Scientists have used carbon nanotubes and enzymes to create an antimicrobial coating that can kill MRSA with two hours of application. This could be used to paint the walls of hospitals and sterilise equipment.

SOURCE:

Pangule RC et al. ACS Nano 2010;4:3993–4000 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Microbiology

* Statistics and maths * Health, infection and disease * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#52:

Advances in nanotechnology have enabled the creation of miniature machine parts made from DNA. It might be possible to use these to fix

faulty cells.

SOURCE:

Dietz H et al. Science 2009;325:725–30 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Cell biology

* Genetics and genomics * Statistics and maths * Health, infection and disease * Biotechnology and engineering

*

#51:

In personalised medicine, therapy is tailored to a patient’s genetic make-up. One example is the drug vemurafenib, which blocks a protein that is mutated in over half of cases of melanoma.

SOURCE:

US Food and Drug Administration news release, 17 August 2011 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Medicine

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#49:

Getting a diagnosis wrong can be harmful to a patient’s health. One study found that diagnostic error is responsible for about 10 per cent of adverse events occurring in UK hospitals.

SOURCE:

Neale G et al. Clin Med 2011;11(4):317–21 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#48:

It is estimated that around £300 million per year is wasted on prescription medicines that go unused in England.

SOURCE:

Evaluation of the Scale, Causes and Costs of Wasted Medicines, by the York Health Economics Consortium and the School of Pharmacy (University of London) ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Medicine

*

#47:

It is estimated that the global healthcare marketplace will be worth $1.3 trillion by 2020.

SOURCE:

Pharma 2020: The vision, by PWC ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Careers

*

#46:

14,000: The estimated number of pills prescribed over an average

lifetime.

SOURCE:

Pharmacopoeia/Cradle to the Grave exhibition at the British Museum ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Medicine

* Health, infection and disease

*

#45:

6'1": The average adult male height in the Netherlands, making Dutch men the world’s tallest.

SOURCE:

Cole TJ. Econ Hum Biol 2003;1:161–8 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

*

#44:

38,274 cosmetic procedures were carried out in the UK in 2010. 90 per cent of these were on women.

SOURCE:

British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#43:

The tallest man in history was 8' 11" (2.72 m). The world’s shortest living man is 1' 9.5" (54.6 cm).

SOURCE:

Guinness World Records ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Genetics and genomics

*

#40:

A man makes 1,500 sperm per heartbeat.

SOURCE:

Science 2010;328(5974):15 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

*

#37:

The 4.5 kg increase in weight of the average American between 1990 and 2000 caused aircraft to burn 350 more gallons of fuel, at a cost of $275 million, per year.

SOURCE:

Dannenburg AL et al. Am J Prev Med 2004;27:264 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#36:

UK households throw away 8.3 million tonnes of food (£680 per family) per year – the same as one in three bags of shopping going in the

bin.

SOURCE:

Love Food Hate Waste ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#35:

Research has shown a strong relationship between the weight of children and the body mass of their biological parents but not between the weight of children and the body mass of their adoptive parents.

SOURCE:

Stunkard AJ et al. New Eng J Med 1986;312:193–8 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#33:

Research has found that people tend to associate sweet and sour tastes with high-pitched sounds and umami (savoury) and bitter tastes with low-pitched ones, and that people enjoy food more when ‘matching’ music is played during eating.

SOURCE:

Crisinel AS, Spence C. Atten Percept Psychophys 2010;72(7):1994–2002 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Psychology

*

#32:

Eating soup makes you feel full for longer than eating solid food with a glass of water. Why? Water mixed with solids (eg soup) stays in the stomach longer than water alone.

SOURCE:

BBC News, 26 May 2009 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#31:

Grapefruit juice contains compounds that block enzymes involved in metabolising a range of drugs, so drug levels stay higher for longer. These drugs include calcium-channel blockers used to treat high blood

pressure.

SOURCE:

Bailey DG et al. Lancet 1991;337(8736):268–9 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Microbiology

* Statistics and maths

* Physiology

* Medicine

* Health, infection and disease

*

#30:

Fifteen minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise per day cuts obesity risk by 50 per cent.

SOURCE:

Ness AR et al. PLoS Med 2007;4:e97 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#29:

The average spend per person on eating out was 26 per cent of their total food spend in 2005, compared to less than 10 per cent in 1955.

SOURCE:

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#28:

A 20-year-old obese man can expect to live for 13 years less than

average.

SOURCE:

Fontain KR et al. JAMA 2003;289:187–93 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#27:

Women wake up from anaesthesia nearly twice as fast as men.

SOURCE:

Gan TJ et al. Anesthesiology 1999;90:1283–7 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Medicine

*

#26:

There were more than three times as many suicides among males as among females in the UK in 2009.

SOURCE:

Office for National Statistics ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Psychology

* Genetics and genomics

*

#25:

Research suggests that aspirin protects men against heart attack but not stroke, yet it protects women against stroke but not heart attack.

SOURCE:

Berger JS et al. JAMA 2006;295:306–14 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#24:

Girls born today are expected to live 4.2 years longer than boys, although this gap is gradually narrowing.

SOURCE:

Office for National Statistics ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* History

* Health, infection and disease

*

#21:

In 2008, 51.9 per cent of girls and 41.2 per cent of boys in the UK achieved two or more A levels or equivalent.

SOURCE:

Office for National Statistics ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

*

#20:

It would take 9.5 years, non-stop, to read aloud a person’s genome

base by base.

SOURCE:

US Department of Energy ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#17:

Most living things can make vitamin C, but some that can’t – including humans, other primates, guinea pigs and bats – rely on their diet to get it.

SOURCE:

New Scientist: The Last Word ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#15:

Analysis of DNA from museum specimens revealed that the dodo was a

type of pigeon.

SOURCE:

Shapiro B et al. Science 2002;295:1683 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* History

*

#12:

Worldwide, 33.3 million people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2009. In this year, there were an estimated 1.8m deaths and 2.6m new infections.

SOURCE:

World Health Organization ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Physiology

* Immunology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#11:

Chemotherapy can lead to hair loss because the hair follicle epithelial cells – like cancer cells – divide rapidly and, hence, are targeted by many anticancer drugs.

SOURCE:

Scientific American, 5 January 2001 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Cell biology

* Statistics and maths

* Immunology

* Health, infection and disease

*

#10:

The three leading global causes of premature death and disability in 2030 are projected to be HIV/AIDS, depression and ischaemic heart disease (where the blood supply to the heart is reduced).

SOURCE:

Mathers CD, Loncar D. PLoS Med 2006;3(11):e442 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#9:

The number of children under five dying each year, worldwide, fell from more than 12 million in 1990 to 7.6m in 2010 – but that’s still 14 deaths per minute.

SOURCE:

Guardian, 16 September 2011 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

*

#6:

The total length of myelinated nerve fibres in the brain is between 150,000 and 180,000 km (enough to go around the Earth about four

times).

SOURCE:

Marner et al. J Comp Neurol 2003;462:144–52 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

*

#2:

The hippocampus – a brain region involved in spatial navigation – is bigger than normal in London taxi drivers, who must pass ‘The Knowledge’, a test based on the city’s layout.

SOURCE:

Maguire EA et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2000;97(8);4398–403 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘The Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Careers

* Psychology

*

#1:

Our brains form a million new connections every second of our lives.

SOURCE:

New Scientist, 25 November 2005 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture Little Book of Fast Facts’

* Neuroscience

* Statistics and maths

* Psychology

*

#84:

_Thermus aquaticus_, a species of bacterium, was first found in a Yellowstone National Park geyser. It tolerates extremely high temperatures and is the source of the heat-resistant enzyme Taq DNA polymerase, used in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) DNA amplification technique.

SOURCE:

Yellowstone Association for Natural Science, History and Education ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Populations’

*

#89:

The common cold can be caused by a number of different _Rhinovirus_ species (from the genus _Enterovirus_). One of these viruses will enter and bind to cells in your upper respiratory tract before replicating. The population of a _Rhinovirus_ in your mucus during a cold is 1,000 viral particles per cubic millimetre.

SOURCE:

University of South Carolina School of Medicine ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Populations’

* Microbiology

* Ecology and environment * Health, infection and disease

* Immunology

*

#86:

The herd immunity threshold (the percentage of the population that needs to be immunised for the whole to be protected) for a very infective disease like measles can be as high as 94 per cent, whereas for mumps it could be as low as 75 per cent.

SOURCE:

Centers for Disease Control, USA ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Populations’

* Immunology

*

#87:

The lace wood tree (_Elaeocarpus bojeri_) has one of the smallest global populations, with just two trees living in the cloud forest of

Mauritius.

SOURCE:

The World’s 100 Most Threatened Species ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Populations’

*

#90:

An antibody can react against different antigens if part of the protein target on each antigen is similar. For example, people sensitised to cats are frequently also allergic to pork.

SOURCE:

Rocky Mountain Allergy ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Immune System’

* Microbiology

* Immunology

* Medicine

* Health, infection and disease

*

#91:

Reptiles have versatile non-specific immune systems. Compounds from alligator blood are being investigated as potential antibacterial and antifungal treatments.

SOURCE:

Van Hoek ML. Pharmaceuticals (Basel) 2014;7(6):723–53 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Immune System’

* Microbiology

* Ecology and environment

* Immunology

*

#92:

Some cancers are caused by viruses: for example, most cases of cervical cancer are caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). So a vaccine against HPV is effectively a vaccine against cervical cancer.

SOURCE:

Cancer Research UK

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Immune System’

* Medicine

* Immunology

*

#93:

Tuberculosis (TB) has been linked to a decreased risk of allergic asthma. Researchers are exploring using mycolic acids from the bacterium that causes TB to treat asthma.

SOURCE:

Asthma UK

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Immune System’

* Medicine

* Immunology

*

#94:

The word influenza is derived from the Italian for ‘influence’ – it was originally thought to have astrological origins. This was later modified to ‘influenza del freddo’ (influence of the cold). The Anglicised term influenza was first used in 1743.

SOURCE:

Examiner

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Influenza special issue’

* Medicine

* Immunology

*

#95:

Atlantic cod lack the genes for several key immune system proteins, including MHC II and CD4. They compensate by having ten times more genes for MHC I than related fish and humans.

SOURCE:

Nature

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED:

Immune System

* Immunology

*

#96:

The 2018 ExoMars rover mission will search for organic signs of life on the Mars surface and subsurface. Its drill will be able to go 2 metres under the surface.

SOURCE:

University of Leicester press release ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Space Biology’

*

#97:

_Deinococcus radiodurans_ is a radiation-resistant microbe and can survive extreme cold, dehydration, vacuum and acid conditions. It is in the ‘Guinness Book of World Records’ as the most radiation-resistant life-form in the world.

SOURCE:

Guinness World Records ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Space Biology’

* Microbiology

*

#98:

_Arabidopsis thaliana _(a type of cress) has been grown from seed on the International Space Station, and turnips and basil are to be grown on the Moon in 2015.

SOURCE:

NASA press release

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Space Biology’

*

#99:

Scientists preparing for a private Mars 2018 mission are looking at how the astronauts’ poo could line the walls of the spacecraft to protect against radiation.

SOURCE:

New Scientist, 1 March 2013 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Space Biology’

* Physiology

* Biotechnology and engineering

*

#100:

Astronauts grow up to 3 per cent taller while in space, because of

microgravity.

SOURCE:

NASA press release

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Space Biology’

* Physiology

*

#101:

Ambergris is a waxy excretion from the guts of sperm whales. Still sometimes used in perfumes, it can fetch a high price (1.1 kg recently

sold for £11,000).

SOURCE:

Bloomberg Businessweek, 12 January 2012 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Fat’ (2015)

*

#103:

You have to expend five times as much energy to lose a kg of fat as you do to lose a kg of lean tissue.

SOURCE:

Lancet 2011;378:826–37 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Fat’ (2015)

*

#104:

We don’t absorb all the fat we eat: it’s normal to excrete up to 7 grams in your faeces over 24 hours.

SOURCE:

MedlinePlus, 19 August 2014 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Fat’ (2015)

*

#105:

Army cutworm moths are eaten by grizzly bears preparing to hibernate. By autumn, these moths reach up to 72 per cent body fat.

SOURCE:

BBC Earth, 10 September 2015 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Fat’ (2015)

*

#106:

Mosses are some of the slowest-growing plants. The Antarctic moss _Bryum inconnexum_ grows less than 1 mm in a year. Bamboo holds the record for fastest-growing plant, at 30 mm per hour.

SOURCE:

Functional Plant Ecology, by Francisco Pugnaire and Fernando

Valladares

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

*

#107:

The phrase ‘one bad apple spoils the barrel’ is all down to the plant hormone ethene. One overripe apple emits the ethene gas that encourages the other apples to ripen more quickly. They in turn emit more ethene, overpowering the whole barrel.

SOURCE:

Mental Floss, 7 August 2014 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

* Cell biology

* Immunology

*

#108:

Some clovers produce cyanide when their leaves are damaged by hungry herbivores. This ability is determined by two unlinked genes, Ac and Li. These clovers are more often found in colder climates than those that don’t make cyanide – but the nature of this link isn’t yet

clear.

SOURCE:

Hayden KJ, Parker IM. Evolutionary Ecology Research 2002;4:155–68 ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

*

#109:

Roughly 50,000 species of higher plants (about 1 in 6 of all species) have been used medicinally.

SOURCE:

plantlife.co.uk

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

* Medicine

*

#110:

SOURCE:

Wellcome Trust

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Plants’ (2016)

*

#85:

Alcohol is sometimes given to people with antifreeze (methanol) poisoning, as it competes with the enzymes that break down methanol into toxic products that include methanoate.

SOURCE:

methanol.org

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: ‘Big Picture: Proteins’

* Microbiology

* Health, infection and disease

* Medicine

* Immunology

* Previous

* Next

PauseBrowse through all of our Fast Facts indexed by topic Sign up for updates about the ‘Big Picture’ website and Wellcome’s education work. We use a third party provider, Dotmailer, to deliver our newsletters. For information about how we handle your data, please read our privacy

notice . You can

unsubscribe at any time using links in the emails you receive.

sign up

We value your feedback - email us at bigpicture@wellcome.ac.uk.

Details

Image Url

HTML Url

Moderation By

More Annotations

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:44

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:45

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:51

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:53

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:56

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:55:58

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:01

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:07

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:11

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:17

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:18

James Smith

2020-11-22 20:56:29

Favourite Annotations

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:25:06

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:25:28

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:25:56

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:25:56

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:25:56

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:26:35

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:26:51

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:27:10

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:27:20

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:27:34

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:27:37

James Smith

2019-11-01 13:28:13

Text

to set cookies.

and beyond

Search

* Resources

* Issues

* About us

LATEST ISSUE

PLANTS

May 2016

PICK OF THE WEEK

May 2016

SIGN UP FOR UPDATES

FAST FACTS

*

#110:

SOURCE:

Wellcome Trust

RELATED TOPICS:

*

#85:

SOURCE:

methanol.org

RELATED TOPICS:

* Microbiology

* Medicine

* Immunology

*

#88:

plant.