18 Things You Should Know About Genetics

Back in March we featured a wonderful animation by David Murawsky entitled A Brief Introduction to Genetics – which was awesome. Well, we are very pleased to tell you that he has gone one further and created this gem – 18 Things You Should Know About Genetics.

Helped out by some wonderful animation and a great voice over by Sarah Henriques, this film presents fundamental background information about genetics, as well as offering some quirky but interesting facts about DNA, genes and genetics.

It was created to be an upbeat, fun educational short film to initiate and draw interest to this sometimes daunting and seemingly complex subject matter.  I wish we had had this sort of educational film when I was at school!

Science Made Simple

Sometimes science can be horribly complicated and while some bandy words about without question; others scratch their heads and wonder what on earth they are talking about! Science Made Simple is a series of 15 animated interstitials produced for TVNZ 7, a New Zealand TV station, aimed at demystifying and defining commonly used, but little understood, scientific and technological jargon. The series focuses on the defiition of the sort of words viewers may read in the newspaper, but don't always understand.

Here are three of the interstitials – simply but cleverly animated. So, have you ever wondered what quantum physics is?  You can familiarize yourself with terms such as superposition, Schrödinger’s cat, the many worlds theory and then move on to genetics.  There you can find out about genetic modification – how transferring a gene from one organism to another can transfer characteristics. Finally you will get to learn about the superconductor – and how it can conduct electricity without losing electricity.

So, there you are: now you can bore people silly talk with confidence about these aspects of science.

Mice Give Clue to Secret of Healing Without Scars

Image Credit

They whispered softly in our ears and the secret was ours.  Seriously, though, the white mice in the picture were not harmed in this discovery but you can bet your bottom dollar some were.  It seems, however, that a gene known as p21 could hold the secret to spontaneous healing - the type seen in animals such as the newt (pull a leg off, one grows back - that kind of deal).  Turn this gene off, so it seems - and the potential for spontaneous healing becomes much more likely.  Of course the debate will rage forever and a day about the morality of using animals in testing but this does seem like something that many would argue is worth the pain caused to the mice.  The Guardian has the full story.