Many of us will get allergic reactions in our lifetimes. They can range from a minor irritancy, such as hayfever, to potentially life-threatening conditions, such as anaphylaxis brought on from a nut allergy.

Surely a mother’s immune system cannot attack her own, unborn child. A child is part of its mother, it shares her nutrients, her blood supply, her oxygen. How could it be possible? figure 1. Pregnancy

What is autoimmunity? The immune system is designed to identify and attack foreign organisms within the body that cause disease (pathogens). However, sometimes the recognition process becomes confused,

Supercooling is the process of chilling a liquid below its freezing point, without it becoming solid. figure 1. Ice cubes In the experiment I conducted (shown below), I placed the water in a freezer for

How would you go about trying to measure the total volume of blood in the human body? There is one simple solution to this question. Slash open someone at a major blood vessel and drain the blood into

Many of the reactions that occur in the body would happen at remarkably low rates under physiological conditions. In chemistry, a catalyst is used to increase the rate of a given reaction. This is exactly

When most people think of fat, they will probably picture a tyre of flab lingering around the midriff (or something of the sort), much like the image below. This is known as white adipose tissue, the main

Everyone knows that oxygen is required to live. But, why is that the case? What is it about oxygen that is essential for life? To be able to harness the of energy from nutrients is essential for all life.

Hold your breath for as long as you can. Breath holding kid How long did you last? No more than a few minutes, I would guess. If you try and hold your breath, eventually it becomes impossible. No amount

Many of you will have heard of hypothermia, a life-threatening decrease in body temperature. While hyperthermia is the opposite, a dangerous increase in body temperature. However, there are various other

Contraction in the simplest sense is shortening of a muscle fibre. When muscles receive stimulation from the nervous system, the required fibres simultaneously shorten to produce a contraction of the overall

“Did you know 98.8% of human DNA is just junk?” “What do you mean, junk?” “It doesn’t code for proteins or contains genes. It just does nothing, has no function, that makes it junk, right?” “Just because

Proteins are by far the most important macromolecule within the body. What? Proteins are just muscles, aren’t they? Yes and no. All muscles are made up of proteins, but, by no means are all proteins muscles.

Each time a new cell divides, the entire genome must be replicated in an error free manor in order to prevent cancer from arising. With around 3.2 billion base pairs in the human genome, this is no easy

An action potential is the only means by which a signal can be transmitted along a nerve cell. It is therefore down to these action potentials to communicate not only various stimuli but also their relative

A human heart will beat around 3 billion times in an average lifetime. The heart works continuously from birth till death, unlike many other muscles which require regular rest to prevent fatigue. Curiously,

Nerve impulses can travel at up to 119m/s. To put that into perspective, it is faster than a Bugatti Veyron travelling at its full speed (254mph). How is this possible? It comes down to the distance that

Nerves are just like wires aren’t they? Electrical impulses move through neurones just like electricity flows through a wire, right? No! Absolutely not. Nerves are commonly described as wires as an analogy

When collecting a sample of DNA there is often a very small amount to play with. This can be very problematic for many biochemists for two main reasons. Firstly if you are carrying out an experiment on

Figure 1. Pluto To harbour life, even in the simplest of forms, there are three main requirements that must be fulfilled. These are: Liquid water A source of energy for the living organism to use Biogenic