Shortly after a Spanish post-doctoral fellow in the Keeling lab at University of British Columbia was introduced by his boss to the Canadian rock band Rush he peered through the microscope a...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2017/12/termite-gut-microbes-get-names-that-rock.html
Recently Canadian MPs voted down Bill C-291 (216 nays 67yeas) for mandatory labelling of foods that are genetically modified. While some might say our government is refusing us the right to...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2017/06/untangling-mess-of-issues-surrounding.html
Learning and play are two sides of the same coin for kids who get a classroom visit from Let’s Talk Science (LTS) , a free of charge, national science outreach program. Besides fun, undergr...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2017/05/my-science-odyssey-with-lets-talk.html
Identifying the arrival of invasive species before they become a problem takes some detective work. Environmental biologists are turning to environmental DNA (eDNA) to monitor species of inte...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2017/04/bats-can-help-scientists-track-invasive.html
Four-year-olds ask the best questions. When my son asked this I was excited to tell him that similar bacteria live on the human foot as on certain cheeses and that bacteria from human feet, a...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/11/mommy-why-do-my-feet-smell-like-cheese.html
Why do 3% of kids spontaneously develop curvature of the spine during adolescence? This condition of unknown cause is called idiopathic scoliosis. An unexpected disease mechanism has been rev...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/06/scoliosis-tiny-beating-cilia-and-spinal.html
The Gene: An Intimate History. By Siddhartha Mukherjee. New York. Scribner. Advance Reader’s Edition. Published May 2016. 541 pages. "Our capacity to understand and manipulate human genome...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-gene-is-lively-and-insightful-tour.html
When we think about children with disabilities we easily imagine doctors, nurses and physiotherapists as part of their team of caregivers, but how about engineers and videogame designers? At...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/03/videogames-are-just-what-doctor-ordered.html
Groundhogs in meteorology may not be very scientific, but in virology, the scientific merit of using groundhogs is quite sound. They’ve become the perfect animal model to study hepatitis...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/02/groundhogs-help-virologists-more-than.html
This month Campbell Soup Co. announced that it will put GMO ingredients on its label in the U.S. while other food makers are dragging their feet. It will be interesting to see how consumers ...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2016/01/gmos-and-thier-lack-of-appeal.html
“For the first time anywhere in the world, a genetically engineered animal has been approved for human consumption” announced Peter Mansbridge on CBC news on November 20. Members of soci...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/12/here-is-how-aquadvantage-salmon-are.html
I've teamed up with Science Borealis , Dr. Paige Jarreau from Louisiana State University and 20 other Canadian science bloggers, to conduct a broad survey of Canadian science blog readers. ...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/11/who-reads-science-blogs-eh.html
Parents love to watch their babies grow, learn new things and celebrate their milestones. Unfortunately, the parents of 1/10000 baby girls, which carry a mutation in a gene on their X chromos...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/10/rett-syndrome-mice-improve-with-deep.html
Stretching your body while waking up from a good sleep can feel fabulous. As you yawn you open your mouth wide for 4-6 seconds, stretch your respiratory tract and diaphragm and inflate your lung...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/10/pandiculate-much-stretching-and-yawning.html
Childhood traumas are associated with both psychiatric diseases and bowel disorders later in life. Like in humans, early-life stress in mice can lead to abnormal behaviour in adults. Maternal se...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/08/early-life-stress-goes-from-brain-to.html
Chameleon researcher Michel Milinkovich was sorry to break it to us in The Guardian that chameleons do not actually change colour to blend in with their surroundings – they do it for communic...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/07/colour-changing-caterpillars-in-my.html
People with Alzheimer’s have trouble sleeping and poor sleep seems to promote Alzheimer’s disease in those at risk genetically. Both poor sleep and Alzheimer’s disease cause increases b...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-fly-shows-why-sleep-loss-and.html
President Barack Obama discussed the Precision Medicine Initiative recently, which has not surprisingly been met with both enthusiasm and scepticism in the media. Precision medicine is someti...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/02/precision-medicine-what-genetics.html
That it might be possible to improve intellectual ability in Angelman Syndrome individuals was the real news behind the headline last summer about the girl in Toronto with a lemonade stand r...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2015/01/could-intellectual-disability-in.html
Blueberry caviar tops this watermelon dessert. Faux caviar developed by top chef Ferran Adria is an example of experimental avant-garde cuisine using the technique of spherifica...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/10/blueberry-caviar-tops-this-watermelon.html
We know that pubescent males get peach fuzz on their face before the thick beard grows in BUT did you know that peaches and other fuzzy fruits are referred to as pubescent in the scientifi...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/09/nectarines-are-peaches-that-lost-their.html
The Hickory Tussock Caterpillar is white and fuzzy, looking especially conspicuous on a green lawn. While its cuddly appearance might beckon children to pick it up and stroke its hair, predator...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/08/why-are-hickory-tussock-caterpillars-so.html
Last week policy and politics editors Karine Morin and Pascal Lapointe of the blog network Science Borealis made the point that Canadian science bloggers were not speaking up about the scie...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/07/was-there-enough-science-in-northern.html
This is Twiggy a maple spanworm, also known as the caterpillar Ennomos magnaria. I captured the above picture of Twiggy to show how unbelievably well the colour and pattern match that of an ...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/06/twiggy-caterpillar.html
As a young child, I remember being fascinated by the swirl pattern of the hair on my little brother’s head. In elementary school, I remember one boy in my class who had two swirls, and sin...
http://biologybizarre.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-way-whorl-turns.html