• Running away is not an option, or how plants fight infection

    Like animals, plants can be infected by a range of pathogenic organisms. And, like animals, plants possess an immune system to fight off attacks from pathogens. The plant immune system is analogous to the innate immune system in higher eukaryotes but does not involve mobile immune...
  • British Science Association media fellowship

    For the next month, I am taking a teeny break from science to pretend to be a journalist at Nature News. It's a scheme aimed at teaching working scientists about how the media works by dragging them out of the lab, bleary eyed with the residual smell of growth media lingering upon their person,...
  • Finding Beauty in the Macabre

    In a small chapel just outside Prague, a chandelier made from every bone in the human body hangs from a garland of skulls like the world's creepiest wind-chime. Nearby, a coat of arms features an almost comical bone bird—its wings a human hand and its neck a gnarled vertebrae—that pecks at a...
  • Gut Inflammation and Antibiotic Resistance

    A Salmonella infection has some very obvious and unpleasant effects on the unfortunate person who failed to wash or cook their food correctly. But it also messes with the bacteria that live in our guts, and that’s not a good thing when it comes to the emergence of new pathogens...
  • All ducks are equal but some are more equal than others

    I made the worst decision of my life the other day and think the guilt will linger for at least another decade. You know those little parks you can go to which are liberally scattered with ducks? Ducks on all the ponds, ducks mingling with the sheep and random alpacas, ducks pestering...
  • When Bad Bugs Go Badder

    The Beijing lineage of M. tuberculosis is the villain in a movie sequel. Nastier, scarier, harder to kill. You thought tuberculosis (TB) was bad? Think again. The Beijing lineage is that little bit worse, associated with a speedier disease progression and increased antibiotic resistance. I’ve...

Sunday, 4 December 2016

The Beijing lineage of M. tuberculosis is the villain in a movie sequel. Nastier, scarier, harder to kill. You thought tuberculosis (TB) was bad? Think again. The Beijing lineage is that little bit worse, associated with a speedier disease progression and increased antibiotic resistance. I’ve always had a thing for studies...