Biology

Life on planet Earth exists in a variety of shapes: bacteria, plants, insects, animals... Complex organisms like us humans have evolved over billions of years from a primordial and very simple form of life. But how was that first living…

From Trivial Pursuit to Monopoly, classic board games are not just fun and social but also present an opportunity to develop critical thinking and cognitive skills as players plot their next move or work out a gameplay strategy. But what if…

Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis was born in Buda in Hungary on the first of July 1818. Nowadays Buda and Pest form a single city (Budapest), but that unification wouldn’t happen for another 55 years. Ignaz was the child of an ethnically German…

Vajayjay, chouchie, vag, muff, she-bang, clam taco, flange, meat wallet, nature’s front pocket, front bum, fanny, gee, rosebush, Mary, octopussy, finger warmer, hoo-ha, box, baby chute, lady bits and lady garden, these are but some of the…

As a child in Verona, Elisa Salvetti used to look up at the stars, tiny pinpoints of light in the dark sky, each of which represents a distant world, and dream of becoming an astronomer. But instead of exploring those far-away giants, she…

I celebrated my 26th birthday in style. Surrounded by nurses and doctors giving me drugs and trying to stick suppositories up my arse. Sounds like a regular night in Coppers but thankfully I was in the hospital and everyone was sober. I had…

In 2013 Angelina Jolie made headlines by revealing that she had undergone a prophylactic double mastectomy, removing both breasts to reduce her risk of cancer. For people with BRCA1/2 mutations, such as Jolie, this can be a wise decision.…

We may grumble about the rain but its one of the reasons Ireland has a vibrant green landscape earning it the name of the Emerald Isle. The North Atlantic drift keeps the climate temperate, offloads a lot of rain and keeps our vegetation…

Tuberculosis (TB) has infected humans since ancient times with evidence of TB found in the bones of Egyptian mummies from as early as 3000 BC. In the medieval period deaths from TB were blamed on vampirism with the slow decline in health…

Family can get on your nerves over Christmas but there are more effective ways to try to poison your loved ones than a badly cooked turkey. Campylobacter jejuni and Salmonella are no joke however and not worth risking. The symptoms are…