Course: The Biology of Bugs, Brains, and Beasts

In this video Aritha Dornau describes how renewable carbon sources can be used as alternatives to fossil fuels and how microorganisms have the potential to play a role in this …

How do enzymes and substrates interact? There are two models for enzyme-substrate interactions: Model 1: Lock and Key In this model, the shape of the active site and substrate complement …

All biology requires enzymes. From basic cellular functions such as respiration, to intricate brain activities such as learning and memory, enzymes are crucial for life. This is because enzymes act …

We have worked out many ways to exploit the biochemical innovations that microbes have invented over billions of years. Find out more about the everyday benefits we get from Industrial …

What is the nitrogen cycle? The nitrogen cycle is the process by which nitrogen from the atmosphere is converted into nitrate, nitrite and ammonium. Atmospheric nitrogen is abundant but not …

Bacteria live in close associations with individuals across the animal kingdom. These associations can be parasitic, commensal or mutualistic. In a parasitic association, one individual benefits at the detriment of …

Mutually beneficial relationships can lead to something wonderful. The pivotal development of symbiosis between prokaryotic archaea and bacteria led to the creation of single-celled eukaryotes… cells that were more efficient …

Welcome to our first Biology Toolbox. In these articles we will provide more technical explanations of some of the concepts that underlie the topics we are covering. Glycolysis One of …

Microbial civilisations: a Game of Stones? Once bugs had worked out how to harvest light energy, the next big innovation in microbial technology was photosynthesis. Two “competing” technologies evolved in …

Hard work required Life is constantly fighting entropy, trying to impose order on chaos: reorganising sugars into carbohydrates, amino acids into proteins, nucleotides into DNA. This rearrangement requires energy. A …

What does the history of the Earth look like if we condense it into a minute? We start Week 1 by looking at Bugs, by which we mean microbes, single-celled …

Welcome to our course on Biology: Bugs, Brains and Beasts! Over the next three weeks we will be exploring aspects of these areas, which relate to some of the interests …

How this all works You will work independently through the course at your own pace. All of the course content is now available to you, so if you need to, …