Almost 19,000 students sat the OCR biology A-level paper on Monday that contained an error. Photograph: Chris Radburn/PA One of Englands main examination boards has been forced to issue an apology for the third time in a little over a fortnight after students and teachers spotted yet another error on one of its papers. The mistake occurred on OCRs A-level biology paper, which was sat by almost 19,000 students on Monday. A question asked students to calculate a standard deviation but failed to provide the formula needed for the calculation, as required by the syllabus. Pupils took to student forums and social media to express their anger about the error and worries about the possible impact on their overall grade. OCR apologised and said it would address any impact during marking and grading. Exam watchdog Ofqual was also notified about an error in an AQA chemistry A-level, which 20,000 students took on Tuesday. A two-mark question included an incorrect equation, in which a 3 was printed instead of a 2, which made it unanswerable. A spokesman for Ofqual said: We expect all papers to be error-free. When errors are not identified before the exam, we expect the exam boards to … Continue reading →

June 13, 2017 One of biology's most enduring relationships, credited with helping plants to colonise land more than 400 million years ago, has yielded a fundamental survival secret with implications for agriculture and biotechnology. Plant scientists have discovered that a particular form of fungi, which invades plant roots and then helps the colonised plants to absorb nutrients from soil, receive life-sustaining carbon from their symbiotic hosts in the form of long-chain fatty acids, a building block for essential lipids. Previously, scientists had thought that the fungi received carbon from their hosts only in the form of carbohydrates, which the fungi used to make their own fatty acids and then the more complex lipids necessary for survival. It's now clear that the main source of carbon from the host plants are fatty acids, and that these fatty acids are necessary before the fungi can create the more complex lipids that are needed for storing energy, for signalling and for cellular membranes. The latest work, published by the journal Science, comes from a joint team of scientists from the John Innes Centre, based at Norwich Research Park, and Rothamsted Research. This field of science is very competitive currently, with research groups in … Continue reading →

Topical questions included the incinerator at Poolbeg. Photograph: Brenda Fitzsimons This years higher-level Leaving Cert biology paper was particularly topical and challenging, though it was not unfair, according to teachers. Students would have enjoyed the experiment questions on this afternoons paper but it was not without its harder sections, said Luke Saunders, founder of Studyclix.ie and a biology teacher at Jesus and Mary Secondary School in Enniscrone. Students who had prepared using past exams wouldnt have found much to shock them. The popular topic of ecology featured heavily throughout which would have brought smiles to many students because it allowed them to make lots of references to one of the more practical areas of the course. Ciara OShea, ASTI subject representative and deputy principal at Scoil Mhuire agus Padraig in Swinford, Co Mayo, said the paper rewarded students who had put the work in. There was nothing too tricky and there were questions from right across the syllabus. It was particularly good to see topical questions on the paper, including the incinerator at Poolbeg, the Zika virus and IVF. More of this would be welcome in future years. Mona Murray a biology teacher at the Institute of Education in Dublin, … Continue reading →

There is a certain characteristic shallowness to the storytelling exercise that is evolutionary biology. Evolutionists spin a narrative about lifes history, about events that no one can or ever will witness. Theyre trying to explain how complex, functional living systems come into existence, and the imaginative tale-telling gets them out of having to grapple with what it takes, practically, for any complex living being to fight the battle of staying alive in the first place. Evolutionists dont worry much about how living things work, the irreducible complexity of it, or how other complex systems work, either. For insights on function you have to go to physicians and engineers. Thats a point underlying much of the writing done by two of our contributors, Steve Laufmann and Dr. Howard Glicksman. In a new ID the Future podcast with interviewer Todd Butterfield, Laufmann reflects on the evidence of design in the human body, presented in Dr. Glicksmans series, The Designed Body. Listen to the podcast here, or download it here. Laufmanns specialty is the architecture of very large, very complex, composite information systems that are orchestrated to perform specified tasks in demanding environments. He looks at biology from an engineers perspective, which is … Continue reading →