Another Epsom representative, Republican John Klose, is sponsoring a bill that should end up in the reject pile. It calls for allowing the hunting of coyotes at night, now limited to the frigid months of January, February and March, until the middle or end of August. Klose called coyotes a 24-hour killer, seven days a week whose numbers must be reduced. The vicious animals are multiplying like its going out of style. There are plenty of problems with the bill. It was filed as a non-germane amendment to a bill about student hunting licenses and thus caught the states Fish and Game Department by surprise. It also ignores basic coyote biology. The more coyotes are hunted and killed, the more pups the females have in a litter. An average litter of four or five could become six or eight so you end up with more coyotes than you started with. Kill all the coyotes and more quickly move in. Kill some of the coyotes and theres more food for the remaining ones so more of the pups survive to adulthood. Kill the bigger, older coyotes and you end up with more in their prime reproductive years. Coyotes can, on rare … Continue reading →

Guns are one of the most deadly weapons known to man, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that about 33,736 people die from gun shotseach year. While most of us understand what happens to a person who has been shot,how firearms affect the biology of the shooter is more mysterious. Heres a short run-through of what happens to your body when you pull the trigger. Despite their clear danger, many people enjoy firing guns in their spare time as a form of entertainment, and there may be abiological reason. When you fire a gun, your body releases hormones called endorphins, Forbes reported. These hormones promote a calm, relaxed feeling, and although they are meant to help alleviate the stress and anxiety associated with firing such a powerful weapon, they can also induce a pleasurable high-like sensation. These are the same hormones that are released when we have sex or use certain drugs, so its easy to see how some can get hooked on the feeling of using a gun. Read: These 3 Gun-Violence Laws Have Significantly Cut Down On Firearm Deaths In addition to a flood of hormones, shooting a gun can also burn calories a surprising … Continue reading →

A teacher has been sacked after sending inappropriate texts to a schoolgirl. Perverted Colin James Bell, 42, a biology teacher, was struck off after being convicted of sending grossly offensive messages to the 16-year-old detailing his sexual desires towards her in 2015. He was given a 12-month supervision order and made to sign the sex offenders register at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court on August 8 last year. The former high school teacher and married dad-of-two has now been struck off by education watchdogs after admitting the allegations against him. When the Daily Record tried to speak to him about his conviction yesterday, Bell placed a child on his shoulders and pulled a hood around his head. And when approached for comment at his home in Tayport, Fife, Bell said: No. Go away. Youre ruining peoples lives. Were all human, we all make mistakes. Theres no need to make it worse. We were able to photograph him later. The charge against Bell stated that he sent grossly offensive messages that were of an indecent, obscene or menacing character to the girl on December 29, 2015. The texts repeatedly made reference to your sexual desires towards her, the charge went on. A statement … Continue reading →

: India is taking its first steps to evolve a policy on synthetic biology, an emerging science through which new life forms can potentially be made in labs and existing life forms, such as bacteria and other microbes, tweaked to produce specific proteins or chemically useful products. The Environment Ministry will be convening a group of experts on biodiversity and biotechnology, to assess synthetic biology work pursued in Indian labs, potential benefits and risks, and the implications of the trans-boundary movement of such life forms. Synthetic biology in microbial systems holds promise for production of drugs, vaccines, fuel components and other chemicals. A popular example is the production of artemisinin, a powerful anti-malarial drug, in yeast, at a commercial level. Microorganisms have also been constructed to act as sensors that can detect a toxin in vitro (outside a living organism) or in vivo (inside a living organism). There are assorted labs in India that work on synthetic biology. Last December, officials from the Environment Ministry participated in the United Nations Biodiversity Conference of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at Cancun, Mexico, where about 8,000 delegates from 180 countries discussed matters related to biodiversity. India, so far, has no policy … Continue reading →

[Editors note: Excerpts are taken from an interview with three experts in the field of synthetic biology: David Berry,general partner at Flagship Ventures;Andras Forgacs, cofounder and CEO of Modern Meadow; andEllen Jorgensen,molecular biologist andexecutive director of Genspace.] Synthetic biology builds upon genetic engineeringsomething that has been around for 30 years and the results of which are everywhere in our daily livesGenetic engineering adds new DNA to an organism, and synthetic biology is similar. The end goal of both is to edit the DNA code of an organism in order to do something useful. Synthetic biology, however, allows the standardization and automation of the process, making it more precise and faster. Synthetic biology aims to take this a step further by making the pieces of DNA easier to assemble, effectively modularizing them. Then you can build what you need much more quickly, accurately, and at scale. Medicine is of course an important frontier. Perhaps one of the earliest breakthroughs for synthetic biology was making artemisinin for treating malariaOutside medicine, there have been lots of attempts to disrupt the fuel industry with biofuels, although low oil prices have slowed that down. The capabilities of synthetic biology are getting us to the point … Continue reading →