Rod of Asclepius vs the Caduceus
I had a lot of fun with this one. I started partly because this is a fact I keep throwing at people anyway, and also partly because I have been playing a lot of Odyssey lately =P It is fun to get to do some…
Telomers and telomerase
This one was a bit more challenging than other FancyFacts. When explaining telomers and telomerase it is easy to explain it so simply, that what is being explained, is not actually accurate, and that leads to misunderstandings. But this is a complex matter, and explaining…
From sugar to energy
There is no way to fit all of the complex processes onto one A4 page, but I wanted to illustrate an overview that shows how these fit together. The electron transport chain got a bit more complex than I intended to. I guess I’m so…
Stem cells
One of the best things about doing FancyFacts, is that I have a good reason to jump back into really old lessons. When people finish university and start working, it is easy to lose a lot of the basics. People usually don’t need everything they…
Jellyfish reproduction
I remembered I asked my high school biology teacher about this, and I thought is was really cool. People have been swimming past these things and just thought “hey, what a neat flower”: But no, they are not flowers, they are stingy ocean jelly buns!…
Thawing food
It sure is tempting to speed up the process, but why risk it? If you want to read more about this topic, I found that WebMD had a very nice and easy-to-read slideshow of what you should and should not do regarding defrosting:) And also,…
Resistance through limited uptake
Reygaert (2018) is my goto-article for antibiotic resistance mechanisms: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6604941/
Arctic foxes
You can read more about arctic foxes here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/a/arctic-fox/ If you want to learn more about their burrows this article goes into more depth: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/05/160520-arctic-foxes-animals-science-alaska/
Honey
Honey has really interesting antimicrobial properties. You can read more about it in Mandal and Mandal (2011) “Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity” from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166 Cesar et. al. (2020) “Bacterial Evolution in High-Osmolarity Environments.” from https://mbio.asm.org/content/11/4/e01191-20 looks into how bacteria handle being in environments…
A friendly reminder to all students
I suppose this is a bit different from the usual FancyFacts, but I feel it is important. Even though I enjoyed university, I spent a lot of time throwing my books at the wall. And it is very hard for someone to see how much…