Why don’t giant animals get more cancer? Despite having vastly more cells, whales and elephants rarely develop cancer. This phenomenon, known as Peto’s paradox, reveals how evolution has equipped large, long-lived animals with powerful DNA repair, tumour suppression, and immune mechanisms, offering surprising insights for human cancer research.
What happens when an assignment for undergraduates combines learning with creativity and humour? Aniruddha Datta Roy, a faculty from the School of Biological Sciences at the National Institute of Science Education & Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, designed such an assignment for his students. He shares his experience in this article.
Posted on in Evolutionary Biology, Teaching, Undergraduate & Education
R. Geeta is a retired professor from the Department of Botany, University of Delhi, Delhi. In this interview, she talks about her journey in academia and her opinions on pedagogical tools and teacher networks.
Posted on in Evolutionary Biology, Plant Biology, Developmental Biology, Teaching & Undergraduate
What if playing or trading cards had information of the natural world? Educators suggest that it could induce "tree-thinking" - the understanding of evolution using phylogenetic trees. This article discusses the use of playing cards as teaching tools to piece together key events in plant evolution.
Posted on in Evolutionary Biology, Plant Biology, Teaching, Undergraduate & Research
What happens when you expose fruit flies to low temperatures? Like many insects, they go into a chill coma - a sleepy state. Analysing the phenomena of coma recovery could help teach the concepts of rapid evolution, and the impact of climate change on it. How? A team of scientists and educators created a wholesome teaching module of fruit fly experiments using the phenomena of "chill coma recovery".
Posted on in Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Teaching & Research
A group of scientists—past and present members of Evolutionary and Organismal Biology Unit of JNCASR—get vocal about a conceptual debate in evolutionary biology.
Anjali Vaidya speaks with Amitabh Joshi, evolutionary biologist at Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, about experimental evolution, problem-solving and how to pursue science with passion.