RHUN AP IORWERTH outlines Plaid Cymru’s immediate and medium-term policy goals
Latest editorial
DNA and the impossibility of research in isolation
Genetic engineering adapts tools evolved by nature for human use — but whose, ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
A row over Trotskyist factions exposes competing visions of organisation inside Your Party and the wider left, argues NICK WRIGHT
A growing coalition, Cymru Together, is challenging traditional politics – calling for practical plans that connect climate action with economic justice, writes BETHAN SAYED
ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT delve into the strange, active – and sometimes predatory – world of plants
While politicians fixate on defence budgets, the real answers lie in peace-building and economic justice, says ALAN SIMPSON
ANDREA BRADLEY highlights how a City of Glasgow College health and safety dispute is the subject of an STUC Congress emergency motion
THE double helix structure of DNA was discovered in 1953, but at the time the structure of genes themselves remained unknown. But the term “gene” had already been in use for decades as a convenient term for the mysterious basic unit of heredity.
Writing in 1911, the Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen referred to the term as “nothing but a very applicable little word, easily combined with others.” Once it was understood that genes were made of DNA, new questions opened up.
In the 1950s and onwards, the only organisms that could really be investigated in detail were microorganisms. As a result, almost all early molecular biology was done on bacteria and their viruses.
Similar stories
RICHARD SHILLCOCK examines an enjoyable, but philosophically conventional book, and urges Marxists to employ their capacity to embrace the totality in any explanation
New research into mutations in sperm helps us better understand why they occur, while debunking a few myths in the process, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
GEORGE FOGARTY falls under a spell of an unpretentious gathering that is as edifying as it is entertaining
A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT