25 May 2022

Beaks are an important asset for birds that live in environments with limited freshwater. This is because their bills are thought to offer a route for non-evaporative heat loss, helping the birds to regulate their body temperatures without losing water. Mackenzie Roeder, a PhD student from the University of Maine, used a Travelling Fellowship from Journal of Experimental Biology to support her quantification of this effect in the field.

6 May 2022

Two key aspects of scientific training are learning to think critically about the literature and developing a good writing style. Professor Guy Caldwell is a researcher at the University of Alabama who leverages articles from our Open Access journal Disease Models & Mechanisms for this purpose.

25 April 2022

We were delighted to attend the first in-person BSCB-BSDB Joint Spring Meeting since the start of the pandemic. In a triumphant return, the conference recorded its highest ever number of attendees, with around 500 delegates making the trip to the University of Warwick in the first week of April. There was also a bumper crop of posters, and the organisers reported that they had received a total of 290 submissions.

22 April 2022

Every year on 22 April, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. There are various ways of joining and celebrating the day, you can become a member or create an event. To learn more about Earth Day and how you can contribute to the cause you should visit the dedicated website.

8 April 2022

Ageing is associated with the accumulation of epigenetic­­ changes to a cell’s DNA. Attempts to slow or even reverse ageing understandably attract a lot of attention, and one novel strategy of particular interest is attempting to ‘rejuvenate’ existing cells. With the help of a Travelling Fellowship, PhD student Priscila Chiavellini was able to visit Stanford University to investigate this approach.

24 May 2022

Improving the sustainability of research labs and scientific conferences is crucial given the threat of climate change, and the recent advent of remote meetings has helped bring this issue to the forefront. In response to this, we launched our Sustainable Conferencing Initiative in October 2020 to offer guidance and support on the sustainability of events. Viktoria Lamprinaki, our Sustainability Officer, recently attended two meetings to discuss this initiative and to meet with others working in the field of sustainability.

5 May 2022
After two years of no in-person events we had our first Workshop. Between 3 and 6 April the ‘Cell Size and Growth, From Single Cells to the Tree of Life’ Workshop took place in East Sussex, UK. Interesting presentations, in-depth discussions, tasty desserts, and fun conversations in the orangery, the Workshop had it all. You can read more about it in our recent story.

22 April 2022

The first of our 2022 Workshops took place in April, with a focus on cell size and growth. Organised by postdoctoral researchers Clotilde Cadart and Matthew Swaffer, this Workshop brought together researchers working with a broad range of systems, including yeast, tadpoles and even fossilised plants.

11 April 2022

Microtubules are hollow rods that form an important part of the cell cytoskeleton. They are built from polymers of tubulin, a protein that can be modified by the removal (or later re-addition) of an amino acid called tyrosine. Tyrosine modification can affect how the microtubules interact with kinesins, which walk along the microtubules and carry cargo from one part of the cell to another. Proper kinesin function is particularly important in neurons, since these cells can reach remarkable lengths and so transporting cargo from one end to another is a significant undertaking.

1 April 2022

Working together with organisers from the research community, The Company of Biologists runs Workshops that bring together leading experts and early-career researchers from a range of scientific backgrounds, making these meetings an ideal setting for the exchange of ideas and the beginnings of fruitful collaborations. Previous Workshops have covered topics right across the scope of our journals, and we are now seeking proposals for Workshops to run in 2024. Here, we explain why organising a Workshop with us is such a great opportunity.