Second Nature Event: Prospecting for “Ethical Pharmaceuticals”

Firstly, apologies for taking so long to report on last week’s event: Professor Philip Mellor gave a very interesting talk all about Bluetongue disease, how the spread has changed in recent years and how it corresponds to the changes in climate.  Read more

Second Nature Event: Bluetongue disease special

Second Nature Event: Bluetongue disease special

This week, the Second Nature events series brings a topical special event on Bluetongue disease. Hot on the heels of another Foot-and-Mouth disease outbreak, a Bluetongue Disease outbreak was declared in the UK last week. This summer, there have been 3,000 reported cases of Bluetongue in Northern Europe alone. What is Bluetongue? How does it spread, why is it here now and where will it go next? And is it all because of climate change? Join us for a special session with Professor Philip Mellor from the Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright for a discussion of all the details  … Read more

New Polymerases for Old DNA: the Write-Up

New Polymerases for Old DNA: the Write-Up

Yesterday saw the first in our series of talks being held on Second Nature. The speaker was Dr Phil Holliger from the Medical Research Council Molecular Biology Lab in Cambridge, and he gave a talk all about Ancient DNA and his work on creating new polymerases to recover it more accurately.  Read more

Events on Second Nature (2)

Correction to my previous post: Phil will now be coming into Second Nature to talk about his work restoring ancient DNA on Thursday 13th September, a day later than I previously said. Thanks to Andy for pointing out that Wednesday isn’t generally a good day for talks because of Second Life maintenance.  Read more

Welcome to new Second Nature residents

Welcome to new Second Nature residents

Shamefully, nearly a whole summer has passed since I last reported on Second Nature, and far too much has happened in that time to cover everything, but I do have some really exciting new developments to report. Firstly, I have started a Second Life blog on Nature Network, to talk about all things SL and Second Nature without distracting from the “real” world elsewhere.  Read more