The evolution of antibiotic resistance is probably the most spectacular example of evolution of a biological system innovation that we have had the opportunity to observe in real time.
Three decades after the Chernobyl accident, the biodiversity of the area has completely recovered. The mechanisms that allow organisms to live in this area are still the subject of study and controversy.
Studying evolution in the face of environmental uncertainty is crucial to understand biological diversity, because diversifying life strategies is key to survival and reproduction in uncertain environments.
More and more, ecologists are starting to recognise that preserving the maximum number of species is insufficient.
The monograph Endless forms explores some of the most pressing challenges we face as a species.
Poland would become the laboratory for an inhumane colonisation plan, the Generalplan Ost, which involved replacement of the non-Aryan population with Germanic farmers.
The concept of «blood and soil» as a historical determinant could be found in Termer’s work ten years before the Nazis used it as their state’s official ideology.
In a Germany with widespread and growing anti-Semitism, and later with the rise of Nazism, Albert Einstein’s physics faced hostility and was attacked on racial grounds.
Academic life in Vienna was hit harder by National Socialism than anywhere else in Germany, due to the high numbers of scientists of Jewish origins.
Scientists supported Nazi ideologies and policies in many ways
This monograph seeks precisely to show the level of involvement of the German academic world with Nazi postulates.
Technological advances in the study of our genome now allow us to infer whose remains have been found, for example, at a mass grave or an anonymous tomb, and to extrapolate where they lived, their physical appearance, or their family origin.
Forensic sciences make it possible to obtain evidence specifically for forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology. In Spain, the study of the brains in La Pedraja is a way to deepen forensic investigation some 80 years after the original events occurred.
One of the main pillars of bioanthropological studies are identified osteological collections. The goal of this article is to describe this heritage and show its importance.
Archaeology and anthropology have played an important role in identifying World War I soldiers. In this process of identification, the involvement of forensic or conflict archaeologists and forensic anthropologists has played an invaluable role to provide a dignified burial to those who fell for their country.
The Roman necropolis in Carrer Quart in Valencia (Spain) is the city’s oldest known cemetery. Based on its archaeological and bioanthropological analysis, we examine various hitherto unknown issues: funerary practices, social stratification, paleodemography, quality of life, and the impact of disease, food, and the subsistence economy.
This monograph offers a multidisciplinary overview of a diverse historical memory, analysed from different but complementary scientific perspectives, where history, archaeology, physical anthropology, forensic medicine, criminalistics, and genetics, among other sciences, intertwine to shed light and evidential value based on the biological vestiges of the past.
It is clear that the term synthetic biology raises expectations, but it is no less true that it also causes concern. This article starts with a critique of the identification of cells as machines and discusses the current scope of synthetic biology and efforts to standardise it. We also outline some of the social implications of attempts to manufacture life.
Energy is the blood that moves today’s society and is one of the factors that has decisively contributed to improving humanity’s quality of life. This paper addresses the potential challenges and opportunities in the development of global energy systems, emphasising how deeply interconnected the energy and climate debates are.
We are living through a crisis which we call Anthropocene. Even though we study their ecological impact, their causes are social: the destruction of cultures and biodiversity is the heritage of colonialism, although it is now following different paths or being played out by different actors.
Guaranteeing access to food for a growing human population – based on sustainability criteria and in the face of the climate change threat – is the main challenge for twenty-first-century agriculture. The solutions are inevitably complex, require a variety of coordinated measures, and are dependent on the development of technologies.
Can humans control the future evolution of our species? Based on current knowledge in genetics, one can infer and extrapolate what may happen in the near future. After all, if we are to predict the future, we must first understand the foundations of our present.
Adults and older people have most likely always wondered how the young will manage to survive in the world they are left with, and at this point in history, this is a central question in our debates. In order to resolve it, we must resort to one of the main tools we have devised to try to understand the world we live in, the one we call science.
On the occasion of the 100th issue of Mètode, we present reflections on some of these challenges, such as food and energy production, the processing of information, genetic modification, or synthetic biology.
