The Prep Room plays a crucial role in the Royal Institution’s public communication of science. It is where all the equipment and demonstrations are prepared for Royal Institution events - not least the annual Christmas Lectures. This series provides a range of hands-on experiments and demonstrations across a full...

This Catalyst article explores how microbes communicate and how, by growing two different microbes together, it is possible to discover new substances which may be useful in medicine. Microbial communication happens by small bioactive molecules which the cells release into and receive from the environment. In this...

This Catalyst article investigates teixobactin, which scientists are developing as a new approach to tackling bacterial diseases to overcome the problem of antibiotic resistance.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1.

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Robert is a temperate horticultural curator at the Eden Project.  Curriculum links could include biodiversity, human impact on the environmental science, photosynthesis, limiting factors, plants, ecosystems, biomes, nutrient cycling, habitats, interdependence....

This Catalyst article looks at how our knowledge of the human genome has increased greatly during the last 10 years, and genome sequencing techniques have become much faster. On 26th June 2000 it was announced that scientists had completed a first draft of the human genome, the DNA instructions for making a human...

Several different treatments are used to autolyse yeast cells. The viability of the autolysed yeast is then tested by: plating out on agar; testing for dehydrogenase activity; microscopic examination with methylene blue.

In this activity, students investigate the three main types of memory - sensory, short-term and long-term. An explanation is given for each one and linked to a memory experiment. Students are also given five memory tasks to complete which include looking at factors that affect peoples' memories and ways in which to...

This Medical Research Council (MRC) resource discusses the brain - the most complex and least understood organ in the human body. It controls all of its activities, from breathing and listening to thinking and moving. MRC researchers are working to understand more about how the normal brain and the senses work, as...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the ‘Big Picture’ explores issues around biology and medicine.​

This resource includes...

This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how scientists plan to measure the Earth's magnetic field from space, why one researcher is in the frozen town of Churchill in northern Canada, and how the Chernobyl disaster still affects Northern...

This Catalyst article investigates the Ebola outbreak. Defeating the outbreak of the viral disease Ebola in 2014-15 required great medical effort. Antidotes and vaccines are under development.

The article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2015, Volume 26, Issue 1.

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A Catalyst article about deciding right from wrong in biology. Modern science raises many ethical questions. How these questions can be answered either ethically or by coming to a personal decision is discussed. How ethical frameworks can be used to address ethical questions is applied to the case of genetically...

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has developed a set of teaching resources based on its 2007 report The forensic use of bioinformation: ethical issues. These include teachers' background information as well as a set of activities. There are three activities to teach students to think about how fingerprints and DNA...