In this mini edition of Catalyst magazine, marine biologists Magnus Johnson and Melanie Coull, from the University of Hull, explore just how little we know about plastic waste in the ocean.

The world generates 288m tonnes of plastic worldwide each year, but little is known about it's fate in the ocean once...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine.

While providing immense benefits, drugs are not the perfect solution. They only work on a proportion of patients,...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. How do we stop new diseases emerging or re-emerging infections getting out of hand?

How does this happen in a world of...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. Why does Darwinian evolution raise controversy when, say, quantum mechanics scarcely registers on the public consciousness?

This Catalyst article takes the form of a practical activity. Many breakfast cereals are fortified with iron and it is possible to extract this from the cereal by following the instructions in the article.

This article is from Catalyst: Secondary Science Review 2008, Volume 19, Issue 2.

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Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. The Earth's climate is changing ever faster, and human activities play a role in speeding up this change.

The Earth’s climate is changing. In fact, it has always been...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. This issue looks at the interplay between the biology that sculpts our form and the culture that interprets and adapts it.

This Catalyst article explains how to make an elastic band using Copydex, a source of rubber latex. Rubber latex is a liquid polymer. It is made of long molecules which are all separate. Elastic bands are made by cross-linking the polymers in rubber latex. This changes the properties of the polymer and forms a...

This activity is based on work being carried out at The University of Oxford. A team is using laser-light to create tabletop supernovas to understand the origins of magnetic fields in our universe.

Students will act...

Published by the Wellcome Trust, the 'Big Picture' explores issues around biology and medicine. The human brain may be the most complex structure in the universe.

The brain is so powerful that it is attempting to...