The next time you are struggling to carry your bags home from the supermarket just remember that this could, in fact, be the reason you are able to walk upright on two legs at all! How we have evolved to walk on two legs remains a fundamental but, as yet, unresolved question for scientists. A popular explanation is that it is our ability to carry objects, particularly children, which forced early hominins onto two legs. Dr Johanna Watson (University of Manchester) will present work supporting this theory on Saturday 31st March 2007 at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Glasgow.

Box jellyfish are much more active swimmers than other jellyfish – they exhibit strong directional swimming, are able to perform rapid 180 degree turns, and can deftly move in between objects. So how do they manage to manoeuvre the obstacle course that is in the sea bed? Given that they possess an impressive 24 eyes one would think they would be well equipped for this challenge! Dr Anders Garm (Lund University, Sweden) will present data demonstrating that it is one particular sub-set of eyes that performs this job, at the Society of Experimental Biology’s Annual Meeting in Glasgow (31st March – 2nd April).

Most people know that their nails always go soft and bendy when they immerse them in hot water for any length of time. Conversely when you cut your nails they dry up and become hard and brittle. But why is this? Biologists working with material scientists at the University of Manchester have worked out the best conditions for our nails which may ultimately help the cosmetic industry to mimic the real thing and refine their false nail and varnish products.

Dr Roland Ennos and his colleagues have found that our nails are at their best at a humidity of around 60%, which is the natural humidity of the fingernail bed in which the nail sits at the ends of our fingers.

Acrylamide is considered to be a probable carcinogen and is produced from foods such as potatoes, coffee, wheat and other cereals when they are cooked at high temperatures. Reduced cooking times and temperatures can help to decrease this potentially harmful chemical but scientists at Rothamsted Research and the University of Reading are trying to tackle this problem from its source by investigating how to reduce the precursors of acrylamide in cereal plants. They will report their findings at the Society for Experimental Biology’s Annual Main Meeting in Glasgow on Sunday 1st April.

Using a brace of the most modern tools of materials research, a team from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Northwestern University has shed new light on one of mankind’s older construction materials—cement. Their refinements to our understanding of how cement and concrete actually work, reported this week in Nature Materials,* ultimately may make possible improvements in the formulation and use of cement that could save hundreds of millions of dollars in annual maintenance and repair costs for concrete structures and the country’s infrastructure.

It’s the seventh game of the World Series — bottom of the ninth inning, your team is down 4-3 with runners on second and third — and you’re on deck. You watch as your teammate gets the second out. That means you’re up with a chance to win a championship for your team...or lose it.

You’re known as a clutch hitter, and you’ve hit safely in 22 straight games — an impressive streak to be sure. But as you step into the batter’s box, your hands are sweating and your mind is racing. You think about the last time you faced this pitcher and the curveball he threw to strike you out. You look at him standing on the mound and he looks tired. You try to pick up clues from his body language. How fast is his fastball today? Will he tempt you with that curveball again?