Related to the much-maligned minnow, many are unaware that zebrafish are in fact one of the giants of the genetics world. While more-well known, and controversial, model organisms continue to dominate the limelight, the humble zebrafish continues to plod along in the background. But a current exhibition at UCL’s Grant Museum on zebrafish and their role in science aims to change all that.

Well-understood, easily observable, and with many similarities to mammalian physiology, it should be no surprise that zebrafish studies have resulted in such a huge number of advances in a plethora of different fields. Ranging from development biology, to toxicology and evolutionary theory, its composition makes it an ideal model organism for studies of vertebrate development and gene function.

Yet despite all the incredible work, outside of the scientific community zebrafish continue to live an anonymous existence, tucked away in their domestic tanks in homes across the world.

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Can you read a skull? Did you know that the human is actually a fish? Can you tell your synapsids from your diapsids? Well read on to learn all the skull can tell us about life and evolution.

The UCL Grant Museum of Zoology has been a teaching collection for more than two decades, but last night it opened its collection for a public workshop for the first time, and I was one of the lucky souls who bagged a ticket and went along looking forward to getting my hands on some bones.

To begin, we took a seat at tables displaying a range of notably different skulls. We were then asked to take a look at the specimens in front of us and identify a number of key features that would help tell us more about what animal the skull had come from.

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In April 2011 the geographic split that has divided the UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment (GEE) for many years was brought to an end when approximately 90 academic staff, students and support staff moved from Wolfson House to the newly refurbished Darwin Building on Gower Street. The move brought them together with the UCL Genetics Institute (UGI) which is to become a hub for statistical genetic and bioinformatics research.

Yesterday marked the completion of this £5.5 million project when the Darwin Building was officially reopened by the UCL Provost. The event included a mini-symposium entitled “What can evolution tell us about today?” before Professor Steve Jones invited the Provost to cut the ribbon and declare the building open for business.

Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost, UCL, cuts the ribbon to re-open the Darwin Building

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‘The Body in Pieces’ selectively displays fragments from the UCL Great Ormond Street Hospital archive. Occupying a gatehouse building and part of the North Cloisters, this exhibition renders visible a curious collection of artefacts as they become objects of broad academic significance, after a former life at the Hospital’s research facilities, the UCL Institute of Child Health.

Most striking are the plaster casts that fill the windows of the ‘North Lodge’, visible to passers-by on Gower Street. This assortment of disembodied limbs and torsos document a variety of bone conditions found in young patients. Beautifully executed around 1870, all troubled from within and sparsely labelled, they leave huge scope for fresh interpretation.

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