And you have had that really embarrassing sex talk with him, haven’t you?Send your questions to teenageangst independent.co.uk. Well, most of it.Joe Hall, 15: It’s amazing how a snog can turn into a “conquest” Just chill about it. If there’s a lesson to be learnt, it’s probably that you listen in to your teenager’s conversations at your peril And yes, it probably is all lies. Teenagers are very thoroughly sex-educated nowadays.Zenobe Reade, 17: I think that at this point it is pertinent to congratulate yourselves as parents.

You have succeeded in raising an articulate, honest son who, most importantly of all, has respected the laws of our land and waited until he reached the legal age of consent before broadcasting and probably partaking in sexual exploits.Ellie Veryard, 15: Whether they’re true or not depends on what kind of person he is. Either way the “conquests” will be highly exaggerated, especially if he’s bragging to people who he thinks could have done better than him.Kim Sanderson, 16: If I were you, I’d be more worried about the bragging than the shagging After all, a gentleman never tells. This either means he’s telling the truth, or he has invented a mythical, intangible yet perfect woman who is unable, for one reason or another to get to know his friends In any case, I wouldn’t be too worried. Anyway, I’m not the person to ask, as I totally don’t understand boys these days.Jess Seldon, 17: It’s all lies.Alex Ward, 17: Depends on the context. He knows that he’ll look very stupid if his supposed partners deny all knowledge of the event. You shouldn’t be too worried, unless the conversation has something to do with mail-order brides.

Then worry.Holly Arup, 15: Well, it’s most likely lies because guys are like that a lot, I think. But, I mean, to be honest, if he’s 16, then it’s legal, right? So there shouldn’t be a problem. What do you think?’

Jackie Shaw, Exeter
Leoni Bunch, 15: A 16-year-old bragging to friends about sexual experience? Yeah, right, and I shagged Joe Bloggs last night.Max Hart-Walsh, 13: All teenagers have to boast about something. “It’s only relatively recently that we have begun to appreciate that fungi are individual organisms that interact with one another in the same way as other organisms,” Professor Boddy says. “But it will be many years before we fully understand these interactions”..

`I overheard my son, who’s 16, bragging to his friends about multiple sexual conquests I’m reeling, but his father says it’s probably all lies. The organism was devoting large internal resources to the fight. However, when it appeared that it was losing the battle, it rapidly shunted its resources as far away as possible, presumably so that the enemy did not capture them.”Working with Dr Jonathan Leake of the University of Sheffield, the Cardiff team has also looked at the fighting strategies of a class of fungi that form associations, called mycorrhizae, with plants. These fungi live in intimate contact with the roots of plants, providing the plant with nutrients and water from the soil and receiving sugars in return.”What we have seen here is that when a mycorrhizal fungus meets an enemy in the soil, the allocation of carbon to the interaction zone rapidly reduces,” says Professor Boddy says. “We have seen, for example, that if one part of the mycelium encounters a new resource, it will colonise it and send a message to the other regions of the mycelium to send supplies to enable it to start digesting,” Professor Boddy says.Until about 25 years ago, mycologists generally considered that the vast network of fungal mycelia in the soil was simply an indistinguishable mass of fungal matter. “Sometimes you see very close interaction between opposing hyphae and, presumably, there is some subtle release of chemicals that results in one or other retreating, or else deadlock,” Professor Boddy says.