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Not Exactly Rocket Science

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This is a full list of posts from Not Exactly Rocket Science. If this shows up in the feed, ignore it.

January 2012

#1197- 30/01/12 –Since pythons invaded, Florida’s mammal populations have crashed
#1196- 30/01/12 –Prions enter stealth mode in the spleen, causing silent infections
#1195- 26/01/12 –Jumping spiders use blurry vision to judge distance
#1194- 25/01/12 –Bonobos: the self-domesticated ape?
#1193- 19/01/12 –Male bowerbirds use forced perspective architecture to get more sex
#1192- 18/01/12 –Primed by expectations – why a classic psychology experiment isn’t what it seemed
#1191- 17/01/12 –Snakes know when to stop squeezing because they sense the heartbeats of their prey
#1190- 17/01/12 –Every scientists-versus-journalists debate ever, in one diagram
#1189- 17/01/12 –Starfish go five ways, but two ways when stressed
#1188- 16/01/12 –How I became we, which became I again
#1187- 12/01/12 –Ocean sunfish get cleaned by albatrosses
#1186- 11/01/12 –No, wait, THIS is the world’s smallest frog
#1185- 10/01/12 –Infectious bacteria in your gut create black market for weapons
#1184- 09/01/12 –Flesh-eating plant traps worms with sticky underground leaves
#1183- 09/01/12 –Genetic footprints of “extinct” giant tortoises in living hybrids offer hope for resurrection
#1182- 06/01/12 –Return of the supersoldier ants
#1181- 05/01/12 –Fish mimics octopus that mimics fish
#1180- 04/01/12 –How leaping lizards, dinosaurs and robots use their tails
#1179- 04/01/12 –Wrestling ninjas – why sabre-toothed predators have massive arms
#1178- 03/01/12 –Parasitic fly spotted in honeybees, causes workers to abandon colonies
#1177- 03/01/12 –Genetically engineered silkworms with spider genes spin super-strong silk
#1176- 02/01/12 –Violinists can’t tell the difference between Stradivarius violins and new ones

December 2011

#1175- 27/12/11 –Skin bacteria affect how attractive we smell to malarial mosquitoes
#1174- 27/12/11 – Larger monkey groups lose fights because they contain more deserters
#1173- 26/12/11 – Ocean bacteria glow to turn themselves into bait
#1172- 24/12/11 – My top 12 longreads of 2011
#1171- 23/12/11 – Why do scorpions glow in the dark (and could their whole bodies be one big eye)?
#1170- 22/12/11 – Meet the owner of the world’s largest collection of frozen elephant feet
#1169- 21/12/11 – The rainforest mezzanine – a vital layer of fallen leaves held aloft by fungal nets
#1168- 20/12/11 – Why aren’t all chillies hot?
#1167- 15/12/11 – Look, no hands: ants kill termites with airborne chemical weapons
#1166- 14/12/11 – Deinonychus and Velociraptor used their killing claws to pin prey, like eagles and hawks
#1165- 14/12/11 – Death in the octopus’s garden
#1164- 13/12/11 – The semi-naked ape, or why peach fuzz makes it harder for parasites
#1163- 12/12/11 – Meet the Agta, a tribe where a quarter of men have been attacked by giant snakes
#1162- 09/12/11 – Empathic rats spring each other from jail
#1161- 08/12/11 – How headbutts and dances give bees a hive mind
#1160- 08/12/11 – How acquiring The Knowledge changes the brains of London cab drivers
#1159- 07/12/11 – The sharp eyes of Anomalocaris, a top predator that lived half a billion years ago
#1158- 06/12/11 – Leaproach leaps, is roach
#1157- 05/12/11 – Fire ants conquered America by monopolising calorie-rich food
#1156- 04/12/11 – The rubbish sperm of the naked mole rat
#1155- 02/12/11 – Titan dinosaur may have stored minerals in skin bones
#1154- 01/12/11 – Sociable wasps have an eye for faces

November 2011

#1153- 30/11/11 – How tiny wasps cope with being smaller than amoebas
#1152- 29/11/11 – Turtle embryos can speed up their development to hatch together with their siblings
#1151- 28/11/11 – Infants prefer a nasty moose if it punishes an unhelpful elephant
#1150- 24/11/11 – Burgling beetle targets plants with the heaviest security
#1149- 23/11/11 – Spiders coat their silk with an ant-repellent
#1148- 22/11/11 – Insects trade bacteria by drinking from the same plant
#1147- 21/11/11 – Microraptor – the four-winged dinosaur that ate birds
#1146- 17/11/11 – Some like it hot (if they’re riddled with parasites)
#1145- 16/11/11 – How coral snakes cause excruciating pain
#1144- 15/11/11 – OXTR gene produces differences in kind behaviour that people can spot in 20 seconds
#1143- 14/11/11 – Faecal diet gives bumblebees defensive bacteria that protect them from parasites
#1142- 13/11/11 – Scientists track the evolution of an epidemic to show how bacteria adapt
#1141- 10/11/11 – Octopuses and squids can switch camouflage mode to stay invisible in the twilight zon4
#1140- -09/11/11 – Did humans trade guts for brains?
#1139- 08/11/11 – GRAWR! Finally, some actual dinosaur facts
#1138- 08/11/11 – Cross-dressing raptors avoid violence
#1137- 07/11/11 – Computer gamers develop problem-solving algorithm that beats scientists’ best efforts
#1136- 07/11/11 – Stone-cutter finds fossil whale in marble slabs
#1135- 03/11/11 – Stunning wren duets are conceived as a whole but sung in two parts
#1134- 02/11/11 – Extending healthy life by getting rid of retired cells
#1133- 01/11/11 – Fossil eyes show wraparound three-dimensional vision, half a billion years ago

October 2011

#1132- 31/10/11 – Man with schizophrenia has out-of-body experience in lab, gains knowledge, controls his psychosis
#1131- 31/10/11 – Our bodies are a global marketplace where bacteria trade genes
#1130- 27/10/11 – A recipe for growing bigger hearts, found in the blood of pythons
#1129- 27/10/11 – From unknown cancer gene to potential cancer drug
#1128- 27/10/11 – Hagfish filmed choking sharks with slime, and actively hunting fish
#1127- 26/10/11 – March of the titans: fossil teeth show dinosaurs heading for the hills
#1126- 26/10/11 – Sex increases risk of being paralysed, buried, eaten alive (for locusts)
#1125- 24/10/11 – Reef alliances: goatfish hunt in packs, while groupers team up with moray eels
#1124- 20/10/11 – “Living fossil” cycad plants are actually evolution’s comeback king
#1123- 18/10/11 – Butch tail made Carnotaurus a champion dinosaur sprinter
#1122- 17/10/11 – The two-genome waltz: how the threat of mismatched partners shapes complex life
#1121- 13/10/11 – Beneficial gut bacteria can become virus collaborators
#1120- 12/10/11 – Scientists correct the typo behind a genetic liver disease
#1119- 12/10/11 – Scientists sequence the full Black Death genome and find the mother of all plagues
#1118- 10/10/11 – Mole rat continuously grows new teeth in shark-like conveyor
#1117- 06/10/11 – ‘Chivalrous’ crickets dying to let females go first
#1116- 05/10/11 – Monkeys grab and feel virtual objects with thoughts alone (and what this means for the World Cup)
#1115- 05/10/11 – Clumps of rogue Parkinson’s proteins spread to new neurons and seed more clumps
#1114- 03/10/11 – Transplanted arteries stiffen up if their clocks are broken

September 2011

#1113- 30/09/11 – Incredible skin helps springtails to keep dry underwater and always stay clean
#1112- 30/09/11 – One gene turns low-ranking mice into alpha-rodents
#1111- 29/09/11 – Twitter as a giant global mood ring
#1110- 26/09/11 – How the miracle fruit changes sour into sweet
#1109- 26/09/11 – If you see a glowing millipede, best not to bite it
#1108- 21/09/11 – Beetle larva lures and kills frogs, while the adult hunts and paralyses them
#1107- 21/09/11 – Flesh-eating plant inspires super-slippery material that repels everything
#1106- 20/09/11 – Indiscriminate squid just implanting everyone with sperm
#1105- 19/09/11 – Lies, damned lies, and honey badgers
#1104- 18/09/11 – Computer gamers solve problem in AIDS research that puzzled scientists for years
#1103- 15/09/11 – Amber trapped dinosaur feathers at different stages in their evolution
#1102- 15/09/11 – Snails cross continents by flying inside birds
#1101- 14/09/11 – Beetles turn eggs into shields to protect their young from body-snatchers
#1100- 14/09/11 – Nile crocodile is actually two species (and the Egyptians knew it)
#1099- 13/09/11 – Knowledgeable individuals protect the wisdom of crowds
#1098- 12/09/11 – Humans and Neanderthals had sex, but not very often
#1097- 08/09/11 – Hummingbirds dive to sing with their tails
#1096- 08/09/11 – Liquefying virus uses one gene to make caterpillars climb to their doom
#1095- 07/09/11 – Jumping genes spread by going up for seconds
#1094- 06/09/11 – Honeyguide chicks stab their foster siblings to death with hooked bills
#1093- 05/09/11 – Bacteria use electric wires to shock uranium out of groundwater
#1092- 01/09/11 – Genetic logic circuit makes cells self-destruct if they look cancerous

August 2011

#1091- 31/08/11 – Bacteria: resisting antibiotics since at least 30,000 BC
#1090- 30/08/11 – The lost plague – London graveyards suggest that Black Death strain may be extinct
#1089- 29/08/11 – From guts to brains – eating probiotic bacteria changes behaviour in mice
#1088- 28/08/11 – The genetic sergeants that keep stem cells stemmy
#1087- 25/08/11 – Did sex with Neanderthals and Denisovans shape our immune systems? The jury’s still out
#1086- 25/08/11 – Ostriches sleep like platypuses (and look wide awake when they do)
#1085- 24/08/11 – Defeating dengue by releasing mosquitoes with virus-blocking bacteria
#1084- 23/08/11 – Disease from human sewage is killing Caribbean corals
#1083- 22/08/11 – Raise your pints to the Patagonian fungus that helped us to brew lager
#1082- 22/08/11 – Eco-labelled fish may be unsustainably fished, or the wrong species
#1081- 20/08/11 – The Amazon rainforest from the air
#1080- 17/08/11 – Finches die earlier if they’re paired with highly strung partners
#1079- 16/08/11 – Whales sucked before they sieved
#1078- 16/08/11 – Scientists engineer suicide bomber bacteria to kill other bacteria
#1077- 15/08/11 – The threatening vibes of whip spiders (Warning: NSFA)
#1076- 12/08/11 – The world’s biggest market (and it’s underground)
#1075- 11/08/11 – Hair-thin ‘electronic skin’ monitors hearts and brains, controls video games
#1074- 11/08/11 – Pregnant plesiosaur with giant foetus hints at caring parents
#1073- 09/08/11 – Ancient Greek athletes did it gibbon-style
#1072- 09/08/11 – Need to feed could have driven single cells to evolve into colonies
#1071- 08/08/11 – Charity of the apes – chimps spontaneously help each other
#1070- 05/08/11 – Five myths about memory (and why they matter in court)
#1069- 03/08/11 – New neurons buffer the brains of mice against stress and depressive symptoms
#1068- 03/08/11 – How vampire bats tuned their thermometers to evolve a heat-seeking face
#1067- 02/08/11 – Crested rat slobbers tree poison on its fur, dares predators to bite it
#1066- 02/08/11 – Deader than dead: people in vegetative states are viewed as deader than corpses
#1065- 01/08/11 – Harmless snakes avoid danger by mimicking the triangular heads of vipers

July 2011

#1064- 28/07/11 – Vine lures bats with leaves that act as sonar dishes
#1063- 28/07/11 – Why do flying lemurs glide?
#1062- 27/07/11 – Memory improves when neurons fire in youthful surroundings
#1061- 27/07/11 – Earliest bird was not a bird? New fossil muddles the Archaeopteryx story
#1060- 27/07/11 – Insert Tongue Here – flower arrows guide fly tongues
#1059- 26/07/11 – Dolphin detects electric fields with ex-whisker pits
#1058- 26/07/11 – Is the parasite Toxoplasma gondii linked to brain cancer?
#1057- 26/07/11 – Turkish cancer villages warn of epidemic to come along North Dakota’s roads
#1056- 25/07/11 – Genetic snooze button shows that broken sleep impairs memories
#1055- 22/07/11 – Moon wanes, Leo rises – lion attacks more common in week after a full moon
#1054- 21/07/11 – House mice picked up poison resistance gene by having sex with related species
#1053- 20/07/11 – Children share when they work together, chimps do not
#1052- 20/07/11 – One gene keeps Mickey from turning into Minnie
#1051- 19/07/11 – To win at rock-paper-scissors, put on a blindfold
#1050- 18/07/11 – The power of nouns – tiny word change increases voter turnout
#1049- 15/07/11 – Hermaphrodite insects fertilise daughters with parasitic sperm
#1048- 14/07/11 – Hacking the genome with a MAGE and a CAGE
#1047- 14/07/11 – The extended mind – how Google affects our memories
#1046- 12/07/11 – Newt healing factors unaffected by age and injury
#1045- 1/07/11 – Fish fins and mouse feet controlled by the same ancient genetic switch
#1044- 10/07/11 – Seeing an American flag can shift voters towards Republicanism
#1043- 07/07/11 – English monkey gives itself a pedicure with self-made tools
#1042- 06/07/11 – Beauty is in the brain of the beholder
#1041- 05/07/11 – Bone holes suggest active dinosaurs
#1040- 05/07/11 – The disease trackers

June 2011

#1039- 29/06/11 – Parasitising Grandma – why alien eggs can be a sign of helpful families
#1038- 28/06/11 – Am I a science journalist?
#1037- 27/06/11 – The living toothbrushes that keep coral reefs healthy
#1036- 27/06/11 – Mind control goes wireless
#1035- 26/06/11 – To discover the point of sleep, scientists breed flies that nod off on demand
#1034- 23/06/11 – Switching on genes with a burst of blue light
#1033- 21/06/11 – Wasps, ladybirds and the perils of hiring zombie bodyguards
#1032- 21/06/11 – Humans have a magnetic sensor in our eyes, but can we detect magnetic fields?
#1031- 20/06/11 – Tiny wing hairs allow bats to pull off hair-raising manoeuvres
#1030- 20/06/11 – Herding HIV into an evolutionary dead end – study finds the virus’s weak spots
#1029- 17/06/11 – Tiny water insect makes record-breaking song with his penis
#1028- 15/06/11 – Spider-slayer uses ninja stealth, unbreakable grip and body armour
#1027- 14/06/11 – Satellite pictures reveal “landscape of fear” in Great Barrier Reef
#1026- 13/06/11 – Can intelligence be boosted by a simple task? For some…
#1025- 09/06/11 – Does Whatever a Spider Can – a gallery of incredible spiders
#1024- 09/06/11 – The diving bell and the spider
#1023- 08/06/11 – Crows and parrots – brainy birds, but in different ways
#1022- 08/06/11 – The Renaissance man: how to become a scientist over and over again
#1021- 07/06/11 – As bats hibernate through the winter, so does rabies
#1020- 06/06/11 – Jellyfish shift ocean food webs by feeding bacteria with mucus and excrement
#1019- 02/06/11 – Buttery perfume deters mosquitoes by overloading their sense of smell
#1018- 01/06/11 – Meet Mephisto, the worm that rules the underworld

May 2011

#1017- 31/05/11 – Fighting evolution with evolution – using viruses to target drug-resistant bacteria
#1016- 30/05/11 – The bees that mummify beetles alive
#1015- 26/05/11 – Scientists transform skin cells directly into neurons
#1014- 26/05/11 – The Alice Illusion – scientists convince people that they’re dolls or giants
#1013- 25/05/11 – The brain on sonar – how blind people find their way around with echoes
#1012- 25/05/11 – Shastasaurus sucked
#1011- 24/05/11 – Dogs do drink like cats after all
#1010- 24/05/11 – All-male clams escape from genetic canyons by stealing eggs
#1009- 23/05/11 – Turtle embryos bask against the warmest side of their own eggs
#1008- 20/05/11 – Bad gossip affects our vision as well as our judgment
#1007- 19/05/11 – Life’s deliberate typos
#1006- 18/05/11 – Cryptolacerta and the rise of the worm-lizards
#1005- 16/05/11 – Tarantulas climb by shooting silk from their feet
#1004- 13/05/11 – Building anti-flu drugs on a computer
#1003- 13/05/11 – Why you should enter science writing competitions
#1002- 12/05/11 – Why sons inherit their mother’s curse
#1001- 12/05/11 – An entire flatworm regenerated from a single adult cell
#1000- 11/05/11 – A memory for pain, stored in the spine
#999- 11/05/11 – Pocket Science – will all camouflaged cuttlefish please raise their tentacles?
#998- 10/05/11 – Twinning is winning – mothers of twins live longer, raise larger families
#997- 09/05/11 – Not my concern – how choice can make us more selfish
#996- 05/05/11 – One generation, new species – all-female lizard bred in a lab
#995- 04/05/11 – From 250 million years of repression, a wonderland of hats
#994- 03/05/11 – Thylacine was more Tasmanian tiger than marsupial wolf
#993- 02/05/11 – Sea urchins use their entire body as an eye

April 2011

#992- 28/04/11 – In African rivers, an electric Tower of Babel
#991- 28/04/11 – Why box jellyfish always have four eyes on the sky
#990- 27/04/11 – The eyes have it – incredible ways of seeing the world
#989- 27/04/11 – Individual neurons go to sleep while rats stay awake
#988- 26/04/11 – IQ scores reflect motivation as well as ‘intelligence’
#987- 25/04/11 – Fire ants assemble into living waterproof rafts
#986- 21/04/11 – The many yous in you – what Lydia Fairchild has in common with a sponge and an anemone
#985- 20/04/11 – Divided by language, united by gut bacteria – people have three common gut types
#984- 19/04/11 – Kukrisnakes fight for turtle nests with dagger teeth, forked penises and false heads
#983- 18/04/11 – Orchid flowers fool flat-footed flies by faking fungus-infected foliage
#982- 14/04/11 – Dinosaurs around the clock, or how we know Velociraptor hunted by night
#981- 14/04/11 – Chitons see with eyes made of rock
#980- 12/04/11 – Moth and plant hit on the same ways of making cyanide
#979- 12/04/11 – Breast cells naturally transform into stem cells
#978- 11/04/11 – Justice is served, but more so after lunch: how food-breaks sway the decisions of judges
#977- 07/04/11 – Disordered environments promote stereotypes and discrimination
#976- 07/04/11 – Sleepless in Mexico – three cavefish groups independently evolved to lose sleep
#975- 06/04/11 – A timeline of the Fukushima disaster
#974- 05/04/11 – Solar salamanders have algae in their cells
#973- 05/04/11 – World’s 2nd deadliest poison, in an aquarium store near you
#972- 04/04/11 – Treasure hunt ends with a stunning fossil of a flying insect

March 2011

#971- 31/03/11 – Pocket Science – wasps airlift ants away from food
#970- 29/03/11 – Why is aspirin toxic to cats?
#969- 28/03/11 – Antarctic lake hints at a world of virus-attacking viruses
#968- 28/03/11 – Spider-boarding insect preserved in amber
#967- 25/03/11 – Beetle turns itself into a wheel (that’s how it rolls)
#966- 23/03/11 – Low-serotonin mice less choosy about sex of partners
#965- 22/03/11 – Vegetarian piranhas are the Amazon’s champion gardeners
#964- 21/03/11 – Scientists finish a 53-year-old classic experiment on the origins of life
#963- 20/03/11 – Vultures use tools. Ravens use vultures. Vultures are tools
#962- 17/03/11 – Our closest relatives – a visual tour of the primates
#961- 17/03/11 – Replaying evolution reveals the benefits of being slow and steady
#960- 15/03/11 – Older elephants know the best anti-lion moves
#959- 15/03/11 – How the Transylvanian naked neck chicken got its naked neck
#958- 14/03/11 – A child couldn’t paint that – can people tell abstract art from a child’s or chimp’s work?
#957- 09/03/11 – Control Altered by Deletion – is lost DNA behind our bigger brains and spineless penises?
#956- 08/03/11 – Elephants give each other a helping trunk
#955- 07/03/11 – People don’t know when they’re lying to themselves
#954- 03/03/11 – Single protein can strengthen old faded memories
#953- 03/03/11 – Exposing the memory engine: the story of PKMzeta
#952- 03/03/11 – Todd Sacktor talks about the memory engine
#951- 02/03/11 – Worrying genetic changes in reprogrammed stem cells
#950- 01/03/11 – When diving into food, why not absorb it through your skin?

February 2011

#949- 28/02/11 – Fossil pits show how ammonites turned parasites into pearls
#948- 24/02/11 – Fungus loaded with scorpion toxin to fight malaria
#947- 24/02/11 – Turtles use the Earth’s magnetic field as a global GPS
#946- 23/02/11 – Is crime a virus or a beast? How metaphors shape our thoughts and decisions
#945- 23/02/11 – The Beeblebrox Illusion: scientists convince people they have three arms
#944- 23/02/11 – Meet Diania the walking cactus, an early cousin of life’s great winners
#943- 22/02/11 – Drying out the cane toad invasion
#942- 21/02/11 – Pocket Science: Stealth mode in the sea
#941- 17/02/11 – A crystal ball for predicting the future of flu
#940- 17/02/11 – Social animals evolve to stand out among the crowd
#939- 16/02/11 – Gonorrhea has picked up human DNA (and that’s just the beginning)
#938- 16/02/11 – Prehistoric Brits made the world’s earliest skull-cups
#937- 16/02/11 – Pocket Science – meat-eating plants with ultrafast traps
#936- 15/02/11 – Vampire spider drawn to the smell of human feet
#935- 15/02/11 – How much would it cost to identify all the animals?
#934- 14/02/11 – Neurons ravaged by infectious mutant sod
#933- 10/02/11 – Disfiguring disease caused by an alliance between three parasites
#932- 10/02/11 – Rage-inducing chemical on squid eggs turns males into violent thugs
#931- 09/02/11 – Shedding light on sex and violence in the brain
#930- 08/02/11 – Staying out of the arms race, or when evolution goes “meh”
#929- 07/02/11 – Playing by the same rules reduces the differences between humans, chimps and monkeys
#928- 03/02/11 – Unattractive partners are stressful for choosy birds
#927- 02/02/11 – Monkey see, monkey facepalm
#926- 02/02/11 – Can electrical jolts to the brain produce Eureka moments?
#925- 02/02/11 – Research into reprogrammed stem cells: an interactive timeline
#924- 02/02/11 – Reprogrammed stem cells are loaded with errors
#923- 01/02/11 – Genetic trick makes black crazy ants adapted for conquest

January 2011

#922- 31/01/11 – Gut bacteria steer the development of the young brain
#921- 27/01/11 – Celebrating female science bloggers
#920- 26/01/11 – An injection and a nap: two ways of strengthening memories
#919- 25/01/11 – Flesh-eating plant doubles as bat-cave
#918- 24/01/11 – Self-control in childhood predicts health and wealth in adulthood
#917- 20/01/11 – Contagious cancers switch their batteries
#916- 19/01/11 – Meet Dicty the amoeba – the world’s smallest farmer
#915- 18/01/11 – Are science blogs stuck in an echo chamber? Chamber? Chamber?
#914- 18/01/11 – When teaching restrains discovery
#913- 13/01/11 – Writing about exam worries for 10 minutes improves student results
#912- 12/01/11 – Flipper bands impair penguin survival and breeding success
#911- 11/01/11 – Foxes use the Earth’s magnetic field as a targeting system
#910- 11/01/11 – No love for outsiders – oxytocin boosts favouritism towards our own ethnic or cultural group
#909- 10/01/11 – The sexual battles of flatworms: barbed sperm, mating rings, traumatic insemination, and goi9g down on yourself
#908- 06/01/11 – Bacteria ate up all the methane that spilled from the Deepwater Horizon well
#907- 06/01/11 – Tears as chemical signals – smell of female tears affects sexual behaviour of men
#906- 05/01/11 – Tough bacteria use domesticated viruses to resist antibiotics
#905- 04/01/11 – Xenicibis, the extinct ibis that swung its wings like clubs
#904- 03/01/11 – Forget butterflies – wasps and flies have hidden rainbows in their wings

December 2010

#903- 22/12/10 – Evidence that placebos could work even if you tell people they’re taking placebos
#902- 21/12/10 – Eight-year-old children publish bee study in Royal Society journal
#901- 20/12/10 – Do young female chimps play with sticks as dolls?
#900- 18/12/10 – Arsenic Bacteria 4: The Quest for Peace
#899- 17/12/10 – Parasitic worms paint warning colours on their hosts using glowing bacteria
#898- 16/12/10 – The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages
#897- 16/12/10 – Meet the woman without fear
#896- 15/12/10 – Sea snail turns its entire shell into a glowing lamp
#895- 14/12/10 – Bird of paradise creates colourful dance with microscopic mirrors in its feathers
#894- 13/12/10 – ‘Friendly’ genes are more likely to be passed around
#893- 10/12/10 – Arsenic bacteria – a post-mortem, a review, and some navel-gazing
#892- 09/12/10 – Curb those food cravings by imagining yourself eating lots of food
#891- 09/12/10 – Blue whales can eat half a million calories in a single mouthful
#890- 07/12/10 – Frogs debug themselves by absorbing tracking devices into their bladders
#889- 07/12/10 – Single gene creates snake-resistant mirror-image snails, and maybe some new species
#888- 06/12/10 – The size of your brain’s visual centre affects how you see the world
#887- 02/12/10 – Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic (and no, this isn’t about aliens)

November 2010

#886- 30/11/10 – An entire world follows the march of the army ants
#885- 29/11/10 – The dark side of oxytocin, much more than just a “love hormone”
#884- 25/11/10 – 15-minute writing exercise closes the gender gap in university-level physics
#883- 25/11/10 – How birds see magnetic fields – an interview with Thorsten Ritz
#882- 24/11/10 – How birds see magnetic fields – an interview with Klaus Schulten
#881- 24/11/10 – On jargon, and why it matters in science writing
#880- 23/11/10 – Meet the squidworm: half-worm, half-squid… er, actually all-worm
#879- 23/11/10 – Two fish families evolved electric powers by tweaking the same gene
#878- 22/11/10 – Fake CVs reveal discrimination against Muslims in French job market
#877- 18/11/10 – I am virus – animal genomes contain more fossil viruses than ever expected
#876- 17/11/10 – Jumping genes mobilise in the brains of people with Rett syndrome
#875- 17/11/10 – Parrotfish sleep in a mosquito net made of mucus
#874- 16/11/10 – Sharks gone walkabout – how Australian great whites ended up in the Mediterranean
#873- 16/11/10 – Gut bacteria recap the evolution of apes
#872- 15/11/10 – Butchered or trampled? Gloves come off in bone mark debate
#871- 15/11/10 – Evolutionary trees help to convict men who knowingly infected women with HIV
#870- 11/11/10 – How the cat that got the cream then drank it
#869- 10/11/10 – Tetris could prevent post-traumatic stress disorder flashbacks (but quiz games make them worse)
#868- 10/11/10 – A sticky case of eight-legged housework
#867- 09/11/10 – Body-snatching, not socialising, drove the evolution of bigger-brained insects
#866- 09/11/10 – Review: Written in Stone by Brian Switek
#865- 08/11/10 – For polar bears, the price of rapid evolution is a weaker skull
#864- 04/11/10 – Genetic study shows how HIV controllers get their groove
#863- 04/11/10 – Coin-sized frog becomes mite-y thanks to poisonous diet
#862- 03/11/10 – The bird that cries hawk: fork-tailed drongos rob meerkats with false alarms
#861- 03/11/10 – Turning secondary school children into research scientists
#860- 02/11/10 – Retinal implant partially restores sight in blind people
#859- 02/11/10 – How bats find water and why metal confuses them
#858- 01/11/10 – Gut bacteria change the sexual preferences of fruit flies
#857- 01/11/10 – The signature of the bluffing brain

October 2010

#856- 28/10/10 – Two ways of spotting mistakes while typing
#855- 26/10/10 – The strumming assassin that hunts spiders on their own webs
#854- 20/10/10 – The origin of complex life – it was all about energy
#853- 19/10/10 – When in doubt, shout – why shaking someone’s beliefs turns them into stronger advocates
#852- 14/10/10 – Salmonella gets its host to arm its secret weapon
#851- 13/10/10 – Wine-scented flower draws in fruit flies with yeasty tones
#850- 12/10/10 – Across an ocean, round a continent – the epic 10,000km voyage of a humpback whale
#849- 11/10/10 – Invasive shrub increases risk of human disease (via ticks, deer and bacteria)
#848- 06/10/10 – How to make meerkats even more sociable
#847- 05/10/10 – Walking with dinosaur ancestors – footprints put dinosaur-like beasts at scene of life’s great comeback

September 2010

#846- 30/09/10 – A fossil penguin gets its colours
#845- 29/09/10 – Women make safer financial decisions when faced with sexual stereotypes
#844- 28/09/10 – Squirrels masturbate to avoid sexually transmitted infections
#843- 28/09/10 – Genetic flip produces two plants for the price of one
#842- 27/09/10 – Every time you reach for something, there’s a squabbling match in your brain
#841- 23/09/10 – Should science journalists take sides?
#840- 23/09/10 – The liver’s genetic conveyor
#839- 22/09/10 – One jump from gorillas to humans – the origin of malaria
#838- 21/09/10 – A possible icy start for life
#837- 21/09/10 – Slackers and parasites can sometimes make the best partners
#836- 20/09/10 – The stealthy sea walnut sucks to succeed
#835- 16/09/10 – A spider web that spans rivers made from the world’s toughest biological material
#834- 16/09/10 – Fishing for fat: why learning to use tools is worth it for the New Caledonian crow
#833- 15/09/10 – Gene therapy saves patient from lifetime of blood transfusions
#832- 14/09/10 – Attack of the cloned soldier worms
#831- 13/09/10 – Tree or ring: the origin of complex cells
#830- 11/09/10 – In which I set up a collaboration between a biologist, a farmer and a chimeric chicken
#829- 09/09/10 – Male bowerbirds create forced perspective illusions that only females see
#828- 08/09/10 – Of writers and activists – are science bloggers being ambitious enough?
#827- 08/09/10 – The shark-toothed dinosaur with a ‘fin’ on its back (Pocket Science)
#826- 07/09/10 – Spots plus spots equals maze: how animals create living patterns
#825- 02/09/10 – Threatened by elephants? Try recruiting ants
#824- 01/09/10 – Charitable bacteria protect vulnerable sisters from antibiotics
#823- 01/09/10 – Do new discoveries ever “rewrite evolutionary history”?

August 2010

#822- 31/08/10 – Bonobo males get sex with help from their mums
#821- 31/08/10 – Massive eggs were the most fragile of any bird (Pocket Science)
#820- 31/08/10 – Goodbye smallpox vaccination, hello monkeypox
#819- 30/08/10 – Balaur the stocky dragon – Velociraptor’s double-clawed Romanian cousin
#818- 29/08/10 – The beetle with bifocal eyes
#817- 27/08/10 – Tobacco leaves emit warning chemicals that summon predators when mixed with caterpillar spit
#816- 26/08/10 – Two heads better than one (if the heads talk and know how competent they are)
#815- 26/08/10 – When Interviewees Record! An experiment/interview on journalism
#814- 25/08/10 – Why gonorrhoea is like a general sabotaging his own siege
#813- 24/08/10 – Oil-eating bacteria have started to clean the Deepwater Horizon spill
#812- 23/08/10 – Deconstructing Gawande – why narrative and structure are important
#811- 19/08/10 – Ninja bat whispers to sneak up on moths
#810- 18/08/10 – Float like a butterfly, sting like a terror bird
#809- 18/08/10 – The genetic side to chimpanzee culture
#808- 17/08/10 – Pocket science – swordfish and flatfish are close kin, and ancient death-grip scars
#807- 16/08/10 – Genes and culture: OXTR gene influences social behaviour differently in Americans and Koreans
#806- 16/08/10 – Disease by coincidence – why we’re caught in the crossfire of a hidden war
#805- 12/08/10 – Expedition records show severe orangutan decline
#804- 11/08/10 – Human ancestors carved meat with stone tools almost a million years earlier than expected
#803- 10/08/10 – Brainless slime mould makes decisions like humans
#802- 10/08/10 – Male water striders summon predators to blackmail females into having sex
#801- 09/08/10 – Pocket Science – back-scratching disabled chimps and free-falling aphids
#800- 08/08/10 – An introduction to the microbiome
#799- 06/08/10 – Pocket Science – lessons from spongy genomes, and a deadly bat-killing disease
#798- 05/08/10 – “I haven’t had sex for 40 million years. Should I worry?”
#797- 04/08/10 – Foldit – tapping the wisdom of computer gamers to solve tough scientific puzzles
#796- 04/08/10 – Pakasuchus – the crocodile that’s trying to be a mammal
#795- 03/08/10 – You are what you eat – how your diet defines you in trillions of ways
#794- 02/08/10 – Orangutans are masters of conserving energy

July 2010

#793- 30/07/10 – Pocket Science: plague-running mice, and how to watch mutations in real time
#792- 29/07/10 – On the Origin of Science Writers
#791- 28/07/10 – A warmer ocean is a less green one
#790- 27/07/10 – Jellyfish eye genes suggest a common origin for animal eyes
#789- 26/07/10 – Sniff-detector allows paralysed people to write messages, surf the net and drive a wheelchair
#788- 23/07/10 – Pocket Science – belly-flopping frogs, and fattening marmots
#787- 22/07/10 – Mosses use explosive cannons and mushroom clouds to spread their spores
#786- 21/07/10 – How I got my genes tested, and the birth of Science Writer Disease Risk Top Trumps
#785- 20/07/10 – The olm: the blind cave salamander that lives to 100
#784- 19/07/10 – Reprogrammed stem cells carry a memory of their past identities
#783- 15/07/10 – Bearded goby munches jellyfish, ignores toxic gases, is generally very hard
#782- 15/07/10 – Caring with cash, or How Radiohead could have made more money
#781-12/07/10 – Genes from Arctic bacteria used to create new vaccines
#780- 11/07/10 – The secret history of X and Z – how sex chromosomes from humans and chickens found common ground
#779- 09/07/10 – Friendly bacteria protect flies from sterilising worms
#778- 08/07/10 – Robins can literally see magnetic fields, but only if their vision is sharp
#777- 07/07/10 – Norfolk – the home of the earliest known humans in Britain
#776- 06/07/10 – Losing Nemo 2 – clownfish swim towards predators as CO2 levels rise
#775- 06/07/10 – Sports results can affect election results
#774- 02/07/10 – Pocket Science – 2.1 billion year old fossils, and arm-wrestling a sabre-tooth cat
#773- 01/07/10 – Genetic signatures for extreme old age accurately predict odds of living past 100

June 2010

#772- 30/06/10 – Behold Leviathan: the sperm whale that killed other whales
#771- 30/06/10 – Does national IQ depend on parasite infections? Er…
#769- 29/06/10 – Giant dinosaurs used the planet to warm their eggs
#768- 28/06/10 – Ambush ants capture giant prey using Velcro principles
#767- 24/06/10 – Heavy, rough and hard – how the things we touch affect our judgments and decisions
#766- 16/06/10 – Lungs rebuilt in lab and transplanted into rats
#765- 23/06/10 – Baby’s first bacteria depend on route of delivery
#764- 22/06/10 – Who are you calling weak? Human jaws are surprisingly strong and efficient
#763- 22/06/10 – New Nicaraguan sign language shows how language affects thought
#762- 21/06/10 – Chimpanzees murder for land
#761- 17/06/10 – When bacteria fight bacteria, we lose
#760- 17/06/10 – Suicidal menopausal aphids save their colony by sticking themselves to predators
#759- 16/06/10 – Sperm whale poo offsets carbon by fertilising the oceans with iron
#758- 15/06/10 – Vaccine against 2009 pandemic flu also protects mice against 1918 strain
#757- 14/06/10 – Your brain sees your hands as short and fat
#756- 12/06/10 – Are science journalists being overly criticised?
#755- 10/06/10 – Seals do it with whiskers, sharks do it with noses – tracking fish with supersenses
#754- 10/06/10 – Prehistoric sea dragons kept themselves warm
#753- 09/06/10 – Pocket science – bursting bubbles make more bubbles, and snakes on the wane
#752- 08/06/10 – Female birds breed better in captivity if they see sexy males
#751- 07/06/10 – Superstitions can improve performance by boosting confidence
#750- 03/06/10 – How drug-resistant flu took us by surprise
#749- 03/06/10 – Cultured mongooses pass on traditions
#748- 01/06/10 – Death from disorder: scientists uncover secret of the velvet worm’s quick-setting slime
#747- 01/06/10 – Holy hybrids Batman! Caribbean fruit bat is a mash-up of three species

May 2010

#746- 31/05/10 – Drunken monkeys reveal how binge-drinking harms the adolescent brain
#745- 30/05/10 – A biological basis for acupuncture, or more evidence for a placebo effect?
#744- 28/05/10 – The development of fairness – egalitarian children grow into meritocratic teens
#743- 27/05/10 – Racial bias weakens our ability to feel someone else’s pain
#742- 26/05/10 – Nectocaris: mystery fossil was actually a 500-million-year-old squid relative
#741- 25/05/10 – Money weakens ability to savour life’s little pleasures
#740- 24/05/10 – Protect biodiversity, alleviate poverty: the surprise benefits of protected areas
#739- 23/05/10 – “Weedy” mice dominate a warming world while other small mammals suffer
#738- 21/05/10 – Chimps prefer to copy others with prestige
#737- 20/05/10 – Scientists create first ever synthetic bacterium that looks like Craig Venter
#736- 20/05/10 – Tree frogs shake their bums to send threatening vibes
#735- 19/05/10 – Fighting bacteria with bacteria – common nose germ provides new weapon against superbugs
#734- 18/05/10 – Scientists solve millennia-old mystery about the argonaut octopus
#733- 17/05/10 – Shutting off a single gene could improve fertility by activating dormant egg-producing cells
#732- 14/05/10 – Baby corals swim home by following the sounds of reefs
#731- 14/05/10– How spitting cobras shoot for the eyes
#730- 13/05/10– First birds were poor fliers – flaps would have buckled Archaeopteryx feathers
#729- 12/05/10– Enter the nano-spiders – independent walking robots made of DNA
#728- 11/05/10– Pocket Science – a nursery for giant sharks, and why mum’s voice is a good as a hug
#727- 11/05/10 – Overfishing gives toxic seaweeds an edge in their competition with corals
#726- 10/05/10 – Study raises questions about the role of brain scans in courtrooms

April 2010

#725- 30/04/10 – Aphids got their colours by stealing genes from fungi
#724- 29/04/10– A single genetic fault makes one hand mirror the other’s movements
#723- 28/04/10– Dramatic restructuring of dinosaur feathers revealed by two youngsters of same species
#722- 27/04/10– Power breed hypocrisy – powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves
#721- 26/04/10– How chimpanzees deal with death and dying
#720- 23/04/10 10– Good teachers help students to realise their genetic potential at reading
#719- 22/04/09 – To sleep, perchance to dream, perchance to remember
#718- 21/04/09 – Wasp spiders won’t let their sisters eat them after sex
#717- 20/04/09 – Brain-training games get a D at brain-training tests
#716- 19/04/09 – Ever since there have been whales, there have been Osedax worms eating their bones
#715- 15/04/09 – When multi-tasking, each half of the brain focuses on different goals
#714- 15/04/09 – First ever molecule that protects against ricin
#713- 14/04/09 – Pocket Science – T.rex the nose-loving tyrant leech king, why losers ejaculate more, and how cuttlefish could “see” with their skin
#712- 13/04/09 – Scientists, film-makers team up to expose illegal international trade in whale meat
#711- 13/04/09 – Amnesiacs show that emotions linger long after memories fade
#710- 12/04/09 – Williams syndrome children show no racial stereotypes or social fear
#709- 12/04/09 – Caterpillars must walk before they can anally scrape
#708- 09/04/09 – Fake and counterfeit goods promote unethical behaviour
#707- 08/04/09 – The MAOA guide to misusing genetics
#706- 08/04/09 – GPS backpacks identify leaders among flocking pigeons
#705- 07/04/09 – Gut bacteria in Japanese people borrowed sushi-digesting genes from ocean bacteria
#704- 06/04/09 –Giant, fruit-eating monitor lizard discovered in the Philippines
#703- 05/04/09 – Photos of sneezing can put our immune systems on red alert
#702- 02/04/09 – Pigeons outperform humans at the Monty Hall Dilemma
#701- 01/04/09 – Scientists discover gene and part of brain that make people gullible

March 2010

#700- 31/03/09 –Movies of life show the dance of dividing cells
#699- 31/03/09 –When pain is pleasant
#698- 30/03/09 –Caterpillars use bacteria to produce green islands in yellowing leaves
#697- 30/03/09 –Crayfish females lure males with urine, but then play hard to get
#696- 29/03/09 –Tree rings reveal two droughts that sealed the fate of Angkor
#695- 29/03/09 –ScienceOnline 2010 redux – in which I’m interviewed by Bora
#694- 28/03/09 –Pocket science – sperm races and poison-stealing voles
#693- 27/03/09 –Dormant viruses can hide in our DNA and be passed from parent to child
#692- 26/03/09 –When is attempted murder more acceptable than harming someone by accident?
#691- 22/03/09 -Fast food logos unconsciously trigger fast behaviour
#690- 19/03/09 – Requests work better than orders, even when we’re asking or ordering ourselves
#689- 18/03/09 – Sperm war – the sperm of ants and bees do battle inside the queens
#688- 17/03/09 – Attack of the killer tomato fungus driven by mobile weapons package
#687- 17/03/09 – Pregnant male pipefish abort babies from unattractive females
#686- 16/03/09 – The value of “this is cool” science stories
#685- 15/03/09 – Bacteria on your keyboard point to your identity but forensic value is unlikely
#684- 15/03/09 – Pocket Science – a psychopath’s reward, and the mystery of the shark-bitten fossil poo
#683- 14/03/09 – ‘Wasabi protein’ responsible for the heat-seeking sixth sense of rattlesnakes
#682- 11/03/09 - Pocket Science – geneticist hunts down the cause of his own genetic disorder, and male moths freeze females by mimicking bats
#681- 10/03/09 - Every cell in a chicken has its own male or female identity
#680- 09/03/09 - DNA from the largest bird ever sequenced from fossil eggshells
#679- 09/03/09 -Pocket Science – chameleons hunt with cold-proof tongues and zebrafish babies go blind at night
#678- 08/03/09 -Pay it forward? Cooperative behaviour spreads through a group, but so does cheating
#677- 07/03/09 -Smell a lady, shrug off flu – how female odours give male mice an immune boost
#676- 05/03/09 -Pocket Science – when enslaved bacteria go bad, gut microbes and fat mice, and stretchy beards of iron
#675- 04/03/09 – Beer makes humans more attractive to malarial mosquitoes
#674- 03/03/09 – The bacterial zoo in your bowel
#673- 03/03/09 – Zombie hands to bird wings – the evolution of the dinosaur wrist
#672- 02/03/09 – Not Exactly Pocket Science – panic aboard the Titanic, the rise of polar bears and emasculated frogs
#671- 01/03/09 – Sanajeh, the snake the ate baby dinosaurs
#670- 01/03/09 – An 60,000-year old artistic movement recorded in ostrich egg shells

February 2010

#669- 28/02/09 – Quicker feedback for better performance
#668- 25/02/09 – The hidden face codes of fish
#667- 24/02/09 – Kill the post-embargo publication window
#666- 23/02/09 – A life in the trees is a longer one
#665- 22/02/09 – RCT: video games can hamper reading and writing skills in young boys by displacing other activities
#664- 21/02/09 – Extra chromosomes allow all-female lizards to reproduce without males
#663- 19/02/09 – Parasitic wasps hitchhike on butterflies by smelling for chemical chastity belts
#662- 17/02/09 – Africa’s genetic diversity revealed by full genomes of a Bushman and a Tutu
#661- 16/02/09 – Stem cells produce new tissues by recruiting executioners to damage their DNA
#660- 15/02/09 – Can a sniff of oxytocin improve the social skills of autistic people?
#659- 11/02/09 – Genes from Chagas parasite can transfer to humans and be passed on to children
#658- 10/02/09 – Bee-ware – bees use warning buzz to refute the waggle dance
#657- 09/02/09 – Meet Inuk – full genome of ancient human tells us about his hair, eyes, skin, teeth, ancestry and earwax
#656- 08/02/09 – Crickets forewarn their offspring about predators before they’re born
#655- 07/02/09 – Clean smells promote generosity and fair play; dark rooms and sunglasses promote deceit and selfishness
#654- 05/02/09 – Seven habits of highly successful toads
#653- 04/02/09 – The renaissance of technicolour dinosaurs continues (and the gloves come off…)
#652- 03/02/09 – White horses are less attractive to horseflies
#651- 02/02/09 – Why does the gunslinger who draws first always get shot?
#650- 01/02/09 – Rebooting science journalism – on blurring boundaries, money, audiences and duck sex
#649- 01/02/09 – Evolving guppies shape their environments

January 2010

#648- 28/01/09 – Rotifers find answer to parasites by blowing on the wind
#647- 28/01/09 – Terminally ill ants choose to die alone
#646- 27/01/09 – What colours were dinosaur feathers?
#645- 25/01/09 – Review: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
#644- 25/01/09 – Echolocation in bats and whales based on same changes to same gene
#643- 21/01/09 – Slime mould attacks simulates Tokyo rail network
#642- 21/01/09 – Tobacco plants foil very hungry caterpillars by switching pollinators to hummingbirds
#641- 19/01/09 – Three-layered shell of deep-sea snail could inspire next-gen body armour
#640- 18/01/09 – Mathematical support for insect colonies as superorganisms
#639- 14/01/09 – Chasing daylight – tiny trackers reveal the incredible flight plans of the Arctic tern
#638- 13/01/09 – Renovating a runt – the extreme evolution of the Y chromosome
#637- 12/01/09 – How objectification silences women – the male glance as a psychological muzzle
#636- 11/01/09 – Adapting to the new ecosystem of science journalism
#635- 07/01/09 – Cleaner fish punish cheats who offend their customers
#634- 07/01/09 – The memory molecules – interview with Todd Sacktor (and a feature in Eureka)
#633- 06/01/09 – Meet your viral ancestors – how bornaviruses have been infiltrating our genomes for 40 million years
#632- 06/01/09 – Fossil tracks push back the invasion of land by 18 million years
#631- 05/01/09 – Study reveals sexual tactics of male flies by shaving their genitals with a laser
#630- 04/01/09 – Becoming better mind-readers – to work out how other people see you, use the right lens
#629- 01/01/09 – Who are the science journalists?

December 2009

#628- 31/12/09 – Evolution without genes – prions can evolve and adapt too
#627- 30/12/09 – Not Exactly Rocket Science Review of 2009
#626- 29/12/09 – Treating tinnitus with an individually tailored piece of music
#625- 28/12/09 – Three desert lizards evolve white skins through different mutations to the same gene
#624- 26/12/09 – The 13,000-year old tree that survives by cloning itself
#623- 24/12/09 – One parasite to rule them all – Wolbachia protects against mosquito-borne diseases
#622- 23/12/09 – You’re having fun when time flies
#621- 22/12/09 – Ballistic penises and corkscrew vaginas – the sexual battles of ducks
#620- 21/12/09 – Groovy teeth, but was Sinornithosaurus a venomous dinosaur?
#619- 18/12/09 – Physicists disappointed at discovery of dark mattress
#618- 17/12/09 – Even on mute, TV can perpetuate racial bias
#617- 16/12/09 – One gene stops ovaries from turning into testes
#616- 15/12/09 – An insider’s look at the feather, a marvel of bioengineering
#615- 14/12/09 – Octopus carries around coconut shells as suits of armour
#614- 11/12/09 – The guardian of the genome in one of the simplest of animals
#613- 09/12/09 – Rewriting fearful memories by bringing them back to mind
#612- 08/12/09 – Small bird engineers uneasy alliance between hawk and treeshrew
#611- 08/12/09 – Prejudice vs. biology – testosterone makes people more selfish, but only if they think it does
#610- 07/12/09 – Boom-boom-krak-oo – Campbell’s monkeys combine just six ‘words’ into rich vocabulary
#609- 06/12/09 – Review: Royal Institution Christmas Lecture – the 300 million year war
#608- 03/12/09 – British birdfeeders split blackcaps into two genetically distinct groups
#607- 02/12/09 – Balancing amino acids for a longer life
#606- 01/12/09 – How to lose friends and alienate people by disrupting the brain

November 2009

#605- 30/11/09 – Creating God in one’s own image
#604- 27/11/09 – Widely set eyes give hammerhead sharks exceptional binocular vision
#603- 25/11/09 – How our skin helps us to listen
#602- 25/11/09 – How light or dark is Barack Obama’s skin? Depends on your political stance…
#601- 23/11/09 – Neck-breaking, disembowelling, constricting and fishing – the violent world of raptors
#600- 22/11/09 – How light or dark is Barack Obama’s skin? Depends on your political stance…
#599- 21/11/09 – Leafcutter ants rely on bacteria to fertilise their fungus gardens
#598- 20/11/09 – Memories can be strengthened while we sleep by providing the right triggers
#597- 19/11/09 – Tiny fungi replay the fall of the giant beasts
#596- 18/11/09 – Breaking the inverted pyramid – placing news in context
#595- 16/11/09 – Elephants and humans evolved similar solutions to problems of gas-guzzling brains
#594- 12/11/09 – Travels with dopamine – the chemical that affects how much pleasure we expect
#593- 11/11/09 – Revisiting FOXP2 and the origins of language
#592- 10/11/09 – Measuring dino fitness – more evidence that two-legged dinosaurs were warm-blooded
#591- 10/11/09 – People who think they are more restrained are more likely to succumb to temptation
#590- 09/11/09 – Leaf beetle protects itself with a mobile home made of faeces
#589- 05/11/09 – Discriminating butterflies show how one species could split into two
#588- 05/11/09 – Native language shapes the melody of a newborn baby’s cry
#587- 04/11/09 – Mid-continent earthquakes are often aftershocks of centuries-old tremors
#586- 04/11/09 – Even without practice, sleep improves memory of movements
#585- 03/11/09 – In a pandemic climate, public sneezing increases fears of unrelated risks
#584- 02/11/09 – How many people did the man-eating lions of Tsavo actually eat?

October 2009

#583- 30/10/09 -Big-headed tiger snakes support long-neglected theory of genetic assimilation
#582- 29/10/09 -Venomous shrews and lizards evolved toxic proteins in the same way
#581- 27/10/09 – Holy fellatio, Batman! Fruit bats use oral sex to prolong actual sex
#580- 27/10/09 – Drinking blood makes vampire spider sexier
#579- 26/10/09 – How humans started a bacterial pandemic in chickens
#578- 25/10/09 – Mantis shrimp eyes outclass DVD players, inspire new technology
#577- 23/10/09 – Culture shapes the tools that chimps use to get honey
#576- 21/10/09 – Why have sex with someone else when you could do it with yourself?
#575- 20/10/09 – Breaking the Link – Darwinius revealed as ancestor of nothing
#574- 20/10/09 – World’s largest web-spinning spider discovered in South Africa
#573- 20/10/09 – Genome sequencing reverses a faulty diagnosis for a genetic disorder
#572- 19/10/09 – Infants match human words to human faces and monkey calls to monkey faces (but not quacks to duck faces)
#571- 15/10/09 – The placebo effect affects pain signalling in the spine
#570- 14/10/09 – Guerrilla reading – what former revolutionaries tell us about the neuroscience of literacy
#569- 13/10/09 – Monkeys fall into the uncanny valley
#568- 12/10/09 – Bagheera kiplingi – the mostly vegetarian spider
#567- 12/10/09 – What is the difference between the human genome and a pair of headphones?
#566- 08/10/09 – Virus linked to both chronic fatigue syndrome and prostate cancer
#565- 06/10/09 – The plague of tyrants – a common bird parasite that infected Tyrannosaurus
#564- 05/10/09 – Tuberculosis, not cancer, killed Dr Granville’s mummy

September 2009

#563- 18/09/09 – The viruses that have been infecting mammals for 105 million years
#562- 17/09/09 – Raptorex shows that T.rex body plan evolved at 100th the size
#561- 16/09/09 – How prehistoric sea monsters sorted males from females
#560- 16/09/09 – Gene therapy gives full colour vision to colour-blind monkeys
#559- 15/09/09 – Rowing as a group increases pain thresholds
#558- 10/09/09 – Museum butterfly collections chronicle evolutionary war against male-killers
#557- 09/09/09 – Deer transmit prion proteins to one another via their droppings
#556- 09/09/09 – Hungry great tits hunt for hibernating bats
#555- 08/09/09 – The dance of the disembodied gecko tail
#554- 07/09/09 – Decay of enamel-forming gene linked to evolutionary loss of enamel
#553- 04/09/09 – Dogs and babies prone to same classic mistake
#552- 03/09/09 – Carrots trump sticks for fostering cooperation
#551- 03/09/09 – The guardians of fear – molecules that provide safety nets for scary memories
#550- 02/09/09 – Sound the alarm – crested pigeons give off warning whistles simply by taking off
#549- 01/09/09 – Do baby faces benefit black business leaders?

August 2009

#548- 30/08/09 -Brain damage pops woman’s personal bubble
#547- 26/08/09 – What tennis rackets tell us about giant extinct armadillos
#546- 25/08/09 – Holding heavy objects makes us see things as more important
#545- 25/08/09 – Disappearing bees are lost in translation
#544- 24/08/09 – Information overload? Heavy multimedia users are more easily distracted by irrelevant information
#543- 21/08/09 – Virus and bacteria team up to save aphid from parasitic wasp
#542- 20/08/09 – Marine worms release glowing “bombs” to fool predators
#541- 20/08/09 – Do lost people really go round in circles?
#540- 19/08/09 – Why people change their minds at the last second
#539- 18/08/09 – Fossil tracks show a pterosaur coming in for a landing
#538- 17/08/09 – Robots evolve to deceive one another
#537- 13/08/09 – Monkey do, human do, monkey see, monkey like
#536- 12/08/09 – Anthrax bacteria get help from viruses and worms to survive
#535- 12/08/09 – Ants rescue trapped relatives
#534- 10/08/09 – Flu and Parkinson’s – how H5N1 bird flu causes neural degeneration in mice
#533- 07/08/09 – Itch-specific neurons discovered in mice
#532- 06/08/09 – Confirming Aesop – rooks use stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher
#531- 05/08/09 – Fertility rates climb back up in the most developed countries
#530- 04/08/09 – Orang-utans use leaves to lie about their size
#529- 03/08/09 – One jump from chimps to humans – the origin of malaria

July 2009

#528- 27/07/09 – Noise pollution drives away some birds, but benefits those that stay behind
#527- 24/07/09 – Snails get sexy when parasites are around
#526- 23/07/09 – Toucan play at reducing the heating bill
#524- 23/07/09 – Your brain on Oprah and Saddam (and what that says about Halle Berry and your grandmother)
#524- 20/07/09 – Photographing the glow of the human body
#523- 18/07/09 – Spiders construct homes for endangered pygmy lizards
#522- 17/07/09 – Tiger moths jam the sonar of bats
#521- 16/07/09 – Jockey postures make things easier for horses and speed up races
#520- 16/07/09 – The copied gene that gave dachshunds and corgis their short legs
#519- 15/07/09 – Why information is its own reward – same neurons signal thirst for water, knowledge
#518- 14/07/09 – Why information is its own reward – same neurons signal thirst for water, knowledge
#517- 13/07/09 – Cats manipulate their owners with a cry embedded in a purr
#516- 11/07/09 – Bilingual children learn language rules more efficiently than monolinguals
#515- 09/07/09 – How the turtle got its shell through skeletal shifts and muscular origami
#514- 09/07/09 – Ebola found in pigs (thankfully, it’s the one harmless type)
#513- 08/07/09 – Rapamycin – the Easter Island drug that extends lifespan of old mice
#512- 07/07/09 – The bigger the ego, the harder the fall – how self-awareness buffers against social rejection
#511- 06/07/09 – On cheerleaders and watchdogs – the role of science journalism
#510- 05/07/09 – Bees kill hornets with carbon dioxide emissions and local warming
#509- 04/07/09 – By eating fruit, birds protect Serengeti forests from beetles
#508- 04/07/09 – Does science journalism falter or flourish under embargo?
#507- 02/07/09 – Ferreting out swine flu – virus causes slightly more severe disease than seasonal flu
#506- 02/07/09 – Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep
#505- 01/07/09 – Spider mimics ant to eat spiders and avoid being eaten by spiders
#504- 01/07/09 – WCSJ: Flat Earth News with Nick Davies – a discussion on the breaking of journalism

June 2009

#503- 30/06/09 – World Conference of Science Journalists – New media new journalism
#502- 30/06/09 – Monkeynomics – monopolies, markets and exchange rates in wild monkeys
#501- 29/06/09 – From Spanish to swine – how H1N1 kicked off a 91-year pandemic era
#500- 29/06/09 – Frigid echidna sex – competition drives males to mate with hibernating females
#499- 28/06/09 – Does having more competitors lower the motivation to compete?
#498- 25/06/09 – Why do female seed beetles prefer the sperm of inferior males?
#497- 24/06/09 – 35,000-year-old German flutes display excellent kraftwerk
#496- 23/06/09 – Hidden beliefs in science stereotypes predict size of gender gap across 34 countries
#495- 22/06/09 – Brain treats tools as temporary body parts
#494- 19/06/09 – Pregnant pauses and rapid-fire – how do different cultures take turns to talk?
#493- 16/06/09 – The tentacled snake turns a fish’s defence into a death march
#492- 15/06/09 – How research saved the Large Blue butterfly
#491- 15/06/09 – Flowers change colour and back again to advertise their opening hours
#490- 11/06/09 – Origins of the swine flu pandemic
#489- 10/06/09 – Sleeping on it – how REM sleep boosts creative problem-solving
#488- 09/06/09 – Anna’s hummingbird outflies falcons and fighter pilots
#487- 05/06/09 – Skinks set their sex in three ways – genes, temperature and egg size
#486- 04/06/09 – Scientists tickle apes to reveal evolutionary origins of human laughter
#485- 03/06/09 – Spiders gather in groups to impersonate ants
#484- 01/06/09 – Glowing squid use bacterial flashlights that double as an extra pair of “eyes”
#483- 01/06/09 – Gender gap in maths driven by social factors, not biological differences
#482- 01/06/09 – Chimps use Swiss army toolkit to rob beehives

May 2009

#481- 29/05/09 – Scientists “humanise” Foxp2 gene in mice to probe origins of human language
#480- 28/05/09 – The bacterial zoo living on your skin
#479- 27/05/09 – The peril of positive thinking – why positive messages hurt people with low self-esteem
#478- 26/05/09 – The infofuse – encoding messages using colourful fire
#477- 21/05/09 – From day to night – a lesson in eye evolution with the owl monkey
#476- 20/05/09 – DNA sculpture and origami – a meeting of art and nanotechnology
#475- 20/05/09 – Darwinius changes everything
#474- 19/05/09 – City mockingbirds can tell the difference between individual people
#473- 18/05/09 – Venomous Komodo dragons kill prey with wound-and-poison tactics
#472- 14/05/09 – Bumpy petals help bees get a grip on flowers
#471- 13/05/09 – Prehistoric carving is oldest known figurative art
#470- 12/05/09 – Giant insect splits cavefish into distinct populations
#469- 11/05/09 – Thinking about money soothes sting of social rejection and physical pain
#468- 8/05/09 – Reign of termite queens rests on a single gene
#467- 7/05/09 – Electrical stimulation produces feelings of free will
#466- 6/05/09 – The signals of life – ants use chemical messages to avoid getting trashed
#465- 5/05/09 – Baby names suggest that cultural trends are abandoned more readily the quicker they catch on
#464- 4/05/09 – Dolphins stay alert after five straight days of round-the-clock vigilance
#463- 1/05/09 – Unintentional genetic engineering – grafted plants trade genes

April 2009

#462- 30/04/09 – Dinosaur proteins, cells and blood vessels recovered from Bracyhlophosaurus
#461- 30/04/09 – Alex the parrot and Snowball the cockatoo show that birds can dance
#460- 29/04/09 – Retrocyclins: a defence against HIV, reawakened after 7 million years
#459- 28/04/09 – Traumatic insemination – male spider pierces female’s underside with needle-sharp penis
#458- 28/04/09 – Autism linked to common gene variants that affect the connections between neurons
#457- 27/04/09 – Sparrows solve problems more quickly in larger groups
#456- 26/04/09 – Making new heart cells
#455- 24/04/09 – Singaporean spiders spit venomous glue, work together, eat each other
#454- 23/04/09 – How wearing a cast affects sense of touch and brain activity
#453- 22/04/09 – Puijila, the walking seal – a beautiful transitional fossil
#452- 21/04/09 – A 6 kilometre trek on the back of a snail
#451- 21/04/09 – Nocturnal mammals see in dark by turning displaced DNA into lenses
#450- 17/04/09 – Blood Falls – bacteria thrive for millions of years beneath a rusty Antarctic glacier
#449- 16/04/09 – Simple writing exercise helps break vicious cycle that holds back black students
#448- 15/04/09 – Are red autumn leaves a warning sign to insects?
#447- 14/04/09 – How inbreeding killed off a line of kings
#446- 14/04/09 – Bilingual infants have better mental control
#445- 13/04/09 – Tiny built-in cracks stop teeth from shattering
#444- 10/04/09 – Flies get the buzz on sexy mates from each other
#443- 8/04/09 – On science blogging and mainstream science writing…
#442- 8/04/09 – Male chimps trade meat for sex
#441- 7/04/09 – Do testosterone and oestrogen affect our attitudes to fairness, trust, risk and altruism?
#440- 6/04/09 – Our moral thermostat – why being good can give people license to misbehave
#439- 2/04/09 – Enter Adam, the Robot Scientist
#438- 1/04/09 – The rebellion of the ant slaves

March 2009

#437- 31/03/09 – Ballet postures have become more extreme over time
#436- 30/03/09 – Deformed skull of prehistoric child suggests that early humans cared for disabled children
#435- 30/03/09 – Autistic children are less sensitive to the movements of living things
#434- 29/03/09 – Playing shoot-em-up video games can improve some aspects of vision
#433- 27/03/09 – Termite queen avoids inbreeding by leaving a legacy of clones
#432- 26/03/09 – What makes 250,000,000 fish gather in the same place?
#431- 25/03/09 – How Kenny Rogers and Frank Sinatra could help stroke patients
#430- 24/03/09 – Genetic neoteny – how delayed genes separate human brains from chimps
#428- 23/03/09 – Extra genomes helped plants to survive extinction event that killed dinosaurs
#427- 20/03/09 – Self-medicating caterpillars use toxic plants to kill parasites
#426- 19/03/09 – To predict what will make you happy, ask a stranger rather than guessing yourself
#425- 18/03/09 – Tianyulong – a fuzzy dinosaur that makes the origin of feathers fuzzier
#424- 17/03/09 – What the stomach contents of sperm whales tell us about giant squid and octopuses
#423- 16/03/09 – Power lines disrupt the magnetic alignment of cows and deer
#422- 16/03/09 – Violent films and games delay people from helping others
#421- 13/03/09 – Female antbirds jam their partners’ songs when other females approach
#421- 12/03/09 – Erasing a memory reveals the neurons that encode it
#420- 11/03/09 – Photo-recognition software catches tigers by their stripes
#419- 10/03/09 – Newly discovered fish crosses Peter Pan with Dracula
#418- 10/03/09 – Different neuron networks control fear of different threats
#417- 09/03/09 – Alcohol tastes and smells better to those who get their first sips in the womb
#416- 09/03/09 – Chimpanzee collects ammo for “premeditated” tourist-stoning
#415- 05/03/09 – The death and resurrection of IRGM – the “Jesus gene”
#414- 04/03/09 – Human-induced evolution reverses for shrunken fish once fishing stops
#413- 03/03/09 – Congolese chimps modify fishing-sticks to make them even more effective tools
#412- 02/03/09 – Globalisation increases cooperation at an international scale
#411- 01/03/09 – Horrific beetle sex – why the most successful males have the spikiest penises

February 2009

#410- 27/02/09 – A bad taste in your mouth – moral outrage has origins in physical disgust
#409- 26/02/09 – Voters use child-like judgments when judging political candidates
#408- 25/02/09 -Fishing expedition reveals unexpected link between Alzheimer’s and prion diseases
#407- 25/02/09 – The suicide plasterers – aphids that repair their homes with their own bodily fluids
#406- 24/02/09 – Male and female mako sharks separated by invisible line in the sea
#405- 23/02/09 – Red tides kill seabirds with ’soapy’ foam
#404- 22/02/09 – Child abuse permanently modifies stress genes in brains of suicide victims
#403- 20/02/09 – Attendance at religious services, but not religious devotion, predicts support for suicide attacks
#402- 19/02/09 – Aphids hide from parasitic wasps among the corpses of their peers
#401- 17/02/09 – Babies’ gestures partly explain link between wealth and vocabulary
#400- 16/02/09 – Beta-blocker drug erases the emotion of fearful memories
#399- 15/02/09 – Light-detecting backpacks record the complete migration routes of songbirds
#398- 12/02/09 – How the common cold evolves – full genomes of all known human rhinoviruses
#397- 12/02/09 – Wasps use genes stolen from ancient viruses to make biological weapons
#396- 11/02/09 – A burst of DNA duplication in the ancestor of humans, chimps and gorillas
#395- 09/02/09 – How diversity creates itself – cascades of new species among flies and parasitic wasps
#394- 07/02/09 – Cuttlefish tailor their defences to different predators
#393- 06/02/09 – Butterflies scrounge off ants by mimicking the music of queens
#392- 05/02/09 – Colouring your mind – red improves attention to detail, blue boosts creativity
#391- 04/02/09 – Titanoboa – thirteen metres, one tonne, largest snake ever.
#390- 03/02/09 – Fossil foetus shows that early whales gave birth on land
#389- 03/02/09 – Ask an IVF baby: does smoking while pregnant lead to antisocial behaviour?
#388- 02/02/09 – Losing Nemo – acid oceans prevent baby clownfish from finding home
#387- 01/02/09 – Single gene allows glowing bacteria to switch from fish to squid

January 2009

#386- 30/01/09 – Teaching scientific knowledge doesn’t improve scientific reasoning
#385- 29/01/09 – The swarm-maker molecule – how serotonin transforms solitary locusts into social ones
#384- 28/01/09 – Are emperor penguins marching to extinction?
#383- 27/01/09 – Old wounds show that Triceratops used its horns for combat
#382 – 27/01/09- What is science’s rightful place?
#381- 26/01/09 – Low-calorie diets improve memory in old age
#380- 25/01/09 – How dolphins prepare the perfect cuttlefish meal
#379- 23/01/09 – MRSA in pigs and pig farmers
#378- 23/01/09 – They don’t all look the same – could better facial discrimination lead to less racial discrimination?
#377- 22/01/09 – Bacteria and languages reveal how people spread through the Pacific
#376- 21/01/09 – Pre-emptive blood flow raises big questions about fMRI
#375- 21/01/09 – Carnivorous dung beetle shuns dung and decapitates millipedes
#374- 20/01/09 – Three groups of fish are actually the males, females and larvae of one family
#373- 19/01/09 – Saucy study reveals a gene that affects aggression after provocation
#372- 15/01/09 – Capuchin monkeys are choosy about the best nutcrackers
#371- 13/01/09 – Human hunters unwittingly shrink their prey species at incredible rates
#370- 12/01/09 – Beipaiosaurus was covered in the simplest known feathers
#369- 11/01/09 – Tetris to prevent Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder flashbacks
#368- 09/01/09 – Mosquitoes harmonise their buzzing in love duets
#367- 08/01/09 – People overestimate their reactions to racism
#366- 08/01/09 – One codon, two amino acids – the genetic code has a Shift key
#365- 08/01/09 – People overestimate their reactions to racism
#364- 05/01/09 – The pink Galapagos iguana that Darwin never saw
#363- 02/01/09 – Worrying slowdown of coral growth in the Great Barrier Reef
#362- 01/01/09 – Life-shortening bacteria vs. dengue mosquitoes

December 2008

#361- 30/12/08 – Not Exactly Rocket Science Review of 2008
#360- 29/12/08 – Spookfish eye uses mirrors instead of a lens
#359- 28/12/08 – Solar-powered green sea slug steals ability to photosynthesise from algae
#358- 27/12/08 – Lacking control drives false conclusions, conspiracy theories and superstitions
#357- 24/12/08 -How life became big in two giant steps
#356- 23/12/08 – Why are there so few female chess grandmasters?
#355- 22/12/08 – Blind man navigates obstacle course perfectly with no visual awareness
#354- 18/12/08 – Dinosaur daddies took care of their young alone
#353- 18/12/08 – Predatory slime mould freezes prey in large groups
#352- 16/12/08 – Climate change squeezes jumbo squid out of oxygen
#351- 15/12/08 – Sponging dolphins keep it in the family
#350- 12/12/08 – Zoo elephants die much earlier than wild ones
#349- 11/12/08 – Elephants crave companionship in unfamiliar stomping grounds
#348- 10/12/08 – Sea anemones keep on stinging swallowed fish to digest them
#347- 09/11/08 – Dogs frown on unfair rewards
#346- 08/12/08 – Social status shapes racial identity
#345- 04/12/08 – Why punishment is worth it in the end
#344- 02/12/08 – The Quantum Leap effect – creating a body-swapping illusion
#343- 01/12/08 – Gut bacteria – fat or thin, family or friends, shared or unique

November 2008

#342- 27/11/08 – Pain in the eye of the beholder
#341- 26/11/08 – Heroes in a half-shell show how turtles evolved
#340- 26/11/08 – Clean thoughts can soften moral judgments
#339- 25/11/08 – Fossilised embryos are the work of bacteria
#338- 24/11/08 – Faulty connections responsible for inherited face-blindness
#337- 12/11/08 – Parasites keep red tides at bay
#336- 20/11/08 – The spread of disorder – can graffiti promote littering and theft?
#335- 19/11/08 – Sequencing a mammoth genome
#334- 16/11/08 – How to tell Wonderpus Joe from Wonderpus Bob
#333- 14/11/08 – Green beards, flocs of yeast and the evolution of cooperation
#332- 12/11/08 – Lizard claws shed light on the evolutionary origin of hair
#331- 11/11/08 -Corn is everywhere in American fast food
#330- 10/11/08 – Lymph node injections provide safer, faster and easier relief against hay fever
#329- 06/11/08 – Plastic tubes and pipette tips leach chemicals that botch experiments
#328- 06/11/08 -Same gene underlies two language disorders
#327- 05/11/08 – Caterpillars vomit detergents to wreck ant waterproofing
#326- 04/11/08 – Eland antelopes click their knees to prove their dominance
#325- 04/11/08 – Clones produced from mice frozen for 16 years
#324- 03/11/08 – Space Invader DNA jumped across mammalian genomes

October 2008

#323- 29/10/08 – Common pesticide is good news for parasites, bad news for frogs
#322- 27/10/08 – An ecosystem of one in the depths of a gold mine
#321- 26/10/08 – Warm hands, warm heart – how physical and emotional warmth are linked

September 2008

#320- 25/09/08 – Why do people overbid in auctions?
#319- 24/09/08 – Caterpillars use wormholes and early warning hairs for defence
#318- 23/09/08 – Aborigines improve biodiversity by starting fires
#317- 19/09/08 – Genetically modified cotton protects surrounding crops from moth
#316- 18/09/08 – Political attitudes linked to startle reflexes
#315- 16/09/08 – Social exclusion literally feels cold
#314- 15/09/08 – Fearless mice are neglectful mothers but social butterflies
#313- 11/09/08 – Rise of dinosaurs down to luck not superiority
#312- 10/09/08 – Giant bees do Mexican waves to ward off wasps
#311- 09/09/08 – Our brains have a vast capacity for remembering detail
#310- 08/09/08 – Tardigrades become first animals to survive vacuum of space
#309 – 04/09/08 – Did a gene enhancer humanise our thumbs?
#308 – 02/09/08 – Of voles and men: exploring the genetics of commitment
#307 – 01/09/08 – European genes mirror European geography

August 2008

#306 – 28/08/08 – Holy haemorrhage Batman! Wind turbines burst bat lungs
#305 – 26/08/08 – Children learn to share by age 7-8
#304 – 25/08/08 – Selfless monkeys find personal reward in helping others
#303 – 24/08/08 – Google Earth shows that cow and deer herds align like compass needles
#302 – 21/08/08 – Undecided voters aren’t really undecided – the hidden side of decision-making
#301 – 20/08/08 – Owls use poo and plumage to mark their territories
#300 – 19/08/08 – Westerners focus on the eyes, East Asians on the nose
#299 – 19/08/08 – Symmetrical bodies are sexier and more stereotypical
#298 – 18/08/08 – Going strong at 100 – extreme lifespans don’t mean extreme disability
#297 – 17/08/08 – Flu survivors still immune after 90 years
#296 – 14/08/08 – Using our powers for good – how web security software can help to transcribe old books
#295 – 13/08/08 – Blind Olympic athletes show the universal nature of pride and shame
#294 – 12/08/08 – Climate scientists recruit elephant seals to study Antarctica’s waters
#293 – 11/08/08 – The fiery taste of chillies is a defence against a fungus
#292 – 10/08/08 – Athletes get more points by making referees see red
#291 – 08/08/08 – Why cooperation is hard for people with borderline personality disorder
#290 – 07/08/08 – The virophage – a virus that infects other viruses
#289 – 06/08/08 -Duck-billed dinosaur defended itself by outgrowing predators
#288 – 06/08/08 – Dogs catch yawns from humans
#287 – 05/08/08 – Prehistoric great white shark had strongest bite in history
#286 – 04/08/08 – Drug improves endurance without need for exercise
#285 – 03/08/08 – Our brains react differently to artificial vs human intelligence
#284 – 01/08/08 – Stem cells created from ALS patient and used to make neurons

July 2008

#283 – 31/07/08 – Male fish deceive watching rivals about their top choice of females
#282 – 28/07/08 – Tiny treeshrews chug alcoholic nectar without getting drunk
#281 – 27/07/08 – Language evolution witnessed in lab experiments
#280 – 25/07/08 – Parasites outweigh top predators and castrators do best of all
#279 – 22/07/08 – Fishing bans protect coral reefs from devastating predatory starfish
#278 – 21/07/08 – Social spiders do better when hunting with relatives
#277 – 17/07/08 – The mantis shrimp has the world’s fastest punch
#276 – 16/07/08 – Obesity amplifies across generations; can folate-rich diets stop it?
#275 – 15/07/08 – Infants remember more by ‘chunking’ groups
#274 – 14/07/08 – Disease-ravaged devils have started living fast and dying young
#273 – 11/07/08 – One in three species of reef-building corals face extinction
#272 – 10/07/08 – Scientists heart journalists? Plus a quick guide to dealing with the media
#271 – 9/07/08 – ‘Missing link’ flatfish has eye that’s moved halfway across its head
#270 – 7/07/08 – Bacterial smells have potential for trapping pregnant mosquitoes
#269 – 4/07/08 – Is Sudden Infant Death Syndrome caused by a serotonin imbalance?
#268 – 3/07/08 – The spider that crushes its prey with 140 metres of webbing
#267 – 1/07/08 – Mayfly-like chameleon lives mostly as an egg

June 2008

#266 – 30/06/08 – Gestures reveal universal word order, regardless of language
#265 – 27/06/08 – Cuttlefish learn from watching potential prey even before they are born
#264 – 26/06/08 – Death-trap or fortress – the two web designs of black widow spiders
#263 – 25/06/08 – Crocodiles signal hatching time by calling from inside their eggs
#262 – 24/06/08 – Lions killed by perfect storm of changing climate, virus and parasites
#261 – 23/06/08 – Fish make rapid comeback in the world’s largest no-fishing zone
#260 – 20/06/08 – Brains of gay people resemble those of straight people of opposite sex
#259 – 18/06/08 – Chimps call during sex to confuse fathers, recruit defenders and avoid competitors
#258 – 17/06/08 – Chimps console each other to reduce stress after fights
#257 – 16/06/08 – Jellyfish and human eyes assembled using similar genetic building blocks
#256 – 15/06/08 – Fearful facial expressions enhance our perception
#255 – 13/06/08 – Running dragon lizards do wheelies
#254 – 12/06/08 – 2,000 year old “Phoenix” seed rises from the ashes
#253 – 11/06/08 – Tree leaves keep the same temperature from tundra to tropics
#252 – 5/06/08 – The wasp that walks cockroaches
#251 – 3/06/08 – Parasitic wasp turns caterpillars into head-banging bodyguards
#250 – 2/06/08 – History restricts and guides the evolution of innovations
#249 – 1/06/08 – Who needs sex? – Rotifers import genes from fungi, bacteria and plants

May 2008

#248 – 29/05/08 – Stem cells only grow up properly in the right environment
#247 – 28/05/08 – Monkey see, monkey control prosthetic arm with thoughts
#246 – 27/05/08 – ‘Wolverine’ frogs pop retractable claws from their toes
#245 – 22/05/08 – Gut bacteria reflect diet and evolutionary past
#244 – 21/05/08 -Snake proteins have gone through massive evolutionary redesign
#243 – 20/05/08 – Carbon nanotubes could behave like asbestos
#242 – 19/05/08 – Feeling powerless impairs higher mental abilities
#241 – 15/05/08 – Size matters for mosquitoes but medium-sized males do better
#240 – 13/05/08 – Portable brain activity-recorder shows that sloths aren’t all that sleepy
#239 – 12/05/08 – Orchid lures in pollinating wasps with promise of fresh meat
#238 – 9/05/08 – Rats succumb to peer pressure too
#237 – 8/05/08 – March of the locusts – individuals start moving to avoid cannibals
#236 – 6/05/08 – Cuckoos mimic hawks to fool small birds
#235 – 5/05/08 – Fungi transform depleted uranium into chemically stable minerals
#234 – 4/05/08 – Making sense of obesity genes
#233 – 4/05/08 – Fat cell number is set in childhood and stays constant in adulthood
#232 – 1/05/08 – Sexy jumping spiders court females with ultraviolet patches

April 2008

#231 – 29/04/08 – Single memory training task improves overall problem-solving intelligence
#230 – 28/04/08 – Enormous bacterium uses thousands of genome copies to its advantage
#229 – 25/04/08 – Vaccinia virus tricks its way into hosts by mimicking dead cells
#228 – 24/04/08 – When learning maths, abstract symbols work better than real-world examples
#227 – 23/04/08 – Beetles transform Canadian forest from carbon sink into carbon source
#226 – 21/04/08 – ‘Talking face’ simulations in the brain help us work out what’s being said
#225 – 18/04/08 – Brain-enhancing drugs work by focusing brain activity… for better or worse
#224 – 16/04/08 – New flu viruses emerge in tropical Asia before going on one-way world tour
#223 – 14/04/08 – Testosterone-fuelled traders make higher profits
#222 – 13/04/08 – Unconscious brain activity shapes our decisions
#221 – 11/04/08 – Bacteria inspire drug that protects against radiation sickness
#220 – 10/04/08 – When bacteria merge – two species are turning into one
#219 – 7/04/08 – Automatic “evolution machine” creates more efficient enzymes on a microchip
#218 – 7/04/08 – First lungless frog discovered in Borneo
#217 – 3/04/08 – Super-bacteria eat antibiotics for breakfast
#216 – 2/04/08 – Climate change knocked mammoths down, humans finished them off
#215 – 1/04/08 – Did conflict between old and young women drive origin of menopause?

March 2008

#214 – 31/03/08 – Boto dolphins woo females with chat-up vines
#213 – 29/03/08 – The smell of danger – shocks help people discriminate between similar odours
#212 – 27/03/08 – A squid’s beak is a marvel of biological engineering
#211 – 27/03/08 – City birds struggle to make themselves heard
#210 – 26/03/08 – Chimpanzees take risks but bonobos play it safe
#209 – 25/03/08 – Rising carbon dioxide levels weaken plant defences against hungry insects
#208 – 24/03/08 – Bdelloid rotifers – the world’s most radiation-resistant animals
#207 – 21/03/08 – Mantis shrimps have a unique way of seeing
#206 – 20/03/08 – Money can buy happiness… if you spend it on other people
#205 – 19/03/08 – Winners don’t punish: “Punishing slackers Part 2″
#204 – 17/03/08 – Geckos use their tails to stop falls and manoeuvre in the air
#203 – 16/03/08 – New drug shows great promise in treating schistosomiasis
#202 – 14/03/08 – Stealthy alligators dive, rise and roll by moving their lungs
#201 – 13/03/08 – Sand dollars avoid predators by cloning themselves
#200 – 11/03/08 – How sharks, penguins and bacteria find food in the big, wide ocean
#199 – 10/03/08 – Immune snakes outrun toxic newts in evolutionary arms races
#198 – 6/03/08 – Punishing slackers and do-gooders
#197 – 5/03/08 – The machine that identifies images from brain activity alone
#196 – 4/03/08 – Moths remember what they learn as caterpillars

February 2008

#195 – 29/02/08 – Snow-making bacteria are everywhere
#194 – 29/02/08 – Communicating chimps and talking humans show activity in same part of the brain
#193 – 27/02/08 – Japanese moths hit by male-killing virus
#192 – 25/02/08 – Effects of invading island rats ripple across land and sea
#191 – 20/02/08 – Tiny molecules drove the evolution of the vertebrates
#190 – 17/02/08 – Testing, not studying, makes for strong long-term memories
#189 – 15/02/08 – Earliest bat shows flight developed before echolocation
#188 – 13/02/08 – Third cousin couples have the most children and grandchildren
#187 – 02/02/08 – New languages evolve in rapid bursts

January 2008

#186 – 30/01/08 – Malawi cichlids – how aggressive males create diversity
#185 – 29/01/08 – Colour-changing chameleons evolved to stand out, not blend in
#184 – 26/01/08 – Averaging photos creates infallible face recognition tool
#183 – 24/01/08 – Blind cavefish not so blind
#182 – 21/01/08 – Editing Ebola – how to tame one of the world’s deadliest viruses
#181 – 20/01/08 – Sex runs hot and cold – why does temperature control the gender of Jacky dragons?
#180 – 19/01/08 – Canny breeding creates vitamin A-rich maize without genetic modification
#179 – 17/01/08 – Meet the genetically modified super-carrot, now fortified with calcium
#178 – 14/01/08 – Dinosaurs grew fast, had teen pregnancies and died young
#177 – 11/01/08 – An interview with David Attenborough
#176 – 10/01/08 – Loss of big mammals breaks alliance between ants and trees
#175 – 07/01/08 – Cross-breeding restores sight to blind cavefish
#174 – 05/01/08 – Newborn babies have a preference for the way living things move
#173 – 03/01/08 – Evolutionary arms race turns ants into babysitters for Alcon blue butterflies
#172 – 01/01/08 – Assassin bugs deceive spiders with coat of many corpses

December 2007

#171 – 27/12/07 – Not Exactly Rocket Science’s Review of 2007
#170 – 24/12/07 – Whales evolved from small aquatic hoofed ancestors
#169 – 22/12/07 – Cuttlefish tailor their defences to their predators
#168 – 19/12/07 – Short lives, short size – why are pygmies small?
#167 – 15/12/07 – Prehistoric meat-eating fungus snared microscopic worms
#166 – 13/12/07 – Time doesn’t actually slow down in a crisis
#165 – 11/12/07 – Mud time capsules show evolutionary arms race between host and parasite
#164 -08/12/07 – Sickle cell mice cured by stem cells reprogrammed from their own tails
#163 – 07/12/07 – Subliminal flag shifts political views and voting choices
#162 – 06/12/07 – Songbirds need so-called “human language gene” to learn new tunes
#161 – 04/12/07 – Chimps trump university students at memory task

November 2007

#160 – 30/11/07 – The social life of our extinct relatives
#159 – 29/11/07 – MRSA gets piggyback from livestock to human
#158 – 27/11/07 – Solving the San Francisco plankton mystery
#157 – 23/11/07 – Human skin cells reprogrammed into stem cells
#156 – 21/11/07 – Brain of the beholder – the neuroscience of beauty in sculpture
#155 – 18/11/07 – Envious capuchin monkeys react badly to raw deals
#154 – 15/11/07 – Cooperating bacteria are vulnerable to slackers
#153 – 12/11/07 – Delay not deviance: brains of children with ADHD mature later than other
#152 – 11/11/07 – Drought drives toads to mate with other species
#151 – 10/11/07 – How soil imprisons ancient carbon
#150 – 07/11/07 -Fake cleaner fish dons multiple disguises
#149 – 05/11/07 -Metabolic gene and breastfeeding unite to boost a child’s IQ
#148 – 04/11/07 – Ants spread collective immunity through contact
#147 – 03/11/07 – Broken chains and faulty mirrors cause problems for autistic children

October 2007

#146 – 31/10/07 – ‘Brainbow’ paints individual neurons with different colours
#145 – 24/10/07 – The neuroscience of optimism – how the brain creates a rosy outlook
#144 – 22/10/07 – Clock gene and moonlight help corals to co-ordinate a mass annual orgy
#143 – 20/10/07 – How India became the fastest continent
#142 – 18/10/07 – Elephants smell the difference between human ethnic groups
#141 – 14/10/07 – Bdelloid rotifers – 80 million years without sex
#140 – 10/10/07 – The evolution of the past tense – how verbs change over time
#139 – 09/10/07 – Ants herd aphids with tranquilisers in their footsteps
#138 – 08/10/07 – Buzzing Ants herd aphids with tranquilisers in their footsteps
bees scare elephants away
#137 – 06/10/07 – Ancient plants manipulate insects for hot, smelly sex
#136 – 03/10/07 – Doctors repress their responses to their patients’ pain
#135 – 01/10/07 – Genes affect our likelihood to punish unfair play
#134 – 01/10/07 – Sabre-toothed cats had weak bites

September 2007

#133 – 28/09/07 – Paper wasps – caring mothers evolved into selfless workers
#132 – 26/09/07 – Tardigrades become first animals to be exposed to open space
#131 – 24/09/07 – Space flight turns Salmonella into super-bug
#130 – 23/09/07 – Flu viruses take the summer off to go travelling
#129 – 21/09/07 – Predicting ethnic violence – why good neighbours need good fences
#128 – 20/09/07 – Evidence that Velociraptor had feathers
#127 – 19/09/07 – The fall and rise of lefties in Victorian England
#126 – 17/09/07 – Mobs of honeybees suffocate hornets to death
#125 – 14/09/07 – Trout with salmon parents could help to revive endangered fish species
#124 – 12/09/07 – Did climate change kill off the Neanderthals? Not likely…
#123 – 10/09/07 – Genetic study puts damper on gray whales’ comeback
#122 – 08/09/07 – Is a virus responsible for the disappearing bees?
#121 – 05/09/07 – Moray eels attack with second pair of ‘Alien-style’ jaws
#120 – 04/09/07 – New plant species arise from conflicts between immune system genes
#119 – 01/09/07 – Foul-tasting ant parasitises the colonies of other species

August 2007

#118 – 30/08/07 – An entire bacterial genome discovered inside that of a fruit fly
#117 – 29/08/07 – Fruit flies have a taste for fizzy drinks
#116 – 27/08/07 -Virtual reality illusions produce out-of-body experiences in the lab
#115 – 25/08/07 – Pacman-like game shows how the best-laid plans give way to instinct as danger approaches
#114 – 23/08/07 - Why are women better at food shopping than men?
#113 – 21/08/07 – Grammar – a weapon against bacteria
#112 – 19/08/07 – Ground squirrels use infrared signals to fool heat-seeking rattlesnakes
#111 – 18/08/07 -Molecule’s constant efforts keep our memories intact
#110 – 16/08/07 - Clever New Caledonian crows use one tool to acquire another
#109 – 13/08/07 – Dinosaurs provide clues about the shrunken genomes of birds

July 2007

#108 – 24/07/07 – Genetic diversity gives honeybees an edge
#107 – 21/07/07 – Five-month-old babies prefer their own languages and shun foreign accents
#106 – 18/07/07 – Megaflood in English Channel separated Britain from France
#105 – 14/07/07 -Butterflies evolve resistance to male-killing bacteria in record time
#104 – 10/07/07 -Aphids defend themselves with chemical bombs
#103 – 08/07/07 – Argentavis, the largest flying bird, was a master glider
#102 – 05/07/07 - Are women more talkative than men?
#101 – 03/07/07 – Bleached corals recover in the wake of hurricanes

June 2007

#100 – 28/06/07 – Icebergs are hotspots for life
#99 – 25/06/07 – Altruistic chimpanzees clearly help each other out
#98 – 24/06/07 – Restoring predator numbers by culling their prey
#97 – 23/06/07 -Resistance to an extinct virus makes us more vulnerable to HIV
#96 – 21/06/07 -Bone-crushing super-wolf went extinct during last Ice Age
#95 – 20/06/07 – Moths mimic each others’ sounds to fool hungry bats
#94 – 18/06/07 – Inner ear size can predict a mammal’s agility
#93 – 16/06/07 – Human nitrogen emissions indirectly capture carbon by fertilising forests
#92 – 13/06/07 – Of flowers and pollinators – a case study of punctuated evolution
#91 – 11/06/07 – The effect of GM crops on local insect life
#90 – 08/06/07 – Simple sponges provide clues to origin of nervous system
#89 – 07/06/07 – Cultured chimps pass on new traditions between groups
#88 – 05/06/07 – Monkey see, monkey calculate statistics
#87 – 03/06/07 – The evolution of animal personalities – they’re a fact of life

May 2007

#86 – 31/05/07 – Orang-utan study suggests that upright walking may have started in the trees
#85 – 30/05/07 – Why music sounds right – the hidden tones in our own speech
#84 – 28/05/07 – Army ants plug potholes with their own bodies
#83 – 28/05/07 – Tracks provide evidence of swimming dinosaurs
#82 – 26/05/07 – Babies can tell apart different languages with visual cues alone
#81 – 25/05/07 – Bats create spatial memories without making new brain cells
#80 – 24/05/07 – Experience tunes a part of the brain to the shapes of words
#79 – 22/05/07 – Parasites can change the balance of entire communities
#78 – 20/05/07 – The upside of herpes – when one infection protects against another
#77 – 17/05/07 – A mismatch between nutrition before and after birth can lead to poor health
#76 – 15/05/07 – Living optic fibres bypass the retina’s incompetent design
#75 – 12/05/07 – Drugs and stimulating environments reverse memory loss in brain-damaged mice
#74 – 09/05/07 –Chimps show that actions spoke louder than words in language evolution
#73 – 07/05/07 – Beetle and yeast team up against bees
#72 – 05/05/07 – Sneaking medicines past the brain’s defences
#71 – 03/05/07 – In conflicts over beliefs and values, symbolic gestures matter more than reason or money
#70 – 01/05/07 – When the heat is on, male dragons become females

April 2007

#69 – 29/04/07 – Drugs that work against each other could fight resistant bacteria
#68 – 27/04/07 – Climate change responsible for decline of Costa Rican amphibians and reptiles
#67 – 26/04/07 – Chimps have more adaptive genetic changes than humans
#66 – 23/04/07 – Attack of the killer mice – introduced rodents eat seabird chicks alive
#65 – 20/04/07 – Chimerism, or How a marmoset’s sperm is really his brother’s
#64 – 18/04/07 – Death of dinosaurs did not lead to rise of modern mammals
#63 – 16/04/07 – Carbon offset schemes worsen global warming if trees are planted in the wrong places
#62 – 14/04/07 – Opinion: Discovery of ‘fat gene’ highlights stigma against obese people
#61 – 11/04/07 – Corals survive acid oceans by switching to soft-bodied mode
#60 – 09/04/07 – Shark-hunting harms animals at bottom of the food chain
#59 – 06/04/07 – Loss of traditional knowledge in the Amazon leads to poorer child health
#58 – 04/04/07 – Platelet lifespans are set in a two-protein tug-of-war

March 2007

#57 – 31/03/07 – Rats check their own knowledge before taking a test
#56 – 29/03/07 – Human cone cell lets mice see in new colours
#55 – 27/03/07 – The secret of drug-resistant bubonic plague
#54 – 25/03/07- Eavesdropping songbirds get predator intel from overheard calls
#53 – 21/03/07 – Genetically-modified mosquitoes fight malaria by outcompeting normal ones
#52 – 18/03/07 – Swimming, walking salamander robot reconstructs invasion of land
#51 – 16/03/07 – Impulsive minds are primed for drug addiction
#50 – 13/03/07 – The chimpanzee Stone Age
#49 – 08/03/07 – Bird-brained jays can plan for the future
#48 – 05/03/07 – Viruses evolve to be more infectious in well-connected populations
#47 – 01/03/07 – Chimpanzees make spears to hunt bushbabies

February 2007

#46 – 25/02/07 – 9/11 memories reveal how flashbulb memories are made in the brain
#45 – 20/02/07 – The snake that eats toads to steal their poison
#44 – 18/02/07 – Review – Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande
#43 – 13/02/07 – The brain’s addiction centre
#42 – 10/02/07 – The heavy cost of having children
#41 – 04/02/07 – How biofuels could cut carbon emissions, produce energy and restore dead land
#40 – 01/02/07 – Worms track us down with a chemical trail

January 2007

#39 – 28/01/07 – Microraptor – the dinosaur that flew like a biplane
#38 – 24/01/07 – Maternal hormone shuts down baby’s brain cells during birth
#37 – 21/01/07 – Human gut bacteria linked to obesity
#36 – 14/01/07 – Toxoplasma – the brain parasite that influences human culture
#35 – 02/01/07 – Learn to smell underwater with the star-nosed mole

December 2006

#34 – 25/12/06 – Virgin birth by Komodo dragons
#33 – 22/12/06 – Bats: compasses, tongues and memories
#32 – 18/12/06 – How to turn cotton into a food crop
#31 – 12/12/06 – Non-coding DNA drove brain evolution by making nerve cells stickier
#30 – 07/12/06 – Taking the new out of neurons
#29 – 05/12/06 – Robo-starfish learns about itself and adapts to injuries
#28 – 02/12/06 – Camouflaged communication – the secret signals of squid

November 2006

#27 – 27/11/06 – Elephants recognise themselves in mirror
#26 – 23/11/06 – Natural selection does a handbrake turn for leggy lizards
#25 – 19/11/06 – Carbon nanotechnology in an 17th century Damascus sword
#24 – 16/11/06 – Asymmetrical brains help fish (and us) to multi-task
#23 – 12/11/06 – Climate change: one degree away from the point of no return
#22 – 07/11/06 – The right side of fair play
#21 – 04/11/06 – Too few genes to survive – the bacterium with the world’s smallest genome

October 2006

#20 – 30/10/06 – Mind your words – how stereotypes affect female performance at maths
#19 – 26/10/06 – Magnifection – mass-producing drugs in record time
#18 – 23/10/06 – The point of sleep, or, Do fruit flies dream of six-legged sheep?
#17 – 17/10/06 – Farmed salmon decimate wild populations by exposing them to parasites
#16 – 12/10/06 – Corals survive acid oceans by switching to soft-bodied mode
#15 – 09/10/06 – Tarantula climbs walls by spinning silk from its feet
#14 – 04/10/06 – The Lady Macbeth effect – how physical cleanliness affects moral cleanliness

September 2006

#13 – 29/09/06 – Neutralising anthrax by gumming up a molecular lock
#12 – 22/09/06 – Round peg, square hole – why our bird flu drugs are a fluke
#11 – 16/09/06 – RNA gene separates human brains from chimpanzees
#10 – 13/09/06 – How many types of dinosaurs were there?
#9 – 11/09/06 – A woman in a vegetative state shows awareness of her surroundings
#8 – 08/09/06 – Stem cells only grow up properly in the right environment
#7 – 03/09/06 – Hatena – when two cells are better than one

August 2006

#6 – 31/08/06 – Aphids get superpowers through sex
#5 – 28/08/06 – The mantis shrimp has the world’s fastest punch
#4 – 23/08/06 – How Big Brother keeps us honest
#3 – 21/08/06 – Dogs and devils – the rise of the contagious cancers
#2 – 16/08/06 – The fox and the island: an Aleutian fable
#1 – 13/08/06 – The mimic octopus (my first ever post)

#897- 16/12/10 – Meet the woman without fear

#896- 15/12/10 – Sea snail turns its entire shell into a glowing lamp

#895- 14/12/10 – Bird of paradise creates colourful dance with microscopic mirrors in its feathers

#894- 13/12/10 – ‘Friendly’ genes are more likely to be passed around

#893- 10/12/10 – Arsenic bacteria – a post-mortem, a review, and some navel-gazing

#892- 09/12/10 – Curb those food cravings by imagining yourself eating lots of food

#891- 09/12/10 – Blue whales can eat half a million calories in a single mouthful

#890- 07/12/10 – Frogs debug themselves by absorbing tracking devices into their bladders

#889- 07/12/10 – Single gene creates snake-resistant mirror-image snails, and maybe some new species

#888- 06/12/10 – The size of your brain’s visual centre affects how you see the world

#887- 02/12/10 – Mono Lake bacteria build their DNA using arsenic (and no, this isn’t about aliens)

About Not Exactly Rocket Science

Ed Yong is an award-winning British science writer. His work has appeared in New Scientist, the Times, WIRED, the Guardian, Nature and more. Not Exactly Rocket Science is his attempt to talk about the awe-inspiring, beautiful and quirky world of science to as many people as possible.
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