How to see your music
Why settle for your standard music visualiser on your computer when you can create a three-dimensional one simply by filling an old speaker with baking soda?
14 January 2015
Tag: Science
The good vibrations helping the deaf experience music
A slew of new music-listening devices for the deaf are on offer.
30 November 2014
Why brain scientists crave illegal drugs
Drugs are dangerous, but they are double-edged swords, and when used in the right time in the right way, scientists can use them as unparalleled tools to probe the mechanics of the mind.
28 October 2014
Naked selfies? I’ve taken them too (and all in the name of science)
Why do famous young women risk taking nude photos? Scientist Zoe Cormier explains the new exhibitionism
4 September 2014
How magic mushrooms induce a dream-like state
Anyone who has enjoyed a magical mystery tour thanks to the psychedelic powers of magic mushrooms knows the experience is surreally dreamlike. Now neuroscientists have uncovered a reason why: the active ingredient, psilocybin, induces changes in the brain that are eerily akin to what goes on when we're off in the land of nod.
4 July 2014
Urban Myths: Can a coin dropped from a skyscraper kill you?
As Britain unveils a new pound coin, we put to rest once and for all the question of whether falling change can, in fact, be lethal
20 March 2014
Online games offer trove of brain data
Study of 35 million users of brain-training software finds alcohol and sleep linked to cognitive performance.
21 June 2013
Gene switches make prairie voles fall in love
Epigenetic changes affect neurotransmitters that lead to pair-bond formation.
2 June 2013
Starfish sacrifice arms to beat the heat
You can tell when a starfish is too hot – it loses an arm.
29 May 2013
Hearing changes could be ancient in the human line
Comparison between hominins suggests modern middle-ear bones evolved early.
13 May 2013
Synthetic vaccine could prevent future outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease
Technique could be extended to human viruses and help with eradication of polio.
28 March 2013
Newt sequencing may set back efforts to regrow human limbs
Amphibian's unique proteins cast doubt on existence of latent potential for regeneration.
21 February 2013
Small-molecule drug drives cancer cells to suicide
Studies in mice show therapy is effective even in hard-to-treat brain tumours.
7 February 2013
UK unveils plan to fight deadly ash disease
But most of the country's 90 million ash trees are likely to be wiped out.
9 November 2012
Blind mole rats may hold key to cancer
Rodents' cells commit mass suicide when overcrowded, preventing uncontrollable proliferation.
5 November 2012
African spiny mice can regrow lost skin
Rodents are first mammals observed regenerating tissue.
26 September 2012
Subatomic particles collide at Secret Garden Party
Guerilla Science staged a safari featuring quarks, electrons and bosons to help demystify particle physics
27 July 2012
Termites explode to defend their colonies
Older workers use chemical reaction to increase toxicity of 'explosive backpacks'.
26 July 2012
The Unselfish Gene
Are humans really a selfish species ruled by competition and self-interest? Zoe Cormier surveys the ideas of recent thinkers who argue that biology and evolution prove we are natural co-operators.
1 July 2012
Illuminating Life
Since its discovery 50 years ago, Green Fluorescent Protein has become one of the most useful tools in biology.
1 July 2012
Stressed grasshoppers slow plant decay
Fear of predators affect nutrient cycling in whole ecosystem.
19 June 2012
Fluorescent spray tags cancer cells
Japanese researchers have developed a probe for ovarian cancer that can be sprayed onto tissue during surgery
23 November 2011
DIY Alien Contact
Glowing cells guide cancer surgeons
Tumour-specific label pinpoints malignant cells.
19 September 2011
Orangutan > Me
I expected to smell better than two boys who had not washed for 40 days. I did not expect to be deemed less attractive than an orangutan.
17 August 2011
Respiratory virus jumps from monkeys to humans
Adenovirus remained infectious after crossing species barrier.
14 July 2011
Dirt, nudity and tears at Glastonbury
Guerilla Science brought their own unique brand of scientific outreach to this year's Glastonbury festival, providing decontamination services to mud-spattered revellers
30 June 2011
Bacterial Culture
On the outside: a sleek and smooth white briefcase, sporting a bright silver handle, cheerfully labeled “E. chromi” in a cursive font, each letter a different colour of the rainbow. On the inside: an assortment of stool samples, each also brightly spotted in a different colour of the rainbow, cushioned neatly into white pockets for easy examination.
25 April 2011
Hygiene Hypothesis: London’s Feast of Filth
“Please put your genitals on the table.” Epidemiologist and author Elizabeth Pisani was speaking to a crowd of 60 diners sitting beneath the gilded iron arches of a Victorian sewage pumping station. “No, you cannot trade your genitals with your neighbour — you have to take the genitals you are given.”
6 April 2011
Diners tuck into a Dirt Banquet
Guests ate bacterial jelly, mud cakes and a posset of whale expectorant as part of the Wellcome Trust's Dirt Season
5 April 2011