• Living Machines and Flashing Lights

    Researchers at UC San Diego have created living 'neon signs' from glowing bacteria which flash on and off in unison. As described in this week's Nature, the researchers used this technology to create a bacterial sensor for detecting low levels of arsenic. I like to imagine that the scientists...

  • Getting our heads around African sleeping sickness

    African sleeping sickness is one of those scary diseases that seems kind of alien to anyone living in the Western world but which is a real threat to those living in sub-Sahara Africa, causing around 50,000 cases each year. The disease gets its name from the most recognisable symptom—a disruption...

  • British Science Association media fellowship

     For the next month, I am taking a teeny break from science to pretend to be a journalist at Nature News. It's a scheme aimed at teaching working scientists about how the media works by dragging them out of the lab, bleary eyed with the residual smell of growth media lingering upon their person,...

  • [Insert witty breast-related pun here]

     Kate Middleton’s boobs are everywhere, both in the flesh and spirit. That sounds like the plot of a horror film in itself (“Nooooo, we’re surrounded, I’m suffocating!”). But what I really want to bring to your attention is how boobs are somehow capable of turning normal, rational people into...

  • Lag phase adapts bacteria to new environments

     Forgotten to defrost the chicken overnight in the fridge? That’s fine—you can leave it to thaw at room temperature, right? It will be quicker, after all… But, within just a few hours, the tiny bacteria hiding in frozen food such as chicken, beef or that left over Chinese takeaway can start to...

  • Finding Beauty in the Macabre

    In a small chapel just outside Prague, a chandelier made from every bone in the human body hangs from a garland of skulls like the world's creepiest wind-chime. Nearby, a coat of arms features an almost comical bone bird—its wings a human hand and its neck a gnarled vertebrae—that pecks at a...

Sunday, 26 July 2015

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Wasted Time Isn’t Always Wasted Time

Posted by Kathryn at 16:08 • 1 comments
The other day I commented to the father of my child that having a baby is a little bit like going to prison. Not the ‘nice’ sort of prison where they let you do Open University courses and try to make you a better person. A Victorian-style prison where the inmates are forced to turn a crank thousands of times a day or walk on...

Sunday, 22 February 2015

Finding Beauty in the Macabre

Posted by Kathryn at 17:55 • 0 comments
In a small chapel just outside Prague, a chandelier made from every bone in the human body hangs from a garland of skulls like the world's creepiest wind-chime. Nearby, a coat of arms features an almost comical bone bird—its wings a human hand and its neck a gnarled vertebrae—that pecks at a skull's eye socket. In each corner...
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