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My small attempt to celebrate science and to make it interesting and fun by giving jargon, confusion and elitism a solid beating with the stick of good writing.
Ed Yong is an award-winning science writer based in London. Not Exactly Rocket Science is his attempt to make the latest scientific discoveries interesting to everyone by beating jargon, confusion and elitism with the stick of good writing. He finds writing about himself in the third person strange and unsettling.
"One of the best sites for in-depth analysis of interesting scientific papers" - The Times
"A consistently illuminating home for long, thoughtful, and thorough explorations of science news" - National Association of Science Writers
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October 31, 2008
Category: Personal
So as I said, I will be posting wildlife pictures from my recent Australian adventure on a weekly basis. We begin with that most obvious of Australian critters - the koala. Unfortunately, we never managed to see one of these...
Posted by Ed Yong at 7:38 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 29, 2008
Category: Environment
The levels of atrazine in the water predict how badly local frogs are infected by parasitic flatworms
Posted by Ed Yong at 5:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 27, 2008
Category: Bacteria
Scientists have identified an ecosystem made up of a single species of extremely hard bacteria
Posted by Ed Yong at 8:30 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 26, 2008
Category: Psychology
Holding a hot cup of coffee can sway a person's impressions of a stranger.
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 25, 2008
Category: Personal
G'day. As of yesterday, my month-long jaunt to Australia was officially over, which means that your friendly neighbourhood science blog will continue its regular service, with new posts starting tomorrow. The holiday was amazing - we managed to pack in...
Posted by Ed Yong at 7:32 PM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Animal intelligence
Animals often show a keen intelligence and many species, from octopuses to crows, can perform problem-solving tasks. But humans are thought to go one step further. We can reflect on our own thoughts and we have knowledge about our...
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 24, 2008
Category: Evolution
Evolution mostly involves small, gradual changes, and for good reason - we might expect that large changes to an animal's genetic code, and therefore to its body plan, simply wouldn't work. It would be like shoving an extra cog...
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 23, 2008
Category: Bacteria
The plague, or the Black Death, is caused by a microbe called Yersinia pestis. In the 14th century, this microscopic enemy killed off a third of Europe's population. While many people consign the plague to centuries past, this attitude...
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 22, 2008
Category: Animal behaviour
Humans are a funny lot. While we seem to be relentless voyeurs, we generally frown on eavesdropping as an invasion of privacy. But in the animal world, eavesdropping can be a matter of life or death. Animals rarely communicate...
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
October 21, 2008
Category: Malaria
Fighting malaria with mosquitoes seems like an bizarrely ironic strategy but it's exactly what many scientists are trying to do. Malaria kills one to three million people every year, most of whom are children. Many strategies for controlling it...
Posted by Ed Yong at 10:00 AM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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