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Ed Yong

Award-winning science writer who reports for the Atlantic. His first book, I Contain Multitudes, about the amazing partnerships between microbes and animals, was published in August 2016. His writing has also appeared in National Geographic, the New YorkerWired, the New York TimesNatureNew ScientistScientific American, and more.

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"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

Posts by this author

September 9, 2009
Prions are proteins that have become bent out of shape. Their chain of amino acids folds up in an abnormal ways, and they can transmit this rogue alignment to their normal counterparts. As their numbers increase, they gather in large clumps that can kill neurons and damage brains. They most…
September 9, 2009
When food is precious, animals can resort to strange behaviours in order to satisfy their hunger. Take the great tit. Its usual diet of insects and creepy-crawlies is harder to come by in winter. But in one Hungarian cave, great tits, ever the opportunists, have learned to exploit a rich and…
September 8, 2009
When danger threatens many lizards can detach their tails, leaving them behind as decoys in the hope that the predator will attack it rather than the lizard itself. But the tail doesn't just lie there as bait. For half an hour after they've been severed, the disembodied tails perform a complex…
September 8, 2009
This is becoming a bit of a meme. It started when T. Ryan Gregory decided to post a list of good science writers in an attempt to balance the Internet's readiness to slate dodgy science writing with a shout out to the ones who do it well. Brian Switek, himself a worthy addition to Ryan's list, took…
September 7, 2009
The natural world is rife with leftovers. Over the course of evolution, body parts that no longer benefit their owners eventually waste, away leaving behind shrivelled and useless anatomical remnants. The human tailbone is one such example. Others include the sightless eyes of cavefish that live in…
September 6, 2009
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. Everybody, apparently, needs good neighbours, but in many parts of the world, your neighbours can be your worst enemy. In the past century, more than 100 million people have lost their lives to violent…
September 5, 2009
I was browsing a copy of New Scientist in the supermarket today and realised that I actually have a feature in it, having completely forgotten that it was coming out this week! This one's on the fate of the oldest old - people aged 100 or over. This is one of the fastest rising demographics in the…
September 4, 2009
Domestic dogs are very different from their wolf ancestors in their bodies and their behaviour. They're more docile for a start. But man's best friend has also evolved a curious sensitivity to our communication signals - a mental ability that sets them apart from wolves and that parallels the…
September 3, 2009
When it comes to encouraging people to work together for the greater good, carrots work better than sticks. That's the message from a new study showing that rewarding people for good behaviour is better at promoting cooperation than punishing them for offences. David Rand from Harvard University…
September 3, 2009
As sufferers of post-traumatic stress syndrome know all too well, frightening experiences can be strong, long-lasting and notoriously difficult to erase. Now, we're starting to understand why. Far from trying to purge these memories, the brain actively protects them by hiring a group of molecular…
September 2, 2009
Birds have a variety of alarm calls that warn other members of the flock about impending danger. But for some birds, the very act of taking off is enough to sound the alarm.  Mae Hingee and Robert Magrath from the Australian National University have found that crested pigeons have modified wing…
September 1, 2009
A common problem afflicting modern psychology is that it's mainly based on experiments with middle-class white people, often from North America or Europe. Open up the field of inquiry to other cultures, social circles or ethnic groups and different trends come to the fore. Take the effects of a…
August 31, 2009
And now for something completely different... This is a repost with a difference - it's an edited interview I did with London scientist Chris McManus way back in September 2007. This has a fond place in my heart, for it was the first proper freelance writing assigment that I did after winning the…
August 30, 2009
We all have a personal bubble, an invisible zone of privacy around our bodies. When strangers cross this boundary, it makes us feel uncomfortable. But not all of us - Daniel Kennedy from the California Institute of Technology has been studying a woman known only as SM, who lacks any sense of…
August 28, 2009
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. Getting excited when fish produce sperm would usually get you strange looks. But for Tomoyuki Okutsu and colleagues at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, it's all part of a day's work.…
August 26, 2009
When sportsmen use rackets or bats, their best bet is to hit a ball on the "sweet spot", the point where various forces balance out to deliver powerful blows with only very small forces on the wielder's wrist. Engineers have the right tools and models to work out where this spot lies on their…
August 25, 2009
Gravity affects not just our bodies and our behaviours, but our very thoughts. That's the fascinating conclusion of a new study which shows that simply holding a heavy object can affect the way we think. A simple heavy clipboard can makes issues seem weightier - when holding one, volunteers think…
August 25, 2009
Since late 2006, honeybees in Europe and North America have been mysteriously disappearing. Once abuzz with activity, hives suddenly turned into honeycombed Marie Celestes. They still had plentiful supplies of honey, pollen and youngsters but the adult workers vanished with no traces of their…
August 24, 2009
Our minds are battlegrounds where different media fight for attention. Through the Internet, desktops, mobile screens, TVs and more, we are constantly awash with headlines, links, images, icons, videos, animations and sound.  This is the way of the 21st century - a saturated sensory environment…
August 23, 2009
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. There's been more work on CCD since, but I'm reposting this mainly because of some interesting follow-up research that will I will post about tomorrow. In 2006, American and European beekeepers started…
August 21, 2009
Viruses and bacteria often act as parasites, infecting a host, reproducing at its expense and causing disease and death. But not always - sometimes, their infections are positively beneficial and on rare occasions, they can actually defend their hosts from parasitism rather than playing the role…
August 20, 2009
During chase scenes, movie protagonists often make their getaway by releasing some sort of decoy to cover their escape or distract their pursuer. But this tactic isn't reserved for action heroes - some deep-sea animals also evade their predators by releasing decoys - glowing ones. Karen Osborn…
August 20, 2009
In 2007, Jan Souman dropped three volunteers into the Sahara desert and watched as they walked for several miles, in an attempt to walk in a straight line. Souman was interested in the widespread belief that lost travelers end up walking in circles, a belief that has never been properly tested but…
August 19, 2009
Whether it's a goalkeeper who needs to decide which way to dive, or a motorist who needs to swerve to avoid a pedestrian, people often have to make decisions in a small amount of time, based on a complex onrush of information. But even as their muscles launch them towards one particular fate, there…
August 18, 2009
Several million years ago, at a time when dinosaurs walked the earth, a flying reptile - a pterosaur - came in for a landing. As it approached, it used its powerful wings to slow itself down and hit the ground feet first. It took a short hopping step before landing a second time. On solid ground,…
August 17, 2009
In a Swiss laboratory, a group of ten robots is competing for food. Prowling around a small arena, the machines are part of an innovative study looking at the evolution of communication, from engineers Sara Mitri and Dario Floreano and evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller. They programmed robots…
August 15, 2009
This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science. Twenty-two thousand sounds like a huge number. It's happens to be number of eastern Pacific gray whales currently swimming off the coast of North America. It's certainly much larger than 140, the number of…
August 13, 2009
A very brief note to say that today, Not Exactly Rocket Science is three years old. Sniff... they grow up so fast...
August 13, 2009
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it appears that capuchins believe it too. These very sociable monkeys gravitate towards humans that mimic their actions, spending more time in their company and even preferring to trade with them. Annika Paukner, who studied this monkey…
August 12, 2009
When the bacteria that cause anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) aren't ravaging livestock or being used in acts of bioterrorism, they spend their lives as dormant spores. In these inert but hardy forms, the bacteria can weather tough environmental conditions while lying in wait for their next host. This…