freelance science journalist and author
Family Practice News, 15 December 2021: People with multiple preexisting chronic conditions experience a longer wait to receive a diagnosis of cancer and are more likely to be referred to an emergency department for their cancer, according to new research. These findings are based on a retrospective study of data from 11,716 cancer patients from … Continue reading Delays in cancer referral, diagnosis linked with morbidities
From Nature Middle East, 7 December 2021: Atmospheric rivers are long stretches of cloud that can carry enormous quantities of water vapour from the tropics towards the poles. They were first described in 19941 and since then have come to be understood as the major mechanism transporting moisture from lower latitude oceans to higher latitude … Continue reading Atmospheric rivers dust the Alps
From Nature, 1 November 2021: Up to 10,000 feral horses might be killed or removed from Australia’s largest alpine national park under a draft plan to control the rapidly growing population of non-native animals. Scientists have welcomed the idea of removing them, but are alarmed that the plan still allows for thousands to remain, threatening … Continue reading Scientists say Australian plan to cull up to 10,000 wild horses doesn’t go far enough
From Medscape, 23 November 2021: A large randomized, placebo-controlled trial of platelet-rich plasma injections for knee osteoarthritis has found almost no symptomatic or structural benefit from the treatment, giving some clarity to an evidence base that has seen both positive and negative trials for the treatment modality. Given the need for better disease-modifying treatments for … Continue reading Platelet-Rich Plasma Injections Show No Benefit in Knee OA in Placebo-Controlled Trial
From Nature, 14 October 2021: Infectious-diseases physician Krutika Kuppalli had been in her new job for barely a week in September 2020, when someone phoned her at home and threatened to kill her. Kuppalli, who had just moved from California to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, had been dealing with online abuse … Continue reading ‘I hope you die’: how the COVID pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists
From The Medical Republic, 1 October 2021 When did you last read a study of a new drug or treatment which included any mention of – or even ruled out – potential adverse effects impacts on male fertility? If you’ve been racking your brain for several minutes and still can’t think of one, you’re not … Continue reading Spare a thought for the sperm
From Wired UK, 4 October 2021: Christoph Gebald and Jan Wurzbacher were, in the latter’s words, “young, motivated and maybe a bit naïve,” when they decided in 2009 to set up a company based on technology that could capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The two mechanical engineers, who met while studying at ETH Zürich, … Continue reading Direct air capture sucks carbon right out of the skies
From Nature, 8 September 2021: Nearly 90% of economically viable global coal reserves must be left in the ground to have even a 50% chance of hitting internationally agreed climate-change goals, according to an updated model of limits to fossil-fuel extraction, published today in Nature. For a 50% chance of remaining below 1.5 °C of … Continue reading Most fossil-fuel reserves must remain untapped to hit 1.5 °C warming goal
From Nature, 26 August 2021: The 7,000-year-old skeleton of a teenage hunter-gatherer from Sulawesi in Indonesia could be the first remains found from a mysterious, ancient culture known as the Toaleans, researchers report this week in Nature1. The largely complete fossil of a roughly 18-year-old Stone Age woman was found in 2015 buried in a … Continue reading First ancient human DNA found from key Asian migration route
From Nature, 25 August 2021: “Dealing with pain is messy,” says John Roberts, an oncologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. It can’t be measured objectively through biomarkers or visualized on a scan, the experience of it varies enormously from person to person, and it can be fiendishly difficult to treat. … Continue reading Why severe sickle-cell pain has been neglected
Bianca Nogrady 