freelance science journalist and author
Medical reporting
From ABC News in Science, 23 October 2015: The microbe responsible for the Black Death plagues was infecting Bronze Age humans more than 3,000 years earlier than the pandemics it is most notorious for. Early forms of the bacteria, Yersinia pestis, have been found in Bronze Age human teeth up to 5,000 years old, according … Continue reading Black Death plague pathogen thousands of years older than first thought
From BBC Future, 2 September 2015: Those of us who enjoy the occasional glass of beer or wine would dearly love to believe that we’re doing our bodies a service. Any study suggesting a glass or two a day can keep the doctor away is greeted with disproportionate enthusiasm by the media and general public. … Continue reading Is alcohol actually bad for you?
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 4 August 2015: Countless lives have been saved in the hundreds of years that people have been receiving blood transfusions. Transfusions replenish blood lost through trauma, illness or surgery. They are a medical safety net; there for when surgery doesn’t quite go according to plan, and patients need a little … Continue reading Why experts are rethinking blood transfusions
From ABC Science, 29 July 2015: Stress during childhood can affect the make-up of our gut bacteria and this, in turn, could influence our mental health as adults, a new mouse study suggests. The research found transplanting gut bacteria from mice stressed when they were young could encourage anxiety-like behaviour in some recipients. The researchers … Continue reading Could gut bacteria help make you more anxious?
From ABC Science, 23 July 2015: Jeff Buckley or Rage Against The Machine? Your music preferences reveal a lot about how you think. There is a clear link between people’s cognitive styles and the type and depth of emotion they prefer in music, say researchers. Their work, published today in PLOS ONE, shows people who … Continue reading Music preferences reveal your inner thoughts
From ABC News in Science, 17 July 2015: Does the sound of a human scream make your hair stand on end? Now scientists say they can explain why. They’ve found the sound of human screaming is acoustically designed to plug directly into your brain’s fear and alarm circuit. A study, published today in Current Biology … Continue reading Human screams target brain’s fear centre
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 8 July 2015: Australia has long been called the lucky country. We have a life expectancy of 82 years, which places us in the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to lifespan. But this isn’t the case for all of us. Indigenous Australians have a ten-year lower … Continue reading The Indigenous health gap: social factors hit hard
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 17 March 2015: How many times have you been told that if you’re prescribed antibiotics, you must always finish the full course, even if you’re feeling better? The popular notion has always been that if you don’t complete the full course, you’re encouraging the development of antibiotic resistance. But in … Continue reading Antibiotics – when is enough enough?
From ABC Health and Wellbeing, 1 June 2015: Time poor? Of course you are. Who isn’t, these days? We’re all desperately trying to cram two-days’ worth of activity into one, and it seems like everything has to have happened yesterday. Deadlines scream at you while yet another crumpled note from your child’s school gently nudges … Continue reading Time or money? Why you need both to be healthy
From ABC Health & Wellbeing, 14 May 2015: When it comes to healing the sick, we look to doctors. When it comes to preventing us from getting sick in the first place, many say we should look to governments. That’s because the vast majority of our biggest killers, such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, lung … Continue reading Understanding what really makes us sick
Bianca Nogrady 