Biology

This September, scientists at Trinity College Dublin made a new breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research.  By studying the blood-brain barrier—the BBB, a term used to describe the properties in the brain’s blood vessels that strictly regulate…

What would you do if someone hacked into software connected to your brain? This may sound like the premise of a thousand and one questionable dystopian films but it happened to Neil Harbisson. Of all the people who might find themselves on…

The announcement this week of finding running water on the Martian surface was big news, your Facebook and Twitter feeds were filled with the revelation and people rushed to find the closet Airbnb next to the picturesque rivers of the Red…

Total Lunar Eclipse On September 28th you better make sure you set your alarms earlier than usual. One of the most spectacular natural sights, a total lunar eclipse, will be visible to all of you in Ireland in the early hours of Monday the…

Mary Mallon, a woman whose name became synonymous with death and disease, was born in Cookstown, County Tyrone, in 1869. An ironic birthplace, given that it was as a cook that she would become infamous. She emigrated to America in 1884…

The waiting is the worst. That time between the doctor taking your blood test and the return of those dreaded results can seem interminable. Once the result has been determined the situation can be faced and dealt with, whether it’s a case…

Bill Gates & Spanish Influenza Bill Gates, in an interview with Vox, has urged humanity to take the threat of massive flu pandemics more seriously. He says that this is the most likely major killer of humans in the future. The…

The mechanism behind knuckle cracking After decades of debate (really) scientists may have finally agreed on what happens when you crack your knuckles. Is the sound made by a bubble forming in the joint liquid, or the bubble popping?…

Ups and downs at the LHC Don't they look happy! It’s been an exciting few weeks over at CERN. After a scheduled 2 year downtime, the Large Hadron Collider was due to restart last week, but the momentous occasion was delayed by a short…

What do the names Sonic Hedgehog, Gremlin and BAMBI mean to you? Sega’s speedy blue hedgehog, a goblin-like creature from the 1980s, and a Disney deer who tragically lost his mother? Although to most these are fictional characters, to the…