Author: Diane Shipley
Staff Writer Diane is especially interested in high-tech medical advances, weird and interesting uses of science, new gadgets, and the intersection of tech and lifestyle. When not working, she reads the internet, listens to podcasts, watches American TV, and thinks about leaving the house.
‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and ‘Frozen’ are two of the top 20 pirated films of 2014
Funnily enough, a movie about the spoils of capitalism tops the list of most-pirated films this year. Yep, as the Radio Times reports, copyright intelligence company Excipio has revealed that Wolf of Wall Street was the most popular illegally downloaded film in 2014, apparently racking up 30.035 million illegal downloads and thus seriously restricting Leonardo…
Smartphone use is changing our brains, study says
According to new Swiss research, smartphone use is changing our brains. As Psych Central reports, a team of neuroscientists from the University of Zurich and the University of Fribourg wanted to find out whether using touchscreen smartphones affects the sensorimotor cortex in the brain, which correlates to finger movements. So they recruited 37 people for…
Calm down, our Kindles aren’t going to kill us
Sure, Christmas parties can be fun. But the introverted book-loving types among us know the best thing about this time of year is having the chance to go to bed early, crank the electric blanket up to 11, sip a hot chocolate, and cut a swathe through all the books that’ve piled up on our…
A new implant can replace medication and effectively ‘cure’ arthritis
A new electronic implant can block the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, offering hope to thousands of severely affected sufferers. According to Sky News, the device is implanted into the neck, working similarly to pacemakers. It sends electrical impulses to the nervous system, basically telling it just calm down. Researchers from the Academic Medical Centre in…
Psychologists have studied what makes a good Christmas gift
If you still have to buy a last-minute Christmas gift or two, good news: researchers have studied what makes a good present. And maybe we shouldn’t judge those people who gave us a bread bin or a gadget from the pound shop too harshly: psychologists have so much to say on the topic they’ve just…
The NHS is setting up DNA sequencing centres across England
The NHS is setting up 11 Genomics Medicine Centres in English hospitals in order to try to improve treatments for diseases including cancer and genetic illnesses. The hope is that by making medications more personalised, they’ll be able to work more effectively with each individual’s genes and body chemistry. As the BBC reports, doctors will…
Don’t trust TV doctors’ advice, says study
No one expects doctors to be anything like they are on TV, which isn’t always a bad thing, because while it would be nice to meet George Clooney in the emergency room, an encounter with Dr House could scar you for life. But when it comes to real doctors on TV, we do expect them…
Scientists might be able to restore lost memories (!)
A new study’s found that how scientists have been thinking about memory is all wrong – and we may actually be able to restore them when they're lost. For a long time, neuroscientists thought that the connections between brain cells, known as synapses, were where memory was located. But researchers from UCLA have found that…
The new SentBuk app can gauge Facebook users’ moods
In case the site’s own data collection (and manipulation) wasn’t invasive enough, now Spanish researchers have made a new app, called SentBuk, that’s designed to gauge Facebook users’ moods. The good news is it needs users’ permission in order to work. Álvaro Ortigosa and his team from the National Centre of Excellence in Cybersecurity at…
A plant extract’s better than patches for quitting smoking
Smoking’s a tough habit to break, but scientists have found a new way to make giving up the cancer sticks a little easier. According to a new study reported in New Scientist, a plant extract called cytisine is actually more effective than nicotine patches or gum at helping people to quit. It’s taken from the…
