Blog

Written by Julia Cleghorn Turns out we can thank Rihanna and Taylor Swift for more than just catchy songs. Recent research has revealed that for kids, pain from surgery can be reduced by simply listening to their favourite music!

Written by Beth Askham Bacteria living in soil could save our lives – if only we knew they existed. A new way of looking at soil bacteria is helping researchers discover new antibiotics.

Written by Beth Askham Sometimes smelling like your environment is the best way to blend in and hide from predators. On the Great Barrier Reef, the harlequin filefish shelters in coral branches overnight. Researchers have found that these fish not only look like coral, they smell like it too.

Written by Beth Askham Researchers have made sticky hand pads that let you climb walls like Spiderman. Inspired by gecko feet, a research lab at Stanford University in America developed the climbing device. This technology recently allowed a person weighing 70 kilograms to climb a sheer glass wall. The team have also used the structure […]

Written by Julia Cleghorn As gross as it may sound, doctors are now trialling poo to treat some patients. In a new study, capsules full of fecal matter – otherwise known as poo – have been found to cure infections in the intestines!

Written by Julia Cleghorn Imagine you’re walking on your own through the forest, late at night, and suddenly stumble across a giant, hairy spider. Frightening thought? Best not to dwell on it too much then. It did happen, though, to an entomologist – and what better day to discuss it than Halloween!

It’s three in the morning. Nature calls. You stagger from your bed, squinting in the darkness as you blindly weave your way past a bookshelf, around the glass cabinet, and down the corridor into the smallest room in the house. Not only do the scientists John O’Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser understand how your […]

Getting out of bed some days feels like too much effort. If only night lasted all day, just like it does for the blind Mexican cavefish. Like the fish, you just might save some energy by living in an endless night.

Earlier this year, South Australia’s wheat growers in the Yorke Peninsula had one of the worst mouse plagues on record. Thousands of mice ate seeds that had been sown by farmers. The areas to the south and east of Australia are the worst places in the world for mouse plagues.

Written by Caitlin DevorThere’s life under ice. Scientists found an entire community of bacteria living 800 metres under the surface of glaciers in Antarctica. These bacteria rely on each other to survive in the dark, isolated, subzero lake.