Alexander McNamara

Frome

Shorter than expected. Editor-in-Chief at @livescience. Formerly at @newscientist, @sciencefocus, @bing and @msnuk. Makes excellent chicken wings 👌

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Articles

Science news this week: 'Stranded' astronauts return and mystery human ancestor

2 months ago | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

This week's science news was largely dominated by the return of two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, whose planned eight-day mission ended up lasting 286 days. Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on June 5, 2024, but not long into the mission helium leaks, along with a number of other issues, were discovered on their Boeing Starliner spacecraft.
Are you an alien expert, or has your brain been abducted? Take our quiz to find out

2 months ago | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

Is there anybody out there? Are we really alone in the universe, or are aliens just patiently waiting for us to become advanced enough to be worth speaking to? There are so many mysteries about who or what might live among the stars, and whether they are advanced planet-hopping civilizations or microbes quietly doing what microbes do on a nearby moon. But some questions are easier to answer.
Science news this week: Blood moon and a mysterious mummy

2 months ago | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

This week, Earth witnessed a stunning spectacle not seen since 2022 — a total lunar eclipse. This celestial game of hide-and-seek treated skywatchers to the spectacular sight of our neighbor turning a beautiful shade of red, in what is commonly called a "blood moon."This unusual coloring happens during a total lunar eclipse due to a phenomenon called Rayleigh scattering, which causes some wavelengths of light to scatter more than others.
Poll: Should we bring back woolly mammoths?

Mar 5, 2025 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

Biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences unveiled images and footage of "woolly mice" on Tuesday (March 4), with fur similar to the thick hair that kept woolly mammoths warm during the last ice age. Want to know more? Colossal scientists used mice because their shorter gestation period makes it much easier to test the gene edits and engineering tools needed to do the same procedure on elephants, in the hope that one day they could "resurrect" woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius).
Commenting on Live Science articles

Jan 31, 2025 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

At Live Science we know how important online communities are, and we’re always looking for ways to encourage positive discussion around science. That’s why we’re excited to announce that you are now free to comment on most articles published on our site. Our goal is that the comment section will be the best place for thoughtful analysis and entertaining discussion around science.
Biologist Kathy Willis on why looking at nature can speed up healing

Nov 10, 2024 | msn.com | Alexander McNamara

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'A direct relationship between your sense of sight and recovery rate': Biologist Kathy Willis on why looking at nature can speed up healing

Nov 10, 2024 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

The practice of forest bathing is a mindful, meditative experience where we allow our senses to become attuned to nature by spending time walking through woodlands. Numerous studies have shown that immersing ourselves in the natural world in this way can have significant health benefits, but could we ever bring this practice to a clinical setting? Could nature immersion provide alternative and effective treatments to patients suffering from a wide range of ailments?
Content funding on Live Science

Nov 3, 2024 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

At Future Publishing we rely on advertising to keep bringing you the content you love to read. The majority of the content on Live Science is created solely by our editorial team, but on occasion we also work with external partners to create content we hope our readers will find interesting and useful. In some cases, advertisers support us in producing content. This content is labelled so you can see who has funded it and how it was created.
'It was clearly a human assault on the species': The fate of the great auk

Oct 22, 2024 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

Great auks (Pinguinus impennis) were large flightless birds that thrived on rocky islands in the North Atlantic for thousands of years. However, humans hunted them to extinction within just a few hundred years, targeting the auks for their feathers, fat, meat and oil. The last breeding pair was killed by a fisher off the coast of Iceland in 1844, and the last sighting — of a single male, and potentially the last of its species — was off the Newfoundland Banks in 1852.
Periodic table of elements quiz: How many elements can you name in 10 minutes?

Oct 14, 2024 | livescience.com | Alexander McNamara

When it comes to science, chemistry is elemental. That pun is based on the fact that the main building blocks in the branch of science are chemical elements, pure substances made from a single type of atom. But how many of these elements do you know? Test your knowledge and compete with other Live Science readers to see who can come top in our periodic table quiz. The periodic table of elements is a landmark categorization developed in 1869 by the Russian chemist and inventor Dmitri Mendeleev.