Chris Simms

Bristol

Assistant News Editor at New Scientist

Articles

Rain could be a clean way of generating lots of electricity

1 week ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

Water droplets falling through a tube have generated enough electricity to power 12 LED lights. Such an approach could one day be used in roof-based systems to harvest lots of clean power from rain. βRain falls on Earth every day. All the energy is wasted due to the lack of a system to harvest rain energy,β says Siowling Soh at the National University of Singapore.
Electrical synapses genetically engineered in mammals for first time

1 week ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

Electrical synapses that carry messages through the brain have been artificially engineered in mammals for the first time, altering their behaviour. This could have potential for preventing or treating a range of mental health conditions, including obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Connections, or synapses, between nerve cells are either electrical or chemical.
Het vlekkenpatroon van giraffen heeft een verrassende functie

2 weeks ago | newscientist.nl | Chris Simms

Het formaat en de vorm van giraffevlekken hebben mogelijk invloed op hoe goed de dieren kunnen overleven wanneer het weer warmer of kouder is dan normaal. De prachtige gevlekte patronen van een giraffenvacht hebben meer nut dan enkel camouflage. Nieuw onderzoek laat namelijk zien dat het formaat van de vlekken een verband lijkt te hebben met hoe goed de dieren kunnen overleven bij ongebruikelijke temperaturen. Iedere giraffe heeft een unieke reeks vlekken.
Weekend workouts can be as valuable as exercising throughout the week

3 weeks ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

You donât need to exercise every day to be healthy. Squeezing at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity in at the weekend seems to have similar health benefits as spreading it out throughout the week. This adds to existing evidence that âweekend warriorsâ, who fit their weekly physical activity into just one or two days, have a lower risk of early death than people who donât exercise and about the same risk as those who are consistently active all week.
Ancient wasp preserved in amber may have used its rear end to trap flies

4 weeks ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

Life Bizarre parasitic wasps preserved in amber about 99 million years ago had trap-like abdomens that they may have used to immobilise other insects An extraordinary extinct wasp found preserved in amber may have used its abdomen to grasp other insects like a Venus flytrap before laying its eggs on them. ‚ÄúIt‚Äôs unlike anything I‚Äôve ever seen before. It‚Äôs unlike any wasp or any other insect that is known today,‚ÄĚ says Lars Vilhelmsen at the Natural History Museum of Denmark.
Why do giraffes have spots? Not for the reason you might think

4 weeks ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

The beautiful mottled patterns of a giraffe’s coat work as more than camouflage – the size of the spots seems to be linked to how well the animals survive during unusual temperatures. Every giraffe has a unique array of spots. Patterns with larger and rounder spots can increase the chance of a baby giraffe surviving its first four months, because they help them blend into the background in the dappled light near bushes.
Babies Do Make Memories-So Why Can't We Remember Them as Adults?

1 month ago | scientificamerican.com | Chris Simms

Babies as young as one year old can form memories, according to the results of a brain-scanning study published today in Science. The findings suggest that infantile amnesia — the inability to remember the first few years of life — is probably caused by difficulties in recalling memories, rather than creating them. “One really cool possibility is that the memories are actually still there in adulthood.
Floating wood could help us refreeze the Arctic seas

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

Modified floating wood could seed the formation of new sea ice in the Arctic, helping counteract the rapid decline of ice coverage due to global warming. The area of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice is shrinking as the climate warms, and it has been projected that the region will see its first ice-free summer day before 2030. The loss of ice leads to a vicious cycle; because the exposed water is darker than ice, it absorbs more of the sunâ€™s…
Classrooms decorated like woodlands seem to slow myopia progression

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Chris Simms

Myopia has long been linked to spending too much time inside, but new research suggests that just simulating the outdoors in classrooms could help ward off the condition in children. Short-sightedness, or myopia, generally emerges as the eye changes shape during normal development in early life, and the distance between the cornea at the front of the eye and the retina at the back becomes too long. This results in blurry vision of distant objects…
Babies do make memories - so why can’t we recall our earliest years?

1 month ago | nature.com | Chris Simms

Babies as young as one year old can form memories, according to the results of a brain-scanning study published today in Science1. The findings suggest that infantile amnesia — the inability to remember the first few years of life — is probably caused by difficulties in recalling memories, rather than creating them. “One really cool possibility is that the memories are actually still there in adulthood.