Chris Smith
The Naked Scientists
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Chris:
Is China's Covid Surge a New Variant Threat?
Will the hundreds of millions of SARS-CoV-2 cases in one of Asia's most populated countries forge a new variant capable of threatening world health? → Read More
Living with Covid: looking ahead
Do you remember that scene in Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray’s character eventually resorts to taking a bath with his toaster in an attempt to put an end to the interminable repetitive nightmare that his life has become? Although I’ve not reached my toaster moment quite yet, I suspect that, with the kybosh on Christmas - again - and another potential lockdown looming, I’m → Read More
Will Covid-19 Become a Common Cold?
Rolling down my sleeve post my Covid-19 booster, I pull up a pew alongside my fellow vaccinees in the after-jab “chill out” room where you loiter afterwards while they make sure there are not going to be any complications... → Read More
Covid-19: What do we do next?
If the pandemic has taught us anything - other than that working from home has pros and cons, especially if you're a parent trying to home school during a lockdown - it's that most of us are terrible at judging risks...Whether it's people panic-buying bog roll, or eschewing a covid jab for fear of a "get hit by lightning" level of risk from a rare side effect, time and again → Read More
Masks on the beach and in beer gardens? C'mon
Face masks have their place, but what's really needed right now is a breath of fresh air and a dose of common sense to control Covid-19... → Read More
Covid, Christmas, new variants and vaccines
Just when I thought I was getting on top of the rules, with a Covid-compatible Christmas gift-wrapped and ready to go, everything mutated, including the new coronavirus itself. Five days of festivities became one, and, sadly, my mother-in-law couldn’t come to stay. Needless to say, I’m devastated... → Read More
Covid vaccines: hugs and handshakes soon?
Some of my financially-inclined friends were not celebrating with the rest of us on Monday. “I wish I’d bought shares in Pfizer,” reflected one, ruefully, as the markets surged off the back of the good news about the vaccine the pharma giant is developing... → Read More
Hospital staff carrying COVID-19
Hospital staff are carrying COVID-19 without realising they’re infected, a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown... Patients admitted to NHS hospitals are now routinely screened for the Covid-19 virus, and isolated if necessary. But NHS workers, including patient-facing staff on the front line like doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, are tested → Read More
Graphs: uses and abuses
A third of the human brain is devoted solely to making sense of what we see, so it's not surprising that graphs frequently feature when we want to present information... → Read More
Sending a balloon to space
And can anyone hear you scream when you get there? → Read More
Cell transplant technology welds wounds
The first steps towards developing a better way to use transplanted cells to repair wounds and regenerate tissues has been developed by scientists at the University of Bristol. The breakthrough was coating the cells with a molecule found naturally in the body called thrombin. This is produced at wound sites and its role normally is to help blood to clot, which it does by → Read More
Circumcision Stops HIV
Circumcision is preventing tens of thousands of cases of HIV infection, a new study from Zimbabwe has confirmed this week.In 2007, trials first began to show that men who had been circumcised are significantly less likely to contract HIV. Compared with uncircumcised individuals, the HIV infection rate was up to 80% lower in the individuals who had had their foreskins removed. → Read More
Cochlear implant that uses light to send sound to the brain
A hearing aid system that uses light to send sound signals into the nervous system has been developed by researchers in Germany...The present generation of hearing aids work in a range of ways. The most common varieties make sounds louder in the the range of frequencies that the user struggles to hear.But this sort of device is not suitable for all forms of hearing loss, which is why over half a… → Read More
Targeting cancer with cancer
The natural tendency of circulating cancer cells to seek out their parent tumours, or sites of cancer spread called metastasis, can be used therapeutically to trigger tumours to kill themselves, US scientists have shown...Cancer cells grow invasively, without recourse to tissue boundaries or the normal rules that limit the lifetime of a dividing cell. They also characteristically break away from… → Read More
Insensitivity to the cold helps hibernators sleep
Not feeling the cold could be key to the ability of hibernators, like squirrels and hamsters, to snooze their way through winter, a new study has shown...Animals that hibernate can withstand prolonged periods with a profoundly low body temperature. We don't know how their bodies do this, but at least part of the answer must include deactivating normal responses to the cold. → Read More
Wine glasses seven times larger than 300 years ago
Wine glasses have ballooned in size and are now over 7 times larger than they were in the 1700s, researchers in the UK have discovered.Toasting their success in publishing their study in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) this week, the team, who are based at Cambridge University, suggest that their findings may go some way to explaining why levels of wine consumption have increased so… → Read More
Fossilised pterosaur eggs and chicks
Hundreds of fossilised dinosaur eggs, some with preserved chicks still inside, have been uncovered by scientists in China.The clutch of between 200-300 preserved eggs, each about 5cm long, were laid by a winged dinosaur species known as a pterosaur during the early Cretaceous period between 100-146 million years ago. Incredibly, 42 of the specimens that Xiaolin Wang and her colleagues at… → Read More
Missing link in treating anaemia: AVP
A brain hormone that controls water balance in the body also plays a key role in creating new blood cells, a new study has shown.Anti-diuretic hormone, also called AVP or arginine vasopressin, is released into the circulation by the brain's pituitary gland to control water reabsorption by the kidney.If we become dehydrated, or suffer blood loss, a surge of AVP puts the kidney into a water… → Read More
Are bacteria making colon cancers spread?
Cancers carry microbes with them when they spread around the body, suggesting that bacteria might promote the process, new research has revealed.Rogue cancer cells don't operate alone, it seems: instead they can carry a cadre of microbial sidekicks that can accelerate the disease process. → Read More
Dolly the sheep did not have early-onset arthritis
Dolly the cloned sheep didn't have early-onset arthritis, a new study looking at her skeleton has concluded. → Read More