Author James Lloyd

James Lloyd

Staff writer, BBC Science Focus

James Lloyd is staff writer at BBC Science Focus magazine. He especially enjoys writing about wellbeing and psychology.

Recent articles by James Lloyd
A dog playing video games with a controller

Can animals play video games?

From dolphins to pigs: Inside the surprising world of nature's gamers
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Photograph of a mummy taken from the side lying down in a museum.

Here's what a 3,000-year-old mummy actually smells like

Scientists have discovered what mummies smell like and it's surprisingly not too bad.
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Montage of brain and body representing neuroscience and the connectivity of the brain.

Why do we feel emotions in different parts of our bodies?

Where in your body do you feel anger or pride?
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How fast would Father Christmas have to fly to visit every child in the world?

How fast would Father Christmas have to fly to visit every child in the world?

It's no small feat to travel 160,000,000km, to visit 200 million children, in 800 million homes, in only 34 hours... Luckily Santa has magic on his side.
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5 mental health apps to help you through the coronavirus crisis © Getty Images

5 mental health apps to help you through the coronavirus crisis

Mental health apps can calm the mind and keep track of wellbeing - here are five of our favourites, all available on iOS and Android.
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Where is the rainiest place on Earth? © Getty Images

Where is the rainiest place on Earth?

Asked by: Bertie West
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First sabre-toothed cat genome reveals a lethal long-distance hunter © Heraldo Mussolini/Stocktrek Images

First sabre-toothed cat genome reveals a lethal long-distance hunter

Its body was adapted for endurance running.
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No, an asteroid probably won’t smash into Earth the day before the US elections, and here’s why © Getty / Mark Wilson

No, an asteroid probably won’t smash into Earth the day before the US elections, and here’s why

What are the chances that we'll be struck by a space rock?
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Megalodon shark was an absolute unit, scientists confirm © Warpaintcobra / Getty

Megalodon shark was an absolute unit, scientists confirm

The predator was unusually big for its time.
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Neanderthals lost their Y chromosome to modern humans © Iain Masterton / Getty

Neanderthals lost their Y chromosome to modern humans

The modern humans won in the battle of the sex chromosomes.
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COVID-19: Should we infect people with it for vaccine research? © Getty Images

Should we infect people with COVID-19 for vaccine research?

A vaccine may be available sooner if volunteers are deliberately infected. But is it ethical?
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'Third thumb' human augmentation rewires the brain © Dani Clode/daniclode.com/instagram @dani_clode

'Third thumb' human augmentation rewires the brain

Scientists discover what happens to our neural circuitry when we learn to use robotic upgrades.
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The world’s biggest fish are female © Erick Higuera / Getty

The world’s biggest fish are female

Female whale sharks rule the oceans, reaching average lengths of 14 metres.
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COVID-19 'highly likely' to become seasonal disease © Getty Images

COVID-19 'highly likely' to become seasonal disease

"The public will need to learn to live with it," experts warn.
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Andromeda galaxy has a humongous halo of gas © NASA, ESA, and E. Wheatley (STScI)

Andromeda galaxy has a humongous halo of gas

Andromeda's halo extends approximately halfway to the Milky Way.
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Fossilised dinosaur skull reveals adorable appearance of baby sauropods © Kundrat et al. /Current Biology

Fossilised dinosaur skull reveals adorable appearance of baby sauropods

The skull reveals surprising differences to adult sauropods.
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Ancient reptile ‘well-preserved’ in stomach of slightly larger reptile © Ryosuke Motani/University of California

Ancient reptile ‘well-preserved’ in stomach of slightly larger reptile

A five-metre-long ichthyosaur ate a four-metre-long thalattosaur around 240 million years ago.
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Extinct woolly rhinos were a victim of climate change, not overhunting © Sergey Fedorov

Extinct woolly rhinos were a victim of climate change, not overhunting

The woolly rhino went extinct around 14,000 to 15,000 years ago.
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99-million-year-old fossilised ‘hell ant’ shows how these ancient insects hunted © NJIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences and University of Rennes, France

99-million-year-old fight between ‘hell ant’ and its prey preserved in amber

Researchers say the only way prey could be captured in this position is for the ant's mouthparts to move in a direction "unlike that of all living ants".
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Coronavirus: can herd immunity protect us from COVID-19? © Getty Images

Can herd immunity protect us from COVID-19?

Herd immunity has been touted as a way to slow the virus’s transmission. But what is it, and at what point would we feel its effects?
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Planet Nine could be a grapefruit-sized black hole, say astrophysicists © M Weiss

Planet Nine could be a grapefruit-sized black hole, say astrophysicists

We can prove it by looking for the black hole's 'accretion flares', the astrophysicists say.
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Is the coronavirus airborne? © Getty Images

Is the coronavirus airborne?

There’s growing evidence that the virus can spread via tiny droplets that drift in the air. Should we be worried?
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Meet the ‘tiny bug slayer’, a coffee-cup-sized relative of the dinosaurs (Illustration of Kongonaphon kely, a newly described reptile near the ancestry of dinosaurs and pterosaurs, in what would have been its natural environment in the Triassic (~237 million years ago) © Alex Boersma)

Meet the ‘tiny bug slayer’, a coffee-cup-sized relative of the dinosaurs

Kongonaphon kely lived around 237 million years ago.
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Jupiter-like exoplanet orbits its star in only 18 hours © University of Warwick/Mark Garlick/PA

Naked gas giant offers first ever glimpse of a planetary core

The exposed planetary core is named TOI-849b.
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