Curiosity In Focus

While watching The Traitors , I started thinking about how people decide who is lying and who is telling the truth. So much of the game is built on trust, suspicion and reading other people - and so is real life and daily interactions. But it made me question how reliable those instincts really are. Are liars actually easy to spot, or are we just guessing? To answer that, we need to understand what a lie actually is and how it works in the brain. What is a lie? A lie isn't just a false statement, it's an intentional act of deception where somebody knows the truth but chooses to hide it. This is important because it means that something is only considered a lie where there is intentional deception, not just inaccurate memories or mistakes. Lying is a cognitively demanding process which involves several regeions of the brain working at the same time. When someone lies, the prefrontal cortex becomes especially active because the brain has to surpress the truthful response, hold it...

As a Hindu, this festive season - with celebrations like Ganesh Chaturthi, Navaratri, Dusshera and Diwali - has got me thinking about the deep connection between Hinduism and science. As I've started to learn more about Hindu traditions over the past few years, I've been deeply fascinated by how ancient Indian traditions weren't just spiritual, but often had strong scientific foundations. This festive season has inspired me to research more, and I thought that it would be the perfect time to explore how Hindu beliefs, practices, and discoveries have shaped scientific thought for thousands of years. In this post, I want to focus on 3 major parts of how Hinduism links with science - common Hindu rituals and traditions, Ancient Hindu texts and scriptures, and Hindu scholars whose discoveries are often forgotten. The Science in Everyday Traditions Many Hindu rituals that we see today actually have scientific reasoning behind them, so I wanted to research some of these ways of l...

 Note: Once again, I've been meaning to finish this post for months but never got round to it, here's another one from July! Sorry it's so late but here it is: This July, I had the incredible opportunity to spend a week at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Biological Resources Unit. As someone passionate about biology, genetics and cancer research, I was so excited to step into a real lab environment and spend a week seeing what working in biomedical research actually looked like. What I didn't expect was how much this experience would challenge me - not just intellectually but emotionally too. Day 1: My first day began with a talk about what I was expecting and hoping for from this work experience placement. This was really great as it made me feel a lot more comfortable in a new, unfamiliar environment, and it helped me understand what my week would look like a bit more. We then had an induction, which was all about the safety, and the ethical rules behind biomedical r...

Note: I was supposed to finish this post months ago, in July, but life got busy - sorry! I've finally finished...just know that I started writing in July (the end of the school year): As Year 10 has come to an end, I thought that it would be nice to do a post focusing on my experience as being a STEM Ambassador this year. At the start of the year, I signed up to be a STEM Ambassador - someone who helps lead and inspire younger students in science, technology, engineering and maths. I wanted to be a STEM Ambassador because I love science, and I wanted to share that love and enthusiasm with younger students so that they could also find a love for STEM. My main role? Running our school's STEM Club for year 7 and 8 students. At first, I thought it would be simple: plan a few fun experiments, show up to present, and everything else would run smoothly. I quickly learned that leading a club takes planning, a lot of patience, and a surprising number of late night text messages. Behind ...

This post is a follow up to my pharmacy work experience diary which you can read here if you'd like to know more about what I actually did during the week. During my pharmacy work experience, I found myself asking so many questions!! I wanted answers, and I managed to find quite a few through my own research and help from my chemistry teacher. These are some of the questions that stuck with me most, and what I learned from asking them or looking them up: Why do some medicines need to be stored in the fridge? I noticed that certain medicines were kept in a fridge, often things like insulin, antibiotics and vaccines. This is because they need cold temperatures to stay effective and if they get too warm they can break down and stop working properly/as effectively. Thats why pharmacies are so careful with how these are stroed and why they are often kept in the fridge right until a patient arrives to collect it. Why do some medicines come with warnings about food, driving or alcohol? S...

During my May half-term I spent a week doing work experience at a pharmacy. I chose this placement because I’m interested in science and healthcare, and I wanted to see what the day-to-day work in a pharmacy actually involves. I had always thought of pharmacists as the people who hand over medicines at the counter, but I quickly discovered that there’s far more happening behind the scenes. During my time there, I was given a variety of tasks that helped me understand how a pharmacy is run. One of the first things I learned to do was date checking. This involved going through the shelves and checking the expiry dates on medicines to make sure nothing out of date stayed in circulation. It might seem like a small job, but it’s essential for safety and efficiency, and it gave me a good sense of how carefully stock needs to be managed. I also spent time preparing dosette boxes, which are trays organised by day and time to help elderly patients or those with memory difficulties take the ri...

Memory is one of the most amazing abilities that our brains have - it allows us to learn, adapt, and make sense of the world around us. Whether you are remembering a friend's birthday, revising for an exam, or simply trying to remember where you left your book, memory plays a central role in everyday life. But how exactly does memory work? Why do we sometimes forget things we thought we knew while other memories stay with us forever? And more importantly, can we actively improve our memory? In this post I'll explore how memory works, what affects it, and how we might strengthen it using tools backed by psychology and neuroscience. How does memory work? Memory is the term given to the structures and processes involved in the storage and retrieval of information. According to 'Simply Psychology' there are 3 stages of memory - encoding, storage, and retrieval. The first stage is encoding, in which information comes into our memory system and is changed into a form that the...

What if you could erase a deadly disease - before a baby is even born? What if we could cure cancer, prevent suffering, and rewrite life itself? Would you do it? Should you? Gene editing isn’t science fiction anymore - it’s real, and it’s happening. With tools like CRISPR, scientists can now cut and rewrite DNA. That means we could potentially cure deadly diseases like cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anaemia, and maybe even cancer. The benefits Let’s start with the obvious: gene editing offers life-changing possibilities. Instead of managing symptoms, we could treat the root cause of many diseases by removing or repairing the faulty gene. In 2019, Victoria Gray became the first person in the U.S. to be treated for sickle cell disease using CRISPR—and the results were transformational. The results were life-changing. She went from constant pain to living a normal life. And it doesn’t stop there. Imagine a world where no child is born with Huntington’s disease. Where parents no longer hav...

One of the topics I’m most passionate about - and one that I’d like to share with you today - is Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (h-EDS) and how AI tools might be able to revolutionise the research being done to understand it. What is h-EDS? Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a chronic, often invisible condition that weakens the body’s connective tissue -the biological "glue" that holds everything together. This means it can cause widespread pain, fatigue, and joint instability. But it can also affect organ tissue, skin, digestion, and even brain function. Despite its wideranging impact, there is no known genetic marker for h-EDS , and many people go years - sometimes decades - without a proper diagnosis. Because it’s invisible both to the eye and often to current scientific tools, h-EDS remains misunderstood and frequently misdiagnosed, even though it may affect as many as 1 in 500 people. There are 13 recognised types of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and h-EDS is the o...

My name is Eyva and I'm 15 years old. As a secondary school student with a strong interest in science, I’ve created this blog as a space to explore the world of science beyond the classroom. I’m particularly fascinated by genetics, medical research, and conditions like hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (h-EDS), which I hope to study more deeply in the future. Most of the posts here will focus on research, breaking down complex science, explaining what I’m learning, and exploring topics I’m passionate about. But this blog will also follow my journey on experiences such as work placements. I hope this will help me develop as a future scientist by deepening my understanding, improving how I communicate scientific ideas, and keeping track of what I learn. Whether or not others read it, this blog will be a place where my curiosity and love for science can grow.