ALEX RILEY // SCIENCE WRITER
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The photo above shows a colony of coral releasing tiny bundles of eggs and sperm into an aquarium in south London, thousands of miles away from their home along the coast of Fiji. I wrote about why this is so remarkable, and incredibly rare, for New Scientist. Read it here: 'In the Mood for Love'.


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From the sandy bottom of the shallow seas to the harsh Tibetan plateau. Here's a story I wrote for BBC Future that explains how an extinct relative that lived in Asia helped one population of humans live a comfortable life at altitude. 

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In May 2017, I walked through a sweaty rainforest in Puerto Rico in search of a tiny golden frog that hadn't been seen or heard for over thirty years. Called the golden coqui, a group of scientists turned to artificial intelligence to decide whether this species was still alive, or whether it was extinct. The feature was published in PBS's NOVA Next.

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For BBC Future: 'Why vitamin pills don't work, and might be bad for you.' Published in 2016, this was included in the magazine's Top 10 features of the year and was selected Longreads Weekly.

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​Why are males often the most beautiful of the species? For Aeon Magazine, I cover the work of one evolutionary biologist who thinks it has everything to do with a merger that happened around two billion years ago, at the origin of complex life itself. 
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​In July 2017, I wrote a piece for The Open Notebook about how to manage a writing career with a mental illness. By complementing my experience with depression with other science writers who have bipolar, anxiety, and OCD, I offer some advice to those who might be struggling, regardless of whether they are a writer or not. 

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In Spring 2020, my first book will be published by Scribner (Simon & Shuster) in the US and Ebury (Penguin Random House). It will follow on from my Open Notebook feature into mental illness and focus on how we treat depression around the world. It is part history, part memoir, and full of interesting science. 
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