Emma Bryce is a freelance journalist and editor based in London. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, WIRED Magazine UK, Audubon Magazine, TED Education, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, and Yale360. She’s written about everything from birds and oil rigs, to wave farms, insect consumption, and egg thieves. On her Guardian blog, World on a Plate, she also covers a range of issues relating to food and the environment. For TED Education, she edits scripts that get turned into animated videos.
Emma Bryce
Freelance writer
From this contributor
Advancing early interventions for autism
Some therapies use play and other activities to reinforce skills that autistic children often find challenging. Trials show these methods can change a child’s trajectory for the better, but the evidence base remains thin.
How the striatum is linked to autism
The repetitive behaviors seen in autism may originate in the striatum, a cluster of neurons involved with initiating and executing movements.
Repetitive behaviors and autism
New thinking about repetitive behaviors suggests they provide stress relief and fun for autistic people; as such, these behaviors deserve careful management.
How autism’s definition has changed over time
Don’t judge this book by its decidedly dull cover: Across its pages, some of the most dramatic changes in the history of autism have played out. This short animation chronicles how a diagnostic manual has defined and redefined autism over the years.
How autism’s definition has changed over time
By
Emma Bryce, Mengxin Li
9 May 2018 | 3 min watch
Explore more from The Transmitter
Sensory over-responsivity tied to autism, anxiety but not other conditions
Negative reactions to sensations track with certain neurodevelopmental traits in more than 15,000 children—pointing to shared neurobiological roots.
Sensory over-responsivity tied to autism, anxiety but not other conditions
Negative reactions to sensations track with certain neurodevelopmental traits in more than 15,000 children—pointing to shared neurobiological roots.
By
Diana Kwon
10 September 2026 | 5 min read
Neuromechanical models deepen our understanding of animal motor control
Thanks to recent progress in physics-based simulators and robotics, it has never been easier for neuroscientists to use neuromechanical modeling to test hypotheses about animal movement.
Neuromechanical models deepen our understanding of animal motor control
Thanks to recent progress in physics-based simulators and robotics, it has never been easier for neuroscientists to use neuromechanical modeling to test hypotheses about animal movement.
By
Auke Ijspeert
9 September 2026 | 0 min watch
Fruit flies use memory to track odors
When flies encounter a tasty smell, they stroll in and out of the odor plume—a process that depends on encoding a memory of the angle needed to travel back to the plume, according to a new study.
Fruit flies use memory to track odors
When flies encounter a tasty smell, they stroll in and out of the odor plume—a process that depends on encoding a memory of the angle needed to travel back to the plume, according to a new study.
By
Calli McMurray
8 September 2026 | 2 min watch