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
Purkinje cells evolved to have increasingly complex architecture
An increasing proportion of the cerebellar neurons acquired multiple primary dendrites in humans and other apes, according to a comparison of 11 primate species.
Purkinje cells evolved to have increasingly complex architecture
An increasing proportion of the cerebellar neurons acquired multiple primary dendrites in humans and other apes, according to a comparison of 11 primate species.
By
Siddhant Pusdekar
16 July 2026 | 5 min read
Making waves: Sleep-like brain activity in awake mice lowers sleep need, boosts memory
Alternating on/off firing patterns don’t just characterize deep, slow-wave sleep, they drive some of its restorative benefits, new findings suggest.
Making waves: Sleep-like brain activity in awake mice lowers sleep need, boosts memory
Alternating on/off firing patterns don’t just characterize deep, slow-wave sleep, they drive some of its restorative benefits, new findings suggest.
By
Alissa de Chassey
16 July 2026 | 4 min read
Is our intelligence rooted in how living organisms are organized?
Kathryn Nave explains how a concept called constraint closure may be fundamental to understanding brains, minds and cognition.
Is our intelligence rooted in how living organisms are organized?
Kathryn Nave explains how a concept called constraint closure may be fundamental to understanding brains, minds and cognition.
By
Paul Middlebrooks
15 July 2026 | 1 min read