Colin Barras holds degrees in geology, palaeobiology and science communication, and a PhD in palaeontology. He has been technology news editor, life science, and biomedical news editor of New Scientist and continues to write for the magazine on a weekly basis. In 2012/2013, he was employed by CERN to write Hunting the Higgs, an introductory book on the science of the Large Hadron Collider and the discovery of the Higgs Boson. He also works for BBC Worldwide, writing and editing for the BBC Future and BBC Earth websites, and is frequently asked to comment on scientific breakthroughs.