Mars 2020 Perseverance space mission launches from Kennedy Space Center. CRISTOBAL HERRERA-ULASHKEVICH/EPA-EE Donald Trump set bold goals for space exploration during his time in office – from crewed missions to the Moon and Mars to a Space Force. By contrast, his successor Joe Biden has been relatively quiet on spaceContinue Reading
Elise Robert/Shutterstock In a circular economy, we wouldn’t have any waste or pollution. Instead, everything we make and all our byproducts would be reused or repurposed, helping to end the over-exploitation of our finite resources and damage to our environment and climate. To make this process profitable, the manufacturers ofContinue Reading
An artist's impression of a gravitational micro-lensing event by a free-floating planet. JanSkowron/Astronomical Observatory, University of Warsaw. Most known planets orbit a star. These planets, including Earth, benefit from the star’s warmth and light. And it is the light emitted from these stars which makes it possible for us toContinue Reading
Cain and Abel. Palma il Giovane When modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago, they made a discovery that was to change the course of history. The continent was already populated by our evolutionary cousins, the Neanderthals, which recent evidence suggests had their own relatively sophisticated culture andContinue Reading
It might be assumed that this publication is tied to the elections in the United States, which are in the heat of the moment. By no means, just the stars are so aligned that the figure of Donald Trump is featured in the book “The Swaying Scene” published October, 25,Continue Reading
_P. poncetii_ in South Georgia. Gemma Clucas When you think of scientists discovering new species, you might imagine searching the Amazon rainforest for new types of insect or the depths of the ocean for undiscovered crustaceans. But these days most new species we discover are found hiding in plain sight.Continue Reading
Reconstruction Yuan Zhang When fossils of the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, were first discovered almost 160 years ago, the find created a puzzle that has troubled palaeontologists ever since. These fossils were celebrated for their chimera-like combination of supposedly reptilian features (such as a bony tail and jaws with teeth)Continue Reading
Artist impression of a prehistoric woman hunting. Matthew Verdolivo (UC Davis IET Academic Technology Services) For a long time, it was assumed that hunting in prehistoric societies was primarily carried out by men. Now a new study adds to a body of evidence challenging this idea. The research reports theContinue Reading
El Nariz/Shutterstock The small town of Watton, Norfolk recently held the unfortunate title of having England’s highest rate of infection with COVID-19 relative to population size, following an outbreak at a food factory. Despite varying degrees of lockdown restrictions due to the pandemic, many people in the UK are stillContinue Reading
Charles R Knight/Wikimedia Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren’t our ancestors, but a sister species, evolving in parallel. Neanderthals fascinate us because ofContinue Reading
