Juliya Shangarey/Shutterstock Why are snails’ trails shiny? – Liliana, aged eight, Dublin, Ireland Snails produce a lot of slime, and it is incredibly useful to them. Snail slime is made of a mixture of substances. It is mostly water mixed with proteins and some carbohydrates and minerals, formed into aContinue Reading
Legendrea loyezae, a very rare ciliate that lives in oxygen-free sediments of lakes James Weiss, Author provided You are more likely to take a trip to the Moon than to see a microbe called Legendrea loyezae under a microscope. Nasa’s Apollo programme has sent a total of 24 people toContinue Reading
As solar and wind proliferate, the power lurking in the world’s oceans is yet to make waves. In fact, tides could become the next essential energy source.Continue Reading
Brion Gysin and William Burroughs with the Dreamachine, 1972. Charles Gatewood, Author provided For millennia, people have used mind-altering techniques to achieve different states of consciousness, envision spiritual figures, connect with nature, or simply for the fun of it. Psychedelic substances, in particular, have a long and controversial history. ButContinue Reading
Air fryers are becoming more popular Twinsterphoto/Shutterstock If you look carefully at the energy vampires in any house, there’s one common denominator: heat. This means cooking can be among your biggest costs, along with electric heaters and warming water for washing and radiators. So what are the most effective thingsContinue Reading
An artist's impression of planet Gliese 667 Cc at sunset. ESO/L. Calçada, CC BY The study of exoplanets, worlds which orbit stars other than our sun, is currently being transformed by the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). We will shortly gain our first insight into conditions on rocky, potentiallyContinue Reading
Shutterstock We all have to make hard decisions from time to time. The hardest of my life was whether or not to change research fields after my PhD, from fundamental physics to climate physics. I had job offers that could have taken me in either direction – one to joinContinue Reading
slowmotiongli/Shutterstock When you think of friendship, what comes to mind? Is it a phone conversation that lasts late into the night? Watching a movie and sharing a pizza? Enjoying some laughs over a beer? Friendship is a central part of the human experience. Our stories, our songs and our conversationsContinue Reading
NASA Are we alone in the universe? This is a question that has intrigued humans for centuries and inspired countless studies and works of fiction. But are we getting closer to finding this out? Now that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is in operation, we might have taken oneContinue Reading
David Gallagher, Author provided You can be on that exit point for five minutes, battling all these voices in the head, and all of a sudden, a calmness comes over you, and you realise … it’s good, let’s do it. We used to call that “the moment”. Andy Guest, UKContinue Reading
