Science (Page 222)

Stock-Asso/Shutterstock Plants look so different from animals, that it’s easy for many people to think of them as alien and separate from us. Most people appreciate how pretty flowers and trees look and know photosynthesis is essential to life. But our mental and physical connection to plantlife runs deeper thanContinue Reading

Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy in April 2023. T. Schneider/Shutterstock The UK’s space sector has shown a remarkable dynamism in the past few years. According to the latest official figures, the sector’s revenue grew about 5.1% in 2021, outpacing the global space industry. This is even more impressive considering theContinue Reading

Stone obelisks stand tall in Aksum, Ethiopia. This city was once the capital of a kingdom spanning northeast Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Shutterstock / Artist Pre-colonial African history is alive with tales of civilisations rising and falling and of different cultures intermingling across the continent. We have now shedContinue Reading

Author provided April 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of mathematician and philosopher John Venn. You may well be familiar with Venn diagrams – the ubiquitous pictures of typically two or three intersecting circles, illustrating the relationships between two or three collections of things. For example, during theContinue Reading

Particle physics has failed to find some of the evidence physicists were hoping for. D-Visions/Shutterstock Finding a theory of everything – explaining all the forces and particles in the universe – is arguably the holy grail of physics. While each of its main theories works extraordinarily well, they clash alsoContinue Reading

Woollen clothing has been around for as long as humans have been wearing clothes and sheep have been domesticated. Indeed, our distant ancestors used sheep for three things: food, clothing and shelter – wool makes good insulation and helps to keep in the warmth. The UK is still one ofContinue Reading

From left to right: Christina Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover and Jeremy Hansen make up the Artemis II crew. Nasa If all goes to plan, sometime in November 2024, NASA’s newly announced Artemis II crew – Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen – willContinue Reading