A detailed look at the “insanely, wildly, beautifully successfulÓ Cassini-Huygens mission to explore Saturn, which ended this month after nearly 20 years when its satellite made a planned plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere and burned up.
This piece unpicks a recent scientific paper that offers a new slant on the Fermi paradox. The paradox addresses the apparent inconsistency in the vast scale of the universe and the lack of signs of life outside planet Earth. The new slant is in essence that we need to significantly adjust upwards the possibility that we are in fact alone and there is no paradox at all. The author quotes Carl Sagan in considering the implications of humanity’s solitude – “In all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life..the Earth is where we make our stand.”
A piece looking at a bitter fight amongst geologists, stemming from the assertion made by a Princeton academic that the so-called fifth extinction (the one that got the dinosaurs) “was caused not by an asteroid but by a series of colossal volcanic eruptions.” The debate is still relevant today, as scientists try to predict future extinction events that risk wiping us out.
The grand vision was to bioengineer plants that emitted enough light for practical purposes such as domestic lighting or street lamps. The vision did not come to pass.
Whilst we look for alien life on other planets, this piece examines ctenophores – creatures closer to home that are “profoundly different from any other animal on Earth” – so much so in fact that they may be on an entirely different evolutionary path to their planetary cohabitants.
A piece looking at the huge number of cognitive biases human beings are lumbered with, from a bias against evidence that counters our existing views, to prioritising rewards in the present over increased returns in the future.
A piece documenting the opening up of Arctic sea routes, taking place as an unintended consequence of scientific exploration investigating the impact of climate change.
Superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics are one of the major global health concerns today. This piece looks at scientists’ efforts to develop new antibiotics to combat them.
A thoughtful and engaging piece examining the remarkable intelligence of the octopus – followed by an interview with the author in National Geographic.
A look at the challenges facing the teams based in the Democratic Republic of Congo searching for the next dangerous viruses. They are doing their work at a time when large scale outbreaks are ever more likely as humans encroach further into animal habitats.