The way sea lions swim is unique among fish and marine mammals. Their technique provides a biomechanical model to design agile underwater vehicles… but first we have to figure out how they do it.
To create accurate models that predict how ice sheets and oceans will react to changing climate, modelers need precise current data. One researcher heads to the ends of the earth to collect just that.
For centuries, scientists have wondered how water channels on Mars formed. Our model suggests that they were caused by water erupting from subsurface lakes on the ancient planet.
We spend much of our time inside buildings. What chemicals and microbes are in here with us? And how do they affect each other? One scientist collects dust to find out.
Astronomers aren’t mere stargazers these days. One researcher explains the ins and outs of how they collect data from far-off galaxies and what they do with it back at the office.
As scientific researchers, we are often surprised by some of the assumptions made about us by those outside our profession. So we put together a list of common myths we and our colleagues have heard anecdotally…
Phew, what a day it was yesterday. Ended up having a quiet drink at the hotel. Last drink of the day – a nice cup of tea! Slept well – no nightmares about flying through space looking for somewhere to…
It has been a busy few weeks. The last scientific experiments in support of forthcoming results. The final, detailed command sequences uploaded to Rosetta. Hotels and flights booked. As each successive…
“All systems go!” I said cautiously with a long sigh of relief. I had approved plans for the first soil analysis that would give humankind clues to the past and future habitability of Mars. One small word…
I stumbled through the forest, attempting to find a path I knew was there. It didn’t take that long to find the decaying bridge, now being overtaken by blackberry and multiflora rose. That is where I had…
I spent a few years in South Africa searching for the elusive brown hyaena. The aim of the study was to assess the differences in the distribution and abundance of brown hyaena between protected and unprotected…
Apart from a brief break in the 1960s and 1970s, British engineering and drivers have played a dominant role in setting the land speed record in the fastest cars on the planet. Starting from Lydston Hornsted’s…
A fantastic coincidence, coupled with research, led to my discovery of a wartime camp in the Jordan desert that was occupied in 1918. This was a camp used by T E Lawrence, or “Lawrence of Arabia”, and…
There is nothing intrinsic to pandas that makes them bad at breeding. It is true that they only have one menstrual cycle each year, but this is true of many creatures. Animals that have multiple cycles…
In a recent paper in Nature, we described a strange marine animal, called Tamisiocaris. They were giants that swam in the oceans over 500 million years ago. They had strange looking appendages on their…
The astronomical instrument BICEP2 was deployed at the South Pole in 2009 to look for evidence that would support the theory of inflation, which tries to explain how the universe looked a trillionth of…
Much to my excitement, my PhD research was recently published in PLOS ONE. I was studying African forest elephants that live in the dense forests of Central and West Africa to learn more about this understudied…
According to Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, establishing a permanent presence beyond Earth is the first step humans will take towards the “divergence into a new species”. Plans to visit and even colonise…
In January 2011, aboard a scientific drilling ship in the Pacific Ocean, I witnessed an enigmatic green flash before sunrise. This optical phenomenon has been recorded to occur if the conditions are just…