For a bona fide map nerd like myself, there may never have been an exhibition that I have anticipated quite as eagerly as the British Library’s Maps in the 20th Century: Drawing the Line. Indeed, any bona fide map nerd probably already knows about this exhibition and will have decided already to pay it a visit regardless of what … Continue reading
Should you ever have the good fortune to meet a person who has travelled into space, what is the first question that you would ask them? Probably the same as what I, and the vast majority of people would feel compelled to ask: what’s it like? Not only the kind of question that must get a … Continue reading
It was in the early twentieth century that the Parisian criminologist Edmond Locard established the principle that ‘every contact leaves a trace’. It has formed the bedrock of forensic science ever since. In this respect at least, forensics has a relatively short history. It was Locard, after all, who established the world’s first police laboratory as recently … Continue reading
What are the great unsolved problems facing humankind today? Flying without damaging the environment? A cure for paralysis, or dementia? Ensuring the world’s growing population have enough food, and access to clean water? To mark 300 years since the British parliament passed the Longitude Act, Nesta and Innovate UK have launched the Longitude Prize 2014, a £10-million prize fund to … Continue reading
It was little more than eighteen months ago that the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (or CERN) announced the discovery of the Higgs-Boson, the so-called ‘God particle’, and it was only a couple of months ago that Peter Higgs was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for first postulating its existence way back in 1964. … Continue reading
Books about astronomy were always my favourite science books when I was a child. Why? Because they always had the best pictures. Whether it was an exploding star, the rings of Saturn, a volcano on Mars or simply the planet Earth viewed from space, the sense of awe and wonder that those beautiful images evoked … Continue reading
In 1832 the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the Anatomy Act, legalising the practice of doctors, anatomists and medical students dissecting any body that went unclaimed upon death. With this new law the medical community would no longer need to satisfy its ever-increasing demand for corpses by paying professional body snatchers – or ‘resurrection … Continue reading
Like all histories, the history of science has its fair share of ‘nearly-men’. They find themselves scattered amongst the heroes like Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein. There’s Tycho Brahe, for example, the finest naked-eye astronomer of all time, who observed the motions of the planets with greater accuracy than anyone before him, but failed to … Continue reading
