Floating In A Tin Can
Edward Gibson was the last man out of Skylab. After 84 days orbiting planet Earth, floating inside the space station (at the time a record duration flight) he closed the hatch, entered the capsule with his crew mates and headed back home. There was no ceremony, no parting goodbye ritual; as far as Gibson and […]
Olympic timing: from 1964 to 2021
When American Bob Hayes crossed the finish line at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964, winning gold in the Men’s 100 metres, there were two times measured. One manually by the stewards, one via a fully automatic timing device. Although it was not evident as Hayes celebrated his triumph, in that moment Olympic timing changed forever. […]
New Blood
For the first time in 11 years, ESA is looking for a new astronaut squad. These recruits will work alongside their existing astronauts as Europe enters a new era of space exploration. Established in 1975, the European Space Agency now has 22 Member States and cooperates with many others. Their mission is the peaceful exploration […]
Ella Podmore
At the tender age of 24, glamorous Ella is literally breaking moulds in the automotive sector as one of the youngest female materials engineers working in the industry, specialised in corrosion science and metallographic fracture analysis. As a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) industries ambassador, Ella goes around schools inspiring kids to go down […]
Women’s Relentless Pursuit of Science
In a white farmhouse in the small town of Granby, Massachusetts, retired schoolteacher Abbie C. E. Lathrop made herself into a scientist. To make an income, Lathrop had started a business breeding fancy mice and selling them as pets; and in the process, she learned how to breed them for specific genetic traits. A self-taught […]
Let’s talk about love
How have your relationships fared this year? As we well know, 2020 has been excellent at turning everything on its head. What better than the total crisis of a global pandemic to give you a newfound sense of perspective on your relationship? Only 63% of people reported that their relationship had stayed much the same […]
Musings of two fermentation fetishists
Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. His explorations in fermentation developed out of overlapping interests in cooking, nutrition, and gardening. He is the author of two best-selling books: Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation, which won a James Beard Foundation award in 2013 and the recently published Fermentation as Metaphor. Miguel Toribio-Mateas is a clinical neuroscientist […]
The Pump of Curiosity
The Fermi paradox is one of the most puzzling problems in science. Could solar eclipses have anything to do with it? It took Enrico Fermi, a giant of 20th-century physics, just three words to brutally expose a troubling fact about the universe: where is everybody? Fermi’s question — generally referred to as the Fermi paradox […]
Corona Virus
British Biologist Sir Peter Brian Medawar defined viruses as “a piece of bad news wrapped in a protein coat.” Many viruses were put at bay in the 20th century by the development of vaccination. Thanks to vaccines, horrible diseases like poliomyelitis, small pox or rubella were eradicated. However, we don’t yet have vaccines against all […]
The True Freedom
How often did you try to change yourself, your life or the lives of others? By “changing” we always assume “changing for the better.” Practically everybody is striving to be a better person, a better citizen, a better parent, spouse, friend. We also want to have the best children, politicians, lawyers, work colleagues, wives, husbands. […]
