What really makes up everything? Science of atoms, galaxies and everything in between!
Despite the fact that my last post might have made it seen that chances of finding life are pretty minute, people are still looking! And no, I don’t mean the people who are sure aliens have already visited us (Although if they did manage to find concrete evidence, that would be pretty awesome!) Organisations like… Continue reading Astrobiology 102: How to find the aliens?
Terms and Conditions Apply. The Milky Way is over 100,000 light years across. That’s a whole lot of football pitches! It has at least 100 billion stars (with some estimates reaching all the way to 400 billion!) and the range in estimates for the number of planets in the galaxy is from ‘just’ 50 billion… Continue reading Astrobiology 101: Where are all the Aliens?
This summer, we have had some extraordinarily hot days, with Europe facing heat waves that broke records! So it is likely that you had to cover up and slather yourself in sun cream- or face getting burnt… But I found myself wondering, plants need the sun to survive, so the age-old advice of ‘stay in… Continue reading Do plants get sunburnt?
‘To Mars!’ As both Government Space Agencies and Private Companies turn their attentions to long-haul spaceflight, plenty of problems have arisen! It isn’t just the logistics of living on the moon and mars, but getting there has provided its own plethora of difficulties to be solved! I have already written a post about the spacecraft… Continue reading How to Survive Spaceflight
As part of my series featuring female scientists both past and future, I have been lucky enough to be able to interview Soph Arthur, a science communicator and now the proud owner of a PhD! You may know her as @soph.talks.science on her blog and Instagram! Soph has been an amazing mentor in encouraging me… Continue reading Spectacular Scientists: Soph Arthur!
A chemist, a physicist, a biologist: Rosalind Franklin was a truly inspiring woman, who- as you may notice is a recurring theme in the lives of historical female figures- went against the odds to strive for a career in science, despite the sexist beliefs of not just society, but also her father’s and lab partners’.… Continue reading Who was Rosalind Franklin?
The smallest unit of life is a cell. The human body (and other complex multicellular organisms) have millions, if not billions of different types of cells: skin cells act as a barrier between you and the environment, neurons (nerve cells) fire electrical impulses that tell you how to move and remember, various blood cells to… Continue reading What is Life?
Part Two: What makes us Special? If humans are just a product of billions of years of chemical reaction and evolution, then what makes us special? Some may argue that, in short, we aren’t. And it’s true that animals are not just reliant on instincts, with no emotion- people like Darwin, and later Jane Goodall… Continue reading What is a Human? Part Two
Part One: The Science Humans seem pretty important, I mean, for a start it’s the only *intelligent* life form we know of… actually, intelligent is the wrong word: you could consider many animals intelligent- some use tools, some have complex mating rules, some have complex societies, some can even do basic maths and “talk back”… Continue reading What is a Human?
Never Trust An Atom 