Category: Future, innovation

Ghost gear: meet the heroes cleaning up our ocean’s frontline

Kristy Westlake

With our oceans quickly filling up with plastic and fish stocks dwindling, it’s time to start talking about the massive whale in the room: ghost gear. An enormous environmental problem caused by commercial fishing and fuelled by our ever-growing appetite for seafood. Kristy Westlake talks to some of the heroes on the ocean’s frontline and […]

Should we tell aliens where we are?

Jon Danzig

It’s reported that a Nasa-led team of international scientists is planning to beam a message across the galaxy in the hope of making first contact with intelligent extra-terrestrials. The message, including details about humans and Earth’s location, would be sent to a dense ring of stars near the centre of the Milky Way – a […]

“The most profound experience I can imagine”

Colin White
model of Captain Kirk, Star Trek

So spoke the nonagenarian William Shatner (a.k.a. Captain James Tiberius Kirk) as emotion overcame him on his return from what we can (questionably) classify as space. An historic defining moment in the evolution of space travel. However, it would appear not everyone agrees. The Duke of Cambridge, for one, has suggested in a BBC interview […]

The Ajax reconnaissance tank: the end of the line?

Canon Robin Murch

As a young National Service infantry soldier in 1957, nothing gave me greater excitement than riding on the deck of a Centurion tank at high speed across Salisbury Plain and witnessing their ability to hit a target almost a mile away while speeding across the grasslands.  I could not help but envy the tank crews: […]

You can’t lie your way to Mars: the cosmos, awe and wonder with Ann Druyan

Sadie Parker

“Touchdown confirmed,” a woman’s voice announced over the public address system. “Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the sands of past life.” The NASA control room erupted. Staff were on their feet, their arms raised in a victory ‘V’, whooping and hollering. The only difference between this and past scenes […]

From star to satellite – science in a post-Brexit world

David Love

In matters scientific, European nations do far better working together Our civilisation has advanced dramatically in the last few hundred years and we have only to look to the leaps made in science and technology to understand why. Yet how many people realise that a key element of science lies in cooperation between different nations?  […]