Science Journalist, Scribbler, Question-asker, Audio-wrangler, Note-taker, Tea-drinker, and (Occasional) Author
The second day of a conference is when things start to get awkward. On the first day, with your misguided sense of exuberance and nervous energy, you try to meet everyone. You insert your ready-to-be-shaken hand into circles of people like a knife in a birthday cake. (This is also the day when most people…
It can happen in the blink of an eye: millions of light years away a star collapses in on itself. From Earth, that cataclysmic event is only a sudden brightening of a point in the night sky, and on the ground, astronomers scramble to investigate it. A new telescope, to be installed at South Africa’s…
Liquid water may flow on present-day Mars, the United States’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) announced on Monday. Liquid water is necessary for life as we know it, and its discovery on Mars adds to the evidence that the red planet could support life. Carbon-based life exists on Earth because it is in the…