Daylight helps to regulate hormones and the immune system. It’s good for sleep and can help with depression. So be glad of the extra daylight when the clocks go forwardIf we took away the walls, the ceilings, the street lights, the screens and allowed our senses to guide us, we might rise with the sun and sleep when it sets. Artificial lighting and blackout blinds allow us to choose our waking...
Effective treatment usually requires a holistic approach, yet those suffering often avoid seeking help Many of us are familiar with the uncomfortable feeling of entering a cocktail party at which none of our friends are present. We sidle in awkwardly, imagine others might be wondering what we are doing there and find ourselves not sure where to stand or who to look at. We gaze intently at our...
Science writer Marcus Chown breaks down the mysteries of the universe into manageable chunksTraits which enable organisms to compete successfully for scarce food resources and so survive to reproduce become more common with each successive generation Continue...
A new play explores the short life of Jeremiah Horrocks, whose astonishing discoveries ‘changed the way we see the universe’On a cloudy afternoon in England in 1639, 20-year-old Jeremiah Horrocks became the first person to accurately predict the transit of Venus and measure the distance from the Earth to the sun.His work proved, for the first time, that Earth is not at the centre of the...
Thomas Hertog worked with cosmologist on a new book after he shared his doubts about A Brief History of TimeIn 2002 Thomas Hertog received an email summoning him to the office of his mentor Stephen Hawking. The young researcher rushed to Hawking’s room at Cambridge. “His eyes were radiant with excitement,” Hertog recalls.Typing on the computer-controlled voice system that allowed the...
Unusual weather has created the ideal conditions for fungus, delighting foragers and researchersOn a sun-dappled trail in the woods of Calabasas, Jess Starwood narrows her eyes and gasps with glee. Scrambling up a leafy hillside, she points to a small hump in the ground, covered in leaf litter. “That’s a shrump,” she says – a mushroom hump, where a mushroom may be pushing up the ground as...
It was a nostalgic journey to rediscover my family roots, but it was also great fun and reminded me how much I missed this beautiful landWhen I saw the sign saying “Sweden”, I cheered. I was alone in the car, but still I cheered. It was my brother’s car, a white Nissan Note I had managed to dent at a petrol station within an hour of driving off Le Shuttle. Nine hundred miles on, the Nissan...