A Easter Island, or Rapu Nui as it is known locally, is home to several hundred ancient human statues – the moai. After this remote Pacific island was settled by the Polynesians, it remained isolated for centuries. All the energy and resources that went into… Read More »What destroyed the civilisation of Easter Island?
How a sixteenth-century warship was recovered from the seabed On 19 July 1545, English and French fleets were engaged in a sea battle off the coast of southern England in the area of water called the Solent, between Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. Among… Read More »Raising the Mary Rose
Mark Rowe reports on the increasingly ambitious geo-engineering projects being explored by scientists A Such is our dependence on fossil fuels, and such is the volume of carbon dioxide already released into the atmosphere, that many experts agree that significant global warming is now inevitable.… Read More »Reducing the Effects of Climate Change
A unique engineering achievement The Falkirk Wheel in Scotland is the world’s first and only rotating boat lift. Opened in 2002, it is central to the ambitious £84.5m Millennium Link project to restore navigability across Scotland by reconnecting the historic waterways of the Forth &… Read More »The Falkirk Wheel
By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the Earth’s population will live in urban centres. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about three billion people by then. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20%… Read More »Crop-growing skyscrapers
Evolution isn’t supposed to run backwards – yet an increasing number of examples show that it does and that it can sometimes represent the future of a species. The description of any animal as an ‘evolutionary throwback’ is controversial. For the better part of a… Read More »When evolution runs backwards
Your personality isn’t necessarily set in stone. With a little experimentation, people can reshape their temperaments and inject passion, optimism, joy and courage into their lives A Psychologists have long held that a person’s character cannot undergo a transformation in any meaningful way and that… Read More »Second nature
Drought, housing expansion, and oversupply of tinder make for bigger, hotter fires in the western United States Wildfires are becoming an increasing menace in the western United States, with Southern California being the hardest hit area. There’s a reason fire squads battling more frequent blazes… Read More »The megafires of California
Ancient voyagers who settled the far-flung islands of the Pacific Ocean An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has revealed traces of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians. The site came to light… Read More »Beyond the blue horizon
Canadian writer Jay Ingram investigates the mystery of why leaves turn red in the fall A One of the most captivating natural events of the year in many areas throughout North America is the turning of the leaves in the fall. The colours are magnificent,… Read More »Autumn leaves
English