Essays

The bookends of time

Nothing lasts forever: not humanity, not Earth, not the Universe. But finitude confers an indelible meaning to our lives

Thomas Moynihan

Beyond causality

In order to bridge the yawning gulf between the humanities and the sciences we must turn to an unexpected field: mathematics

Gordon Gillespie

How the Moon became a place

For most of history, the Moon was regarded as a mysterious and powerful object. Then scientists made it into a destination

Danny Robb

The birth of naturalism

The modern era is often seen as the triumph of science over supernaturalism. But what really happened is far more interesting

Peter Harrison

In praise of subspecies

To lump or to split? Deciding whether an animal is a species or subspecies profoundly influences our conservation priorities

Richard Smyth