Wondering if the leopard could possibly survive falling from such a height, Attenborough says “suddenly you realise you haven’t written anything because, you know, you’re just completely held. And that may tell you that perhaps your words aren’t all that necessary”.
People are about to go back to the moon for the first time in 50 years. It isn’t just a race to get there, but a whole new era of lunar exploration and exploitation.
We will shortly see people walking on the moon again, mining precious resources and setting up lasting bases on the dusty, grey world. As NASA prepares to return to the moon, we take a look back at some of the key milestones in our history with our lunar neighbour.
Learn more ➤ https://www.newscientist.com/article/…
Plankton form the base of marine and freshwater food webs. They consist of phytoplankton (plants) and zooplankton (animals). Their name derives from the Greek word for “drifter”, since they are too tiny to fight tides or currents. Phytoplankton oxygenate the ocean through photosynthesis, enabling marine animals to thrive, and produce about half the world’s oxygen. Yet despite their abundance and fundamental role for life on Earth, their microscopic nature makes them easy to ignore.
“The most exciting thing of the whole project was the discovery of this parallel, beautiful, strange, complex world, ” says photographer Jan van IJken, “there’s so much beauty around the corner that you’re not aware of”. Inspired by the microscopic beauty of plankton – and their predators, van IJken embarked on a photo and film project called Planktonium. Over a year, he collected a diverse array of species from various Dutch waters, including puddles, lakes and seas, “Every time it was [a] new discovery”, he says. “There’s such a diversity, it makes you humble”.
Back in his studio, Van IJken used various microscope and photography techniques, including dark field microscopy and timelapse photography to capture the “beauty, fine detail and incredible shapes” of his subjects. To add impact to the film, he commissioned Norweigan musician, Jana Winderen to create a soundscape, made using aquatic audio recordings including of fish, icebergs, small crustaceans which made a crackling sound and even the sounds of “fish howling to the moon”.
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/…
Magnificient adventures are captured in this selection of photographic firsts, some of the earliest images from each location, taken by world-renowned photographers including Gertrude Bell, Carleton Watkins, Isabella Bird, Herbert Ponting and Frank Hurley.
The images all feature in the ongoing Lights and Shadows exhibition, organised by the Royal Geographical Society in London, and are taken from the society’s historic image collection, revealing something of the marked progress of photography between 1851 and 1962, as well as providing a useful reference for economic, environmental or climatic change that has happened since they were taken. Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/…
Animal photographer, Tim Flach’s latest project is a testament to the diversity of birds. “I’m celebrating this extraordinary wonderment out there”, he says. Shooting birds like a fashion photographer might photograph human subjects, Flach’s images are purposefully anthropomorphic. “There is a role for an anthropomorphic approach,” he says, “I want to grab people’s attention to think about the wonderment, beauty, character and maybe their stories”. Which, he hopes, will elicit in the viewer empathy for birds “We became who we are because of this rich biodervisity if you took that away we would be lesser”.
These charming residents of London Zoo, run by the Zoological Society of London, are just a few of the 20,000 animals that are being weighed and measured as part of its annual weigh-in.
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/…
Trillions of cicadas are starting to emerge in 15 US states after 17 years underground. Gene Kritsky has been studying them for decades and has created a citizen science app, Cicada Safari, to help track the brood.
More than 3000 cicada species have been described worldwide. Most have a yearly life cycle, but seven species in the US belonging to the Magicicada genus remain underground as nymphs for 13 or 17 years before emerging, a process called periodical brooding. The only other two species of cicada to do this are found in Fiji and India. Read more at https://www.newscientist.com/article/…
Human biology is tuned to a 24-hour light-dark cycle but modern lifestyles are disrupting it with unhealthy consequences, says Linda Geddes
Boomers Daily 