Science

George Eliot wrote that if we could truly perceive the fullness of ordinary life, it would be like hearing the grass grow.

I was recently asked to name the world’s largest bee. This giant is Megachile pluto.

It strikes me as quietly ridiculous, sitting in Middlemarch with a telescope barely bigger than a coffee mug, peering 60 million light-years into the dark.

I learnt a new word this week. It is not a poetic word, not one that rolls off the tongue or finds its way easily into a sentence. It sounds more like something you would scrape off a laboratory...

The discovery of DNA has had a massive impact on our understanding of human evolution.

A tendency to aggression and antisocial behaviour is encoded in certain people’s DNA, argues Kathryn Paige Harden — and it could have profound implications for crime and punishment.

Tiny telescope, big discoveries.

How do you reconstruct the diet of prehistoric people?

Liquid gypsum is used today to improve the quality of clay soil, but in Roman times, it had a quite different application.

Autumn has arrived in Middlemarch.

Every now and then an astronomer finds themselves asking a question that sounds faintly ridiculous but is, in fact, perfectly reasonable.

As I am writing this it is International Women’s Day, and how appropriate to look back on the many contributions that women have made to understanding our human past.

On calm nights in Middlemarch, when the wind drops and the paddocks fall quiet, my usual practice is to step outside before bed and gaze upwards.

In a recent "Faith and Reason" column, David Tombs wrote about Gravedigger Bob, a Brazilian dog that so missed its master that it camped out in his cemetery and was ultimately buried there.

On Tuesday evening, as the last light fades over Otago Harbour and the first stars appear, something rather wonderful will begin.

When I tell colleagues I am involved in a research project at Shangri-La, they think I am teasing.

On Tuesday night, just after dinner, step outside and look east.

The recent Waitangi Day celebrations remind me of how a copy of the Treaty came to Otago.