Lydia Shackleton botanical paintings illustrate blossoming for women
Collection commissioned in 19th century a notable moment for women’s opportunities
How the Suez Canal facilitated an unexpected revolution
The man-made channel has enabled marine life to migrate from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean
The science of the calorie
The measure of heat energy was not translated to food until the end of the 19th century
Ireland’s first dog show: A £5,000 dog and a ‘perpetual growl’
The 19th century saw new breeding methods and growing enthusiasm for pets
Lessons of history: What diet says about who we are
The Great Famine led to much soul searching about ‘good’ food versus ‘bad’
Facial expressions and what they really mean
Converting emotions into quantifiable physical signs fascinated Darwin and it’s still a fascination for scientists
What do our yellow Covid-19 signs say about us?
Ireland’s approach to posters has changed a lot since 19th-century cholera outbreak
Look to lichens for dating with a difference
The growth rate of this useful organism helps determine the age of the surface it grows on
Practices of livestock farming are a global health issue
If we crowd animals together in large numbers to feed ourselves we maintain a high risk from emergent zoonotic disease
Four traits you need to ride out the pandemic, Shackleton style
In order of importance: optimism, then patience, next idealism and lastly courage
Coronavirus: The misguided search for ‘patient zero’
The danger is that, like in the past, the person will become a scapegoat for all our fears
Germs, germs everywhere
What will happen where trust in science is not a central part of wider culture?
Coronavirus containment: what we can learn from the Black Death
Did practice of closing people into their houses or ‘shutting up’ work?
Do surgical masks guard against viral infection?
At the outbreak of a virus, masks may give a sense of comfort but there is debate over their efficacy, with some medical professionals arguing that regular hand-washing is much more effective
New science in old places: Museums are crucial part of scientific research
‘Museum collections are key to understanding biodiversity over the last few centuries’
How long has the science of forecasting weather been around?
Weather predictions and folklore are probably as old as human society
Robert Bunsen: The man who lit a fire under chemical science
German professor’s burner laid the basis for development of spectrum analysis
Will the Earth’s poles soon switch? And what would it mean?
The poles switch every few hundred thousand years. Opinion is split on the significance of this
Charting the take-off of air travel
From Alcock and Brown’s transatlantic crossing to global commercial flights, the 20th century saw astonishing developments in aviation
Ozone layer success story can be used to combat climate change
The ozone hole presents a compelling, simple narrative. We need more of these
Science has no one government, and does not have ethical consensus
CRISPR and genome editing raises issues that can no longer be ignored
Will this be one of our last years to spring forward?
The European Parliament is considering doing away with daylight savings time in 2021
The Galway professor behind our understanding of Neanderthals
William King was first to decipher that ancestors were different species to modern humans
Why are so many adults having braces put on their teeth?
The Irish have been gripped by the American beauty ideal of even, straight, white teeth
The Irish engineer who broke new ground in study of earthquakes
In 1846 Robert Mallet delivered a paper on a machine to register seismic motion
The history of the kettle
From ‘booby trap for old ladies’ to efficient maker of heatwave-defying pot of tea
Fear of contagion clouds our thinking about the transmission of HIV
How can we treat people fairly while reducing risk to others of contracting the disease?
Cervical cancer screening has always been imperfect
Women should be trusted to understand the difficulties and told when mistakes happen
How nonhuman life forms can change the course of history
In the ‘Columbian exchange’, plants, livestock and diseases have as much impact as people
Mesmerising: The power of the human mind to respond to suggestion
Anton Mesmer combined his ideas with a flair for the dramatic that orthodox medicine found distasteful and the public found intriguing
The man with a finger in many pie charts
Ever wondered how pie and bar charts came to be? A single Scot, William Playfair, invented them
Feeling the winter chill? Raise a toast to Ireland’s polar explorers
Shackleton, Crean, Crozier, Hart: Irish names are all over the North and South poles
The benefits of being among the cyborg generation
The marvel of the pacing industry is the speed with which creating a human-machine hybrid has come from the extraordinary to the commonplace
Pollution continues to take its toll on the poor
Are we now condemning large parts of the world to more profound legacies of poverty linked to past and present pollution?
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