Category: General
Vera Rubin obituary
Astronomer who found evidence of the existence of dark matter and became an inspiration for women in science. Vera Rubin once tweeted: “Dont let anyone tell you that you aren’t good enough. My science teacher once told me I wasn’t good enough for science and look at me now.” In the 1970s and early 80s […]
Will scientists ever prove the existence of dark matter?
Astronomers in the US are setting up an experiment which, if it fails as others have could mark the end of a 30-year-old theory. Deep underground, in a defunct gold mine in South Dakota, scientists are assembling an array of odd devices: a chamber for holding tonnes of xenon gas; hundreds of light detectors, each […]
Jonathan Raban: I felt pretty happy that I was still alive
The author on his recovery after a stroke and his fears for a dis-United States. On 11 June 2011, a few days before his 69th birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting with his daughter Julia at home in Seattle. He’d felt foggy and out of sorts since waking. Having reheated a casserole, he looked down to […]
Out from the shadows: why cruising had a cultural moment in 2016
From an acclaimed novel to an immersive theater experience, the divisive sexual practice made a comeback in art amid heightened anxiety over sex and gender. On a Saturday afternoon shortly before Christmas, I found myself in the dungeon-like basement of a sex club in Manhattan to see a site-specific performance called Adonis Memories. It was […]
Richard Adams obituary
Author of the classic 1970’s novel Watership Down, the allegorical tale of a colony of rabbits. Richard Adams, who has died aged 96, was the author of one of the most successful books of the 1970s. Published in 1972, Watership Down, Adams’ story about a colony of rabbits travelling across the country in search of […]