In the 1970s, the Indonesian island of Bali went through a period of rapid change. Along the stunning beaches on the southern side of the island, tourism boomed. Parking lots were put up, together with swinging hot spots and hotels of various colours. Hip young travellers from North America, Europe, and Australasia had “discovered” the […]

In the spring of 1957, three schoolboys were climbing in an abandoned quarry in Charnwood Forest, an area of rugged hills and bluebell-wooded valleys not far from the geographic centre of England. One of the boys spotted something unusual. “Look at this!” Richard ‘Blach’ Blachford called out. Fifteen-year-old Roger Mason scrambled down to the base […]

Three times a day, every day–roughly 9am, 2pm, and 8pm Coordinated Universal Time–an extremely low frequency electromagnetic pulse races around the Earth, reverberating between the lower edge of the ionosphere and the planetary surface. These pulses correspond to the peaks of daily lightning activity along the world’s three “lightning corridors” in Africa, South America, and […]

On 21 August 1981, Australian physician Julie Cliff received the following message on her telex, a print-on-paper precursor to modern text messaging: “Polio outbreak. Memba District. 38 cases. Reflexes increased.” The apparently routine message was sent from the Provincial Health Directorate in Nampula, a city in northern Mozambique. Cliff worked in the epidemiology department of […]

Before London taxi drivers are allowed to convey paying customers in their renowned black cabs, they must be ‘of good character’, in a reasonable state of physical health, and have spent, on average, about three years studying for a gruelling examination that tests their spatial awareness of all the city’s streets, shortcuts, and famous and […]

Low-pressure weather systems are a familiar feature of the winter climate in the northern Atlantic. While they often drive wind, rain, and other unpleasantness against Europe’s rocky western margin, this is typically on a “mostly harmless” basis. Early in the evening of 31 January 1953, the weather in northern Europe was damp, chilly, and blustery. […]

The naked mole rat, Heterocephalus glaber, is fleshy, furless, buck-toothed and brazenly ugly. Yet what these small East African rodents lack in terms of good looks, they make up with an impressive array of biological quirks. These misnamed mammals are neither moles nor rats, and in terms of their social behaviour are actually closer to […]

A Schleicher ASK 21 glider is a craft of elegance and poise. Its slim wings, seductively curved cabin and tapering fuselage embody a balanced design that moulds modern materials into flowing aerodynamic lines. On the afternoon of 17 April 1999, one such beauty soared gracefully above countryside near Dunstable, England, with an instructor and a […]

The humble banana almost seems like a miracle of nature. Colourful, nutritious, and much cherished by children, monkeys and clowns, it has a favoured position in the planet’s fruitbowls. The banana is vitally important in many regions of the tropics, where different parts of the plant are used for clothing, paper and tableware, and where the fruit itself is an essential dietary staple. People across the globe appreciate the soft, nourishing flesh, the snack-sized portions, and the easy-peel covering that conveniently changes colour to indicate ripeness. Individual fruit—or fingers—sit comfortably in the human hand, readily detached from their close-packed companions. Indeed, the banana appears almost purpose-designed for efficient human consumption and distribution. It is difficult to conceive of a more fortuitous fruit.

The banana, however, is a freakish and fragile genetic mutant; one that has survived through the centuries due to the sustained application of selective breeding by diligent humans. Indeed, the "miraculous" banana is far from being a no-strings-attached gift from nature. Its cheerful appearance hides a fatal flaw— one that threatens its proud place in the grocery basket. The banana’s problem can be summed up in a single word: sex.

On 21 February 2003, a physician in Hong Kong was feeling particularly unwell. He must have had an inkling that something serious was amiss, for his symptoms closely matched those of a number of patients he had treated in recent weeks: fever, aching muscles, headache, a dry cough, and shortness of breath. An alarmingly high […]