Black gold. It really is, soft to touch, the smell of the dark earth crumbling through your hands, and the mind-blowing fact that not so long ago it was egg boxes and broccoli stalks. The ultimate process of empowerment, and witnessing life. The cycle of decay and rebirth into fertile earth, where we rely on [...]
Sir Paul Nurse called for the Dunkirk approach for the coronavirus. Many small craft in the water can help the fewer large ones with their work, he said, referring to laboratories for COVID-19 testing. It’s turning out true for protective equipment as well, with a range of initiatives across the Highlands and Islands. Three young [...]
When Bob Tateson retired from teaching in Orkney he volunteered to help look after the bothies in the wild and lonely land below Cape Wrath. He has spent ten years here, working, walking and wild camping. This is his personal selection of photographs with a slant on what and how things are named by the [...]
Two Nobel laureates, three concerts on environmental themes, four Irish musicians with the story of a remarkable mathematician, a genetics research day, a science show from Australia, and a visit from three young Slovenian rocket-builders – are just some of the sparkling mix of events announced today as part of the 28th Orkney International Science [...]
What do swallows stuffed with eggs, arsenic and lemon have to do with herbal remedies and beauty products? Perhaps not a lot these days, but you might be surprised at the concoctions used and the reasons behind using them several hundred years ago. According to herbalist and ethnobotanical researcher Anna Canning, our knowledge of our [...]
Tables, chairs, sideboards, chests of drawers – all of them off to the dump and buried in landfill when we redecorate the house. Not so, says the owner of one creative Moray business: old furniture can have a new life. Deb Wright of FunkyFurbish in Forres sands it down, paints it, reshapes it – into [...]
When Eric Walker asked his wife for a telescope for his birthday back in 2004 he got just a little more than he bargained for. Instead of the small portable item he had envisioned – something he could stick in his backpack when he went hill-walking – he was presented with a large astronomical telescope. [...]
Night skies above us and the latest developments in space science are the subject of forthcoming schools and community presentations in Orkney. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh are joining together with staff from the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh’s visitor centre to visit several schools and give a public presentation in Kirkwall on the evening [...]
Generating electricity from kites is a developing technology. Hands up if you visited the original 3MW wind turbine on Burger Hill, Orkney in the 1990s. In its day it was the biggest wind generator in the world. Today that lumbering, two-bladed monster on its tapered concrete tower has gone the way of Homo neanderthalensis, superseded [...]
A northern aircraft and astronomy centre is opening again for Easter. One of the attractions of Morayvia is that you can be shown round by some of the crew who flew the actual aircraft. Mary Leonard enjoyed a preview. While it may at first sound like a small European principality nestled somewhere near Monaco, Morayvia [...]
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