Douglas Palmer – Four Way Interview

Douglas Palmer is a a science writer and lecturer on Earth Sciences for the University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education. He is the author of more than 20 books, most recently Earth: in 100 groundbreaking discoveries. He is a consultant for BBC Wildlife Magazine and a regular contributor to New Scientist and Science magazines.

Why science?

Whilst the sex lives of footballers and celebs undoubtedly have a certain interest, the science of planet Earth has more variety, drama and relevance in the greater scheme of things. Whilst in a year or two the shenanigans of most of our dear little celebs will have evaporated in the ether, the science of Earth will still be impacting upon our everyday lives, whether we like it or not and whether we are aware of it or not – you have been warned.

Why this book?

Earth’s story is an ever ending one with new insights, problems and resolutions emerging every day but still very little of the science news gets through our media quagmire. This book is my latest effort to try and bring some of the science news – both good and bad to light, in what is hopefully a readable and interesting way.

What’s next?

I have just launched my website, but it just has basic stuff about my previous books. Now the work begins as I want to use it to pass on to any interested reader updates on stories I have already written about and new science stories that I find interesting.

What’s exciting you at the moment?

This week’s Nature journal has a great news story about Archaeopteryx, which is one of the most important fossil finds ever made as it provided good evidence for the evolution of birds from reptiles. Its discovery came just after the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species and provided the first convincing support for his evolutionary theory from the fossil record. Ever since Archaeopteryx has been seen as the earliest known and most basal true bird. However, a new discovery of a feathered bird-dinosaur from China and its analysis is questioning whether Archaeopteryx was really the most primitive bird. This research will generate a considerable debate and help us re-evaluate the early origin of the birds.

Comments

Roger Highfield - Stephen Hawking: genius at work interview

Roger Highfield OBE is the Science Director of the Science Museum Group. Roger has visiting professorships at the Department of Chemistry, UCL, and at the Dunn School, University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a member of the Medical Research Council and Longitude Committee. He has written or co-authored ten popular science books, including two bestsellers. His latest title is Stephen Hawking: genius at work . Why science? There are three answers to this question, depending on context: Apollo; Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, along with the world’s worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl; and, finally, Nullius in verba . Growing up I enjoyed the sciencey side of TV programmes like Thunderbirds and The Avengers but became completely besotted when, in short trousers, I gazed up at the moon knowing that two astronauts had paid it a visit. As the Apollo programme unfolded, I became utterly obsessed. Today, more than half a century later, the moon landings are

Space Oddities - Harry Cliff *****

In this delightfully readable book, Harry Cliff takes us into the anomalies that are starting to make areas of physics seems to be nearing a paradigm shift, just as occurred in the past with relativity and quantum theory. We start with, we are introduced to some past anomalies linked to changes in viewpoint, such as the precession of Mercury (explained by general relativity, though originally blamed on an undiscovered planet near the Sun), and then move on to a few examples of apparent discoveries being wrong: the BICEP2 evidence for inflation (where the result was caused by dust, not the polarisation being studied), the disappearance of an interesting blip in LHC results, and an apparent mistake in the manipulation of numbers that resulted in alleged discovery of dark matter particles. These are used to explain how statistics plays a part, and the significance of sigmas . We go on to explore a range of anomalies in particle physics and cosmology that may indicate either a breakdown i

Splinters of Infinity - Mark Wolverton ****

Many of us who read popular science regularly will be aware of the 'great debate' between American astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920 over whether the universe was a single galaxy or many. Less familiar is the clash in the 1930s between American Nobel Prize winners Robert Millikan and Arthur Compton over the nature of cosmic rays. This not a book about the nature of cosmic rays as we now understand them, but rather explores this confrontation between heavyweight scientists. Millikan was the first in the fray, and often wrongly named in the press as discoverer of cosmic rays. He believed that this high energy radiation from above was made up of photons that ionised atoms in the atmosphere. One of the reasons he was determined that they should be photons was that this fitted with his thesis that the universe was in a constant state of creation: these photons, he thought, were produced in the birth of new atoms. This view seems to have been primarily driven by re

Search This Blog