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4 weeks ago | 
theconversation.com | Charles Helm |Clive Thompson
“The art of tracking may well be the origin of science.” This is the departure point for a 2013 book by Louis Liebenberg, co-founder of an organisation devoted to environmental monitoring. The connection between tracking in nature, as people have done since prehistory, and “western” science is of special interest to us as ichnologists. (Ichnology is the study of tracks and traces.) We learned our skills relatively late in life.
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Jan 10, 2025 | 
tumblerridgelines.com | Charles Helm
Charles HelmOn January 5, eleven Tumbler Ridge birders set off to count birds and species for the Christmas Bird Count. This count is now in its 125 year across North America and is the longest-standing event of its kind, helping to establish trends in bird numbers across the continent. The participants enjoyed moderately cold (19 below) conditions, but thankfully without much wind.
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Dec 24, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Charles Helm |Nelson Mandela
I am standing on a dune looking out to sea. It’s 2024, but I’m thinking about a very different time. Hundreds of thousands of years ago this 350km stretch of southern African coast looked very different. It was home to giant zebra, bird species that are now extinct, giant tortoises and crocodiles. Our hominin ancestors roamed the area. We know some of these facts because of body fossils.
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Dec 5, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Natasha Joseph |Alan Whitfield |Charles Helm |Hayley Cawthra
Fossils may look to the untrained eye like an unremarkable set of sandy bones. But those bones can deepen or even rewrite our understanding of ancient history – and South Africa is a fossil treasure trove. Some of the country’s “treasures” have changed our own species’ family tree.
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
downtoearth.org.in | Nelson Mandela |Charles Helm
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Nov 19, 2024 | 
downtoearth.org.in | Charles Helm
We knew from the region’s extensive archaeological record that ancestral humans inhabited the region during the Pleistocene. Mention the word “fossils” to people and most will probably think of bones. Of course, body fossils make up a large part of the global fossil record. But humans and other species leave their mark in other ways too – for instance, their tracks. The study of these fossil tracks and traces is called ichnology. I am an ichnologist.
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Nov 18, 2024 | 
theconversation.com | Charles Helm
Mention the word “fossils” to people and most will probably think of bones. Of course, body fossils make up a large part of the global fossil record. But humans and other species leave their mark in other ways too – for instance, their tracks. The study of these fossil tracks and traces is called ichnology. I am an ichnologist. In 2008 my colleagues and I launched the Cape South Coast Ichnology Project to study a 350km stretch of South Africa’s coastline.
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
iflscience.com | Charles Helm |Andrew C. Paterson
The image does not simply depict an African rail, and this hints at a spiritual dimension to the purpose of the painting. Charles Helm, Andrew Paterson, and Renee RustGuest AuthorThe African rail (Rallus caerulescens) is a handsome bird, with a blueish breast, red legs, eyes and bill, prominent barring on the flanks, chestnut upper parts, and long toes. It also has a characteristic trilling call.
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May 27, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Charles Helm |Nelson Mandela
Charles Helm, Nelson Mandela University and Jan Carlo De Vynck, Nelson Mandela UniversityMay 27, 2024 at 10:04 AM·4 min readScientific breakthroughs can happen in the strangest ways and places. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin because of mould growing on a Petri dish left out while he was on holiday. Chinese monks in the 9th century wanted to make a potion for immortality: instead, they discovered gunpowder.
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May 9, 2024 | 
phys.org | Charles Helm
If you have walked on a dune surface after windy conditions have settled, you may have been privileged to recognize one of Nature's wonders: scratch circles. These are structures formed when the end of a tethered object is passively rotated into the surrounding sediment.
