Rowan Hooper

5 days ago | newscientist.com | Rowan Hooper

For the first 2 billion years of life on Earth, our planet was dominated by single-celled bacteria and their cousins, archaea. It was Slimeball Earth, and it would have stayed that way were it not for the single most important merger and acquisition in the history of our planet. This story is part of our Concepts Special, in which we reveal how experts think about some of the most mind-blowing ideas in science.

3 weeks ago | newscientist.com | Rowan Hooper

The Sama-Bajau are an Indigenous seaborne people from South-East Asia, sometimes called Sea Nomads. For thousands of years they lived a coastal subsistence lifestyle, foraging underwater without diving equipment and holding their breath for extreme durations. But multiple crises threatened their way of life in the early 21st century. Industrial over-fishing, pollution and coral bleaching hit their food supplies, and sea-level rise engulfed their coastal homes.

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Rowan Hooper

In T. H. White’s series of novels The Once and Future King, the wizard Merlyn turns the young Arthur, future king of England, into a variety of animals. As a small fish, Arthur swims in a moat and is terrorised by a stronger pike; as a hawk, Arthur learns to respect the dominant old falcon. In giving him these experiences, Merlyn aims to educate Arthur and make him a good king. By the 2040s, it had become possible, to a…

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Rowan Hooper

We are very proud of our Weekly podcast, which we have been putting out every week for over five years. In that time the podcast has won a number of awards and been listened to in over 160 countries. We love being able to bring science to new audiences, and we love the flexibility, informality and intimacy that conversation brings to science reporting. But it is time to shake things up. We have relaunched and renamed our weekly show. Introducing: The world, the universe and us.

1 month ago | newscientist.com | Rowan Hooper

Is a River Alive? Robert Macfarlane (Penguin Books (UK) W. W. Norton (US, 20 May))Early on in this often beautiful, wild and wildly provocative book, Robert Macfarlane recounts telling his son the title of his project. The boy exclaims that of course a river is alive, so this is going to be a very short book. Macfarlane isn’t so sure, and nor am I. It has been a long time since I have felt so torn over a new piece of writing. No…