Science writer, editor, and presenter
What's half a metre long, weighs 3-4kg, and has the cutest face you ever did see? Nope, cuter. Even cuter. Yup, there it is!  This, dear readers, is a quokka.  A native of Southwest Australia, this marsupial has recently skyrocketed to fame because of the way its mouth seems to rest in a smile.  A quick …
As the great glam metal band Poison sang in 1988, "Every Rose Has Its Thorn". Like so many glam metal bands to grace the world's stages before them, none of Poison's members were botanists.  If they were, they might have known that roses actually have prickles, not thorns. It's an easy enough mistake to make.  But …
We all know that CO2 emissions are warming the planet.  Or at least, most of us do.  What often goes unreported is the effect of carbon dioxide on the worlds' oceans.  A lot of the CO2 that we pump into the air makes its way to the water and is making it more difficult for shelled creatures like …
Next time you happen to be walking though the Chamela-Cuixmala nature reserve on the West Coast of Mexico, keep your eyes out for this parasitoid wasp: Its scientific name is Heerz lukenatcha.  There is also a related wasp named Heerz tooya.  Who comes up with these things!? Biologists, it turns out. The current official naming system for animals …
There are 8 planets in our Solar System (sorry Pluto). Â Most of these planets have companions that follow them around, like obedient pets and criminal records. Â The total count of these moons is 181. Â We are all quite familiar with the big shiny one that orbits Earth (that may or may not be made of …
Loch Ness, in the middle of the Scottish Highlands, has more fresh water in it than all the lakes and rivers in England and Wales combined.  It is neither the deepest lake in Britain nor the largest by surface area, but since it comes a close second in both categories, it claims the top spot for volume. …
Truth is the daughter of time, and I feel no shame in being her midwife. These words, written by Johannes Kepler in 1611, are profound.  At the time, Galileo had just discovered the Galilean moons (including Europa) in Florence but was being persecuted for his belief that the Earth orbits the sun. Kepler, a staunch supporter of heliocentrism, …
If you look up in the night’s sky and point even a simple pair of binoculars at Jupiter, like Galileo did with a rudimentary telescope 405 years ago, you will see what he did: a reddish-pink planet with swirling masses of clouds. These clouds are beautiful in their own right, but there is one particular …
Unbeknownst to the rest of us, a debate has been raging in the world of biogeography.  The debate stems from a simple observation made by a young Canadian scientist in 1964: island animals are weird.  Sometimes they're way bigger than normal, like the Tenerife Giant Rat, and other times they are way smaller than normal, like …
Say goodbye to foil floating hearts on Valentines, shimmering floating shamrocks on St. Patty's, and the prospect of tying thousands of balloons to your house and abducting a neighbourhood boy scout.  The world's Helium reserve is going to run out, and sooner than you might think. Helium is the universe's second most abundant element and we've never …
Jon Farrow 