Writing
Free-Range History newsletter
A diverse collection of stories from the past, driven by curiosity and wonder. An interesting newsletter for interested people. (Opens in new tab.)
Queens Of The Stone Age
Scientists have determined that the spread of culture, technology, and ideas in central Europe during the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age was largely down to women. An analysis of ancient skeletons buried in present-day Germany has revealed that almost...
They Think, Therefore They Are…?
In 2009, Monica Gagliano had what she now calls a “fish crisis”. After 10 years working as a marine ecologist, focusing on relationships between organisms and their physical and social environments, she came to an uneasy realisation about the inevitable death of it...
Save Our Scents
When people are asked about their favourite smells, very often the answer is something associated with their childhood. For Cecilia Bembibre, who grew up in rural Argentina, what immediately comes to her mind is “the smell of the harvester, the smell of the animals”....
Girl Power
Syd Moore has always felt an affinity for witches. As a child, when her Nan told her fairytales, it wasn’t the princesses Moore aspired to be, “I was always more drawn to the witch characters,” she says. “The princesses just seemed to hang around, waiting to get...
Lasting Impressions
Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor. At the time of his death in 1931, he had more than 1,000 US patents to his name; 2,000+ if you count those he held around the entire world. He was responsible for some of the most ground-breaking and influential developments in...
Reverse Engineered Absinthe
The scientist-turned-detective-turned-distiller who made it his mission to restore the reputation of an infamous spirit and reintroduce it to a new generation. Ted Breaux, a research scientist from New Orleans, USA, was well accustomed to analysing samples of water...
The Brains Behind The Band
Science and sound come together to create a post-human music machine with real-world implications for brain training and therapy. If the future is now, then Guy Ben-Ary is its musical conductor. The US-born, Australia-based artist and researcher has created the...
When Plants Attack
In the north of England, chemical warfare is being gently encouraged – among the shrubbery, at least. “I've been working here for nearly nine years and I'm still alive. Yay.” – That’s Trevor Jones, head horticulturalist at Alnwick Garden, home to the United Kingdom’s...
Alpha, Gamma, Aha!
A flash of insight might feel like a spontaneous, instantaneous revelation, but experts say they can see signs that something is brewing several seconds in advance. Neuroscientists John Kounios and Mark Beeman used electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic...
Kepler’s Cosmic Cup
There was a time when astrology and astronomy were not so scientifically, diametrically opposed. A time when German astronomer and mathematician, Johannes Kepler, wrote horoscopes for the royal court while also writing requests to the Duke for money to build a...
How A Taste For Pasta Begat Dudes (≈ Hipsters)
The mid-18th Century was what you might call 'peak Grand Tour', when the trend for young British men visiting the continent's most cosmopolitan cities and famous sites was at its height. These men returned home affected by the experience. Their style, their dress,...
Bureau Of Memories
Through the largest of Bethlem Hospital’s remaining apple orchards, over badger sets, and past a light pole on which kestrels are often seen perching, can be found a wood pile. This repository for the gardeners’ waste is what Sue Burbidge, craftswoman and Bethlem...
Who Do You Think You Are?
Australia has an unpleasant history when it comes to national identity, and trying to impose one. A white one. Like in 1901, when descendants of the ‘founders’ who claimed Australia as their own — despite it already being inhabited by Aboriginal and Torres Strait...
Of Multi-Generational Migration Fame
“The first time I ever saw them was in February of 1977. We were walking along a road and it was overcast and nothing was moving. Then all of a sudden the colour of the forest changed from green to grey and I realised I was looking at a wall of monarch butterflies. It...
Pyramid Of Death
In the 1820s, the tallest building in London was St Paul’s Cathedral, at 111 metres high. But architect Thomas Willson had grander plans. In 1829 he proposed to build a massive granite pyramid on Primrose Hill. It would rise 290 metres and cover a site of 18.5 acres....
Petrichor
The natural world is full of gods, goddesses and other mythological creatures, in name, if not spirit. For nomenclature convention draws heavily on the Greek and Roman classics when labelling new species and other scientific phenomena. One particularly pleasing term –...
Hallucinogenic Books
Libraries can expand your mind in more ways than one. A leading London mycologist has claimed that old books, particularly those stored in less than perfect conditions, can provide inspiration without the need to read even a single word; just take a deep breath. In...
Photographic Revolution
Edwin Herbert Land was a visionary scientist and inventor who 70 years ago changed the picture-taking habits of people around the world, the result of which is still felt today. Land pioneered a technique that produced fully-developed photos at the touch of a button,...
X Marks The Spot
This is a tale of two halves. It begins around the turn of the 20th century, with the establishment of a new private printing press near the banks of the Thames, and comes to a dramatic close in the winter of 1916, under cover of darkness, on Hammersmith Bridge. The...
Decoding A Star
"You wouldn't believe how many goths we get posing outside for pictures," says Father Brian Ralph, vicar of the church of St Barnabas at Bethnal Green. At street level on the corner of Roman Road and Grove Road in East London, it's not immediately obvious why. But as...
I Eat Cheese, Therefore I Write
Of course it's slightly more complicated than my play on Rene Descartes' famous philosophical proposition. But in simple terms, the discovery of cheese and the evolution of human tolerance to lactose is linked to the development of written language. It all started...
Cousins Across The Centuries
The most famous symbol of human-caused extinction - the dodo - and the ubiquitous pigeon have more in common than you might think. If you had been walking the narrow, dusty, cobbled streets of 17th cenutry London, passing alongside the timber framed buildings, and...
I Like Evolution And I Cannot Lie
When Sir Mix-a-Lot sang about big butts, there was more to it than just aesthetics. Well, maybe not for him. But, what the more scientifically-minded may already know is that he wouldn't have been able to even physically sing the song if it hadn't been for his own –...
Law And Order
Though it occupies a site which has been a centre of power since at least the Middle Ages, London’s iconic Palace of Westminster - or Houses of Parliament, as it’s more familiarly known - is just 150 years old. But inside its ornate Gothic-revival exterior, past the...
Body Building
A company in London does a roaring trade in arms, legs, torsos and various other body parts. Set back from the street in Walthamstow, a newly-hip suburb of London, stands a 4500-square-metre warehouse. The red brick building was constructed in the early 1900s and...
Taxidermy Through The Ages
Some say it’s macabre, others that it’s a second chance at life. Whatever your views on taxidermy, it is a practice that is inextricably linked with natural history collections and museums. The practice of taxidermy was borne out of a desire to preserve the trophies...
Star Specimen: Eugen Sandow, The ‘Perfect Man’
Behind the Scenes at the Natural History Museum, London When the naked models for the Musuem's Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story exhibition were unveiled earlier this year, there were a few sniggers - from staff and visitors alike - at their state of...
Senses, Drinks and Rock n Roll
Why do guitars taste of hops? It wasn’t a question I’d ever considered until I saw it posed as the title of a multi-sensory beer and music matching event. I was intrigued; and as a casual ale drinker, keen music fan, and a writer with an interest in science, I felt...
Star Specimen: A Book On The Evolution Of The Book On Evolution
Behind the Scenes at the Natural History Museum The topic of this blog post is quite possibly the newest specimen in the Museum's collection, as it was just a matter of hours ago that it was catalogued. It's also the first specimen I've played a part in acquiring. The...