Sean
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Lost in Space
“Though a planetary perspective is a magnificent and enriching thing, places, not planets, are the core of human experience. It is from places that we build our world.” — Mapping Mars, Oliver Morton (2002) “He stood thereby, though ‘in the centre of Immensities, in the conflux of Eternities,’ yet manlike towards God and man; the vague shoreless…
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The forests beneath our feet
Life on Earth isn’t limited to the surface: the biosphere has deep roots. In a new scientific paper in FEMS Microbiology Ecology, my PhD supervisor and I put deep continental biomass on the weighing scales. What’s beneath our feet? Beneath mine: the soles of my slippers; then a thin carpet and some insulated plywood…
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The slowness of starlight
Because starlight takes many years to reach us, the stars in the night sky are images of the past. This curious fact has inspired the following two poems, which like starlight have outlived their originators. . For the Star by Mihai Eminscu (1850 – 1889) Translated from Romanian by A. Z. Foreman It’s been a…
Sean McMahon 