As tens of thousands return to the streets for the first national Palestine march of 2026, this movement refuses to be sidelined or silenced, says PETER LEARY
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Imminent arrival of tardigrade aliens greatly exaggerated
The half a millimetre-long creatures that look like a tiny eight-legged caterpillar are resiliant beyond imagination and fascinate scientist as much as science-fiction writers
(L to R) SEM (scanning electron microscope) image of Milnesium tardigradum in active state and a drawing of a tardigrade on a grain of sand from 1840
[(L to R) doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0045682.g001 and E de Laplante - Doyere/both Creative Commons]
If the government really wanted to address public finances, improve living standards and begin economic recovery, it would increase its borrowing for investment, argues MICHAEL BURKE
MATT KERR takes a winter journey through poetry, labour and memory, from Glasgow to Newcastle, arguing that our radical past isn’t something to revere from a distance, but a tool still meant to be used
One of Canada’s most revered politicians is a native of Falkirk but is relatively unknown in his original homeland. KENNY MacASKILL tells his story
Labour prospects in May elections may be irrevocably damaged by Birmingham Council’s costly refusal to settle the year-long dispute, warns STEVE WRIGHT
HENRY FOWLER and ROB POOLE explain the significance of today’s Megapicket
Lithopanspermia is a proposed method of life being distributed around the universe, whereby extremely hardy organisms might travel on rocks ejected from one planet that crash land on another. It means alien life forms travelling from one planet to another to start a new life.
The organisms that could potentially complete this journey would need to be very tough indeed. In the first place, they would need to survive within a rock travelling through space, which would subject them to very high doses of cosmic radiation.
The precise radioactive dose would depend on how long the rock is travelling between the two planets. Rocks that travel between Earth and Mars would be travelling so long that the dose received even deep in the centre of the rock would be enough to kill any known living organism.
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