SOLOMON HUGHES recommends Sunjeev Sahota’s recent novel set in a trade union election campaign for its fresh approach to what unites and divides workers, but wishes the union backdrop was truer to life
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.
Neutrinos are so abundant that 400 trillion pass through your body every second. ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT explain how scientists are seeking to know more about them
CARL DEATH introduces a new book which explores how African science fiction is addressing climate change
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
A maverick’s self-inflicted snake bites could unlock breakthrough treatments – but they also reveal deeper tensions between noble scientific curiosity and cold corporate callousness, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT



