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Mars is usually depicted as a dry, cold, and inhospitable world… but plenty of evidence tells the story of a more benign planet: a Mars spotted with lakes and rivers.

This blog post is not riddled with pseudoscience, and its aim is not to convince you that your chakras are blocked. 

The Earth is teeming with life and yet we are only one planet, orbiting one star, in a galaxy of over 250 billion stars.The Earth is teeming with life and yet we are only one planet, orbiting one star, in a galaxy of over 250 billion stars.

This is my short story of quarantine so far.

In UK newspapers, and elsewhere, reactions to the spread of the novel coronavirus Covid-19 have ranged  from the stoical (‘wash your hands’), to panic (complete absence of toilet roll and pasta in supermarkets), to constant praise for NHS workers, to anticipating the end of lockdown.

I must have been a fifth year pupil when I first visited a Natural Science Museum. I still remember my excitement describing to my classmates how I had spent my summer holidays: It was our first family trip to Paris, spending two full weeks sightseeing.

We are all in self-isolation. However, I suddenly realized that this new lifestyle that we all have acquired looks a bit familiar to me. I reminded myself that I have already spent five months in isolation (without even talking to my mum – for me, this is an extreme condition!). 

Since the 17th March, I have been working from home, like many others, owing to the government guidelines in response to COVID-19.

I am writing – and you may be reading – during the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a fact that, among its many visible effects, the pandemic has profoundly affected the public perception of science

When I tell people I work at the Open University, the response has often been “so…is your PhD all distance-learning then?”. It isn’t.