Essay

Random numbers: from stone casting to computers to radioactive decay, the generation of random sequences has always preoccupied mankind.

Landscapes: when perturbed by climatic and tectonic changes, landscapes resonate with a range of frequencies.

RNA world: does changing the direction of replication make RNA life viable?

Memory: some systems in the brain may be better equipped to handle the future than the past.

Human parthenotes: an ethical source of stem cells for therapies?

Social trauma: early disruption of attachment can affect the physiology, behaviour and culture of animals and humans over generations.

Natural selection started to drive evolution as soon as molecular replication became possible.

How Einstein became the personification of physics.

Cryptic species: as we discover more examples of species that are morphologically indistinguishable, we need to ask why and how they exist.

Tissue engineering: mathematical models are helping to take tissue engineering from concept to reality.

Fluid dynamics: Ludwig Prandtl's ideas brought hydraulics and hydrodynamics together to found a new field.

Greenhouse effect: Fourier's concept of planetary energy balance is still relevant today.

Ion transport: the division between active transporters and passive channels is beginning to blur

Proprioception: is the sensory system that supports body posture and movement also the root of our understanding of physical laws?

Co-evolution: Earth history involves tightly entwined transitions of information and the environment, but where is this process heading?

Language evolution: evolutionary vestiges may provide clues to the ultimate origins of human language.

Time: how much of the cosmological timescale do we control and use?

Carcinogenesis and tissue repair: how might chronic tissue injury lead to the development of cancer?

Redfield ratios: the uniformity of elemental ratios in the oceans and the life they contain underpins our understanding of marine biogeochemistry.

Reversible computation: how feasible is a computer that is both logically and physically reversible?