James Hamilton-Paterson

In June 1971 it was learned that a hitherto unknown tribe had been found living in the dense rainforest of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Reportedly, the group consisted of 27 members, spoke an unknown tongue and wore only leaves. Tentatively named Tasaday after a nearby mountain, they seemed to be exclusively hunter-gatherers who knew nothing of agriculture and used stone tools to dig...

In the middle of the 19th century the prevailing scientific view of the abyssal ocean held that it was a vast body of water with a uniform temperature of 4 °C. With no variation of temperature there could be no convection currents, hence no circulation of dissolved oxygen and suspended food particles. The abyss was stagnant, a body of water under massive pressure, barely warmer than...

‘Getting to Mars’ is the dream’s deceptively simple shorthand. It crucially leaves out ‘and getting back again’. The outward journey alone will take two years. Once there, astronauts will need constant protection from the extreme cold and lethal radiation (there is little atmosphere and no ozone layer). They will be wholly reliant on equipment dropped by previous unmanned expeditions that will enable them to generate all sorts of things, including their own oxygen. It will be impossible to bring all the necessary fuel, so they will have to synthesise tons of hydrogen to power their return journey. That in turn will require that Mars have the right ambient chemistry, which unmanned craft will previously have ascertained. And everything hinges on there being a source of purifiable water that can be freed from the frozen Martian soil in sufficient quantity. After their stay, and with phenomenal luck, the travellers will return four or five years older having spent the time imprisoned in protective suits or airlocked Portakabins eating rehydrated rations, never once having been able to walk free and feel the ancient planet’s distant sun and thin wind on their faces.