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Astronaut Alan Bean stepped down onto the lunar surface during the 1969 Apollo 12 mission, but left NASA in 1981 to devote himself to painting. With exhibitions of his work taking place this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, he tells Nature how he attempts to convey his lunar experience.
The view of our planet from space is beautiful and humbling, yet this shift in human perspective has not altered how we care for our environment, argues Charles Cockell.
Giovanni Domenico Cassini helped to create an institution that pinpointed Neptune, showed that light had a finite speed — and even mapped France, explains Alison Abbott.
A sixteenth-century Dutch master's carefully orchestrated winter landscape may have benefited from his knowledge of geographers' techniques of the time, explains Martin Kemp.
Science comedian Brian Malow is a regular performer on the museum and conference circuit in the United States. He explains why he finds science funny, and how he uses comedy to gain the public's interest.
Two chronicles of quantum mechanics tell a good tale but don't reflect the conflicts between the physicists who struggled to reconcile theory and fact, explains Don Howard.
The Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York was the first institution of its kind in the United States for experimenters seeking new technology-based sounds. Fifty years after its founding, director of research Doug Repetto explains how electronic music has evolved and how the role of academic music centres is changing.
More deadly than the First World War, the global outbreak of influenza in 1918 terrified populations and tested governments. But would we fare any better today, asks Michael Sargent?
