Autumn is much redder in North America and east Asia than it is in northern Europe, and this can’t be explained by temperature differences alone. These areas also have a greater proportion of ancient tree lineages surviving: trees have gone extinct at a higher rate in Europe compared with those other areas.
Embryology reveals surprising similarities between early embryos of seemingly quite different animals. And it also shows that some structures that may look very different later on have fundamental similarities in the way they form.
Of course 'Horizon' had made an impact on me from a young age, but it was also humbling to meet and interview eminent scientists, and hear their high opinion of the series and of the science presented on the BBC more generally.
The history of palaeontology is littered with examples of famous frauds and fakes, often with eminent researchers in the field being thoroughly hoodwinked by some fairly shoddy fabrications.
It is so stimulating for young children to hear someone who does science talking about it. It can be so exciting and inspiring. It is easy to get younger school children enthused about science.
The science of being healthy is well-known. It is not esoteric. There are no magic bullets. If you want to live a long life, we’ve known the answers for more than a hundred years. It’s a wide-ranging diet with as much fruit and veg as you can stuff into yourself, and plenty of exercise. It doesn't even matter what kind of exercise.
Eighteen years later, pregnant with my first child, I started eating fish. Oily fish in particular contains plenty of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, essential for neural development.
Choosing my career was always based on job satisfaction rather than financial security. I wanted to get a job in science; I enjoyed being a surgeon and I now enjoy being an academic and having a media career.
Did people’s attitudes towards me change after I appeared on TV? Yeah, definitely. During my career I’ve had some flak - particularly doing television.
I have family connections with Salisbury through my godmother. Her sister lived there, so I have very fond memories of visiting the city as a child.
We’re not the only mammals who are partial to blackberries, far from it. Foxes and badgers will also gobble them up, helping to distribute the seeds, which survive the transit through the gut.
Later, I found it too hard to give up, and so I’ve continued eating fish and other seafood, while trying to ensure it’s sustainably sourced. This means I’m now one of those vegetarians I used to frown at - one who occasionally eats fish.
I was a fairly strict vegetarian - I ate eggs and dairy products but nothing that would involve killing an animal to furnish the food on my plate.
You don’t need to go to Rome, Prague or Vienna to find wonderful architecture, amazing stories and suprising, hidden gems.
I was a goth in my student days. I dyed my hair black, but it came out grey, with a blue scalp. Then I dyed it red and it came out fuschia pink.
It seems that humans have been enjoying the taste and health benefits of blackberries for thousands of years. Gathered blackberries have been found at Neolithic sites, while a preserved iron age bog body, known as Haraldskaer Woman, provides definite evidence of blackberry ingestion.
I find humanism to be the most rational and positive philosophy for life. And it’s not a new thing at all - the history of humanist thought is deep and inspiring.
Educated guesswork’ is what science is. You form hypotheses, test them against the evidence, and if they fit the evidence, you can assume you’ve got close to the truth.
There should be regulation that prevents all schools, not just state schools, from teaching creationism because it is indoctrination, it is planting ideas into children's heads. We should be teaching children to be much more open-minded.
Just as your own existence is unlikely and far from inevitable, the evolution of modern humans as a species depended on a whole string of chance events - some happening in the environments our ancestors inhabited, and some inside their own bodies, including random mutations in their DNA.