• Hummus in Space

    Hummus in Space

    By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS Undeterred by the loss of ​astronaut tardigrades spilt on the Moon when their 2019 Beresheet spacecraft crashed, the same team has switched to edible plants, with their Space Hummus Experiment. The basis of Hummus, a delicious internationally popular and highly nourishing food, is the Chickpea. Chickpeas come from the Middle…

  • Part 2: Promising planets, Dry worlds, and Water-bears

    Part 2: Promising planets, Dry worlds, and Water-bears

    By Dr Valerie Jeffries FLS Language of Life The  term ‘Earthlife’ acknowledges that all life we know uses the same universal coding system to read its DNA. The way it translates DNA into bodies is amazingly neat, but uses a ‘language’ that’s arisen by chance.  When  humans first made words with meanings, two tribes on opposite continents would…