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In recent days, the aurora borealis, better known as the Northern Lights, have been visible at more southerly latitudes than usual thanks to solar storm activity. If you tried to have a look but were scuppered by the weather, or like us at the Science Museum you’re just too far south, enjoy these images of the aurora from our picture library instead. Of course, if you’re far south enough, you’ll be looking for the Southern Lights instead. The aurora australis […]

I visited Tate Britain last weekend to see a pair of fighter planes newly on show in the gallery’s central halls. Created by British artist Fiona Banner, Harrier and Jaguar sees a Sea Harrier suspended like a ‘captured bird’, according to the gallery, with a Jaguar nearby ‘belly up on the floor, its posture suggestive of a submissive animal’. It’s an arresting display. There’s nothing else. Just the two jets, one stripped bare, flipped over and defenceless, the other hanging menacingly as […]

You might wonder what this watercolour is doing in our Making the Modern World gallery. The chalky cliffs, thatched cottage and country children make a pleasant enough pastoral scene, but what does it have to do with science? The clue is in the sky, which represents ‘Cumulus breaking up; cirrus and cirrocumulus above’. These were the new names for the clouds, created by the meteorologist Luke Howard. Howard was a commercial chemist who rose to fame after lecturing “On the Modification […]

No sooner do I write a blog about the symbolism of Waterloo’s station clock than it gets taken out of service for a refurbishment! The concourse underneath the Waterloo clock has become an iconic meeting-place, a focal point amidst the hurry of the station, as shown in Terence Cuneo’s dramatic painting: Now, for a few weeks, time stands still for the station’s passengers. Railways run on time. In the early days, time was a life-saver – literally – as trains […]

The wonderful caricature of a windswept midwife by Thomas Rowlandson in my last post got me browsing through other prints by this famous artist. They’re a great window into the past. The caption of this one states, ‘Lose their compass, their ship slips between the teeth of a fish unknown in this part of the world’. Not what you want to happen, really, when out for a sail. It was one of Rowlandson’s wonderful images to accompany the tall tales […]

Having written last week about my singular inability to ice-skate, my eye was drawn today to this poster in the National Railway Museum’s collection: The caption reads ‘Watch your step on our platforms this winter… Leave the skating to the profesionals’. Wise words. Having said that, if I saw a briefcase-carrying penguin skating along the platforms at London Bridge station, I think slips and falls would be the last things on my mind…