Writer at Science Blog

Mal James

Contributor

Mal James covers self-development, productivity, relationships, and the psychology of work. He is an entrepreneur and former teacher, and brings both perspectives into his writing. Mal's pieces focus on the practical — how people change behavior, build better habits, and navigate the parts of life that don't come with instructions.

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Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Seneca: “hold every hour in your grasp; lay hold of today’s task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s”

The hours you don't actively claim are the ones that disappear entirely.

Aug 26, 2026

Psychology

Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “take away your opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint, I have been harmed; take away the complaint, and the harm is taken away”

The Stoic secret isn't denying that bad things happen—it's recognizing that your suffering comes not from the event itself, but from the story you tell about it.

Aug 20, 2026

Earth Science and Weather

At its peak 6,000 years ago, a lake in the Sahara covered roughly 360,000 square kilometres, more than all five Great Lakes combined, yet what remains today, covers well under one per cent of that area

A vast inland sea once thrived where Earth's harshest desert now sprawls—and its collapse offers urgent lessons about climate tipping points and water scarcity.

Aug 14, 2026

Space

Apollo 13’s crew timed a fourteen-second engine burn with a wristwatch in April 1970 after the lunar module’s main guidance computer had been powered down to conserve power and cooling water

When a spacecraft's computer goes dark, sometimes the mission depends on a pilot's wristwatch.

Aug 14, 2026

Energy

In 1996 Norway made the first roughly $300 million deposit into its oil fund, and by mid-2026 the fund was worth about $2.3 trillion — with more than half of its value coming from investment returns

How a $300 million oil deposit became a $2.3 trillion global powerhouse—and what it reveals about long-term investing discipline.

Aug 14, 2026

Psychology

Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

A Roman emperor's private reminder to himself became philosophy for the ages—but Marcus Aurelius was solving a much more urgent problem.

Aug 13, 2026

Science

Americans ranked third and fourth in the world for men’s and women’s height a century ago, but a study of 18.6 million adults in 200 countries found them down to 37th and 42nd — while obesity climbed sharply

Once the world's tallest people, Americans have plummeted in global height rankings as other nations' nutrition improved and American waistlines expanded.

Aug 13, 2026

Space and Astronomy

A 14-year-old who applied to NASA was turned down. Instead, she ended up cleaning a space toilet on work experience in Leicester. She now heads Mars exploration studies at the European Space Agency

A rejected NASA application led to scrubbing a space toilet in Leicester—and an unexpected path to leading Mars exploration at Europe's premier space agency.

Aug 12, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Voyager 1 has been moving through space since 1977, now faster than a speeding bullet, and it still has not covered a single light-year of distance from Earth

Nearly fifty years at hypersonic speed, yet still trapped in Earth's cosmic backyard—a humbling lesson in the true scale of the universe.

Aug 12, 2026

Planetary Science

The surface of Venus is more than 200°C hotter than a home oven — and that’s before the pressure gets you. Rise fifty kilometres into the clouds, and both the heat and the crush ease off to something Earth-familiar

Venus has two distinct habitable zones separated by a lethal sandwich—one buried under crushing pressure, one floating in the clouds above.

Aug 10, 2026

Psychology

Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

Our judgments about life's setbacks cause the real suffering—and neuroscience suggests the ancient Stoics knew something modern psychology is only now confirming.

Aug 9, 2026

Animals

A wolf’s howl can carry more than 6 miles in open country — far enough to cross a whole valley — and wolves can discriminate individual callers from their howls.

Wolves don't just announce their presence—they're running a sophisticated communication network where every howl carries identity, location, and social meaning across miles of wilderness.

Aug 9, 2026

Psychology

Thought of the day from Stoic philosopher Seneca: “It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor”

A philosophical sleight of hand redefines poverty as a condition of the mind, not the wallet.

Aug 8, 2026

Space and Astronomy

Magnetars have the strongest sustained magnetic fields known. From roughly a thousand kilometres away, one could distort the electron clouds in your body beyond ordinary chemistry — and from partway to the Moon, it could erase data stored on magnetic stripes.

These cosmic remnants are so magnetically intense they would unravel the chemistry of life from a thousand kilometers away—and reshape the very atoms holding you together.

Jul 23, 2026