Soil regeneration is the theme of Prof. Karen Johnson’s opening talk in the 2021 Orkney International Science Festival. Since industrialisation, two-thirds of all global greenhouse gas emissions have come from fossil fuels. And remarkably, the other third has come from the land. ...

Blocks of seabed leased for offshore wind represent a massive proportion of the UK’s future electricity demand, with some 19 GW (around one-fifth of current demand) within 100 kilometres of Orkney harbours. Could Orkney become a service base for the new offshore wind ...

Transport is the highest emitting sector of greenhouse gases for the UK: aviation and shipping combined represent over 11% of the total. For Orkney, where air and sea provide lifeline services for island ...

The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918/19 infected around a third of the world’s population in four lethal waves. Many people thought there was little that could – or should – be done to prevent it. Manchester’s Medical Officer thought differently.

Have you ever wondered how bees carry pollen back to a hive? Or how their wings work together to enable them to fly? We need to take a closer look to explore these and other aspects of the fascinating lives of these amazing insects! See them live, and close ...

Technology has enabled the mass media to homogenise our world, with older languages pushed to the margins. But there is growing recognition of the richness of culture and tradition and worldview that a language contains, and next year will see the start of the UN’s Decade of Indigenous Languages. And in some places technology is ...

Remnants of a square tower and ramparts are all that survive of Cubbie Roo’s Castle on Wyre, with the name linked both to a legendary giant and to an actual figure in 12th-century Norse Orkney, Kolbein Hruga.

Research students from three universities – Heriot-Watt, Robert Gordon, and UHI – share news of the progress of their work, hosted by Dr Mike Bell of Heriot-Watt University’s International Centre for Island Technology in the Stromness campus with its views out across the harbour to Graemsay, Hoy and Scapa Flow. ...

Formed just over 350 years ago, the Hudson’s Bay Company had a trading monopoly over a vast area of North-West Canada, rich in Arctic furs. Its ships regularly called in to Stromness for supplies and workers, and the resulting income gave a huge boost to Orkney’s ...

A radical theory of evolution comes from a remarkable man who died a century ago. Mutual aid, said Peter Kropotkin, not competition, was the key to survival. His ideas took shape in years of studying animal behaviour in Siberia’s -40ºC winters ,...

An opportunity to find out more about Swona, its seals and shipwrecks, as Katy Firth of Stromness Museum introduces an exhibition of 360 degree photospheres of the island, with the help of some of the people close to its wildlife and history.

In the 1950s and 1960s the North Isles of Orkney lacked mains water and electricity and good piers for shipping. Mechanisation was driving agriculture forward, with the main crops still oats, bere and turnips, with a thriving egg industry, and houses were warmed by Wellstood stoves and lit by Tilley lamps ...

The archaeologists are back in action at the Ness of Brodgar this summer, with an audience worldwide wondering what may emerge next from the site. Meanwhile some fascinating insights are coming from the study of the finds, including the various stone artefacts, as excavation director Nick Card of the UHI Archaeology Institute team at Orkney College ...

It wasn’t an asteroid: they’re dull and rocky, and often round, and it was shiny and elongated. It didn’t have a comet’s bright gassy tail. And it seemed to accelerate away from the sun as it left us, propelled in a straight line. Astronomers called it ‘Oumuamua, meaning ‘scout’ – and, says Prof. Avi Loeb ...

The detection of gravitational waves in 2015 confirmed Einstein’s prediction of a century before – and opened an entirely new window on the universe. Prof. Martin Hendry of Glasgow University, a senior member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration which made the discovery, surveys the brief history of gravitational-wave astronomy ...

Are the challenges of climate change so great that we should leave them for the world’s leaders, meeting in November in Glasgow? Not at all, says Dr Bobby Macaulay, of Perth College UHI’s Centre for Mountain Studies. Communities can take actions that make a difference, ranging ...

Gardening can sometimes seem a battle against those plants we consider weeds which want to grow in our carefully-prepared spaces for flowers and vegetables. But, say ethnobotanical researcher Anna Canning and gardener/composter Elizabeth Woodcock, there are other ways ...

The tunnels linking islands in Faroe are transforming the lives of communities. Teitur Samuelsen, the chief executive of the company that owns the new 11-kilometre Eysturoy tunnel, describes how the project was planned, organised and financed.

Meticulous studies of stone circles by Alexander Thom and Euan MacKie show geometrical patterns, often aligned to movements of sun and moon – but why? Dr Howie Firth puts the question the other way round. What branch of mathematics best expresses the Neolithic worldview? An Irish mathematician of 150 years ago provides an answer - and new insights.

The story of two of Greenland’s UNESCO world heritage sites, cultural landscapes with very different stories. Kujataa in South Greenland is the lushest part of the country and is a subarctic farming landscape which combines the cultures of the Norse ...

Dump it by the roadside, tip it in a waterway, throw it into the sea – from where it can often be washed ashore on beaches? It’s a global problem, but traditionally in islands where resources are finite, nothing was simply discarded. Driftwood became lintels and doorposts, worn-out clothes were turned into patchwork quilts ...

Is life unique to Earth and found nowhere else amongst an estimated 40 billion planets in our galaxy? Or is it ubiquitous throughout the galaxy as well as among the many billions of other galaxies in the observable universe? Some astronomers have argued that life is a fundamental feature of the universe, among them Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe ...

Darwin thought life evolved like a tree growing, with a single common trunk opening out into a myriad of branches and twigs. But today, says Prof. Ford Doolittle of Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia, at the forefront of fundamental research in evolutionary ...

Geologists Dr John Flett Brown and Dr Adrian Hall set off to look at the sea-cliffs of Orkney’s west coast. The dynamic duo explore the Old Red Sandstone along the shore and discuss the effects of monster waves in Atlantic storms. "Few coasts on Earth," they declare, "match the magnificence ...