It's funny how some of the things we do to stave off boredom tent to be things that stimulate or challenge our minds. Or maybe it's not a coincidence? The Sumerians who developed the first concepts that eventually became mathematics also developed the particularly compelling Royal Game of Ur, and the same can be said with Indians and chess.

Coincidence? I think not!

Mathematics, the basis of everything from physics to chemistry to biology. And hence, it must be older than any of them. So to understand nature and it's inner workings, we must first understand maths.

And what better way to understand something than to trace its history and development?

One of the most basic questions in biology throughout history is regarding our origins: how did we came to be? Paleonto-biologists look of answers in our past, evolutionary biologists look at other species (our biological cousins, so to speak). But developmental biologists look for it from how we were created: the first few moments of our conception.

By studying this, we may discover more than our origins, maybe even our purpose in nature.

You may have noticed that our front page now features the International Space Station. So what better subject for our first article in 2018 to be about the history of this engineering feat? But the ISS itself is not as remarkable as the 150-year journey for a permanent human settlement of space.

We now begin with a story written back in 1869...

If you have a sibling, you can probably note down some differences between yourselves, one of you have your father's eyes, while the other have you mother's. If you then compare yourself with your first cousins, the differences maybe more pronounced.

Now, how far do we have to go back the family tree to be completely unrecognizable? And how did this came about?