Jonathan Feakins

Freelance science and history writer with a love for our absurd, astonishing, and fabulous world.

My Latest Work

Core77 •

Algorithmic Artificial Reef: from Industrial Design School Project to Legacy at Sea

Every couple of days in early 2024, Leonardo Hummel would free-dive into the shallow waters surrounding Koh Tao, Thailand. Amidst the growing communities of reef fish, Hummel liked to document the progress of the first artificial reefs he'd created and deposited two years earlier while at nearby New Heaven Dive School. The original 9mm rebar had grown multiple times in size, with the accretion of calcium carbonate.

Sandra Rubio, one of Leo's colleagues at Black Turtle Dive, remembers the passion with which Leo would speak about his work...
Atlas Obscura •

How Can National Parks Be Made Accessible to All?

“Trees have been my antidepressants,” says María José Aguilar-Carrasco, “after my accident in the mountain[s].”

During a mountaineering expedition in 2013, Aguilar-Carrasco suffered a spinal cord injury that resulted in 10 days in a coma, three months in intensive care, and five operations. Even in the wake of her accident, however, she still managed to complete her bachelor’s degree in environmental science at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Her thesis focused on the protection...
Core77 •

HIIVE: From An Industrial Design Thesis to Market

Although Phillip Potthast has been reading Core77 since his time as an industrial design student, he never anticipated that he might one day appear in its pages talking about bees. "I was more into automotive and car design, actually," he reminisces. "And I've just pivoted, one hundred and eighty degrees, into tree hollows."

Phillip Potthast's novel beehive design, HIIVE, evolved out of an industrial design thesis that originally sought to create a more ergonomic hive. After venturing into the...
Al-Taqaddum Al-Ilmi •

Innovating Water Treatment with Local Resource

Abdalrahman Alsulaili did not expect to build a research career around water. After a love for mathematics led him to a bachelor’s and master’s in civil engineering at the University of Kuwait, he received a scholarship to pursue a PhD at the University of Texas at Austin. The scholarship, however, was for environmental engineering. His resulting research on water treatment, as it turns out, propelled him toward a field of study of incalculable significance for the whole Gulf region.
ACS (American Chemical Society) Publications •

Stephanie Beaupark Sees Chemistry Through an Indigenous Lens

Describing the benefits of combining laboratory-based techniques and Indigenous knowledges, Stephanie Beaupark harks back to her experience as a weaver. Much like how she once wove Lomandra grass together to create ropes as a collaborating artist at the University of Melbourne, Beaupark hopes that mixing the two distinct traditions of knowledge acquisition can create something stronger.
Al-Taqaddum Al-Ilmi •

A Decades Long Passion in Surface Chemistry

As a child growing up in Tunisia, Hedi Mattoussi developed his interest in physics and chemistry while trying to understand how a light bulb worked and how mirages formed on hot sunny days. Not quite satisfied with these youthful musings, Mattoussi indulged his insatiable curiosity by studying physics at the University of Tunis El Manar before obtaining his doctorate in Physical Chemistry at Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie in 1987.
ACS (American Chemical Society) Publications •

A Conversation with Alba Álvarez-Martín

Growing up in Salamanca, Spain, Alba Álvarez-Martín saw art taking shape around her─literally. Her father was a sculptor, but she didn’t develop the same artistic skill. Instead, her passions leaned toward physics, math, and chemistry. Today, she’s found her calling as a cultural heritage scientist at Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, devising techniques to analyze aging works of art.
Nursing Clio •

The Labor of Love: Transforming Dementia Research With Alexandre Baril and Marjorie Silverman

From intersex Revolutionary War generals to Indigenous identities that predate colonization, transgender and non-binary people have a long and storied legacy. And yet, the priceless presence of trans elders has often remained rare, even within LGBT communities. Between societal pressures to remain hidden, gendered violence, and the toll on their own mental health, many trans people tragically never get to enjoy their twilight years.
ACS (American Chemical Society) Publications •

The Animation Lab Brings Molecules to Life

Janet Iwasa’s interest in animation took shape while she was earning her PhD in cell biology at the University of California, San Francisco. A neighboring lab at UCSF, as it turned out, specialized in motor proteins including an enzyme called a kinesin, which transports cellular cargo by “walking” along microtubules. In 1999, a member of the lab animated the kinesin’s industrious strut to accompany a paper. After witnessing a finished animation of the spirited locomotion during a joint lab meeting, Iwasa began to wonder what parts of her own research might benefit from a little visual wizardry.
Atlas Obscura •

A Poet’s Guide to the Moon and Eclipse

In 2017, English professor, poet, and author Christopher Cokinos embarked on a road trip with a fellow poet into the depths of Idaho. The pair found what they were looking for—a small plot of land with a fabulous view of the sky, nestled in the Little Lost River Valley. A few days before the total solar eclipse, Cokinos returned to set up camp. The eclipse he and his friends witnessed was so incredible that it took him two and a half years to craft a poem about it.

Cokinos’ love of the moon (he
Atlas Obscura •

A Palestinian Woman’s Quest to Share the Eclipse With Her Community

One night, when Nadia Abuisnaineh was in 11th grade, Mormon missionaries came knocking. After Abuisnaineh’s sister politely declined their proselytizing, the pair turned to leave—but not before asking, “Do you know that there are auroras outside?” Immediately running out the door of their Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, home, Abuisnaineh witnessed the northern lights for the first time.

From gazing at the night sky while sleeping on her family’s rooftop in Palestine, to buying her first telescope on
Atlas Obscura •

‘Astro Joe’ Invites Chicagoans To Gaze at the Night Sky

If you’ve ever been out late in Chicago, there is a good chance you’ve met a cheerful gentleman setting up a telescope inviting you to look at the sky. For the past 20 years, Joseph Guzman has been endeavoring to connect the city’s star-hungry inhabitants with the glories of the cosmos.

In that time, Guzman has made a name for himself as the “Chicago Astronomer”—or, more affectionately, “Astro Joe.” Guzman regularly sets up his telescope in the city’s parks, or along the city’s 606, a formerly
Atlas Obscura •

The ‘Christmas Tree Boat’ Shipwreck That Devastated 1912 Chicagoans

On November 23, 1912, the storm sweeping down from the north had ships running for cover throughout Lake Michigan—among them, a three-masted schooner, the Rouse Simmons, filled with thousands of evergreens. Having harvested its load from the coniferous forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Rouse Simmons was eagerly anticipated at its regular berth along the Chicago River. But with no sign of the ship by Thanksgiving, five days later, families of the crew began to fear the worst.

Reports so
BirdNote •

Kererū: Pigeons That Get Tipsy

Kererū, green-blue pigeons native to New Zealand, like to sun themselves after a good meal.

Kererū have a distinct preference for fruit. In fact, many local trees depend on these pigeons; they’re the only birds left that can both ingest and pass the seeds from the fruits of many native trees.

But in warm summer months, the bird’s sunbathing has a surprising side-effect. A part of their digestive system called the crop stores their latest snack – where it begins to ferment.

The birds, in essen
BirdNote •

Seabirds Thriving on Volcanic Slopes

Millions of seabirds known as auklets call the Aleutian Islands home — but this volcanic, Bering Sea archipelago can be a treacherous landscape.

In August 2008, Kasatochi Island erupted in the middle of auklet breeding season, burying tens of thousands of chicks in hot ash. At first, the auklets’ future on the island appeared bleak. But in just a few years, the birds had returned in force. Thousands nested within the innumerable chambers left behind by sea-cooled lava.

Volcanic islands are per
Load More