On April 12th 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to travel to outer space. Sixty years later the final frontier seems closer than it ever has, in fact there are seven people in space right now. It seems a small number, given the progress that we have made as a species since Gagarin […]

MDPI has now been publishing the work of academics for twenty-five years, and its open access operations are helping to evolve the nature of research. There are many things, however, that may surprise you about the publisher. 1. MDPI wasn’t always a publisher Twenty-five years ago, in 1996, MDPI began as a not-for-profit organisation, creating […]

Friday 2nd April marks World Autism Awareness Day. Approximately 1% of people are autistic, meaning that they see the world a little differently. While autistic individuals may struggle with tasks involving communication, are oversensitive to external sensory stimuli, and often find sudden changes are difficult to comprehend and hence anxiety inducing. World Autism Awareness Day […]

In the midst of the all-encompassing coronavirus crisis, focus on the tuberculosis (TB) epidemic has waned. TB has been infecting humans since ancient times, with scientists divided on where it originated from and when it was transferred to humans. What we do know is that on 24th March 1882, German microbiologist Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium […]

Water is simultaneously our most abundant and most scarce resource. It covers 71% of the Earth’s surface and yet 2.2 billion people live without access to safe water. First celebrated in 1992, World Water Day was created by the UN to draw attention to the growing crisis of water scarcity; the problem is not one that […]

Forests cover over 1/3 of the landmass of our planet and are a key part of life on Earth, as the habitat for over 80% of terrestrial species. They also play a vital role in the oxygen cycle, taking in carbon dioxide and providing us with oxygen. International Day of Forests, which takes place on […]