Jo Marchant - Author of Decoding The Heavens

ABOUT JO MARCHANT

I am a freelance journalist specialising in science and history. My writing has appeared in publications including New Scientist, The Guardian and The Economist, and until recently I worked as opinion editor at New Scientist magazine in London. The idea for this book came about in November 2006, when I was an editor at the science journal Nature. A research paper was due to be published revealing the workings of a sophisticated ancient device called the Antikythera mechanism. The story grabbed me immediately, and I was desperate to find out more about this mysterious contraption. I travelled to Athens to see the remains of the mechanism, and to meet those who have studied it and hear their stories. The result is Decoding the Heavens.

Other Articles

What makes a 300-year-old pocket watch tick?

Ancient tattoos linked to healing ritual

Fossil secrets of the da Vinci codex

Do Egyptian mummies have a right to privacy?

Ancient Greeks spotted Halley's comet

Scalpels and skulls point to Bronze Age brain surgery

How to survive the long haul in space

The secrets of Tutankhamun

Reconstructed: Archimedes's flaming steam cannon

On the trail of King Tut’s penis

Tutankhamen ‘killed by sickle-cell disease’

Drowned cities: myths and secrets of the deep

World’s first computer may be even older than thought

Parthenon's hidden colour revealed

Virtual fossils reveal how ancient creatures lived

An epic history of science

How to catch a black hole

The world's oldest brain

Islam was a beacon of light through the Dark Ages

Is the Roman Pantheon a colossal sundial?

Chasing sea monsters

The language detective

Fighting the dark side of the web

Why our brains are so clumsy

Leap of faith

Scientific treasure found in junk pit