Men of Influence magazine

Renishaw founder and Concorde engineer Sir David McMurtry dies

Renishaw Sir David McMurtry co-founded Renishaw, which employs more than 2,500 people in Gloucestershire Renishaw, the global engineering firm headquartered in Gloucestershire, has announced that its co-founder, Sir David McMurtry has died, aged 84. Sir David started the company in April 1973, originally to develop a precision measuring tool for use on the Concorde supersonic […]

The lost worlds emerging from glaciers

Marcel Cornelissen As glaciers and ice patches melt, they reveal untold stories of human skill, adventure, faith – and deadly conflict. Some 5,000 years ago, a tattooed man in his 40s, with brown eyes and thinning black hair, climbed a steep mountain in the Ötztal Alps, on the border between what is now Italy and […]

Rihanna, A$AP Rocky star on red carpet

A who’s who of fashion and entertainment stars have descended on London’s Royal Albert Hall for the annual British Fashion Awards. Pop star Rihanna was the headline act, arriving fashionably late in a fluffy pale blue coat. She was joined by her partner A$AP Rocky, who was given the award for Cultural Innovator, and told […]

New dates for Isle of Man school science and technology event

A science and technology festival for primary school children, which was postponed amid bus driver shortages last month, has been rescheduled for March. The annual STEMFest event, which also focuses on engineering and maths, had to be pushed back due to challenges in organising bus transport for about 800 pupils. The event, run by the […]

How the plough made the modern economy possible

Getty Images Imagine catastrophe. The end of civilisation. This complex, intricate modern world of ours is finished. Don’t worry about why. Maybe it was swine flu or nuclear war, killer robots or the zombie apocalypse. And now imagine that you are one of the lucky few survivors. You have no phone – who would you […]

Can a computer fool you into thinking it is human?

Getty Images Robert Epstein was looking for love. The year being 2006, he was looking online. Epstein was disappointed – he wanted more than a penfriend, let’s be frank – but she was warm and friendly. Soon she confessed she was developing a crush on him. “I have very special feelings about you. In the […]

Nine things you didn’t know were invented by women

Hannah Eachus Asked to name important inventors and you might start with Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell or Leonardo da Vinci. But what about Mary Anderson? Or Ann Tsukamoto? You might not know their names, but they are just two of the female inventors behind everyday objects and scientific innovations. BBC 100 Women, the season […]

Tributes paid to pioneering scientist

University of Oxford Sir Martin is being remembered for “ground-breaking developments” that “saved millions of lives” Tributes have been paid to the man who oversaw the creation of the first commercial MRI whole-body scanner. Sir Martin Wood made breakthroughs in the field of superconducting magnets in the 1950s and 1960s. He started Oxford University’s first […]

US officials ground drones over espionage fears

Getty Images Many drones in the US are made by DJI, a company based in Shenzhen (shown here) US officials may put an end to a civilian drone programme because of their concerns about the unmanned aerial vehicles that are made in China. The officials are apparently worried that the Chinese-made drones could be used […]

A millionaire’s plan to create a local government

Blockchains Jeffrey Berns, founder of Blockchains, made his fortune trading cryptocurrency A radical experiment is being considered in the US state of Nevada. It would allow new local governments to be formed on land owned by tech firms. Jeffrey Berns, the cryptocurrency millionaire who proposed the idea, is convinced of its revolutionary potential. The challenge […]