Michael Marshall

@michael-marshall.bsky.social

5306 Followers 5306 Following

Freelance science writer covering life sciences, health and the environment. My first book The Genesis Quest is about the origins of life on Earth. https://www.michaelcmarshall.com

A ground-level photo of a patch of Brazilian rainforest, showing abundant trees and other lush green plant life. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
The front cover of the August 2026 issue of Science News. The headline reads "Skeletons in the closet". The artwork depicts a wooden closet with a human body inside it, divided up into squares like a mosaic - some showing bones or circulatory system or other parts of the anatomy.
A cartoon showing a black microscope on a wooden surface. A woman's hand, with extra long fingernails painted red and yellow, is being thrust under the lens. Credit: Josie Ford
A photo of a doctor wearing a cap and mask and surgical scrubs (all blue), leaning against a window with his eyes closed. He looks stressed and tired. Credit: iStock.com / Iker Martiarena
A cartoon showing a film set. On the left is a cameraperson, with a big movie camera on their right shoulder. They are filming a person dressed as a geologist, kneeling down before a rock face. Someone is spraying fake smoke into the shot. Credit: Josie Ford
Cartoon showing a tiny circular island with some leaves and plants. Seven miniature animals like a giraffe, cow etc are puttering around, all wearing different coloured hats a bit like the dwarfs in Disney's Snow White. Credit: Josie Ford
Illustration of biological anthropologist Fatimah Jackson. The head of a Black woman, facing right, wearing a white headscarf. The headscarf is dotted with images including a DNA molecule, a world map and a photo of a young Black woman dancing. Credit: Ben Jones
A cartoon showing a lugworm: a worm that lives in a burrow in a mudflat. The lugworm's head is deep in the burrow with its bottom near the entrance, where it has deposited a single poop: this looks like the poop emoji, complete with eyes and smiling mouth. Credit: Josie Ford
A Neanderthal skull on the left and two Homo sapiens skulls on the right, all against a plain black background. The Neanderthal skull has larger brow ridges over the eyes, and has some damage like a hole in the brain case. Credit: Pascal Goetgheluck / Science Photo Library
Photo showing a doctor in a hospital pinching his nose between his fingers, as if stressed. He has greying dark hair and is wearing a dark blue medical tunic. Credit: iStock.com / gpointstudio
A reconstruction of the summer solstice celebrations as they might have appeared at Bulford 5000 years ago. A grassy plane with two white posts tens of metres of apart, a crowd of people watching. Credit: Marijane Porter, Wessex Archaeology
A cartoon showing a Komodo dragon at the bottom left, face to face with Godzilla on the right. Godzilla is black with spikes and has a bright red mouth. A red beam shines between the two reptiles' eyes. Credit: Josie Ford
A series of fMRI images of human brains showing the different sections. Each brain appears in blue and white against a black background. Credit: Puradol Jaturawutthichai / Alamy
Painterly artwork showing a load of animals and plants spiralling up out of a blob-like object at the bottom of the frame. The blog is dark purple, as is the background. The animals are kaleidoscopically colourful. Credit: Sam Falconer
Cartoon showing a person pointing at a mirror showing their reflection, and laughing. Two other people look on: one smiling, one very much not. Credit: Josie Ford
Artist's impression of Archaeopteryx, the first bird. It is a crow-sized animal with brown and black feathers, a long feathered tail, and teeth in its jaws (rather than a beak). It's sitting on a branch of a tree and looking over its shoulder. Credit: JA Chirinos / Science Photo Library
Artist's impression of prehistoric Homo sapiens, wearing animal skin loincloths and carrying animals like deer, walking through a narrow passage between two boulders. Credit: Christian Jegou / Science Photo Library.
A promo image for a book. It has a red cover with an image of a sheep with its head stuck in a bucket. The book is called How not to be stupid: The transformative power of independent thinking, by Igor Sibaldi.
A promotional image for the book "Humans: The evolution of a species". On the left it says: "Take an evolutionary journey, pre-order now". On the right is a copy of the book, which is a coffee-table book with two images of skulls on the front cover and the title in large green letters. It also says "Professor Alice Roberts, Editor-in-Chief".
A cartoon showing a laptop with the letters "AI" in big letters on the screen. Surrounding it are a host of weird and wonderful creations including a horse with a hand for a head, an upside-down ice cream and a multi-coloured pigeon. Credit: Josie Ford
A photo of archaeologist and broadcaster Professor Alice Roberts. She is a white British woman with shoulder-length blonde hair, smiling directly at the camera. Credit: Dave Stock
A cartoon of outer space. The moon is in the top-right corner. In the centre is a man in a spacesuit with a skull and crossbones on his chest, a metal hook in place of his right hand, and with an eyepatch across his helmet. Credit: Josie Ford
An image split into two vertical halves. On the left is a black and white photo of psychiatrist Oliver Sacks: a balding white man with a white beard and glasses. On the right is the front cover of his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
Cartoon showing a smartphone with a green-faced goblin emerging from the screen. The goblin has big pointy ears and is laughing, with his eyes shut. Credit: Josie Ford
A tooth found in Sunjiadong, China, thought to belong to Homo erectus. Credit: Qiaomei Fu, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
A prehistoric lamp found in Lascaux cave in France. It is made of red-orange sandstone and looks a bit like a spoon. Credit: Sémhur CC BY-SA 4.0
A cartoon showing a woman of colour with long dark hair and a red dress singing. Tears are streaming down her face. The words "nostalgia", "escapism" and "pain" appear around her. The background is an excitable purple. Credit: Josie Ford
A digital representation of the human genome August 15, 2001 at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. There are vertical columns, each divided into bands of red, blue, green and yellow. Each colour represents one of the four chemical components of DNA. Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images
Photo showing a woman in a red baseball cap holding a baby. Behind her is a sign on a fence saying "Vaccines work: ending polio is proof". Credit: Ezra Acayan / Getty Images
Artist's impression of Epstein-Barr virus particles. Three are shown, only one in focus. They are spheres covered with rounded spines, in shades of purple and red. Credit: Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock
A cartoon of outer space. Earth is bottom-left and the Moon is top-right. A line of five dachshunds of various colours extends between the two. Credit: Josie Ford
A photo showing a hospital room where a patient's blood is being filtered through a series of IV bags. The liquid is bright yellow (so it's probably just plasma). Credit: Vital Hil / Shutterstock
A photo showing seven people gathered around some bedding plants on a city street, surrounded by high walls. Credit: URSOILL
A cartoon showing a collection of Jim Carrey clones, all wearing blue shirts with numbers on the back. Credit: Josie Ford
A reconstruction of a Neanderthal based on the fossils from La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France. He is a man with pale skin and a broad nose, shoulder-length hair and a beard. He's looking straight at the camera. Credit: S. Entressangle / E. Daynes / Science Photo Library
A cartoon showing a tourist in a blue beanie hat and red top, carrying a purple handbag, looking at a grey-white sculpture of a foraminiferan, which looks like a giant sea shell. It sits on a plinth that reads "Foraminifera Fossil: Bolivina Spissa". Credit: Josie Ford
Artist's impression of Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern border of Roman territory in ancient Britain. Credit: Historic England / Heritage Images / Science Photo Library
Cartoon showing a scientist giving a lecture while scribbling symbols and diagrams on a blackboard, one of which is "JOKE". Several people are sat in the audience, one with a book on their head. Credit: Josie Ford
Computer-generated image of a SARS-CoV-2 viral particle, shown in red with lots of spike proteins sticking out of it, being surrounded by immune system proteins. Credit: Science Photo Library
A photo showing a row of ambulances parked outside a hospital. Credit: iStock.com / VV Shots
Models of a Neanderthal man and woman. The man is holding a long wooden stick and has a big beard. Both have ruddy red faces and broad noses. Credit: AP Photo / Martin Meissner / Alamy
A cartoon showing a cow wearing a space helmet and standing on the surface of the moon. Credit: Josie Ford