Philippa Gregory found Mary Boleyn when she was hunting for a female pirate. It was in a book about the Tudor navy that she discovered a ship named after Anne Boleyn’s sister. For a moment Gregory was certain there must have been a mistake. But there in the footnotes was Mary, and in her the … Continue reading
The raucous troupe of monkeys that visit Dr. Jinie Dela’s house in Panadura do not realize how closely they are being studied. Dr.Dela, a biologist, with a doctoral degree in primate ecology and behaviour, treats her sprawling one-acre garden like an enormous, open laboratory. The primates who come visiting, sometimes on a daily basis, have … Continue reading
When Ahilan Arulanantham heard that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation had named him a recipient of the $625,000 “Genius Grant,” one of the first things he thought about was how much he would like to spend some of it on supporting human rights work in Sri Lanka. Since the announcement was made … Continue reading
Ruvan Ranatunga and Shihan Anthony John did not know quite what to make of the Japanese team. It was early October and they were in the middle of one of the most demanding of the 4 Desert Races – a 6 day-long, 242 km crossing of the Atacama on foot.The plateau in Chile stretches 960 … Continue reading
Sitting among the members of a displaced community in Puttalam a few years ago, Dr. Chesmal Siriwardhana found himself thinking about the ethical problems around health research. To get to this point – where he was able to meet people who had been driven out of their homes by the LTTE, had been displaced for … Continue reading
The Jayakody House, Colombo. Pictures courtesy Sebastian Posingis It might seem to the world that Geoffrey Bawa’s legacy is assured, but a new book by his most well-known biographer asks whether enough is being done to protect it. In Search of Bawa with text by David Robson and with photographs by Sebastian Posingis, sees Robson … Continue reading
Asha de Vos knew what to expect before the big announcement. “The hardest part was keeping it secret,” she tells The Sunday Times. The only Sri Lankan so far to have a Ph.D. in marine-mammal-related research, de Vos was named an Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society in May this year. Subsequently featured … Continue reading
