10 HOME TECH INNOVATIONS

Breakthroughs that will radically transform your way of life Turn to p82 BIZARRE
ANIMAL
DEFENCES
Exploding ants, vomiting
birds and lizards that
squirt toxic blood p76

Issue 11 | October 2014 | @SciUnco

HUMANS NATURE

WHY WE FOSSIL
FORGET HOAXES
New evidence
reveals how
memories really
work p44
MOST From dodgy dinosaurs
to suspect skulls p80

ENGINEERING
1276
DOOMSDAY FACTS INSIDE
SEED VAULT METHANE RIVERS, DIAMOND PLANETS, STELLAR
+ Why our ears ring after loud noises
+ What lies beneath tectonic plates
+ How heat makes us drowsy
The underground bunker
safeguarding all plant life p66
NURSERIES AND MUCH MORE + Why moonlight is white

H IS S C IE N C E -P A C K E D IS S U E …
A L SO INSIDE T HUM ANS

SUGAR’S HIDDEN
HUM ANS
TEC HNO LOG Y

HOVERBIKE WORLDWIDE NGagiER

D+ TheAdam S
EBOLA rPA N IC
LIFTt moStorbOike,FFpart helicoper:
+ Par
virus spreads
+ How this kille
across the globe
ng effects it has on
your brain, your skin and more
you will want one...
 + Turn to page 35 to discover the
pumice-like moon of Saturn with
a totally unpredictable orbit. WELCOME TO ISSUE ELEVEN
A note from the editor

The scientists and

presenters explaining
the latest breakthroughs

Colin Stuart
Astronomer & author
+ A London-based astronomer
with degrees in astrophysics
and science communication, Colin is a fellow of
The Royal Astronomical Society. On page 30 he
takes us on a tour of the Universe’s best sights.
Take a guided tour
Dr Christian Jarrett
Writer & editor
of our Universe
ave you seen the incredible images of the comet that ESA’s
+ A cognitive neuroscientist by
training, on page 44 Christian
explores why we forget, as well as some bizarre
H Rosetta spacecraft has been beaming back to Earth? They
are all the more impressive given that the craft is sending
these images 550 million kilometres across space. Our view of space
memory phenomena, such as earworms and
has also been transformed by some other amazing bits of kit in
the ‘reminiscence bump’.
the recent past, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. And let’s not
forget the Huygens lander that sent us images of the surface of
Michael Whiteley Titan, one of Saturn’s moons.
Loughborough University So we thought it was high time we took you on a tour of
+ Michael is a research scientist wkh#Xqlyhuvhġv#Ľqhvw#vljkwv/#dqg#zkr#ehwwhu#wr#dfw#dv#|rxu#
investigating hydrogen fuel cells. guide than astronomer and regular Science Uncovered
On page 58, he looks inside the new technology contributor Colin Stuart? Take a look at his 25 most incredible
that will suck CO 2 out of the atmosphere, spectacles in the Universe on page 30.
potentially reducing global warming. Closer to home, we also look at the question of how life got started
on our planet. It’s something that’s far from clear. One idea is that
the building blocks of life came from elsewhere in the Solar System.
Prof Brendan Walker Exw/#rq#sdjh#:3/#zh#h{dplqh#wkh#jurzlqj#hylghqfh#wkdw#wkh#Ľuvw#fhoov#
Middlesex University
emerged in hydrothermal vents, deep beneath the ocean’s surface.
+ Having originally trained as an
Rq#d#Ľqdo#qrwh/#xqiruwxqdwho|#wklv#zloo#eh#odvw#lvvxh#ri#Science
aeronautical engineer, Brendan
Uncovered. It’s been a pleasure producing the magazine for you.
is the world’s only thrill engineer. On page 64,
I hope you continue to explore your love of science.
he explains how the world’s biggest engine
– which powers container ships – works.

Hayley Birch ANDREW RIDGWAY

Science writer & editor
[email protected]
+ With a degree in biology, Hayley
@SciUncovered
is the co-author of the book Big
Questions in Science. On page 70 she ventures
deep underwater to the hydrothermal vents that
may have been the birthplace of life.
HOW TO CONTACT US… If you have any questions or comments
about the magazine, here’s how to reach us

Duncan Geere Editorial enquiries Subscription enquiries facebook.com/

SciUncovered
Science journalist Science Uncovered magazine, www.myfavouritemagazines.co.uk
+ An expert in all things tech and Future Publishing, Quay House, The or call 0844 848 2852 twitter.com/
environment, Duncan was the Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA SciUncovered
ideal person to uncover the innovations that will Advertising contact
change our homes. On page 82, he explains why Email the team Sasha McGregor 01225 788186 scienceuncovered.
biorhythmic beds are heading your way. [email protected] [email protected] tumblr.com

@SciUncovered 3
 Issue 11
October 2014
@SciUncovered

89
The amazing vehicle that’s half bike, half ’copter

54
Krz#grhv#vxjdu#dļhfw#
our bodies?

30
25 MOST INCREDIBLE
SIGHTS IN THE UNIVERSE
Coronal mass ejections, Titan’s
methane lakes, the Cat’s Eye Nebula
and other must-see cosmic sights.

SPACE UNCOVERED HUMANS UNCOVERED ENGINEERING UNCOVERED NATURE UNCOVERED

30 25 Most Incredible 44 Why we Forget 58 Carbon Capturing 70 The Origins of Life
Sights in the Universe The latest research on how our The green machine that sucks Did life on Earth start in hot
Take a sightseeing tour of the brains store memories - and why carbon dioxide out of the air. Is vents at the bottom of the
cosmos and discover some truly they can also fail us at the most this the answer to combating ocean… or could it have come
breathtaking phenomena. inopportune of times. climate change? here from outer space?

38 How the Universe came 50 The bionic hand with 64 The largest diesel engine 76 The strange ways animals
into being a sense of touch in the world and plants defend themselves
42 The United Kingdom joins 54 The hidden dangers 66 The doomsday seed vault 80 The five greatest fossil
the space race of sugar safeguarding our plant life hoaxes of all time

38 44 58 70

4 @SciUncovered
 SPACE
CONTENTS
How long will it take for the Issue 11 October 2014

Sun to engulf the Earth?

Find out the answer to this question and loads more on page 22 REGULARS
8 Science Shot
Stunning images brought
to life with science.

14 Intelligence
The latest dispatches from
the world of science.

22 Ask a Scientist
Our panel of experts answer
your questions.

94 DIY Science
Build a simple electric motor,
and measure pH with a cabbage.

98 Antimatter…
Notes from the bizarre side
ri#vflhqwlĽf#uhvhdufk1

76 ature’s t angest defences

66 or ’s largest eed vault

14
Is a worldwide Ebola crisis imminent?

TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED ON THE COVER + Your quick guide to what’s inside this fact-packed issue
82 10 Innovations that Will 82 10 Home 76 Bizarre
Revolutionise our Homes Tech Innovations Animal Defences
From VR headsets to biorhythmic The home-changing Exploding ants, projectile-
beds, our lives are about to technologies that will vomiting seabirds and
change forever… change the way you live blood-squirting lizards

88 Meet the bike that doesn’t

30 25 Most Incredible 80 Fossil Hoaxes
fall over...
Sights in the Universe From Piltdown Man to
89 ..and the bike that glides
Celebrate the beauty of the Archaeoraptor – ancient
through the air
cosmos, from Saturn’s rings to treasures that weren’t
the planet made of diamond

82 66 Doomsday 54 Sugar’s
Seed Vault Hidden Dangers
The underground bunker Why the World Health
safeguarding the future Organization says we all
of all plant life need to cut down – now

5
SCIENCESHOT
Awesome images from Earth and beyond

SCALED UP
Viewed close up, the scaly ‘plumage’ of the
butterfly comes into view
PHOTO © IWAN PRUVIC / SOLENT NEWS

Butterflies may not be a creature you

usually associate with feathers, but that’s
simply because you’ve not been looking closely
enough. This image of a skipper butterfly,
taken by photographer Iwan Pruvic in his
garden in Indonesia, shows the thousands of
tiny scales that cover its body and bear more
than a passing resemblance to feathers. These
scales help the butterfly to fly, as they increase
the amount of lift generated by its wings as
they move through the air. They also act as
insulation, and form colourful patterns that
can act as camouflage.

+ A butterfly’s proboscis.
It is used to suck up food,
such as nectar and pollen
from flowers, and is
controlled by its own set
of muscles.

8
Wkh#dyhudjh#exwwhuľ|# But some have a lifespan of
just a few days, while others SCIENCE SHOT
lives for 20-40 days may live for up to six months Images from Earth & beyond

Christie Wilcox
Biologist, University of Hawaii

Are many insects covered

in scales?
“All butterflies and moths are covered in
scales – it’s one of the defining traits of
the order Lepidoptera. These scales are
what make moths ‘dusty’, for example, and
provide insulation as well as increasing the
lift-to-drag ratio during flight.”
 SCIENCE SHOT The Appalachian Mountains Their formation was part
of the construction of the
Images from Earth & beyond are 480 million years old supercontinent Pangaea

+ The dome, or ‘overshoot’,

at the top of the storm cell
is a result of the formation’s
strongest updraft. Here, an
upwards rotating column of air
pushes up against the top of the
cloud. This formation can’t be
seen from the ground.

STORM
Seen from a height of 19km (12 miles) up, these clouds over the
Southern Appalachian Mountains in the US seem tranquil. But

BREWING
in fact they form a storm cell, the smallest building block of a storm
system – which can consist of just one or many cells. A storm cell is a
mass of air that contains ‘loops’ of upwards and downwards air
NASA captures cloud currents moving within it. This rare glimpse of what a storm looks
formation from above like from above was taken by NASA from a high-altitude aircraft,
as part of a study carried out with the National Oceanic and
PHOTO © NASA / STU BROCE Atmospheric Administration and Duke University into precipitation
over mountain regions.

10 @SciUncovered
 Calcium carbonate is In fact, it’s the main
component in them, SCIENCE SHOT
found in animals’ shells as well as in pearls Images from Earth & beyond

+ Calcium carbonate is white

– the shades here come from
the ‘false colour’ microscope
technique, which makes
individual elements easier
to pick out.

LOOKING ROSY
Calcium carbonate takes on a floral appearance
PHOTO © SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

These calcium carbonate crystals form a

microscopic rose garden. The crystals are
made up of hexagonal plates, which group together
in spherical configuration called ‘varetites’. They’re
incredibly tiny – this image was taken using a
scanning electron microscope, and shows a group
of rosette-shaped varetites just 69 millionths of a
metre across. Calcium carbonate is commonly found
in rocks such as limestone, chalk and marble. It’s
used in medicine as an antacid to treat heartburn,
and is also used in industry as a building material,
to purify iron ore, and as a water pH regulator in
swimming pools.

@SciUncovered 11
 SCIENCE SHOT Wax typically It is made of long chains of
hydrogen and carbon molecules,
Images from Earth & beyond melts at 45ºC which deform with heat

Dr Paul Coxon
Materials scientist,
University of Cambridge
Do any naturally occurring
materials share these properties?
“Materials that can change shape and
stiffness are common in nature. A classic
example is a tree leaf, which can fold and
unfold in response to sunlight. It must be
stiff enough to support its own weight but
flexible in order to minimise wind damage.”

+ The prototype material is coated

in wax, but the researchers at MIT
plan to replace this with sturdier
substances such as solder in the
future, increasing the strength of
the structures it creates.

12 @SciUncovered
 Candles have been Specimens dating back
to this period have been SCIENCE SHOT
used since 200BC found in China Images from Earth & beyond

CHANGING
Creating a robot that can be squashed to manoeuvre through
tight spaces is a tough task – to be of any use, it also needs to

STATES
be able to exert force without collapsing. But researchers at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), in the US, have found
a solution in the form of a wax-soaked, 3D-printed foam structure.
The material that can switch Once set, the wax forms a rigid shell that hold the foam in place. But
between hard and soft once heat is applied – by exposing the material to an electric current,
for example – it becomes pliable. It is hoped that the material, or
PHOTO © COURTESY OF something like it, could be used to produce robots that would be used
THE RESEARCHERS
in surgery or in search and rescue operations.

@SciUncovered 13
 The latest breakthroughs explained and dissected

+ The composition of the Ebola virus’ DNA

can be studied using electrophoresis – a
technique that involves suspending it in
fluid and applying an electric field.

HOW MUCH OF A THREAT

IS THE EBOLA VIRUS?
This contagious viral disease has been legend. It is notorious for its gruesome the risk of infection for those further

IMAGE © PATRICK WALLET/LOOK AT SCIENCES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

symptoms (vomiting, fever, diarrhoea, away is low.
sperading through West Africa, but it’s bleeding to death) and a fatality rate of Ebola comes in five varieties, of

unlikely to take hold in the UK up to 90%. There remains no vaccine

or cure – although DNA-based
which four are infectious. The current
outbreak is related to the most deadly,
vaccines that have been proven the Zaire strain. “But the good thing is
WORDS BY Mun-Keat Looi
effective in animals have now entered that it doesn’t spread through the air,”
clinical trials, as have a couple of says Professor David Heymann at the

O
n 25 March 2014, the
Guinean Ministry of
Health sent out a chilling
26
previous Ebola outbreaks
experimental drugs, called Zmapp and
TKM-Ebola.
As Science Uncovered went to press,
London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine. Even if you were to meet an
infected person, Heymann says, the
communique: Ebola virus disease have occurred the current outbreak had claimed over risk of getting it is low – “unless they
was confirmed to have killed 60 1,000 lives in West Africa. Yet while vomit on you or you’re in touch with
people in the country’s southeastern danger remains high in the region, their body fluids”.
region. Worse, cases had spread to the That’s an important point. Another
capital Conakry, and reports were
emerging from the borders of
“THE ROUTINE INFECTION CONTROL is that those showing no symptoms
– even if they are carrying the virus –
neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Ebola, named after the river in the
MEASURES SET UP WOULD PREVENT are not infectious, with the virus
taking between two and 21 days to
Democratic Republic of Congo
(formerly Zaire) where it was first
THE DISEASE FROM SPREADING.” cause symptoms. And the virus can
actually be dealt with pretty easily,
identified in 1976, is a virus of modern Prof David Heymann LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE AND TROPICAL DISEASES with ordinary soap – which is why a

14 @SciUncovered
 The Ebola virus is believed They are commonly eaten
in West Africa, and are INTELLIGENCE
to be carried by fruit bats often served grilled Breakthroughs explained

Measuring up to 14,000
nanometres in length, the
Ebola virus is relatively large A BRIEF HISTORY OF…
THE EBOLA
VIRUS
1976 FIRST RECORDED OUTBREAK
IN YAMBUKU, ZAIRE
+ On 26 August, Mabalo Lokela, a head
IMAGE © CDC/CYNTHIA GOLDSMITH

teacher in Yambuku, Zaire (now

Democratic Republic of the Congo) falls
ill with a haemorrhagic fever, at first
thought to be malaria. By 8 September,
he bleeds to death. A total of 318 cases
and 280 deaths are reported in the
ensuing outbreak.

55%
key part of the control measures is infected,” says Heymann. “And
hand-washing. often that’s how the virus gets into
“There is no reason why Ebola the community.”
couldn’t arise in the UK,” says
is the case fatality
So while this is the largest
2003 VACCINE TRIALS IN MONKEYS
rate of the current + An adenovirus-based vaccine
Heymann. But if it did, it could be quite Ebola outbreak outbreak of Ebola ever recorded,
carrying Ebola proteins is tested on
easily dealt with, as we’ve seen with robust healthcare systems ensure
macaque monkeys. The vaccinated
other diseases such as Middle East that the risk of Ebola infection outside
monkeys prove resistant to the virus
Respiratory Syndrome, which reached of West Africa remains low. The
when introduced to it 28 days later.
the UK earlier in 2014. “The routine problems in that region seem to have
Trials of adenovirus-based vaccines for
infection control measures set up, been born of miscommunication and
humans are ongoing as of August 2014.
including protection of health bad organisation, with basic health
workers, made sure that the disease principles not being followed. This
didn’t spread any further,” says has been further complicated by
Heymann. “The same would happen cultural clashes, such as a mistrust of 2011 VACCINE FOR MICE
if Ebola came in”. doctors and the traditional funeral DECLARED SUCCESSFUL
Early-stage Ebola has symptoms, practice of washing the bodies of the + A paper in the science journal PNAS
such as fever, that are similar to the dead by hand. describes an Ebola vaccine that is
’flu or malaria. But following a few effective in mice. Although a human
basic principles can help most equivalent has yet to be developed, the
countries deal with diseases such as Mun-Keat Looi vaccine is promising because it can be
Ebola swiftly. First, suspected patients Science writer & editor freeze-dried, enabling supplies to be
need to be isolated. Then people + Mun-Keat is a senior editor at the stockpiled in case of future outbreaks.
who have been in contact with them Wellcome Trust. @ayasawada
need to be identified – known as
contact tracing – and the patient and
any contacts put under fever
surveillance, monitoring their
temperature three times a day. “And
READER REACTION! How concerned are you about Ebola
spreading to the UK?
Jayne O’Harrow Tony Lawes Great Ann Garside Amy Hartley
if they get a fever you would make Yarmouth, England England
England via Facebook
sure that their diagnosis was Ebola or If science wants it in the I don’t get why people
I know that the sanitary Very. The last time we
not,” says Heymann. UK, there is nothing we are so panicked about it.
conditions we live in had such a serious
At the same time, he says, hospital make it far less likely disease it was a very can do. Global warming is a lot
infection controls must be stringent. that the epidemic will bad time and it nearly worse but no one cares
Health workers must protect take hold. I am not destroyed half the about that.
themselves using the proper worried at all. country.
equipment, and ensure that patients
are isolated and that none of the
equipment used on those patients is
used on others.
“Because it’s in hospital settings
JOIN IN THE DEBATE Log on to one of our community
sites and join the conversation

that not only do other patients get On Facebook at… On Twitter at…
infected, the health workers also get facebook.com/SciUncovered @SciUncovered

@SciUncovered 15
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 The largest ever seabird Fossils of the creature, which
had a 6.4m wingspan, were INTELLIGENCE
was Pelagomis sandersi recently discovered in the US Breakthroughs explained

FOUR-WINGED DINO
PROVIDES INSIGHT
INTO FLIGHT
Newly discovered creature would
have been a pioneer of air travel
WORDS BY Dr Darren Naish

Changyuraptor yangi
IMAGE © EMILY WILLOUGHBY

lived in China around

ith no fewer than four 125 million years ago

W wings and extra-long tail

feathers, a dinosaur that’s
just been discovered in China sheds
new light on how they flew. Dubbed
changyuraptor, which means ‘long-

60%
feathered thief’, it’s thought this
beast’s lengthy feathers would have tail, forming a fan-like arrangement. Many of the species boasted feathers
played a crucial role in flight control. Some were as long as 30cm – the on their hind legs, but over time it
The 125-million-year-old dinosaur is how much larger longest feathers yet discovered in any appears evolution abandoned them
– Changyuraptor yangi, to give it its full
changyuraptor was dinosaur. The sheer size of the tail in favour of focussing solely on the
than the previous
name – was discovered by a team of record-holder for feathers suggests they had an more efficient forelimb wings.
Chinese and American researchers in four-winged dinosaurs, important aerodynamic role – they Changyuraptor’s feathers would
the Chinese province of Liaoning. It Microraptor zhaoianus might, for example, have helped it to have covered its body – a body that was
was a lightly built, long-limbed reduce its speed in order to land safely. 1.3 metres long and would have
predator with serrated teeth and “The large tail feathers of weighed 4kg, roughly double the
curved claws. Long, narrow feathers changyuraptor match our expectations weight of the average chicken. This
grew from its arms and hands to form for what the feathers on the tail should dinosaur’s discovery supports the idea
wings, and also from its legs and feet to look like if they were used to control that flight preceded birds, and that
form ‘hindlimb wings’. flight or rapid descents,” says Michael birds inherited the ability from
The longest of the feathers grew Habib, an Assistant Professor in the dinosaurs. Some of today’s birds still
from the end half of changyuraptor’s Keck School of Medicine at the boast feathers on their legs, but they
University of Southern California, who are for insulation rather than flight.

“THE TAIL WOULD HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY was part of the team involved with the
research. “The tail would have

IMPROVED THE FLIGHT CONTROL AND significantly improved the flight

control and stability in the air.”
Dr Darren Naish
Palaeontologist & writer
STABILITY IN THE AIR.” The Liaoning province has proven
to be a rich source of feathered
+ Based at the University of Southampton
in the UK, Darren studies dinosaurs and
Professor Michael Habib UNIVERSIT Y OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA dinosaur fossils over the past decade. named one himself – Eotyrannus @TetZoo

@SciUncovered 17
 45#ri#wkh#zruogġv elj
jjhvw#vflhqwlĽf glvfryhulhv glvwloohg

02

01 50%
is how much less the Milky

DOGS ARE Way weighs than similarly-sized

neighbour Andromeda, according

JEALOUS TYPES to scientists at the University of

Edinburgh who used a new
gravity-based method to ‘weigh’
+ It’s something that owners will have
it. Andromeda is thought to
suspected for a long time – dogs experience envy.
contain twice as much
Researchers at the University of California in San
dark matter.
Diego studied 36 dogs across 14 breeds and
found that they were mostly unresponsive when
their owners read a book, but changed their
behaviour once the owner began to pay attention
to a toy. A quarter of the dogs snapped at the toy,
while only one snapped at the book. Other dogs
barked, wagged their tails or tried to force their
way between the owner and the toy.
This new research backs up an observation by
Charles Darwin in 1871: “Everyone has seen how
jealous a dog is of his master’s affection, if
lavished on any other creature.”

04

IMAGE © NASA
Ant colonies have
personalities
+ Different colonies of ants have their own
personalities, showing variation in traits
such as their tendency to explore. Sarah

05 ROSETTA CATCHES
Bengston, a PhD student at the University

03 BRAIN AREA COULD BE of Arizona, studied colonies of ants both in

LINKED TO DEPRESSION
her lab and in the wild, and found that
certain patterns of behaviour tend to go
ITS COMET
Researchers at University College London have together. Those colonies that explore more
been studying an ancient, pea-sized part of the widely also tend to respond to intruders + After a decade-long chase that’s spanned 405
brain called the habenula. Brain scans of volunteers more aggressively. The patterns of million kilometres, the Rosetta spacecraft has
showed the region activates in response to images behaviour varied depending on where the rendezvoused with comet 67P/Churyumov-
that provoke expectations of bad outcomes. colonies were, suggesting environment Gerasimenko and beamed back fascinating
Earlier animal studies showed that habenula plays a role in shaping personality type. images of its surface. The next key landmark will
activity leads to avoidance, as it suppresses the come in November when its lander probe, Philae,
production of dopamine, which drives motivation. will attempt to reach the comet’s surface.
It’s now thought a hyperactive habenula in Analysing the comet’s composition should give us
people could lead to a pessimistic outlook on life new insights into the early days of the Solar
– so a greater understanding of its activity could System, since comets are remnants of debris left
lead to new treatments for depression. over from the system’s formation.

18 @SciUncovered
 INTELLIGENCE
Breakthroughs explained

10
40.2 KM
is the new distance record for an
off-Earth land vehicle. NASA’s
Opportunity rover on Mars has beaten
the record set by the USSR’s
Lunokhod 2 moon rover in 1973.
Opportunity travels around

06 FUR SEALS AFFECTED

4.2km a year.

BY CLIMATE CHANGE
11 MOON IS A
+ Antarctic fur seals are becoming for seal pups to be born with ever
smaller and breeding later – all lower body mass. Krill uses
thanks to the effect of warmer
seas on krill, their primary food
Antarctic sea ice as shelter, feeding
on algae growing underneath it,
SOFTIE AT HEART
source. The British Antarctic meaning that as the ice melts, + Our planet’s gravity heats up a layer
Survey has noticed a 27-year trend there’s less for the seals to eat. around the Moon’s core, keeping it
liquid, a new model of the lunar interior
suggests. Researchers in the US and

08 Tweets
China created the computer model and
07 found that a liquid layer between 350

deciphered and 500km from the centre could

8.2%
IMAGE © IAN EVENDEN

explain anomalies in the Moon’s orbit

and gravitational field. The finding
prompts an intriguing question – how
such a soft layer could be maintained
is how much of throughout the Moon’s 4.5-billion-year
your DNA is useful history? It’s thought heat generated by
Earth’s gravity may be responsible.
Vflhqwlvwv#dw#wkh#Xqlyhuvlw|#Ri#
R{irug#zkr#vwxglhg#vlplodulwlhv# + Ever wondered which bird species
between our genes and those of is making a racket outside your window at
5am? A team from Queen Mary University of
rwkhu#vshflhv#eholhyh#odujh# London may be able to help, after training
stretches of our DNA do nothing, software to be able to pick out differences
between bird calls. Hundreds of bird calls were
with redundant genes building up analysed using a ‘feature learning’ technique,
ryhu#ploolrqv#ri#|hduv#ri#hyroxwlrq# and the system has been proven to be effective

12 CHINESE TOMB
at distinguishing different species.
exw#qhyhu#jhwwlqj#fohduhg#rxw1
YIELDS TREASURE
09 FIST BUMPS
+ Life-sized chariots and treasure made
from gold, silver and bronze have been
MORE HYGIENIC discovered in a 2,100-year-old tomb built
for a Chinese king. Archaeologists from
Ilvw#expsv#udglfdoo|#uhgxfh#wkh#fkdqfhv#ri# the Museum of Nanjing believe the tomb,
vsuhdglqj#lqihfwlrxv#glvhdvhv/#vd|#Dehu|vwz|wk# hidden up a mountain in Jiangsu province,
Xqlyhuvlw|#uhvhdufkhuv#lq#Zdohv1#Wkh|# eastern China, was created for Liu Fei,
phdvxuhg#jhup#pryhphqwv#xvlqj#vwhuloh# who died in 128BC. The tomb had already
uxeehu#joryhv/#rqh#ri#zklfk#zdv#glsshg#lq#wkh# been looted, but still housed thousands of
edfwhulxp#E. coli1#Ihzhu#edfwhuld#zhuh# artefacts. It would have contained items
wudqvihuuhg#wr#wkh#rwkhu#joryh#iroorzlqj#d#Ľvw# the king needed for the afterlife, including
exps#ru#kljk#Ľyh/#wkdq#diwhu#d#kdqgvkdnh1 a kitchen. The findings were reported in
the journal Chinese Archaeology.

@SciUncovered 19
SCIENCE AT HOME
Explaining the science of your surroundings

THE PHYSICS OF TOYS

How do these objects hold the power to amuse us?
WORDS BY Dr Michael Banks

SPINNING TOP The spinning top, balancing

on a tiny point, appears to
THE SLINKY
DEFYING GRAVITY defy the laws of gravity. The WALKING DOWN STAIRS BY
physics behind how it works are
USING TORQUE based on angular momentum – a
SHIFTING ENERGY
measure of the amount of spin For the uninitiated, a Slinky is a
an object has, taking into account simple toy consisting of a helical
its speed and mass. The angular spring made from plastic or metal. It has
momentum of an object only been enjoyed for well over half a century
changes when you apply a torque thanks to its amazing ability to ‘walk’
to it (twist it, in other words). So down stairs unaided. While this motion
when the top is set into might look easy enough, the physics
motion, a large torque is behind it is fairly complex. Every object
applied that imparts has stored, or potential, energy and when
a lot of angular placed at the top of the stairs the Slinky
momentum. In full will, of course, stay perfectly still. But as
flight, the top easily you set the spring on its way, by pulling
remains upright – one end down on to the next stair below,
sometimes for minutes this potential energy is transferred to
– as the torque due to kinetic energy – energy due to motion.
gravity is not strong enough As the Slinky coils on the step below, this
to change its movement. kinetic energy shifts like a wave along
However, as the top slows down its length to the other end. Much like
due to air resistance, gravity when you crack a whip, all the energy
begins to take over, and the travels through to the end of it. This
upper part of the spinning top pulsing energy then makes the Slinky
makes a circular motion before continue down to the next step and
crashing to the floor. the process continues.

20 @SciUncovered
 Methylene chloride is used to Wkh#ehdqv#duh#vwhdphg/#
ehiruh#ehlqj#ulqvhg# SCIENCE AT HOME
ghfdļhlqdwh#frļhh#ehdqv with the solvent Physics of toys

PAPER AEROPLANE
STAYING AIRBORNE USING AERODYNAMICS
The farthest flight by a paper acts upwards, it is important that the
aircraft made from a single sheet plane is stable and flies level. A
of uncut A4 paper currently stands at reduction in speed, from drag, reduces
69.14m. That mighty feat was achieved the lift and gravity begins to take over,
by US television producer John Collins forcing the plane to land. This is one
and his friend Joe Ayoob on 26 February, reason why aeroplanes are pointed at
2012. For any aeroplane to fly, paper or the front – so they cut through the air
otherwise, it must have two things: lift better and can stay in the air for longer.
and stability. After launch, as the plane
moves forward, its wings cut through
the air to generate a small amount of
lift, which counteracts the force of
gravity that pushes it down. As the lift

THE DRINKING BIRD

CONVERTING HEAT INTO MOTION
In a classic episode of The
Simpsons, Homer gets a drinking
bird to do his job, continuously tapping
the ‘Y’ key on his computer keyboard.
Alas, this would never work, because
Homer doesn’t have a cup of water to
hand. This aspect is crucial as the toy is a
simple ‘heat engine’ that converts heat
energy from the water to mechanical
work. The bird’s body is filled with
methylene chloride – a solvent that
evaporates easily. When the bird’s beak
dips into a cup of water, the beak absorbs
water and the head is cooled as the water
NEWTON’S CRADLE evaporates. This causes the methylene
chloride vapour inside the bird’s head to
ENERGY CONSERVATION IN ACTION condense, reducing the vapour pressure
inside it, and sucking liquid up from the
A toy that’s more often found on its original shape, it pushes on ball
body into the head. This makes it top
shelves in offices than in the four and swings outwards. The
heavy, and so the bird tips over. As the
hands of children, it was given the process is repeated in reverse as ball
bird’s head tips back into the water, the
name ‘Newton’s cradle’ by English five slams into ball four after swinging
bottom of the tube in the bird’s body is
actor Simon Prebble in honour of the into the air.
lifted out of the methylene chloride.
legendary physicist. Swing a ball back
Vapour travels through the tube into the
and when hits the first of the four
head, displacing the liquid in it. When
beneath, it stops immediately. It has
liquid drains into the abdomen, it lifts the
zero kinetic and potential energy. The
head. And as water evaporates from the
law of conservation of energy states
bird’s head again, the process repeats.
energy can’t be created or destroyed
– the energy must go somewhere.
It’s transferred into ball two, which
then transfers its energy to ball
three, and so on. When the energy Dr Michael Banks
reaches ball five, it doesn’t have Writer and physicist
another ball to pass its energy to. So + Michael completed a degree in physics
when it compresses under impact (as at Loughborough University in the UK before completing
its predecessors have done – each by a PhD in experimental condensed-matter physics at the
a minute amount) and then returns to Max Planck Institute in Germany. @Mike_Banks

@SciUncovered 21
 Your questions answered by those in the know

THE SCIENTISTS
Our experts answering your
An expanding Sun will
look vast from the
surface of our planet
burning questions

Dr Chris Lintott
1.39
million kilometres is
the diameter of
University of Oxford the Sun
+ A co-presenter on the BBC Four
astronomy show The Sky at Night,
Chris also runs citizen science projects to
investigate galaxy formation, discover new
planets and more. @chrislintott

Christie Wilcox
University of Hawaii
+ While living on Oahu, Christie is
pursuing a PhD in cell and
molecular biology. Her particular interest is the
toxins of venomous ocean creatures such as
the lionfish. @NerdyChristie

Dr Matthew Genge
Imperial College London
+ Not only does Matthew study
asteroids, he has one named after
him too – 6626 Mattgenge. A planetary scientist,
he’s fascinated by rocks on this planet as well as
those out in space. @rockbloke
SPACE

Dr Kristina Killgrove
University of West Florida
+ Kristina sees dead people –
dead Romans, to be precise. As an
When the Sun expands to consume
Earth, how quickly will it happen?
anthropologist and archaeologist, she
specialises in studying the bones of Romans to
find out how they lived . @DrKillgrove

Dr Ian Mabbett Lara Carroll STEVENAGE, ENGLAND

Swansea University
+ From the inner workings of steel, As the Sun begins to exhaust the four million tonnes per second. planet will disappear beneath the
to bold new materials, Ian is an hydrogen fuel at its core, it will Clearly, over billions of years that solar surface. There’s much
engineer whose research will change the way we enter a new stage of life as an dggv#xs#wr#d#vljqlĽfdqw#orvv#dqg/# uncertainty about the destructive
build. He’s currently studying materials that enormous red giant. A typical dv#wkh#Vxq#pryhv#lqwr#lwv#Ľqdo# timeline, but we’re sure of one
generate energy. @Materials_Live
radius for such a star would be stages, the rate of mass loss will thing: it’ll be a gradual process.
around 160 million kilometres, increase further as it begins to The expansion of the Sun will
Dr Paul Coxon placing Earth’s present position shed its outer layers. Obeying the take place over hundreds of
University of Cambridge
within the Sun itself. laws of orbital motion, Earth will thousands of years. Just in case,
+ As a materials scientist, But the news isn’t totally spiral outwards. it might not be a bad idea to have
Paul’s studies span physics,
energy and X-rays. He’s at the forefront of apocalyptic – Earth may save Sadly, our most educated become a star-faring civilisation
research into nanotechnology – the science itself. As the Sun ages, mass is guess suggests that we won’t long before we have to worry
of the very small. @paulcoxon converted into energy at a rate of travel far enough, and our home about any of this! CL

GET IN TOUCH… Email us at…

[email protected]
On Facebook at…
facebook.com/SciUncovered
On Twitter at…
@SciUncovered

22 @SciUncovered
 The fastest speed achieved cycling Equivalent to 167mph,
the record was set by Fred ASK A SCIENTIST
rq#d#ľdw#vxuidfh#lv#59;np2k Rompelberg in 1995 Your questions answered
t

Thanks to its low oxygen content, the

Black Sea has preserved many artefacts
N AT URE

Why do lions
have manes?
Chris Rogers COLWYN BAY, WALES

Male lions have manes to

signal to female lions that N AT URE

they’re high-quality mates,

because the size and colour of
What’s beneath
a lion’s mane correlates with tectonic plates?
klv#ryhudoo#Ľwqhvv1#Rqo|#wkh#
HUM A NS Helen Bush BY EMAIL
healthiest males can support a
large, dark mane because of
Does seawater preserve its extra physiological burden
There’s a common
misconception that tectonic
– especially in the heat. In
artefacts better than soil? fact, the quality of a male’s
sodwhv#ľrdw#rq#d#vhd#ri#pdjpd1#
However, the mantle beneath the
mane not only tells the
Mdphv#KduwĽhog#SCRANTON, US plates is actually mostly solid.
females whether they’d make
Tectonic plates consist of crust
a good mate, it also lets
Dq#dqdhurelf#hqylurqphqw#Ğ#rqh#odfnlqj#r{|jhq#Ğ#lv#kljko|#surĽflhqw# and an underlying layer of rigid
potential rivals know just how
in preserving organic artefacts such as bone, wood and textiles, mantle called the lithosphere.
hard they’re going to have to
whether on land or sea. It’s why shipwrecks in a body of the water like Below these is a malleable layer
Ľjkw
Ľjjkw wr wdnh ryhu CW
wr#wdnh#ryhu1
the Black Sea, which has extremely low oxygen levels, have harboured of mantle called the
many well-preserved artefacts. In an environment that does contain asthenosphere. The main
oxygen, DNA in bones can be preserved if the water has a high mineral glļhuhqfh#ehwzhhq#wklv#dqg#wkh#
content – but will likely preserve longer in a land-based artefact. Metal lithosphere is temperature – the
is another story. The most prevalent metal used in antiquity was iron, hotter, deeper asthenosphere is
which corrodes dramatically in seawater. It’s why all artefacts recovered fdsdeoh#ri#ľrzlqj/#d#elw#olnh#vrolg#
from seawater have to be considered for conservation. Organic objects asphalt. The asthenosphere melts
can crumble within hours when removed from seawater; iron in a few to form magma only where it
days. Even glass and pottery can disintegrate unless conserved. KK rises or where water is added. MG

The faster you’re

travelling on a bike, the
ENGINEERING less likely you are to fall

Why can I only balance on

a bike when it’s moving?
Lucas Bond MILTON KEYNES, ENGLAND

The most widely held beliefs are input is needed to counteract

that bicycles are stable because the inertia of an imminent
ri#wkh#j|urvfrslf#hļhfwv#ri#wkh# fall. Gyroscopic forces and
spinning wheels, rather like the wudlolqj#hļhfwv#zloo#khos#d#elnh#
forces that prevent a child’s to steer into a fall, but
spinning top from falling over, researchers have shown that
or because the front wheel just by moving the centre of
‘trails’ behind the axis of mass of the frame forward
steering – or both. However, and above the centre of mass
recent papers have argued that of the front steering assembly,
this is only part of the story. A they can help a bike to remain
bike becomes stable by steering stable even when the two
into a fall and the faster the bike rwkhu#hļhfwv#kdyh#ehhq#
is travelling, the less steering eliminated. IM

@SciUncovered 23
 ASK A SCIENTIST Solid carbon dioxide It turns back into a
jdv#dw#0:;18#’F/#dqg#lv#
Your questions answered is known as ‘dry ice’ used to preserve food

HUM A NS

Why do our ears ring

after a loud night out?
Mike Fordham
BY EMAIL

Tinnitus occurs when loud

sounds damage cells in your
ears. ‘Hair cells’ convert
soundwaves into
neurotransmitters that ‘talk’ to
auditory nerves. They’re called
hair cells due to bundles of
hair-like extensions, called
stereocilia, that help them
receive and amplify sound.
Loud sounds can damage the
stereocilia. This alters which
qhxurqv Ľuh/ fdxvlqj |rxu hdu wr
‘hear’ sounds that aren’t really

APOCALYPSE NOW? By as much as 10 metres,

although this would take place
over a more gradual period. This
there. While the ringing is often
temporary, repeated damage to
can lead to hearing loss. CW

WHAT IF… EARTH’S TEMPERATURE would leave us less space, so we’d

also be crammed into a much

SUDDENLY ROSE BY 10ºC? smaller area.

Would it affect what crops we

Extreme global warming would have catastrophic impacts could grow, too?
on our habitats and how we could feed ourselves It would. “Crop yield would reduce
What sort of temperature rises seeing an 8-10Cº increase in by about 50-60% globally,” says
are we seeing at the moment? average temperatures,” says Crawford-Brown. “We would
Currently, global temperatures Crawford-Brown. “Storm probably have to shift to higher-
ABOVE Ringing ears are associated with damage
are rising at a rate of around frequency would almost double temperature crops.” These to hearing cells, but the effect usually passes
0.1ºC per decade – so a rise in severity and frequency. Rainfall include tomatoes, peppers and
of 10ºC would be highly would be significantly higher in cucumbers. Lettuce, cabbage and SPACE
significant indeeed. winter and significantly lower in broccoli are among those that
summer – perhaps by 50%.” would struggle. Do all things have
What could cause such a jump?
“Such a large temperature rise That doesn’t sound so terrible… What about our health overall?
gravitational pull?
would be the result of very large Thanks to the urban heat island This could actually be larger than Graham Ellis BY EMAIL
increases in atmospheric CO2,” effect, in which heat is stored in you’d expect. “We would need to
says Dr Douglas Crawford-Brown, concrete, the temperature shift our locations into higher Any body of matter – it doesn’t
director of the Cambridge Centre increase in cities would be latitudes, where adverse effects matter whether it’s large or
for Climate Change Mitigation greater than the overal 10ºC. from cold winters would be small, as long as it has mass –
Research, in the UK. This in itself “Cities that are already close to reduced, but adverse effects of will exert a gravitational pull.
would give rise to plenty of being uncomfortable due to hot summers would increase and The force of attraction it exerts
problems, including increased temperatures would become infectious diseases would is in proportion to its mass, so
acidity in our oceans and the uninhabitable,” says Crawford- increase,” says Crawford-Brown. a heavy object will elicit a strong
death of coral reef systems. Brown. And that’s not even taking “Estimates suggest something gravitational pull, while a tiny
into account whether you on the order of 10-30 million thing will only have a small
If this rise happened, wouldn’t currently live in a coastal city – of extra deaths per year globally at pull. So you are actually
things just feel a bit warmer? which around half would be lost to this temperature.” So while a attracting Earth in a similar way
The impact on the UK’s weather rising sea levels. warmer planet might sound to how it attracts you, but
would be extreme. “There are the appealing during a British because the planet is far more
obvious increases in temperature, How much would sea levels summer, it’s one we’d be wise massive, its attractive force is
with summers and winters both rise by? to take measures to avoid. much greater. PC

24 @SciUncovered
 A full Moon is about 500,000 The Moon’s brightness
varies greatly throughout ASK A SCIENTIST
times fainter than the Sun the lunar cycle Your questions answered

HUM A NS
SCIENCE OF SCI-FI
Zkr#zhuh#wkh#Ľuvw#
people to travel across #11: PHASERS
seas by boat? Will we ever end up wielding
Star Trek’s pocket-sized
Alice Hunt SUNDERLAND, ENGLAND
energy blasters?

Boats have likely been used to navigate short

distances since at least the origin of Homo
sapiens, but seaworthy boats are a comparatively
SPACE more recent occurrence. The Pesse canoe,
found in the Netherlands, is the earliest surviving
Why is moonlight white? erdw/#fduerq0gdwhg#wr#;/3730:/843#EF1#Wklv#
Thomas Betts TUCSON, US |canoe, however, probably wasn’t used to cross a
sea. But a discovery of bitumen slabs in Kuwait in
Mostly because it’s faint. Our eyes contain two 5335#frxog#krog#d#foxh#wr#hduo|#vhdidulqj1#Elwxphq#
sorts of light-detecting cell – rods and cones. is a natural petroleum product that was used to
The cones give us colour vision, and the rods seal reed-boat hulls to prevent leaks. If these
take over in faint light but can’t perceive remains are indeed from a seaworthy vessel,
In many ways, the phaser is the ideal
colour. There’s also the fact that moonlight is the earliest physical evidence of travel across
weapon: small enough to fit in a
vxqoljkw#uhľhfwhg#iurp#d#gxoo/#juh|#vxuidfh1#Dv# the seas dates to 7,000 BC, when the peoples of
pocket, immensely powerful, and
sunlight appears white, we shouldn’t be too the Indus River valley in modern-day Pakistan
capable of non-lethal shots when set
surprised that moonlight does, too. CL were trading with the Mesopotamians of the
to ‘stun’. But what are the chances of
Middle East. KK
us carrying these blasters in real life?
A phaser is, according to Star Trek
lore, a ‘directed energy weapon’ – akin
N AT URE to a laser, in other words. The main
obstacles to this are the energy
Is the core of Earth really bright required, and the fact that laser
beams spread out as they travel.
orange, like it’s often depicted? The latter issue means that as a
laser makes its way through the air
Abigail Whitley BY EMAIL
towards a target, it begins to diffuse
and therefore imparts less energy in
The Earth’s core is made largely from and has a temperature greater than
one spot. What’s more, lasers require
iron-nickel metal, a substance that is a 7/333’F1 Wkh frorxu ri frro remhfwv lv
a huge amount of energy to power
steely metallic colour at room controlled by how their surface
them. In fact, a weaponised laser
temperature. The core is, however, uhľhfwv dqg devruev oljkw1 Lq frqwudvw/
would likely require a battery the size
buried deep beneath the surface of the hot objects release their own light by
of a truck, so they’d hardly be able to
Hduwk dw ghswkv ri pruh wkdq 5/599np a process known as ‘incandescence’,
fit in your pocket. They also generate
where rapidly moving atoms lose
a lot of heat, which could pose
energy by releasing visible radiation.
challenges for cooling.
Metal typically becomes red hot at
That’s not to say that phaser-like
whpshudwxuhv ri pruh wkdq 858’F1 Dw
weapons haven’t been considered –
7/333’F/ wkh phwdo lq Hduwkġv fruh zloo
they’re something that the US military
glow white to blue. The colour of the
has been investigating for years. Its
core, of course, hardly matters since
Pulsed Energy Projectile (PEP) fires a
5/333np ri vrolg urfn orfnv dzd| rxu
very short burst of infra-red energy,
planet’s inner light. MG
causing an electromagnetic blast
capable of overwhelming targets’
nervous systems and knocking them
off their feet. The car-mounted tech
has been ruled unsuitable for use as a
non-lethal weapon, but may still prove
useful for shooting down drones.

@SciUncovered 25
 ASK A SCIENTIST The average cloud droplet But they can
form clouds up
Your questions answered lv mxvw 315pp dfurvv wr#5518np#wdoo

HUM A NS tiring, because they force our

bodies to work harder to prevent
Why does heat make us drowsy? our insides from overheating.
Damian Stern WINCHESTER, ENGLAND From increased circulation to
sweating, the more energy your
We, like other mammals, can erg|#qhhgv#wr#frro#rļ/#wkh#ohvv#
handle wide external temperature energy it has for everything else,
changes because we keep our which can leave you feeling
internal temperature constant drained and lethargic. On top of
Ğ exw wkdw uhtxluhv d vljqlĽfdqw# that, excessive sweating can lead
amount of work if we’re in a hot to dehydration, which can amplify
climate. Higher temperatures are your drowsiness. CW

SPACE typical of fair weather, are usually at heights of

500 to 1,500m above the ground – where
How do clouds form in areas temperature is above the freezing point and
thus largely contain water droplets. The
of sub-zero temperatures? streaky, high-altitude cirrus clouds, in
Sandra Jones SWANSEA, WALES contrast, typically form above 5,000m where
the air temperature is sub-zero and contains
Wkh ľxļ|/ zklwh dsshdudqfh ri forxgv jlyhv mostly ice crystals. Thick stratocumulus
the impression they’re formed from gas, but clouds, which can extend from low to high
they actually comprise tiny water droplets or altitude, contain a mixture of both ice crystals
ice crystals. The familiar cumulus clouds, and water droplets. MG

Alpha Centauri A and B

SPACE form a triple star system
with Proxima Centauri –
the closest star system
Do any planets orbit multiple stars? to the Sun

Ron Brooks BY EMAIL

They do – in fact, single stars like our

Sun might be rarer than their more
gregarious counterparts. Stars form
from enormous clouds of gas and dust
called nebulae, and in these crowded
conditions double, triple and even
larger groups of stars are common. In
recent years, planets have been
discovered in many of these systems,
and occasionally they orbit around
both stars in a system. Theoretically,
it’s possible for a planet to orbit
comfortably one star for tens of
thousands of years before
transferring across to spend time
around a second star. CL

26 @SciUncovered
 Mirages are most They often resemble
bodies of water, ASK A SCIENTIST
commonly seen in deserts such as lakes Your questions answered

THE 60-SECOND PHD

T ECHNOLOG Y

What were the earliest forms

of computers? #10: INTRA-OPERATIVE
Margaret Wheeler LIVINGSTON, SCOTLAND

The earliest mechanism that was used wh{wv#+urxjko|#5/833#EF,1#Lq#wkh#

RADIATION
How could it revolutionise breast
for counting is the abacus. Developed Americas, the Aztec, Mayan and Incan
cancer treatment?
before written numbers were empires all had counting devices, too.
invented, the device makes adding Another form of ancient computer is What is it?
and subtracting amounts easy. Our the Antikythera mechanism, found It’s a new form of radiation therapy for
earliest physical example of an on a Greek shipwreck dating to breast cancer. Instead of the radiation
abacus-like device is the marble 150-100 BC. This device was able to being delivered externally over multiple
‘Salamis Tablet’, dating to 300 BC and predict eclipses and positions of sessions, as is currently commonplace, it is
discovered in Greece. It’s highly likely heavenly bodies through its complex issued in a single concentrated dose via a probe
that other abacuses predated this but gear mechanism, inscribed with that is inserted into the breast.
were made of perishable material. Greek months of the year and symbols
Based on textual evidence, the of the zodiac. It’s why the Antikythera How will it be used?
Egyptians, Persians and Greeks began mechanism is often considered the The procedure can only be used in
to use abacuses around 500 BC, and it’s earliest example of an analogue people who have early-stage breast
even possible that an abacus is computer, even though it wasn’t used cancer that has not yet spread. The intra-
referenced in the earliest Sumerian for quantity calculations. KK operative radiation is given to the patient by a
radiologist immediately following tumour
An inferior mirage seen removal, in a dose lasting roughly half an hour.
in a Libyan desert
The aim of this is to kill off any remaining cancer
N AT URE cells that have not been surgically removed.

What causes the heat shimmer What are the benefits?

One of the main benefits of the procedure is that
we see above hot surfaces? the radiotherapy is carried out at the same time
as surgery, rather than over the course of 15 or
Laurence Porter GRANTHAM, ENGLAND so separate, daily appointments following it. The
hope is that this will significantly reduce both
Wkh#vklpphulqj#hļhfw#nqrzq#dv# relation to a vacuum. Water, for inconvenience and distress for patients. What’s
‘inferior mirage’ that we see in the example, has a refractive index of more, as the radiation is more precisely targeted
air above hot surfaces, like when a 1.33, meaning that light travels 1.33 than in current radiotherapy procedures, there
camera pans out in a Formula 1 race, times slower in water than it does in is less risk of damage to surrounding organs
is caused by a phenomenon of light a vacuum. In the case of heat such as the heart and lungs. It could also save
called ‘refraction’. Under normal shimmer, this is hot air rising from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) up to
conditions, light travels in straight the surface into the surrounding £15 million per year.
lines. When it’s bent, it’s said to be frog#dlu1#Wkh#vklpphulqj#hļhfw#
refracted. Refraction occurs when comes about because air isn’t stable Are there any side-effects?
light travels between substances – the hot air is rising and moving As the technique is still fairly new,
zlwk#glļhuhqw#uhiudfwlyh#lqglfhv1#D# about, and as a result the light is scientists don’t yet have long-term
refractive index refers to how easily being bent and distorted before it data. Studies have shown, however, that
light passes through that medium in reaches our eyes. PC patients who received intra-operative radiation
rather than external beam radiation had a
slightly higher chance of cancer recurring in
the same breast, but overall survival rates
were the same. Patients receiving intra-
operative radiation were less likely to develop
skin rashes as a reaction to the radiation.

When will it be implemented?

It has recently been given the
provisional go-ahead from the NHS,
with a final decision due later in the year.

@SciUncovered 27
 ASK A SCIENTIST Sterling silver is a Lw#lv#<518(#vloyhu#dqg#:18(#
copper, which helps to
Your questions answered common alloy give the metal strength

THE BIG QUESTION ‘melittin’ from bee venom can

shred through the protective
ENGINEERING

Why are alloys

coatings that bacteria need
to survive, and thus may be better than
harder for microbes to become
resistant against.
pure metals?
Others think that we should ]rh#Prļdw#BY EMAIL
stop focusing on killing bad
bacteria with pharmaceuticals, Pure metals are made of crystals
and instead focus on the natural or grains, and each crystal can be
mechanisms that keep them in imagined as an arrangement of
check. One way to prevent ball bearings, representing the
bacterial disease would be to metal atoms. But if there’s a
boost our own immune system, crystal defect, known as a
making it better equipped to dislocation, there may be a gap in
fight back. Or we could support the arrangement that other
our body’s healthy flora and atoms can slide into, creating
fauna that naturally make it movement and thus a weakness.
difficult for disease-causing This is a natural occurrence in
bacteria to take hold. all pure metal structures.
And then, of course, there are Incorporating alloying elements

WHAT WILL REPLACE ANTIBIOTICS? more futuristic alternatives. We

may, through genetic engineering,
pdgh#ri#glļhuhqwo|#vl}hg#dwrpv#
pins these dislocations and stops
Misuse and overuse of our current Technically, anything that be able to reprogram viruses to them slipping. IM
IMAGE© DAVID PARKER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

antibiotic spectrum is leading to slows the growth of, or kills, attack bacterial species that pose
widespread antibiotic resistance bacteria is an antibiotic, although a particular threat to us, or even
in the bacteria we fear most. At the word has come to be design pieces of nanotechnology T ECHNOLOG Y

the current rate, superbugs such

as MRSA could become
synonymous with the suite of
drugs we frequently use now. If
that work as microscopic
bacterial assassins. But these are
Why does air feel
commonplace. But just because today’s microbes become decades from the market at best, cooler the faster
penicillin or tetracycline may lose
their effectiveness in the fight
resistant to these drugs, the
most obvious method to manage
if they are even feasible.
In reality, the best option isn’t
it moves?
against bacterial diseases, it the potentially deadly diseases to replace antibiotics – it’s to Alex Richards BY EMAIL
doesn’t mean that we won’t have that bacteria cause will be to find ensure that our current arsenal
The cold feeling of moving air is
weapons. The antibiotics of new drugs. Compounds from doesn’t become obsolete in the
due to heat transfer. If the air
tomorrow may look very different some pretty unexpected sources first place. Careful use of
around a hot object, such as a
than the plant- and fungal- could form the next wave of antibiotics may enable us to
person’s head, is stationary then
derived compounds we commonly antibiotics. Novel peptides called continue using them for decades
the heat will transfer to the air
use and abuse today. ‘magainins’ from frogs, or and even centuries to come. CW
dqg#vorzo|#glļxvh#rxwzdugv/#
heating the surrounding

…AND ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE? air. If that air is
moving away
from the hot
Daniel Ranson likely your body will react to these something, well…
object, it
via Facebook stronger drugs.
carries away
For all of those that are not Chelsea Wrigley
the heat that
concerned, you should be! It’s Rob Wilson via Facebook
has been
a major concern across Western via Facebook I am very worried about it but
transferred
countries and should be on Very! We are creating those me and my family rarely
to it and
everyone’s minds! superbugs ourselves. need antibiotics for anything.
cooler air
I do think GPs are way too quick
replaces it. In
Shelley Pope Lauren Baker to hand out antibiotics to
a person, the
via Facebook via Facebook people, though.
moving air will
As a whole, I’m concerned as the Very.
also help draw
bugs get more virulent. But on a Richard Whitehurst
away evaporated water
personal level, I am of the opinion Kane Archer via Facebook
from sweat, and so will aid
that the less unnecessary via Facebook I’m curious, but as yet not
that cooling, too. IM
medication you take, the more Very concerned. If we don’t do concerned.

28 @SciUncovered
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 Explore our universe and its mysteries

INSIDE THIS
SECTION

38 HOW THE UNIVERSE

CAME TO BE
What happened during
the Big Bang that brought
everything into existence?

42 UK’S NEW SPACE RACE

The locations under
consideration for the siting
of a new spaceport.

Fancy heading off on an intergalactic holiday? Here

are the must-see highlights that no trip around
the cosmos is complete without…
WORDS BY Colin Stuart

30 @SciUncovered
 Only two spacecraft have These were Mariner
10 in 1974-5 and SPACE UNCOVERED
flown past Mercury MESSENGER in 2011 Universe’s incredible sights

Titan
The world of methane
lakes and rivers

We’ve only ever landed on the

surface of two natural
satellites – our own and Titan.
The reason for the interest in
the Solar System’s second-
largest moon is its atmosphere
– it is the only moon in the
Solar System to boast such a
e
23 Caloris Basin
vljqlĽfdqw jdv eodqnhw1 Lw dovr The scar of an eventful past
has a intricate river system.
Exw wkh oltxlg wkdw ľrzv rq Our Solar System has a violent
Titan is not water – it’s too klvwru|1 Lq wkh frvplf htxlydohqw
frog iru wkdw1 Lqvwhdg/ lw lv of a giant pinball machine, huge
liquid methane– but it carves lumps of rock and metal hurtled
coastlines similar to Earth’s. around the infant Sun, slamming
into anything in their paths. One

24
of the more spectacular scars
from this period can be spotted
on Mercury – the enormous
Caloris Basin extends 1,550km
(960 miles). The force of the
impact also sent shockwaves
ripping around the planet. When
they met on the opposite side of
Mercury to the crater, they
created a peculiar strip of
grooved terrain.

25 CME up close
Our Sun’s most spectacular sight

Our proximity to the Sun makes

it a glorious object to point a
in a single eruption. The
material rockets away from the
22 Europa The possible home of our neighbours NASHVILLE, US
telescope at. Today’s telescopes solar surface at a 1.6 million
keep our nearest star under a km/h (one million mph). This is The question of whether we crossing lines – called lineae
careful, watchful gaze. And the majesty of a coronal mass are alone in the Universe has - are cracks in sheets of
sometimes the Sun can put on ejection (CME). occupied human minds for 21km-thick ice, caused by a
the most spectacular of shows. Modern telescopes can centuries. This moon of vast ocean of salty water
The magnetic forces inside capture the spectacle in high Jupiter, decorated with an sloshing around beneath. That
twist and curl until the hot ghĽqlwlrq/ dv QDVDġv Vrodu impressive hatched pattern, is ocean contains twice as much
plasma cannot bear the strain Dynamics Observatory did with perhaps the best place to look water as all the oceans, lakes,
any longer. Suddenly – and this CME in August 2012. Three for extraterrestrial life in our seas and rivers of the Earth
explosively – the Sun throws days later, some of the material Solar System. The criss- put together.
out a billion tonnes of material arrived at Earth.

@SciUncovered 31
 SPACE UNCOVERED Diamond can exist in These include
blue, yellow, brown,
Universe’s incredible sights pdq|#glļhuhqw#frorxuv green and pink

21 Omega
Centauri
A world of eternal daylight

Lpdjlqh d sodqhw zkhuh lw

never gets dark. Where the
vwduv#vklqh#vr#Ľhufho|#wkdw#|rx#
could comfortably read Science
Uncovered unaided, even in the
middle of the night. This
would be your reality if you
resided on a world within
Omega Centauri – the largest

IMAGE© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

globular cluster (collection of

20
stars) orbiting our Milky Way
The Great
19
galaxy. Here, 10 million stars
sit packed together in a Red Spot We prize diamond as a precious
relatively small region of substance, but planet
Jupiter’s iconic beauty spot PSR-J1719-1438 b is made of it
space. When seen from Earth,
they resemble a swarm of
glvwdqw#Ľuhľlhv1
One of the most famous features
in the Solar System, Jupiter’s
ruddy bruise is a colossal
PSR-J1719-1438 b
anti-cyclonic storm in the The most valuable planet out there
planet’s southern hemisphere.
Lw#lv#fxuuhqwo|#dv#zlgh#dv#416# Orbiting a rapidly rotating pulsar, this world is comprised of carbon
Earths, but recent observations dw#h{wuhph#ghqvlw|#dqg#suhvvxuh1#Lw#lv#hļhfwlyho|#d#oxps#ri#gldprqg/#
by the Hubble Space Telescope irxu#wlphv#zlghu#wkdq#Hduwk1#Lpdjlqh#wkh#vsdunoh1#Exw#li#|rx#idqf|#
suggest it is shrinking (see ‘The qlsslqj#ryhu#wr#lw#wr#vpdvk#rļ#d#fkxqn#wr#vhoo/#|rxġoo#kdyh#d#orqj#zd|#wr#
Vanishing Red Spot’ in issue 10 go – PSR-J1719-1438 b is 4,000 lightyears, or 3.78421136 × 1016
of Science Uncovered for more). kilometres away from our planet.

18 Horsehead Nebula
A delicate beauty

The theme of naming objects system called Sigma Orionis.

after Earthly doppelgängers is One of the two stars
a common one. Found in the poking out along the top of the
constellation of Orion, just cloud is emitting strong
below his famous belt, the ultraviolet radiation, which is
Horsehead Nebula is a cold dark slowly eroding away the
cloud of gas and dust. The nebula structure. Astronomers
is normally seen in silhouette estimate the nebula has about
against a pink background of Ľyh#ploolrq#|hduv#ohiw#ehiruh#lw#
glowing hydrogen gas. is gone forever.
However, this infrared image,
taken to celebrate the 23rd
birthday of the Hubble Space
Whohvfrsh/#uhyhdov#d#pdjqlĽfhqw/#
delicate composition. The
sinuous structure is illuminated
by light from a nearby bright star

32 @SciUncovered
 Halley’s Comet Despite the comet’s small size,
its tail extends up to 100 million SPACE UNCOVERED
measures 15km by 8km kilometres in length Universe’s incredible sights

17
16
Halley’s Comet

NGC 3603
The celestial ice show

The most famous chunk of

ice in existence, Halley’s A stellar nursery in our galaxy
Comet has been seen by
humans for thousands of Young blue stars glimmer like ears old. Putting that into radiation emanating from
|hduv1 Lw lv wkh rqo| vkruw0 precious jewels in this star- human terms, if our Sun was the infant stars are starting
period comet visible to the forming region of our Milky around 40, the stars in NGC to disperse the cloud.
naked eye, swinging by Way galaxy, in the Carina 3603 would be less than a Normally, such frantic regions
Hduwk hyhu| :80:9 |hduv1 Lw spiral arm. The stars, which week old. are found in other galaxies –
IMAGE© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

last passed Earth in 1986, are more massive than the The region’s stars are so having an example here in
when the Giotto probe was Sun, are thought to be only surrounded by the remains the Milky Way is great for
dispatched to investigate, one or two million years old. of the gas cloud from which astronomers trying to
and is due to come back That may sound ancient, but they were born. Strong winds understand the processes
into view 2061. rxu#rzq#Vxq#lv#Ľyh#billion and intense ultraviolet that govern such areas.

The 2014
15 Hubble
Ultra Deep Field
The view that shows how vast the
Universe is
IMAGE© NASA, ESA, H. TEPLITZ AND M. RAFELSKI (IPAC/CALTECH), A. KOEKEMOER

Every speck, smudge and spot in this (STSCI), R. WINDHORST (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY), AND Z. LEVAY (STSCI)

Kxeeoh lpdjh lv dq hqwluh jdod{|1 Lw

contains some of the most distant
galaxies ever observed, which came
into existence only a few hundred
million years after the Big Bang.
Originally captured between
September 2003 and January 2004, this
new version was released in June 2014
and includes ultraviolet and near-
infrared light. But the staggering thing
is that the image only shows a patch of
sky you could cover by holding a grain
of sand at arm’s length.

@SciUncovered 33
 SPACE UNCOVERED Lqwhudfwlrq#ehwzhhq# This includes everything
from mild distortion to
Universe’s incredible sights galaxies is quite common galactic cannibalism

Sombrero
13 Galaxy
The Universe’s glowing halo

Astronomers are a literal bunch.

After all, they named one of the
biggest telescopes in the world
the Very Large Telescope. So
when they saw a distant spiral
galaxy that resembles a wide-
brimmed Mexican hat, there was
no hesitation over its moniker.
Vhhlqj#wkh#jdod{|#hgjh0rq#rļhuv#
a wonderful view of the dust lanes
that sweep around the galactic
centre – which is unusually large
for a galaxy of this type.

Penguin
12 galaxy
The avian arrangement

Speaking of galaxies that

resemble things on Earth, they

14 Europe at night don’t come much more uncanny

wkdq#Dus#4751#Lw#orrnv#vsrrnlo|#
like a penguin guarding one of
Our species’ mark on the world khu#hjjv1#Lq#uhdolw|/#lw#lv#wzr#
separate galaxies interacting
Our planet is special. Despite lighting of every major city biggest blue whale, needs some with one another. The immense
all of our best astronomical shines like a beacon, alerting form of liquid water to survive. gravitational pull of the
hļruwv/#vr#idu#lw#uhpdlqv#wkh#rqo|# onlookers to the fact that a Earthly life is so focussed featureless elliptical galaxy – the
place in the entire Universe that technologically advanced around water that it is currently egg – is sculpting the once spiral
we know for certain hosts life. species dwells here. London, the primary substance we look galaxy, known as NGC 2936, into
And that life has been on a Paris and Madrid particularly for when searching for life that strangely avian shape.
pretty remarkable journey. From vwdqg#rxw/#zlwk#Qruwkhuq#Lwdo|# elsewhere in the Universe. We
its likely origin deep at the and the Low Countries also label alien planets as ‘habitable’
bottom of the ocean, the many jorzlqj#Ľhufho|1#Urdgzd|v#Ğ# because they have the ability to
twists and turns of natural the beating heart of our host liquid water.
selection have resulted in an infrastructure – sprawl tentacle- Our telescopes have shown
enormous range of organisms, like outwards into the the cosmos to contain many an
plants and animals. surrounding countryside. impressive visual spectacle. But
One species in particular But it’s what you can’t see while we gaze up into the sky
has left an indelible mark on that is arguably the most with awe, we shouldn’t forget
the Earth, one that is clearly lpsruwdqw#Ğ#wkh#gdun#vwxļ# how remarkable we would look
visible in this awe-inspiring durxqg#wkh#odqg1#Lw#vhhpv#wkdw# if an extraterrestrial species
satellite image of Europe and every living thing, from the were looking back down
North Africa. The electric smallest bacteria to the towards us.

34 @SciUncovered
 Saturn has 53 Lw#dovr#kdv#d#ixuwkhu#qlqh#
provisional moons, whose SPACE UNCOVERED
named moons h{lvwhqfh#kdv#|hw#wr#eh#frqĽuphg Universe’s incredible sights

11
Olympus
Mons
The giant peak of the
Red Planet

Mount Everest looks like a hill

compared to this colossal
structure which climbs 22km 9
high into the Martian sky.
Three times higher than our
tallest mountain, Mars’s Hyperion
extinct volcano Olympus
Mons is the highest peak in
the Solar System, after a
mountain on the large
10 The highly irregular moon

A moon of Saturn, Hyperion is

Cat’s Eye Nebula

asteroid Vesta. the Solar System’s most
hqljpdwlf vdwhoolwh1#Lwv#
spectacular sponge-like
A vision of our future appearance, reminiscent of a
IMAGE© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

giant pumice stone, is currently

Sadly, one day the Sun will die. Exhausted of its fuel, it will xqh{sodlqhg1 Lw#lv#dovr#wkh#rqo|#
expand before shaking itself to death. Still, it’s comforting to moon whose axis of rotation
know that when it does, it will leave behind a beautiful cosmic wobbles around unpredictably,
tombstone similar to this planetary nebula. dqg lw zdv wkh Ľuvw#qrq0urxqg#
moon to be discovered.

8 Arp 273
The distant rose

#Wklv#frvplf#ľrzhu#lv#iruphg#e|# companion galaxy – UGC 1813.

a group of galaxies that goes by And the heart of UGC 1813
the name of Arp 273. Sitting at a glows with the light from
distance of three hundred intense star formation,
million lightyears from Earth in potentially triggered by the
the constellation of Andromeda, reciprocal tug of UGC 1810.
its beautiful portrait was Lw#lv#suredeoh#wkdw#wkh#
snapped to commemorate the smaller galaxy actually passed
21st birthday of the Hubble straight through its larger
Space Telescope in 2011. frpsdqlrq/#zklfk#lv#Ľyh#wlphv#
The spiral arms of the top more massive. The shape of the
galaxy – known as UGC 1810 distortion in the rose’s petals
– are being gradually distorted suggests that this encounter
into a shape reminiscent of the was substantial but took
swirling petals of a rose thanks place away from the larger
to the gravitational pull of its galaxy’s centre.

@SciUncovered 35
 SPACE UNCOVERED The Northern Lights are most They can also
appear red or
Universe’s incredible sights commonly green in colour blue, however

The Pillars of In the correct conditions,

6
the Crab Nebula can be
Creation seen using binoculars

A vision of past spectacle

These immense towers are Northern

part of the Eagle Nebula
vwdu idfwru|1 Lpdjhg edfn lq Lights
1995, they quickly became
one of the most famous A night-time vision of
astronomical images of all wkh Vxqġv lqľxhqfh
wlph1 Lqvlgh wkh slooduv/
gravity slowly draws These exquisite dancing
hydrogen together into curtains of light are the
knots that are eventually result of an interaction
sculpted into stars. Except between the Sun and Earth.
they don’t exist any more.
Astronomers believe a
supernova explosion has
As charged particles in the
solar wind distort our
sodqhwġv pdjqhwlf Ľhog/
5
Crab Nebula
obliterated the pillars, but hohfwulf fxuuhqwv ľrz
we won’t observe their through the top layers
IMAGE© SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

destruction until the light of the atmosphere,

gets here in 1,000 years. triggering aurorae. A dense cloud of beauty

7 Stars of a similar mass to the Sun

go out with a whimper compared
naked eye, even during the day.
Deep in the heart of the nebula
to the death throes of more sits a pulsar – a dense, rapidly
massive stars. The Crab Nebula is rotating neutron star spitting
the remnant of such an explosive out radiation at its poles. One
ghdwk Ğ d vxshuqryd1 Lw h{sorghg teaspoon of the neutron star’s
in 1054 with enough brightness material would weigh more than
to be seen from Earth by the everyone on Earth put together.

4 Lr The restless moon

Jupiter’s third largest moon is the most volcanically

active place in the Solar System. At any one time,
durxqg#53#ri#Lrġv#733#yrofdqrhv#vshz#vxoskxu#dqg#
vxoskxu#glr{lgh#633np#lqwr#vsdfh1#Lwv#vxuidfh#ehduv#
the scars of these violent eruptions, decorated with
spectacular shades of green, yellow and red. This
unique landscape is the result of the gravitational
gdqfh#ehwzhhq#Lr/#Mxslwhu#dqg#wkuhh#rwkhu#prrqv#Ğ#
Hxursd/#Jdq|phgh#dqg#Fdoolvwr1#Lr#lv#frqvwdqwo|#
being pulled around as it orbits; its surface rises
dqg#idoov#e|#dv#pxfk#dv#433p1#Wklv#ľh{lqj#ghsrvlwv#
d#vljqlĽfdqw#dprxqw#ri#khdw#lqwr#wkh#prrqġv#fruh/#
gulylqj#yrofdqlf#dfwlylw|1#Lw#dovr#udlvhv#prxqwdlqv#
on the surface – some of which can be higher than
Prxqw#Hyhuhvw1#Lr#lv#rqh#ri#wkh#irxu#vr0fdoohg#Jdolohdq#
prrqv#Ľuvw#glvfryhuhg#e|#Lwdoldq#dvwurqrphu#Jdolohr#
Jdolohl#lq#49431#Lw#fdq#dfwxdoo|#ehhq#vhhq#wkurxjk#dq|#
small telescope as a star-like object alongside its
giant planet.

36 @SciUncovered
 One day on Saturn Lwv#ruelw#wdnhv#idu#orqjhu#wkdq#
Earth’s though – it is equivalent SPACE UNCOVERED
lasts 10.7 Earth hours to 29 of our years Universe’s incredible sights

Solar eclipse
A celestial alignment

Truly one of nature’s

greatest spectacles. When
the Moon slides in front of
the Sun, our star is
ľhhwlqjo| eorfnhg iurp
view. Eclipses provide the
perfect opportunity to
study the corona – the
normally invisible
outermost layer of the Sun.

Double
2 sunset 1 Saturn’s rings
A stunning sight in our cosmic back yard

on Kepler-16b There are many wonders that of a house. There is structure, rings as Saturn rotates. They
The real Tatooine sit outside of the Solar System, too – the most obvious feature zhuh Ľuvw vslhg e| wkh Yr|djhu#
but the award for the Universe’s is a sizeable gap about halfway probes in the early 1980s, and
Lpdjlqh#d#sodqhw#zkhuh#|rx#jhw# most spectacular sight goes to out known as the Cassini were spotted again recently by
two incredible sunsets, not just something orbiting our very Division. The gravitational pull wkh Fdvvlql sureh1 Lw lv wkrxjkw#
rqh1#Nhsohu049e#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw# rzq Vxq1 Lw mxvw kdv wr eh wkh of Mimas – one of Saturn’s they might be caused by dust
circumbinary planet to be glorious rings of Saturn, seen moons – is the culprit. interacting with Saturn’s
discovered – it orbits two stars. here at their most incredible Exactly where the rings pdjqhwlf Ľhog1
As if that weren’t enough, the during a Saturnian solar came from remains unclear. Despite their celebrity,
two stars eclipse one another eclipse. The Sun is behind the The most popular explanation Saturn’s rings are not the only
roughly every three weeks. The planet in this image, lighting has them spawned from a example in the Solar System
planet was found by NASA’s its intricate ring system from moon. Add all the ring – Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune
Kepler planet-hunting mission. the back. particles together and they also sport rings. None even
Wkh ulqjv zhuh Ľuvw make up about the same come close to the beauty of
observed by Galileo in 1612, amount of material found in Saturn’s, however.
although it took until 1655 to Mimas. So the leading idea is
realise what they were. They that a moon of similar size
can be seen today with a very once approached too close to Colin Stuart
modest telescope. Saturn, before being torn apart Astronomer & author
Made of relatively small by the planet’s strong gravity. + A London-based astronomer
chunks of ice, with a smattering Another persistent mystery and author, Colin’s first
of rock, the pieces range in size is the dark ‘spokes’ – shadow- book, The Big Questions in Science, is out
from tiny granules to the size like areas that drift around the now. @skyponderer

@SciUncovered 37
 SPACE UNCOVERED Georges Lemaître When he proposed a ‘primeval atom’
in the 1920s, he was accused of bringing
Birth of the Universe was a Catholic priest creationist ideas into cosmology

THE BIRTH OF
OUR UNIVERSE
Around 13.8 billion years ago, in a moment too brief to
imagine and at temperatures too high to comprehend,
space and time came into being
WORDS BY Paul Sutherland
TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES
The different colours in this
stronomers have come up 10 billion trillion trillion degrees image – blue, green, red and
A with a mind-boggling
picture of how the Universe
Celsius to a relatively cool 10 trillion
degrees Celsius, and the Universe
yellow – denote areas of different
temperature. These areas once
began. Wkhlu dqvzhu/ zklfk#Ľwv# h{sdqghg#iurp#lwv#lqĽqlwho|#ghqvh# varied in density – and it was in
observations of its current behaviour, start to a diameter of around one the denser regions that the first
stars and galaxies were formed.
is that it simply erupted 13.8 billion billion kilometres. The fundamental
years ago, in an event dubbed the Big forces of nature – strong nuclear, weak
Bang. But while it’s a powerful image, nuclear, electromagnetic and
the term is actually a misnomer. This gravitational – had separated out, too.
was no explosion within a previously
unoccupied space, but rather a PLASMA SOUP
bursting into existence of everything From the original bundle of energy
– space, time, matter and energy – all emerged a hot soup of plasma
at the same moment. It is impossible containing fundamental particles and
to ask what happened before the Big antiparticles. Reactions between these
Bang because time simply didn’t exist, surgxfhg#wkh#Ľuvw#surwrqv/#qhxwurqv#
and it happened everywhere because and other heavier particles – and
everywhere was within this within 100 seconds, when the
unimaginably tiny region. Universe had already grown to many
This bizarre scenario reveals that hundreds of lightyears wide, the nuclei
the original Universe was an of virtually all its helium atoms had
lqfuhgleo| ghqvh Ľuhedoo/ frqwdlqlqj# formed. Following this incredibly
nothing that we might recognise today active start, there followed a period
Ğ d vwdwh wkdw rxu odzv ri sk|vlfv#Ľqg#lw# lasting many thousands of years when
impossible to explain. This briefest of the Universe continued its relentless
moments is known as the Planck Era, expansion – it continued to cool, but
named after the German theoretical everything was still too energetic for
physicist Max Planck. During that particles to stay together long enough
brief moment, the Universe grew a for any atoms to be produced.
trillion times in size in a trillionth of a It wasn’t until about 300,000 years
second. In less than a millionth of a after the Big Bang, when temperatures
second, cosmologists believe that the had dropped to around 2,500ºC, that
temperature plummeted from protons and atomic nuclei could

FROM THE ORIGINAL BUNDLE OF ENERGY

EMERGED A HOT SOUP OF PLASMA CONTAINING
IMAGE © NASA

FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES AND ANTIPARTICLES.

38 @SciUncovered
The ‘steady state’ theory Lw#zdv#Ľuvw#sursrvhg#e|#Vlu#Mdphv#
Mhdqv1#Eulwlvk#dvwurqrphu#Iuhg#Kr|oh# SPACE UNCOVERED
dates back to the 1920s was a key supporter of the theory Birth of the Universe

THE LAST VESTIGES

IMAGES © FESTIVAL DELLA SCIENZA FRON GENOVA

OF THE BIG BANG
Mapping the cosmic microwave background has
revealed a great deal about our Universe
+ This image is a temperature map of the cosmic
microwave background (CMB) radiation –the final,
lingering leftovers of the Big Bang itself. By looking at
it, we can see what the Universe looked like 13.8
billion years ago. The CMB is detectable by radio
telescopes as a faint background glow that pervades
the entire Universe, but it’s only thanks to the WMAP
and Planck spacecraft (see page 40) that
cosmologists can now study it in much finer detail.
ABOVE Sir Roger Penrose suggests patterns found in
CMB data point to collisions with other universes

POTENTIAL FATES
FOR THE UNIVERSE
Our Universe may be one of many, or
could shrink again in a Big Crunch
+ In the first half of the 20th Century, a
COSMIC BRUISING? now-discredited rival ‘steady state’ theory
Some scientists, such as Sir
Roger Penrose (see right), claim for the Universe held that it had always
to have detected circular patterns existed and that new matter was being
in the CMB that they suggest are continuously created as it expanded.
the aftermath of collisions with However, following the detection in 1964
other universes. Other scientists, of the cosmic microwave background, or
however, remain sceptical. CMB – the faint echo of the Big Bang – this
idea was effectively killed off completely.
Since then, new alternatives have
emerged proposing that the Universe is
continually expanding then contracting
in a series of Big Bangs and Big Crunches.
Extensions to this idea suggest that we
could be part of a multiverse, where
separate universes appear and expand
alongside each other like bubbles. In this
model, our entire Universe would be just
one of many universes.
One leading supporter of such a

DID YOU KNOW?

concept, the British mathematician,
physicist and philosopher of science Sir
Roger Penrose, believes that some
circular features observed in the cosmic
NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS microwave background are likely to be
WE LIVE IN A MULTIVERSE ‘bruises’ left by collisions with other
+ Problems with our existing models
universes. Four such bruises have been
of the Universe have long led some scientists to
tentatively identified, although they
suggest that, just after the Big Bang, there was a very
remain an extremely controversial
brief period of super-fast inflation. Recent studies of the
proposition. The general view of most
CMB seem to have found evidence of the gravitational
scientists is that the patterns that have
ripples that this would theoretically create – and in
been ‘found’ in the CMB data don’t actually
most models where inflation occurs, the result is not
exist, but that doesn’t rule out the
just one universe, but millions of ‘bubble’ universes.
existence of a multiverse – see left.

@SciUncovered 39
 SPACE UNCOVERED Iuhg#Kr|oh#lqyhqwhg# Kh#xvhg#wkh#h{suhvvlrq#lq#d#4<7<#udglr#
lqwhuylhz#wr#ghvfuleh#wkh#glļhuhqfhv#
Birth of the Universe the term ‘Big Bang’ between Lemaître’s ideas and his own

combine with electrons to make the be out of their expected position, with From the Big Bang’s original burst
of energy, the Universe has been
Ľuvw#dwrpv1#Iurp#lwv#suhylrxvo|# their light shifted towards the red end expanding and cooling ever since
rsdtxh#ru#irjj|#vwdwh/#wkh#Ľuvw# of the electromagnetic spectrum.
photons were released in the Universe In the 1920s, American astronomer
– a faint glow that’s detectable today Hgzlq#Kxeeoh#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw#wr#suryh#
as ‘cosmic microwave background’ that many of the fuzzy objects visible
(CMB) radiation. It would still be in the night sky were actually external
hundreds of million years before the jdod{lhv1#Kh#odwhu#revhuyhg#wklv#
Ľuvw#vwduv#dqg#jdod{lhv#iruphg1# ‘redshift’ in 18 galaxies and discovered
Although the Big Bang theory the reason for it – the shift revealed
seems to defy rational thought or that a galaxy was receding. The
common sense, the clues to its truth greater the shift, the faster the galaxy
are found all around us today, like the was moving away.
forensic evidence collected at a crime Klv#revhuydwlrqv#gholjkwhg#Doehuw#
scene. Nearly a century ago, not long Einstein, whose general theory of
diwhu#dvwurqrphuv#Ľuvw#uhfrjqlvhg# relativity had predicted that the
that stars exist within galaxies outside Universe must either be expanding or
our own Milky Way, it was discovered contracting and, as a result, could not
that those galaxies were all moving stay the same size. Einstein had
away from each other. Through a ĠĽggohg#wkh#Ľjxuhvġ#ri#klv#wkhru|#zlwk#
vshfwurvfrsh/#wkh#Ľqjhusulqwv#ri# wkh#frvprorjlfdo#frqvwdqw#wr#Ľw#wkh#
chemical elements were observed to prevailing theory of a static Universe,
exw#Kxeeohġv#revhuydwlrqv#vkrzhg#wkdw#
kh#kdg#ehhq#uljkw#lq#wkh#Ľuvw#sodfh1

CATACLYSMIC FLASH
Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître
proposed in 1927 that the Universe
began as a single atomic particle – he
called it a ‘primeval atom’ – that
began to expand in one cataclysmic
ľdvk1#Hlqvwhlq#dw#Ľuvw#glvplvvhg#wklv#
ABOVE Today, stars form inside nebulae. But the
formation of the first stars was far more complex idea as “abominable, ” but later came

THE REDSHIFT IN A GALAXY’S LIGHT REVEALED

THAT IT WAS RECEDING. THE GREATER THE
SHIFT, THE FASTER THE GALAXY WAS MOVING.

THE CONSTANTLY
CHANGING SHAPE
OF THE UNIVERSE
Over the past 100 years, the fields of physics and The ‘Great Debate’ took place
between astronomers Harlow
Georges Lemaître was a Belgian
astronomer and priest who,
American astronomer Edwin
Hubble surveyed 18 galaxies
cosmology have been fertile ground for great minds Shapley and Heber Curtis in 1920. following studies at Cambridge using the 2.5m telescope at
Shapley believed spiral nebulae University and Harvard College Mount Wilson in California. He
and their theories about the nature of the Universe
© GETTY IMAGES

were objects within our own vast Observatory in Massachusetts, determined that they were
Milky Way galaxy, while Curtis posited that the Universe was receding and that their velocities
correctly argued that they were expanding and estimated the increased in proportion to their
other, independent galaxies. rate at which it was doing so. distance from us.

40 @SciUncovered
 Several spacecraft NASA’s WMAP (launched 2001) and
ESA’s Planck (2009) supplied most SPACE UNCOVERED
have studied the CMB of the data used in current models Birth of the Universe

ABOVE As the Universe expands the wavelengths of

light are stretched out, so distant objects look redder

to praise it as a beautiful and

satisfactory explanation of creation.
Lq#4<7;/#Uxvvldġv#Jhrujh#Jdprz#
suggested an ‘echo’ of this event
would remain in the form of
background radiation. Astronomers
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson
hyhqwxdoo|#ghwhfwhg#wklv#hfkr#lq#4<97/#
as a residual hiss as they scanned the
sky for faint radio sources. Initially
blamed on bird droppings on the radio
telescope, determining its real nature
earned them a Nobel Prize in 1978.
A recent problem for the theory
has been the detection of temperature
ľxfwxdwlrqv#lq#wkh#FPE1#Wkhvh#
ľxfwxdwlrqv#vhhp#wr#frqwudglfw#wkh#
idea that in an expanding Universe,
temperature should appear uniform
throughout at large scales.

Paul Sutherland
Space writer
+ An astronomy and space exploration
writer, Paul’s most recent book is Where
Did Pluto Go? He also runs the space and astronomy
news website SkyMania. @suthers

IMAGES © WIKIMEDIA CREATIVE COMMONS

Fred Hoyle, a theoretical In the US, cosmologist Radio astronomers Robert NASA launched the Cosmic In the early 2000s, NASA’s WMAP
astronomer based in Cambridge, George Gamow and his student Wilson and Arno Penzias noticed Background Explorer satellite satellite – and then the European
England, proposed a rival ‘steady Ralph Alpher predicted that a persistent interference while (COBE) to measure the diffuse Space Agency’s Planck space
© SERGE LACHINOV

state’ theory for the Universe the glow from events following using their new antenna at infrared and microwave radiation telescope from 2009 to 2013 –
© GETTY IMAGES

that argued the Universe has no the Big Bang should still be Holmdel, New Jersey. Ruling out generated in the early Universe. mapped the cosmic microwave
start or end. Ironically, he came detectable as background pigeon droppings, they realised Its observations of this glow were background in increasing detail.
up with the term ‘Big Bang’ for radiation in the microwave region they had detected cosmic found to closely match predictions Planck pinned the age of the
the opposing view, and it stuck. of the radio spectrum. microwave background radiation. of the Big Bang theory. Universe at 13.8 billion years.

@SciUncovered 41
 SPACE UNCOVERED \xul#Jdjdulqġv#ľljkw#zdv#odxqfkhg# The launchpad
is now known as
UK’s great space race from Baiknour Cosmodrome ‘Gagarin’s Start’

UK’S GREAT STORNOWAY AIRPOR

SPACE RACE
Located on the Isle of Lewis, thi
used to be mainly used for militar
purposes. Now it is used mostly for
domestic passenger flights.

There are several sites are in the running to

host Britain’s first ever spaceport, planned to
begin operation in 2018 GLASGOW PRESTWICK AIRPORT
WORDS BY Sarah Cruddas 51km (32 miles) from Glasgow city
centre, this is the city’s second airport
and has seen a significant reduction in
ockets carrying satellites satellites – made by companies passenger traffic in recent years.
R into space will soon be
taking off from UK soil –
such as Surrey Satellite Technology
Ltd (SSTL) in Surrey and Clyde Space CAMPBELTOWN AIRPORT
perhaps even as early as 2018. Eight in Glasgow – by up to 80%, because Military operations stopped here in
sites for a UK spaceport are now being they would no longer have to be 1997, and it has a runway length of
considered by the government for the shipped abroad to launch. over 3km – the longest runway of
UK equivalent to NASA’s Cape “A spaceport would help to cement any public airport in Scotland.
Canaveral. And it wouldn’t just be the UK’s place as the micro-sat market
satellites. Long-term plans could see ohdghu/Ĥ vd|v Gu Mrkq Sdļhww/ gluhfwru#
the likes of Virgin Galactic, XCOR of navigation and telecommunications
Aerospace and other commercial space at SSTL. Micro-sats are used for
companies launching from Britain. everything from communications to
“Compare this with commercial vflhqwlĽf h{shulphqwv e| xqlyhuvlwlhv1
aviation,” says Michael López-Alegriá, Ixqglqj iru d XN vsdfhsruw zloo#
former NASA astronaut and president of likely be a combination of government
wkh Frpphufldo Vsdfhľljkw Ihghudwlrq1 and commercial investment, with the
“100 years ago it was in its infancy, but US model for Spaceport America in
look how much has changed.” Qhz Ph{lfr olnho| wr lqľxhqfh krz#lw#
According to López-Alegriá, within is run. The spaceport is leased from
a decade we could see point-to-point the US government at favourable
space travel, with spaceports around terms. The hope is that a UK spaceport
the world allowing travel between will attract investment from big
cities in record times. However, the commercial space companies.
main initial focus for a UK spaceport The recommendations for UK
would be launching small satellites. spaceport locations were made by the
The space industry is worth around Civil Aviation Authority. Unlike Cape
£11.3 billion per year to the UK Canaveral, which hosts vertical lift
economy, but the government wants rockets, a UK spaceport would need to
wkdw Ľjxuh wr eh †63 eloolrq e| 53631 support a variety of launch vehicles,
Having a UK spaceport would reduce such as ESA’s VEGA rocket and Reaction
the cost of launching UK-built small Engines’ SKYLON spaceplane.

“A SPACEPORT WOULD HELP TO CEMENT

THE UNITED KINGDOM’S POSITION AS THE
MICRO-SAT MARKET LEADER.”
Dr John Paffett SURRE Y SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY LTD

42 @SciUncovered
Only one UK astronaut Plfkdho#Irdoh/#zkr#dovr#kdv#XV#
flwl}hqvkls/#vshqw#vl{#prqwkv# SPACE UNCOVERED
has visited the ISS there between 1993 and 1994 UK’s great space race

KEY CRITERIA OTHER SPACEPORTS

INLOSS BARRACKS
former RAF base,
he site was handed IN SELECTING A AROUND THE WORLD
over to the army
in 2012. SPACEPORT SITE
AF LOSSIEMOUTH There are several factors the government

IMAGE © SPACEPORT AMERICA

favourite with industry experts. will need to take into account
orth Scotland would be an ideal
location as it already has launch and + A spaceport would need to be far from any
aerospace structures in place,” says densely populated areas in case things go
Robin Sampson, spacecraft sales awry, so a coastal location is preferred. The
anager at Clyde Space. spaceport would also need to be at a site that SPACEPORT AMERICA
would enable spacecraft to launch in + Located in the Jornada del Muerto
segregated air space, away from normal air desert in New Mexico, US, this is the
AF LEUCHARS traffic routes. A large runway is also a must, world’s first custom-built commercial
nother favourite, this site
lready boasts radar and so the chosen site should either already have spaceport and home to the likes of Virgin
ommunication equipment. Its one, or be capable of hosting one. Galactic and SpaceX. It will soon boast a
longest runway is 2,589m. visitors’ centre and hotel for a complete
space experience.

IMAGE © STAHLKOCHER
SPACEPORT SWEDEN
+ Inaugurated in 2007 and operating out of
Kiruna Airport, this facility will offer launch
infrastructure, satellite communications
and control, and payload integration,
research, test and evaluation facilities.
LANBEDR AIRPORT Kiruna is already a space city, and has been
ocated in the Snowdonia launching sub-orbital flights since 1957.
National Park, Llanbedr Airport
is a former RAF base and now
an operational airport, with a
2,300m runway.
IMAGE © NASA/BILL INGALLS

BAIKONUR COSMODROME
+ The world’s first launch facility, located
EWQUAY CORNWALL AIRPORT in Ukraine, this is where the first
millionaire space tourists, such as
he only candidate site in England,
Newquay benefits from uncongested software exec Charles Simonyi, blasted
airspace, as well as one of the longest off from. It’s reported there are plans to
runways in the UK (2,744m) able to develop space tourism at the site further
support aircraft of any size. with entertainment zones and hotels.

@SciUncovered 43
 The human brain has The majority of
these are housed
around 100 billion neurons in the cerebellum

Get beneath the skin of our species

INSIDE THIS + Connections between

neurons are called

SECTION synapses. At these

junctions, messages are
carried between cells
via chemicals called
neurotransmitters.

50 HOW TO BUILD A
BIONIC HAND
This newly developed
prosthesis can restore a
sense of touch to amputees
– but how?

54 SUGAR UNCOVERED!
Take a look at exactly
zkdw#wkh#vzhhw#vwxļ#grhv#
to your body.

44 @SciUncovered
 The roundworm has Scientists have been able to accurately
map its neurons, furthering our HUMANS UNCOVERED
just 302 neurons understanding of how they connect Science of memory

Why we
forget
Our brains store information by creating a complex
web of connections – but these can strengthen or
weaken over time, causing our memories to fail us…
WORDS BY Dr Christian Jarrett

n 9 November 2011, the involved in remembering: the initial

O then-governor of Texas,
Rick Perry, experienced a
encoding stage, storage in long-term
memory and then retrieval. The more
very public episode of forgetfulness. deeply we think about information
During a TV debate among Republican zkhq#zh#Ľuvw#hqfrxqwhu#lw/#wkh#pruh#
Presidential candidates, in front of robust the encoding process – and the
millions of viewers, he failed to recall more likely it will be consolidated into
the third of the government agencies long-term memory. However, often
that it was his policy to abolish. what is stored long-term is the gist
Despite this being a central pillar of or meaning of what happened, rather
his campaign, his memory continued than a literal representation. That’s
to fail him through 54 agonising why you can remember the plot from
seconds of questioning. the last book you read, but quickly
An inability to recall stored forget the precise wording.
information is one form of memory
lapse. Another is to forget what STRONG WEB
kdsshqhg dqg wr Ġuhphpehuġ Ľfwlwlrxv In biological terms, memories
events instead. This blunder befell are formed through the changing
another US politician in public fashion strength of connections between
in 2008, when a campaigning Hillary neurons. This leads to the creation
Clinton recalled her visit to Bosnia 12 of web-like neuronal assemblies
years earlier. She described a dramatic or ‘matrices’, in which related
duulydo xqghu vqlshu Ľuh/ exw ylghr information and experiences are
footage revealed the calmer truth - a interconnected. Each memory
pleasant welcoming ceremony on the matrix includes the context in which
airport tarmac. Clinton later admitted lqirupdwlrq#zdv#Ľuvw#hqfrxqwhuhg/#
that her memory had failed her. which is why recall is often easier
To understand why people forget, if you can revisit the circumstances
it helps to consider the three stages in which the original encoding took

@SciUncovered 45
 HUMANS UNCOVERED New memories are stored Older memories, however,
appear to transfer to other
Science of memory in the hippocampus parts of the brain

place. It’s also why smells and sounds as happens when a word is ‘on the tip and misinformation. It’s incredibly
IMAGE © SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

ABOVE Astrocytes – the

star-shaped cells
shown above – are the can be so evocative. of your tongue’. It’s notable that Perry easy for false information to seep into
most common cell type A great deal of forgetting occurs kept repeating the two government the process of remembering, which is
in the human brain
because the encoding process is agencies he had recalled, as if these likely what happened with Clinton’s
interrupted, and so information were blocking his access to the third. Ġidovh#phpru|ġ#iru#wkh#vqlshu#Ľuh1
is never transferred to long-term US psychologist Dr Elizabeth
phpru|#lq#wkh#Ľuvw#sodfh1#Krzhyhu/# DIFFERENT PROCESSES Loftus has done more than anyone
recall can also fail at the retrieval Note that recognition memory is to demonstrate the power of false
stage, as happened with Perry’s glļhuhqw#iurp#uhfdoo1#Zh#fdq#irujhw# memories. In a seminal study in
embarrassing lapse. A common something in the sense that we are 1995, she presented participants with
cause of forgetting at this stage is unable to recall it, and yet the memory stories of their childhoods provided by
interference, and this may be what is in there. For instance, you might friends and family. Mixed in with true
Perry experienced. As we trawl the not be able to name a school classmate information was a fabricated account
shelves of our minds, sometimes seen in an old photograph, but if given of a time they were lost in a shopping
information related to what we’re a list of names, you would immediately mall. Loftus asked her participants to
looking for is activated more strongly recognise the correct one. Research uhľhfw#rq#wkhvh#phprulhv#dqg#surylgh#
wkdq#wkh#vshflĽf#wdujhw#ri#rxu#vhdufk#Ğ# has shown that recognition memory more information where possible.
relies on distinct neural pathways Pdq|#uhdglo|#devruehg#wkh#Ľfwlwlrxv#

DID YOU KNOW?

from the deliberate act of recall. incident into their life story, even
Remembering is an active, embellishing it with further details.
constructive process. Brain imaging D#glļhuhqw#zd|#wr#irujhw#lqyroyhv#
SOME PEOPLE HAVE SUPER MEMORIES studies show that recalling the past prospective memory, when we try to
+ It’s only in recent years that psychologists have identified involves the same brain regions as remember to do things in the future.
a minority of people who have ‘hyperthymesia’ – the ability when we imagine the future. This You go upstairs only to realise you’ve
to recall almost every day of their lives in exquisite detail. helps explain Clinton’s variety of forgotten what you went up there
They can tell you what they were doing on almost any given memory failure. Rather than our for. A 2011 study helps explain why
date. However, a study published last year found that such experiences being laid down like data this happens. Researchers led by Dr
people are just as prone to false memories as the rest of on a computer’s hard drive, each act Gabriel Radvansky at the University
us. This suggests that although more detailed than ours, of reminiscence is a fresh creation. of Notre Dame, in the US, instructed
their memories are still reconstructive in nature. This leaves our autobiographical participants to navigate a network
memories highly prone to suggestion of rooms, picking up and depositing

46 @SciUncovered
 Browsing the internet could Lgoh#vxuĽqj#fdq#fdxvh#lqirupdwlrq#
overload, reducing the amount of HUMANS UNCOVERED
damage our memories recent memories stored Science of memory

FOUR BIZARRE
MEMORY PHENOMENA
Some of the weirdest ways in which our memories
can fail us are surprisingly common
INFANTILE AMNESIA
+ The earliest of our
memories are usually
from when we were
aged three or four. What
happens to memories of
our first years? We seem
to forget them from
around age seven. Before that, children can reminisce
about much of what happened. But their memories
are immature, lacking mention of time and place. It’s
thought this contributes to the later forgetting.

THE REMINISCENCE BUMP

+ Most people are
better able to remember
autobiographical details
from their teens and early
various objects as they went. The about Alex. Afterwards, half the twenties than from any
objects were concealed in boxes after participants were told to try to forget other stage of their life -
being picked up. Participants more the Tom sentences, while the others a phenomenon called the
often forgot what object they were acted as a control group. During a later ‘reminiscence bump’. And it’s not just that events from
carrying when they were quizzed memory test, the participants who that time are more meaningful. Researchers have shown
about it after entering a new room, previously attempted to erase the Tom that the bump also holds for memories of news events.
compared with being quizzed in the sentences were able to recall far fewer
same room as the object was acquired. of those sentences than the control
This is because our memories group, but remembered just as many EARWORMS
are structured into chapters, with of the Alex sentences. + It’s not just forgetting
physical boundaries such as doorways Chronic forgetting can also that’s annoying – it’s
sometimes acting as chapter dividers. be caused by injury and illness. also unwanted memories
It’s harder to recall information from a Consider anterograde amnesia – a that come to mind.
previous chapter than a current one. condition associated with damage An everyday example
to the hippocampus in the temporal is when a song starts
CHOOSING TO FORGET lobes of the brain, in which a person playing in your head – an
Yet another way that we forget is by is no longer able to form long-term ‘earworm’. We are most prone when tired or bored, and
choosing to. Psychologists call this phprulhv1#Zkloh#wkhlu#surfhgxudo# songs that we enjoy have the most earworm potential.
process ‘directed forgetting’. In 2009, knowledge remains intact (such as
Dr Peter Delaney and his colleagues riding a bike), they can’t remember
at the University of North Carolina what they had for breakfast, or even THE ZEIGARNIK EFFECT
at Greensboro, in the US, presented what they were doing a few minutes + This is the finding, made
their participants with two lists of ago. If you met them today, they by Bluma Zeigarnik in
sentences – one about Tom, the other wouldn’t remember you tomorrow. the ’20s, that we better
remember incomplete or
interrupted tasks. The
OUR MEMORIES ARE STRUCTURED INTO CHAPTERS, research was inspired by
her supervisor Kurt Lewin
WITH PHYSICAL BOUNDARIES SUCH AS DOORWAYS noticing that waiters at a cafe tended to forget orders
that had been paid for, and remember those that hadn’t.
SOMETIMES ACTING AS CHAPTER DIVIDERS.
@SciUncovered 47
 HUMANS UNCOVERED There are two types of These are declarative – facts
and anecdotes – and procedural –
Science of memory long-term memory y how to carry out actions

Memory and logic

tests such as these are
often used in patients
with dementia
IMAGE © SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

AS PATIENTS’ TEMPORAL AND FRONTAL LOBES

CAN WE USE DRUGS DECAY, THEY LOSE NOT JUST THEIR NEURONS,
TO ERASE OUR BUT ALSO THEIR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE WORLD.
UNWANTED MEMORIES? Another condition, known as ri yhwhudqv vxļhulqj iurp srvw0
The chemical means of altering what we can recall semantic dementia, causes patients traumatic stress disorder, using
Memories are particularly vulnerable at the moment wr orvh dffhvv wr vshflĽf lqirupdwlrq/ near-infrared spectroscopy, while
they are being recalled. Researchers are exploiting while initially retaining ‘super- they performed simple memorisation
this fact to develop ways to weaken or erase our ordinate’ concepts. Shown a picture of tasks. The group displayed limited
unwanted memories. One experimental approach a dog, they’ll identify it as an animal activity in the prefrontal cortex area of
is to have a patient take the drug propranolol after but won’t be able to specify that it’s a the brain. Studies such as these, which
recalling a traumatic memory. This drug blocks the grj1 Wkh ghĽflw lv pruh wkdq d zrug0 help scientists to pinpoint where in
receptors for stress hormones that would normally act naming problem. A patient might not wkh eudlq wkh surfhvvhv idlo lq glļhuhqw
to entrench the memory. There’s some evidence that only struggle to identify a hammer, instances, will help us to develop
traumatic memories lose their emotional intensity when but also to mime the way the tool is treatments tailor-made for each
propranolol is used in this way. This sounds promising, used. As the patient’s temporal and disease. And since memory loss can
but the research also raises ethical issues – imagine frontal lobes atrophy, they lose not dŀlfw hyhq wkh prvw vloyhu0wrqjxhg
if people had the meaning of their memories removed just their neurons, but tragically, also politician, it’s an area of science that
against their will. their knowledge about the world. dļhfwv xv doo1
Other researchers are trying to find ways to use Learning more about the
technology to boost our memory abilities. It’s early underlying reasons why our memory
days, and there could be adverse side-effects, but fails us will help us to combat the Dr Christian Jarrett
several studies have shown that applying weak electrical hļhfwv ri glvhdvhv wkdw dļhfw lw/ vxfk Neuroscientist & science writer
currents to specific areas of the brain via the scalp as Alzheimer’s. And it’s a rapidly + With a PhD in cognitive neuroscience
(using a technique called transcranial direct current expanding area of science. Earlier this from the University of Manchester,
stimulation) appears to boost memory performance. year, researchers at the University Christian is an associate fellow of the British
of Texas mapped the brain activity Psychological Society. @Psych_Writer

48 @SciUncovered
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 HUMANS UNCOVERED Blind and deaf people are This is thought to be due to the parts
of their brains that would be used for
Building a bionic hand often more sensitive to touch sight or sound being reassigned

How to build
a bionic hand
A new prosthetic hand developed in Switzerland can give
amputees their sense of touch back. So how does it work?
WORDS BY Zoe Cormier

50 @SciUncovered
 In 1956, psychologist FA Geldard Vibratese was composed of
45 symbols, enabling users to HUMANS UNCOVERED
invented a touch language communicate using touch alone Building a bionic hand

ouch is one of our key “The absence of sensation when sensitivities. The skin has the ability

T sensory windows into the

world. And unravelling
operating a prosthetic hand is a
limiting factor for many prosthetic
to detect pressure, stretch, vibration,
temperature and pain. Each form of
its mysteries is allowing scientists limb users,” says Sarah Day of the lqirupdwlrq#lv#ghwhfwhg#e|#d#glļhuhqw#
wr#fuhdwh#duwlĽfldo#kdqgv#wkdw#fdq# National Centre for Prosthetics kind of receptor – thermoreceptors for
not only move but also feel, giving and Orthotics at the University temperature, mechanoreceptors for
amputees much greater control over of Strathclyde in Glasgow. “This pressure, nociceptors for pain, and so
prylqj#wkhlu#Ľqjhuv1 development is one of several exciting on – and each receptor relays its signal
Researchers from the École advances in bioengineering that, when wr#wkh#eudlq#yld#qhuyh#Ľeuhv1#
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne fully developed, could enhance the Interestingly, not all types of
(EPFL), in Switzerland, recently function of upper-limb amputees.” nerves transmit their signals at the
demonstrated a metal prosthetic hand vdph#vshhg1#Glļhuhqw#nlqgv#duh#
that allows amputees to not only move TOUCH TYPES wrapped in varying thicknesses of
wkhlu#duwlĽfldo#Ľqjhuv/#exw#dovr#ihho# Being able to feel the objects they myelin, the fatty insulating layer
zlwk#wkhp1#Vhqvruv#rq#wkh#Ľqjhuv# touch as well as move them gives that enables the electrical signals of
were permanently wired to electrodes duwlĽfldo#olpe#xvhuv#d#idu#juhdwhu# a nerve to travel quickly (just
implanted into nerves on the patient’s degree of control, illustrating the point like the insulation surrounding a
arm. Blindfolded and wearing that touch isn’t just a sense. It’s a tool, wire). Those transmitting pain
headphones to block out any sounds, and one we need to be able to navigate are wrapped in a thinner myelin
the patient was able not just to pick up and manipulate the world around us. sheath, so their information is more
and handle objects but also to identify While we think of touch as just slowly received.
their shape and how squishy they were ehlqj#rqh#ri#Ľyh#vhqvhv/#lw#lv#dfwxdoo|# Doo#wkhvh#glļhuhqw#ľdyrxuv#ri#
using sensory feedback. complex and made up of a variety of touch travel from their point of

@SciUncovered 51
 HUMANS UNCOVERED You have far more Other senses beyond the traditional list
include the ability to feel pain, sensitivity
Building a bionic hand wkdq#Ľyh#vhqvhv to temperature and your sense of balance

local anaesthetic while surgeons

temporarily remove portions of their
IMAGES © OPENSTAX COLLEGE, WIKIMEDIA, PATRICIA TOCCI

skull and locate and cut out the small

part of their brain responsible for their
seizures. Many patients generously
agreed to allow surgeons to use the
unparalleled opportunity to examine 1
the surface of the brain in otherwise
healthy, normal people.
8
When the surface of their brain
was gently poked, epileptics would
report what they felt, helping
scientists to deduce the
ABOVE Amputee Dennis Aabo Sørensen is able to distribution of function within
‘feel’ an orange, thanks to the metal hand’s sensors
the somatosensory cortex. If
inception on the outside of the body the region relating to the foot
wr wkh vslqh/ zlwk glļhuhqw qhuyh was poked, for example, they
bundles entering the spinal cord would feel a tickly sensation
through gaps between the vertebrae. on the soles of their feet.
At the top of the spine, these How many nerve endings
branch into the centre of the brain, there are in a given body part
travelling upwards and outwards to determines the size of the
meet their destination: the primary corresponding zone on the
somatosensory cortex. cortex. The part devoted to the
tongue is huge, as are the lips and
PAIN IN THE BRAIN hands, while the areas relating to 2
This strip on the outer surface of the the arms, legs and torso are tiny.
brain, which runs across the top of Some 60 years after
your head from just behind one ear to qhxurvflhqwlvwv#Ľuvw#pdsshg#wkh#
just behind the other, is a map of what somatosensory cortex, researchers
the human body feels through the have gone miles further, wiring
vhqvh ri wrxfk1 Glļhuhqw sduwv ri wkh metal hands directly into the nervous 3
somatosensory cortex correspond to system and enabling people to control
glļhuhqw sduwv ri wkh erg|1 machinery with their minds. Who
Vflhqwlvwv zhuh Ľuvw deoh wr pds knows what else we will discover.
this and many other regions in the
1950s, through experiments on
epileptics who had gone in for surgery
to remove the part of their brain
Zoe Cormier
Science writer
responsible for their seizures. There
are no sensory nerve endings on the + With a BSc in zoology from the
surface of the brain, as you have no University of Toronto, Zoe is head of communication
need to feel anything inside your skull, for UK science outreach organisation Guerilla Science.
so patients can be kept awake under @zoecormier

PHANTOM LIMBS Amputees can feel pain in limbs they no longer have – but why?
+ More than 60% of people who’ve undergone amputations has a hard-wired map of a limb, even if it doesn’t exist
suffer the experience of ‘phantom limb’: the illusion that – it’s worth noting that people born without an arm or leg
their arm or leg is still there. While this might sound simply can also experience phantom limb pain.
unsettling, most people with phantom limbs find them to The cause remains a mystery, and without
be extremely painful – and unshakeably so, as they cannot understanding why the sensation of pain is there,
massage or treat the imaginary limb. practitioners are unable to treat it. Painkillers,
Nobody really knows why phantom limbs exist. It’s antidepressants, hypnosis and even acupuncture are all
possible that the brain uses visual input based on seeing ineffective for the vast majority of patients. But improving
other people to construct an idea of what the missing limb our understanding of how touch works may help to
should look and feel like. Another theory is that the brain produce new treatments.

52 @SciUncovered
 HUMANS UNCOVERED
6 Building a bionic hand
5

SENSING THE WORLD WITH

THE NEW PROSTHETIC HAND
How the artificial hand is able to send tactile
feedback to the wearer’s brain
1 FIRST CONTACT
A fly lands on the tip of a finger. Most prosthetics – from
running blades built for speed, to hands that are designed to
look realistic – won’t be able to detect this, but the sensors
on the fingers of the new sensory hand can.
4
2 SIGNAL CONVERSION
The signal is converted by a series of computer algorithms
into a language the nervous system can understand.
Biological systems and electrical components use different
forms of electricity, so the signal must be translated before
being sent on to the brain.

3 IMPLANTED ELECTRODE
The signal is sent to an electrode implanted in one of the
nerves of the arm. These electrodes were designed to be
ultra-thin and ultra-precise so that strong and weak signals
– from the firm grasp of a handshake to the landing of a fly
7 – could be distinguished.

4 SPINAL CORD
The signal is relayed to the spine via the receptive or
‘afferent’ nerves. Once in the spine, the signal is then
relayed to the brain.

5 MESSAGE RECEIVED
The signal is passed to the somatosensory cortex, a strip of
tissue on the outermost surface of the brain. This is a map
of the sensation of touch in the human body – different
regions correspond to different anatomical parts.

6 RETURN SIGNAL SENT

This signal is relayed to the motor cortex, a parallel vertical
strip running alongside the somatosensory cortex. This then
relays the signal to the nerves controlling the finger
muscles, instructing them to bend. The signal travels back
down the spinal cord through ‘efferent’ nerves.

7 SIGNAL CONVERSION
A different set of electrodes implanted in the arm receive
the signal, which then convert the electrical signals of the
nervous system back into the language of the electronic
components in the hand, instructing the fingers to move.

8 ACTION
The fingers move, and the fly is shooed away. Tension in the
artificial tendons that control the fingers is measured, the
signal converted, and the sensation of feeling the fingers
move is relayed to the brain.

@SciUncovered 53
 Sugar
CHOCOLATE
MILKSHAKE
Sugar is rotting our teeth, expanding our waistlines 50.7g per 500ml bottle

and ravaging our internal organs. Perhaps it’s time

sugar lost its sweet reputation for good…
WORDS BY Alice Lipscombe-Southwell ILLUSTRATION BY Andy McLaughlin

ver since WWII rationing any age. According to Paul van der

E ended in the 1950s, people

have been getting
Velpen, head of Amsterdam’s health
service, sugar interferes with appetite,
unhealthier. Back in the ’60s and which is why some people find it
’70s, heart disease was largely blamed almost impossible to stop eating
on fatty foods, and the food industry sweets and biscuits – even when full.
reacted by launching extensive ranges He has called for mandatory health
of diet and ‘low-fat’ foods. But taking warnings on food packaging.
fat out of food affects the taste – so
sugar was added to make it taste good. REAPPRAISING SUGAR
However, one scientist did not leap In 2009, University of California, San
on the ‘fat is bad’ bandwagon. In his Francisco pediatrician Dr Robert
1972 book Pure, White and Deadly, Lustig posted a lecture on YouTube
John Yudkin – Professor of Nutrition called Sugar: the Bitter Truth, citing
at Queen Elizabeth College, in the UK Yudkin’s theories. The video has had
– mused that it was sugar, not fat, nearly five million views, and Yudkin’s
causing levels of heart disease to soar. book has since been republished.
His research also led him to believe However, not everyone agrees
that sugar was contributing towards with Lustig’s conclusions, nor with
liver disease, obesity and diabetes. some of his more radical suggestions,
Yudkin became a hate figure in the such as banning the sale of fizzy
food industry, and was ostracised by drinks to minors. In an interview with
some in the scientific community. the New York Times, Lustig himself
Other researchers became nervous of outlined exactly how his views diverge
writing negatively about sugar, and so from those of other leading
the food industry carried on pumping nutritionists. And Dr David Katz, head BOLOGNESE
sugar into all manner of foods. of the Yale-Griffin Prevention SAUCE
Research Center, penned a public 14.4g per
MORE, MORE, MORE… rebuttal of Lustig’s lecture for the 200g portion
Some scientists have described sugar Huffington Post, arguing that singling
as being as addictive as cocaine or out any single nutrient as ‘evil’ and
heroin. When we consume sugar, we eliminating it from the diet is a fallacy
want more. This is because it causes that can do more harm than good.
our bodies to release dopamine, which But while Lustig’s viewpoint may
gives our energy levels (and spirits) a be extreme, nutritionists do agree
boost. After this comes the familiar that too much sugar is a bad idea, and
‘sugar crash’, which means we want in March 2014 the World Health
BANANAS
more sugar – and the cycle continues. Organization recommended that 12g per 100mg
But unlike other drugs, the sweet average daily consumption should be
stuff is widely available to anyone, of halved. So… one lump or two?

TURN OVER TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT GLOBAL

SUGAR CONSUMPTION AND ITS EFFECTS

54 @SciUncovered
There are many They can be grouped into simple
‘monosaccharides’ and more HUMANS UNCOVERED
kinds of sugar complex ‘disaccharides’ The truth about sugar

YOGURT
15.9g per 125g pot

TOMATO
WHY WE CRAVE SUGAR
KETCHUP + Sugar is impossible to get away from and
3.7g per tablespoon springs up even in seemingly healthy foods. But
COLA why do we find it so difficult to resist?
35g per 330ml can
1
DIGESTION
Our body starts digesting food as soon as we take
a bite. Sugar is processed faster than fats and
proteins. Different enzymes digest different
sugars – for example, lactase breaks down
lactose, and sucrase breaks down sucrose. Most
sugar digestion occurs in the small intestine.

2
ABSORPTION
Once the sugars have been broken down, they
travel into the bloodstream. Fruit and veg provide
fibre as well as sugar, which slows digestion and
promotes a feeling of satiation, so we’re less likely
to gorge ourselves. This is why naturally occurring
sugars are not as harmful as added sugars.

3
REACTION
When sugar levels in the blood increase, the
pancreas starts to release insulin. This allows the
sugar to pass into the body’s cells, causing a fall in
blood-sugar levels. If refined sugars have been
eaten, this happens very quickly, causing a rapid
spike in blood-sugar levels followed by a slump.

4
ADDICTION
RECOMMENDED SUGAR When this slump takes place, you may reach for a
chocolate bar or fizzy drink to get that high back.

INTAKE FOR ADULTS

Sugar causes the feel-good dopamine to be
released, giving it addictive qualities. Professor
David Ludwig from Harvard University carried out
25g per day MRI scans on patients and found that sugar
(World Health Organization) activated the same brain areas as cocaine.

@SciUncovered 55
 HUMANS UNCOVERED Glucose and fructose Disaccharides include sucrose (table
sugar) and lactose. But most sugars
The truth about sugar are monosaccharides are digested in the same way

IN NUMBERS WHAT SUGAR 1

DOES
27%
TO THE BODY
+ As research builds up a bigger picture of the risks
of high-sugar diets, sugar rather than fat seems to
be emerging as the villain in our shopping trolley
+ In June 2014, UK experts recommended that
of five-year-olds in consumers halved their recommended daily sugar
England had tooth consumption from 12 teaspoons (50g) to six teaspoons
(25g). To put that into context, a single Mars bar would
decay in 2013 constitute the total sugars allowed for a day. They
Source: Public Health England reason that this reduction could vastly improve the
nation’s health and slash the risk of certain illnesses.

CONSUMPTION OF
COCA-COLA DRINKS
PER PERSON IN 2012 2
HEART
A 2014 study published
(227ML SERVINGS) in the JAMA Internal
Medicine journal found that added

MEXICO = 745
sugar causes the risk of heart
disease to soar. Adults who
scoffed 25% or more of their

CHILE = 486 calories as sugar were three

times more likely to be killed by

PANAMA = 416
cardiovascular disease than
those who ate the least sugar.

USA = 401
ARGENTINA = 364
Source: Statista

11%
OF UK ADULTS’ CONSUMPTION DIABETES
4
OF ADDED SUGAR COMES 4 Type 1 diabetes is genetic and
FROM ALCOHOL unavoidable, but type 2 diabetes can
be caused by lifestyle factors. Diets that are
Source: NHS high in sugar are linked to weight gain, and
being overweight or obese increases the risk
of developing type 2 diabetes. In type 2

1912
diabetes, the body either produces insufficient
insulin, or the insulin does not work properly
due to wear and tear of the pancreas, the gland
responsible for insulin production.
WAS THE YEAR BRITAIN’S FIRST
SUGAR BEET FACTORY OPENED
Source: British Sugar

56 @SciUncovered
 Sugar isn’t the only thing Wkh#dflg#lq#Ľ}}|#gulqnv#vriwhqv#
tooth enamel – even sugar-free HUMANS UNCOVERED
that’s bad for your teeth versions cause damage The truth about sugar

3.2 MILLION
BRAIN
1 While gobbling down a chocolate bar may
initially perk you up, there is evidence that too
much sugar can have a negative effect on the brain. A

PEOPLE IN THE UK ARE

2012 study published bythe Journal of Physiology found
that sugar-laden diets harm cognitive skills.

LIVING WITH DIABETES

Source: Diabetes UK

BRAZIL = 38.7 MILLION

TONNES

INDIA = 26 MILLION
TONNES

CHINA = 11.5 MILLION

TONNES
3
LIVER
Not a drinker? Don’t THAILAND = 10.1 MILLION
TONNES

USA = 7.2 MILLION

feel too smug – drinking
lots of sweet drinks may do just
as much harm to your liver as TONNES
alcohol. If we devour more sugar
than can be used as energy in our Biggest sugar-producing
2 cells, the excess is stored in the
liver as glycogen and fat. This can
nations, 2010-2011
lead, eventually, to non-alcoholic Source: International Sugar Organization
fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Early
stages are considered harmless,

22,700
but if the disease progresses
then inflammation, scarring and
even cirrhosis can occur.

bees are needed to make

one jar of honey
Source: Omlet.co.uk

59KG
5

SKIN
5 As well as making us fat and unhealthy, a sweet-
filled diet can also accelerate the ageing process,
leaving our skin looking lacklustre. This is because too much
sugar can cause collagen and elastin to break down, meaning
that skin loses its suppleness and starts developing wrinkles of sugar is consumed per
and a saggy appearance.
year by each American
Source: Online Nursing Programs

@SciUncovered 57
 See how our future is being built

INSIDE THIS
SECTION

64 DIESEL ENGINEERING
BEHEMOTH
See how the world’s most
powerful diesel engine
powers the largest ships.

66 THE DOOMSDAY
SEED VAULT
Deep in the Arctic, The
Svalbard Global Seed Vault
is safeguarding plant life.

58 @SciUncovered
 In 2007, 100 people from Global warming caused an
lqfuhdvhg ulvn ri ľrrglqj ENGINEERING UNCOVERED
Tegua were evacuated rq wkh Vrxwk SdflĽf lvodqg + Carbon capturing

Breath of fresh air

Could new technology that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air help to repair our climate?
WORDS BY Michael Whiteley

IMAGE © THINKSTOCK

@SciUncovered 59
 ENGINEERING UNCOVERED The Arctic could have By around 2040, global
warming will have caused
+ Carbon capturing ice-free summers soon a rapid decrease in sea ice

HOW TO CAPTURE CARBON FROM THE ATMOSPHERE

Collecting CO2 on an industrial scale
1 CO2 capture liquid is pumped to the
top of the Air-Contactor and descends
through its corrugated sheets.

2 Large fans push air through the

corrugated plastic sheets.

3 CO2 in the air is captured as it comes

into contact with the capture liquid.

4 Air containing less CO2 exits

through the back of the
corrugated sheets.

5 Liquid with collected CO2 is collected in a large tray

and funnelled into a sump.

6 The liquid is then sent to a

central regeneration facility.
IMAGE © CARBON ENGINEERING

7 The regeneration facility extracts

CO2 from the capture liquid before
returning the liquid to the air
capture technology.

limate change has become health, but for the rest of the vrph#surplvlqj#uhvxowv1

C an increasing cause for

concern recently. Man-
biosphere, too?
Wkh#juhhqkrxvh#hļhfw#rffxuv#
You may well have heard of carbon
fdswxuh#dqg#vwrudjh#+FFV,#ehiruh1#Wklv#
made greenhouse gas emissions, qdwxudoo|#rq#rxu#sodqhw1#Wkh#Vxqġv# is the process of removing carbon
such as carbon dioxide (CO2), are energy penetrates our atmosphere glr{lgh#iurp#srzhu#vwdwlrq#hplvvlrqv1#
qhjdwlyho| dļhfwlqj rxu sodqhw1 Zh# and is then radiated back from the The CO2 is transported elsewhere and
are emitting more CO2 than everer Earth, but some of this energy is
Ear vwruhg#xqghujurxqg1#Wkh#wurxeoh#lv/#
before – in fact, carbon dioxide
e levels trappped by greenhouse gases such as you need to have the space available
are higher than they’ve been for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous wr#uhwurĽw#wklv#whfkqrorj|#wr#h{lvwlqj#
the past two million years, {lgh1 Wklv#nhhsv#rxu#sodqhw#zduphu#
r{l srzhu#sodqwv1#Fduerq#Hqjlqhhulqj/#
fdxvlqj whpshudwxuhv wr ulvh1 han it would be otherwise, helping
th on the other hand, has developed a
So, how can we reduce llw wr#vxvwdlq#olih1#Krzhyhu/#kxpdq# technology that can be placed
emissions – not only for our activities, such as burning fossil dq|zkhuh1#ĠDlu#fdswxuhġ#+DF,#gluhfwo|#
fuels, have increased greenhouse extracts CO2 from the atmosphere,

DID YOU KNOW? gas levels to the point where our

g
pllanet is in danger of overheating,
and the technology doesn’t need to be
sodfhg#qhdu#wkh#vrxufh#ri#hplvvlrqv1#
CARBON DIOXIDE COULD B E wkuuhdwhqlqj#wkh#olih#wkdw#olyhv#xsrq#lw1 Wklv#jlyhv#|rx#wkh#iuhhgrp#wr#Ľqg#dq|#
BLASTED OUT INTO SPACE location you desire – even the most
+ A scientist at the University off Californi
f ia in the
he US has
has DIRRECT CAPTURE barren, otherwise unusable land
suggested that we could send a large amount of CO2 into Zh fdq#uhgxfh#rxu#hplvvlrqv#e|# Ğ#wr#vhw#xs#wkh#DF#pdfklqhu|1##
space to make a dent in the current levels. Professor Alfred switching to renewable energy, Currently, the concentration of CO2
Wong’s idea revolves around using the Earth’s magnetic building solar farms and wind in the air is around 400 parts per
field to carry CO2 molecules up and out of the atmosphere. wxuelqhv1#Exw#zkdw#li#zh#frxog#dfwxdoo|# ploolrq#+3137(,/#zklfk#grhvqġw#vrxqg#d#
The molecules like to bond with loose electrons to form CO2 suck CO2 out of the atmosphere? lot, but is plenty enough to cause
ions; these ions follow the path of Earth’s magnetic field That’s precisely what Canadian frqfhuqv1#Wkh#frqfhqwudwlrq#ri#FR2
which, at the poles, is basically a straight line into space. company Carbon Engineering is coming out of a power plant chimney
working on, and it is starting to see lv#durxqg#8048(>#wudglwlrqdo#FFV#

60 @SciUncovered
 Glacier National Park Zkhq lw rshqhg lq 4<43/
this US national park ENGINEERING UNCOVERED
has only 25 glaciers left had about 150 + Carbon capturing

IMAGE © CARBON ENGINEERING

Artist’s impression of
the carbon capturing
technology being
developed by
Carbon Engineering

technologies are arguably more suited converted into the raw material of the
in this situation as the power plant
frxog#eh#xsgdwhg1#Exw#zkdw#derxw#wkh#
tree as it grows, which means that
when it dies and rots, this CO2 is AN ALTERNATIVE
emissions from transport? It simply
wouldn’t be feasible to put CCS
technologies on the end of the exhaust
re-introduced into the atmosphere at a
odwhu#gdwh1#Krzhyhu/#dlu#fdswxuh#fdq#
lock up CO2 and store it in
CARBON CAPTURE PROJECT
slsh#ri#hyhu|#fdu/#exv#dqg#wd{l1#Wklv#lv# xqghujurxqg#orfdwlrqv#lqghĽqlwho|/#vr#
The cement industry could soon become much greener
zkhuh#dlu#fdswxuh#frphv#lqwr#lwv#rzq1 we don’t need to worry about it coming + Cement production is normally considered to be a large
Additionally, traditional CCS looks edfn#lq#d#frxsoh#ri#kxqguhg#|hduv1 polluter when it comes to CO2. Currently, it constitutes
at tackling future emissions, whereas In the process of air capture, 5% of global emissions – more than the aviation industry.
AC can remove CO2 that is already atmospheric air is sucked into the However, that might soon become a thing of the past.
suhvhqw#lq#wkh#dwprvskhuh1#Wklqn#ri#lw# plant via a large fan, where it is A new method of producing cement by mimicking nature
dv#d#odujh#dlu#Ľowhu/#fohdqlqj#xs#wkh# introduced to the heart of the could actually absorb CO2.
hqylurqphqw#durxqg#|rx1# pdfklqhu|1#Khuh/#wkh#dlu#lv#sdvvhg# Corals and other sea creatures use CO2 and seawater
through a tightly packed, honeycomb- minerals, such as magnesium and calcium, to create
MAN VS NATURE vkdshg#SYF#eorfn1#Hyhu|#vxuidfh#ri#wkh# their strong exoskeletons. When these animals die,
Trees are nature’s CO2#uhjxodwruv>#wkh|# PVC block is coated with a CO2 they eventually sink to the bottom of the ocean and can
take in CO2 and release oxygen (O2,1# devruehqw#vroxwlrq1#Zkhq#wkh#dpelhqw# form calcium carbonate. Using this principle, we can
Krzhyhu/#wkh#whfkqrorj|#ghyhorshg#e|# air passes over the solution, its CO2 dramatically reduce CO2 emissions from the cement
Carbon Engineering turbocharges this becomes attached to the liquid, industry by trying to match what nature does.
surfhvv1#Wuhhv#fdq#ghdo#zlwk#durxqg# iruplqj#d#fduerqdwh#vroxwlrq1#Wklv# The US company, Calera, is developing an innovative
500 tons of CO2 per square kilometre, solution trickles down to a tray and is system in which CO2 emissions are captured from
whereas air capture can process as wkhq#froohfwhg/#uhdg|#iru#vwrudjh1#Iurp# industrial sources. The gas is combined with an alkaline
much as 500,000 tons of CO2 per inlet to outlet, this process can remove – such as caustic soda – and calcium to form a solid,
vtxduh#nlorphwuh1#Wkhuhġv#dqrwkhu# xs#wr#;3(#ri#wkh#FR2 from the air, and calcium carbonate-based cement. The CO2 is therefore
dgydqwdjh#ri#wklv#duwlflĽfldo#fduerq# as long as the technology is kept captured within the material forever.
glr{lgh#fdswxuh/#wrr1#Wkh#FR2 is supplied with CO2 absorbent

@SciUncovered 61
 ENGINEERING UNCOVERED San Marino has the most The tiny European republic
boasts over 1,260 vehicles
+ Carbon capturing road vehicles per person per 1,000 people

CAPTURING OTHER GASES HARMFUL TO THE ENVIRONMENT

There are many ways to clear up our air
GAS FROM TRASH METAL SPONGES METHANE GAS CONVERTER BIOFILTERS
A significant percentage Metal Organic ZEOLITES Burning fossil fuels in Methane (CH4) is
of our waste from Frameworks (MOF) are Another potential way cars produces carbon the second most
homes and factories is compounds of metal to capture methane monoxide (CO), which is concentrated greenhouse
sent to landfill, where ions arranged to form is to use something poisonous, and nitrous gas in the atmosphere
it decomposes. As the three-dimensional called zeolites, porous oxides (NO), which can after CO2 and 16% of CH4
rubbish breaks down, sponge shapes around minerals comprised of cause smog and acid emissions come from
landfill gas is produced, an organic molecule. silicon, aluminium and rain. However, these cattle farming. Bacteria
which is a mixture of These MOFs can trap all oxygen. CO2 is relatively can be filtered through found in woodland
methane (CH4) and sorts of ‘nasties’, such easy to capture as it a catalytic converter soil are nature’s way
carbon dioxide (CO2). This as sulphur compounds can be done physically in the car’s exhaust of keeping this gas in
gas can be captured via and volatile organic and chemically, but system to produce check. It’s estimated
a large cap on the landfill compounds. They’re a methane is quite a gases that are less that around 30 million
site, and can be burned way off from becoming bit trickier. However, harmful. NO becomes tons of CH4 per year are
and used to heat homes commonplace, but zeolites can adsorb CH4 inert nitrogen (which absorbed by bacteria
or generate electricity. As researchers are working gas, integrating the makes up around 79% named methanotrophs
well as preventing the gas on ways to make them molecules into their of our air) and oxygen, that take in CH4 and use
from reaching the better at filtering and material structure, while CO combines it to produce carbon to
atmosphere, bad smells capturing these gases. and can then be safely with oxygen to make live. Researchers in the
would be reduced. disposed of, carbon dioxide. US are testing biofilter
taking the harmful designs as a greener way
methane with them. to reduce the amount of
methane in landfill sites.

Landfill sites are smelly,

but the gas they give off
could be captured for
useful applications

solution, it will keep removing CO2 lw#zloo#eh#srvvleoh#iru#d#odujh#Ġvodeġ#dlu# with wind-powered hydrogen

iurp#wkh#dlu#ihhg1 capture machine to process up to production could create a closed loop
So what happens to the carbonate 100,000 tons of CO2 per year, ixho#f|foh1#Zkhq#wklv#ixho#lv#exuqhg#
solution after the process is complete? rļvhwwlqj#wkh#htxlydohqw#ri#durxqg# and CO2 is released, it can be quickly
It can be processed to remove the CO2 633/333#fduvġ#hplvvlrqv1 reabsorbed by air capture, and the
molecules, and the cleaned solution As the air capture slabs can be surfhvv#zrxog#vwduw#doo#ryhu#djdlq1
can be returned back to the air capture placed anywhere on the planet, they Carbon Engineering’s air capture
pdfklqh1#Lw#uhtxluhv#vrph#h{whuqdo# could be positioned in an area where pdfklqhv#frxog#ehfrph#d#vljqlĽfdqw#
energy to do so, but any CO2 produced there are already renewable energy player in our rush to reduce the CO2
by the external energy used can also installations, such as wind turbines levels in the atmosphere, and the
eh#fdswxuhg#e|#wkh#ghylfh1 – that could provide them with the frpsdq|#krshv#wkh#Ľuvw#sodqw#zloo#eh#
Zkhq#wklv#whfkqrorj|#lv#vfdohg#xs/# srzhu#wkh|#qhhg#wr#rshudwh1# uhdg|#durxqg#534:1
Air capture could also be used to
create hydrocarbon-based fuels, such
IT CAN BE POSSIBLE FOR A LARGE dv#shwuro#ru#dlufudiw#ixho1#Wklv#fdq#eh# Michael Whiteley
achieved by combining the harvested Research scientist
‘SLAB’ AC MACHINE TO PROCESS UP CO2 molecules with hydrogen + Michael Whiteley is a research
scientist at Loughborough University.
generated from renewable electrolysis
TO 100,000 TONS OF CO2 PER YEAR. ri#zdwhu1#Vr#frpelqlqj#dlu#fdswxuh# His expertise is in green technologies. @MWHFC

62 @SciUncovered
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 ENGINEERING UNCOVERED Wkh#Ľuvw#wzr0vwurnh#hqjlqh# Lw#zdv#ghyhorshg#e|#
Vfrwwlvk#hqjlqhhu#
Largest diesel engine zdv#sdwhqwhg#lq#4;;4 Gxjdog#Fohun

DIESEL ENGINE
FUEL INJECTION
Fuel is squirted into the engine’s 14
cylinders at high pressure, using
common rail-direct fuel-injector

BEHEMOTH
technology. It is operated
electronically, rather than mechnically,
offering greater precision.

It follows the same engineering template as a garden

regular but this massive diesel engine can power one
of the world’s largest container ships
WORDS BY Prof Brendan Walker

he Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C uhvxowB D uhflsurfdwlqj hqjlqh wkdw fdq#

T 14-cylinder, turbo-charged
two-stroke diesel engine
frqwlqxrxvo| wxuq ixho lqwr xvhdeoh
urwdwlrqdo srzhu1 Wklv vlpsoh
has all the same parts as, and operates whfkqrorj| zdv wkh suhihuuhg zd| wr
in a very similar fashion to, a srzhu yhklfohv lq wkh Hdvwhuq Eorf
conventional two-stroke diesel engine zhoo lqwr wkh 4<;3v1
from an old lawnmower. But put them Exw krz derxw srzhulqj uhfrug0
side by side and you’ll quickly spot the euhdnlqj 54vw0fhqwxu| frqwdlqhu
glļhuhqfhĩ vl}h$ Wkh UWD<90F047 lv vklsv/ vxfk dv wkh 4:3/:<70wrqqh/
the largest reciprocating engine on the 6<:p0orqj Hppd PÈuvnB Vxuho| lw
planet, built to power the world’s uhtxluhv dq lqqrydwlyh qhz hqjlqh
biggest ships. designed to power such an immense
object through turbulent waters?
FUELLING POWER Vxusulvlqjo|/ wkh dqvzhu lv qr1
Wkh phfkdqlvp ri krz d wzr0vwurnh Wkh vklsġv ghvljqhuv xvhg wkh vdph
hqjlqh zrunv lv idluo| vlpsoh= ixho lv vw|oh ri hqjlqhp rqo| pxfk eljjhu1
squirted in, mixed with air and Dqg khuhġv zkhuh wkh Zduwvlod0Vxo}hu
directed into an enclosed cylinder UWD<90F frphv lq1
where it’s electronically ignited. Hot Hdfk ri wkh hqjlqhġv slvwrqv lv
jdv iurp wklv frqwuroohg h{sorvlrq almost one metre in diameter, with a
expands, pushing the piston up the vwurnh ohqjwk ri 518p1 Lq mxvw d vlqjoh
cylinder; the piston’s linear motion is uhyroxwlrq/ hdfk ri wkh 47 f|olqghuv
wudqvihuuhg wr d fudqn yld d frqqhfwlqj frxog lqľdwh 4/;33 edoorrqv1 Zkhq wkh#
urg/ zkhuh lwġv wudqviruphg lqwr engine is working at maximum
circular motion. shuirupdqfh/ lwġv pdnlqj 435
D frxsoh ri ydoyhv duh xvhg wr uhyroxwlrqv shu plqxwh wr surgxfh
exhaust the burned gas produced
gxulqj wkh slvwrqġv Ľuvw rxwvwurnh/ dqg
43;/<53 kruvhsrzhu Ğ htxlydohqw wr
wkh srzhu ri ryhu 7/333 wzr0vwurnh DID YOU KNOW?
ohw lq iuhvk dlu rq wkh vhfrqg edfn Wudedqw fduv1 Zhljklqj lq dw 5/3;:
stroke. Further cylinders are wrqqhv/ |rxġg qhhg pruh wkdq 43 eoxh
CONTAINER SHIPS ARE BUILT TO A
positioned in line so that one cylinder whales to balance the scales, and at
STANDARD SIZE
+ The size of container ships is partly constrained by
is always exploding as the others are 46p kljk dqg 5:p orqj lwġv wkh vl}h ri
the commercial routes they can physically navigate,
lq glļhuhqw vwdwhv ri uhfryhu|1 Wkh d irxu0vwruh| dsduwphqw exloglqj1
IMAGE © WÄRTSILÄ RTA96C ENGINE

and the capacity of the ports they need to visit. Current

New Panamax ships – those that can traverse the
EACH OF THE ENGINE’S PISTONS IS ALMOST newly expanded Panama Canal – will soon be dwarfed
by the Malaccamax class. These will be just able to
ONE METRE IN DIAMETER, WORKING AT 102 transport 30,000 containers of cargo between
Malaysia and Indonesia via the Strait of Malacca.
REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE.
64 @SciUncovered
 Diesel is distilled Other products
include kerosene, ENGINEERING UNCOVERED
iurp#fuxgh#rlo petroleum and naptha Largest diesel engine

PRIMED CYLINDERS
As the air-fuel mix explodes on one side of
the piston, pushing it up the cylinder, the
ENGINEERING FOR POWER OTHER MEANS
air on the other side is compressed and
used to prime adjacent cylinders for firing.
ON A GRAND SCALE OF POWERING SHIPS
Providing the drive for immense container
ships needs some special tricks
+ The Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C may use the
same principles as a conventional two-stroke
engine, but there are some extra innovations

IMAGE © WIKI COMMONS

in place to keep things running smoothly.

SEVMORPUT
+ The Russian Sevmorput is the only
nuclear-powered container ship in
operation today. Its KLT-40 nuclear fission
reactor produces a thermal output of 135
megawatts – used to generate 215
tonnes of steam per hour, at high
pressure, to power its turbines.

REDUCED FORCES
Unlike in an automotive engine, the
connecting rod attaches via a
crosshead, which runs in a guide
channel. This reduces sideways

IMAGE © WIKI COMMONS

forces that can make a piston
lose its shape over time.

E-SHIP 1
+ The German cargo ship E-Ship 1’s nine
CONNECTING CRANK Mitsubishi engines only produce 3.5
All 14 connecting rods attach to a
megawatts of power in total, but § doesn’t
single 272-tonne crankshaft.
just drive the propellers. Some power is
There’s no gearbox – just a direct
coupling to the propeller shaft. used to rotate four 27m-tall ‘Flettner rotor’
What the captain may lack in cylinders mounted on the ship’s deck,
refined speed control, they make up which work as wind sails.
for in engine efficiency on long runs.

IMAGE © GETTY IMAGES

AURIGA LEADER
+ Transporting cars from Japan to the US,
PROTECTIVE COATING Nippon Yusen’s experimental Auriga
Cylinders are lubricated by regular Leader is the world’s first ship to be
injections of special oil, which protects partially propelled by solar power.
the cylinders from wear and neutralises However, this produces just 0.05% of the
the acids formed during combustion of ship’s propulsion power, so two-stroke
sulphurous fuel. engines may be here for some time yet.

@SciUncovered 65
 ENGINEERING UNCOVERED Two types of plants Gymnosperms’ seeds are exposed
while those of angiosperms are
Svalbard Global Seed Vault produce seeds hidden inside fruits

Frozen tunnels on a remote island within the Arctic Circle

are safeguarding the future of our planet’s food supply

WORDS BY Ian Evenden

he St Helena olive lasted the loss of important species

T until 2003. It was one of

51 species found nowhere
by keeping them on ice in
Svalbard’s permafrost.
but the Atlantic island from which it It’s that hard permafrost – the
took its name, and had been extinct ground is frozen all year round
in the wild since 1994. But after 1,000km from the North Pole – that
cultivated seedlings and cuttings presented an obstacle to building the
succumbed to fungal infections, it vault. But miners have been digging
vanished from the world. their tunnels on the island since
If it had hung on a little longer, the beginning of the 20th century,
it might have made it to remote and and it was these chilly passages
icy Spitsbergen. The largest island that attracted the attention of those
of the Svalbard archipelago is within looking to safeguard the future of
the Arctic Circle and home to the the world’s food supply.
Svalbard Global Seed Vault. “In the early 1980s, the Nordic
IMAGE © INNGANSPARTI KUNST F MARI TEFRE

Gene Bank had chosen that place

SIXTH MASS EXTINCTION as security storage for their seeds,”
Seeds are a vital source of food for explains Grethe-Helene Evjen, a
humans, but the variety of species special adviser in the Norwegian
producing them is in decline. In fact, government’s department of
the Center For Biological Diversity agriculture, who was involved in the
has gone so far as to say the planet project from the very beginning.
is experiencing its sixth mass “They were using the old mines –
extinction. The vault aims to prevent most of the mountains around there

66 @SciUncovered
 A 2,000-year-old seed The date palm, excavated from
the palace of Herod the Great, ENGINEERING UNCOVERED
still germinated was planted in 2005 Svalbard Global Seed Vault

“THE SEED VAULT IS A LONG-TERM SECURITY

BACKUP STORAGE, AND WE FORESEE IT
WILL LAST MANY HUNDREDS OF YEARS.”
Grethe-Helene Evjen NORWAY’S DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

@SciUncovered 67
 ENGINEERING UNCOVERED Harvester ants It’s estimated they eat
more than all mammals
Svalbard Global Seed Vault love seeds and birds put together

SEEDS IN SVALBARD
Many vital seeds lie deep underground. Here are four…

BARLEY BEANS POTATOES MAIZE AND WHEAT 

+ Okayama University in Japan + Beans are one of the oldest + Peru has contributed 191 + The International Maize and
has deposited a collection of cultivated plants, and 23.2 variants of wild potatoes and 65 Wheat Improvement Center
575 barley variants in the vault. million tonnes of them were variants of wild sweet potatoes has added an astonishing 1,946
This member of the grass family grown worldwide in 2010. Brazil’s to the vault. As the annual diet variants of maize and 5,964
is a major cereal crop and is an government has deposited 519 of an average person includes types of wheat to the vault.
IMAGE © F MARI TEFRE

important part of many breads, varieties of bean into the vault around 33kg of spuds, this is Both cereals are staple foods
beers and animal feeds. In 2007 – the South American country is a major food crop. China is the across the Earth. Their loss
it was the fourth most produced the second largest producer of world’s biggest producer, but would sentence millions, if not
crop in the world. beans in the world, after India. the plant originated in Peru. billions, of people to starvation.

were home to coal mines – but it was over a certain size must incorporate lies a steel tube, shipped to the island
decided by an expert delegation in artwork, so the roof of the vault’s and sunk into the mountainside.
2004 it was not safe enough to use entrance tunnel is home to an While the mountain itself is
these old coal mines – the mountain illuminated artwork by Dyveke old sandstone that’s considered
is cracking and there’s a risk of Sanne that marks its position from a geologically stable, the outside rocks
explosions from gas in the mines.” distance using mirrors and prisms in are quite loose, and the tube allowed
So it was concluded a bespoke the summer and fibre optic cables in access to the solid rock during the
vault needed to be built somewhere the dark winter months. construction, a process known as a
there had been no previous mining. BELOW The vault has The concrete entrance tunnel is ‘Svalbard tunnel’ thanks to its use in
Plus, under Norwegian law, any been built high enough the only visible part of the vault, and the mining industry on the island.
to be above sea level,
important publicly funded building even if the ice caps melt is its most striking feature. Behind it It’s still there now, incorporated into
the structure of the complex.

KEEPING IT LOCAL
Construction of the vault was
handled by a building contractor
local to the island, meaning
machinery didn’t have to be shipped
over. Plus, expertise in working
in the extreme environment was
readily at hand. “We were really
happy they won the contract,” says
Evjen. “The project was really small
to them. They actually asked us if we
could increase the size of the vault,
as it was easier to build three rooms
than two, to better regulate the
amount of mass in each chamber.”

68 @SciUncovered
 The world’s smallest seed is A billion of them
would only weigh ENGINEERING UNCOVERED
from the epiphytic orchid one gram Svalbard Global Seed Vault

UNDERGROUND VAULTS
More buildings safeguarding our future from below…

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT WAR

HEADQUARTERS
+ Hidden under the
Wiltshire countryside

IMAGE © CREATIVE COMMONS CREDIT NJ

and a secret until 2005,
CGWH is a 97-hectare
complex that was built
37m underground in the
late ‘50s for the British government to use in the event of
Inside the mountain, a nuclear war. Blast-proof and self-sufficient, the bunker
which is old sandstone
and geologically stable could house 4,000 people in isolation for three months.

Each of those three chambers for anyone accessing the vault. The
MILLENNIUM SEED BANK
IMAGE © CREDIT MARI TEFRE SVALBARD GLOBAL SEED VAULT

can store 1.5 million seeds, and complex has no permanent staff, and
+ Bunkers are rarely used peacefully, but this Sussex vault
the total storage inside is about pumping the water out provides a
complex is home to Kew Gardens’ seed bank. Its chilled
1,000m². Refrigeration units short-term solution so visitors don’t
rooms house the world’s largest collection of seeds – over a
powered by locally mined coal cool get hurt, but investigations into how
billion – and expeditions are constantly bringing back more.
the vault chambers to -18ºC. It took to keep it dry are ongoing.
several years for them to get the The rock walls and constant low
temperature down that low, after temperatures mean the future of
construction began in May 2007. our seeds is in good hands. A system
IMAGE © DAVID ILIFF

“There are no concrete walls down that means only the country or
there,” says Evjen. “It’s just the rock institution that deposited a sample
of the mountain. can retrieve it again should prevent
“[Without refrigeration] it’s not the theft of such a precious resource,
a very low temperature, between and Norway’s relative stability
-3 and -4ºC. But even if the
energy supply to the vault proves
means the vault should be there for
centuries to come. Plus, its position
METRO 2
+ Under Moscow, there may be a whole secret rail system.
insufficient, the temperature inside of just a few kilometres from the
Rumoured to have been built during the reign of Stalin,
the mountain will be low enough to island’s airport means seeds can
Metro 2’s four lines connect government buildings, airports
preserve the seeds. The location was be retrieved quickly if needed. “We
and a whole underground town. That is, if it even exists.
chosen for the seed vault because it’s have quite a good infrastructure in
a long-term security backup storage, Svalbard these days,” says Evjen.
and we foresee it will last many “Norway is looked at as a stable
hundreds of years.” The vault is also country in terms of governance, and SENTRALANLEGGET
high enough to be above sea level is a quiet place in the world. We’re a + The Svalbard vault isn’t Norway’s only foray into massive
even if the ice caps melt. trustworthy place.” earth-moving. This complex, with a name that translates
And if you were worried about as The Central Facility, is the war HQ of the country’s
COPING WITH THE COLD the St Helena olive, don’t completely government and royal family, and takes advantage of being
Spoil from the tunnelling was used despair. Although no plants or seeds underneath a mountain, protecting it from nuclear attack.
to build an entrance terrace for the survive, a sample of its DNA is in
complex, while some of it was used storage at Kew Gardens’ vault in
to shore up the harbour, benefitting Sussex (see Underground Vaults, CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN
Svalbard’s wider population. right) – it’s not quite gone yet. + The Americans started
But building in permafrost has drilling this complex into the
its challenges. The steel tube leaks Rocky Mountains in 1961. The
in the summer, as melting snow Ian Evenden 1.8-hectare grid of tunnels is
permeates the tunnel from above. Science writer accessed through a 1,400m
The floor of the tunnel sits in the + Ian Evenden is a freelance journalist entrance passage and serves as
permafrost layer, so that water working in the fields of science, an alternative command centre
immediately freezes again, leaving technology and photography. He has written for in the event of a nuclear war.
a potentially treacherous surface numerous titles and has a keen interest in nature.

@SciUncovered 69
 Rediscover our planet and its inhabitants

INSIDE THIS
SECTION

76 THE NATURAL WORLD’S

AMAZING DEFENCES
From expelling organs
to breaking bones, some
creatures will go to any
length not to become lunch.

80 FIVE FOSSIL HOAXES

We examine history’s
most spectacular cases of
archaelogical forgery.

70 @SciUncovered
 The word ‘life’ is It comes from ‘leib’,
which is German NATURE UNCOVERED
of Germanic origin for ‘body’ The origins of life

The
origins
How life emerged in the earliest days of the Earth is still
of life
a mystery, but recent research suggests vents at the
bottom of the ocean could have played a key role
WORDS BY Hayley Birch

here do bees come from? from other life. Francesco Redi placed

W On the face of it, it’s a

straightforward question:
pieces of meat in sealed or unsealed
jars, proving that insects only
“Well, son, when a mummy bee loves appeared when the meat was left open
a daddy bee very much...” But it was wr wkh dlu/ dqg wkdw ľlhv Ğ suredeo|
a problem that plagued the ancient what Greek translations refer to as
Greeks no end. As far as they were bees – are born as maggots from other
frqfhuqhg/ ehhv fdph iurp ľrzhuv/ ľlhv1 Vr wkdw dqvzhuv wkh txhvwlrq/
or could be conjured by trapping and “Where do bees come from?” But a
killing a bull – with the bees emerging related question still has scientists just
iurp lwv urwwlqj ľhvk1 Wklv wkhru| ri as puzzled as the ancient Greeks.

IMAGE © RICHARD BIZLEY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

‘spontaneous generation’ was one that Life, as Redi insisted, comes from
persisted for centuries – and it didn’t olih1 Exw zkhuh glg wkh Ľuvw olih frph
vwrs zlwk ehhv1 Hhov dqg Ľvk vsudqj from? The bees that made the honey
from mud, cicadas from cuckoo spit; you spread on your toast – they all
there was even a type of grub that was came from other bees. But what about
wkrxjkw wr hphujh rxw ri Ľuh1 their ancestors? What if you follow the
Rqh ri wkh Ľuvw h{shulphqwv wr line of bees all the way back through
disprove the theory was carried out in evolutionary time to the point where
the 17th Century by an Italian doctor it converges with those of other
who realised that life could only come animals? And what if you follow that

Origin of life fact

There’s growing evidence
that all life emerged from
deep sea vents
#01 The advent of plants transformed the Earth from its primordial state, meaning that early life thrived in
a completely different atmosphere from today’s. As plants photosynthesised using the Sun’s energy,
they pumped out the oxygen that now fills the air and sea.

@SciUncovered 71
 NATURE UNCOVERED The Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt It is located in
northern Quebec
The origins of life is home to Earth’s oldest rocks province, in Canada

EARTH’S AGE REVEALED

We’ve found several clues over the years…

ROCK FORMATIONS
+ In the 18th Century, a wealthy chemist called James
Hutton became one of the first scientists to write about
geological processes shaping the planet in his book
Theory of the Earth. He had visited Siccar Point on the
coast of Scotland and saw sandstone formations that
told of millions of years of slow geological change.

IMAGE © OAR/NATIONAL UNDERSEA RESEARCH PROGRAM (NURP); NOAA

Hydrothermal vents on

RADIOACTIVE ISOTOPE DATING the seafloor create some

very unusual conditions
+ Over millions of years, one radioactive element in a
rock will decay into another, as when uranium decays olqh doo wkh zd| edfn wr wkh Ľuvw vlpsoh Ğ iruplqj lq d ľdvk ri oljkwqlqj/ dv
into lead. For example, it takes 704 million years for life forms to inhabit our planet four storms raged above the primordial
uranium-235 to become lead-207, so scientists can use eloolrq |hduv djrB Wkh Ľuvw fhoovB soup of the ancient oceans. Lightning
the proportions of each radioactive element to calculate If you look at it that way, “Where supposedly provided the energy
the age of the rock. do bees come from?” isn’t such a needed to kickstart life on Earth.
dumb question any more. In fact, Today, though, these notions are
answering it would give us clues to our regarded as old hat, as evolutionary
own origins, as well as those of every elrfkhplvw Gu Qlfn Odqh h{sodlqv1
living thing on this planet. “The question is, once you’ve made
these building blocks, what happens
SOUP AND SPONGE qh{wB Wkhuh kdv wr eh vrph gulylqj
Like the ancient Greeks, scientists force which makes them concentrate
studying life’s beginnings have had and react and join together, and I don’t
to use their imaginations. Darwin see where that is in a soup.”
imagined life emerging in some Lane is based at University
“warm little pond” and, in the 1950s, College London, and is one of a small
US chemists Stanley Miller and Harold number of scientists carrying out
Urey imagined the building blocks h{shulphqwv ghvljqhg wr suryh wkdw
OUR BEST ESTIMATE ri olih Ğ wkh Ľuvw rujdqlf prohfxohv life could have begun in the depths
+ Not all the rocks on Earth are the same age – some
are young at just a few million years old. By contrast,
IMAGES © THINKSTOCK

the oldest rocks on the planet, discovered in 1999 in Origin of life fact
#02
Canada, are over four billion years old, giving us our best In 2000, an Australian researcher found the remains of thread-like microbes in 3.2-billion-year-old
estimate of the Earth’s age. But it could be even older. fossilised deep-sea vents called black smokers. The microfossils are some of the oldest ever
discovered and hint at early life around such vents.

72 @SciUncovered
 Our knowledge of early sharks The animals leave little trace
in the fossil record because NATURE UNCOVERED
is based largely on their teeth they’re mostly cartilage The origins of life

Q&A DINA
PASINI
Tests on the panspermia idea – that life came from another planet –
show that interplanetary transport is possible

Where does panspermia But how do they withstand Could life be

transported through
assume life came from? these impacts? space? There’s new
There are several candidates in the We’re not 100% sure, but it does seem evidence it could…
Solar System. In early Mars history wkdw#wkh#ohvv#elrorjlfdoo|#frpsoh{#
the conditions were ripe for life to the organism is, the more chance
develop, so it’s completely feasible that it has of surviving. Saying that,
life could have developed there and Lġyh#mxvw#uxq#vrph#h{shulphqwv#
then come to Earth. Or it could have using little [animals] called
originated from outside of the Solar tardigrades, which are
System entirely. composed of 40,000 cells, and
some of them have survived.
How would life get from one planet
to another? You also showed microalgae can
Rqh#h{sodqdwlrq#frxog#eh#li#wkhuh#zdv# vxuylyh#ehlqj#iur}hq#Ğ#dv#lq#wkh#
an impact into the ocean and then lots mrxuqh|#wkurxjk#vsdfh#Ğ#iru#d#frxsoh#
of water with organisms in it was shot of weeks. But wouldn’t it take much
into space – a sort of ice asteroid. longer to reach Earth?
Li#|rx#wdnh#wkh#h{dpsoh#ri#Pduv/#wkh#
You tested whether microalgae that average time for a body to go from
duh#xvhg#dv#Ľvk#irrg#frxog#vxuylyh# Mars to Earth is about 16 million
entry into the Earth’s atmosphere. years. But once it’s frozen, there’s no
Why these organisms? decay. So if it survives one week it
Well, we wanted something that should be able to survive one year or
would be easy to grow and only needed 100 years or one million years.
sunlight and some basic nutrients,
so that if it ever did get to another So your experiments show that
planet, it would be able to survive in a sdqvshupld#frxog#kdyh#eurxjkw
zkroh#udqjh#ri#glļhuhqw#hqylurqphqwv# life to Earth?
zlwkrxw#wrr#pxfk#hļruw1# They certainly show that it’s possible
to go from one planet to another –
Krz#pdq|#vxuylyhgB whether life came to Earth or whether
Zhġuh#uxqqlqj#h{shulphqwv#wr# it came from Earth and went to
quantify the percentages. At the another planet.
moment, all we can say is that some
ghĽqlwho|#vxuylyhg#dqg#wkdw#pruh# But if that’s what happened,
survived in the low-speed shots than then it doesn’t really tell us how
IMAGE © THINKSTOCK

in the high-speed shots. The high- olih#ehjdq1#Lw#mxvw#pryhv#wkh#

speed shots were 6.9 kilometres a problem elsewhere…
vhfrqg1#Wkhvh#h{shulphqwv#vlpxodwhg# That’s right: it puts the problem on
a planet similar to Earth. someone else to solve!
Dina Pasini
University of Kent
Origin of life fact + Based at the Centre for Astrophysics and

#03 It’s a mystery how the very earliest life passed on its information from one generation to another. DNA is too Planetary Science, Dina’s PhD research is focused
complex and needs to partner with equally complex proteins to copy itself, so the first genetic molecules on whether life could have originated elsewhere and
must have been simpler and self-replicating. But how do you make a self-replicating molecule? been brought to Earth.

@SciUncovered 73
 NATURE UNCOVERED Tubeworms near hydrothermal That’s a faster rate than
almost anything else
The origins of life vents can grow one metre per year living in the oceans

IMAGE © IFE, URI-IAO, UW, LOST CITY SCIENCE PARTY; NOAA/OAR/OER;

THE LOST CITY 2005 EXPEDITION
Proteins are as vital to
life as DNA, and have Cracks on the seafloor are
been around just as long indicative of a faulted
terrain from which hot
water can emerge

MANUFACTURING PROTEINS THERE ARE HYDROTHERMAL VENTS ALL OVER THE

Scientists have been reverse engineering proteins
to see what their antecedents would have looked like SEA BED, BUT ACCORDING TO LANE, THESE ONES
+ DNA – deoxyribonucleic acid – is often referred to as
life’s blueprint. It is common to all living things, so it
PROVIDE THE PERFECT CONDITIONS FOR FIRST LIFE.
must have arrived on the scene pretty early. But there of the ocean – but not, as Miller and lq krw dondolqh ľxlg dqg frro dflglf
are other molecules that have been around for as least Xuh| dujxhg/ lq d ľdvk ri oljkwqlqj1 ľxlgv/ vlpxodwlqj wkh rfhdq/Ĥ vd|v
as long: proteins. His research focuses on a region in Lane. “Basically we can control the
You might know proteins as the molecules that make the middle of the Atlantic known as chemistry that’s going on and then
up our muscles, but they’re more than that. They’re the Lost City. Discovered in the year 2000, measure what’s being produced.”
general dogsbodies within all of our cells, and there are Orvw Flw| lv d Ľhog ri k|gurwkhupdo Their chemistry is not dissimilar
lots of them – all with their own responsibilities. They vents – chimneys pouring hot water to that which Miller and Urey once
fetch and carry smaller molecules, take messages to into the ocean. The water is heated by used to simulate their primordial
other cells, defend their own from germs and even help rocks in the Earth’s mantle beneath vrxs/ wkh lpsruwdqw glļhuhqfh
make new DNA. So without them, early life wouldn’t have wkh vhdľrru1 Wkhuh duh k|gurwkhupdo being that there’s no electrical spark
got very far. They’re made from simpler sub-units called vents all over the sea bed but representing lightning. Instead,
amino acids that could have formed through chemical according to Lane, these ones provide there’s a ceramic sponge, depicting
processes in the primordial oceans. wkh shuihfw frqglwlrqv iru Ľuvw olih1 the porous rock of the Lost City vents.
Being able to look at the structures of primordial The temperature, the acidity and the It is in these pores that Lane thinks
proteins could tell us a lot about what tasks they might chemistry of the water are just right. life on Earth began. Here, hydrogen
have performed and what early cells were like. But in the warm alkaline water bursting
four-billion-year-old proteins aren’t preserved in the FAKING AN ANCIENT OCEAN forth from the vent would have met
fossil record. So scientists have been trying to reboot Unfortunately, the bottom of the fduerq glr{lgh lq wkh dflglf zdwhu ri
them in the lab, working backwards from proteins found Atlantic Ocean is not the easiest place the ocean. Ordinarily, the two won’t
in modern cells. In 2013, Spanish and US researchers wr vhw xs d vflhqwlĽf h{shulphqw Ğ react but in these peculiar conditions,
resurrected ancient proteins based on information and even if it was, the condition of Lane’s research shows they can come
gleaned from the descendants of evolutionarily ancient the water has changed in the last together to make organic chemicals –
proteins called thioredoxins. Thioredoxins are found four billion years. So in Lane’s lab, the building blocks of life.
across all domains of life, suggesting they may have researchers are making something So from natural geochemical
been present in some of the very earliest organisms. resembling a four-billion-year-old processes, a basic form of metabolism
By making the proteins in the lab, the researchers Orvw Flw| yhqw wkdw Ľwv lqwr d jodvv mdu1 could have emerged. What’s enticing
were able to look at their 3D structures – as it turned “It’s a simple reactor and we can put about this theory is that unlike
IMAGE © INKS0002/WIKIMEDIA

out, their modern counterparts hadn’t changed shape

much – and see how they fared in various environments.
The old thioredoxins were sturdy molecules capable of Origin of life fact
#04
surviving in harsh conditions, like the acidic oceans from The chemist Stanley Miller was a hoarder. After his death in 2007, colleagues found boxes in his lab
which we think they might have emerged. containing vials of samples from almost every experiment he ever did, including his famous
primordial soup experiments on the origins of life.

74 @SciUncovered
 Bacillus subtilis is a largely It only causes illness in
people with compromised NATURE UNCOVERED
harmless bacteria immune systems The origins of life

LEFT & BELOW The vents at Lost City differ from

the more common ‘black smokers’, producing more
methane and hydrogen and less carbon dioxide
IMAGES © NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION (UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON/WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION)

lightning hitting soup, there’s a thinking about early cells when they to this simplistic replication mode

IMAGE © THINKSTOCK
ABOVE Bees come from
other bees… but where
constant driving force in the water made their discovery. They were suggests the ability has been kept as a the very first life forms
from the vent and, as Lane points out, studying cell division in Bacillus subtilis, back-up mechanism. came from is a harder
question to answer
wkh glļhuhqfh lq dflglw| ehwzhhq wkh a common bug found in our guts. They Meanwhile, other scientists,
vent water and seawater has a parallel realised that when the bacteria were including Nobel-winning biologist
in cellular life. “All cells are more stripped of the tough, outer walls and Professor Jack Szostak at Harvard
acidic outside than they are inside, left with only thin membranes, they Medical School, have been making
and these vents also are more acidic vwduwhg#wr#surgxfh#h{wud#pdwhuldo#iru# duwlĽfldo#fhoov#ru#Ġsurwrfhoovġ#wkdw#
outside than they are inside.” This is these membranes, which became represent early lifeforms and have
what leads him to believe that a Lost warped, until eventually bits would established that these can divide by
City metabolism could have become slqfk#rļ#wr#irup#qhz#exeeohv#ri#olih1# similar budding processes. Now the
trapped inside fatty envelopes that ģWkh#zkroh#wklqj#lv#h{wuhpho|#phvv|# Qhzfdvwoh#whdp#lv#wu|lqj#wr#Ľjxuh#
iruphg#wkh#Ľuvw#fhoov1# but as long as a chromosome ends up out how they can work together to
enveloped inside an intact membrane, answer some of the most fascinating
DIVIDE AND CONQUER then it’s a viable cell,” says Errington. questions about how life began.
This, however, leaves other questions Bacterial cells have had cell walls The trouble with origins of life
unanswered. How, for instance, did for billions of years, and Errington theories, though, is that they can
wkhvh#Ľuvw/#vlpsoh#fhoov#uhsolfdwh#wr# argues that these protective shells never be proved. Can we use our
pdnh#qhz#rqhv/#zlwkrxw#wkh#frpsoh{# may have been important in allowing imaginations and think about these
machinery of a modern cell? Cell bacteria to spread so successfully into early cells emerging from a Lost
elrorjlvw#Surihvvru#Mhļ#Huulqjwrq# every nook and cranny on the planet. City at the bottom of the ocean? We
recently found a possible solution. Exw#klv#h{shulphqwv#klqw#dw#krz#wkh# can, but perhaps we can also learn
He discovered that under certain earliest bacteria – and perhaps the from the Greeks and their bees –
circumstances, bacterial cells can yhu|#Ľuvw#fhoov#wkdw#wkh|#hyroyhg#iurp# anything we imagine now may seem
replicate by a much simpler process. – could have divided without them, preposterous to our descendants.
Errington and his team at albeit in a pretty disorderly fashion.
Newcastle University weren’t even The fact that modern cells can revert
Hayley Birch
Freelance science writer
Origin of life fact + Hayley co-wrote the book Big

#05 One of the most Earth-like planets yet discovered is called Kepler-69c. The planet circles a Sun-like Questions in Science, and received
star, around 2,700 light years away. It was spotted by NASA’s Kepler space telescope and is the Richard Gregory prize for science communication.
considered a good candidate for life elsewhere in the Universe. @gingerbreadlady

@SciUncovered 75
 NATURE UNCOVERED The Texas horned lizard is This is because of
its squat body and
Incredible defences also called ‘horned frog’ rounded nose

INCREDIBLE DEFENCES
FOUND IN NATURE
The natural world is cruel and full of terrors. But around the planet,
species are devising creative defences against the predators that
want to turn them into a tasty snack
WORDS BY

THE DESERT LIZARD THAT choking the animal that’s eating it.

SHOOTS BLOOD FROM ITS

Only the toughest survive in Texas
EYES But if all these tricks fail, the Texas
horned lizard has one last line of defence
– it can squirt up to a third of its blood
volume out the corner of its eyes. The
stream of blood is laced with toxins that
ABOVE Horned lizards In the south-western deserts of detection by lying still against the sand. possibly originate from the venomous
have many defences to
stop themselves turning the United States, tasty morsels But even if it’s rumbled, the reptile has ants that make up the bulk of its diet.
up on the menu are far and few between, which makes an impressive array of defence The jet of blood is capable of travelling
the Texas horned lizard a coveted snack mechanisms. It’s covered from head to over a metre, and while it doesn’t prove
for the region’s predators. The lizard’s tail in tough spines, and is capable of fatal for the recipient, it usually confuses
ľdwwhqhg erg| dqg prwwohg vnlq phdq lqľdwlqj lwv erg| zlwk dlu/ fdxvlqj lw wr the predator long enough for the spiky
that, for the most part, it can avoid eordw xs olnh d sxļhuĽvk/ wkhuhiruh lizard to make a sharp getaway.

76 @SciUncovered
 Fulmars are not Although they look like
gulls, they are actually NATURE UNCOVERED
a seagull species related to albatrosses Incredible defences

Fulmar adults are

immune to the fishy
vomit, so can be
sprayed by their
offspring without
suffering ill effects

THE SEABIRD THAT DOUSES

PREDATORS WITH VOMIT
Fulmars don’t believe in a warm welcome…
Seagulls are a much-maligned the fulmar parents have left the nest
urban pest. But perhaps we should unattended in the search for food.
be thankful that we don’t often get the While the smell of the orange sick is
chance to get up close and personal with disgusting, this isn’t what deters avian
another seabird, the fulmar. If we did, predators. The oil in the vomit causes the
there is a good chance that we’d end up tiny barbs that hold the birds’ feathers
with a face full of stinking vomit. together to matt and separate, rendering
The fulmar derives its name from the wkhp#lqfdsdeoh#ri#ľljkw1#Zruvh#vwloo/#
old Norse words ‘ful-mar’, or foul gull. the damaged feathers are no longer
This is a reference to the bird’s ability waterproof, meaning the predators
wr#wkurz#xs#d#euljkw#rudqjh/#rlo|/#Ľvk|# drown when they crash land on water.
secretion when threatened by predators. Adult fulmar feathers are immune to the
Fulmar chicks already have this ability yrplwġv#hļhfwv/#zklfk#lv#xvhixo#ehfdxvh#
zkhq#wkh|#Ľuvw#kdwfk1#Wkh#fklfnv#xvh# it takes newborn chicks a number
this party trick to defend themselves ri#zhhnv#wr#Ľjxuh#rxw#wkh#glļhuhqfh#
from predatory birds who swoop in when between friend and foe.

THE ANTS THAT TURN

THEMSELVES INTO BOMBS
These insects are so protective of their colony
that they’ll lay down their lives to save it
For some insects, such as ants, the down the entire length of the insect’s
survival of the individual means body. When the soldier ants decide to go
nothing – it is the survival of the colony for the nuclear option, they aggressively
that is all-important. It is quite common contract all their abdominal muscles,
to see ants go into battle against much causing the gland walls to rupture.
larger intruders in order to save the The corrosive contents will then spray
frorq|/ exw ihz dqwv duh dv vhoľhvv dv wkh from the front of the insect’s head.
soldier ants of Camponotus saundersi, a The substance is very sticky as well ABOVE Soldier ants will
blow themselves up to
species of carpenter ant that lives in as corrosive, which means that any kill any intruders
Malaysia and Brunei. When the ant unfortunate victims get tangled up
colony is under attack, these brave and stuck fast in the toxic glue,
vroglhuv vdfulĽfh wkhpvhoyhv e| wxuqlqj immobilising them and halting the
themselves into walking biological assault in its tracks.
bombs, killing both the intruders and As these kamikaze ants have control
IMAGES © NOEL TAWATAO

themselves in the process. over the timing of the explosion,

A soldier ant can perform this they are able to lure the unfortunate
suicidal feat thanks to two enormous victim a safe distance away from any RIGHT The poison
glands of a soldier ant
jodqgv Ľoohg zlwk srlvrq1 Wkhvh ehjlq food-gathering colony members before run from the jaws all
at the ant’s mandibles (jaws) and run deciding to pull the trigger. the way down the body

@SciUncovered 77
 NATURE UNCOVERED Some amphibians grow These appear on the males’
thumbs and help them grip the
Incredible defences spines in breeding season females during mating

THE PLANTS THAT KNOW

WHEN THEY’RE BEING EATEN
Mouse-ear cress can transform its taste
Spiky lizards and exploding ants wkdw#fdwhuslooduv#Ľqg#glvwdvwhixo1#Wkh#
make for hazardous meals. But experiment proved not only that plants
you’d think that if you decided to make can tell when they’re being eaten by
dinner out of a plant, your victim would monitoring vibration levels of their
have little chance but to sit there and leaves, but also that they were able
take it, right? Wrong. Some plants, such to distinguish these types of hostile
as the mouse-ear cress (Arabidopsis vibrations from other common sources
thaliana) can ‘hear’ when they are being of movement, such as the wind or
eaten – and can launch a defence against non-threatening insects. Since there
their attackers. is considerable overlap between these
In a 2014 study, researchers at various noise frequencies, it seems the
the University of Missouri, in the US, plant’s method of acoustic recognition is
recorded the sound of caterpillars more sophisticated than simply listening
chewing on leaves and used speakers out for a particular pitch. Uncovering
to play the noise to A. thaliana plants. how these little plants detect and read
The speakers were designed to play the the various vibrations is the team’s
munching noise as a vibration, rather next task. “We’re trying to think about
than as airborne sound. A second set of the plant’s acoustical environment and
plants was allowed to grow in silence. what it might be listening for, then use
It was found that the plants exposed wkrvh#yleudwlrqdo#vrxqgv#wr#Ľjxuh#rxw# Mouse-ear cress can detect the
to the chomping sounds produced higher zkdw#pdnhv#d#glļhuhqfh/Ĥ#vd|v#Gu#Uh{# munching of caterpillars and
react accordingly
levels of glucosinolates – chemicals Cocroft, who took part in the study.

THE FROG THAT MAKES CLAWS

OUT OF ITS OWN BROKEN BONES
This unusual amphibian has a novel way of
defending itself against predators
The Central African frog species hypothesised that the frog’s claws
Trichobatrachus robustus is also will retract passively over time as the
known as the ‘horror frog’, which is the damaged tissue repairs itself. Because
Ľuvw#foxh#wkdw#shfnlvk#suhgdwruv#xvxdoo|# the amphibian is so elusive, the full
regret eyeing up this small amphibian as range of functions of this unique ability
a potential meal. The horror frog’s main is as yet unknown. Some scientists
weapons are two bony claws on its hind believe the frog could also choose to
legs which, in their default state, are liberate its claws when it needs to
hidden beneath connective tissue and improve grip while climbing.
A VIA WIKICOMMONS, J. GREEN

Ľ{hg#wr#d#pxvfoh1#Zkhq#wkh#vshflhv#lv#
threatened or grabbed, it sharply
contracts the muscle, pushing the sharp
tip of the claw downwards through the
sdg#ri#wkh#wrh1#Hļhfwlyho|/#lw#gholehudwho|#
breaks its own feet in order to create a
IMAGES © GUSTAVOCARRA

set of pointy claws.

Once the sharpened bones have
breached, it appears that the frog has
no known way to retract them again –
ABOVE The region’s locals hunt the frogs using The ‘hairs’ on the frog’s body are thought to
although a number of biologists have spears so they don’t get stabbed with the claws help it absorb oxygen from the water

78 @S
@Sci
ciU covered
ciUn
 Sea cucumbers are Wkh|#duh#uhodwhg wr vwduĽvk/ vhd
urchins and brittlestars. In Asia, NATURE UNCOVERED
echinoderms sea cucumbers are a delicacy Incredible defences

THE CATERPILLAR THAT WARDS

It’s been proven beyond all
IMAGES © DANIEL SCHWEN

reasonable doubt that tobacco is

bad for humans. And it’s toxic for many

OFF PREDATORS WITH ITS animals, too, including insects.

Therefore, scientists have long been

SMOKER’S BREATH edŀhg dv wr krz wkh wredffr kruqzrup

caterpillar of North America could get
away with making the tobacco plant
Toxic nicotine is as distasteful such a large part of its diet.
In 2013, a team of researchers at
to animals as humans the Max Planck Institute in Germany
attempted to uncover the insect’s
secrets. They studied a group of
hornworms that were fed exclusively on
tobacco plants that had been genetically
engineered to contain almost no
nicotine. The team found that these
caterpillars were far more susceptible
to being eaten by wolf spiders than
normal. Why? It turns out that tobacco
hornworm larvae contain high levels of
a protein called CYP6B46, which helps
them detoxify plant material. But a
small amount of the consumed nicotine
is retained, shifted into the bloodstream
and then vented out through holes in
the skin, causing a toxic nicotine fog to
The nicotine-laced diet of vkurxg wkh fdwhusloodu wkdw zduqv rļ
tobacco hornworms keeps them
safe from any predators would-be predators.

THE SEA CREATURE THAT

SQUIRTS ITS INTERNAL
ORGANS AT ATTACKERS
Sea cucumbers aren’t as defenceless as they look
Out in the open ocean, your gonads, some respiratory organs and,
backside can be your biggest ally. invariably, its intestines.
Take the pygmy sperm whale, for The sea cucumber can do this on
instance. When startled, it excretes a demand because its body contains a
reddish-brown syrupy liquid from its special type of connective tissue that
rear end and then swirls the gunk the animal can toughen or soften at will.
ABOVE These marine around itself. This conceals the When threatened, the sea cucumber
animals are more
closely related to mammal’s location behind a thick haze will deliberately contract its muscles
starfish than your of faecal fog, therefore allowing it to to induce an internal rupture, causing
IMAGES © BROCKEN INAGLORY VIA WIKICOMMONS

garden cucumber
swim to safety. Certain sea cucumber its organs to eject from the anus. The
species, however, protect themselves various organs distract the predator long
zlwk d frpsohwho| glļhuhqw nlqg ri erzho enough for the sea cucumber to make
movement. When it is attacked by a its escape. The lost body parts take up to
predator, the marine invertebrate expels six weeks to regenerate, which is quick
LEFT Some species many of its internal organs out through enough for the animal to survive their
launch sticky filaments
– part of their its anus. The exact combination depends loss. In the mean time, the sea cucumber
respiratory system
– that entangle on the species of sea cucumber and the can choose to asexually divide, with both
their attacker time of year, but often includes the sides regenerating the lost organs.

@SciUncovered 79
 NATURE UNCOVERED People have been faking Carved fossils were placed
alongside the real thing as decor
Fake fossils fossils for thousands of years in Roman and Maltese temples

fake fossils that

duped the experts
Hoax fossils have been around for a long time and have included false early humans as
well as dubious dinosaurs. Here are five of history’s most prominent fakes…
WORDS BY Matthew Bolton

FALSE FOOTPRINTS SUSPECT SKULL

1. THE PALUXY TRACKWAYS 2. CALAVERAS SKULL
In the limestone bed of the Paluxy faked by locals, who etched the prints out In 1866, a human skull was found
River in Texas, many dinosaur of the rock to sell them and make a living deep in a mineshaft in Calaveras
footprints have been found, including some during the Great Depression of the 1930s. County, California. The gravels in which it
created in a chase involving sauropods and Other tracks have been shown to simply was found had been buried by lava over a
a theropod. When what appeared to be not conform to any likely human stride, million years earlier, making it the oldest
human footprints were found in the river and some scientists have suggested human skull ever found. It was sent to
bed, some considered it evidence that that the human-like prints are actually Harvard professor Josiah Whitney, who
humans and dinosaurs existed together. misunderstood dinosaur tracks. Most of declared that it proved man lived in the
There are several theories surrounding the fakes were spotted by looking at Pliocene epoch, alongside mastodons.
the creation of the mysterious human-like cross-sections of how the ‘footstep’ Suspiciously, though, this ancient
footprints, but at least some were definitely affected the stone around it. skull looked uncannily like one belonging
to a Native American. The circumstances
around its discovery were investigated,
as was the skull itself. It turned out
that several people admitted to having
obtained the skull from a nearby burial
site and planted it in the mine as a
practical joke. In 1992 carbon dating was
carried out on the skull, demonstrating
conclusively at last that it was, in fact,
only around 1,000 years old.
IMAGE © DILL TOM/FLICKR

Some of the Paluxy prints

come from dinosaurs, but
the human ones are fake

80 @SciUncovered
 There are several suspects One is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Charles Dawson and Arthur Smith NATURE UNCOVERED
in the case of Piltdown Man Woodward are also prime suspects Fake fossils

INSCRIBED FINDS FAKE HUMAN COMPOSITE CREATURE

The Piltdown Man consisted of

fragments of skull found in a
Surrey gravel bed in 1912. The shape of
the skull was human-like, and evidence
such as tools and animal fossils nearby
suggested the existence of early humans.
The skull’s discoverer, Charles Dawson,
and the then keeper of geology at the
Natural History Museum, Arthur Smith
Woodward, declared it to be a
500,000-year-old human ancestor.

IMAGE © PAIS/WIKI
IMAGE © WÜRZBURGERLÜGENSTEINE/WIKI

But as more early human fossils

were found, it became clear that the
IMAGE © THE TRUSTEES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM, LONDON

Piltdown find didn’t fit in with any of

them – its features were wrong. New The Archaeoraptor fossil seemed almost too good to be
fluorine tests meant the remains could true… and ultimately, it turned out that it was
be analysed: they turned out to be under
50,000 years old and a combination of
human and ape remains – the lower jaw
5. ARCHAEORAPTOR
Fossilisation was not understood in the 18th Century,
of an orangutan, to be exact. It was a Like many successful hoaxes,
so Beringer concluded the fossils were of divine origin rigorous hoax that had been carried out Archaeoraptor worked because it
with great care. We still don’t know for made sense – even if it was ultimately too
3. BERINGER’S sure who was behind it, and 100 years on,
we probably never will.
good to be true. This fossil was
supposedly unearthed in China in 1997
LYING STONES Piltdown Man’s skull is the cranium of a human and
the lower jawbone of an orangutan
and illegally smuggled into the US, where
it was thought to represent a ‘missing
Professor Johann Beringer was a link’ between dinosaurs and birds – a
physician who studied fossils, and feathered dinosaur that would have been
on one of his searches in 1725, he found capable of flying. The problem was that
some truly remarkable ones. The fossils the remains had been pieced together by
were of insects, small birds, reptiles and a Chinese farmer who’d assembled it
amphibians, with inscriptions in Hebrew from various fragments because
and Babylonian, among other languages. complete fossils were worth more.
Fossils were barely understood at the That it wasn’t a single real fossil was
time, and Beringer believed the fossils to ascertained fairly quickly. It transpired
be of divine provenance. He wrote a book that the fossil was built from the front
to publish his findings, at which point part of the skeleton of an ancient bird.
two of his colleagues came forward and and the tail of a bird-like feathered
admitted to having carved and planted dinosaur, Microraptor. Archaeoraptor may
the fossils he’d found, to punish him not have been a malicious hoax, but it
for being arrogant and hostile towards caused plenty of embarrassment.
them. Beringer, however, suspected they
were simply jealous of his discovery, and
wanted to block his book’s publication
and his success. Matthew Bolton
Inevitably the hoax became known Science journalist
after Beringer published his work, leaving + Matthew Bolton has pursued a keen
him crushed. He ultimately took his interest in palaeontology “since I was
scheming colleagues to court, and all shoulder high to a Deinonychus”.
three ended their careers in disgrace. @matthewbbolton

@SciUncovered 81
 Learn how science shapes our creations

INSIDE THIS
SECTION

88 THE BIKE THAT

DOESN’T FALL OVER
The training device that
can teach you to cycle in the
space of an afternoon.

89 INTRODUCING THE
HOVERBIKE
Half bike, half helicopter
0##wklv#vfl0Ľ#vwdsoh#lv#Ľqdoo|#
becoming a reality.

82 @SciUncovered
 TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED
10 home innovations

10
INNOVATIONS
THAT WILL
REVOLUTIONISE
OUR HOMES
Today’s advances are paving the way for
our future homes to become high-tech hubs
where the walls change colour to reflect our
mood, our clothes monitor our temperature
while we sleep, and the contents of our
recycling bins can be transformed into
replacement handles for our ovens
WORDS BY Duncan Geere

@SciUncovered 83
 TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED Solar panels work best They recieve more sunlight in the
northerm hemisphere. Below the equator,
10 home innovations rq#vrxwk0idflqj#urriv qruwk#0idflqj#lv#ehvw

ecyc g3 p te
Star Trek’s replicators are

10 d#orqj#zd|#rļ/#exw#
6G0sulqwlqj#whfkqrorj|#lv#
likely to appear in your
home sooner rather than later. 3D
printing, for the uninitiated, involves
fuhdwlqj#wkuhh0glphqvlrqdo#remhfwv#
from a digital model. There are many
glļhuhqw#phwkrgv/#exw#wkh#prvw#
frpprq#lqyroyhv#exloglqj#remhfwv#
from the base up by placing successive
layers of plastic.
You can use 3D printers to create
everything from toys and games to
spare parts for household appliances.
Zkhq#d#nqre#euhdnv#rļ#|rxu#vwryh/#
you can download a pattern from the
web and print a replacement –
especially handy if the manufacturer
no longer produces that model. You
won’t even have to buy the material,
either. RecycleBot, a waste plastic
extruder developed by Dr Joshua
Pearce of Michigan Technological
University, shreds waste plastic such
as empty shampoo bottles or milk
fduwrqv#lqwr#vsdjkhwwl0olnh#vwudqgv#ri#
3D printers are becoming a plastics than can be used as raw
more common sight in our
homes, but you could soon be material for 3D printers.
feeding them with waste plastic

Microgeneration
and smart grids
Powering Britain from a few centralised

9 nuclear and coal plants dotted around the

frxqwu| lvqġw yhu| hĿflhqw 0 orqj0glvwdqfh
power lines and transformers shed up to
15% of the energy that passes through them. But what
if we could put a miniature power plant in every home?
Homes that record usage in real time, letting you see
how much you’re using, and enabling power companies
to distribute electricity to where it’s needed. In Britain,
the government has pledged to install smart meters in
all homes by 2020, saving £6.2 billion a decade.
That’s the basic concept behind microgeneration
0 xvlqj whfkqrorjlhv vxfk dv wklq0Ľop vrodu sdqhov dqg
vpdoo0vfdoh zlqg wxuelqhv1 Dv urriwrs vrodu sdqhov
become commonplace, more and more people can
surgxfh wkhlu rzq hohfwulflw| dw krph Ğ rļvhwwlqj/ dqg
on some days completely replacing, the amount of
power they pull from the national grid. The power is
generated much closer to where it’s being used, Smart meters in your home will enable you to
keep track of your energy usage in real time
minimising losses in transmission.

84 @SciUncovered
 One sleep cycle lasts Wkh#Ľuvw#f|foh#diwhu#|rx#idoo#
asleep, however, averages TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED
up to 120 minutes :30433#plqxwhv 10 home innovations

Biorhythmic beds
dqg vpduw s|mdpdv
The bed is where you when you’re in the lightest

7 we spent a
vljqlĽfdqw#
percentage of our
skdvh#0#vr#|rxġuh#ohvv#jurjj|1
But the future holds an
even better night’s rest.
time, but modern beds aren’t Several companies are racing
doo#wkdw#glļhuhqw#iurp#wkrvh#ri# wr#fuhdwh#vpduw#s|mdpdv#zlwk#
wkh sdvw1 Dv d uhvxow ri oljkw optic and conductive sensors
Kitchens of the future could pollution and increased screen woven into the fabric. These
be set up to automatically
order groceries when use, many of us are getting far garments could keep an eye
you’re running low
less sleep than we need – with on vital signs during the
consequences for our health. night, and automatically
Rooms that match your mood But we now know more dgmxvw urrp whpshudwxuh ru
than ever about the science of light levels. Meanwhile,
Pretty soon your more vegetables. Your windows

8
sleep. The cyclical nature of advanced materials could
toaster, fridge and could automatically open, close
sleep is better understood, and allow us to regulate the rigidity
microwave are going or darken depending on the
there are already apps that can of our mattresses and
to be talking about weather. Your wallpaper could
monitor your sleep and wake ľxĿqhvv ri rxu sloorzv1
you behind your back. respond to what your stereo plays.
More and more gadgets now In 2012, there were about
Advanced pyjamas could help you to
come with the ability to know hljkw eloolrq zhe0frqqhfwhg sleep by altering room temperatures
in line with your vital signs
where they are and connect to ghylfhv 0 pruh wkdq rqh shu
|rxu krphġv Zl0Il qhwzrun person on Earth. But by 2020,
– accessing the web, but more that total is expected to be 75
importantly each other. This eloolrq1 Krzhyhu/ pruh zhe0
‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) could do connected devices mean more
pruh wkdq mxvw wxuq rq |rxu zd|v iru d kdfnhu wr lqĽowudwh
frļhh pdfklqh ehiruh |rx zdnh your home, and more ways for
up. Your scales could spot that governments to spy on citizens.
you’re gaining weight and change Iru LrW wr vxffhhg/ lw dovr qhhgv wr
your shopping order to include be an internet we can trust.

Electric cars
Electric cars are not a The biggest hurdles to are

6 new technology.
They were in
widespread use in
range and recharge time. While a
combustion engine can be
refuelled in moments at a petrol
the late 1800s, but advances in station, electric cars take time to
internal combustion engines and recharge – and there are relatively
mass production of petrol almost few charging stations in most
wiped them out in the early 20th countries. This makes them
Century. Since 2008, however, ehwwhu0vxlwhg wr vkruw mrxuqh|v/1
vljqlĽfdqw lpsuryhphqwv lq But electric car technology
battery and power management sits comfortably alongside
technology combined have made plfurjhqhudwlrq1 D odujh edwwhu|
them viable once more. in your garage can be depleted
Doprvw hyhu| pdmru fdu during the evening when you’re
manufacturer now has an less likely to drive somewhere,
electric model, and Elon Musk’s then recharged by rooftop solar
Tesla Motors has built a name for panels the following morning
lwvhoi vhoolqj edwwhu|0srzhuhg ehiruh |rx ohdyh iru zrun 0
Special charging stations sports cars. But most electric reducing both the cost and the
such as these are required to yhklfohv duhqġw vr ľdvk|/ whqglqj carbon emissions associated with
power up an electric car
towards small city cars. operating a car.

@SciUncovered 85
 TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED Sergey Brin funded in Wkh#Jrrjoh#fr0irxqghuġv#lghqwlw|#
dv#wkh#surmhfwġv#edfnhu#zdv#rqo|#
10 home innovations vitro meat research uhyhdohg#lq#Dxjxvw#5346

Growing plants in soil could

We could soon be eating become a thing of the past
meat that hasn’t come thanks to aeroponics
directly from an animal
IMAGE © DIRK WIERSMA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

IMAGE © DIRK WIERSMA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Vegetables that grow
Ode0jurzq phdw without soil
The meat industry these cells could then continue Want some greens to quite easily, meaning that the

5 isn’t sustainable. Not

only is it 20 times
ohvv hĿflhqw dv d
surgxflqj phdw lqghĽqlwho|1 Wkh
technology is likely to be used
Ľuvw wr uhsodfh Ġfkhdsġ phdw lq
4 go alongside your
ode0jurzq exujhuB Lq
the future, there’ll be
sodqw lv nhsw shvw0 dqg glvhdvh0
free so pesticides and herbicides
are unnecessary. It also uses
source of protein than crops, but chicken nuggets and burgers, but vegetables growing in thin air in substantially less water and
d phdw0fhqwulf glhw uhvxowv lq 83 vitamins could then be added. your kitchen all year round. fertiliser. Some studies have
times more carbon emissions Taste tests so far have been Dhursrqlfv lv d whfkqltxh iru shown yields hundreds of times
wkdq d phdw0iuhh rqh1 promising, with food critics growing plants without the use that of traditional farming.
Luckily, more than 30 describing the consistency of a of soil. The roots are enclosed in Iroorzlqj ghfdghv ri vwxg|/
laboratories around the world are burger produced by Dutch a dark box and periodically including many experiments on
working on ‘in vitro’ meat. Stem researchers in 2013 as “perfect,” vsud|hg zlwk d qxwulhqw0ulfk the International Space Station,
cells taken from animals can be doehlw ohvv mxlf| wkdq wkh uhdo water solution, while the leaves it’s now relatively cheap and easy
grown in a petri dish into strips thing. But the technology will remain accessible above. to set up a system of your own.
ri pxvfoh Ľeuh1 likely still take at least a decade The technique has many You can either buy a kit from one
While the process still to become commercially viable hfrorjlfdo ehqhĽwv ryhu of the many online retailers, or
requires an ‘input’ of living stem 0 wkh exujhu frvw durxqg traditional plant cultivation. The build your own with a plastic tub,
cells, under ideal conditions £200,000 to produce. environment can be controlled some PVC tubing and a sprayer.

DuwlĽfldo lqwhooljhqfh
Wkh whup ĠduwlĽfldo cars are not

3 intelligence’ was
coined in 1955, but
it’s fascinated
yet in the
hands of
consumers,
humanity for far longer. Now, but have been
krzhyhu/ zhġuh Ľqdoo| pdnlqj driving on
it a reality. US roads for
Companies have been using several years. The
dvshfwv ri duwlĽfldo lqwhooljhqfh Roomba robotic vaccuum
lq khdowkfduh/ gdwd0plqlqj/ fohdqhu dqg lwv odzq0przlqj
logistics and other areas for equivalents keep our carpets
decades, and this is slowly and gardens neat, and the US required is the
appearing in our homes. The military is testing robotic pack ‘Internet of Things’
Xbox One’s Kinect and the mules that can traverse 80% of connectivity that enables your
iPhone’s virtual assistant Siri the same terrain as a human devices to communicate with
both use algorithms that have while carrying 180kg of kit. each other and the wider web.
hphujhg iurp DL uhvhdufk1 Over the coming decades, Once your toaster, lights and TV
This research is also wkhvh dssolfdwlrqv ri DL Ğ dqg come with internet connectivity,
lqwhuwzlqhg zlwk wkh Ľhog ri many more – will only become a Siri for your home is no more
Xbox One’s Kinect motion tracker relies
urerwlfv1 Jrrjohġv vhoi0gulylqj pruh frpprq1 Doo wkdwġv complex than that on your phone. heavily on artificial intelligence research

86 @SciUncovered
 Idfherrn#erxjkw#Rfxoxv# The cost of the virtual
reality company was TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED
VR in March 2014 $2 billion 10 home innovations

Digital art
In the home of the urrp 0 vxewo| vkliwlqj lwv wooden frame. Inside, there’s

2 future, art won’t be

a thing of the past
0 exw wkh zd| zh
designs in reaction to
movement, noise levels or even
conversation topics.
a computer that interfaces with
the web, enabling you to
control what’s displayed from
IMAGE © DIRK WIERSMA/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

display it may well be Digital photo frames your smartphone using a

gudpdwlfdoo| glļhuhqw1 Vhyhudo kdyh |hw wr wdnh rļ lq dq| dedicated app.
vwduw0xs frpsdqlhv duh substantial fashion, but a much That means it’s easy to
working on technology that larger version of the same basic change what’s on your walls
will enable you to change concept has successfully raised ghshqglqj rq |rxu prrg 0
what’s on your walls at the almost $787,000 (£469,000) vrphwklqj dydqw0jdugh li
ľlfn ri d vzlwfk1 on Kickstarter. The EO1, you’re trying to impress a date,
Dq Dxvwuldq ghvljq vwxglr/ created by a US company called or a more classic piece when
Vwuxnw/ lv xvlqj surmhfwruv wr Hohfwulf Remhfwv/ lv d your grandparents come
map the surface of walls, 8;0fhqwlphwuh kljk0ghĽqlwlrq round for dinner. Most
allowing animations to take screen with a matt coating, notably, the company is
into account the contours of the which comes mounted in a recruiting artists to create
surface that they’re displayed slhfhv#ghvljqhg#vshflĽfdoo|#
across and creating wallpaper for the EO1, so if the idea takes
that moves. This wallpaper rļ wkhq lw frxog vsdun d
can actually respond to vljqlĽfdqw uhqdlvvdqfh lq
Fancy changing the art on your walls with a few
button-presses? It’s not too distant a possibility what’s taking place in the digital art.

Virtual and
augmented reality
One of the most VR technology can also be The Oculus Rift enables

1
users to play videogames
enduring images from overlaid on the real world – known in high-definition 3D
the early ’90s is that as augmented reality. With a pair
of a teenager, wearing ri prglĽhg jodvvhv/ vxfk dv
a bulky headset and a pair of Google Glass, you could get
joryhv/ h{shulhqflqj Ľuvw0kdqg directions, transport info or social
the thrill of virtual reality (VR). media beamed directly on to your
The technology has overpromised eyeballs. We’re about to see the
and underdelivered for years, but world in a whole new way.
it’s now undergoing a revival.
Excitement is building around
a product called the Oculus Rift. a
headset that’s been designed
vshflĽfdoo| iru ylghrjdphv1 Lwġv
kljk0uhvroxwlrq/ orz0odwhqf| dqg
kdv d yhu| zlgh Ľhog ri ylhz/
solving many of the problems of
its predecessors. Hardware
partners are now starting to
develop accessories such as
omnidirectional treadmills to
enhance the experience. Duncan Geere
But in the home of the future, Geologist, Imperial College London
it’s likely that VR systems will be + Duncan is a freelance science and
xvhg iru pruh wkdq mxvw jdplqj technology journalist and has recently
0 doorzlqj |rx wr zdon durxqg gained an MSc in Environmental Science from the
the set of a movie, for example. University of Gothenburg, Sweden. @duncangeere

@SciUncovered 87
 TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED Gyroscopes are used in They work even in zero gravity, making
them perfect instruments for tracking
Self-balancing bicycle spacecraft navigation changes in a craft’s orientation

THE BIKE THAT

DOESN’T FALL OVER…
Meet the training aid that aims to teach beginners BELOW Inside the Control
Hub on the front wheel,

how to ride a bicycle in a single afternoon

a spinning disc provides
stability for novice riders

WORDS BY Daisy Dunne

tabilising wheels have fallen states that an object in motion

S out of favour as a cycling

learning aid in recent years,
continues to move at a constant speed
along a straight line unless it is acted
because while they teach children how upon by an unbalanced force – such as
to sit on a bike, they don’t teach them a lean or jolt. On a stationary or
how to balance one. Other methods, slow-moving bike, a wobble-causing
such as bikes without pedals or good force such as a jolt might push the top
old-fashioned trial and error, yield of the wheel left and the bottom of the around the wheel’s rim. It can be set to
quicker results – but it can still take wheel right. But when the wheel is in wkuhh glļhuhqw vshhgv/ dqg zkhq lw
weeks of scrapes and bruises before motion, the top and bottom spin spins independently of the bike’s
kids get the hang of it. But now one round rapidly, correcting the wheel’s movements, it allows the bike to
company says it can help kids crack balance and ensuring you stay upright. ehqhĽw iurp wkh vhoi0fruuhfwlqj
bike-riding in just one afternoon. This is why learning to go fast is such properties of a wheel travelling at high
M|urelnh lv wkh zruogġv Ľuvw an important part of mastering riding speed, even if the bike itself is
self-balancing bicycle. Its Auto a bike – but this is contrary to the trundling along at a pedestrian pace.
Balance system works by exploiting instincts of nervous beginners. Dv wkh ohduqhu jurzv lq frqĽghqfh/
the fact that the faster you ride a bike, The Jyrobike’s tech will allow even they can reduce the speed of the
the easier it is to balance. This wkh vorzhvw ri ulghuv wr ehqhĽw iurp ľ|zkhho lqfuhphqwdoo|/ xqwlo
is because when a bike wkh j|urvfrslf hļhfw1 Lwv eventually they can ride the bike
travels at high speeds, the iurqw zkhho lv Ľwwhg without assistance. The Jyrobike’s
rotating discs of the wheels with a motorised tyres are also thicker than standard
become natural gyroscopes - and ľ|zkhho wkdw lv bike tyres, in order to further increase
this is the force that keeps the bike weighted the bike’s stability.
xsuljkw1 Qhzwrqġv Ľuvw odz ri prwlrq The team behind the bike claim
the key to quick learning
is practising steering
and pedalling
together, which
stabilisers
don’t allow.
What’s
more, it’s
hoped that
this
approach
pd| rļhu
children
IMAGE © JYROBIKE INC

ABOVE Jyrobike is said to help kids with motor

learn cycling skills more quickly, as
well as enabling those with motor skill disabilities
skill disabilities to ride a bicycle the chance to ride a
elnh iru wkh Ľuvw wlph1

88 @SciUncovered
 Wkh#Ľuvw#txdgfrswhu# However, the Breguet-Richet
Gyroplane only managed a TECHNOLOGY UNCOVERED
was built in 1907 maximum altitude of 0.6 metres Flying bicycle

…AND THE BIKE THAT

GLIDES THROUGH THE AIR
This agile fusion of bike and helicopter will be our eye in the sky in situations
where it’s not practical to deploy a full-sized ’copter
WORDS BY James Witts

he dreams of sci-fi fans ducts house propellers, all linked by a ABOVE The scale model pdqqhg ľljkw zloo eh vxemhfw wr

T around the world are set to

become reality thanks to
Nhyodu0uhlqirufhg fduerq0Ľeuh iudph
with a foam core. This gives it strength
of Hoverbike includes
instructions to 3D-print
Buster, its camera-
toting robot pilot
stringent safety guidelines. Initial
tests will be conducted by remote
Malloy Aeronautics. The UK-based while also keeping the weight down. control. Manned tests will follow, with
hqjlqhhulqj Ľup lv rq wdujhw wr fuxlvh The counter-spinning rotors cancel the Hoverbike tethered to the ground.
into the slipstream of Luke out each other’s forces, keeping the Safety, however, is an ongoing
Skywalker’s Speeder Bike with the yhklfoh vwdeoh lq ľljkw1 concern. The current prototype cannot
Hoverbike – a technological hybrid It’s powered by a twin four-stroke autorotate in the case of an engine
between motorbike and helicopter. engine and is controlled by failure. Building ballistic parachutes
The Hoverbike is propelled by four asymmetrically employing the rotors. into the frame of the bike, however,
urwruv dqg fdq eh ľrzq pdqqhg ru Speed up the rear rotors and the craft may prove a practical solution to
unmanned, via remote control. tilts and moves forwards. Speed up the the problem.
Third-scale prototypes have been front ones and it does the opposite. The prototype’s cutest touch is
developed, with the aim of raising The full-sized version of the Buster. The robot, with space in its
enough funds to develop and produce Hoverbike will be three metres long, khdg wr Ľw d Jr0Sur fdphud/ shufkhv
the full-sized version. dqg lw zloo fduu| xs wr d 5:3nj wdnh0rļ on the frame and the Hoverbike comes
“This is an entirely new form of weight. Its predicted static hovering with instructions for buyers to
aircraft, so it’s hard to put a date on height is three kilometres. The small 3D-print their own.
when it’ll be available to the public,” size and lightweight materials will
says Grant Stapleton, director of lead to myriad commercial uses, such
Malloy Aeronautics. “But we’re dv fdwwoh pxvwhulqj ru Ľuvw0uhvsrqghu
“WE’RE LOOKING TO KEEP THE
IMAGE © MALLORY AERONAUTICS

looking to keep the price down to the emergency services in mountainous or

cost of a mid-range saloon car.”
The Hoverbike works on the same
treacherous terrain, where it would be
impractical to send a larger, more
PRICE DOWN TO THE COST OF
principles that keep tandem-rotored
helicopters such as a Chinook in the
unwieldy vehicle.
As with all airborne vehicles, the
A MID-RANGE SALOON CAR.”
air. Four overlapping protective carbon development from unmanned to Grant Stapleton MALLOY AERONAUTICS

@SciUncovered 89
 EXPLORE

WHAT MATTERS
SCIENCE
YOURSELF

Your one-stop guide to the month in science

INSIDE THIS does it matter, anyway? This talk

SECTION
brings together directors and
screenwriters to discuss the
challenges of writing science for
a mainstream cinema audience,
and how to turn researchers and
scientists into compelling and
engaging characters.

AFTERHOURS:
Data from the Large
Hadron Collider still has
SCIENCE UNCOVERED
many secrets to reveal LOCATION Natural History Museum
DATE 26 September
TIME Doors open at 3pm
EVENTS SCIENCE PRICE Free
ON SCREEN WEBSITE nhm.ac.uk

MYSTERIES OF LOCATION The Royal Institution This might be the last ever issue

MATTER AT THE LHC DATE 17 September

TIME 7pm
of Science Uncovered, but our name
will live on with the NHM’s (in no
94 DIY SCIENCE LOCATION The Royal Institution PRICE £12 (standard), £8 (concessions), zd| dĿoldwhg,#vhfrqg#dqqxdo#
Build a simple electric motor, DATE 26 September £6 (associates) Afterhours extravaganza, which
and measure pH with a cabbage. TIME 7.50pm WEBSITE rigb.org takes place on European
PRICE £17 (standard), £11 (concessions), Researchers’ Night. The event
free to members and Fellows From Back to the Future’s Doc features over 200 activities,
WEBSITE rigb.org Brown to Jurassic Park’s Dr Alan including the chance to meet TV
Judqw/ Ľfwlrqdo vflhqwlvwv duh wkh presenter and anthropologist
2015 will see the Large Hadron enabler of many an outlandish Professor Alice Roberts, and to
Collider whir back into life with movie plot. But how accurate are take a sneak peak at next year’s
almost double the collision the words that tumble out of exhibitions, including Coral
energy of before. Having proven their mouths – and how much Reefs: Secret Cities of the Sea.
the existence of the elusive Higgs
Boson elementary particle, the
96 GREY MATTER
Test your knowledge of science
huge particle accelerator is now
cranking up the power in an
EDITOR’S CHOICE EVENTS
facts with our challenging quiz.
attempt to replicate the
experiment at higher energies,
creating particles with more
THE BRITISH SCIENCE FESTIVAL
mass and furthering our DATE: 6-12 September HOST: britishscienceassociation.org
understanding of what makes
these peculiar particles tick. This This September, the heart of England hosts a seven-day
talk from Dr Pippa Wells will programme of talks, workshops, exhibitions and tours that take
examine some of the lingering you right to the heart of what makes science so endlessly
questions around the project, fascinating. Among other things, you’ll get a chance to study
including why gravity is weaker prehistoric fossils and cancer cells under the microscope, and gain
98 ANTIMATTER than the other fundamental an engineer’s perspective on the new high-speed railway line that
Why scientists have been forces, and the possible origins will connect London to Birmingham and beyond. The truly bold
Ľoplqj#dqlpdov#kdylqj#d#zhh1 of dark matter. can even drop in for a snake-handling session…

90 @SciUncovered
 EXPLORATORIUM
What matters

SCIENCE FOLLOWSHIPS
Who to follow on
Twitter to expand
your knowledge

Serious Matters
Urjhu KljkĽhog
CUrjhuKljkĽhog
PROFILE: Ex-editor of New
Scientist turned Executive of
the Science Museum, Roger
Ab`aƮ^e] aZg]ib\dl
interesting news stories from
Z\khll ma^ [hZk] h_ l\b^g\^'

SAMPLE TWEETS:

IMAGE © NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

Congrats to Maryam
Plu}dnkdql/ wkh Ľuvw ihpdoh
Fields winner.

Hummingbirds edge out

The Natural History
Museum’s Afterhours event helicopters in hover contest
offers plenty of scope for
hands-on learning
Xqh{shfwhg Ľqg= vwhp fhoo
factories inside teeth

BOOKS SEX, DRUGS AND DISCOVERY: CHAMPION

ROCK ’N’ ROLL OF THE SHUTTLE FLEET Laughing Matters
THE COPERNICUS AUTHOR AUTHOR AsapSCIENCE

COMPLEX Zoe Cormier

PUBLISHER
Valerie Neal
PUBLISHER
@AsapSCIENCE
PROFILE: Ma^ <ZgZ]bZg RhnMn[^
AUTHOR Profile Books Smithsonian l\b^gmblml ihlm Z ]Zber
Caleb Scharf PRICE £9.99 Series concoction of science
PUBLISHER OUT Now PRICE £20 pbmmb\blfl% chd^l Zg]
Allen Lane OUT Now hƭ&ma^&pZee _Z\ml'
PRICE £16 Guerrilla
OUT Now Science founder and occasional Between 1984 and 2011, the SAMPLE TWEETS:
Science Uncovered contributor Zoe vsdfh#vkxwwoh#Glvfryhu|#ľhz# Spiders are the original
In 1543, Cormier takes us on a trippy tour more than 30 successful hipsters. They were web
Qlfrodxv#Frshuqlfxv#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw# through “the science of missions, far surpassing the designers before the internet.
person to suggest that Earth hedonism and the hedonism of qxpehu#ri#ľljkwv#pdgh#e|#dq|#
went around the Sun – plunging science”, and the surprising rwkhu#vkxwwoh#lq#QDVDġv#ľhhw1# In your lifetime, you will
humanity into an existential origins of many a good time. The Spending a total of 365 days in surgxfh hqrxjk vdolyd wr Ľoo
crisis. Now, astrophysicist Caleb hallucinogenic drug LSD, for ruelw/#Glvfryhu|#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw#wr# two swimming pools.
Scharf again ponders Earth’s example, was originally rescue and return satellites, and
vljqlĽfdqfh/#dv#kh#frqvlghuv#wkh# developed to ease the pain of wkh#Ľuvw#wr#shuirup#d#edfnľls#lq# Guess what? Cat pee glows
unlikely circumstances that childbirth. And we humans are space. Using breathtaking photos under black light. Just in case
allowed life to thrive on the edge far from the only thrillseekers on from both inside the craft and you were wondering.
of nothingness. Drawing on this planet, as we discover when beyond, Valerie Neal follows the
everything from our microscopic Cormier takes us on a tour historical missions of the shuttle A star walks into a black
mitochondria to the improbable through the animal kingdom’s in chronological order, and hole, but doesn’t seem
ordering of the cosmos, Scharf guilty pleasures – such as goats details the numerous crews that phased. The black hole says,
argues that we should once again that practise oral sex, and the commanded the ship and the “I don’t think you understand
embrace the idea that our planet internal mechanics of the vflhqwlĽf#dgydqfhphqwv#wkh|# the gravity of this situation.”
is truly special. echidna’s four-headed penis. achieved onboard.

@SciUncovered 91
 EXPLORATORIUM
What matters

GLOBAL CATASTROPHES: chance of surviving it, McGuire

RADIO/PODCASTS the crack of dawn on a Sunday to

A VERY SHORT
presents you with the perfect listen to it doesn’t appeal, then
conversation starter for awkward don’t forget you can always track

INTRODUCTION Ľuvw#gdwhv#ru#idplo|#jdwkhulqjv1#### it down on iPlayer later on.

AUTHOR
Professor Bill TV
McGuire
PUBLISHER LANDS OF THE
Oxford University MONSOON
Press
PRICE £7.99 CHANNEL BBC Two (TBC) THE LIVING WORLD
OUT Now DATE Mid-October (TBC) CHANNEL BBC Radio 4
TIME TBC DATE Sundays YEARS OF LIVING
When Science Uncovered needs
an expert on disaster and
DETAILS 5x 50 mins TIME 6.35am
DETAILS 22 mins
DANGEROUSLY
destruction, Bill McGuire is the Set to air on BBC Two in October, CHANNEL None (podcast)
go-to guy. In this pocket-sized wklv#qhz#Ľyh0sduw#vhulhv#zloo#orrn# This Radio 4 show focuses on a DATE No fixed day
book, he toys with a range of at the dramatic impact that the glļhuhqw#uduh#dqlpdo#hdfk#zhhn/# TIME No fixed time
natural end-of-the-world monsoon season can have on a from the guillemots of Skomer to DETAILS 2-5 mins
scenarios, including the uhjlrq1#Prqvrrqv#dļhfw#dqlpdo# wkh#Juhhq#Kdluvwuhdn#exwwhuľlhv#
possibilities of another Ice Age, and human populations alike and of the Pentland hills. Tom Heap’s Climate change is probably the
joredo#ľrrglqj/#d#nloohu# wklv#vhulhv/#Ľophg#rq#wkh#Lqgldq# upcoming expedition to the biggest threat facing civilisation
earthquake or the long overdue subcontinent and in Southeast Caicos Islands to visit the today, yet many people are still
eruption of one of the planet’s Dvld/#zloo#orrn#dw#krz#glļhuhqw# endangered rock iguanas sounds content to ignore the problem.
many dormant supervolcanoes. human societies have developed like it should make for a Wklv#kljk0surĽoh#ylghr#srgfdvw#
Assessing both the possibility of ways of coping with extreme particularly interesting hopes to change that by drafting
such an event and humanity’s weather conditions. adventure… and if waking up at in celebrities including Jessica
Alba, Matt Damon and even
Arnold Schwarzenegger. It’s a
BECOME AN INSTANT… Local botanic gardens
are a great place to
vslq0rļ#iurp#d#vkrz#ri#wkh#vdph#
start discovering plants name that’s been broadcast on US

BOTANIST cable network Showtime, but is so

far unavailable in the UK (although
wkh#Ľuvw#hslvrgh#lv#rq#\rxWxeh,1#
The podcast and the show make a
Couldn’t stand biology at school? Forget
compelling argument that we
about photosynthesis and discover food-
should all be doing more to
providing, disease-curing botany
change our eco-unfriendly ways.
If you like getting outdoors, a visit to your local
university’s botanic garden is a great way to start
your education. If you’re near the University of
APPS
WOLFRAMALPHA
Bristol, head to the garden’s Bee and Pollination
Festival on 6-7 September to learn about the
animal-plant relationship behind a third of the
world’s food. Readers in London might instead
FROM Wolfram Research
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FORMAT iOS
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PRICE £1.99
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Sometimes, when you’re
iPlayer. Each 15-minute episode explores stories Physicians on 29 September, or explore the
scouring the web, Google just
from the botanic world. Alternatively, tune in to parasitic lifestyle of climbing plants at The
won’t cut it. Want a quick
TED.com’s Plantastic! series, and keep an eye out Linnean Society on 22 October. Near Shropshire
comparison for the Mass of Earth?
for free lectures from UK plant-loving societies. or Exeter? Attend an October talk from The
According to WolframAlpha,
In London, hear experts explain how medicines Carnivorous Plant Society to learn about the
that’s 18 times the mass of the
are made from plants at the Royal College of bizarre feeding habits of bug-chomping plants.
Moon. This unique search engine
curates information for you,

92 @SciUncovered
 EXPLORATORIUM
What matters

TED TALK CHOICE medical device comprising an obturator (a metal or

plastic sharpened tip), a cannula (hollow tube) and a
seal. They’re used in surgeries like abscess drainage

“It’s the puncture that causes but, engineer Nikolai Begg argues, they’re outdated.
“It’s the puncture that causes risk. That’s what

risk… and it’s an issue that’s Dr HC Jacobaeus said back in 1912,” says Begg. “He
shuiruphg#wkh#Ľuvw#odsdurvfrslf#vxujhu|#rq#d#

still with us.” human, and it’s an issue that’s still with us.”
Between 1997 and 2002, for example, the FDA
received more than 1,300 reports of trocar-related
Qlnrodl#Ehjj’s curious mind could
laparoscopic injury, including over 30 deaths.
have solved one of the most deadly
It’s a predicament Begg’s looking to solve with
hazards in surgery…
his updated trocar. When the tip of the device
ABOVE WolframAlpha is a search engine that According to the US Food and Drug punctures the tissue, the pressure activates a
puts information into context for you
Administration, the most dangerous step in spring-loaded mechanism that retracts the blade
rather than just delivering a list ‘keyhole’ surgery isn’t repairing a valve or within 0.04 seconds, before it can do any damage to
of links, and this app puts its wdnlqj#d#elrsv|/#lwġv#wkh#Ľuvw#lqflvlrq#dqg#wkh# internal organs. It’s a simple but ingenious
srzhu#dw#|rxu#Ľqjhuwlsv1#Li#|rx# use of trocars. Trocars come in many shapes engineering trick that could save many lives.
want to wow your pub buddies, dqg#vl}hv#exw#dw#wkhlu#khduw#wkh|ġuh#wkh#vdph=#d# Zdwfk#wkh#wdon#dw=#elw1o|24mQn39h#
it’s worth adding this one to your
home screen. Nikolai Begg’s improved
surgical equipment could
save many lives worldwide

GEOLOGY SAMPLE
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GPS data. You can upload your WEBSITES DVD & BLU-RAY
data easily and share it with other
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rock fans, and the digital ‘strike
and dip’ tool, for on-the-spot
WHAT’S THAT STUFF? HOST DEAR LAKE VENTURES, INC HUMAN UNIVERSE
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Li#|rx#Ľqg#wkdw#|rxu#fkhhu|#orfdo#
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weatherman’s teatime report isn’t
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quite comprehensive enough for
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#Zkdwġv#Wkdw#VwxļB#grhv#h{dfwo|# will be. Enter your location and Professor Brian Cox returns
what the name suggests: it you’ll be presented with a zlwk#wklv#Ľyh0sduw#vhulhv/#vkrzq#
presents you with a host of veritable barrage of information, on TV earlier in the year. Human
everyday items, and explains with maps, graphs and charts Universe examines the biggest
what they’re made from, and showing you information such as questions facing science, and
how. From lipstick and chewing average temperature, pressure, humanity as a whole, using
gum to sandpaper and even ‘new humidity and so on. You can even stunning photography and CGI
fdu#vphooġ/#lwġv#idfw0Ľoohg#dqg# travel back in time, and get to tell the story of our evolution,
entertainingly written. New car meteorological data going back as and to try and answer some of
smell, by the way, is made from far as the 1990s. Run by two chaps the biggest conundrums. As ever
“alkanes and substituted benzenes, in California, it’s an incredible with Cox’s shows, expect a blend
along with a few aldehydes and resource for weather watchers of wide-eyed enthusiasm and
ABOVE Find out what you’re stomping on with
the iGeology app from NERC ketones”. So now you know. across the globe. mind-expanding science.

@SciUncovered 93
 in association with

DIY SCIENCE
Build and experiment at home
TWEET US YOUR
PICS + VIDEOS!
@SciUncovered

THIS MONTH… This experiment

The best home

uses the same
method real
submarines use
to dive and

experiments
surface

Iru rxu Ľqdo lvvxh/ zh dvnhg wkh Ur|do

Institution to share its top three makes
WORDS BY Andy Marmery

Cartesian diver
WHAT YOU NEED... Build time:
A plain, round two-litre drinks bottle, a biro
cap, some small nuts, Blu-Tack, a chopstick,
4 MINS
a bucket of water.

WHAT TO DO...
1.
Using your chopstick, or a little Blu-Tack. If it
poke a little ball of sinks, try a smaller nut or
Blu-Tack into the biro cap, remove the nut entirely.
so that it completely blocks The goal is to make the cap
the small hole at the end, barely buoyant, so it slowly
making an airtight seal. rises when submerged and
hardly breaks the surface
HOW IT WORKS
By squeezing the bottle, you

2.
Now attach a nut to zkhq ľrdwlqj1
pressurise the water within it, and
the cap by pushing it
also the pocket of trapped air in the

3.
over the little tail until it When you have it
diver. The air responds to this
zhgjhv lq sodfh1 Wu| wr ľrdw uljkw/ Ľoo wkh erwwoh wr
pressure change by contracting in
ILLUSTRATIONS © TOM HOVEY

it in the bucket of water tail the rim, put your diver in

volume, and drawing a little more
down, so you trap a pocket and screw the cap on tight.
water into the diver. This makes it
of air inside the cap. If it Now squeeze the bottle
less buoyant, so it sinks.
ľrdwv zlwk dq| ri wkh fds hard – the diver should
above the waterline, add vlqn/ wkhq ľrdw edfn xs
more weight – another nut, when you release.

94 @Sci
ciU
Un
nco
covere
ered
d
 EXPLORATORIUM
DIY science

Homopolar motor Build time:

30 MINS

WHAT YOU NEED...

wire needs to
make a contact
with the nodule on
the top of the battery, and
D-size battery, 30-40cm copper wire
stand vertically up from it. The
(thin enough that you can bend it
rest of the wire needs to bend over
easily, but enough to hold its shape
and form a coil running around
when bent), neodymium disc magnet
the battery two or three times
about 2cm in diameter.
without touching it. The other end
of the wire needs to touch the side

HOW IT WORKS of the magnet.

The battery makes an

WHAT TO DO...
3.
The whole coil needs to balance,
hohfwulf fxuuhqw ľrz
supported only by its contacts
through the wire. This

1.
Put the magnet on the bottom with the top of the battery and
jhqhudwhv d pdjqhwlf Ľhog/
ri wkh edwwhu| Ğ wkh ľdw elw Ğ the magnet. This will take a lot of
which interacts with the
where it will attach itself to the tweaking of the shape, but once
Ľhog iurp wkh pdjqhw dqg
battery case. you’ve got this right, the coil should
makes the wire spin.
start to spin spontaneously. It

2.
Now make a coil out of the might not look like it, but this is an
copper wire. The end of the electric motor!

Very acidic solutions will turn the

cabbage water red, while strong
alkalis will turn it green
Cabbage pH indicator
the water in a jug. You should have

WHAT YOU NEED...

vrph#oryho|#ghhs#sxusoh#+pd|eh#hyhq#
eoxh,#fdeedjh#zdwhu1
Build time:
A red cabbage, kitchen knife, chopping 10 MINS
3.
Pour a little cabbage water at
board, a saucepan of water, a sieve, a jug, a time into drinking glasses,
drinking glasses, vinegar, lemon juice, and start testing it with your
bicarbonate of soda, toothpaste, other household items. You should see
condiments and cleaning products. some amazing colour changes from
the various chemicals!

WHAT TO DO...
1.
Urxjko|#fkrs#kdoi#d#uhg#fdeedjh#
and add it to the pan of water
so that the cabbage is well covered.
HOW IT WORKS
Uhg#fdeedjh#+dv#zhoo#dv#orwv#ri#rwkhu#
Bring it to the boil on a hob and
yhjhwdeohv#dqg#ľrzhuv,#frqwdlq#d#
simmer for 20 minutes or so, then
pigment called anthocyanin, which
wxuq#rļ#wkh#khdw#dqg#ohw#lw#frro1
is a fantastic pH indicator and so
can be used to test the acidity or

2.
Once cool, strain the cabbage
alkalinity of all sorts of things.
with a sieve, being sure to catch

@SciUncovered 95
 GREY MATTER
Test your science knowledge with our quiz

The newly discovered

dinosaur Changyuraptor
is unusual because it has four
of what?

What is the average volume

of blood in an adult human?

A 1960 earthquake in
Valdivia, Chile was most
powerful earthquake ever
recorded. What was its
magnitude on the Richter scale?

Au is the chemical symbol

20 July 2014 marked the
for which metal?
45th anniversary of which Which type of
What is the only living feat of human accomplishment?

Name this thing that can be seen

How many vertebrae are
cell is this?
from space?
there in the human spine?
plant, often used What is the name given
True or false: the Moon is
What is the average length
to the speeds at which of the human tongue?
in cosmetics. Concorde travelled, breaking
gradually moving away
from Earth? In the human digestive
the sound barrier?
wudfw/#zklfk#frphv#Ľuvw#Ğ#
Wkh#Ľuvw#odz#ri#
the small or the large intestine?
thermodynamics states
IMAGE © NASA

that energy cannot be what?

Zklfk#zdv#wkh#Ľuvw#
planet to be discovered
using a telescope?

Which species is the

khdylhvw#ľljkwhg#elug#rq#
the planet today?
HOW DID YOU DO?
In engineering, what is the WHERE DO YOU LIE ON THE STAR
strongest geometric shape? SPECTRUM?
0-5 Brown dwarf
Which metal is responsible
6-10 Red dwarf
for the red colour of blood?
11-15 Main sequence
What is the chemical that 16-19 Blue-white star
causes you to cry when 20 Blue supergiant
chopping onions?
19 10cm. 20 Small intestine.
16 Sulphuric acid. 17 Io. 18 Nerve cell.
What is the 13 Great bustard. 14 Triangle. 15 Iron.
11 Created or destroyed. 12 Uranus.

name of this Solar

9 33. 10 True – at the rate of 3.78cm a year.
7 Supersonic. 8 The first Moon landing.
5 Gold. 6 The Great Barrier Reef.

System body?. 1 Aloe vera. 2 Wings. 3 Five litres. 4 9.5.

ANSWERS

96 @SciUncovered
 EXPLORATORIUM
Grey Matter

Uncover more...
Wklv#pd|#eh#wkh#Ľqdo#lvvxh/#exw#|rx#fdq#frqwlqxh#
exploring science with these great bookazines...
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WEIRD SCIENCE
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ALIEN HUNTING T TA & THE COM
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HOLE S COM E
PLUS ! WHE RE
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@SciUncovered 97
 BIZARRE RESEARCH THAT MAKES YOU THINK

WE CAN SEEK OUT LAWS IN BIOLOGY THAT

ARE AS UNIVERSAL AS LAWS OF PHYSICS.
vshflĽf wr wkh vl}h ri wkh dqlpdo Ğ kljk0vshhg
ylghr iru udwv dqg d exfnhw iru frzv1 ģWkh
biggest and the smallest animals were most
fkdoohqjlqj wr vwxg|/Ĥ vd|v Kx1 ģGrphvwlfdwhg
farm animals and pets were easier.”

Surely big animals take much longer?

You’d imagine so. After all, an elephant’s bladder
lv 6/933 wlphv odujhu wkdq d fdwġv1 Exw erwk
dqlpdov wdnh wkh same time Ğ derxw 53 vhfrqgv
Ğ wr xulqdwh1 Lq idfw/ doo dqlpdov wkdw zhljk ryhu
6nj xulqdwh lq wkh vdph wlphvsdq1

How does that work?

It’s all down to the length of the animal’s
urethra. In larger animals with larger bladders,
the urethra tends to be longer, too. This means a
greater gravitational force acts on the urine, and
wkh dqlpdo fdq hydfxdwh lwv eodgghu pruh txlfno|1
ģL zdv yhu| vxusulvhg wkdw wkh sursruwlrqv ri wkh
urethra were constant across all animals,” Hu
vd|v1 ģWklv Ġlvrphwu|ġ lv d uduh wudlw1Ĥ

So what happens in smaller animals?

Dqlpdov#Ľophg Khuh judylw|ġv hļhfw lv plqlpdo dqg wkh xulqh

frphv rxw lq vpdoo gursv1 Fdslooldu| irufhv Ğ wkh
tendency of water to travel along a narrow tube

while they urinate Ğ sod| d pxfk juhdwhu uroh1

What was the experiment? How could the research be used?

Scientists from Georgia Institute of Technology, Wklv qhz nqrzohgjh derxw wkh hļhfw ri wkh
in the US, pointed video cameras at numerous length of a tube, be it a urethra or anything else
zoo animals while they had a wee. They wanted iru wkdw pdwwhu/ wr ghwhuplqh wkh udwh ri ľrz ri
wr#Ľqg#rxw krz orqj lw wrrn hdfk vshflhv Ğ a liquid may be used to help design better water
ranging in size from a bat to an elephant wdqnv/ ľxlg0Ľoohg edfnsdfnv dqg Ľuh krvhv1
Ğ#wr#uholhyh wkhpvhoyhv1 ģLq frpsdudwlyh
elrphfkdqlfv/ zh vwxg| pdq| glļhuhqw
animals to gain insight on the evolution of a
particular form or function,” says Assistant
Professor David Hu, a mechanical engineer on STUDENTS CHALLENGED TO SIT QUIETLY
wkh#uhvhdufk whdp1 ģE| glvfryhulqj jhqhudo + It’s a common belief that students are quite happy doing
sulqflsohv/ zh fdq ehjlq wr vhhn rxw odzv lq nothing, but a scientist at the University of Virginia, in the US,
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY WATT

biology that are as universal as laws of physics.” has found just the opposite. Subjects were asked to sit with
no external stimulus for 15 minutes, but offered the chance
Did they use video for every animal? to self-administer electric shocks to relieve the tedium. Many
Dv#zhoo#dv#pdnlqj wkhlu rzq ylghrv/ wkh whdp preferred to give themselves a jolt – more particularly men, of
also studied YouTube clips. In all, the urination whom two-thirds opted for the shock. One of the male subjects
antics of 32 animals were studied. Some of opted for a remarkable 190 shocks.
the techniques employed in the research were

98 @SciUncovered
9000
9001