SHOULD A MISSION TO MARS BE ALL-FEMALE?

How to make sense of The future of tech is Can we get rid of

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ISSUE #392 JUNE 2023

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SOMETHING STRANGE IS GOING ON AT THE HEART OF OUR PLANET

Wildlife E-fuels Biology

The tech uncovering How synthetic petrol Understand the wonders
the secret life of whales could save the supercar of the human eye
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 FROM THE
What is the power
pose? And will it
really boost my

EDITOR
confidence before
a job interview?
–›p75

CONTRIBUTORS

Earth’s core is a strange place. Sadly, there are no prehistoric PROF PATRICIA
beasts, underground rivers or ancient hominids waiting to be THORNLEY
discovered, as Jules Verne imagined in Journey to the Centre of the The director of the Energy
Earth. But there are still plenty of mysteries hidden in its depths. and Bioproducts Research
And since we can measure the influence of Earth’s core up here Institute at Aston University
tells us about the growing
on the surface, no one need build a drill-bit-shaped vessel to head
wave of e-fuels appearing
down there either. Bummer.
on the horizon. –›p26
In truth, the behaviour of the planet’s heart affects us all. For a start, the
days have been getting longer for us surface-dwellers. It probably doesn’t feel
that way for most of us, but since 2020 the average length of a day – the time it DR MICHELLE GRIFFIN
takes for Earth to rotate on its axis – seems to have been growing. Scientists With over 20 years of
think something unexpected, deep within the centre of the planet, might be experience as a gynaecologist
slowing its spin, causing the days to extend – albeit by microseconds. working for the NHS, Dr Griffin
In a similar vein, Earth’s magnetic field, which is generated by our molten joins us as a regular columnist
iron core and protects us from the Sun’s most lethal radiation, is changing too. to keep us up to date about
Over the last 200 years the global average strength of the field has fallen by women’s health and
nine per cent. A spot over South America, known as the South Atlantic wellbeing. –›p32
COVER: MAGIC TORCH THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES X2, ALAMY, DANIEL BRIGHT

Anomaly, where our planet’s magnetic shield is weakest, is moving and

waning at an even faster rate, causing satellites in the vicinity to fail as a result
of the extra radiation bursting through from space. LIBBY JACKSON
Libby is the head of space
These are just a couple of the surprising discoveries that have been made
exploration at the UK Space
over the last few years thanks to an influx of new technologies and techniques Agency. We asked her to
for studying what’s going on deep in the heart of the planet we call home. delve into the idea that
Enjoy the whole cover story over on p66. future long-duration space
missions should feature
all-female crews. –›p38

Daniel Bennett, Editor

COLIN STUART
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ON THE BBC THIS MONTH... our understanding of the
Earth’s core. –›p66

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CONTENTS 15
DISCOVERIES
36
REALITY CHECK

REGULARS

06 EYE OPENER 32 DR MICHELLE

Incredible pictures that’ll
change your view of the world.
GRIFFIN
The menopause has a lot
to teach us, especially
12 CONVERSATION about the ageing process.
See what’s dropped into
our inbox this month. 34 DR DEAN BURNETT
Good news: you are using a Forget your passwords. Biometric
15 DISCOVERIES
Whether a chicken grows feathers
lot more than 10 per cent or scales is decided by one gene, passkeys are here to keep your
All the month’s biggest news of your brain. named after Sonic the Hedgehog. data and devices safe.
stories: The gene that
determines whether a 36 REALITY CHECK
chicken grows feathers or The science behind the

75
scales; How the sauropods headlines: Could passkeys
got so big; The unexpected make passwords a thing of
places where your DNA is the past? Should space
turning up; The cyborg
goldfish teaching us how fish
missions be all-female? Q&A
Can eating one meal a day
navigate; How soil samples help you lose weight?
from the Amazon rainforest’s
past could save its future; The
machine that can read your
43 INNOVATIONS
The latest tech and
mind; Aliens may be listening
gadgets tested.
to our radio; The synthetic
fuel that could make
combustion engines green. 75 Q&A
Our experts answer your
30 DR KATIE MACK questions. This month:
What is the power pose?
Why the outcome of
How often should I change
Schrödinger’s cat is still a
hot topic among physicists. my washing-up sponge?
How is hail made? What is
the supine position?
What’s living inside my

50
gut? Should I start washing
my hair with beer?

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60 MAKING WAVES
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But with the right brain satisfied.
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66 THE MYSTERIES
OF EARTH’S CORE
The ground beneath our
feet may be solid. But dig
a little further down and
INSTANT
you soon discover just GENIUS
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 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
A sharper
image
NORTH CAROLINA, USA

Science has come a long

way since the first
magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI) scan was
performed on a human,
almost 50 years ago. This
new scan, of a mouse’s
brain, looks more like an
elaborate firework than
the inner workings of this
complex organ but it’s the
sharpest scan of a brain
that has ever been taken.
To capture this image,
a supercomputer with the
processing power of 800
laptops was developed by
a cross-university team led
by the Duke Center for In
Vivo Microscopy. While
there’s still a long way to
go, it shows the incredible
future that MRIs can offer.
This image is roughly 64
million times sharper than
a scan that could be
captured by current clinical
MRI technology. With a
scan this detailed, it’s
possible to spot a brain
tumour and capture
intricate details of its
structure. With this level of
detail, researchers hope to
better understand how the
brain changes with age, as
well as a number of
diseases such as
Alzheimer’s.

DAN VAHABA/DUKE INSTITUTE

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7
8
 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
Sunseekers
Who says you need a huge,
cutting-edge telescope on top
of a mountain to discover a
comet? Especially not when
you can search for these
celestial visitors from the
comfort of your sofa. That’s
exactly what citizen scientists
from around the world have
done in the Sungrazer Project
(sungrazer.nrl.navy.mil) and
this stunning composite
image is the result. It shows
some of the brightest comets
ever observed by the Large
Angle and Spectrometric
Coronagraph (LASCO) on the
Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO), a joint
ESA and NASA spacecraft.
Stationed around 1.5 million
kilometres away from Earth,
SOHO watches the Sun and
studies its corona – the star’s
outer atmosphere. Each of
the streaks of light in this
image is an icy comet that
brightens as it gets closer to
the Sun. The dark area in the
centre is SOHO’s occulting
disc, which blocks out the
Sun‘s glare, allowing us to see
the fainter features around it.
Over 4,500 comets have
been found by the Sungrazer
Project, that’s over half of all
known comets. “SOHO is the
most prominent comet-
hunter, with a huge catalogue
of discoveries still awaiting
analysis,” says Dr Karl
Battams, of the SOHO and
Sungrazer Projects.

NASA/ESA/SOHO

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 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
Going with
the flow
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

The common purple janthina’s

fate rests entirely in the hands
of the ocean. The marine
mollusc spends most of its life
bobbing along just below the
sea’s surface, clinging to the
bottom of a raft made of
mucus bubbles blown from a
gland in its foot. The janthina
can’t swim, so if its bubble raft
bursts, the 4cm-long snail will
sink to the seabed and die. To
avoid such potentially fatal
punctures, the snotty bubbles
it blows harden into a
rubber-like material.
But being unable to swim
means the janthina is unable
to steer its raft, so it travels
entirely at the whim of the
ocean’s currents. If it’s lucky,
the janthina will bump into a
hydrozoan, such as the
Portuguese man o’ war – its
favourite prey. But there’s no
guarantee and, as a recent
study reported, the snail’s got
just as much chance of ending
up in the Great Pacific Garbage
Patch. This outcome is not
altogether bad though, as it’s
become something of a
feeding ground and nursery
for janthinas. It’s also good for
the scientists studying them.
“They’re usually hard to find”
said Fiona Chong, one of the
study’s authors. “The Garbage
Patch is giving us an chance to
learn more about janthina.”

REG MORRISON/AUSCAPE/MINDEN

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LETTER OF THE MONTH Not while I’m eating lunch!

I really enjoyed reading, and was fascinated
by, ‘The Wonderful World of Slime’ (March,
Ball lightning p60), although it did put me off my lunch,
is yet to be which I was eating at the time! I had no idea
explained. Is it that slime was so widespread and plays such
gas? Plasma? Or an important part in life. It was interesting to
something else? learn that it most likely played a key role for
early life and in the microbial communities
that first dominated life. I do also agree with
facing – in front of the fire for zoologist Dr Arik Kershenbaum’s assertion
those people in the lounge that we will find life on other planets soon
– and I concluded it was seen and that it will be slime!
wherever they happened to Luke Russell, Tingley
be looking. Meanwhile, a lady
upstairs saw the ball vanish
Is ball lightning really a as it went around a corner in the
physical phenomenon? bathroom! No one reported more
Several decades ago, I saw what I than one ball but we all saw it in
think was ball lightning. I was in the different rooms at the same time!
kitchen of my parents’ guesthouse As for the telephone wires in the
in Wharfedale, Yorkshire. There house, blobs of copper had melted
were three other people in the room in their plastic covers, while the
with me and more folk in the same phone’s battery cells had exploded.
building and we all saw a glowing These observations implied a high
ball, about the size of a football. For current for a very short time and all
me, it quickly vanished as it passed the phone wires had to be replaced.
out of the open window but it left Since this event, I have looked at
with a bang and we were all many reports of ball lightning,
deafened for several minutes including some reported in aircraft
afterwards. where they’re generally ‘seen’ in the It may look disgusting, but
As a physicist, I was intrigued by direction that the person was slime is a vital part of life
the event and researched the (probably) facing: towards the front
observations. There were about a of the cabin. I have concluded that
dozen people in the house at the these phenomena are all the effect Are we all aliens?
time, most of whom were in the of a large electromagnetic field A recent ‘Discoveries’ story (April, p21) posits
lounge. They all reported that the pulse on the human brain and likely that samples of organic compounds collected
ball they saw was between cannot be photographed. from an asteroid by the Japanese spacecraft
themselves and where they were Prof Joshua Swithenbank, via email Hayabusa support the ‘Panspermia’
hypothesis. While I agree there is certainly
WORTH evidence that points in this direction, I have
WRITE IN AND WIN! OVER £60 always felt the notion of life on Earth
The writer of next issue’s Letter of the Month wins originating from elsewhere in the Universe
a bundle of the latest hardback science books. raises far more questions than it answers. If
Put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard) and the seeds of life were indeed flown in, where
you could get your hands on Unwired by Gaia did they originate? Asteroids are thought of
Bernstein; The Limits Of Genius by Katie Spalding;
as barren rocks, devoid of atmospheres and
and My Father’s Brain by Sandeep Jauhar.
are remnants of earlier times in the Solar

12
 L E T T E R S M AY B E E D I T E D F O R P U B L I C AT I O N

“TO BE CLEAR, 100 PER CENT OF THE THE TEAM

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of these organic compounds, and how are look closely at the picture that accompanied EDITORIAL COMPLAINTS
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13
 DON’T JUST READ THIS
MAGAZINE… LISTEN TO IT TOO
Discover the weekly podcast from the team behind BBC Science Focus,
available on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all other podcast platforms
sciencefocus.com/instant-genius-podcast

FEATURING

SEASHELLS BEE COGNITION LIFE ON MARS ARTEMIS

with Dr Helen with Prof Lars with Lewis with Libby
Scales Chittka Dartnell Jackson
 DISCOVERIES

“Advanced
civilisations may
be capable of
observing the radio
leakage from Earth”
Dr Nalini Heeralall-Issur p23

GENETICS
CHICKEN’S FEET
Whether it’s feathers or scales is
decided by Sonic the Hedgehog p16

PALAEONTOLOGY
HOW DID YOU GET SO BIG?
New study reveals the secret behind
the biggest dinosaurs’ sizes p18

GENETICS
YOUR DNA IS EVERYWHERE
Researchers can retrieve traceable
DNA samples from anywhere p19

NEUROSCIENCE
CYBORG GOLDFISH
They have scales, fins and a computer
attached to their heads p20

CONSERVATION
DARK EARTH
Ancient Amazonian soil could help
save today’s depleted rainforests p21

NEUROSCIENCE
PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
A new machine can read your mind
and translate your thoughts p22
An artist’s
impression of
ALIEN LIFE the surface of

WHO’S LISTENING?
a planet near
Barnard’s Star,
where it would
Aliens could be listening into our radio broadcasts p23 be possible
for advanced
ESO/M KORNMESSER

civilisations to
receive our radio
broadcasts

15
 DISCOVERIES

GENETICS espite their clear differences, new research

D
ABOVE Chicken’s
shows that just a few genes separate the

A GENE NAMED AFTER feet showing how

those with the Shh
gene switched on
growth of scales from feathers in animals,
and it all has to do with a gene named after

SONIC THE HEDGEHOG developed feathers

ABOVE RIGHT
Sonic the Hedgehog.
Appendages from the skin such as hair, feathers
and scales are common and diverse across mammals,

IS ALL THAT Feather bud

development was
evident on the
and they’re all created when skin cells harden in
the necessary areas of the body. It’s a certain cluster

SEPARATES SCALES of genes that influence this hardening – one of the

UNIGE/COOPER & MILINKOVITCH X2, ALAMY

chicken embryos as
early as 11 days into most impor ta nt being t he Sonic Hedgehog gene
their development (or the Shh gene).

FROM FEATHERS I n a recent experiment, a tea m led by Michel

Milinkovitch – a professor in the Department of
Genetics and Evolution at the University of Geneva
A recent discovery shows that changes in – investigated the potential role of the Shh pathway.
an unusually named gene can turn The Shh gene controls the signalling pathway: a
a scaly animal into a feathered one communication system that allows the transmission
of messages between cells. The signalling pathway

16
 DISCOVERIES

Why ‘Sonic the

Hedgehog’?
We’re not telling you to be quiet: Shh
is short for Sonic Hedgehog gene. The
name came from Dr Robert Riddle, who
wanted to break the mould when the other
developmental biologists in his lab at
Harvard Medical School decided to name
each newly detected gene after a (real)
species of hedgehog. The three previous
to Shh were named Indian hedgehog,
moonrat hedgehog and desert hedgehog.

“Hair, scales and “We used the classic technique of ‘egg candling’,
in which a powerful torch illuminates blood vessels

feathers are similar on the inside of the eggshell,” said Rory Cooper, a
post-doctoral researcher in Milinkovitch’s laboratory

structures inherited and co-author of the study.

“This allowed us to precisely treat chicken embryos
with a molecule that specifically activates the Shh
from a reptilian pathway, injected directly into the bloodstream”.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances,
ancestor” follows prev ious work f rom Milin kov itch’s lab
demonst rating that hair, scales and feathers are
similar structures inherited from a reptilian ancestor.
‘‘Our results indicate that an evolutionary leap
also helps to build skin appendages and the neural – from scales to feathers – does not require large
tube (the early stages of the brain and spine). cha nges in genome composit ion or expression.
The researchers found that, by activating the Shh Instead, a transient change in expression of one gene,
pathway in chicken embyros, they were able to trigger Shh, can produce a cascade of developmental events
the formation of feathers on the chickens’ feet, where leading to the formation of feathers instead of scales,’’
there would normally be scales. said Milinkovitch.

17
 DISCOVERIES

PALAEONTOLOGY

BREAKTHROUGH STUDY REVEALS HOW

SUPER-MASSIVE DINOSAURS GOT SO BIG
The sauropods were the largest animals to ever walk on Earth. A new study explains how they got that way

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, SHUTTERSTOCK, TODD OSBOURNE

B
ack when our ancestors were just rat-sized animals ever to walk the Earth,” Dr Michael D’Emic, ABOVE
creatures crawling along the f loors of an associate biology professor at Adelphi University, Brachiosaurus
prehistoric forests, super-giant sauropod told BBC Science Focus. “Instead, it seems that it was (centre) was the
dinosaurs browsed the treetops. But how, ‘right place, right time, right circumstances’.” largest sauropod,
and the largest-
and when, did they get so big? Rather than each species changing its size a couple of
ever land animal
Palaeontologists at Adelphi University, in the US, times throughout its evolution, D’Emic discovered that
have figured out that they reached their exceptional individual species of large sauropod species actually ABOVE RIGHT
sizes in order to fill the available niches, and that evolved as many as 36 times over 100 million years. A giant sauropod
they managed it by evolving many more times than D’Emic, whose study was published in Current footprint is visible
previously thought. Biology, was able to calculate this by estimating the on a rock, with a
“There is no one key factor, event or evolutionary body mass of around 200 sauropod species based on human foot
for comparison
innovation that led to sauropods becoming the largest their limb dimensions, before mapping these masses

18
 DISCOVERIES

GENETICS

YOUR DNA IS TURNING UP IN

PLACES YOU LEAST EXPECT IT
A new study reveals human DNA can be retrieved from
almost anywhere and be used to identify you

W
e leave genetic traces of ourselves everywhere
we go, through dropping dead skin and hair,
sneezing and coughing, or flushing the toilet
after we’ve used it. Now, scientists from the
University of Florida found have discovered
that not only can these DNA traces be retrieved from
land, sea and air, but also that they’re strong enough to be
matched to individuals. The scientists found human DNA
almost everywhere – in oceans and rivers, and buried in
the sand of beaches.
“We can’t just ignore that
“The biggest there’s all of this human data
potentially being accumulated,”
sauropods evolved said Dr David Duffy, an assistant
professor of wildlife disease
to be over 30m genomics and co-author of
the study that reported these

and weigh as findings. Given the privacy

implications of this, he thinks
policymakers and scientists
much as 60 tonnes need to figure out and implement
precautions and safeguards
(about 15 average for collecting and handling
material of this nature.

African elephants)” According to Duffy, the DNA

samples they found allow the
same level of advanced study as
onto the group’s evolutionary tree. The study reveals ABOVE DNA taken directly from individuals. “What was surprising
that with each new sauropod family that emerged, at DNA traces was the quantity and quality,” he said.
least one lineage independently became super-giant. that could be The study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution
used to identify
The first sauropods were about six metres long reveals that this is such high-quality DNA that the
an individual
and weighed around 800kg (about the same weight could be scientists would have been able to sequence it to identify
as an average rhino). The biggest evolved to be over collected from the owner’s genetic ancestry, or detect mutations linked
30m, like the iconic long-necked brachiosaurus, and the sea to genetic diseases like autism and diabetes.
weigh as much as 60 tonnes (about 15 average African They only sequenced the DNA of volunteers who had
elephants). To make a comparison, that’s equivalent consented. While investigations will often share a study’s
to humans evolving to become five times taller, findings, in this case that would mean sharing sensitive
or 75 times heavier. information about specific individuals. The authors
“People tend to think of mammals as more advanced warn that, in the future, this could enable the tracking
than dinosaurs in an evolutionary sense – after all, of individuals or ethnic groups through the environment.
dinosaurs are a symbol of extinction,” said D’Emic. “So The study highlights a need for policymakers to tackle
it’s ironic that it is the more ‘reptilian’ characteristics issues of consent and privacy when it comes to recording
of sauropods [such as laying large numbers of eggs to the biological material fragments found in ecosystems
increase the chances of their offsprings’ survival], that called environmental DNA (e-DNA). “This collection
likely allowed them to become the largest animals ever of human e-DNA is an issue that’s going to grow over
to walk on land.” time,” said Duffy.

19
 Scientists used a not-so-subtle
device to monitor the neural signals in
goldfishes’ brains. Can you spot it?

NEUROSCIENCE

CYBORG FISH SHOWS SCIENTISTS

HOW BRAINS HANDLE NAVIGATION
Researchers finally explain how fish learn and remember their environment…
despite their reputation for having a bad memory

o, this isn’t the aquatic version the team identify boundary vector cells, The next step for t he tea m will be

N of Royal Ascot. The hat-wearing

goldfish pictured here is actually
one of the stars in a new study
explaining how the fish navigate in water
– somet hing we haven’t been able to
which respond to an animal’s direction
and distance from a boundary, and are
similar to those found in rats – suggesting
that mammals share some navigational
tools with fish.
sending cyborg fish into the semi-natural
environment of a pond. Here, the team
will track the neuron activity of the fish
while they interact with other fish in a
larger environment.
understand, until now. But, unlike land-based mammals, the According to Segev, the other fish aren’t
This “cyborg fish”, as Prof Ronen Segev, goldfish’s boundary vector cells allow it too bothered by the ‘hat-wearing’ cyborgs.
a neuroscientist at Israel’s Ben-Gurion to move in 3D environments. Humans “They don’t seem to care. We initially
University, calls it, was one of several don’t live in a flat, 2D world but, unlike thought the device might weaken the fish
LEAR COHEN, LUIS FELIPE GUANDALIN ZAGATTO

used in the study. “Studying fish presents terrestrial creatures, fish must navigate and that it might be attacked by others but
a real opportunity for brain science,” horizontally, diagonally and vertically. it didn’t happen.”
Segev told BBC Science Focus and it’s all So what’s actually in the hat? What He adds: “Fish are extremely important
thanks to that hat. looks like a stack of luggage is actually for the environment – so it’s vital that
For t he study, published in PLOS electronics that capture the neural signal, we understa nd t heir physiology a nd
Biology, the team Segev was part of used amplify it and then store it on a memory the how they behave. [Studying their]
recording devices to measure a neuron in chip. The team then uses that data to navigation helps us learn about the fishes’
a part of the fish’s brain that is associated plot the fish’s neuron activity against its understanding, learning and memory,
with navigation. Recording the fish as it motion, as detected by a camera in front which is why it’s such an important aspect
swam along channels in a tank helped of the tank. of behaviour and brain science.”

20
 DISCOVERIES

CONSERVATION

DARK EARTH: SCIENTISTS

UNVEIL A NEW ‘SECRET WEAPON’
TO COMBAT DEFORESTATION
Ancient soil from the heart of the Amazon could help
restore the planet’s depleted rainforests

S
cientists may be able to protect across the globe. But the researchers
the future of the world’s forests won’t be sending out the soil itself:
by using remnants from the “Amazonian Dark Earth has taken
past, in the form of a thick, thousands of years to accumulate and
black soil buried deep in the Amazon would take an equal time to regenerate
rainforest. It’s called ‘Dark Earth’. in nature if used,” said senior author
Tra nsformed f rom poor-quality Prof Siu Mui Tsai.
soil by centuries of deposits f rom “Our recommendations aren’t to
indigenous peoples, Dark Earth could utilise the Amazonian Dark Earth itself
now be the ‘secret weapon’ we need but rather to copy its characteristics,
to restore forests across the globe, particularly its micro-organisms, for
according to a new study from the future ecological restoration projects.”
University of São Paulo, Brazil. The The study, published in Frontiers In
scientists found that tree species grow Soil Science, involved conducting micro-
as much as six times taller in Dark reforestation
Earth than in normal soil. experiments.
Amazonian Dark Earth (or ADE) The scientists
comprises ancient sediments of day- used Da rk Amazon
to-day life, including charcoal from Ea r t h f rom t he rainforest
fires for cooking and burning waste, Brazilian state of
animal bones, broken pottery, compost Amazonas, normal
in numbers
and manure. These were created by agricultural soil
millions of Amerindian people between f rom São Paulo, 6.7m
450 BC and AD 950. a nd a mixture The rainforest covers an
The charcoal is particularly good containing 20 per area of 6.7 million km2
for making the soil fertile and nutrient- cent Amazonian
rich, as well as providing its distinctive Dark Earth.
black colour. Crucially, the soil also They discovered
contains a n abunda nt microbial
community of helpful bacteria and
t hat t he pla nts
they grew were up
18%
The amount of the Amazon
archaea (another type of single-celled to 6.3 times taller lost since the 1970s
micro-organism). in Da rk Ea r t h
“Microbes transform chemical soil t ha n in normal
particles into nutrients that can be
taken up by plants,” explains the study’s
soil. One of t he
species, Ambay
2 million
joint lead author Anderson Santos de pumpwood (a n The Amazon is home
Freitas. Dark Earth’s combination of important species to over 2 million
micro-organisms is especially good at in young forests) indigenous people
unlocking more resources than usual did not grow at
to help plants grow. all in the normal
Knowing t he combination of
ingredients that make Dark Earth so
or even
combination soil
t he
150+ bn
fertile will help the researchers share but thrived in the The amount of carbon,
the recipe with reforestation projects Dark Earth. in tonnes, stored in the
Amazon’s forests and soils

21
 DISCOVERIES

What does
this mean for
brain privacy?

For many, the prospect

of a machine that reads
thoughts sets alarm bells
ringing. But the
researchers stressed that
the current model can only
be used on the individuals
it has been trained on. It
also needs a participant’s
cooperation to work, as the
study found that
participants could resist
being ‘decoded’. They
called this process
“sabotaging the decoder”
and it involved
participants performing
simple tasks (counting,
naming animals or telling
their own story) to
‘distract’ the decoder from
other thoughts.
Future technology may
be able to get around this
and, to that end, the
researchers highlighted
the importance of
researching privacy
implications. “While this
NEUROSCIENCE
technology is in its infancy,

THIS MACHINE CAN READ YOUR MIND AND it’s important to regulate
what brain data can and

TRANSLATE HOW YOU SEE THE WORLD cannot be used for,” says
Jerry Tang. “It’s important
to make sure that the
Neurotechnologists have developed a decoder that can reconstruct decoder’s capabilities
what you’re seeing, thinking and imagining… and put it into words aren’t misrepresented.”

A
machine that reads your “We’re decoding something that’s deeper “Speech impairments can be highly
thoughts is now more science fact than language,” said Alexander Huth, an debilitating,” said co-author Jerry Tang,
than science fiction, following assistant professor of neuroscience at UT a graduate student at UT Austin. “Providing
a breakthrough discovery by Austin. The decoder can grasp the intangible some sort of additional communication
neurotechnologists at the University of – the various shapes our thoughts take – and channel could be really valuable.”
Texas at Austin (UT Austin). turn them into something understandable The machine is discussed in a paper,
The machine doesn’t require its subject to and, crucially, communicable. published in Nature Neuroscience, and is
be wired up with implants and electrodes. This means that the person who is having said to work by combining well-established
Instead, the ‘decoder’ is non-invasive, using their mind ‘read’ doesn’t have to say what decoding methods with modern machine
functional magnetic resonance imaging they’re thinking. For those who have lost learning techniques. Essentially, it works
(fMRI) to measure the changes in blood the ability to speak – following a stroke, in a similar way to the AI tool ChatGPT,
ALAMY X2

flow around the subject’s brain to translate for example – the decoder could restore by predicting the ends of sentences based
their ideas into words. communication channels non-invasively. on what has been learnt before.

22
 DISCOVERIES

ALIEN LIFE
potentially habitable planets), HD 95735
ALIENS COULD SOON DETECT LIFE ON and Alpha Centauri A.
The resea rchers behind t he study

EARTH, ALL THANKS TO OUR claim that most alien civilisations are
likely to have more sensitive signal

MOBILE PHONE MASTS detection technology than ours. Also,

as our broadband systems become more
powerful, our detectability is likely to
Only aliens with more advanced technology than us would increase further.
be able to ‘eavesdrop’ on the signals transmitted on Earth. While television transmission leakage
But apparently that’s more likely than you might think has weakened since the advent of cable
and internet TV, Earth’s ‘radio leakage
signature’ now consists of strong mobile
radio signals as well as radar, digital

W
hile we search for signs of “I believe that there’s every chance broadcast systems, Wi-Fi networks and
life beyond Ea r t h, radio advanced civilisations are out there, and recently launched satellite constellations.
signals ‘lea ked’ f rom our some may be capable of observing the Despite claims that Earth has been getting
mobile phone towers could human-made radio leakage coming from increasingly ‘radio quiet’, the study’s project
be helping extra-terrestrials find us. Earth,” says Dr Nalini Heeralall-Issur, leader Prof Mike Garrett from the University
According to a new study, these radio a physicist from the University of Mauritius of Manchester said that “the integrated
signals are not currently strong enough and co-author of the study. spectrum of billions of these devices
on their own to be detectable by alien Published in the Monthly Notices of the is substantial.”
civilisations – assuming they’re using Royal Astronomical Society, the study used Simulating the detectability of TV and
the same technology as we are to find data from mobile phone towers to simulate digital broadcast system signals will be the
them. But if these civilisations have more the signal leakage that could be detected next step for the researchers. According
advanced technology, and are looking from nearby stars, if the civilisations there to Garrett, “Earth is already anomalously
at radiation f rom additional sources had detection technology equivalent to bright in the radio part of the spectrum.
(such as Wi-Fi networks), we could soon the USA’s Green Bank Telescope. Among If the trend continues, we could become
be discovered by extra terrestrials in them were Barnard’s Star (in a system readily detectable by a ny adva nced
nearby star systems. six light-years from Earth that contains civilisation with the right technology.

The Green Bank

Telescope, USA. If
aliens around six
light-years away
had a device like
this, they may well
be able to detect
the signals leaking
from our mobile
phone towers

23
 DISCOVERIES

THE FUTURE’S
BRIGHT…
As a remedy for all the bad news out
A NEW ERA FOR ALZHEIMER’S
TREATMENTS
Two new drugs that slow the
there, let us prescribe you a small progression of Alzheimer’s have
dose of feel-good science. Each been developed. The latest – a
issue, we’ll give you a rundown of drug called donanemab created
by the company Eli Lilly – has
the latest breakthroughs that aim to been reported to slow the pace
solve humanity’s biggest problems. of Alzheimer’s by about a third. It
works by clearing amyloid beta–
From virtual reality devices that a sticky substance that forms a
could help amnesia sufferers to fuels plaque in the brains of people
made via photosynthesis, here you’ll with Alzheimer’s disease. Those
given the drug were able to live
find many reasons to feel hopeful ‘normal’ lives for longer, continuing
about our future… activities like driving, pursuing
hobbies, or discussing current
events. Before the drug can see
widescale use, however, Eli Lilly
needs to reduce the drug’s side
effect of brain swelling.

YEARS TO GO

DRIVING ON SUNSHINE WITH PHOTOSYNTHESIS FUEL

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have worked
out how to harness sunshine to create fuel using artificial
leaves. Just like the natural process of photosynthesis,
the solar-powered technology converts carbon dioxide
and water into a liquid – bioethanol – than can be
added directly to a car’s engine. The technology is still
at laboratory scale and needs to be made more efficient
but it could be an important step in moving away from
fossil fuels. A cleaner alternative to petrol, solar fuels also
produce net zero carbon emissions and don’t require large
tracts of land to grow crops, unlike most biofuels.

POTENTIAL ANTIDOTE FOR DEATH CAP MUSHROOM POISONING

Foragers, rejoice. A substance found to reduce the toxicity of the
death cap mushroom has been approved by the US Food and Drug
Administration for use in human cell lines and mice. Death caps are
the world’s most poisonous mushroom, responsible for over 90 per
cent of deaths by mushroom poisoning around the world. Alpha-
amanitin, the toxin produced by the death cap, causes irreparable
liver and kidney damage but until now, there have been no antidotes.
A research team at Sun Yat-sen University, China used genome-wide
CRISPR screening (a gene-editing technique) to test a substance called
indocyanine green as an antidote and found that it increased the
probability of survival in human cell lines and mice. The next steps
will be assessing the indocyanine green’s safety for use in humans.

24
 DISCOVERIES

AN EARLY-WARNING SYSTEM FOR SOLAR STORMS

Scientists at the University of Reading have found
that satellite data that’s returned to Earth rapidly
could improve the accuracy of solar wind forecasts
by almost 50 per cent. Solar storms can cause
blackouts, damage GPS signals and harm human
health but we can prepare for them with enough
warning. Current forecasts are based on several-
day-old observations due to the processing time
but the researchers found that forecasts produced
using near-real-time data still produced reliable
predictions. This technique could be used in
upcoming space missions such as the European
Space Agency’s Vigil mission (set to launch in the
mid-2020s) to monitor hazardous solar activity.

A FOURTH DIMENSION
TO VIRTUAL REALITY
A new, wearable virtual reality
(VR) interface that allows users
to smell odours could be used to THE SWEATY FUTURE OF
augment video games and create HEALTH MONITORING IS HERE
four-dimensional films. Researchers Introducing the ‘sweatainer’:
from Beihang University, China and a 3D-printed, wearable sweat
GETTY IMAGES X3, MOTIAR RAHAMAN, NASA/SOHO, ROXANNE KATE BALANAY/TYLER RAY

the City University of Hong Kong sensor. But the sweatainer isn’t
demonstrated the interface with 30 anything to do with monitoring
smells, including rosemary, mojito, your workouts. Sweat can tell us
pancake and durian (below): a fruit a lot about our health, according
so smelly that it’s banned on public to the researchers who
transport in several Asian countries. developed it at the University
The interface comes in two formats: of Hawaii at Mānoa’s College
a soft mask that can generate nine of Engineering. Sweat contains
odours and one that sits under the information about dehydration
nose that can produce two. The and blood sugar levels, as well
interface could also be used to as serious conditions like cystic
help amnesia patients recall fibrosis, diabetes and heart
emotional memories. failure. The sweatainer uses
sensors to collect and analyse
sweat, and, being the first sweat
sensor that’s not single use, it
allows collection of multiple
sweat samples. These can either
be sent to lab or analysed
directly on the device – meaning
personal health monitoring
could be improved at home.

25
 DISCOVERIES

PRIMER

THE RISE OF E-FUELS

Synthetic fuels could make transport more sustainable… but at a price

T
he likes of Porsche and Ferrari The main advantage of e-fuel is
are banking on synthetic fuel that you’re not using plants but the
to ensure their cars are exempt disadvantage is that you’re using more
from the EU ban on the sale of energy and this energy still has to
new combustion engine vehicles by 2035. come from somewhere.
Synthetic fuel – or electrofuel (e-fuel) – is
a form of petrol made using hydrogen HOW DOES E-FUEL HELP TO CUT DOWN
from water and carbon from air. The CARBON EMISSIONS?
problem is the electricity that’s required If we were to use e-fuel in today’s
to extract these elements. Nevertheless, car engines, the carbon emissions
companies are already producing e-fuel that come out of the back of the
on a small scale, including some in vehicle will be the same in terms of
the UK. So will we see e-fuel in petrol the amount of CO2 that is, literally,
stations soon and can we, and the planet, emitted into the atmosphere. But that’s
afford to use it? We spoke to Prof Patricia not all we need to think about when
Thornley, Director of the Energy and we think about carbon. Because if the
e-fuel production is rising in the UK
Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI) at carbon in the fuel has come from a
but commercial mass-production
#UVQP7PKXGTUKV[VQƂPFQWV renewable source – if, for example, it will need policy to back it up
has recently been extracted from the
WHAT ARE E-FUELS? atmosphere – then we’re recirculating
E-fuels are synthetic fuels. We create it back again.
them from the building blocks of We don’t need to worry that we’ve the existing fuelling infrastructure.
carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen. created a new carbon burden in the Any changes we’d need would be
You can use electrolysis to produce atmosphere as it’s the perfect circle: ‘upstream’ [at points earlier in fuel
hydrogen and you can pull the CO2 those carbon atoms that were in the production process]: if you want
out of the atmosphere by direct air air have been sucked out by direct air UKIPKƂECPVCOQWPVUQHGHWGNVJGP
capture. Combining these produces a capture, turned into a fuel and then you need to have more renewable
hydrocarbon fuel. If you get different re-released. It’s the same with biofuels electricity in the place where you’re
mixes of these molecules, then that – they both give you a low-carbon fuel going to produce the fuel. The
provides you with different fuels for that can actually help us with tackling electrical infrastructure would be the
different purposes: lighter molecules climate change. thing that has to change if we had a
are suitable for, say, an aircraft’s massive increase in e-fuel production
ignition fuel, while you’ll need heavier HOW SOON COULD E-FUELS BE AVAILABLE? in the UK. But you would also need
molecules for car or marine engines. We’re not yet at the stage where we’re electrolysis plants [where water is
producing large enough quantities separated] to produce hydrogen.
HOW ARE THEY DIFFERENT FROM BIOFUEL? of e-fuels to be able to roll them out
With biofuels (for example, ethanol commercially. Realistically, that won’t HOW MUCH WOULD E-FUEL COST?
and biodiesel) you’re growing material happen until we have an appropriate It would currently be much more
that contains carbon, hydrogen and policy measure in place. expensive than other fuels. Because
oxygen, and trying to convert it into this method of obtaining fuel from a
SHUTTERSTOCK

a liquid or gas that you can use. In WOULD PETROL STATIONS NEED TO CHANGE hydrocarbon [an organic compound
many ways, that pathway is the same TO ACCOMMODATE E-FUELS? consisting of hydrogen and carbon]
with e-fuels but it’s different in that 0Q+PVJGƂTUVRNCEGGHWGNOKOKEU uses electricity – and that process
biofuel needs land. existing fuel so we can operate in requires electrolysis units, which

26
 cost a lot. To keep the cost down, to increase the rate of the chemical ARE E-FUELS SAFE?
we can use solar energy to do the reaction], which use metals too. Absolutely. We all get on aeroplanes
electrolysis. Sunlight is free but we All the way along this production and we trust them! There’s a lot of
still need to get the cost of the solar chain, we’re using Earth’s resources. fear around the word ‘hydrogen’ –
panels down. Until we reduce the If we use them in a moderate way people think of the Hindenburg airship
cost of these units, we won’t be able VJCVoUƂPGDWVKHYGIGVFQYPVQ disaster. But we’ve come a long way
to produce much hydrogen from limited minerals that’s a problem. and the use of hydrogen is common in
electrolysis. Firstly, they’re expensive. Secondly, industrial plants globally. Of course,
they’re often in parts of the world we must put the appropriate health and
WHAT ARE THE HIDDEN COSTS? that are geopolitically unstable. And safety procedures in place but we know
It’s the life cycle cost that we need to thirdly, we could be depleting Earth’s how to and are able to do it.
be careful about. Electrolysis units natural resources to the extent that This fuel could work in many
use a fair amount of rare earth metals, it becomes unsustainable. And there vehicles – including, potentially,
or what we call ‘critical minerals’. are also social factors to consider rockets. What’s the potential for this to
We need to be sure that if we want in the countries where these are make space transport more sustainable?
to build lots of these units, then we extracted, such as mining conditions. It’s plausible because we’re taking
have enough critical minerals for Importantly, we need to make sure this those building blocks of carbon dioxide
that to still be sustainable. That’s is completely responsible. and hydrogen, so we can use chemistry
what makes the production of the E-fuels are a good idea but we need to create just about any fuel we want.
electrolysis units, and the cost of these to look at the consequences of their
fuels, expensive. And then we have life cycle and the ability of our planet PROF PAT RIC I A T HOR N L EY
to combine the hydrogen and carbon to sustainably supply the metals and Patricia develops sustainable bioenergy systems
dioxide via catalysts [using substances materials needed. at the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute.

27
 DISCOVERIES

HEALTH

SEE INSIDE THE

MOSQUITO ARENA
BUILT TO TEST HOW
THE MALARIA-
SPREADING BUGS
HUNT HUMANS
Welcome to what could be the
worst campsite ever – where
mozzies are guaranteed

A
team of scientists have built an
ice-rink-sized arena in Zambia
to investigate how mosquitoes
find humans to bite from far
away. And they’ve discovered that body
odour makes some people more attractive
than others.
The study, published in the journal
Current Biology, is one of the first to test
how the Anopheles gambia mosquitoes (the
most efficient vectors for malaria in Africa) 1
locate human hosts in a ‘real-world’ setting
rather than in a lab.
1. An aerial view of different body
Over six consecutive nights, 200 the 1,000m3 arena odour composition
mosquitoes were released into the arena, in Choma District, to the others and
Zambia . consistently
outside which six human volunteers set up avoided the
small tents. Pipes leading from the tents 2. Repurposed mosquitoes’
brought the sleeping participants’ smells air-conditioning attention.
ducting was used
onto landing pads inside the enclosed arena, to pump air from 4. Mosquitoes were
where mosquito activity was monitored each of the six released into the
tents around the netted arena each
with infrared cameras. arena – and the night and left to
In the future, the body odours of people body odours of the find the landing
sleeping volunteers pads on their own.
more attractive to mosquitoes “could within them – onto
be synthesised to develop better, more the landing pads
inside the arena.
attractive baits for mosquito traps,” said The landing pads
Alicia Showering, a doctoral candidate at were warmed to
the London School of Hygiene & Tropical human skin
temperature (35°C).
Medicine not involved in the research.
“This research has the potential to lead 3. One of the six
small tents where
to new tools in the fight against malaria,
JULIEN ADAM X4

participants slept.
which could improve the quality of life The researchers
found that one
and health outcomes in areas where the lucky volunteer
disease is most prevalent.” had a completely
 DISCOVERIES

3 4

29
 COLUMNISTS

COMMENT But when Erwin Schrödinger described the thought

experiment to Albert Einstein in 1935, he did so
WHY SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT IS to highlight an apparent consequence of quantum
theory that seemed to be complete nonsense: the

STILL THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL idea that before you open the box, the cat is both
alive and dead at the same time.
Ultimately, it comes down to the principle of
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT IN SCIENCE uncertainty in quantum mechanics. Unlike classical
mechanics (the physics of our everyday lives), in
Nearly a century after its formulation, the paradox quantum mechanics, there seems to be a fundamental
remains hotly debated among researchers uncertainty built into the nature of reality. When
you flip a coin (a classical event), it’s only ‘random’
because you can’t keep track of all the motions and
forces involved. If you could measure everything,

O
ne of the most important tools in the you could predict the outcome every time. But in
theoretical physicist’s kit is the thought the quantum mechanical version of a coin flip (the
experiment. If you study relativity, radioactive decay) nothing can tell you the outcome
quantum mechanics or any area of physics before it occurs. As far as you’re concerned, until
applying to environments or situations in which you the measurement occurs, the system will act like
cannot (or should not) place yourself, you’ll find it’s in both states at once: the atom is both decayed
that you spend a lot more time working through and not decayed, in what we call a superposition.
imaginary scenarios than setting up instruments Superposition is a real phenomenon in quantum
and taking measurements. mechanics and we can use it to our advantage.
Thought experiments pose an imaginary question Quantum computing is built on the idea that
and work through a logical, ‘if/then’ sequence a quantum computer bit (or qubit) can be in a
to explore what the theory really means. Asking superposition of one and zero, instead of just one
“what has to happen if the theory is true?” is vital or zero, massively increasing the computer’s ability
for developing intuition and anticipating new to do many complex calculations at once.
applications. In some cases, a thought experiment In the case of Schrödinger’s Cat, the apparently
can reveal the deep philosophical implications absurd conclusion that the cat is both alive and
of a theory or even present what appears to be an dead comes from considering the whole apparatus
unsolvable paradox. (the atom, the device, the vial and the cat) to be
Probably the most famous thought experiment a single quantum system, each element of which
is Schrödinger’s Cat – because it involves (purely exists in a superposition. The atom is and isn’t
hypothetical) carnage and its implications for the decayed, the device is and isn’t triggered, the vial
nature of reality in a quantum world continue to is and isn’t broken, and the cat is and isn’t alive,
challenge students and theorists everywhere. until the box is opened.
The basic (again, purely hypothetical) setup is Whether this conclusion is actually absurd is
this. Imagine you have a radioactive atom that has an open question. What Schrödinger and Einstein
a 50 per cent chance of nuclear decay in a certain concluded was that true, fundamental uncertainty
time (let’s say, an hour). You put this atom in a box cannot apply to the real world. Today, most physicists
along with a vial of poison and a device that will
break the vial if the atom decays. Then, you put a DR KATIE MACK
(@As troKatie)
accept that uncertainty is real, at least for subatomic
particles, but how that uncertainty ‘collapses’ when
live cat in the box, close the lid and wait an hour Katie is a theoretical
a measurement is made is up for debate.
before opening it again. astrophysicist. She currently In one interpretation, any measurement that’s
It’s straightforward to deduce that since the chance holds the position of Hawking performed alters reality – though it’s usually
of the atom decaying and releasing the poison is 50 Chair in Cosmology and argued that the device (or, at least, the cat) provides
Science Communication at
per cent, half the time you’ll end up with a living the Perimeter Institute for a measurement for that purpose. In another
cat and the other half you’ll find a dead one. Theoretical Physics. interpretation, the entire Universe duplicates
itself every time a quantum coin is flipped and
the measurement simply tells you whether you’re
in the dead-cat or alive-cat universe from now on.
ILLUSTRATION: MATT HOLLAND

While we can’t say how long it’ll take us to

“Before you open the box, understand what’s going on in the black box of
quantum superposition, applications of quantum

the cat is both alive and theory are already bringing us advances, such as
quantum computers. In the meantime, thought
experiments allow us to follow our curiosity, without
dead at the same time” running the risk of killing any cats.

30
COMMENT
the group – they can concentrate on seeking food
COULD DELAYING YOUR MENOPAUSE and caring for the babies of younger mothers.
There are also benefits to the individual,
BE BETTER FOR YOUR HEALTH? including the transition to a stable level of
hormones, the ceasing of periods (and the pain
The ‘change’ is a turning point in women’s lives that and bleeding that goes with them) and no concerns
we still don’t fully understand of pregnancy.
In humans, the ovaries are dormant until
puberty, like the testes. However, unlike the
testes, the ovaries are the fastest ageing tissue of
all – ageing at up to five times the rate of other

M
enopause is when the ovaries stop tissue. This is obviously significant, although
working, after which ovulation, periods we don’t yet know why. Much research is being
and the production of the hormones done on this, to understand what is happening
oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone at a cellular level and why.
ceases, and women can no longer become It could be that menopause confers biological
spontaneously pregnant. benefits we haven’t yet identified. It’s also possible
Human women are one of the few species that that evolution has made the reason for menopause
go through menopause; the only others we know irrelevant and it now fails to give us any positive
of being female short-toothed whales (belugas, effects. In other words, it could be a hangover
short-finned pilots, orcas and narwhals). Almost from our ancestors, which human evolution hasn’t
ILLUSTRATION: ELENA GALOFARO BANSH

all other animals retain the ability to reproduce caught up with. And, if that’s the case, perhaps
throughout their lifespan. we could speed up the evolution process and
Why humans are almost unique in experiencing delay menopause through medical intervention
menopause is not yet fully understood. But, in – or even prevent it altogether?
evolutionary terms, there must be a reason why Menopause also has negative effects that are
female humans have developed to stop reproducing linked to the reduction in hormones. Oestrogen
and continue to live afterwards. reduction, in particular, is known to have a
One theory is the ‘grandmother hypothesis’, which significant negative impact on longer term health,
suggests that older non-reproductive females benefit affecting bone, brain, cardiovascular and immune

32
 But even if delaying menopause was considered
“It’s also possible a good idea, how exactly would you do it?
First, we must understand what triggers
that evolution has menopause. Research by Jennifer Garrison, an
associate professor based at the Buck Institute
made the reason for for Research on Aging in California, suggests that

menopause irrelevant” menopause is initiated by signals sent from the

brain to the ovaries. Garrison and her colleagues
are exploring these signals, which involve
neuropeptides that may start the ‘switching off’
process that leads to menopause.
function, which can lead to a multitude of chronic Although many of the neural pathways in the
conditions. Women have a longer lifespan than men, brain are mapped, the communication between
but health is not maintained throughout. The leading them needs to be better understood so we can
causes of death in females in the UK are Alzheimer’s pinpoint where these signals come from, how
and other dementias, and cardiovascular disease. and when they’re sent, and what regulates them.
But these negative effects are lessened in women If this is understood, there is the potential
who go through a late menopause (defined as being to delay or switch off this signalling pathway.
after 55 years). They’re found to have better bone,
brain and heart health, and increased longevity,
Doing so would enable the ovaries to continue
to function with no decline in hormone levels, DR MICHELLE
compared to those who go through menopause
earlier. This suggests that delaying menopause could
thereby delaying – and possibly preventing – the
adverse effects on various organs in females and
GRIFFIN
Michelle is the director
have a significant beneficial impact on long-term the ageing process. of MFG Health
health. However, studies show that women with There is a growing body of work on the brain- Consulting and has
almost 20 years’
a long exposure to natural oestrogen (women who ovary pathway and the ovarian endocrine function. experience as an
go through puberty early and/or have a late onset This work is looking at addressing hormonal obstetrician,
menopause) have a higher risk of breast, uterine dysfunction such as in polycystic ovary syndrome, gynaecologist and
and ovarian cancers, which are associated with endometriosis and infertility. But its learnings clinical leader in the
NHS, Public Health
oestrogen. So, prolonged exposure to oestrogen is will significantly help our overall understanding England and the World
not without risk. of ovarian function, menopause and ageing. Health Organisation.

33
 COLUMNISTS

ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT BALMER

 COLUMNISTS

COMMENT
accomplished, competent and professional they were,
THE IDEA THAT WE ONLY USE 19th-Century scientists didn’t have the tools we have
now. Making concrete conclusions based on their

10 PER CENT OF OUR BRAINS work is akin to seeing a small child only being able
to lift 10 per cent of the weight of the weekly grocery

IS A MYTH THAT NEEDS TO DIE shop and then proclaiming that “90 per cent of every
grocery shop is mysteriously unused.”
And here’s another thing: the ‘10 per cent of the
The myth has been around for over a century and as well as brain’ myth is wrong in two ways.
being utter nonsense, it’s also potentially dangerous To be clear, 100 per cent of the brain is used… for
something. We may not know what but it’s definitely
there for a reason. However, ‘used’ means ‘activated to

I
was recently asked which scientific ‘myth’ I’d like complete a task’ and, in that sense, the idea that we use
to see banished from the public consciousness. 10 per cent of our brain is a significant overestimate.
Predictably, given the decades I’ve spent in It’s important to remember that the brain is an
neuroscience, I had to choose the persistent notion intensely resource-hungry, and very dense, organ,
that humans ‘only use 10 per cent of our brains’. meaning there’s not much room for vital blood vessels.
We’ve all heard it, the idea that everything our According to some studies, this limits our ability to
brains do on a daily basis is handled by just 10 per shunt essential resources from one part of the brain to
cent of our grey matter and the rest is… just sitting another, to the extent that we can only activate (use),
there, waiting, brimming with untapped potential. three per cent of our brain at once.
Let’s be clear, it’s complete nonsense and always It’s like the brain is a busy restaurant with 100 tables
has been. Many a scientist has pointed this out but, but only three waiting staff. The restaurant is all used,
seemingly, to no avail, as the myth keeps popping up or useable, but a maximum of only three tables can be
all the time. But here’s the thing: it’s not just a silly tended to at any one time. So, the ‘10 per cent’ myth
notion, something that leads to eye rolls and shoddy is wrong in two, opposing ways.
movie plots. It’s worse than that. You could even argue That leads to another aspect of how the ‘10 per cent
that it’s actually dangerous. of the brain’ myth is wrong: the brain is a wildly
To begin with, the origins of the myth are unclear. demanding organ. It makes up just two per cent of
Some contend that it stems from the fact that the our body weight but uses around 20 per cent of our
body’s energy, just by being alive.
As such, the brutal logic of evolution means that if
“It’s like the brain is a busy we only used 10 per cent of our brains, we’d only have
10 per cent of our brains. Because having a brain as

restaurant with 100 tables biologically demanding as ours but only using 10 per
cent of it, is like bolting a giant supercomputer onto

but only three waiting staff” your sports car just to set the clock and play MP3s.
So, the myth is wrong in a variety of ways but still
it persists. And that’s worrying, because one thing it
does do is provide a get-out-of-jail-free card to any
original staining methods that made neurons visible hack or charlatan who makes claims that depend on
under a microscope for the first time only stained ignorance, or misrepresentation, of how the brain works.
a small percentage of the densely packed-together Psychics, mediums, faith healers and others of
nerve cells. Another possible origin may be that that ilk make claims that cannot be true according
it was widely believed neurons only made up to everything we know about science. And you can
10 per cent of our brain cells, with the rest being glia, provide these people with reams of evidence that prove
‘support’ cells. More recent studies show this to be this conclusively. But if they can say “Ah, but we only
a huge oversimplification, if not just flat-out wrong. use 10 per cent of our brains, so…”
It was also assumed that glia were less ‘functional’ In essence, the ‘we only use 10 per cent of our brain’

DR DEAN than is the case.

But even though the true origins of the myth remain
myth provides a huge ‘unknown’ space in which
pseudoscientific/bogus brain-based claims can hide.
BURNETT
Neuroscientist Dean
unclear, one thing we can say for certain is that they
go back a long way. Perhaps even as far back as the
All established neuroscience lies within the 10 per
cent, so logically anything it disagrees with must be
explores the nature of 19th Century. So that’s well over a hundred years of from the 90 per cent. And the more people who accept
dreaming in his latest
neurological misinformation that’s permeated into that myth as fact, the more fertile terrain those who
book Emotional
Ignorance (£14.99, modern culture. It also reveals the dangers of forming depend on brain-based ignorance will have to exploit.
Guardian Faber). blanket conclusions based on very old research. However And that’s, you know… bad. At least I think it is.

35
 RE ALIT Y CHECK REVIEW

REALITY CHECK T H E S C I E N C E B E H I N D T H E H E A D L I N E S

Passwords | All-female missions | One meal a day

REVIEW

COMPUTER PASSWORDS: IS THERE

A BETTER WAY TO SECURE YOUR DEVICES?
Google’s new passkey software offers a biometric replacement for old-fashioned passwords. So can
we finally forget about having to remember all those sequences of numbers, letters and symbols?

36
 REVIEW RE ALIT Y CHECK

“Security experts prefer methods that perform

authentication of your identity instead of just
authentication of your device”

machine. This will then monitor your device, record

Visit the BBC’s Reality Check your passwords and send them to the fraudsters.
website at bit.ly/reality_check_ It may even be more brazen: a fraudster who sends
or follow them on Twitter a ‘scareware’ email, claiming they’ve taken over your
@BBCRealityCheck computer and that they have videos of you that they
intend to post publicly unless you give them what
they want.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH PASSWORDS?
The very first digital passwords were invented by SO PASSWORDS ARE A WEAK SPOT. DOESN’T TWO-
an MIT professor in the mid 1960s who needed to FACTOR AUTHENTICATION SOLVE THAT?
give multiple users private access to the same giant To some extent, yes. But two-factor (or multi-
computer. Passwords soon became ubiquitous in factor) authentication (2FA/MFA) still relies on you
our computers and it’s easy to see why – a simple, remembering the relevant password.
memorable word is quick and easy to input when you 2FA-enabled devices work by asking you for your
want to gain access to your computer. password before they use another method of identifying
But that’s also the problem with passwords. A simple, you – a text or email, or a request for a response via
memorable string of characters such as ‘password’ or a dedicated app. The theory is that even if hackers
‘123456’ is easy to guess, and when hackers ask their have your password, they’d still be unable to gain
computers to guess millions of passwords a second, access because they’d need your phone or computer.
even complex words and codes can be broken instantly. But 2FA is still vulnerable to hackers through
The best way to thwart this kind of hacking various methods. For example simply resetting a
is to use long passwords, as the number of password can sometimes bypass the 2FA, or hackers
BELOW Passkeys
combinations (and difficulty of guessing) increases could ‘SIM-jack’ your SIM card so that texts go to
rely on biometric
exponentially with length. For example, ‘My!_Garden_ their device instead of yours. information, such as
ShedWith13Daffodils#and17Tulips_Outside’ is your fingerprint, to
considerably harder to guess than ‘MyPa55wo2d!xxx’. SO WHAT DO THE EXPERTS RECOMMEND? grant you access to
Nevertheless, it’s recommended that you use a Security experts prefer methods that perform protected apps and
different password for every new application, so that authentication of your identity instead of just ´ devices
if one is exposed by a hacker, none of your others
will be at risk. Unfortunately, today this has become
unfeasible as everything from Netflix to your bank
requires a password – it’s not possible for us to
remember hundreds of different codes.
Our solution? We write the passwords down, often
on sticky-notes stuck to the monitor or keyboard, or
on a pad kept in a nearby desk. Alternatively, we use
password manager apps that remember everything
for us but provide a one-stop-shop for hackers.
But it’s not just physical records that make you
vulnerable. One of the most common ways for
hackers to obtain your passwords is so-called
‘social engineering’. It might be as simple as calling
a company pretending to be a new employee who
forgot their password. Or it might be a scammer who
pretends to be your bank and asks you to download
GETTY IMAGES X2

special software.
Sometimes ‘bait’ is left – a USB drive that looks as
though it contains something interesting but actually
has malware that you inadvertently install on your

37
 ANALYSIS

SPACEFLIGHT: SHOULD THE

FIRST CREW TO TRAVEL TO
MARS BE ALL-FEMALE?
A new study carried out by the European Space Agency
suggests that women may be better suited to space travel
ABOVE Two-factor authentication improves security but
is by no means foolproof

´ authenticating your device. This is where biometric

“T
hat’s one small step for man, one giant leap
passkeys come in. Biometric authentication uses special for mankind”. Neil Armstrong’s famous
sensors in your devices to measure features unique declaration tellingly illustrates that the first
to you and uses those as a passkey. generation of Moon landings were a male-
Your fingerprint, 3D facial dimensions, iris, retina and dominated affair. Perceptions back then were
palm vein can all be used. And today’s smartphones, that women simply did not have ‘the right stuff’ to
laptops and tablets are capable of reading fingerprints make it in space. This was, of course, nonsense.
and faces, so they can perform accurate biometric These days progress has been made and now the
authentication. world’s astronaut corps are much more balanced in
terms of gender. But could it be the case that females
HOW DO BIOMETRIC PASSKEYS WORK? have the edge when it comes to putting humans back
When your device knows it’s really you, then it has on the Moon, or travelling to Mars and beyond?
to send that approval securely to the application A recent study by the European Space Agency’s
demanding authentication. Passkeys provide that (ESA’s) medical team, concluded that “there may be a
mechanism. They use cryptographic security to ensure number of operational advantages to all-female crews
that data transferred between sender and recipient [for long-duration missions].” The work considered a
cannot be intercepted and deciphered. theoretical group of astronauts and made estimations
Your phone stores a private cryptographic key of the life support requirements and consumables
and releases a public key to the application. This that such a crew would require. They concluded,
enables your phone to send a private message to the not surprisingly, that because females, on average,
application that can only be read by that application are smaller and lighter than males, they would need
saying: “the biometric test has been passed.” All you less food and oxygen over the course of a mission.
needed to do is look at the phone or put your finger This is key, as getting stuff – spacecraft, robots,
on the fingerprint reader. humans and everything needed to sustain them –
into space takes large amounts of energy. The laws
AND PASSKEYS ARE BETTER BECAUSE… of physics demand that to orbit a planet, or to escape
Once we have biometrics and passkeys, we no longer its gravity and fly to another one, the stuff needs to
need passwords. And this looks like the next stage accelerate to very high speeds. The more stuff, or
in the evolution of computer security. Google has mass, you want to get into Earth orbit, or to the Moon
announced that it’s switching from passwords to or Mars, the larger the rocket you need.
passkeys, turning off passwords and 2FA altogether So, if women are lighter, and eat less, should the first
for those users who wish to switch. crew to fly to Mars be all-female? The ESA study was
It’s a better solution for everyone: no more passwords a follow-up to an earlier paper by the same researchers
to remember, no codes sent to your phone that you have that considered a theoretical all-male crew.
to type in. And should your phone be lost or stolen, Separating the sexes, or ‘sex disaggregation’, in
it’s no problem: the authentication requires your face research is a good thing, as there are biological
or your fingerprint. So it won’t work for anyone else. differences between them, and understanding these
Like all changes, it may take some getting used to. differences results in better informed decisions. But
But adoption is likely to be a choice and given the as the journalist and author Angela Saini, who has
GETTY IMAGES, NASA/JSC

alternatives, it’s a big improvement. researched the impacts of sex-based research, says:
“There is actually no real-life ‘default’ male – every
man is different from the next, just like every woman
by DR PETER BENTLEY is. While it’s great that women have been studied, the
Peter is a computer scientist based at University College London and more important takeaway is that individual astronauts
the author of 10 Short Lessons In Artificial Intelligence And Robotics. should obviously be considered.”

38
 ANALYSIS RE ALIT Y CHECK

“Because females, on average, are smaller and

lighter than males, they would need less food
and oxygen over the course of a mission”

Getting humans to Mars and back safely is a huge ABOVE Kristina The ESA studies showed that, just as on Earth, the
challenge. A round trip would take around two years, Koch is part of the resources needed to sustain a crew when they exercise
with the crew having to endure a harsh radiation crew that will be are higher than at rest. But exercise is vital to ensure
making humanity’s
environment, as they’re bombarded by solar wind. that astronauts’ bones and muscles are strong enough
next flight to the
Also, as they got further from Earth, communication for them to function when they land.
Moon
delays would increase, with messages taking minutes HIFIm is a new exercise device invented by John
to travel one way, rendering normal conversations Kennett, director of Physical Mind London, that might
with anyone back on Earth impossible. hold the answer. Smaller and lighter than current exercise
Once on the Red Planet, after nine months in transit equipment, HIFIm workouts are carried out on the bench-
and living in a weightless environment, the crew like device and are based around jumping movements,
would have to be physically and mentally capable rather than running or cycling, and could revolutionise
of living on the surface of Mars before making the in-space exercise programmes.
return trip home. Solving the challenges of keeping Kennett says: “ESA has proven jumping just four
astronauts safe and well will require a staggering to six minutes a day mitigates the effects of being in
number of considerations. microgravity. This means that HIFIm could reduce the ´

39
 COMMENT

ONE MEAL A DAY: COULD

IT WORK FOR WEIGHT LOSS?
Is eating just once a day the secret to staying
trim or is it just restrictive eating?
ABOVE Astronauts need a wide range of skills, including the
ability to work well as part of a team

´ time astronauts need to exercise by over 80 per cent.” ociety has an ongoing fascination with
So using the new device could also reduce the resources
the astronauts need and lessen the payload any rocket
would have to carry.
As well as staying fit and healthy individually, any
crew must also function well collectively. While humans
haven’t yet travelled to Mars, research has been carried
S the constantly shifting trends in celebrity
diets. The one meal a day (or OMAD) diet
is one such trend, reportedly championed
by the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay
frontman Chris Martin, football pundit Gary Lineker
and even the prime minister, Rishi Sunak. But does
out into how people function in confined, isolated the science back up the claims?
environments for long periods of time and it shows that OMAD is an extreme fasting diet. As the name
a diverse crew is key to success. suggests it involves eating just one big meal a day,
Susan Charlesworth, director of Oxford Human with fasting, or very minimal eating, in between.
Performance, and a specialist in human factors for The key focus of this kind of diet is weight control
space missions, says: “Men and women often have and simplicity.
different, complementary leadership and conf lict There are many celebrity anecdotes surrounding
management styles that temper one another, leading to OMAD and from an evolutionary point of view, it
better cohesion over extended periods. A crew that is can seem reasonable to suggest that human biology
diverse in many characteristics maximises its likelihood of is better suited to less frequent meals. This theory
successful teamworking.” is based on our ancestors often experiencing cycles
Overcoming these extreme environments and challenges of feasting and fasting rather than the relatively
is also part of why human spaceflight can be inspirational modern construct of three meals a day. But while
to so many people, and the first mission to Mars will fasting itself isn’t new, the research on its health
surely captivate imaginations. In order for it to reach the impacts is still in its infancy and there are very few
widest possible audience, however, inclusivity is vital. studies on OMAD and the evidence supporting other
Saini says: “One of the mistakes of earlier eras was more periodic types of fasting can’t necessarily be
to assume that all women were incapable of going into extrapolated into extreme fasting.
space. It would be just as damaging to assume that all One trial exists on OMAD, where participants
men were unsuitable. I would hate for young boys to ate either one meal a day or three meals per day,
feel they couldn’t dream of being astronauts, just as I with their calorie intakes tailored to theoretically
hate that young girls were ever made to feel that way.” maintain their current weight. When on one meal
Space agencies spend a lot of time and effort selecting per day they reduced body weight and fat levels,
their astronauts, finding people with the right mix of and displayed features of “metabolic flexibility”
skill and personality needed to thrive in space. These (changes in measures of how fats and carbohydrates
astronauts are then carefully combined into crews, taking are metabolised). But participants also experienced
account of the specific demands of any given mission. a loss of muscle and bone mass. This highlights that
The first journey to Mars will be risky, arduous a focus on weight loss alone can miss the potential
and daunting. The crew that take that step will be downsides of this kind of diet.
painstakingly chosen and will most certainly have the Importantly, the results of this study can’t be applied
right stuff to undertake what will be a monumental leap to everyone. Only relatively healthy people were
for humankind, whatever their gender. included and no one with obesity, cardiovascular
disease, diabetes, mental disorders, eating disorders or
GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY

other metabolic conditions was allowed to participate.

b y L I B B Y J A C K S O N (@LibbyJackson__) Furthermore, the trial was small and short, with
Libby is an expert on spaceflight and author of Space just 11 participants following the diet for 11 days.
Explorers: 25 Extraordinary Stories Of Space One of the claims made by supporters of OMAD
Exploration And Adventure and other fasting diets is that you can eat whatever

40
 COMMENT RE ALIT Y CHECK

“Celebrity lifestyles are enticing but this is precisely because

they’re so unlike our own”

alcohol intake, physical activity, energy intake, food

insecurity, snacking habits and health at the start of
the study were taken into account.
It’s also important to consider the other roles
that food plays in our lives. Food is more than just
calories and nutrition. It’s part of our culture, society,
celebrations and enjoyment of life. The social and
emotional consequences of OMAD have not been
documented but there is data showing that restrictive
diets can have significant psychological consequences.
Repor ting on celebrity t rends is pa r t of how
pseudoscience and fake news spread in the health
and beauty industry. There may be limited resources
to f ully fact-check the articles and few details
mentioned of how stringently celebrities are truly
following these diets. Plus, their true health, beyond
their appearance, isn’t k nown. Remember: any
information is being shared selectively and facts can
be omitted for the sake of the story. As long as stories
on celebrity diets remain a good source of ‘clicks’,
they’ll be fraught with clickbait – and extremes like
OMAD give us just that.
The average person considering OMAD, or any other
celebrity diet, does not have the same luxuries and
support structures that celebrities do: the nutritionists,
you want for the one meal you are eating each ABOVE the nannies and the other assorted assistants, for
day. But if all nutrients for good health are to be Cramming all example. So, we don’t all have the same capacity to
obtained in just one meal, it needs to be nutrient the nutrients deal with the potential side effects that come with
dense and balanced to ensure you get a sufficient necessary for extreme fasting, which can include nausea, dizziness,
good health into
intake of fibre, protein, vitamins and minerals. low energy, irritability and constipation. Celebrity
a single – tasty
Supplements may help avoid nutritional deficits but and manageable
lifestyles are enticing but this is precisely because
they lack the complexity of foods, which means other – meal is difficult they’re so unlike our own.
healthy essentials, such as bioactive compounds, Celebrities give us many great things, like films,
may be missed. This means there may be longer-term music, art and sports, but they’re not the most
consequences for bone, digestive and other elements of reliable source of nutrition information. Instead,
your health, despite the easy-to-measure and instantly official dietary guidelines, based on the complete
gratifying weight loss. body of nutrition science knowledge should be used
Indeed, when meal frequency has been studied in for general advice, and qualified health professionals
larger groups (over 24,000 people) for longer periods such as dietitians should be consulted for your
(about 15 years), eating just one meal a day was individual needs.
linked to a higher risk of death from any cause, and
from cardiovascular diseases. Observational studies byDR EMMA BECKET
like this can’t show the cause of the relationship but Emma is a senior lecturer in the School of Environmental & Life
the results were found even when factors like age, Sciences at the University of Newcastle (Central Coast) and senior
gender, race, ethnicity, education, income, smoking, food & nutrition scientist at Nutrition Research Australia
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 INNOVATIONS

PREPARE YOURSELF FOR TOMORROW

INTERVIEW REVIEW NEW TECH

AI ART SMART DOORBELLS IDEAS WE LIKE
Computers: devices for creation Looking to add some extra security Our pick of this month’s greatest
or creative devices? p44 to your chime? p46 new gadgets p48

Can you tell a

human-made piece
of art from
AI-generated art?
The clues are in the
details p44

22% $2.7 bn
SHUTTERSTOCK

OF PEOPLE WITH A SMART

DOORBELL SAID THEY 1/5 OF BRITS HAVE A
BOUGHT IT FOR A GREATER SMART VIDEO
SENSE OF SECURITY DOORBELL
THE CURRENT VALUE OF THE SMART DOORBELL MARKET

43
 INNOVATIONS

INTERVIEW

AI art is everywhere but it can never

compete with human creativity
Alex Hughes speaks to Prof Ahmed Elgammal, an expert in artificial
intelligence to learn more about the rise of art made by AI

A
s artificial intelligence (AI) improves, artists was being generated. This worked by training the
are finding themselves in unprecedented model on lots of images and their accompanying
territory. Realistic images are being made text caption to understand how the words relate
in seconds; millions of them are created to the images. So in an image of a bird on a tree,
each day; and the images are being entered into the AI guesses where the tree and bird are and
and winning art competitions. But none of them the network tells it if it’s correct. By doing that for
are being made by humans. billions of images, the AI figures out what words
We spoke to Ahmed Elgammal a professor of relate to what images.
computer science at Rutgers University to find out
about the rise of AI art and what it means for human WHY DO THESE AI MODELS STRUGGLE WITH
creativity in the digital era. COMPLICATED SHAPES?
These AIs do struggle with small details. They’ll
HOW DO AI IMAGE GENERATORS WORK? have a hard time generating something small
Five years ago, there was an advancement in because they’re trained to optimise through lost
AI known as Generative Adversarial Networks function, which is a criteria that encourages it to
(GANs). It took images and tried to generate similar optimise a whole image, trying to get the majority
results. Give it images of cats and it would return of it correct. The AI neglects the small details that
completely new versions to match. This was we, as humans, are tuned to catch – a hand with
revolutionary and many artists started using it. four fingers or a three-legged person, for example.
Then came a newer generation that used text to To the AI, there’s no difference between this and
generate images to give more control over what any other small details in the background.

Asking an AI for
‘impressionist
water lilies’ leaves
a lot of room for
interpretation

Not quite Monet’s

water lilies, but
close enough to
make the
intention clear

44
 INNOVATIONS

THERE AREN’T MANY LAWS IN THIS FIELD, DOES THIS

NEED TO CHANGE, ESPECIALLY AROUND COPYRIGHT?
The copyright problem comes with the current
generation of imagery tools that are mainly trained
on billions of images. However, this wasn’t an
issue a couple of years ago, when artists used
to have to use AI through certain models that
were trained using the artist’s own images. The
copyright issue comes with the use of millions of
images taken from the internet without consent of
the artist. The problem is, while it is unethical,
it isn’t necessarily breaking any copyright laws.
It’s making transformative versions of the image,
not a direct derivative so under any copyright law
this would not be a problem. We’re going to have
to remind everybody that this is not the way it’s
supposed to be. You can use AI with your own
images, without stealing other people’s work.

CAN AI LEARN THE CREATIVITY AND EMOTION

REQUIRED TO MAKE GREAT ART?
AIs can produce The current generation of AI is limited to copying
photo-realistic the work of humans. It must be controlled largely
images (see p43) as by people to create something useful. It’s a great
well as more tool but not something that can be creative itself.
interpretative We must be conscious about what’s happening
HOW MUCH ENERGY DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE THESE results in the world and have an opinion to create real
SORTS OF IMAGES? art. The AIs simply doen’t have this. A couple
The training process for these models requires of years ago, we used AI in a project to generate
a lot of energy. You need to run them on graphical Beethoven’s 10th Symphony. We trained these AIs
processing units (GPUs) for weeks while they on lots of classical music and then they looked at
process billions of images. And after that you the sketches that Beethoven left for the symphony
t hen need to rew r ite t hem ma ny t i mes over to generate compilations of these notes. That was
in order to optimise the process. But even after a great example of AI as a tool but it uses no
training the models, they need to be running creativity. This is what is happening in the world
constantly on a GPU with millions of processors right now with AI. It’s a creative process that’s
and these are very energy consuming devices. mainly human and AI is following the rules to
Having them running for the lengths of time generate content for them.
required has a significant energy consumption

“AI NEGLECTS THE SMALL DETAILS THAT WE,

and environmental impacts.

THESE MODELS LEARN FROM THE INTERNET AND

SUFFER FROM THE BIASES AND MISINFORMATION
THEY LEARN THERE. SHOULD THERE BE A DESIGNATED AS HUMANS, ARE TRAINED TO CATCH,
A HAND WITH FOUR FINGERS, FOR EXAMPLE”
LIST OF INFORMATION, OR SHOULD THE AIS HAVE
ACCESS TO EVERYTHING?
How can we control the data given to an AI? There
are different opinions on everything from politics
to religion, lifestyle and everything in-between. IS AI JUST THE LATEST ART MOVEMENT, SIMILAR TO
We can’t censor the data it’s given to support IMPRESSIONISM OR MODERNISM?
certain voices. The AI naturally must ref lect In the last five years we have seen this movement,
all opinions and viewpoints in the world. This but I think it has ended really. The early artists
w ill come w it h a lot of m isinfor mat ion but had specific aesthetics in their work that were
that is the world we live in. The same way we uncanny and unhuman like. It had a specific look
look at feeds in socia l media. You f ilter out and style, but I think now it’s all becoming more
SHUTTERSTOCK IMAGES X3

or guess that this is false information, or this photorealistic. Very good for realistic images but
is true information. Right now, AI has no way it’s lost this ability to be surprising and uncanny
to tell fact f rom f ict ion, ever y t h ing is just and have the surreal effects. I think that era has
words and once we sta rt talking about facts, gone. It’s more of a tool for everybody to generate
that’s a big problem. What are the correct facts a photo-realistic image, a graphic design and logo,
and opinions? not a unique piece of art.

45
 INNOVATIONS

Five of the best video doorbells

These devices promise to revolutionise the way you collect packages, keep
your home safe and even how you interact with your postie and friends. The
BBC Science Focus team picks their faves

Ring Video Doorbell 4 audio and video both you go away. While
£139.99, en-uk.ring.com in the day and night. some of these features
There are options to are locked behind a
Ring (owned by Amazon) detect packages, leave subscription plan, the
has been making pre-recorded messages, Ring doorbell is still
doorbells for a decade interact with people at a more than capable
now and the Ring the door and even set up device without this
Doorbell 4 is its most a threat deterrent when ‘paid-for-content’.
recent model. Compared
to brands like Google
Nest or Arlo, the Ring
doorbell isn’t the most
aesthetic option, offering
as it does a purely
utilitarian design.
However, what you
lose in design, you gain
in a long list of features.
The Ring has a fantastic
battery life, lasting for
up to six months at a
time from an 8-hour
charge. Equally, the
camera produces clear

Google Nest Pro Doorbell

£179.99, Store.google.com

The Google Nest Pro stage that requires serious

Doorbell features a 145° wrangling to get it into
field-of-view, streams in position. For this reason
1600p HD-resolution video alone, it’s worth wiring
and displays footage in a into an existing door
3:4 aspect ratio, ideal for chime to save the hassle
viewing on a smartphone of wrestling it on and off
held vertically. the bracket when it comes
Although it has a very time to charge it.
slight fish-eye effect, And while it’s not
the video is crisp and the cheapest option
doesn’t glitch or lag, as on the market, you are
people move in and out compensated for the extra
of shot. Installation is, for cash by the fact that you
the most part, a piece of don’t need to shell out on
cake. It’s only the final a subscription package.
 INNOVATIONS

Eufy S330 Video If you live on a quiet

Doorbell road, or your door is far
£229, uk.eufy.com from the pavement, you’ll
likely take full advantage of
Intimidating, innovative, the S330’s best features: its
yet far from refined, Eufy’s ability to ping your phone
S330 is the Jack Bauer of when someone approaches.
video doorbells. With two But those on a busy street
wide-field cameras that may have to disable this
reveal who is knocking capability to avoid constant
at your door and whether notifications.
any packages have been Considering other niggling
left on your doorstep, this flaws, notably the lag in
device excels as a home video and audio to your
security system. But while it phone, it’s easy to gawp at
completes this core mission this doorbell’s price tag.
with ease, the S330 also But, unlike some others, you
comes with plenty of don’t need a subscription to
hidden baggage. access all features.

Arlo Essential Doorbell

£179.99, arlo.com

Simple, quick and door. The app is just as a motion sensor will
offering great picture well designed and easy detect their presence
and sound quality, this to use and Arlo says and send you a
is a solid choice for a the doorbell will run notification. Spot this
video doorbell. for six months before it quickly, and you can
The fish-eye lens needs recharging. tune into the camera’s
paired with a square It works like a button live stream and speak
picture resolution that rings your phone. to them through the
means you get a crisp, The call connection speaker.
wide field-of-view. is clear and almost Like most smart
The slim footprint completely lag-free. If doorbells some of the
and smart design will someone approaches device’s best features
make it a welcome the house without are locked behind a
addition to any front pressing the doorbell, subscription, though.

EZVIZ DB2 Doorbell EZVIZ may get in the way.

£139.99, EZVIZ.com But if security is what you’re
after, the EZVIZ offers a
The EZVIZ DB2 doorbell is wide range of features that
best for homeowners who can help you feel safer,
don’t live in busy places: including voice masking
the set-up makes it a poor as well as good audio and
choice for renters and the visual monitoring outside
sensitivity is so fine-tuned, the house.
that in a city you could be The EZVIZ DB2 sits at
alerted every time someone the lower end of the smart
walks past your door. doorbell price spectrum and
If you want a smart provides the basic services
doorbell to be able to answer well, although you’ll have
the door quickly and easily to customise the settings
when you’re not at home, to make sure it works well
the security features on the with where you live.

47
 INNOVATIONS

Ideas we like…
Our pick of the month’s smartest tech


…Headphones built to last
No matter what they’re made of,
over-ear headphones just don’t
seem to last. Through all the
drops, knocks and times they’ve
been forgotten and sat on,
every good pair of headphones
eventually ends up in
headphone heaven. Fairphone,
a brand known for its
sustainability, is looking to fix
this with the XL headphones.
All the parts are detachable
and replaceable, with parts
available to buy directly from
the brand. The XLs are made
using sustainable materials and
the good news is, they also offer
the high-end audio specs you’d
expect from £200 headphones.
Fairphone XL headphones
Shop.fairphone.com, £219
 INNOVATIONS

IDEAS WE
  DON’T LIKE...
…A drone for master filmmakers …Creating water from nothing
Got £13K lying around? The Inspire 3 Drawing water out of the atmosphere …A SMARTPHONE THAT
could fall into your budget. The third may not be anything new but that doesn’t YOU C AN’T SEE
iteration of DJI’s pro film-making drone mean this water filter isn’t interesting. As part of the barrage of
comes with a full-frame 8K camera (plus The Spout uses a six-stage filtration artificial-intelligence powered
a suite of eight additional cameras to process that can produce up to 2.5 technology, one brand has
sense its surroundings, one of which is a gallons of clean water from thin air. Its proposed a new smartphone
night-vision FPV), lighting fast movement filtration system catches contaminants experience fuelled entirely by an
AI assistant. So how will it work?
and a huge battery life. All this barely including smoke, mould spores and
Well, there won’t even be a
scratches the surface of the DJI Inspire allergens. You gain clean, drinkable phone, just a camera that scans
3 feature list. It’s essentially the perfect water but lose a lot of money paying for your environment, a speaker
film-makers toy… if you can afford it. the unit and the filters. and a projector that creates a
DJI Inspire 3 Spout Water display on your hand. It could
£13,419, store.dji.com Spoutwater.com, $799 make calls, take photos,
translate a sentence and read
emails. It’s intriguing, sure. But
like all of these concept ideas,
the end result is usually
unbelievably expensive,
excessively complicated and full
of painful quirks and problems
that will leave you wishing for a
good old smartphone.
Humane phone
£TBC, Humane.com


…A thinner foldable smartphone


Smartphone companies seem set on …A lamp but better

making foldable phones the next big Ever wanted to feel like
thing. Following in Samsung’s footsteps, you lived on a scorching
Google has released its own foldable Savannah? Or nestled
device with the big selling point being in a Japanese field of
how thin it is. It performs like a top-tier spring blossom? If you
smartphone with a powerful battery and live in one of the many
processor, takes fantastic photos and is picturesque but, let’s …A REL A XING SHOCK
COLL AR FOR HUMANS
optimised for most apps to work with be honest, grey cities of
Have you ever watched a dog get
the folding design. It’s ideal for fans of… the UK, Philips Hue is hit by a high voltage from a
folding smartphones but costs £1,749. looking to bring some shock collar and thought ‘I bet
Google Pixel Fold of the colour of these that’s relaxing!’ No? Neither have
more… vibrant locations we and yet it seems to be the
to your living room with thought process behind the
the Philips Signe. This ‘Pulsetto’. The team behind the
floor lamp can be set to Pulsetto device (above) that
a number of different sends shocks through your neck
light settings to give your to activate the parasympathetic
nervous system (a set of nerves
home a colourful theme.
that helps you relax) claims it
Or you can pair it with can reduce stress and anxiety,
your TV to match the make you calmer and help aid
colours of the TV show optimal sleep. It’s an intriguing
you’re watching. offer but somehow random
Philips Signe electric jolts throughout the day
£279.99, Philips-hue.com doesn’t sound all too peaceful.
Pulsetto
Pulsetto.tech, $389

49
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 FE ATURE PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS

WELCOME TO
THE WONDERFUL
WORLD OF
PROGRAMMABLE
MATERIALS. FROM
SELF-ASSEMBLING
STRUCTURES TO
FUTURISTIC FABRICS,
TAKE A PEEK AT THE
SHAPE OF THINGS
TO COME…
Words: HAYLEY BENNETT

ALGORITHMIC ART
Nature takes advantage of the way that
wood responds to its environment. We
see this when a pine cone falls from a tree
and its scales begin to peel open as it dries
out, allowing it to release its seeds. It’s a
result of the wood’s hygroscopicity – its
ability to take up and release moisture –
and the predictable change in shape that
it undergoes when this happens.
But such shape-shifting behaviour can
also be harnessed by humans. Based on
an in-depth understanding of how the
moisture content and grain direction of
wood affects its shape, German
architects programmed this ‘climate-
responsive’ wooden exhibit to open the
bud-like structures on its surface in
response to rising humidity levels.
The humidity inside its glass housing
at the Centre Pompidou art museum in
Paris, is tuned to reflect outdoor
conditions, so the installation acts as a
virtual connection to the city outside.
“The model opens and closes in
ICD UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART

response to climate changes with

absolutely no need for any technical
equipment or energy,” says Professor
Achim Menges, director of the University
of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational
Design and Construction. “Here, the
natural material itself is the machine.”
PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS FE ATURE

53
 FE ATURE PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS

MAGNETIC MANOEUVRES È
Stuff that sticks together in a preordained way
FLEXIBLE FLATPACK Æ
Programmable design isn’t just for space-age
could help with many self-assembly tasks here applications. We can use it in our homes too, as this
on Earth but in space, it could be really useful. second project from the University of Stuttgart and
As PhD student at the Massachusetts Institute
furniture spin-off Hylo Tech illustrates. Benefitting
of Technology, Martin Nisser (pictured below,
from the same moisture-responsive behaviour as
centre), explains, “Applications could range from
assembling structures from constituent parts the climate-responsive art exhibit (see page 52),
in orbit, to helping with docking manoeuvres, these wooden chairs are delivered in 3cm-thick
to selectively bonding objects like tools to a flatpacks but bend as they dry out to produce
spacecraft’s interior walls.” stylish, standard-height seating. It’s a new concept
Nisser’s team created ‘voxels’ – magnetic cubes in flat-pack furniture, as Prof Menges explains:
that can self-assemble, like pieces of a 3D puzzle, “One in which the shaping is embedded directly
and took them on a parabolic flight to watch them within the material itself, leading to a simple and
in zero-g. The cubes are picky, attracting only effortless assembly.”
their neighbours in the ‘puzzle’ and repelling As fresh timber has a naturally high moisture
others. This is achieved by the magnetic patterning
content, woodworkers use computer simulations to
of each cube, which is encoded in an 8 x 8 grid on
inform how they retain the right amount of moisture.
every face, meaning that the number of unique
permutations per cube reaches 20 digits. On Earth, With the correct fibre direction, they can ensure the
researchers put the voxels in water to keep them cut pieces deform perfectly as their moisture
moving to find their neighbours, but in space they content drops. The chairs are then sealed to prevent
need a push. them from ‘actuating’ before they are delivered.

STEVE BOXALL/MIT, ICD UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGART X5

54
PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS FE ATURE

55
FE ATURE PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS
PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS FE ATURE

NOT JUST
KNITTING
Knitted textiles have,
in a sense, always
been programmable
– variations in stitch
types, tension, and yarn
colour and weight can
be combined to create
different textiles with
wide-ranging functions.
Now the art of
‘computational knitting’
is opening up new
possibilities, including
textiles with
architectural features
like the peaks in this
image, by helping to
optimise the
programming of
knitting machines.
“Since each fabric
piece may contain
hundreds of thousands
of loops, programming
becomes complex,”
says PhD student Maria
Anishchenko. She
works with the Material
Balance Research
Group in Milan, Italy,
MATERIAL BALANCE RESEARCH GROUP

where researchers are

attempting to use
computer software to
3D model and preview
the results of their
knitting designs. These
can then be digitally
tested, before being
realised in yarn.

57
 FE ATURE PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS

DURAJ-THATTE ET AL, NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, MIT MEDIA LAB, FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE

LIVING INK Ç
3D printing has made it possible to translate digital
GETTING PUMPED Æ
Soft robotics have endless applications, from
designs into material objects and products that are technologies for people with limited mobility, to
printed layer by layer. But it’s not just inert plastic, more playful uses, such as interactive toys and
metal and ceramic products that can be printed. haptic technologies. But the complex programming
The tiny, jelly-like structures above were printed in they require can often slow down the realisation
microbial ink – a gel made of bacterial proteins and of these projects. That’s why Ali Shtarbanov,
seeded with genetically engineered E. coli bacteria. a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of
In this sense, it’s a living material that, through Technology Media Lab, created FlowIO – a platform
genetic modification, can be programmed with that people can use to develop soft robotics projects
useful functions like releasing drugs or cleaning with a minimal need for computer code. Users build
up harmful materials. Researchers at Harvard, and their devices using pump systems, which can be
Northeastern Universities in Boston, showed they controlled by software that’s easy to customise.
could genetically program the bugs in their bio-ink The pumps are used to raise or lower pressure
to release the anticancer drug Azurin (a bacterial within a soft material to produce an action, such
protein), when prompted by a chemical signal. It as lifting an object. Shtarbanov has even used his
could also be useful for “incorporating living cells system to produce a hand gadget that could beef up
into structural building materials”. the gripping power of people with arthritis.

58
 PROGRAMMABLE MATERIALS FE ATURE

ON REPEAT Å
One way to program a material is to alter the base
material itself, which is possible using plastics with
finely tuneable compositions. Another way is to
build them from repeating units at the microscale,
or tiny ‘cells’, like the ones in this 3D-printed
‘metamaterial’ made by researchers from six
German research institutes in the Fraunhofer
Cluster of Excellence in Programmable Materials.
The size of each cell can be controlled to form a
microstructure that reacts in a predictable way.
Pressing on a mattress made with such cells, for
example, could trigger a change in the softness of
the material, which could allow carers to adjust by H AY L E Y
mattresses to prevent bedsores in patients who can’t BENNETT
turn themselves. The possibilities for using these (@gingerbreadlady)
metamaterials extends further to pollution-trapping Hayley is a Bristol-based
filters with programmable pores. science writer and editor.

59
 FE ATURE WHALE CONSERVATION

n a calm, cold afternoon in early March,

How do you study a gigantic in Neko Harbour on the west coast of the
Antarctic Peninsula, a humpback whale is
mammal that migrates over making a series of moves that – to me, at
thousands of miles and spends the time – have no obvious purpose.
First, the humpback raises one of its
most of its time underwater? outsized pectoral fins – which can reach
Here’s how the latest tech is up to 5m in length, longer than a typical estate
car – as if asking for permission to speak in class,
shaping the future of whale before diving and resurfacing. Then it raises the fin
again, carrying on like this for another 15 minutes.
conservation Chris Johnson, oceans science manager for
by JA M E S FA I R WWF-Australia, is watching from a nearby boat
and releases a drone equipped with a video camera.
The footage transforms what appears from sea level

60
COPYRIGHT © TED GRAMBEAU 2023 INTREPID TRAVEL / UCSC / WWF. IMAGERY

to be a set of random exercises into a stunning it was making bubble-nets but what I couldn’t tell ABOVE Scientists
COLLECTED UNDER SCIENTIFIC PERMITS: NMFS #23095, ACA # 021-006.

performance as choreographed as any ballet. without the help of the drone was how small and in a small inflatable
As it turns out, the pectoral fin is being used as tight that net was,” he tells me later. “That bubble boat floating in the
vast, freezing
a rudder to steer the humpback in a tight circle net was smaller than the whale was long purely
expanse of the
while it blows a ring of bubbles. Once that’s done, because it could pivot around its flipper and you
Antarctic, hope to
it dives down and then surges up through the can see that in the video quite clearly.” spot a whale to tag,
middle of the ring, engulfing the bounty corralled film and study
by the bubbles in its cavernous mouth. The whale HERE FOR THE FOOD
is bubble-net feeding for krill, its primary food Whales – including humpbacks, blue, fin, sei and
source in Antarctica. Antarctic minke – migrate south for the Antarctic
Dr Ari Friedlaender, professor of ocean sciences spring and summer to take advantage of the fecundity
at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is also of krill that lives there, the largest biomass of any
aboard the boat and has seen this behaviour many marine species on the planet. They come because
times before. Nevertheless, the perspective provided the waters of the tropics, where they mate and give
by the drone offers exciting new insights. “I knew birth, are too warm to produce the vast amounts of ´

61
 FE ATURE WHALE CONSERVATION

´ krill the whales need (the crustaceans blubber samples to assess a whale’s stress levels and determine ABOVE The devices
not only prefer colder waters but also rely whether it’s pregnant. used to track, tag
on the algae that grows beneath the ice Research of this nature is costly but the most expensive part and film the whales
sheets for food). is getting the scientists and all their equipment to Antarctica are displayed and
When Friedlaender first came to (it’s a two-day journey by ship from Ushuaia, at the southern tip explained to people
travelling aboard
Antarctica in 1998, his task was to count of Argentina). But here Friedlaender and his colleagues have a
the Ocean Endeavour
whales. “I saw five or six,” he says. “The helping hand – instead of having to fund their own travel for
cruise ship
CXGTCIGCKTVGORGTCVWTGYCUř%DWV the 2022-23 research season, they’re the guests of an Australian
somehow it didn’t put me off. I thought it adventure tour company called Intrepid.
was the greatest place on Earth.” Intrepid provides berths and food aboard its ship, the Ocean
He has since written the textbook on Endeavour, plus the use of a small inflatable boat. In return, the
how to study whales in the Antarctic and scientists give updates each evening about their research and why
what they do there. It’s an obvious but it’s necessary. Given the reaction at the nightly meetings, it’s a
often forgotten fact that whales are hard popular addition to the standard talks about penguins and polar
to research because they live in water, explorers. Friedlaender, for his part, welcomes the opportunity
so Friedlaender has learned to exploit a to talk to an engaged audience.
range of new technologies to gain insights “We have metrics for how many people cite our publications and
into their lives. Aside from the drones that’s important. But the real impact of the science comes from
provided by the WWF, the gadgets at how many people get the message and change their behaviour
his disposal include suction-cup tags and attitudes because of it,” he says.
that record everything from a whale’s It’s not a new arrangement, and other Antarctica cruise
movements over a 24-hour period to video companies, such as Hurtigruten and Waterproof Expeditions,
footage that shows what it’s like to be one. also offer places to whale scientists but Intrepid is the only one
He also has a means of extracting skin and that has the backing of the global conservation group WWF.

62
 “WHAT WE’RE
COPYRIGHT © TED GRAMBEAU 2023 INTREPID TRAVEL / UCSC / WWF. IMAGERY COLLECTED UNDER SCIENTIFIC PERMITS: NMFS #23095, ACA # 021-006.

INTERESTED IN IS
THE TREND: ARE
WHALES GETTING
BIGGER OR
SMALLER?”
TREND SPOTTING
#UVJGVGCOoUFTQPGRKNQV%JTKU,QJPUQPoUOCKPTQNGKUVQ
get simple measurements of the whales’ lengths and widths.
Groundbreaking research published in 2020 showed that North
Atlantic right whales are much skinnier than their southern right
whale cousins. Indeed, the northern species suffers from a deadly
cocktail of human impacts that may be driving it to extinction.
While no one thinks the same thing is happening to whales in
Antarctica, the idea is to better understand how they’re faring TOP A humpback species that’s the building block of the
in the medium-to-long term. whale’s fluke can Antarctic food chain.
“What we’re really interested in is the trend: are whales getting reach widths of up The second reason is that krill is gaining
bigger or smaller? And something we’ll look at is how do we to 5.5m a reputation as a health food supplement,
take all this information to determine these trends and make it marketed by retailers as being rich in
RWDNKEN[CXCKNCDNGq,QJPUQPUC[U ABOVE The folds in omega-3 fatty acids that are good for your
the flesh on the
Whales in the Antarctic feed almost exclusively on Antarctic heart, brain and vision. It’s fed to farmed
underside of a
krill (Euphausia superba), a species of shrimp-like crustacean humpback whale’s
salmon, pumped into pet food and is even
that, while only 6cm long, lives in astonishingly dense swarms of mouth, called being investigated as a ‘super-food’ for
between 10,000-30,000 animals per m3. Krill’s biomass was once ventral pleats, allow the US military.
considered to be so great that it was inexhaustible but today the it to expand to draw %QPUGTXCVKQPKUVUCEEGRVVJCVMTKNNKU
idea of it as an infinite resource is being questioned. in huge quantities of not overexploited. There are some 380
That’s for two main reasons. The first is climate change. Krill water and krill million tonnes of it in the Southern Ocean
depend on sea ice, underneath which grows the algae that they and the total amount caught by fisheries
feed on. The Antarctic is warming faster than any part of the amounts to just 450,000 tonnes, about 0.1
planet and, as sea ice disappears, it’ll restrict the range of the per cent of what’s theoretically available. ´

63
 FE ATURE WHALE CONSERVATION

“THE WWF IS USING THIS be within range (about 5m away) when the whale breaks through
DATA TO PRESS FOR A NEW the surface of the water, at which point the scientist thrusts the
lance forward to stick the tag on to the creature’s back.
MARINE PROTECTED AREA If they’re successful, the tag will spend the next 24-48 hours
THAT COVERS THE on the whale collecting data about its movements and behaviour,
ANTARCTIC PENINSULA” before detaching and transmitting a signal that the scientists can
use to find it. Then the real science can begin.
“All baleen whales have a very strong kinematic signature,”
Friedlaender explains. “There’s a lot of motion that goes
into feeding. Their mouths are these massive things that fill
with water and when they feed, they accelerate very quickly,
open their mouths and then decelerate very quickly as the water
fills that volume.”
Accelerometers on the tag record this motion and an on-board
processor aggregates the absolute values to create what Friedlaender
calls a “jerk signal”. Video that is recorded at the same time
shows the mouth opening and closing, demonstrating that this
signal can be absolutely correlated with feeding. Friedlaender
has even teamed up with a video games editor to produce a 3D
CGI animation of this movement.
This data has revealed that humpbacks will perform up to
800 feeding lunges at the beginning of the Antarctic summer
when they first arrive and are, naturally, extremely hungry.
Thanks to a GPS capability, the tags also give precise locations
Not all of the ´ The problem isn’t how much the Southern for the whales, so Friedlaender and colleagues are beginning
Antarctic’s wildlife Ocean super trawlers are catching – not to understand where they’re feeding, when they’re feeding and
spends its entire yet, anyway – but where they’re catching how much they’re eating.
time under water it. “If you look at how the commercial krill Now, after collecting more than a decade’s worth of data, the
fishery works, it overlaps in space and time scientists know that the Gerlache and Bransfield Straits, and
with the whales [at certain times of year],” adjacent bays such as Neko Harbour, are the most important
says Friedlaender. “You literally have two areas for baleen whales on the peninsula and some of the most
predators competing for the same resource.” important in Antarctica.
That this is known is largely thanks to WWF is using this data to press for a new Marine Protected
Friedlander’s high-tech, suction-cup tags. Area (MPA) that covers the Antarctic Peninsula. In 2002, the
Travelling in boats, he and his team patrol Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
the Gerlache Strait on the west coast of the Resources (CCAMLR), which regulates all fishing activity in
Antarctic Peninsula, looking for humpbacks the Southern Ocean, committed to establish a network of MPAs
and minkes. around Antarctica but progress on one for the peninsula, and
When a whale is sighted, the pilot steers two others, has stalled.
the boat so that it’ll be behind the animal “There are 26 nations, including the European Union, that
when it surfaces to breathe. As the whale are members of CCAMLR, and 24 of them are on board with
slowly rises, one of the scientists on board these proposals. Now it’s a question of getting the other two
extends a long, lance-like pole with a over the line,” Johnson says. “China and Russia – that’s the
suction-cup tag on the end. The aim is to real challenge.” Despite the obvious obstacles that stand in the

64
 WHALE CONSERVATION FE ATURE

way of making any agreements with these two countries right ingredients for the growth of phytoplankton,
now, Johnson remains optimistic that it’ll happen eventually, tiny marine algae that absorb four times as much
saying it all comes down to timing. carbon as the entire Amazon forest each year.
In short, the more whales there are, the more
CROSSBOWS AND SUSHI carbon is taken out of the atmosphere.
During my time with them, Friedlaender and Johnson are joined Back in Melbourne, after the expedition, Chris
by a third team member and, in contrast to their high-tech Johnson is mulling over WWF-Australia’s next
drones and tags, she has come equipped with a crossbow – an move. A special meeting of CCAMLR is taking
invention that dates back 2,500 years. It’s not just any crossbow, place in Santiago, Chile, in July, in the hope
though; this one fires modified bolts tipped with metal tubes that progress can be made on designating the
BELOW Chris
that extract tissue samples, similar to how a spud gun extracts three Antarctic MPAs promised more than two
Johnson of
bullets from a potato. decades ago. He, Friedlaender and Botero-Acosta WWF–Australia
Standing in the bow of the boat, Natalia Botero-Acosta waits as are doing their bit by collecting valuable data is the science
the pilot approaches a humpback from the rear. It’s many decades on the whales that rely on the krill in those team’s drone pilot
since whales were last hunted in Antarctica; nevertheless, it’s regions. Now it’s up to politicians and policy- during Antarctic
hard to ignore the irony of a scientist poised like a harpoonist, makers to do theirs. expeditions
even if it is in the name of saving whales, not killing them.
Just as they draw within 10m of the whale, Botero-Acosta fires.
She misses but reloads and fires again, hitting the whale on its
flank. The bolt bounces back harmlessly, plopping into the cold by JA M E S FA I R
seawater where it floats on the surface, waiting to be retrieved. (@jamesfairwild)
Back on Ocean Endeavour, Botero-Acosta pokes the small James is a freelance nature
sample of skin and blubber collected in the bolt. It resembles a journalist. He spent 18
COPYRIGHT © TED GRAMBEAU 2023 INTREPID TRAVEL / UCSC / WWF. IMAGERY COLLECTED UNDER SCIENTIFIC PERMITS: NMFS #23095, ACA # 021-006.

micro-portion of sushi, just a few millimetres in diameter and years as a writer and
2-3cm long. The sample will be frozen, sent to a lab and tested commissioning editor at
for progesterone and testosterone to assess whether the whale it BBC Wildlife magazine.
came from is a pregnant female or, if it’s a male, whether it’s of For this story he travelled
breeding age or not. Tests for cortisol will establish the whale’s on Intrepid’s WWF Giants
stress levels. If these are high, could it be because of the presence of Antarctica trip.
of fishing boats – or even tourist ships. Recorded stress levels
were lower during the COVID-19 pandemic when no trips ran.
“We’re especially looking for biopsies from females with calves,”
Botero-Acosta tells me. Recent research, published by Logan
Pallin, one of Friedlander’s postdoc researchers, showed that the
rate of females becoming pregnant immediately after giving birth
was surprisingly high, averaging more than 50 per cent over an
eight-year period. “That’s really interesting because that happens
when a population is recovering and has enough food to do so,”
says Botero-Acosta. “You need a lot of energy to do that, because
[for much of the year] that female is either migrating or in the
tropics, where she’s nursing a calf and not eating.”
But Pallin’s paper also showed high variability and that years
of low pregnancy rates could be correlated with years when
there had been a low abundance of krill. In other words, if there
wasn’t enough food, females were not in
sufficiently good condition to get pregnant.
It’s another piece in the jigsaw of how
Antarctica’s whales are faring and what
may affect them in the future.
There’s a good reason why we should
all be concerned about maintaining and
even restoring whale populations. Each
great whale amasses nearly 30 tonnes of
carbon dioxide during its lifetime (a tree,
in comparison, sequesters just over 20kg a
year) and when it dies, that carbon is usually
deposited on the seabed. Not only that, but
whales’ waste products provide essential

65
FE ATURE EARTH’S CORE

by C O L I N S T UA R T

Take even a quick peak beneath Earth’s surface and you soon
discover just how much we don’t know about
what’s happening right under out feet
 EARTH’S CORE FE ATURE

WHAT’S IT REALLY MADE OF?

A set of strange signals are telling us a whole new story about what’s happening at the core
of our planet. And if we can decipher them, we might understand more about Mars’s history

We spend so much of our time focused on the the planet’s core was composed of two parts: a
world around us that we rarely give much thought solid inner core, nested, Russian-doll-style, inside
to what’s going on beneath our feet. If Earth were a molten outer core.
an apple, the crust that we live on would only be But more recent work is revealing that the reality
as thick as the apple’s skin. could be a touch more complicated. Dr Thanh-Son
Like an apple, Earth also has a core tucked away PhOCPF2TQH*TXQLG6MCNêKäHTQO6JG#WUVTCNKCP
within, buried beneath a layer called the mantle. National University tried something different.
The core formed early, just 200 million years after “We claim the detection for the first time of
Earth itself coalesced, some 4.5 billion years ago. ricocheting seismic waves, which propagate from ´
Earth’s core is large – almost equivalent to half the
size of Mars – and there’s such extreme pressure

“EARTHQUAKES HAVE PLAYED

crushing down on it that its temperature is as hot
as the surface of the Sun.
Earthquakes have played an indispensable role in

AN INDISPENSABLE ROLE IN OUR

our understanding of this internal structure. The
modern seismometer, invented in 1880, measures the
vibrations from earthquakes as they ripple through
the planet. In the early 20th Century, scientists

UNDERSTANDING OF EARTH’S
assumed that Earth’s core was completely molten
and the material’s movement was responsible for
generating the planet’s magnetic field. Then, in

INTERNAL STRUCTURE”
1936, the Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann was
able to determine, through the use of seismometers,
that seismic waves were bouncing off something
deep inside Earth. She correctly concluded that

DOWN TO THE CORE 1. Crust

The crust is split into the
thick, the outer core is mostly
iron and nickel, with between
oceanic crust, which is a five and ten per cent made up
maximum of 10km thick, and of lighter elements. The
the continental crust, which transition between the inner
can be as much as 80km thick core and outer core is located
in places. The crust rises and approximately 5,150km
falls by up to 25cm each day beneath Earth’s surface.
as the Moon pulls on it.
4. Inner Core
2. Mantle A solid, crystallised iron
Together, the crust and the top structure that’s under
half of the mantle make up immense heat and pressure.
GETTY IMAGES ILLUSTRATION: MAGIC TORCH

the lithosphere, which is Each layer of the crystal

broken into tectonic plates structure is thought to be
that shift. These shifts cause hexagonal in shape, although
1 2 3 4 earthquakes and the there may actually be two
continents to drift. The mantle separate crystalline
is by far the largest part of the structures present. The
Earth, making up 84 per cent crystals are believed to
of its total volume. align roughly north-south to
match the orientation of the
3 Outer Core Earth’s rotation axis and its
This is the only truly liquid magnetic field.
layer of Earth’s internal
structure. Around 2,000km

67
 FE ATURE EARTH’S CORE

´ the earthquake source to the other side of Earth,

and back, up to five times,” Phm says. “The
detection is significant because it allows a new
way to probe the very centre of Earth, which was
very unlikely in the past.” It’s a technique that’s

JAMIE KIDSTON/ANU, GETTY IMAGES, FIELD MUSEUM, DREW WHITEHOUSE/SON PHAM/HRVOJE TKALCIC
often been used in the search for new minerals
but not for probing Earth’s inner structure.
Publishing their findings in February 2023,
PhOCPF6MCNêKäCPCN[UGFFCVCHTQOVJGITQYKPI
network of seismometers setup across the planet.
The important part was getting data from close to
the epicentre of the earthquakes and then from the
exact opposite spots on the other side of the planet,
known as the antipode. The reason this has been
tricky in the past is because earthquakes tend to
cluster around an equatorial belt that’s dominated
by oceans and other remote areas.
When an earthquake strikes the ensuing vibrations
reverberate around inside the planet for days. They
take about 20 minutes to cross from one side of
Earth to the antipode. PhOCPF6MCNêKäUCY
up to five back-and-forth bounces from several
magnitude-six earthquakes. The waves got weaker
with each bounce, so they used a technique called
stacking to combine them. This helped the two
scientists to draw out more information from
the weaker signals. Only two bounces had been
analysed prior to their work.

68
 EARTH’S CORE FE ATURE

WHAT’S
HAPPENING
TO ITS SPIN?
Our planet’s spin is slowing down and
our days are getting longer as a result
How long is a day? 24 hours? 86,400 seconds?
The answer is no two days are ever the same.
A day is defined by how long it takes Earth to
complete one rotation on its axis and many factors
affect the speed of our spin. The gravitational
influence of the Moon has dragged on the day,
lengthening it from just under 19 hours 1.4 billion
years ago to the more familiar 24 hours today.
This is not only predicted by the physics of
tidal forces but also backed up by studies of
430-million-year-old fossilised coral. As the coral
grew, it laid down a new line of calcium each
day. These lines are arranged in patterns that
represent the seasons. There are 420 lines within
those patterns, meaning 420 days annually. As
the year is the fixed amount of time it takes
Earth to orbit the Sun, more days means fewer
hours in each one and just under 21 hours at
LEFT An illustration They found that the seismic waves travelled the point the coral stopped growing.
showing how an differently through the innermost inner core than The melt ing of t he pola r caps at t he end
earthquake that occurs in
Alaska can send seismic
the outermost. The waves slowed down when of Earth’s regular ice ages has also played a
waves down into the they hit the solid core but they slowed down in halting role. These are long-term trends. More
planet that are capable of different directions. Phm says that this suggests short-term effects include an earthquake in
passing through its core
the crystals of iron that make up the core are Chile in 2010 t hat sped up t he pla net a nd
ABOVE LEFT Prof Hrvoje arranged differently in the inner core. They estimate shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. ´
Tkalčić has been able to that the innermost inner core is 650km thick and
probe Earth’s core by
closely monitoring how takes up slightly more than half of the inner core.
seismic waves ricochet There’s more work to be done, however. “The
back and fourth within the
planet’s structure
[question of the] nature of the transitional layer
between the innermost region and the upper layer
ABOVE An illustration of of the inner core remains to be answered,” Phm
how the surface of Mars says. “Hopefully, this question can be addressed
might have looked in the
ancient past, when its in the near future.”
atmosphere was thicker Understanding its exact structure is important
and warmer because Earth hasn’t always had a solid core – it’s
believed to have formed between 600 million and
1.5 billion years ago. Insights into its structure could
also help astronomers and planetary scientists to
understand more about what happened to Mars. Data
from Mars rovers hint at a warmer, wetter past for
the Red Planet that would have made it a lot more
like Earth. If Mars’s core solidified completely, its
magnetic field would have switched off, leaving
it unprotected from the ravages of the solar wind
that gradually pecked away the majority of the Counting the ridges in fossilised coral can be used to determine
Martian atmosphere. the number of days there were in a year when it was growing

69
 FE ATURE EARTH’S CORE

“SINCE 2020, THE

but Yang and Song suggest that it has slowed down recently
and may even be rotating slower than the layers above.
The pair looked for seismic events that happened in the

AVERAGE DAY HAS

same location many years apart. In particular they studied
earthquakes erupting close to the South Sandwich Islands
in the Atlantic and the resulting seismic detections in
Alaska. Their paper also mentions seismic waves recorded

BEEN GETTING
in Montana, US, from two nuclear tests conducted at Novaya
Zemlya, USSR, in 1971 and 1974.
BELOW Prof If the core hasn’t changed, then it should reflect the seismic
Xiaodong Song waves in the same way and they would look almost identical

LONGER – EARTH IS
has reason to at the surface. Except that’s not what Song and Yang found.
believe Earth’s The differences they saw led them to conclude that, since
inner core may be
slowing down,
2009, the inner core has been slowing. By comparing this
data to older measurements stretching back to 1964, they

SLOWING DOWN”
after studying
how seismic conclude that this behaviour is “part of an approximately
waves travel seven-decade oscillation, with another turning point in the
through the early 1970s.” Perhaps the core speeds up and slows down
planet
in a repeating pattern.
It’s a tentative finding, one that needs more supporting
´In fact, 29 June 2022 was the shortest day ever directly data, and other researchers have put forward alternative
recorded. explanations. It could be that the surface of the inner core
But something strange appears to be occurring in the isn’t as smooth as generally believed, for example. If it’s
short-term trends. Since 2020, the average day has been rougher then that could change how the inner core reflects
getting longer – in other words, Earth is slowing down. seismic waves without needing a change in speed.
This goes against a previous pattern of the average day If the core does turn out to be slowing down, what could
shortening for the half-century before that. be behind it? Well, the inner core isn’t completely free to
So what’s going on? Prof Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang move – it’s partially pinned by the gravity of the mantle.
from Peking University in China believe they may have Some geophysicists argue that this sets up a cycle in which
the answer and they think it’s Earth’s inner core. the inner core slows down and speeds up. Perhaps we’re just
The solid inner core sits inside the cocoon of the liquid observing a short part of this cycle and it’ll speed up again
outer core and so it’s not rigidly held in place. It’s free to very soon. With an unprecedented number of seismometers
spin at a different rate to the mantle and crust above. The scattered across the planet – and more being added all the
inner core used to spin faster than the rest of the planet time – we may not have to wait too long for answers.
 FE ATURE

LEFT A simulation
showing how magnetic
field lines (orange) in
Earth’s core are
manipulated by
convection currents.
The turbulence this
creates spreads up, out
of the core, giving rise
to geomagnetic jerks

WHAT’S GOING ON WITH

OUR MAGNETIC FIELD?
Earth’s magnetosphere keeps us safe from the radiation pouring out of the Sun.
But recent research suggests the whole thing could be about to turn upside down

Earth’s magnetic field is a behemoth. It stretches The magnetosphere has kept life on Earth safe
JULIEN AUBERT/IPGP/CNRS, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS/L BRIAN STAUFFER

some 65,000km towards the Sun but on the night for billions of years. For centuries, explorers relied
side of the planet extends beyond six million on compasses aligned with it for navigation and
kilometres. That means that for about a week of animals follow it to find their way, too. And yet,
its month-long journey around Earth, the Moon it’s not as constant as it may seem.
is embedded within our magnetic field. In the 1970s scientists spotted a phenomenon
The core is behind all this. As heat escapes from called geomagnetic jerks – abrupt and unpredictable
the solid inner core it surges into the molten outer changes in our magnetic field. But they only began
core and drives convection currents. Electrically to understand them once we started looking down
charged material is moved around, which generates at ourselves from space. Then, in 2019, Julien Aubert
a magnetic field that flows up through the crust of the University of Paris and Prof Christopher
and out into space where it meets the solar wind – Finlay of the Technical University of Denmark
the high-energy stream of particles from the Sun. released the results of a supercomputer simulation
It’s this interaction that pushes our magnetosphere of the outer core. They found that waves created
so far out on the night side of Earth. in the inner core spread into the outer core and ´

71
 WHAT’S ITS
FUTURE?
Will it stop spinning? Will it solidify
completely? And what will it mean for
those of us living above it?

´ cause sharp changes in the flow of liquid beneath ABOVE Earth’s Earth’s core can trace its history back to the
the magnetic field. It can take 25 years for a rising magnetic field formation of the planet. When the Sun sparked
blob of metal to lead to a geomagnetic jerk. protects us out of a cloud of interstella r gas and dust,
from the
Our magnetic field can also flip. When lava cools high-energy
a band of leftover material formed around it.
it preserves information about the direction of the solar winds that This protoplanetary disc was laced with the
Earth’s magnetic field at the time. By analysing layers burst forth iron ejected into the Universe by the cataclysmic
of lava, researchers have shown that, on average, the from the Sun supernovae that mark the end of the lives of the
direction of our magnetic field reverses every 200,000 most massive stars.
years. The last flip was 780,000 years ago and there Gradually, gravity fashioned this material into
are signs another one may be on the way. lumps of rock and metal called planetesimals and
According to the European Space Agency, over they smashed together to form planets. The impacts
the last 200 years the global average strength of our were so forceful that the rock and metal melted
magnetic field has dropped by nine per cent. Such and gravity could round out the new object into
drops have preceded previous reversals. In some a sphere. The heavy iron sank to the middle and
spots the reduction has unfolded at any even more the lighter rock floated to the top. As the planet
dramatic pace. Take the so-called South Atlantic cooled, a crust formed on the surface but the iron
Anomaly (SAA), which sits over South America. “It’s core remained molten. This was sustained by the
a region where geomagnetic intensity is the lowest,” immense gravitational pressure of the layers above
according to NASA geophysicists Weijia Kuang and crushing down on the core.
Terence Sabaka. But it’s also changing. But all this happened billions of years ago and
“Observations have found that the SAA is expanding the core has been cooling ever since. “As the
and moving westward,” Kuang and Sabaka say. The liquid iron in the outer core cools it slowly freezes
field strength of the SAA also dropped by eight into solid iron and becomes the inner core,” says
per cent between 1970 and 2020. What’s causing it? Dr Dan Frost, a seismologist at the University of
“The short answer is that the SAA is due to vigorous South Carolina.
convection in Earth’s outer core,” say Kuang and This process adds 8,000 tonnes of iron to the
Sabaka. It’s associated with a magnetic reversal in the inner core every second – the equivalent of the
outer core that works against the main magnetic field. mass of the entire human population added daily.
This has some downsides. Several satellites moving As the inner core cools, energy is transferred to the
through the region have failed due to the intense outer core, which drives convection and creates
radiation that leaks in from space. Astronauts can’t our global magnetic field.
perform spacewalks if they’re in the vicinity. The Yet new research led by Frost is hinting that the
former astronaut Terry Virts even said he saw a growth of the inner core is uneven. The eastern
massive flash of light, while his eyes were closed, part of the inner core lies beneath Asia and the
when passing over it. Western Pacific, while the western part sits below
But the SAA does help geophysicists to understand the Americas and the Atlantic. Frost’s team set
what’s going on in the bowels of the planet. According about measuring the growth across these far-flung
to Kuang and Sabaka the SAA can be used to map parts of the planet’s interior. It’s a tricky thing to
the flow of material in the topmost part of the outer do when all you’ve got to go on are measurements
core. “The SAA forecast accuracy can [also] be used to made from the surface. “We can’t measure that the
estimate the entire core state, which is not observable inner core is a little bit bigger today than it was
from Earth’s surface or in space,” they add. yesterday, our measurements aren’t that sensitive,”

72
 EARTH’S CORE FE ATURE

“THE PROCESS
ADDS 8,000
TONNES OF IRON
TO THE INNER Frost’s team found that the core below the Banda Sea near ABOVE Earth in

CORE EVERY
its earliest days as
Indonesia is growing faster than the side beneath Brazil. The a protoplanet was
lop-sidedness doesn’t last, however. “Gravity forces [the wider a seething-hot
mass, with molten
part] back into the centre,” says Frost. “That flow of material rock near the
would cause the crystal alignment that we see.” surface and

SECOND”
Frost’s work does assume that the inner core is only made up of heavier liquified
iron sinking down
one type of crystallised iron. We’ve already seen that other work to form the
hints at a difference between the outermost inner core and the planet’s core
innermost inner core. Frost isn’t convinced of those conclusions. ABOVE LEFT
“There isn’t a sharp transition between an outermost and innermost A new model of
inner core,” Frost says. “It’s more of a smooth transition.” Frost Earth’s core is
uneven and grows
says that such a model is compatible with his findings. faster on its
Frost says. “We’re looking for evidence It just goes to show that many mysteries surrounding Earth’s eastern side,
GETTY IMAGES, MARINE LASBLEIS, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

of movement within the inner core.” solid core remain unsolved. We’ve only known of its existence beneath Asia. This
may explain why
Seismic waves travelling through the for less than a century. Perhaps the next century will bring more seismic waves
inner core move faster when they move insights and a deeper understanding of the mechanism that take different
parallel to Earth’s rotation axis (roughly keeps us all safe from the ravages of radiation being blasted at times to travel
through the core
north-south) than when they travel us from space.
parallel to the equator. “We think this Nor should we worry about the core completely solidifying
means that the crystals in the inner core any time soon. Its growth is slow. The inner core is only getting
are all aligned in a similar direction,” about 2mm wider every year. Although
Frost says. “The way to get that alignment fast for a geological process, some
is if the inner core moves.” It’s similar estimates suggest it would take another by C O L I N S T UA R T
to the way that sticks dropped into a 91 billion years for the molten outer (@skyponderer)
river align with the direction of the core to disappear. The dying Sun will Colin is an award-winning
flowing water. fry Earth long before that happens. astronomy writer.

73
 FROM THE MAKERS OF

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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
... HOW OFTEN SHOULD I CHANGE MY
WASHING-UP SPONGE?
... IS IT POSSIBLE TO INHALE AN INSECT INTO
YOUR LUNGS?
... HOW IS HAIL MADE?
... WHY DOES MY SKIN FEEL MORE SENSITIVE TO
TOUCH WHEN I HAVE A COLD?
... WHAT CAUSES PREGNANCY CRAVINGS?
... WHAT IS THE SUPINE POSITION? JOHN HE WIT T, VIA EMAIL

WHAT IS THE POWER POSE?

... WHAT’S LIVING INSIDE MY GUT?
... SHOULD I START WASHING MY HAIR WITH BEER?
... WHAT IS SOCIAL PRESCRIBING, AND IS THERE ANY
BENEFIT TO IT?
... WHAT ARE TROVANTS? AND WILL IT REALLY BOOST
MY CONFIDENCE BEFORE
... IF A VIRUS WIPED OUT HUMANS, WHAT SPECIES
WOULD TAKE OVER - AND COULD THEY DEVELOP
TECHNOLOGY THAT WE WOULD RECOGNISE?

Email your questions to A JOB INTERVIEW?

[email protected]
or submit on Twitter at
A power pose is essentially any kind of ridiculously far apart (if you fancy a laugh, just
@sciencefocus body position that involves taking up more Google it).
space. Imagine standing with your legs Since the 2010 paper, research into power
astride and your hands on your hips, or posing has descended into a drawn out and

OUR EXPERTS
– as used in the seminal research on power bitter dispute between advocates and
poses from 2010 – leaning back in your sceptics, as part of the larger ‘replication
chair with your legs up and your hands crisis’ in psychology – in which it has proven
behind your head. The opposite is a difficult to replicate some of the field’s more
DR HELEN PETE DR NISH contractive pose that involves taking up eye-catching results. To summarise a
PILCHER LAWRENCE MANEK
Astronomy GP and
less room, such as hugging yourself with complex debate, the evidence seems to be
Biologist and
science writer expert medical expert your legs crossed. stronger that power posing can help you feel
The idea that power posing can give you a more confident, but largely lacking when it
jolt of extra confidence was popularised by comes to effects on physiology or behaviours,
LIAM HOLLY DR CHRISTIAN
DUTTON MCHUGH JARRETT Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy’s 2012 such as taking more risks. Just to complicate
Meteorologist Science Psychologist TED talk: “Your body language shapes who matters further, a comprehensive review
and broadcaster writer and author you are,” which has been viewed over 68 from 2020 suggested the effects on
million times. Cuddy was a co-author on that confidence are actually more likely due to
ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

DR EMMA VALENTINA LUIS VILLAZON 2010 research paper which claimed a minute avoiding constrictive postures rather than
DAVIES HERNANDEZ Science and spent in an expansive posture led partici- adopting expansive ones.
Science GOMEZ technology pants to feel more powerful, take more risks My own take is that power posing is a
writer Journalist writer
and enjoy a testosterone boost. Amusingly, pretty low-risk strategy – at least if you do
several Conservative party politicians at their it in private. So why not try it before that
HAYLEY 2015 conference appeared to take the concept job interview – if it works, great, if not, well
BENNETT to heart, posing on stage with their feet you might give yourself a giggle at least. CJ
Science
writer

75
 Q&A

GLENN FLOYD, GATESHE AD

HOW OFTEN SHOULD I CHANGE

MY WASHING-UP SPONGE?

Don’t replace it – swap it for a brush. That’s one

interpretation of a 2022 study, which found more
bacteria on the average washing-up sponge than there
are people on the planet. The authors claim it’s
impossible to stop bugs growing on a wet kitchen
sponge unless you change it daily, whereas a brush
harbours fewer germs because it dries out faster
between uses. If you do prefer a
sponge – and you’re not alone,
as people in eight out of
ten European countries do MEGAN HARRISON, HERTFORDSHIRE
– then you might be
relieved to know that
IS IT POSSIBLE TO INHALE AN
neither tends to collect the INSECT INTO YOUR LUNGS?
kinds of germs that cause
diseases. (Which is enough
to convince me that I Your airway has two important defences to prevent this. First, the trachea
never need to replace it. (airway) is coated with mucus that will tend to trap small insects, with tiny
But that’s our dirty little hair cells that constantly sweep trapped particles back up. Secondly, we have
secret, right?) HB a very sensitive reflex that causes a coughing fit when anything touches the
walls of the trachea. To suppress this reflex, you would normally need to be
drugged or unconscious and it’s unlikely you’d be taking deep breaths. Any
bug that did make it inside would not survive long, but its tiny corpse could
cause an infection leading to aspiration pneumonia which is a serious
condition if untreated. LV

NATURE’S WEIRDEST...

SHAMPOO GINGER LILY

Tired of taking two bottles into the shower? Simply snip off the
club-shaped flower head of the shampoo ginger lily plant – you can’t
miss it; it’s the one that looks like an embarrassed pinecone – and
squeeze the spongy structure onto your scalp. The clear, fragrant liquid
that is released, acts as both shampoo and conditioner, bringing a silky
vibrancy to your hair that you never knew you were missing.
‘So, where do I find this organic, plastic-free marvel?’ I hear you ask.
‘The tropical parts of Asia and Australasia,’ I tell you. ‘That’s too far,’
GETTY IMAGES X4 ILLUSTRATIONS: DANIEL BRIGHT

you say. ‘Cool your jets,’ I reply, ‘you can also grow it as a houseplant.’
Shampoo ginger lily, also known as pinecone ginger, is an aromatic,
clump-forming, perennial plant, that likes bright light and moist soil.
Leaves fall and stems shrivel in the autumn, leaving behind creeping
underground stems, known as rhizomes, which give rise to new shoots
in the spring.
The plant has other uses too. For example, the aromatic leaves can
be used to add flavour to meat dishes, à la bay leaf, while the rhizomes
can be dried, pulverised, and used as a seasoning or as a perfume.
It might just help you to feel good too. Scientists have shown that a
bioactive compound, isolated from the rhizome, has antioxidant,
anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. HP

76
 Q&A

DEAR
L ARA E ATON, MANCHESTER

HOW IS HAIL MADE?

DOCTOR...
Many of us have experienced those hot summer
days which start off with sunshine, before towering HEALTH QUESTIONS
cumulonimbus clouds bubble up through the day,
eventually bringing thunder, lightning and torrential
DEALT WITH BY
downpours. In some instances, those thunderous OUR EXPERTS
clouds can also deliver hail – small balls of ice that
fall to the ground. But how does hail form? KENDRA PARK, VIA EMAIL
When clouds reach the dizzy heights of
cumulonimbus status, their peaks can ascend to WHY DOES MY SKIN FEEL MORE SENSITIVE
10-15km in the sky. By this point, they aren’t full
of just ice crystals, but also supercooled water
TO TOUCH WHEN I HAVE A COLD?
droplets; water still in liquid form, despite its
temperature being below freezing.
Within cumulonimbus clouds, the air is very
turbulent – moving up and down, causing
updraughts and downdraughts, which are strong
enough to bounce ice crystals around inside the
cloud. As these ice crystals move around, they
gather extra layers of ice, allowing a hailstone to
form and grow.
Not to be tried at home, but if you sliced a
hailstone down the middle, it would have concentric
rings like a tree, denoting each layer of ice gathered
on its journey.
For as long as the updraughts and downdraughts
are strong enough to carry the hail, it will remain
inside the cloud and continue to get bigger.
However, when the hail becomes heavy enough,
updraughts can’t hold it up anymore, and it falls to
the ground.
So how does the ball of ice manage to make it to
the surface without melting, when summer air
temperatures can be in the range of 25 to 30°C? If you’ve noticed that your skin feels that the trigger to your immune
The answer is the speed at which it falls. Small extra sensitive when you’re ill, you’re system when you’re unwell can lead
hailstones typically fall to the ground at a speed of not alone – and there are several to heightened sensitivity, but the
15-40km/h. This speedy descent means that the ice reasons why this might happen. exact mechanism behind this isn’t
doesn’t have enough time to melt before reaching Sometimes when you’re unwell, you fully understood.
the surface. LD have a fever. When your body gets Usually, this type of skin sensitivity
hot, it can make your skin feel is only temporary, and isn’t a cause
uncomfortably warm (similar to how for concern. Taking simple
you might feel if you got sunburn). medication to combat the fever can
This could potentially make it feel help, such as paracetamol. Most of
more sensitive. Remember that a the time it needs rest and time and
fever is a sign your body is fighting will improve as the illness resolves.
the infection, and while it might There is a specific type of long-
make you feel miserable, it isn’t term nerve pain that leads someone
necessarily harmful. to be extremely sensitive to touch,
Another reason for the increased called allodynia. This is a symptom
sensitivity could be that your body is rather than a disease in itself and
also aching from the illness, which can have many different causes.
makes it feel different to touch. You The most common causes of
might also be dehydrated, leaving allodynia include diabetes, shingles,
your skin more irritable and fibromyalgia, and migraine
uncomfortable, and possibly more headaches – not usually just a
sensitive. Some people have claimed simple cold. NM

77
 Q&A

ELIZ ABE TH HUMPHREY, BATH

ASTRONOMY FOR BEGINNERS WHAT CAUSES

PREGNANCY CRAVINGS?

Cravings are something many mamas-to-be are

familiar with. Whether it’s ice cream, chocolate,
pickles, or something obscure, the body knows
what it wants during pregnancy and makes sure
we know about it. While pregnancy cravings are
not fully understood, there are a few theories
about why women might feel these hankerings,
one of which is due to changes in hormone levels.
Rising oestrogen and progesterone during
pregnancy can increase the sensitivity of taste
buds, making certain flavours – like sweet and
sour – more appealing. As a result, foods that are
normally not enjoyable, may become new
favourites. These hormones also increase the
ANTARES: THE RIVAL OF MARS production of another hormone, dopamine,
which is involved in the body’s reward system
and promotes feelings of happiness. This means
women may experience greater pleasure from
WHEN: JUNE certain foods. Progesterone also increases the
release of ghrelin, a hormone that causes feelings
If you’ve never seen Mars in the night It’s an appropriate name too, because of hunger and cravings for certain types of foods.
sky before, you’ve just about got time Antares is a red supergiant star, Another theory is that pregnancy cravings may
as it’s visible low above the west- estimated to be nearly 700 times larger be the body’s way of signalling a need for specific
northwest horizon shortly after sunset. than our own Sun and around 75,000 nutrients that are necessary for the growing
It’s currently near to bright Venus, which times more luminous. In the night sky it baby. For example, pregnant women need a
has also become rather low after the Sun appears on average (it’s an irregular much greater amount of iron in their diet because
sets. Mars is fading in brightness as the variable) as the 15th brightest star and, it is required to make blood for both them and
distance between it and Earth increases. like Mars, has a distinctly orange hue. their baby and to supply the baby with oxygen.
Currently it looks like a middle-bright It marks the position of the heart of the Not getting enough could lead to cravings for red
star, its salmon-pink colour being the scorpion. Scorpius is a constellation that meat, such as burgers or other iron-rich foods.
one characteristic that really makes it never gets to reveal its true glory from Psychological factors may also play a role in
stand out. the UK, truncated by our southern pregnancy cravings. There’s no denying that
At this time of year from the UK, horizon when its best placed and due pregnancy is sometimes stressful, and many
there’s a bright star visible low above the south. As the sky darkens, look out for women experience anxiety around childbirth as
southern horizon in the early evening as the two fainter stars that flank Antares well. For those who find food a source of
darkness descends. This is the brightest and the group of stars further to the west comfort, these feelings can perpetuate cravings.
star in the constellation of Scorpius, the (right), which mark the scorpion’s claws. Not all women experience cravings, but for
Scorpion, and is named Antares. Star The almost full Moon lies west (right) those who do, they can be hard to ignore.
names can sometimes give a clue to of Antares on the night of 30 June into Healthcare professionals can provide nutritional
their meaning. Here the name literally the morning of 1 July, and east (left) of guidance and may suggest dietary changes to
means ‘rival of Mars’ or ‘Ant Ares’, Ares the star on the night of 1 July into the help ensure that mother and baby are getting the
being the Greek name for Mars. morning of 2 July. PL nutrients they need. HM

78
 Q&A

DUNC AN DAVIDSON, VIA EMAIL

WHAT IS THE SUPINE postures. In some cases, and with the proper Supine postures are primarily used as a
POSITION? support, it can improve sleep quality by
allowing a better oxygen flow and relaxing the
counter pose to maximise the benefits of
more ‘dynamic’ postures, or to release and
diaphragm, although other studies found that stretch thigh muscles in specific areas. “A
The supine position is simpler than it may right-sided sleepers had better sleep quality. supine twist is a release for the entire spine,
sound. It describes the position of the body However, it’s not a posture with cure-all but specifically the lower back, which is often
when lying flat on the back, with the face and abilities: for individuals with sleep apnoea, affected by tight hips, glutes, and hamstrings,”
torso facing up. In this position, the limbs are the supine position can exacerbate the says yoga instructor Allie Williams.
generally straight, with the palms facing condition. Some studies suggest that simple The case for Pilates is slightly different.
upward. It’s commonly used in medical interventions (such as sleeping on the right The supine position is used during abdominal
procedures, such as surgical operations, side) can improve sleep apnoea symptoms. exercises, which improve muscular endurance
physical examinations, and diagnostic tests, as In yoga, the supine position is the base for and trunk flexibility. A study conducted in
it allows easy access to the body and provides the Savasana pose (also called the ‘Corpse ‘sedentary adult females’ showed the supine
a clear view of the patient’s face and chest. Pose’) which aims to relax the body while position had a positive effect on abdominal
You’ll likely come across it in yoga, Pilates, maintaining an awareness of the mind and and lower back muscular strength, as well as
or other forms of low-impact exercise, as it’s breath. It can also be used to target specific, endurance and torso flexibility, in which the
a useful way to find neutral spine and neck hard-to-stretch areas of the body. ‘neutral spine’ position plays a key role. VHG

CROWDSCIENCE
Every week on BBC World Service, CrowdScience answers listeners’ questions on life, Earth and the Universe.
Tune in every Friday evening on BBC World Service, or catch up online at bbcworldservice.com/crowdscience

person. It also has an important role: it is

WHAT’S LIVING thought that our microbiota stimulate the
immune system, break down potentially
INSIDE MY GUT? toxic foods, and help to produce certain
vitamins and amino acids.
Studies suggest that having a diverse
population of gut microbes is associated
Rather a lot! The gut is a universe of with better health, and poor gut health is
GETTY IMAGES X2, ALAMY ILLUSTRATION: PETE LAWRENCE

trillions of microorganisms known as associated with a range of conditions, from

microbiota, and collectively make up the obesity and brain diseases to depression
microbiome. This microbiome is now best and inflammatory bowel disease.
thought of as a virtual organ of the body. There’s been a lot of hype around how
It weighs about 2kg and is bigger than the and what we eat, and how special diets can
average human brain. It’s made up of influence our gut microbes. What we
trillions of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and know, is that dietary amounts of protein,
viruses, containing at least 150 times more saturated and unsaturated fats,
genes than the human genome. carbohydrates, and dietary fibre can
We are teeming with microbes, which influence the abundance of different types
form microbiomes on our skin, in our of bacteria in the gut. According to
mouths, lungs, eyes and reproductive research, the richer and more diverse the
systems. But the gut’s microbiome is the community of gut microbes are, the lower
largest, and its composition can vary per your risk of disease and allergies. NM

79
 Q&A

CHARLOT TE LEE, VIA EMAIL

WHAT IS SOCIAL
PRESCRIBING, AND IS
THERE ANY BENEFIT TO IT?

MYTHBUSTERS
SHOULD I START WASHING MY
HAIR WITH BEER?

A quick search online, and you will find scalp health. Beer is also rich in vitamin B,
lots of articles suggesting that beer used which can apparently make your hair
as a shampoo, hair mask, or rinse at look shiny when applied directly. Social prescribing is a way for primary care
home, can result in healthy, shiny locks But there are a few things worth staff and other agencies to refer patients to a
and even promote hair growth. There are noting. Firstly, none of this has ever been link worker. These are highly trained and have
recipe suggestions for adding natural proven in any kind of trial to my time to explore the person’s health and
ingredients to flat beer – like honey, knowledge, so there is no scientific wellbeing needs in a more holistic way. They
apple cider vinegar, or egg (as well as oils evidence for it. It appears the only can connect them to community groups and
like jojoba) – to supposedly enhance its research that has been done is by the services for support. In particular, those with
conditioning abilities. And in recent companies making the products. Online mental health problems, complex needs,
years, several new hair products have sources expound the nutritional benefits multiple long-term conditions, or who are
come to market containing beer, claiming of beer such as its vitamin and mineral socially isolated, might benefit.
to leave you with luscious, silky locks. content, but it’s hard to see how that The link workers explore what really
The alcoholic brew has long would make much difference matters to the individual, and work in
been popular among when applied directly to collaboration with local partners. Examples
celebrities and stylists, hair. Even when beer is of social prescribing options include
as a part of a holistic drunk, these volunteering groups, financial advice services,
hair care routine. nutritional benefits group learning, arts activities and a range of
In 2009 Hollywood are minimal. A true sports. Green social prescribing entails linking
actress Catherine vitamin B people to more nature-based interventions
Zeta-Jones deficiency will such as local walking groups, gardening
revealed that she turn out hair that communities, and food-growing projects.
uses beer and is dry and brittle, Studies have previously pointed to
honey to condition and if that was improvements in quality of life and emotional,
her beautiful, black the case, you’d mental and general wellbeing, alongside
mane, which fuelled probably need a reduced levels of depression and anxiety from
enthusiasm for it. multivitamin to take social prescribing. However, a review of eight
Why would anyone by mouth instead of studies in October 2022 suggested there was
think of putting beer on their a topical treatment. no consistent evidence that social prescribing
hair in the first place? Well, it’s Furthermore, the alcohol it improves social support, physical function, or
thought that two proteins in beer, malt contains is likely to be dehydrating, so reduces use of primary health services, and
and hops, may help nourish and how can it outweigh the benefits of the only limited evidence that it improves
strengthen your hair follicles. These beer proteins as described above? And frankly, subjective assessment of personal health or
proteins can bind with hair cuticles do you really want to carry around the quality of care received. However, the authors
during washing, making them appear smell of beer with you all day? do acknowledge that social prescribing is
smoother and leaving your hair shinier So in short, I personally won’t be designed to be different depending on the
after a wash. Some claim that the protein tossing a can of Guinness over my hair needs of the person and the resources in the
binds to hair dehydrated from blow anytime soon. Admittedly, I’ve never local area, so determining if it works or doesn’t
drying, straightening and harsh weather, tried it, and I doubt it would do a lot of work on a larger scale is difficult.
and restores strength and body to it. damage. But it seems like a wasteful use Overall, social prescribing is thought to be
Anecdotally, people have also claimed of a good brew… and perhaps drinking it a more holistic way to address health issues
that beer can reduce dandruff, cure an would stop you worrying too much beyond purely medical interventions, and
oily scalp, minimise hair loss and restore about your hair in the first place! NM patients have reportedly found it helpful for
their mental and emotional wellbeing. NM

80
 Q&A

Z AR A WEBB, STAFFORD

WEIRD AND WONDERFUL:

WHAT ARE TROVANTS?

Trovants are bulbous, otherworldly stones that grow over time, thus
appearing to be alive. Parent rocks can even push out baby trovants,
which then grow independently.
The sandstone structures are found mainly in Romania, with the
most famous cluster in and around a village named Costeşti. There, a
Trovants Museum Natural Reserve celebrates and protects them.
The stones’ smooth curves give the appearance of modern,
man-made sculptures. They feature heavily in local folklore, with
people at one time believing them to be giant dinosaur eggs, plant
fossils or alien creations. The word trovant was coined by a naturalist
and means cemented sand.
The stones are formed from sand grains or rocks bound together by circumference. When water only hits one side of a rock, a blob can
a limestone – calcium carbonate – cement. Geologists think that the emerge, finally breaking free to create a new trovant.
trovants were shaped by earthquakes in the Middle Miocene, over five Trovant growth is too slow to be watched in real time. It is
million years ago. estimated that the rocks have only grown a handful of centimetres in
The stones vary greatly in size and shape, from centimetres to over 1,000 years.
metres in diameter. Whereas most rocks erode and reduce in size over The sandstone beds that the stones reside in hint at ancient aquatic
years, trovants continue to expand. During heavy rain, the porous environments, with successive sedimentation of material transported
trovants absorb substances, including calcium carbonate from the by rivers. Indeed, bivalve, and gastropod fossils can sometimes be
water. Limestone cement then oozes from the stones to add to their found hidden inside the trovants. ED

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

HARVEY SMITH, VIA EMAIL

IF A VIRUS WIPED OUT HUMANS WHICH OF THE REMAINING

SPECIES WOULD TAKE OVER, AND COULD THEY DEVELOP
TECHNOLOGY THAT WE WOULD RECOGNISE?
We tend to define dominance in terms of tool environments we had vacated. Baboons, which
use, language and culture, and the ability to already live in close proximity with humans in
modify our environment. This is a very South Africa, are social and have similar
anthropocentric view that prizes the things we intelligence to chimpanzees.
happen to be good at and ignores those we In the immediate aftermath of human
aren’t. Bacteria outnumber and outmass us, extinction, they would be able to take over
have colonised more of the planet and will human settlements and scavenge the food and
likely be here long after we have gone. For livestock we left behind. This would probably
99.9 per cent of the history of life on Earth, the result in a sudden population increase. When
planet has managed perfectly well without the food ran out, they would still benefit from
human-style intelligence and if we the shelter of our buildings and might begin
GETTY IMAGES X3 ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

disappeared, there is no particular reason to using some of the metal tools and knives we
suppose that anything would necessarily step left behind. This might give them enough of an W IN NE R
up to take our place. Octopuses and dolphins advantage that they would outcompete other The writer !of nex t issu
are both already very intelligent, but living in primates and predators. Complex human Question o e’s
f the Month
Toucan Sm wins a
the water rules out fire and electricity, so machines would all rust away long before the art Home Se
Camera, w curity Ligh
refining metals and building machines would baboons figured out how to use and repair orth £149.9 t
1,200 lumen 9. It feature
security lig sa
be impossible for them. Evolving to live on land them. But over thousands of years, the ready siren and a ht, a 110dB
wide-angle,
would be a 100-million-year endeavour. availability of refined metals and plastics with night 1080p cam
era
vision. All o
Meanwhile, on land, existing primates would might allow them to kick-start their own controlled f which can
via the free be
have a much easier time moving into the technological progress. LV Smar t Hom Toucan
e App.
toucansolu
tion.co.uk

EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO [email protected]

81
 E XPL AINER

THE EXPLAINER

It’s all in the eyes

3
Containing more than 100 million
light-sensitive cells and some of the
fastest muscles in our bodies, our eyes
are capable of picking up everything
from starlight beaming across the galaxy
to the full gamut of human emotion. But
it’s in their coupling with our minds –
through the approximately one million 2 1 4
nerve fibres connecting each eye to our
brains – that we gain the ability to
synthesise slick visuals and interpret
what’s going on around us without
getting distracted or overwhelmed.

What’s inside my eye?

1. PUPIL 4. LENS
It looks like a black dot but it’s A transparent lens that changes
actually a gap that lets light pass shape to focus incoming light
through to the back of your eye. on the retina.

2. CORNEA 5. RETINA
A transparent dome at the front of Often thought of as the back of 7. VITREOUS
your eye, the cornea refracts light, the eye, it’s more correctly the A transparent jelly that
helping to direct it along the right innermost layer that the light hits fills the eyeball. As we get
path to the retina. after being inverted by the lens. older, the consistency of
The retina is jam-packed with this jelly becomes more
3. IRIS light-sensitive cells and nerve cells. liquid and progressively
The coloured part of the eye that less wobbly.
controls how much light gets in 6. SCLERA
by causing the pupil to dilate or Otherwise known as the white of 8. OPTIC NERVE
contract. The iris is part of a larger the eye, the sclera is a protective, A thick bundle of nerve fibres
structure that forms a layer outer layer made tough by carrying signals between each
between the retina and sclera. collagen fibres. eye and the brain.

82
 E XPL AINER

“Our eyes
7
contain 100
million light-
6
sensitive cells
and some of the
fastest muscles
in our bodies”
83
 E XPL AINER

“Our brains are constantly processing what we

see to provide a smooth visual experience,
rather than giving us the effect of
a shaky, handheld camera”

How do we see?

The simplest explanation is that

what we see is a result of light
entering the eyes through the
cornea and lens, which direct
and focus the light towards the
photosensitive cells (rods and
cones) in the retina. Rods work
in low light, while cones require
bright light but give us colour
vision. Cones provide the details
at the centre of our vision,
while rods are responsible for
peripheral vision. Together, these
cells convert light into electric
signals, which travel down the
optic nerve to the brain.
What we actually see, though,
is as much about how our brains
interpret these signals so that
we can make sense of the
information we’re receiving
without being distracted by
unimportant details. This visual
prioritisation and filtering
produce a ‘mental image’ that is How do our eyes compare to cameras?
only a representation of what is
actually there.
For example, our brains
prioritise faces, with the result It’s hard to compare because what we see visible to humans (400-700 nanometers),
that we’re always spotting them isn’t made up of pixels or frames, and we’re whereas we’ve built cameras that are
where they don’t exist – such as constantly switching where we focus. capable of perceiving the shorter
in clouds and wallpaper patterns. It’s been suggested that our eyes have the wavelengths of ultraviolet light (10-400nm)
Our brains are also constantly resolution (ability to distinguish two points) and the longer wavelengths of infrared
processing what we see to of a 576-megapixel camera. A stills camera (750-15,000nm).
provide a smooth visual capable of capturing 576 million separate Within the visible spectrum, most people
experience, rather than giving us pixels within a single image would be five are thought to be able to discriminate around
the effect of a shaky, handheld times better than some of the highest 10 million different shades using three types
camera. Recent research suggests resolution cameras currently on the market. of cone cells. This system is not dissimilar to
it does this by blending together However, our eyes only see with very high that of a camera, which combines red, blue
the inputs from the previous 10-15 resolution at the centre of our vision. So, and green pixels to capture nearly 17 million
seconds, meaning what we see everywhere else, the resolution is much colours. But people with tetrachromacy
isn’t necessarily a second-by- more comparable to a standard camera. have a genetic mutation that gives them an
second update but it does give us As for colours, we can only see those that extra cone type, allowing them to see 100
a less hectic sense of the world. fall into the small range of wavelengths times more colours – like birds and reptiles.

84
 E XPL AINER

How does ageing affect our eyes?

Our vision deteriorates as we get older. In middle age, the lenses in our eyes become
less flexible, making it harder to focus close-up, which is why many people start
needing glasses for reading in their 40s and 50s. A number of age-related
conditions are also leading causes of blindness.

20/20 vision Glaucoma

Everything looks good, whether it’s close-up or away Loss of peripheral vision, thought to be associated
in the distance. with increasing pressure, due to fluid build-up,
damaging the optic nerve.
ILLUSTRATIONS: HARRIET NOBLE

Macular degeneration Cataracts

Loss of central vision, caused by death of the light-sensitive General clouding of vision caused by protein breakdown
cone cells in the macula – the central part of the retina. and clumping in the lens. Most people will eventually
develop cataracts.

85
 E XPL AINER

FIVE COMMON MYTHS ABOUT THE EYE… BUSTED

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
WE’RE BORN WITH 20/20 VISION IS DOGS CAN ONLY SEE YOU CAN’T SNEEZE CARROTS HELP YOU SEE
ADULT-SIZE EYES PERFECT VISION IN BLACK AND WHITE WITH YOUR EYES OPEN IN THE DARK
Nope. A baby’s eyes are Not really. It means you Wrong again. Dogs You can and it’s okay… This one’s sort of true.
ILLUSTRATIONS: HARRIET NOBLE

large in comparison to can read all the letters can see in colour your eyes won’t pop Carrots contain
its face but they’re on an eye chart from but they see mostly out of your head. beta-carotene, which
only between one and a distance of 20 feet yellows and blues. This is probably we use to make
two thirds of adult size. (6 metres). 20/10 vision They have fewer types another one of vitamin A. This, in turn,
Eyes grow rapidly for is better: you can see of the cone cells those things that is converted into
the first year, then details that other needed for colour overanxious parents pigments that we use
again during puberty people can only see vision compared came up with. to see in low light.
and don’t stop until when they stand to humans.
you’re around 20. 10 feet (3 metres) away.

86
 E XPL AINER

Why do people have different eye colours?

Recent research suggests there are at least

61 genes for eye colour – and that’s just in
European and Asian people. This means that,
instead reflect and scatter it, producing
short wavelengths of light at the blue end of
the spectrum. Differences in melanin levels
“In fact,
contrary to what we might have been taught
at school, it’s not that straightforward to
also explain why some people have two
different-coloured irises (heterochromia),
babies were
work out what colour eyes a child born to usually the result of a harmless genetic
two blue-eyed parents should have. (It’s
quite possible, although less likely, for them
mutation affecting melanin development
in the eye.
once the only
to have brown eyes.)
But what is it in the iris that makes it
blue or brown?
Meanwhile, in babies whose eyes are
blue but later turn brown, their melanin is
still forming. In fact, babies were once the
humans with
Well, dark irises contain more of the
naturally brown, light-absorbing pigment
only humans with blue eyes, because the
genetic mutation responsible for adults blue eyes”
melanin – the same pigment that gives our having blue eyes is not thought to have
skin different colours. Blue irises that appeared in European populations until
contain less melanin absorb less light and the last 6,000-10,000 years.

HAYLEY BENNETT
(@gingerbreadlady)
Hayley is a freelance
science writer
and editor.

87
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89
Could humans ever run at supersonic speeds?
Is there a biological limit to how fast humans can run? Or will we all be sprinting like The Flash in future?
by S T E P H E N K E L LY

T
here is no firm consensus Bipedal runners, meanwhile,
on how fast The Flash, the are built for endurance.
DC universe’s speediest “Muscles can only contract
superhero, can run. One as fast as the actin and myosin
story clocks him at 2,535 miles [two key components of muscle
per hour (over 4,000km/h), for fibre] can turn over,” he says.
instance, which is faster than “You can get some advantage by
most fighter jets. While in Zack making longer filaments in the
Snyder’s Justice League, he runs muscle but then you can only
faster than the speed of light, make them so long.
186,000 miles per second – so Usain Bolt is 196cm tall.
fast, in fact, that he violates the You might get somebody who
laws of physics and turns back is 218cm a nd really well
time. What is certain, however, proportioned. Yet even then,
is that for the likes of you and tendons and bones can only
me, running at those speeds put up wit h so much. Even
would be as unlikely as they if you made the bones more
would be perilous. Our faces robust, t hey would t hen be
would melt, our legs would heavier, negating what you’re
break apart… I can barely do trying to do.”
the ‘Couch to 5K’ plan as it is. The only way you could go
So how fast can human beings beyond these biological limits,
run? For that, we would need says Denny, is with genetic
to look at t he closest t hing engineering. Although don’t
humanity has to The Flash: go expecting us to be trotting
retired sprinter Usain Bolt. around like centaurs any time
In 2009, Bolt set a new world soon. “It’s more likely to be
record by running the 100m sprint in faster and they just keep breaking down. used to gain more powerful muscles and
9.58 seconds – achieving a top speed of The limits are real.” longer legs,” says Denny.
27mph (43km/h) – at the World Athletics As for humans, Denny has used his data “Or to tweak the design here and there:
Championships in Berlin. It’s a record that to make a bold prediction: no human being ‘let’s move this particular muscle to a
is yet to be broken and, according to Mark will ever run the 100m sprint faster than different place’ and so on. That’s going to
Denny, a biology professor at Stanford, 9.48 seconds, just 0.1 seconds under Bolt’s be really strange. Performance-enhancing
perhaps never will be. current record. “There was a real sense of drugs are scary enough but I hope I’m not
In 2008, a year before Bolt broke the disappointment in response to the paper around to see that.”
world record, Denny published a paper [with the prediction],” he says. “People
a nalysing t he top speeds of va rious didn’t like the idea of an Olympics where
VERDICT
athletics competitions – as well as those world records wouldn’t be broken. There Unless future humans
ILLUSTRATION: DALE EDWIN MURRAY

of greyhound and horse races – since the was a chance that Bolt could have done play fast and loose with
1920s. And in many cases, he found the it in 9.48 but then he aged out on that. their bone and muscle
same pattern. “Performances were clearly I was rooting for him to break it.” structures, our built-in
plateauing in all races,” he says, “and has According to Denny, the reason for top speed is unlikely
plateaued in some of them.” He found that this proposed plateau is due to the basic to be bettered.
horses, for example, reached their limit biological limits of the human body. Four-
with Secretariat in 1973. “No horse has legged animals like cheetahs – with their by S T E P H E N K E L LY (@StephenPKelly)
come close to the records he set,” says long legs, light body weight and flexible Stephen is a culture and science writer, specialising
Denny. “They keep breeding horses to go spine – are designed for short-term speed. in television and film.
This was
Sylvia’s
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A generation ago, a woman named Sylvia made But it doesn’t have to be like this. You can change
a promise. As a doctor’s secretary, she’d watched the story, just like Sylvia did, with a gift in your Will.
stroke destroy the lives of so many people. She was All it takes is a promise.
determined to make sure we could all live in a world
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where we’re far less likely to lose our lives to stroke.
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She kept her promise, and a gift to the Stroke DQGHYHU\VLQJOHVWURNHVXUYLYRUKDVWKHEHVWFDUH
Association was included in her Will. Sylvia’s gift rehabilitation and support network possible, to help
helped fund the work that made sure many more of them rebuild their lives.
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Will you make that promise to generations to
Sylvia changed the story for us all. Now it’s our turn come? Please, leave a gift in your Will to the
to change the story for those who’ll come after us. Stroke Association.

Stroke still shatters lives and tears families apart.

And for so many survivors the road to recovery is
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