BBC Knowledge AE 2015 (Vol. 7 Issue 10)

WRITTEN IN YOUR GENES How memories pass between generations p36

ASIA EDITION

Vol. 7 Issue 10

SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

© Morné Hardenberg/ Atlantic Edge Films

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THE FFUTURE OF COMM MERCIAL F HT p50 FLIGH

MYSTERIES OF THE O COSMOS p64 C

LIVING JEWELS OF THE RAINFOREST p56

THE SUPERVET Premieres 5th October. Mondays at 9.45pm (JKT/BKK), 10.45pm (SIN/HK/MAL/TWN) With two hundred new cases every month, from rabbits with broken legs to dogs with cancer, Noel Fitzpatrick, the ‘Bionic Vet’, and his crack veterinary team employ cutting-edge technology to treat these animals.

XTREME ENDURANCE – RACE TO THE POLE

MICHAEL MOSLEY: INFESTED! LIVING WITH PARASITES

Premieres 8th October. Thursdays at 8.50pm (JKT/BKK), 9.50pm (SIN/HK/MAL/TWN)

Premieres 9th October. Fridays at 9.35pm (JKT/BKK), 10.35pm (SIN/HK/MAL/TWN)

Former Welsh international rugby player, Richard Parks, travels the world to undertake a series of the most arduous physical challenges known to man.

In this series, Dr. Michael Mosley infects himself with some of the most powerful and surprising parasites to ánd out how our fascinating relationship with them works, from the disgusting tapeworm to headlice and leeches.

BBC Earth is available in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Please call your cable operator for more details or check out our website.

NATURE’S MIRACLE ORPHANS Premieres 21st October. Wednesdays at 9.05pm (JKT/BKK), 8.05pm (SIN/HK/MAL/TWN) This heartwarming and emotional series follows the work of animal rescue centres around the world and meets the extraordinary people who have devoted their lives to helping all sorts of wild orphans get back on their feet.

www.bbcasia.com BBC Earth @BBCEarthAsia

SCIENCE

On the cover

Vol. 7 Issue 10

SCIENCE

36 Written In Your Genes

SCIENCE

50 Fly Me To The Future

NATURE

64 The Unknown Universe

56 Attenborough’s Birds Of Paradise

26 Shark Vol. 7 Issue 10

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Contents

Vol. 7 Issue 10

NATURE

SCIENCE

NATURE

SCIENCE

HISTORY

SCIENCE

NATURE

FEATURES

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ON THE COVER

26 The Mysterious And Ancient Family

A landmark series from the new BBC Earth channel that covers all aspects of shark behaviour as well as their uncanny ability to adapt to different environments that have enabled them to become successful predators ON THE COVER

36 Written In Your Lenes

Scientists are shining a light on how your lifestyle can affect your children’s genes and how it affects their children too, changing the face of human evolution as we know it and giving rise to the study of epigenetics

44 How To Be A Successful Monarch

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has overtaken Queen Victoria as Britain’s longest reigning monarch; it is a bittersweet affair despite the celebratory pomp and pageantry being planned. We look back in history to reveal the secrets of a glorious rule

26 Shark

ON THE COVER

50 Fly Me To The Future

From planes designed by industrial designers or the re-emergence of supersonic commercial flights to the reinvention of the flying boat, these and other concept planes could very well transform commercial air travel in the not so distant future ON THE COVER

56 Attenborough’s Birds of Paradise

Majestic and beautiful yet mysterious and elusive, Sir David Attenborough takes us on a journey of discovery in this BBC Earth production to uncover his childhood fascination, the living jewels of the rainforest, the birds of paradise ON THE COVER

64 The Unknown Universe

In the last millennium we have uncovered more about the Universe in which we live in but we still have a long way to go before we fully comprehend all there is to know, beginning with these 10 questions about space that science can’t answer

72 Spirits Of The Forest

Dubbed spirits of the forest, meet the “magical” Kermode bears, a subspecies of the North American black bear with a rare recessive gene that makes their fur almost glowing white or cream

Vol. 7 Issue 10

8 Snapshot

HISTORY

80 Probability

SCIENCE

82 The Future Of Gadgets

SCIENCE

72 Spirits of the forest

96 Hollywood Science

How do we define it, while the rules governing probability are clear-cut, its exact meaning isn’t. We can look at probabilities as frequencies, that they give insight into all kinds of possible outcomes The Gogoro Smartscooter is a sleek and stylish zeroemissions electric scooter with an innovative swappable battery system, but will it be enough to convince drivers to leave their cars at home?

A remake of a classic, this month we take a look at nuclear bombs in the movie, The Man From U.N.C.L.E and how making one isn’t as easy as it seems

REGULARS 6 Welcome

A note from the editor sharing his thoughts on the issue and other ramblings

8 Snapshot

Stunning images from the fields of science, history and nature

UPDATE 14 The Latest Intelligence

What happens in the brain when we learn new things, is there flight on mars, will the universe eventually tear itself apart, can we stop mass extinction, natural disasters in waiting

30 Comment & Analysis

Water your plants regularly or face their wrath!

86 Q&A

This month: Why does tape ‘screech’ when you peel it of, how we tamed the wolf, why earth’s axis is tilted, how sunscreen works and much more

RESOURCE 94 Reviews

The latest, and perhaps more fascinating, books reviewed by experts

97 Time Out

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Bridging the gap between nature & nurture

Stretch your brain cells with our tricky crossword

98 Last Word

Flying ants and bell curves Vol. 7 Issue 10

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Welc me

 Send us your letters

[email protected]

A MISTAKE IS TO COMMIT A MISUNDERSTANDING BBC Knowledge Magazine The statement above made by musician Bob Dylan rings true when we apply it to our understanding and treatment of sharks. These mysterious, ancient but no less amazing creatures of the seas have an ancestry that stretches as far back as over 400 million years and posses a diversity of over 500 species! Let me set this straight, shark attacks on humans are rare and statistically we are 50,000 times more likely to drown than be attacked by a shark. Bees, wasps and snakes are responsible for far more deaths each year in the US than sharks. And in the period of 1959 to 2010, about 2,000 people were struck and killed by lightning in US coastal states versus 26 killed by sharks. Yet we continue to demonise them, partly due to filmmakers and the fictional Jaws movie franchise which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. These films have fanned an irrational fear and sparked the way the World views sharks. Each year commercial fisheries Worldwide kill an estimated 100 million sharks and populations for some species have declined by over 99% in the last 60 years. We have to take preventive measures now or risk losing these magnificent creatures forever.

Ben Poon

Includes selected articles from other BBC specialist magazines, including Focus, BBC History Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY FUTURE

www.sciencefocus.com www.historyextra.com www.discoverwildlife.com Important change: The licence to publish this magazine was acquired from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company on 1 November 2011. We remain committed to making a magazine of the highest editorial quality, one that complies with BBC editorial and commercial guidelines and connects with BBC programmes. The BBC Knowledge television channel is available in the following regions: Asia (Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan)

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 We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them for length and clarity. By sending us your letter you permit us to publish it in the magazine and/or on our website. We regret that we cannot always reply personally to letters.

BBC Knowledge Magazine provides trusted, independent advice and information that has been gathered without fear or favour. When receiving assistance or sample products from suppliers, we ensure our editorial integrity and independence are not compromised by never offering anything in return, such as positive coverage, and by including a brief credit where appropriate.

Experts in this issue… Stuart Clark Stuart is an astronomy writer and author of The Unknown Universe, published in September 2015. On p64, he reveals the mysteries that continue to baffle astronomers.

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Graham Warwick As technology editor at Aviation Week, Graham was just the chap to take a look at cutting-edge designs for the planes of the future. Turn to p50 to find out what we can look forward to.

Nessa Carey Nessa is author of Junk DNA and The Epigenetics Revolution. On p36 she uncovers the latest news about epigenetics and finds out whether Darwinian evolution needs a rewrite.

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Fizzy drink These icy pancakes are pockets of methane gas, frozen beneath the surface of Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. The gas is produced by microbes that help to decompose plant and animal remains on the oxygen-starved lakebed. “If oxygen is lacking, then microorganisms will process organic material by anaerobic pathways that produce methane as a by-product,” says Prof Mary Edwards of the University of Southampton. Small amounts of methane dissolve in the water and diffuse out of the lake without anyone noticing,

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but larger collections of the gas rise to the surface in bubbles. When the surface of the lake is frozen, the bubbles have nowhere to go and freeze beneath it, as can be seen in this picture. “They’re in columns because bubbles come from particular points where there is a tiny crack,” says Prof Edwards. “As the lake gradually freezes from the surface downwards, it captures a longer and longer column of the bubbles coming up from the bottom.” PHOTO: PAUL ZIZKA

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NATURE

Flipping freezing This giant hunk of gleaming ice is the underside of a recently overturned iceberg. When icebergs are irregularly shaped or melting, they can become imbalanced and flip over, releasing energies comparable to that of an atomic bomb. “An iceberg will flip depending on its geometry as well as its density. If it is tall and skinny, it will tip over,” explains Justin Burton, Assistant Professor of Physics at Emory University, Atlanta. While iceberg flips rarely occur, increases in temperature due to climate change are making it more common, he says.

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The newly exposed underbelly of the iceberg has not been sullied by snow, debris or weathering, so light can shine through it more easily, giving it a vibrant, aquamarine hue. “The blue colour means it came from depth and was formed under pressure,” says Burton. Bubbles and air pockets were pushed out of the ice, meaning that the light can travel further into the iceberg before scattering. “The further it travels, the more red it absorbs and the bluer it looks,” adds Burton. PHOTO: ALEX CORNELL

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HISTORY

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Cake hole Occupying a space of 34km3, Tagebau Hambach began operation in 1978 and is the largest open-pit coal mine in Germany. The mine is so vast that it would take 340 Royal Albert Halls to fill it. Gigantic bucket-wheel excavators, each about the length of seven London buses, hew out great chunks of material, exposing cascading layers of sand, soil and coal as they go. “The excavator wheels have large teeth that dig continuously, throwing

the material onto a series of conveyor belts and towards the mine output,” explains Guido Steffen of RWE, the company that runs the mine. “There’s no need for them to separate the materials because nature has already created these distinct soil layers like a piece of cake.” The vast size of the mine means it can produce up to 40 million tonnes of coal every year, he says. PHOTO: BERNHARD LANG/GETTY

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Update HOW WE LEARN Brain’s ways of storing new knowledge revealed at last

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THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

GOODBYE TO THE ANIMALS Are we in the middle of a mass extinction event – and what can we do to stop it?

p17

p20

FLIGHT ON MARS NASA announces plans to send drones to survey the Martian surface

T H E B I G S T O RY

IS THERE LIFE ON COMET 67P?

Philae lander will hunt for signs of methane emitted by alien lifeforms

his may not look like the most hospitable place in the Universe, but 67P/ ChuryumovGerasimenko, the comet visited by the Rosetta spacecraft and its Philae lander, could be harbouring extraterrestrial life. A number of details have

PHOTO: NASA/ESA

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been uncovered about the ‘rubber duck-shaped’ comet since the Philae probe touched down on its surface last November. It appears to be covered with huge sheets of ice and frozen, flat-bottomed crater lakes, all overlain with organic debris.

The Philae lander woke from hibernation on 13 June

GOOD MONTH/ BAD MONTH It’s been good for: BACON LOVERS If you love chowing down on a bacon sarnie but aren’t so fond of the effect your culinary habits have on your waistline, you may be in luck. A team of scientists in South Korea has used gene-editing technology to create a new breed of ‘double-muscled’ pigs. The porkers could be used to make extra-lean bacon.

Now, Max Wallis, from the University of Cardiff, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Director of the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology, argue that this mixture of ice and organic material could provide an ideal environment for the existence of alien microorganisms. “Rosetta has already shown that the comet is not to be seen as a deep-frozen inactive body, but supports geological processes and could be more hospitable to micro-life than Earth’s own Arctic and Antarctic regions,” said Wallis. “We consider it highly likely that comets like 67P harboured life in the past and may, even to date, keep viable life in a deepfrozen state.” Any microorganisms that might be present on 67P would require liquid water bodies to exist on the comet, and could also inhabit cracks on the ice created by forces that the oddly shaped, asymmetric comet body generates as it spins. Some types of microorganisms are particularly good at adapting to these conditions

and could be active at temperatures as low as –40°C. Sunlit areas of 67P approached this temperature last September, when the comet was at a distance of some 500 million kilometres from the Sun. As it travels to its closest point to the Sun, at 195 million kilometres, the temperature will rise and any microorganisms that are present would become increasingly active. The team says the abundance of complex organic molecules found on the comet’s surface by the lander Philae also point to the existence of life. “If they can get the lander Philae working fully, its investigation of methane will help distinguish biomethane [methane produced by life forms] from other carbon-containing gases that could be released simply by solar radiation on the complex carbon compounds,” said Wallis. “Investigation by the Rosetta instruments will help too, though the gases will be a little degraded by the time they reach the orbiting craft.”

Timeline A brief history of the Rosetta mission

FANS OF CAT VIDEOS It turns out all that time we have spent watching funny felines on YouTube wasn’t wasted after all. A study at Indiana University has found that watching Maru, Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub boosted viewers’ energy and reduced levels of anxiety, sadness and stress. The results suggest that online videos may one day be used as a form of low-cost pet therapy.

It’s been bad for: BOYS When times are tight, it’s better to be female. Researchers in the US have found that in time of economic hardship parents are more likely to spend a larger proportion of their money on daughters. The effect is more pronounced when the daughters are getting closer to childbearing age, suggesting the parents want grandchildren, they say.

NIGHT OWLS

2004

JAN 2014

NOV 2014

JUN 2015

Rosetta launches and commences its 6.3 billion kilometre, 10-year journey towards comet 67P. The craft is programmed to go into hibernation on reaching its destination.

Rosetta receives a signal to wake up. Soon afterwards, it sends its first images of the comet back to Earth. Scientists are surprised by the comet’s unusual ‘rubber duck’ shape.

Rosetta sends Philae, its lander, towards the comet. Philae sends back reams of unprecedented data and images back to Earth, but having landed in shadow, powers down after just 60 hours.

With the Sun back in the sky from Philae’s point of view, the lander powers back up on 13 June and resumes communication with Rosetta. New objectives now await…

Those with poor sleep habits such as inconsistent bedtimes and short sleeping periods are more likely to succumb to impulsive desires, inattentiveness and questionable decision making, a US study has found. The effect is thought to be due to depleted energy reserves making us more likely to plump for the easier option or task.

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PHOTO: NASA, ESA X2, ISTOCK X2

Rosetta scientists discussed the mission’s latest developments at the Paris Air And Space Show on 17 June

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

NEUROSCIENCE

Brain’s learning mechanism uncovered

Computer graphic of the brain. The hippocampus (marked in red) is the region that’s associated with memory

Whether you’re learning how to swim, how to speak a second language or how to play an instrument, we humans can pick up lots of skills over the course of our lives. Now, researchers at The Rockefeller University in New York have uncovered a mechanism that helps neurones to adapt according to our experiences, allowing us to learn new things. It all comes down to proteins called histones. These support DNA and help to control how genes are expressed.The team found that the ability of neurones to form new links is related to the loss and replacement of a histone called H3.3 in the hippocampus, the region of the brain associated with memory. “Histones and their modifications play an important role in switching genes on and off,” says study author Dr C David

Allis. “This research uncovers a mechanism, involving one slightly modified histone, that makes learning possible by facilitating the genetic changes necessary for neurones to form connections.” By measuring the histone levels in the brains of mice and in postmortem human samples, the researchers found that levels of H3.3 increase with age. And rather than remaining in place on DNA, it is constantly recycled. They also found that when the mice were raised in a more stimulating environment with a running wheel and lots of toys, the rate of this recycling was increased. “When we put an end to histone turnover in adult mice, we found it disrupted normal gene expression patterns associated with [brain] plasticity, and as a result, impaired the animals’ ability to learn,” explains researcher Ian Maze. “They had greater difficulty, for instance, distinguishing familiar objects from new ones.”

MEDICINE

Cannibalistic tribe provide brain disease breakthrough

PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, NIAID

A Papua New Guinean tribe famous for eating human brains may be helping to shed light on neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). Surviving members of the Fore tribe have developed a genetic resistance to kuru, a CJD-like disease caused by the practice of consuming dead relatives during funeral rituals, a team at UCL has found. When the practice was at its highest during the 1950s, the disease claimed the lives of one in 50 people. Like CJD and some forms of dementia, kuru is caused by ‘prions’ – a type of protein that can change shape and clump together to form fibres that can damage the normal tissue of the brain. But the team found that evolutionary changes in the so-called prion protein gene gave the survivors genetic protection against kuru. The gene in question causes alterations in just one of the 16

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253 amino acids that make up the prions, but that change seems to be enough to grant protection. The researchers then genetically engineered mice to carry the same change, and found that they were 100 per cent resistant not only to kuru but also to all forms of CJD, including the form known as ‘variant CJD’, caused by human infection with BSE. “This is a striking example of Darwinian evolution in humans – the epidemic of prion disease selecting a single genetic change that provided complete protection against an invariably fatal dementia,” says team leader John Collinge. “Much work is now ongoing in the unit to understand the molecular basis of this effect, which we expect to provide key insights into how seeds of other misshapen proteins develop in the brain and cause the common forms of dementia, thereby guiding us to new treatments in the years ahead.”

Prion proteins can clump together as fibres, interfering with normal brain function

Can we stop mass extinction?

The science that matters

Lemurs from Madagascar are hunted for their meat

A

and understand where and how the lemurs live. Despite years of study – and high profile DreamWorks movies – there is still a lot to learn about the diet, breeding habits and social structure of lemurs. Gathering these facts could influence government policy. But science is important in another way too: simply having a presence in the rainforests

WHO’SS IN THE NEW WS? K Kevin S Smith Bioe oethicist at Abertay A U i ersity in Unive Dundee D

helps keep the lemurs safe. In one area in the east of Madagascar, we trekked through steep jungle to a rest house used by young researchers from Italy, the US and the UK. With teams constantly scouting for lemurs, and keeping track of their movements, life is made difficult for anyone thinking of slipping into the area for hunting or logging. As one expert put

it, just having researchers in the forest acts as a deterrent. But everyone realises the challenge.With Madagascar’s population booming, and nearly everyone living on less than the equivalent of US$2 a day, the days of lemurs thriving in the wild may be numbered.

What’s he done? Smith recently called on all 18-year-old men to have their sperm frozen if they were thinking about starting a family in later life. He says that this would prevent their children from having genetic disorders.

than those of younger men. While most of these mutations have little or no impact, Smith reckons that older fathers could be running a higher risk of having children with health issues such as autism and schizophrenia.

How does that work? The sperm cells of older men contain more genetic mutations

Is he right? Well, his comments have proven pretty controversial. While it

is generally accepted that the risks of certain genetic disorders increase with the age of the father, some experts say the effect is minimal. Smith thinks that sperm freezing should be available on the NHS. However, others have said that sperm from the majority of men doesn’t freeze well, so most older couples would need to undergo IVF treatment regardless.

DAVID SHUKMAN is the BBC’s Science Editor. @davidshukmanbbc

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PHOTO: BENARD CASTELEIN/NATUREPL.COM

team of researchers has recently confirmed what has been suspected for some time about the world’s wildlife: that we are witnessing a sixth mass extinction. Everything from chopping down the rainforests to polluting the oceans and rivers is driving losses on an accelerating scale. And among the most vulnerable are the primates – especially if they live in poor countries where people are hungry. A recent filming trip to Madagascar brought home to me how the famous lemurs of that remarkable island are on the brink of extinction. One image that will haunt me forever is of a baby lemur, bug-eyed and confused, crawling over the body of its dead mother moments after she had been shot by poachers. Hunting is exacting a terrible toll, as is the clearing of the trees to make way for farmland. But there are brave efforts at conservation. Some key habitats for lemurs have been ring-fenced by the Madagascar government. International charities are helping local people work as guides rather than hunters – and it’s widely accepted that without the support of local communities, the animals ave no o cchance. a ce. have Scientists have two important S h p roles play. l to pl y The h ffirst is to map p

DAVID SHUKMAN

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

DISCOVERIES THAT WILL SHAPE THE FUTURE

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PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, STACY BONOS, MISSOURI UNIVERSITY, BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, ISTOCK

A drug that dramatically extends your lifespan could be on pharmacy shelves in as little as 10 to 20 years, according to scientists at University College London. Fruit flies given the skin cancer drug Trametinib lived 12 per cent longer, on average, than

Artificial mosquito blood Putting out food for mosquitoes might not seem like the smartest idea. Yet artificial blood developed at the University of Kentucky may prove hugely important in the fight against mosquito-borne diseases like malaria, dengue and yellow fever. The ‘blood’ can be laced with a mozzie-sterilising mozzie sterilising bacterium and p out as a free banquet. put q

Your days are numbered, Mrs Mosquito…

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Blocking the Ras protein’s effects could be the answer to a longer life

Life extension pill

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a control group. The cancer drug delayed ageing by limiting the effect of a protein called Ras. The researchers are now moving onto experiments with mice and hope to develop a drug for humans without the side effects of traditional cancer treatments.

Evaporation engine Nature’s biggest untapped power source could be evaporation.Now, Columbia University scientists are building engines and generators that harness this renewable resource. They use Bacillus spores, which expand and contract as they absorb moisture from the air. This movement can then be ussed tto used o dr driv drive ivve tu turb turbines. rb rbin bines ines in e . Find Find o Fi out ut more ut mor ore e at bit it.l.lly/ y/ev y ev evap apor ap orat or atio at ion_ io n powe n_ powe po werr

This little car is powered by the evaporation of water

Water-saving grass US Golf courses need 750 billion gallons of water every year to look their best. Using wastewater instead of clean water on links and other sports fields is the way forward. But wastewater contains salt, which plants don’t like. Researchers at Rutgers University tested 142 varieties of perennial ryegrass, bred to have different genetic traits. The results showed it’s possible to selectively breed grass to produce varieties that have a high tolerance to salt.

Some grasses turn brown when in contact with salts, while other strains retain their green colour

Transplantable body clock Circadian rhythms help your body regulate time, but they can get out of sync. A genetically engineered, transplantable body clock could help treat problems like jet lag. Harvard University researchers extracted a protein circuit from cyanobacteria, which has a n natural rhyt y hm, a d transpla and lanted it i into E E. coli, li, which doesn’t. The does e E. coli could c ld then h ‘blink’ b switchin by i hi g a f uo esce marker fluorescent on e o and off every 24 h hours. Cyanobacteria has a natural rhythm

Brain mesh Before you can create a cyborg, you need a means of carrying electrical signals to and from the brain. Now, Harvard scientists have successfully injected an electronic mesh into the brain of a mouse. The mesh was initially rolled up in a syringe, but unfurled and melded with brain tissue once injected. In future, it may help treat neurodegenerative disorders in humans.

Invisible security tags A team at Missouri University has created microscopic colour images by making tiny perforations in a multilayered material. The tech could be used for creating advanced security tags that are difficult to replicate.

The paper battery is powered by bacteria and costs just five US cents

Paper battery

This logo measures just 50 micrometres across

A paper battery constructed using origami techniques has been unveiled at Binghamton University in New York State. The battery requires just one drop of bacteria-containing liquid such as wastewater. It generates energy from the

Robot tentacles Picking up tiny, fragile objects without causing damage can be something of a challenge for a set of robot pincers. So a spiralling tentacle developed at Iowa State University could be just the job for manipulating human tissue or blood vessels. The tentacle is an 8mm long tube with a diameter of less than 0.4mm. It is made of a class of rubbery polymers called elastomers. Air pumped into the tube causes it to coil, allowing it to gently squeeze the object it’s picking up without causing any damage.

respiration of the microorganisms present in the water. It supplies only a few microwatts, but that’s enough to power paper biosensors that have been developed to detect diseases like HIV and E. coli in developing countries.

Smart camouflage Squid and octopuses use cells called chromatophores to create colours and patterns on their skin. Now, researchers at the University of Bristol have made a material that mimics this effect. Soldiers could use the fast-changing, adaptive camouflage on covert missions. It’s made from a rubbery material that can be electrically controlled.

While flattered by the attention, Ant started to feel that the humans had become a little clingy

Three artificial chromatophores created by the team

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THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE G CE

1 MINUTE EXPERT Bacterial fight clubs Er… are you sure you’re supposed to be talking about that? Don’t worry – it’s nothing to do with Tyler Durden. It’s a method of searching for new drugs that was created by chemists at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University.

Tell me more. The work is based around secondary metabolites – compounds released by bacteria to fight off organisms. Lots of antibiotics and anti-cancer compounds are either secondary metabolites or their derivatives.

So where does the fighting bit come in? Analysis of microbial genomes suggests that each of the 150,000 distinct species of bacteria contain the blueprints for hundreds of secondary metabolitess. s. a The problem is, getting the bacteria to produce them can be tricky. By e pitting microorganisms against one another in controlled ‘fight clubs’, th he researchers were able to trigger the release of secondary metabolites.

PHOTO: NASA X2, ICAROS, ISTOCK, ANNE RAYNER/VANDERBILT

Have they found any new drugs? It’s still early days but one new compound, dubbed circomicin, has a structure similar to current antibiotics and has already demonstrated tumourkilling qualities.

At the top is a prototype of the craft. Below it is what NASA hopes it will look like in the future

SPACE

NASA plans to fly a drone on Mars Move over Curiosity, NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center is testing a prototype drone that could become the first craft to fly through the Martian atmosphere. The craft is dubbed the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design To Land On Mars, or Prandtl-m. While it doesn’t seem like the catchiest acronym, the father

THEY DID WHAT?! Researchers analyse the dreams of rats

Bacteria go head-to-head in the laboratory

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What did they do? A team at UCL placed rats on a straight track with a T-shaped junction blocked off by a transparent barrier ahead. They

of modern aerodynamics was the German engineer Ludwig Prandtl.We see what you did there, NASA… The craft, which is based on a glider design created by NASA interns in 2013, could ride in a CubeSat as part of the Mars rover payload scheduled to leave for the Red Planet in 2022. Later this year, researchers

placed food at one end of the T and allowed the rats to view it. They then placed them in a sleep chamber for one hour before putting them back on the track with the barrier removed and allowing them to run into the T. The rats’ brain activity was monitored at each stage of the experiment. What happened? A team at UCL placed rats on a

will be releasing a prototype from a high altitude balloon at a height of 30,000m, which will simulate the flight conditions of the Martian atmosphere. If successful, it will undergo further tests involving higher altitudes and CubeSat containers. The drone will be made from fibreglass or carbon fibre, it will have a wingspan of around

straight track with a T-shaped junction blocked off by a transparent barrier ahead. They placed food at one end of the T and allowed the rats to view it. They then placed them in a sleep chamber for one hour before putting them back on the track with the barrier removed and allowing them to run into the T. The rats’ brain activity was

PATENTLY OBVIOUS with James Lloyd Inventions and discoveries that will change the world

The right trousers

Ear ear

If you’ve ever envied Iron Man’s suit, here’s one for you. Designed to help the elderly or injured walk, Samsung’s robotic suit is an exoskeleton for the legs. Two electromyogram sensors detect electrical activity in the muscles, helping to determine the wearer’s position in the walking cycle. Motors then spring into action, providing power to the legs. Let’s hope it’s portable enough to haul up mountains – we could do with some extra help when hiking. Patent application number: US 20150134080

Forget fingerprints: how about using your ear to unlock your phone? A system from Amazon uses the unique shape of a person’s ear to identify them, unlocking the phone when they hold it to their lug. The technology will be able to determine which ear you’re holding it to – adjusting the positions of buttons to suit your left or right hand – and even ramps up the speaker volume if it detects your ears are covered by hair or a hat. Handy if you’re going to a party as Sherlock Holmes... Patent number: US 9,049,983

Flying fit

60cm and will weigh just over 1.2kg on Earth. On Mars, it will weigh roughly 500g, thanks to the Red Planet’s lower gravity. “It would be able to deploy and fly in the Martian atmosphere and glide down and land,” explains Al Bowers, Chief Scientist at the Armstrong Flight Research Center. “The Prandtl-m could overfly some of the proposed landing sites for a future astronaut mission and send

back to Earth very detailed high-resolution photographic map images that could tell scientists about the suitability of those landing sites. It would have a flight time of around 10 minutes. The aircraft would be gliding for the last 2,000 feet [609 metres] to the surface of Mars and have a range of about 20 miles [32 kilometres],” he adds. Despite its boomerang shape, however, there’s no chance of the Prandtl-m returning to Earth.

Let’s face it, exercise can be a dull activity. Those endless miles running on the treadmill; those countless hours sweating in a muggy, overcrowded gym. Imagine if you could exercise while flying through outer space or soaring over a faraway land. That’s the experience offered by ICAROS, a combined fitness and gaming device developed by a team in Germany. The workout station is an unusually shaped cradle that pivots on two different axes. You position yourself on the machine by adopting a Superman pose, using the leg and arm rests to support your weight. ICAROS then acts as your gaming controller. It allows you to steer your way through a flying simulator, which is beamed to you via a standard pair of VR goggles. In order to avoid crashing, you’ll have to stretch and strain your ur body, giving you an all-over workout. You’ll feel like Peter Pan, only a bit older and a lot more sweaty. Patent pending

monitored at each stage of the experiment. What does that mean? The findings indicate that the hippocampus is involved in planning routes and recording those that have already been witnessed. This may imply that the ability to imagine future events is not uniquely human, the researchers say.

Dreaming of the route that leads to tasty treats… awwww

The ICAROS exercise machine simulates flying to help you work out

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T THE LATEST INTELLIGEN NCE

SPACE

Universe will ultimately tear itself apart The eye-like structure of a warnowiid, as viewed under a microscope

ZOOLOGY

PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, NASA/ESA

Plankton with human-like eye discovered Meet the warnowiid: a type of plankton that has been found to have a complex eye-like structure despite being made from just one single cell. The predatory microbes were collected off the coasts of Japan and Canada by a team from the University of British Columbia. Once the researchers placed them under the microscope, they discovered that a dark purple spot situated within the organism was an ocelloid, a complex structure similar to a human eye. “It’s an amazingly complex structure for a single-celled organism to have evolved,” says researcher Greg Gavelis. “It contains a collection of subcellular organelles that look very much like the lens, cornea, iris and retina of multicellular eyes found in humans and other larger animals.” So far it’s not entirely clear what warnowiids use the eyes for.The researchers suspect that they detect shifts in light as it passes though the transparent bodies of their prey.The structure could then send chemical messages to other 22

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parts of the cell, showing them in which direction to hunt. The work neatly illustrates the idea of convergent evolution, a process by which very different organisms can evolve similar traits in response to their environments. Eye-like structures have evolved independently many times in different kinds of animals. “When we see such similar structural complexity at fundamentally different levels of organisation in lineages that are very distantly related to each other, in this case warnowiids and animals, then you get a much deeper understanding of convergence,” researcher Brian Leander says.

The dark red section is the ‘retina’, while the clear sphere is the ‘cornea’ and ‘lens’

It seems the Universe may not end with a bang or a whimper, but with a ‘Big Rip’. Researchers in the US have created a new theoretical model that suggests the Universe will eventually be expanding at such a rate that all matter will be violently ripped apart. There’s no need to start worrying though: it won’t happen for another 22 billion years. The model was proposed by Vanderbilt University mathematician Marcelo Disconzi and it rests on a property called bulk viscosity. This is a measure of how resistant a given fluid is to contraction or expansion. The fluid in question here is the Universe. Previously, researchers were unable to produce a model of the Universe that included this property without it breaking down and predicting certain situations in which the fluid was able to travel faster than the speed of light. “This is disastrously wrong, since it is well-proven experimentally that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light,” says Disconzi. After confirming his model passed this test, Disconzi then teamed up with physicists Thomas Kephart and Robert Scherrer to see how it would fit into the broader cosmological picture.

In the 1990s, physicists discovered that the Universe is expanding at an everaccelerating rate. Quite why this is occurring, however, is unclear.They theorised there must be an unseen repulsive energy spread throughout the Universe driving this process and named it dark energy. There are currently a number of theories describing the ultimate fate of the Universe, with the most popular being the Big Freeze and the Big Crunch. In the former, the expansion continues indefinitely until it cools to the point of being incapable of hosting life. The latter states that gravity somehow overcomes the repulsive effect of dark matter and the Universe eventually contracts back together. Disconzi’s model, however, suggests another possibility: the Big Rip. Here, the expansion rate of the Universe becomes so great that all matter is pulled apart. “In previous models with viscosity the Big Rip was not possible,” says Scherrer. “But in this new model, viscosity actually drives the Universe toward this extreme end state.” The team plans to test the model using supercomputers to crunch the complex equations and provide predictions that can be confirmed with experiment.

Comment & Analysis Why black cabs make pretty good mirrors ho would have thought that staring at a taxi could be interesting? I live in London and cycle to work every day, so I’m very used to waiting behind black cabs at traffic lights. Last week, I was idly watching the distorted reflection of my bike in the glossy black paint of the cab sitting in front of me, and it suddenly occurred to me that this is a very odd thing to do. We know that black surfaces are black because they absorb all colours. But I could see the colour of my top and the handlebar tape. This shiny black surface was a pretty good mirror. At the next set of traffic lights, there was a white car in front of me, and my reflection wasn’t nearly as clear. But white surfaces reflect all colours equally – surely necessary for a mirror. What’s going on? Glossy surfaces are glossy because they reflect light in a very organised way. Light that arrives at the surface from a particular angle is reflected away at exactly that angle on the other side. It’s like bouncing a ball off the ground – bounce it straight down, and it comes straight back up. Bounce it at an angle, and it bounces off at that same angle. So glossy paint is reflective because it’s got a very smooth top surface that light bounces off, and it reflects all colours equally. But if it reflects all colours, how is it also black? The trick here is that the surface splits the incoming light. Some light is reflected perfectly, barely touching the surface. But some travels down into the paint itself. Down there, all colours are absorbed. So I could see the black taxi because it was perfectly reflecting some of the light around it, and perfectly absorbing the rest. As I pedalled further along the road, I thought about shiny white objects such as plastic, marble and white glass. No amount of polishing will turn those into mirrors. I watched my reflection in each white car that went by. Light coming from my bright red cycling jacket was hitting the surface and being split, so that some light waves got to explore the inside of the paint layer. Inside the paint is a mini house of mirrors – lots of particles that bounce light around like pinballs. Eventually the light bounces out of the paint, but it leaves in a random direction. And this is why I found it harder to see my reflection in the white cars. I could see the perfect reflections, but they were mixed in

“Our brains are so adept at interpreting shiny, colourful objects that we almost never notice that they’re doing it” with all the random light rays from all sorts of other directions. A red car went past. This time, not all light that got down into the paint was getting out. Pigments in the house of mirrors were absorbing all the colours that weren’t red, and only red light got to escape. What the taxi made me think about was that the light from a painted surface comes from two entirely separate places. To get at

least some perfect ‘mirror’ reflection, all you need is a smooth surface. What’s underneath is irrelevant. No perfect mirror can have a colour, because no light ever gets beneath its surface. Therefore, there are no clues to what’s inside. But colour is all about what’s inside the paint, and some light will always sneak below the paint surface. It’s only this light that bounces around and is filtered before it comes out again, giving the object its colour. Our brains are so adept at interpreting shiny, colourful objects that we almost never notice that they’re doing it. I love the idea that when you’re seeing a coloured object, you’re seeing inside it, even if it’s only a little way. And now I’ve got something to keep me entertained in traffic jams! DR HELEN CZERSKI is a physicist, oceanographer and BBC science presenter whose most recent series was Super Senses Vol. 7 Issue 10

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NATURE

The definitive series of shark natural history, made on a scale never attempted before to try and uncover the secrets of these extraordinary yet misunderstood animals

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© MORNÉ HARDENBERG/ATLANTIC EDGE FILMS

Hundreds of Oceanic Blacktip sharks gather together to attack a shoal of anchovy off the coast of South Africa.

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© MIKE GERKEN / EVOLUTION UNDERWATER IMAGING

eneath the ocean waves lives a mysterious and ancient family, sharks hunt in every sea and are the oceans’ most successful predators. For the last two years, a team from the BBC’s Natural History Unit (NHU) has been travelling the world to make ‘Shark’, the ultimate wildlife trilogy on these extraordinary yet misunderstood animals. Using the latest ultra HD and high-speed-camera technology to film behaviour never seen before, the team has filmed over 30 species of shark (and their cousins, the rays) in dozens of locations worldwide, ranging from under the polar ice to mangrove swamps, shipwrecks and coral reefs. This new series airing exclusively on BBC Earth, narrated by Paul McGann, will change everything you thought about sharks, revealing all aspects of their lives and showing them to be intelligent, social and complex creatures.There are more than 500 species of shark, all belonging to one large, extended family; the largest, the Whale Shark, is over 40ft long, the smallest, the Dwarf Lantern Shark, can fit in the

B

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palm of your hand, and glows in the dark.The NHU team has filmed courtship, baby sharks developing, how sharks grow up and even how they clean their teeth!

One great big diverse family The first film shows the huge diversity of sharks and why they are such great hunters, including Ragged Tooth Sharks that live among the shipwrecks off the coast of Cape Fear; and Oceanic Blacktip Sharks, masters of collaboration, off the coast of South Africa, where every year hundreds gather to hunt the shoals of anchovy migrating up the coast. It is the greatest collection of hunting sharks in the world. In the sun-lit waters of Indonesia lives the bizarrely named Tassled Wobbegong, which looks like a piece of coral as it lays motionless waiting for an unsuspecting fish to swim by. Mako Sharks, the fastest shark in the world, has been clocked swimming at 46 mph; while Greenland Sharks, which can live for 200 years under the ice of the Arctic, swim at just half a mile an hour, their metabolism lowered in order to cope with the sub-zero temperature.

© CARLOS AGUILERA

© STEVE M GENKINS, M.D.

The curious-looking tasselled wobbegong shark (Eurcrossorhinus dasypogon) is found around northern Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Its unusual markings allow it to camouflage itself and quickly grab unsuspecting prey. Its frilly ‘beard’ may act as bait, as it resembles tasty small sea creatures, luring the shark’s victims to its mouth.

LEFT ABOVE: Ragged-tooth sharks (Carcharias taurus) are also known as grey nurse sharks or sand tiger sharks. They can reach over three metres in length and their ragged-looking teeth, made up of larger teeth separated by smaller ones, give them a ferocious look. To stay buoyant, they gulp air from the surface and hold it in their stomachs. The sharks have been known to attack humans, but usually only when provoked.

The amazing spectacle happens when huge numbers of the rays (Mobula munkiana) gather to look for mates. However, no one is exactly sure of the reason behind their impressive leaps.

Many sharks have adapted to life in the deep ocean and often look very strange. A Frilled Shark has 200 teeth and catches its prey like a snake; and the strange looking Goblin Shark has remained virtually unchanged for 100 million years. The Epaulette Shark is at the other extreme and has adapted to be able to walk on land! It feeds on the shallow reef flats of the Great Barrier Reef. At low tides it can end up stranded on dry land, but its pectoral fins can act as legs and so it can walk itself out of trouble. Also featured are Thresher Sharks, Basking Sharks, Reef White Tipped Sharks, and the most famous and feared shark of all,The Great White. Great White Sharks hunt fur seal in the waters of South Africa – attacking them from beneath with such force that sometimes the sharks hurtle clean out of the water.This spectacular behaviour is the climax of the first programme and the team captured the whole of the hunt with a combination of underwater cameras, high-speed cameras and a camera mounted to a helicopter. The second film shows the secret lives of sharks and rays, from courtship and mating to the young growing up; from the remarkable ways they navigate the ocean to the surprising relationships they have developed with other creatures – even us. We also see a different side to,The Great White - it is, in fact, a very polite shark. It’s recently been discovered that Great Whites use body language to communicate with each

“There are more than 500 species of shark, all belonging to one large, extended family; the largest, the Whale Shark, is over 40ft long, the smallest, the Dwarf Lantern Shark, can fit in the palm of your hand, and glows in the dark.” Vol. 7 Issue 10

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other, and the film shows two sharks telling each other that they are not a threat.When over 150 Great Whites gather together at the Island of Guadalupe to hunt elephant seals, they can use these signals to show who is in charge and avoid any conflict. In the Pacific, hundreds of the Scalloped Hammerheads come together to find a mate through a beautifully choreographed dance that can last all day and when its time for Port Jackson Sharks to mate, they gather in Jervis Bay, Australia, in their thousands.The females lay only a few eggs, but each one is shaped like a corkscrew as big as her head. In order to give the eggs as good a chance as possible, they have evolved this strange shape so they can be wedged securely underneath rocks. Some sharks are more like mammals in the way they bear their young. In the isolated mangroves of South Bimini, Bahamas, pregnant Lemon Sharks give birth to fully formed pups which they have carried for 12 months - the females have a shark version of an umbilical cord and placenta and the pups even have belly buttons.The juveniles spend their first seven years in shark nurseries deep within the mangrove swamps and have been shown to form friendships with other sharks, learning from them how to find food and avoid danger. Whale Sharks weigh up to 20 tonnes, and they feed by filtering plankton from over 4.5m litres of water each day,

© RACHEL BUTLER

The Epaulette Shark on the Great Barrier Reef is the only shark that can walk on land, using its fins as prototype legs.

© DUNCAN BRAKE

BELOW: Giant Manta Rays can be up to 7 metres across and swim the oceans feeding on plankton.

The Nurse Shark has a mouth like a vacuum cleaner and can suck its prey of conch straight out of its shell.

© ERICK HIGUERA

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© JILLIAN MORRIS BRAKE

A baby Lemon Shark living in a shark ‘nursery’ in the mangrove forests of Bimini, the Bahamas, they can spend seven years growing up here. Vol. 7 Issue 10

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© CARLOS AGUILERA

while Tiger Sharks travel for weeks to reach Raine Island off The Great Barrier Reef, where they feast on Green Turtles who come to breed there for a few weeks each year. The most sociable group in the shark’s extended family are the rays – essentially flattened, elongated sharks with ‘wings’; some have a wingspan of up to seven metres. Like sharks, they too have a complicated social life, but one species, the Mobula Ray, has developed the most extraordinary way of getting noticed: somersaulting through the air as they compete to make the biggest splash. Each year, hundreds of thousands come together to feed in Baha, New Mexico, to make these acrobatic displays – it is thought that the loudest belly flop gets the most attention. Many sharks and rays are great ocean navigators, travelling thousands of miles in their search for food. Some navigate using the sun, the moon, and their sense of smell or even with tiny sensors that act like a compass. Giant Manta Rays are perfectly designed to fly through the ocean with huge ‘wings’ made from extended pectoral fins. Shark: Beneath The Surface is the final programme. It shows the extraordinary work of scientists across the world as they uncover the secrets of sharks, and examines the future of sharks as they face their darkest hour. It is the beginning of a golden age for shark scientists they are discovering that sharks are not mindless predators 32

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ABOVE: Mobula rays, such as the individual photographed above in Mexico, are known for their stunning acrobatic feat of leaping out of the water, sometimes nearly 9ft (3m) into the air, making a loud splash as they flop back down.

but surprising, intelligent and social creatures. But it is a race against time, since many shark species are under threat of extinction and populations of some are plummeting. Scientist Dr Demian Chapman reveals how Oceanic Whitetips are smart enough to get a free meal by snatching fish from the lines of sports fishermen, having learned the subtle changes in boat engine noise that indicate a fish has been caught. Dr Andrea Marshall demonstrates why Giant Manta Rays are the smartest fish in the sea and how they could be more like us than we realized. And Dr Alessandro Ponso is trying to track the mysterious migrations of Whale Sharks – using some ingenious technology.

“The chemical that makes the shark glow can be used to track unhealthy cells, so by following how they spread around the body, it’s possible to study how diseases work”

Breakthroughs in medicine and engineering By tapping into the science of sharks, major breakthroughs are being made in the worlds of medicine and engineering. Professor David Gruber is studying the bizarre Swell Shark – this is a shark that can glow in the dark. He dives with a unique camera that has been adapted to see like a shark’s eye, and it shows how their skin fluoresces bright green in moonlight. This skin could transform the treatment of lifethreatening diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s.The chemical that makes the shark glow can be used to track unhealthy cells, so by following how they spread around the body, it’s possible to study how diseases work, and to see what drugs work best at stopping them. But all this new knowledge comes just as many sharks face extinction.The main threat comes from commercial fishing, which kills an estimated 100 million sharks each year. Scientists fear we could be on the brink of losing some species for good - in some cases before we even knew they existed.Twenty three percent of known shark species are currently under threat of extinction. Scientist Dr David Ebert has discovered 24 new species of sharks and he thinks there could still be many more to find. One of the best places to find these new species is at the fish markets of Taiwan, where they are increasingly finding more very-deep-water species, showing that the trawlers are fishing deeper than ever. Dr Demian Chapman explains that sharks are vital to the health of the ocean ecosystems, as they are top predators. If these predators are removed, the whole habitat changes fundamentally – as has been shown when wolves or tigers have been taken out of habitats on land. The most iconic of sharks, the great white (Carcharadon carcharias) is an inimitable predator but it has a less wellknown social side as well. Groups of sharks gather and use body language to communicate with each other, sorting out disputes over kills and dominance.

Whale Sharks are the biggest sharks in the world measuring up to 40 feet long.

We catch up with Steve Greenwood, who has worked on programmes such as Expedition New Guinea, Natural World, as well as the new BBC Earth landmark series, Shark How is it different producing documentaries on mankind and wildlife? How about the difference working with land animals and marine animals? Wildlife films usually take much more time! We not only want to film the wildlife, but record their interesting behaviour. That takes a huge amount of patience and very often as a result of that, we find ourselves living in very remote places. With marine animals, this usually involves us working from a boat. While working in the ocean, we are limited by how long we can be underwater with our breathing gear. Also we have to contend with the water visibility – if the water is murky, we can’t get the shots!

What are your motives and objectives in producing various documentaries? What was it about sharks that made you want to produce the series? I love showing the audience just how incredible animals and the natural world really are. With Sharks, I felt that many people are quite afraid of them even though they know very little about them. I wanted to show people just how fascinating, complex and interesting that sharks are. They are just like any other group of animals in that they need to find a mate, have babies, the young need to grow up and find their place in the world. It is the same for all creatures – even us!

What are your opinions on sea aquariums and attractions that keep large sea animals in captivity?

© MORNÉ HARDENBERG/ATLANTIC EDGE FILMS

© ERICK HIGUERA

Some species of marine creatures just aren’t suited to be kept in captivity whilst others can thrive. Sea aquariums can play an important educational role if they are done well.

What can we do to help conservation efforts for marine wildlife? As consumers, we can all make careful choices on what we buy. We should also spend time with nature and pass on our enthusiasm for it to all those we meet.

How is a ‘day in the life of’ a producer like during a project? In Expedition New Guinea, the team you were with discovered many new species. Are most wildlife shoots that exciting? There are many parts to the job. The production starts off in the office, working out what stories we want to tell and arranging the shoots. That takes a long time. On a shoot, there are long days that require a lot of patience and determination to get the footage. Afterwards, we are in small rooms editing the footage for many weeks – that is often very exciting too!

What are some of the most common misconceptions the audiences have about wildlife documentaries? One of the most common misconceptions is that animals are easy to find and they are always doing interesting things! Unfortunately, that is not true. Lots of animals spend a lot of time not doing very much!

As a long-time producer, what kind of people do you hire for your productions? What kind of skill sets are you looking for? It all depends on the job. But a love of, and a deep knowledge about both wildlife and television are the most important assets.

What are your plans next? I’m making a series about the animals that live on the world’s greatest mountains. Vol. 7 Issue 10

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Whale Sharks can filter a million gallons of water a day in their search for plankton.

© ERICK HIGUERA

Changing attitudes Shark attacks are rare: humans are more than 50,000 times more likely to drown than to be attacked by a shark. Many sharks are killed by efforts to keep them away from beaches using nets or culls, even though there is no evidence that these methods work, and scientists are urgently looking for an alternative solution. In False Bay, Cape Town, over 700 Great White Sharks share the bay with many surfers and swimmers. Dr Alison Kock has been studying where the sharks go and how they find their prey as a way of using science and an understanding of shark behaviour to decrease the threats. Attitudes towards sharks are changing, in Western Australia there were two days of demonstrations against a shark cull, with thousands of protesters. In Asia, the price of shark fin is dropping rapidly. And in many countries, shark tourism is becoming big business as people queue up to dive with sharks; sharks are becoming worth more alive than dead. Perhaps the tide is at last turning in favour of sharks.

Whitetip Reef Sharks specialise in hunting at night using extraordinary senses of smell and electroreception.

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Great White Sharks gather together by the tiny pacific island of Guadalupe and use body language to communicate with each other.

© MORNÉ HARDENBERG/ATLANTIC EDGE FILMS

Shark Facts • There are more than 500 species of shark (510 species as of this year) • On average six humans a year are killed by sharks in unprovoked attacks over the last decade – but there were only three human fatalities in 2014 • It is estimated 100 million sharks are killed by commercial fishing each year • Overfishing is the main threat to sharks existence – and global catches are likely to be grossly underestimated. • The fin trade is extremely cruel. Often the fins are removed from a live shark before it is dumped back into the sea, where it will suffocate and die

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Watch SHARK The definitive natural history of the ocean’s greatest predators, made on a scale never before attempted. Filmed using breakthroughs in technology and research, by a new generation of cameramen pioneering new approaches to underwater filming, Shark is full of great spectacle and ’wow’ moments. Exclusive Asia Premiere on BBC Earth Sunday 4th October at 4pm (JKT/ BKK), 5pm (SG) Singapore: StarHub TV Channel 407 Malaysia: Hypp TV Channel 141 Indonesia: Indovision Channel 200 Thailand: TrueVisions Channel 18 Hong Kong: nowTV Channel 220 and Hong Kong Cable TV Channel 49 For other countries and more details please visit  www.bbcasia.com.

• Oceanic Whitetip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have declined by 99% over the past 60 years • A quarter of the world’s sharks and rays are threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List (2014), fortunately there are 22 ‘shark sanctuaries’ around the world where shark fishing is illegal • The smallest shark is the Dwarf Lantern shark at just six inches long – it can fit in the palm of your hand, and the largest is the Whale shark, which can measure up to 40 feet – the size of a bus • Sharks produce young either by laying eggs or live birth • All sharks have skin that is armoured with dermal denticles – minute teeth-like structures that are coated with tough enamel. Technology based on shark skin is making huge advances in medicine, sport and aviation • Sharks have hundreds of gel filled pores covering their head, called Ampullae of Lorenzini, which help

detect electrical fields given off by prey, and the earth’s magnetic field • Ancestral sharks have been around for over 400 million years • Species which have successfully been bred in captivity include; Whitetip Reef sharks, Leopard sharks, Zebra sharks, Nurse sharks, Epaulette sharks, Bamboo sharks, Cat-sharks, plus most rays, skates and Angel sharks • Swell sharks have fluorescent proteins in their skin which reflect moonlight, making them look like they are glowing in the dark • Makos are the fastest shark in the world – they have been recorded swimming at 31 mph • Manta rays have the largest brain of any fish, are very intelligent and even play with divers in the water • Greenland sharks can live in sub-zero temperatures. The ones that live in the Arctic Ocean have a parasite attached to one or both eyeballs • A Tiger shark called Harry Lindo racked up an astonishing 27,000 miles on an epic three year migration and a Great White called Nicole, named after Nicole Kidman, underwent the fastest long distance migration of 12,400 miles in nine months • Whale sharks are the largest fish in the sea, yet feed on plankton the smallest organisms in the sea, and travel huge distances to find their food • Many sharks are capable of complex communication, social and courtship behaviours • A group of sharks is called a “shiver” • Orcas, seals and birds have all been documented hunting, killing and consuming sharks

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PHOTO: GETTY

Bridging the gap between

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Scientists are uncovering the ways in which diet, lifestyle and the environment can affect your genes. As Nessa Carey discovers, this may change the face of evolution as we know it… rancis Crick and James Watson became household names for their 1953 discovery of the structure of DNA, and that breakthrough formed the basis for our understanding of how attributes are passed on from one generation to the next. But DNA – the genome – isn’t the whole of the story. Since the 1970s, the role of the ‘epigenome’ has come under ever greater scrutiny. The epigenome is the name given to tiny chemical modifications made by factors such as environment and diet to DNA and the proteins it wraps around. And studying these modifications has thrown up some surprising results. While your green eyes or dark skin are due to the DNA you inherited from your mother, your wiry build could have something to do with how your grandmother was living while she was carrying her.

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Almost all tortoiseshell cats are female. The orange and black coat colour genes are carried on the female sex chromosomes, known as X chromosomes. One of each pair of X chromosomes is randomly silenced by epigenetics early in development, and this creates the beautiful patchwork patterns in the feline fur.

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The extraordinary process of development starts with a single cell with limitless potential and ends, in humans, with trillions of cells that have become specialised. Several decades ago, no one knew what happened to the DNA when cells became specialised. One hypothesis was that cells got rid of the DNA they no longer needed. For example, brain cells would ‘lose’ genes that code for haemoglobin, the pigment that carries oxygen in the blood, while liver cells would abandon DNA coding for keratin. In the 1970s Prof John Gurdon, working first in Oxford and subsequently in Cambridge, disproved this theory. He removed the nuclei from frogspawn and replaced them with the nuclei from adult frog cells. The frogspawn developed into tadpoles and finally frogs. This demonstrated that there is no difference in the DNA of different cells from an individual. In 1996, Ian Wilmut, Keith Campbell and colleagues at the Roslin Institute proved that the same is true in mammals when they cloned Dolly the sheep, using a nucleus from an adult sheep mammary cell.

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How epigenetic modifications are expressed within the structure of our DNA, and passed on to our children

The DNA in our cells is not a long, g s i stringy molecule. l l Instead, I d iit’s ’ curled l d a around proteins called histones. D DNA winds around a cluster off eight hi histone proteins, i then h continues i o a little before on f winding around a h cluster. another l Thi process is This i repeated millions off times in every c ll It cell. I allows ll our cells ll to package k a about two metres of DNA into

a nucleus only a fraction f off a millimetre illi e e in i diameter. dia e e When a cell receives signals g from the th environment, i tiny i chemical h i l modifications are made to the DNA and to the histone p proteins. These are called epigenetic modifications, and they regulate g expression ffrom the t DNA. There is a huge range of different fferent modifications,

especially to histone proteins, and t they come in a dizzying array of g vast fl combinations, creating flexibility i gene expression. i A db in And because cells pass on the same pattern off fi epigenetic modifications to daughter y divide, these effects cells when they on g gene expression are maintained. Each histone has a tail

PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, PRESS ASSOCIATI ASSOCIATION TION O

Epigenetic modifications can occur on a strand of DNA as well as on histone proteins

DNA wraps around proteins called histones, which cluster together in groups of eight

Epigenetic modifications are also found on the histones’ tails

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Right: A DNA nucleosome Below right: Sir John Gurdon won a Nobel Prize for his pioneering 70s work on genetics in frogs

The birth of epigenetics In 2012, Gurdon was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work. Over the decades since his discovery, researchers – such as those at the multinational Roadmap Epigenomics Project – have made enormous strides in identifying the mechanisms behind epigenetic phenomena. These mechanisms are dependent on tiny chemical modifications to DNA, and to certain proteins called histones that are associated with our genetic material (see ‘How it works’, left). These modifications are referred to as ‘epigenetic modifications’. Hundreds of different enzymes can add or remove epigenetic modifications at different positions on the genome, and hundreds of other proteins can bind to various combinations of modifications and change the way the genome is used. These epigenetic modifications change in response to environmental stimuli, and allow our cells to adapt their expression of particular genes to a change in circumstance. Epigenetics therefore provides the bridge between nature (our genome) and nurture (our environment). Vol. 7 Issue 10

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Mammal gender g is g genetically determined, based o the p on presence or absence off a Y chromosome. H However, in i young European E sea bass, b waterr temperature causes epigenetic changes, and this determines their gender. There’s a similar mechanism in crocodiles. It’s possible, therefore, that climate change may disrupt sex distribution in such species.

PHOTO: ISTOCK, UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL, GETTY X3, ALAMY, JAMES SMITH/THE GURDON INSTITUTE, NEDERLANDS FOTOMUSEUM

Epigenetics in humans Some epigenetic responses to the environment are established early in life, such as in the first trimester of human pregnancy. An example of this has previously been seen in the Netherlands. Towards the end of WWII, certain regions of the country suffered catastrophic food shortages. Calorie intake dropped to less than 40 per cent of normal levels for a period of several months that became known as the ‘Hunger Winter’. Babies conceived during this period were normal at birth, but as they matured they began to show increased levels of adult obesity and Type 2 diabetes. This is because their genes were epigenetically modified during early development to enable the individuals to make the best use of what scarce nutrition there was. This would be an advantage if the famine had continued, but in a society with limitless access to food, this epigenetic alteration is problematic.

The original invitations for parents in the southwest UK to take part in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, AKA ‘Children of the 90s’

Dutch children during the ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944-45. The epigenetic effects of the Netherlands’ wartime famine are still being experienced today

Epigenetics provides researchers with a new way of understanding the foetal origins of adult disease, and is actively investigated in long-term epidemiological studies such as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children that has been following nearly 15,000 families since the early 1990s. Rodents that experience traumatic early life experiences establish epigenetic neuronal patterns that affect their stress levels in adulthood. Similar mechanisms may underlie the negative effects that early childhood abuse has on adult mental health in humans.

Epigenetics and heredity We know that genetic information is passed on from parent to child, but what about epigenetic information? In the 1980s, Prof Azim Surani at the University of Cambridge demonstrated that this does happen. In fact, successful reproduction in placental mammals positively requires transmission of appropriate epigenetic modifications from both parents. Using in vitro fertilisation techniques in mice, Surani showed that live animals can only be born if an egg and a sperm nucleus fuse together in an egg. No live young were born if he used two egg nuclei or two sperm nuclei, even though at a genetic level all three situations were identical. More evidence that epigenetic information is passed on from parent to child comes from a strain of mice 40

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called the ‘Agouti viable yellow’. These mice can be fat and golden, skinny and brown, or all types inbetween. All Agouti viable yellow mice are genetically identical; their differences are caused by epigenetic modifications to a certain region of the genome. The offspring tend to look like their parents, showing that they are inheriting this epigenetic information. But it’s not always perfect – some of the baby mice are different from their parents, which demonstrates that the transmission of epigenetic information is fuzzy. The proportion of the offspring that have a different appearance varies in response to environmental stimuli, such as giving alcohol to the mothers.

Above: The cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996 proved that stem and adult cells in mammals both contain the same DNA information

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“Epigenetic modifications change in response to environmental stimuli, and allow our cells to adapt their expression of particular genes to a change in circumstance”

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Key discoveries in the history of genetic science

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck attempts to explain speciation – the process by which new species arise – using his Theory of the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics.

Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species hypothesises speciation through a process of natural selection, based upon random variation between individuals.

Gregor Mendel’s work on peas gives birth to the ideas of ‘units of inheritance’ and recessive and dominant alleles, but is neglected until over 30 years after his death.

Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin (pictured), James Watson and Maurice Wilkins determine the structure of DNA, opening up the way for our molecular understanding of genetic inheritance.

Azim Surani demonstrates that both genetic and epigenetic information are transmitted to the offspring during mammalian reproduction.

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Identical twins are rarely exactly the same, despite sharing the same DNA code. In extreme cases, one twin may have a devastating disease such as schizophrenia while the other is healthy. This disparity reflects growing epigenetic differences between the twins, usually as a combination of responses to the environment and also random variability in the epigenetic modifications in their cells.

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So according to the research carried out on the mice, epigenetic information is passed on from parent to offspring and can also be influenced by the environment. This raises the next question: can epigenetically-mediated responses to the environment be passed on from parent to offspring? Classical Darwinian models of evolution would say no, as this idea has more in common with the theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, the 19th Century French

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naturalist who was Darwin’s main rival. But this certainty is increasingly coming under threat. There are some indications from the Dutch Hunger Winter subjects, for example, that the metabolic defects suffered by those who experienced famine in childhood are now being passed on to future generations.

Epigenetics and evolution Naturall selection N l i iis a process d driven i by random variation – changes in DNA sequence that are passed on from parent to child. Iff a particular variation confers an advantage under the prevailing environmental conditions, the individual carrying that variation has more chance of surviving to breeding age, and of breeding successfully. This will pass on their DNA sequence, and increase the number of individuals in the next generation carrying that variation. When this continues over millennia, it drives the process of

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speciation. And even within shorterr p periods, it can affect ff how p populations p d develop. l F For example, l the h variation i i iin the haemoglobin gene that makes people susceptible to the genetic condition beta thalassemia also gives them a degree of protection from malaria. This is why levels of beta thalassemia are highest in countries where malaria has historically been endemic, such as Greece and Turkey. Recently we have discovered that epigenetic modifications may also be passed on from parent to child.

Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to separate the effects of genetics, epigenetics and environment in human populations. So for greater certainty, researchers have once again turned to rodents. A number of studies have shown that when male rodents are malnourished, their offspring are metabolically impaired. But it’s experiments using fear-conditioning techniques that have really shaken up the field. Male mice were trained to associate a particular smell with an electric shock, and after repeated exposures the smell alone was enough to trigger a fear response. When the offspring of the mice were tested, they were also frightened by the smell, even though they had never been exposed to the electric shock. The mice also had the same epigenetic modifications to key genes in the brain as their traumatised fathers.

“Mice were trained to associate a particular smell with an electric shock. When the mice’s offspring were tested, they were also frightened by the smell”

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Prof Azim Surani demonstrated in the 1980s that epigenetic information is passed from parent to child in mammals

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Does this mean that the Darwinian model of evolution is dead? Of course it isn’t, even though there are now epigeneticists who refer to themselves as neoLamarckians. Most of the time, eggs and sperm are protected from epigenetic changes to the environment, and relatively few newly established modifications are likely to make it through to the next generation. Even when they do, the modifications and the effects they cause tend to die out within a few generations. This is what we would expect, as epigenetic alterations are intrinsically unstable.

Queen bees are physically very different from workers, and can live 20 times longer. But there’s nothing genetically special about queen bees: they are just the product of a different feeding regime in early life. This leads to epigenetic modifications that maintain queenly gene expression patterns.

But this transfer of epigenetic information across generations probably provides short-term advantageous adaptations to temporary changes in the environment without affecting the underlying genetic code that has evolved over thousands of years. The epigenetic inheritance takes place under certain conditions, but is unlikely to be a major player in long-term natural selection. Despite this, there is an increasing and facile tendency to ‘blame’ epigenetic inheritance for current problems, especially with respect to the human obesity epidemic. Fascinating though this field is, it’s not a get-out. The most important things that are happening to your health are happening here and now: no one gains weight in 2015 just because their grandad had a fondness for doughnuts in the 1960s! NESSA CAREY is a molecular biologist and author of the books Junk DNA and The Epigenetics Revolution

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HISTORY

Queen Elizabeth II pictured in 1953, near the beginning of what will soon be her record-breaking reign

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As Elizabeth II overtakes Victoria as Britain’s longest reigning monarch, Dan Jones looks back over the past 1,500 years to reveal the secrets to a happy and glorious period on the throne

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Make an impact

It’s all very well living to a ripe old age, but you’ll ultimately be judged by your achievements, however long your reign

Queen Victoria in the c1880s. As the queen who presided over the glory days of the British empire, her position in the pantheon of great monarchs seems secure

HOW NOT TO DO IT Henry III lasted 56 years, but there was precious little to celebrate. Failure in his attempts to invade France and, risibly, Sicily, was followed by a dreadful war with the English barons that saw Henry virtually deposed by his brother-in-law Simon de Montfort.

Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh tie the knot in 1947

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Marry well

Rocky relationships can often lead to rocky reigns Behind – or beside – almost every successful monarch is a trusted consort. Elizabeth II has Prince Philip. Victoria had Albert. William III (and II) and Mary II had one another. Henry VIII began his reign with one fine queen, Catherine of Aragon, and ended it with another, Katherine Parr – although he had to go through four other, rather less satisfactory, versions in between. One of the most intriguing partnerships in the history of the British monarchy was the marriage between Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. This ultimately brought Eleanor’s huge southern French duchy into union with the English crown and the links between England and Gascony would endure for 300 years. And since Eleanor had previously been married to Louis VII of France, her remarriage to Henry signalled a huge shift in continental power away from the Capetian dynasty toward the new Plantagenet crown. Henry and Eleanor fell out dramatically in 1173–74 when the queen encouraged her sons in a massive rebellion and was imprisoned for more than a decade. However, she endured and emerged in old age to hold together the reigns of Richard the Lionheart and, until her death in 1204, her youngest son, King John.

HOW NOT TO DO IT Mary, Queen of Scots never had the greatest judgment, and her decision to marry her cousin Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, in 1565 was among her worst. Darnley turned out to be a drunken, diseased murderer, who was eventually strangled before his house was blown up with gunpowder in 1567.

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Longevity is a great personal achievement for a monarch, although it is not a marker of success on its own. Queen Victoria’s 63 years and 216 days defined an age in British history; but in terms of relative accomplishment and reputation-building, Henry V’s nine years and 163 days – during which he won at Agincourt and conquered France – were pretty potent too. That being said, a long reign can be a good way to earn a lasting reputation. Elizabeth I (44 years) and Edward III (50 years) were both remarkably tenacious rulers, and although both eventually went rather stale, they were living legends by their old age. George III (59 years) followed much the same path. His reign ended, like Edward III’s, in the misery of personal decay and mental collapse, but before that came victories in the Seven Years’ War and the Napoleonic Wars, and survival during the sorely testing American War of Independence.

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Have fertile loins

A golden rule of monarchy: you can never produce too many successors The most basic fact of British monarchy is that it is hereditary. Its future depends on maintaining a large royal family who can ensure that the bloodline survives, no matter what. Notable successes in this field include Henry II – whose children numbered three kings of England, and queens of Castile and Sicily. Edward III’s many children restocked the Plantagenet dynasty during a lean time at the end of the 14th century. Even Henry VIII, whose troubles with producing an heir had such a profound effect on English history, managed to father three more Tudor monarchs, carrying the dynasty to the end of the 16th century.

George III and Queen Charlotte shown with their six eldest children in 1770. The prolific pair would go on to produce 15 offspring, among them kings George IV and William IV

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Perhaps the greatest success of all, however, was George III, who produced 15 children with his queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Two of his sons (George IV and William IV) ruled after him, and although neither produced a direct heir, Queen Victoria (George III’s granddaughter through his fourth son, Edward, Duke of Kent) still inherited the crown in 1837. We should, however, remember Queen Anne, who gave birth to 17 children – only one of whom reached the age of two – and died at the age of 49 without a child to succeed her. No matter how many children you have, you can never have too many.

HOW NOT TO DO IT It’s all very well spreading the royal seed, but it needs to remain in the family. Henry I fathered more than 20 children, but only two were legitimate: William the Ætheling, who died in a shipwreck, and the Empress Matilda. When Henry died in 1135 his decision to name Matilda as his heir led to the 19-year civil war known as the Anarchy.

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Build big

Architecture can be the saving of even the worst ruler’s legacy Monarchy is stamped into the landscape as much as it is written in the history books, and even otherwise useless rulers have obtained some redemption through their building works. To the otherwise inadequate Plantagenet rulers Henry III and Henry VI, for example, we owe Westminster Abbey, Eton and King’s College, Cambridge. In the Middle Ages, kings built castles, and in that sense, all were following the lead of their ancestor William the Conqueror, whose campaigns in England in the 11th century were secured by building and garrisoning fortresses. In the 13th century, Edward I commissioned the stunning ring of fortresses around Snowdonia, including the castles at Beaumaris, Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech. Later, Windsor Castle was extensively remodelled by several monarchs, most notably Edward III in the 14th century and George IV in the 1820s. During the Stuart restoration, the classicalbaroque style flourished, under masters like Christopher Wren (whose masterpiece was the new St Paul’s Cathedral) and Nicholas Hawksmoor (who developed Wren’s work in Greenwich). The last great phase of royal building came under Queen Victoria – or, rather, Prince Albert. Balmoral was created as a royal holiday residence in Scotland, while in London the museums and cultural spaces around South Kensington were begun under Albert’s influence (and, later, in his memory).

HOW NOT TO DO IT Royal building is an exercise in controlling your own legacy. Elizabeth I refused to follow royal custom by designing her own tomb. Thus she rests in Westminster Abbey beneath a squat, ugly effigy ordered by James VI and I, which compares noticeably badly to the tomb of James’s mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth had executed.

Richard I – shown with his sister greeting Philip II of France – earned his stripes fighting overseas

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Bash foreigners

You’re not a true royal superhero until you’ve thrown your weight around abroad The mythical king Arthur – once an archetype for great kingship – was famous for having extended his influence far beyond the shores of England. According to the original Arthurian pseudohistory, written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in the 12th century, Arthur travelled sword in hand to Ireland, Iceland, Norway and Gaul, and conquered a large swathe of northern Europe, much to the irritation of the Romans. “The fame of Arthur’s generosity and bravery spread to the very ends of the Earth,” wrote Geoffrey. Ever since, we have admired monarchs who advanced their influence in a similar fashion. During the Middle Ages, Richard the Lionheart and Edward I earned their military reputations fighting in the crusades; Edward III and Henry V expanded the territorial reach of the English crown to include great chunks of France. During the late Tudor and Stuart ages royal subjects populated the New World, and at the apogee of British imperialism under Queen Victoria, the crown’s influence really did extend to “the ends of the Earth”, as empire expanded to include India, Australia, Canada, southern Africa and south-east Asia. Today the house of Windsor exercises ‘soft’ power over the Commonwealth, but Elizabeth II is probably the most internationally travelled monarch in history, having been on state visits to scores of countries, from Ireland to Zimbabwe, China to the Vatican City.

Beaumaris Castle did more than cow the Welsh – it is also a conspicuous reminder of Edward I’s martial prowess

George I, first of the Hanoverians, got things the wrong way around, being far more focused on life in his native Germany than on spreading his fame and renown in Britain, where he held his crown. An unpopular and largely unsuccessful king, he is ill-remembered today.

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Winston Churchill and George VI celebrate victory in Europe from the balcony of Buckingham Palace, 8 May 1945. The two were thrown together by war but formed a formidable partnership

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Learn how to delegate

Remember, you’re never too regal to rely on advice from lesser mortals Even a great king or queen cannot rule by themselves: the most successful find able servants on whom they can rely for advice, information and diligence in carrying out the royal wish. At its best, monarchy is the business of building partnerships with these sorts of counsellors and servants, and the list of effective pairings is long. Henry II had Thomas Becket. Henry V had Cardinal Beaufort. Henry VIII had Thomas Cromwell. Elizabeth I had Lord Burghley and, later, his son, Robert Cecil. George III had William Pitt the Younger. Of course, in the case of

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Becket and Cromwell, things ended fatally for the counsellor. That was the hazard of the job. Even in the modern age, when ministers have been thrust upon monarchs by democratic election, rather than handpicked under royal prerogative, it has been possible for those born to power and those raised to it by the people to work in successful partnership. Circumstance threw together George VI and Winston Churchill, and despite their many differences, their relationship was an important part of Britain’s victory in the Second World War.

HOW NOT TO DO IT Edward II made perhaps the worst choice of advisors in history. His childhood friend Piers Gaveston was murdered by the king’s irate barons. His later favourites, the Despenser family, caused a rebellion and civil war following which Edward was forced to abdicate and was murdered in Berkeley Castle.

Treat life like a catwalk

BRIDGEMAN

You’re powerful, you’re chivalrous, you’re magnificent – so dress like it

Tights-wearing pomposity: the famously vain George IV cavorts in front of a mirror in a cartoon from 1820

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Monarchs are supposed to look different from their subjects, and the best of them understand this. During Edward III’s day, a cult of chivalrous and magnificent kingship was created around lavish outward display, huge tournaments and parties in which the king and his friends would wear elaborate costumes of exotic birds, or monks. Subsequently, Edward IV imported the latest Burgundian fashions to the English court, while Edward’s grandson and great-granddaughter, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, stepped things up another level, and made sure their splendid outward display was captured for posterity by the best court painters in Europe. Since then, kingliness (and queenliness) has regularly been equated with a form of

regal high fashion all of its own. This has included the dandyish decadence of Charles II’s court, the tights-wearing pomposity of George IV’s, and the medalchested military sobriety of George V’s and George VI’s. Today, Elizabeth II has made her own the bold, single-coloured hat-andcoat combinations created by her dresser Angela Kelly.

HOW NOT TO DO IT Henry VI never exuded regality, and though he could dress well, he was better remembered for wearing all black with clumpy farmer’s boots. Paraded through London by his enemies near the end of his life, he was mocked by the population for being dressed in a shabby old blue gown.

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Spin, spin, spin

Reality is overrated. In royal circles, it’s perception that matters

HOW NOT TO DO IT Richard III provides an object lesson in how not to be remembered. Despite his efforts to frame his usurpation in 1483 as legally and morally justified, he remains a highly controversial king. And, for all the efforts of his modern apologists, the Tudor image of a hunchbacked, murdering schemer persists to this day.

Elizabeth I, shown praying in 1569, was lucky enough to worship the same God as most of her subjects

9 Henry V, shown in a 15th-century manuscript, was a man on a divine mission – at least that’s what his powerful PR machine told his subjects

Be religious

Atheism isn’t an option in a role that gives you a direct line to the Almighty The permanent and irreversible mark of monarchy is conveyed by anointing the king or queen with holy oil at their coronation – a ritual that has existed since the Middle Ages, and which puts the king or queen in direct communion with God. So the sanctity of monarchy is and has always been a serious business. Medieval kings routinely ascribed their successes to the Almighty, and their successors have been expected to protect the church (which, since the Reformation, has been under their oversight). It is important, of course, to find the same God as the majority of your subjects. Elizabeth I succeeded where Mary failed in large part because she was a relatively moderate Protestant rather than a Roman Catholic; William III (and II) replaced James II (and VII) on the grounds that England would not tolerate another Catholic Stuart king. Even today, when monarchs can once again (in theory and in law) marry Catholics, Elizabeth II and her successors are and will be governors of the Church of England.

HOW NOT TO DO IT There is a fine line between belief in the awesome sanctity of monarchy and a belief that God has pre-approved everything you do. The insistence of James VI and I and Charles I on the divine right of kings played a significant part in the outbreak of the Civil War and the abolition of the monarchy between 1649 and 1660.

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One of the best ways to be remembered as a great ruler is to put the word out yourself. Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both took great care to cultivate their own magnificent images. But one of the greatest masters of this art was Henry V. Although undoubtedly a great soldier and extremely talented ruler all round, Henry also understood the importance of influencing the way he was perceived. Between 1416 and early 1417 a cleric in Henry’s private chapel wrote the Gesta Henrici Quinti – a book portraying Henry as a man on a divinely approved mission to seek justice in France, and establishing much of the public image of Henry that has survived so successfully.

DAN JONES is the author of A Realm Divided: A Year in the Life of Plantagenet England, which is to be published by Head of Zeus in October. He will be discussing the Plantagenets at BBC History Magazine’s History Weekends – see historyweekend.com Vol. 7 Issue 10

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Do you dread sitting on a cramped p plane p for hours? Graham Warwick k looks oo s at a t concept the p aircraft that could transform commercial flights

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B U S THINKING BLUE-SKY G AWWA S SKY WHALE

The tr Th The triple-decker ip Sky ky Wh Whale ale wouuld hav would have a wi have wings ngspan g pan of 88 88m m a se and seat 755 pa passe ssenge ngers g s

Industrial designers In g s are less constrained l i d i their in h i creativity i i y than h aircraft engineers, g who h have to ensure their h i designs g meet safety f s a da ds a standards and d ca can be produced economically. So S it’s no surprise t that S Spanish g graphic designer Oscar Viñals let l his hi imagination i i i roam free when he created f his concept p aircraft. The S Whale’s description Sky reads like a wish list off advanced aerospace p technologies: a blended t wing-body design wi b d d i to minimise weight; g active co o o control of a airflow o o over e the to maintain th wings i i i smooth, low-drag s g flight; fl g hybrid turbo-electric y

propulsion; self-healing g skins; collision ki ; laser l lli i sensors; and d wings i g and engines g designed g to break off to ensure b ea o oe su e safety in a crash. f The T Sky S y Whale’s 755 passengers occupy three decks. On the t top Class t p level, First C passengers enjoy g a view of the sky through th gh electronically l i ll dimmable ceiling g windows complete w with wi h incorporated i d solar l r panels. Of p O course, it’s highly unlikely that the awesome but b outlandish l di h Sky S y Whale will ever be built, but it mayy inspire a future generation of engineers to b be less gi l conservative. co se a e Vol. 7 Issue 10

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SCIENCE

ILLUSTRATION: NASA/LOCKHEED MARTIN, TECHNICON, IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

The sleek shape of N+2 will help reduce air disturbances as the plane tears through the sky

SILENT SUPERSONIC LOCKHEED MARTIN N+2 If a successor to Concorde ever emerges, chances are that it will look somewhat different from the iconic supersonic airliner. When an aeroplane breaks the sound barrier, air disturbances start to pile up into shockwaves at the nose, wing edges and tail. When these shockwaves combine, they are released in the distinctive sound known as a sonic boom. While the sound is impressive, it can startle wildlife, damage buildings and disturb residents who live near the flight path. But Boeing, Lockheed Martin and NASA have now perfected tools to create an aircraft with a boom that 52

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has been reduced from the painfully loud double bang of Concorde to a barely perceptible whoosh. The secret lies in carefully controlling how the shockwaves form on the aircraft. The complex curves of the N+2’s fuselage, the sharp sweep of its wing and the placing of its engines are all designed to control shockwave formation and minimise sonic boom. The sleek aeroplane would be able to seat 80 passengers, and Lockheed Martin reckons that the technology should be ready by 2025.

The Lockheed Martin N+2: supersonic travel without the boom

PLANE WITH A VIEW TECHNICON IXION Passengers often complain about the small size of aircraft windows; aircraft designers, on the other hand, would rather not have any windows at all as they just add weight and complexity. Cutting holes in a fuselage

creates potential weak points, so the structure must be beefed up to compensate, which leads to heavier planes. Plus, as window locations are fixed, they may no longer line up with the seats if an operator changes its cabin layout. French design studio Technicon thinks it has come up with a solution: the Ixion concept for a windowless private jet. Its cabin is lined with solar-powered screens

that can display anything from a view of the outside to video conferences and films. The Ixion concept is designed to show what’s possible using technology available now or in the near future.

The cabin of the Ixion is lined with display screens to offer passengers unique surroundings

Like other seaplanes, Imperial College’s concept doesn’t need a long runway because takeoff and landing occur on the water

COAST-T0-COAST IMPERIAL COLLEGE SEAPLANE Building new airports, or expanding existing ones, may be the biggest challenge to aviation’s growth because of public opposition to the locations of flight paths. To find a solution to this problem, a team at Imperial College London has looked to the early days of long-distance air travel, and set about reinventing the flying boat.

Before long-range aeroplanes were developed in WWII, the only way to span the globe by air was in a flying boat, but they are virtually extinct today. Now, researchers envisage 2,000-passenger behemoths criss-crossing the oceans between offshore hubs. “For many people, the majestic seaplanes of

the 1940s evoke a more romantic era in aviation history,” says Imperial’s Dr Errikos Levis Evocative they may be, but the flying boats of yesteryear were no match for the efficiency, capacity and speed of post-war airliners. To make their seaplane lighter and more efficient, the Imperial team have given it a ‘flying wing’

design. It dispenses with a fuselage and tail, smoothly merging the V-shaped hull into the massive wing-body to reduce drag. To succeed, Imperial’s concept would need a radical shift in the way we view air travel. But with the threat of rising sea levels from climate change, the world’s coastal airports may yet become seaplane hubs.

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HYBRID HOPE NASA N3-X Toyota’s Prius has already proved that hybrid electric power is viable for motoring. But now a similar shift is beginning in aviation, as the industry strives to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and cut its growing contribution to climate change. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this is

ILLUSTRATION: NASA, AIRBUS X2

The N3-X is a similar shape to the B-2 stealth bomber used by the US Air Force

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NASA’s N3-X, an aircraft that embodies many features that researchers are pursuing for future airliners. Instead of turning jet fuel into thrust via two huge turbofans under the wing as in today’s Boeing 777, the N3-X changes biofuel into electricity which it uses to drive a row of smaller fans positioned at

the back. The ‘flying wing’ design is aerodynamically and structurally more efficient than today’s ‘tube and wing’ aircraft, reducing fuel consumption, while the ‘letterbox’ inlet across its back cleans up airflow over the wide wing-body to minimise drag. To become a reality, the N3-X will require there to be

a breakthrough in lightweight electricity generators and motors, so that megawatts of electricity can be routed to the fans without losses in efficiency. However, NASA says it anticipates that small, hybrid-powered regional airliners are likely to be operating within the next 20 years.

The batteries for the E-Fan are mounted in the wings and contain enough juice for one hour of flight

TAKING CHARGE VOLTAIR E-FFAN

There T e e are a e twoo fans a s that t a are a e eac each driven d e by b an electric motor

T e E-Fan The a has as a w gspan win of 9.5m m

TThe plane’s top speed is 220km/h ((137mph) p )

VITAL STATS THE VOLTAIR E-FAN IN NUMBERS ff Takeo h / m k 0 0 1

60kW ed

pe gs sin /h i u Cr km 0 16

m

0k

500KG Unladen weight (with batteries)

SPEED The top speed of a Cessna 162, for comparison’s sake, is 218km/h

Total power from the two engines

1 hour Ma 22 x sp 0k ee m/ d h

Maximum flying time on one battery charge

The VoltAir E-Fan is a tiny y electric a aircraft powered by y rechargeable g batterries providing g CO2-free p propulsion for trainiing and personal flying g. The company y is a s subsidiary y of Airbus s and first s flew e the e E-Fan a in demonstrations 2 de o s a o s in 2014. Th 2 0 version The two-seat 2.0 is planned to fly in 2017, with the four-seat 4.0 following two years later. Though the E-Fan can only stay aloft for an hour, there is an emerging market for electric-powered light aircraft among customers whose only wish is to fly around their local airfield at the weekend. Electric

aeroplanes are quiet and cheap to operate, needing only access to electrical sockets to recharge. However, Airbus has bigger things in mind. The E-Fan is a means of gaining valuable experience with electric propulsion, and a first step towards hybridpowered helicopters or even regional airliners capable of carrying as many as 90 passengers. Electric aircraft would allow airlines to reduce carbon emissions and, as they would circumvent noise curfews, they could fly around the clock, says Jean Botti from the Airbus Group.

GRAHAM WARWICK works at Aviation Week magazine and has more than 30 years’ experience in aviation journalism Vol. 7 Issue 10

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© Tim Laman

NATURE

Greater Bird of Paradise displaying in the canopy to impress females. Aru Islands. 56

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ATTENBOROUGH’S

BIRDS OF PARADISE

Our fascination with birds of paradise has lasted 500 years. In this BBC Earth production, Sir David Attenborough offers his own personal take on the mystery and discovery, obsession and scientific revelation surrounding these elusive birds

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© Alex Lanchester

ir David Attenborough has been fascinated by birds of paradise since he was a child.They inspired him to embark, aged 31, on an epic adventure to the remote island of New Guinea in the hope of filming their bizarre displays for the first time. He’s not alone in his obsession with these living jewels of the rainforest. From Papua New Guinea tribesmen to European royalty, artists, scientists and collectors, the fascination with these birds has spanned 500 years. In this BBC Earth production, David Attenborough traces the

S

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origins of mankind’s obsession with birds of paradise; to capture, possess, paint and film them. He has spent a lifetime filming their displays, (many for the first time) and researching these birds both in their remote forest homes and in the museums and collections of Europe. He reveals the passion that these birds have brought about in so many human hearts, from collectors and painters to wildlife cameramen. He uncovers the true science behind their extraordinary lives, revealing that, far from being icons of religious virtuosity, the evolution

of their beauty has in fact been driven by sex. He also views the latest images of previously unseen displays captured by a new generation of bird of paradise enthusiasts. And in a final modern twist to this story of obsession and royalty, David Attenborough travels to the desert of Qatar, to a state of the art facility which houses the largest breeding group of these birds in the world; a Qatari Sheikh’s very own private collection.There he comes face to face with a display he first witnessed in the forests of New Guinea over 50 years ago.

ABOVE: Sir David Attenborough with specimens and skins of Birds of Paradise. RIGHT: Sir David Attenborough with a captive Greater Bird of Paradise displaying to him. Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation, Qatar.

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© Tim Laman

ABOVE: Blue Bird of Paradise displaying. Papua New Guinea. RIGHT: A male Queen Carola’s Parotia displays to a group of females who are judging him from a specially chosen “viewing gallery”. Papua New Guinea.

© Tim Laman

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© Tim Laman

A male Twelve-Wired Bird of Paradise displays to a female using its “wires” which add a physical element to his performance. Papua, Indonesia, Island of New Guinea.

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© Miles Barton

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© Miles Barton

© Alex Lanchester

LEFT: A Greater Bird of Paradise displaying the plumes on his back. ABOVE: The golden plumes of the male Greater Bird of Paradise. BELOW: The fine feathers of the blue bird of paradise.

WATCH Attenborough’s Birds of Paradise Exclusive Asia Premiere on BBC Earth

Sunday 4th October at 7.10pm (JKT/ BKK), 8.10pm (SG) Singapore: StarHub TV Channel 407 Malaysia: Hypp TV Channel 141 For other countries and more details please visit  www.bbcasia.com.

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SCIENCE

PHOTO: GETTY

We still have a long way to go when it comes to un ntangling g ng g the e mysteries of the cosmos. Stuart Clark takes a look a at so some eo of th he most perplexing questions yet to be answered by b science i

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Dark Energy

Dark Matter

The Big Bang

Gravity

Europa

Space-time

Fast Radio Bursts

Black Holes

Habitable Planets

Moon Formation

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How did it all begin? Cosmologists talk about the Big Bang, but they have no idea what it was. “We are sure that the early phase of the Universe was hot and dense,” says Prof Tim O’Brien, an astronomer from Jodrell Bank, University of Manchester. “But what triggered the Big Bang is still very much open for investigation.”

In March 2014, astronomers using an instrument called BICEP2 thought that they had seen evidence for a colossal increase in the expansion of the Universe at the moment of the Big Bang. This would fit theoretical ideas called inflation. Sadly, it turned out to be space dust contaminating the signal.

The BICEP2 lab is located at the South Pole

What are fast radio bursts?

PHOTO: STEFFEN RICHTER/HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CERN, NASA

M g y off star, Magnetars, a type aare one proposed source of fast radio bursts

Fast rad F dio bursts have the whole radio asstronomy community s scratchi ng their heads at the momentt. Just a dozen or so of the mysterious electromagnetic p pulses h have been discovered since the first one was detected s in 2001. Each lasts just a few milliiseconds, yet carries a much as h energy as the Sun releases l s in a month. “We really

have no idea at all what these things are,” says O’Brien. Various suggestions have been made, including exploding stars, evaporating black holes and even alien signalling devices. Calculations show that there could be as many as 10,000 of these radio bursts taking place every single day, but they still remain a mystery.

What is the space-time continuum? “The space-time continuum is the pinnacle of cosmological achievement in the last century,” says Dr Andrew Pontzen, cosmologist at University College London. The trouble is, nobody understands what it actually is. When Einstein developed General Relativity, he introduced it as a mathematical coordinate system. But what did it represent in reality? The maths suggested it was a malleable substance in which the celestial objects are suspended, but General Relativity provides no real insight into its physical nature. It could be made of incredibly tiny particles like a beach, which 66

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looks smooth from a distance but on close-up examination can be seen to be made from grains of sand. If so, it would need a quantum theory of space-time to be developed. There are some indications that light from distant stellar explosions, known as gamma-ray bursts, are delayed according to their wavelength as they travel across space. This is important because space-time particles would slow down shorter wavelengths of light more than longer wavelengths. There have been too few observations to prove or disprove the quantum nature of space-time. The puzzle remains: what is the space-time continuum?

The Large Hadron Collider is searching for dark matter candidates called neutralinos

What is dark matter? Almost every galaxy that astronomers have currently studied spins faster than they can explain. This means that there must be some other source of mass that we are unable to directly detect. Unfathomable galactic motions first came to light in the 1930s thanks to the work of Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky. He postulated that the extra mass must come from an unseen gas. He called this gas ‘dark matter’. By the 1970s, the need for dark matter was worse than ever. Astronomers were seeing far too much movement in the individual galaxies, yet they were convinced that the dark matter could not be atoms otherwise they would have found

it already. ready. Particle cle physicists provided le solution because a possible icting relic they were predicting particles of nature that are invisible visible avity. to light but interact through gravity. “We are now at a point where a lot of ic experiments on Earth stand a realistic chance of seeing something,” explains Pontzen. One of those experiments is the newly upgraded Large Hadron Collider at CERN, which is now looking for neutralinos. These are currently the best candidate particles for dark matter, but are only hypothetical. If CERN does not find them, it will be back to the drawing board. Vol. 7 Issue 10

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How did the Moon form? The origin of the Moon has proven remarkably tricky for astronomers to understand. In the late 1990s, planetary geologists felt that they had finally zeroed in on the answer. They called it the ‘Big Splat’. The idea involves a world about the size of Mars striking the Earth a glancing blow so that the shattered world g gathered in Earth’s orbit. Once O there re,, th the e

debris coalesced to form the Moon. Moon rocks brought back by the Apollo astronauts corroborated this scenario. But then it all went wrong. Better measurements showed that the Moon’s rocks were not just similar to Earth’s rocks – they were virtually identical. This would not be the case if the Moon had mostlyy formed out of th impactor. i . the

mpact is still the “The giant im sis because allll best hypothesi b narios just seem the other scen j planetary impossible,” explains e y scientist Prof David Rothery n University. from the Open y earchers are Currently, rese hether wondering wh h a scenario i ged can be envisag d in i which hi h the h dy is smaller and impacting bod embeds itself in Earth,, blasting g out orm the Moon. o rocks to fo

PHOTO: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, NASA/AMES/JPL, WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE

The Moon could have formed from debris created in an early collision

Do we understand gravity? Many scientists are convinced we need a new theory to explain the strongest gravitational fields in the Universe. But a much smaller group thinks that a new theory of gravity is also needed to explain very weak gravitational fields. The idea is called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). It was developed in the 1980s by the Israeli physicist Mordehai Milgrom. He made a small 68

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mathematical modification to Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation and showed that it could reproduce the rotation of galaxies without the need for dark matter. Yet no-one knows why such a modification should exist. ESA’s LISA-Pathfinder mission could help. The craft is designed to test sensitive instrumentation in the study of gravity in space. It’s set to

e launch this autumn, and once the payload has been shown ent to work, the craft could be se on a journey to test MOND in a region between Earth and the Sun. LISA-Pathfinderr is sensitive enough to show if the weak gravity there is m’s following Newton’s or Milgrom s prediction. If Newton rules, there must be dark matter. If Milgrom gets it right, he’s looking at a Nobel Prize.

Mordehai Milgrom: Nobel Prize glory?

Wha p Before B f we can g go looking g f habitable p for planets in the U Universe, , we first fi have to know what makes a planet capable off supporting g life. This is no easy t task. There are a number of f factors that determine whetherr a planet p can support pp life. As o o e s o e talk a abou Astronomers often about th habitable the h bi bl zone: the h region gi around a star in which a p planet can be warm enough for liquid water to exist on its surface. f H However, as Europa p p proves ((see ‘Is p70), ‘ there life on Europa’, p p ) this thi might i h be b too simplistic. i li i “I no longer ah habitable l g think hi k about b bi bl zone,” says a y Dr Peter Grindrod, G planetary scientist at Birkbeck, p University off London. “Instead, U I think planetaryy zones can be much muc more o e localised.” oca sed

akes a What seems clear W a see sc ea is s that a there e e needs eeds to o be an energy source and a d nutrients, i , then h water or some solvent o so e other o e so e iin which hi h the h biochemistry can bi h i take p place. In terms of ‘life o e as we e know o iit’, ’, this hi means we sshould look anywhere y e e is s abu da water ae there abundant a d sunlight. li h But B there h and c ld be b other h possible p ibl could b oc e s es as well. e biochemistries A key investigation forr h i l astrobiology bi l g iis theoretical y other routes to to identify life as well. Such research h h potential i l to d i ll has the drastically c g the way we think change a about planetary habitability..

Kepler-22b: snorkel required

Wha a e ? “We’re “W ’ sure they h exist, i even though h h w ’ never seen one,”” says we’ve y O O’Brien. Black holes are the p places in the Universe where matter has become so condensed that gravity has become overwhelming. No amount of energy will allow you to escape from a black hole once you cross its outer boundary, known as the event horizon. Light cannot escape either, making them appear black. They are often very small too, which means they are fiendishly difficult to spot. To put this in context, to transform the Earth into a black hole, it would need to be squeezed into a sphere about one centimetre across. However, the real mystery of black holes is what lies inside them.

N hi iin physics h i appears able bl Nothing h matter collapsing ll i into i to stop the j a denser and denser object until it r reaches a point of infinite density in volume, known as a singularity singularity. zero volume But mathematically, a singularity seems almost impossible. “I find it very hard to believe a singularity can exist in nature,” says O’Brien. Our predominant theories of physics – General Relativity and quantum mechanics – are no help here. Worse, the hints these theories do give are contradictory. Physicists are currently trying to develop ‘quantum gravity’. This is a mathematical theory that could give us testable predictions about the true nature of black holes. For now, we’re stumped.

An aptly-named black hole. 10/10 for creativity, astronomers…

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SCIENCE

Graphic derived from f space probes showing ng Europa’s waater vapourr

Is there life on Europa?

PHOTO: NASA X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Europa is one of the four moons of Jupiter spotted by Galileo in 1610. At the time, the discovery caused a sensation, with some wondering why such a world had been placed into the heavens. Yet it wasn’t until space probes took close-up observations in the 1970s that Europa’s true mystery came to light. Its neighbouring moon, Io, suffers from giant eruptions that throw sulphurous lava high into space. This volcanic activity is sustained by a gravitational tug-of-war that sees Jupiter pulling the moon one way, and the other moons pulling it the other. On Europa, these forces are not so severe. They cannot spark volcanism, but they can keep the moon’s interior warm enough to melt much of the ice. Europa’s ocean is so g that it must contain two to three large times more water than i h allll the h oceans on o Earth put together. g . On O Earth, one theory states that life f started on the dark k

Europa is just a little smaller than the Moon

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ocean floor around hydrothermal vents called black smokers. Black smokers occur when water heated in the interior of our planet jets up into the ocean. The water carries dissolved chemicals that provide nutrients for the ecosystem’s exotic microorganisms. Could the same be happening on Europa? Prof David Rothery, a planetary scientist at the Open University, thinks it’s a distinct possibility. He says: “Europa is one of the most promising places to look for life. It has everything you need.” NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will determine whether Europa possesses the right conditions for life. There is no precise launch date, but NASA expects it to be on its way in the 2020s. In 2016, $30m (£19m approx) will be spent developing the craft and its instruments. I 2012, the Hubble S In Space T l p spotted p d water vapour p Telescope

around the moon’s south pole, implying that the ice is thin or fissured, allowing the subsurface water to escape. Planetary geologists have seen cracks appearing on Europa because of the gravitational forces that are at work. All this means that Europa Clipper could directly sample the water by flying through these plumes. Maybe it could look for the evidence of life? “Once you are at Europa, it is easier to look for life than at Mars,” says Rothery. This is because any microbes that have formed in the ocean could find themselves transported to the bottom of the ice crust on the rising currents, and then jetted through the cracks, bringing them to the surface where they could be studied. Assuming g that the signs g remain f life, f a ffollow-on mission positive for ld b ig d to land l d on the h icy i could be d designed su ace a d bu o down do o the e surface and burrow into o b l . ocean below.

We hope dark energy really does look like tie-dye…

What is dark energy? When it comes to a list of cosmic unknowns, there is no question about what tops the list. “Dark energy is certainly the biggest mystery in our understanding of the present day Universe,” says Pontzen. In 1929, US astronomer Edwin Hubble established that distant galaxies are moving away from us. Belgian astronomer Georges Lemaître had predicted this behaviour in 1927, when he calculated the expected rate of this expansion. Rather unjustly, this is now called the Hubble Constant. By the 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope was in orbit and was being used with ground-based telescopes to measure the rate at which this expansion changed across the breadth of the observable Universe.

racing to make k this hi measurement as iit d reveal the ffate off the U Universe: would forever or fall whetther it would expand p k together, back g h coming i g to an end d iin a catastrophic ‘Big Crunch’. It seemed obvious that the expansion must be decelerating, because the gravity generated by the matter in the Universe would resist the expansion. What the teams discovered was the complete opposite – the expansion is getting faster. Further research has shown that the acceleration began about seven billion years ago, when the Universe was about half its current age. It is as if some previously undetected anti-gravity substance is dominating the behaviour of the Universe. It makes up about 70 per cent of all the matter and energy in the cosmos, and is called ‘dark energy’. Yet uncovering its identity remains very difficult. “Frankly, we are still pretty clueless,” says Pontzen. There are two leading possibilities: it is either an energy, or a force of nature. If it is an energy, then it will have to display properties unlike any S

The p Euclid space l telescope

negative energy, because instead of generating gravity, it creates a kind of anti-gravity. If it is a force, often termed ‘quintessence’, then it is very weak. But over the vastness of space, it builds up into the acceleration we see around us. To try to discriminate between these two options, the European Space Agency is building a space telescope called Euclid. Launching in 2020, it will map galaxies to a distance of 10 billion light-years, to reveal the way dark energy has moved them around. It will allow cosmologists to describe the behaviour of dark energy, such as whether it changes from place to place. Whatever dark energy turns out to be, it will require a re-write of the textbooks when we finally understand its true nature. STUART CLARK holds a PhD in astrophysics and is author of The Unknown Universe – out September 2015 Vol. 7 Issue 10

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NATURE

A spirit bear watches the river, looking for salmon. A recessive gene is responsible for its distinctive coat

Scan this QR Code for the audio reader 72

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Spirits of the

forest

Canada’s forests are home to ghostly bears that have a key advantage over their darker cousins, but incoming grizzly bears pose a new threat. Isabelle Groc reports Photos by Daisy Gilardini

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he Great Bear Rainforest is exceptionally damp, dense and dark, particularly in autumn.The Canadian film-maker Jeff Turner was exploring this vast area when a strikingly white, ghost-like animal suddenly appeared. It materialised out of the gloomy greens and browns of the forest and ambled towards the riverbank. “These pale animals just look so unique,” he says, remembering his first encounter with a spirit bear. “They seem totally out of place in this environment.” Dubbed spirits of the forest, these are Kermode bears Ursus americanus kermodei.They are a subspecies of the North American black bear with a rare recessive gene that makes their fur white or cream, almost unbelievably so. “Spirit bears almost glow – they have this aura about them,”Turner says. “When you see one for the first time, it’s magical.You can’t quite believe your eyes.” Jeff and Sue Turner met their first white bear in the 1980s, and were the first to film a documentary about these mammals, which the BBC broadcast in 1994. Spirit bears are found only in the Great Bear Rainforest, a 6.4 million ha ecosystem

DAISY GILARDINI/GETTY IMAGES X2

T

ABOVE: spirit bears, such as this female and her dark-coated cub, like to feast on barnacles and mussels on the coast. Here an old tree has fallen in the sea, providing rich pickings. RIGHT: spirit bears are good climbers – this one has led her two-year-old cub up a tree as a grizzly is nearby

The bears play a key role in the ecosystem, contributing to the growth of the forest

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on British Columbia’s north and central coast.The world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, this is a stunning landscape of narrow fjords, pristine islands and crystal-clear, salmonfilled rivers adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. No one agrees on the exact number of spirit bears living in this corner of the world, but the best estimate is no more than about 400 individuals. One in ten black bears is pale, and to produce pale cubs both parents – white or black – must carry the gene that results in the white or cream-coloured coat.The First Nations communities that have lived in the region for thousands of years call the spirit bear moskgm’ol, which simply means ‘white bear’, and view the animal as sacred.

Fishing phantoms Scientists have long wondered whether a white coat gives the spirit bear any special advantage, and a few years ago a study led by Thomas Reimchen from the University of Victoria’s Department of Biology demonstrated that white bears are more successful at catching salmon in daylight compared with black ones. In the same way that many seabirds around the world are predominantly white, pale bears

are better camouflaged than dark ones by day, because they contrast less with a bright sky background, so salmon don’t notice them as much. At night, black bears become more successful. Pacific salmon are the lifeblood of the Great Bear Rainforest (see box).They hatch in the gravel beds of streams in the headwaters, swim out to the ocean then return several years later in autumn to spawn and die in the streams where they hatched.This is the time of year that spirit and black bears are waiting for. They emerge from the forest to feast on the spawning fish – mostly pink, chum and coho salmon – for a few weeks.They store as much fat as possible before going into hibernation in cavities inside giant old trees. The bears play a key role in the ecosystem, contributing to the growth of the forest by spreading marine nutrients.They carry salmon carcasses deep into the forest, where the fishy remains are eaten by gulls, ravens, bald eagles and other scavengers. As the carcasses are absorbed by the forest floor, the nutrients from the ocean are effectively transferred to the trees. “When you go to a river, and when bears are taking salmon, you

ABOVE: when this bear heard her cub calling, she did not hesitate to cross the river just metres from where Daisy had set up her tripod. LEFT: the autumn salmon run offers the best chance of seeing spirit bears, but they now face stiff competition from grizzlies

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PACIFIC SALMON BACKBONE OF THE FOREST The ecological and cultural legacy of Canada’s Pacific coast is shaped by wild Pacific salmon, which feed the plants, wolves, bears and other wildlife of both marine and terrestrial environments. There are five Pacific salmon species. In the Great Bear Rainforest, bears mainly feed on pink, chum and coho salmon. Pink salmon, the smallest species, have a twoyear cycle from the egg stage in the home stream, developing into small

fry, travelling far out to the ocean, and returning as adults to spawn and die in the stream where they hatched. In contrast chum salmon have a four-tofive-year cycle from the egg stage to their return as a spawning adult. For all Pacific salmon species, spawning starts in early September and ends in late October. This is the prime time to view the bears because they leave the forest to capture tired returning salmon in the streams.

see bigger trees,” notes Douglas Neasloss, a local First Nation leader and bear-viewing guide. “Like gardeners, the bears are fertilising the forest floor.” Neasloss reports significant changes in salmon returns during only a couple of generations.“Our elders remember when the salmon were so thick that you could walk across their backs,” he says.Today, because of overfishing, loss of habitat, clear-cutting, changes in marine productivity and the warming climate, the number of salmon returning to their home streams to spawn has declined drastically. Neasloss points to a river system where the fish are now down to a population of just 4,000–5,000, compared with 80,000 originally.

Grizzly invasion Salmon declines influence the dynamics of the ecosystem overall.Traditionally spirit and black bears have ruled the small islands, where they have lived without competition. But in the past decade Neasloss and other First Nation community members have noticed new visitors to the islands: grizzly bears. Because numbers of salmon are down, grizzlies travel farther to look for food and are encroaching on spirit bear territory for the first time. Since 2012 Christina Service, a biologist with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation and Spirit Bear Research Foundation, has collected more than 4,600 samples 76

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ABOVE: after a heavy rainstorm a spirit bear braves a river in spate to fish for her two young cubs. RIGHT: a mother and her dark cub feast on salmon; they prefer females heavy with eggs. Opposite: fights over fishing territory are frequent. In this case a spirit bear fends off a black bear twice its size

of bear fur through hair-snagging stations in the Great Bear Rainforest, in an effort to improve our understanding of the relationship between salmon and bears. “Salmon is the name of the game and drives bear population health,” she says. Her samples provide a window into the lives of the animals. For example, Service can tell if the bears have been experiencing stress, as well as how much salmon they have been eating and when. She has also set up 42 remote wildlife cameras in the forest to follow the bears.Through her research Service has detected an increasing number of grizzlies – specifically females with cubs. “This indicates that their population is here to stay,” she says. This might be bad news for spirit bears. Grizzlies are larger and stronger, and usually chase other bears off from prime fishing spots. “I go to some rivers that used to be 100 per

“Spirit bears almost glow — they have this aura about them. When you see one, it’s magical”

cent spirit and black bears,” says Neasloss. “All of a sudden a grizzly shows up and the whole system changes.” This is not the only threat that the spirit bears are facing. Twenty years after his first documentary, Jeff Turner and his family returned to the Great Bear Rainforest. In Ghost Bear Family, which aired on BBC Two in July,Turner tells the story of a spirit bear and her two black cubs, including a dramatic encounter with a large male black bear on a creek.Turner noticed subtle changes in spirit bear territory since his visit in the 1980s: “On the surface you look at the place and you could say nothing is different. But in other ways it has changed a lot. It is a big intact ecosystem, but we continue to chip away at it.” ABOVE: DAISY GILARDINI/GETTY IMAGES

Conservation crusade In the 1990s First Nations and environmental groups joined forces to campaign to defend the region from destructive logging. In 2006 a landmark agreement was reached to protect a third of the Great Bear Rainforest, though environmentalists continue to advocate for further protection. “We have come a long way since 1997,” says Wayne McCrory, a bear biologist with the Valhalla Wilderness Society who has played an important role in the Great Bear Rainforest’s conservation. But spirit bears still face a host of threats. McCrory is concerned about the lack of adequate logging guidelines to protect the big old cedar trees that the bears 78

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The Great Bear Rainforest covers 6.4 million ha.

TEMPERATE RAINFORESTS OF THE WORLD

ABOVE: after a full day’s fishing this spirit bear headed to the depths of the forest and found the perfect spot for a nap. LEFT: the presence of a rival nearby put this female and her dark cub on full alert

ATLANTIC OAKWOODS BRITISH ISLES Sustained by a very mild, wet climate, these gnarly old oakwoods are the closest the British Isles have to true rainforest. A classic feature of southwest England, West Wales, Cumbria, Ireland and the west coast of Scotland, they support diverse ferns, lichens, mosses, pied flycatchers and wood warblers. Examples include Wistman’s

Wood on Dartmoor and Great Wood at Derwent Water, Cumbria. KNYSNA AND AMATOLE FORESTS SOUTH AFRICA Southern Africa generally has much less tree cover than West, Central or East Africa, a, so these relatively small pocke ets off temperate rainforest are exceptional al and support many endemi mic species. s i The Amatole forests lie l e in nland n and cloak mountainsid ides es, s with ih lush vegetation and rush r hing h g streams, while the Kn nysn na n forests carpet lower hills h on the Cape coast. SOUTH ISLAND FORESTS NEW ZEALAND The dramatic, rainsoaked mountains an nd d fjords along the west coa ast a t

depend on for hibernating and giving birth to their young. More recently an oil-pipeline project was proposed that would bring tankers into the region. “An oil spill would have a catastrophic effect on the coastal bears and the ecosystem,” says McCrory, who authored a report on the subject called Spirit Bears Under Siege. The government of British Columbia also allows the hunting of grizzly and black bears in the Great Bear Rainforest. So while it is illegal to kill a spirit bear, hunters may shoot a black bear that carries the crucial gene. In contrast the Coastal First Nations banned the trophy hunting of all bears in the region in 2012. “Spirit bears have to compete against declining salmon, trophy hunting, resident hunting and grizzly bears,” says Neasloss. The ban makes economic sense, too. A recent study showed that, in 2012, bear-viewing companies in the Great Bear Rainforest generated over 12 times more in visitor

of South Island support New Zealand’s most extensive surviving forests. They shelter large numbers of endemic plants and animals, including kiwis and fjordland crested penguins (pictured) – the only penguins that breed among trees. Key tree species include the southern r beech a and conifers in the fam f mily Po Podoc d arpa aceae. V VALDIIVIAN FORESTS C CHILE E/ARGENTINA T This sp pectacular forested are ea in in tthe h south-west s corner of S South Am m merica me a is the continent’s only tempera ate rainforest. S Sandw w wiched d between the Pac cifi fi and fic d the Southern A And d des, it i is home to millions off A Antarc ctic beech and mo onk on key puzzle trees as w well as one of the world’s la arges a g t woodpeckers, the h M Mage ellanic.

spending than bear hunting: US$15.1 million compared with US$1.2 million. While the world around them is changing, the spirit bears have retained the timeless, magical qualities that first attracted Turner to the Great Bear Rainforest. He recalls that when he first filmed the bears in the 1990s the animals had not seen many people and had little fear. Even in 2014, over two decades later, he was able to develop a similar relationship based on trust and respect with the mother and cubs that he followed for a season. “Spirit bears are incredibly accommodating, gentle and tolerant,”Turner says now. “They have individual personalities, and approach the world much as different people would approach the world.” ISABELLE GROC is an environmental writer and wildlife photographer based in British Columbia (www.tidelife.ca). Vol. 7 Issue 10

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CRESTED PENGUIN: ANDY TROWBRIDGE/NATUREPL.COM

APPALACHIAN FORESTS USA/CANADA Hugging North America’s eastern seaboard, the Appalachians stretch 2,400km from south-east Canada to the southern states of Georgia and Alabama. The wettest sections in the south may receive over 250cm of rainfall annually – often taken as the benchmark for temperate-rainforest status – and are particularly rich in mosses and amphibians.

SCIENCE

QUESTIONS AT THE FRONTIERS OF...

PROBABILITY It’s not all about tossing countless coins and rolling dice, says Robert Matthews. Probability researchers are also working on ways to unravel the secrets of the Universe What is probability?

PHOTO: GETTY

Ask people what probability is, and chances are they’ll say something about random events like tossing a coin. They might say the probability of getting heads is 50:50, or of rolling a six on a die is one in six. But asked for more examples, they’re likely to start talking about altogether fuzzier things, like the probability of Spurs winning the League, say, or of scientists finding a cure for cancer. This reflects the odd fact that while the rules governing probability are clear-cut, its exact meaning isn’t – and pinning it down has caused huge controversy. It’s often useful to regard probabilities as frequencies: the number of times you get the outcome you’re interested in, divided by the total number of opportunities it was given to occur. If a coin is fair, there’s no reason to think heads are more likely than tails, so you’d expect around 50 per cent of all tosses to give heads. Probability laws then give insight into all kinds of outcomes, from the chances of getting 10 consecutive heads to the plausible range for the number of tails seen after 100 tosses. But how do we know the coin really is fair? The obvious way to find out is to toss the coin and measure the proportions of heads and tails. The laws of probability can then be used to turn the data into a measure of the chances of our belief that the coin is fair being correct. Yet now probability has taken on a different meaning. It’s no longer about objective

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frequencies but about subjective beliefs. Worse still, it could take on different values for different people, reflecting their personal levels of trust or scepticism. In the 1920s, this apparent lack of objectivity prompted one mathematician to declare that probability does not exist, any more than choice or belief exists. Fearing this might lead to conclusions based on data analysis becoming just a matter of opinion, some scientists advocated techniques for analysing experimental results that appeared to use an objective measure of probability, called the p-value. Yet critics pointed out that p-values merely swept subjectivity under the carpet, and carried a risk of making nonsensical results seem ‘statistically significant’. They argued instead for the wider use of so-called Bayesian methods, which view probabilities as degrees of belief, and are more robust against implausible findings. While arguments still rage, this attitude towards probability is now gaining ground.

Can we understand tangles? From radioactive decay to shop queues, the effects of randomness are everywhere. Probability theory provides the tools for understanding them. Whether you’re a hospital manager trying to predict patient numbers or a gambler wondering whether to take a bet, there are formulas to help. But there are many everyday manifestations of randomness that are still poorly understood. One of the

Scientists: champion coin tossers

most striking examples is the behaviour of randomly-jumbled string. Everyone knows that rope, flex or string gets hopelessly tangled if it is carelessly handled. What’s less well-known is that the theory behind this annoying phenomenon is at the frontier of mathematics. Known as the theory of ‘self-avoiding random walks’, this is a branch of probability that seeks the rules governing stringy objects that are able to twist and turn at random. Mathematicians know a huge amount about the related ‘drunkard’s walk problem’, which – put simply - focuses on behaviour

of random movement through space. The results have found applications in a host of areas, from the jitters of molecules to the behaviour of financial markets. Far less is known about the behaviour of stringy objects that can do the same. That’s because, unlike a drunkard, a solid piece of string cannot go through exactly the same point twice – because part of it is still there. This constraint gives self-avoiding random walks their name, and makes their behaviour much harder to understand. For example, we all have a sense that pieces of string are increasingly at risk of

getting knotted up as they get longer. Yet a rigorous proof of this ‘obvious’ result was only found in 1988. This in turn led me to put forward a mathematical argument that the risk of tangling could be greatly reduced by simply connecting the two ends of string, rope or flex into a loop. While I’ve got plenty of experimental data showing this works, the so-called ‘Loop Conjecture’ has yet to be rigorously proved.

How probable is our Universe?

Probability is an extraordinarily powerful concept, and in theory should apply to everything – including the Universe. But current theories of how the Universe began create serious problems for the application of probability theory. In essence, the problem lies in the process thought to have created the Universe in a Big Bang around 14 billion years ago. Known as eternal inflation, this postulates the existence of quantum forces that constantly create rapidly-expanding regions of space and time – one of which became our Universe. This implies that what we thought of as ‘everything’ is in fact just one of an infinite number of bubble-like universes which together constitute the totality of existence, dubbed the Multiverse. It’s an astonishing proposal – and also one that immediately leads to problems with probability. For example, theorists would like to know just how probable our Universe is. Using the standard definition of probability, that means dividing the number of universes like ours by the number making up the Multiverse. But if eternal inflation has been happening forever, there will now be an infinite number of universes like our own, while the number of universes in the Multiverse is also infinite. The probability of our Universe is thus infinity divided by itself – which is meaningless. Theorists are now wrestling with this conundrum. One way of solving it may lie in the fact that the forces driving bubble universes lead them to expand at an ever-faster rate as they get larger. This stretches the very fabric of space and time within the bubble universe, so Einstein’s famous light-speed limit does not apply, and it’s possible for whole regions to become forever undetectable - as they’re expanding faster than the speed of light. As such, they effectively cease to exist, and so – in theory at least – they may no longer need to be included in cosmic probability calculations. Theorists are still arguing over the details, but early results have given reasonable answers to questions about, for example, the strength of the force propelling the expansion of our Universe.

ROBERT MATTHEWS is Visiting Reader in Science at Aston University whose research includes probability – he is writing a book on the subject

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SCIENCE

THE FUTURE OF GADGETS

TECHHUB EDITED BY RUSSELL DEEKS

ON THE HORIZON

GOGORO SMARTSCOOTER A zero-emissions scooter you’d actually want to be seen on www.gogoro.com ww www. ww. w gogo gogoro.com go 82

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he Gogoro was unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, and it might just be the future of urban transport. The Gogoro Smartscooter isn’t the first electric scooter by any means, but its sleek, stylish looks and innovative swappable battery system make it the mostly hotly tipped model right now. It’s also the first that’s been specifically designed to address the transport

T

needs of denizens of ‘megacities’ – that is, cities with a population of over 10 million. Two entrepreneurs called Horace Luke and Matt Taylor, whose backgrounds lie not in the automobile industry but in consumer electronics, founded Gogoro in 2011. Both Luke and Taylor previously worked at Microsoft and HTC, while their individual CVs include the likes of Motorola and Nike. Gogoro

has received over US$150m in funding from investors including HTC founder Cher Wang, while a key partner is Panasonic, which has helped to design the Smartscooter’s unique battery/charging system. It’s the innovation in this area that makes the Smartscooter so interesting.With most electric vehicles, around 40 per cent of the purchase cost simply pays for a large battery that requires regular charging.

TECHOMETER WHAT’S HOT

STEAM MACHINES There have been plenty of false starts along the way, but it now looks like the first Steam machines – consolelike PCs that run Valve’s gaming-orientated SteamOS and are designed to sit below your TV – should finally be in stores before the year’s out. First off the blocks will be the Alpha from Alienware, and the Steam Machine I from Cyberpower, both priced at around £400.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Max speed

95km/h

Range

100km approx

Max horsepower

8.58hp @ 3,250rpm

Weight

94kg (112kg with batteries)

Acceleration (0-50km/h)

4.2 seconds

Dimensions

1,730 x 690 x 1,215mm

WHAT’S NOT

Not so with Smartscooter: instead, you buy the bike outright for the price of US$4,100, then lease charged batteries from ‘GoStations’ located all across the city, much as you buy a mobile phone handset outright and then lease airtime from a network provider. When your batteries – they come in pairs – start to run low, you simply pull up at the next GoStation and exchange them for a fresh pair. The benefits in terms of keeping you moving are obvious, but there’s more to Gogoro’s power system than that. There are 30 sensors on the bike itself and 25 in the battery, all connected to the cloud and a smartphone app. They monitor everything from average speed to your riding position. That way, when you want to swap batteries, the GoStation knows whether you’re a speed merchant who’s definitely going to need that fully charged, brand new cell, or a cautious commuter type for whom an older battery that’s only 85 per cent full will do just fine. The same sensors will also alert you if any part of your Smartscooter needs attention, reducing the likelihood of mechanical failure and improving safety. You can only withdraw a fresh battery from a GoStation after you’ve put a dead

one in first, and each battery ‘loan’ is centrally recorded – so if anyone should steal your Smartscooter, their whereabouts will be instantly known the next time they try and put in new batteries. Each pair of batteries will give you a range of around 100km (60 miles) from fully charged, and batteries will be withdrawn after 500 charging cycles – the point at which capacity starts to drop significantly – to be re-used in data centres, homes and offices. Then, towards the end of their life, they’ll be donated to charity projects in developing nations. Taipei in Taiwan is the world’s first city to be kitted out with a full citywide network of GoStations, and the first Smartscooters will go on sale there this summer. After that, Gogoro has plans to roll out its Energy Networks across Asia, Europe and the US. The future success of the Smartscooter remains uncertain, of course, but just look at the thing: if we’re ever going to ride off into a zero-emissions sunset, then that’s the two-wheeler we want to do it on.

LASTPASS If your entire business model is based around keeping people’s passwords safe, then having your own databanks compromised by hackers is pretty much the worst disaster that could befall you. Yet that’s exactly what happened to online passport manager LastPass back in June, with the company urging all users to change their master passwords as a result. You had one job, LastPass…

READER POLL Does the Gogoro inspire you to leave the car at home?

44% 56%

Nope – I’ll stick with four wheels

PHOTO: GOGORO

With a top speed of 95km/h (60mph), the Gogoro is nippy enough to cope with commuter traffic

Yes – I want one!

RUSSELL DEEKS is a freelance science and technology journalist Vol. 7 Issue 10

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SCIENCE

Music fans had their faces compared to those of criminals at this year’s Download

THE NEXT BIG THING

SURVEILLANCE STATES As I write this on a train, a camera is filming me and my fellow commuters. It’s there for my ‘safety and convenience’, and it’s increasingly unremarkable to be observed in this way. Soon we will have to make the assumption that we are always on camera when not explicitly in private. Filming in public is not new, of course. CCTV cameras linked to operations rooms have been around since the 1970s, and are a common feature of the urban environment. But today’s combination of high-definition cameras, fast networks, effectively unlimited storage capacity and powerful image processing algorithms is taking us into new territory, and it seems to be unstoppable. The change was highlighted earlier this year when Leicestershire Police pointed cameras at the 90,000 people attending the Download music festival.They were using NeoFace software to look for face-matches in a database of criminals known to target music festivals, in an attempt to prevent misdemeanours at the three-day event.

FROM THE LAB

The police haven’t said how many people they arrested at Download.They claim that they weren’t storing any images and that they destroyed the data after what they are calling a ‘trial’. But whether or not they kept any pictures, and whether or not it was successful for the police, the operation gave festivalgoers an early chance to experience the brave new world of total observation. In his 1921 novel We, the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin describes a society in which everyone is watched constantly, living in glass houses and only allowed privacy during sex. Like Nineteen Eighty-Four, which it influenced, it was supposed to be a dystopian fantasy, not a manual for policing. We now have all the technical components we need to ensure that nobody goes unobserved, and the arguments against have to be made on political rather than technical grounds. In May this year Ed Snowden took part in a discussion on Reddit where he said: “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have

WHAT IS IT?

HOW DOES IT WORK? Electrodes that measure electrical activity are applied directly on the surface of the front half of the brain. The signals detected are compared to known signals for different sounds like ‘sh’ or ‘ah’. The system then

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more than enough faces to process, and without any troublesome press coverage. In fact, if you wanted to create a surveillance state, the simplest way would be just to build a free photo-sharing app and then mine the pictures for criminal intelligence. BILL THOMPSON contributes to news.bbc.co.uk and the BBC World Service

Instant thought-to-text conversion

A system developed by scientists at New York’s Albany Medical Center and Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology that detects brain activity in areas of the brain linked to speech, and translates that information back into words.

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nothing to hide is no different from saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”This is an argument that deserves to be more widely promoted. The irony is that the police probably didn’t need to go to the trouble of setting up a scanning station – the thousands of pictures of the festival uploaded to Flickr, Google Photos, Instagram and Facebook probably provide

builds words phonetically. Over time, an algoriithm learns to avoid mixing up similar words, such as a ‘where’ and ‘wear’.

WHAT WOULD THE TECHNOLOGY BE USED FOR? Although the technology is still in its very earlyy stages – and only around 50 to 75 per cent accurate – it’s hoped that eventually it could p provide ockeda means of communication for patients with lo in syndrome. It could also be used in advance ed computer interfaces.

By monitoring brain activity patterns, marked in blue and a yellow, spoken words can be recognised yellow

YOUR QUESTI0NS ANSWERED BY OUR EXPERT PANEL

&

SUSAN SUS BLACKMORE C O E Susan is a visitingg p psychology g p professor at the University U i i of Plymouth. Herr y books boo s include c ude Thee Meme Me e Machine ac e

DR ALASTAIR S GU GUNN A Alastair is a radio rad o astronomer as o o e at the JJodrell Bank Centre forr B C Astrophysics at A y the t Universityy of Manchester a c es e

ROBERT O MATTHEWS S After studying physics at Oxford, R b became Robert b a science i writer. i H He’s ’ i i i reader d iin a visiting science i at Aston A U i University iy

GARETH G MITCHELL C L Startingg out as a broadcast b oadcas engineer, Gareth e g now no writes es and a d presents Digital p g Planet a e on the BBC C World S Service

LUIS LU S V VILLAZON O Luis has a BSc S in computingg and an MSc in zoology from Oxford. His works k iinclude l d C How Cows Reach The G Ground

[email protected]

Th y’ll h They’ll have to. T Today’s d y’ spacesuits i a are barely flexible enough to allow a astronauts to float around in zero g gravity. Space Shuttle pilots routinelyy had to o remove e o e their e g gloves during g takeoff, just so they y c could operate the c controls. On O the Moon, astronauts hopped like kangaroos M g because they had so little range g of motion in their legs. m g M Mars has double the Moon’s g gravity, so a suit that provides protection and can p p be comfortablyy worn for extended periods will be essential for future p m missions. Current experimental designs u body-hugging use b d h ggi g elastic l i materials i l to c counter the pressure p difference, ff while self-healing f g polymers automatically plug g small LV s a tears. ea s L

MIT’s BioSuit spacesuit concept being tested in a vertical wind tunnell

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PHOTO: JIM OLIVE/POLARIS/EYEVINE E

?

& This common drone design might not work on the Red Planet

In Numbers

615%

is the amount by which UK hospital admissions for anaphylaxis soared between 1992 and 2012

Why do white dwarfs take so long to cool?

Would it be possible to fly a drone on Mars? Drones come in various guises, the simplest being those propelled by electricpowered rotors. And in principle at least, there’s no reason why a modified one shouldn’t be able to zoom around the Red Planet – though the practicalities are pretty challenging. An Earth-bound drone is kept aloft by directing air downward, with the resulting thrust counteracting the force of gravity. The good news is that the surface gravity on Mars is barely one-third that of the Earth, so the rotors don’t have to work so hard to combat its effect. The bad news is that the Martian

PHOTO: ESO, US AIR FORCE, ETE OXFORD/FLPA, GETTY X2, ISTOCK

A white dwarf (right) orbiting a tiny neutron star

The rate at which energy is radiated by a star (including white dwarfs) is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature as well as its total surface area. The more surface area it has, the more energy it can dissipate in a given time for a given temperature. White dwarfs are very small (similar in size to the Earth), so they cool very slowly. As a white dwarf cools, its surface temperature decreases which further slows the rate of cooling. This means that white dwarfs will stay warm for billions of years. In fact, they cool so slowly that the Universe isn’t old enough to contain any that have cooled off completely to become ‘black dwarfs’. By studying the rate of cooling and distribution of temperatures in white dwarfs, astronomers have been able to estimate the Milky Way’s age. AG 86

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atmosphere is far more tenuous than Earth’s, with a density 60 times lower. So for a given weight of drone, the rotors must be much more effective at generating the downward thrust. That means increasing the size of the rotors, their number, their spin-rate – or some combination. Doubling the number of rotors and their length might do the trick, but the result would be pretty unwieldy. Then there’s the problem of powering the thing: the Red Planet gets less than half the level of solar energy we do. It’s all possible, and NASA is looking into it – but perhaps a mini airship design would be more practical. RM

How is consciousness physically constructed in our brains? It isn’t. At least, if you are thinking of consciousness as a product that’s made by the brain then you fall straight into ‘dualism’ and the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness. Consciousness is our private subjective experience or ‘what it’s like to be me’. So the hard problem is how subjective experience arises from an objective body and brain. Mind and brain, or subjective and objective, seem so irreducibly different that nearly all scientists and philosophers agree that dualism cannot work. Somehow, we have to understand consciousness as an aspect of what brains do. If consciousness really is something ‘constructed in our brains’, no one has worked out how that would happen or indeed what it would mean. Consciousness, even today, remains a fascinating mystery. SB Conciousness is still a mystery

Why does tape ‘screech’ when you peel it off? Scientists have been investigating the source of this appalling noise since the 1990s, and have being amazed by the complexity of the phenomenon. Put simply, it’s caused when the tape is peeled off at a speed and angle that causes the glue to intermittently stick then slip, creating jagged, unpleasant sound waves. RM

One easy way to infuriate your colleagues

Penguins don’t need goggles to see underwater

How do penguins see clearly underwater? First, we need to understand a little about our own eyes. In humans, the cornea – the clear surface at the front of the eye – does most of the focusing. The lens only contributes about 10 per cent, and fine-tunes the focus for sharp images at different distances. Next, we need to look at light. All substances have a refractive index. This refers to the speed at which light travels through them compared to through a vacuum. When we are underwater, the refractive index of the water is too similar to that of our corneas. This means we can’t focus as well and our lenses can’t adjust enough to make up the difference. Therefore, our vision is blurry underwater

unless we wear goggles. Goggles solve the problem because they introduce a pocket of air between the water and our eyes. Penguins need to be able to see clearly both on land and in water. They have corneas that are much flatter than ours; this takes almost all of the focusing power away from the cornea, so the lens does most of the focusing. To form a sharp image, a penguin’s eye must be able to vastly change the shape of the lens. Penguins’ lenses are softer than ours and the muscles can squeeze them up against the opening of the pupil to help them focus in the water. Diving birds also use a similar technique when hunting underwater. LV

Why does a banana skin get thinner as it ripens? Bananas are a cultivated form of plantain. In the wild, birds and bats are the main seed dispersers of plantains. While the fruit is developing, it is protected by a thick skin that keeps insects out. As the seeds become ripe, the fruit starts to absorb water from the inside of the skin, which causes the cells of the skin to collapse and lose rigidity. This makes it easier for animals to tear them open and carry off the little seeds along with a mouthful of banana. LV

Too squidgy for us, but yummy for a bat!

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&

TOP TEN COUNTRIES WITH MOST FACEBOOK USERS

1. United States Number of users: 152 million Population: 319 million

What’s the longest railway tunnel in the world? Line 3 of the Guangzhou Metro in China has a main branch line that is 60.4km (37.5 miles) long. If you discount urban metro lines, the title goes to the Seikan Tunnel in Japan, which connects the islands of Hokkaido and Honshu. This is 53.85km (33.5 miles) long and is also the deepest rail tunnel in the world, running

100m below the seabed. This record will be beaten next year when the 57.1km (35.5-mile) Gotthard Base Tunnel through the Swiss Alps opens. But both of these tunnels will be eclipsed by the 123km (76.4-mile) Bohai Strait tunnel, which is planned to connect Dalian and Yantai in China by 2023. LV

2. India Number of users: 109 million Population: 1.3 billion

3. Brazil Number of users: 71 million Population: 200 million

Oce Oc O ce cean ean an eed edd ddiie dd ies eess co couuld could ulld ld ccaause uusssee de dea ead ad zo zzon oonnes es

4. Indonesia Number of users: 60 million Population: 250 million

5. Mexico Number of users: 44 million Population: 122 million

6. Philippines

PHOTO: GETTY X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, JONATHAN RICKARD/EPSRC

Number of users: 34 million Population: 98 million

7. Turkey Number of users: 32 million Population: 75 million

8. United Kingdom Number of users: 30 million Population: 64 million

9. Japan Number of users: 27 million Population: 127 million

10. France Number of users: 23 million Population: 66 million

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What could we learn from directly detecting gravitational waves? Predicted almost a century ago by Einstein, gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time triggered by massive events like the collision of black holes. Calculations suggest the waves themselves are incredibly feeble. As a result, they’re the only major consequence of Einstein’s theory of gravity yet to be directly confirmed. That said, it would be little surprise if Einstein proved right – not least because there’s already indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves from studies of massive neutron stars in orbit around each other. Much more important would be confirmation that current technology really is capable of detecting the incredibly feeble wobbles predicted when gravitational waves

Gravitational waves from a star

pass through the Earth – amounting to movements smaller than the diameter of a proton. That would encourage efforts to build super-sensitive detectors able to pick up the waves generated by the birth of the Universe – and perhaps, whatever came before. RM

Where could the next natural disaster strike? Around the world, catastrophic events are waiting to happen n. Bill McGuire reveals where nature is set to wreak havoc nextt

EASTERN EQUATORIAL PACIFIC

EL NIÑO

NEPAL AND NORTH INDIA

HIMALAYA

HONSHU, JAPAN

HAKONEYAMA

In June 2015, Honduras was already showing signs of drought from the El Niño phenomenon

Himalayan fault lines lie adjacent to heavily populated regions of northern India

Volcanic vapour spews from hot springs in Japan’s Lake Ashi region

El Niño is elusive, often threatening an appearance – as reported in this column in spring 2014 – that doesn’t materialise. This time, however, it looks as if a whopping El Niño – the name given to the periodic accumulation of unusually warm water in the eastern equatorial Pacific – is definitely on its way. El Niño stirs up the world’s weather and spawns a maelstrom of drought, floods and storms. Australian scientists are forecasting that the 2015 El Niño could be as intense the one that occurred between 1982 and 1983, which was blamed for at least 2,000 deaths worldwide. While Australia bakes, Europe and California can expect torrential rains and floods. Perhaps the only saving grace is that the arrival of El Niño invariably acts to put a lid on Atlantic hurricane activity.

Hard though it is to imagine, the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that devastated Nepal in April is pretty small in comparison to the huge quakes that are waiting in the wings. All along the Himalayan Front Fault, which marks the collision zone between the Eurasian tectonic plate to the north and the Indian Plate in the south, enough strain has already accumulated to trigger half a dozen quakes of magnitude 8 or more. One of these is due in the Himalayas, along a segment of the fault between Kathmandu and the Indian city of Dehradun. The region lies adjacent to the intensively farmed Ganges Plain and the teeming cities of north India, including New Delhi. Therefore, the earthquake – when it comes – is forecast to be cataclysmic. Some seismologists have even speculated that it could be the first one to take a million lives.

The water of Lake Ashi fills two giant calderas, with the largest one exceeding 10km in diameter. They were excavated by eruptions of the Hakoneyama volcano that took place around 50,000 and 180,000 years ago. Now, ominous signs suggest that magma may be on its way to the surface once again. Scientists have raised the threat level to 2 (on a scale of 5), in response to increased seismic activity beneath the volcano and vigorous steaming from hot springs. How big a future eruption will be is anyone’s guess. It is even possible that the volcano will return to its slumber. Nonetheless, residents of this popular tourist resort remain on edge. BILL MCGUIRE is Emeritus Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College London and wrote Waking The Giant

&

Can you prevent your phone being hacked?

Got creepy eyes? Become a hypnotist!

PHOTO: GETTY X4, ISTOCK, ESO

Is there any scientific explanation for hypnosis? Not really – at least, not one that scientists can agree on. Hypnosis has been performed since at least the 18th Century when ‘Mesmerism’ was said to involve a ‘magnetic fluid’ or special force called ‘animal magnetism’. This supposedly ‘scientific’ theory was abandoned when no evidence was forthcoming. In modern psychology, two main theories have long competed to explain the extraordinary effects hypnosis can have. State theorists claim that hypnotic suggestions induce an altered state of consciousness or hypnotic trance in which highly suggestible people are willing to obey the hypnotist and behave in uncharacteristic ways, such as remembering forgotten events, forgetting what they have just done and obeying post-hypnotic suggestions to perform some embarrassing action when given a cue. Non-state theorists claim that all these effects are better explained by role-playing and suggestibility. So there is plenty of scientific research but no agreement as to the best explanation. SB In Numbers

£651m

is contributed to the UK economy by bees, according to the University of Reading.This is because many crops rely on them for pollination 90

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You can never completely avoid your phone being hacked. You could stay off the network altogether, but that would defeat the object of having a mobile phone. Even then you are vulnerable to any opportunist who finds your handset lying around. In the tabloid newspaper phone hacks, imposters accessed victims’ voicemails by guessing the appropriate PIN. So being savvy about your voicemail password and changing it from the default is the first step in foiling the hackers. But it’s not only about protecting your voicemail, as data on your phone could also be at risk. Avoid storing passwords on the device; if you absolutely have to, do so using a secure app. Another security tip is to switch off the text auto

Great for preventing hackers, not so good for touchscreens

complete function so at least if your phone does fall into the wrong hands, it would be harder to trick the device into betraying your personal info. Finally, steer clear of dodgy apps. GM

Artist’s impression of extragalactic planet HIP 13044b, orbiting its parent star

How do extragalactic planets form? There is no reason to suppose that the formation process of extragalactic planets [planets located outside our Galaxy] is any different to that of exoplanets found within the Milky Way. That is, they condense from the material in the accretion discs of young stars. Although there are tentative hints of planetary bodies orbiting stars in other galaxies, the only confirmed extragalactic planet is HIP 13044b. This Jupiter-mass planet is orbiting a star that was once

part of a nearby dwarf galaxy but has subsequently been swallowed up by the Milky Way. HIP 13044b does throw up one conundrum; its parent star is extremely devoid of heavy elements and such stars don’t usually form planets since heavy elements are required to form the dust grains that seed planet formation. There may have been some other process contributing to the formation of HIP 13044b, but it is unlikely to be a result of its extragalactic origin. AG

Why is the Earth’s axis tilted? Become an astronaut and get a fat head!

What effect does zero-g have on our body’s fluid? Earth’s gravity means that the blood pressure in your feet is about three times higher than in your head. In orbit, this difference disappears and blood pressure is the same throughout the body. When an astronaut arrives at the International Space Station, their head initially has 20 to 40 per cent more fluid and their legs have about 50 per cent less. Receptor cells in the arteries of the upper body

detect the extra fluid and incorrectly conclude that there is too much blood overall, so the body removes some extra fluid. Over the course of the first few days, this can amount to a litre of fluid less in each leg! Even after this compensation process, blood pressure in the head is still slightly higher than normal and the pressure on the optic nerve can cause long-term vision problems. LV

The Earth, just like all the planets of the Solar System (except Mercury), has a rotation axis that is tilted with respect to its orbit around the Sun. Astronomers propose that this is due to energetic ic collisions between ‘planetesimals’. T These small bodies eventually coalesced to form the planets, knocking them off the perpendicular orientation they would naturally have. Uranus is one example of a planet that has a very large axial tilt, which may be the resu ult of a series of such collisionss. AG Earth: still not as wonky as Uranus

What is the world’s strongest truck? the strongest truck is the BelAZ-75710. It holds the world record for being the largest two-axle dumper truck. It is almost the height of a house, with tyres measuring nearly four metres in diameter.

Just about the right size to shift the junk off our editor’s desk…

It can shift over 450 tonnes at a time, equivalent to 1,800 motorbikes. It has two 16-cylinder diesel engines dishing out as much power as 20 sports cars via four electric motors. GM

How does suncream protect you from sunburn? Opaque sunblocks are effectively paint: inorganic particles of white titanium dioxide or zinc oxide oil. The oxide suspended in a heavy oil particles form an a opaque barrier that t ight reflects visible lig and ultraviolet. Clear C r suncreams use organic g i compounds, such as phenylbenzimidazole his sulfonic acid. Th protects from UVB U and lets visible light l through. Many creams c blend inorganic and d organic particless to offerr n. LV good protection Want to avoid lookingg like i a leathery handbag? Make this your best friend…

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&

This is what happens when you eat too much spicy curry before bed

How is lucid dreaming possible? A lucid dream is when you know, at the time, that you’re dreaming. The sensation is like ‘waking up’ in your sleep. You seem more alert, logical and self-aware and can even take control of the dream. Some lucid dreamers choose to fly and a rare few use the opportunity to meditate. I don’t know why lucid

dreaming should seem impossible, but it is becoming clearer how it works. Experiments, though difficult, can be done with expert lucid dreamers who signal to an experimenter using eye movements. Their lucid dreams most often occur towards morning, at the end of a period of REM sleep when the brain is more active.

How did humans tame wolves? “But I wanted a pony, Dad!”

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Brain scans show the most active areas include parts of the prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction where internal and sensory information come together to form our body schema and self image. This is probably why I feel more awake and ‘myself’ when I realise I’m dreaming. SB

We still can’t be certain of the time of dog domestication, but DNA evidence suggests that modern wolves and dogs are both descended from a wolf-like ancestor that lived in Europe at the same time as hunter-gatherer tribes, at least 11,000 years ago. The two main hypotheses are that either wolves domesticated themselves, or they were domesticated by humans. In the first scenario, some wolves hung around human camps to scavenge on bones and leftovers, much like urban

foxes today. The hunters would likely only have tolerated the friendlier individuals, driving away or killing the more dangerous animals. This caused the ancestral wolf to split into a tamer subspecies that associated with humans, and a fiercer subspecies that stayed wild. The second scenario involves humans raising orphaned wolf cubs and breeding them. Studies have shown that modern wolf pups can be successfully domesticated from an early enough age. LV

Can other animals plan ahead? You could argue a that when a squirrel buries nuts, it iss planning for the winter. But does the sq B quirrel know it is doing this,, or is it hard d-wired behaviour? These things g are hard to test, but experiments with scrub jays y have shown that they will sstash food in places where they expect to be hungry t next day. Meanwhile, g the a chimp callled Santino living in a Swedish zo oo has learned to hide piles o sstones of o es in advance so that he can p huma pelt an onlookers to encourage them m t e to o move on. LV

Why does a sqquirrel hhide its nuts?

Can you get a computer virus from watching YouTube? You should be safe just watching a video, but be wary of clicking on ads as these can turn out to be malicious. In September 2014, scammers served up dodgy adverts on YouTube and other big sites such as Yahoo! and Amazon. The ads redirected users to a site that detected vulnerabilities in their machine’s browser and in applications like Java and Flash. The website then automatically downloaded malware tailored to the co pu e s vulnerability. u e ab y GM computer’s

What causes a halo around the Sun? The appearance of a huge, perfectly circular halo round the Sun in Mexico earlier this year sparked rumours of the impending end of the world. In reality, it was the product of sunlight being refracted through hexagonal ice crystals high in the atmosphere. Water droplets can do the same, producing a smaller, more colourful halo. RM

Relax - a halo around the Sun is not a sign of the world ending

Why are some people perfectionists? Because of the way genes and experience work together. Genetic effects are seen even in newborn babies, whose different temperaments show the beginnings of their personality. Recent twin studies suggest that personality is more heritable than previously thought. Identical twins are twice as likely as non-identical twins to share qualities such as determination, self-control and a sense of purpose. While perfectionism can be positive, leading to high achievement, satisfaction and self-esteem, it can also be negative with harsh self-criticism, procrastination, disappointment and depression. Both are related to the ‘Big Five’ personality traits that sum up our relatively stable adult personalities. These traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. Yet all these traits are subject to the effect of life’s encouraging or dispiriting experiences. SB

A ‘pea-fectionist’, if you like…

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Resource

A feast for the mind Hardback

It’s all in your head

Paperback

MEET THE AUTHOR

True stories of imaginary illness Suzanne O’Sullivan

Suzanne O’Sullivan

Chatto & Windus

PHOTO: JONATHAN GREET

Psychosomatic illnesses and their associated symptoms are very real, but are caused by psychological rather than biological factors.This does not prevent considerable stigma being attached to them, even by sufferers themselves reports abound of researchers receiving death threats when they investigate the psychological causes of certain conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome. It is into this delicate and controversial area that neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan delves with her book It’s All In Your Head. In style and format, the book resembles Oliver Sacks’The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. O’Sullivan is an experienced neurologist, and each chapter is based around patients who display extreme examples of a psychosomatic condition. O’Sullivan’s skilful writing shows these patients as real individuals, rather than simply as vessels for interesting symptoms, and she tackles more detailed medical and neurological aspects of the subject in an easily understandable, organic style, adding to the narrative rather than disrupting it. It would be easy for each chapter to become formulaic (patient has illness;

“O’Sullivan shows patients as real individuals, not simply as vessels for interesting symptoms”

experts find no physical cause; it’s found to be psychosomatic; repeat), but O’Sullivan avoids this by breaking up the predictable structure with historical perspectives on illness, her own experiences, similar cases and more. It’s an effective tactic, although sometimes overdone, with diversions and tangents sometimes lasting so long you are surprised when the narrative returns to the patient the chapter is nominally about. There are other issues.There are several instances where the story of the patient ends abruptly with them seeing a psychiatrist.This probably makes medical sense as, being a neurologist, this is where O’Sullivan’s direct involvement ends, but it still makes for frustrating reading at times. Perhaps the main concern is that, throughout the book, O’Sullivan goes to admirable lengths to emphasise how psychosomatic illnesses are real and very debilitating, regularly and nobly criticising her own early, cynical reactions. However, the title and tagline of the book suggest a far more dismissive and judgmental tone – one likely to anger those afflicted. People shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but they shouldn’t stigmatise ill people either, and yet much of this book is about how they do exactly that.

DR DEAN BURNETT is a neuroscientist and comedian who lectures at Cardiff University 94

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What are the typical symptoms of a psychosomatic illness? Any symptom you can think of has been the manifestation of a psychosomatic disorder – it’s known as the chameleon of illnesses. As a neurologist, I often see people with very dramatic forms, which could be seizures, paralysis or blindness. Or it might be something less dramatic like a headache or a feeling of dizziness. How is it diagnosed? Physical disease has to be ruled out in the first instance. It’s extremely important that [the patient] has all the appropriate tests before we come to the conclusion that it may be a psychological illness. Is it often caused by stress? There are multiple causes, and it’s a bit different in everyone. Many of the people with the more extreme forms have suffered psychological trauma, such as sexual abuse or loss of a loved one, but in a lot of people there’s no specific event. It might be an accumulation of life stressors, or it may be something that’s behavioural or based on perception. How is it treated – can drugs help? If we can make the diagnosis quickly, then help the person to understand what the trigger was, that might be all they need to get rid of the symptoms. If their symptoms are more prolonged, they’ll probably need to be referred to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. They might benefit from treatments like cognitive behavioural therapy, but someone who’s been disabled for years might also need intervention from physiotherapists, social workers or occupational therapists.

Domesticated

The Weather Experiment

Chilled

Evolution In A Man-Made World Richard C Francis

The Pioneers Who Sought To See The Future

How Refrigeration Changed The World And Might Do So Again

WW Norton & Co

Peter Moore

Tom Jackson

Chatto & Windus

Bloomsbury

The name of Admiral Robert FitzRoy is familiar to mariners because of the sea area that bears his name. But to meteorologists, FitzRoy is a hero: he founded the Met Office and gave us the term ‘forecast’. Now, 150 years after his tragic death, FitzRoy is at the centre of an engrossing account of the pioneers of scientific weather prediction. Author Peter Moore introduces us to a rich cast of largely forgotten players in one of the great intellectual dramas of the 19th Century.When they began their quest, the weather seemed beyond rationalisation, yet through assiduous data collection and careful analysis they began to find the pieces of a puzzle that is still far from complete. And at the centre of it all is the difficult and ultimately doomed character of FitzRoy himself, committed to turning new insights into life-saving forecasts. Moore marshals the myriad stories into a compelling narrative. He is especially strong on the role of human foibles and personality clashes in the emergence of a new science.While his grasp of technical intricacies is sometimes flawed, this biography is an impressive achievement.

Albert Einstein invented a type of fridge. Emperor Nintoku declared 1 June Japan’s National Day of Ice.The average banana contains enough calories to heat 2kg of water by 50°C. Like a wellstocked refrigerator, this book is packed with tasty morsels and more substantial meals too, as Jackson takes us from ancient Mesopotamia to teleportation, via the science of cooling things down. There are tricky ideas in Chilled, such as the difference between temperature and heat, or the nature of subatomic forces. Jackson handles them deftly, without too much technical language, and how much we take refrigeration for granted soon becomes evident. It hasn’t just transformed our eating and shopping habits, it’s contributed to technologies such as maglev trains and medical scanners.Without it, we’d have no neon lights, artificial fertilisers or Higgs Boson. Once, passengers floated around the Caribbean on the Great White Fleet’s chilled banana boats. At times, this book feels like you’re on such a voyage: being entertained by a knowledgeable host, and gathering information from all ports.

ROBERT MATTHEWS is Visiting Reader in Science at Aston University, Birmingham

TIMANDRA HARKNESS is a science journalist and comedian

Urban lifestyles mean that pets provide the only regular contact many of us have with live animals. Then there are the animals we eat, and the remainder of the animal kingdom is ‘wildlife’. Biological science has long seen domesticated animals as artificial, inferior creatures. This book sets the record straight, describing the histories of domestic mammals from laboratory mice to Santa’s reindeer. These are brought up to date with new information from their DNA sequences, accompanied by the biologist’s trademark acronyms: pigs are now classified according to their PERVs (Porcine Endogenous Retroviruses) and polydactyly (extra toes) in cats is caused by a gene called Sonic Hedgehog. We are mammals too, so logically Francis’s book concludes with a section on our own ‘domestication’: the interplay between culture and genetic change that makes us what we are today. For example, there are mutations that have enabled many (but by no means all) of us to digest the lactose in cow’s milk. An essential read for anyone interested in the stories of the animals in our homes and on our plates.

JOHN BRADSHAW is the author of In Defence Of Dogs and Cat Sense

Professor Povey’s P Perplexing Problems Thomas Povey Eugenia Cheng Oneworld

How big a helium balloon would you need to lift an average man? This question is one of many in Povey’s compilation of his favourite scientific puzzles. Topics range from geometry and probability to optics and electricity, and Povey uses quirky scenarios to liven up what could otherwise be dry questions. Sherlock Holmes and a missing emerald inspire a question about ballistics, while readers’ understanding of gravity is tested with a tycoon who wants to advertise on the Moon. Although many of the puzzles require a working knowledge of A-Level physics, Povey

helpfully rates the questions on difficulty, from one to four stars. There are also hints to assist totally baffled readers. The answers appear straight after the questions, which can make it hard to avoid accidentally seeing the solution, but this is a minor flaw in an otherwise impressive hoard of physics and maths puzzles. Whether you want to learn some new methods or brush up on old skills, this book is a fun way to do it.

DR ADAM KUCHARSKI is studies disease dynamics and has a PhD in applied maths

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SCIENCE

Nuclear weapons in

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In Guy ritchie’s new film, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., secret agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin must thwart a criminal gang working to proliferate nuclear weapons. But building your own nuclear bomb, fortunately, is not as easy as Hollywood makes out. It all boils down to one equation, penned by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. E=mc2 describes how a tiny amount of mass can release a huge amount of energy, and is the principle that led US scientists to develop the destructive power of the atomic bomb. But this equation is also the name of Mariah Carey’s 11th studio album… both these facts would probably have Einstein turning in his grave. In a fission bomb, atoms are split to generate energy and neutrons, which can then split more atoms, releasing more energy and more neutrons and so on and so forth. Uranium – a naturally occurring heavy metal – is one starting material, but it contains a mix of different isotopes. One of the isotopes, uranium-238, makes up over 99 per cent of the material and cannot be split. But atoms of uranium-235, present in tiny amounts, can be blasted apart when bombarded with neutrons. A would-be bomb-maker must first ‘enrich’ the fissile fraction. “It’s a very complex and expensive procedure,” says nuclear physicist Phil Walker from Surrey University.

ILLUSTRATOR: MATT MURPHY

“As Hollywood knows, it’s far easier for the baddies to let someone else do the donkey work” As Hollywood well knows, it’s far easier for the baddies to let someone else do the donkey work, then steal the end product from them. Nuclear power plants use enriched uranium, but theirs contains less than 20 per cent uranium-235. To make a bomb, the figure needs to be closer to 80 per cent. Locate and nick around 60kg or so of this highly-enriched uranium – a very heavy suitcase-full – and the next step would be to detonate it using conventional explosives. Here again, technical knowledge is at a premium. Get it wrong and the bomb might destroy itself before its critical mass is reached, get it ‘right’ and it might blow the baddies and the whole of Hollywood all the 96

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way to Bruce Willis’s Armageddon. “It’s not a ‘man on the street’ enterprise,” says Walker. The average terrorist group couldn’t do this on their own; they’d need specialist help from someone with expertise in ballistics, engineering and nuclear physics. “Kidnapping someone like me wouldn’t do any good,” says Walker, “I wouldn’t know what to do.” If history has taught us anything, it’s that the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki should never be repeated… and that Mariah Carey should retire. Quietly. HELEN PILCHER is a science writer and comedian. She tweets from @Helenpilcher1

Time Out Crossword No.181 ACROSS 8 9 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 22 23 25 27 30 31 32 35 36 37 39 41 42 43 44

Check the lizard (7) Element is excellent, taken into new university (9) Digit with its own rule (5) The topless student gets cricket team into shape (5) Church role generated a complaint (7) Tempered steel takes pressure and resistance, but it’s impure (7) Lime gets broken down around turn in intestine (5) All right for a Greek character to have an animal (5) Arachnid usually has a nest (5) A chore, developing stem support (6) Mathematician with his own strip (6) Agreement against getting rope (7) Bishop sees one revolution in transport (7) Flexible current in organism (6) Aliens work out a solution (6) Each hybrid has large claw (5) Cook pears with some asparagus (5) Bean shows sign of life (5) Uncle moved you and me to the centre (7) A pickpocket is a problem, as is lack of thirst (7) Gnats affected by worry (5) Encountered a length of nickel, say (5) Fortune-teller finds cream gone off (9) Rules in English for analgesic (7)

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 11 12 19 21 24 26 28 29 30 32 33 34 38 40

Firm rule about great circle (6) Debate is about disorder (8) Important part of circuit, relative to directors (11) Let femur be reassessed with unknown gauge (9) Finally graduate at a California desert (7) Gloomy note about creepy study (10) Turn up to create empty colour (4) Mixed paints and grape juice (6) Heard to insult skill (7) Length of a bone (6) Fabricating a lax lie is the pits (7) I did work with bull at European compound (7) Throw bait in Rhone, then have long sleep (11) Played cornet a certain amount somewhere n cell (10) Background that may be screened (9) Cloth depicting king teeing off (7) Claps wildly, taking a degree of pressure (6) Plant two coppers next to doctor and queen (8) Organising names, including Latin saint (6) Otters do twist time (7) Send text about article that’s living (6) Lie about getting kiss from Holly, say (4)

SOLUTION TO CROSSWORD 178

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The Last Word Seen any flying ants yet? They can teach us about maths… ature is amazing, isn’t it? Every year Even with stats, we still around this time the UK’s ants put on an can’t figure out why ants Annual Festival Of Flying. Winged ants fly on a particular day start swarming over the pavements before taking to the air in search of mates. As a kid, I was fascinated by why ants chose one day over another to put on their show. Clearly something clever was going on, as there’s no point being a frisky ant if everyone else stays home. Today we still don’t know why they choose a particular day. A wonderful example of ‘citizen science’ run over recent years by the Society of Biology has, if anything, deepened the mystery. Reports by the public of flying ant sightings has shown that weather conditions are important, and can lead to several Flying Ant Days. But there’s some rhythmic pattern too: cause unknown. One thing’s for sure: the answer will come from collecting yet more heaps of data and understanding the patterns in them. It’s a tried and tested technique as old as curiosity itself. Countless sightings of the planets led medieval astronomers to find patterns that ultimately led to Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation. In the 1950s, seismologists found a link between the strength and frequency of earthquakes that led to insights into their cause. There’s no reason to think the same trick can’t work with ants. Indeed, researchers in Spain and the US have recently shown that apparently random movements of foraging ants obey mathematical laws. Clearly, if our data fits a bell curve, we’re looking at the cumulative The thing is, it’s all too result of lots of random influences, right? Well, yes – but only if we easy to fit curves to data and can be sure we have a bell curve. And that’s the issue. Real data convince yourself you’ve often produce curves that look bell-shaped, but are the result of discovered some profound different processes. truth. Some of the most That can prove disastrous – as mathematicians in the world of egregious examples of this finance have discovered to their (and our) cost. Plotting share price centre on one of the curves movement over time does create something like a bell-like curve. discovered in that ant study: the For years this was taken as evidence that the risk of violent market ‘bell curve’. changes could be worked out using bell curves. Yet long-term records This curve was identified reveal that the ‘tails’ of these curves are much thicker than they should in the 18th Century and it be. That’s a symptom of stock prices not actually following the rules emerges whenever lots of separate random variables have a cumulative needed to produce true bell curves. And that can lead to serious effect. For example, plotting the frequencies of the total scores underestimates of financial risk – as the calamities of recent years have achieved by rolling handfuls of dice produces a bell curve. There’s a proved all too dramatically. peak at the middle giving the typical outcome, and slopes to either side Scientists often marvel at what’s been called the ‘unreasonable where the less common values lie. effectiveness of mathematics’ in describing the world around us. Surprisingly, you can get away with knowing next to nothing about Having blind faith in that effectiveness is, however, just the variables themselves. As long as they’re independent, cumulative that: unreasonable. and plentiful, you’ll get a bell curve. Such curves have been found in studies of everything from human height to the heat left over from the ROBERT MATTHEWS is Visiting Reader in Science at Aston University, Birmingham Big Bang.

N

ILLUSTRATOR: DEM ILLUSTRATION

“The thing is, it’s all too easy to fit curves to data and convince yourself you’ve discovered some profound truth”

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