World of Knowledge 2016-11

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AUSTRALIA

WHAT REALLY GOES ON AT

KILLER WHALE SPECIAL!

WILD WEATHER FACTS!

How they RULE the oceans (take that, Mr Great White!)

The DEADLY physics of this summer's bushfires

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Tomaree Head Summit Walk

Tomaree National Park

Ben Boyd National Park Greencape Lightstation Keeper’s Cottages

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ITH ONE OF THE WORLD’S great whale migrations taking place along the NSW coastline this winter, it’s time to head to a coastal national park to see the ocean’s most majestic creature. National parks make up almost 50 per cent of the NSW coastline and provide some of the best lookouts, headlands and foreshores to see whales on their annual migration. The north coast – from Tweed Heads to Port Stephens – offers some of the best whale watching in the country. Popular spots such as Cape Byron State Conservation Area and Tomaree National Park (NP) are ideal for seeing breaching humpbacks and southern right whales. Sydney and its surrounds offer many places for whale watching and it’s an incredible opportunity to see them migrating past Australia’s largest city.Top spots can be found in Sydney Harbour,

Ku-ring-gai Chase and Kamay Botany Bay national parks. The south coast, from Shoalhaven to Batemans Bay and Eden, is home to several generous stretches of coastal wilderness, with large numbers of whales making an appearance on their annual migration. Head to Jervis Bay and Meroo national parks for fantastic vantage points. There’s also a range of accommodation in NSW national parks that offers a unique holiday experience. Stay in a restored lighthouse cottage perched on a headland. Choose from spectacular locations including Cape Byron, the wildlife sanctuary of Montague Island Nature Reserve and Green Cape Lightstation in Ben Boyd National Park. For family-friendly coastal cabins and a fun whale-watching getaway, enjoy a stay at Pretty Beach and Depot Beach, in Murramarang National Park on the south coast.

Visit www.wildaboutwhales.com.au to plan your whale-watching adventure

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NITY JOIN THE WHALE-LOVING COMMU whale sightings Stay connected and get the latest and information:

Warwick Kent.

Website – for all your whale info, best vantage points, tips for whale watching and coastal accommodation, visit www.wildaboutwhales.com.au FREE Mobile App – download the Wild About Whales app to see whale sightings and record your own – just search ‘whales NSW’ in your app store Facebook – join the whale-loving community to stay updated and share photos and experiences at: www.facebook.com/wildaboutwhales Twitter – share your sightings on Twitter with the @wildaboutwhales community using #whaleon

Humpback breaching off Ben Boyd National Park

EXPERTS IN THIS ISSUE PAUL NICKLEN Photographer Nicklen has been documenting the plight of our planet’s polar regions for more than 20 years. He has also been following the fascinating hunting behaviour of killer whales. PAGE

MARTIN SCHEUERMANN Test pilot The former military pilot has spent over a year of his life high above the clouds. He knows better than anyone what a plane has to be able to withstand to be approved.

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magine all the juicy morsels of knowledge mankind could have missed out on had British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee not woken up one morning in the late80s and thought: “Hmm. An internet. Now there’s a thing.” Alas, we may never have had the chance to experience 360-degree views of the Mars surface on an object that fits into our pocket. Or learnt that the static you see on ‘dead’ TV screens is leftover radiation from the Big Bang (my personal greatest ever internet fact). Or discover that cats were so scared of cucumbers. The internet distils encyclopedias into your finger tips, libraries into the palm of your hand. Some estimates put the internet’s storage capability at 1 million exabytes (just one exabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes). Mind officially boggled.

34 .NICK CARD Excavation leader Archaeologists have come across traces of a forgotten civilisation on the Orkney Islands. So far, only 10% of the site has been unearthed. PAGE

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And so it’s debatable how many of us would have heard about a mysterious, top-secret American military base called Area 51 in the absence of the internet. It was in 1989 that a researcher by the name of Bob Lazar walked into a Las Vegas TV station, claiming he’d worked on ‘reverse-engineering’ extraterrestrial space craft at the Nevada site – and created the DNA for a conspiracy theory monster that would eventually run rampant over YouTube and the murkier plains of the web. Area 51 sure is an intriguing, heavily guarded place, one that the CIA only owned up to in 2013. Something beyond the normal IS going there. This month, we attempt to discover exactly what… Vince Jackson, Editor Follow me on Twitter: @vince_jackson1

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ON THE COVER

ON THE COVER

Secret military base? Or could the

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theories about Area 51 be true?

20

Test pilots reveal how safe an aeroplane really is

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Killer whales as you’ve never seen them before!

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Loud, fast and unpredictable: DWUJƂTGUare a constant menace...

but how devastating can they be?

Does a new discovery mean that history needs to be rewritten?

ON THE COVER

58 4

What power do mysterious proteins really have?

CONTENTS NOVEMBER 2016 Why does this



JDVJLDQW threaten Earth? NATURE 20 The Secret Laws Of Bush Fires How a spark becomes an inferno

58 The Mysterious World Of Orcas What makes killer whales the rulers of the ocean?

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WORLD EVENTS What Really Goes On At Area 51 Inside the US military’s top-secret base

66 AR-15: America’s Nightmare What makes this assault rifle so popular with mass killers?

74 Game Of Drones How these eyes in the sky are revolutionising Hollywood

HISTORY 40 The Original Stonehenge What the Ring of Brodgar reveals about our civilisation

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78 Psychopaths Of World History How to recognise them – and what makes them so dangerous

THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND 50 Help! I’m Bleeding Experts explain what to do when blood starts flowing…

68 How Much Dark Matter Is In My Body? The secret chemistry of proteins

TECHNOLOGY 34 What Can My Holiday Flight Withstand? Test pilots: pushing planes beyond their limits

54 Is Dubai’s Wonder Of The World Broken Beyond Repair?

The Palm Islands in Dubai: the bigger the project, the more

352%/(06

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there are!

How the Gulf emirate has frittered away $10 billion

SCIENCE 30 Planet Nine: How Could We Miss It? The terrifying powers of Planet Nine revealed

REGULARS 3 Experts In This Issue Professional people offering their insights this month

6 Amazing Photo A fascinating photo – and the story behind it

90 Questions And Answers

ON THE COVER

Amazing facts from science, technology and everyday life

96 And Finally Think you’ve got it tough? Try being a puffin…

98 Letters Your views and questions aired

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Napoleon, Kennedy, Putin: how a brain anomaly turns leaders into monsters

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AMAZING PHOTO

ALIVE AGAIN AFTER

MINUTES This photo shouldn’t really exist. Toddler Gardell Martin was feared drowned – but then he was brought back to life

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PHOTO: Lynn Johnson/NGS

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arly March: as usual, two-year-old Gardell Martin is playing with his siblings next to the stream bordering the family’s property in Pennsylvania. But meltwater has turned the babbling brook into a raging torrent. Gardell accidentally slips into the ice-cold water and is quickly swept away – out of sight and out of reach of his brothers and sisters. When a neighbour finds the boy 200 metres downstream, 35 minutes have passed: he’s freezing, doesn’t have a pulse and isn’t breathing. A paramedic arrives and tries to resuscitate him, but there’s little hope. After more than 30 minutes in the water, the chance that the toddler is still alive is next to zero. When Gardell finally arrives at the paediatric wing of the Geisinger Medical Centre in Danville, USA, Dr Frank Maffei declares him to have been clinically dead for an hour. The toddler is in cardiac arrest: his brain still shows signs of life, but the other organs are no longer being supplied with oxygen. Normally, a person can survive in this state for just five minutes. Gardell has already hovered in this grey area between life and death for more than an hour. But Dr Maffei didn’t give up hope: although all of the monitors – and perceived medical wisdom – indicated that a resuscitation attempt was futile, he persevered. “I never felt hopeless,” says Dr Maffei. “I thought, ‘we’ve still got a shot to save him.’” After 100 minutes, Gardell was defying logic and the laws of medical science. Suddenly, there’s a beep. A heartbeat! A sign of life! “I can feel a pulse in his femoral artery!” says Dr Maffei. The first miracle – albeit only a tantalising flicker. Gardell’s heart is pumping oxygen through his small, pale body. But the doctors aren’t celebrating just yet. “It’s far too early to tell the parents,” the doctor continues. The brain, heart and kidneys are extremely sensitive to long interruptions to their oxygen supply. It’s likely that Gardell will have severe mental and physical disabilities. That said, who knows what will happen next: the boy passed beyond the limits of medical knowledge a long time ago. Surprisingly, the extreme coldness of the water actually helped. “Hypothermia imparts a degree of protection from the detrimental effects of low blood flow and low oxygen,” explains Dr Maffei. It set off the brain’s survival mechanism: the low temperature forces the metabolism to shut down, meaning the brain can survive on just 30% of its normal oxygen supply. That’s how he survived for 35 minutes. The CPR and warming of the body then allowed the circulation to be maintained until the doctors felt a heartbeat and Gardell opened his eyes. “In my 23 years I have not seen an hour and 41 minutes come back to this degree of neurological recovery,” says Dr Maffei. Against all the odds, Gardell is now a perfectly healthy kid.

WORLD EVENTS WHAT REALLY GOES ON AT

Some say it’s a military base where top-secret weapons are tested; others are convinced it’s where the US government works on alien technology and UFOs. But who’s got it right? What is Area 51’s real purpose?

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CASE#1 ‘Project OXCART’

ARE TOPSECRET AIRCRAFT RESPONSIBLE FOR UFO SIGHTINGS?

I

n terms of pure geography, the Area 51 military installation is the perfect site to test secret technology away from prying eyes. Nestled behind a series of rugged Nevada desert mountains, it’s not visible from any public road. The lakebed at Groom Lake, a natural salt flat on the north side of the facility, is an ideal strip from which aircraft can take off and land. Even the airspace above is restricted. It was here at Groom Lake in 1955, in the early period of the Cold War, that the story of Area 51 began with the development of the Lockheed U-2 spy plane, a then-revolutionary craft designed to fly at high-altitude (21,000m) while covertly gathering intelligence, primarily from the Soviet Union. But it was the testing of another ground-breaking reconnaissance aircraft, the Lockheed A-12 (known by its codename OXCART) from 1959 to 1962 that kickstarted the expansion of Area 51 in terms of size, personnel and reputation – and propelled it into the realms of UFO mythology. “The shape of OXCART was unprecedented, with its wide, disk-like fuselage designed to carry vast quantities of fuel,” says Annie Jacobson, author of An Uncensored History Of America’s Top Secret Military Base. “Commercial pilots cruising over Nevada at dusk would look up and see the bottom of OXCART whiz by at 2,000-plus mph (3,200km/h). The aircraft’s titanium body, moving as fast as a bullet, would reflect the sun’s rays in a way that could make anyone think, UFO.” Thanks to the advances made at Area 51, military aircraft that once flew at a maximum altitude of 12,000 metres could suddenly reach 18,000 metres, a move that coincided with an increase in UFO sightings. All up, 2,850 OXCART test flights originated from Area 51. Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Jacobson describes how commercial pilots who reported strange lights in the sky to the FAA would be met by FBI agents who’d make them sign nondisclosure f b h dd ’ f l k

AREA 51 FACT SHEET OFFICIAL NAME Air Force Flight Test Center, Detachment 3 (AFFTC Det 3.) LOCATION Southern Nevada, 134km north-northwest of Las Vegas ELEVATION 1,360 m SIZE 1,489 square kilometres OPERATOR United States Air Force ACQUIRED 1955. Acknowledge by CIA in 2013 AIRSPACE CLASSIFICATION Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N) RESEARCH CLASSIFICATION Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) CURRENT USES Aircraft/weapons testing, technology development, extraterrestrial research (unconfirmed)

“THE GUARDS RUSHED OUT WITH THEIR WEAPONS AND FORCED US ALL TO LAY FACE DOWN AT GUNPOINT IN THE TARMAC”

HOW CLOSE CAN YOU GET TO AREA 51 WITHOUT BEING KILLED?

T

he warning couldn’t be any clearer. At the end of Groom Lake Road – a featureless dirt track leading from Highway 375 – drivers are met by an ominous sign at the start of Area 51: Warning – restricted area. Use of deadly force authorised. Area 51’s military bases are obscured from the road by mountains. There’s no official ‘entrance’ to the military installations as such; there are no gates or fences. Instead, a series of discreet orange posts mark the beginning of Area 51. Meanwhile, a pair of camouflaged

Road are detected by magnetic sensors,” says Peter Merlin, an aeronautical historian who’s been researching Area 51 for 30 years. “Each one sends an electronic signal to the guard house, alerting them so they know where you’re coming from and how fast you’re making progress down the road.” While Merlin warns that crossing the invisible line marking Area 51’s boundary will result in arrest, a former security guard at the site, Fred Dunham, claims that breaching the border could have more serious consequences. “If they

a lesser-known entrance track known as ‘Rachel Gate NT TR Boundary North’. UFO expert Darren Perks, who was part of the crew, said: “The guards rushed out with their weapons and forced us all to lay face down at gunpoint in the tarmac. We were all searched, had our phones, wallets and IDs taken and the film equipment taken. For three hours we lay face down until the Lincoln County Sheriffs arrived on scene.” SURE SIGN The warning at the ‘entrance’ to Area 51.

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“IN RECENT YEARS, SEVERAL FORMER AREA 51 EMPLOYEES FILED LAWSUITS AGAINST THE US GOVERNMENT”

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CASE#4 ‘Project Have Doughnut’

HOW DID AMERICA SECRETLY TEST RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT?

I

f you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” The words of ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu would resonate with anyone employed at Area 51 in the late-1960s. It was then that the US military managed to get its hands on one of its foes most prized possessions; a MiG fighter plane. And in an ironic twist considering the current political climate, they owe one of their greatest coups to an Iraqi. Enter Iraqi Air Force pilot Captain Munir Redfa, whose conscience gets the better of him moments before a bombing mission on a series Iraqi Kurd villages. Instead of peppering innocent citizens with deadly napalm, as ordered, Redfa re-routes his plane to Israel – who then secretly ship it to their US allies for investigation. It’s the ultimate catch for the US; for almost a decade they’ve been losing the aerial war in Vietnam. For every MiG the US shoot down, they’re sacrificing nine F-4 fighters. They quickly begin testing the plane under the project codename Have Doughnut. “We pretty well tore it down and looked at everything,” says former Area 51 radar specialist Thornton TD Barnes. “The radios, the hydraulics, the engines…everything about this plane, we examined it.” But the results expose a shocking truth about those Vietnam War aerial defeats. “We realised that it wasn’t necessarily the planes,” adds Barnes. “It was that our people didn’t know how to fight.” Thus from this moment onwards, Area 51 becomes a secret testing ground for training US pilots how to defeat Soviet MiGs in a dogfight. And the base itself grows in size with five more hangers constructed at the south end of the Groom Lake site. The area above the range is permanently made restricted airspace.

“

TESTING TIMES Thanks to a defecting Iraqi pilot the US military

CASE#5 Declassified files

WHY DID THE CIA NOT ADMIT AREA 51’S EXISTENCE UNTIL 2013?

T

hursday August 15th, 2013, will rank as a bitter-sweet date for conspiracy theorists. The sweet: it was the day the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) finally ‘declassified’ Area 51, for the first time by officially admitting its existence. The bitter: there were no mention of UFOs, extraterrestrial technology or alien autopsies. What the public were treated to was a sprawling 355-page document based around the history of the U2 spy plane from 1954 to 1974, which the National Security Archive at George Washington University had requested under the Freedom of Information Act. Most significant was that Area 51 was referred to in name on 12 pages. The file also included a line-drawn map (see right) which showed Area 51 and Groom Lake’s location in relation to the surrounding Mojave Desert and the not-so-secret Nevada Test Site. All previous mentions to Area 51 in official documents had been redacted (i.e. obscured by black ink), and anyone who wanted to keep their job with the US

government wouldn’t dare utter its name. This, then, was a landmark moment. Jeff Richelson, a senior research fellow at the National Security Archive, says that the long period of CIA secrecy about Area 51 was intriguing because so many people worldwide were already aware of the base’s existence. Richelson argues that the CIA must have made a conscious decision to acknowledge the base, and that many of the US agencies and non-US governments involved in the U2 program would have had a say in the declassification process. “There is a general inclination towards secrecy,” he says. “As far as I can tell, this is the first time something must have gone to a high enough level to discuss whether or not to formally acknowledge Area 51’s existence.” Former US presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush had previously made a nod towards the “location near Groom Lake”, without mentioning it by name as the CIA did on that fascinating day in 2013. Whether more secrets are divulged over the coming years remains to be seen.

“ANYONE WHO WANTED TO KEEP THEIR JOB WITH THE US GOVERNMENT WOULDN’T DARE UTTER AREA 51’S NAME”

OUT IN THE OPEN The CIA acknowledged Area 51 for the first time on a map publicly released in 2013.

CASE#6 The anti-gravity reactor

DID AREA 51 STAFF WORK ON ALIEN TECHNOLOGY?

B

y anyone’s standards, it’s a pretty unusual first day at work. In 1988, physicist Bob Lazar is summoned by phone call to be at McCarren Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada. From there, a plane transports him to the Groom Lake military installation. Bob waits for a bus with blacked-out windows to ferry him to an underground facility known as S4, about 22 kilometres south. There, surrounded by armed guards, Bob claims he’s shown more than 100 blue-coloured files which deal with UFOs and extraterrestrials. “It was very exciting because it seemed so cloak and dagger to me,” remembers Bob of his introduction to the goings on at Area 51. “I was sure what I was working on would be pretty fascinating.” What an understatement. On his second visit to the S4 bunker, Lazar is escorted to a hanger containing a disc-shaped craft. “It was absolutely smooth,” he says. “About 40 feet [14 metres] wide and appeared to have been made in one piece.” It was one of nine UFOs Lazar would eventually witness. Lazar insists he was employed by the US military over the following months to “reverse-engineer” UFO craft, researching in particular a propulsion system that harnessed gravity – dubbed an “anti-gravity reactor”. To do this, the UFO used element number 115, unknown on Earth because it’s “impossible to synthesize an element that heavy here on Earth…the substance has to come from a place where superheavy elements could have been produced naturally.” Lazar estimates the US government had collected around 230 kilos of the alien material. Lazar famously went public with his accusations in November 1989 on KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, as a form of ‘life insurance’ after being threatened by a government agent. There are, however, no shortage of scientists and/or investigators ready to rubbish Lazar’s outlandish story. Lazer claims to have degrees from the California Institute of Technology and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but a 1993 Los Angeles Times exposé failed to turn up any records of his attendance at either place. No professors could remember Lazar, and there were no photos of him. Physicist Dr David L. Morgan says Lazar’s story “violates a whole handful of currently accepted physical theories”. Either way, Bob Lazar will always be remembered as the guy who made Area 51 a household name – before his revelations, few people had ever associated the Nevada site with UFOs or conspiracy theories.

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D E T C I R T S E ESS R

“FOUR MEN SHARED A KITCHEN AND BATHROOM. THERE WERE NO TVS AND RADIOS. THEIR WINDOWS WERE BLACKED OUT”

EYE IN THE SKY A high-altitude satellite view of the Area 51 site.

CASE#7 Working conditions

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO WORK AT AREA 51?

F

ancy working at a top-secret military installation? For a start, you won’t see any job ads on seek. com.au. According to former employees at Area 51, you’ll either be approached by the CIA directly or by a contractor working out of the base. An Area 51 worker remembers how security concerns were the first thing drilled into new starters as soon as they arrived at the site in unmarked Boeing 737s. “Security there was absolutely very tight. Being informed on what you could talk about and what you couldn’t talk about starts at the very beginning. You don’t talk about anything classified.” Anyone working out of Area 51, whether civilian or military, must sign a lifetime oath to keep everything they see, hear

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or read a secret. Day-to-day work life at Area 51 may be more exciting than the humdrum of most people’s jobs, but living conditions in the desert are said to be harsher than those of a normal modern existence. Or at least they were in James Noce’s day. Noce did security contract work at Area 51 during the 1960s and 1970s. He remembers living at the base in a spartan one-storey cabin with four other men, all sharing a kitchen and bathroom. There were no TVs or radios. Their windows were even blacked out so they weren’t privy to what other employees were working on at the base. He was paid decently though, US$1,000 a month (about $7,200 in today’s money), and the food was exceptional. “They had these cooks come up from

Vegas,” says Noce. “They were like regular chefs. Day or night, you could get a steak, whatever you wanted.” Noce, clearly a man who takes no notice of lifelong secrecy oaths, says he was always paid in cash and put a phoney name to the receipt. Other employees received checks that appeared to have come from other companies, including Pan-Am Airways. As for families and loved ones, wives and children were kept in the dark about the confidential work done at Area 51; it wasn’t uncommon for entire families to be interviewed by the CIA to check they could keep a secret. But at least wives didn’t have to worry about their husbands having affairs – sources say that they only ever saw one woman on the base.

IN 60 SECONDS… T AREA 51 CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Is weather being made into a weapon? Not all conspiracy theories are made equal. At the more moderate end of the spectrum are claims that the US government is experimenting with weather-manipulation weapons at Area 51. Tampering with the weather is not a new phenomenon: according to a National Science Foundation report, the American military explored ways of modifying clouds and using rain as a weapon during the late-1940s and early-1950s under the codename Project Cirrus. And from 1962 to 1983, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration attempted, with little success, to seed clouds and slow cyclone winds.

Is there a 40-storey underground bunker?

Did extraterrestrials kill employees at Area 51? Talk about timing. Former Lockheed Martin engineer Boyd Bushman (above) waited until he was on his deathbed before sensationally producing ‘evidence’ that aliens have been held at Area 51. In August 2014, just before dying aged 78, Bushman claimed in a YouTube video that he’d worked on projects involving living extraterrestrial beings, antigravity and reverse-engineering UFO craft. The aliens, he says, were roughly 140-centimetres tall, had three backbones and were “able to use their own voice by telepathy to talk to you”. Bushman also claimed that 19 employees at the military installation died defending themselves from the aliens, even though most were friendly. Bushman’s prime piece of evidence was a photo of one of the beings, which some doubters pointed out was remarkably similar to an alien doll sold at WalMart.

“The aliens use telepathy to talk to you”

On satellite images – easily findable via a quick Google search – Area 51 looks like any other military base, with crisscrossing runways and non-descript outbuildings. But one popular theory (see Joel Levy’s The Little Book Of Conspiracies) is that most of the real base is hidden from view – in a vast, 40-storey-deep underground bunker where the most classified projects are worked on. The subterranean infrastructure is reportedly linked by underground railway to other ‘black’ sites in Los Alamos, White Sands and Los Angeles. Some serious security measures supposedly protect the subterranean infrastructure (presumably from staff without the necessary clearance), including motion and scent sensors.

Were the Moon landings in an Area 51 studio? If the US government wanted to win the space race by faking the Moon landings, what better place to film the charade than on a remote, super-secret desert airbase which, in 1969, was virtually unknown to the general public. That’s the theory of former NASA rocket-builder Bill Kaysing, who in 1974 published the book We Never Went To The Moon: America’s Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle. Kaysing claimed that NASA did indeed send the Apollo astronauts up in a rocket…but without the three passengers (Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins). They and their lunar capsule were transferred to a military cargo plane, which eight days later dropped the capsule into the Pacific Ocean. In the meantime, NASA and the CIA filmed the ‘Moon landing’ at Area 51, brainwashing the astronauts into cooperating.

WORDS: Vince Jackson PHOTOS: Getty Images (3); Alamy (5); PR (3)

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NATURE

TOWERING INFERNO In 2015, over 51,000 bushfires ravaged some 11 million hectares of land in the US – an area twice the size of Tasmania. There are now six times as many fires as there were 30 years ago and they’re getting bigger. “We are witnessing an increasing instance of these megafires,” says Tom Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.

THE SECRET

LAWS OF

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FIRES From Australia to California, they’re spreading faster than ever. Experts now predict this summer could be one of the most devastating bushfire seasons on record. We explain what makes these blazes so powerful and how the bush can be protected against them

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BRIGHT SPARK This image of 2014’s Etiwanda Fire in California was taken by photographer Stuart Palley. Using a special type of long exposure, he succeeded in making the fascinating flight paths of burning ash particles visible. Strong winds pushed the sparks close to the nearby towns and triggered mass evacuations.

HOW FAR CAN A SPARK FLY? It’s only a tiny spark. Somewhat ironically it was triggered by a machine clearing a fireline to prevent the advancement of a bushfire. However, the consequences are devastating. In no time, the coastal area around Santa Barbara in California is transformed into an 8-km-wide fire, laying waste to everything in its path. More than 4,500 firefighters, supported by 14 firefighting planes and 15 helicopters, battle against the sea of flames for a week. The spark’s final tally? 3,500 hectares of charred land, 77 houses destroyed and 13 casualties – not to mention the 30,000 residents who were evacuated. But the most shocking thing about the damage? The wall of fire didn’t even need to get close to the houses to wreak its havoc. That’s because a single spark can travel several kilometres and set houses alight without anyone noticing. “Many people think a bushfire creeps right up to the house and then burns the place down,” says Steve Quarles from the University of California. The reality is much more terrifying. One of the secret laws of fire is that most houses are burned down by airborne sparks. As long as the winds are favourable and the temperature remains consistently high, a single burning ember can travel more than 24 kilometres. And it will still have enough energy to set an entire house alight afterwards. This invisible advance party, the precursor to a fiery inferno, usually sneaks virtually unnoticed through an open window, or via tiny cracks in the roof or walls. In fact, a building doesn’t usually catch fire externally. The spark ignites from within, engulfing curtains, carpets and furniture, before transforming into a roaring blaze that completely swallows the house. In South Carolina, researchers have carried out simulations to determine how flying sparks cause fires and how houses can be better protected against them. “If you live in a high risk area, there’s only one viable option for avoiding damage as a result of flying sparks,” says bushfire researcher Richard Thornton. “And that’s window shutters made of steel.”

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CAN A FIRE BE PRECISELY PREDICTED? For years, no weather model could accurately predict how a bushfire would spread. That’s because the fires heat up the air so much that it moves 1,000 times faster than air currents warmed by the sun. These movements were too much for computers. But now French researcher Jean-Baptiste Filippi and his team have developed a model using a supercomputer that will be the first of its kind. The algorithms will make it possible to simulate exactly what’s happening on the fire frontline, as well as calculating which plants will burn more quickly than others and whether the fire is still spreading or has been extinguished.

The crucial factor is the effect of the fires on the weather. “The heat of the fire generates an extremely powerful movement of air, with wind speeds of 50 metres per second,” says Filippi. “As a result, large clouds form in the atmosphere, which can even lead to rain.” On the other hand, cool air currents can cause strong winds of about 100km/h, which then further exacerbate the fire. “We can use the model to estimate where the smoke of a freshly ignited fire will waft and where we can definitely not allow a large fire to develop,” explains Filippi. “That means we will know in advance where we need to lay firebreaks.”

JOB FROM HELL North American firefighters take home around $30 an hour. Their typical working conditions encompass two weeks of 12-hour shifts, during which time there’s a very real risk of death. Around 100 die in the line of duty every year in the USA alone. Almost half lose their lives not from heat exposure, but as a result of a heart attack caused by extreme stress.

25

UPHILL BATTLE Fires like this one in Townsville, Queensland, can burn at a rate of 16 kilometres an hour – making them even harder to fight. In fact, fire tends to move faster uphill because the flames can more easily reach unburnt fuel in front of the blaze.

FIREBREAK …the flames from grass fires can be up to several metres high but, unlike wood, they produce hardly any sparks that could trigger new blazes. Here, firefighters carry heavy duty leaf blowers to create a firebreak against the encroaching bushfire. The break of just a few metres is enough to deprive the fire of fuel, meaning the blaze dies out in a matter of seconds.

AT WHAT THICKNESS IS A TREE IMMUNE TO FLAMES? p g high, 1,500-year-old bush spreading across the primeval landscape of the northwestern United States. The giant redwoods of Yosemite National Park in California are some of the tallest and oldest trees in the world – even though they’re rooted in one of the most bushfire-prone regions on the planet. The secret of their longevity lies in their tough bark, which, at 50cm thick, offers a natural form of fire protection. This means small fires pose no risk to the giant sequoias. In fact, the opposite is true: by getting rid of pesky competitors and delivering nutrient-rich ash to the redwoods, bushfires actually have a positive impact. Certain trees have even adapted to the fire so their seed pods only burst under extreme heat. However, redwoods aren’t the only fire retardant trees: bark with a thickness of just five centimetres can protect against flames, as the 60-metre-high yellow pines of New Mexico have shown. These evergreen pines stretch across the southern tail of the Rocky Mountains and have survived countless fires over the years, escaping almost all of them unscathed, although the undergrowth has frequently not been so lucky. Even some deciduous trees can stand up to bushfires: Quercus suber, an oak that grows in southwest Europe, has fireproof armour made of cork. The tree is the primary source of cork for wine bottle stoppers.

27

CAN A FIRE GO TO SLEEP? Firefighters have a complex relationship with rain. Obviously, it helps them fight large blazes, but in some circumstances it can actually encourage particularly tricky fires to form. Take lightning strikes: “Lightning sensors can pinpoint lightning strikes and provide initial attack crews with accurate locations,” explains Solal Audibert, a firefighter in Canada. “However, there are way too many strikes to check them all, and not every strike results in a fire. Furthermore, lightning is often followed by rain, which delays the fire until it dries out enough for adjacent fuels to catch. It’s basically a time bomb: lightning

hits, the rain keeps it from burning right away, and a week or two later, after the fuel indices have gone down enough, a fire appears seemingly out of thin air in the same spot.” These ‘dormant fires’ can even emerge from snow: “The cold temperatures and precipitation do a lot to put out fires. But once again, because it doesn’t penetrate very much, there have been cases where a fire just reappeared in the same spot the year after we thought the snow put it out,” explains Audibert. Downpours often lull people into a false sense of security, then. Only a flood can put out a fire once and for all.

PHOTOS: Reuters (2); DPA (2); Caters; Craig Parry; Getty Images

BUSH CLEANER Once a fire is under control, it’s time for the emergency services to begin mopping up: every area where the fire is still smouldering has to be extinguished. Firefighters then investigate any suspicious warm spots on the earth – so that a missed root fire (a fire that burns underground along a tree’s root system) isn’t the reason for their next big call-out.

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SCIENCE

(;,/(' Planet Nine was probably a gas giant that was hurled to the edge of the solar system by nearby planets around 4.5 billion years ago. And it might not be alone. Researchers suspect that there are some 900 trans-Neptunian objects with a diameter of more than 1,000km in our solar system.

287(5 /,0,76 Scientists have used computer models to calculate the orbit of Planet Nine. They estimate that it circles our sun at a distance of up to 225 billion kilometres. If correct, it means that the solar system is a lot bigger than previously thought.

3 / $ 1 ( 7



+2: &28/':( 0,66,7" It’s four times the size of Earth, only comes along once every 27 million years – and yet it is part of our solar system. Planet Nine may be a rare sight, but it’s an extremely powerful one: when it shows up, it brings with it asteroids that wipe out all life on Earth

31

arth has experienced catastrophe after catastrophe. For decades, researchers have been tackling the thorny issue of why, every 27 million years, a mass extinction occurs on our planet. “It’s a strange phenomenon,” explains Professor Daniel Whitmire of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “Newer research shows evidence of such events dating as far back as 500 million years.” In research circles, the finger of suspicion points to an undiscovered, ninth planet in our solar system: a phantom that turns up to wreak havoc – namely wiping out life on Earth – and then disappears afterwards. But how could we miss a rogue planet during 5,000 years of astronomical observation? And will Planet Nine spell the end for the human race?

and orbit elliptically around the sun at clues. If the hunt for who was a distance of roughly 7.5 to 67 billion responsible for these regular mass kilometres. However, the fact that extinctions was a court case, they even exist undermines the Planet Nine would have already long-established laws of been sentenced due to physics, giving the hunters overwhelming ³:KHQWKH of Planet Nine hope: circumstantial “They’re kind of in a evidence. VRODUV\VWHP The trail leads ZDVIRUPHGODUJH no man’s land,” explains Scott to the Kuiper FHOHVWLDOERGLHV Sheppard, an belt: a ringZHUHIOXQJRXW astronomer at the shaped cloud IURPWKHLQQHU Carnegie Institution of asteroids and UHJLRQ´ for Science in dwarf planets, or )ORULDQ)UHLVWHWWHU Washington, D.C. trans-Neptunian $VWURQRPHU “These objects objects (TNOs), that couldn’t get out there previously marked the with what we currently know.” edge of the solar system. No one can explain how they retain The 13 largest of these celestial their orbits so far away from the sun bodies are known as extreme – unless a huge phantom planet also trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs)

3 / $ 1 ( 7

It hasn’t been possible to detect a ninth planet in our solar system yet, but scientists have found evidence of its existence… The orbital paths of trans-Neptunian objects (purple) in the solar system only make sense if they’re stabilised by a ninth planet (blue).

ORBIT OF NEPTUNE (PREVIOUSLY THE OUTERMOST PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM)

OBJECTS WITH SUSPECT ORBITS

HOW DO YOU FIND AN INVISIBLE PLANET? The reasons why Planet Nine has wended its merry way for so long without us noticing are simple: “It’s a long way away, reflects little sunlight and moves very slowly around the sun,” explains Austrian astronomer Florian Freistetter. So you can’t really blame scientists for not discovering it. Telescopes around the world have scanned the sky for decades, searching for any abnormalities. And, even if the phantom planet hasn’t been spotted yet, there are obvious



PLANET NINE

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ORBIT LENGTH IN EARTH YEARS

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³:H DUH SUHWW\ VXUH WKHUH¶V D QLQWK SODQHW RXW WKHUH´ MICHAEL BROWN, Astronomer at the California Institute of Technology

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a radius of 23,330 kilometres and a temperature of -226°C. Professor Whitmire also created a computer model of Planet Nine and found that the renegade planet is 100 times further away from the sun than the Earth. It’s a crucial clue because the model fits the mass extinction culprit’s profile. Whitmire suggests that it takes Planet Nine exactly 27 million years to orbit the sun, a timescale that coincides with the mass extinctions on Earth. And the sequence of events is clear: every 27 million years, Planet Nine ploughs its way through the Kuiper belt, flinging asteroids towards Earth and resetting life. But the impacts aren’t the worst part: according to researchers, the huge cloud of dust they throw up darkens the sky for years. An encounter with Planet Nine would therefore probably be the end of the road for us. But Professor Whitmire’s theories confirm that we’ve still got a bit of time. The next major mass extinction is not expected to occur for another 16 million years at the earliest.

PHOTOS: Fotolia; Getty Images; NASA

dancing on stage and even the drifts through the empty space strings that move them – and behind the Kuiper belt, stabilising assume there must be something the 13 outcasts. The regularity of controlling them, even if it’s hidden their orbits, all of which are at the away. But what does the puppeteer same angle to the sun, is also look like? telling. It’s another indication that Planet Nine exists: normally, the PLANETARY PROFILE gravitational pull of planets such as Saturn or Neptune would To construct an disrupt the ETNOs’ astronomical profile of route, but that Planet Nine, doesn’t happen. researchers from In simple terms, the University of this means that, Bern drew up a if you take the phantom image sun and the eight of the planet. major planets of Using computer .RQVWDQWLQ%DW\JLQ the solar system algorithms, &DOLIRUQLD,QVWLWXWH RI7HFKQRORJ\ and observe their astrophysicists influence on the 13 Esther Linder and ETNOs, the calculations Christoph Mordasini were simply don’t add up – at least not able to simulate the properties of without an additional factor. Planet Nine, without ever having However, if you replace the missing seen it. “With our study, candidate figures in the equation with a ninth Planet Nine is now more than a planet, orbiting the sun simple point mass; it takes shape, unobserved, the behaviour of the having physical properties,” 13 celestial bodies suddenly makes explains Mordasini. According to sense. It’s like a puppet show: the their calculations, it’s a gas giant researchers can see the puppets that weights about ten Earths, has

33

WHAT CAN HOLIDAY FLIGHT

7(67,1* 7+(/,0,76

W

ith a top speed of nearly 950km/h and a $470 million price tag, the 74-metre A350 is the latest high-tech airliner from Airbus. It’s scheduled to enter service next year, but for a long period of time the 440-passenger colossus could only be flown in a simulator. Six men had to prove that none of the engineers and mechanics had made a mistake during its seven-year development period. The jet took to the skies for the first time above Toulouse in France, with a take-off weight of 221 tons. “The plane was

IMMERSION TEST

+2: '2 <28 %5$.(,1$322/" New aircraft models are subjected to at least 2,000 hours of terrifying manoeuvres before they can carry their first passenger. This Airbus A350, for instance, simulated landing on a runway flooded with water to a depth of 23mm. The jet sped through 50 cubic metres of the liquid at up to 242 km/h and had to stay on track when braking, despite aquaplaning. “We also demonstrated that no water splashed into the turbines,” explains test engineer Jean-Christophe Bonjour. This element is just one part of an extensive approval procedure. “Our tests involve forces many times higher than those that arise during even the most severe turbulence,” describes test pilot Wolfgang Absmeier. “If you saw them, you’d think that the plane wouldn’t be able to fly. But it can.”

stripped to the bone to make room for 20 tons’ worth of measuring equipment and masses of cables,” explains experimental test pilot Martin Scheuermann. Four engineers in the cabin behind him monitored the plane’s progress, sending gigabytes of data and camera images from an aerial escort back to ground control. Ballast tanks simulated a full load during the four-hour flight over southern France, the start of a four-month testing marathon. But what sorts of tests is a passenger plane subjected to? Where do they take place? And what exactly constitutes safe?

TECHNOLOGY

MY WITHSTAND? Exploding engines, emergency landings, flights through

the most inhospitable airspaces on the planet; we examine the punishing paces all new planes are put through

35

EXTREME WEATHER TEST

:+< '2 7(67 $,5&5$)7*221 $:25/'7285" The phrase “take it easy” doesn’t apply to a test plane: first, the A350 must prove in the US Air Force’s McKinley Climatic Laboratory that its engines can run smoothly at -40°C and that it can therefore take off in Siberia without a problem. Outside the laboratory, test pilots seek out the planet’s extremes. Using the five existing test aircraft, they subject them to 100km/h crosswinds while landing in Iceland, snowstorms combined with force 9 gales in northern Canada, a 53°C furnace in Dubai, 100% humidity in Singapore and a take-off in the thin air at more than 4,000 metres above sea level in Bolivia. They even carry out a 14-hour non-stop trip to the North Pole and back because keeping track of your location at the planet’s axis of rotation is more difficult than at the equator. “The navigation equipment has to be able to work there,” says test pilot Scheuermann. But, even then, a pilot still hasn’t reached the performance limit…

AGEING TEST

+2: '2 <28 &5$0  <($56 ,172  0217+6" Take-off, manoeuvre, land, taxi – 130 times per day. Special fatigue tests feature 100 devices repeatedly pushing or pulling the plane, helping engineers to pack the wear and tear of a 16-hour flight into 11 minutes. In 16 months, they simulate 47,500 flight hours, or two and a half times the aircraft’s expected lifespan of around 25 years. The plane also has to withstand extreme pressure: the 30-metre wings can bend up to 5.2 metres without breaking. But it’s not just in the lab that limits are exceeded: an A350 normally cruises at around 966km/h, although it can go up to 1,095km/h. During testing, however, it reached 1,160km/h – only 77km/h slower than the speed of sound. These speeds, achieved during descent, exert an enormous force on the plane, shaking and tugging the wings and fuselage. And that’s not all: “In so-called flight flutter testing, an engineer sends a mechanical impulse onto the wings once or twice a minute to see if they will sway in the airflow,” explains Scheuermann. “It’s one of the most critical tests performed in the certification process, and is so risky that we even have to wear a parachute and helmet.”

37

IMPACT TEST

+2: '2 7+5(( .,/2*5$06 %(&20( " An average Canadian goose weighs 3.65kg: they’re large, bulky birds with sturdy bones and every aircraft has to survive an impact with one, even if it occurs at 480km/h. That’s the maximum speed during the take-off and landing phases, when bird strikes usually occur. The huge forces created by a feathery impact exceed the bird’s bodyweight by a factor of 10,000. Luckily, the nose cone of this Boeing 737 (right) was well-equipped with shock-absorbing material. The most vulnerable areas of the plane are the cockpit windows and engines. To test their safety, and whether they can work during an emergency, compressed-air cannon known as chicken guns fire blocks of gelatine or dead birds into the turbines while they’re running at full power.

STRESS TEST

'2(6 /,*+71,1* )5<7+( )86(/$*(" Flying through a storm cloud for five and a half hours, experiencing a lightning strike every three and a half minutes – it’s all in a day’s work for a test pilot. Lightning strikes to aircraft can affect structure at the entrance and exit points. In metal structures, lightning damage usually shows as pits, burn marks, or small circular holes. More modern aircraft, made of non-conductive composite materials, must include an extra metal mesh to attract the lightning strikes, otherwise the fuselage could melt.

EXPLOSION TEST

+2: '2 <28 6,08/$7( $1 $&&,'(17"

PHOTOS: Airbus (5); DLR; You Tube; Getty Images; PR

The high-tech Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofan engine, which provides the thrust for the A350, will set you back an eye-watering $19.6 million. Starting one of the largest passenger jets in the world is an extremely delicate procedure as most of the circa 250 tons of aviation fuel is located in the wings, just above the engines. At full thrust, the visible rotor on the air intake spins almost 50 times per second, helping the tips of the engine’s 24 fan blades to reach 1.5 times the speed of sound. The force on each 15kg blade is so great it’s like having a locomotive attached to them. It’s vital, therefore, that if one of the blades shears off, it is contained within the Kevlar-strengthened engine casing – and away from the fuselage of the plane. Here, test engineers at NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center in Mississippi simulate this catastrophic situation: in the pictures above, the coloured fan blade is deliberately broken off. In a worst-case scenario, an A350 is capable of flying up to seven hours on one engine, enough time for the pilot to reach an airport, no matter where in the world the engine failure occurred. 39

HISTORY

THE RING OF BRODGAR

THE ORIGINAL Archaeologists have made a discovery that seems to contradict the laws of civilisation: long ago, a mysterious people lived on the wind-tossed Orkney Islands off the coast of Scotland. So does history need to be rewritten?

41

THE SECRET OF THE LOST TEMPLE In 2003, archaeologists made a fascinating discovery. Hidden between two ancient henges in Orkney, the Ring of Brodgar and the Standing Stones of Stenness, they discovered a large temple dating back to the Neolithic period. Consisting of several stone buildings surrounded by a huge wall, the Ness of Brodgar was the religious heart of the Orkney Islands. This diagram shows

the site as it may have looked in approximately 2800 BC. The temple was in use between 3200 and 2300 BC, but it wasn’t always inhabited. Instead, it hosted religious rituals at various times, which were surprisingly well-attended. The site was so famous outside the far-flung Orkney Islands that pilgrims even travelled from the distant south, or what is now England.

MARSHES Sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age, forming vast bogs and swamps.

ENTRANCE The way in to the temple also marked a stage in the religious procession.

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NORTHERN PARA DI The Orkney Islands ha SE ve very fertile soil an da relatively mild clima te due to the Gulf St ream.

MIDDEN MOUND The midden pile (a dump of domestic waste) was the largest in Neolithic Britain and may even have been used for religious ceremonies and rites.

HOUSE In the Ness of Brodgar, the houses weren’t covered with straw but with tiles. They were the first houses in Europe to be built this way.

STONE WALL The walls were more than three metres high and six metres thick. No other prehistoric wall in Britain was so large.

MENHIR There is a special monolith in the middle of the complex – its shadow marks the beginning of spring and autumn.

THE WONDER OF SKARA BRAE Eight kilometres northwest of the Ring of Brodgar is a bay that contains the best preserved settlement from the Neolithic period. Skara Brae was discovered in 1850 after intense storms shifted sand dunes that had covered the village for thousands of years. The sand had preserved eight houses. Skara Brae was inhabited for more than 600 years, between 3180 and 2500 BC, until the climate became so wet

and cold that the residents moved south. However, there is also evidence that the people were forced to flee their homes. Archaeologists suspect that the sea drew closer and closer towards the settlement, before a storm finally drove the villagers away. They left behind anything they couldn’t carry. For this reason, and because it’s so well preserved, Skara Brae is nicknamed the “Scottish Pompeii”.

SHELF This is where the Neolithic people kept their food.

BEDROOM Neolithic people lived a lot more comfortably than you’d think. They had solid beds covered with animal skins and vegetation.

STONEWORK The houses were large and constructing them required considerable technical skill.

FIREPLACE Every house had a fireplace that provided the residents with light and warmth. 45

IN SEARCH OF THE PAST Thirteen years ago, this was still farmland. Today, it’s one of the most important archaeological digs in Europe and this is just a fraction of it. Experts have already uncovered 28 structures in the Ness of Brodgar, but that’s merely a tenth of what

they suspect lies underground. And even that might just be a tiny section of the vast ancient infrastructure on the Orkney Islands. “Turn over a rock around here and you’re likely to find a new site,” says archaeologist Julie Gibson.

re, in the far north of urope, you’re at the ercy of the elements. hen the sun shines, here are no trees to rovide shade. When the ind howls over the long rass, nothing gets in its ay. And when the rain elts down for more than 50 days a year, there’s nowhere to shelter. Yet for more than 5,000 years, the monoliths here have defied the forces of nature. These

‘menhirs’ (an ancient Breton word meaning ‘long stone’) make up the Ring of Brodgar. With a diameter of 104 metres, it’s not only bigger than Stonehenge but also around 500 years older. And that’s not all. Archaeologists have now discovered that the Ring of Brodgar is just one tiny part of a complex buried structure – and the proof that everything we know about human development in Europe is wrong.

WHERE IS THE CRADLE OF NORTHERN EUROPE? When we imagine ancient civilisations, we think about the Greek philosophers, Minoan frescoes and the

pyramids of Giza. We certainly don’t picture the Orkney Islands. The Scottish archipelago is rugged, wet and wild – most of its 70 islands are uninhabited. However, more than 5,000 years ago, Neolithic people used previously unknown methods to build huge structures there: temples, houses and the henges. The Ring of Brodgar on the Mainland of Orkney, is a Class II henge with a ditch and two opposite entrances. Of the original 60 menhirs, 27 have survived the fierce battle with the weather. Ranging in height from 2.1 metres to a maximum of 4.7 metres, the monoliths rise up as if growing from the soil. They stand in a ring of verdant grass, while the centre circle of the henge is covered in

purple heather. The landscape is flat and deserted, giving a sense of eternity – a junction between the land of the living and the realm of the dead. “All these monuments are inextricably linked in some grand theme we can only guess at,” says archaeologist Nick Card from the University of the Highlands and Islands. The Ring of Brodgar isn’t the only henge on Mainland. Around a mile away, the four remaining (of 12 original) monoliths of a Class I henge (a ditch and an entrance) shoot up from the ground: the Standing Stones of Stenness might only have a diameter of 30 metres, but they’re even older than the Ring of Brodgar. Between the two henges, hidden among the dunes

> 47

THE OLDER, BIGGER STONEHENGE The Ring of Brodgar is the youngest of all of the Neolithic monuments on the Orkneys, but it’s still 500 years older than Stonehenge in Wiltshire. The menhirs in the Ring of Brodgar came from a quarry north of the Stone Age settlement at

Skara Brae – 1.6km from the henge. However, the rocks that make up Stonehenge came from a quarry 225 kilometres away in Wales. How exactly they were transported such a large distance remains a mystery.

and grass, lies the temple complex of the Ness of Brodgar. One of the largest ceremonial sites in the world, the Ness is at least 5,200 years old, predating even the pyramids at Giza. Archaeologists believe that ritual ceremonies took place in this huge, six-acre site: processions would start at the Standing Stones of Stenness, continue through the Ness and then enter the realm of the dead at the Ring of Brodgar. Archaeological digs at the site are ongoing and have turned up some interesting finds; the evidence suggests the area wasn’t permanently inhabited and was only used for rituals. The experts had never seen anything like it, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

THE PATH OF CIVILISATION The temple complex consisted of a cluster of stone houses, surrounded by a wall three metres high and six metres thick. It was the most substantial structure in the UK until the Romans built Hadrian’s Wall – a full 30 centuries later! “This is almost on the scale of some of the great classical sites in the Mediterranean, like the Acropolis in Greece, except these structures are 2,500 years older,” explains Card. Along with the buildings, the archaeologists have found shards of “grooved ware”, a type of pottery from the Neolithic British Isles covered in intricate patterns. These distinctive fragments have also been unearthed on

WAKING THE DEAD AFTER 5,000 YEARS The Orkney islands are dotted with Neolithic structures: on the island of South Ronaldsay is the Isbister Chambered Cairn. Discovered by a farmer in 1958, the chambered tomb houses 16,000 human bones. The claws of sea eagles were also found there – hence its nickname, the “Tomb of the Eagles”.

nutrients ashore and keeps the winters relatively mild. That said, why the Neolithic people abandoned their homes remains a mystery. Nick Card has established – by examining bones – that there must have been a huge leaving do: the skeletons of 600 cattle slaughtered at the same time were discovered in a grave – a whole civilisation’s livestock and enough to feed thousands. So what happened? “We don’t know,” says Card. “But the answer is buried here.” Indeed, Card and his team have only excavated 10% of the site, but it has already yielded thousands of priceless artefacts including a human figurine known as the “Brodgar Boy”. It seems the Orkney Islands are slowly giving up their secrets.

PHOTOS: Jim Richardson/NGS (6); PR ILLUSTRATION: NGS

excavation sites further south, in England and mainland Europe. However, Card couldn’t believe his eyes when the pieces were carbon dated: the Orkney pottery is older than any previously discovered. Received wisdom has it that culture spread northwards from the south, yet the pottery proves the opposite. A civilisation must have existed on the Orkneys and brought knowledge southwards. It would also explain why Stonehenge is younger than the Ring of Brodgar – it’s a copy. So why did people live on this remote, storm-swept archipelago? Simple: the land is fertile and the sea is full of fish. The Orkney Islands are situated in the path of the warm Gulf Stream, which continuously washes

49

HUMAN BODY

Nosebleeds The time-honoured trick of squeezing the middle of your nose can help, as can xylometazoline-based nasal sprays such as Otrivine. These help stem the bleeding because they cause blood vessels to contract. Under no circumstances should you tilt your head back, as swallowing blood will trigger feelings of nausea. You can also try sliding a small sanitary pad along the roof of your mouth to the back – but not all the way. If the nosebleed is very heavy, you should see an ear, nose and throat specialist. They will stem the flow using bipolar forceps or a laser.

What should you do when you start bleeding? Advice on how best to deal with wounds…

Cuts Lacerations to the eyebrow are a common feature of boxing. The rules stipulate that the fight must be stopped when one of the boxers starts bleeding. A “cutman” in the fighter’s corner then tries to stop the bleeding – and only has a minute to do so. First, he dabs on an ointment that mostly contains adrenaline. This makes the blood vessels contract. Then he reaches for an ice-cold piece of iron from a cooler and presses it against the cut. If that doesn’t work, he can apply wound superglue. If the boxer needs stitches, the referee has to stop the fight.

ising A haematoma occurs when an impact tears the smallest blood vessels. Blood leaking into the tissue causes a bruise to develop. The first action is to cool it down. Then, depending on the size of the bruise, and how painful it is, you may need to see a doctor – especially if you are a sportsperson. Extreme cases could see you having a heparin injection, which thins the blood and shrinks the bruise. Prior to seeing a doctor, general advice is to avoid putting weight on the affected area if tendons or bones have been injured.

51

Grazes

It used to be thought that wounds healed best when exposed to air, but that thinking has now been turned on its head. Nowadays, a moist environment is created so a scab doesn’t form. First, clean the injured area with physiological saline solution or lukewarm water. After disinfecting the wound, cover it with a dressing such as a hydrocolloid plaster. Check the patient’s vaccination history to see if they’re protected against tetanus.

Bleeding gums

Gashes A bandage with a sterile dressing will usually suffice. If you’re unable to stem the bleeding, make a pressure bandage using a handkerchief. If your child has a deep gash on their head, take them to hospital as soon as possible to rule out concussion. As a painless alternative to stitches, in some cases a special wound superglue can be used.

52

ILLUSTRATION: Jan Bazing. PHOTO: Allianz

Bleeding gums is an inflammatory response to bacterial plaque. If you brush properly, your gums won’t bleed. Your dentist can tell you in which order surfaces need to be brushed and what technique or instruments you should use. Gaps between the teeth can be cleaned using floss or interdental toothbrushes.

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Is Dubai’s The Palm Islands off the coast of Dubai are supposed to be monuments for eternity – but as builders the world over will tell you: the bigger the job, the bigger the problems

BUILT ON SAND… With a desert right on your doorstep, you’d think it would be easy to pile up the 100 million cubic metres of sand needed to form the Palm Jumeirah. But desert sand is completely unsuitable – the grains are too round, too fine and don’t stick together. So the sand had to be either imported from Australia or dug up from the seabed 11 kilometres off the coast using special ships – at great expense. Today, erosion means it has to be continually replaced.

DAILY TRAFFIC CHAOS 120,000 people have to share a single road that connects the crown of the Palm’s fronds to the mainland via a 300m bridge. It’s no wonder traffic jams are common. Things get particularly bad whenever the Atlantis hotel puts on one of its legendary concerts, which pull in over 30,000 extra visitors.

TECHNOLOGY

broken beyond repair?

WHAT A STENCH

TOO MANY NEIGHBOURS Originally the Palm Jumeirah offered space for 60,000 people – and all the properties were sold in three days. However, the distance between the houses was reduced before construction started in order to double the capacity. The result: some very annoyed homeowners (who could console themselves with the fact that the value of their properties had quadrupled.)

The outer ring of the sand island – which houses the famous 1,500-room Atlantis resort – was originally supposed to be a breakwater. However, in practice, it prevents water circulating around the Palm’s individual fronds. The result: a build-up of algae, murky water, mosquitoes and an unholy smell. Various drainage channels and canals have been subsequently added, but to date haven’t solved the problem.

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%,57+2)$0(*$&,7< No other place in history has undergone a more rapid transformation than Dubai. Up until 50 years ago, no more than 40,000 people lived here. But in the 1960s researchers discovered gigantic oilfields in the area – and Dubai’s sheikhs have invested

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s ideas go, it wasn’t a bad one: more beaches, more sunseeking holidaymakers! Dubai’s sheikhs had this lightbulb moment – and, in 2001, started work on an ambitious

billions of dollars in huge construction projects ever since. Apart from the Palm Islands, in the past ten years alone Dubai has gained an indoor ski hall and the tallest building in the world, the 828-metre Burj Khalifa – along with another 466 skyscrapers.

project: the Palm Islands, the eighth wonder of the world. The three artificial islands would extend the city’s shoreline by 400 kilometres and entice tourists with 5,000 acres of hotels, villas, apartments, shopping centres and amusement parks. The target: to triple the number of visitors to the desert emirate to 15 million per year.

However, 15 years later, the end result is somewhat different… Just one of the dream islands has become a reality: the Palm Jumeirah opened in 2008 with a celebration costing $26 million. But, just weeks after the festivities, the problems began – disgruntled homeowners, traffic chaos and ongoing environmental damage.

RECORD TIME The Palm Jumeirah took just seven years to build. The cost? A cool $13 billion.

ISLAND WORLDS

2005

2010

THE SMALL DESERT STATE ONCE AGAIN HAS BIG PLANS Right now, Dubai is light years away from achieving its tourism target. Not least because the state construction firm Nakheel has experienced dramatic financial difficulties, meaning work on a second, twice-as-large archipelago called Palm Jebel Ali was

mothballed. Meanwhile, nobody talks about the once-lauded third Palm Island project any longer. Instead, focus has shifted to The World, a collection of islands in the shape of a world map. Plans are also in place for another new mega structure – one that will even surpass the Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt, the last surviving

wonder of the ancient world. At EXPO 2020, when the world’s gaze will be fixed on the second-largest state in the UAE, a new tallest building will be unveiled. That title currently belongs to Dubai’s 828-metre Burj Khalifa, but the Tower at Dubai Creek will soar 1,000 metres into the sky – which sounds like a fresh lot of trouble.

PHOTOS: PR; Johannes Heuckeroth; Getty Images; Bauer Stock; Rex Features

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The Palm Jumeirah alone required 186.5 million cubic metres of sand and ten million cubic metres of rock. Another major project is currently under construction: The World (satellite images, left) consists of 300 islands in the shape of a world map and is supposed to be completed by 2020.

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NATURE

THE MYSTERIOUS WORLD OF

They can grow up to ten metres in length and are one of the most intelligent hunters on the planet: killer whales are considered the secret rulers of the ocean. However, orca researchers have now discovered something that’s left even the most experienced experts speechless

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he steep fjords of Norway, the icy bays of Antarctica, the sandy beaches of Brazil: the habitat of killer whales extends over millions of square kilometres. The ten-metre super predators hunt in all of the world’s oceans, including the waters off Scotland’s west coast, and prey on fish, sharks, seals, seabirds and other species of whale. Even apex predators such as great white sharks are occasionally on the menu. The nine-ton whales use a wide range of hunting techniques: they can dive hundreds of metres into the inky depths of the Pacific, line up in precisely coordinated attack formations and leap up to five metres out of the water. But how is this possible? How can a single species rule over such a large kingdom? And how have orcas developed so many different, highly intelligent strategies? The answers to these questions paint an entirely new picture of killer whales. A picture so different that researchers believe we should no longer speak about orcas as if they are a single species…

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of transients. Even the biggest animal ever to have lived on Earth, the blue whale, is on the hit list of nomadic killer whales. Every year, the black-andwhite carnivores swim thousands of kilometres, continuously adapting their hunting techniques to their victims. What’s more, the wanderers no longer use the most powerful weapon in their armoury, making them even more unpredictable…

WHAT MAKES ORCAS SO UNPREDICTABLE? It’s estimated that around 50,000 orcas patrol the world’s seas. No other predator has adapted to so many different habitats and spread so far across the planet. However, experts are now convinced that orcas, like humans, split into two tribes thousands of years ago: the sedentary tribe (residents) and the nomadic tribe (transients). Evolutionary biologist Andrew Foote of the University of Bern, Switzerland, even references two different, independent species, which can in turn be split into dozens of clans and thousands of families. These two tribes behave in fundamentally different ways: while penguins and sea lions have nothing to fear from resident orcas, given that they prefer to hunt for fish at depths of 300 metres, no marine animal is safe from the jaws

“New Zealand orcas are true nomads. They constantly change their hunting territory to exploit the element of surprise.” INGRID VISSER, BIOLOGIST

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LONG-DISTANCE SWIMMER Orcas that belong to a resident pod spend the majority of their lives in just one place. Others are members of transient pods that travel vast distances: up to 225km a day, from the Antarctic to the Brazilian coast.

Unlike transient orcas, resident whales hunt prey using an advanced positioning system: from their foreheads they project loud, high-frequency soundwaves underwater. When these ‘clicks’ hit an obstacle, such as a fish, the sounds are thrown back as an echo and provide the orca with a threedimensional sound image of its surroundings. The system is also used to communicate and estimate distances – killer whales can even stun fish using the extreme acoustic pressure of these sounds. But while this weapon gives resident orcas a distinct advantage, it poses a problem for transients when they hunt. That’s because the sound also startles other mammals, providing an early warning to potential prey nearby. For this reason, transient orcas have, over time, altered their tactics and learned how to switch off their echolocation systems completely. Instead, they use the technique of passive listening to surprise their victims at the very moment they think they’re safe. The hunters have also worked out how to hold their breath underwater for twice as long as their fish-eating relatives: up to eight minutes. For whale researchers, it’s further proof that two different strains of orcas exist…

WHY AN ORCA NEVER FORGETS But one thing does link residents and transients: they hand down knowledge through the generations. Mostly this is limited to their familial clan, which normally has between five and 50 members. Experts studying one of Norway’s fjords observed how a resident orca family fled en masse when a boat approached them. However, another family of killer

NAVIGATION SYSTEM To track their prey, resident orcas use echolocation – a highly developed system that delivers a precise auditory image of their surroundings. Members of transient pods, on the other hand, have learned to live without this capability. Why? So as not to warn sea lions and other prey of their presence.

“Each whale has a role. It’s like a ballet, so they have to move in a very coordinated way and communicate and make decisions about what to do next.” TIU SIMILA, MARINE BIOLOGIST whales didn’t seem at all disturbed by the whir of the motor. It was then discovered that the ancestors of the former family had been hunted by fishermen several decades before, while the calmer clan had only arrived in the waters around the fjord a few years ago to hunt for herring. “The elders ensure the survival of their clan by sharing their knowledge with their family,” explains biologist Lauren Brent from the University of Exeter. This social bond breaks down when killer whales are kept in captivity. Cooped up in a confined space with other orcas, often from a different family group, the whales can transform into unpredictable killers, sometimes even attacking their human keepers. In the wild, on the other hand, there have been very few documented cases of orcas attacking humans and certainly no fatal encounters…

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THE HUNTING SECRETS OF ORCAS All around the world, orcas use varied, prey-dependent hunting strategies. Killer whales off the Norwegian coast have developed one of the most refined techniques: carousel feeding.

ROUND-UP The killer whales slowly drive the tightly packed fish towards the surface, while constantly talking to each other using clicks. By slapping the surface of the water with their tails, the orcas increase the panic amongst the school of herring.

SLAP OF THE TAIL FIN

AIR BUBBLES ISOLATED GROUP

SCHOOL OF HERRING MOBILE LARDER Once a pod of killer whales has discovered a school of herring, it isolates a part of the group and herds the fish together. SPEE

D: 3

.7KM

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KETTLE OF FISH The orcas now begin to circle the herring. They emit air bubbles that act like a wall around the fish and prevent them from escaping.

HOW DO YOU CONQUER ALL OF THE WORLD’S OCEANS? Thanks to their incredible ability to adapt, orcas have succeeded in taking over more of the world’s oceans than almost any other predator: the whales hunt herring off the coast of Norway, sea lions in the waters off Argentina and penguins in the Antarctic Ocean.

MAKING WAVES Even sitting on an ice floe can’t save the orca’s prey. Killer whales living in the Antarctic band together in groups of up to five and generate high waves at the command of their leader, sweeping seals or penguins from the floe. On the other side, another orca lies in wait, ready to capture the victim.

CORNERED Orcas resident in Argentina have developed another trick: they cut off their prey’s route by driving them into shallow waters. The sea lions are slowed down by the water flowing back from the surf and the whales can snap them up. This tactic isn’t without risk: if the orca ventures too far, it runs the risk of becoming beached.

CAPTURING FOOD As soon as the orcas have the school under control, the herring swimming on the edge of the group are stunned with a slap of the tail fin. Now all the whales have to do is start eating. There’s a clear feeding hierarchy, with the elders having first dibs.

FALLING INTO THE TRAP Some groups of orcas use a slightly modified technique: they drive the fish towards the shore and into shallow waters, and pounce on them there.

STUNNED HERRING

TAIL SLAP

FEMALE MALE INSTRUCTOR Older females teach their young a variety of hunting techniques, including how to stun herring with a slap of the tail fin. SOUND WAVES Orcas locate their prey using clicks carried by the water. The sound travels five times faster than in the air.

PHOTOS: Getty Images; Jens Henneberg; Nicklen/NGS ILLUSTRATION: NGS

DAILY RATION To stay nourished and healthy, killer whales need to eat around 100kg of fish a day.

WHALE CALF

PLAYING THE LONG GAME Some prey, such as the tuna native to the Atlantic, are too swift and agile for orcas to catch easily. Instead, the whales use their incredible stamina to chase the fish until they surrender, completely exhausted, after half an hour.

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This gun can fire up to 300 rounds a minute, has a range of 500 metres, weighs just 3kg and is freely available just about everywhere. The AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle is the most popular weapon in the US – especially with gunmen intent on killing sprees… urora, Newtown, San Bernardino and now Orlando: names that have been burned into the collective memory of a nation. More than 100 people t their lives in mass shootings at four places in America alone. trators were both nonslamist extremists, ults. They murdered ools – and had ut one thing of weapon. ut their

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killing sprees using an AR-15 assault rifle. And it’s no coincidence why…

You don’t have to be a good shot to use the AR-15. You just pull the trigger. And fire. And fire. And fire… “It was boom, boom, and I thought it was part of the song,” recalls eyewitness Christopher Hansen of the dramatic moment gunman Omar Mateen suddenly opened fire in an Orlando nightclub. “I don’t think anyone really knew what was going on until they saw people on the ground

bleeding and heard people screaming.” The murder weapon, the AR-15, can fire up to 300 rounds per minute. Its magazine holds up to 30 bullets and even an inexperienced shooter can empty it in ten seconds flat, almost like a machine gun. And that’s exactly what Mateen did. In total, he fired more than 200 bullets, killing 49 people and injuring 53 more – until police stormed the building and shot the 29-year-old killer dead. It’s precisely this terrifying efficiency and ease of use that makes the AR-15 the most popular weapon in the US

WORLD EVENTS

“TERRORISTS ARE GOING TO PICK THE WEAPON SYSTEM THAT ALLOWS THEM TO SHOOT AS MANY TIMES AS THEY CAN.”

today. It’s the reason seven out of ten gunmen buy the $700 assault rifle. The gun was originally developed for use on the world’s battlefields. But US soldiers were issued with the near-identical M16 rifle, so the AR-15 was developed for civilian use and is now mainly in private hands; an estimated five million of them are stashed away in America’s garages, kitchens and bedrooms. The weapon can be bought in shopping centres in virtually every state, with accessories also freely available. The right to bear arms is guaranteed

by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. So, while the American government can ban large bottles of shampoo being taken aboard aircraft for fear of terrorist attacks, there is no such legislation in place when it comes to buying weapons and ammunition over the counter. Instead, there are thousands of shooting ranges across the country where even children can learn to fire a gun. Omar Mateen was a regular visitor to ranges in the years before his shooting spree, with one instructor describing him as an “expert shot”.

Mateen’s was a killing spree that, according to Donald Trump, could have been prevented. But not by introducing stricter gun laws or banning the AR-15. Instead, the 70-year-old presidential candidate said at a rally: “If we had people, where the bullets were going in the opposite direction, right smack between the eyes of this maniac… You know what? That would have been a beautiful sight, folks.” So Trump advocates a society where more and more people carry a weapon. It seems America’s nightmare could rumble on and on… 67

PHOTOS: PR (2)

Lt Col Scott Man, weapons expert and former Green Beret

HUMAN BODY

“We believe that studying the dark proteome will clarify future research directions, as studies of dark matter have done in physics.” DR SEAN O’DONOGHUE, DATA VISUALISATION SCIENTIST AT THE COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION IN SYDNEY

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veryone knows that a caterpillar changes completely when it becomes a butterfly. However, paradoxically, it also stays the same. The process is probably

the most dramatic transformation in the animal kingdom: limbs appear where there were none, while organs move throughout the body, mutating, disintegrating and being put back together again. They’re two creatures that couldn’t be more different, but the butterfly and caterpillar have an identical genome. How? What caused the caterpillar’s metamorphosis, if not its genetic blueprint? The answer has astonished even experienced biologists. The change from caterpillar to butterfly is actually controlled by proteins. Proteins are polymer chains formed from amino acids and

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THE SECRET CHEMISTRY OF PROTEINS

HOW MUCH DARK MATTER IS IN MY BODY? For years, scientists have been trying to get a handle on dark matter, the mysterious substance holding our universe together. Now new research has led to a stunning discovery: our bodies may also be dependent on their power

“Dark proteins definitely have an important role, but we don’t know what it is yet.” ANDREA SCHAFFERHANS, DEPARTMENT OF BIOCHEMISTRY AT THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH are based on a blueprint in the DNA. All the body’s proteins link together to form the “proteome”. In modern medicine, this is considered a dull area of study and is often overlooked. Proteins were researched a long time ago, their role in the body reduced to being a source of energy and building block for muscles, organs and the blood. But that was a big mistake because, in actual fact, proteins are the most active designers of life and implement our genetic makeup. Furthermore, there are 400,000 different proteins that affect every process in the body, making up 15% of our overall mass. They influence healing, communication between cells and the immune system. “Many people think that we’re controlled by our genes,” explains Professor Matthias Mann from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry. “But, in reality, it’s the proteins that do something in us and to us.” The strange thing is that around 50% of these proteins are still completely unknown. They are a

kind of dark matter in our bodies – and we’re only just beginning to understand the power they have over us.

HOW MANY SECRETS ARE HIDDEN IN THE BODY? The role proteins play in the body is crucial, but it was long thought impossible to decode their powerful network. After all, a single cell can be controlled by up to 10,000 proteins. “Our proteome is probably a lot more complex than our genome,” explains Professor Mann. However, with the computing power

he and his team have been putting together gene maps to depict the cosmos of proteins in our body – and has stumbled across thousands of previously unknown chains. For the researchers, it’s like discovering human dark matter without having a clue what it actually does. “It may sound absurd, but we had to do two things,” explains Dr Andrea Schafferhans from the Technical University of Munich. “First we had to discover proteins we didn’t know were there, and then we had to find out why we didn’t know about them.” However, all that’s about to change.

DO PROTEINS HAVE A DARK SIDE?

“Just as you can’t see dark matter in the universe using a telescope, you can’t represent dark proteins using conventional methods.” DR PETER WRIGHT, THE SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE IN CALIFORNIA

now available, it’s finally poss to unscramble the complicat protein codes in the body and put them in a database. It’s a job for Dr Sean O’Donoghue, data visualisation scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Sydney. For years,

For medicine, the discovery of dark matter in the body is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it could provide insights into protein-based illnesses like cancer and type 2 diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and it might also be a way of managing the ageing process. In other words it

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WHAT ARE PROTEINS? Practically every cell on the planet (including hormones and enzymes) is made up of hundreds or even thousands of proteins. These consist of a combination of 20 amino acids. The acids are strung together like a code: for example, the hormone insulin is composed of a chain of 21 amino acids, while the muscle protein titin has 30,000. Proteins are everything to a cell: an energy source, structure, sensor and means of communication. It’s widely believed that proteins are even more important than the genome in understanding the body. The reason: the 25,000 human genes have largely been deciphered, but the roles of the 80,000 to 400,000 proteins in the body haven’t. Scientists don’t know when and where the proteins are used – yet.

HOW DID SCIENTISTS DISCOVER HUMAN DARK MATTER? Human DNA is like a huge book containing the exact instructions for building a person. Here, spread over around three billion pages, is the complete protein code. These gene sequences dictate the makeup of a protein and have become essential to the study of dark matter in the body. That’s because, biochemically speaking, dark proteins are simple molecules – and their instructions are neatly written in the DNA. Together with an international research

team, Dr Bernhard Kuester from the Technical University of Munich has read these blueprints. Using the human gene map, which lists all of the genes in the genome, the researchers were able to find out which proteins are actually built by the body. While this doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about what they do, it’s possible to compare these protein assembly instructions with the known proteome – and, therefore, get an overview of the amount of dark matter in the body.

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WHAT DOES PROTEIN DO TO MY BODY? Fats, carbohydrates (sugars) and proteins are the three main components of our diet. Proteins (mainly absorbed from meat, fish, nuts and grains) are especially important: there are just as many calories in a gram of protein as there are in the same amount of sugar. However, the body only requires 25% of the energy contained in protein and, because it takes such a long time to digest them, they are the nutrient group with the highest degree of saturation. But producing energy isn’t the be-all and end-all for the body because, unlike plants and microorganisms, we can’t produce all of our body’s components ourselves. Because of this, we need to include a good dozen amino acids – the building blocks of bodily protein – in our diets. One of the best foods for this are eggs, which contain all of the amino acids we need.

could allow doctors to reach areas that were previously closed off, despite recent medical advancements. On the other hand, researchers have confided to O’Donoghue that the discovery of dark matter feels like an admission

“Millions of different protein molecules are moving around our bodies – and most of them are ‘dark matter’” BERNHARD KUESTER, PROTEOME RESEARCHER AT THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH

of failure for medicine – a blank area on a map that was meant to have been fully explored a long time ago. “We’re amazed at how much we still don’t understand,” admits Schafferhans. From a scientific perspective, the discovery of dark proteins is comparable to “the search for dark matter in the universe,” according to Dr Peter Wright of the Scripps Research Institute in California. Even the world’s most respected scientists feel as if they’ve been thrown back to square one: the search for answers is like groping around a pitch-black room for objects that a human has never seen before. What O’Donoghue and his team have managed to find out about the body’s dark matter shows that, despite its shadowy nature, it plays an important role. The behaviour of dark proteins marks them out as different from regular varieties and contrasts with every known bodily

proteome – but it could found. Now, after the discovery of dark prote a breakthrough is finally within reach.

CAN THE BODY LOSE DNA? But before we gain complete access to our bodily functions using t dark proteins, there’s another puzzle to solve Although other research

“Many people think that we’re controlled by our genes. But, in reality, it’s the proteins that do something in us and to us.” PROFESSOR MATTHIAS MANN, PROTEOME RESEARCHER AT THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF BIOCHEMISTRY

teams have begun mapping the dark matter, more blind spots are appearing in our knowledge of the genome. For example, Professor Akhilesh Pandey, a biochemist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has identified 193 dark proteins, which, despite being formed from amino acids in the body, don’t have a blueprint in the genome. “The fact that 193 of

the proteins came from DNA sequences predicted to be non-coding means that we don’t fully understand how cells read DNA,” explains Professor Pandey. Just as startling is the discovery that 2,000 of the proteins in our bodies might not exist, despite appearing on the gene maps. So what’s the explanation for these phantom proteins? Well, we simply don’t know. The changes that exploring the dark proteins in our body will make to people’s lives is unknown – it could even be as dramatic as the metamorphosis of a caterpillar. But one thing is now certain: whether it’s in the fight against hitherto incurable diseases, boosting life expectancy or tapping into new reserves of power, “dark proteins definitely have an important role,” explains Schafferhans. “But we don’t know what it is yet.”

PHOTOS: Fotolia (2); iStock; PR (4)

structure. They keep to themselves and hardly ever interact with other proteins, but they still have a far-reaching influence on the body. This independent behaviour would explain why they prefer to float outside cells and glandular tissue. From examining normal proteins, experts know that these wanderers have highly specialised jobs relating to cellular communication and the immune system. Professor O’Donoghue predicts that the discovery of dark proteins will therefore have a widespread impact on the future of medicine. Just like the study of dark matter in physics, dark proteins will usher in a new era of research. And the development has already begun: in China, for instance, scientists -have discovered a link between proteins and the production of antibodies to combat harmful germs. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Science in Yunnan managed to isolate 700 peptides (short chain proteins) from the dark matter of previously undiscovered proteins. They were so effective at fighting bacteria without side-effects that they could help kickstart a new generation of antibiotics. But that’s not all. For many researchers, the discovery of dark proteins sheds new light on diseases we still don’t understand. It’s as if a door that was previously locked shut has suddenly opened. Examples include Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – both of which are caused by protein aggregation, or clumping. For years, it was clear that a treatment was hiding in the

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WORLD EVENTS

HOLLYWOOD he camera glides slowly through the church, as if riding on a huge wave. It descends from the ceiling to almost ground level, filming over the actor’s shoulders. This teaser trailer for HBO’s wildly

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successful Game Of Thrones only lasts a few seconds, but until recently it would have been impossible. No crane or slider can carry a camera as smoothly and flexibly as a drone. “We’re getting shots you wouldn’t get any other way,” says Tony Carmean, of Aerial MOB, the leading US

company for camera drones. His regular clients include the BBC, HBO and Netflix, and they all want spectacular images: tracking shots through narrow gaps, a bird’s eye view of an explosion, zooming out from a close-up to a panorama. They’re shots that a few years ago would have

HOW A DRONE FILMS

AND… ACTION! The pilot steers the drone using remote control, with the director and cameraman watching the shot on a monitor. Camera direction can be controlled independently of the drone so it doesn’t matter which way the drone is facing. Below is a still from the finished scene.

They’ve been responsible for some of the most impressive images ever seen in movies and on TV. Here’s how camera drones are revolutionising filmmaking

been replicated using computer trickery, but are now possible with a flying robot. “From a storytelling perspective, this offers an entirely different look that we can’t get any other way,” says aerial cinematographer Nick Kolias. But, until 2014, commercial drones were banned in US

airspace. This meant that the sets of blockbusters like Skyfall had to be moved to Europe and Asia. Pressure from Hollywood caused the US Federal Aviation Administration to finally give in, and today around 250 licenses a month are issued to film using drones. In addition to the visual

impact, drones have other advantages: the train fight scene in Expendables 3 was originally slated to take 38 days to film, but the director reduced that to just ten by using a drone, rather than a helicopter. This also dramatically cut costs and meant the likelihood of an accident was much lower.

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POWER PACK Two lithium polymer batteries

ROTORS Eight rotors, usually made of beech wood, spin at 80km/h and alternate between clockwise and anticlockwise

BODY Carbon fibre with titanium alloy, the body is robust but ultra light at just 4kg

CARRYING HANDLE The camera is attached here. A three-axis positioning system helps stabilise the images, even in high winds

What drone pi l o ts SHOULD KNOW 1 The key thing when steering a drone is hand-eye coordination. Consequently, people who play a lot of computer games often make the best drone pilots.

2 If you want to familiarise yourself with acceleration and slowing down, turn off the GPS when flying or switch the drone to manual mode.

3 The rules governing the use of drones are still evolving, but at the moment you don’t need a special licence to fly one in Australia. You can fly a drone if it weighs less than 2kg and you aren’t using it for commercial reasons. Always keep it in sight – and fly below 120m.

STUNTASTIC Hollywood directors are increasingly relying on drones to record daredevil stunts. They offer unique perspectives and entirely different ways of capturing a scene.

SKYFALL The opening motorbike chase scene over the rooftops of Istanbul was filmed using a drone. A helicopter would have proved too cumbersome and noisy.

CONTROL CENTRE The brains of the drone contains the flight computer, motor controls and GPS

WHAT YOUR MONEY WILL GET YOU The best drones to suit every budget, from entry-level indoor flyers to state-ofthe-art machines beloved by professional cameramen

SYMA X5C EXPLORER Basic quadcopter with an HD camera and looping function. A battery life of just ten minutes makes it more of a toy than a serious machine. Price: around $60

MICROPHONE Used to record ambient noise

CAMERA The camera sends images to a monitor on the ground. The zoom and shutter are controlled via remote control

Multiple test winner that can be controlled via a tablet or smartphone. Features a 180-degree field of vision and GPS. Flight time: 25 minutes. Price: around $900

5 Take part in training sessions and workshops. Familiarise yourself with safety regulations and the different parts of your drone (see above). Finally, it’s good practice to have another person around when filming – one flies the drone and the other controls the camera.

DJI PHANTOM 4 Professional drone that automatically flies around obstacles and can follow moving objects. Carries a rotatable camera. Range: 5km. Price: around $2,400

DJI SPREADING WINGS S1000 THE EXPENDABLES 3 To capture the train scene, the camera floated around a speeding carriage. A camera crane wouldn’t have worked.

Powerful octocopter with a retractable landing gear. A professional piece of kit that’s designed to carry cameras weighing up to six kilos. Price: around $6,100

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PHOTOS: Skynamic; Getty Images, Verleih; PR

4 A quadcopter is great for beginners because it offers decent manoeuvrability for the money and is easy to repair. Octocopters are the top of the range option, and are faster and more stable. These are used by professional videographers and can carry heavy camera equipment.

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JOSEPH STALIN PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Criminal versatility Callousness, lack of empathy Parasitic lifestyle

ADOLF HITLER PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Failure to accept responsibility for own actions Lack of remorse or guilt Poor behavioural controls

ook around. On the street. On the train. In the place you work. One in every 100 people is a psychopath. They are charming, charismatic and inspiring. But they’re also ruthless. They can lie and cheat. They can hurt you and, in the worst case, kill. Statistically, this untapped potential hides in one in 100 people. However, two worlds contain a disproportionate number of psychopaths. Unsurprisingly, the first is the criminal world: every fifth prison inmate is a psychopath. The other world is much more shocking: according to Gerhard Roth of the Brain Research Institute one in ten people in positions of power exhibits psychopathic traits. The basic psychopath is the urge to wield rules. That’s why they need environments that give them as much leeway as possible, so they sit on the boards of businesses or become managers and politicians. They use these positions for their own benefit and the damage they often wreak is immense, something the history of mankind can attest to. Although criminal psychologist Robert D. Hare only defined psychopathological disorders 50 years ago, psychopaths have always been a part of history – indeed, their twisted visions have had a direct impact on its course.

PSYCHOPATHS ARE TICKING TIME BOMBS One in 100 of us finds it enjoyable to manipulate, humiliate or kill people. But how do you recognise them? Hare spent 35 years trying to answer this question. With his team, he performed thousands of field studies in psychiatric hospitals, scanned the brains of hundreds of rapists, murderers and serial killers, and analysed the behaviour of countless despots and people in positions of power. Then he compared them to normal people. Using his results, the Canadian researcher developed a tool to accurately identify psychopaths: the Psychopathy Checklist – revised (PCL-R). The test consists of 20 categories, in which either zero, one or two points are awarded and added up to give an overall score (see page 33). The criteria of the PCL-R and, consequently, the ;9(0;: 6- ( 7:@*/67(;/ 05*3<+, :<7,9C*0(3 */(94 F

4(507<3(;0=, ),/(=06<9 F 7(;/636.0*(3 3@05. F ( 3(*2 6,47(;/@ F ( 56;0*,()3@ /0./ 047<3:0=0;@ $/, 469, these characteristics are pronounced, the more difficult they are to keep under control – the person is either already a psychopath or on the verge of becoming one. And many historical figures have crossed the line. “Many of the charismatic leaders in history were psychopathic,” claims Jens Hoffman, director of the Institute of Psychology and Threat Management. “Sometimes the trait can actually be quite useful because strong, fearless personalities are the sort to push through change. This leads to important historical developments.” But things soon escalate when a psychopathic leader can’t be controlled or removed…

HOW PSYCHOPATHS CHANGED THE WORLD If the one-in-100 rule holds true, back in 1939 there were approximately 800,000 psychopaths in Germany from a population of 80 million. They used the turbulent time to secure positions of power. But the Nazi regime didn’t have to search for unscrupulous criminals. No, 800,000 psychopaths were drawn to the totalitarian system like moths to a flame, willing to commit terrible crimes in the name of the Fatherland. What about Hitler himself? Even as a boy he had unusually bad temper tantrums. And his arrogance was demonstrated early on: when he played the lottery as a teenager, he was convinced he’d win and made plans to build a fine house in Vienna. When he inevitably lost, he’d fall into a frantic rage. He also wanted to be an artist. However, after being rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, he tried again and was turned down again. So the painter became a warmonger. He threw himself into life as a soldier during the First World War. “Rejection and failure are unacceptable to a psychopathic personality,” claims Robert Hare. Add it to a trait like narcissism, and it makes a highly combustible mixture: a type that Adrian Raine of the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania calls “successful psychopaths”. Successful psychopaths have risen to prominent positions throughout history. In 1933, psychiatrist Ernst Kretschmer remarked: “The psychopaths are always around. In calm times we study them, but in times of upheaval, they rule over us”. However, it’s particularly tragic that two of the worst psychopaths to ever live happened to face off against each other: Hitler and Stalin. Neither could give in and, as a result, 50 million people lost their lives. Moreover, they both created societies where psychopaths could flourish and had no trouble recruiting more and more of them to their cause – every hundredth person, in fact.

81

VLADIMIR PUTIN

FROM PROFESSIONAL LIAR

TO STATESMAN When Angela Merkel visited Sochi in 2007, Russian president Vladimir Putin let his dog Konni loose. The black Labrador sniffed at the German chancellor’s legs, under the watchful eye of Putin. He had been told of Merkel’s fear of dogs and wanted to see how his rival would react. Merkel toughed it our, making it clear to Putin that he was dealing with a robust diplomatic opponent. The Russian president is a master of deception and manipulation, but he isn’t just predisposed to lying – it used to be his job. As a senior KGB agent during the Cold War, Putin was trained to make sure his lies could withstand pressure. “Lying, deceiving and manipulating are natural talents of the psychopath,” says Robert D. Hare. “A lie told often enough becomes the truth,” Lenin once said, and this is certainly something his namesake bears in mind. Be they accusations of plagiarism in his thesis, involvement in the murder of journalists or dodgy dealings involving his personal wealth, Putin always shakes off ‘lies’ because they’re not part of his manufactured reality. Angela Merkel has said that Putin is “out of touch with reality” and lives “in another world”. Criminal psychologist Jens Hoffman explains: “Putin combines two or three personality styles – with

dominance being the most obvious. But he has too many emotional attachments for a psychopath.” But how many of these emotional ties does Putin still have? In 2014, he divorced his wife of 30 years, Lyudmila, and one of his daughters lives in the Netherlands. He has also been politically isolated since the conflict in Ukraine. And it’s not going well economically due to EU sanctions and his own counter-sanctions. His pet project, the 2018 World Cup in Russia, has become mired in controversy – and the Russian athletes suspended for doping were banned from this year’s Olympics. Nevertheless, many Russians continue to back him, meaning he can still show that he’s the strong man in the Kremlin. But what if the economic crisis in Russia has more serious consequences for its population? What if NATO continues to arm itself and station more troops in eastern Europe? “When people with psychopathic tendencies are frustrated, they become violent,” says William Tiller from Stanford University. “It’s the cornered rat syndrome.” The trapped rodent will do everything in its power to injure its opponent and ensure it survives – including using its entire arsenal of weapons. In Vladimir Putin’s case, that includes nuclear warheads.

VLADIMIR PUTIN PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Superficial charm Pathological lying Parasitic lifestyle

CALIGULA

FROM EMPEROR

TO KILLER How does the hope of a nation become a raving psychopath? No historical figure meets more of the psychopathic criteria than the young emperor Caligula. He had behavioural problems from the start: as a teenager, he witnessed torture, rape and the killing of prisoners by his foster father Emperor Tiberius – crimes that he would later outdo. When he came to power in 37 AD, Caligula could hold his psychopathic traits in check, but only just. He was popular at the start of his reign after he abolished many of Tiberius’ draconian punishments – but Caligula became an unpredictable monster almost overnight. For centuries, historians were puzzled about what caused this dramatic transformation. And psychologists asked: why are some psychopaths easy to spot and others not? In Caligula’s case, the contributory cause took even experienced researchers by surprise: he drank wine… Since the local wine was too dry and tart for the Romans, they sweetened it with defrutum: grape juice that was boiled down with spices until it became a thick, sugary syrup. To enhance the sweetness further, the wineries cooked defrutum in lead containers. During cooking, lead sugar (or acetate), which is a toxic chemical salt, leaked out from the metal pots. As lead is excreted from the body slowly, it tends to accumulate in the blood and bones. This can cause heart disorders, anaemia, kidney damage and eventually death from circulatory failure. Modern research has shown that lead in the body attacks the nervous system and can also cause or exacerbate psychological disorders. Emperor Caligula had always been unhinged. Since his childhood with

Tiberius, he suffered from a narcissistic personality disorder: he wanted to be idolised and betraying him was the worst sin. As a young man, Caligula was already going to feasts and orgies – and his fondness for sweet wine was legendary. The high concentration of lead not only made his personality disorder worse, but also switched off any sense of morality: Caligula quickly became a psychopathic monster. He tortured, raped and murdered at will. With every sip, the emperor continued to poison himself and lose his mind. Roman citizens had to endure his inept rule for four years, until he fell victim to a conspiracy started by his own bodyguards. But the celebrations were short-lived: just 13 years later, another infamously unpopular emperor came to power: Nero.

CALIGULA PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Callousness, lack of empathy Promiscuous sexual behaviour Juvenile delinquency

83

It was a time of historic inertia: nothing moved and nothing changed. By the middle of the 18th century, Europe had lapsed into social rigidity. The king was at the top and the poor, who struggled to survive, were at the bottom. It was the way of the world. But then a spark of change glimmered in the dark: the French Revolution of 1789. One part of society in particular wanted to fan the flames: psychopaths. Being manipulative, they find it easy to recruit followers – and by doing this they make themselves leaders. Once in power, they trigger social developments and accelerate historical change. Napoleon was one of them. He changed the progress of history far more than any of his contemporaries. And most historians agree that Napoleon’s achievements were of central importance to the progression of mankind. “From a modern day psychological point of view Napoleon was a psychopath,” says psychologist Alfred Jones. “This type of person has great tolerance for stress and anxiety.” His military tactics show psychopathic traits: attack

with full force, regardless of the casualties. The sheer brutality of his offensives left enemy commanders quaking in their boots. He was an intelligent man, able to read his opponent’s intentions, and because he was decisive and not prone to anxiety he could often overwhelm his enemies. Napoleon didn’t hide the fact that he’d stop at nothing to achieve his aims. He organised show

84

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

FROM SOCIAL CLIMBER

TO WAR CRIMINAL

trials, murdering political opponents and prisoners even though he’d promised to spare them. And when the French emperor conducted his disastrous campaign in Russia, his army of more than 500,000 soldiers were annihilated in the winter snow. By then, of course, he had long since retreated.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Grandiose sense of self-worth Shallow affect Callousness, lack of empathy

FROM JOHN F. KENNEDY TO DONALD TRUMP

WHY YOU NEED TO BE A PSYCHOPATH

TO BECOME US PRESIDENT On 22nd November 1963, John F. Kennedy became immortal. A 6.5mm bullet struck his head and turned the president into an all-American hero. The country mourned its idol, a man who was engaging, fearless and could wrap people around his little finger – all psychopathic characteristics. A research group led by American psychologist Scott Lilienfeld has examined the psychopathic traits of 42 US presidents. At the top of the pile was John F. Kennedy, closely followed by Bill Clinton. The researchers investigated two primary psychopathic attributes: impulsivity and an inflated ego. These characteristics are essential if you want to be president, say experts, and are combined with assertiveness and fearlessness. “We found that boldness was positively associated with better overall presidential DONALD TRUMP performance,” says

Lilienfeld. The list proves him right. The top ten presidents with the most psychopathic features are also the ones who had the greatest impact on their country: Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and the two Roosevelts. At the bottom of the list are names you’re probably not familiar with: Calvin Coolidge, James Buchanan and William H. Taft. Arguably, they had hardly any influence on US history because their psychopathic tendencies weren’t strongly pronounced. It’s the reason why Donald Trump wouldn’t be suitable for the presidency: he isn’t psychopathic enough. At least, he doesn’t have the features necessary for the highest office in the land. He goes berserk easily, although it’s not the fearless impulsivity of a Kennedy but a sign that he can’t control his behaviour. Moreover, psychologists argue that he doesn’t just have a strong sense of self-importance, but is an egomaniacal narcissist. His rival Hillary Clinton has more of the desired attributes. Perhaps she picked them up from her husband.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Poor behaviour controls Shallow affect Manipulative

PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Impulsivity Promiscuous sexual behaviour Superficial charm

RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN “Democracy is like a train. We shall get out when we arrive at the station we want” and “the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers”. These quotations wouldn’t sound out of place from a hate preacher. Indeed, the man who said them was thrown into jail in 1998 for inciting violence and religious hatred. Today, he’s the most powerful person in Turkey… Recep Tayyip Erdogan comes from humble stock. He dragged himself up to become mayor of Istanbul. Four months later, he was in prison. Did he work out how to take control of liberal Turkey while there? After his release, he gathered his supporters and founded the now all-powerful Justice and Development Party (AKP). In 2002, Erdogan became prime minister of Turkey and he’s currently the president. People see him as a man of action, someone who tackles issues head-on. He modernised Turkey and brought it into the 21st century. He stands up for the little guy and represents pious Muslims. It’s an image that Erdogan has carefully constructed and broadcasts in the news. Then there’s the man who drives the desecularisation of Turkey and who has broken down legal structures. The man who threatens journalists and locks away hundreds of Turkish citizens just because they have offended him. The man who fires tear gas at protestors and bombs Kurdish men, women and children. The man who has been accused of cooperating with Islamic State.

FROM FORGER

TO PRESIDENT Is the public persona of Erdogan just an act by a psychopath? Psychologist Robert D. Hare’s test shows several convincing patterns. For example, Erdogan’s manipulative behaviour: to date, it’s debatable whether he received an economics degree or not. His diploma seems forged because a dean only signed it when Erdogan gave him the job. And you must have a degree to be president of Turkey. The failed coup against Erdogan on 15th July, in which hundreds were killed or injured, only seems to have further cemented his power. It was an excuse to flex his authoritarian muscles and brought his psychopathic tendencies to the fore. “The attempt has doubtlessly been used as a pretext for Erdogan to do whatever he intended to do in any case – pushing for one-man rule by a total cleansing of all RECEP TAYYIP opposition,” ERDOGAN says PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS journalist Poor Yavuz behavioural Baydar.

controls Shallow affect Parasitic lifestyle

WILHELM II

FROM WEAKLING

TO MEGALOMANIACAL RULER Can the character of a nation be embodied in one person? Can a population have the same psychological profile as their leader? It’s tempting to make parallels between the German Empire and its ruler, Wilhelm II. The German Empire was born from three wars and Wilhelm’s birth was similarly dramatic: he suffered a respiratory arrest and only just survived. But he had a withered, paralysed arm as a result of the breech birth. We now know a lack of oxygen at birth can cause brain damage, which can manifest itself as psychopathological disorders. That Wilhelm II learned to ride a horse, despite his paralysed arm, convinced him that he could do anything if he set his mind to it – the first step in his journey towards megalomania.

WILHELM II PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Lack of realistic, long-term goals Grandiose sense of self-worth Impulsivity

When Wilhelm II inherited the throne in 1888, people celebrated. The German Empire was just 17 years old and was already a major power. Kaiser Wilhelm saw himself as the embodiment of the forward-looking nation: strong, up to every challenge, destined for great things. “But he was massively overconfident,” says Professor John Rohl, a historian at the University of Sussex. “Wilhelm II was irresponsible, arrogant, a know-it-all and often delusional.” He forced Otto von Bismarck to resign, despite having little knowledge of the machinations of diplomacy. He repeatedly alienated the UK, provoking Britain with his naval expansion. He believed that he was completely surrounded by enemies and, consequently, became more and more militaristic – forcing the major European powers into an alliance against Germany. The mistrust sown by the emperor made its way to the German people. Like Wilhelm II, the Germans felt persecuted and like they weren’t being taken seriously. Along with its leader, Germany inevitably slipped into the catastrophe of the First World War. Wilhelm wanted a convincing victory, but it didn’t materialise. “The war has ended – quite differently, indeed, from how we expected. Our politicians have failed us miserably,” he bemoaned. The euphoria was replaced with anger. Eventually, he sank into apathy and experienced panic attacks. When the defeat was made official, Wilhelm II fled into exile in Holland. He never took responsibility for the fate of Germany.

87

POL POT

FROM UNASSUMING TEACHER

TO MASS MURDERER At first glance, Saloth Sar looks like an ordinary teacher from the Chamraon Vichea private school in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Educated in Paris, the capital of the colonial power that controls his country, Saloth Sar is popular with his students. He’s patient, his instructions are clear and he’s fair. He doesn’t sit at the front of the class but walks between the students’ desks as he explains the history of early Cambodian culture. The year is 1951. What the students don’t know is that one day their teacher will put his twisted plan into action – a plan that will end up killing two million Cambodians. By then, he will have cast off the name Saloth Sar and adopted his revolutionary title: Pol Pot. The mass-murderer waged a brutal war against his own people. He dreamt of the bygone splendour of Cambodia, when the world wonder Angkor Wat was in use – 500 years ago. The warped logic of his psychopathic mind drove him to try to rewind time, to revert the country to how it was half a millennium ago. His plan was divided into three steps: 1) Remove the French colonialists. 2) Overthrow the monarchy and proclaim communism. 3) Destroy all technological progress and return to an agriculture-driven peasant state. A series of events helped him achieve his aims: first, the Vietnamese drove out the French; then, in 1966, the USA overthrew the Cambodian king and established a military government. Next, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge guerrilla soldiers took up the fight and, in 1975, captured the capital Phnom Penh from the

88

unpopular military government. It was the beginning of the most brutal extermination of people in the history of South-East Asia. The entire population of Phnom Penh was forced to leave the city and become peasants. Many died from disease or hunger during the relocation. Those who refused to work or did their job half-heartedly were murdered. But the harvest didn’t increase – it collapsed. Pol Pot suspected sabotage, seeing every criticism as a betrayal, and a political purge began.

Thousands were murdered in the so-called Killing Fields. Pol Pot’s psychopathy crossed the line into madness. Believing that Vietnam would attack him, he regularly launched offensives against them after 1978, with his Khmer Rouge causing one bloodbath after another. The Vietnamese struck back and launched a fullscale invasion, occupying Phnom Penh in 1979. Pol Pot went into hiding and died in 1998.

POL POT PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Lack of remorse or guilt Criminal versatility Shallow affect

THE BIG TEST

HOW DO YOU SPOT A PSYCHOPATH? F



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Warning! The psychopath test published here is an edited summary of Robert D. Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist – revised (PCL-R). A proper clinical evaluation and analysis of psychopathic traits involves much more comprehensive tests performed under the supervision of a psychologist. But this self-test can provide the first clues that a person has psychopathic tendencies. 0-15 points: The person doesn’t exhibit any psychopathic behaviour. However, if they scored two points in a particular category, they should review this abnormal behaviour and talk to friends or relatives about it. 16-25 points: Compared to the population average of a mere two to four points, this is a very high score. In certain areas, this person exhibits at least antisocial behaviour or maybe worse. 26-30 points: This person is on the threshold of psychopathy. They have difficulty dealing with social situations and lack emotional characteristics such as empathy, guilt and responsibility. 31-40 points: According to Robert D. Hare’s definition, this person belongs to the 1% of the population who can be described as psychopaths. Their severe behavioural anomalies, lifestyle and antisocial demeanour mean that they should do one thing above all else: contact a psychologist to talk about this test.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS DO YOU HAVE A QUESTION FOR OUR TEAM OF EXPERTS? Simply send us an email with ‘Questions and Answers’ in the subject line to worldofknowledge@ bauer-media.com.au

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SUCTION TOOL The arm of the collecting machine measures almost ten metres. It sucks in valuable minerals and pumps them to the support vessel on the surface.

HOW DO YOU COLLECT

FROM THE

At the bottom of the sea, off the coast of Papua New Guinea, lies some of the world’s greatest treasure – and the high-tech contraption pictured here is helping to hunt it down. Canadian mining company Nautilus Minerals is planning to use three of these giant machines to extract a million tons of minerals and precious metals from the sea bed – 1,600 metres down. They’ll do so with the help of special seafloor production tools (SPTs) designed and built in Newcastle, UK. First, two remote-controlled auxiliary cutter and bulk cutter robots will scrape the best material from the ocean

floor and pile it up for collection. Then the 250-ton collecting machine (left) rumbles into action. Using an inbuilt pump, the megatool will suck up the mineralised silt and push it through a pipe into the bowels of a 230-metre-long production support vessel on the surface. Before it enters the ship’s storage holds, the seawater is drawn out of the slurry and returned to the deep sea floor, preventing the shallows from becoming murky. “There’s enough copper here to meet world demand for the next 30 years,” explains Mike Johnston from Nautilus Minerals. The mission is set to begin in 2018.

REMOTE-CONTROLLED The collecting machine and the other two mining instruments work at a depth of around 1,600 metres. They are controlled remotely by the ship’s crew on the surface.

TREASURE 91

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

HOW DOES AN

F1 STEERING WHEEL WORK? 1

It may look like a PlayStation controller on steroids, but this is F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton’s steering wheel. Engineers working for the Mercedes AMG Petronas team have laid out all of the important steering elements so the British driver can reach them with his thumbs, without needing to take his hands off the custom-made grips. That makes the wheel safer to use because it means even the tightest hairpin bends don’t require hand acrobatics. Changing the steering wheel only takes a few seconds when there’s a problem – the settings are saved onto the car’s computer. Such a specialised bit of kit doesn’t come cheap, though. Each steering wheel will set you back $73,000.

DIFFERENTIAL

This dial allows Hamilton to control how much power is delivered to each of the wheels and, therefore, the speed at which they spin when turning a corner. By changing the setting, he can limit the amount of underand oversteer. It also impacts fuel consumption and the wear and tear of the tyres.

2

1

5

4

3

7

2

DRS

The drag reduction system opens a wing flap at the back of the car, giving a short speed boost of around 12km/h. However, this tool is only permitted on certain stretches, or “zones”, of track.

3

8

9

14

10

11

12

SKIP 1/10 PRESET

This button allows Hamilton to access all the 100 control sensors in his car. It can be used to turn off faulty sensors or activate other ones for tactical reasons.

4

NEUTRAL

5 6

Press this once and the gearbox switches to neutral. Press and hold for reverse gear. The button is located on the front of the steering wheel and not on the back with the gear levers to ensure that it’s not pressed by accident.

The Limiter restricts the car to 80km/h. Hamilton hits the Pit Confirm button to give the okay to a message from his crew.

:+(1 :,// 7+( 681 ',(" A gigantic cloud of gas and dust formed in our galaxy 4.6 billion years ago. Gravitational forces and rising temperatures (10,000,000°C) made the nuclei of hydrogen atoms move so quickly that a nuclear reaction occurred, creating our sun. The star will continue to heat up and expand until, in a billion years’ time, the average temperature on Earth will exceed the critical value of 30°C, killing off most higher forms of life. In five billion years, the sun will become a red giant, having expanded to over 100 times its current size. One billion years later, it will die, cast off its external layers and create a planetary nebula. A hot, dense core of oxygen and carbon one and a half times larger than Earth will remain: a white dwarf.

PIT-LANE SPEED LIMITER PIT CONFIRM

BIRTH

13

7

8

BRAKE BALANCE

9

3

MARK

If Hamilton notices something unusual, such as a dodgysounding engine, he can mark the potentially damaged part or system error for later analysis.

10 6

ACCEPT

Similar to 6. Another button used to confirm messages or instructions from the team of engineers in the pits.

These buttons control the delicate balance, or bias, between the front and rear brakes. It’s crucial that Hamilton gets the bias spot on: too much rear braking will make the car spin, while being heavyhanded with the front brakes will stop the car from turning in.

STRATEGY REGULATOR

Instead of having to scroll up and down through lots of different options, this button means Hamilton can quickly switch between preset modes such as a high-performance or energy-saving setting.

11 12

MULTI-FUNCTION DIAL HPP REGULATOR

These two dials regulate settings such as braking, cruise control and torque, as well as managing the fuel mixtures and ignition timings in the engines to suit different weather conditions.

13

How clever are dogs really? The dog chases its tail… again. You’d be forgiven for thinking that man’s best friend isn’t the brightest spark, but you’d be wrong, as psychologist Stanley Coren from the University of British Columbia in Canada has discovered. Coren collected data from 208 dog obedience experts who judge canine intelligence or talent competitions. The dogs were found to have the same intelligence level as a child aged between two and two-and-a-half, and their brains structured in a similar way to a human. The pooches could process voices, decipher emotions, recognise over 200 commands and even solve simple mathematical problems. So which is the smartest breed? “Border collies are number one; poodles are second, followed by German shepherds. Fourth on the list is golden retrievers; fifth, dobermans; sixth, Shetland sheepdogs; and finally, Labrador retrievers,” said Coren.

RACE START

At the start of the race, the car has to reach its maximum performance level within seconds. Pressed shortly before the race begins, the Race Start button gets Hamilton off the line as quickly as possible.

14

RADIO

One of the most important functions in the car: over the team radio, Hamilton can communicate with his team in the pits during the race and quickly let them know about any unfolding problems.

TODAY

GRADUAL WARMING

RED GIANT

PLANETARY NEBULA

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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS LESS MEAT

WHAT WILL REMAIN ONCE BEES ARE GONE? Grapes, avocados, cucumbers: if bees were extinct, the list of fruit and vegetables we could no longer eat would be lengthy. In the worst case scenario, it would even include dairy products because bees (including honeybees, wild bees and bumblebees) pollinate many of the crops used to feed cows. If they were to suddenly vanish, our plates would are pollinated by a single become a lot emptier as bees colony of bees every day. A pollinate approximately 70% of colony consists of around food crops. And this scenario 50,000 bees. isn’t as unlikely as it sounds: alarmingly, the British bee population, for example. has declined by a third since 2007 and the number of hives has plummeted by 73% over the past century. Mites and viruses are partly to blame for this, but pesticides are also thought to have wiped out bee colonies. That said, not all fruits and vegetables would disappear if bees weren’t around: some would be unaffected because they’re pollinated by the wind or other insects. Today, researchers and farmers are already frantically searching for new ways to pollinate plants.

300,000,000

As cows are mainly fed plants that are pollinated by bees, the production of meat and milk would sink.

TIME FOR LEMONADE Citrus fruits are self-pollinating. Bees have hardly any influence on the harvest of lemons, oranges and grapefruit.

NO MORE MELONS No other fruit is as reliant on bee pollination as the melon: the plant would have to be hand-pollinated, which would be extremely costly.

GOODBYE COURGETTES AND CUCUMBERS Vegetables from the gourd and squash families would have to be pollinated by hand if there were no bees.

NONE OF YOUR FIVE A DAY Kiwis, berries, apples and grapes would vanish.

BLAND CAKES Sweet treats would be dull: the dough would have to be made without butter. For the filling, strawberries would do – they can be pollinated by the wind. However, the strawberry plant is more susceptible to diseases when pollinated this way and produces smaller fruits with less flavour.

COTTON SHORTAGE

Wheat is pollinated by the wind so there would still be bread without bees.

Cotton plants pollinated by bees produce larger harvests and are more resistant to disease. Without bees, there would still be cotton, but it would be of a lower quality and much more expensive.

The crew on the International Space Station (ISS) kip in sleeping bags attached to the wall with Velcro or cables. On average, crew members get six hours of sleep a night, but as there is no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in weightless conditions, many suffer from sleep disorders. These are made worse by the fact that the ISS experiences 16 sunrises and sunsets every 24 hours. This frequent switching between day and night disturbs the production of the hormone melatonin, which regulates our circadian rhythms. Another cause of sleep deprivation are solar lightning strikes, which the astronauts can still see with their eyes closed.

PHOTOS: CM Nautilus/Matt Smith; Fotolia; Bauer Stock; Getty Images; PR (3); Shutterstock

BREAD BASKET

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NO GUACAMOLE Without bees, there would be hardly any avocados, but tortilla chips would still exist as corn can grow without insects.

PASTA SALAD Bland without onions, pepper and broccoli.

TOMATO SALSA The only tomatoes would be those grown in greenhouses.

:+$7 '2 7+( 180%(56 21 $ 581:$< 67$1' )25" The numbers on every runway in the world are based on a magnetic compass bearing. The figures indicate the direction of approach in relation to the magnetic pole. If a runway has a magnetic orientation of 183 degrees, for example, it will be marked with the number 18. For that reason, runways are always numbered between 01 and 36. However, because the Earth’s magnetic field is on the move, airports frequently have to change the numbers on their taxiways. “If the magnetic field lines move so that the approach direction is 186 degrees, the runway number would be changed to 19,” explains aviation expert Jörg Handwerg. 95

AND FINALLY...

,

colony. They burrow a hollow on the edge of a steep cliff, furnish their home with seaweed and feathers, and raise a single chick there. The houseproud parents keep it warm and clean, and fly tirelessly round the clock to catch small fish with which to feed their nestling. But after five to six weeks something weird happens, something virtually unheard of in the bird world: the young puffin crawls out of its hollow for the first time in its life, topples over the cliff into the sea – and vanishes. Little hatchlings who have never seen the sun, never learnt how to catch fish; whose wings are too weak to carry their bodies, whose feathers have never got wet; these young things now tumble into the bitterly cold dark blue water, paddle out to sea and never look back.

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It’s as if they are born to be called into the Atlantic. And as if their elders know how powerful this call is, for they stand motionless next to one another at the entrance to their burrow, watching their offspring leap into the unknown. The North Atlantic is considered one of the most dangerous oceans in the world, even in summer. But in winter it is nothing less than a hellish nightmare of monster waves, fields of pack ice and blizzards. What happens to the chicks out at sea? “It might sound unbelievable,” says Kress, “but they learn to catch fish and sort them in their mouths. They acclimatise to the sun and the Earth’s magnetic field and get the hang of navigation. They spread their wings and become surprisingly fleet fliers.” Four years pass before the animals reach adulthood and become acquainted with the puffin they will spend the rest of their lives with. Together the new pair retreat to their colony to raise their own single chick, before watching on proudly as it follows the call of life.

PHOTO: Andreas Mulder

ts first steps are tentative. After all, its legs aren’t used to steady ground. This young Atlantic puffin has spent four years on the high seas – without once returning to dry land. It has seen waves higher than a house and flown through 200km/h winter storms. It has dived through salt water colder than ice. “And it has found the love of its life,” says Stephen Kress. The American ornithologist has been observing the colonies of puffins in Newfoundland for more than 30 years. He has dedicated his life to researching the species, “because these animals symbolise the meaning of life like no other living beings.” Every year the same couple pair up in the same

Puffins – they laugh in the face of 200km/h winds!

97

LETTERS AUSTRALIA

WorldOfKnowAU worldofknowledgeau

*Letters may be edited for publication

Welcome to World Of Knowledge’s Letters page, where you can share your thoughts on anything you see in the magazine. Write to us at World Of Knowledge, GPO Box 4088, NSW, 2001 or email us at [email protected]

Over the Moon

Fishy business JOAN MORTON Your feature about illegal trawling in the South China Sea was eye-opening (‘The Secret World War For Fish’, October). Have any similar fishing battles ever taken place near Australia? > Most of Australia’s nautical run-ins have been with Japan over whaling in our waters. For similar wars, we have to look to our Anglo cousins in the UK, and the so-called Cod Wars with Iceland. Kicking off in 1958, the disagreement centred on fishing zone boundaries in the North Atlantic, with the UK government taking umbrage at Iceland expanding its zone from four to 12 nautical miles off its coast. In the First Cod War (1958-1961), the Royal Navy deployed 37 warships and 7,000 sailors to protect its trawlers in Icelandic waters. As a result, Iceland threatened to withdraw from NATO, forcing the UK to back down. The Second Cod War (1972-1973), which came about when Iceland extended its fishing limits to 50 nautical miles, was more violent: the Icelandic coastguard cut nets and shelled trawlers, while the Royal Navy flew jets over off-limits waters and deployed frigates. Again, the UK government was forced to cave in to Iceland’s demands. The Third Cod War (1975-1976) saw 55 ramming incidents and extended Iceland’s limit to 200 nautical miles, with serious consequences for the British fishing industry.

On the brink CARINA EVANS What are the most endangered animals in the world? And what has caused them to be under threat? > Unfortunately, there are nearly 5,000 animal and plant species classified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. One example is the Hainan black crested gibbon, which lives exclusively in the broadleaf forests of Hainan Island in China. Experts estimate that there are less than 20 left in the wild, compared to more than 2,000 in the 1950s. The main cause of their decline is habitat loss: over 25% of the gibbon’s territory has been chopped down by illegal paper pulp producers. Moreover, gibbon bones are highly valued in traditional Chinese medicine, something that led to mass hunts from 1960 to 1980.

98

QAM DINN Why hasn’t the USA been back to the Moon? Are there any manned missions planned for the future? > NASA’s six manned Apollo missions between 1969 and 1972 proved that lunar landings were possible, despite the limited technology available. But the Apollo programme was also expensive, costing around US$20.4 billion, or US$109 billion in today’s money. NASA simply couldn’t afford to carry out further landings and stated that all of its research aims had been achieved. “They’d accomplished everything they were trying to do,” says former NASA engineer John Schuessler. “Apollo was proof that the United States was a leader in technology in space.” However, there are ambitious plans to return to our rocky satellite. Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, recently announced a scheme to station 12 cosmonauts on the lunar surface – permanently. The mission, pencilled in for 2030, will involve building a base to research and mine precious minerals near the Moon’s poles. NASA is also investigating the feasibility of settling on the Moon in its Evolvable Lunar Architecture Plan – a stepping stone to realising its long-term goal of reaching Mars. Closer to home, a post on the European Space Agency website confirmed that it intends to send robots and astronauts to the Moon by 2030. Once there, they will explore unknown lunar regions and conduct research.

Worn away GEORGE CARR In the ‘How Do You Move A Lighthouse?’ article (October), you say that the coast erodes at a rate of one metre per year. So how can the lighthouse be safe for 150 years if it’s only 40 metres away from the sea? > The Gay Head Lighthouse on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts will only collapse after 150 years because it’s been moved on top of a vein of hard red clay. This is significantly less susceptible to erosion than the rest of the coast, meaning it will take a lot longer for the sea to eat under the lighthouse.

EDITOR Vince Jackson ART DIRECTOR Joe Ferrara SENIOR DESIGNER Lemuel Castillo DESIGNER Chantelle Galaz PHOTO EDITOR Darren Dawkins

BAUER MEDIA AUSTRALIA CEO Nick Chan PUBLISHER, SPECIALIST DIVISION Cornelia Schulze ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, SPECIALIST DIVISION Ewen Page DIRECTOR OF MEDIA SOLUTIONS Simon Davies GENERAL MANAGER, MARKETING Natalie Bettini RESEARCH DIRECTOR Justin Stone COMMERCIAL MANAGER Lucille Charles CIRCULATION MANAGER Charlotte Gray MARKETING MANAGER Georgia Mavrakakis

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World of Knowledge: GPO Box 4088, Sydney, NSW, 2001, 54-58 Park Street, Sydney. Telephone: (02) 9282 8000. Email: worldofknowledge@bauer-media. com.au. World of Knowledge is published by Bauer Media Ltd, ACN 053 273 546, 54-58 Park St, Sydney, NSW, 2000, part of the Bauer Media Group. The trademark World of Knowledge is the property of Bauer Consumer Media Limited and is used under licence. Copyright 2013 All rights reserved. Distributed by Network Services, 54-58 Park St, Sydney. All material contained in World of Knowledge is protected under the Commonwealth Copyright ACT 1968. No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without written consent from the copyright holders. The publisher accepts no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, illustrations or photographic material. ISSN: 2201-8603 PRIVACY NOTICE This issue of World of Knowledge is published by Bauer Media Ltd, part of the Bauer Media Group. It may contain offers, competitions or surveys that require you to provide information about yourself if you choose to enter or take part in them (Reader Offer). If you provide information about yourself to Bauer Media Ltd, Bauer will use this information to provide you with the products or services you have requested, and may supply your information to contractors that help Bauer to do this. Bauer will also use your information to inform you of other Bauer Media publications, products, services and events. Bauer Media may also give your information to organisations that are providing special prizes or offers and that are clearly associated with the Reader Offer. Unless you tell us not to, we may give your information to other organisations that may use it to inform you about other products, services or events or to give to other organisations that may use it for this purpose. If you would like to gain access to the information Bauer holds about you, please contact Bauer Media Ltd Privacy Officer at Bauer Media Ltd, 54-58 Park St, Sydney, NSW 2001.

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