Table of contents for Issue 177 in How It Works

“Felines spend up to 16 hours a day taking a cat nap, whereas dogs are a little more active” Even if you’ve had both cats and dogs as pets, everyone tends to prefer one species at least a little bit more than the other, whether that’s because you enjoy a dog’s unfaltering loyalty or the fierce independence of a cat. You probably think you know the differences between the two, and their strengths and weaknesses. But unless you’re a vet or a trainer, you could be very misinformed on some points. In this issue of How It Works, we look at the biological, psychological and evolutionary differences of the world’s most popular household pets. You’ll discover how different breeds have developed – physically and mentally – over thousands of years…

Scientists have discovered and synthesised an entirely new isotope of the highly radioactive element uranium, but it might last only 40 minutes before decaying into other elements. The new isotope, uranium-241, has 92 protons and 149 neutrons. While the atoms of a given element always have the same number of protons, different isotopes, or versions, of those elements may hold different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. To be considered neutron-rich, an isotope must contain more neutrons than is common to that element. Uranium is in the class of elements in the periodic table known as ‘actinides’, which have proton counts between 89 and 103. All actinides are radioactive, but uranium is one of the four most radioactive elements, alongside radium, polonium and thorium. “We measured the masses of 19…

Scientists have pinpointed 145 potential ‘height genes’ in cells that S make up the cartilage at the ends of children’s bones and affect how tall they grow. These cartilage cells, known as chondrocytes, multiply and mature in areas of tissue called growth plates, which sit near the ends of long bones in children and teens and determine each bone’s future length and shape. When a person’s growth is complete, these cartilaginous growth plates ‘close’ and are replaced by hard bone. Scientists already knew that chondrocytes play a role in bone growth and human height, but narrowing down which genes control the cells’ growth, and thus our stature, has proved difficult. “Pinpointing specific genes associated with human height is a challenging task, as height is a complex trait that’s influenced by…

Miami Seaquarium’s star orca, Lolita, who has spent more than 50 years M in captivity, will soon bid adieu to her tiny tank in Florida and live out the rest of her days in her home waters of the Pacific Northwest. Lolita, also known as Tokitae, is a 57-year-old orca (Orcinus orca) from the now-endangered Southern Resident orcas that live off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. She’s the second-oldest orca in captivity behind Corky, a 58-year-old female who resides at SeaWorld San Diego. Lolita arrived at Miami Seaquarium in 1970 after a group of men captured her and 79 other orcas at a cove on Whidbey Island in one of the largest and most widely condemned orca-capture events in history. Since then, Lolita has lived and performed…

Europe’s newest space telescope is set to cross the ocean ahead of its voyage to space this summer. The Euclid spacecraft recently completed a rigorous environmental and mechanical testing program at a facility in Cannes, France. Euclid has been transported by road to the port of Savona in Italy and will soon set sail for a port near its launch site, Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The telescope is due to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in July. The spacecraft, named for the Greek mathematician Euclid of Alexandria, will map the geometry of matter in the universe and investigate the history of its accelerating expansion. By looking at galaxies up to 10 billion light years away, Euclid aims to provide insight into how dark energy and dark…

Eye tracking is a combination of sensory hardware and analytical software that pinpoints and tracks the movement of a person’s eyes. This has been around since the early 1900s, when psychologist Edmund Burke Huey created a contact lens with a needle attached to help assess the fluency of a person’s reading ability. Since then, the modern era of eye tracking technology has digitally evolved beyond the need for uncomfortable contacts. To track the movements of each eye, the system uses a combination of cameras and infrared light. Infrared light is fired at the eye, which is reflected by the eye’s cornea and received by the system’s camera. Analytical software then records changes in the orientation of the reflected light, ultimately building a pattern of movement and tracking the eye. This…

When you move from one side of the room to the other, how much do you analyse the action? For most people, the series of muscle movements that allow them to get around on a daily basis is automatic. But when babies are born, their brains haven’t formed the neural connection with their walking muscles in order to stand and balance. Through trial and error, they begin to master walking on two feet. Eventually, when they’ve discovered the movements required for walking, the neural pathways are fully formed. From this point onwards, walking becomes a natural motion that requires little conscious thought. Have you ever learned to ride a bike, play tunes on an instrument or mastered a sport over several years? Now that you have these skills, they’re unlikely…

KIT LIST Film canisters Alka-Seltzer tablets Water-based paint Paper (ideally watercolour paper) 1 SOURCE YOUR MATERIALS You’ll need film canisters with lids for this experiment. If you can’t find film canisters, you can try any small plastic containers with a lid. You can use one and repeat for each colour or use multiple canisters to see every colour explode at once. 2 LOAD THE CANISTERS Pour a different colour of paint into each of the canisters. You don’t need much paint – the paint line should measure about one centimetre from the bottom of the canister. 3 PREPARED PAINT Make sure the volume of paint in each canister is equal. Prepare all the colours you want to include in each explosion before adding anything else to the canisters. 4 BREAK THE…

33.6 BILLION LIGHT YEARS JADES-GS-Z13-0 is the oldest and farthest known galaxy from Earth SEA TURTLES USE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD TO NAVIGATE 1945 The world’s first computer, built nearly 80 years ago, weighed 27 tonnes 165 TONNES The blue whale is the heaviest animal that’s ever lived 100 MILLION A single teaspoon of soil contains millions of bacteria 25% A quarter of the oxygen we breathe goes to our brain 10 MILLION Our eyes can differentiate between a huge range of colours 66 kilograms The world’s largest gold nugget, found in Australia in 1869, would be worth nearly £3.5 million ($4.35 million) today 15.1 METRES The dinosaur Mamenchisaurus sinocanadorum had a neck longer than a bus Hurricanes cannot form at the equator ASTRONAUTS SPEND MOST OF THEIR TIME ON EARTH…

Astronomers have spotted a runaway supermassive black hole, A seemingly ejected from its home galaxy, racing through space with a chain of stars trailing in its wake. The discovery offers the first observational evidence that supermassive black holes can be ejected from their home galaxies to roam interstellar space. Researchers discovered the runaway black hole as a bright streak of light while they were using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the dwarf galaxy RCP 28, which is located about 7.5 billion light years from Earth. Follow-up observations showed that the streak measures more than 200,000 light years long, roughly twice the width of the Milky Way, and is thought to be made of compressed gas that is actively forming stars. The gas trails a black hole that is estimated…

After 33 years, the Hubble Space Telescope is still uncovering new A cosmic surprises. The venerable instrument recently added to its extensive catalogue of finds when it spotted a rare double quasar blazing away in the distant reaches of the universe. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe, emitting more light than the entire Milky Way. They form when gas, dust and other bits of matter fall into a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. Some of these particles become extremely luminous as they accelerate to near-light speed, all thanks to friction and the massive gravity exerted on them by the black hole. In addition to being bright, quasars tend to be very old; it takes a long time to gobble up enough matter to…

An unrecognisable ball of fur, claws and limbs that was recently A unearthed in Canada is actually a mummified squirrel that likely died while it hibernated around 30,000 years ago. The strange fur ball was discovered in 2018 by miners at Hester Creek in the Klondike gold fields in Canada’s Yukon territory. But scientists recently reevaluated it in preparation for its upcoming public debut at the Yukon Beringia Interpretive Center (YBIC) in Whitehorse. The lump is believed to be a curled-up Arctic ground squirrel (Urocitellus parryii). This species, which looks more like modern-day gophers than most squirrels, still exists today and lives in the region where the mummified ball was unearthed. Researchers have nicknamed the squirrel Hester after the area where it was found. “It’s amazing to think that this…

Scientists have spent five years classifying the size, mass and S population of all living organisms, and at the end they made a surprising discovery: the tiniest and largest living entities on Earth dominate by sheer mass. To tackle this gargantuan task, the team, led by biologists from Rutgers University in New Jersey and the University of British Columbia, divided life into 36 categories across terrestrial, marine and subterranean environments. Within each group they identified the biggest, smallest and most common body size. Then, combining that information with pre-existing data on each group’s biomass, they estimated how much of Earth’s biomass each category comprised. Forest plants had the highest biomass and amphibians had the lowest. Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in the department of ecology, evolution and natural resources at…

BEATBOX WWW.RHYTHMO.IO $159.99 (APPROX. £128.10) The BeatBox is a DIY drum machine kit that’s perfect for beginners looking to advance their music knowledge and get to grips with basic musical tools. Everything you need to build the BeatBox comes with the kit, which takes around an hour to assemble–no soldering required. Once you’re up and running, the DIY device connects to a tablet or smartphone with the Rhythmo Lab companion app. Within the app there are heaps of guided tutorials to teach you about music production and how to get the best out of the 16 performance buttons. The BeatBox is also portable and is powered by a battery pack that tucks away into the cardboard casing. LUMI KEYS WWW.PLAYLUMI.COM FROM £299 /$299 If you’re looking to learn how to…

As mammals, cats and dogs share a lot of similarities. They’re both warm-blooded, air-breathing, fur-covered creatures, with almost all the same organs. However, there are some differences in their physiology. For example, their brains are set up slightly differently from one another. Typically, a dog has a bigger brain than a cat, and a larger portion of its mass is dedicated to the cerebral cortex. This part of the brain is responsible for receiving and processing sensory information – the smells, sights and sounds that a dog encounters – along with decision-making and social interaction. Cats have developed a brain that favours areas such as the hippocampus that are responsible for memory development, navigation and movement. Dogs have twice the number of neuron cells that transmit information around the brain…

The world of underwater slumber is unlike what we see on the surface. For mammals, a good night’s sleep sends an animal into a state of unconsciousness during hours of restorative sleeping that helps heal the body and cement memories firmly in the mind. For fish, however, ‘sleep’ isn’t such a well-defined process. Instead, many fish species have taken to spending short periods in a state of reduced activity or rest while keeping their eyes open to scan the water for potential predators. During these periods of reduced activity, a fish’s metabolic processes slow down and its alertness drops. The breadth of animals in the ocean that exhibit this type of reduced activity is wide-reaching. Among the hundreds of thousands of creatures in the sea, some merely float along with…

Mechanical braking systems were the norm from the beginning of the 20th century. Early systems used either wooden blocks to slow carriage wheels or cable-wrapped drums to slowly stop wheels from turning. However, the automotive industry was revolutionised when mechanical brakes were swapped for fluid ones. The concept of hydraulic brakes was proposed by American aviation engineer Malcolm Loughead in 1918. He discovered that when enough pressure was applied to a fluid, it could transfer that energy to the brake systems in early cars. Now, hydraulics are widely used to keep cars safe on the road. The success of hydraulic brakes relies on a principle in physics called Pascal’s law, which states that when there’s an increase in pressure at any point in a confined fluid, there is an equal…

This issue, one lucky reader will bag a pair of MW08 wireless earphones from Master & Dynamic. The MW08 earphones have active noise cancellation, wind-resistant microphones and a stainless-steel charging case, giving up to 42 hours of playtime For your chance to win, answer the following question: What family do dogs belong to? A: FELIDAE B: CANIDAE C: BOVIDAE Enter online at howitworksdaily.com and one lucky entrant will win! Terms and Conditions: Competition closes at 00:00 BST on 8 June 2023. By taking part in this competition you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and the Competition Rules: www.futuretcs.com. Entries must be received by 00:00 BST on 08/06/2023. Open to all UK residents aged 18 years or over. The winner will be drawn at random from all…

Astronomers have directly detected and imaged a gas giant orbiting another star by combining different techniques for hunting exoplanets. Researchers first looked at a catalogue of star-mapping data combined from the European Space Agency’s Gaia and older Hipparcos missions to identify stars that, based on their apparent movements or wobbles, are likely to be orbited by giant – and thus potentially visible – planets. The international team of scientists then used the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan’s Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Observations using the telescope’s coronagraphic adaptive optics and spectrograph instruments in July and September 2020 and May and October 2021 led to the discovery of the exoplanet HIP 99770 b. HIP 99770 b is a gas giant planet about 15 times the mass of Jupiter orbiting the…

Woolly mammoths weren’t always the shaggy beasts depicted in movies. Scientists now have a better idea of when these behemoths evolved some of their iconic traits. Researchers from Sweden compared the genomes of 23 Siberian woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) to the genomes of 28 modern-day Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) and African elephants (Loxodonta). They found that over the course of the fauna’s more than 700,000 years of existence, its ‘trademark features’, such as woolly fur, small ears and large fat deposits, evolved too. “We wanted to know what makes a mammoth a woolly mammoth,” said David Díez del Molino of the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. “Woolly mammoths have very characteristic morphological features, like their thick fur and small ears, that you obviously expect based on what frozen specimens look…

A woman in China recently died of H3N8, a subtype of bird flu that has only infected three known people to date. All three human cases of H3N8 have been reported in China. The first was reported in April 2022 and occurred in a four-year-old boy in Henan province, who likely caught the virus from chickens or wild ducks at his home. The second case occurred the next month in a five-year-old boy in Hunan province, who’d recently gone to a market where live poultry were sold, although he didn’t directly handle the animals. The first boy’s illness became severe and he required intensive care, but the second boy’s case was mild. Both children recovered. The newly reported third case was detected in a 56-year-old woman from Guangdong province, whose…

In a first-of-its-kind medical case, a man in India contracted a fungal I disease that typically affects trees and had never been reported in a human before. The 61-year-old man had difficulty swallowing, hoarseness, cough, lack of appetite, fatigue and recurrent inflammation of the throat for about three months before seeking medical care. The patient works as a mycologist, meaning he studies fungi, and he reported regularly working with decaying material, mushrooms and other fungi as part of his research. A computerised tomography (CT) scan of the man’s neck revealed a pocket of pus on the right side of his windpipe. The patient’s doctors extracted a sample of pus from this abscess, analysed it and found evidence of fungal growth. By applying a stain to the sample, the team revealed…

95.6% Domestic cats share the majority of their DNA with tigers The collective noun for a group cats is a ‘clowder’ THREE TIMES A cat’s whiskers, or vibrissae, have roots that are much deeper than regular hairs The newest genetically distinct cat breed is the Selkirk Rex, also known as the poodle cat 2013 BLOODHOUNDS CAN TRACK SCENTS MORE THAN 300 HOURS OLD FOR MORE THAN 130 MILES 90 decibels A dog’s bark can reach volumes as loud as power tools Six times Cats are expert jumpers and can leap several times their own height 18 Both cats and dogs have five toes on each front paw and four on each back paw 40% Much more of a dog’s brain is dedicated to smelling than a human’s CATS CAN ROTATE…

Most of the time, clouds hover far above our heads at high altitude. In these colder conditions, the air loses the ability to hold onto water vapour and releases droplets of liquid water. Although it forms in a similar method to clouds, fog extends into lower altitudes and can lie just above the ground. Fog forms when the air’s water vapour content is high and conditions are humid. Being close to the ground, the water-filled air reduces visibility and limits the navigation of cars, ships and aircraft. The extent of fog disruption depends on the concentration of water droplets in the air, with the thickest fog usually arising under contrasting conditions, where cold air meets warm air. The foggiest place on the planet is an area of the Atlantic Ocean…

Getting a siege underway wasn’t just a matter of loading up the engines and firing the first projectile. Depending on the forces available and the layout of the castle, each attack would begin differently. Most of the time, though, attackers would first attempt psychological warfare by launching severed heads into the castle. Then, the first target would be a weak point of the wall. In response, defenders barricaded their weakest points and increased attacks on the most potent siege engines. The key to a successful siege was continuous attack, as a break in hostilities would give defenders time to repair damage. Also essential was stopping supplies reaching the castle, preventing the arrival of weapons and resources. If the breakthrough still didn’t come, aggressors would spread out their attacks. Castles were…

Sudoku Complete the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 box contains the numbers 1 to 9 EASY MEDIUM HARD Word search Find the following words CATS DOGS SPACESHIP MEDIEVAL FOG PLANT BRAKE CRASH MARINE MONEY HAWKING MEMORY What is it? Hint: Not just a plane old fan A Spot the difference See if you can find all six changes between the images below QUICKFIRE QUESTIONS Q1 According to the Apollo astronauts, what does Moon dust smell like? ⚫ Burnt gunpowder ⚫ Blue cheese ⚫ Petrol fumes ⚫ The seaside Q2 The word ‘muscle’ comes from the Latin term for: ⚫ Strong fibres ⚫ Little mouse ⚫ Curled cat ⚫ Flex and stretch Q3 Approximately how much skin do you lose every year? ⚫ 4.0 grams ⚫ 40 grams…

LETTER of the MOTNH A NOTE TO THE EDITOR Dear HIW, I’m a Grade Nine student from British Columbia, Canada. I’ve been a keen reader of How It Works since I first discovered it on the teenage shelf in the library. Over the years, I’ve followed your magazine from the library to subscribing to it on my Apple device. It has been my best teacher and friend. I love geography, and thanks to your magazine I was able to achieve third place in the Canadian geography competition. I also love science, and with the inspiration from your magazine, I started my own podcast channel to explain the latest scientific information to children. I’m writing to bring to your attention an error I noticed on page 71 of Volume 12 of…