Table of contents for Issue 43 in Science Illustrated

There are over 2500 species of crustaceans commonly called "shrimp" or "prawns". The smallest live for a few months. Big ones can grow up to eight years old. Shrimp perform sexual mating. The act only takes a split second, the male fertilising the female stomach against stomach. The female’s eggs develop in her ovary, which is located right behind the head and looks like a long saddle. In some species, the females produce up to 25,000 eggs at a time. The ovary is often located in a position that makes it look as if it is part of the head. When a male has fertilised the eggs, they are carried to the lower side of the female’s body between her legs, where they remain until they hatch. So, the female…

Out on the vast, flat Chaco Austral plain in northern Argentina, you can see how Earth has been pummelled by space. Huge craters and meteorite fragments show that not only are there asteroids in space, which travel at dizzying speeds, they also contain metal. The Argentinian craters and meteorites contain lots of iron. If you multiply by the millions of asteroids orbiting in space, there must be unimaginable quantities of metal in the Solar System, which American businessmen would like to get their hands on. A brand new type of mining company has started up in the US – employing satellites instead of surveyors, and right now they are competing to get to the untouched riches of space first. At the front of the line of competitors are two companies,…

Milkweed guzzles litres of oil Like dandelions, milkweed seeds feature long, white fibres that make them glide through the air like small parachutes and spread. But the fibres also boast another quality: They happily suck up oil. The milkweed trick is that the seed fibres are naturally covered in wax, making them highly hydrophobic or waterrepellent. Moreover, the fibres are lipophile or fat-loving. The result is a natural product that is five times as efficient as synthetic polypropylene, which is now used to clean up after oil spills, according to the Canadian company Encore3. The firm believes so much in the oil-cleansing properties of the milkweed that it is manufacturing clean-up equipment in the shape of oblong “snakes” filled with milkweed seed fibres. The fibres are hollow on the inside,…

1. Even though you can get it over the counter, which common painkiller does your body metabolise (turn into) morphine? 2. Some professional cyclists are “doping” their bicycles by installing a tiny what in the frame? 3. With a membership made up of racers wearing stereoscopic video headsets, what is the IDRA? 4. Who had the bigger brain, Neanderthals or modern humans? 5. Which group of islands was systematically depopulated by the Spanish from 1500-1520 and then remained essentially uninhabited for 130 years? 6. Some high-powered integrated circuits and laser diodes use heat sinks (radiators) made of what unexpected but expensive material? 7. Of interest to beer makers, zymology is the study of what? 8. Made of a quarterounce of gold, and worth (eventually) 21 shillings, was which famous but…

The Blue Planet never sleeps Earth is also known as the Blue Planet, but perhaps it ought to change its name, at least on the night-side. Canadian scientist Félix Pharands’ satellite photos reveal a world speckled in yellow. The satellite photos show the sophisticated infrastructure of Europe as millions of illuminated roads, railways, and submarine data cables crisscross the continent. The map also shows air traffic. Key to modern civilisation's success is the ability to keep working after dark – and so city lights proliferate, and can be observed from space. Chinese sinkhole is a lush oasis for life Far away from civilisation and 290 m below ground, a lush world of plants, birds, and insects is thriving. This paradise is located in an approximately 67,000 m2 sinkhole in the…

Scientists do not know for sure why the Neanderthal died out. But according to one of several theories, the Neanderthal died of diseases, which modern humans introduced, when the two species met for the first time some 50,000 years ago. Scientists have found proof that our evolutionary cousins were infected with diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, whooping cough, meningitis, and the common cold. Homo sapiens itself usually survived these diseases, but as the Neanderthal had never experienced the infections before, they were badly affected and finally became extinct. 4 theories of how the Neanderthal disappeared Modern humans began to mate with Neanderthal about 50,000 years ago. Apart from the theory that the Neanderthal became extinct due to diseases brought to them by Homo sapiens, both volcanoes and a failure…

HOW TO HARVEST THE RAW MATERIALS OF SPACE SCOOP UP PEBBLES Many asteroids are covered in a layer of pebbles. A robot scoops up the pebbles, crushes them, and sorts out the minerals by using magnets, which attract metals. CAPTURE WITH MAGNETS On asteroids with a loose surface, metals are captured directly with magnetic rakes. This means mining companies obtain the most valuable minerals right away. MELT WATER AND DIRT Ice and other volatile materials can be melted or evaporated using heat from solar panels, leaving heat-stable materials such as metals, which are captured with magnets. DRILL OUT AND HOIST METALS When valuable metals are discovered deep inside an asteroid, mining companies drill a shaft to the ore and hoist the extracted ore by using a special lift just like…

Three mirrors capture the universe The LSST differs from other telescopes by having three mirrors – M1, M2, and M3 – to capture the light of the night sky. Until now, the biggest telescopes have only had two mirrors, but three mirrors allows the LSST to capture an impressive 3.5 degrees of the night sky per image, compared to 0.2 degrees for a camera with two mirrors. The LSST camera The LSST camera is the size of a small passenger car. The view of the night sky is sublime from the top of the 2,715-m-high Mount Cerro Pachón in Chile. The climate of the Andes is bone-dry, and clouds only rarely pass by to spoil the clear view of a myriad stars. No other place on Earth is better suited…

MOWGLI PROBABLY WOULDN'T HAVE LIVED Mowgli is a character from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book” short stories from 1894-95. In the story, infant Mowgli is left in the Indian jungle and raised by wolves. Walt Disney’s cartoon from 1967 and the new 3D animation film are based on the short stories. In the film, Mowgli makes friends with a panther, a bear, and a pack of wolves. In real life, these animals would probably not adopt a human. Experience from zoos shows that big cats (including panthers) are very unpredictable. Although they are tame and like to play and be caressed by humans, they may suddenly attack with fatal power. 0-6 MONTHS NORMAL DEVELOPMENT: Babies need care and eye contact to develop social skills. The child discovers that it is…

THE LATEST FINDINGS AND DISCOVERIES GEOLOGY Fire, lava, gas, and red-hot ash in quantities that block out sunlight and start a global "hard winter" is the horror scenario of an erupting supervolcano. But now, geologists from the US Vanderbilt University add a new dimension. They have discovered that a supervolcano could "recharge" and blow its top again in just 500 years. During such a period, the magma chambers under the volcano could be filled and heated, according to studies of quartz crystals from four major eruptions that took place 760,000-27,000 years ago. Hundreds of years prior to an eruption, magma enters one or more chambers below the volcano, where it is cooled. When new hot magma enters from below, the mass melts, becoming “active” and ready to erupt. In the…

AN IDEAL ASTEROID MINE Has a diameter of at least 300m, so mining is economical. Travels at a speed of less than 5km/s, so satellittes will not consume too much fuel trying to catch up with it. Passes by Earth regularly. THE MOST VALUABLE 511 DAVIDA Value: $117 trillion. Contents: Nickel, iron, cobalt, water. Diameter: 326 km. 140 SIWA Value: $110 trillion. Contents: Platinum, nickel, iron, cobalt. Diameter: 110 km. 241 GERMANIA Value: $109 trillion. Contents: Iron, hydrogen, nitrogen. Diameter: 169 km. THE MOST PROFITABLE 162173 RYUGU Value: $111 billion. Estimated profit: $41 billion. Contents: Nickel, iron, cobalt, water. Diameter: 900 m. 1989 ML Value: $16 billion. Estimated profit: $5.1 billion. Contents: Nickel, iron, cobalt. Diameter: No precise measurement. 1943 ANTEROS Value: $6.5 trillion. Estimated profit: $1.4 trillion. Contents: Magnesium,…

PRESSUREPROOF GONDOLA Balloons lift tourists 30 km into space, where the curvature of the Earth’s can be seen. SKY-HIGH PLATFORM A 20-km-high tower will launch rockets from a platform at its top. FROM JET TO ROCKET A jet plane flies up through the atmosphere and continues into space as a rocket. REUSABLE ROCKET The first and most expensive rocket stage will be reused. The roar of the jet engines is deafening, as Skylon speeds down the runway, takes off, and rushes up through Earth’s atmosphere. The 82-m spaceplane, which resembles a huge fighter jet, travels at a speed of 6,300 km/h and an altitude of 28.5 km. At this point, the engines shift into rocket mode, increasing the speed to 26,500 km/h on the way into space. Once Skylon has…

THE LAST MEN ON THE MOON Eugene CernanEugene Cernan, commander Leader of the Apollo 17 mission and the last man to walk on the Moon. Born in 1934, he has travelled into space three times. He and Harrison Schmitt spent the longest time on the Moon: 75 hours. Ron Evans Evans, command module pilot During Apollo 17, he remained in orbit around the Moon in the command module America for six days and four hours, setting a new record for humans in an orbiting spacecraft. Harrison Schmitt, moon lander pilot The second- last man to walk on the Moon. Originally a geologist, he was the only traditionally educated scientist of the Apollo missions. In 1965, he became an astronaut. The world’s most expensive gravel According to critics, the Apollo programme…

A metallic, brightly shining ball floats slowly across the night sky for several hours. It sounds like one of the thousands of reports of possible UFOs that experts dutifully investigate annually. Almost all these cases can be explained – or shown to be hoaxes, but sometimes even the experts are left to wonder. Hessdalen is such an example, but now, a scientific expedition is going to find out what makes up the light balls and how they originate. The first reports of strange lights in the remote, 15-km-long valley 120 km southeast of Trondheim date back from the early 1800s. During the 1800s and 1900s, the reports came with intervals of a few years, but from 1981, the number increased to nearly 20 per week, and now UFO enthusiasts are…