Sommaire pour November 2015 de BBC Science Focus Magazine

MARS IS A dangerous place. If you manage to get there, there’s the radiation to contend with. If that doesn’t wear you down, the microgravity will. At just over one-third of Earth’s gravity, life on Mars causes your bones to shrink by around 1 per cent per month. And don’t even get me started on the weather. These are just the dangers we know about. What we don’t know is what will happen to the human psyche when the first Martian peers out of the window to see Earth shrink into nothingness. The answer may lie in another inhospitable place: Antarctica. On p37, find out what scientists are uncovering about isolation in the loneliest place on Earth. Closer to home, the European Space Agency’s new leader, Johann-Dietrich Woerner, wants to…

Why is water so vital for life? Water is a solvent used to dissolve all of the different molecules and compounds that life is based on. We know there has been lots of water on Mars in the past, but the big question has been is it still liquid today, in the current desert landscape of Mars? That’s why this recent announcement is so important. Why is it important that the water is liquid? If you have a solid, then nothing can move around – it’s all locked in place. If you have a gas, things are too hot and moving around so fast that they don’t interact together. A liquid is the perfect in-between state, where things can move around but they are still held quite closely so they…

SOMETIMES IT’S NICE to be proved wrong. I’ve long been sceptical of claims that human genome research will lead to big, life-saving breakthroughs any time soon. But now it seems all the decades of dogged effort are starting to pay off. Take the recent news of a gene-based blood test that can warn breast cancer patients of a relapse months before anything shows up on a scan. Developed by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, the test is said to detect the presence of just a few cancer cells in the blood. To achieve such amazing sensitivity, the scientists used a neat trick akin to fingerprinting criminals. Using samples from the original tumour of each patient, they obtained the unique genetic profile of the cells, allowing rapid…

CREAKING DOORS. I wish I’d thought of them as musical instruments earlier in my life. I’ve spent just over three decades viewing them as distracting or annoying, when I could have seen them as interesting entertainment. But I realised the other day that the creak of a door has a lot in common with the purr of a cello. It started when a friend came to stay for a week. After a two-day internal battle between politeness and torment, they informed me that one more squeak of the bathroom door would cause the final and irrevocable loss of the last of their marbles. I was so used to the noise that I didn’t really hear it any more, but when I stopped to listen, I could see their point. I…

HEAD Extended time living in microgravity can impair balance, and can even alter your vision. Emotional isolation has been shown to be a significant risk factor for Alzheimer’s, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. UPPER TORSO Vertebrae separate slightly without gravity to compress them. Astronauts can gain up to 5cm in height, and report back pain as a result. LIMBS Relieved of the need to walk around, the muscles in the legs can waste away. In turn, this affects balance and increases the risk of tendonitis. LOWER TORSO Astronauts experience motion sickness, nausea and dizziness in the early days of spaceflight. WEAKENED IMMUNE SYSTEM Isolation and sleep deprivation have been shown to result in a weaker t-lymphocyte system. Astronauts are more prone to infection by…

BY OUR EXPERT PANEL SUSAN BLACKMORE Susan is Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth. Her books include The Meme Machine and Ten Zen Questions DR ALASTAIR GUNN Alastair is a radio astronomer at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester ROBERT MATTHEWS After studying physics at Oxford, Robert became a science writer. He’s Visiting Professor in Science at Aston University GARETH MITCHELL Starting out as a broadcast engineer, Gareth now writes and presents Clickon the BBC World Service LUIS VILLAZON Luis has a BSc in computing and an MSc in zoology from Oxford. His works include How Cows Reach The Ground EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO questions@sciencefocus.com or post to FocusQ&A, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3BN Q RICHARD METCALFE, BRISTOL How can…

A BRUCE LEE IS back. No, this isn’t some magical resurrection of the martial arts icon, but it’s what meteorologists have been calling the latest manifestation of the climate phenomenon known as El Niño. Although notoriously difficult to predict – at least during the early stages – there is no doubt now that a strong El Niño is upon us, and will likely reach the peak of its powers sometime between this October and March next year. WHAT IS EL NIÑO? The bottom line is that El Niño – which translates from Spanish to ‘the Christ Child’, as it often peaks around Christmas – is the biggest climate signal on the planet barring the seasons. The phenomenon is actually the hot end of a climate see-saw known as ENSO, or…

1ST CENTURY AD Hero of Alexandria creates his aeolipile device. This Greek engineer, who specialises in exotic machinery, makes a metal sphere rotate using a pair of steam-emitting rocket nozzles. 13TH CENTURY AD Although gunpowder has been in use in China for around 200 years, this century sees the first recorded production of gunpowder-powered rockets. 1903 Russian schoolteacher Konstantin Tsiolkovsky publishes his book Investigating Space With Reaction Devices, defining modern rocket technology. This is also the year that the Wright Brothers first took a powered flight. 1942 The V-2 rocket-powered weapon (technically an A-4 rocket) is used for the first time to make the first long-range ballistic missile. Though it causes devastation, the V-2 kick-starts both the US and the USSR’s space programmes. 1957 A modified Russian R-7 rocket carries…

1. IT’S ALL DOWN TO NEWTON Rockets are based on Newton’s Third Law of Motion. If you throw something away from you, you’re pushed back by the same amount of force. In a rocket, it is usually the exhaust gas from burning fuel that is pushed away from the motor. 2. IT’S NOT AS HARD AS YOU THINK Rocket science really isn’t complicated. The physics is little more than A Level stuff. What makes the whole business mind-boggling is the engineering – getting a massive, extremely complex collection of machinery working together in tight timescales and with tough conditions like the vacuum of space, while handling difficult substances like liquid oxygen. 3. ROCKETS NEED LOADS OF POWER The reason we need the power of vast rocket motors, like those used…

MarcoPolo Arctic iOS 8.0 or later, iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, MarcoPolo Learning, Inc., £2.29 THE ARCTIC MIGHT look like a cold and desolate place from afar, but in fact it’s actually teeming with all kinds of wildlife, both in and out of the water. The MarcoPolo Arctic app brings this forbidding, icy landscape alive for young children, with cute narrated animations to help them learn about the creatures that live there. There are more than 30 animals to explore, including birds, whales, bears and hares. The interactive puzzles and sandbox world help engage young minds in playful learning, and who knows – maybe it’ll inspire the next great explorer to begin their epic journey! Thinkrolls 2 iOS 6.0 or later, iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android 2.3.3 or later, Avokiddo, £2.29/£2.19 ANOTHER PLAY-BASED learning app,…

Rob Brotherton Rob is an academic specialising in the psychology of conspiracy theories. On p48, he looks at the reasons why so many of us believe in them. Dr Alex Kumar As a doctor, well-travelled explorer, and expedition medic on Antarctic missions, Alex was perfectly qualified to discuss the effects of isolation on p37. Kath Nightingale Science writer Kath donned her cape and mask to find out more about the tribes that have successfully tapped into superhuman powers. Be amazed on p56. Matt Swaine Matt is a former Editor of BBC Wildlife Magazine and is a fan of all animals – but even he struggled to love some of the gruesome real-life monsters he researched on p44.…

What did he say? Gates is urging governments around the world to pool money into research in renewable energy technologies on the same scale as the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Moon missions. How much money is he talking about? Tens of billions of dollars. Hang on. Why doesn’t he put his money where his mouth is? Actually, he has. So far he reckons he has invested about £650m into companies researching green technologies and intends to double this over the next five years. He has also said that private investors could stand to make a killing if they back the right companies. So what kind of projects is he picking? He seems particularly interested in solar chemical power, which uses a process similar to photosynthesis to make hydrogen fuel…

What did they do? Researchers at Kyoto University showed two films to six chimps and six bonobos. In the first film, a person dressed in an ape suit leaps out from one of two doors. In the second, a person picks up a toy hammer and bashes the ape. They used eye-tracking to see what was holding the apes’ attention and then played them the films again, 24 hours later. What did they find? When watching the first video again, the apes’ eyes were trained on the door from which they’d seen the ape character jump out. In the second video, they stared at the hammer, even though it was put in a different place. Why did they do that? This proves that apes can store and retrieve info in…

Reduce risk with a ring THERE’S STILL A lot of stigma around sexual health. Hoping to change that is Hoope – a ring-like device that allows anyone to test themselves for STIs, wherever they are. Once fitted over the thumb, a needle collects a pinprick of blood, while electrodes are said to block the sensation of pain. A ‘lab-on-a-chip’ then tests for syphilis, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis and chlamydia. The results are displayed in the Hoope app, which provides data on the infections and locations of nearby clinics. Patent pending Pothole patrollers KA-DUNK. THERE GOES a pothole. Potholes are the scourge of many a motorist, causing wheel damage, bumpy journeys and even accidents. Now, Google wants to turn your car into a roving pothole reporter, using onboard, vertical movement sensors to detect…

It may now be almost five billion kilometres away from Earth, but NASA’s New Horizons probe is still delivering the goods. The craft captured a wealth of images when it flew past the dwarf planet in July and is continuing to beam data back to scientists on Earth via a satellite downlink. NEW HORIZONS UP CLOSE This incredibly detailed shot was created by piecing together blue, red and infrared images from the Ralph camera and then enhancing the colours. It shows the staggering variety in the dwarf planet’s geology. Scientists have dubbed the large, flat plain (centre-right) the ‘Sputnik Platform’. Images taken by the LORRI camera show Pluto’s surface in detail, down to a resolution of 270m. The peaks shown in this image, also taken by Ralph, reach 3,500m into…

WHILE EXPLORING A remote network of crevices in South Africa’s Gauteng province, caver Steve Tucker stumbled upon a hoard of bones. After being recovered and analysed as part of an international collaboration involving the University of Colorado, the University of Witwatersrand and the National Geographic Society, the fossils were found to belong to a previously undiscovered human ancestor. The species was named Homo naledi, which comes from the word for ‘star’ in the local Sesothothe language. H. naledi stood at just 1.5m in height and had an orange-sized brain when fully grown. “The only thing similar we know of are the so-called ‘hobbits’ of Flores Island in Indonesia,” explained the University of Colorado’s Charles Musiba. The researchers are yet to determine how old the fossils are or exactly where H.…

EYE-POPPING SNIPER TEXAS HORNED LIZARD Phrynosoma cornutum | SOUTH USA AND MEXICO The fact that any animal has ocular auto-hemorrhaging as part of its arsenal of defences shows just how inventive evolution can be. A number of species of horned lizards have developed the ability to bleed from their eyes, to deter would-be predators. Blood-filled sinuses within the eye socket swell up and rupture, allowing the lizard to shoot a stream of blood up to 1.5m. Apart from startling their attackers, the blood apparently tastes very unpleasant and is enough to send would-be predators into retreat. SLIMER’S TWIN VELVET WORM Peripatoides novaezealandiae | NEW ZEALAND This particular specimen is just one of many species of velvet worm occupying the southern hemisphere, and it’s hard to beat their hunting technique. Step…

MOON LANDINGS One classic Moon landing conspiracy claims that the flag Buzz Aldrin planted on the lunar surface shouldn’t have waved. However, the flag had a metal arm to make it stick out, and it only flapped while Aldrin was wiggling the pole into place. Theorists claim that the absence of stars in the dark lunar sky proves that the photographs were taken on a film set. Yet the exposure on the cameras was intentionally calibrated for the brightly lit lunar surface, so it couldn’t pick up the faint stars. GLOBAL WARMING A few cherry-picked soundbites from the Climategate emails – the hacked emails of scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit – were taken by some global-warming-deniers as evidence of a plot among scientists to manipulate…

Q FINN BOGDAN, SWITZERLAND How much does IQ help a human to survive? A THAT DEPENDS ON where you are. In a natural environment that’s rich in edible plants and animals, being good at maths, logic and written language is virtually useless. Instead, you need years of experience of hunting, choosing plants, building shelters and lighting fires. Above all, you need social skills not measured in IQ tests. If you can’t maintain friendships, make alliances, deal with disputes and keep track of liars, cheats and deeds of kindness then you won’t survive long. In contrast, in a modern environment full of computers, electronic banking and online shopping, a high IQ is increasingly necessary. In societies with a welfare state, you’re unlikely to starve. But researchers in the field of ‘cognitive…

WHAT IS IT? Meet Diego-San, a mechanical baby built by researchers at the University of San Diego… and frankly the creepiest thing we’ve seen in many a long year. WHAT’S HE FOR? We can imagine lots of uses for Diego-San. He could offer comfort to a future generation of domestic robots coming to terms with realising that they’ll never have children, or just be used to terrify unruly reception classes into cowering obeisance. Sadly, the truth is more prosaic: he was built to replicate the ‘smile timing strategies’ of real-life human infants. AND THAT’S USEFUL BECAUSE…? The child psychology researchers had been studying smile-based interactions between mother-baby pairs, and come to the conclusion that, in a nutshell, babies smile at their mothers purely in order to get them to smile…

Xmal Deutschland - Viva (Phonogram, 1987) Slim Gaillard - Cement Mixer (from Slim Gaillard 1945 Vol 2, Classics, 1989) Naz Nomad & The Nightmares - Give Daddy The Knife, Cindy (Big Beat Records, 1984) The March Violets - The Botanic Verses (Jungle Records, 1993) Bushy- Hiya (Catskills Records, 2002) UFO- UFO 2: Flying (Beacon Records, 1971) Asher Senator - Abbreviation Qualification (Fashion Records, 1984) Deadbolt- Voodoo Trucker (Headhunter Records, 1999) Mance Lipscomb - Essential Blues Collection (Classics, 2013) Cybernetic Witch Cult - Morlock Rock (Groove Lizzard Time Wizzard, 2015)…

22 OCTOBER Graphic Sex Gosh Comics, London, 7:30pm-9pm, goshlondon.com NO, IT’S NOT a porn-fest. Instead it’s a free talk by Stephen Lowther of the Wellcome Trust about how sex, censorship and gender identity are portrayed in comics, graphic novels and postcards. 23 OCTOBER Dino Snores Natural History Museum, London, 6:45pm, £60, nhm.ac.uk WHILE WE WAIT for dino de-extinction, kids can enjoy this ultimate of sleepovers in the Natural History Museum’s hallowed halls. 30 OCTOBER From Molecules To Nanoscale Machines Royal Institution, London, 7:50pm-9:30pm, £12, rigb.org IMAGINE A SWARM of robots, just nanometres in size, performing reconnaissance missions or targeting sick cells inside your body. Join Prof Neil Champness to discover how that reality isn’t far off. 10 NOVEMBER Colliding Galaxies Royal Astronomical Society, London, 1pm-2pm, 6pm-7pm, ras.org.uk EVER WONDERED WHAT…

When did the scientific revolution begin? In 1572 – the year in which then-unknown astronomer Tycho Brahe sees a new star in the sky. Every astronomer in the world starts paying attention to it, and Brahe demonstrates that this star is not in the upper atmosphere but in the heavens. According to Aristotle, there can’t be change in the heavens – his philosophy says that this star can’t exist. This is the first great anomaly, and it provokes the first modern research programme. Brahe gets vast resources to build a great observatory, study the heavens, and learn what’s wrong with previous interpretations. That new view of science echoes through into other disciplines. What is the most important event in the scientific revolution? I think the event that crystallises the new…

…obtained a Nerf N-Strike Modulus ECS-10 for our Xmas gift guide. So we spent a Friday evening firing foam darts at each other. It beats lavender oil for stress relief! …got our hands on a new office pet. Meet our BB8 Star Wars bot, who has been appearing on our social media pages this month. Look out for him in an upcoming issue of BBC Focus. …went along to a drone racing event, where highly skilled competitors sent FPV (first-person view) drones hurtling round an obstacle track. Find out more in a future issue. ON SALE NOW! THE STORIES OF SCIENCE Our new special issue collects the very best articles from our How Do We Know? series. www.buysubscriptions.com/science FOCUS DIGITAL Available for Android • iOS • Kindle Fire • Kindle…

STEPPING INTO THE robotics lab at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California takes you into a world of extraordinary inventiveness. Facing us, between workbenches crammed with laptops, soldering irons and spools of cable, was a bundle of technology the size of a small dustbin: a highly versatile machine called the RoboSimian. Named for the agility and adaptability of a monkey, this robot is meant to serve as an emissary on missions too dangerous for people – entering anything from the wreckage of a gas plant to the smouldering aftermath of a radioactive accident to the unknown terrain of an alien world. To manoeuvre over debris, its four legs descend to provide a crawling motion. To roll across a smooth surface, the robot morphs into a shape that uses wheels. And…

ROBERT ZEMECKIS’S ICONIC film Back To The Future II (1989) was set in October 2015, 30 years into the then-future. As John Gribbin pointed out in the Summer issue of Focus, the movie’s predictions had some hits (wearable tech and video calls), but many misses, such as flying cars and hoverboards. The writers didn’t foresee mobile phones and they missed information technology, the dominant feature of our world. So prediction is hard. But in 2015, can we make any better guesses about another 30 years on? In 2045 our cities will surely be saturated with the smartness the movie writers missed. Control systems like traffic lights are already joined in city-wide networks, but much more is possible. How about a road surface smart enough to fix potholes? There have been…

MARK WATNEY IS having a pretty bad sol*. After his team’s living habitat and vehicles endured several hours of intense buffeting from a 110mph sandstorm, NASA gave the order to abort their mission and return to Earth. In the process, a communications array shattered, sending an aerial spearing into Watney’s side, ripping out his bio-monitor in the process. Knocked unconscious by the fall, he has just awoken with a gasp. Within minutes, he will realise the staggering and unthinkable truth. He has been left for dead; the only man on Mars. He has at least four years until a rescue mission could arrive, and only has facilities designed to last 31 days. So begins The Martian, Ridley Scott’s space survival thriller, which is out now. Understandably, the film focuses heavily…

MK-ULTRA Documents came to light in the 1970s revealing that the CIA had been trying to develop the ability to influence and control people’s minds. The project, MK-Ultra, used hypnosis and LSD, and illegal experiments on citizens. We’ll likely never know the full extent of it, since many of the documents were destroyed. THE MAFIA At the Apalachin Meeting in 1957, around 100 Mafia members gathered together to discuss their business and operations when they were raided by police. The extent of the criminal underworld was finally uncovered, forcing the FBI and the US government to admit the criminal organisation’s existence to the general public for the first time. TUSKEGEE SYPHILIS STUDY In 1932, the US Public Health Service studied untreated syphilis in poor African-Americans in Alabama. For the next…

RDA = recommended daily allowance 1. Liver Iron in 100g: 23mg 264% men’s RDA; 155% women’s RDA 2. Dark chocolate Iron in 100g: 17mg 195% men’s RDA; 114% women’s RDA 3. Pumpkin seeds Iron in 100g: 15mg 172% men’s RDA; 101% women’s RDA 4. Oysters Iron in 100g: 9.2mg 106% men’s RDA; 62% women’s RDA 5. Cashew nuts Iron in 100g: 6.1mg 70% men’s RDA; 41% women’s RDA 6. Beef Iron in 100g: 3.8mg 43% men’s RDA; 26% women’s RDA 7. Lentils Iron in 100g: 3.7mg 42% men’s RDA; 25% women’s RDA 8. Spinach Iron in 100g: 3.6mg 41% men’s RDA; 24% women’s RDA 9. Tofu Iron in 100g: 2.7mg 31% men’s RDA; 18% women’s RDA 10. Quinoa Iron in 100g: 1.5mg 17% men’s RDA; 10% women’s RDA…

Inspired by the Grammy Award winning producer Quincy Jones, comes the AKG N90Q, a state of the art, flagship headphone that represents the pinnacle in acoustic performance and audio customization. Utilizing AKG’s TruNote auto calibration and active noise cancelling technologies, along with dual foam cushions and ear cup mounted controls, the N90Q allows users to enjoy high end, faithful and precise sound reproduction. The N90Qs also feature a built-in DAC that enables hi-res digital audio tracks on a PC or an Android device to be directly connected through the micro-USB port of the headphone, so that no digital/analogue/digital conversion is needed, which means no quality loss. For a truly personalized sound experience the N90Q enable the listener to control both bass and treble adjustments without any sound distortion, and three…

WHAT’S HOT THE ZX SPECTRUM The rubber-keyed 80s fave is back, with not one but two hardware emulators reaching stores round about now. The ZX Spectrum Vega is a minimalist homage to the original 48K machine that comes with almost 1,000 games pre-loaded, while the imaginatively named Recreated ZX Spectrum is a Bluetooth keyboard and app combo for iOS and Android. Horace is digging out his skiing gloves as we speak… WHAT’S NOT DIESEL CARS Once touted as a greener option than petrol vehicles, diesel cars’ reputation has taken a battering lately. First the Supreme Court ruled that the levels of nitrogen dioxide they pump out have put the UK in breach of EU air quality regulations; then it transpired that some VW vehicles may have been passing emissions tests…

1 STACK EM UP ’ New from Acer is the Revo Build, a ‘modular’ miniature PC. You could, of course, argue that all PCs are ‘modular’, but Revo Build aims to make life simple. The base unit is a fully-functioning PC with a footprint measuring just 125 x 125mm, to which you can add your choice of ‘Blocks’ containing – for instance – graphics cards, hard drives or speakers. Blocks connect using magnetic pins, eliminating the need for cables. Acer Revo Build From £199, acer.co.uk 2 SMARTER SECURITY Equipping your pad with a cloud-linked CCTV camera that sends alerts to your phone soundslike a good idea, but no-one wants to be notified that the dog’s wandered into the living room 73 times a day. That’s the issue the Butterfleye camera…

BALLISTICMISSILE One that starts under power, reaching a considerable height before dropping in freefall to its target. The V-2 was the first ballistic missile. INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTICMISSILE(ICBM) Modern space rockets were mostly developed from the rockets designed to send nuclear missiles around the world. IONS The ‘thruster’ or ‘ion drive’ uses ions as its reaction mass. Ions are atoms that have electrons removed or added and, as a result, have an electric charge that means they can be propelled by an electric field. MEGANEWTONS (MN) Newtons (N) are the standard unit of force. 1N is the force required to accelerate 1kg through 1m per second per second. The downward force on 1kg due to the Earth’s gravity is 9.81N. A meganewton is a million newtons. REACTION MASS The stuff thrown out…

FROM20OCTOBER Super Senses: The Secret Power Of Animals Eden, 6pm WE’D LOVE TO be a bat for the night, beaming out ultrasound as we swept through the sky. In this three-part series – first shown on BBC Two last year – Helen Czerski and Patrick Aryee reveal how animals experience sights, sounds and smells that we can only dream of. 26OCTOBER The Dark Side Of The Ocean Animal Planet, 26 October, 9pm EVERY NIGHT, IN the oceans, billions of creatures rise towards the surface, returning to the depths as the Sun rises. Now, for the first time, this nocturnal migration has been captured on camera, unveiling a bestiary of wildlife that wouldn’t look out of place in The Life Aquatic. 4NOVEMBER Spirit And Opportunity National Geographic Channel, 10pm CURIOSITY MAY…

Hardback Paperback “Wootton has seen the impact of many fads on his subject, and the history of science in particular” The Invention Of Science David Wootton Allen Lane £30 HEROES, VILLAINS, SKULDUGGERY, death – the history of science doesn’t lack for great stories. One of my favourite books as a kid was Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopaedia Of Science And Technology by the eponymous sci-fi writer. Alongside tales of genius like Newton’s intellectual leap from a falling apple to Universal Law were the struggles of pioneers like Ignaz Semmelweis, whose life-saving work on antisepsis was blocked by petty feuding. But later I discovered such stories are often just that: entertaining fictions that hide a more complex reality. Newton has since been accused of inventing the apple story to help him gain precedence…