Table of contents for March 2020 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

Last month we discussed a recent study that showed our happiness tends to decrease towards midlife. We are most miserable at age 47.2, with happiness steadily increasing through our 50s and 60s. We asked our Facebook and Twitter followers if they agreed with the study’s findings. AN ECONOMIST HAS FOUND WE ARE MOST MISERABLE AT 47.2 YEARS OLD. DO YOU AGREE? 44% Yes, late 40s was the worst 28% Other 28% No, late 40s was the best!…

WHAT DID THEY DO? Researchers at the University of Turku in Finland put together a list of the 100 best horror films of the last 100 years, including classics such as The Exorcist and The Devil’s Backbone. They showed them to a group of volunteers and measured their neural activity as they watched. WHY DID THEY DO THAT? They wanted to find out why humans are drawn to films that are purposefully designed to be as scary as possible, and how the brain deals with fear. WHAT DID THEY FIND? During periods in the films when the tension is slowly building, regions of the brain involved in visual and auditory perception become more active, as the need to look for cues of threat in the environment become more important. After…

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson raised a few eyebrows recently when they declared that a “proper piece of work” was being carried out looking into the possibility of linking Scotland to Northern Ireland via a bridge spanning the Irish Sea. At the moment, the leading candidates for the locations of the route are Portpatrick on the Scottish coast and Larne on the Northern Irish coast – a span of around 40km (25 miles). Length aside, there are a number of other significant challenges that such an enormous project would raise. For example, there’s the depth of the sea, which at times reaches 300 metres, and the large spans that would be required to let any ships pass under the bridge safely, explained Ian Firth, structural engineer and fellow at…

When cuttlefish know that their favourite food will be on the menu at dinnertime, they’ll eat less for lunch, according to new research carried out at the University of Cambridge. “This could offer new insight into when complex cognitive ability evolved” Cuttlefish are a type of cephalopod mollusc and they have a wide diet that includes crab, fish, squid and shrimp, but they show definite preferences for particular foods. After establishing that shrimp was the favourite food of European common cuttlefish ( Sepia officinalis ), the researchers found that when they reliably gave the cuttlefish a meal of shrimp in the evening, they’d eat fewer crabs when they were offered during the day. When the shrimp dinners were only provided at random, the cuttlefish would eat more crabs during the…

CITIZENS ASSEMBLE The UK’s new ‘citizens’ assembly’ on climate change met for the first time in January in their first chance to quiz experts on how climate policy and science will affect the UK. The 110 ordinary people from across the country were specifically chosen to represent diversity of age, region and opinion on climate change. Questions they asked included: ‘Which is better for the environment – British beef or avocado from Peru?’ and ‘How committed are other countries to achieving net zero?’. The assembly will be tasked with delivering a report to Parliament in April 2020 on how the country should tackle the climate crisis. FARMLAND HAS A KEY ROLE TO PLAY IN TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE A fifth of all the UK’s farmland needs to be used to tackle…

In the constellation of Orion, something strange is afoot. In October last year, the red star Betelgeuse – which marks Orion’s right shoulder (or left as we look at it) – began to get unusually dim. During January and February 2020, it reached a record low – around 40 per cent of its usual brightness. We know Betelgeuse is a mature star, and it will one day explode in a supernova. But this dimming has led to speculation that a supernova could be imminent. Might this be a moment of calm before the star expires in a cosmic death-blast? The dimming of Betelgeuse is not unexpected. (The name of the star has its origins in Arabic, and there’s no consensus on how to pronounce the Westernised version. However, ‘Beetlejuice’ is…

GM Cruise Origin This is the first driverless car we’ve seen that hopes to run tests without a steering wheel or pedals. First, General Motors just has to convince a city authority to let it loose on their streets. Toyota e-Palette Like an airport mini-bus, only without a driver who’s had three hours sleep, the e-Palette will shuttle athletes and staff around the Tokyo Olympics. Optimus Ride Last year this MIT start-up launched the first autonomous pod service in New York. The vehicles ferry passengers around the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a 300-acre industrial park with 10,000 employees.…

Physicists are homing in on the mass of the neutrino, nature’s most elusive subatomic particle. The latest super-accurate measurement, made by an experiment in Germany, shows that the neutrino is around half a million times less massive than the electron, the lightest particle of normal atomic matter. According to the Standard Model, the high point of 300 years of physics which describes the fundamental building blocks of matter and three non-gravitational forces that glue them together, the neutrino should be massless. So why should we care about a mass measurement (no matter how tiny) of a neutrino? Well, it may provide vital clues to the fabled ‘theory of everything’ – a deeper, more fundamental theory of physics of which the Standard Model is believed to be but an approximation. HUNTING…

I’D LOVE TO TREAT MYSELF TO A GEL MANICURE, BUT ARE THEY BAD FOR ME? Gel polish contains small molecules called monomers. When you put your hand under the ultraviolet (UV) nail lamp, the UV radiation triggers a chemical reaction that causes the monomers to link together to form long polymer chains, setting the gel. The result is a tough, flexible nail polish. In 2009, US researchers sparked concern with an article describing how two nail bar regulars had developed skin cancer on the backs of their hands. However, the researchers weren’t able to make any strong conclusions about whether the UV nail lamps were responsible, and a separate 2018 review of the literature concluded that the cancer risk from nail lamps is low. Nevertheless, the authors of the review…

HOW DOES MEDICINE USE EVOLVE? As with every evolved trait, it’s down to natural selection. An animal that comes across a new behaviour that’s beneficial in some way is more likely to survive and pass that behaviour on to its offspring. A nice example of this comes from monarch butterflies, the caterpillars of which only feed on milkweed plants. Monarch butterflies are often infected with deadly parasites, and infected female monarchs tend to lay eggs on milkweed species that have higher concentrations of parasite-killing chemicals called ‘cardenolides’. Prof Jaap de Roode of Emory University in Atlanta, US, has shown that this can reduce levels of infection in the butterflies’ caterpillars, and that uninfected monarch butterflies don’t show the same milkweed preference. WHAT KINDS OF MEDICINE DO ANIMALS USE? There’s growing…

1 DISNEY+ Launched last year, the new Disney subscription service rivals platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Stream your favourite films from Disney and Pixar, plus content from Marvel and National Geographic, both owned by Disney. The streaming service has been out in the US for some time now, so we’re already excited about the chance to check out some of the exclusive Disney+ originals, including Star Wars: The Mandalorian, The World According to Jeff Goldblum and a live-action remake of Lady and the Tramp, as well as the beloved classics. £5.99 a month or £59.99 a year 2 CAMBRIDGE SCIENCE FESTIVAL The 26th Cambridge Science Festival looks to the past to predict a vision of the future. Expect fantastic exhibitions, workshops, talks, art and music. 9-22 March 3 HOWTHELIGHTGETSIN…

WHAT’S THE BIGGEST MYTH ABOUT PERIODS? That the menstrual cycle repeats itself regularly every 28 days. This is the average length, but there’s a huge healthy range, from 21 to 40 days, and the length typically varies by two to four days each time. It’s a problem because people whose periods don’t fit into a 28-day pattern can feel like there’s something wrong. WHY DO SOME PEOPLE GET SUCH HEAVY PERIODS? Average menstrual blood loss is about 30ml to 45ml, or two to three tablespoons per period, but again there’s a range. Technically, anything over 80ml is considered heavy. It’s thought there is a genetic component. Annoyingly, anaemia can also trigger heavier periods, creating a vicious cycle! IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO TRACK PERIODS WITH AN APP? I think…

Dangerous Visions: Body Horror Developed through the Wellcome Trust Experimental stories scheme, this three-part series is part of BBC Radio 4’s Dangerous Visions season, and presents radio dramas that discuss dystopian versions of our future. Begins 11 March, 14:15 Religion in the Digital Age This four-part series asks how technology has changed the practise of religion. BBC World Service, Sundays at 9:30am Comedy Club Extra: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is 42 Celebrate the phenomena that redefined the sci-fi genre – and is funny to boot – in this five-hour special. BBC Radio 4 Extra, 8 March, from 8pm…

Deadly serious In the Christmas issue, I read about the possibility of having babies without pregnancy (p56) and that death could be reversible (p57). These concepts taken together could raise a distinctly difficult scenario in the future. Given the current population growth potential, could we ultimately reach a point where a future birth can only be justified by a death? K Cherry, Nuneaton, via email On the fly Your photograph of the dead fly’s unhappy encounter with the Cordycepsfungus (January, p6) should never have been published in a family magazine. The shock of it sent me into a dead faint, from which I recovered only after the administration of smelling salts and a necessarily generous glass of medicinal whisky. I shall probably need counselling, but I am sure that, one…

Migraine sufferers experience increased or extreme sensitivity to light and sound, and a new study from the University of Birmingham and the University of Lancaster could finally explain why. Migraines are a neurological condition characterised by intense, debilitating headaches. An estimated six million people suffer from migraines in the UK – approximately 11 per cent of the population. The study found that people who suffer from migraine headaches appear to have a hyper-excitable visual cortex, which is the part of the brain that receives, integrates and processes visual information from the retinas. “Most migraineurs also report experiencing abnormal visual sensations in their everyday life, for example, elementary hallucinations, visual discomforts and extra light sensitivity,” said lead author Dr Terence Chun Yuen Fong. In the research, 60 volunteers – half of…

Playing golf at least once a month could lower the risk of death among adults aged 65 and older, according to the American Heart Association. Over the course of 10 years, the team analysed data from nearly 5,900 male and female participants with an average age of 72. Of the participants, there was a lower rate of death among the golfers compared to the non-golfers (15.1 per cent versus 24.6 per cent). The researchers say that golf offers benefits like social interaction, a competitive element and fresh air, and as it’s a gentle form of exercise, people are able to continue taking part as they get older.…

An investigation into the animal remains in the Sahara Desert has revealed that humans living there 10,000 years ago were eating fish for their supper. Researchers from the Natural History Museum in Belgium and the Sapienza University of Rome excavated a total of 17,551 bones, including those of fish, toads or frogs, crocodiles and birds. Archaeologists have previously found evidence that for much of the early Holocene (around 10,200 to 8,000 years ago) the Tadrart Acacus mountains in the Saharan Desert were more humid than they are today. “It is hard to say how much water was there,” said Prof Savino di Lernia, the lead author of the study along with Prof Wim Van Neer. “During the early Holocene there were permanent water bodies with plenty of fish, but things…

1.Two new hospitals sprung up in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei province, in the first week of February. It had taken less than two weeks to go from breaking ground on the site to admitting the first patients. The two new hospitals – the 1,000-bed Huoshenshan (pictured) and 1,600-bed Leishenshan – are based on the design of Beijing’s Xiaotangshan hospital, which was built to cope with 2003’s SARS outbreak. Huoshenshan and Leishenshan were made from prefabricated units to get them built quickly. 2.Three ‘field’ hospitals were also being set up in Wuhan in early February. The pictured 2,000-bed facility was in a building that, until the coronavirus outbreak, had been an exhibition centre. Another of the city’s exhibition centres and a gym have also been commandeered to handle the…

Between the Internet of Things and smart cities, by 2030 we expect half a trillion objects to be connected to the internet, from streetlamps to autonomous cars, factories and clothes. The overwhelming majority will rely on 5G and its successor, making wireless technology essential to our daily life, our security and economy. British internet providers are already upgrading their networks alongside existing 4G hardware. On the consumer side, the first 5G-capable smartphones hit the market last year, and the UK has allowed Huawei to help build ‘non-core’ parts of the 5G network. This has been met with concern, because China seems to be building a surveillance state that is tracking, ranking and controlling its entire population. “Huawei may not be able to resist pressures by the Chinese government to disrupt…

1. A giant-killing trainer Euclid Chipchoge wore these shoes when he ran the world’s first sub-2-hour marathon, and they finally go on sale this month. Their release was delayed, as the World Athletics organisation wanted examine the design before deciding they were race-legal. The trainers rely on carbon fibre plates, foam and ‘airbags’ – Nike calls them Air Pods – to reduce the energy lost when a runner’s foot strikes the ground, quite literally putting a spring in their step. Running pundits believe the arrival of this shoe will see a series of records tumble at the next Olympics. Nike Air Zoom Alphafly NEXT%, price TBC Nike.com 2. The lamp’s Second Coming Dyson has a habit of making us reconsider the mundane. In this case, the Lightcycle Morph…

POOP TO CONQUER In the natural world, a good way of not being eaten is to look like something that has no nutritional value – or, better still, tastes revolting. This sophisticated form of defence is known as ‘masquerade’. It’s not the same as camouflage – that’s simply hiding, says masquerade expert Dr John Skelhorn at Newcastle University. Take this ‘bird poop frog’ (Theloderma asperum) of Southeast Asia. Its predators, such as snakes and birds, may notice it squatting on a leaf, but misidentify it as avian splatter and carry on. “Bird droppings are perfect for masquerade as they’re so common in the environment,” says Skelhorn, adding that posture is often part of the foolery. “When I held one of these little frogs, it tucked its limbs in so convincingly.…

These are the elementary particles, which together make up the Standard Model of particle physics. All of the atoms in the Universe are built using only the electrons and the ‘up’ and ‘down’ quarks. These interact with each other and stick together with the help of gluons and photons. Gluons transmit what is known as the ‘strong force’ that binds together quarks to make protons and neutrons, the building blocks of atomic nuclei. Photons transmit the electromagnetic force that acts between electrically charged particles, like electrons. The other particles in the table are also important, but for less evident reasons. For example, around 60 billion electron neutrinos stream through every square centimetre of your body every second. These neutrinos are made inside the Sun, as a by-product of the process…

If an anteater and a pinecone had children, this is what they’d look like. The pangolin is the only mammal to sport an armour of scales. These sharp, overlapping plates cover the animal’s entire body, apart from its snout and belly, and, when threatened, a pangolin will curl itself into a ball, helping to deter predators such as lions, tigers and hyenas. Pangolins don’t have teeth. Instead, they feed on ants and termites using a sticky tongue which is rooted in the animal’s chest and can be up to 40cm long – sometimes longer than the pangolin itself! Pangolins also swallow small stones, which help to grind up the insects inside their stomach. Their powerful front claws are great for breaking into termite mounds, but rubbish for walking. There are…

Finding solace in nature The Horizonsinterview with Dr Alan Teo (February, p24) about hikikomoriand social isolation was interesting. My question is, could it be a reaction of some more sensitive individuals to the overcrowding that we constantly experience, especially in cities? I have no desire to be in social isolation and I prefer to communicate in person rather than by phone, but I find it increasingly difficult to cope with crowded environments such as shopping centres and railway stations. So much so that I gave up going on overseas holidays in favour of quiet walks in the local countryside where one can see more animals than people. Elena Holden, via email Some individuals have anxiety, such as agoraphobia, where there is avoidance of these types of crowds and situations. That…

Bumblebee populations have declined in recent decades. One reason for this is a lack of flowers, and bees can be picky about the blooms they visit, according to research published in the journal Environmental Entomology. It was found that of 100 flower species, 14 were the preferred choice of the bees, with different bee species favouring different flowers. “This study allowed us to provide a concise, scientifically based list of important plant species to use in habitat restoration that will meet the needs of multiple bumblebee species and provide blooms across the entire annual lifecycle,” said Helen Loffland, who took part in the research.…

NERVOUS FLYERS Breathe easy, nervous flyers, it’s never been safer to fly on commercial airlines, a study at MIT has found. Passenger fatalities between 2008 and 2017 fell to one in nearly eight million boardings. That’s down from one in 2.7 million between 1998 and 2007, and one in 1.3 million between 1988 and 1997. CYCLISTS It’s time to squeeze into some Lycra: cycling to work can reduce your likelihood of dying by up to 13 per cent, a study by the University of Otago in New Zealand has found. There was no reduction in mortality for those who walked or took public transport.…

It’s commonly believed that one-third of all food is thrown away, but this “grossly underestimates the extent of food wasted,” according to researchers in the Netherlands. They found food wastage to be rising rapidly from those with a daily spend of £5.20 or more. The ‘one-third’ figure was first estimated in 2005 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), who found food waste to be 214 calories per person, per day. However, this didn’t account for differences in income and buying habits. The new study estimates it to be almost double, at 527 calories a day.…

Between 1960 and 2017, fertility rates dropped dramatically around the world, with the global average falling from around five births per woman, to under 2.5. Fertility rates are generally higher in the countries with lower GDP. This is due to a number of factors, including lack of access to contraceptives, lower levels of female education, and a desire to have children for labour. As populations gain greater access to contraception, and more women enter education and work, fertility rates drop. Another key reason for the drop is that child mortality rates are also falling, which means that women are setting out to have fewer babies.…

INSULATE YOUR HOME The energy used by most people in their homes still comes from fossil fuels, leading to around 20 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. But people can take steps to reduce their energy use – and bills – according to the Energy Saving Trust. Homeowners can insulate roofs and walls, and use double glazing in good condition. Simply draught-proofing doors and windows can stop homes from losing heat, and is something many people can do themselves. However, make sure not to block any intentional ventilation, such as extractor fans, so that air can still flow through the building.…

WHAT IS IT? This is a glimpse of where Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and other car manufacturers, think the future of urban motoring is going. Project Vector is an autonomous shuttle (albeit with a steering wheel and pedals, just in case) that will ferry students around Warwick University’s campus sometime this year, eventually taking passengers all the way into Coventry city centre by 2021. The vehicle uses a skateboard chassis – a simple four-metre long platform with wheels – that can be configured to support different bodies, powered by an electric motor. For now, the car is a six-seater pod, with a top speed of 30mph and a driver at the wheel to help out in the early stages. But the body could be swapped out altogether, to become a…

Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana accidentally wake up and start recording what they hear up to 19 times a day. “ONCE ON, THE DEVICES WOULD TYPICALLY RECORD AT LEAST THE NEXT SIX SECONDS OF CONVERSATION” Anyone who’s used a digital assistant knows they have a habit of ‘waking up’ – making a sound or lighting up to indicate they’re listening – when they shouldn’t. The systems are listening out for key phrases, or ‘wake words’ like “Hey Google” or “Siri”, before they turn on and start recording in anticipation of a voice query. But these digital eager beavers often jump the gun mistaking the word “seriously” for “Siri”, for example, as an invitation to listen in. The Mon(IoT)r research group at Northeastern University…

Outrage has become the defining emotion of the 21st Century, worn righteously, as a finger-pointing badge of honour. From the backlash against Yorkshire Tea, when Conservative politician Rishi Sunak was photographed with a packet of it in February this year, to the outrage from both sides over Brexit, the Twitter hordes are waiting, spring-loaded, to call out anyone who is ideologically opposed to them. Anger is being baited, owned and exalted like never before. “THE OUTRAGE AND THE HUNGRY BAYING FOR BLOOD – OFTEN WITH SCANT ATTENTION TO CONTEXT – HAS BECOME A DISTURBING PHENOMENON” No matter where you stand on each individual case, the outrage and the hungry baying for blood – often with scant attention being paid to context, and with no compassion for someone who may have…

1 SYNTHETIC MEDIA UNDERMINES REALITY The entertainment world will literally create the next generation of stars You know about deepfake technology, where someone’s face is switched into an existing video scene. But deepfakes are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to synthetic media – a much wider phenomenon of super-realistic, artificially generated photos, text, sound and video that seems destined to shake our notions of what is actually ‘real’ over the next decade. Take a look at the website below. Hit refresh a few times. None of the faces you see are real. Uncannily realistic, they are entirely synthetic – generated by generative adversarial networks, the same type of artificial intelligence behind many deepfakes. These false photos show just how far synthetic media has come in the…

WHAT YOU’LL NEED ■ Paper ■ Two ice lolly sticks ■ One wide rubber band ■ Four thin rubber bands ■ Scissors WHAT TO DO 1. Cut out four paper rectangles, each roughly 4cm x 1cm. 2. Fold each piece of paper in half down its length three times to give four folded pieces of paper, each roughly 0.5cm x 1cm. 3. Stretch the wide rubber band around the length of one of the lolly sticks. 4. Place one folded piece of paper on top of the rubber band at one end of the stick. 5. Put the second stick on top so that the piece of paper is sandwiched between the sticks. 6. Cut off any paper sticking out from between the sticks. 7. Wrap a thin elastic band…

SACHIN SHAW, VIA EMAIL IS THERE ANYWHERE THAT’S COMPLETELY BACTERIA-FREE? Bacteria have colonised the planet more thoroughly than any other class of organism. They live 11km deep in the Pacific Ocean, and at altitudes of 40km, near the top of the stratosphere. There are bacteria that live in solid rock, metabolising radioactive waste, and even some that survive in boiling water. The incredibly dry Atacama Desert in Chile was once thought to be lifeless, but in 2006 scientists found bacteria there that take advantage of the minute amounts of moisture absorbed from the air by salty rocks. In our own environment, we can reduce the number of bacteria but not eliminate them entirely. One species has even evolved to survive the rigorous sterilisation process used in NASA clean rooms. In…