Table of contents for January 2020 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

Confused by food nutrition labels? You’re not alone. Now, researchers have suggested an alternative: labelling the amount and type of exercise needed to burn off the calories. Current food and drink labels display nutritional information such as the amount of calories and fat. However, researchers led by Prof Amanda Daley at Loughborough University say that these labels are having a limited effect on changing buying habits. Instead, they propose a labelling system called ‘physical activity calorie equivalent or expenditure’ (PACE), which shows how many minutes or miles of physical activity are needed to burn off the calories. For example, a small bar of milk chocolate contains 230 calories, which would take about 42 minutes of walking, or 22 minutes of running, to burn off. They pooled the data from 14…

The daily oral contraceptive pill revolutionised birth control when it was introduced to the UK in 1961, but since then the field has seen little innovation. That could soon change, because researchers at Harvard Medical School and MIT are working on a slow-release pill that only needs to be taken once a month rather than daily. The new pill features six arms that unfold once swallowed to prevent the pill from rapidly exiting the stomach. So far the pill has only been tested in pigs, but the team hopes to begin human trials in the near future.…

On 9 December 2019 the volcano on White Island, about 50km away from the northeast coast of New Zealand’s North Island, erupted explosively. Of the 47 people on the island at the time, 18 were killed and many more severely injured. White Island has been classified as New Zealand’s most active volcano since 1976, when it began a period of 24 years of almost continuous eruption. A second period of eruption started in 2011 and continues today. Volcanologist Prof Bill McGuire takes us through what happened. HOW MUCH OF A SURPRISE WAS THE WHITE ISLAND ERUPTION? The eruption came as no surprise to volcanologists. Like Stromboli, which lies in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the western coast of Italy, Mount Etna on the eastern coast of Sicily, and Kilauea in Hawaii,…

When it comes to mental health, smartphones usually get a bad rap – studies have linked their overuse to loneliness, depression and sleep deprivation. But there’s also a growing wellbeing movement built around our phones. A search for ‘mental health’ on the App Store or Google Play throws up hundreds of apps geared towards every aspect of our mental health. There are apps that assess and diagnose our state of mind; apps that allow us to track our feelings and thoughts; apps that provide coping tools such as meditation and cognitive behavioural therapy; and even therapy chatbots. According to an NHS Digital survey from 2014, around one in six of us experiences depression or an anxiety disorder in any given week. With mental health services increasingly stretched, can these apps…

Conventional solar cells can be rendered see-through by puncturing them with holes thinner than the width of a human hair. The team behind the breakthrough hopes that the tech could one day be used to build office blocks that are powered by their windows. “THE ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO LIMIT THE DEMAND THAT SKYSCRAPERS PUT ON THE POWER GRID” Most solar cells sat on top of household roofs are opaque. The darker they are, the better they absorb solar energy. They’re mostly made out of a glass-like material called crystalline silicon, which is stable and efficient. Filling the surface area on top of a house with these cells can provide enough energy to power what’s inside, but the same isn’t true of a tower block or skyscraper where the roof…

“THE JAGUAR I-PACE eTROPHY HAS GENERATED A HUGE AMOUNT OF DATA FOR US TO ANALYSE” Jaguar is promising to add 20 kilometres (12 miles) of range to its I-PACE all-electric cars through a free software update. This extra performance has been eked out of the car, thanks to learnings from Jaguar’s I-PACE eTROPHY race that supports Formula E motorsport. The new program will increase the I-PACE’s stated range of 470 kilometres (292 miles) by 4 per cent. “The Jaguar I-PACE eTROPHY has generated a huge amount of data for us to analyse, and those marginal gains, derived from competition on the track, are now being applied to customers’ cars,” says Stephen Boulter, I-PACE vehicle engineering manager. The software update allows the battery to trickle down to a lower level of…

ENERGY AT THE EDGE The 70 or so islands of Orkney may be isolated, sitting off the northernmost tip of the Scottish mainland, but they’re at the heart of an energy revolution. The seaport town of Stromness (pictured), on the largest island (‘Mainland’), draws visitors from Silicon Valley, Chile, Taiwan and everywhere in between, seeking to find out how Orkney is able to produce so much renewable energy – more than it can actually use. First stop is often the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), which is based in the town and is “the seed for all of the growth over the last 20 years,” according to renewable energy researcher Dr David Woolf at Heriot-Watt University, Orkney. The juxtaposition between historical and contemporary is a common theme in Orkney: the…

Thanks to our exploration of the Moon over the past decades, we now know that it is a potentially huge repository of natural wealth. For a start, there appears to be abundant water ice at the Moon’s south pole – crucial for setting up lunar bases or colonies. There are rare-earth metals such as neodymium and lanthanum, which are used in technologies like speakers, smartphones, batteries and camera lenses, and there are plenty of other useful metals, such as silicon, titanium and aluminium. What’s more, it’s thought that the Moon’s surface has a relatively high concentration of a rare isotope of helium called ‘helium-3’, which could be used to power future nuclear fusion reactors. Companies are already drawing up plans to develop the technology to mine the Moon. But what…

WHAT YOU’LL NEED ■ 3-4 red cabbage leaves ■ Blender (optional) ■ Warm tap water (400ml approx) ■ Sieve ■ Jug ■ Drinking glasses ■ Substances to test, such as: lemon juice, vinegar, washing-up liquid, baking soda, milk, shampoo, egg ■ A straw (optional) WHAT TO DO 1. Tear up cabbage leaves and place in blender. 2. Cover cabbage leaves with the warm water. 3. Blend cabbage and water until the water turns dark purple. (If you don’t have a blender, finely chop the cabbage leaves and pour boiling water over them. Allow to cool before sieving into a jug. Go to step 5.) 4. Pour contents of blender through sieve, keeping the purple liquid in a jug. 5. Pour about 50ml of the purple liquid into a glass and…

EVERYONE I KNOW LOVES LISTENING TO MUSIC, BUT IT DOES NOTHING FOR ME… WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME? We tend to think of musical enjoyment as universal – after all, music features in every culture around the globe, and even tiny babies love jiggling and giggling along to a beat. But this sweeping generalisation ignores the approximately 5 to 10 per cent of people, like you, who have ‘musical anhedonia’ and derive no pleasure from music. So you are certainly not alone. People with musical anhedonia tend to be able to enjoy other aesthetic outlets, such as reading, films and art, and they don’t have a problem comprehending music. They just have no emotional response to it (people with ‘amusia’, in contrast, have difficulty recognising musical tones, but can still be…

CERIAN BOLTON, ELY WHAT IS THE EVOLUTIONARY BENEFIT OF MORNING SICKNESS DURING PREGNANCY? Morning sickness in pregnancy appears to be unique to humans, and it seems that women with more severe morning sickness have a lower rate of miscarriage. There are two main theories to explain why we might have evolved this. The first is that the nausea is commonly associated with an aversion to meat and strong tastes, and this might be a way of steering the mother away from foods that might cause food poisoning, especially early in pregnancy when the foetus is most vulnerable. The second theory is that morning sickness is caused by the hormones secreted by healthy foetuses, which are important for building the placenta in the first trimester. In that case, the nausea is…

Addicted To Painkillers? Britain’s Opioid Crisis This Horizon special with our own columnist Dr Michael Mosley investigates the use of opioids both here and in America. He meets patients with chronic pain who are on the route to an addiction, and speaks to the GPs struggling to find ways to help them. Mid-January, BBC Two Art Of Now: The Last Exposure Garry Fabian Miller has spent 30 years creating camera-less photography – using photosensitive paper, long exposures and images funnelled into shapes made by the Sun. But the solution he uses to develop his prints is no longer in production. We join him as he sets foot in a darkroom for the last time. Tuesday 14 January, 11:30am, BBC Radio 4 Einstein’s Quantum Riddle Einstein said that quantum entanglement –…

“DNA IS A WONDERFUL, COMPLICATED MACHINE THAT LINKS PHYSICS AND THE HISTORY OF LIFE ON EARTH TO THE ENVIRONMENT”PROF SONIA CONTERA , p64 What’s in a game? In response to ‘Heading and dementia: are footballers putting themselves at risk?’ (December, p34), I wanted to point out that in my school there was no question of consent: sports were compulsory, any threat of injury being ‘all part of the game’. I may be doing them an injustice, but I can imagine my sports teachers, and many others, being prepared to tolerate the occasional case of brain damage among their students for the sake of the game. I do not believe that this is a desirable attitude, either for the students or more generally – this country benefiting far more from another…

YOUTHFUL PERIODS OF STRESS COULD LEAD TO LATER SUCCESS Feeling stressed? Don’t worry, a little bit of stress at a young age could have a protective effect, according to researchers at the University of Michigan. While studying Caenorhabditis elegans roundworms, the team discovered that juvenile worms that produced more oxidants and free radicals – substances associated with stress and ageing – ended up living longer than worms that produced less. The researchers also found that exposing the young worms to external oxidants during development led to longer lifespans. “Experiencing stress at this early point in life may make you better able to fight stress you might encounter later in life,” said Dr Daphne Bazopoulou, who led the research.…

A team from Taiwan’s China Medical University compared health data from nearly 23 million people spanning from 2000 to 2013 with air pollution data over the same period. They found that high levels of two types of pollutants, total hydrocarbons (THC) and nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHC), produced by transportation, coal power plants, and other gaseous emissions could increase the risk of ischemic stroke – when an artery to the brain is blocked – by a factor of three.…

ATHLETES Taking up a sport can give your brain cells a boost, according to a study carried out at Northwestern University, Illinois. The brains of athletes can damp down background noise, allowing them to concentrate on relevant sounds more effectively, the researchers say. CHILLI EATERS Regularly consuming spicy peppers may help to cut the risk of heart attack or stroke, Italian researchers have found. A study of nearly 23,000 participants found that the risk of dying from a heart attack is 40 per cent lower in chilli eaters, while the risk of dying from cerebrovascular complications is halved.…

FUEL OVERREACH By 2030, the world is set to burn over twice as much fossil fuel than the target needed to keep global temperature rises below 1.5°C, according to a report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Scientists expect temperature rises above this limit would worsen the impacts of climate change, such as drought and flood risks. The findings call for a “sharpened and long overdue focus on fossil fuels” wrote Inger Andersen, executive director of the UNEP, in the report’s preface. Countries could limit fossil fuel production by removing subsidies and aligning their production plans with climate goals, the report said. SUNLIGHT PRODUCES GREENER CEMENT Heliogen, a clean energy firm backed by Bill Gates, has unveiled its solar technology intended to cut the carbon of heavy industry. The firm…

1. This girdled lizard (Cordylusphonolithos) is found on Serra da Neve Inselberg, Namibe Province, southwestern Angola. 2. This dazzling sea slug species (Janolustricellariodes) is found in the Philippines. 3. This cave-dwelling harvestman (Lolakonavoka) is adapted to life in the dark. It is found in Croatia and is already critically endangered. 4. This cardinalfish species (Siphamiaarnazae) has giant, cat-like eyes and is found in Papua New Guinea. 5. This colourful, shimmery fish (Cirrhilabruswakanda) was named the ‘vibranium fairy wrasse’ after the fictional metal found in the Marvel Universe that was used to construct Captain America’s shield and Black Panther’s suit. Its Latin name is a reference to the fictional country of Wakanda – home of Black Panther. The fish was discovered at a depth of 60 metres in the ocean off…

This subterranean mammal looks like a furball trying to swallow a fat, fleshy spider. Native to the eastern parts of North America and Canada, it snuffles through the tunnels that it carves with its sturdy front claws. Living in the dark, its eyes are essentially useless, and it locates its prey via the 11 pairs of finger-like tentacles that surround its snout. This star-like appendage is densely packed with more than 100,000 nerve fibres, all squashed into an area smaller than a human fingertip. Thanks to this sensitive touch organ, the mole takes a mere eight milliseconds to decide whether or not something is edible, identifying and eating a grub in less than a quarter of a second. So the next time you chide your teenager for bolting their meal,…

Earthquakes have killed countless people throughout history, but their cause was long based on little more than guesswork. Almost 2,000 years ago, a Chinese scholar took the first step towards the science of seismology by inventing an earthquake-detecting ‘seismoscope’. Born in the town of Xi’e in eastern China in 78 AD, Zhang Heng began his career as a civil servant. By his mid-30s, though, his brilliance had led him to join the court of the Emperor of China, and while there he became interested in the deadly phenomenon of earthquakes. In 132 AD, Zhang built a device designed to detect and locate distant earthquakes. It took the form of a bronze urn with eight dragon heads equally spaced around its circumference. Inside, a delicate pendulum mechanism detected the ground movement…

1 CHRIS PACKHAM: 7.7 BILLION PEOPLE & COUNTING BBC Two Environmentalist Chris Packham finds out whether Earth can meet the demands of 10 billion people, predicted by the UN to be the world’s population by the year 2050. In the March 2019 issue of BBC Science Focus, Chris told us that his “greatest worry of all is human population growth”. In this documentary, he visits Nigeria, the country on track to become the third most populous nation in the next 30 years, and chats to Sir David Attenborough about the charity Population Matters. January, check Radio Times 2 RSPB BIG GARDEN BIRDWATCH Take an hour to note the birds in your garden and help the RSPB gauge the state of Britain’s wildlife. rspb.org.uk/birdwatch 25-27 January 3 RICHARD HAMMOND’S BIG! Discovery Channel…

Cleaning for cleaning’s sake In October, you asked if there was such a thing as being too clean (p34) and if readers would give up washing. These were the wrong questions to ask. You should have asked, “How clean is clean enough?” and “Have you thought about the impact of your daily shower on the environment?” I am 79 years old. For more than half my life I lived without a shower. As a child, bath night was once a week. During the war, and post-war austerity, we had a bath with water no more than five inches deep. We weren’t dirty. I think everyone should adopt the minimum wash regime. It is not just the power used to heat the water that is damaging. The provision of clean water,…

YOUNGSTERS A study at the University of California has found ‘meaning in life’ peaks at age 60. When you’re young, you are unsure about your career, your relationships, and who you are as a person, and you are searching for meaning in life. But as you get older, the search decreases and the meaning in life increases. MOBILE PHONE ZOMBIES Facial cuts, bruises and fractures are a surprisingly common result of owning a mobile phone, a study by plastic surgeons at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School has found. Many of the injuries were the result of texting or reading texts while walking, then tripping over an obstacle and landing face down. Ouch.…

HELP WILDLIFE AT HOME There are lots of ways you can support nature in your garden, says the RSPB. Planting a mix of herbaceous, biennial and annual flowering plants can benefit wildlife, for example. Single-petalled flower varieties are usually better for insects than those with multiple layers of petals. Trees, shrubs and mixed-shrub hedgerows that provide berries for birds can be planted in the winter, as long as the ground isn’t frozen or waterlogged. You can also help to monitor the UK’s birdlife by taking part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. The project asks people to spend an hour outside counting birds in late January.…

WHAT OTHER TERMS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE HAVE BEEN SUGGESTED? In May 2019, The Guardian announced that it was changing the language used around environmental issues. The key difference is that it will no longer use the term ‘climate change’, instead referring to the ‘climate crisis’. This followed the UN’s secretary general António Guterres use of the term in a speech in September 2018. At the same time, The Guardian dropped ‘global warming’ in favour of ‘global heating’ and replaced ‘biodiversity’ with ‘wildlife’, among other changes. The move to ‘global heating’ is supported by Prof Richard Betts, climate scientist at the Met Office, who recommended the change while speaking at the UN climate summit in December 2018. Then, in November, branding expert Aaron Hall challenged a team of marketers to come…

Nostalgia is big business these days. With sequels, prequels and spin-offs hitting our screens, it seems that film and TV studios know exactly which heart strings to tug at to get us to spend our money. Just take a look at Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian, which premiered on Disney+ at the end of last year. Analytics firms have described The Mandalorian as the most in-demand series in the world. So why does nostalgia hold so much power over us? DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN… ? “We share a tendency to prefer the music, books, films and famous people that we first encountered during our teenage years” Feelings of nostalgia play an important role in creating and maintaining relationships. Many of us know what it is like to bond over a…

What is it? The Quest is a VR headset that doesn’t need a computer, a games console or a suite of external sensors to power it. It was first released last year, and now, thanks to a new update, it can track your hands and send them into the virtual world, ditching the need for clunky controllers. So what? Virtual reality is all about immersion: leap into the virtual world and leave your fleshy husk behind. Controllers just get in the way. So far, VR headsets have relied on handheld remotes that you have to learn to use while playing. For example, if you want to pick up a mug, you squeeze a trigger to grasp an object. Would Keanu put up with that? How does it work? The headset…

1. A real-life Tonka Truck When the world crumbles into a Mad Max -esque wasteland, this will be our weapon of choice. The Sherp promises to go anywhere and looks like it can; its high ground clearance and low-pressure tyres mean it can clamber up rockfaces and wade through rivers. And just like a toy truck, it comes with a range of trailers, including a medical module and an ‘Ark’ for living out in the wilderness. All we need to do now is figure out how to afford one. Sherp ATV $119,000 (£89,000 approx), sherpatv.com 2. Motorised surfboards Let’s be honest, if most of us actually got a chance to ride a motorised surfboard, we’d probably spend more time off it than on it. That doesn’t make us…

Don’t throw your sweets out Now the New Year has arrived, it might seem like a good idea to throw out any sweets left over from Christmas to avoid the temptation. Well, don’t. In one experiment, researchers at Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium put temptation in the way of student volunteers in the form of a bowl of Quality Street they were not allowed to eat. When they later had M&Ms placed in front of them, they ate fewer than the students who hadn’t had the Quality Street temptation. Learning to resist temptation can have a powerful effect. Swill a sugary drink Having a quick hit of glucose by drinking a sugary drink can boost your willpower, several studies appear to show. Weirdly, you don’t even need to drink…

Over the last few months, I have been turning myself into a superhero. Not a very good one though, as the only person I can save is myself and my special powers are the ability to bleed, spit and defecate. But by collecting my bodily fluids to measure aspects of my biology – ‘biometrics’ – and tracking my activity, I have become ‘Metric Man’. Using technology to quantify your life, known as ‘self-tracking’ or ‘quantified self’, has become easy thanks to the availability of affordable wearable devices and direct-to-consumer tests. For example, the price of sequencing a whole human genome has dropped dramatically: in 2003 it cost scientists $3bn to read almost every letter in our DNA, but today a company will do it for just £150. Dozens of companies…

IS MATHS A TOOL? One way of seeing maths is as a tool that we harness to make our lives easier. Today, maths underpins everything from the functioning of our phones to the architecture of the buildings we live in. But it started out as something even more basic: as a way of keeping count. The earliest evidence for this is prehistoric tally sticks, such as the ‘Ishango bone’. This 20,000-year-old baboon’s bone was found in Central Africa, carved with what look like tally marks. Another useful tool came along in the 7th Century AD, when the Indian mathematician Brahmagupta formally wrote down the rules for computing with zero and negative numbers. This provided a way of quantifying an important real-world concept: debt. IS MATHS A LANGUAGE? Just as conventional…

I’M FEELING DREADFUL. WHERE DO I BEGIN? Our studies found that hot blackcurrant cordial is great at easing coughs and sore throats, but it can be any hot flavoured drink. Honey and lemon is good. The tastier the better as this helps to promote salivation and mucus secretion, which lubricates and soothes the throat. SHOULD I ADD A LITTLE BRANDY TO MY HOT LEMON? Alcohol in moderation is a sedative, so it can help you sleep and stop coughing. Don’t overdo it though because alcohol dilates the blood vessels in the nose and can make it become more blocked. MY MUM SWEARS BY HOT SOUP. COULD SHE BE ON TO SOMETHING? Soup is hot and tasty so that works well, but our research shows that sweet tastes are good because…