BBC Knowledge - December 2014 in

4th Anniversary Special
A Times of India publication
Volume 5 Issue 1
December 2014 `125
SCIENCE HISTORY NATURE FOR THE CURIOUS MIND
TOPLED
A
E
V
E
R
10
OF EVERYTHING
Human Evolution Animal Kingdom Space The Earth
Technology Transport History Human Planet Science
R.N.I. MAHENG/2010/35422
contents
12
Human Evolution
The flesh and bones of Homo sapiens
from key fossil finds to endangered
languages and record-breaking people
in history.

20
Volume 5 Issue 1
December 2014 `125
TOPLED
REVEA
10
Animal Kingdom
The features of creatures
the biggest, the fastest, the
strongest, the oldest, the most
dangerous and the weirdest
animals on the planet.
OF EVERYTHING
30

R.N.I. MAHENG/2010/35422
Space
thinkstock x9, alamy
regulars
6 Q&A
Our panel of experts answer the questions youve

always wanted to ask
88 In Focus
The Indian Space Research Organisation - its

beginnings, legacy and future missions
December 2014
Incredible journeys into

the cosmos, from the first
astronauts (human and
other animals) to the biggest
things in space.
38
62
The Earth
History
Biggest deserts.
Coldest places.
Longest rivers. Largest lakes. The most
extreme places on our planet.
The cities, ancient marvels and battles

but also the mysteries and myths,
hoaxes and empires, disasters and
doomed expeditions.
72
46
Technology
Human Planet
The appliance of science

from the tiny tech marvels
in your pocket to the
engineering feats that have
transformed the world.
Discover how weve

moulded the world around
us the biggest and smallest
countries, the tallest buildings,
the highest cities...
80
54
Transport
From the wheel to the space shuttle,
follow the development of movement
through the ages ever faster, bigger
and more dynamic.
Science
Who discovered what,
when? The big breakthroughs
and the men and women who transformed
our understanding of the physical world.
from the editor

You know that line from the movie Forrest Gump? 'Life
is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you
are going to get. Well, putting together each issue of
Knowledge has been just like that. We begin with a
curiosity and that question takes a life of its own. Our
world is so full of wonders and revelations, constantly
taking our breath away the minute we scratch the surface.
And scratch and dig we did. The Top 10 of Everything.
From the lives of Animals to the sphere of Technology,
Transport, Human Evolution, Space, History and much more. The fastest,
the biggest, the best. An elaborate 71-page glimpse of the extraordinary that
surrounds us.
This special digest celebrates BBCKs 4th year anniversary this month. And it
also embodies the spirit of whats yet to come.
An exciting Quiz Contest in search of the brightest young minds across India,
BRAINIAC will test the spirit of enquiry and the eagerness for knowledge of
students from all over the country. BRAINIAC is about to open soon, so turn
to page 28 for details and stay tuned to www.knowledgemagazine.in/brainiac/
[email protected]
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&
Your Questions Answered

Can consciousness be switched on and off? p7 Why is the hole
in the ozone layer over Antarctica, if its uninhabited? p8
Expert PANEL
Susan Blackmore (SB)
A visiting professor at the

University of Plymouth, UK,
Susan is an expert on psychology
and evolution.
Robert Matthews
Robert is a writer and researcher.

He is a Visiting Reader in Science
at Aston University, UK.
Can any animal see in

pure darkness?
Luis Villazon
Luis has a BSc in computing and

an MSc in zoology from Oxford.
His works include How Cows
Reach The Ground.
This rattlesnake can

sense where you are
in total darkness with
infrared vision
corbis x2
Ask the Experts?

Email our panel at
[email protected] Were
sorry, but we cannot reply to
questions individually.
Even without visible light, pit

vipers, which include rattlesnakes,
can sense the infrared light given
off by any warm-blooded prey.
Their pit organs near the nostrils
dont have a lens, so the heat
image is fairly blurry. Many insects,
including bees, can see into the
ultraviolet, but ultraviolet light is
never present in nature without
some visible light as well, so its
no use in total darkness. Bats and
dolphins see by listening to the
pattern of echoes from their

high-pitched squeaks, and sharks
can sense the tiny electromagnetic
field generated by all living things.
Electroreception uses special
pores around the snout of the
shark, called ampullae of
Lorenzini. It only has a range of a
metre or two, but it allows sharks
to accurately close in on prey
even in total darkness or when
they are buried under sand on the
seabed. LV
Q&A
New research suggests

that a single brain region
may function as an on/off
switch for consciousness
top ten
Heaviest organs in the body

1. Skin: 4,535g
Function: Protects against
pathogens; provides insulation;
synthesizes vitamin D; regulates
temperature; provides sensation
2. Liver: 1,560g
Function: Breaks down toxins;
produces hormones, proteins and
digestive biochemicals; regulates
glycogen storage
3. Brain: 1,500g
Function: Drives executive
functions such as reasoning;
coordinates responses to
changes in environment
4. Lungs: 1,300g
Function: Supplies oxygen to
be distributed around the body;
expels carbon dioxide that is
created around the body
5. Heart: 300g
Can consciousness be
switched on and off?
Yes, if a recent experiment is to be
believed. In an attempt to locate the
source of an epileptic patients
seizures, doctors at George
Washington University, USA, inserted
electrodes into her brain. One
electrode was positioned close to
the claustrum, a thin sheet of tissue
below the cortex with a role akin to
that of an orchestras conductor
coordinating the many different
things that go on in the brain at
once. Consciousness typically
involves sights, sounds, thoughts
and feelings all coming together.

Could the claustrum be what makes
this possible?
When the doctors stimulated this
electrode the woman stayed awake
but lost consciousness. She stopped
what she was doing, stared blankly
into space and would not respond to
them. When the stimulation stopped
she regained consciousness. It
seems a whole, complex brain is
needed for rich experiences, but it
also needs the claustrum switch to
bring everything together. SB
Function: Pumps oxygenated blood

from lungs around the body; pumps
deoxygenated blood to the lungs
6. Kidneys: 260g (pair)

Function: Remove waste products;
regulate sodium and water
retention; filter blood; produce urine
and hormones
7. Spleen: 175g
Function: Filters blood; holds a
reserve supply of blood; recycles
iron; synthesizes antibodies;
removes bacteria
8. Pancreas: 70g
Function: Produces insulin and
glycogen; secretes enzymes that
assist in the absorption of nutrients
in the small intestine
9. Thyroid: 20g
What makes
things burn?
Combustion is simply a type of chemical
reaction that occurs between a source
of fuel and a source of oxygen, creating
heat plus new compounds. A source of
energy is often needed to split
apart the fuel and oxidiser molecules
for example, a spark. But once the
fragments start reacting,
the heat produced keeps the
process going. RM
getty, thinkstock
Function: Controls bodys energy

use; makes proteins; controls
hormone sensitivity
10. Prostate gland: 11g

Function: Secretes an alkaline fluid
that constitutes 50-75 per cent of the
volume of semen
December 2014
STATS
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Fire: a very
useful chemical
reaction indeed
STATS
VITAL
m st
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th sma ed
Q&A
ng
call
Is the le ect, a fairyfly
fairys
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K
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The Galapagos hawk;

a master of the art of
hovering flight
How do hawks
hover in the sky?
Which part of the brain

generates free will?
Alamy X2, science photo library
No part! Like many scientists, I dont believe we have

free will. If the power of thought alone could cause our
brains and muscles to act, it would be magic, because
every action, every decision and everything we say
depends on what happens in our brains and our
environment. Since Benjamin Libets ground-breaking
experiments in the 1980s we have known that the brain
activity associated with an action is detectable half a
second before a person decides to act. Since then,
scientists have predicted peoples decisions from brain
scans several seconds before they are made. This may
seem weird, but surely fits with everything we know
about how the brain works. Of course there can be
randomness too, and recent brain research has shown
that random events in a persons brain can also be
used to predict what they will do next. But randomness
doesnt give us free will. The real challenge seems not
how to find the causes of free will but to learn how to
live without believing in it. SB
Scientists have
been able to
detect the brain
activity of an
action half a
second before
its physically
carried out
October 2014
Birds of prey use a technique

called wind hovering. This is
really just flying into a
headwind, but they control
their forward airspeed so that it
exactly balances the speed of
the wind and the bird makes no
progress relative to the ground.
Kestrels are the masters of this
and can even hover briefly in

stationary air by balancing
forward-gliding flight with
backwards-angled wingbeats.
Gaps between flight feathers at
their ends allow the bird to
control wing turbulence and
avoid stalling, and fanning the
tail wide provides extra lift. LV
Why is the hole in the ozone

layer over Antarctica, if its
uninhabited?
NASAs Aura satellite
produced this map
of the ozone layer
over Antarctica. Blue
shows low ozone
levels; green, orange
and yellow represent
higher levels
Ozone depletion is
mainly caused by
chemical reactions
between compounds such
as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
and ultraviolet light. These occur in
the stratosphere, above 8km (5 miles) altitude. By the
time polluting man-made CFCs get that high, they have
evenly dispersed around the globe, so whether or not
people live and work under the ozone hole isnt the
determining factor in its location. The reason that the
hole forms above Antarctica is because the ozonedestroying reactions happen much faster on the surface
of the tiny ice crystals found in a type of cloud, called
polar stratospheric cloud, which forms in the cold, dry
conditions of the Antarctic. LV
Reading, Writing and Loving

Principals, contributors and experts tell us why BBC Knowledge is for them
Dr D R Saini
Kiran
Found
Principal of Delhi Public School (R K Puram)
Asso
Univer ciate Profe
s
sity; F
ormer sor of Histo
Museu Fellow, Neh ry, Delhi
ru
m and
Librar Memorial
y
BBC Knowledge serves a very

useful purpose in that it invites
experts in such a vast array of
fields, covering science and
humanities to present their views
in a simple and concise manner.
Bir Se
thi
er of T
he
India a Riverside S
ch
nd of D
esign ool, Ahmed
a
for Ch
ange bad,
BBC Knowledge is an
extremely resourceful
guide for students
to gain impressive and
expansive knowledge
about a variety of
phenomenae in the
world. The best feature
of the magazine is its
interface. The overall
feel of reading, the
facts that have been
assembled and projected
are very appealing.
Meenakshi
Michel Danino
BBC Knowledge is designed to

inform and engage the reader on
relevant topics in Science, History
and Nature. The research-based
articles make it a great resource
for teachers to bring into their
classrooms. Many of the articles
in the magazine would connect
easily with subject topics.
The content of the magazine
is a fine balance of knowledge
and information.
Indian author and historian
BBC Knowledge magazine

is an excellent populariser
of science and other
topics of interest to
the intellectually curious
young Indians (and less
young). The content is of
high quality: expert yet
accessible and stimulating
content combined with topclass design. I enjoy reading
the science articles and
the superb design.
Jain
Romulus Whitaker
Award-winning Herpetologist
BBC Knowledge is
stimulating, a real page-turner
of wide ranging, interest
stimulating subjects. I think
that the wide variety of
subjects is what I like most
about BBC Knowledge: you
can always find something to
interest everyone.
Dr C G Geetha
Managing Director of Cochin International
Students Academy
BBC Knowledge magazine

is one of the most
informative magazines I
have ever seen for the
student community and
teachers. It is becoming
more and more popular
among the teachers,
students educators and
all others with an affinity
towards science in general.
revealed
of
everything
Human Evolution p12

Animal Kingdom p20
Space p30
The Earth p38
Technology p46
Transport p54
History p62
Human Planet p72
Science p80
human evolution
THINKSTOCK x3, 123rf.com
Delving into half a million years of evolution of our species with our varied shapes,
sizes, cultures and languages, provides fascinating food for thought about the
nature of human development
12
December 2014
Human evolution | science
Human bone principally

consists of collagen and
calcium phosphate
10 FACTS
ABOUT BONES
Your ribs
work hard
Your ribcage expands
and contracts up
to 10 million times
each year every
time you breathe.
Your smallest
bone is in
your ear
You have one

unconnected
bone
The smallest bone in the

body is only about 3mm
long the stapes (or
stirrup) in the middle ear.
The hyoid, a
horseshoe-shaped
bone at the base of
your tongue, is not
joined to another
bone the only such
solitary bone in
your body.
Hands and
feet are your
boniest parts
Your bones
are light
You have
strong legs
You lose bones as

you grow up
The bones of an adult

comprises a relatively
small proportion of
his or her total weight
about 15% in men,
12% in women.
Your femur (thigh

bone) is the longest,
strongest and
heaviest bone
in your body; its
length is 26% of
your overall height.
Each human is born with

300350 bones in his
or her body. By the time
we reach adulthood, that
number is only 206
many bones fuse during
development.
More than half of

your bones are in
your hands and feet
27 in each hand and
26 in each foot.
Your bones are

mostly not living
Bone consists largely
of a matrix of collagen
and hydroxylapatite
(bone mineral)
crystals. As little as
five per cent is made
up of living cells.
Your neck is
like a giraffes
Your bones
make blood
Humans have the

same number of cervical vertebrae as a
giraffe seven.
Bone marrow
produces about 2.4
million erythrocytes
(red blood cells) per
second.
10 ORGANS YOU
CAN LIVE WITHOUT
Lung
You might be a little short of breath, but living
with one lung is perfectly possible. In 1931,
Rudolph Nissen, who operated on Albert
Einstein, was the first surgeon to successfully
remove a patients lung.
Kidney
If illness, injury or poison prevents your
kidneys from filtering your blood, they need to
be removed. You can cope quite well with just
one, but if you lose both, youll need to use a
dialysis machine.
Stomach
A gastrecomy surgery to remove your
stomach can be required to treat cancer
or ulcers. A total gastrectomy results in your
oesophagus being connected directly to your
intestine, which will have a long-term effect
on diet and digestion.
Gallbladder
Sitting just below your liver, the gallbladder
stores bile to break down fat in food.
Gallstones caused by high cholesterol can
require removal of the gallbladder.
Intestines
There are about 7.5m of small and large
intestine wrapped up in your abdomen and,
if necessary, all of it can come out though
absorbing nutrients afterwards may well
prove to be problematic.
Eyes
thinkstock x3, getty
Life can be harder without sight or eyes

but clearly many people live fulfilling lives
without the gift of vision.
Testicle
Reproductive organs are sometimes removed
for medical reasons, typically cancer.
14
December 2014
DID YOU
KNOW?
The average human

body is estimated to
contain more than
95,000km of
blood vessels
Gallstones can be
extremely painful
and can result in
the gallbladder
being removed
Kidneys filter
your bodys
waste products.
However, you only
need one to do the
job effectively
10 INVENTED
LANGUAGES
Esperanto
Created by:
Ludwik Lazarus
Zamenhof
in 1887
Many people live long, healthy

lives without an appendix
An international
auxiliary language
devised with the aim
of promoting peace
and understanding
across the world.
Solresol
Created by:
Franois Sudre
in 1827
Appendix
Is it a vestigial organ or part of our immune
system? The medical jury is still out on that
question, but its clear that its removal doesnt
cause any problems.
Spleen
Your spleen sits just above your stomach,
in the left-hand part of your body; it cleans
your blood and fights infection. But if illness or
injury necessitates its removal, other organs can
compensate for its loss.
Pancreas
This small organ sits just below the stomach, and
secretes hormones and digestive enzymes. In
some cases of pancreatic cancer the entire organ
can be removed, though the patient will require
replacement hormones.
Slovianski
Created by: a team

of language experts
in 2006
Sambahsamundialect
Created by: Olivier

Simon in 2007
In the language of
Solresol, words
can be communicated
using hand gestures,
colours and musical
notes as well as
verbally.
An interlanguage
designed to improve
communication
between Slavic
peoples. Its now
spoken by around
2000 people.
This new tongue has

a simple grammar
and incorporates
vocabulary from
Arabic, Chinese and
Swahili among others.
Universalglot
Volapk
Occidental
An early and
unsuccessful attempts
at an international
auxiliary language drew
on vocabulary from
a number of existing
dialects.
Using mostly English

words as a base, it
was spoken by an
estimated one million
people at the peak of
its popularity.
Drawing largely on
European words, this
language built a big
worldwide following
but fell out of favour in
the years following the
Second World War.
Blissymbols
Afrihili
Ladan
Using symbols, this

written language was
adopted for signs in
places like airports in
Canada and Sweden.
Afrihili took elements

from English and
various African
languages.
This tonal language

was devised to better
enable women to
express their views.
Created by: Jean

Pirro in 1868
Created by: Charles

K Bliss in 1949
Created by:
Johann Martin
Schleyer in 1880
Created by: K A
Kumi Attobrah
in 1970
Created by: Edgar

de Wahl in 1922
Created by:
Suzette Haden
Elgin in 1982
science | Human evolution
the 10 MOST
WIDELY SPOKEN
LANGUAGES
10 KEY BREAKTHROUGHS
IN HUMAN EVOLUTION
Grasping with two hands
Discovery: The oldest-known hominid
may have had opposable thumbs
Orrorin tugenensis, fossils of which were first found in Kenya in 2000, is the oldest
described hominid (human-like) species, dating back up to six million years ago. It had
opposable thumbs and may have walked upright.
CLIMBING DOWN
FROM THE TREES
Discovery: Tree-climbing
forebears may have moved
towards walking upright
4.4 million years ago
A fossil classified as Ardipithecus
ramidus was found in Ethiopias
01 Mandarin Chinese
Speakers worldwide: 848m
02 Spanish
Speakers: 406m
03 English
Speakers: 335m
04 Hindi
Speakers: 260m
05 Arabic
Speakers: 223m
06 Portuguese
Speakers: 202m
thinkstock
07 Bengali
Speakers: 193m
Afar Depression in 1994. Its mix

of features sparked debate that it
could be a missing link between
two lifestyles.
WALKING TALL
December 2014
At the time the first specimens

were discovered at Tanzanias
Olduvai Gorge in 1963, it was the
first hominid associated with
stone tools so the species,
dating from between 2.3 and 1.4
million years ago, was dubbed
Homo habilis (handy man).
The type specimen of Homo

neanderthalensis was found in
Germanys Neander Valley in
1856. It probably lived from
about 3,00,000 to 50,000 years
ago and may (or may not)
have overlapped with modern
humans in Europe.
The Neanderthal Genome

Project, founded in 2006,
sequenced the entire genome
of a 1,30,000-year-old
specimen found in a Siberian
cave. DNA analysis suggests
that Neanderthals may have
interbred with modern humans.
WIELDING STONE
TOOLS
WHATS FOR DINNER
PLAYING WITH FIRE
The discovery of fossils of a

newly described species,
named Australopithecus
sediba, in South Africa in 2008
included relatively complete
individuals at different stages
of development. Its hoped
that analysing tartar on the
teeth of one specimen might
reveal what it ate two million
years ago.
The discovery in Java in 1891

of the species named Homo
erectus provided evidence of
the earliest human ancestor
found outside Africa, living
between 1.8 million and
1,43,000 years ago. It had
human-like traits long legs,
short arms and downwardpointing nostrils and was
believed to use fire.
Fossils of animal bones

discovered in Ethiopia in 2010
show cutting marks indicating
butchering with stone tools.
These date from some three
million years or more before
modern humans evolved.
16
Discovery: Pre-human
species, Hozbilis,
used tools
Excavated in 1974 in the Afar

Depression in Ethiopia, Lucy
(Australopithecus afarensis)
lived between 3.85 and 2.95
million years old and was
shown to have walked upright
long before brains grew to
modern sizes.
09 Japanese
Speakers: 122m
of first-tongue speakers.
A dig in South Africa in 1924

unearthed a 2.8-million-year-old
fossil Australopithecus africanus,
dubbed the Taung Child. Its skull
structure indicated that the spine
connected at the bottom of the
cranium suggesting
that it walked upright.
HANDY WITH TOOLS
CROSS-BREEDING
WITH NEANDERTHALS
08 Russian
Speakers: 162m
* Source: www.ethnologue.com. Figures are estimates
Discovery: Fossil skull

indicates upright walking
NEANDERTHALS
NAMED
Discovery: The worlds

most famous pre-human
species walked upright
Discovery: Our ancestors

used stone tools 3.5 million
years ago
10 Javanese (Indonesia)
Speakers: 84.3m
USING YOUR HEAD
Discovery: The first prehuman species identified
Discovery: The last meals

of ancient pre-humans
Discovery: Humans mated

with Neanderthals
Discovery: Human ancestor

in Asia
science | Human evolution
10 INCREDIBLE
HUMAN RECORDS
Longest time
breath held
Longest nose
Longest tongue
Mehmet zyrek
of Turkey has the
worlds longest nose.
In 2010, his proboscis
measured at 8.8cm
from bridge to tip.
Englishman Stephen
Taylors tongue measures
at 9.8cm (from the tip to
the middle of his closed
top lip).
Longest tooth
extracted
Longest
fingernails
Largest hands
Smallest waist
A tooth measuring
3.2cm long was
removed from Loo Hui
Jing in Singapore
in 2009.
In 2009, American
Melvin Boothes
fingernails were
measured at having a
combined length
of 9.85m.
American Robert
Wadlow, the tallest
man ever, also holds
the record for largest
hands 32.3cm from
wrist to fingertip.
Cathie Jung of the

USA has the worlds
smallest waist. It
measures 38.1cm
corseted and just
53.34cm even
without a corset.
In 2012, Stig
Severinsen of
Denmark held his
breath underwater
for a remarkable 22
minutes.
Longest legs
Svetlana Pankratova
of Russia possesses
132cm-long legs, as
measured in 2003.
Longest run
In 2010, Frenchman
Serge Girard ran
27,011km around
25 EU countries the
farthest dzistance run
in 365 days.
Press Association x2, david alba
Longest swim
In 2007, Slovenian
Martin Strel swam
the entire length of
the Amazon River,
covering 5,268 km
in just 67 days.
* Source: Guinness World Records.
10 ENDANGERED
LANGUAGES
Patwin
Where: USA
Native to northern
California, by 2011 it was
assumed that just one
person spoke Patwin as
their first language.
Kaixna
Where: Brazil
According to reports from 2006, one
named individual spoke this language
though he was 78 years old.
Diahi
Where: Brazil
Apiak
Where: Brazil
Probably fewer than

a hundred members
of the indigenous
people who spoke
this language live in
southern Amazonas
state; a 2006 study
estimated that only
one actually spoke
the Diahi dialect.
Only a few hundred

members of the
Apiak people survive
in northern Mato
Grosso state; having
adopted Portuguese,
only one person
is now believed to
speak the language.
Bikya
Where: Cameroon
Chan
Where: Argentina/Uruguay
In 2005, a man was discovered who
spoke at least some words of this
language, long believed extinct.
18
December 2014
In 1986, it was reported

that only four people
spoke this Bantoid
language, only one of them
fluently and he was over
70 years old. Bikya may
now be extinct.
Pazeh
Where: Taiwan
The last truly fluent

native speaker of
Pazeh, Pan Jin-yu, died
in 2010 at the age of
96. A handful of her
students continue to
speak the language of
this aboriginal people.
Dampelas
Where: Indonesia
Native to a narrow
stretch of northern
Sulawesi, estimates for
the number of speakers
varies widely from as
high as 10,000 to
as low as one.
Lae
Where: Papua
New Guinea
In 2000, just a
single person in Morobe
spoke this language. It
may now be extinct.
Volow
Where: Vanuatu
As another native language, Mwotlap,
gained in prominence, Volow declined.
It is now believed that just one passive
speaker remains in the village of Aplow.
* Source: UNESCO Atlas of the

Worlds Languages in Danger,
which lists 19 languages as being
spoken by no more than one person.
ANIMAL KINGDOM
photo: thinkstock
x7, jennifer
alamy x4 cc, alamy x4
Alamy, thinkstock
x5, shaughney
jennifer cc,
shaughney
From monstrous mammals to minute microbes, ancient reptiles and super-strong insects,
the diverse and dazzling world of wildlife is full of surprises
20
December 2014
Animal kingdom | nature
10 super-strong ANIMALS
01 Dung beetle
Onthophagus taurus
Hauls 1141 times own weight

In 2010, researchers Rob Knell and
Leigh Simmons demonstrated that the
strongest males can pull a load
1,141 times its own weight.
02 Hercules beetle
Dynastes hercules
06 Tiger
Panthera tigris
Lifts double own weight

Prey varies across the ranges of the
subspecies, but the largest tigers have
been known to hunt and carry water
buffalo and even young elephants.
07 Asian elephant
Elephas maximus

Lifts 850 times own weight

Pulls 170% of own weight
The hefty insects known as rhinoceros

beetles carry huge loads anecdotal
evidence suggests this species can lug
850 times its own weight.
But Asian elephants used in the timber

industry have hauled logs weighing up
to 9 tonnes nearly twice as heavy
as a large male tusker.
03 Leaf-cutter ants
Atta cephalotes
Lifts 50 times its own weight

The various species of leafcutter ant
carry relatively enormous chunks of
leaves back to their nest to fertilise the
fungi on which they feed.
04 Eastern gorilla
Gorilla beringei
08 Ox
Bos primigenius

Pulls 150% of own weight
The phrase strong as an ox is well
coined: for millennia oxen have been
used for hauling heavy loads and
ploughing heavy soil.
09 Green anaconda
Eunectes murinus
Lifts 10 times own weight

Big male gorillas silverbacks are
immensely strong. By comparison,
the strongest human weightlifters can
lift two or three times their own weight.

Constricts at 90psi
05 Crowned hawk-eagle
Stephanoaetus coronatus
10 Brown bear
Ursus arctos
Lifts four times own weight

One of Africas most powerful raptors,
the crowned hawk-eagle preys on
mammals such as monkeys and
bushbucks that weigh up to 30kg.
Though figures are debated, the green

anaconda is believed to be the worlds
largest snake, and has the most powerful
squeeze at a reported 90psi.

Five times as strong as a human
Grizzly bears grow to 500kg and over,
and prey on large mammals such as
moose, elk and even black bears.
10 eXTREME
MATING PRACTICES
Greater flamingo
Phoenicopterus roseus
Applies pink make-up
Its long been known that the characteristic pink

hue of flamingos feathers is derived from
carotenoid pigments in the shrimps and other plankton
they eat. But in 2010 scientists discovered that
greater flamingos actively apply pigment, secreted
from a gland at their rear, to their feathers during
preening and reapply regularly to prevent it from
fading in the sun.
Anglerfish
Ceratioidei
Bedbug
Cimex
lectularius
Common
garter snake
Thamnophis sirtalis
Snails & slugs

Pulmonata
Praying mantis
Mantodea
Many land-dwelling
hermaphrodite slugs
and snails fire love
darts into prospective
mates during courtship.
Perhaps 30% of
courting male
mantids are eaten
by females during or
after mating.
Wasp spider
Argiope
bruennichi
Porcupine
Erethizon
dorsatum
Squid
Teuthida
Males are parasites,

latching onto females
and releasing sperm
during spawning.
thinkstock x3
A courting male
will urinate over his
prospective partner
before mating.
A male pierces a
females abdomen for
traumatic insemination.
The males of some

squid species stab
females to inject them
with sperm.
Thousands of snakes
writhe in a mass
mating ritual.
The male breaks off

his own pedipalp (penis
equivalent), blocking the
females reproductive tract.
Green spoonworm
Bonellia viridis
Each male lives in a
females genital sac.
10 DANGEROUS ANIMALS
Up to 50 species of
Anopheles mosquito
transmit malaria
to humans
01 Mosquito
Anopheles spp.
Human deaths/year: 2 million

Bites from these insects transmit the
plasmodium blood parasites that

cause malaria.
02 Asian cobra
Naja naja
Human deaths/year: 50,000

Though not Indias most venomous snake,
this cobra is responsible for the majority

of snakebite deaths.
03 Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus amphibius
Human deaths/year: <3,000

Accurate figures are hard to obtain, but
hippos are certainly responsible for many

deaths every year in Africa.
A large male Nile

crocodile can grow
up to 6m long
04 Nile crocodile
Crocodylus niloticus
Human deaths/year: >300

Attacks by this large reptile on people on
the water or on riverbacks are relatively

frequent in Africa.
05 African elephant
Loxodonta africana
Human deaths/year: 300

Elephants probably kill a few hundred
people annually though more

than 20,000 elephants are killed
by poachers each year.
06 Lion
Panthera leo
Human deaths/year: 100
Lion attacks on humans often occur

during harvests, but rare outbreaks of
mass maneating also occur.
07 Great white shark

Carcharodon carcharias
Human deaths/year: <30
Unprovoked shark attacks on humans are

extremely rare and fatalities even rarer.
Great white, tiger and bull sharks are
responsible for most.
08 Sloth bear
Melursus ursinus
Human deaths/year: <2
Like other bear species, sloth bears dont

predate humans, but chance encounters
can result in deaths.
09 Box jellyfish
Chironex fleckeri
Human deaths: At least 60
since 1883
Each of the sea wasps tentacles is

armed with about 5000 stinging cells.
10 Poison dart frog

Phyllobates terribilis
Human deaths/year: Unknown

Living in the rainforest of Colombia, this
frogs skin is coated with enough

batrachotoxins to kill at least ten men.
December 2014
23
10 LONGEST
ANIMAL MIGRATIONS
DID YOU
KNOW?
01
Arctic tern Sterna paradisea 70,900km

This small bird weighing just over 100g undertakes an incredible twoway migration each year. In August or September each bird leaves its
breeding grounds in Greenland and heads south, tracing the coast of either
Africa or South America and feeding in the Weddell Sea for four or five
months before returning to the Arctic for the northern summer.
02
03
04
Sooty shearwater Northern elephant

Puffinus griseus seal
65,000km
Mirounga
These birds follow
angustirostris
Leatherback turtle
Dermochelys
coriacea
20,000km
circular migration routes

around the Atlantic and
Pacific.
One tagged turtle swam

from Indonesia to the USA
across the Pacific.
05
21,000km
These mammals swim

between Californian and
Mexican beaches.
06
Humpback whale
Megaptera
novaeangliae
Globe skimmer
Pantala
flavescens
Adlis follow the ice

edge from breeding
colonies to winter
feeding grounds.
The mammal with

the longest journey
swims from Arctic to
tropical waters.
Evidence suggests
that this dragonfly
migrates from India
to southern Africa.
08
16,600km
09
14,000km+
Monarch butterflies
migrate from the
eastern USA to winter
in Mexicos Sierra
Madre mountains
10
Bar-tailed godwit Monarch butterfly

Limosa lapponica Danaus plexippus
11,680km
6,000km
Caribou
Rangifer tarandus
This bird flies non-stop

from Alaska to
New Zealand in just
eight days.
The migration between

USA and Mexico takes
three or four generations
to complete.
Some herds range across

Arctic Canada in the
longest migration of any
terrestrial mammal.
10 wEIRD
PARASITES
Leatherback turtles
migrate across and
around the Pacific Ocean
07
Adlie penguin
Pygoscelis
adeliae
17,600km
The bar-tailed godwit

fuels its epic migration
by digesting part of its
own intestine during
the long flight
5,000km
Eye-inflating
flatworm
Zombie-making
wasp
Tongue-eating
louse
Larvae of the greenbanded broodsac fill the

eye-stalks of infected
snails, making them look
(and wriggle) like little
caterpillars luring
hunting birds.
The female emerald

cockroach wasp stings a
cockroachs brain, then
lays an egg on its belly
and the wasp larva
devours its host from
the inside.
The sea louse Cymothoa

exigua feeds on blood
from a fishs tongue till it
withers away, then
attaches itself to the
stump to feed on blood
and mucus.
Eye worm
The larvae of the
nematode worm Loa
loa infect human
eyes, and can be seen
and, more horribly,
felt as they squirm
across the tissue
beneath the cornea.
01

Aldabra giant
tortoise
02
03
Koi fish
Cyprinus carpio
haematopterus
226 years
The oldest-known koi,
called Hanako, died in 1977.
Aldabrachelys gigantea
Oldest individual recorded:

255 years
Adwaita was a male tortoise reputedly given to Robert Clive in

the 18th century. In around 1876 it was transferred to the
Alipore Zoo in Kolkata, where it lived until its death in 2006.
Adwaitas age cannot be definitively confirmed; the longestlived reptile for which an age has been verified was Tui Malila,
a radiated tortoise reputedly given to the Tongan royal family by
Captain Cook in 1777, and which died in 1965 at the age of 188.
05
04
Bowhead whale
Balaena
mysticetus
211 years
Tuatara
Sphenodon
punctatus
115 years old
200-year-old spears
have been found in
some bowheads.
Henry, a tuatara in New

Zealand, became a father at
the age of 111 in 2009.
06
07
Blue and yellow

macaw
Ara ararauna
104 years
Asian elephant
Elephas
maximus
86 years
Horse
Equus ferus
caballus
51 years
Churchill reputedly
owned the macaw
named Charlie.
Lin Wang or
Grandpa Lin died in
Taipei Zoo in 2003.
The liver chestnut

stallion named Shayne
died in Essex in 2013.
08
10
09
Cow
Bos primagenius
48 years
Big Bertha died three
months before her
49th birthday.
Goldfish
Carassius
auratus auratus
43 years
Tish died in North
Yorkshire in 1999.
Polar bear
Ursus maritimus
42 years
Debbie died at
Assiniboine Zoo in
Winnipeg in 2008.
Giant tortoises live to

extraordinary ages
Galpagos tortoises often
reach over 150 years.
Skin-boiling
worm
Head-splitting
fungus
Sex-change
bacteria
The guinea worm

Dracunculus
medinensis grows up
to 1m long in humans,
causing a burning pain
as it emerges through
the skin of legs.
An ant infected with

Ophiocordyceps
unilateralis climbs to
the top of a plant and
die. The fungus fruiting
body then bursts from
the ants head.
Wolbachia are transmitted

to their insect hosts
offspring in eggs. To
increase dispersal, these
bacteria can change
hosts sex from male
to female.
Vampire fish
The tiny, eel-like
candiru of the Amazon
swims into the gills of
other fish and feasts on
their blood. Reports
suggest that it
sometimes swims into
human orifices.
Mind-control
bug
The single-celled
parasite Toxoplasma
gondii eliminates
infected rodents fear of
cats which then easily
catch the rodents and
are themselves infected.
Crabcastrating
barnacle
When a female
Sacculina barnacle
infects a crab, it
changes the hosts
hormones, effectively
sterilising it.
thinkstock x3, muhammad mahdi karim cc
10 LONGEST-LIVED
VERTEBRATES
Nature | Animal Kingdom
300kg
The weight that an

African elephant can
carry with its trunk. The
trunk contains
around 4000
muscles
10 super-fast ANIMALS
Overall speed
Peregrine falcon
Falco peregrinus
389km/h (fastest recorded)

The peregrine regular exceeds
322km/h during stoops (hunting dives)
though doesnt come close to that speed
in level flight.
Marine reptile
Land mammal
Leatherback sea
turtle
Dermochelys
coriacea
Cheetah
Acinonyx jubatus
35km/h
thinkstock
A teardrop-shaped
body gives this reptile
a hydrodynamic
advantage.
120km/h
December 2014
White-throated
needle `tail
Hirundapus
caudacutus
Land herbivore
Fish
Pronghorn
Antilocapra
americana
Indo-Pacific sailfish
Istiophorus albicans
88.5km/h
111km/h
The fastest land animal

on Earth can maintain
this speed for bursts
of no longer than 60
seconds.
169km/h
Insect
Land reptile
Marine mammal
Flying mammal
Horsefly
Chrysops
relictus
Black iguana
Ctenosaura
similis
Common dolphin
Delphinus spp.
Mexican freetailed bat

Tadarida
brasiliensis
145km/h
26
Bird
(flapping flight)
34.9km/h
This antelope-like
creature can maintain
speeds of 56km/h for
several kilometres.
64km/h
The title of fastest fish is

hotly disputed; the highest
estimates for this species
date from the 1920s.
96.5km/h
Nature | Animal Kingdom
10 outsized ANIMALS
Largest mammal
(and largest animal ever)
DID YOU
KNOW?
Giant isopods
14-legged deep-sea
critters a little like giant
woodlice can grow
to 76cm long and
1.7kg
Balaenoptera musculus
30m, 170 tonnes
Larger than any prehistoric giant, the blue whale would dwarf
the largest known dinosaur, Argentinosaurus, which weighed a
mere 80 tonnes or so.
Largest land mammal
Largest reptile
Largest snake
Largest dinosaur
Largest bird
African elephant
Loxodonta africana
Saltwater crocodile
Crocodylus porosus
Green anaconda
Eunectes murinus
Argentinosaurus
6.6m, 70kg
Estimated to be 30-35m
long, 80-100 tonnes
Ostrich
Struthio camelus
Largest fish
Largest amphibian
Largest carnivore
Whale shark
Rhincodon typus
Chinese giant
salamander
Andrias davidianus
Southern
elephant seal
Mirounga leonina
7.5m, 6 tonnes
david fleetham/alamy
Blue whale
6.7m, 2 tonnes
Largest insect
Goliath beetle
Goliathus spp.
60-110mm, 100g
12.65m, 21.5 tonnes
2m, 30kg
2.1-2.8m, 145kg
3m, 4 tonnes
December 2014
27
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across india
space
thinkstock, UIG/Getty
Whether its comparing the sizes of planets, the length of exploratory space missions or the raw
power of rockets, here we tot up the vast numbers that govern what lies beyond our planet
30
December 2014
Space | science
10 SPACE FIRSTS
First man in orbit
Yuri Gagarin
Launch date: 12 April 1961

The Russian cosmonaut completed an orbit of Earth during his 108-minute spaceflight
aboard Vostok I. Being the first human in space, he later explained the experience of
weightlessness: You feel as if you were hanging in a horizontal position in straps. You feel
as if you are suspended. After landing back on Earth, Gagarin became an instant celebrity,
touring the world to tell the adoring public about his big adventure. It was to be his only
mission into space and he died in a plane crash in 1968 during a routine flight. His ashes
are buried in the walls of the Kremlin in Moscow.
First woman
in orbit
First
space walk
First death
in space
First
moon walk
First space
tourist
Valentina
Tereshkova
16 June 1963
Alexey Leonov
18 March 1965
Vladimir
Komarov
24 April 1967
Neil Armstrong
21 July 1969
Dennis Tito
28 April 2001
Apollo 11 mission
commander Armstrong
climbed down from
the lunar lander Eagle
and onto the Moons
surface.
The American
multimillionaire spent
nearly eight days in
space, reaching the
International Space
Station EP-1 aboard
the Russian craft
Soyuz TM-32.
The Russian orbited

the Earth 48 times
during her nearthree-day spell
aboard Vostok 6.
Another Russian
cosmonaut, Leonov
undertook a 12-minute
period of extravehicular activity
(space walk) during
the Voskhod 2 mission.
He was secured by a
five-metre tether.
First primate
in space
First animal
in orbit
Albert II
14 June 1949
Laika
3 November
1957
A rhesus monkey
called Albert II reached
an altitude of about
134km in a USlaunched V2 rocket.
Albert II died
on impact after a
parachute failure.
The Russian mongrel

dog Laika survived four
orbits aboard Sputnik 2
before dying, possibly
as a result of
overheating.
The Russian was killed

when the Soyuz 1
spacecraft he was
piloting crashed on its
re-entry to Earth.
First manually
controlled
spaceflight
Alan Shepard
5 May 1961
The American reached
an altitude of 187km
aboard Freedom 7
during which he had
some control of his
craft (Gagarins flight
was strictly automatic).
First whole
day in orbit
Gherman Titov
6 August 1961
As well as spending a
whole day aboard
Vostok 2, Russian
Titov orbited the Earth
17 times and was the
first to sleep
in space.
DID YOU
KNOW?
The spacesuit worn by
Neil Armstrong for the
1969 Moon landing
was made by a bra
manufacturer
the 10 LONGEST
HUMAN SPACE
FLIGHTS
Nasa/JPL/Ted Stryk, getty, ROBERT SORBO/AP/Press Association, thinkstock
01
02
Valeri Polyakov
Russia
Sergei Avdeyev
Soviet Union
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
437 days
8 January 1994
22 March 1995
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
379 days
13 August 1988
28 August 1989
05
06
Sergei Krikalev
Soviet Union/
Russia
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration 312 days
19 May 1991
25 March 1992
32
December 2014
Valeri Polyakov
Soviet Union
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
240 days
29 August 1988
7 April 1989
Valeri Polyakov
looks out of a
window of the
Russian space
station Mir during
his record-breaking
time in space
03
04
Vladimir Titov &

Musa Manarov
Soviet Union
Yuri
Romanenko
Soviet Union
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
365 days
21 December 1987
21 December 1988
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
326 days
6 February 1987
29 December 1987
07
Leonid Kizim,
Vladimir
Solovyov & Oleg
Atkov
Soviet Union
Mission:
Salyut 7 Space Station
Duration:
237 days
8 February 1984
2 October 1984
08
Mikhail Tyurin &

Michael LpezAllegria
Russia & USA
Mission:
International Space
Station
Duration:
215 days
18 September 2006
21 April 2007
09
Anatoli
Berezovoy
& Valentin
Lebedev
Soviet Union
Mission:
Salyut 7 Space Station
Duration:
211 days
13 May 1982
10 December 1982
10
Nikolai Budarin
& Talgat
Musabayev
Russia
Mission:
Mir Space Station
Duration:
207 days
29 January 1998
25 August 1998
Space | science
the 10 BIGGEST
MOONS IN OUR
SOLAR SYSTEM
01
Ganymede
Radius:
2,631km
Satellite of:
Jupiter
03
Callisto
Radius:
2,410km
Satellite of:
Jupiter
05
Moon
Radius:
1,737km
Satellite of:
Earth
08
Titania
Radius: 788km
Satellite of:
Uranus
Ganymede
02
Titan
Radius:
2,576km
Satellite of:
Saturn
04
Io
Radius:
1,821km
Satellite of:
Jupiter
06
The largest moon

in our Solar System
is Ganymede, a
satellite of Jupiter
07
Europa
Radius:
1,561km
Satellite of:
Jupiter
09
Triton
Radius:
1,353km
Satellite of:
Neptune
27.3
10
Rhea
Radius: 764km
Satellite of:
Saturn
Titan
The length in Earth days

that the Moon takes
to complete its orbit of
our planet
Oberon
Radius:
761km Satellite
of: Uranus
Callisto
Io
Moon
Europa
Triton
Titania
Rhea
Oberon
10 IMMENSE
THINGS IN SPACE
01 Biggest asteroid
Ceres

950km diameter (average)
Discovered in 1801, Ceres makes up a
third of the total mass of the asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter.
02 Biggest object in
our solar system
Sun

1,392,000km diameter
The yellow dwarf star around which we
orbit comprises over 99.8 per cent of the
total mass of our solar system.
03 Biggest known planet

GQ Lup b

30 times the radius of Jupiter

This huge exoplanet, detected orbiting
a star some 457 light-years from Earth,

may have a mass up to 36 times that
of Jupiter and is fiercely hot possibly
2,650 kelvin.
04 Largest structure in
the universe
Huge Large Quasar Group
(Huge-LQG)

4 billion light-years across

In 2013, an international team detected
nasa, thinkstock, ESO/vphas+survey/n.wright, alamy
a chain of some 73 quasars stretching

so far that its existence challenges the
fundamental Cosmological Principle.
05 Biggest black hole

Centre of NGC 1277
17 billion solar mass

This supermassive black hole, at the
centre of the NGC 1277 galaxy 220 million

light-years away, has a mass 17 billion
times greater than our Sun itself about
two nonillion kg.
34
December 2014
06 Largest galaxy
IC 1101

Six million light-years across
This supergiant elliptical galaxy,
discovered in 1790 by William Herschel,

at the centre of the Abell 2029 cluster is
about one billion light-years away. Our
own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a mere
100,000 light-years across.
07 Biggest water cloud

Around quasar APM

08279+5255

40 billion times the mass

of Earth

In 2011, researchers discovered a vast
cloud of water vapour surrounding a

quasar some 12 billion light-years away.
The cloud holds enough water to fill the
Earths oceans 140 trillion times over.
09 Biggest nothing
Botes Void

250 million light
years across

n area of space containing nearly

A
no objects (though a few galaxies
are present), this void is around
700 million light-years from Earth.
08 Biggest comet
McNaught

Visible tail 35
10 Biggest star
Westerlund 1-26

1,530 solar radii

The spacecraft Ulysses passed through

Measuring distant stars is tricky
the tail of this comet in 2007 and

detected ionised gas at a distance of
225 million km behind the nucleus. The
shocked wind behind the comet was
larger still, making McNaught reportedly
the largest comet ever discovered.
determining the edge of the star can

be made difficult by solar winds but
the Royal Astronomical Society believes
this red supergiant, which is about
1,000,000,000km across and some 16,000
light-years from Earth, is the largest.
Space | science
Nicolaus Copernicus
14731543
Astronomers
Galileo Galilei
15641642
Proposed a heliocentric model

for the universe
Since the days of Aristotle, the accepted model
of the solar system had the Earth stationary
at its centre, with the Sun and planets
revolving around it. The Polish astronomers
revolutionary heliocentric model with the Sun
as the stationary force - challenged this view.
Supported heliocentricism,
discovered Jupiters moons and
developed telescopes
Johannes Kepler
15711630
Galileos support of the Copernican heliocentric

model saw his ideas investigated by the
Roman Inquisition of 1615. But the Italians
own achievements were formidable, including
developing telescopes enabling good views of the
Milky Way and Jupiters moons.
Improved the refracting

telescope and developed
the laws of planetary motion
Eratosthenes
276194BC
Measured the circumference of the
Earth
Keplers laws described how planets moved

around the sun, challenging the geocentric
models of Aristotle and Ptolemy. The German
was a huge influence on Sir Isaac Newton.
Charles Messier
17301817
Composed a database
of celestial objects
Eratosthenes born in Cyrene, now in Libya

used the angle of the noonday Sun at different
places in Egypt to estimate the circumference of
Earth. His figure was remarkably accurate in
fact, according to some commentators, he was
out by less than 2%.
This French astronomer was the first to

compile a systematic catalogue of nebulae
and star clusters that is still used in the
classification of many celestial objects.
William Herschel
17381822
Annie Jump Cannon

18631941
Discovered Uranus and its moons

Born in Germany Herschel moved to England as
a teenager. He became famous for discovering
Uranus and two of its major moons, Titania and
Oberon, as well as two of Saturns moons. He
also discovered infrared radiation.
Co-created the Harvard

Classification Scheme
This American astronomers classification
scheme organised and ordered stars based on
their temperatures. Her catalogue listed some
230,000 stars.
Edwin Hubble
18891953
Discovered Hubbles Law, suggesting
that the Universe is expanding
Hubbles Law states that the recessional velocity of
a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth.
The American was a major champion of the idea of
the existence of galaxies beyond the Milky Way.
George Gamow
190468
Early advocate of the
big bang theory
Born in Odessa (in modern-day Ukraine), Gamow
was one of the foremost advocates of the theory
that the universe was formed in a colossal
explosion billions of years ago.
Claudius Ptolemy
c 90c 168
Writings dominated astronomy for 12
centuries
The Almagest produced by this Greco-Roman
astronomer and geographer was a celestial
almanac that, though based on an erroneous
geocentric model, became established as the
definitive reference work for some 12 centuries.
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The earth
thinkstock, 123rf.com
Our planet is unique. Its size (12,756km in diameter at the equator), orbit, temperature
and atmosphere have nurtured life. Weve compiled the most fascinating facts about
our home and its geographical features
38
December 2014
The Earth | nature
the 10 LONGEST RIVERS

01
Nile
6,695km
East and North Africa

The worlds longest river has two main tributaries: the Blue Nile, rising in Ethiopia, and the
longer White Nile, emerging from Lake Victoria. Figures for the rivers length vary, as the
exact source is still debated; 6,650km and 6,695km are often quoted, but an expedition in
2006 claimed to have reached the true source, and subsequent figures have been as high
as 6,853km. Whatever its true length, the Nile which flows through Uganda (and also
possibly the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi, depending on the accepted source), South
Sudan, Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt on its way to the Mediterranean, is one of the worlds mightiest rivers.
02
Amazon
6,516km
South America
This river discharges
2,00,000m3 of water
per second, fed by
sources in Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador,
Peru and Brazil.
07
Yellow River
5,464km
China
The basin of the
Huang Ho (also
known as Chinas
Sorrow) was the
birthplace of Chinese
civilisation.
03
Yangtze
6,380km
China
Chiang Jiang, a
Mandarin name for
the Yangtze, means
literally Long River
it drains about 20%
of Chinas area.
08
ParanRo de la
Plata
4,880km
South America
This rivers name
comes from the Tupi
phrase para rehe
onva, meaning
as big as the sea.
04
MississippiMissouri
5,969km
USA
This combined river
system drains some 31
US states and two
Canadian provinces.
09
05
Yenisei River
5,539km
Siberia
Theres some debate
about the true
source of the
Yenisei, so its place
in this list could be
lower.
06
Ob-Irtysh
5,410km
Siberia
The Ob River flows
through Siberia into the
Kara Sea, while its
tributary the Irtysh
rises in the Altai
Mountains.
10
Congo River
4,700km
Central Africa
AmurArgun
4,440km
North Asia
Also known as the

Zaire, the Congo is
the worlds deepest
river depths of
230m have been
measured.
The Amur flows

2,824km along the
Russia-China border,
and is fed by the
Argun rising in Inner
Mongolia.
The Nile is the worlds
longest river though its
exact source is still debated
the 10 Deadliest
volcanic eruptions
01 Tambora
Indonesia
Erupted: 1815
Estimated deaths: 71,000
06 Laki
Iceland
Erupted: 1783
Deaths: 9,350
02 Krakatoa
Indonesia
Erupted: 1883
Deaths: 36,417
07 Santa Mara
Guatemala
Erupted: 1902

Deaths: 6,000
03 Mount Pele
Martinique
Erupted: 1902
Deaths: 29,025
08 Indonesia
Erupted: 1919
Deaths: 5,110
04 Nevado del Ruiz

Colombia
Erupted: 1985
Deaths: 25,000
05 Unzen
Japan
Erupted: 1792
Deaths: 15,000
09 Galunggung
Indonesia
Erupted: 1882
Deaths: 4,011
10 Vesuvius
Italy
Erupted: AD 79
Deaths: upwards

of 3,000
iss/nasa, alamy, thinkstock x3, euphro cc, daniel leussler cc/wikipedia
The eruption of Mt Tambora

killed tens of thousands,
many of whom starved
because of the eruptions
impact on agriculture
The 10
COLDEST
places
01
Ridge near
Dome Fuji
Antarctica
93.2C
Recorded in August
2010 from a remote
sensing satellite.
40
December 2014
02
Vostok Station
Antarctica
89.2C
The lowest groundmonitored temperature,
recorded on 21 July 1983
at a Russian Antarctic
research station.
03
Dome Argus
Antarctica
82.5C
04
AmundsenScott South
Pole Station
Antarctica
82.5C
The Earth | nature
the 10 hottest places

01 Dasht-e Lut
Iran

70.7C

The highest surface temperature
officially confirmed on Earth was

detected by the Moderate Resolution
Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
on NASAs Aqua satellite at Gandom
Beryan in the Dasht-e Lut (Lut Desert)
between 2003 and 2005.
A salt river winds
through the scorching
desert at Dasht-e Lut
02 Queensland Outback
Australia

69.2C
06 Rub al Khali (Empty Quarter)

Arabian Peninsula

56C
07 Kebili
Tunisia

55C
08 Timbuktu
Mali

54C
09 Tirat Zvi
Israel

53.7C
03 Flaming Mountains
Xinjiang, China

66.7C
04 Al-Aziziyah
Libya

57.8C
10 Dallol
Ethiopia

34.4C

For many years, this temperature

This was the average annual temperature
(detected in September 1922) was

the highest ever recorded.
Oymyakon
Russia
71.2C
The lowest air
temperature recorded in
the northern hemisphere
was detected at this
Russian village in 1926.
from 1960 to 1966.
05 Death Valley
USA
56.7C
Death Valley, in Californias

Mojave Desert, is the
USAs lowest, driest and
hottest place
05
This temperature was recorded at a

kibbutz in June 1942 at that time, the
highest ever documented in Asia.
06
Klinck research
station
Greenland
69.4C
07
North Ice
Greenland
66C
This low was recorded
at this British North
Greenland Expedition
research station in 1954.
08
Snag
Yukon, Canada
63C
09
Denali
Alaska, USA
-59.7C
10
Verkhoyansk
Russia
45.4C
Though popular images of the Sahara

depict endless rolling dunes, much of
it as here, in Algeria can be rocky
the 10
LARGEST
DESERTS
Some areas of Chiles
Atacama Desert receive just
1mm of rain each year
Antarctic Desert
01 13,829,430km2
Though its largely covered with a thick coat of

ice, Antarctica is actually extremely dry. Inner
regions receive less than 50mm of precipitation
each year less than the Sahara and some dry
valleys experience virtually none at all.
02
Arctic
13,726,936km2
05
alamy x3, thinkstock x2
400
42
years the length

of time some areas of
Chiles Atacama Desert
went without rain
between 1570 and
1970
December 2014
Gobi Desert
1,300,000km2
China/Mongolia
08
Great Victoria
Desert
6,47,000km2
Australia
03
Sahara
9,400,000km2
North Africa
06
Kalahari Desert
9,00,000km2
Angola/Botswana/
Namibia/
South Africa
09
Syrian Desert
5,20,000km2
Iraq/Jordan/Syria
04
Arabian Desert
2,330,000km2
Ara bian Peninsula
07
Patagonian
Desert
6,70,000km2
Argentina/Chile
10
Great Basin Desert

4,92,000km2
USA
The Earth | nature
The 10
LARGEST
LAKES
About 80% of the surface
of Greenland is covered by
a vast ice sheet
the 10 LARGEST
ISLANDS
02 Lake Superior
82,100km2

USA/Canada
03 Lake Victoria
68,800km2
East Africa
Greenland
01 2,175,600km
2
Convention dictates that continents are not considered
islands otherwise Australia, at 7,692,024km2, would
top Greenland by a factor of more than three. Though
the worlds largest island, Greenland is sparsely
populated, with fewer than 60,000 inhabitants; around
80% of its surface is covered by a vast ice sheet.
02
New Guinea
7,85,753km2
05
Baffin Island,
Canada
5,03,944km2
08
Victoria Island,
Canada
2,20,548km2
03
Borneo
7,48,168km2
06
Sumatra,
Indonesia
4,43,066km2
09
Great Britain
2,09,331km2
01 Caspian Sea2
3,71,000km
Central Asia
04
Madagascar
5,87,713km2
07
Honshu, Japan
2,25,800km2
10
Ellesmere
Island, Canada
1,96,236km2
04 Lake Huron
59,600km2

USA/Canada
05 Lake Michigan
57,800km2
USA
06 Lake Tanganyika
32,900km2
East Africa
07 Lake Baikal
31,722km2
Russia
08 Great Bear2 Lake
31,328km
Canada
(Nyasa)
09 Lake Malawi
30,044km2

Malawi/Tanzania/

Mozambique
Lake
10 Great Slave
28,568km2
Canada
The Earth | nature
The 10 TALLEST
WATERFALLS
Water cascades into

the mist at Tugela
Falls in South Africa
Angel Falls
01 979m
Angel Falls plummets from

Auyan tepui in Venezuela
Venezuela
Browne Falls in the

majestic Doubtful
Sound on New
Zealands South Island
The worlds highest uninterrupted

waterfall cascades from the top of the
tepui (flat-topped mountain) called
Auyan, with a single plunge of 807m.
Called Kerepakupai Ven (waterfall of the deepest place)
in the local Pemon language, its English-language name
was bestowed in honour of Jimmie Angel, the American
aviator who was the first to fly over it in 1933.
06
05
James
Bruce Falls
840m
Canada
09
thinkstock x3
Waihilau
Falls
792m
Hawaii,
USA
44
04
Skorga
864m
Norway
08
Vinnufallet
865m
Norway
Kjerrskredfossen
830m
Norway
10
Colonial
Creek Falls
783m
Washington
State, USA
December 2014
03
Three Sisters
Falls
914m
Peru
02
Tugela Falls
948m
South Africa
07
Browne Falls
836m
New Zealand
e6
e 4 Issu `125
Volum r 2014
Octobe
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publica
India
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A Tim
SCIE
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TURE
Y t NA
STOR
E t HI
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TAKEIP
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mac s p40
nese ture
Japa pera
how ro tem
out
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Find le subtt
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2
/3542
2010
ENG/
.MAH
R.N.I
technology
123rf.com
Inventions, gadgets, gizmos, materials the world of technology is fast-moving and

constantly surprising. The top tens on the next few pages demonstrate the range of
applications for scientific developments
46
December 2014
Technology | science
10 sCI-FI PREDICTIONS
THAT CAME TRUE
Television
Predicted by: Mark Twain, From

the London Times of 1904,
published 1898
The first television was produced in the 1920s,
but Mark Twain had already described the
telectroscope that would make the daily doings
of the globe visible to everybody.
Tablet device
Predicted by: Arthur C Clarke, 2001:

A Space Odyssey, published 1968
Electronic book
Predicted by: Stanislaw Lem, Return

From the Stars, published 1961
Instead of hardcovers and paperbacks, Polish
author Lem foresaw books in crystal form, read
on devices called optons that display one page
of text at a time.
Tank
Predicted by: HG Wells, The Land

Ironclads, published 1903
Surfing the internet on a portable device was

dreamed up long before the turn of the
millennium. In the late 1960s, Clarke gave his
fictional astronauts newspads so they could
keep up to date with the goings-on back home.
The tank made its battlefield debut in 1916, but

was envisaged by Wells as an all-terrain,
armoured vehicle carrying powerful guns. Winston
Churchill later credited Wells for the idea, but the
authors vehicle was inspired by Brahmah Joseph
Diplocks pedrail locomotive.
Earphones
Atomic bomb
Predicted by: Ray Bradbury,

Fahrenheit 451, published 1953
Predicted by: HG Wells, The World

Set Free, published 1914
Though the personal stereo didnt appear until

1977, in the early 50s Bradbury described
earphones piping in constant music and talk.
Wells envisioned a nuclear bomb that would

explode continuously for 17 days and have
longer-term effects through nuclear fallout.
Scuba-diving equipment
Predicted by: Jules Verne, Twenty

Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,
published 1870
Moon landing
Verne described a means of breathing

underwater using apparatus that, unlike all
existing equipment, didnt take its air supply
from the surface. His idea came from the
system developed in the 1860s by French duo
Benoit Rouquayrol and Auguste Denayrouze to
save miners trapped underground.
More than 100 years before Armstrongs lunar

stroll, Verne had envisioned a trip to the Moon
though his protagonists were fired from an
enormous cannon at a launch site in Florida.
Predicted by: Jules Verne, From The

Earth To The Moon, published 1865
Surveillance
Video calls
Predicted by: Albert Robida, Le

Vingtime Sicle. La Vie lectrique,
published 1890
The first public videophone service launched in
Germany in 1936, and EM Forster described a
communication system that transmitted both
audio and visual signals in his short story The
Machine Stops, published in 1909. Yet this
French authors 1890 book mentions a similar
device called le tlphonoscope.
Predicted by: George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, published 1949

CCTV cameras, internet cookies, loyalty cards,
NSA data monitoring, social media The Big
Brother dreamed up by Orwell in his dystopian
novel comes in many guises today.
Guglielmo Marconi
(standing), the godfather
of telecommunication
10 crucial
coMMUNICATION
BREAKTHROUGHS
The Alphabet
When: 4000-1200BC
The ability to record information was arguably most significant breakthrough
in human communication after speech. Sumerian cuneiform, a pictographic
writing system denoting concepts and syllables, evolved around 4000BC.
It was replaced by the Phoenician alphabet comprising characters that
represent single sounds.
Cuneiform writing, developed around

4,000BC, is regarded to be the first alphabet
Postal
Service
27BCAD 14
getty, Alamyx4, thinkstock
Its thought that the

Persians were the
first to introduce a
kind of postal service
around 550BC. But
the earliest and bestdocumented
evidence of such a
system, enabling the
public to send written
messages, dates
from the reign of the
Roman emperor
Augustus.
48
December 2014
Paper
AD 105
Official records credit
Chinese inventor Cai
Lun with the first
production of paper,
although
archaeological
research suggests that
paper was being used
in the country much
earlier than that.
Gutenberg
Press
1450
For centuries, literacy
and literature were
restricted to religious
scholars and wealthy
intellectuals. Then
German Johannes
Gutenberg invented
the metal printing
press with movable
type, enabling
multiple copies
of publications to
be made quickly
and cheaply.
Semaphore
1792
Morse Code
1840
Telephone
1876
By peppering 566
towers topped with
mechanical arms
throughout his native
France, Claude
Chappe invented the
first optical
semaphore system,
allowing
the
military
and
government to
send quick
messages over
vast distances.
The telegraph had

already been
invented, but in 1840
American painter
Samuel Morse filed
his first patent for an
improved device that
used electric signals
to communicate
information encoded
as a series of dots
and dashes.
Many people lay

claim to the invention
of the telephone, but
Alexander Graham
Bell filed the first
patent for a device
that enabled people
in different places to
talk to each other.
DID YOU
KNOW?
top 10 cOUNTRIES WITH

HIGHEST SMARTPHONE
PENETRATION
01
United Arab
Emirates
73.8% of
population owns
a smartphone
03
Saudi Arabia
72.8% of
population owns
a smartphone
05
In New York, Alexander Graham Bell
shows onlookers how to call Chicago
Wireless transmissions
1895
Guglielmo Marconi
built on the work of
others to develop and
improve a system
using electromagnetic
radiation to transmit
messages wirelessly.
In 1895, he sent and
received signals over
a distance of almost
2.5km. By 1901, he
was able to
communicate across
the Atlantic.
Television
1925
Arpanet
1969
The first equipment

allowing the viewing
of live pictures,
rather than prerecorded footage,
appeared in 1925.
Similar technology
had been developed
over the previous 50
years, but Scotsman
John Logie Baird
made the first public
demonstration of
television in 1925.
Modern networks
were born when
technology allowed
computers to connect
and communicate
with each other. That
technology led to the
creation of Arpanet
(Advanced Research
Projects Agency
Network), a system to
help US research labs
exchange information,
laying the foundations
for the internet.
Norway
67.5% of
population owns
a smartphone
07
Sweden
63% of
population owns
a smartphone
09
UK
62.2% of
population owns
a smartphone
02
South Korea
73% of
population owns
a smartphone
04
Singapore
71.7% of
population owns
a smartphone
06
Australia
64.6% of
population owns
a smartphone
08
Hong Kong
62.8% of
population owns
a smartphone
10
Denmark
59% of
population owns
a smartphone
*Source: Our Mobile Planet by Google. Survey conducted Q1 2013.
The first computer

mouse, invented by Doug
Engelbart in California
in 1964, was carved
from wood
10 nASA TECHNOLOGIES WITH

EARTHLY APPLICATIONS
Artificial heart pumps
Memory foam
Introduced to commercial market: 1998
Patients awaiting heart transplants can be kept

alive with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD).
Smaller than other heart pumps and battery
operated, this instrument is based on the fuel
pumps used in NASAs rocket engines.
Cardio-muscular
conditioning machines
The machine dubbed the Shuttle 2000-1 was
developed to give astronauts an effective workout,
helping to combat muscle wasting that can result
from life in zero gravity. The same machine is
used for physiotherapy and to help elderly
people exercise.
In 1966, NASA contracted aeronautical engineer

Charles Yost to improve aeroplane seating in the
hope of providing better crash protection. He came
up with memory foam, a material that could
absorb high-energy impacts but also provide
greater comfort by moulding itself to any object
placed upon it.
Scratch-resistant lenses
These evolved from an experiment to improve
water purification on spacecraft. The result was a
coating that rendered spectacle lenses almost
impervious to abrasion.
Fire-retardant paint
The coating on the Apollo spacecrafts heat shields
was used for fire-retardant paints for aircraft. The
paint has also been employed to reinforce steel
structures in buildings.
The foam that never forgets

another NASA creation
wikipedia, alamy
10 RARE
ELEMENTS
found IN
YOUR HOME
50
December 2014
Europium
Symbol: Eu
Atomic number: 63
Terbium
Symbol: Tb
Atomic number: 65
Lanthanum
Symbol: La
Atomic number: 57
Neodymium
Symbol: Nd
Atomic number: 60
Used in nuclear reactors as

well as low-energy light
bulbs and TV sets.
Discovered by Frances
ugene-Anatole Demaray
in 1896.
Found in LCD screens and

solid-state memory devices
(including USB drives). Swedish
chemist Carl Mosander
discovered the soft, malleable
and ductile metal in 1843.
Another of Carl Mosanders

discoveries, this is one of
the metals used in the
nickel-metal hydride
(NiMH) batteries found in
some smartphones,
laptops and electric cars.
Neodymium makes
excellent magnets and has
been put to use in computer
hard drives, stereo
speakers and electric
motors. Its also used to
colour glass.
Space blanket
Smart clothing
Infrared thermometers
The same material that protects astronomical

objects ranging from the Hubble telescope to the
Mars Rovers against the extreme temperatures of
space also keeps marathon finishers warm. By
coating a thin plastic sheet with aluminium, a
lightweight material was created that insulates by
reflecting heat.
Smart clothing is made from phase-change fabric,

material that incorporates microscopic capsules
filled with a chemical that switches between a
liquid and a gas depending on the temperature.
NASA uses it as a liner in astronaut gloves and its
now found in bedding, clothing and footwear.
Astronomers gauge the temperature of planets

millions of light-years away by measuring the
thermal radiation emitted. The technology
developed to monitor that radiation powers
infrared thermometers that measure your body
temperature by checking the heat emitted from
your eardrum.
Anti-fog coating
Skiers wearing goggles on snowy slopes bless this
technology that helps prevent eyewear from misting
up. This technology is based on the coating developed
to stop condensation building up on plastic or glass
surfaces in NASAs Gemini spacecraft.
Maximum absorbency garment
DID YOU
KNOW?
Prolific inventor
Thomas Edison filed
2,332 worldwide
patents during his
lifetime

Otherwise known as the space nappy, the
maximum absorbency garment was designed to
enable astronauts to relieve themselves
comfortably during prolonged spacewalks.
Capable of soaking up approximately two litres of
liquid, the space nappy also offers a solution for
people suffering from incontinence.
Yttrium
Symbol: Y
Atomic number: 39
Samarium
Symbol: Sm
Atomic number: 62
Cerium
Symbol: Ce
Atomic number: 58
Erbium
Symbol: Er
Atomic number: 68
Dysprosium
Symbol: Dy
Atomic number: 66
Yttrium is a metal that

can be added to glass to
make it heat- and
shock-resistant; it
is found in many
camera lenses.
Discovered by
Frenchman Paul-mile
Lecoq de Boisbaudran
in 1879, this metal
makes great magnets,
used in headphones and
electric guitars.
Replacing cadmium in
pigments used in
domestic products, red
plastic toys or
homewares are likely to
contain cerium, which is
also found in compact
discs, flat-screen TVs and
low-energy light bulbs.
Another Carl Mosander

discovery, this silver metal
has a pink tinge. Its useful
for colouring photographic
filters but also improves the
function of optical fibres for
broadband internet
connections.
Paul-mile Lecoq de
Boisbaudran also
discovered dysprosium.
Besides nuclear reactor
control rods, dysprosium
is used in car headlights
and the electric motors
found in hybrid vehicles
such as the Toyota Prius.
Selenium
Symbol: Se
Atomic number:
34
Many devices
powered by solar cells
contain selenium. You
might also find it in
your bathroom its
used in some antidandruff shampoos.
DID YOU
KNOW?
10 ENGINEERING WONDERS
OF THE MODERN WORLD
Googles original name

was BackRub, a web
crawler designed to
traverse the web
Jiaozhou Bay Bridge

Qingdao, China
Length: 26,707m
alamy
The bridge across Chinas Jiaozhou Bay is the main section of a complex
comprising a 41.58km roadway connecting the districts of Qingdao and
Huangdao. Opened in 2011, the worlds longest bridge over water cost
5.5bn to build; its construction required 10,000 workers, 4,50,000 tonnes of
steel and 2.3 million m of concrete.
Trans-Siberian
railroad
Russia
Length: 9,289km
Burj Khalifa
United Arab
Emirates
Height: 828m
Akashi
Kaikyo bridge
Japan
Length: 3,911m
Construction on the
worlds longest
railway line began in
1891 and, by 1916,
had successfully
connected Moscow in
the west with
Vladivostock on
Russias east coast,
9,289km away.
The current tallest

building in the world
(boasting a full 163
storeys), this iconic
skyscraper took
3,30,000 cubic
metres of concrete
and 39,000 tones of
steel to build.
The tower also
boasts more than
24,000 windows.
Almost half of the

entire length of this
incredible structure,
which boasts the
longest central
span of any
suspension bridge in
the world, is
suspended over the
waters of the Akashi
Strait and carries a
six-lane highway.
Millau Viaduct
France
Length: 2,460m
Height: 343m
Bailong
Elevator
China
Height: 330m
Three Gorges
Dam
China
Height: 180m
The worlds tallest

bridge spans the
valley of the River
Tarn, carrying a fourlane highway 270m
above the valley floor.
Higher than the Eiffel
Tower, the bridge
was completed in
2004 after three
years of construction
at a cost of 400m.
Built into a cliff face

in Zhangjiajie
National Forest Park,
the Bailong Elevator
(aka the Hundred
Dragons Elevator) is
the worlds highest
outdoor lift. The
330m ascent takes
around a minute
in one of three
glass cabins.
The barrier on Chinas

Yangtze River is far from
the biggest dam in the
world, but is a crucial
part of the worlds
largest hydroelectric
power station with a
generating capacity
of 22,500mW. To make
way for the reservoir,
three cities had to
be flooded.
Panama Canal
Panama
Length: 77.1km
This man-made
channel connecting
the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans
opened in 1914. Some
42,000 workers
excavated the canal,
digging enough earth
to bury Manhattan
Island. Today, more
than 14,500 vessels
use the waterway
every year.
Large Hadron
Collider
France/
Switzerland
Length/
circumference:
27km
Buried 100m below
France and Switzerland
is the worlds most
powerful particle
accelerator, designed to
recreate the conditions
that existed shortly after
the Big Bang. It weighs
more than 38,000 tonnes.
Gotthard Base
Tunnel
Switzerland
Length: 57km
Running underneath
the Swiss Alps, when
completed this will
be the worlds
longest rail tunnel.
Due to open in 2016,
this will eclipse
both the 53.85kmlong Seikan Tunnel
in Japan and the
50km-long Channel
Tunnel.
Sir Arthur C Clarke

19172008
Visionary
science-fiction
writers
Isaac Asimov
192092
Wrote or edited more than 500
influential books
Co-writer of the film

2001: A Space Odyssey
As well as earning a number of awards for his
writing, the British author who spent most of
his later years in Sri Lanka was something of
a prophet, predicting that computers would be
used for online shopping and banking.
Robert A Heinlein
190788
First Science Fiction Writers
Grand Master
Ray Bradbury
19202012
Created visions of
a dystopian future
Most famous for writing the Foundation series,

the Russian author is often considered one of
the Big Three sci-fi writers, along with Heinlein
and Clarke. His science-fiction short story
Nightfall was voted the best of all time. A crater
on Mars is named after Asimov the highest
accolade for a sci-fi writer?
Beginning his career as a magazine writer, this

American author went on to pen four overlapping
series, including the Future History books. His
novels explore a range of themes including sex,
race, politics and the military often sparking
important debates on these topics.
One of the most celebrated American writers, many

of Bradburys stories were adapted for other media
most famously, Fahrenheit 451, envisaging a future
state that burns books. Between 1985 and 1992, he
also presented The Ray Bradbury Theatre television
show, for which he adapted 65 of his own stories.
Phillip K Dick
192882
EE Doc Smith
18901965
Jack Williamson
19082006
Wrote novels inspiring Blade

Runner and Total Recall
Best known for the Lensman and

Skylark series
Wrote the Legion of

Space series
As well as publishing 44 novels, Dick also

write around 120 short stories. The American
authors works have inspired a string of hit
films including Blade Runner, Total Recall and
Minority Report.
This American author is sometimes known as

the first nova of 20th-Century science fiction.
He was particularly popular with scientists,
engineers and military men possibly because
a common theme in his novels was the
difficulty of maintaining military secrecy.
Williamson was only the second named Grand

Master of Science Fiction, from the Science
Fiction Writers of America. The Eastern New
Mexico University library is home to the Jack
Williamson Science Fiction Library.
Harlan Ellison
1934present
Frank Herbert
192086
Frederik Pohl
Multi award-winning author

and editor
This American writer has published more than
1700 short stories, novellas and essays, as
well as many film and TV scripts including muchlauded Star Trek episodes. Hes the only three-time
winner of the Nebula Award for Best Short Story.
Writer of the Dune saga

Herbert used many of his novels to explore
and combat complex ideas based around
philosophy, leadership and religion, and his
work attracted a fanatical fan base. Dune
became a major film directed by David Lynch.
19192013
Author with a career spanning 75

years
This American writers first published work
was a short story produced in 1937; his last
novel was printed in 2011. Pohl was awarded
the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master
Award by the Science Fiction Writers of
America in 1993.
December 2014
53
TRANSPORT
newspress, us air force/darpa
The past 100 years or so have seen an extraordinary revolution in the way that
we move around our planet. Almost always, the emphasis has been to reach more places
and to do it faster...
54
December 2014
tansport | science
The top 10 FASTest PLANES

Falcon HTV-2
01
Top speed: 20,920km/h

Unmanned
Lockheed Martin, Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency and US Air Force, USA, 2010
Developed to test the limits of long-duration hypersonic travel, the Falcon HTV-2 is a
rocket-launched, unmanned but fully manoeuvrable plane thats capable of flying at
Mach 20. Not that anything can be remotely described as long-duration at these kinds
of speed; a plane travelling at more than 20,000 miles an hour would cover the distance
between New York City and Los Angeles in around 12 minutes.
02
X-43A
Top speed:
12,144km/h
Unmanned
NASA, USA, 2004
07
Bell X-2
Starbuster
Top speed:
3,369km/h
Manned
Bell Aircraft,
USA, 1955
03
X-15
Top speed:
7,274km/h
Manned
US Air Force and
NASA, USA, 1959
08
XB-70 Valkyrie
Top speed:
3,308km/h
Manned
North American
Aviation, USA,
1964
04
X-51 WaveRider
Top speed:
6,276km/h
Unmanned
Boeing, USA, 2010
09
MiG Foxhound
Top speed:
2,999km/h
Manned
Mikoyan, Soviet
Union, 1975
05
SR-71
BlackBird
Top speed:
3,540km/h
Manned
Lockheed, USA,
1964
10
F-15 Eagle
Top speed:
2,679km/h
Manned
McDonnell
Douglas,
Boeing, Space
& Security,
USA, 1972
06
MiG-25 Foxbat
Top speed:
3,492km/h
Manned
MikoyanGurevich, Soviet
Union, 1964
Sailboat
02 c 4000BC
10 gREAT transport
BREAKTHROUGHS
01
The Nile, Tigris and Euphrates rivers were
important trade routes for the Egyptians

and Mesopotamians. Artefacts from those
civilisations show sailboats were used to
travel and to transport goods between
the settlements along them.
Wheel
c 4500BC
03 Suspension
c 3100BC
Early roads were little more than rocky
tracks, making journeys uncomfortable
for any passengers and potentially
damaging for cargo. By hanging a loadbearing platform or cabin from a frame
built upon a carts chassis, the ancient
Egyptians came up with a method of
ensuring a smoother ride.
Its difficult to pinpoint when the wheel was invented, but the earliest recorded evidence of their
use dates back to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. The wheel enabled the people of this ancient
civilisation to build carts with which to haul bigger loads than could be carried on their backs.
04 Chain drive
c300BC
The mechanism that by transmitting
drive from one place to another
would dramatically alter bicycle design
approximately 2,000 years later first
appeared in ancient Greece. The polybolos,
an automatic crossbow, used a chain drive
to load bolts for rapid and repeated fire.
05 Rockets
c 1250

alamy x2, getty X2
the 10 longest
commercial
flights
56
December 2014
Long before some bright spark thought

of using rockets to launch a men and
machines into space, they were being used
as weapons in battle. After they invented
gunpowder, Chinese chemists used it to
fire incendiary projectiles at their enemies.
01
02
03
04
Sydney
to Dallas
13,804km
Qantas
15 hours and
10 minutes
Johannesburg
to Atlanta
13,582km
Delta Air Lines
16 hours and
55 minutes
Dubai to
Los Angeles
13,420km
Emirates
16 hours and
30 minutes
Dallas to
Brisbane
13,363km
Qantas
16 hours
tansport | science
06 Steam locomotion
1784
09 Powered flight
1903

Steam engines were the driving force

Man had been taking to the skies using
behind the Industrial Revolution, but the idea

for using boiling water as a power source
dates back long before the 18th century.
However, it wasnt until 1784 that Scottish
inventor William Murdoch unveiled a
prototype of a steam-powered road vehicle.
Trains and ships would follow soon after.
various forms of kites, gliders and

balloons for a long time before Orville and
Wilbur Wright showed up. But they were
the first to successfully make a powered,
controlled and sustained flight.
10 Jet engine
1930

Once human flight had been achieved,
07 Pneumatic tyre
1845
engineers set about finding ways to fly faster,

further and higher. The jet engine made doing
all of those things possible. The idea behind
it dates back to the first century AD, but it
wasnt until 1930 that the first patent was
filed for one designed to power an aircraft.

A tier was the name given to the band
of steel used to tie the spokes on wooden

wheels together to form the round
structure. But steel isnt the best material
for producing traction or a comfortable
ride so people began looking for an
alternative, which arrived in the form
of vulcanised rubber. Scotsman Robert
William Thomson was the first to patent
the idea of attaching a rubber tyre to a
wheel and filling it with air.
08 Internal combustion engine

1879

The roots of the internal combustion
engine date back centuries. Crank and

rod mechanisms appear in Roman times
and gunpowder was used to drive the
pistons of a water pump in the 17th
century. However, it was Germanys
Nikolaus Otto who first built and patented
an internal combustion engine that could
be incorporated into an automobile.
05
06
07
08
09
10
Dubai to
Houston
13,144km
Emirates
16 hours and
20 minutes
Dubai to San
Francisco
13,041km
Emirates
16 hours
New York (JFK)

to
Hong Kong
12,990km
Cathay Pacific
16 hours
New York
(Newark) to
Hong Kong
12,980km
United Airlines
15 hours and
50 minutes
Doha to
Houston
12,951km
Qatar Airways
16 hours and
20 minutes
Dubai to Dallas
12,940km
Emirates
16 hours and
20 minutes
the 10 biggest
commercial aircraft
01
02
03
04
Airbus A380
853 passengers
72.72m long
Boeing 747-8
700 passengers
76.3m long
Boeing 747-400
568 passengers
70.6m long
Boeing 777-300
550 passengers
73.9m long
06
07
08
09
Boeing 747-200
452 passengers
70.6m long
Boeing 747-100
452 passengers
70.6m long
Boeing 777-200
440 passengers
63.7m long
Airbus A350-1000
369 passengers
73.78m long
getty x5, alamy x5, boeing, airbus
the 10
fASTEST
TRAINS
58
December 2014
430
380
360
350
01
02
03
04
Shanghai Maglev,
China
Route: Longyang Road
Station Shanghai
Pudong International
Airport
Opened: 2004
Manufacturer: Siemens
and ThyssenKrupp
Harmony CRH
380A, China
Route:
Beijing Shanghai
Opened: 2010
Manufacturer: CSR
Qingdao Sifang
Locomotive &
Rolling Stock
AGV Italo, Italy

Route:
Naples Milan
Opened: 2012
Manufacturer:
Alstom
Velaro E/AVS
103, Spain
Route:
Barcelona
Madrid
Opened: 2007
Manufacturer:
Siemens
km/h
km/h
km/h
km/h
tansport | science
The 10
busiest AIRPORTS
01 Atlanta International Airport, USA
94,630,445 passengers in 2014
05
02 Beijing Capital International Airport, China

03 London Heathrow Airport
04 Tokyo International Airport
Boeing 747-300
496 passengers
70.6m long
05 Dubai International Airport, UAE

06 Los Angeles International Airport, USA
10
07 OHare International Airport, Chicago, USA

08 Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, France
09 Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, USA
Airbus A340-600
359 passengers
75.36m long
10 Hong Kong International Airport, Chek Lap Kok,

Hong Kong

350
320
05
06
km/h
Talgo 350,
Spain
Route:
Madrid Lleida
Opened: 2005
Manufacturer:
Patentes Talgo
and Bombardier
Transportation
km/h
320
km/h
07
E5 Series
Alstom Euroduplex
Shinkansen
Route: France,
Hayabusa, Japan
Germany,
Route: Tohuku
Switzerland,
Shinkansen Line
Luxembourg,
Opened: 2011
Spain
Manufacturer:
Opened: 2011
Kawasaki Heavy
Manufacturer:
Industry and Hitachi
Alstom
320
320
300
08
09
10
TGV Duplex,
France
Route: Paris
Marseille
Opened: 1996
Manufacturer:
Alstom and
Bombardier
ICE 3, Germany
Route: Frankfurt
Cologne;
Munich
Nuremberg
Opened: 2000
Manufacturer:
Siemens
ETR 500
Frecciarossa,
Italy
Route: Rome
Milan
Opened: 2008
Manufacturer:
Treno Veloce
Italiano
km/h
km/h
km/h
* Source: Airports Council International (www.aci.aero) preliminary passenger figures August 2014.
the 10 fASTEST ROAD CARS

01
Bugatti Veyron
Super Sport
Top speed: 431km/h

2010present
newspress x4, hennessey, rwd cars/wikipedia, Trubble/wikipedia, alamy
Despite having made its public debut back in 2010, all other
road-legal cars continue to eat the Super Sports cinders.
Powered by an eight-litre engine, the Bugatti is capable of
accelerating from 0-60mph in just 2.4 seconds. This need
for speed doesnt come cheap, though. Prospective owners
need to have a spare $2.5m in their back pocket. And then
theres those insurance premiums.
02
03
04
05
06
Hennessey
Venom GT
Top speed:
428km/h
2012present
Koenigsegg
Agera R
Top speed:
418km/h
2011present
SSC Ultimate
Aero
Top speed:
413km/h
20062013
9ff GT9-R
Top speed:
413km/h
2007-2008
Saleen S7
Twin-Turbo
Top speed:
399km/h
20052009
07
08
09
10
Koenigsegg CCX
Top speed:
394km/h
20062010
McLaren F1
Top speed:
386km/h
1992-1998
Zenvo ST1
Top speed:
374km/h
2009present
Pagani Huayra
Top speed:
370km/h
2012present
60
December 2014
tansport | science
George Stephenson
17811848
Became renowned as the
father of railways
Wright brothers
Orville: 18711948
Wilbur: 18671912
Made the first powered
fixed-wing flight
At the turn of the 20th century, the race to achieve
powered flight was hotting up. But though several
of their contemporaries got airborne at around the
same time, these siblings were the first to achieve
true powered flight on 17 December 1903
and to patent the aerodynamic control of a
flying machine.
Sir Christopher Cockerell

191099
Invented the hovercraft
The British owner of a small boat company,
Cockerell wanted his vessels go faster. He
developed a theory that a narrow jet of air
around the edge of a craft would efficiently lift
it above the water and tested his ideas with a
vacuum cleaner and two tin cans, patenting his
technology in 1955. The first hovercraft crossed
the English Channel in 1959.
Henry Ford
19631947
Whittle outlined the principles behind jet

propulsion while still a student, taking out a patent
on his design in 1930 at the tender age of 23. The
first prototype was produced in 1937, and the
first jet-powered plane, a Gloster E.28/29, took its
maiden flight on 15 May 1941.
Montgolfier brothers
Joseph-Michael:
17401810
Jacques-tienne:
174599
Invented the hot-air balloon
In 1783 - 120 years before the Wright brothers made
history these French siblings flew an unmanned
balloon nearly 2km during a public demonstration,
following that with a brief (tethered) flight with
tienne on board.
Invented the bicycle

Many people have laid claim to being the creator of
the bicycle, including Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick
Macmillan in 1839. But Frenchman Lallement was
the first to be awarded a patent in the US in 1866
after adding pedals to a walk-along dandy horse to
create the velocipede.
This industrialists adoption of mass-production

techniques revolutionised transport, with his
Model T Fords rolling off the assembly line at
an astonishing rate. Ford was a controversial
character, but made car ownership an achievable
goal for many middle-class Americans.
Invented the turbojet engine
Lauded as the father of rocket science, this

German-American was a crucial figure in the
development of the V-2 rocket used by the Germans
in the Second World War. He was subsequently
recruited by NASA and became chief architect of the
Saturn V launch vehicle.
Pierre Lallement
18431891
Founded the Ford

Motor Company
Frank Whittle
190796
Developed rocket science
Karl Benz
18441929
Invented the petrolpowered automobile
Though other engineers (including fellow German
Gottlieb Daimler) were working on similar vehicles
concurrently, in 1886 Benz was the first to be
awarded a patent for an automobile powered by an
internal combustion engine.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel

180659
Trains, boats, bridges...
He could do it all
As well as building the first railway linking London
to Bristol, this visionary engineer also designed
both the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol and
the SS Great Britain, the first iron steamer to cross
the Atlantic.
photo: alamy x4
Transport
pioneers
Stephenson built the worlds first public inter-city

railway line to use steam locomotives. His design
for the Rocket also became the template for most
steam engines in the following 150 years.
Wernher von Braun

191277
history
Thinkstock, alamy x2, getty
The evolution of civilisation and science through five and a half thousand years of recorded
history and even before yields a treasure trove of astonishing facts, mysteries and hoaxes
62
December 2014
history | history
the WORLDS 10 OLDEST CITIES
01
02
03
04
05
Jericho
Founded:
c 9000BC
Byblos
Founded:
c 5000BC
Aleppo
Founded:
c 4300BC
Damascus
Founded:
c 4300BC
Beirut
Founded:
3000BC
The first settlers

were attracted by the
numerous springs
around the site, now
within the Palestinian
territories.
Known as Gubal by
the Phoenicians and
renamed Byblos by the
Greeks, this Lebanese
city is possibly
the worlds oldest
continuously inhabited
settlement.
Founded as Halab, this

Syrian city was the
capital of the Amorite
dynasty of Yamhad.
Some argue that the

Syrian capital has
been inhabited since
10,000BC.
The name of the

Lebanese capital is
derived from the
Canaanite word Beerot
or wells. The underground water supply is
still used to day.
06
07
08
09
10
Shush
Founded:
c 4200BC
Faiyum
Founded:
c 4000BC
Sidon
Founded:
c 4000BC
Plovdiv
Founded: 4000BC
Gaziantep
Founded:
3650BC
Originally called Susa,

this Iranian city was
the capital of the
Elamite Empire.
This Egyptian
settlement is located
on part of the site
of the ancient
Crocodilopolis,
dedicated to
the worship of a
sacred crocodile.
The base from which

the Phoenician empire
grew, this Lebanese
city was reputedly
visited by Jesus,
St Paul and Alexander
the Great.
The discovery of
pottery and other
everyday objects dating
back several thousand
years proves that the
site of this Bulgarian
city was settled in the
Neolithic Age.
This city, now in southcentral Turkey near

the Syrian border, was
founded by
the Hittites.
10 fAMOUS
HOAXES
A feathered missing link
Discovered: 1997 Exposed: 1999
In 1999, the National Geographic Society
trumpeted the discovery, two years earlier,
of the remains of a dinosaur covered in bird-like
plumage. It was not a missing link, but a forgery
created by a Chinese farmer.
Hitlers Diaries
Discovered and exposed: 1983
Historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was left with egg
on his face after authenticating documents
purporting to be the Nazi leaders diaries. They
were actually the handiwork of Konrad Kujau, a
notorious German forger.
Orson Welles caused panic across the

US with his radio broadcast in 1938
Piltdown Man
Discovered: 1912 Exposed: 1953
The Fiji Mermaid

Publicised and exposed: 1842
A skull and jawbone discovered in Piltdown in

East Sussex were relics from a modern man
and an orangutan not a previously
unknown form of early human, as amateur
archaeologist (and the hoaxs perpetrator)
Charles Dawson claimed.
The legendary circus impresario PT Barnum

toured the US with this mummified mermaid
and had the public fooled. Until, that is, it
emerged that the mermaid possessed the
withered head of a monkey and the tail of a
dried fish.
Alien autopsy
Publicised: early 1990s
Exposed: 1995
The bodies that appeared in film footage
claimed to depict an alien autopsy performed
after the Roswell UFO incident in 1947 were, in
fact, dummies created by Ray Santilli, an entrepreneur from Londons Camden Town.
The Cardiff Giant

Discovered and exposed: 1869
alamy, press association, getty, thinkstock x2
Stern journalist Gerd

Heidemann presents
the alleged diaries
of Adolf Hitler to the
press in 1983
A 10ft-tall petrified man excavated by workers in

Cardiff, New York, turned out to have been carved
out of gypsum by tobacconist George Hull.
DID YOU
KNOW?
In 1915, British
intelligence services
discovered that semen
made an effective
invisible ink
64
December 2014
history | history
The War Of The Worlds

Perpetrated and exposed: 1938
The Protocols Of The

Elders Of Zion
Published: 1903 Exposed: 1921
Thousands of Americans believed that their country was under attack by aliens when Orson Welles
broadcast a radio adaptation of HG Wells The
War Of The Worlds.
This anti-Semitic book, purporting to describe a

Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world, was
disseminated across the globe. It was probably
plagiarised by Russian agents from various sources.
The Cottingley Fairies

Claimed: 1917
Exposed: 1980s
Loch Ness Monster photo

Taken: 1934 Exposed: 1990s
More than 60 years after Edwardian England

was enchanted by five pictures showing two
young girls, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright,
surrounded by fairies, the former admitted the
photos were hoaxes.
Robert Kenneth Wilsons iconic photo seemed

to confirm the Loch Ness monsters existence,
but later analysis suggested that Nessie was
probably being towed.
10 enduring
historical
myths
Nero fiddled
while Rome
burned
Albert Einstein
failed maths at
school
Napoleon was
short
The little corporal
was actually slightly
taller than the average
Frenchman of his
time 5 French feet,
2 inches. In English
measurements, this is
5 feet, 7 inches.
When he saw this

claim published,
Einstein corrected
it: I never failed
in mathematics.
Before I was 15, I had
mastered differential
and integral calculus.
Marco Polo
brought
pasta to Italy
from China
Though wheat
noodles probably
existed in China for
centuries before Polo
visited, its likely
pasta (or similar
preparations) had
arrived in Italy
from Arab lands well
before the
13th century.
The origin of this

expression is
definitely contentious.
Though Nero was
known as a musician,
the fiddle wasnt
invented until 1,500
years after the fire
of Rome.
Sir Walter
Raleigh laid
down his cloak
for Elizabeth
Romans
deliberately
vomited
at orgies
American
Independence
was declared on
4 July
The legend of
chivalrous Sir Walter
laying his cloak over a
puddle to keep Queen
Elizabeths feet dry
stems from Walter
Scotts romantic novel
Kenilworth
of 1821.
The vomitorium was

actually the entrance
allowing crowds to exit
and enter a stadium.
The Pennsylvania
Evening Post
published the
news about the
resolution declaring
independence on
2 July. The actual
document called
The Declaration
of Independence was
approved on the 4th.
George Washington
had wooden teeth
Let Them Eat

Cake
The dentures of the

first US president
(below) were made of
hippopotamus and other
animal teeth, as well
as human teeth held
together with ivory, gold
wire and brass screws.
Marie Antoinette
never suggested
that the breadless
peasants of the
18th century
should eat cake.
The misattributed
quote is from JeanJacques Rousseaus
autobiography the
great princess would
have been only 11 at
the time.
Witches were
burned at the
stake in Salem
Though witch trials
were certainly held
in the Massachusetts
town of Salem,
theres no evidence
that witches were
burned at the stake.
Some 20 women
were hanged or
crushed, and their
bodies later burned.
10 ANCIENT ENGINEERING ACHIEVEMENTS
10 DOOMED
EXPEDITIONS
The Colosseum
Where: Rome
Date built:
AD 7080
Saksaywaman
Where: Peru
Date built:
15th century AD
It took an estimated
100,000m3 of
travertine stone to
build the largest
amphitheatre in
the Roman Empire,
accommodating
50,000 spectators.
Scientists still dont

know how the Inca
transported the
massive boulders
used to construct
this huge walled
complex in Cusco.
Aqueduct
of Segovia
Where: Spain
Date built:
1st century AD
Great Pyramid
of Giza
Where: Egypt
Date built:
c 2500BC
It may have been

constructed by the
Romans 2,000 years
ago, but this 167arch masterpiece
still carries water
from the River Frio to
the town of
Segovia today.
The tallest
man-made structure
on Earth for 3,800
years, construction
of the Pyramid of
Khufu took 100,000
workmen up to
20 years.
Imperial Trans-Antarctic
Expedition
Led by: Ernest Shackleton
Date: 191417
The Donner Party

Led by: The Reed and
Donner families
Date: 184647
Shackletons attempt on a land crossing

of Antarctica ended in disaster when his
ship, Endurance, became trapped in ice
and sank. The story of his epic rescue mission
is legendary.
When a party of pioneer families and their

employees got trapped in the mountains of the
Sierra Nevada, this journey west to California
descended into cannibalism.
North face of the Eiger

Led by: Toni Kurz and
Andreas Hinterstoisser
Date: 1936
thinkstock x5, alamy x5
Kurz and Hinterstoisser both lost their lives during this famous attempt on the formidable Swiss
peak, the former tragically dying
from exhaustion just metres from his
would-be rescuers.
Polaris Expedition
Led by: Charles Francis Hall
Date: 1871
It wasnt the cold that scuppered Halls attempt on
the North Pole, but arsenic poisoning, suggesting
that he may have been murdered by another
member of the expedition.
66
December 2014
Attempt to navigate the

Northwest Passage
Led by: John Franklin
Date: 1847
Franklins entire party died of starvation,
hypothermia, tuberculosis, lead poisoning and
scurvy after being forced to abandon their icebound ships.
history | history
Stonehenge
Where: England
Date built:
From c 2500BC
Mohenjo-daro
Where: Pakistan
Date built:
2600BC
Our prehistoric
ancestors may have
transported 82 huge
stones more than
200km from the
Preseli Mountains of
west Wales to this
giant astrological
observatory.
This city boasted

thousands of
mortared brick
buildings, a street
plan designed to a
grid and sewage
systems that wouldnt
be matched in many
parts of Europe until
the 20th century.
Great Wall
of China
Where: China
Date built:
Begun in
c 220BC
At nearly 9,000km
long and, at points,
rising to almost 1km
above sea level its
little wonder that the
Great Wall of China
is arguably the most
iconic of all manmade constructions.
Teotihuacan
Where: Mexico
Date built:
100BCAD 250
This Aztec metropolis
was, for centuries,
the largest city in the
Americas, and home
to the third-tallest
pyramid in the world,
the Pyramid of
the Sun.
Leshan Giant
Buddha
Where: China
Date built:
Begun in
AD 713
It took thousands of
workers more than
90 years to complete
this, the largest
carved stone
Buddhist in the
world, standing
some 71m tall.
Antikythera
Mechanism
Where: Greece
Date built:
2nd century BC
Arguably the most
complex device from
the ancient world,
the Antikythera
Mechanism is
a mechanical
computer that
tracks the cycles of
the solar system.
DID YOU
KNOW?
Terra Nova expedition
Led by: Robert Falcon Scott
Date: 1912
The search for the city of Z

Led by: Percy Harrison Fawcett
Date: 1925
Five members of Scotts party reached the South

Pole 33 days after their Norwegian rivals led by
Roald Amundsen became the first to do so but
all perished on the return journey.
British explorer Fawcetts obsession with finding

El Dorado, the legendary City of Gold, was to
prove his undoing. He disappeared without trace in
the Brazilian jungle.
Ferdinand Magellan
gave the Pacific Ocean
its name. Mar pacifico
means peaceful sea
in Portuguese
Mount Everest expedition

Led by: George Mallory and
Sandy Irvine
Date: 1924
Did Mallory and Irvine become the first men to
conquer Everest? Well probably never know for
sure Mallorys body was recovered in 1999,
but with no evidence to show whether he had
reached the summit.
Flying to the North Pole

Led by: Salomon August Andre
Date: 1897
Andres mission to fly to the North Pole ended in
tragedy when his hydrogen balloon was blown off
course. The Swedish engineer and two colleagues
died attempting to trek back to civilisation.
Round-the-world flight
Led by: Amelia Earhart
Date: 1937
The first woman to fly solo across the
Atlantic, intrepid aviator Earhart disappeared
somewhere over the Pacific Ocean during her
pioneering round-the-world flight. Her body has
never been found.
According to legend,
Nan Madol was built
by twin sorcerers
10 baffling
HISTORICAL
MYSTERIES
Nazca Lines
Where: Southern Peru
Created: 300BCAD 600
Discovered: 1930s
These extraordinary ground markings depicting
animals and plants some over 200m long have
puzzled scientists for decades. Some have even
claimed theyre ancient runways for visiting aliens.
Runways for aliens?

The Nazca Lines of Peru
Piri Reis map

Where: Topkap Palace,
Istanbul, Turkey
Created: 1513
Discovered: 1929
How did a 16th-century Turkish mariner map northern Antarctica the continent wasnt visited until
1818? Just one of the questions posed by Piri Reis
remarkable cartography.
Chou Chou buckle

Where: China
Created: around AD 300
Discovered: 1956
Aluminium wasnt isolated until the 19th century. So
how was this girdle fastener found in the grave of
Chinese general Chou Chou created 15 centuries
earlier and made from 85% aluminium?
68
December 2014
City of Nan Madol

Where: Micronesia
Created: 12th13th century AD
Discovered: early 19th century
Roanoke colony abandonment

Where: Roanoke Island, North
Carolina, USA
Created: 1587
This once-great city dubbed the Venice of the

Pacific and constructed using 250 million tonnes of
huge basalt blocks on a coral reef was made without machines. The question is: how?
An English colony was established on Roanoke

Island in 1587. Three years later, when John
White returned with supplies, he found the colony
abandoned, its population having mysteriously
vanished.
Mary Celeste
Where: Atlantic Ocean
Discovered: December 1872
Phaistos disc
Where: Phaistos, Crete
Created: Second millennium BC
Discovered: 1908
When this brigantine was discovered drifting,

unmanned, in the Atlantic Ocean a great maritime
mystery was born. Did the crew abandon the ship
fearing an explosion, after smelling alcohol fumes?
Jack the Ripper murders

Where: Whitechapel, London
When: 1888
The violent murders of several prostitutes in East
London triggered one of the most famous whodunnits in history as the police hunted the elusive
killer Jack the Ripper.
Rongorongo writing
Where: Easter Island
Created: late 18th century
Inscriptions on stone and wooden tablets
found on Easter Island are in a script
called rongorongo, a mix of ideographs
and a kind of phonetic alphabet. But what
does it mean?
Scientists have been trying (and failing) to

decipher the code on this 15cm fired-clay disc
discovered at the site of a Bronze Age Minoan
palace for over a century.
Egyptian aeroplane
Where: Saqqara, Egypt
Created: c 2000BC
Discovered: 1898
Discovered in a tomb, this remarkably aerodynamic model was designed by ancient Egyptians,
4,000 years before man could fly.
history | history
the 10
LONGEST WARS
Three Hundred
and Fifty Years
War
Belligerents: Isles of
Scilly, Netherlands
16511986
This conflict started
during the English Civil
War, when a Dutch fleet
declared war on the
royalist Scilly Isles. A
peace treaty was finally
signed in 1986.
02
Arauco War
Belligerents:
Colonial Spanish,
Mapuche people
15361820s
This clash between
the indigenous people
of Chile and Spanish
colonists ended
in native victory
when Chile won its
independence in
the 1820s.
03
04
GrecoPersian War
Belligerents:
Greek city states,
Persian empire
499449BC
The city states of
Greece overcame
seemingly impossible
odds in repelling a series
of invasions launched
by the full might of the
Persian empire.
05
07
09
Guatemalan
Civil War
Wars of
the Roses
Great
Northern War
Belligerents:
Guatemalan military,
leftish rebels
196096
One of historys longest
civil wars was sparked
when dissidents rebelled
against Guatemalas autocratic regime in 1960.
It ended with a peace
treaty in 1996.
Belligerents:
Houses of York and
Lancaster
145585
Englands ruling
Plantagenet family
tore itself apart in a
bitter dynastic war
that ended with Richard IIIs death at the
Battle of Bosworth.
Belligerents: Swedish
empire, a coalition led
by Russia
170021
Swedens stranglehold
on the areas around the
Baltic Sea was smashed
by a coalition of nations including Russia,
Denmark-Norway and
Saxony-Poland.
06
10
Vietnam War
Belligerents:
Communist and anticommunist forces
195675
North Vietnams communist forces defeated their
southern neighbours and
dealt the United States
a bloody nose in a Cold
War conflict that cost
hundreds of thousands
of lives.
08
Hundred Years
War
Thirty
Years War
Peloponnesian
War
Belligerents:
England, France,
Burgundy, Scotland
13371453
English attempts
to seize the throne
of France were
foiled in this longrunning conflict that
awakened French
nationalism.
Belligerents:
Protestants and
Catholic nations
across Europe
161848
Millions died and huge
areas of central Europe
were laid to waste when
Europes Protestant
and Catholic states
crossed swords.
Belligerents:
Athens, Sparta
C 431404BC
Sparta became the
dominant force in
the Greek world
after triumphing over
Athens in a series
of clashes on land
and sea.
alamy x3, getty x2, thinkstock
01
The Vietnam War was both

lengthy and bloody
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DEC. 4 & DEC. 18
Registrations must reach us by 30 days of chosen date of exam
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ENGLISH OLYMPIAD
JAN. 20 & JAN. 29
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human planet
The world is shaped by us our houses, our cities, our roads, and, most of all,
our sheer number. Here weve pulled together the facts and figures that demonstrate
the impact humans have made on Earth
72
December 2014
Human Planet | science
10 cOUNTRIES THAT
dont officially exist
Republic of Somaliland
Where: Horn of Africa
Capital: Hargeisa
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
Where: Surrounded by Azerbaijan
Capital: Stepanakert
Declared independence from Somalia in 1991.

Not recognised internationally.
Declared independence in 1991, though still claimed

by Azerbaijan and not recognised by most nations,
except three that are also non-UN members.
Pridnestrovian Moldavian
Republic (Trans-Dniester)
Where: Between Moldova
and Ukraine
Capital: Tiraspol
Republic of Abkhazia
Where: Black Sea coast between
Georgia and Russia
Capital: Sukhumi
Republic of China (Taiwan)

Where: South China Sea
Capital: Taipei
Effectively independent since the end of the
Chinese civil war in 1949, Taiwan is recognised
by only 21 UN members and the Holy See.
Declared independence from Georgia in 1999, and

has subsequently been recognised by states
including Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru,
Tuvalu and three others themselves not recognised
by the UN.
Sahrawi Arab Democratic

Republic (Western Sahara)
Where: Between Morocco and
Mauritania
Capital: Laayoune
Republic declared in 1976, but Western Sahara is
still claimed by Morocco, which still governs the
majority of its territory.
Turkish Republic of
Northern Cyprus
Where: Northern third of Cyprus
Capital: North Nicosia/Lefkosa
State of Palestine
Where: West Bank of Jordan
and Gaza Strip
Capital: Ramallah/East Jerusalem
Declared independence in 1983, following

Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Recognised as
a state only by Turkey.
Declared independent by the Palestine

Liberation Organization. Around two-thirds of UN
member states have recognised Palestine.
Republic of Kosovo
Where: Balkans, between Serbia
and Albania
Capital: Pristina
Republic of South Ossetia

Where: North of Georgia
Capital: Tskhinvali
Declared independence from Serbia in 2008 following

long-running conflict. Recognised by USA and many
Western European nations, but not by all UN members.
Declared independence from Georgia in 1991,

but recognised by only a few countries including
Russia, Nicaragua and some European nations,
but not all UN members.
alamy x3, thinkstock
Declared independence from Moldova in 1990;

not recognised by most nations, except three
that are also non-UN members.
the 10 tALLEST
SKYSCRAPERS
02
03
Shanghai Tower
Shanghai, China
Height: 632m
Date completed: 2014
Burj Khalifa
01
Dubai, United
Arab Emirates
05
Height: 509m
Having been home to the worlds tallest free-standing

structure for nearly 4,000 years (until the Great Pyramid at
Giza in Egypt was overtaken by Lincoln Cathedral in 1311), the
Middle East reclaimed the title when the Burj Khalifa tower
was opened in January 2010.
08
Burj Khalifa
828m
Height: 452m
800
700
Shanghai
Tower
632m
600
500
400
300
photo: thinkstock
200
100
74
December 2014
Makkah
Royal Clock
Tower Hotel
601m
One World
Trade Center
New York City,
USA
Height: 601m
Height: 541.3m
07
Shanghai World
Financial Center
Shanghai, China
Height: 492m
09
Petronas Tower 1
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
900
Makkah Royal
Clock Tower Hotel
Mecca, Saudi
Arabia
06
Taipei 101
Taipei, Taiwan
Height: 828m
04
One World
Trade Center
541.3m
International
Commerce
Centre
Hong Kong
Height: 484m
10
Petronas
Tower 2
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Zifeng Tower
Nanjing, China
Height: 450m
Height: 452m
Taipei
101
509m
Shanghai
World
Financial
Centre
492m
International
Commerce
Centre
484m
The 10 mOST
POPULOUS
COUNTRIES
01
China
Population:
1,349,585,838
03
USA
Population:
316,438,601
05
Burj Khalifa also boasts a recordbreaking number of floors 163
India
Population:
1,220,800,359
04
Indonesia
Population:
251,160,124
06
Pakistan
Population:
193,238,868
Zifeng
Tower
450m
07
DID YOU
KNOW?
When its completed
in 2019, the Kingdom
Tower in Jeddah in
Saudi Arabia will
stand 1000
metres tall
Nigeria
Population:
174,507,539
09
Russia
Population:
142,500,482
08
Bangladesh
Population:
163,654,860
10
Japan
Population:
127,253,075
*NB: population figures estimated in July 2013. Source: CIA World Factbook
Petronas
Tower 1
and 2
452m
Brazil
Population:
201,009,622
02
The Chernobyl disaster

rendered Pripyat a ghost town
10 cities left
ABANDONED
Pripyat
Where: Ukraine
Abandoned: 1986
Following the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the

entire population of around 50,000 residents were
evacuated never to return.
DID YOU
KNOW?
The worlds lowest-lying
capital city is Baku
in Azerbaijan, which
lies at 28m below
sea level
thinkstock x4, alamy
The 10
sMALLEST
COUNTRIES
(by area)
76
December 2014
Oradour-sur-Glane
Where: France
Abandoned: 1944
Kolmanskop
Where: Namibia
Abandoned: 1954
Craco
Where: Italy
Abandoned: 1963
A German Panzer division

destroyed this town, killing
642 inhabitants.
This mining town

was abandoned when its
diamond yield declined.
The instability of the hill

on which the town sat
caused a mass exodus
during the 1960s.
Varosha
Where: Cyprus
Abandoned: 1974
Kayaky
Where: Turkey
Abandoned: 1923
This holiday playground of

the rich was abandoned
after the invasion
by Turkey.
The non-Muslim
inhabitants of this town
were forced to relocate
after the Greco-Turkish War.
Hashima
Island
Where: Japan
Abandoned: 1974
Humberstone
Where: Chile
Abandoned: 1961
Salton
Riviera
Where: California
Abandoned: 1970s
Abandoned after the

saltpeter-mining industry
declined. Now a UNESCO
World Heritage Site.
Local fish population died

out; so did local tourism.
This mining area closed

for business after the
seams were mined out.
Plymouth
Where: Montserrat
Abandoned: 1995
A volcanic eruption in
1995 led to the evacuation
of two-thirds of the island.
01
02
03
04
Vatican City
0.4km2
Monaco
1.9km2
Nauru
21km2
Tuvalu
26km2
The 10 hIGHEST
CAPITAL CITIES
La Paz, the Bolivian capital, clings to the
lower slopes of the Andes
01
La Paz
Bolivia
3,640m
Sitting in a bowl with mountains on all sides, the Bolivian

capital is located in the valleys of the Andes. With a population
of 877,363, the citys more affluent citizens tend to reside in
its lower-lying neighbourhoods, while poorer residents make
their homes at higher altitudes within the capital.
02
03
Quito
Ecuador
2,850m
05
04
Thimphu
Bhutan
2,648m
06
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
2,355m
08
07
Asmara
Eritrea
2,325m
09
Mexico City
Mexico
2,240m
Bogot
Colombia
2,625m
Sanaa
Yemen
2,250m
10
Nairobi
Kenya
1,795m
Kabul
Afghanistan
1,790m
05
06
07
08
09
10
San Marino
61.2km2
Liechtenstein
160km2
Marshall Islands
181km2
Saint Kitts and

Nevis
269km2
Maldives
298km2
Malta
316km2
the 10 most densely

populated countries
Monaco
01
Area: 2.02km2
Population: 36,136 Density: 18,068 people/km2

Not only are its citizens the most tightly packed-in on the planet, the principality
also claims the highest gross domestic product per capita at $153,177 US. The
worlds second smallest country by area after the Vatican City, Monaco is modestly
increasing in size thanks to ongoing land reclamation projects.
Monaco is no place
for those who suffer
from claustrophobia
02
03
Singapore
Area: 716km2
Population:
5,399,200
Density: 7,669
people/km2
05
Area: 0.44km2
Population: 800
Density: 1,818
people/km2
06
Malta
Area: 315km2
Population:
4,16,055
Density: 1,321
people/km2
08
Maldives
Area: 298km2
Population:
3,17,280
Density: 1,065
people/km2
09
Palestine
thinkstock x3
Area: 6,020km2
Population:
4,420,549
Density: 734
people/km2
78
Vatican City
December 2014
Taiwan
Area: 36,191km2
Population:
23,361,147
Density: 645
people/km2
04
Bahrain
Area: 757km2
Population:
1,234,571
Density: 1,631
people/km2
07
Bangladesh
Area: 1,47,570km2
Population:
1,52,518,015
Density: 1,034
people/km2
10
Barbados
Area: 430km2
Population:
2,74,200
Density: 638
people/km2
Honduras
10.17
Myanmar
16.83
Nicaragua
17.17
Bangladesh
19.67
24.00
Vietnam
Philippines
31.17
Dominican Republic
31.33
Mongolia
31.33
Thailand
31.50
10
15
20
25
30
Myanmar
Climate Risk
Index: 11.83
Droughts and floods

hit food production.
Warmer temperatures
have led to huge
increases in the spread
of water-borne diseases.
Climate Risk Index
Floodwater causes
damage in Dhaka,
Bangladesh
04
Haiti
Climate Risk
Index: 16.83
Nicaragua
Climate Risk
Index: 17.17
The number and power

of hurricanes have
increased significantly
in recent years.
Two category-five
storms in the past
15 years claimed
thousands of lives.
05
35
02
Honduras
Climate Risk
Index: 10.17
03
11.83
Haiti
01
06
Bangladesh
Climate Risk
Index: 19.67
Vietnam
Climate Risk
Index: 24.00
Frequent flooding of the

Ganges delta wipes out
crops, destroys homes
and spreads diseases.
Increases in flash
floods, landslides and
other natural disasters
causing many deaths.
07
Philippines
Climate Risk
Index: 31.17
Increasingly frequent,
intense natural
disasters, especially
floods,are claiming
thousands of lives.
09
08
Dominican
Republic
Climate Risk
Index: 31.33
Flooding and erosion
are both causing major
problems for this
Caribbean country.
10
Mongolia
Climate Risk
Index: 31.33
Thailand
Climate Risk
Index: 31.50
In the past 70 years,

average temperatures
have increased by 2C
andrainfall has decreased,
hitting the agricultural
sector particularly hard.
Crops have been

increasingly
destroyed by floods.
*NB: figures based on German Watch Long-Term Climate Risk Index
The 10 countries
most affected by
climate change
science
123rf.com
Research into the nuts and bolts of the universe makes for riveting reading
from quarks and string theory to landmark breakthroughs (and mistakes),
eccentric experiments and dinosaur discoveries
80
December 2014
science | science
10 big BLUNDERS
& false claims
Mars mission malfunction
NASA spent $327 million launching the Mars Climate Orbiter, which reached the red planet on
23 September 1999 only to be lost in the Martian atmosphere. A navigation malfunction in its navigation
systems was discovered to be the result of a basic error: the orbiter had been engineered using imperial
measurements, but was guided using technology that followed the metric system.
The universe
revolves
around us
In 1999, NASAs Mars

Climate Orbiter disintegrated
in the Red Planets
atmosphere thanks to a
blunder in software units
Fire comes from

phlogiston
The universe is
infinite
Energy from
cold fusion
The influential (and

groundbreaking) GrecoRoman mathematician
and geographer Ptolemy
developed an astronomical
model in which Earth
sat at the centre of the
cosmos. His geocentric
model went uncorrected
until Copernicus proposed
his heliocentric theory in
1543 nearly 1,500
years later.
In 1667, German
alchemist Johann
Joachim Becher
proposed a theory of
combustion claiming
the existence of terra
pinguis, an element
released when
flammable objects are
ignited. The substance
was later dubbed
phlogiston by Georg
Ernst Stahl and, of
course, does not exist.
Eminent and
controversial
astrophysicist Fred
Hoyle posited a steady
state theory, suggesting
that the universe has
existed and will continue
to exist forever. In 1949,
Hoyle derisively coined
the phrase big bang to
describe the alternative
theory that he continued
to deride till his death
in 2001.
In 1989, electrochemists
Stanley Pons and Martin
Fleischmann announced
that wwthey had
detected a nuclear
reaction at near room
temperature cold
fusion, a holy grail for
the production of cheap
and abundant supply of
energy. Nobody has since
succeeded in reproducing
their results.
DNA is a
triple helix
Creation of
killer bees
Travel faster
than light
American scientist
Linus Pauling was a
Nobel-winning chemist
but erred in 1953
when suggesting that
DNA has a triple helix
structure. Later that
year, Francis Watson
and James Crick
discovered that DNA
forms a double helix.
Biologist Warwick Kerr

began crossbreeding
European and African
bees near So Paulo
in 1956, in an attempt
to develop a species
more suited to Brazils
tropical climate. The
resulting Africanised
bees aka killer bees,
aggressive and prone
to swarming escaped
and spread northward
as far as the USA.
In 2011 the established

laws of physics
appeared to have been
broken when an Italian
lab claimed to have
witnessed neutrinos
travelling faster than
the speed of light. Not
so. It transpired that
the GPS equipment
used to track the
neutrinos hadnt been
hooked up properly.
The
cosmological
constant
Einstein, believing
that the universe was
static, introduced a
cosmological constant
to his general theory of
relativity to explain how
gravity was thwarted in
preventing expansion.
When it was discovered
that the universe is
expanding, he renounced
the constant, calling it his
greatest blunder.almost
the speed of light.
The Earth
is young
British scientist Sir
William Thomson, 1st
Baron Kelvin, is best
known for determining
the value of the lowest
possible temperature
(absolute zero, or
273.15C. But he also
used the idea that the
Earth is gradually cooling
to estimate its age. In
1897 he announced that
the Earth was 2040
million years old. We
now know that its about
4.5 billion years old.
10 BREAKTHROUGHS IN BIOLOGY
Cell division
Who: Robert Remak
When: 1855
By hardening the cell

membrane, Remak was able to
observe cell division
By staining a cells membrane, Remak was

able to prove that new cells are formed by the
division of existing cells. He also surmised that
tumours grow and are spread in the same manner.
Cell biology
Who: Henri Dutrochet
When: Early 19th century
The French physiologist pioneered the study of
cells as the key units of function in life, and
suggested that basic processes of life are similar
across all organisms.
Homeostasis
Who: Claude Bernard
When: 1854
Bernard stated that all the vital mechanisms,
varied as they are, have only one object: that of
preserving constant the conditions of life. This
encapsulates the concept of homeostasis the
maintenance of a constant internal environment,
key to most forms of life.
Genetic inheritance
Who: Gregor Mendel
When: 1865
By studying pea plants, Mendel discovered that
inheritance of many traits, such as height, could be
explained through simple rules resulting in the
concept of dominant and recessive genes.
Osmosis
Who: Jean-Antoine Nollet
When: 1748
Nollet was the first person to document osmosis
variations in the concentrations of dissolved
substances causing movement of the solvent (for
example, water) a key process in biology that
explains, for example, how plants take up water
from the soil.
Inheritance of acquired traits

Who: Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
When: 1801
Lamarck proposed that characteristics acquired by
an organism can be passed on to offspring. Long
considered inaccurate, modern ideas of epigenetics
endorse a form of this type of inheritance may occur.
Food chain
Who: Al-Jahiz
When: 9th century AD
The idea that all organisms are dependent on others,
together forming a vast web encompassing all
species, was proposed by the Arabic writer Al-Jahiz.
alamy, thinktock, press association
10 GAME-HANGING
FOSSIL FINDS
Biogenesis
Who: Louis Pasteur
When: 1861
Pasteur showed that the growth of bacteria from
fermentation was a result of biogenesis and
extrapolated that all life originates from an organism
similar to itself, rather than non-living material, as was
earlier believed.
Chromosomes
Who: Theodor Boveri and Walter Sutton
When: 1902
The independent work of these two biologists led to
the conclusion that pairs of chromosomes, found in all
dividing cells, carry the information by which genetic
traits are inherited.
A fossilised femur from this carnivore (left) was

discovered in 1676, but it was nearly 150 years later that
William Buckland and colleagues named the huge lizard
and recognised it as the first-known dinosaur.
Marine fossils
Discovered: 6th century BC
Where: Greece
Lived: various periods
The Greek philosopher Xenophanes reasoned
that the fossils of marine creatures found on
land were evidence of sea covering the earth in
previous eras.
This aquatic reptile was the first to be identified as

an extinct species, by Georges Cuvier, and the first
genus of such an animal to be named, in 1822 by
William Conybeare.
December 2014
Darwin and Wallace each independently conceived

the theory that species develop through a process of
natural selection.
Megalosaurus
Discovered: 1676
Where: Oxfordshire
Lived: Jurassic (201145 million years ago)
Mosasaurus
Discovered: 1764
Where: Maastricht, Netherlands
Lived: Cretaceous (around 7065
million years ago)
82
Theory of evolution by natural selection

Who: Charles Darwin and
Alfred Russel Wallace
When: 1858
Iguanodon
Discovered: c1821
Where: Sussex
Lived: Early Cretaceous (around 125 million
years ago)
One of three genera included in the original classification
of dinosauria, the first fossils of this 10m-long herbivore
discovered in the early 1820s by Gideon Mantell fuelled
a fiery debate about evolution and whether prehistoric
reptiles had actually existed.
science | science
10 sCIENTISTS WHO
EXPERIMENTED ON THEMSELVES
Max Joseph von Pettenkofer
18181901
John Scott Haldane

18601936
In 1992, this Bavarian hygienist drank the

diarrhoea of a cholera-stricken man in an attempt
to demonstrate that the microbes became
harmful only after incubating in the ground. He
discovered that he was wrong.
This Scottish physiologist repeatedly used

himself as a guinea pig, testing the effects of
breathing various mixes of air and gases. His son
Jack was also often involved.
Pierre Curie
18591906
William J Harrington
192392
To observe the effects of radium on skin, the

French scientist strapped a piece to his arm; the
resulting burn prompted the idea that radioactive
material could be used to treat diseased tissue
such as tumours.
The American researcher in autoimmune

disorders transfused blood from a patient with
idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura into himself,
showing that the condition causes the body to
destroy blood platelets.
Horace Wells
181548
An American dentist in Connecticut, Wells
pioneered the use of nitrous oxide (laughing
gas) in dentistry by having one of his own teeth
extracted while under anaesthesia.
John Paul Stapp

191099
The American researcher made a huge
contribution to air-crash safety by testing the
effects of rapid deceleration on the human body,
strapping himself to a rocket sled braking rapidly
from up to 1,000km/h.
Nicolae Minovici
18681941
To better understand the experience and effects
of hanging, this Romanian forensic scientist
hanged himself on several occasions with
assistants on hand to release him.
Werner Forssmann
190479
Barry Marshall
1951present
The Australian doctor drank a culture of the
microbe Helicobacter pylori to prove that the
bacterium, not stress or spicy food, is responsible
for causing stomach ulcers.
Lazzaro Spallanzani
172999
The procedure for cardiac catheterisation was

developed by this German doctor in 1929, when
he threaded a thin rubber tube through a vein in
his left arm and into his heart.
This Italian priest swallowed various items,

including bones contained in small cloth bags or
perforated wooden tubes, to test how stomach
secretions help digest food.
Thrinaxodon
Discovered: named 1894
Where: South Africa
Lived: Early Triassic (250245
million years ago)
Tiktaalik
Discovered: 2004
Where: Ellesmere Island, Canada
Lived: Late Devonian (around 375
million years ago)
This low-slung, burrowing carnivore had dog-like

teeth and may have sported fur. Its considered to
have been a precursor of modern mammals.
Many features of this lobe-finned fish are similar to

those of four-legged animals this creature and
its relatives may have been the ancestors of most
modern terrestrial animals.
Diplodocus
Discovered: 1877
Where: Colorado, USA
Lived: Late Jurassic (155145
million years ago)
Ambulocetus
Discovered: 1993
Where: Pakistan
Lived: Early Eocene (5048 million
years ago)
Amphistium
Discovered: 18th century
Where: Northern Italy
Lived: 50 million years ago
This monstrous herbivore, stretching to 33m in

length, was the first near-complete fossil of a
giant sauropod to be discovered.
In form a little like a mammalian crocodile,

Ambulocetus was adapted for both aquatic and
terrestrial life it could swim as well as walk
and was probably a forerunner of modern whales.
Archaeopteryx
Discovered: around 1861
Where: Solnhofen,
Germany
Lived: Late Jurassic
(around 150 million years ago)
The first bird was a transitional species linking
feathered dinosaurs with modern birds
and its status in this transition is still steeped
in controversy.
This transitional genus of flatfish had one eye

on top of its head. As researcher Matt Friedman
realised in 2008, it was probably the ancestor of
modern fish such as flounder, halibut and sole,
which have both eyes on one side of the head.
science | science
10 BREAKTHROUGHS IN GEOLOGY
Deep time
Who: Aristotle
When: 4th century BC
Continental drift
Who: Abraham Ortelius
When: 1596
The Greek philosopher recognised that the Earth

changes at an indiscernably slow rate, writing:
the distribution of land and sea in particular
regions does not endure throughout all time a
concept dubbed deep time.
Though Alfred Wegener is credited with the

idea of continental drift land splitting from an
ancient single mass, a hypothesis he presented
in 1912 over three centuries earlier the Flemish
geographer Ortelius had suggested that the
Americas had once been connected to Europe
and Asia.
Stratification of the Earths crust

Who: Abraham Werner
When: 1774
As the creationist views of early geologists
softened, German geologist Werner proposed a
system of classification of rocks and divided them
into five chronological formations.
The Earths core

Who: Richard Dixon Oldham
When: 1906
Oldham analysed the speed at which earthquake
waves travel through the Earth, and noticed that
the speed drops markedly towards the centre
thence deducing the existence of a core of a
different density.
The edge of the

Earths core sits
at about 2,900km
beneath the surface.
Geomorphology
Who: Shen Kuo
When: 11th century AD
Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (AD 103195) made
observations of marine fossil shells in mountains
far from the ocean, and proposed that the rocks
were once on a seashore. He theorised that
land formed from uplift and silt deposits, and is
gradually eroded.
10 CRUCIAL
PHYSICS
THEORIES
Falling objects
of different
sizes
accelerate at
the same rate
Who: Galileo
Galilei
When: 1589
thinkstock x6
To disprove Aristotles
theory of gravity,
Galileo dropped two
balls of different
weights from the
top of Italys Leaning
Tower of Pisa.
84
December 2014
Everything
is composed of
atoms
Who: Leucippus
and Democritus
When: 5th
century BC
Atomism proposes
that everything
is composed of
an infinite variety
of indestructible,
immutable atoms
that collide or link up
to form clusters.
Atoms are
composed
of smaller
particles
Who: Joseph John
Thomson
When: 1897
Every event has

a natural cause
Who: Thales
When: c 580BC
Greek philosopher
Thales attempted
to explain natural
phenomena without
By demonstrating
reference to
that cathode rays are
mythology. He was
composed of negatively
among the first to try
charged particles,
Thomson effectively found to identify a substance
from which all things
the electron the first of
the subatomic particles to are composed (water,
he thought).
be discovered.
Paleomagnetism
Who: Stanley Keith Runcorn
When: 1940s and 1950s
The strata of
sandstone can
be clearly seen
at Antelope
Canyon, Arizona
Geological strata
Who: Ibn Sina (Avicenna)
When: c AD 1027
In his Book of Healing, the great Persian
polymath Ibn Sina described the process by
which layers of rocks of different hardness
geological strata are overlaid and eroded
at varying rates.
Fossils identifying strata

Who: William Smith
When: c 1799
Known as the Father of English Geology, Smiths
studies of the rock layers of England led him to
propose the Theory of Faunal Succession, stating
that fossils of the same age would be found in
similar rock strata across the country.
Buoyant
force equals
displaced fluid
weight
Who:
Archimedes
When: c 250BC
Atoms of an
element are
identical in size
and mass
Who: John
Dalton
When: 1803
Archimedes principle
states that: Any object,
wholly or partially
immersed in a fluid, is
buoyed up by a force
equal to the weight of
the fluid displaced by
the object.
Our modern concept

of atoms is based on
a lecture in which
Dalton proposed that
matter is made of
indestructible atoms,
and that all atoms of
the same element
are identical.
The British geophysicist Runcorn established

the study of residual magnetisation in ancient
rocks. His work demonstrated reversals of
Earths magnetic field, and provided evidence for
continental drift.
Accurate age of the Earth

Who: Clair Cameron Patterson
When: 1953
The American geochemist used lead isotopic
data from the Canyon Diablo meteorite to
calculate the Earths age to within 70 million
years. His figure, 4.55 billion years, has remained
essentially unchallenged since.
DID YOU
KNOW?
At Silfra in Iceland (pictured
right) you can snorkel
between the European
and North American
continental plates
Energy cant be
created or destroyed
Who: Julius von
Mayer
When: 1842
German scientist
Julius von Mayer
established the law
of the conservation of
energy within a closed
system (though it can
be converted between
different types for
example, between
heat and kinetic).
Objects move
at a constant
velocity unless
acted on by
external force
Who: Isaac
Newton
When: 1687
Newtons three laws
of motion, including
this first law, form
the foundation of
classical mechanics
as we now
understand it.
Plate tectonics
Who: John Tuzo Wilson
When: 1965
The concepts involved in explaining Wegeners
theory of continental drift had been developed
and refined with the discovery of mid-ocean ridge
spreading and the study of paleomagnetism, but
Tuzo Wilson added the final elements to complete
the picture of massive moving plates.
Mass has an
associated
energy
Who: Albert
Einstein
When: 1905
Arising from his theory
of special relativity,
Einsteins most famous
equation (e=mc2:
energy equals mass
times speed of light
squared) shows that
the mass of an object
is a measure of its
energy.
Hadrons are
composed
of quarks
Who: Murray
Gell-Mann and
George Zweig
When: 1964
Hadrons (subatomic
particles including
neutrons and protons
that comprise atoms)
are themselves
composed of smaller
particles called
quarks.
science | science
The 10 mOST EXPENSIVE EXPERIMENTS
$150 $20.6
02
03
04
International
Thermonuclear
Experimental
Reactor
(12.3 billion)
James
Webb Space
Telescope
(4.9 billion)
International
Linear Collider
(4.1 billion)
01
International
Space Station
(92 billion)
$3.26
billion
In 2010 construction
began in France
on what will become
the worlds largest
tokamak fusion
device
a magnetically
confined core in
which fuel will
be heated to
temperatures greater
than 150,000,000C.
billion
billion
A planned particle
accelerator even
bigger than the Large
Hadron Collider, the
ILC will use a straight
path rather than a
circular one to
measure particle
collisions more
accurately. Sites in
Europe, the USA and
Japan are currently
being considered,
with construction due
to begin by 2016.
Scheduled to launch
in 2018, this
telescope a NASA
project with input
from the European
and Canadian Space
Agencies will
investigate how
galaxies form by
peering out to the
farthest reaches
of space.
$3.1
billion
07
06
CassiniHuygens
Spacecraft
(2 billion)
cern, esa, getty x2, press association
$6.65
billion
Weighing nearly 420

tonnes and floating
370km above the
Earth, the ISS has
been continuously
occupied by
astronauts from
various countries
since the first
crew docked on
2 November 2000.
Launched in 1997,
the Cassini orbiter
entered Saturns orbit
in 2004, at which
point the Huygens
lander probe
separated to
investigate the ringed
planets largest
moon, Titan.
86
$8
billion
December 2014
Envisat
(1.9 billion)
Launched aboard an
Ariane 5 rocket from the
European Space
Agencys facility in
French Guiana in 2002,
Envisat spent 10 years
in orbit monitoring signs
of environmental impact
and climate change on
Earths atmosphere,
oceans, land and ice.
Ground control lost
contact with the
satellite in 2012.
$2.7
$2.5
08
09
Human Genome
Project
(1.65 billion)
Curiosity Rover
(1.5 billion)
billion
Work to map the

entire human
genome began in
1990; it had a budget
of $3 billion and was
expected to take 15
years but was
completed two years
early and under
budget.
billion
This car-sized robotic

rover was designed
to investigate
whether life could
ever have existed on
Mars. Its original
two-year mission
was extended
indefinitely at the end
of 2012, and it
continues to explore
the Gale crater.
Its hoped the

International Linear
Collider will help
explore the Terascale
$6.4
billion
05
Large Hadron
Collider
(3.84 billion)
The 20 member
states of CERN
(Conseil Europen
pour la Recherche
Nuclaire the
European Council for
Nuclear Research)
picked up most of the
cost of the 27kmcircumference tunnel
and equipment, with
significant
contributions coming
from an additional six
observer nations.
$2
the 10 BIGGEST
BANGS ON EARTH
Seattle Kingdome Demolition
When: 26 March 2000
Chicxulub Impact
When: 65 million years ago
Holding up to 66,000 sports fans in its 19.821

million m3 capacity, this stadium became the
largest building to be demolished by explosives
when it was destroyed in 2000.
The Chicxulub crater in Mexico, a staggering

180km wide, was created when a 10km-wide
meteorite crashed into Earth. The impact is
believed to have been a major contributing
factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Heligoland explosion
When: 18 April 1947
Mt Toba
When: 75,000 years ago
The Royal Navy tried and failed to blow up a

whole North Sea island and the huge German
naval base it carried by detonating around 4,000
tonnes of explosives, one of the worlds biggestever single detonations. Despite that, the island
remained intact.
When the supervolcano Mt Toba erupted, it

launched at least 2,800km3 of magma and ash
into the atmosphere, causing a six-year volcanic
winter and possibly kick-starting an ice age. The
resulting crater holds the worlds largest
volcanic lake.
Mont Blanc
When: 6 December 1917
MOAB
When: 11 March 2003
This French ship was carrying over 2,400 tonnes

of explosives when it collided with another vessel
off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. The Mont
Blanc was approaching Halifax when the resulting
fire caused a massive explosion, levelling 2.5km2
of the town and shattering windows 100km away.
The USA claims that its Massive Ordnance Air Burst

(MOAB) device, containing 9 tonnes of explosive
material, is the biggest non-nuclear bomb in the
world. The first test detonation occurred in 2003; it is
yet to be used in combat, but could destroy tanks and
buildings within a radius of several hundred metres.
Nedelin Catastrophe
When: 24 October 1960
AN602 Tsar Bomba

When: 30 October 1961
A Russian R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile

was being tested when it burst into flames on
its launchpad at the Baikonur test range
igniting its tanks that were filled with a toxic
fuel mixture called Devils Venom, and creating a
fireball that killed dozens of people.
This Russian 58-megatonne nuclear weapon,

the most powerful ever detonated, was tested
over the Arctic. It exploded with more than 4,800
times the energy of the atomic bomb dropped
on Hiroshima; the shockwaves travelled around
the world three times.
Buncefield Complex
When: 11 December 2005
Universe I, Part II
When: 15 July 1988
The explosion caused when the first of 20 tanks

in Britains fifth-largest oil storage depot blew
up was heard 200km away.
The British Geological Survey measured
the event at 2.4 on the Richter Scale.
The worlds largest firecracker burst over Hokkaido,

Japan during the 1988 Lake Toya Firework Festival.
The 700kg shell was moved into position on a
floating platform before being ignited, creating a
five-colour pyrotechnic display 1.2km across.
billion
10
Superconducting
Super
Collider
(1.2 billion)
Construction on a
particle accelerator
with an 87kmcircumference ring in
Texas was halted in
1983 but not until
after nearly half of
the $4.4bn budget
had been spent.
in focus
The Indian Space Research Organisation
ISRO
We are really not racing

with anyone, but with
ourselves to reach the
next level of excellence.K Radhakrishnan, ISRO Chairman
ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/USGS/Brown Univ, mars image - ISRO
Legacy
In 1962, a concentrated joint effort by Indias
then leading scientists Dr Vikram Sarabhai
and Dr Homi Bhabha with the Government of
India led to the creation of the Indian National
Committee for Space Research (INCOSPAR) with
a goal of furthering space research in India. The
committee set up the Thumba Equatorial Rocket
Launching Station (TERLS) in Kerala in 1963 as a
station to launch sounding rockets and launched
its first rocket in November of the same year.
TERLS then developed infrastructure for rockets
and indigenously developed the successful Rohini
Sounding Rocket (RSR) programme in 1967. The
combined success of these programmes and
projects led to the formation of The Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO), Indias primary
space agency on 15th August 1969.
Since its foundation 45 years ago, ISRO has
set landmarks in the field of space exploration.
In 2008-09, the Indian Space and Research
Organisation successfully launched a lunar
orbiter, Chandrayaan-1, which discovered
evidence of water on the moon. Indias first
interplanetary mission, the Mars Orbiter Mission
successfully entered planet Mars atmosphere on
24 September 2014 on its maiden attempt. The
mission was executed in 15 months at a cost of
Rs 450 crore ($74 million) and will gather images,
atmosphere analysis of the planet. Since 30 July
2014, ISRO has had 8 successful missions.
88
December 2014
ISROs lunar probe Chandrayaan 1 is credited with the discovery of

water molecules on the surface on the moon.
This is an image taken by the Mars

Color Camera. The dark region
towards south of the cloud formation
is Elysium - the second largest
volcanic province on Mars.
Did you know

Chandrayaan 2 is to be launched in early 2017. It is Indias second lunar explorer and
includes a lunar orbiter, a lander and a lunar rover.
Astrosat will be launched in early 2015 and is a dedicated astronomy satellite, which will
further the field of astronomy research in India. Described as a multi wave laboratory in
space it is equipped with ultra-violet, visible and x-ray instruments.
ISRO at present is preparing for its launch of a crew module, which will be launched by
the GSLV Mk-III in December 2014. This is in preparation for Indias future manned space
mission by 2016-17.

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4th Anniversary Special

A Times of India publication

SCIENCE HISTORY NATURE FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

4th Anniversary Special

SCIENCE HISTORY NATURE FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

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