Science Illustrated 60 - 2018 AU

EDITORIAL
Issue #60 (5th July 2018)
EDITORIAL
Editor Anthony Fordham
To Break the Rules, First Learn the Rules
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DESIGN
Art Director Malcolm Campbell
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Y ou might ask: why
bother trying to figure
out if there’s a multiverse?
a bunch of humans all got bees in their bonnet
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that, it just has to be.
Advertising Manager
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other universes sort-of- this is important, probably”.
Production Manager Peter Ryman
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INTERNATIONAL EDITION
outside our universe, ever billions on building an experimental fusion
Editor-in-Chief Sebastian Relster be useful? Why spend the money on this? reactor that won’t even produce more electricity
International Editor Lotte Juul Nielsen
And the answer is: because we don’t know. than a normal power station, then pause.
BONNIER INTERNATIONAL
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Lisbeth Brünnich, Peter Eberhardt science”. It’s knowledge for the sake of knowledge. powered water pump and 49 other steamy
Maybe it’s just part of the human condition. inventions in 1606, none of which did any work
Way back in March 1923, British mountaineer that couldn’t be more reliably carried out by
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AND THE SNOW IS BLACK but we can fix this.
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scienceillustrated.com.au | 3
CONTENTS
ISSUE #60 SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN EDITION
PUBLISHED 5TH JULY 2018
24
THE END OF BLINDNESS
Amazing new technologies and therapies are

slowly winning the war against blindness.
From artificial retinas to full eye transplants!
54
TOUGHEST ROBOT EVER
To build a rover that can survive in the

crushing pressure and temperature of
Venus, we need to rethink everything...
COVER
STORY
26
LIFE IN THE MULTIVERSE
Does this weird cold spot far out in

intergalactic space mean we once
rubbed against an alternate reality?
And if so, what does this mean?
4 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
REGULARS
AND OTHER
FEATURES
6
42 46 MEGAPIXEL
How much does a cell weigh?
ANIMALS IN TOWN DECONTAMINATING EARTH
We usually think of cities as destroying We’ve sure made a mess of the place. Red
habitats and causing extinction. But some rivers, black snow, and much worse. It all needs
animals actually like the concrete jungle... to be cleaned up. Here’s how we’ll do it.
10
SCIENCE UPDATE
Everything you need to know about
stuff you didn’t know about!
18
ASK US
Will cracking my knuckles eventually
give me arthritis... or worse?!
60
SLEEPING ANIMALS
You think you can sleep? This is sleep!
64 68 72
LOG IN TO THE FLYING INTERNET LAYING THE TRANSATLANTIC CABLE BRAIN TRAINING
We explain how practice can make you
Major corporations want to blanket the Earth Today we’re building a flying internet. But in the better at maths. Includes hard maths!
with free Internet. By laser drone, by balloon 19th century the biggest challenge for
and by microsat, total coverage is coming. communications tech was laying a single cable. 78
INSTANT EXPERT: TORNADOES
Learn the facts, reap the whirlwind.
80
TRIVIA
Melt your brain in 10 easy steps!
82
BIODIVERSITY
Sorting out venom versus poison.
SUBSCRIBE
NOW! 58
Get Australian Science
Illustrated delivered to
your door and save $$$!
MEGAPIXEL CELLS
How Much Does
a Single Cell Weigh?
How much does a living cell weigh? Scientists
can now answer this question very accurately
by means of a new cell scale. The scale is so tiny that
it can be placed directly under a microscope to
weigh a cell, while you study the processes in the
cell interior. The scale includes an extremely thin
MICRONAUT.CH/ETH ZURICH/UNIVERSITY OF BASEL

arm, which captures a cell. The arm is induced to
oscillate using laser, and by measuring its
oscillations with and without the cell, the weight can
be calculated with an accuracy of trillionths of a
gram. Cells usually weigh 2-3 nanograms.
Photo // Martin Oeggerli
MEGAPIXEL CORAL TREES
Off Florida, Corals Grow On...

Telegraph Poles?
If a branch of a coral reef breaks off, it can
grow into a new reef. The principle is used by
scientists to grow new coral reefs to help endangered
reefs. Small fragments of coral are placed on tree-like
structures, which are tethered to the ocean floor off
Florida, US. After 6-9 months, the fragments have
grown large enough to be removed from the trees
and ”glued” to coral reefs, which are under
restoration. In perfect conditions, coral grows very
quickly, and it may be possible to save some reefs.
TRUNK ARCHIVE
Photo // Spencer Lowell
Science Update
Dna Robot Eliminates Tumours
A new robot made of DNA strands can find and kill cancer tumours by
causing blood clots, which cut off the tumour’s supply vessels.
M E D I C I N E Cancer tumours depend on blood supply. react to. Cancer cells liberate a specific protein, which does
Without blood, they will wither and die. So, scientists not exist in healthy cells – nucleolin. The robots are
from the US Arizona State University and the Chinese equipped with DNA, which binds to nucleolin. The robot
National Center for Nanoscience and Technology have does not liberate the thrombin until the binding takes
developed a robot designed to eliminate tumours by place. The enzyme activates the blood’s coagulating
blocking the blood supply. substances and causes a blood clot that blocks the blood
The robot was created by means of a special method, supply to the cancer tumour.
which shapes DNA strands as required by the scientists. In Scientists have successfully tested the robot on mice
this case, they created a tube-shaped structure, which with cancer. After 24 hours, the robots had found the
contains the thrombin enzyme. The enzyme exists tumours and begun to cause blood clots. In three in eight
naturally in the body, ensuring that blood can coagulate – mice, the cancer tumours disappeared completely.
such as in wound healing. The tiny DNA robots are injected Moreover, the experiments showed that the DNA robots
into the blood stream to flow with the blood about the are efficient against breast cancer, lung cancer, birthmark
body, until they find the target that they are designed to cancer, and ovary cancer.
DNA ROBOT
SEEN FROM ABOVE
DNA STRUCTURE
SHAPED LIKE
A TUBE
THROMBIN A nanorobot seen under

a micro-scope. In the
circles, you see the
thrombin molecules.
THE THROMBIN ENZYME, WHICH
MAKES THE BLOOD COAGULATE.
SHOOTING STAR · Jupiter's north pole

Nine Storms
Reveal the
Interior of
THE LATEST
FINDINGS AND
DISCOVERIES
Jupiter
The Juno probe is still orbiting
Jupiter in a path which allows us
a view of the poles. This picture
shows the planet’s north pole,
where a large cyclone is
surrounded by eight smaller
storms. Studies of how deep
into the atmosphere the storms
reach can provide new
knowledge about Jupiter’s
NASA
unknown interior.
Editor: Babak Arvanaghi
Special enzyme makes

the blood coagulate
The robot can feel it, when it is approaching The DNA robot
BLOOD VESSEL 1 flows with the
a cancer tumour, releasing its load of thrombin
blood towards the
enzymes, which make the blood coagulate.
cancer tumour in a
rolled-up version. At
ROLLED-UP
this point, the robot's
ROBOT load of enzymes has no
access to the blood.
Close to the
2 tumour, the robot
PROTEINS
encounters proteins that
are unique to cancer
UNROLLED cells. This makes the
ROBOT
robot unroll, so it can
release its load of
thrombin.
BLOOD VESSEL
Now, the thrombin

3 has free access to the
blood, in which it activates
FIBRIN
the body's natural
coagulating substances
and produces chains of
THE THROMBIN fibrin, which is normally
ENZYME
involved in ulceration.
The blood clot is

4 formed by the
coagulating blood,
blocking the blood vessel,
HYBRID MEDICAL ANIMATION/SPL & YAN ET AL.

CANCER TUMOUR so the tumour receives
no oxygen nor nutrients.
CLAUS LUNAU
This eliminates the

BLOOD CLOT cancer tumour.
Cave Paintings Made By Neanderthals

A R C H A E O L O G Y New datings of cave paint- paintings over the years. Calcite contains tiny
ings in Spain have turned an old discussion quantities of uranium, which slowly decay into
about the Neanderthals upside down. The thorium. By measuring the thorium content in
major question was whether some of the cave the calcite, the scientists dated the paintings.
paintings that exist throughout Europe could Although the Spanish cave paintings are
have been made by the extinct not as detailed as more recent
The Neanderthals
human variant. A team of paintings, they demonstrate that
were early humans, who
archaeologists have dated cave the Neanderthals were able to
lived in Europe and spread
paintings found in three different to Asia. They became extinct express themselves via art and
caves in Spain to be at least some 40,000 years ago.
capable of symbolic thinking. So
64,800 years old. That's 20,000 far, most scientists have believed
years before modern humans left Africa. that those qualities were unique
PEDRO SAURA
Cave paintings are difficult to date using characteristics of modern humans. This used
the carbon 14 method, as they rarely contain to be why we thought Neanderthals
any organic material. So, the scientists studied succumbed in the competition with our The orange and red painting on the rock
the tiny deposits of calcite, which trickling ancestors, but the new datings show that it is was made by Neanderthals long before
water has left as a thin film across the probably not that simple. modern humans came to Europe.
S C I E N C E U P DAT E
BY THE WAY · Ants
BACTERIUM
WOUNDED
LEG
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY

ANTS SAVE EACH OTHER
After a group of Megaponera analis ants have GOLD
fought termites, they treat their wounded mates.
They disinfect the peers’ wounds with their mouths The C. metallidurans bacterium collects tiny lumps of gold, pumping them out
onto its surface. The ability might be used for mining.
for several minutes. This improves the wounded
creatures' chances of survival from 20 to 90%. Using Bacteria to Dig for Gold
ERIK T. FRANK/JULIUS-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITÄT WÜRZBURG
B I O C H E M I S T R Y Today, gold bacterium’s special enzymes and
miners use mercury to bind gold the metals of copper and gold.
NOW YOU MENTION ANTS ... and extract it from hard-to-access
places. But the metal is toxic, and
Like other creatures, the
bacterium needs the copper to
THEY COMBAT BACTERIA
so, scientists are searching for a survive, but in large quantities,
WITH ANTIBIOTICS
new method for extracting the the metal is toxic. When a certain
Solenopsis molesta ants protect
themselves against bacteria hard-to-access gold. And now, quantity of copper has entered
attacks by liberating a particularly they might have found a solution. the bacterium, it will pump it out
powerful antibiotic, which can kill The C. metallidurans again by means of a special
MAGDALENA SORGER/NCSU
most bacteria, according to a study by bacterium has found its own way enzyme. But if gold atoms are
North Carolina State University in the of handling heavy metals, also present, the bacteria react
US. Scientists hope that we can use
enabling it to live in places from differently. The gold and copper
the ants to make a new type of
antibiotic for humans. which other organisms keep away. combination is more toxic than
Without competition from other the individual metals, so another
ANTS BECAME PEASANTS microbes, it thrives in soil layers enzyme takes over, changing the
30 MILLION YEARS AGO that are rich in heavy metals. way in which the metals behave,
Long before humans invented Unlike other bacteria, C. metalli- so they become less toxic and are
TED SCHULTZ/SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
it, ants used agriculture in durans has a faculty for getting prevented from entering deeply
their colonies. Several ant species
rid of the metals, so they will not into the bacterium. Instead, the
grow specific mushrooms, which
they fertilise, water, and weed. The accumulate in the organism. copper is immediately pumped
mushrooms have adapted to the Scientists from Germany and out, taking the gold with it. In the
luxurious life, so they cannot make Australia have found out, how it is process, the gold is accumulated
it without the ants. The adaptation done. It's all thanks to a complex into tiny, extractable lumps on
took 30 million years.
interaction between the the surface of the bacterium.
SICK ANTS DIE FOR
0.0000001
THE COMMUNITY SICK ANT
IN PUPA
In an anthill, contagious
diseases such as fungal infec-
tions can spread rapidly, threatening
CHRISTOPHER PULL/IST AUSTRIA
the entire colony. So, the ants have

developed an ability to track down m is the diameter of a gold lump.
sick creatures in the colony – both
ants and pupae. If they find a sick
Still, the bacterium's capacities can
peer, they kill it, so the fungus will replace mercury, when we extract gold
not spread to the rest of the colony. from otherwise inaccessible deposits.
Scrapped
Planes Keep
Pavement Dry
TECHNOLOGY By combining New Method Can
Read Your Mind
two very different problems,
scientists from Washington State The test subjects had their
University have found a common brain activity measured
solution. The first problem was to by means of EEG, as they
develop a new pavement A team of scientists have decoded what their test were observing faces
material. Traditional slabs are too subjects see by measuring their brain waves. in the display.
compact for rainwater to pass
through, meaning that in many B R A I N By feeding a computer data about the EEG patterns on a computer together
places, streets are flooded after brain activity, Canadian scientists have with the different faces that were shown to
heavy rain. Torrential rain is often managed to tell when their test subjects are the test subjects. Based on the data, the
sudden, and sewage systems looking at a face and when they are not. computer learned to recognize the pattern
often cannot handle it. The electric activity in the brain changes produced in the brains of the test subjects,
Experiments with porous slabs rapidly, when we see a human face, as as they were looking at a face.
show they are quickly worn down shown by experiments from the University of Using the collected data, the scientists
by the water. So, scientists have Toronto Scarborough, Canada. In one inverted the process and "read" when a test
developed concrete that is both experiment, test subjects looked at a subject was looking at a face. It is the first
porous and durable by adding flickering display, as their brain waves were time that the process has been successful
carbon fibre. The latter is measured with EEG. Suddenly, the flickering using the EEG method.
expensive, but to keep prices was replaced by a picture of a face, and In the long term, scientists hope to refine
down, scientists have solved immediately, the brain waves changed to the method, so they can see what a person is
another problem. Carbon fibre produce a new pattern. As soon as the face thinking about, remembers, or imagines
materials have been made for so disappeared from the display, the brain based on the brain waves, allowing people
many years that the products in activity turned back to the original state. The who cannot express themselves to
which they are included have scientists repeated the experiment, storing communicate with the outside world.
started to be scrapped, so lots of
carbon fibre waste exists, for
which we have not yet found good
recycling solutions. Faces are read rapidly - and hopefully consistently
That's why scientists used
The test subjects’ brains only took 0.17 seconds to find out that the image changed
carbon fibre from scrapped Boeing
from flickering to a recognisable subject – a face.
planes, but it might just as well
have been from cars or wind
turbines. In the process, the NO RECOGNIZABLE SUBJECT THE SIGHT OF A FACE
scientists also focused on EEG MEASUREMENT
processing the carbon fibre

material using methods that
neither required chemicals nor
much energy. The concrete slabs
have been tested in the lab with
such positive results that they will
now be tested on real pavements.
Test subjects were placed in front of a When the flickering image turned into a picture of
flickering image, and brain activity measured. a face, the brain activity changed considerably.
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
WATER
ELECTRODE
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Carbon fibre from scrapped

planes makes the slab sturdy enough
to endure water.
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Colourful Dinosaur Feathers Attracted Mates

P A L A E O N T O L O G Y New studies of a dinosaur scientists found pancake-shaped melanosomes,
fossil have provided surprising new knowledge which also exist in hummingbirds. By subsequently
JESSICA ROSS/UC MERCED

about the extinct animal’s plumage. The fossil, studying all organelle shapes, they managed to
which was discovered by a peasant in China, recreate the colours of the dinosaur’s plumage.
ended up in the hands of scientists from the The result shows that the dinosaur had
palaeontological museum in Liaoning in 2014. It colourful feathers on its head, neck, and part of the
has been dated to be 161 million years old. wings, which have inspired its Mandarin name, When notice something follows a
The fossil is so well-preserved that scientists Caihong juji, meaning "rainbow with the big crest". rhythm, we use a centre in the
have been able to recreate the colours of the dino’s The Caihong juji was the size of a duck, but cerebral cortex of the parietal lobe.
plumage, with reasonable confidence. Using a appears to have been incapable of true flight. The
scanning electron microscope, they have studied
structures known as melanosomes, which are tiny
plumage probably kept it warm, and the colours
may have attracted mates. Colourful feathers have
Scientists
organelles that contain colour pigment. previously only been found in dinosaurs that Locate Sense
The pigment is long gone, but that did not stop
the scientists. The shape of the
existed 40 million years later.
Of Rhythm
melanosomes determine how the BRAIN The ability to hear a false
light is reflected and this note is located in the brain’s
determines colours of the feathers. centre of hearing, but the sense of
In some of the feathers, the rhythm is not. A study has
revealed that our ability to follow
a rhythm is closely related with
the brain centre that has to do
with motion planning. The centre,
the posterior parietal cortex, is
ZHAO CHUANG & HU ET AL.

located in the cerebral cortex of
the parietal lobe. When this
region is disabled or destroyed,
the sense of rhythm is lost.
The well-preserved fossil (left) has allowed scientists to In the experiment, which was
reconstruct the colours of the dinosaur’s plumage. carried out by scientists from the
University of California, Merced,
25 adult test subjects were
subjected to a magnetic pulse,
SHOOTING STAR · Picturesque Mars which temporarily paralysed the
activity of the brain centre.
Subsequently, scientists made
the test subjects listen to a
rhythm. Along with the rhythm,
beeping sounds sometimes
followed the rhythm, and
sometimes they did not. The test
subjects were asked to identify
the beeping sounds that were on
beat and off beat. During the
hour when the brain centre was
paralysed, the test subjects could
not tell the difference between
the two types of sounds.
So, the scientists think that
this particular region of the brain
doesn't only have to do with
body motion, but also manages
NASA
our ability to define time

Avalanches draw patterns on Mars intervals. After all, sense of
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured a dust avalanche, which has travelled down a hill in rhythm is the ability to predict
Mars' whisper-thin atmosphere. The dark colour is due to the fact that the dust has been removed, the timing of the next sound, also
baring the ground, while the surroundings remain covered in dust. Scientists do not know known as relative timing.
exactly what caused the 1-km-long avalanche.
Telescope to Search For Does dark energy
inflate the universe?
The Big Bang created the universe
Mysterious Dark Energy

13.7 billion years ago, and ever since,
it has grown at different speeds.
After the Big Bang, the universe

1 grew explosively in the brief period
5,000 small robots will zoom in on 30 million galaxies to study known as inflation.
the effect of the dark energy of the universe. BIG BANG
13.7
ASTRONOMY A 45-year-old telescope in has to be an unknown force that has the billion
years ago
Arizona in the US, hopes to solve one of the opposite effect of gravity, beating it across
major mysteries of the universe. The long distances. The force is called dark
telescope has been equipped with 5,000 energy, as we know nothing about it, but
MIKKEL JU
small robots the size of pencils. The robots according to calculations, it makes up
have been programmed to aim a fibreoptic some 70 % of the total quantity of matter 8
UL JENSEN
billion
cable at different galaxies to collect colour and energy in the universe. years ago
samples of their light. The light is sent on As in the future, the telescope can
to a spectroscopic instrument, DESI, which observe the light from 5,000 remote
can analyse the wavelengths. Wavelength galaxies at a time, it will over the next five 4
billion
changes reveal how fast the galaxies are years be possible to measure the speed of years ago
moving away from us, and based on the some 30 million galaxies. The telescope is
data, scientists can see how fast the able to capture light from galaxies that are
universe is expanding. 11 billion light years away.
Now
It has long been clear that the universe According to plan, DESI will be ready
is not only expanding, it is expanding at an to start the project in the spring of 2019,
accelerating pace. This means that there and the final result is expected to be the
most detailed 3D map of
For a long The steady
the universe ever made. 2 period of 7+ 3 pace was
billion years, the replaced by the
expansion happened accelerating
at a steady pace. expansion, which
is still going on.
LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY & P. MARENFELD/NOAO/AURA/NSF
5,000 tube-shaped robots the size of pencils will keep an eye on

different galaxies in search of dark energy.
Ask Us
How Does a
Spinning Ball
Change Direction?
Some of the most spectacular soccer goals are scored,
when the ball changes direction in the air. How is it done?
When a soccer player sends a ball around the air steals its way along the surface of
a line-up of opponents and into the goal, the ball, bending the air flow slightly,
the ball spins due to the magnus effect. In causing a low pressure on one side and a
order to benefit from the magnus effect, high pressure on the other. To equalise
the ball must be caused to rotate its own the pressure, the ball changes direction.
axis. This is done by hitting it on the side. The magnus effect is also responsible
As the ball travels forwards, it forces itself for the spin effect in other sports such as
SCIENTISTS ANSWER
QUESTIONS FROM
OUR READERS
through the air. The air flow will pass golf and table tennis, but it also plays a
unevenly across the ball’s surface, decisive role in connection with firearms
because the rotation on one side is up and missile systems. A bullet fired from a
against the air flow, slowing its passage, barrel with a right hand twist will travel
whereas the rotation on the other side is slightly to the left, as its spin bends the A free kick goal often requires
along with the direction of the air. On the air vertically on its inevitable way that the ball change direction
side that rotates up against the air flow, towards the ground. by means of the magnus effect.
Ball rotation causes dissimilar air flows

A ball that rotates around its own axis will interact differently with the air
on either side, producing the spinning magnus effect such as in soccer.
On the left side of the ball, the AIR DRAG

3 rotation means that the air flows
close to the ball's surface. The ball bends
MAGNUS EFFECT
the air flow direction behind it.
The player hits the ball on

1 its right side, causing it to
rotate its own axis counter- clock-
wise. Travelling through the air,
the ball is influenced by air drag.
The direction of rotation

2 means that on the right
side, the ball curbs the air flow
slightly, minimizing its contact
with the surface of the ball.
Editor: Jeppe Wojcik
How Does a Drip Work? TOP 5

A drip takes advantage of gravity to deliver a fluid
(medication, blood etc), from a plastic bag to a patient.
The bag is always located about 100 cm above the Which mammals
patient’s heart on a stand, connected to the patient via a kill each other the
tube and a cannula in a vein. most often?
A drip is an efficient way to deliver drugs over a long
period of time, such as chemotherapy. Drip bags typically
have a transparent drip chamber, by which a doctor can
control the dosage by the number of drips per minute.
Air bubbles in the tube have
plenty of space to rise, Unlike an injection,
SHUTTERSTOCK
before the liquid enters a drip relies on gravity
the bloodstream. to deliver liquids
MEERKAT
1 19.36 % are killed by peers
Offspring are often victims,
because the killing is
hierarchically determined.
RED-TAILED MONKEY
Males kill young group
members to assert dominance
and control territory.
BLUE MONKEY
Blue monkeys often live in
groups with red-tailed monkeys
in central Africa.
EARTH-SAVVY?
RED-FRONTED LEMUR
? How warm must Earth be to
be uninhabitable?
Like most lemurs, the species
comes from Madagascar.
Humans need to sweat to survive in a warm Rivalry causes the killing.
environment. This is only possible, if the
MONGOOSE LEMUR
temperature at 100 % relative humidity – also
known as the wet-bulb temperature – remains 5 15.38 % are killed by peers
Again the main reason for in-
below 35 °C. Global average temperatures must rise terspecies killing is severe
The ball's bending of rivalry, and social dominance.
4 the air flow causes an by 12 °C, before this becomes a potential scenario.
opposing force in the air on
the right side, making the
ball spin towards the left.
WHY DOES IT FEEL COLD TO BITE INTO MINT?

Biting into chewing gum or mints can cause a cold
sensation in the mouth, though the temperature
does not change. The sensation is due to
CLAUS LUNAU & ULLSTEIN BILD/ALL OVER & SHUTTERSTOCK
the menthol chemical affecting

proteins in nerves
that normally
register cold. Lots
of menthol can
SHUTTERSTOCK
cause moderate
pain because of this.
ASK US
What is the Sun’s Corona?

The huge, external part of the Sun’s THE SUN IS SURROUNDED
BY RED-HOT PLASMA
atmosphere is known as the corona and can be
seen with the naked eye during a solar eclipse. Temperature: 1-4 million °C.
It's made of of gases that are millions of Size: Varies depending on
solar activity, but there is
degrees hot. The high temperature makes the
no fixed upper limit.
gas atoms collide forcefully, turning into
Density: The corona's density
plasma, as they are split into negatively
is 10-16 g/cm3, 10 million times
charged electrons and positively charged ions. lower than the Sun's surface.
Iron atoms contribute to the corona’s glow.
Contents: Primarily
The corona is much hotter than the Sun’s
NASA
hydrogen, helium, and low The corona is visible during
surface. Scientists still do not know why, but it concentrations of iron in a
a solar eclipse, when the sunlight is blocked out.
is probably due to special magnetic activity. plasma state, etc.
How Does Milk Become Cheese? THE 4 STEPS

Answer: Cheese is made of milk that is acidified and dried, before the cheese matures
for a number of weeks, depending on the taste. The acidification is carried out by adding
lactic acid bacteria, which lower the pH value, whereas rennet ensures the texture.
CUTTING DEVICE
CHEESE MILK
ACIDIFIED MILK
Rennet from calf stomachs, etc., is added to the The solidified cheese milk contains a watery
1 acidified milk, causing the casein protein of the milk
to make the liquid turn into a jelly-like substance.
2 by-product of whey, which is drained off using
a cutting device. The curd is shaped in a press.
HARD CHEESE Mild cheese Aged cheese

10-20 °C 8-12 °C
5-8 35
weeks weeks
The curd is cut into smaller pieces and pressed in moulds After a few weeks, the cheese is moved to a 8-12 ° C
3 before maturation. Yellow hard cheese is initially dried in 4 maturation room. Mild cheese typically matures for 5-8
JØRGEN STAMP
a fermentation room at a temperature of 10-20 °C. weeks, whereas aged cheese matures for 35 weeks.
A whale skeleton is broken down
in salt water due to creatures and
microbes in the water, not salt.
Can Salt Water

Dissolve Bones?
Bones do dissolve in salt water, but not as a If the animal had died on dry land, it would
direct result of chemical interaction with the often take at least 10 years for the skeleton to BONE-EATER BREAKS
salt. Creatures and microbes continuously disappear completely. The longest process DOWN BONES
break down all living tissue – also on the ocean takes place in dry, warm air, in which microbes Osedax mucofloris spe-
floor. The speed depends on a series of factors and bacteria have the most difficult living cialises in eating bones, pri-
ALAMY/ALL OVER & PLACEBO365/GETTY IMAGES
such as water temperature, oxygen content, conditions. Bones are made up of living cells marily those of whales. Be-
acidity, and the creatures and microbes with blood vessels and nerves like any other fore it sets to work,
Gammarus locusta has con-
available. Under favourable conditions, a dead tissue. The hard parts consist of a porous sumed soft tissue such as
creature in the ocean is turned into a "naked" network of protein plus calcareous and muscles and interior organs,
skeleton in 3-4 days, whereas the bones will be phosphorous minerals, which bacteria can and shrimps have broken
gone after about a year. dissolve and feed on. down cartilage and tendons.
WORLD RECORDS
How long did the longest surgery take?

NATION
In 2001, 20 doctors separated the Where: Singapore.
conjoined twins Ganga and Jamuna, What: 20 doctors
including tens of thousands of brain separated conjoined twins.
blood vessels. The surgery lasted Both babies survived.
103 hours REUTERS/RITZAU SCANPIX
ASK US
Why Are Satellites

Wrapped In Gold?
The golden wrapping, with which many satellites and
space probes are provided before launch, functions as
insulation and ensures that the equipment gets neither
too cold nor too warm in space. The satellite must
remain above a minimum temperature to allow its
electronics to work properly. The golden colour reflects
the sunlight, so it does not heat the equipment. The
insulation consists of several layers of foil, which also
offers slight dust grain collision protection.
NASA
The foil used to include gold, but now, it is typically
made of the kapton plastic material covered in a thin
layer of aluminium. The combination makes the Satellites are wrapped in golden foil to protect
insulation resemble gold, but is much stronger. equipment from sunlight, etc., but the foil does not include real gold.
How forceful was the most powerful bomb? The Soviet Tsar Bomba hydrogen bomb in 1961 caused
a fire ball with an 8 km diameter. If it had been made of TNT, it would correspond to detonating
50 million t
These strange clouds
WHAT IS THIS? were photographed in
Queensland, which is
the only place in the
world where they
form regularly.
Known as Morning Glory

clouds, the phenomenon can
be observed in the mornings
of days with high relative
humidity and forceful
onshore wind.
The clouds consist of

condensed air that rises
rapidly on the front of the
cloud and descends slowly at
its centre and on the rear side.
The phenomenon occurs,

when air with different
characteristics meets,
producing a rolling boundary.
The cloud is produced at the
top of the lower air mass.
MICK PETROFF
Finger cracking comes Is it really true that ...
from fluid between joints
The sound of cracking fingers does not
come from bones or tendons. In fact,
doctors didn't discover how the sound is ... finger cracking
causes arthritis?
made until 2015!
BONE JOINT FLUID JOINT CAPSULE
I have always been told that I leaving the fingers of his right hand
could develop arthritis over time, alone. Again, there was no evidence of
if I make my fingers crack. But is it the habit causing arthritis or other
really true? illnesses. On the other hand, the
Many people crack their fingers as a dedicated study earned him an lg
kind of compulsive behaviour, while Nobel Prize in medicine.
others are disgusted at the popping The sound of cracking fingers
sound of the joints. Perhaps the arises, when the fingers are
myth that finger cracking causes overstretched one way or the other
1 The fingers are joined via a joint capsule filled
with lubricating fluid. The joint fluid is full of
dissolved air molecules such as nitrogen and
arthritis originated as protection
against the unpleasant sound. No
such as by subjecting them to
pressure with the other hand or by
carbon dioxide. scientific studies support the theory stretching oneself with one's fingers
AIR MOLECULES
– and it's like to be harmless. crossed. The motion pulls the finger
In a study from 2011, an American joints apart, so air molecules
doctor, Kevin deWeber, compared consisting of nitrogen and carbon
X-rays of the hands of 215 elderly dioxide are liberated into the joint
people, who had either been cracking fluid with a snap. The formation of
their fingers regularly for several years the bubbles produce the
or had never done so. His study characteristic sound. About 20
produced no evidence of the behaviour minutes after the gasses have been
being harmful. A not quite as scientific liberated, they are incorporated back
study was made by American doctor into the joint fluid, and the fingers
Donald Unger, who cracked the fingers can crack again.
of his left hand every day for 60 years,
2 When we crack our fingers, the joints are pulled

CLAUS LUNAU
apart, and the joint capsule volume increases,

causing an empty space in the fluid, into which the
air molecules rush, causing the cracking sound.
D
ST RE TC HE
N OR M AL
e
clearly show th
s of th e cracking joint ound ing
OF ALBERTA
scan surr
MRI
atio n. Air enters from the
bubble form re.
ing the pressu
tissue, equalis
UNIVERSITY
ASK US
Why is the Ocean Full of Salt?

When it rains, water erodes soil and rock and THE OCEANS CONTAIN
dissolves ions such as sodium and chlorine. HEAPS OF SALT
These combine into sodium chloride, also Concentration: Salt makes
known as table salt. The salt flows into rivers up an average of 3.5 % of
and streams, finally ending up in the ocean. ocean water.
Over billions of years, the salt has collected Inflow: Rivers and streams
supply the oceans with
in the oceans, from where it cannot escape.
SHUTTERSTOCK
about four billion tonnes
The oceans also get salt from volcanoes and of salt annually.
geysers, which eject minerals from Earth’s
Record: The Dead Sea
crust under the oceans. Rivers and lakes have a contains about 33 % salt, Rain carries salt from the
continuous flow-through of rainwater, so they and the Don Juan Pond in
ground into the oceans over billions of years.
are not salty. Antarctica has 44% salt
? INSIDE THE BODY
How Do Insects Breathe?

Insects do not have lungs, they breathe via tubes or tracheae,
into which the air enters through tiny openings in the body
surface. Inside the body, the tracheae become gradually smaller,
reaching tissue and cells, into which the oxygen enters directly.
The insect's surface, which is covered by Air sacs are expanded to allow air The oxygen exchange does not take place via
1 exoskeleton, includes tiny spiracles, into
2 into the body. A branching network of 3 blood like in mammals, but in the thinnest
which the oxygen enters. The spiracles can open thin tracheae carries the oxygen about the tracheae, called tracheoles. They are so tiny that
and close, and they have filters to keep out dust. body and C02 out of the body. they can deliver oxygen directly to the cells.
CELL
TRACHEOLE
SPIRACLE
SKIN SKELETON
TRACHEA
MIKKEL JUUL JENSEN
AIR SAC
Viking ships were up to
36 m long and built with
overlapping planks sealed
with animal hair and tar.
How Did the Vikings Make PLANT FIBRES

FILLED THE CRACKS
Long after the Viking Age,
Wooden Ships Waterproof?

Mediterranean seafaring
nations began to build ships
using the carvel method,
where the planks
do not overlap. The hull is
sealed with plant fibre
The success of the Vikings was due to their the hull. Shipbuilders used an axe to cut out the dipped in tar and placed
mighty longships, but how did they make planks, planed them, and boiled the planks in in between the planks and
them waterproof? long cooking vessels. Subsequently, the planks covered in thick, boiled
About 1,000 years ago, the Vikings roamed were bent to suit their positions on the ship hull. tar known as pitch.
most of the Old World thanks to their unrivalled By means of wooden or iron nails, the
ability to build seaworthy ships - and even made planks were fastened to frames, which
it to America. Their most common method of functioned as the ship’s ribs.
CLINKER CARVEL
building the efficient ships is known as clinker To make the ship waterproof, the BUILDING BUILDING
building and dates back to the Iron Age. Vikings placed animal hair dipped in tar
Clinker building requires that the boat is built between all the planks. In other cases,
IMAGESELECT
like a shell of planks, that overlap and hence seal they used moss. This had to be done yearly.
WORLD RECORDS
What is the heaviest object
that was ever weighed? Most super he- USA
avy weights are estimated. But NASA’s Where: Florida
What: A 93.6-m-tall tower
Rotating Service Structure, which loa- at the Kennedy Space
ded space shuttles, is the heaviest Centre's launch pad 39B.
object ever to be actually weighed.
2,423 t SERVICE TOWER
NASA
S PA C E M U LT I V E R S E
THE
UNIVERSE
IS ONLY ONE
OF MANY
For decades, scientists have
questioned theories about our
universe not being the only one.
Now, astronomers have
discovered the first possible
evidence that the universe is
surrounded by many others, in
a multiverse. A cold spot in
space could be a sort of scar,
resulting from a collision with
another universe.
S
E
S
R
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IV
LT
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S
U
R
E
M
E
S
IV
R
L
E
A
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IV
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U
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N
V
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U
E
A
S
By Rolf Haugaard Nielsen
Our universe might be

surrounded by billions of other
universes in a multiverse.
DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/KEN IKEDA MADSEN/SHUTTERSTOCK
OT IN
RIOUS SP
A MYSTE E IS 0 .00015
ERS
THE UNIV T HAN
COLDER
DEGREES PA CE .
T OF S
THE RES
EVIDENCE
The Universe Has a Cold Spot

(That Can't be Explained)
The temperature is the same throughout the universe – except from in one cold spot. Scientists thought
that the spot was an optical illusion, but according to a new theory, it may be evidence of a collision.
I n 2015, the Planck satellite mapped

out a cold spot in the background
radiation of the universe. The radiation,
the rays into much cooler microwaves
with a temperature of 2.73 degrees above
absolute zero. Except for slight variations
between the spot and Earth. On the way
through the void, the wavelength of light
is stretched, getting colder than when
which was emitted by the young universe of a few millionths of a degree, the light travels through space with a normal
380,000 years after the Big Bang, fills the temperature of the universe is generally quantity of galaxies. However, new
entire universe. Originally, the radiation the same, and so, the cold spot fascinated observations by English scientists show
was very energetic (or hot), but the astronomers. First, they thought that the that this void does not exist and so, it
expansion of the universe has extended spot had been caused by a huge void cannot explain the cold area.
P R E V IO U S IO N
EX PL A NAT
COLD SPOT
BACKGROUND RADIATION
RADIATION
SHOWS
L I G H T WAV E S
TEMPERATURE VOID IS FULL
The background OF GALAXIES
ESA AND THE PLANCK COLLABORATION/KEN IKEDA MADSEN/SHUTTERSTOCK
1
radiation in the New studies
universe has the same 3
have shown
temperature – except a that the void is not
particularly cold spot empty. It includes just
3 billion light years as many galaxies as
from Earth. VOID CAUSES other places in space.
OPTICAL ILLUSION
Scientists thought
2
that a huge void
between Earth and the
THEORETICAL VOID
cold spot made light lose EARTH
energy, so the light waves

are stretched, and the
spot seems cold.
R
ight after the Big Bang, the young radiation was constantly converted into
universe expanded from the size matter, so no light escaped. But when the
of an electron to the volume of a universe had grown big and cold enough for
football. The inflation happened the first hydrogen atoms to form, light escaped
extremely fast, i.e. at a speed from the matter in a glimpse. Subsequently, the
NEW IO N
higher than that of light, and lasted a trillionth universe turned dark again, as the new, neutral
EX PL A NAT of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second.

Subsequently, the expansion continued at a
hydrogen atoms do not emit any visible light.
The light did not return, until the first galaxies
slower pace. formed hundreds of millions of years later.
Cold Spot Caused The process is known as inflation, and Decades of observations of cosmic
By A Collision With cosmology rests on this one, fundamental background radiation show that the
Another Universe? foundation stone. However, the inflation temperature generally only varies a few
theory involves a major challenge to our millionths of a degree – except in one place. In
When scientists rejected the old theory understanding of how space is organised. It 2004, astronomers discovered a particularly
about the cold spot, another explanation predicts that inflation did not only take place cold spot in the background radiation three
arose: The spot is a crater caused by a in the small area that grew into our universe. billion light years from Earth. The spot covers
collision with another universe. During Instead, the process was more chaotic, taking an area of five degrees of the sky and is 0.00015
the chaotic inflation of the universe place in a much larger space, in which degrees colder than the general radiation
shortly after the Big Bang, billions of myriads of universes popped up at the same temperature of 2.73 degrees above absolute zero.
other universes were inflated at the same time just like popcorn in a pot of hot oil. Until recently, scientists thought that the
time, and one of the neighbouring According to the theory, billions of universe cold area was due to a huge void extending 1.8
universes collided with ours. The collision bubbles exist around our own universe – we billion light years between us and the cold
displaced mass and energy from the are living in a multiverse. spot. When light waves from the background
collision point, causing the cold spot. For decades, astronomers have debated radiation travel through such a void, the light
whether the theory’s prediction of the waves lose energy on their way into the void,
OUR
UNIVERSE multiverse can be true, and now, scientists regaining energy on their way out.
have found the first possible evidence: the Astronomers compare the phenomenon to a
universe includes a mysterious cold spot, ball that loses energy on its way uphill, rolling
which could be a crater resulting from a faster down the other side. In a stagnant
collision with another universe. universe, the light would escape the void with
the exact same energy with which the waves
Inflation explains the universe entered. But because the universe has
The inflation theory was introduced into expanded over the 1.8 billion years that the
scientists’ model of the Big Bang in the 1980s light took to travel through the super-void, the
to explain why galaxies are evenly distributed hill on the way out of the void will be less steep.
across the universe. If the expansion of the So, the light will not regain all the energy,
DISPLACED
ENERGY AND
universe had happened at an even pace becoming slightly more long wave and colder.
MASS following the Big Bang, gravity would make Hence, scientists thought that the cold spot
COLD galaxy clusters clump together to produce was an optical illusion caused by the void.
SPOT
major differences in the distribution of mass. Now, English astronomers from Durham
The rapid inflation distributed the mass University have rejected the original
evenly from the very beginning of the explanation by showing that the huge void
universe – like when air is evenly distributed does not exist. There are as many galaxies
in a balloon that is inflated. between Earth and the cold spot as between
I n f l at i o n a l s o e x p l a i n s w hy t h e our world and all other places of the
temperature is almost the same throughout background radiation. So, astronomers tend to
the universe. When our newborn universe prefer another explanation: The spot is a crater
was the size of an electron, all matter had the caused by a collision between our universe
same temperature. During the inflation, the and another one under inflation.
temperature averaged out to be more or less
the same no matter which way we look.
The uniform temperature
can be observed from the
4
cosmic background radiation
of the universe. The radiation THEORIerseES– exfroplmainsimthplee
was emitted in the young multiv
s to
ANOTHER
universe, 380,000 years after inflation of universe
UNIVERSE the Big Bang. Before, the
fascinating paralle l
universe was so hot that
DETLEV VAN RAVENSWAAY/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/KEN IKEDA MADSEN/SHUTTERSTOCK worlds.
THEORY 1
Billions of Universes
Were Inflated Around Us
The rapid expansion of the universe right after the Big Bang happened
in a much larger space than the point that grew into our universe.
W hen the universe expanded faster

than the speed of light by inflation
quarks and electrons, which united into
atoms and eventually galaxies during the
POSSIBLE EVIDENCE
IF ASTRONOMERS can prove that the
after the Big Bang, it consisted of an continuous development of the universe. inflation took place in our universe, it
intensive field of hypothetical particles But this inflation may have taken place in a is likely that the inflation theory is
called inflatons, according to the inflation much bigger space than the microscopic also correct to say that the inflation
caused billions of neighbouring
theory. The inflation stopped, when the point, which swelled into our universe. universes around us.
universe reached the size of a football, So, billions of universes may have formed
and the inflatons were converted into around us – a multiverse.
Neighbouring Universes Have the Same Laws of Nature

COSMIC HORIZON
Scientists cannot see neighbouring
universes. The cosmic horizon is deter-
NEIGHBOURING UNIVERSE mined by from how far away light could
OUR UNIVERSE have reached Earth since the Big Bang.
The horizon is now 42 billion light years,
moving away by one light year annually.
INFLATION
COSMIC HORIZON
Shortly after the Big Bang, the
42 BILLION universe was inflated. The inflation did
LIGHT YEARS not only occur in the area that turned
into our universe, rather it also produced
EARTH billions of universes around us.
NATURAL CONSTANTS
NEIGHBOURING UNIVERSE All universes in the multiverse have
the same physical laws, as they were
created in a common process under the
same conditions. The quantity of mass,
number of galaxies, and the
likelihood of life can, however, vary.
REPEATED UNIVERSES
Matter in a universe can only be
organised in a finite number of
IDENTICAL UNIVERSE
different ways, so identical universes
result. A 2D universe with four particles
can be organised in 16 ways, and the
closest copy of a universe is hence four
times the diameter of the universe
away. Our universe can include 10118
particles, and so, an identical universe
will be extremely far away.
Multiverse has several shapes speculative multiverse model is based on at a speed of 300,000 km/s, and so, our view of
The English astronomers’ discovery has revived superstring theory, which predicts the the universe – and possibly the multiverse – will
the discussion of the many different multiverse existence of at least 10 spacial dimensions. In always be limited by how far the light waves
theories. In the most simple versions, the the interpretation of the multiverse theory, the have been able to travel since the Big Bang 13.8
multiverse materialised, because inflation extra dimensions are, however, as large as billion years ago. The field of vision now covers
happened in more places than the area that entire universes and include parallel worlds 42 billion light years, growing by one light year
became our universe, and so, billions of universes that are hidden around us. Only gravity can annually into all directions. So, astronomers will
were produced at the same time. Another theory travel freely between the dimensions. never be able to look beyond the cosmic horizon
expands the simple multiverse by suggesting that and into a neighbouring universe.
inflation did not only occur, when our universe Search for impossible proof The lack of evidence of the existence of the
was formed, rather it is an eternal process that Scientists’ explanations of the multiverse are multiverse makes sceptics question the
constantly adds more multiverses around the one only theoretical, i.e. they have no concrete scientific validity of the theory, but supporters
in which our universe exists. evidence to support the ideas. And the hope to be able to find indirect proof based on
In a third and more complex version of the existence of the multiverse is by and large observations in our own universe, which could
multiverse, the laws of quantum mechanics impossible to prove or disprove. provide the theories with some credibility.
apply. Here, new universes pop up from Although astronomers’ telescopes are Max Tegmark from the Massachusetts
existing universes. Every time a situation has improving, it is impossible to peer beyond the Institute of Technology in the US is one of the
more than one possible result, a daughter cosmic horizon, which is the maximum stretch founding fathers of the multiverse theories. He
universe occurs for each alternative. The most across which light can reach Earth. Light travels points out that scientists do not necessarily
THEORY 2
Eternal Inflation Produces Multiverses
With All Kinds of Laws of Nature
After the formation of our multiverse, new multiverse bubble emerges. All the
the inflation continued in other places,
producing multiverses around us.
universes in our bubble have the same
physical laws, as they materialised at the
POSSIBLE EVIDENCE
IF OBSERVATIONS show that
The inflation of universes did not only same time and under the same conditions.
inflation produced our universe, and
occur, when our multiverse bubble In other bubbles, the laws and natural it is hence likely that we live in a
materialised. According to some inflation constants are different, as the strength of multiverse bubble, the theory is
consolidated. Eternal inflation is
theory variants, the inflation is an ongoing the field in which the multiverses were impossible to prove or reject via
process that can take place anywhere in created varies. So, the universes in other observations.
infinite space. Every time inflation stops, a bubbles could be very different from ours.
Multiverse Bubbles Fill Up Infinite Space PARALLEL

M U LT I V E R S E
EXPANSION
O U R M U LT I V E R S E
Bubbles with universes
are constantly moving
away from each other due
OUR NEIGHBOURING to the expansion of space.
UNIVERSE UNIVERSE
SE .
ER G
IV DIN
U NA N
E P
TH EX
IS
NEW MULTIVERSES
Inflation is constantly
producing new multiverse bubbles.
PHYSICAL LAWS
The bubbles include other natural
All the universes in constants determined by the
our multiverse bubble creation conditions.
have the same physical
laws as our universe.
NEIGHBOURING scienceillustrated.com.au | 31
UNIVERSE
THEORY 3
Universes Give THE UNIVERSE IS IN TWO DIFFERENT STATES
1
The laws of quantum mechanics mean that
universes can be in superposition and so exist in two
Rise to Alternative
states at the same time. Until a person measures whether
the universe is in situation A or B, both situations apply.
Realities
Electrons can be in two states at
the same time, until a measurement
determines the state. According to
quantum theory, the rejected state
could disappear into a newborn
parallel universe.
S cientists know that ordinary objects

from our world can only exist in one
physical state at a time. But in the world
The likelihood
is the same.
of quantum mechanics, the rules

change. Here, an atom or electron can A B
be in two different states at a time –
also known as superposition. An
electron can rotate clockwise and
A B A B
counter-clockwise at the same time. The
superposition is continued, until an
observer makes a measurement that
shows the direction of rotation. The
THE FIRST UNIVERSE ALTERNATIVE
measurement "locks" one state, STANDS OUT WORLD EMERGES
deactivating the other.
A person determines When universe A
However, another quantum theory 2A 2B
that the universe is materializes, and
interpretation rejects that in situation A. Superposition superposition stops,
superposition stops with the ceases, and the possibility another daughter universe,
measurement. Instead, the other state of situation B stops. Universe B, occurs,in which a copy of
is realized in a new daughter universe. A with situation A the person sees that
materialises. situation B applies.
The quantum theory interpretation
involves that entire universes can be in
superposition. Each time a situation is
determined by an observer in a
universe, and the superposition is
broken, new universes materialise.
POSSIBLE EVIDENCE UNIVERSES RAMIFY

INFINITELY
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to prove or reject
the theory via observations and Each time superposition
3
experiments. So, scientists are stops in a universe, two new
unable to estimate the theoretical universes materialise with
likelihood of the existence of a situations A and B. In this way, the
quantum mechanical multiverse.
universes multiply via continuous
branching and dividing.
THEORY 4
Parallel Universes Exist
In Invisible Dimensions
Physicists have a “theory of everything”,
by which major extra space dimensions
could exist in parallel universes. Gravity links
extra dimensions UNIVERSES
In the ultimate “theory of everything”, Extra dimensions in space
OUR DIMENSION
Einstein’s relativity theory is combined are large enough to hide
parallel universes, which are
with physicists’ standard particle model.
layered just like a layer cake.
The tiniest units are strings, that can
OUR
produce all force-carrying particles and UNIVERSE
atomic building blocks. But the theory
LIGHT STOPS
also has a bizarre effect: the four known
Light cannot travel
dimensions (height, length, width, and
between dimensions, so it is
time) are not enough. The strings can impossible for scientists to
INVISIBLE DIMENSION
only produce all the particles in a space look into parallel universes.
with at least 10 dimensions. In most
theoretical models, the extra dimensions
are tiny and hidden inside electrons and PARALLEL
UNIVERSE GRAVITY
quarks. In other models, they are as ATTRACTS

large as the universe and form parallel, Gravity passes freely
invisible worlds around us. Only gravity between dimensions, caus-
can travel between dimensions. BIG BANG
ing attraction, which holds
the universes in place.
POSSIBLE EVIDENCE BIG BANG

PARALLEL
IF AN ACCELERATOR produces the UNIVERSE The parallel universes
particles of gravity, gravitons, and the could collide, triggering a
particles' energy is absent in the Big Bang, which devastates
"accounts" of the experiment, it could
the universes, but produces
indicate that the particles disappeared INVISIBLE DIMENSION
into invisible dimensions. new, parallel universes.
have to be able to test all predictions of a means of physical experiments. One of the basic with ours during inflation in the young
theory to trust it – a series of evidence is particles of physics is the graviton, a hypothetical universe. Scientists cannot obtain such evidence
enough to make the whole theory trustworthy. particle that transfers gravity in the same way as at this point, but perhaps future astronomical
One example is Einstein’s relativity theory, photons transfer light. Physicists are trying to observations could prove the collision.
which has been proved via numerous produce the theoretical particles in accelerators If it took place, scientists can pick up
astronomical observations over the past 100 by making protons collide. If any energy is gravitational waves from the collision. They
years. So, scientists also take the theory’s lacking, when physicists measure the particles result, when large masses collide or are
predictions of matters that will never be produced by the collision, it could suggest that the accelerated fast through space, and in the
observable seriously, such as the theory’s collision produced gravitons that escaped into collision, both happened: First the collision
description of the conditions inside black holes. invisible dimensions. took place, and subsequently a large mass
According to Max Tegmark, definitive accelerated through space, as the energy from
evidence that inflation took place in our Collision causes waves the collision blew matter away from the
universe can function in the same way: the So far, the cold spot in the background radiation collision point, producing the cold spot.
evidence can improve the credibility of the of the universe is the only tangible indication of Max Tegmark is certain that he is right,
inflation theory’s predictions of inflation a multiverse. Scientists now know that the first and the inflation theory is so accepted among
taking place in several other locations, scientific explanation of the spot – an optical cosmologists as the explanation of the birth
producing billions of neighbouring universes. illusion caused by a supervoid – is not correct. of the universe that still more scientists
Scientists might also be able to see if other But the spot is not final evidence of the UK support the theory’s prediction that we are
universes could exist in invisible dimensions by scientists’ theory of another universe colliding living in a multiverse.
HUMANS BLINDNESS
AN EYE
FOR
AN EYE
When it comes to preventing
blindness and restoring sight, doctors
need all the help they can get. Now
new weapons in the war on blindness
are here: a new chip to replace the
retina, stem cells to regrow it, and in a
few years, even full eye transplants.
N
AY S T O V IS IO
T H R E E PAT H W
ELLS
E N E T H E R A PY & STEM C
G
S
RANSPLANT
FULL EYE T An ultra-thin chip in the
IMPLANTS
retina allows some blind
ELECTRONIC people to see the surrounding
world as bright contours.
DR DAVID NAYAGAM/BIONICS INSTITUTE, AUSTRALIA
By Gorm Palmgren
HUMANS BLINDNESS
Disease Distorts Vision

Many different eye diseases can make you blind. Lens lumps cause
blurred vision, whereas burst retina blood vessels make you see dark spots.
HEALTHY The optic nerve is a thick bundle

of some one million nerve cells,
which send information about
The cornea, the external, the visual impression to the centre
transparent part of the eye, of vision at the back of the brain.
and tear film refract the
light, focusing it at the lens.
The retina includes light-sensitive
The iris controls the quantity nerve cells, rods and cones, which
of light that is allowed to enter send nerve signals to the optic nerve,
by regulating pupil size. when they are activated by light.
The lens is flexible, and

muscles make it contract
RODS AND
to focus the light at a sharp CONES
point on the retina.
CLAUS LUNAU
SICK
ERROR OF REFRACTION CLOUDED LENS MAKES
CAUSES BLURRED FOCUS VISION BLURRED
In case of refraction errors such as When natural proteins in the lens
short-sightedness, long-sightedness, break down and form lumps, vision
and old age, the light is becomes unclear.
not focused onto Known as cataract,
the retina – either this can and cause
due to the eye blurred vision,
shape or because and if left
the lens is untreated even
inflexible. full blindness.
DIABETICS SEE DARK SPOTS CALCIFICATION BREAKS

About one in three diabetics DOWN SHARP POINT
develops retinopathy. Their The light-sensitive cells are
unregulated blood sugar causes particularly densely packed in a region
retinal blood vessels to called the macula. Any
weaken and damage here
eventually burst, creates a spot at
which can be the centre of the
observed as field of vision. It's
dark spots. responsible for
50% of blindness.
OVERPRESSURE CAUSES STROKE ELIMINATES

TUNNEL VISION HALF THE VISION
When the eye becomes too full of A stroke - a cerebral blood clot or
liquid, overpressure harms the optic brain haemorrhage - could damage
nerve and slowly parts of the brain in a
narrows the field of way that makes
vision. Known as the person
GARO/PHANIE/SPL & MARK AIRS
glaucoma, the completely blind

condition is in one half
common of their field
in elderly people. of vision.
T
he first thing that Rhian electronic implants, scientists are
Lewis sees is small, als o working with biological
sharp light flashes that solutions. Stem cells can recreate
resemble the night sky. damaged eye tissue, and virus can
But after a few weeks of reprogramme the cells to function
practice, her brain learns to interpret correctly again. And if everything
the flashes, so she can see the bright else fails, doctors will probably one
contours of her surroundings. The day be able to replace the entire
image is black and white and blurred, blind eye by a normally functioning
BBC/PA/RITZAU SCANPIX
but for the first time in more than eye from a deceased donor.
five years, she can make out plates
and cutlery on a laid table and see Cataract causes blindness
what time it is. A congenital vision A total of 314 million people are
defect has gradually broken down Rhian Lewis has been blind for years, but after having a chip estimated to be at least partially
Rhian Lewis’ retina, but the 49-year- transplanted to her retina, she can once again tell the time. blind, often due to dis eas e,
old British woman is part of a small malnutrition, congenital gene
group of blind people, who have now regained of electronic image sensor which is included in defects, or accidents. Total blindness, by which
some of their vision by having a new electronic a digital camera. The chip replaces the light- the person cannot tell the difference between
chip implanted into their retinas. sensitive cells that have been destroyed in the light and darkness, exists in about 39 million
The most recent version of the chip, the blind person’s eyes and sends data about the people or 0.5 % of the world population.
Alpha AMS, was introduced in the EU in 2016 light to the brain via the optic nerve, so an The group of blind people also includes
and has undergone clinical testing in Germany image is produced in the centre of vision. those who, in spite of glasses or contact
and the UK. The small chip functions as an The chip is one of several sophisticated lenses, see more than 10 times as poorly as a
electronic retina, and once it has been treatments that doctors can now or very soon person with ordinary vision. For instance,
implanted into the eye, the blind person only use on blind people. About 85 % of all cases of although you might otherwise have perfect
needs to activate it to be able to see again. In blindness can probably be prevented or treated vision, you are considered partially blind, if
principle, the implant consists of the same type with existing technology. Apart from your field of vision is very narrow.
LLS
N E T H E R A P Y & STEM CE l
GE a caused by co
ngenita
the retin
Cure damage to of old age.
fects, accide nts, or diseases
gene de
Stem cells help grow a new retina

If the problem is caused by more than one gene or by injury, this can be repaired by
means of stem cells, which reconstruct the damaged part of the retina.
VIRUS' OWN
GENES Connective tissue cells The cells are supplied Other substances
1 from the patient's skin
2 with growth factors, 3 reprogramme the stem
VIRUS
are extracted and placed in a making them convert into cells to produce an unbroken
culture dish with nutrients. thespecial iPSC stem cells. layer of retina cells.
HEALTHY
EYE GENE
Therapy replaces
defective eye gene
Several eye diseases caused by retinal STEM CELLS
damage can be treated with gene therapy,
which provides the cells of the eye with a CONNECTIVE
TISSUE CELLS
healthy version of a defective gene. The RETINA
CELLS
gene is carried into the cells by a virus. The
virus’ own RNA is removed, and the cured
eye gene is inserted. Patients with retinitis The new piece of
pigmentosa get the RPE65 gene, which 4 retina is inserted
recreates the light-sensitive cells of the into the eye to replace
the damaged retina.
SHUTTERSTOCK
retina (rods and cones).
HUMANS BLINDNESS
Full Eye Transplant The donor eye's optic

The transplant of an entire 1 nerve must be linked
eye requires that three with the receiver's own
problems be solved. optic nerve in order for the
brain to receive visual
It can probably be done BLOOD VESSELS impressions from the eye.
within 10-20 years. That is extremely difficult,
as the optic nerve is a
bundle made up of 1+
million individual nerves.
MUSCLES
The donor eye's blood

2 vessels must be
joined with the receiver's
blood circulation in order
for the eye to be supplied
with oxygen and nutrients.
In animal experiments,
donor eyes normally only
survive for a few weeks, but
the blood vessels might join,
if the eye survives longer.
The donor eye's

3 muscles must be
OPTIC NERVE linked with the receiver's
nervous system, allowing
SCIENCE PICTURE COMPANY/SPL

the eye to move. The
problem should be solvable,
when the eye survives long
& CLAUS LUNAU

COUNCIL
enough for the nerve links

to establish themselves.
IC SURGERY RESEARCH
YANG LI ET.AL./PLAST
which are responsible for 13+ % of all cases of pixels in Argus II, providing the blind person
blindness. Hereditary diseases such as retinitis with a much more detailed image of the world.
pigmentosa can also make the light-sensitive And as the crowning touch, the chip uses the
Today, an eye can only be transplanted along cells of the retina die. These patients with nerve cell layers which still function.
with half a face. So far, the surgery has only been damaged retinas can now get some of their The retina consists of three layers with
carried out on animals. vision back with the Alpha AMS chip. different types of nerve cells. The backmost
layer, which is the furthest away from the
Moreover, a person is officially blind, if the Chip uses healthy cells light, includes the light-sensitive cells known
light sensitivity of his eyes is limited, i.e. it takes The implant is a development of another as rods and cones, and this is the layer into
very powerful light to be able to see anything, electronic retina called Argus II, which was which the chip is implanted. When the light
or if he cannot distinguish between contrasts intro duc e d in 2011. The pre de c ess or strikes the light-sensitive cells, they send
and grey tones, causing the field of vision to functioned by a video camera mounted on a signals to the central layer, in which they are
lose its contours. pair of glasses recording the surroundings and processed by another type of nerve cells, that
Cataract causes about half of all cases of sending the data to the electronic retina and compare signals from light-sensitive cells
blindness in the world, although the disease from there onto the brain. nearby to each other to find contrasts and draw
can easily be cured by replacing the lens of the Alpha AMS has no camera and only uses contours. A major part of the visual impression
eye. Other common eye diseases affect the the eye’s own lens to activate the electronic is produced in this layer. Only the most
retina, and so far, doctors have not been able to retina. Moreover, the chip has a much higher important data (or approximately 0.06 %) are
treat those. That is true for age-related macular resolution of 1,600 pixels – i.e. the points that passed on to the brain via cells in the front
degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy, make up the image – as compared to only 60 layer of the retina.
TRANSPLAN
T
Is the solution,
when the cornea
becomes unclea is damaged, and
r. One day, the en the lens
tire eye might be
replaced.
Damage lens
is sucked out
Doctors can replace the lens
of the eye, in the case of
catract or has a refraction
MAURO FERMARIELLO/SPL
BARRAQUER, BARCELONA, ISM/SPL
error. Using a laser, a tiny
hole is cut at the side of the
eye behind the cornea, and
the old lens is sucked out
and replaced by a new one Through a tiny cut in the cornea, the
made of silicone. About six unclear lens is sucked out and replaced
When the damaged cornea has been removed, the donor cornea is applied. million are done annually. with a new, artificial one.
New cornea from

a dead person CORNEA L E N S I S S U C K E D O U T. LENS IS INSERTED.
The cornea is the external, clear

layer of the eye, which covers the
pupil, and if it is injured, the SILICONE
LENS
vision becomes blurred. About
100,000 cornea transplants are
carried out annually. Using a
circular scalpel, a central piece of
the cornea of a deceased donor is
JACOPIN/BSIP/SPL
cut off. A similar piece is cut off

CL A
the patient’s eye, so the donor

US
LUN
cornea can be stitched on.

AU
In many blind people with damaged

IMPROVED VISION retinas, the cell layers responsible for the
Artificial Super Lens Ensures processing of the light signals remain intact.
The Alpha AMS chip uses the functional cells
Sharpness At Any Distance to process the signals from its light-sensitive
pixels, before they are sent on to the optic
With age, our vision is impaired, because the lens of the eye becomes less clear nerve, just like with the signals from the
and flexible. But in only two years from now, we might be able to get a new,
retina’s own rods and cones, markedly
artificial lens, Bionic Lens, which provides us with super vision throughout life.
The lens combines with the muscles of the eye, but as it is much more flexible improving the image quality.
than the natural one, the muscles must make less of an effort to focus. Bionic
Lens will not only give you the vision of a young person, it will also enable you Stem cells repair the retina
to see clearly across long and short distances. Though the Alpha AMS is sophisticated, it is
An upgrade will even allow the projection
still primitive as compared to the real retina. So,
of a display directly into the eye.
scientists have long been trying to transplant a
piece of the retina of a deceased donor to the
The new Bionic Lens replaces the eye’s eye of a person who has become blind as a
natural lens, allowing us to see clearly result of damage to his retina, but so far, the
across long and short distances. effort has been in vain.
CANADIAN PRESS/REX/ALL OVER PRESS
The main problem is that the retina
consists of 125 million nerve cells linked in
HUMANS BLINDNESS
many ways and uniting into one million In 2017, scientists from the RIKEN Centre approved the new treatment in December
nerve links that make up the optic nerve. The for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, 2017, so it can now be offered to all blind
many nerve links from the donor’s retina must developed the method, so the stem cells can be Americans with defects of this particular gene.
be joined with the receiver’s optic nerve, extracted from the blind person’s skin cells
which is an impossible task for surgeons. and used to grow a new piece of retina. The entire eyeball transplanted
So, doctors try to cure defective retinas by Another promising way of curing Although scientists have developed an entire
means of an alternative strategy. Instead of blindness is gene therapy. The method can be arsenal of electronic and biological treatments
transplanting a piece of retina from a donor, used, when the blindness is due to one single for different types of blindness, there are still
they inject stem cells into the eye, making gene. The defective gene is replaced by a many blind people who do not benefit from
them reconstruct the damaged retina from existing options, such as the victims of
scratch. Stem cells have a unique ability to accidents that cause major physical damage to
divide and develop into other specialised cell IMPROVED VISION the eye or patients with glaucoma, which
types, depending on what the body needs. destroys the optical nerve. Their only way of
When the stem cells enter the eye, they Eye Drops getting their vision back is to have a new eye
develop into the retina’s light-sensitive rods
and cones, which develop links to the nerve
Fix Defects from a deceased donor.
Doctors already use transplants from
cells in the retina’s two other layers. In the future, you will be able to donors to treat damage to the cornea, which is
In 2012, the method was tested for the first treat short-sightedness and long- located on top of the pupil as the external part
time on two patients who were blind due to the sightedness by means of eye of the eye. The efficient surgery is carried out
drops. First, you use a laser on
AMD disease, which breaks down the retina’s your phone to stamp a pattern in 100,000 times a year, meaning that almost as
sharpest point, the macula. Steven Schwartz the external layer of the cornea. many corneas are transplanted as all other
from the University of California, Los Angeles, Then you use Nano-Drops, which organs combined.
grew embryonic stem cells in the lab under can enter and change the way in However, the leap to transplanting the
which the cornea refracts the light.
specific conditions that made them develop into entire eye is a huge one. Surgeon Kia
the light-sensitive cells of the retina. Washington from the US University of
Subsequently, they were injected behind the Pittsburgh has transplanted eyes of research
retinas of the two patients, whose vision healthy one, which is entered into the cells of animals, and according to her, it is still
improved markedly during the following weeks. the eye by means of a virus. In 2017, eye impossible to transplant only the eyeball.
Before the treatment, one patient could specialist Stephen Russell from the US Doctors have to include the optic nerve all the
only just sense the motion of a hand in front University of Iowa published the results of a w ay i n b e t w e e n t h e t w o c e re b ra l
of her eyes, but when the stem cells had had gene therapy experiment involving 20 people hemispheres to the place in which the right
time to develop for one week in the eye, she with a congenital error of the RPE65 gene, and left eyes’ optical nerves cross. So, the
could count the fingers of the hand, and after which makes the light-sensitive cells of the patient needs to have a major part of his face
a month, she could read large letters. The stem retina perish. The experiment caused such a replaced, including one eye and ear plus part
cell therapy had enabled the blind person to marked improvement of the participants’ of the skull.
see something in a few weeks. vision that the US health authorities, FDA, The bold surgeon has carried out the
complex surgery on 22 rats, of which 15
survived. One of the rats even kept itself and
the new eye alive for two years, but studies
showed that no electric nerve signals flowed
from the retina through the optic nerve.
Kia Washington is, however, confident,
and her research is supported by the US
CAMERA
Ministry of Defence, which hopes that
transplants of entire eyes can save the vision
INDUCTION COIL
of many soldiers who have been in accidents
or explosions. According to the scientist,
the first transplant of an entire eye can
be carried out in a matter of 10
years. By then, most blind people
would probably be able to see
something due to electronic
implants, gene therapy, stem
cells, or transplants.
The Argus II glasses provide blind

people with primitive vision by
means of a camera and a retina chip.
PHILIPPE PSAILA/SPL
ANTENNA
IMPLANT
E L E C T R O N I C n be repaired by means of a chip, ls.
A defective retin
a ca the eye by pixe
es th e light-sensitive cells of The chip has 1,600 pixels,
which replac
allowing a blind person to
see bright contours.
DR D. NAYAGAM/BIONICS INSTITUTE, AUSTRALIA
The Eye Sees With

An Electronic Retina
Alpha AMS is a 0.07-mm-thick chip that sends visionary
information to the brain, when it is placed beside the
retina’s natural, light-sensitive cells.
The light-sensitive chip,

1 which has 40 x 40 pixels,
is placed at the back of the
NERVE SIGNAL
retina, where it replaces the light-
sensitive cells, that have been OPTIC NERVE
LIGHT-SENSITIVE
destroyed by retinitis pigmentosa, CELLS
or other disease.
Power through the skull

The chip is powered via a cable
passing through the eyeball and
along the inside of the skull to a
bone behind the ear. The power LIGHT
comes from an external battery RETINA
and is directed through the skull
by means of magnetic induction. OPTIC NERVE
The chip converts
CHIP
2 light energy into
power, when the light
hits one of its 1,600 pixels.
LIGHT
The power activates the
3 retina nerves, which have
not been destroyed by disease.
They send a signal to the brain's
centre of vision, which produces an
image of the visionary impression.
NORMAL VISION VISION WITH CHIP
BATTERY
CLAUS LUNAU
PHOTODOC S U RV I VA L
Wild Animals rs
Becom e City Slicke
the world
The cities of some
nature, but to
encroach on le
concrete jung
species, the than
be better
might even g...
the real thin
To peregrine falcons, skyscrapers resemble the rock ledges on which they make their nests in the wild.
This female has found a home for her offspring on a highrise balcony in Chicago, which offers a splendid
view of her hunting grounds. Tall city structures and warm glass and metal surfaces produce rising air
currents, on which the predatory birds ride, as they hunt pigeons and ducks in squares and parks.
LUKE MASSEY/NATUREPL
PEREGRINE FALCONS Predatory bird finds penthouse residence in Chicago.
By Jesper Bindslev
As soon as the tourists leave

the hotel beach, raccoons feast on
leftovers. City life has actually
made the critters more intelligent,
according to experiments. City
raccoons have taught themselves
how to open garbage bins.
SAM HOBSON/NATUREPL
RACCOONS Agile garbage collectors clean up after tourists in Mexico.
Otters have
discovered that the
water in Singapore has
become cleaner in
recent years. They have
moved back to the city,
where they feed on river
LUKE MASSEY/NATUREPL
fish. The animals, which

are not intimidated by
people, have become
one of the city’s popular
tourist attractions.
OTTERS Charmers ride the environmental wave in Singapore.
PHOTODOC S U RV I VA L
Thousands of wild
boars live in Berlin’s
spacious parks and
woods, but especially in
the winter, they can
sometimes be observed
on city streets in search
of food. The boars enjoy
city life, protected from
hunters and with access
to a buffet of garbage.
FLORIAN MÖLLERS/NATUREPL
WILD BOARS Boars find shelter from hunters in Berlin.
When darkness falls

on the Ethiopian city of
Harar, spotted hyenas
appear in the streets.
Some people feed the
large predators, which
they think have magic
powers. The animals
contribute to keeping
the city clean by finding
food in garbage dumps.
PAUL THOMPSON/BBC NHU
HYENAS Wild predators patrol the streets of Harar.
People in the South

African city of Cape
Town better remember
to close their windows.
The expanding suburbs
have cut off baboons
from their natural
habitat, and now,
the monkeys climb
house walls to find
food in private homes.
CYRIL RUOSO/NATUREPL
BABOONS Baboon burglars break into homes in Cape Town.
NAYAN KHANOLKAR/NATUREPL
PhotoDoc TAKE UP
WHEN CITIES S DON'T
AL
SPACE, ANIM AVE...
ALWAYS LE
The Indian city of

Mumbai is home to 21
million people – and 35
leopards. The big cats
live in a national park
bordering on city
suburbs, and when
darkness falls,
they hunt stray dogs
and other animals
in dark alleys.
LEOPARDS Big cats hunt in the streets of Mumbai.
TECHNOLOGY TOXINS
Cleaning Up
Our Deadly Mess
Mercury, arsenic, and oil. Earth is toxic, and
millions die annually as a consequence of the
contamination. But now, experts aim to
decontaminate the planet by means of new
methods, which involve anything from vapour
and plant roots to vacuum pumps and electrodes.
OW
R Y CAN N IL
MERC
U
D FROM SO
OV E OUR.
BE REM AT AND VAP
HE
USING
By Esben Schouboe
Beneath the sand by

Groyne 42 at Harboøre Tongue,
110 t of toxic waste from the
Cheminova chemical plant are buried.
A new vapour method is going to
remove the mercury.
C. BONNERUP/RITZAU SCANPIX
TECHNOLOGY TOXINS
I
n the summer of 1956, a fisherman by method, which – via heat treatment and are characterised by their ability to accumulate
the name of Aage Hansen noticed special carbon filters – has the potential of in living organisms over time. In this way, lead
how the sea water off Harboøre removing mercury directly from the soil – for and other nasties, can replace other substances
Tongue had become yellow, as the the first time ever. such as iron or calcium in the body and restrain
smell of dead animals filled the air. He the brain’s neurotransmitters, damaging IQ
set out to find out why, sailing to the island of Soil contamination kills millions and memory. The second largest source of
Sandø, where he found lots of dead sea gulls The contamination of the world’s soil seriously contamination, mineral oil, also accumulates in
and fish. He had discovered the disastrous gathered momentum with the Industrial the body, such as in the spleen and the liver,
effects of contaminated soil and water on the Revolution. From the mid-1700s, steam- and consists of a series of petroleum distillates
west c oast of Jutland, for which the powered machines, coal burning, and the use from petrol refining, industrial coolants, etc.
Cheminova chemical plant was responsible. of chemicals were introduced in factories. Some of the oil contains toxic tar compounds,
Ever since the factory was built in 1953, it Soon, the first consequences could be observed, PAHs, which are linked with increased risk of
had discharged untreated waste water, and such as in 1873, when a greenish-yellow pea a series of cancer types.
in 1957-1962, Cheminova also deposited its soup of soot and sulphur dioxide covered The EEA estimates that there are 2.5
solid waste in a dune hollow on the North London. At least 268 people died as a million contaminated areas in Europe, and in
Sea. In those days, it was believed to be a safe consequence of the acidic carbon fog. total, the pollution of the world’s air, water, and
location in which to place toxins such as the Today, the world is seeing still more soil claims nine million lives annually,
parathion insecticide and mercury; chemicals contamination, and over the past 40 years, 33 according to a study from 2017 published by
that we now know to be very harmful. % of its arable land has been lost to erosion and the Lancet. Environmental agencies claim that
Cheminova is not by far the only or worst toxins. Particularly the quantities of heavy mercury is the worst, affecting an estimated 19
example of this type of toxic contamination in metals and mineral oils in the ground are huge, million people.
the world. Globally, 61 million people are and in Europe, they account for 37 and 34 % of
subjected to hazardous quantities of toxin total soil contamination, respectively. The Mercury poisons brain and lungs
from contaminated soil. But near the Danish heavy metals include toxic substances such as Since the Industrial Revolution, mercury like
chemical plant, engineers are developing a lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic, which that of Harboøre Tongue has continuously
Mercurial Fish Mercury seems customised to

pollute and poison. It easily
spreads in its gaseous state,
Poison the Body

effortlessly binding to other
substances. Its flexibility allows
the toxin access to the food chain.
CLAUS LUNAU
SULPHUR AND MERCURY MOBILE PARTICLES

COMBINE IN THE GROUND CARRIED AWAY
In the ground, the Rainwater, ground water,
3 positively charged mercury 4 or eroding soil carry tiny
might bind to negatively charged cinnabar particles to oxygen-
sulphur compounds to produce poor places at the bottom of
the mercury mineral of cinnabar. streams, lakes, and oceans.
SULPHIDE MERCURY
MERCURY GAS RISES INTO MERCURY FALLS ONTO
THE ATMOSPHERE EARTH AS RAIN HG+
S-
Coal includes mercury, and In the atmosphere, the gas
1 when it is burned in power 2 reacts with oxygen, shedding
GROUND WATER
plants or volcanic eruptions, the electrons. The gas can now bind to
mercury is converted into gas, which chlorine in the air, etc., mix with
can easily spread in the atmosphere. water drops, and fall as rain.
CINNABAR
C K
TO
RS
TE
or garbage dumps, where anything from old S HU
T
thermometers to batteries and paint leak
16%
mercury. In mines, mercury is even added
directly to the soil to extract gold ore.
The problem with the heavy metal is that it
easily binds to other substances and might
migrate into the food chains of animals. From
bacteria to plankton to fish, it could finally end
of all deaths in the world
up in the human body, where it might restrict
are due to contamination important enzymes in the central nervous
of soil, air, and water. system, which controls muscle motion. So,
mercury contamination could cause paralysis.
In the brain, the mercury can also break
down nerve cells and cause brain injury –
constituted an environmental problem particularly in the embryonic stage and
throughout the world, particularly as it is in children. If you inhale mercury
liberated into the atmosphere in connection vapour, it could also harm your
with coal burning. Coal includes mercury, that, lungs and cause respiratory
when burned, binds to dust particles or turns problems. If it reaches your
into airborne vapour, that can spread across stomach, it could bind to
thousands of km. The atmosphere's mercury enzymes, which are normally EMBRYO
content is now up to 6 times higher than before
the Industrial Revolution.
Mercury also ends up in nature as a
NORMAL
consequence of gold mining, chemical deposits, STRUCTURE
COLLAPSE
TUBULIN
ACTIN NEURON
MERCURY ION
GROWTH
CONE
BACTERIA CONVERT METHYL MERCURY IS WE CONSUME

MINERAL INTO TOXIN ABSORBED IN FOOD CHAIN TOXIN VIA FISH
In the oxygen-poor bottom Methyl mercury is organic, Shrimps are con-
5 silt, bacteria digest the 6 as it includes carbon and 7 sumed by small fish,
cinnabar particles, producing can bind to living organisms. It is which are consumed by larger
methyl mercury, a hazardous absorbed by algae, which are fish. The mercury accumulates,
compound of mercury, carbon, consumed by shrimps, etc. ending up on our dinner tables.
and hydrogen.
MERCURY DESTROYS
BRAIN CELLS
Methyl mercury is
8 particularly hazardous to
brain development in babies and
embryos. The growth cone at the
SHRIMP exterior of brain cells is made of
ALGAE
BACTERIA METHYL
MERCURY threads, which consist of the
proteins of actin and tubulin.
The mercury ions bind to the
tubulin, so the proteins cannot
link up to maintain the cell thread
structure. The growth cone might
collapse, which could finally
cause brain injury or paralysis.
SEDIMENT
TECHNOLOGY TOXINS
CHEMICAL COCKTAIL TURNS OLD

FACTORIES INTO DEATH ZONES
The most toxic places in the world are contaminated with everything from heavy metals
to chemicals from chemical weapons. Untreated waste water and gases from heavy
industry reduce life expectancy and cause disease and death among millions of people.
HAINA,
THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
AGBOGBLOSHIE,
GHANA
MATANZA RIVER,
ARGENTINA
P. PETTERSSON/GETTY
Skin injury is
common among
Lead-acid batteries Factories make river Cable burning
people living on the bank uninhabitable
contaminate entire town spreads heavy metals
Matanza river in According to the UN, the people of Haina 15,000 industrial facilities discharge In Ghana's capital, Accra, there is a
Argentina. have the highest level of lead-acid waste water full of heavy metals, vast area, in which cables are burned
A. BURAFI/RITZAU SCANPIX contamination in the world. The lead solvents, and more, into the Matanza to get to the copper. The burning
comes from an abandoned factory, where river. The 20,000 people who live causes heavy metals to rise into the
lead-acid batteries were remelted. 90+ % close to the river bank endure air, and the lead level of the air is 40
still have too much lead in their blood. conditions that are unfit for humans. times the safety limit.
SOLUTION: SOLUTION: SOLUTION:

As the soil was so badly contaminat- The local government has New recycling plants in
ed, the environmental authorities have demanded plans for eco-friendly Agbogbloshie can use machines to
removed major quantities of it for treat- production from local companies separate the plastic insulation from the
ment in separate facilities. and built a toxin collection station. metal, avoiding the toxic burning.
TOXICITY LEVEL TOXICITY LEVEL TOXICITY LEVEL
SHUTTERSTOCK
RITZAU SCANPIX
SHUTTERSTOCK
responsible for digesting fat, proteins, and
carbohydrates from food. This might cause
ulcers and digestion difficulties.
Vapour purification dethrones toxin

At Harboøre Tongue, the Danish government
Cold War chemicals The river is red, in 2006 tried to solve the problem of mercury
reduce life expectancy and the snow is black
contamination caused by Cheminova.
It's the world's most contaminated Millions of tonnes of nickel and
city. During the Cold War, sulphur dioxide are discharged Environmental engine ers de cide d to
neurotoxins and chemicals were annually in Norilsk, where the encapsulate the toxins by placing steel plates
made in Dzerzhinsk. 300,000 t of Daldykan river run red, and the snow 14 m into the ground around the toxin dump.
abandoned toxin have reduced life falls black. Blood diseases and The leakage was slowed down, but only
expectancy to 45 years. nervous disorders are common here.
temporarily. Over a long period of time, not
SOLUTION: SOLUTION: even the steel barrier will prevent the
In 2011, the citizens began to President Vladimir Putin has pollution, as it will corrode.
collect, decontaminate, and burn threatened fines and been promised So far, the only efficient method for
waste, converting the material major investments in new filtration
into electricity. plants by the city's nickel smelters. removing mercury from the ground has been
to retrieve it and take it someplace else. But
TOXICITY LEVEL TOXICITY LEVEL this method is extremely expensive and
environmentally unsustainable. So, experts
from the Danish environmental services
company Krüger have been given the
LINFEN,
assignment. The company has managed to
CHINA remove mercury from contaminated soil in
its lab, and now, the new technology is about
NORILSK, to be tested in real life for the first time. 25 m3
RUSSIA
of soil from the toxic dump near Cheminova
DZERZHINSK,
RUSSIA
are included in a pilot project that is to
determine whether thermal purification
could become part of the solution to the
world’s mercury problems.
Basically, thermal purification involves the
use of heat to make toxins in the soil evaporate.
Traditionally, the soil has been carried to a lab,
CITARUM RIVER,
INDONESIA where it has been heated. When the toxin
evaporates, it is sucked into a cooling chamber,
where liquid and gas are separated. In this way,
any toxic liquids are collected. At the same
time, the rest of the toxins remain gaseous. The
P. PARKS/RITZAU SCANPIX
GETTY IMAGES
harmful substances are captured by filters, so

clean air can finally be let into the atmosphere.
However, the method has been refined in
recent years, and today, experts are working
with on site heat treatment. Heating elements
are buried in the ground at depths of 2-30 m,
Coal dust kills Vital river is full of and on the surface, an insulating cover is
people in Linfen waste and lead placed. Installed together with the heating
Hundreds of coal-fired power Industrial discharge and domestic
elements or in between them, steel pipes with
stations and iron foundries fill the air waste increase the lead level of the
with hazardous coal dust and heavy Citarum river to 1,000 times the a constant vacuum are placed, also known as
metals. Some 3 million people are recommended drinking water collector wells. The heating elements remain in
estimated to suffer from bronchitis, standard. The river is responsible for the ground for months, until the heat spreads to
lung cancer, and arsenic poisoning. 80% of Jakarta's water supply. the entire area, and the toxins start to evaporate
SOLUTION: SOLUTION: and rise. En route, they are captured by the
Scientists are using chelation, by A recycling company is collecting vacuum wells, which suck up the toxic gases.
which acids bind to toxic metals in plastic waste, mixing it with dried The challenge for Krüger is that mercury in
the ground, resulting in new aquatic plants and glue to
the ground exists in many versions, as the
chemicals, which are easier to treat. manufacture bricks.
metal is included in combinations with other
TOXICITY LEVEL TOXICITY LEVEL substances such as sulphur. The toxic dump
near Cheminova also includes a series of
TECHNOLOGY TOXINS
different mercury remnants – such as phenyl permanent solution, as the soil is not really
and ethyl mercury from fungicides made by purified. Consequently, experts tend to prefer
the chemical plant. As the compounds have long-term metho ds such as thermal
different qualities and boiling points, etc., purification, but also increasingly biological
Krüger’s chemical decontamination must be treatment, which involves the use of bacteria
broadly-based. So, the company has increased and plants that can purify soil by breaking
the temperature in the ground from 100 to 350 down hydrocarbons from fossil fuels.
°C and developed a special sulphur- Scientists have made microorganisms by
impregnated active carbon filter, that binds cloning DNA strands from microbes, which An insulating cover seals
and captures all types of mercury vapours normally live in petroleum reservoirs, where the soil, so the toxic
from the plant. they break down oil accumulated in the vapours can only reach the
ground. The bacteria are of the Rhodococcus surface via buried wells.
type, which easily bind to oils and can oxidise TERRATHERM
their toxins. This is a process, in which oxygen
71 %
reacts with the substances, so they give off
electrons and can be broken down.
New methods save billions

The new heating and biological methods are P OW E R B O X F O R
particularly interesting, because they purify HEATING ELEMENT
of soil contamination in the soil more efficiently and safely than

Europe is due to heavy traditional methods. Moreover, they are much
metals and kerosene products. cheaper. The major expenses of traditional soil
purification are due to the huge labour and
transport ressources required to extract soil,
carry it, and deposit it in designated waste
The pilot experiment will show, if the areas. On site thermal heat treatment is very
methods are efficient in the real world, which much cheaper than lab treatment, so analysts 230 V
is impossible to copy 1:1 in the lab. also see a market for the new soil purification 50 HZ
technologies, that is expected to increase by 8

Cloned bacteria consume oil % annually up until 2021, when there will be
Thermal purification is just one of a series of jobs worth an estimated at more than $50
recent methods for cleaning soil of toxin. billion worldwide.
Scientists have also found out that you can At Harboøre Tongue, toxin experts are
encapsulate toxins by means of electricity. working hard to obtain results before
They bury electrodes into contaminated soil, December. If everything goes well, the method METAL ROD
sending a current through the soil layers, until can subsequently be scaled up to include the
the temperature increases so much that all the entire Cheminova mercury toxic dump.
materials melt. Subsequently, everything Subsequently, the world is waiting. At best, the
hardens. The result is a type of glass, that traps efforts at the tongue are the beginning of a new STEEL PIPE
the contamination. era, in which yellow water and dead animals

However, encapsulation is rarely a are things of the past.
METHOD 1 THE SOIL

IS HEATED
Plants consume toxin

In recent years, scientists have become more
aware of phyto-decontamination, by which HEATING ELEMENTS
plants dissolve or accumulate toxins in the ARE BURIED
ground. Some fern species can absorb arsenic in A current-carrying
1 metal rod in a steel
100 times higher concentrations than in the
pipe is buried in the
contaminated soil. Other plant species such as contaminated soil. The
poplars and willows can liberate chemicals via metal's temperature rises
SHUTTERSTOCK
their roots, helping soil microorganisms break due to the resistance of the
down crude oil, kerosene products, and more. material, and the soil is
heated to 300-350 °C.
METHOD 2
Huge Heater Evaporates

Mercury From Contaminated Soil
For the first time ever, soil polluted with mercury is to be decontaminated by heating the
soil to make the toxin evaporate. Powerful vacuum pumps ensure constant pressure, which
sucks the mercury vapours out of the soil and into an efficient filter. The method is to be
tested on soil from the former toxin deposit of the Danish chemical plant Cheminova.
CLAUS LUNAU
VACUUM PUMP
VAPOUR
COOLING
4
5
DISPOSAL
7
LIQUID
ACTIVE
DISPOSAL
COLLECTOR
WELL CARBON FILTER
6
MERCURY TANK
SEPARATOR
TOXINS BURIED WELLS VACUUM PUMP COOLING CHAMBER LIQUIDS ARE CARBON FILTER
EVAPORATE CAPTURE VAPOUR SUCKS UP TOXIN CONDENSES GAS SEPARATED PURIFIES GASES
The mercury The heat dries and A powerful The sucked up Liquid mercury is Carbon captures
2 compounds in the 3 shrinks the soil, 4 vacuum pump 5 vapour is cooled in a 6 separated by 7 mercury in
ground slowly allowing more room for causes suction in the chamber. Pure mercury centrifugation from thousands of
evaporate, as the the evaporated toxin to collector wells, sucking condenses into liquid, other types of micropores. This active
molecules break loose find its way to collector the mercury out of the whereas other mercury condensed liquid. This is carbon is infused with
from liquid and solid wells located together ground. Close to 100 % of compounds and water, possible, because the sulphur, which binds
states, becoming with the heating the toxins can be and some pesticides, mercury is much denser to the mercury,
gaseous. element. captured like this. remain gaseous. than other substances. producing cinnabar.
S PA C E VENUS
116 DAYShanical
a mec
is how long
function on
rover must t
lly carry ou
Venus, to fu a t a
– an d
the mission
temp er a tu re of
.
475 degrees
NASA’s vision of a rover that

functions on Venus is inspired
by World War I tanks.
NASA
By Henrik Bendix
WILD VISION
Mechanical rover VENUS IS

THE SIZ
E
2.5 BILL
ION
conquers Venus
TH , AND
AR VE
O F E IGHT AH
GO, IT M
YEARS A .
BITABLE
BEEN HA
Scorching heat and immense pressure make all Venus

missions short-lived, but a robust clockwork rover with
springs revives the dream of exploring Earth’s neighbour.
C
rash. The Soviet probe Venera 7 NASA still dreams of exploring our the probes are a major
speeds down through Venus' thick neighbouring planet’s surface once again. So, part of the reason why our
atmosphere, landing hard on the engineers have designed the robust AREE closest neighbour has been visited so
surface, when the parachute does rover, which can resist the intense pressure and rarely since 1985. When equipment is to be
not function properly. For 23 the high temperatures. brought to the surface of Venus, it must first
minutes, it sends data back to Earth, before The rover will study the planet’s surface pass through clouds consisting of sulphuric
falling silent. The scanty measurements tell a and determine what caused the runaway acid droplets, and at lower altitudes, other
story of an extremely hostile environment. greenhouse effect on Venus. However, the highly corrosive chemical compounds such as
Surface temperatures are close to 475 °C – studies cannot be carried out using instruments hydrochloric acid and hydrogen fluoride exist.
enough to melt lead – and the pressure, which like those on the Martian rovers. Instead, AREE On the planet's surface, the pressure could
is more than 90 times that of Earth’s surface, must carry out its pioneer work by means of easily destroy sensitive instruments.
would crush most submarines. Venus is more springs, gears, and Morse-like code. However, the high temperatures are the
extreme than anyone had ever imagined, so no major problem, as they will melt some metals
wonder the probe quickly succumbs to the Rover to explain disaster course and overheat all electric systems. The electric
devastating conditions. In spite of its hard landing, the Venera 7 resistance of the circuits will increase with
Venera 7 was the first probe to land on mission was successful. It was the first time temperature, meaning it will be more difficult
Venus on 15 December 1970, and for the next that a probe sent a signal to Earth from the for a current to flow through the electronics.
15 years, only nine other Russian and one surface of another planet, and although But what is worse, the transistors of modern
American probes managed to follow suit. Since subsequent Venus probes lived longer, none of microchips are based on silicon, which loses its
the space race calmed down in the 1980s, them kept up a signal to Earth for more than semiconductor properties in the heat, making
Venus has only been visited by orbiters, but two hours and seven minutes. The brief lives of computer units break down.
The Soviet Union Has Top Score on Venus

Venus is our closest neighbour, but only one US and 10 Soviet probes have ever sent
data from its surface. Since 1985, Venus has only been visited by three orbiters.
TOP 3 OF ROBUST PROBES

VENERA 11: 95 VENERA 12: 110 VENERA 13: 127
MINUTES MINUTES MINUTES
The probe discovered thunder The lander measured the The most die-hard probe
and lightning on Venus and clouds in the sky of Venus and survived four times longer
measured a temperature of found sulphur and chlorine. At than planned and sent the first
452 °C and a pressure 92.6 a lower altitude, it measured colour picture from another
times Earth's at sea level traces of carbon monoxide. planet back to Earth.
NATION: USSR NATION: USSR NATION: USSR
DATE OF LANDING: DATE OF LANDING: DATE OF LANDING:
25 December 1978 21 December 1978 1 March 1982
RADIO CONTACT from the RADIO CONTACT from RADIO CONTACT from The Soviet Union’s Venera craft collected most of
surface for 95 minutes the surface for 110 minutes the surface for 127 minutes the data we have, from Venus’ surface.
NASA
NASA S PA C E VENUS
PRESSURE CHAMBER
simple circuits based on the extremely
durable silicon carbide material function
under conditions like those on Venus for 21
days. However, the simple circuits cannot
make up a real computer, and moreover,
scientists would like to get data that spans a
longer period of time.
Apart from the electric components, the
rover will be assisted by a satellite orbiting
Venus, which is not exposed to the harsh
conditions of the rover. The satellite is to aim
an ultra-strong radio signal at four radar
targets on the top side of the rover. Scientists
explain that the targets function as inverted
stealth planes that become invisible by
In the GEER pressure chamber,
bending radar waves. Instead, the radar targets
NASA engineers can simulate
concentrate the radar signal back to the
Venus. They have made simple
satellite. By means of gears, the rover’s
circuits function for 21 days at a
measurements are transferred to four rotating
temperature of 425 degrees.
discs with holes in them, that alternately hide
and show the radar targets. So, the reflected
radar signal is interrupted in a rhythm that
reflects the collected data and sent back as a
The mere identification of a heat-defying which has a versatile geological history. type of flashing Morse code in the same way as
material that can protect individual microchips In order to make sure that the rover does the signal lamps of ships. Finally, the satellite
cause problems for engineers. not drive in a circle, but rather explores a long sends the about 1,000 bits of data collected per
cross section of Venus, a mechanical system day to Earth.
Old inventions inspire rover must continuously count the number of
To overcome the planet’s harsh conditions, revolutions of each tread of the vehicle. If one Mechanics allow visit to Mercury
astronomers and engineers from NASA’s Jet tread is ahead of the others, the rover must Venus is highly influenced by volcanic
Propulsion Laboratory have designed a rover have turned, and so, the device makes sure to eruptions, and the surface is covered in lava
that would be able to function on Venus for get it back on track again. A similar system fields. NASA’s scientists hope that a new
months. Known as the Automaton Rover for ensures that the rover continues in the same mission can teach them more about how
Extreme Environments, AREE, the project has direction if it encounters an obstacle and has to periods of volcanic activity have shaped the
been on the drawing board since 2015. reverse to take a slightly different route. surface over billions of years and perhaps spot
Inspired by reliable clockworks and mineral evidence of a time, when the planet
mechanical machines of the past, scientists was a much more friendly place to be.
96.5
imagine a mechanical rover controlled by gears Although the conditions sound overwhelming,
and energized by springs, that are powered by prolonged meteorological and geological
the wind. All parts are to be made of special studies of the barren desert surface are
metal alloys and synthetic fibre materials that important in order to understand why the
can resist the high temperatures. The design of planet’s greenhouse effect went berserk. More
the rover is inspired by the World War I tanks, than 2.5 billion years ago, Venus was not just
which were built to climb steep obstacles such like Earth in size, it also included oceans and
as bomb craters and trenches. Due to volcanic % of Venus' atmosphere is perhaps even life. So, Venus is also known as
activity on Venus, a crawler would also have to carbon dioxide, whereas Earth’s twin. Data from the mechanical rover
be able to handle different types of terrain. nitrogen makes up 3.5%. is to help scientists solve the mystey of why
At the centre of the rover, there is a simple Venus was transformed. This is not only
wind turbine, that can generate wind energy important to Earth’s future, rather also to the
24/7. The low surface wind speed of averagely possibility of exploring the prospects of life on
0.6 m/second is sufficient to make the wind Data sent as flashing code other planets orbiting remote stars.
turbine rotate in the thick atmosphere. By However, the Venus rover cannot handle all A mission to the surface of Venus has not
making the rover be stationary for seven tasks with mechanics. Particularly the more yet been planned, but with AREE, it might be
hours, energizing a spring by means of wind detailed geological measurements require done. The responsible scientists emphasise that
power, the rover can drive 100 m in one hour, electronic sensors. The inventors trust a mechanical rover could also explore Mercury,
as the spring is automatically released. During physicists and engineers from NASA’s Glenn whose surface has not yet been visited. On
the planned 116 Earth days of the mission – Research Centre to develop new electronics, Earth, it can be used to observe active
corresponding to one Venus day – the rover which can function at temperatures of about volcanoes. No matter what, the robust vehicle
can drive 35 km in the Sekmet Mons lava field, 500 °C. In 2016, scientists managed to make is in for a hot future.
Powered By Wind, Rover
Sends Data Via Flashes
Computers, chemical batteries, and radio transmitters melt in the scorching
heat on Venus. So, engineers have invented mechanical substitutes for
electronics in the 700 kg rover.
MORSE RADAR SIGNAL

TRANSMITS RESULTS
On top of the rover, radar targets reflect
the radar signal of a satellite. Via gears, data
is translated into a specific pace for rotating
discs with holes that alternately shield and
expose the radar targets. The satellite picks
up the radar signal as a type of Morse code,
which is transmitted to Earth.
MECHANICAL COMPUTER
PROCESSES SAMPLES
The rover takes samples
1 from the surface using a
WEATHER STATION
small arm attached to a
WIND TURBINE ENER- MEASURES PRESSURE
mechanical computer - a AND TEMPERATURE
calculator based on gears. The GISES ROVER SPRINGS
Mechanical sensors
samples are analysed by means The Savonius wind
2 turbine, which is mounted 4 measure wind speed based
CATERPILLAR TREADS
of electronic equipment that on the wind turbine's rotations,
vertically in the rover, generates CLIMB OBSTACLES
works in the heat. temperature via a stick that
about three watts. Some of the Via gears, the springs
energy energises synthetic fibre
3 power the rover's expands in the heat, and
pressure based on a contracting
springs, which power the rover. caterpillar treads. They can
container. Solar cells generate
This simple power plant is climb metre-tall obstacles, but if
power for the small number of
supplemented with solar cells the obstacles are too large, a
more sophisticated sensors.
NASA & SHUTTERSTOCK
on the top side. bumper activates a system that

makes the rover reverse and
change direction.
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PHOTODOC SLEEP
Animals Sleepess
Their Way to Succ
Creative slee
ping position
s and extrem
nature’s
e
ns prov ide
sleep patter age in
py head s with an advant
slee su rvive.
le to
their strugg
Grey seal naps are

among the briefest in
the animal kingdom,
sometimes no more
than 90 seconds, but
A. MUSTARD/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY
then they take many

naps during a day.
The ultra-brief naps
are often taken while
the seal is underwater,
despite the risks.
GREY SEAL The popular prey must settle for powernapping.
By Jesper Bindslev
Sea otters sleep, as

they are floating on their
backs in the water. To
ensure their babies don't
drift away from their
mothers, they hold each
DESIGN PICS INC/GETTY IMAGES
other’s paws. Adult

otters also hold on to
seaweeds, sea grass,
etc., using the plants
as a kind of anchor.
SEA OTTER Mother and baby defy the current holding hands.
The common swift

will effortlessly remain
in flight for 10 months
at a time, and the small
migratory bird only
lands to lay eggs. The
air is safer for the bird,
which is very poor at
landing and taking off.
The common swift
P. SAVOIE/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY
sleeps in the air, half a

brain at a time: its
cerebral hemispheres
take turns being active,
so it is never more than
"half asleep" and
always alert.
COMMON SWIFT Migratory birds sleep in flight to avoid hazardous landings.
PHOTODOC SLEEP
Bats do not have

enough lift to take off
from the ground,
so they must use
gravity, by first falling
from high places. Bats
sleep with their heads
down to be able to take
flight quickly in case of
danger. Tendons in the
bat’s claws ensure that
the animal holds its
grip in its sleep and
does not take a fall.
J. FREUND/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY

BAT Clumsy flier slumbers in optimal escape position.
Wild elephants can

lock their knee joints to
sleep as they are
standing up – just like
cows, horses, etc. But in
order to enter into the
deep REM sleep, which
most mammals need,
the elephants have to
lie down every three or
four days. REM sleep
has to do with the
storage of memories.
SHUTTERSTOCK
ELEPHANT The savannah giant only lies down every four days.
Mallards stand in a
long line while they
are sleeping, but some
are resting more than
others. The ducks on
each end of the row only
sleep half a brain at a
time, like the swift, and
keep one eye open. In
case of danger, the sleep
guards will cackle,
LABRADOREO/ALAMY/ALL OVER PRESS
waking up the others.
MALLARD Sleep guards watch over the group.
M. LUNDGREN/NATURE PICTURE LIBRARY
Earth’s largest
PhotoDoc
predators sleep in
groups of 5-6 whales,
which drift with the
current right beneath
EEP ON
ANIMALS SL ICALLY, the ocean surface. They
R FEET, VERT
THEI DOWN. sleep vertically, and
AND UPSIDE nobody yet knows why.
It might be for safety, or
even blood circulation.
SPERM WHALE Ocean giants doze vertically.
TECHNOLOGY DRONES
THE HUGE AQUILA DRONE GOES TO THE EXTREMES AVIATION
Wing span: Weight: Energy consumption: Cruising altitude:

42 m 450 kg 5,000 W 27 km
The drone is wider With a weight of The motors consume It flies at more
than a Boeing 737, 450 kg, it weighs as much power than twice the
which has a wing one third of a as three altitude of an
span of 36 m. small family car. hair dryers. ordinary airliner.
FACEBOOK/SHUTTERSTOCK
Facebook’s huge drones transmit data to

each other across long distances by means
of quick-flashing laser light.
By Esben Schouboe
Going Online? Just Call Up

the Nearest Laser Drone...
Worldwide, four billion people do not have Internet access – yet. But from
an altitude of 27 km, huge drones are to ensure fast wireless Internet to the
entire world with laser light that flashes up to one billion times per second.
O
ne summer morning in 2016, the unnecessary equipment such as a cabin and drone to manoeuvre at low speeds and very
peace of Arizona’s desert is landing gear. The drone is propelled by four high altitudes. It can fly from 130 to 15 km/h up
interrupted by four rotating motors that c onsume 5,000 watts – against the wind and at altitudes of up to 27
propellers that accelerate along a corresponding to a mid-size heat pump. The km. In comparison, a commercial airliner
runway, resting on a metal energy is generated by solar cells covering the typically flies 700-1,000 km/h and never
support on wheels. Shortly after, a 42-m-wide entire underside of the wing. The body is made higher than 12 km.
aircraft lets go of the metal support to take off, of ultra-light carbon fibre, so Aquila only
ascending up through the air layers. The craft weighs 450 kg. Flashing laser light sends data
is a drone shaped like a huge, thin boomerang Usually, aircraft carry much more weight, During Aquila’s first landing on a gravel plain
whose ends bend upwards. In spite of its size, requiring much more speed for the wings to in the desert, the landing calculations were
the drone is not to carry neither goods, nor produce sufficient lift. Aquila’s low weight interrupte d by a wind gust, causing
humans. Instead, it will use laser beams to does not only benefit the lift, it also allows the considerable bruises. So, engineers are still
supply fast Internet to the four billion people in
the world who do not have Internet coverage.
96 minutes later, the plane lands again, and
so, the first test flight of Facebook’s huge
Balloons And Satellites
Aquila drone has been completed. 112 years
after the Wright brothers' first flight became
Optimise Internet Coverage
the beginning of a more connected world, Some of the tech industry’s most innovative companies
Facebook has reached an important milestone are developing different solutions which are designed to
in its Internet.org project, which is to form ensure Internet connections for all people in the world.
closer connections between the people of the
world together. Swarms of interconnected Google's Project Loon is balloons flying at an altitude of 20
drones with a hyper-efficient, aerodynamic km and equipped like mobile phone masts. They navigate by
structure make up an important element of the ascending/descending to the right air flows. In 2017, it brought
ambitious plans, whereas the development of Internet access to 100,000 Puerto Ricans following a hurricane.
history’s first flying Internet network carried
by fast-flashing laser transmitters makes up From 2019, SpaceX will begin launching 4,000+ satellites in a
another one. In combination, they could be the formation, which will cover all of Earth at any time. It will also
solution to how to fill the Internet "gaps" in improve the Internet connections of spacecraft.
Africa, South America, Asia, etc., where
insufficient infrastructure and impassable In late 2017, OneWeb was allowed to launch 720 satellittes,
terrain make it unprofitable or impossible to which are to bring Internet connections with speeds of up to
JON SHENK/GOOGLE/REUTERS/RITZAU SCANPIX
lay down Internet cables. 200 megabits/second to one billion people.
Nothing is superfluous
Prior to the test flight, Facebook has spent
Google wants to ensure Internet connectivity
about two years developing a drone, that, in its
by means of transmitters, receivers,
complete version, is meant to fly nonstop for 90
and data units aboard balloons.
days – only powered by solar energy. The
engineers aim to create a plane stripped of all
TECHNOLOGY DRONES
optimising the drone, as they are developing

the project’s second leg: combined laser
transmitter and receiver units, which are to
carry the Internet signal from one drone to the
next – and the next.
They are working with a technology
FACEBOOK
known as Free-Space Optical Communication,
FSO. Laser light imitates radio waves which are Aquilla’s first test flight took place from a metal The drone flew for 96 minutes. The aim is
normally used to transmit data between support on wheels pulled by a large vehicle. 90 days of non-stop flight.
routers, smartphones, and more. In an ordinary
WiFi network, data is converted into radio
waves by adjusting the waves’ accurate Facebook, they can hit an area the size of a coin ordinary WiFi router's radio waves are usually
frequencies and when they start and stop. A from a distance of 10 km. relatively long – such as 12.5 cm for the most
unit such as a smartphone decodes the waves, ordinary frequency of 2.4 GHz. FSO data
and shows the desired content in the display. In Altitude ensures free passage transfer us es infrare d light, whos e
an FSO network, activated and deactivated As the name implies, Free-Space Optical wavelengths are only 700-1000 nanometres
laser light produces the 1s and 0s, which make Communication requires that nothing and frequencies of 300 GHz-430 THz, near to
up the bits, which combine into documents, interferes with the light passing between visible light. Waves with such minor lengths
images, and video on the Internet. transmitter and receiver. So, FSO data transfer face a greater risk of interacting with air
The laser units work by a diode sending a has particularly been used for communication particles and so weakening the signal. The
signal through the centre of a lens. At the same between satellites and in space. Close to Earth, particles block out the light, meaning that bits
time, the lens focuses external laser light onto the technology has been limited, because it is of the data packets fail, and the digital content
a photo detector behind the laser diode, which difficult to achieve high data speeds across long such as an image will not reach the user in
decodes the frequency and intensity of the distances due to disturbing air particles such as perfect shape. The problem disappears at
light flashes, converting them into bits. The fog and rain. Aquila’s working altitude of 18-27 km above
lasers of the Aquila drones flash billions of In this case, laser light is markedly different Earth, where the concentration of particles
times per second and can hence send huge from radio waves, which can function through only makes up 5 % of the concentration at sea
quantities of data very accurately between the walls of a house. This is because of the level. So, FSO is very efficient. The drones can
them across many kilometres. According to waves’ different lengths and frequencies. An transfer data at up to 30 gigabits per second
Drones Fire Data LASERS DIVIDE INTERNET

BETWEEN DRONES
An Aquila drone receives the data
2 signal, passing it on to other drones by
with Powerful Laser

activating/deactivating an ultra-accurate
laser billions of times per second. The data
packet consists of sequences of 1s and 0s,
that are translated into light or no light in
the laser transmitter. The drones fly 18-27 km
Swarms of Aquila drones will hover high above the world’s above Earth, so the signal is not interrupted
Internet black spots, hooked up with a sophisticated data by fog, rain, or anything else.
signal network. This is to ensure Internet access in densely
populated, but impassable regions.
ANTENNAS HOOK DRONES UP

DRONE
WITH THE PHYSICAL INTERNET LASER
From a server in a city, data is sent through a physical
1 network of cables to a user in an impassable area.
First, the signal must be sent from an antenna on the
ground, where the data packet is translated into millimetre
waves. Those are 1-10-mm-long radio waves of ultra-high
MILLIMETRE
frequencies of 30-300 GHz. Facebook will specifically use WAVES
the almost unused E band of frequencies of 60-90 GHz. 27 KM
METTE AIRS/SHUTTERSTOCK
ANTENNA
INTERNET CABLES IN THE GROUND
between them – that is about 30 times faster signal from the drones to the receiver units for 90 days and communicate via FSO, it will be
than ordinary Internet connections on Earth, and on to the users’ smartphones or computers two major milestones for drone and
which rarely exceed 100 megabits/second. on the ground. communication technology, respectively.
Moreover, Aquila can be used for scientific
High frequency, no bottlenecks Tech giants connect the world research, etc., which requires the monitoring
When the drones have taken flight, they are Facebook sees a major development potential and studying of large regions at the same time
hooked up with the physical Internet via cables in supplying Internet to all people in the world, and over long periods of time.
and antennas on the ground, and Facebook is getting four billion new potential customers. However, the immediate intention of the
also innovative in this respect. The company But the company is not alone. Other tech global Internet solutions is to make sure that
aims to send the signal to the drones from companies such as Google and SpaceX are farmers in South Sudan have access to weather
antennas by means of millimetre waves. They developing balloons or satellites with the same forecasts and girls in Pakistan have access to an
cover frequencies of 30-300 GHz and are a aim. Aquila’s current climax was reached on 22 encyclopedia – and to connect any desert,
crossbreed between radio waves and infrared May 2017, when it flew in a clear, sunny sky for mountain peak, and jungle – in short, bringing
light. More specifically, they will make use of 106 minutes, before landing as it was supposed the world closer together. So, Facebook or one
the E band, which uses frequencies of 60-90 to on a plain almost unharmed. If Facebook of its major competitors will close the ring that
GHz – unlike the WiFi network of about 2.4-5 reaches its goal of building drones that can fly the Wright brothers initiated in 1903.
GHz. The broad spectrum of frequencies
ensures that the network will not be overloaded
– such as the WiFi network of a café will easily
be in case of many users at the same time. The Drones Send Internet Content
E band has existed since the 1970s, but before With Flashing Laser Light
Facebook’s engineers refined it, it was both
The central unit of Facebook’s laser captures the laser’s light intensity
energy and space-intensive: a technology that
drones is a transceiver consisting of a and the intervals between its billions
was not at all suited for a drone.
laser diode, that fires light, and a of flashes per second. They are
In the most recent tests with millimetre
lens, which focuses incoming laser encoded into specific sections of
waves, Facebook has sent data to a plane at an
light onto a photo detector. A data code, which make up the bits and
altitude of 6000m at speeds enough to stream
unit translates the light into data and bytes of data that combine into a
4,000 HD films at the same time. It is also
vice versa. The photo detector film or other content.
millimetre waves that are to send the Internet
INCOMING
LASER SIGNAL
PHOTO DETECTOR
RADIO WAVES SEND
WI-FI TO THE GROUND
One of the drones of the swarm
3 converts data into millimetre waves OUTGOING
LASER SIGNAL
again, sending the signal to the ground via
point-to-multipoint communication.
Antennas on the ground pass the signal on
MIKKEL JUUL JENSEN
to users in the shape of either WiFi or fast

3G. One single drone supplies Internet for
DATA UNIT
an area with a diameter of about 95 km at INCOMING LASER DIODE
up to 30 gigabits per second. LASER SIGNAL
LASER
MILLIMETRE
WAVES
WIFI/3G
ANTENNA
REACH: 95 KM
HISTORY TELEGRAPH
Just Connecting
You Now...
For 11 years, Cyrus Field of the US struggled to make his dream of connecting
Europe and America via a telegraph cable come true. After four failed
attempts, he was considered mad, but the fifth changed the world forever.
C
yrus Field was not a man of an ailing project aimed at connecting
tears. The noble and enthusi- Newfoundland and the US with a perma-
astic American was famous nent telegraph cable.
for his positive approach to In those days, news from Europe
life, and his inspiring eager- reached America at the speed of a ship
ness, but on 2 September 1866, he could no crossing the Atlantic, which meant any-
longer resist it. thing from weeks to months, depending on
Cyrus Field locked the door of his cab- the weather. Gisborne wanted to cut the
in in the mid-Atlantic, shedding tears of time span to a few days by making ships
joy. For 11 years, he had struggled to make berth at the most easterly point of the con-
his dream of connecting Europe and tinent, Newfoundland, from where the
America with a telegraph cable come true. news could be forwarded via a telegraph
The dream had earned him a reputation of cable on dry land.
being both an ingenious entrepreneur and Cyrus Field listened carefully to what
a presumed fraudster. And it had cost him his guest had to say. He had moved from
unimaginable quantities of blood, sweat, Connecticut to New York at the age of 15,
and most of all, money. and a series of good investments had now
Eleven years previously, when there made him so wealthy that he could engage
was a knock on the door of Cyrus Field’s in new projects just out of curiosity. He
home in New York, he did not know that liked Gisborne’s idea, but something both-
in a few minutes, he would be facing ered him: It was not sufficiently visionary.
the challenge of his life. His When Gisborne had left, Cyrus Field
guest was Frederick stepped into his library, where he realised
Gisb orne, a long- what was wrong with the project – or as
bearded Canadian Cyrus Field’s brother noted a few years
e n g i n e e r. G i s - later: “It was while thus studying the globe
borne was rais- that the idea first occurred to him, that the
ing money for telegraph might be carried further still,
and be made to span the Atlantic Ocean.”
3,200-km-long cable
Cyrus Field’s vision was just as fantastic
as it was crazy. No more than about 100
years previously, William Watson had
discovered that it was possible to trans-
mit a current through a metal thread
Cyrus Field did not know anything across long distances, and engineers had
about telegraphs and cables, but his only just begun to experiment with sub-
immense energy and enthusiasm marine cables. So, it was overwhelming
helpted him do the impossible.
By Erik Bork
ULLSTEIN BILD & ISTOCKPHOTO & BRIDGEMAN

NOW OPTICAL CABLES
CONNECT THE WORLD
NORTH AMERICA
150 years ago, telegraph cables were a major breakthrough, but EUROPE
today, ultra-fast fibreoptic cables – or submarine optic fibre cables

– handle transatlantic (and transpacific) data traffic. In 2019, the
TELEGEOGRAPHY
Internet link will be upgraded with the Mermaid cable that is to
connect the US with Denmark and Ireland. The cables send light
impulses through very thin glass fibres and can carry 1 million 400+ submarine cables carry 99 % of the
megabits/second. And we still need more bandwidth... world’s Internet traffic.
The first transatlantic

cable weighed 2,000+ t,
so two huge warships
were required to lay
out the cable.
HISTORY TELEGRAPH
ATLANTIC CABLE.COM
to imagine a cable across the Atlantic, slowing down, the cable had finally
which would have to be 3,200+ km long snapped. Downcast and having lost 400
and reach a depth of 3 km! km of cable, Cyrus Field and the crew of
However, Cyrus Field was obsessed the Niagara turned back towards the coast.
with his idea, which could connect “the
old” and “the new world”. Over the next Storm ruins everything
few years, he collected a number of scien- The accident had cost 100,000 pounds, and
tists and investors, founding the Atlantic one year of manufacturing the huge tele-
Telegraph Company. Field himself contrib- graph cable. But that did not upset Cyrus
uted 25 % of the capital. The rest was raised Field, although he had to wait until the
British factories manufactured almost by selling shares. next summer to make another attempt.
600,000 km of single wire for the In England, Cyrus Field set out to pro- The time was spent improving the cable
transatlantic cable. vide the cable which was to cross the At- winding gear and replacing the technical
lantic. A few years previously, scientists director of the project. The new boss, Wil-
CABLE WIRE COULD had accidentally discovered that guttaper- liam Thomsen, believed that the cable was
HAVE REACHED cha sap from tropical trees was flexible and much too thin, but the company did not
THE MOON not broken down by water. So, the current- have money for a new one, so Thomsen
carrying copper wires were insulated with had to settle for the thin cable.
For a whole year, British factories gutta-percha, wax, resin, and tar plus an In June 1858, the Agamemnon and the
worked on the huge telegraph iron thread armour. Niagara were ready to make a new at-
cable which was to connect tempt. This time, the two vessels were to
Europe and America. No ship could carry the load meet in the mid-Atlantic, continuing to-
The first cables that were laid down The cable weighed 2,000+ t, which proved wards separate shores with separate parts
across the Atlantic were not much to be the next problem, as no ships could of the cable. But on the way to the destina-
thicker than a broomstick, but they carry such a heavy load. The solution was tion, dark clouds gathered above the Ag-
were state-of-the-art. At the centre, to hire two ships, the USS Niagara, which amemnon, and on 13 June, a severe storm
there were current-carrying copper was the largest American warship, and the began. The large wooden ship rocked from
threads, which were protected by British battleship HMS Agamemnon. side to side at 30 degree angles, and huge
several layers of natural rubber, and In the summer of 1857, the vessels were waves struck the hull. A week passed, be-
tarred hemp threads. Finally, the observed by thousands of spectators, as fore the storm died down.
entire cable was lined with iron they loaded the heavy cables and left Ire- Cyrus Field had travelled aboard the
thread. The factories manufactured land for Newfoundland. The newspapers Niagara on a more quiet route, but when
a total of about 600,000 km of single had covered the project with salacious de- the two ships met in the Atlantic, he real-
wire for the first telegraph cable – a tail, and many had questioned its feasibili- ized that the cable aboard the Agamemnon
length that could easily have linked ty. A famous astronomer, Sir George Airy, was tangled. The crew tried to untangle it
Earth and the Moon. had even said that it was mathematically and began laying out the cable, but after
In 1865, when Cyrus Field made impossible to lay down a cable at such about 300 km, the worn out cable snapped.
his fourth attempt to reach America, depths, and even if it were possible, no sig-
the cable was 1.5 times as thick and nal could travel that far. Two continents connected
able to transmit eight words a However, the negative predictions did Once again, Cyrus Field's mission had
minute – 50 times more than the old not bother Cyrus Field, who was now lying failed. He was tired, but not heartbroken,
cable from 1857. Messages sent via in his berth aboard the Niagara, listening to as he considered it pure bad luck that the
the transatlantic cable cost $10 per the slow, heavy sound of the cable being mission had not been completed this time.
word, as much as one week’s pay for pulled from the ship towards the bottom, Soon after, the two vessels left the coast
an unskilled labourer. nautical mile after nautical mile. On the once again, but this time, no cheering
night of 11 August, the Niagara had laid out crowds waved goodbye.
400+ km of cable. Both ordinary people and investors
Cyrus Field was lying in his cabin, had begun to lose faith in Cyrus Field’s
when he suddenly heard shouting from wild plans, so success was utterly neces-
the deck: “Stop her! Reverse!” The next mo- sary, when the ships met again in the At-
ment, there was a knock on the door, and lantic in 1858 to unite the two cable ends,
Cyrus Field got the disastrous message: before the vessels once again headed for
“The cable is gone!” The waves had rocked separate continents. This time, the weather
The cable from 1857 was the both ship and cable, and though the cap- was fine, and every-thing seemed to work.
thickness of a broomstick. tain had constantly tried to compensate by But that same night, the signal between the
that the message from the
queen had never been sent
via the cable, rather it had
been sailed across the Atlantic.
In the following years, the
American civil war was fought,
but as soon as the dust from the
battlefield had settled, the ever
optimistic Cyrus Field was ready
to try again.
The world’s largest ship

put into service
This time, the cable was half as
thick again as the old one and
therefore much stronger.
This increased the total weight
drastically, but in the meantime,
the world’s largest ship, the Great
Eastern, had just been built, and it
On 27 July 1866, the telegraph cable finally reached was able to carry the full length of
Newfoundland. It was named “The Eighth Wonder of the World”. the cable. The Great Eastern left Ire-
US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS land in July 1865, but as fate would
have it, things also went wrong this time.
two ships suddenly disappeared, and a sea- Celebration is a scandal Charcoal chips had gotten stuck in the cable,
sick William Thomsen was summoned. Soon, the feat was greeted with cheers on and when the crew tried to remove them,
With trembling hands, he tried to restore both continents. In England, the otherwise the cable was lost in the ocean.
contact over and over again. Everybody very cautious Times of London wrote in its After four failures, Cyrus Field still re-
was watching the instrument panel, as the editorial: “Since Columbus’ discovery, noth- fused to give up. The last energies were col-
miracle suddenly happened. Without any ing has happened that can be compared to lected for another go, and finally, every-
explanation, the signal returned. this extreme expansion.” thing went well.
In early August, the dark rocks of the When Cyrus Field came to New York, On 27 July 1866, the Great Eastern ap-
Newfoundland coast appeared against the the city organised a festive procession, peared off Newfoundland in dense fog, and
horizon, as the cable was still quietly mov- which was so long that it took it six hours to the next day, the cable could be connected
ing towards the ocean floor. The Niagara get from one end of the city to the other. with the telegraph station, producing a
anchored off Bull’s Arms Bay, and on 5 Au- For a while, it seemed like the speeches, powerful signal.
gust, Cyrus Field entered a rowing boat in banquets, and torchlight parades would One month later, the Great Eastern even
the middle of the night, sailing towards never end. Queen Victoria was to send the retrieved the lost cable unharmed from the
the coast to search for the small telegraph first message via the cable, and it reached ocean floor.
station which was going to connect the America on 16 August 1858. But what the Every-one except Cyrus Field cheered.
two mighty continents. He staggered public did not know, was that the message Instead, he wandered to his cabin, locked
about in the darkness, but finally managed of only 99 words had taken more than 16 the door behind him, and wept with joy.
to locate the house, from where snoring hours to arrive. The signal from the thin ca- His dream had come true, and at this point
could be heard. Cyrus Field opened the ble weakened day by day, and in early Sep- in time, he had not only laid down one, but
door loudly and shouted into the night: tember, the cable fell silent. rather two fully functional cables across
“The cable has been laid, the cable has What a scandal. Cyrus Field was termed the Atlantic. Two worlds had finally
been laid!” a crazy crook, and newspapers insinuated become one.
US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
The 211-m-long Great Eastern was the world’s

biggest ship, so it could carry all
of Cyrus Field’s telegraph cable.
BRAIN TRAINING
NEW SERIES
BRAINTRAINER
Numeracy
Visual intelligence
Memory
Develop more and stronger links between your neurons.
Science Illustrated has drawn up a challenging practice schedule
Logic
designed to make your brain faster and more focused in record time. Verbal acuity
y
Boost Your Numeracating
Your counting and calcul
the brain.
skills are spread across
areas indicated below,
Boost the
ms .
as you solve our proble
2
3
1
related to an area
Your counting skills are
1 in the occipital lobe close to the visual
s see.
what your eye
cortex, which interprets
e allow you to
Areas of the parietal lob
2 quickly estimate which of two volumes
or objects is the larger.
l lobe, you will
At the front of the fronta
3 find your logical thinking skills. This is
plex maths problems.
where you can solve com
in centre helps
The fusiform gyrus bra
4 you visualise objects that can contribute
tion.
to working out a calcula
By Andreas Andersen
Discover the Joy of

Mental Arithmetic!
Your brain will soon make calculations faster and with fewer errors.
Scientists have shown how simple exercise boosts your neurons –
and they are ready to go one step further using... electric shocks.
Y
o ur brain cells (neurons) age, and their brains were able to switch that can give you an extra boost. They aim to
produce new links, when you between different types of problems more give your brain electric shocks to quickly make
train your brain, and the links quickly. In 2017, scientists found the you better at maths.
that you already had are explanation of their improved skills. Children
improve d. By m eans of who exercise using a counting frame develop a Sixth sense
targeted exercise, you can choose the brain much more efficient network of neurons in the Are there 30 or 38 dots? Your brain can
centres that need to be boosted, and you can brain centres that deal with mathematics. estimate the difference in less than 200
shape your own intelligence, just like a The same exercise method has provided milliseconds. It reaches a conclusion, before
bodybuilder shapes his body. some people with extreme skills – such as you become aware of the dots and long before
When a group of Chinese kids started to Takeo Sasano of Japan, who can add 15 three- you have time to count them. It is a skill that
exercise a few hours a week using a counting figure numbers in 1.7 seconds. Only hard work you share with birds and fish, and you have
frame, they soon performed markedly better stands in the way of you achieving similar had it since you were a baby.
in maths tests than their friends of the same skills, but scientists are developing a method The integrated number sense is probably
WARM-UP Which of the eight rectangles include the most dots?

2 Do not count, until your sense of numbers has spoken.
Which of the rectangles includes more dots?

1 Find the answer without counting.
SEE THE ANSWERS ON PAGE 77
BRAIN TRAINING
in the 8-year-olds' centres, the better they were

at maths at age 14.
The results explain why some people find
it easier to learn maths than others, but
according to recent research, the number of
neurons in the number centres is not
paramount – the neurons’ ability to
communicate with each other is just as crucial.
And this ability can be improved with exercise.
Exercise makes cells grow

extremely important to the survival of Scientists look into the future Many Chinese kids learn to calculate using a
humans and animals – it allows us to estimate Numeracy is spread across the brain – such as counting frame. In the beginning, they use a
where to find the most food or the most enemies on the side of the occipital lobe, on several real, physical frame, but later, they only
– and scientists have discovered its location in locations in the parietal lobe, at the front of the imagine the frame. The method can be used to
the brain. The sense sits in the parietal lobe, frontal lobe, and in the temporal lobe. The solve most calculation problems. In 2017,
which is located at the top of the back of your areas are separated from the parts of the brain Chinese scientists compared the brains of kids
head. Much to the scientists' surprise, the centre that are responsible for language. People with who had used the counting frame method,
by and large had the same structure in all test aphasia – a condition which affects the ability and kids who had not. The brain scans
subjects – when they saw one dot, one end of to express or understand language – can hence indicated that the kids who had exercised had
the centre was activated, when they saw two, easily have excellent numeracy skills. more and stronger links than the ones who
the adjacent area was activated, and the more The size of the different number centres in had not exercised – and they performed much
dots they saw, the further the activity moved the brain is very important to our maths skills. better in maths tests.
towards the opposite end. Recently, a group of US scientists studied the Several mechanisms seem to contribute to
The structure is very similar to the way in number centres of 43 8-year-old children and allowing our brains to improve. The first one
which our other senses function. The touch of tested the kids’ IQs and calculation skills. When is long-term potentiation, which ensures that
two points next to each other is registered in the children turned 14, the scientists subjected neurons are better at passing on electric
two areas next each other in the brain. them to a new maths test. signals. When we make calculations, the
But this kind of number sense is far from The 8-year-olds’ IQs and calculation skills neurons of the brain’s number centres send
the only way in which our brains process turned out not to be indicative of their maths signals to each other. Each neuron has
numbers. We have other brain centres that skills six years later. On the other hand, their branches (dendrites), which receive signals,
are brought into play, when we are to count or future abilities could be "read" very clearly in and other branches at the opposite end (axon
make calculations. the brain’s number centres. The more neurons endings), which pass on signals. The
LONG HAUL
How much time passes
READ THE TEXT AND ANSWER THE QUESTIONS TO THE RIGHT: 1 from the front of the
Granny Takes the Train train enters the tunnel until
the back exits?
T he sun is shining, and the summer

holidays have just begun. Peter is on a
300-m-long train with his grandmother.
100 women, 85 had red handbags, 75 wore
black shoes, 60 wore a floral dress, and 90
had opal rings. Everybody had at least three
When they boarded, the train’s fuel tank of those things.
was empty, but now it is being filled. The Finally, the train sets in motion. The
filling takes an hour, in spite of the fact that grandmother talks about her six children.
the speed at which the fuel flows into the They were born exactly four years apart,
tank doubles every minute. and now the youngest is 19. The train
In the meantime, the grandmother tells passes into a tunnel. The tunnel is 300 m
Peter about the time, when she was 19 and long, but the train is moving fast – 300 m
had her first baby. Shortly after giving per minute – so they are soon back into the
birth, she attended a lecture along with 99 light. Shortly after, the train arrives at the
other new mothers. She could clearly terminal, and Peter follows his
remember the fashion of the time. Of the grandmother out onto the platform.
Couting Frames
Boost Brain Cells
Cause your brain signals to speed up and make
calculations faster and with fewer errors. According
to new research, exercise with an old-fashioned
counting frame makes your brain more efficient.
Close your eyes and imagine an abacus. Then calculate

243 x 177. The method is well-known in several Asian
nations, where many children practice it at school. In a
Chinese study from 2017, a group of scientists
researched how abacus practice affects children's CHILDREN BECOME 20% BETTER
brains and calculation skills. The brains of the children who had practiced with the counting frame
The scientists compared 72 children who had been particularly showed signs of improved communication between neurons
practicing, with 72 kids who had not. The kids who had in the right fusiform gyrus – a part of the occipital and temporal lobes.
practiced proved to not only make fewer errors – they Moreover, the trained children scored about 20 % more points in the
were also substantially faster at producing answers maths tests to which the scientists subjected them.
than the other children. 60
When the scientists scanned the children’s brains,
50
they could also see important differences. They looked
TEST SCORE
at areas of the occipital lobe that have to do with 40
numeracy, and they were able to make out that the 30

trained kids’ brain cells were more efficient at 20
communicating with each other.
10
WITHOUT ABACUS PRACTICE

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE
FUSIFORM GYRUS WITH ABACUS PRACTICE
SHUTTERSTOCK
How old is How How long does it take
2 Peter's 3 many 4 to fill half of the
grandmother? of the young train's fuel tank?
women at the
lecture had
brought all
four things?
SEE THE ANSWERS ON PAGE 77
BRAIN TRAINING
encounter between one neuron's axon

ending and another one’s dendrite is called a
impulses into some of the brain’s number
centres, using the transcranial random noise SPRINT
synapse, and that is where long-term stimulation method. And they have already
connection takes place. shown that the method works.
A signal is transmitted by one neuron's The scientists placed electrodes on the Which number replaces the
axon ending, liberating neurotransmitters in heads of 25 test subjects – right above their
1 question mark?
the synapsis, which the other neuron’s frontal lobes. Subsequently, all participants
dendrite receives by means of receptors that spent the next five days making calculations.
pass on the signal. When we use a synapse In half of the participants, the electrodes
over and over again by exercising a specific repeatedly sent a flow of electric impulses into 9 1 5
type of problem, the dendrite will produce the brain – each session lasted 20 minutes. The
more receptors. En route, the dendrite other half only received 30 seconds of
becomes packed with receptors, making it impulses at a time.
much more sensitive to external signals. The When the five days had passed, the
result is that the transmission of signals scientists tested the test subjects’ maths skills, 4 8 3
between neurons is boosted. and those who received the most impulses
And the neurons do not only strengthen performed markedly better. But the major
the synapses. When a neuron is stimulated, its surprise came six months later. The scientists
dendrites grow to produce new synapses with tested the test subjects again, and the effect of
other neurons. More – and stronger – synapses the impulses remained. 2 ? 7
mean that your brain becomes faster and The impulses probably improved the effect
better at solving maths problems. of the exercise by stimulating neurons to
produce more and stronger synapses in the
Shocks boost calculating skills number centres – and the increased strength
You have
Allow scientists to give your brain electric remained for a long time. 2 four keys
shocks, while you are exercising it, and you will Now, the scientists are testing if the
and four locks.
become good at maths in five days. That is the method can be used to make kids with learning You test the keys
vision of scientists from the University of difficulties good at maths, and the first results one at a time to
Oxford, England. They aim to send electric from 2017 are very promising. find out as quickly
as possible where
they fit. What is
the maximum
VS
number of
SHUTTERSTOCK/GETTY
attempts that
INNUMERATE GENIUS you will need?
Which number should be in the

3 empty space? There are two answers.
You have difficulties telling the time, In 2007, Alexis Lemaire of France 5
calculating the cost of your groceries in set a world record, taking only 70
the supermarket, or taking in the train seconds to calculate the 13th root of 49 9
timetable. Acalculia – inability to learn, a 200-digit number – the number
remember, or even understand that – multiplied by itself 13 times –
numbers and mathematics – makes results in the 200-digit number. Like 3 7
everyday life quite difficult. The other people with extreme maths
condition affects about 6% of the skills, Lemaire probably has number 9 25
population, and the cause is in the centres that include unusually high
brain. Those people's cerebral number numbers of nerve cells. However, he
centres are usually rather small, as claims that with sufficient practice,
they include fewer neurons. anybody can learn how to do it.
SEE THE ANSWERS IN THE TEXT BOX TO THE RIGHT
77 | scienceillustrated.com.au
SHUTTERSTOCK
ANSWERS
WARM-UP
1. More dots in the right rectangle.
2. All the rectangles include the
same number of dots (nine).
LONG HAUL
1. Two minutes. The train must
move 300+300=600 m at a speed of
300 m/minute.
2. 58 years. She had her first baby,
when she was 19, she has six children,
and they were born four years apart,
so she was 19+4+4+4+4+4 = 39 years,
when she had the last baby. He is now
19 years old, so the granny must be
39+19 = 58 years old. total of 72 animals have 200 legs?
3. 10. If each of the 100 women only 6 respectively are there, when the
How many cats and penguins,
had three of the things, they would
have a total of 300 things. But we
know that they have 85+75+60+90 =
310 things. So there must be 10 12 X 9 11
women who have four things. Y 4 2 5
4. Some 59 minutes. If one drop of
fuel entered the tank during the first 11 4 12 3
minute, two drops would enter
during the second minute. After two
6 9 10 5
minutes, there are 1+2 = 3 drops in
the tank, after three minutes, there
are 1+2+4 = 7, after four minutes,
13 7 14 6
there are 1+2+4+8 = 15, and after five 4 3 5 2
minutes, there are 1+2+4+8+16 = 31.
Hence, the quantity of fuel in the 10 5 9 6
tank approximately doubles every
minute. So whatever the quantity is 7 8 8 7
after 59 minutes, it is only half of
what it will be one minute later.
5
Which numbers do X and Y represent?
SPRINT
1. 6 – all rows and columns must originally chose or the third one?
result in a sum of 15. money? Should you open the door you
2. Six – the first key must be tried do you optimise your chance of winning the
no more than three times to find There is no money behind the open door. How
out where it fits, the second one open the door, one of the other doors opens.
twice, the third one once, and the
last one is obvious.
decide which one. But before you manage to
1/3 2/3 open one of the doors, and you immediately
3. 3 or 81. In all the star's opposite behind the two other doors. You are allowed to
spaces, there is a number and the
square of this number.
doors, there is $1 million – there is nothing
2/3
4. Choose the third door. When you
4 facing three doors. Behind one of the
You are playing a game, in which you are
made your first choice, the chance of
it being correct was 1/3. It still is.
The chance of one of the others
being correct was 2/3. One has now
1 m2
1/3
been excluded, and the chance of the
last door being correct is now 2/3.
5. X = 8 and Y = 3. If you take a look
What is the area of the green section?
at the same locations in the other is located at the centre of the blue square.
figures, you will see a number series.
7 one in the 1/3 points, and one corner
6. 28 cats and 44 penguins.
The yellow square intersects the blue
7. 1/4 m².
N AT U R E WIND
Instant Expert: Tornadoes
Whirls and
The rotating wind of a tornado is the most
SHUTTERSTOCK
forceful on Earth. It can reach a speed of
about 500 km/h, twice as much as the
most forceful tropical hurricanes.
Updraft Produce
Rotating Killer
A full-fledged tornado is the most forceful
and scary phenomenon in our atmosphere. It is
an intensive, rotating air column with the
strongest wind on Earth, which stretches from a
powerful thundercloud towards Earth’s surface.
Where the tornado reaches the ground, it
leaves a path of concentrated destruction.
T
ornadoes can occur anywhere on Earth except
in the coldest regions, but luckily, not many
places in the world have the full set of
ingredients required to produce the most forceful
tornadoes. Those you will find in either Midwestern
USA or Eastern India and Bangladesh, where periodic THE WORST IN HISTORY
atmospheric conditions cause heavy showers. That
On 3-4 April 1974, no less than
could be the first step towards a tornado. 148 tornadoes were recorded, of
A tornado belongs to the family of whirlwinds, which 30 were very powerful.
and is simply rotating air. The term covers anything Combined, they left a 4,000+-km-
from the rather innocent dust devils with an extent long path across 13 American states.
of a few metres, which are caused by local warming
The most severe killer tornado in
of the ground, to major, rotating low-pressure the world was the Daulatpur-Saturia
systems with an extent of up to thousands of km. tornado of Bangladesh. It was an
Waterspouts and willy-willies are essentially small extreme tornado, which occurred in
tornadoes. A tornado is the most powerful of all the Manikganj district of Bangladesh
on 26 April 1989 and is believed to
whirlwinds in the world. have killed 1,300 people. Another
The formation principles of all of them are about 12,000+ were injured, and a further
the same. Instability in the atmosphere causes 80,000+ lost their homes. The
intense thunderstorms. Around and inside the numbers are subject to some
thunderstorm, the whirls are produced due to a uncertainty.
series of processes, of which the wind change with The worst killer tornado in the
altitude and powerful lift are the central ones, which history of the US was the Tri-State
provide the phenomenon with its vigorous force. Tornado on 18 March 1925. It left
In regions with intense tornado activity such as 695 dead people and 2,027
the United States, a constant eye is kept on weather wounded in its 350-km-long path
through the states of Missouri,
situations which could produce tornadoes, and Illinois, and Indiana.
experts try to predict the situation as well as
TOPICAL PRESS AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
possible to allow for prior warning. However, this is

difficult, even though the experts are getting slightly
better at it all the time due to more sophisticated
tools. It is difficult to predict the development of a
thundercloud and whether it is going to develop into
a tornado. So, in regions with risk of tornadoes, it is
necessary to consider safety, and many people have
built special shelters for their families.
COLD AIR Texas is one of the US states that is most
Tornado Alley
badly affected by tornadoes, so many The prairie or the Great Plains, which is found
people choose to build shelters. in the US Midwest, is the place on Earth with the
greatest risk of tornado formation. During the
MIDWEST
months of spring, cold and dry polar air comes
from the north and from the south warmer and
moister tropical sea air from the Gulf of Mexico.
The encounter between the two air masses and
USA the fact that the sunlight begins to heat the
great, flat prairie are the main factors causing the
particularly forceful shower and thunder systems
that produce the tornadoes. The Midwest is the
WARM AIR place on Earth in which the most tornadoes form,
and so, the region is also known as Tornado Alley.
There are averagely some 800 tornados in
the entire United States throughout the tornado
PIUMATTI SERGIO/PRISMA
season from March to August. The busiest time
of the season is in April, May, and June, when
55+ % of the tornadoes are produced, but they
can occur throughout the year.
Tornado Rotation and powerful updraft in a severe shower

cloud are central factors for tornado formation.
Development
The wind changes
Tornadoes always result from 2 direction and speed
powerful shower clouds, which with altitude, causing
can develop into exceptionally powerful, rotating updraft in
severe and self-maintaining the shower cloud.
storms known as supercells on
Powerful updraft
the great US prairies. They can 3 stretches the rotation
have life spans of several hours, upwards. It becomes both faster
as the updraft of the cloud is not and stronger.
destroyed by the downdraft,
Whirls below the cloud
which is what happens in an 4 can be pulled into the
ordinary thunderstorm. The rotating updraft, causing the
supercells grow high up into the formation of a funnel cloud
atmosphere, often to altitudes of from the wall cloud
Cold air encounters underneath the main cloud.
15+ km. The updraft can be so 1 warm, moist air.
powerful that it even “bulges” The funnel cloud moves
The atmosphere becomes 5 towards the ground.
into the stratosphere. In this unstable, and powerful
When it touches the ground,
over-shooting top, the cloud shower and thunder clouds
the tornado is fully developed.
temperature could be –70 °C or with updraft develop.
even colder.
Afte
Supercells are characterised 6 has r the tornado
reached its
by a powerful, rotating updraft maximum strength,
known as a mesocyclone. Under it becomes
narrower, tilts,
the right circumstances, the
twists around
huge rotating motion could itself, and dies off.
develop into a tornado, which is
provided with force.
ALLAN HØJEN
Trivia
PUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE
TO THE TEST
1. Which of these is the closest to a

perfect sphere? The Earth, the Sun,
or a soap bubble?
2. What gas do most land-based

plants extract from the atmosphere
through their roots?
3. Adding a heater to the fuel tank

will let many older diesel engines
run on what?
q. 4
4. The University of
Oxford in England, q. 7 exactly equal to the named its electric sports sedan
was founded in mass of 1836 what? with a Turkish word meaning
which century? “lively young horse”?
7. Who used Thomas
5. The infamous island Edison’s name and fame 9. In a double-rainbow, which colours
prison of Alcatraz, in San to sell a series of snake face each other between the two bows?
Francisco bay, is named oil products and scams,
after which seabird? starting in the 1890s? 10. Who pirated a famous piece of
Allegri’s religious music from the
6. The mass of one 8. Because of its logo, Vatican in 1770, by writing it down
proton is almost which car company has entirely from memory?
Trivia Countdown (use fewer clues, get a higher score!)

5 POINTS 4 POINTS 3 POINTS 2 POINTS 1 POINT
1. TECHNOLOGY The company was According to a 2017 Now, the company The company It is responsible for
founded in 1938 as a annual report, the is most famous for headquarters is in Galaxy phones, of
Name this trading firm, but it company beat Intel making electronics Seoul, South Korea, which the Note 7
company soon expanded to to be the world's such as TVs, tablets, in an industrial area model was recalled
include a wide leading computer headsets, and that was named due to a high risk of
range of products. chip vendor. mobile phones. after the company. battery fire.
2. LITERATURE The book was first Pierre-Jules Hetzel The narrator’s name The title has a large The author is Jules
published in 1870. published the book is Pierre Arronax, number in it that is Verne, who also
Name this Its author knew a with illustrations by and another main often mistaken for wrote “A Journey to
title lot about science Alphonse de character uses a meaning “depth” the Centre of the
and technology. Neuville and name that means instead of “distance Earth” and “Around
Édouard Riou. “no one” in Latin. they travelled”. the World in 80 Days.”
The Latin name of About 2,600 These trees have a They are associated These trees produce
3. BOTANY
the botanical family different species distinct look, with with desert oases, various fruits
Name this is Arecaceae. The exist, mainly in long spiky leaves on tropical resorts, depending on the
common name tropical and sub- short branches, clus- desert islands and, species. Some are
type of tree easy to eat, others
is much easier tropical regions of tered at the top of a in Australia, your
to pronounce. the world. long smooth trunk. town’s main street. need tools to open.
ANSWERS ON p82!
HOMEOF
AUSTRALIA’S
2NDDEADLIEST
CANCER
BIODIVERSITY TOXICOLOGY
SPECIES:
Blue-ringed Octopus
SCIENTIFIC NAME:
Hapalochlaena maculosa,
H. lunulata, and H. fasciata
DISTRIBUTION: Tidal rock pools and shallow
water from southern coast of Australia up to
Japan and across to Bay of Bengal
ICUN CONSERVATION STATUS:
Not yet assessed
VENOMOUS...
AND POISONOUS?
L ast issue we committed the cardinal
science sin of using the word
“poisonous” when we meant “venomous” -
actually four species, one of which is
called the blue-lined octopus, and one of
which (H. nierstraszi) has only been seen
it was in the context of a diving water twice by scientists: once in 1938 and not
spider. Thanks to those readers who quite again until 2013. examining the blue-ringed octopus
rightly pointed out that a toxin that is Of the three that are well-known, all (working in pairs, both trained in CPR),
injected by an animal to subdue prey or can be found in Australian waters. And as they discovered the venom came from
defend against an attack, is indeed venom. all good Australians know, getting bitten the animal’s salivary glands.
Poison is a toxin grown in the animal, that by a blue-ringed octopus is deadly. The octopus doesn’t make the venom
kills or sickens, if that animal is itself eaten. Their saliva is full of what’s called itself, rather it cultivates a specific
Venom also often differs from poison in tetrodotoxin (or TTX). This nasty substance bacteria that generates the TTX. At first,
that if it is ingested, stomach acid breaks doesn’t kill you, it just paralyses you. Sadly biologists called this chemical
down the chemicals in the venom and the for you, one of the bits it paralyses is your “maculotoxin”, and realised it was very
person idiot who drank the venom won’t diaphragm, so you end up suffocating. similar to the toxin found in some
be affected. Of course, we don’t advise Onset of this can take as little as five pufferfishes (see above).
drinking venom, because this rule is not minutes. Yet despite the lack of antivenom, Later experiments determined that in
hard and fast, and if you have any tears or if a victim is placed on an artificial fact maculotoxin is TTX, and that many
cuts or nicks any place where the venom respirator for 24 hours, the toxin wears off. fish, harlequin frogs, Californian newts,
can get into your bloodstream on the way Fortunately for humans, these little and a grab-bag of sea critters from squirts
to your stomach, well, you’re in trouble. cephalopods aren’t aggressive, and to crabs, all use the same stuff.
As we reflected on our venom/poison normally try their best to first escape, Many of these animals are not
error, however, we began to wonder. Is and then warn you off with their bright “venomous” because they don’t inject the
there an animal that, because of the blue rings. This may be why only two toxin. But it’s the same chemical. TTX does
chemical nature of its venom, is also people in Australia (on record) have died affect you if you drink it, and this means
technically poisonous too? from Hapalochlaena bites. the blue-ringed octopus is both venomous
And here’s an example: Australia’s So where does the poison come into and poisonous. If one refuses to bite you,
own blue-ringed octopus. There are it? When scientists first started biting it will get you just as dead.
TRIVIA ANSWERS 1. The Sun 2. Oxygen 3. Used vegetable oil 4. 11th. (1096) 5. The Pelican 6. Electrons 7. His son, Thomas Edison Jr. 8. Porsche (there’s a horse on the Porsche crest too!) 9. Both bows have red
facing inwards 10. Mozart Trivia Countdown – Name this company: Samsung Name this title: 20,000 Leagues under the Sea Name this plant: Palm tree
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11–19 AUGUST 2018

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EDITORIAL

Issue #60 (5th July 2018)

Amazing new technologies and therapies are

To build a rover that can survive in the

Does this weird cold spot far out in

MICRONAUT.CH/ETH ZURICH/UNIVERSITY OF BASEL

Photo // Martin Oeggerli

Off Florida, Corals Grow On...

Photo // Spencer Lowell

THROMBIN A nanorobot seen under

SHOOTING STAR · Jupiter's north pole

Special enzyme makes

Now, the thrombin

The blood clot is

HYBRID MEDICAL ANIMATION/SPL & YAN ET AL.

This eliminates the

Cave Paintings Made By Neanderthals

BY THE WAY · Ants

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR MICROBIOLOGY

the entire colony. So, the ants have

processing the carbon fibre

Carbon fibre from scrapped

THE ORIGINAL AND

twitter.com/HIFIAVSHOW ǌŘƋƬŽɁɁǘƖƋɁȧʤŘˁʊǜʁŘǚǔŘȭǒǔǞŘ˸ʊǒɁ˹ chestergroup.org

Colourful Dinosaur Feathers Attracted Mates

JESSICA ROSS/UC MERCED

ZHAO CHUANG & HU ET AL.

our ability to define time

Mysterious Dark Energy

After the Big Bang, the universe

LAWRENCE BERKELEY NATIONAL LABORATORY & P. MARENFELD/NOAO/AURA/NSF

5,000 tube-shaped robots the size of pencils will keep an eye on

Ball rotation causes dissimilar air flows

On the left side of the ball, the AIR DRAG

The player hits the ball on

The direction of rotation

How Does a Drip Work? TOP 5

WHY DOES IT FEEL COLD TO BITE INTO MINT?

the menthol chemical affecting

What is the Sun’s Corona?

How Does Milk Become Cheese? THE 4 STEPS

HARD CHEESE Mild cheese Aged cheese

Can Salt Water

How long did the longest surgery take?

103 hours REUTERS/RITZAU SCANPIX

Why Are Satellites

Known as Morning Glory

The clouds consist of

The phenomenon occurs,

BONE JOINT FLUID JOINT CAPSULE

2 When we crack our fingers, the joints are pulled

apart, and the joint capsule volume increases,

Why is the Ocean Full of Salt?

? INSIDE THE BODY

How Do Insects Breathe?

How Did the Vikings Make PLANT FIBRES

Wooden Ships Waterproof?

2,423 t SERVICE TOWER

Our universe might be

The Universe Has a Cold Spot