WHAT WERE THE FIRST LIVING THINGS?

HOW
MODERN
WINGSUITS
WORK
MOBILE PHONES DON’T HOW ELECTRON
WORK WITHOUT IT MICROSCOPES USE IT

WHAT DO CATS HAVE ALGAL

TO DO WITH IT? BLOOMS
EXTRACTING
HELIUM
HOW THE
DUTCH MADE
THE CRAZY PHENOMENA, UNBELIEVABLE HOLLAND
BIGGER
EXPERIMENTS AND EVERYDAY USES INSIDE A CAR
BEHIND THIS WEIRD SCIENCE COMPUTER

WHY IT MAKES
TELEPORTATION POSSIBLE

CHINA’S
MOON ROVER SK6000: THE WORLD’S GUESS THE MEDIEVAL APPLE AIRPODS
DISCOVERIES STRONGEST CRANE SCIENCE INSTRUMENT PRO TEARDOWN ISSUE 197
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ũ,WFDQRƏWHQGHI\DOORXU
LGHDVRIFRPPRQVHQVHŪ 24 SPOOKY COMIC
The strange principles of
quantum entanglement
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59 E.T. DELIVERY
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saac Newton’s view of the world – space, PAGE 18 FOR

I time and gravity – was unquestionable

scientific fact for around 250 years
before Einstein’s special relativity came
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along and shook things up. And similar shock waves

have since been sent through academia with the WHAT WE’RE ANTICIPATING
emergence of the quantum sciences,
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

with laws that defy common sense and

phenomena that seem like they’ve
been lifted from science fiction.
Perhaps the maddest thing about the
theories of quantum physics is
NIKOLE SCOTT AILSA DUNCAN
that they’re so well established PRODUCTION EDITOR STAFF WRITER STAFF WRITER SENIOR ART EDITOR
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 INSIDE
Issue 197

SPECIAL TRANSPORT
26 Quantum physics
explained
The unbelievable theories, crazy
60 How humans can fly
These ingenious inventions
have given people wings to soar
experiments and practical applications through the air

64
of what may be the weirdest of all
How car
scientific subjects
computers work
SPACE Explore the silicon chips and computer
systems that power modern vehicles

34 How the telescope

was invented ENVIRONMENT
66
Follow the timeline to discover
centuries of advancement in the
What was the first
living thing?
34
way we observe the universe
How the origin of every living thing on

40 What’s inside a Earth points to one ancient organism

72
lunar cave?
What are algal blooms?
How China’s ‘Jade Rabbit’ rover is
exploring the subterranean world
When algae populations in 60
bodies of water grow rapidly, it causes
of Earth’s cosmic companion
problems for the environment, wildlife

SCIENCE and humans

42 Taming antimatter
How we’ll finally discover this
TECHNOLOGY
substance’s nature and learn how to
harness it to propel us to distant stars 74 The world’s
strongest crane

48
How Mammoet’s SK6000 lifts
Why some people are
mind-bogglingly massive cargo
morning people
Do you prefer to lie in, or are you keen
on an early rise? 78 Apple AirPods
Pro teardown

49
This high-end earphone technology REGULARS
Where does helium
includes a remarkable feature set to
come from?
control the sound that enters your ears 06 Global eye
This lighter-than-air element could

80
Science and tech news from
one day disappear from our planet Shrinking the
around the world
X-ray machine
22 Wish list
HISTORY Forget room-sized machines, modern
bone imagers have got much smaller Christmas gadgets and

50 Guess the medieval

instrument
gift ideas galore

84 Braindump
Do you know your medieval 66 Your questions answered
timekeepers from navigation devices?

56
90 Book reviews
How the Dutch made
their country bigger 92 Brain gym

Win!
Discover the ingenious methods that Give your brain a workout
the medieval people of the Netherlands with our puzzle pages
used to reclaim land from the sea
94 How to…

58 The 50-year
coal mine fire
Why a mine beneath a US ghost town
A SCIENCE
Build a straw syphon

96 Letters
is perpetually engulfed in flames
KIT BUNDLE Have your say

98 Fast facts
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5
6
 A city
of books
In Buenavista, Mexico City, you can
catch a glimpse of a ‘megalibrary’ called
the Biblioteca Vasconcelos. Surrounded
by foliage, this 38,000-square-metre
library was opened in 2006 and holds
600,000 volumes, but is designed to hold
up to 2 million books. The ink-and-paper
residents of the library are watched over
by an enormous whale skeleton
suspended from the ceiling.

© Getty

7
8
 Mud-
slinging wasps
The female black-and-yellow mud dauber
is a master of animal architecture. Using
her jaws, the wasp drags the mud to the
site that will become her home. Then the
wasp uses her saliva to mould it. Mud
dauber wasps typically hunt spiders and
lay eggs in their bodies. The wasp then
stuffs the spiders into individual holes
for the larvae to feast on when they
hatch, capping the holes with
more mud.

© Alamy

9
10
 Spider
in the sky
Crawling through the sky is a 340-light-
year-wide star-forming region called
the Tarantula Nebula, part of the Large
Magellanic Cloud. In 2022, the James
Webb Space Telescope created this
mosaic image using its Near-Infrared
Camera. The dusty filaments of cosmic
dust and gas give this nebula its eight-
legged nickname, with its most
active star-forming region
found at its core.

© NASA

11
12
 Rainbow
woods
Dotted along Bald Cypress Trail at
First Landing State Park in Virginia
are ‘rainbow swamps’. When light hits
the flooded forests in late autumn and
winter, the water-logged floor transforms
into a rainbow road. The multicoloured
effect comes from a light-reflecting
film forming over the stagnant swamp.
The film is created by oils released
from decaying leaves.

© Shutterstock

13
 GLOBAL EYE
Showcasing the incredible world we live in

Astronauts are set to

SPACE

grow livers in space WORDS STEPHANIE PAPPAS

iniature livers will fly aboard the needs to be agitated. In nature, organs rise to different kinds of tissue. The

M International Space Station in

an upcoming study on whether
microgravity can encourage the
emerge in a developing embryo as it floats
in amniotic fluid in the womb, or in the fluid
cushion provided by an egg. These ever-
researchers then coax these engineered stem
cells to transform into liver cells and grow the
cells in a special spherical bioreactor called
growth of healthy tissue with an ample blood present challenges with gravity have led Tissue Orb. This globular reactor has a central
supply. It’s an effort that could potentially researchers to develop rotating bioreactors conduit mimicking a blood vessel at its
lead to personalised, space-grown tissues that simulate a low-gravity environment by centre. Nurturing organoids with this kind of
and organs for use in transplant surgeries, spinning very quickly. This allows tissues and circulatory system is key to growing larger
scientists say. In two upcoming experiments, miniature organs, or ‘organoids’ to grow in pieces of tissue. “Our concept is that these
researchers plan to test how well the liver artificial conditions, but these rotating organoids in the main chamber can coalesce
tissue grows in microgravity, as well as trial vessels also put stresses on tissues, and interact with the central conduit and
new technology designed to keep this tissue especially as the cell clusters within them develop a more complex and larger
alive but supercooled for its journey back to get larger. vascularised tissue,” Chang said.
Earth. “My ultimate goal for these tissues, if Chang and her colleagues think organoids The upcoming liver-tissue experiment
they are doing what we imagine and hope might grow better in a sustained, high-quality will fly to the ISS in early 2025. The tissues
they are able to become with the help of microgravity environment like that found on will grow aboard the station for two weeks
microgravity, is to use these tissues for the International Space Station. “These and then be fixed and set in a preservative
therapy,” said Dr Tammy Chang, a professor organoids, that are typically the size of 200 solution for analysis back on Earth. A second
of surgery at the University of California, microns in diameter, which is 0.2 millimetres, experiment, likely to take place later in 2025
San Francisco. Tissue could be transplanted will be able to further organise and interact or in early 2026, will test a supercooling
to treat a variety of liver-function diseases with each other to develop larger tissues, in system for bringing live tissues back to Earth.
and disorders. particular tissues that are vascularised,” said
Growing tissues in laboratory dishes on Chang. Vascularised tissues are imbued with
Earth can be challenging, in part because many blood vessels.
gravity pulls cells into contact with the To grow their space-age liver organoids,
bottom of a plate or dish. Gravity also puts Chang and her team use ‘induced pluripotent
cells under shear stress because to keep the stem cells’, which are adult cells
cells suspended as they grow, their dish reprogrammed to be stem cells that can give
© Alamy / Shutterstock / NASA Earth Observatory; Landsat

Mini livers are the latest ‘organoids’ to be grown

on the International Space Station (ISS)

14
 TECHNOLOGY

THE LARGEST
KNOWN PRIME
NUMBER,
SPANNING 41
MILLION DIGITS,
IS DISCOVERED
WORDS BEN TURNER

An illustration of what Arthropleura might have The largest known prime number
looked like, not including some of the new head has been discovered by an amateur
characteristics discovered by researchers researcher and former Nvidia
employee. The new number is
2136,279,841-1, which beats the previous
ANIMALS title holder, 282,589,933-1 by more than

Never-before-seen head of a giant

16 million digits. Prime numbers,
described by mathematicians as the

‘millipede’ solves an evolutionary mystery ‘atoms of integers,’ are numbers that

are divisible only by themselves and
one. The smallest prime numbers are
WORDS SIERRA BOUCHÉR
2, 3, 5, 7 and 11. Prime numbers run to
he face of a car-sized, millipede-like published in the same journal as the new study. infinity, but finding them becomes

T creature, the largest arthropod ever

to live, has finally been revealed
thanks to two well-preserved
But with the discovery of an intact head, “the
mystery of Arthropleura now appears solved.”
Computed-tomography (CT) scans virtually
harder the bigger they get.
To find the new prime, Luke Durant
used a free program called the Great
fossils. The arthropod, called Arthropleura, uncovered the fossilised heads of two juvenile Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or
lived in forests near the equator between 346 Arthropleura discovered within rock in the GIMPS, to sift through the possibilities
with an algorithm. His efforts required
million and 290 million years ago, during the Montceau-les-Mines Lagerstätte fossil site in
the harnessing of thousands of
late Paleozoic era. In the oxygen-rich France. The CT scans revealed unique stalked
graphics processing units (GPUs)
atmosphere at that time, Arthropleura could eyes jutting from the sides of the head, gently
across 24 data centres in 17 countries,
grow to a massive 2.6 metres long and weighed curved antennae and small, centipede-like a feat that “ends the 28-year reign of
over 45 kilograms. “Arthropleura … has been mandibles. Together, these traits made up a ordinary personal computers finding
Did
known since the 18th century, over confusing amalgamation of centipede these huge prime numbers,”
100 years, and we hadn’t found a and millipede-like characteristics.
complete head,” said Mickaël you know? “These details may appear to leave according to GIMPS website. The
newly confirmed prime number
Lheritier, a palaeontologist at Claude Prehistoric Arthropleura as much, if not more, a contains 41,024,320 decimal digits.
Bernard University Lyon 1 in France. griffinflies had puzzle than before,” Lamsdell said. The new prime number is also the
“Now, with the completed head, you wingspans of 71 “But the seemingly chimeric nature 52nd known Mersenne prime, a series
can see the mandibles and the eyes, centimetres of Arthropleura is actually important named after Marin Mersenne, a French
and these characteristics can [help us evidence that may help answer a monk and polymath who devised a
understand] the position of this [creature] fundamental question regarding the formula for finding prime numbers by
in evolution.” [evolution of these species].” subtracting one from powers of two.
The giant arthropod had perplexed Based on these anatomical features,
palaeontologists for decades. Arthropleura’s palaeontologists ultimately grouped
body had characteristics like a millipede. Arthropleura as most closely related to the
But without the head, scientists couldn’t millipede family. However, the stalked eyeballs
understand the creature’s relationship to have never been seen in the millipede or
modern arthropods like millipedes and centipede families. Arthropleura has been
centipedes. While these two modern creatures widely considered terrestrial, but eyestalks are
may look similar, they actually diverged about typically found in semiaquatic or fully aquatic
440 million years ago, way before Arthropleura animals like crustaceans. Because the head
came around. Palaeontologists wondered if belongs to a juvenile, the explanation might lie
Arthropleura was a member of the millipede in the animal’s life stage, Lamsdell suggested.
group or the centipede group. Arthropleura’s As juveniles, Arthropleura may have spent
family-tree controversy “features fierce more time in the water, before losing the
© Getty / Alamy

debates about its affinities,” James Lamsdell, a stalked eyes in adulthood. “The stalked eyes A drawer housing six Sapphire
palaeontologist at West Virginia University, remain a big mystery because we don’t really Technology AMD GPUs
wrote in an accompanying perspective know how to explain this,” Lheritier said.

15
 GLOBAL EYE
Did PLANET EARTH
you know?
In 2023, 18 people
died climbing BIZARRE
‘PET CLOUD’
Mount Everest

REAPPEARS
ABOVE NEW
ZEALAND
WORDS HARRY BAKER
A peculiar ‘pet cloud’ took centre
stage in a recent satellite photo of
New Zealand. The freaky formation
often appears in the same spot thanks
to a nearby mountain range, and is
sometimes confused with a UFO.
The last known image of mountaineers George The wispy oblong, known by locals
Mallory and Andrew Irvine before their fatal climb as the ‘Taieri Pet,’ is an elongated
altocumulus standing lenticular cloud
(ASLC) that frequently appears
HISTORY between the towns Middlemarch

Explorer Sandy Irvine’s foot discovered

and Hyde in the Otago region of New
Zealand’s South Island. Although

\HDUVDƏWHUKHYDQLVKHGRQ(YHUHVW
they can vary slightly in size, the
clouds always look very similar and
appear in almost the same spot.
WORDS BEN TURNER ASLCs form when waves of air pass
over a topographic barrier, like a
emains believed to belong to a expedition teammates, Noel Odell, reported mountain range, forcing water vapour

R British explorer who vanished more

than 100 years ago while climbing
Mount Everest have finally been
spotting the two near the second of the
mountain’s three steps as two tiny black
dots. One of the dots broke past the skyline
to condense into vertical layers. The
Taieri Pet forms when moist air passes
over the mountainous Rock and Pillar
found. Andrew ‘Sandy’ Irvine, 22, disappeared during a brief parting of the clouds, then they Range and is held in place and further
along with the mountaineer George Mallory disappeared. Mallory’s body was found less shaped by perpendicular winds from
the north. “As the cloud forms on the
in June 1924. The pair were attempting to than 600 metres from the summit by the US
crest of this wave, it remains almost
become the first people to scale the world’s rock climber Conrad Anker. Mallory’s remains
stationary in the sky and is shaped by
highest peak. But it’s still a mystery whether were tied by a rope around the waist and had
the strong winds blowing through it,”
they succeeded in their goal before they died. injuries suggesting that the pair had fallen while
John Law, a meteorologist with New
Mallory’s remains were discovered in 1999, connected together. By searching near these Zealand’s MetService, said.
which were missing a photograph of his wife remains and scouring the glacier for clues, Chin
that the climber had planned to leave on the and his team located the boot melting out of
summit. Irving, who had been carrying a Kodak the ice. “This was a monumental and emotional
camera that may have recorded a possible moment for us and our entire team on the
historic summit, was never recovered. The ground, and we just hope this can finally bring
summit was first officially reached 29 years peace of mind to his relatives and the climbing
later, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay world at large,” Chin said.
scaled Everest from its south side in 1953. The team sent the remains to the China
Now, a National Geographic documentary Tibet Mountaineering Association, which is
team, including the Oscar-winning director responsible for climbing permits on Everest’s
Jimmy Chin and the climbers and filmmakers northern side. The find was also reported to the
Erich Roepke and Mark Fisher, have found what Royal Geographical Society, which organised
they believe is Irvine’s foot. Encased in a boot Irvine and Mallory’s expedition, and Irvine’s
and wearing a sock stitched with his name, the great niece and biographer, Julie Summers.
foot was discovered on Everest’s Central The Irvine family has volunteered to take a
Rongbuk Glacier, further down the mountain DNA test so that the identity of the remains
from Mallory’s remains. “I lifted up the sock,” can be conclusively determined. Meanwhile,
Chin told National Geographic, “and there’s a Chin and his team will continue to search for The Taieri Pet is an altocumulus
red label that has A. C. IRVINE stitched into it.” more artefacts. If Irvine’s camera is found and standing lenticular cloud that forms
Irvine and Mallory were last seen on 8 June, it can prove they scaled the peak, it could above New Zealand’s Otago region
as they set off to scale the summit. One of their potentially rewrite history.

16
 PLANET EARTH

The UN warns to cut emissions

in half right now to prevent a
climate catastrophe WORDS SASCHA PARE

lobal temperatures will soar to each year to 2030 to limit global temperature increasingly frequent and intense climate

G 3.1 degrees Celsius above pre-

industrial levels by 2100 if
governments don’t set more
rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the very
worst of climate change.”
Global greenhouse gas emissions reached
disasters,” Guterres said. “Around the world,
people are paying a terrible price.”
The report’s findings came two weeks
ambitious climate targets, a new United 63 gigatonnes of ‘carbon dioxide (CO2) before the annual UN Conference of the
Nations (UN) report warns. Warming on this equivalent’ in 2023, which is 0.8 gigatonnes, Parties (COP) climate summit in Baku,
scale is more than twice the 1.5 degrees or 1.3 per cent, higher than 2022 levels. A Azerbaijan. “If we look at the progress
Celsius target outlined in the 2015 Paris gigatonne is equivalent to 10,000 fully loaded towards 2030 targets, especially of the G20
Agreement, a legally binding treaty on climate US aircraft carriers, and CO2 equivalent is a member states … they have not made a lot of
change adopted by 196 countries. This would metric that takes into account the potential progress towards their current climate
plunge the world headlong into a climate warming effects of different greenhouse targets for 2030,” Anne Olhoff, chief climate
disaster. Current levels of human-induced gases. This rate of increase exceeds rates adviser at the UN Environment Programme
warming are about 1.3 degrees Celsius above observed before the COVID-19 pandemic (UNEP) and chief scientific editor of the new
pre-industrial levels, meaning we could reach between 2010 and 2019, when growth report, said. The G20 is a forum for the
1.5 degrees Celsius in less than a decade, averaged 0.8 per cent year over year. world’s largest economies.
according to the UN’s annual Emissions Gap The new spike in emissions reflects a return The report refers to individual countries’
Report, which highlights the gap between to pre-pandemic levels of activity in the climate targets as ‘Nationally Determined
countries’ commitments and the cuts in industrial and transport sectors. Hopes of Contributions (NDCs)’. The Paris Agreement
greenhouse gas emissions needed to prevent keeping the 1.5 degrees Celsius target alive requires NDCs to be updated every five
climate breakdown. “We are teetering on a depend on countries collectively cutting years, and the next deadline is coming up in
planetary tightrope,” UN secretary general yearly greenhouse gas emissions by 42 per February 2025. “Today’s report shows
António Guterres said in a speech following cent before 2030 and then by 57 per cent affordable, existing technologies can achieve
the publication of the report on 24 October. before 2035. But current pledges for future the emissions reductions we need [by] 2030
“This report shows annual greenhouse gas action are not drastic enough to mitigate the and 2035 to meet [the] 1.5 degrees Celsius
emissions at an all-time high, rising 1.3 per worst effects of climate change. “There is a limit, but only with a surge in ambition and
cent last year. They must fall nine per cent direct link between increasing emissions and support,” Guterres said.

Climate change made the wildfires that

decimated the Pantanal wetland in Brazil
this year 40 per cent more intense

17
 GLOBAL EYE
NASA’s Perseverance rover SPACE

Most of Earth’s meteorites may have

used its Mastcam-Z camera to
capture a Martian solar eclipse

come from the same three spots

WORDS CONOR FEEHLY

arth is constantly getting map the evolution of these families,

E pummelled by meteorites. We are

unaware of most of them, as they
burn up in our atmosphere before
researchers were able to reveal which three
families the vast majority of Earth’s meteorites
likely come from. Namely, they originate from
they hit the ground. Every now and again, the Karin, Koronis and Massalia asteroid
though, something larger gets drawn into families, which formed from collisions in the
Earth’s gravitational field. When this happens, main asteroid belt that occurred about 5.8
it usually spells bad news for any life living on million, 7.5 million and 40 million years ago
our planet’s surface. Scientists know that the respectively. In particular, the Massalia family
SPACE vast majority of meteorites that come crashing is said to be responsible for 37 per cent of
down to Earth originate from the Solar known Earth meteorites.
PERSEVERANCE System’s main asteroid belt: a region between Until now, six per cent of meteorites had

WATCHES A
Mars and Jupiter where irregularly shaped been identified – via their compositions – as
rocks left over from the formation of the Solar coming from the Moon, Mars or Vesta, which is

SOLAR ECLIPSE System crash into and bounce off each other
during their journeys around the Sun.
one of the largest objects in the main asteroid
belt. Where the other 94 per cent originated

ON MARS In new research, however, an international

team of scientists is claiming to have identified
from remained something of a mystery. But
why are these young asteroid families the
WORDS STEFANIE WALDEK three young, distinct asteroid families in the source of so many meteorites? Younger
main asteroid belt as the source of 70 per cent families of asteroids, broken up by relatively
On 30 September, NASA’s of Earth’s meteorites. ‘Asteroid families’ refers recent collisions, are composed of more
Perseverance rover turned its camera to a population of asteroids that could be fragments, which means they are more likely to
towards the sky and photographed a composed of a handful or hundreds of have fragments that escape the main asteroid
solar eclipse from Mars, capturing the fragments that likely originate from a past belt, possibly in the direction of Earth. As time
planet’s moon Phobos partially asteroid collision. rolls on, families get older and slowly lose their
blocking the Sun’s disc. In the series
Using a telescopic survey to determine fragments, becoming less of a source for
of photographs, you can distinctly
see the shape of Phobos, which Did the compositions of the main families of meteorites. Nonetheless, let’s hope there isn’t
resembles a lumpy potato. you know? asteroids in the main asteroid belt and a kilometre-sized asteroid waiting in the main
tapping into computer simulations to belt with our name on it.
Phobos, which is the larger of
Mars is around half
Mars’ two tiny moons, isn’t
the size of Earth
spherical like our own Moon,
Pieces of space rock fall to Earth
or many moons in our Solar
all the time, but most burn
System, for that matter, but
up in the atmosphere
rather irregular like an asteroid.
Measuring roughly 17 by 14 by 11
miles, Phobos orbits Mars at an
exceptionally close distance of just
3,700 miles. By comparison, our Moon
circles at an average distance of
238,855 miles from Earth. And
Phobos is a fast mover, completing
three orbits of Mars in a single day.
Current theories about the origin
of Phobos and its companion moon,
Deimos, revolve around some form of
accretion – whether that’s from
leftover material as Mars formed or
from a cataclysmic collision between
the Red Planet and another celestial
body. Perseverance’s recent photo
series of Phobos isn’t the first time
the rover has imaged a solar eclipse; it
also photographed the oblong moon
transiting the Sun in April 2022 and
February 2024.

18
 A 3D illustration
of two membrane-
bound organelles
called mitochondria

H E A LT H

Malfunctioning mitochondria
may drive Crohn’s disease WORDS EMILY COOKE

D
efective mitochondria may Microbe may explain why these microbial mediated by intestinal microbes, because
disrupt the gut microbiome, changes occur. It turns out that disruptions when they’re missing, that damage
driving the development of to mitochondria, the ‘powerhouses’ of cells, disappears. To narrow down which bacteria
Crohn’s disease, new research in in the intestine can cause tissue damage might be the culprits, the team ran a DNA
mice suggests. If these findings hold true in that then alters the composition of the analysis using tissue samples from mice
humans, they could ultimately lead to the gut microbiome. with intact microbiomes but dysfunctional
development of targeted treatments that get The study authors made this discovery mitochondria. This experiment suggested
at the root cause of the condition. Crohn’s after breeding genetically modified mice that that a common group of gut bacteria known
disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder couldn’t produce a key mitochondrial protein as Bacteroides begin to dominate the
that affects the gastrointestinal tract, causing known as HSP60. Cells that line the inside of intestines following mitochondrial-induced
symptoms such as lower abdominal pain, the intestine specifically lacked this protein. tissue damage.
bloody diarrhoea and fever. The exact cause The team focused on mitochondria because Bacteroides normally live in the guts
of the condition is unknown, but it’s thought earlier research had flagged that these of mammals, including humans, without
to stem from dysfunction in the immune powerhouses may be tied to Crohn’s disease. causing a stir. However, they can become
system, and potentially genetic factors. When the team took tissue samples from the opportunistic pathogens, meaning that they
Treatments include immunosuppressants intestines of the mice and analysed them may seize the opportunity to cause infections
and anti-inflammatory medications, which under the microscope, they found signs of if, for instance, the intestinal wall is
target the general inflammatory symptoms inflammation and tissue injury that resembled compromised. More research is needed to
of the disease. Crohn’s disease in humans. For instance, they figure out why these bacteria thrive after
Research in patients suggests that Crohn’s saw a decline in the amount of mucus made tissue injury and how they might contribute
© NASA; JPL-Caltech; ASU / Shutterstock

disease may be partly caused by changes in by the intestinal tissue, which would normally to the inflammation seen in Crohn’s disease.
the composition and function of the gut protect the organ’s inner lining. Future work will also be needed to decipher
microbiome, the collection of microbes that In separate experiments, the team bred what causes mitochondrial damage to occur
live inside the digestive tract. Those microbes mice that lacked both HSP60 and gut in the first place, as well as to see whether
can influence inflammatory cells of the bacteria. Notably, these mice didn’t develop the same chain reaction happens in
immune system, so when they change, any tissue damage in their intestines. That humans. If so, these findings in mice
the immune system changes in turn. Now, a suggests that the inflammatory process may someday inspire targeted treatments
study published in the journal Cell Host & associated with Crohn’s disease may be for Crohn’s disease.

19
 GLOBAL EYE
Our brains can understand
H E A LT H

ZULƔHQVHQWHQFHVLQWKH
‘blink of an eye’
WORDS BEN TURNER

uman brains can discern the basic the brain. While being scanned, volunteers lungs livers’. This rapid detection was also

H structures of written language from

a single glance, enabling us to
quickly consume the torrent of
were presented with a three-word sentence
structure that flashed onto a screen for 300
milliseconds, followed by a second set of words
seen for sentences that contained agreement
errors, in which the verb doesn’t match the
pluralisation of the subject, for example,
information fed to us by smartphones, a new that was either left the same or altered by one ‘nurses cleans wounds’. The brain also quickly
study finds. By measuring the brain activity of word. The participants’ task was to assess detected implausible sentences, such as
36 volunteers, scientists found that people can whether the second sentence was the same ‘wounds clean nurses’. The researchers said
detect basic sentence structures in as little as as the first or had been changed. this suggests that our brains aren’t just
125 milliseconds, or about the speed of a blink The scans revealed that the brain’s left detecting the presence of the words, but are
of an eye. This means that people can process temporal cortex, part of the organ’s outermost applying our previous knowledge of the world
words as quickly as we comprehend visual layer that’s key for understanding language, to better parse what the sentences mean right
scenes, a skill that enables us to continually showed higher activity for three-word away. “Just like your own car is quickly
observe and navigate the world around us. sentences than unstructured lists of words identifiable in a parking lot, certain language
The new finding, published 23 October in the – and this activity showed up in just 125 structures are quickly identifiable and can then
journal Science Advances, could help reveal milliseconds. Participants performed their give rise to a rapid effect of syntax in the brain,”
key clues about how our brains encode best when the sentences contained a subject, Pylkkänen said. “It’s interesting since the
language, the researchers said. verb and object, with the fastest brain activity [sentence] structural knowledge is abstract,
Studying how the brain processes written being seen for phrases such as ‘nurses clean but somehow you’re still able to grasp it from
messages enables scientists to understand wounds’ compared to noun lists like ‘hearts the stimulus.”
more about the properties of language,
particularly those properties that are not linked
to speech. Studying the neurobiology of
language is often made difficult by the mouth
in that it “forces us to turn the language into a
sequence” of brain activity in order to speak
words aloud, said Liina Pylkkänen, a professor
of linguistics and psychology at New York
University. This restricts our understanding of
language’s properties to those demanded by
the word-by-word serialisation needed for
speech. To sidestep this issue, the researchers
used a non-invasive technique called
magnetoencephalography, which uses
magnetic fields to track electrical activity in

The brain processes the structure of

written sentences incredibly quickly

20
 SPACE

SCIENTISTS
HAVE DATED THE
MOON’S OLDEST
AND LARGEST
IMPACT SITE
WORDS STEFANIE WALDEK
For billions of years, our celestial
neighbour has been absolutely
The system includes a bombarded by asteroids and comets,

Did
slit-like aperture to filter and the assault has left behind a
heavily pockmarked surface.
you know?
out unnecessary light and
single out key objects, then The largest and oldest known
uses reflective layers like impact site on the Moon is
Around 33,000
those found in cats’ eyes meteoroids hit the the South Pole-Aitken basin,
to improve visibility Moon each year stretching across nearly
1,250 miles of the far side of
the Moon. Thanks to new
TECHNOLOGY research, scientists have dated

Drones could use ‘robotic cat’s eyes’

the impact to a period between 4.32
and 4.33 billion years ago.
A research team led by scientists at

to track targets more precisely the University of Manchester

determined the age of the basin by
analysing a lunar meteorite known as
WORDS KEUMARS AFIFI-SABET
Northwest Africa 2995. Found in
new computer vision system “Robotic cameras often struggle to spot Algeria in 2005, it contained uranium

A inspired by cats’ eyes could enable objects in busy or camouflaged backgrounds, and lead that was dated to this period.
robots to see the world around especially when lighting conditions change. Our “For decades there has been
them more accurately than ever design solves this by letting robots blur out general agreement that the most
intense period of bombardment
before. Robots, drones, self-driving cars and unnecessary details and focus on important
was concentrated between 4.2
other autonomous systems are becoming objects,” said Young Min Song, professor of
and 3.8 billion years ago,” said
more common, but they still struggle to see electronic engineering at Gwangju Institute
Joshua Snape, a researcher at the
well in all environments and conditions. For of Science and Technology (GIST) in South
University of Manchester.”But now,
example, self-driving cars perform poorly in Korea. And because the computer vision constraining the age of the South-Pole
rain or fog because these conditions affect the system relies on a specialised lens rather than Aitken basin to 120 million years
car’s sensors and cameras. Now, scientists hefty computer processing, it’s more energy- earlier weakens the argument for
have designed a new vision system that uses efficient, Song added. this narrow period of impact
advanced lenses and sensors modelled on the When the researchers tested their system, bombardment on the Moon.”
structure of a feline’s eye, leading to enhanced they found it successfully blurred background
object detection and recognition. objects while maintaining a focus on the target
They chose a cat’s eye for inspiration object. They also used a neural network, a
because our furry friends have great vision in collection of machine learning algorithms
both light and dark environments. During the designed to process information in a similar
day, a cat’s pupil is a vertical slit-like shape that way to the human brain, to help the system
© Getty / Shuterstok / NASA; GSFC; University of Arizona

filters out light and reduces glare, helping a cat better perceive important objects. They
focus. The pupil then widens to let in more light added that for the system to be deployed in
at night, with a reflective layer called the practical and commercial settings, they would
tapetum lucidum enhancing their vision by need to improve the pixel resolution of the field
reflecting visible light back through the of view. But in the future it could be integrated
retina and increasing the light available to into robots and other machines, including
photoreceptors. Similarly, the new system military drones and surveillance robots, the
includes a slit-like aperture that helps filter scientists said. In particular, the technology
out unnecessary light and single out key could be proficient enough to let the robots Elevation data shows the lunar South
objects in bright conditions, then uses detect, track and recognise targets in Pole-Aitken basin, the largest and oldest
reflective layers like those found in cats’ eyes constantly changing environments where impact basin on the Moon, in blue
to improve visibility in low-light conditions. it may be very difficult to see.

21
 WISH LIST
CHRISTMAS GIFT GUIDE

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REVOLUTION TURNTABLE AND SPEAKERS

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THEHOUSEOFMARLEY.CO.UK

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22
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NANOLEAF SHAPES
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tapping and shaking the individual modules.
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There are also some
Nanoleaf Shapes starter kit. You using the music visualiser
handy apps and widgets
can choose from the triangle or feature, the light panels will
available to use with
hexagon panel kit and select transform into a light show in
the WOWCube that
from over 16 million colours time with your music. There’s
allow you to access
to create a unique light show also a screen-mirroring feature
smartphone features
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such as messages,
panel is touch controlled and can computer screen to the
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be connected to your smart Nanoleaf lights.
weather reports.

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using bone-conduction technology in
the TRI 2 headphones, providing excellent
sound quality to those with an active lifestyle.
Rather than delivering the sound directly to the ear
canal, these headphones send vibrations through
the skull. This leaves the ears open to maintain
situational awareness. Thanks to H2OAudio’s
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23
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 SPECIAL

WORDS ANDREW MAY

26
DID YOU KNOW? Physicist John Wheeler said that if you aren’t confused by quantum mechanics, you don’t understand it

Take an in-depth look at

the unbelievable theories,
crazy experiments and
practical applications of
what may be the weirdest
of all scientific subjects
riginating early in the 20th

O century, quantum theory has

acquired a fascination and exotic
appeal quite unlike any other
branch of physics. Movies, video games and
comic books regularly invoke it to explain
away impossible gadgetry and superpowers,
while fashionable mystics and health gurus
have appropriated its jargon to their own
ends. But it’s important to distinguish
between science and pseudoscience and to
separate fact from fiction. And surprising
as it may sound, true quantum physics is just
as rational, level-headed and well-defined as
any other field of science. The difference is
that it deals with phenomena that only
manifest themselves on tiny, subatomic
scales that lie way outside our ordinary
everyday existence and can often defy all
our ideas of ‘common sense’.
Over the next few pages, we’ll demystify
some of the most baffling corners of
quantum theory, from wave-particle duality
and the uncertainty principle to the notorious
case of Schrödinger’s cat, which can be both
dead and alive at the same time. We’ll also
see how present-day scientists are drawing
on quantum mechanics to give at least a
grain of credibility to long-established
science-fiction concepts like teleportation,
telepathy and time travel.
But as entertaining as such ideas are,
the greatest value of quantum science lies
in its practical applications to real-world
technology. The LEDs that light our homes,
the microprocessors inside our mobile
phones, the atomic clocks that make GPS
navigation so accurate and even the lasers
that power our cats’ favourite
toys simply wouldn’t be
possible without quantum
theory. We’ll take a closer look
at these applications, together
with more specialised ones like
superconducting magnets,
electron microscopes and the
emerging fields of quantum
© Shutterstock / Getty

computing and cryptography.

The ambiguity between waves and

particles at the subatomic level is
central to quantum physics

27
 SPECIAL

A photograph of the interference

pattern produced by a laser beam
passing through a double slit

By the end of the 19th century, physicists had

developed a clear conception of energy – the
physical quantity that’s stored in electrical
© Wiki: Bryan Tong Minh

form in a battery, for example, or produced

by an oven in the form of heat. Everyone
assumed that energy was a Did
continuously variable quantity, and you know?
that its value increased or decreased Entanglement was
smoothly rather than in discrete first observed in a
jumps. As reasonable as this sounds, laboratory in 1949 its pseudo-mystical philosophical these days it’s often presented as a straight-
however, it became clear early in the implications. In particular, he faced illustration of it.
20th century that it was wrong – at disliked the so-called ‘Copenhagen While the majority of physicists continue to
least sometimes. In microscopically small interpretation’, which holds that quantum accept the Copenhagen interpretation, it has
systems, such as the photons that carry light systems remain in an indeterminate state until several shortcomings that bother philosophers
energy, or the energy levels occupied by they’re observed. Virtually all of Einstein’s and others who think carefully about it. This
electrons inside an atom, it appeared that fellow physicists accepted this idea, with the has resulted in a whole host of alternative
energy was ‘quantised’ – only capable of notable exception of Schrödinger – who went interpretations, of which perhaps the most
taking certain discrete values. That was the so far as to say he hated quantum mechanics intriguing is the many-worlds hypothesis. This
beginning of the quantum revolution. and was sorry he had anything to do with it. imagines that every quantum system exists
The word ‘quantum’ itself was first used To non-physicists, Schrödinger is best in every one of its possible states, but each one
by German physicist Max Planck around the remembered for his thought experiment is in a different ‘parallel’ universe. Sadly, unlike
year 1900 to refer to the tiny, indivisible involving a quantum cat, which he originally the parallel worlds of science fiction, we’re
packets of energy carried by photons. At that devised to highlight the absurdity of the permanently confined to our own world with
time, Planck was already in his 40s, but his Copenhagen interpretation, even though no way of travelling to any of the others.
discoveries were soon added to by a much
younger compatriot who was destined to
become the most famous physicist of all:
Albert Einstein. While the quantum physics
of Planck and Einstein was strange enough,
however, it was only the beginning.
THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE
One of the central principles of quantum theory was
In the mid-1920s the field was hit by a
discovered by Werner Heisenberg in 1927. Its very name,
second revolution, which transformed it into
the uncertainty principle, has made it beloved by mystics
something truly bizarre and mind-bending. and science-fiction authors ever since. But Heisenberg’s
In the hands of scientists like Werner principle doesn’t just make a vague statement like
Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger, an ‘everything is uncertain’. It’s a mathematical formula
unsuspecting world was suddenly exposed that arises from the wave nature of subatomic particles.
to the mysteries of wave-particle duality, It says that if we measure one property of a particle very
the uncertainty principle and the vaguely accurately, there is some other property that becomes
mystical notion that quantum particles exist impossible to measure precisely. For example, if we know
in ‘superpositions’ of multiple different the particle’s exact position, we won’t be able to measure
states until someone observes them. its exact speed, and vice versa. As weird as this sounds,
Although Einstein had played a major role it’s analogous to something we take for granted in the
in the original development of quantum German physicist Werner context of sound waves, where we can specify the time
theory, he was deeply unhappy with these Heis enbe rg, pictured around but not the pitch of a gunshot, or the pitch but not the
later developments. His problem wasn’t so the time he formulated the time of a drawn-out violin note.
uncertainty principle
much with the mathematical formulation of
the theory, which he couldn’t fault, but with

28
 DID YOU KNOW? Thomas Young, who devised the double-slit experiment, also helped decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs

A simplified illustration of the Schrödinger’s WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY

cat thought experiment When physicists first started thinking seriously about light,
they weren’t sure if it was a fast-moving stream of particles
or a wave analogous to a sound wave. A unique property of
waves is that, unlike a particle stream, they can interfere with
each other to produce distinctive patterns on a screen – an
effect that Thomas Young demonstrated with light in 1801.
This seemed to clinch the matter until, at the start of the
following century, Planck and Einstein showed that light
energy was transmitted in discrete packets – definitely
particle-like rather than wave-like behaviour. Later
experiments showed the same ambiguity to exist for
electrons and other subatomic particles. It’s now accepted
that quantum systems can exhibit both particle and wave
properties depending on the circumstances.

SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT THE DOUBLE-SLIT

Perhaps the best known example
of quantum weirdness is the
Schrödinger’s cat thought
itself, simultaneously alive and
dead? Some accounts suggest the
answer is yes, but this probably
EXPERIMENT
If you shine light through two narrow slits,
experiment, which highlights the isn’t true. The fallacy arises the result can be particle-like or wave-like
disparity between the microscopic because it’s not really possible for
world of quantum physics and our a single quantum system to control
everyday ‘macroscopic’ world. One a much larger object such as a cat. 1 LIGHT SOURCE 3
of the oddest concepts in quantum In Thomas Young’s
theory is the idea that atomic-scale original version DETECTOR OFF
systems only settle into well-
defined states when they’re
“Atomic-scale this was sunlight;
today it might be
observed – before that, they exist
in a combination, or ‘superposition’,
V\VWHPVRQO\VHƔOH a laser beam.

2 SCREEN
of possible states. In the thought
experiment, the cat is confined to a
LQWRZHOOGHƉQHG WITH SLITS
PHOTON GUN
2

states when
This screen has
box containing a quantum system
two closely spaced
that has one of two states. In one
slits to split the light
state it triggers a vial of poison that
kills the cat; in the other it doesn’t. they’re observed” beam into two.
1
So is the cat in a superposition 3 PROJECTION
SCREEN
When the parallel
Rather than orbiting the light beams hit
nucleus, electrons in atoms the screen,
are spread out like waves they produce an
interference
pattern consistent
with wave-like
behaviour. DETECTOR ON

4 PHOTON DETECTOR 4
A piece of modern
technology is
added to count
the photons
as they pass
through the slits.

5 DIFFERENT RESULT 5
The interference
pattern has
disappeared,
replaced by two
bright spots
consistent with
light being made
© Wiki: Geek3

up of particles,
not waves.
© Getty

29
 SPECIAL

ENTANGLEMENT
Imagine a quantum system consisting of two
particles, with a combined quantum state
Two particles can be intrinsically linked

all possible states, and will continue to do so

no matter how far apart they are. If a
true even if they are thousands of miles
apart. The technical term for this
describing all the properties of both particles. measurement is made of one particle, then phenomenon is ‘quantum entanglement’,
Before a measurement is made of either the other particle will abruptly settle into the but Einstein gave it the far more evocative
particle, they will exist in a superposition of same type of the possible states. This will be name of ‘spooky action at a distance’.

SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE

Here’s a short comic strip that illustrates the principle of quantum entanglement

2 PHOTONS ARE
1 ENTANGLED SEPARATED
PHOTONS CREATED In the real-world
This is a dramatisation experiment, the
of an actual experiment separation distance
that took place in a was 185 metres.
US laboratory.
…ONE TO ALICE 3 PHOTONS REACH …ONE TO BOB
THEIR RECIPIENTS
These are humanoid
characters, but in the
real world they were
photon detectors.

4 DETECTOR ALICE 5 DETECTOR BOB 6 COMPARING RESULTS

This makes a random At the same time, this Whatever measurements
measurement without makes a measurement the detectors choose to
informing detector Bob. without telling detector Alice. make, the results will
be consistent due to
quantum entanglement.

30
DID YOU KNOW? Quantum teleportation could eventually lead to an ultra-secure worldwide ‘quantum internet’

TIME TRAVEL
If quantum entanglement can make teleportation and ‘pseudo-
telepathy’ possible, how does it fare with another science-fiction
staple – travelling backwards in time to change an earlier decision?
Amazingly, it might make this possible too, but only in the context
of quantum-scale measurements rather than, say, betting on sports
Telepathy as commonly imagined events or making stock market investments. In a theoretical study
remains firmly in science fiction from 2023, a research team described how quantum time travel
might work: one particle of an entangled pair is used to make a FAC T
QUANTUM
S
measurement, then the second particle is manipulated in a way that

PSEUDO- retroactively alters the first so it makes a different measurement.

This could be a useful tool in the field of quantum metrology, which
PHYSICS IN
NATURE
TELEPATHY uses quantum particles to make highly sensitive measurements.

Imagine a game where two players

have to enter numbers into a square Time can behave in peculiar
1 SHINY METALS
The fact that polished
metals are so much more
grid. The objective is for the players to ways at the quantum level reflective than other
achieve a consistent result. They’re materials can only be
not allowed to talk, so success is down explained in terms of the
to pure chance – unless they’re quantum behaviour of the
telepathic. Even quantum physics electrons within them.

2
doesn’t make this possible, but it does
BLUE SKY
allow a kind of ‘pseudo-telepathy’ that
The colour of the sky
draws on quantum entanglement to is often ascribed to the
make the game winnable every time: ‘scattering’ of light by air
as long as it’s a game called the molecules, but in precise
Mermin-Peres magic square, which is terms it’s due to quantum-
played on a quantum level. Originally mechanical absorption
and re-emission.
devised as a thought experiment in

3
1990, this was finally demonstrated STARLIGHT
by Chinese researchers in July 2022. The characteristic
spectral absorption lines
seen in starlight, which
astronomers use to
determine chemical
composition, arise

THE TELEPORTATION EXPERIMENT

because quantum
mechanics only allows
atoms to absorb light at
The teleportation of people and quantum level. This involves out since. One of the most discrete wavelengths.
objects is a familiar gimmick in exploiting the ‘quantum impressive, dating from 2012,
science fiction – the idea being that
the original disappears from its
entanglement’ of a pair of particles
– which may be a long distance
is illustrated here. It involved
teleporting a photon – a particle of 4 THE SUN’S
NUCLEAR FURNACE
The nuclear reactions
starting location while an exact apart – to turn one of them into light – over a distance of 89 miles that produce the Sun’s
duplicate simultaneously appears a duplicate of a third particle, between La Palma and Tenerife heat are only possible
at a different location. While which ends up being destroyed in the Canary Islands. thanks to the ‘quantum
transporting large objects like this in the process. The feasibility of tunnelling’ effect,
will probably always remain a quantum teleportation was first which allows particles
fantasy, scientists are able to do demonstrated in 1998, and several to overcome energy
barriers that would be
something very similar at the successful tests have been carried impenetrable otherwise.

5
TENERIFE
3 THE BIG BANG
LA PALMA In the Big Bang theory,
T the universe began so
incredibly tiny that it must
BM 3 3 3 3 have been dominated by
© CERN / Alamy / Shutterstock / Illustration by Nicholas Forder

89 MILES quantum effects, although

1 2 3 scientists have yet to work
out the details.
Q

Did
1
In the
BM
A joint
2
One particle
Q 3 T you know?
An entangled The other When the measurement
laboratory, measurement of the pair pair of photons was sent to was received, the photon Quantum particles
the photon to was made on remained was created in Tenerife, where there was transformed have been
be teleported the photons in in the a laboratory it was captured into a duplicate of the teleported into
was created. the laboratory. laboratory. on La Palma. by a telescope. teleported photon. space

31
 SPECIAL
1 ELECTRON GUN

PRACTICAL
This produces a
beam of electrons
and fires it down
towards the ATOMIC CLOCKS
specimen to As well as enabling LEDs to produce

QUANTUM
be observed. light of specific colours, the quantum
behaviour of electrons inside atoms
has another important consequence
for modern technology. It means that
the frequency, or number of vibrations

MECHANICS
per second, of the light that’s emitted
when an electron jumps between
energy levels can be determined with
1 extreme precision. This is the principle
behind super-accurate atomic clocks,
For all its weird theories and implications, such as those used to set national
quantum physics has produced a whole time standards and control the
host of down-to-Earth technology frequency of television transmitters
and mobile phone towers. Atomic
clocks are also a must-have in

ELECTRON MICROSCOPES navigation satellites such as GPS,

where a deviation of just a millionth
of a second could result in a
A traditional microscope uses a system of lenses to 2 positional error of a quarter mile.
magnify small objects so they can be seen using
ordinary light. While such microscopes can be
useful up to a point, they can’t see anything smaller
than the wavelength of the light they use. They can
image bacteria, for example, but not individual
molecules – which would require a much smaller 2 MAGNETIC LENS
wavelength than ordinary light. It’s here that One or more
quantum physics comes to the rescue, as it tells doughnut-shaped
us that electrons can be made to behave like electromagnets
waves. It turns out they have a very small are used to keep
wavelength indeed – as little as 2.5 billionths of the electron
a millimetre, compared to 400 millionths of a beam focused.
millimetre for visible light. This gives electron
microscopes enormously more magnifying
power than the traditional kind.

6
HOW One of the atomic clocks used on

ELECTRON
the European Space Agency’s
Galileo navigation satellites

MICROSCOPES
WORK 4 BACKSCATTERED
This shows what goes
on inside a scanning ELECTRON DETECTOR
electron microscope This collects electrons
from the primary beam
that have been reflected
5 4 back from the specimen.

An electro
n 3 SPECIMEN
p e
microsco This is placed on a flat
wing
image sho stage at the bottom of
of
a close-up the microscope.
-19 3
the COVID
virus

Did
5 SECONDARY you know?
6 VIDEO SCANNER ELECTRON DETECTOR
Data from the detectors This measures any A laser is a
is sent to an imaging ‘secondary electrons’ quantum
system, where it forms that are emitted from mechanical device
a high-magnification the sample when
picture of the specimen. the beam hits it.

32
 DID YOU KNOW? A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) can detect tiny magnetic fields inside living cells

LIGHT-EMITTING DIODES The precise colours produced by

COMPUTERS Another ubiquitous piece of modern technology

is the light-emitting diode, or LED. Originally used
an LED array are determined
by quantum theory

OF THE FUTURE as coloured indicators, these have now become

widespread in room lighting, car headlights and the
As things stand, current ‘quantum displays of phones and TVs. As with microchips,
computers’ are a long way from LEDs work their magic thanks to quantum physics.
maturity. Even so, there’s one area of One of its consequences is that electrons can only
information technology that can exist at certain ‘quantised’ energy levels, and when
definitely benefit from quantum they jump down from higher levels to lower ones
effects, and is doing so already. That’s they emit light corresponding to the energy
cryptography – the art of encoding difference. In an LED, the critical energy gap is tuned
messages so they’re easily understood to produce a particular colour, such as red, green or
by the intended recipient, but not by blue. Multiple LEDs can then be combined to create
anyone else. One recent innovation, pure white light, without wasting energy in non-
‘quantum key distribution’ (QKD), is visible emissions as old-style light bulbs did.
the closest anyone has come to an
unbreakable data encryption scheme.
Although still in its infancy, QKD
promises to revolutionise the way
financial transactions, critical
HIGH-TECH TVS
Here’s what makes a quantum-dot (QD-OLED) display so special
infrastructure and personal data are
protected against cyber attacks.

1 4

THE GOLD 3
THE OLD

Quantum cryptography provides the

most secure data-transfer method
2

1 2 3 4 5
FLAT-SCREEN QD-OLED QUANTUM DOTS TECHNOLOGICAL DESIGN
DISPLAY DISPLAY These are tiny BENEFITS BENEFITS
Most modern Unlike an LCD quantum- As well as Quantum-dot
displays use display, this mechanical sharper displays have
liquid crystals produces components, colours, a the potential
and coloured its own consisting of QD display to be much
essor filters to illumination just a few produces a lighter and
gle’s Sycamor e quantum proc
Goo produce an and colours atoms each, genuine black, slimmer than
s that would take
can perform task years image, which without the that produce unlike the dark ones using
ters thousands of
ordinary compu is illuminated need for light of a grey of an LCD LCDs.
from behind filters. precisely screen.
by LEDs. defined colour.

MICROELECTRONICS
© Getty / Alamy / ESA / Google / Illustration by Adrian Mann

Most people today use electronic gadgets like laptops, smartphones and An electronic circuit board with
games consoles without a second thought. Yet the tiny silicon chips lying at microprocessors – probably the
the heart of these devices only work because of quantum physics – or, more most common of all applications
specifically, because the electrons inside a silicon crystal behave like waves of quantum physics
rather than particles. This allows the electron flow to be controlled in a precise
way, opening up all the myriad of possibilities of modern microelectronics. This
may seem a little mundane in comparison to the quantum weirdness we’re
used to reading about, but if it wasn’t for that strangeness, some electronic
components simply wouldn’t work. An example is the tunnel diode, discovered
in 1958 and used in some circuits, which exploits a bizarre quantum
phenomenon that allows particles to pass through seemingly impenetrable
barriers. Although this quantum-tunnelling effect has been known for
decades, it wasn’t until 2020 that it was directly measured for the first time.

33
 SPACE

Follow the timeline to discover centuries of

advancement in the way we observe the universe
WORDS AILSA HARVEY

34
DID YOU KNOW? Galileo based the first astronomical telescope on Hans Lippershey’s 1608 invention

GALILEO’S EARLY VISION

Over 400 years ago, the telescope was first
used for astronomical observations

2 5 1609

Did
you know?
Hubble has
3 4
orbited Earth over
175,200 times

1 EYEPIECE 3 BODY securely in place for

The eyepiece was a The main tube of a clear image.
concave lens that the telescope was
was used to magnify wooden and kept the 5 SLIDING TUBE
the image from the lenses at an optimal The tube had an
lens opposite. distance. Galileo’s external covering so
telescope was around that it could be
2 OBJECTIVE LENS one metre long. elongated or
The larger end had shortened. This
a convex lens. This 4 MOUNTING enabled the user to
focused the light from BRACKETS focus the image by
distant objects into These wooden rings changing the distance
the telescope. held the lenses between the lenses.

1611
CLARITY WITH KEPLER
German astronomer Johannes Kepler focal point, rays at the top were bent
improved the magnification of Galileo’s downwards and those at the bottom were
telescope, which had a magnification of just bent upwards. The same happened
30 times. Rather than using a concave lens vertically across the focal point,
for the eyepiece, Kepler’s telescope used a producing an inverted image.
convex lens. A convex lens is thicker in Having two convex lenses also meant that
the middle than it is at the edges, helping the only way to increase magnification was
focus light to one point. As a result, Kepler’s to put more distance between them. This
telescope produced much clearer images. led to increasingly long telescopes – the
However, these clearer images were flipped largest measuring 46 metres – which
upside down. As the light rays crossed the soon became heavy and impractical.

Parallel rays converge

at the focal point
© Shutterstock

35
 SPACE

CASSEGRAIN
1672 EFFICIENCY
1668 The Cassegrain telescope used the
same basis as Newton’s, but reflected

REFLECTING light differently for higher efficiency.

In 1672, this telescope was invented
ON NEWTON by French priest Laurent Cassegrain.
Instead of using a diagonal secondary
The Newtonian telescope overcame mirror to reflect light to the side, the
the problem of impractically long secondary mirror in Cassegrain’s
telescope tubes by using mirrors for telescope was a convex mirror that
magnification. This was the birth reflected light back to a hole in the
of the reflecting telescope. Isaac centre of the first mirror. Using a
Newton’s telescope used a concave convex mirror instead of a plane
mirror to gather light. Light entered mirror focused the light rays to make
the top of the telescope, while at a smaller image. This meant that
the other end lay a primary mirror to more of an image could fit into view.
reflect the light back up the telescope. Still in use today, because this type
That light was reflected again by a Cassegrain’s telescope of telescope manipulates light to
secondary mirror, called a plane combined elements of fold it back in on itself rather than
mirror. The plane mirror was neither Kepler and Newton’s outwards, its tube can be made
convex nor concave, but flat. This inventions shorter and more compact. The
mirror reflected at 90 degrees to length that the light rays cover during
focus light into the eyepiece at the focusing is also longer because of
side of the telescope. There was a this. The longer focal length makes
focus wheel at the side that could be the possible magnification higher in
turned to adjust the distance between smaller instruments.
the eyepiece and the tube, altering
the image’s clarity.
Lick Observatory is owned by
the University of California

Did
you know?
Mount Wilson
Observatory has
public access

Newtonian telescopes are still widely

used today

JAMES LICK REFRACTOR 1888

In January 1888, the largest refracting telescope of reflecting telescopes, this refractor relied on lenses. Its
the time saw first light. The James Lick Telescope objective lens was a double lens. The pair were made of
had a 91-centimetre objective lens. This large size two different types of glass: crown glass and flint glass.
was essential for capturing more light, allowing This meant the lenses could focus different colours of
astronomers to observe fainter, more distant celestial light, leaving no blurry areas. The Lick Observatory,
bodies. The focal length of the telescope was about which houses the telescope, was the first permanently
18 metres, across which light was magnified after staffed mountain observatory and was responsible for
being refracted, or bent, by the objective lens. the discovery of many moons, such as Jupiter’s moon
It remains encased in its surrounding dome on Mount Amalthea in 1892 – the first moon discovered since
Hamilton, California. Instead of using mirrors like the Galilean moons of Jupiter 300 years prior.

36
DID YOU KNOW? Telescope comes from the Latin for ‘tele’, meaning distance, and scopium, meaning ‘to look’

1917
10 COUDÉ AND 9 MAIN TELESCOPE TUBE 3 PRIME FOCUS ELEVATOR
CASSEGRAIN MIRRORS A rigid tube holds the Astronomers can be
These are secondary mirrors. The crucial apparatus steady carried to primary
Cassegrain mirror reflects light to produce more instruments at the top of
from the primary mirror through accurate observations. the telescope to alter the
a hole in the primary mirror. The focus for their studies.
coudé mirror redirects it to another
focus point for long exposures.
2 PRIME FOCUS CAGE
This structure
11 OBSERVATORY DOME holds the instruments
needed to make
The dome was constructed
observations, such as
of aluminium, making it
the primary mirror.
lightweight and durable.

3
11
2

7 PRIMARY MIRROR 10
A curved, five-
metre-wide mirror
collects and focuses
light from space.
9
8 DECLINATION AXIS
This axis moves the telescope
in an upwards and downwards
motion across the night sky.
This image shows a newspaper
extract following the opening of
Mount Wilson Observatory

100-INCH 8
TELESCOPE 7
At Mount Wilson Observatory 5 4
sits the Hooker telescope,
also known as the 100-inch
telescope due to its size.
6
When it was established, this
telescope was the largest in
the world with its 2.5-metre-

1948
diameter mirror. It remained the
biggest from 1917 to 1949 and
made many detailed discoveries
that were pivotal in helping us
understand the complexity of
the universe. In the 1920s, POWERFUL
astronomer Edwin Hubble used
the Hooker telescope to study the
Milky Way and a type of star known
HALE
Palomar Observatory’s Hale Telescope
1

as Cepheid variables. From his was the largest and most powerful of its
observations, he found that these kind for nearly five decades
stars were part of a separate galaxy, 1 ELEVATION
© Alamy / Shutterstock / Science Photo Library

Andromeda, and made the discovery The observatory is

that outlined the Milky Way as one of situated at an elevation
many galaxies. Using this telescope, of 1,700 metres on
Hubble also learned that galaxies Palomar Mountain.
that lie farther from the Milky Way are
accelerating away from us – this 5 COUDÉ FOCUS 6 CASSEGRAIN FOCUS
expanding universe theory led Mirrors redirect light Light is reflected back to the 4 RIGHT ASCENSION DRIVE
to the birth of the Big Bang theory. here for a secondary first mirror from a secondary This mechanism is motorised,
focusing. This creates mirror. Here, it’s focused rotating the telescope for
long exposures. through a small hole. object tracking.

37
 SPACE

1962 1990
2021
ORBITING ARIEL
eeds
Hubble travels at sp
r hour
of 17,500 miles pe
Ariel 1 was groundbreaking for being the first
telescope to enter orbit on 26 April 1962. It was
launched on a Delta rocket and was the first
international satellite to be sent to space in a
partnership between Britain and America. This
telescope had a mission to study ultraviolet and
X-ray emissions in space. By observing from
Earth orbit, it could collect data without

THE JAMES
atmospheric interference. One of the main
successes of Ariel 1 was its measuring of the
ultraviolet light released from stars. It helped
identify stars giving off different levels of THE LAUNCH WEBB SPACE
radiation, categorising them as O-type and
B-types stars – both types that emit significant
OF HUBBLE TELESCOPE
amounts of ultraviolet light. Ariel 1 spent a The problem with observing space
from Earth is that the planet’s Webb can see more of the
total of 14 years in orbit.
atmosphere causes disturbances
infrared spectrum and gathers
in images as an obstacle between
six times more light than Hubble
Ariel 1 carried six experiments the observer and space. The Hubble
and sensors on board
Space Telescope has revolutionised
space imagery since its launch into The Pillars of Creation
low-Earth orbit, 340 miles above in the Eagle Nebula,
Earth’s surface. As a result, Hubble taken by Hubble
has provided a sharp view of the
cosmos, made new discoveries such
as two of Pluto’s moons, Nix and
Hydra, and produced breathtaking
displays of intricate star clusters and
mesmerising gas clouds. Among the
telescope’s greatest discoveries is
confirming the rate of acceleration the
universe is expanding at. Hubble can
view multiple wavelengths – from
ultraviolet and visible to near-infrared
light. To capture an image, it uses its
two large mirrors. Light from the
universe is reflected off the primary
mirror to the secondary mirror before
“Ariel 1 measured returning to a focal point at a hole in
the primary mirror. The mirrors have
the ultraviolet light deep curves to produce sharp images
and observe a wider field of view.
released from stars”

KEPLER: THE PLANET HUNTER Kepler’s mission was

renewed for a second
On 7 March 2009, NASA launched the Kepler space telescope as phase, called K2
part of a mission to search for Earth-sized planets beyond our
Solar System. The telescope, encased by its spacecraft, had a
1.4-metre-diameter mirror, a one-metre-wide aperture for light
to pass through and an image-sensor array. Within its first six
weeks in orbit, Kepler discovered five new exoplanets – these
were Kepler-4 b, 5 b, 6 b, 7 b and 8 b. The method Kepler used
to hunt down exoplanets was the transit method. This involves
observing the dimming of a star caused by the passing of a

2009
planet in front of it. In total, the telescope detected 2,778
candidate planets.

38
 DID YOU KNOW? Webb’s primary mirror is made of 18 segments of beryllium, coated with gold 4 PRIMARY MIRROR 1 SECONDARY MIRROR
SEGMENTS SUPPORT STRUCTURE
18 hexagonal mirrors Three long arms
make up this large connect the primary
6.5-metre primary and secondary
mirror. mirrors to keep
them aligned.
5

4
6 1
3

2 SECONDARY MIRROR
ASSEMBLY
3 AFT OPTICS SUBSYSTEM A small, round mirror
This subsystem connects is held at the front of
light from the secondary the telescope. It
mirror to the ISIM to collects light from
the primary mirror
7 be analysed.
and reflects it to the
7 SUNSHIELD aft optics subsystem.
A tennis court-sized
shield protects the
equipment from the 5 BACKPLANE SUPPORT
Sun’s heat. STRUCTURE
This supportive
scaffolding keeps the
mirror segments held
together securely.

6 SCIENCE INSTRUMENTS
The Integrated Science Instrument
8 SPACECRAFT BUS Module (ISIM) contains a near-infrared
Data handling, communication, camera, a near-infrared spectrograph,
power generation and a mid-infrared instrument for colder
8 propulsion are handled by the objects and a fine-guidance sensor
telescope’s operational centre. for precision pointing.

2027 Did
you know?

NEXT-GEN TELESCOPE
The Roman
© Alamy / Shutterstock / NASA, ESA;Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team
Telescope will
weigh 4,166
Due to be launched by NASA in 2027, the Nancy Grace kilograms
Roman Space Telescope is a likely future telescope
hall of famer. The most noteworthy feature of this
new telescope is that it will function with a field of view
100 times greater than that of Hubble. The infrared
telescope will analyse distant stars, attempt to find
more planets outside the Solar System and study dark
energy over the course of a five-year mission. One of
the telescope’s instruments is called a coronagraph.
This will be used to block out the light shining from
surrounding stars so that the telescope can focus on
fainter objects like exoplanets. The primary mirror is
similar in size to Hubble’s, but scientists predict that Artist’s impression of the
Roman will produce images of the sky 1,000 times Nancy Grace Roman
faster than its predecessor. Space Telescope

39
 SPACE

WHAT’S
INSIDE A
The Chang’e 4 lunar
probe took this image
of the Yutu-2 rover on
the far side of the
Moon in 2019

LUNAR EXPLORING
THE FAR SIDE
CAVE?
1

Yutu-2 uses the tools to scope

out the lunar surface
7
How China’s
‘Jade Rabbit’ rover 4

is exploring the 2
subterranean world
of Earth’s cosmic
Did
companion you know? 5
Yutu-2 is the
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD longest serving
Moon rover
he first spacecraft to land 6

T on the far side of the Moon,

China’s Yutu-2 rover, is still
exploring the lunar terrain
since its historic landing in 2019. Yutu-2,
which translates to ‘Jade Rabbit’, journeyed
to the Moon as part of the China National
Space Administration’s (CNSA) Chang’e 4
mission. The rover arrived at the Moon’s
Von Kármán crater, near its south pole, via 3
the CNSA lander. From the far side of the
Moon, direct radio communication between
the rover and mission control on Earth is
tricky. Without the help of a relay satellite
called Queqiao – or ‘Magpie Bridge’ – in a
‘halo’ orbit of the Moon, the rover wouldn’t the Moon. However, during lunar night,
be able to send data and images back to which lasts 14.5 Earth days, Yutu-2 shuts The landing site of the Chang’e 4
Earth. This is because the far side of the down. It relies on a radioisotope heater unit mission at the lunar solar pole
Moon never faces Earth. (RHU) to maintain its systems and keep
With the help of the Chang’e 4 lander, the them warm during the lunar night, where
rover’s mission is to explore the 115-mile- temperatures can drop to -235 degrees
wide Von Kármán crater, which is thought to Celsius and there’s no sunlight for its solar
have been created by an impact early in the panels to convert into electricity.
Moon’s history. The duo will also analyse the The Yutu-2 rover was designed to operate
mineral composition of the area and conduct for around three Earth months, but it has
experiments to study radiation levels. When lasted nearly six years. There are signs that
the rover is active, it moves at a snail’s pace, the rover is slowing down as the effects of
only just topping speeds of 0.1 miles per hour. radiation and a hard lunar life are taking
Along the way, it uses its various cameras and their toll, so it’s unclear how much longer
scientific instruments to gather data about the rover will last.

40
DID YOU KNOW? Yutu-2 has driven over 1,613 metres on the Moon, including 305 metres in the last two years

FAC T S
YUTU-2’S
DISCOVERIES

1 FLAT DARK SIDE

During its travels
across the far side of
the Moon, Yutu-2 has
found that the terrain is
relatively flat, with few
rocks – very different
to the Moon’s Earth-
facing side.
1 CAMERAS 5 EXPERIMENTS
Two colour cameras at the head of the rover
capture a 360-degree view of its surroundings.
An experiment called the Advanced
Small Analyzer for Neutrals (ASAN) is 2 GEL-LIKE ROCKS
In 2019, Yutu-2
spotted a small crater
used to study how the solar wind interacts
2 SOLAR PANELS
containing a ‘gel-like’
with lunar regolith. substance that scientists
Power is supplied by a pair describe as having an
of photovoltaic panels, which convert 6 SPECTROMETER unusual colour. It’s
sunlight into electrical energy. A visible and near-Infrared imaging been suggested that
spectrometer is used to study the this is a glassy material
3 MESH WHEELS mineral composition of rocks and formed by a meteorite
Six mesh wheels drive the rover over soil around the rover. striking the Moon.

3
the surface. They are capable of climbing a
20-degree slope and over rocky obstacles 7 ANTENNA PLENTY OF
CRATERS
up to around 20 centimetres tall. Data and instructions are sent and received via Yutu-2 has discovered
radio waves through the rover’s antenna. that the far side of
4 RADAR the Moon is covered
A lunar-penetrating radar can study with craters. Along a
the subsurface of the Moon to depths 50-metre journey,
of more than 100 metres. the rover encountered
88 impact craters that
averaged around 12
metres wide.

“The rover’s mission 4 SANDY TERRAIN

Researchers
measured the amount

is to explore the
that Yutu-2’s mesh
wheels slipped on the
loose lunar sediment,
Von Kármán crater” or regolith. They
discovered that regions
of the Moon’s regolith
ers resemble dry sand or
ion will explore crat
The Chang’e 7 miss h le
po sandy loam on Earth.
n at the lunar sout
such as Shackleto
© Alamy / Getty / ESA;Jorge Mañes Rubio;DITISHOE

CHANG’E IS COMING 5 DEEP LAYERS

While using an
onboard radar, the rover
China’s next mission to the Moon is Chang’e 7, Like the Chang’e 4 mission that brought Yutu-2 discovered many layers
which is planned for launch in 2026. Building on to the Moon, Chang’e 7 will consist of a lander, rover of rock around 130
the work of lunar rovers like Yutu-2, the mission and relay satellite, but will also include a small flying metres below the
surface, three of
aims to obtain more information about the inner probe. Upon landing, the probe will fly to an area
which are mostly
ring structure, mineral composition and magnetic of the lunar south pole that stays in permanent made of a volcanic
and gravity fields of the Moon. shadow to conduct in-situ experiments. rock called basalt.

41
 SCIENCE

How we’ll finally discover this substance’s true nature

and learn how to harness it to propel us to distant stars

WORDS MARCUS CHOWN

42
DID YOU KNOW? Antimatter should have annihilated all of the matter in the universe after the Big Bang

t’s a hackneyed science-fiction As well as answering these questions, their

I image. For the first time in history,

a human and an alien meet. They
go to shake hands – or tentacles –
efforts to perfect techniques to make and
store antimatter will bring us closer to creating
enough of the stuff to do useful things with
This Penning trap is used to combine
positrons and antiprotons to produce
atoms of antihydrogen
and detonate in an explosion so violent it could – perhaps even powering spacecraft. But
blast apart a planet. The alien is of course we’re running ahead of ourselves. What is
made of antimatter, and when matter and antimatter? Matter – the stuff humans and
antimatter meet, as every physicist the stars and planets are made of – is
knows, they detonate in an explosion Did assembled from microscopic building
to end all explosions. you know? blocks such as electrons and
The trouble is, this is just protons. And protons themselves are
Some nuclei spit
about the only thing physicists out positrons composed of particles called quarks.
know about antimatter. To find out In fact, ultimately, matter appears to
more, researchers at the European be made of just six quarks and six
Organization for Nuclear Research leptons, of which the electron is an
(CERN) near Geneva, Switzerland, are example. And there are four particles that
fighting a heroic battle to make and store a are exchanged between these building blocks
tiny speck of antimatter. This pioneering of matter, giving rise to forces

ũ:KHQPDƔHUDQGDQWLPDƔHU
research hopes to address fundamental such as the electricity that glues
questions about the properties of antimatter, together your body. Then there’s

PHHWDVHYHU\SK\VLFLVWNQRZV
such as whether it falls down or up under the the Higgs boson, which gives all
influence of gravity, which CERN was able to other particles mass. That’s a

WKH\GHWRQDWHLQDQH[SORVLRQ
answer in 2023 – it responds to gravity in total of 17 fundamental particles.
mostly the same way as normal matter. If The point is that nature,

WRHQGDOOH[SORVLRQVŪ
they’re very lucky, they may shed light on for reasons we do not yet
one of physics’ biggest questions: why do we understand, has chosen to
live in a universe made solely of matter? duplicate these fundamental

CERN’s ALPHA experiment

is able to produce and
trap antimatter

© Cern/Niels Madsen ALPHA/Swansea.

43
 SCIENCE

So Professor Jeffrey Hangst

MAKING ANTIMATTER at CERN can measure the

properties of antimatter, he first

IS TRICKY
needs to make antiprotons,
5 then slow and trap them. When
Anti-atoms are so difficult to make, they’re they’re combined with positrons,
the most expensive material on Earth atoms of antihydrogen are
created: the perfect antimatter
test subjects.

1 ACCELERATION
Protons are whirled to high
6 energy levels around the
circular track of a particle
accelerator at CERN, near
Geneva. During each circuit
of a few hundred metres,
radio waves boost the
protons’ energy.

2 SMASHING
On emerging from the
4 accelerator ring, the protons are
smashed into a metal target.
The kinetic energy of the
protons is converted into the
1 2 3 mass-energy of new particles
conjured from the vacuum,
including antiprotons.

3 COLLISION
Antiprotons run into a thin foil of
metal. They collide repeatedly
with electrons in the metal, and
these collisions gradually sap
the antiprotons of energy.

4 TRAPPING
Antiprotons are fed into a
magnetic trap. A wall of
electricity is raised in front of
them, and as they bounce back,
particles. These duplicates, known as American physicist Carl David Anderson was another wall is raised behind
antiparticles, have opposite properties to studying cosmic rays – high-energy particles them. High-energy antiprotons
their matter counterparts, such as electric raining down on Earth from space. When escape, meaning only the
charge. For instance, the antiparticle of the these collide with atoms in the atmosphere, lowest energy antiprotons
negatively charged electron, usually found they create showers of subatomic shrapnel are corralled.
orbiting a nucleus in an atom, is the positively that can be imaged by a photographic plate.
charged ‘positron’. On one such plate, Anderson saw the track of 5 COMBINATION
Positrons, spat out by
The person who discovered antimatter – or a particle with the mass of an electron that
sodium-22 – an isotope of
at least suggested its existence – was British bent in the opposite direction in a magnetic sodium – are introduced into
physicist Paul Dirac. He was a pioneer of field. He had discovered Dirac’s anti- the trap. They combine with
‘quantum theory’, the revolutionary Did electron: the positron. antiprotons to make about
description of the microscopic world you know? Since 1932, many antiparticles 5,000 antihydrogen atoms.
of atoms. The theory, however, have been seen, such as antiprotons Only one atom is slow enough
ignored Einstein’s special theory of An electron can and antineutrons. But all of them to have its properties
orbit a positron measured in detail.
relativity, which predicted, among have been extremely short-lived

6 ANNIHILATION
other things, that the electrons in because of their propensity to
some atoms should become more ‘annihilate’ whenever they meet their
An antihydrogen atom is
massive as they circle a nucleus at matter particle counterparts. From the
released from the trap and
close to the speed of light. beginning, however, it has been realised that annihilates with a proton in the
In 1928, Dirac succeeded in creating a it should be possible to combine an antiproton experiment wall. By detecting
quantum description of an atom that took and a positron to make an ‘anti-atom’ of how much subatomic shrapnel
account of special relativity. Puzzlingly, antihydrogen. And this is what CERN physicists goes down and how much goes
however, the Dirac equation appeared to are currently doing in the Antihydrogen Laser up, it became possible to see
predict the existence of a particle identical in Physics Apparatus (ALPHA) experiment. whether antimatter falls under
every way to the electron, except for an It’s a tremendously difficult task to make the influence of gravity.
opposite electric charge. Four years later, antiprotons, slow them down and combine

44
DID YOU KNOW? In 1936, Carl Anderson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering positrons

them with positrons. But Professor Jeffrey combined, and the massive amount of energy
Hangst and his colleagues at CERN are at the released would be used to propel the craft
stage where they can routinely trap a single forward at speeds that are unimaginable with ANTIMATTER
antihydrogen atom in a magnetic trap for
about an hour. Holding an anti-atom for a long
today’s propulsion technology – perhaps even
fast enough to enable travel to other star IS ALREADY
time is the goal for antimatter research, as it
potentially enables the measurement of
systems. But before we can achieve such lofty
goals, we need to find out more about
BEING USED
antihydrogen’s precise properties. antimatter’s properties. Antimatter is already routinely used in
It’s also what would be necessary if we are Hangst’s first target is measuring the medical imaging. In positron emission
to see spacecraft powered by antimatter. difference between the lowest energy level and tomography, or PET scanning, a tracer
Here, matter and antimatter would be next highest energy level of the positron in called fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) is
antihydrogen. The electron in a hydrogen atom injected into the body – it goes
wherever glucose would go. It contains
can orbit at a range of discrete distances from
Jeffrey Hangst, the fluorine-18, which spits out positrons.
the proton depending on the energy of the
master of antimatter These annihilate on encountering
electron – the higher the energy, the further
electrons, creating high-energy
photons. The resulting ‘gamma rays’
can be detected outside the body, so
ũ+ROGLQJDQDQWL doctors can see where the FDG goes.

DWRPIRUDORQJWLPH
LVWKHJRDODVLW
SRWHQWLDOO\HQDEOHV
WKHPHDVXUHPHQW
RIDQWLK\GURJHQŪ

PET scans create a three-dimensional

The ALPHA experiment has been
image of a patient’s body
designed to create antimatter and
investigate its properties

© Cern / Shutterstock

45
 SCIENCE

from the nucleus it orbits. “In normal hydrogen,

this difference is known to a mind-blowing
precision of a few parts in 1,000 million
million,” says Hangst. “Since no theory predicts
a difference between matter and antimatter, if
one were to show up in an experiment, it
would be Earth-shattering for physics.” Did
But physicist John Cramer, you know?
professor emeritus of physics at the Antimatter
University of Washington in Seattle, is comets have been
sceptical such a difference will actually proposed to exist
be seen. “Any difference in the energy
levels between matter and antimatter
hydrogen would be a major breakthrough,”
he says. And Hangst’s team isn’t the only one
racing to be the first to measure the energy
levels of antihydrogen. For this reason, he is
cagey about saying exactly how they will do it.
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t tell you,” he says.
“It’s top secret.” Creating antimatter at CERN
Could it be possible that some galaxy demands a lot of equipment
clusters are made of antigalaxies, with
antistars, antiplanets and, conceivably,

ũ%HIRUHZHbFDQDFKLHYHVXFKORƏW\JRDOV
anti-life? Unfortunately, nature has made it
hard for us to know. The photon – the particle

ZHbQHHGWRƉQGbRXWPRUHDERXW
of light – is its own antiparticle. In other words,
nature has engineered things so that any

DQWLPDƔHUŧVSURSHUWLHVŪ
possible antigalaxies are indistinguishable
from galaxies.

Producing just a tiny amount of

antimatter, such as this fictional

COULD WE BUILD AN
canister of antimatter from
2009’s Angels and Demons,
can cost trillions of dollars
ANTIMATTER WEAPON?
The massive energy released when matter
and antimatter combine could be a
destructive force to be reckoned with. In
Dan Brown’s novel Angels and Demons, a
papal official steals a vial of antimatter from
CERN and uses it to threaten the Vatican.
The question is, how realistic is such an
‘antimatter bomb’? The short answer is
not at all.
It would certainly be possible, with less
than a gram of antimatter, to create an
explosion as big as the atomic blast that
obliterated Hiroshima in 1945. However,
physicists at CERN have so far managed
to create less than one-10,000-billion-
billionths of this amount of antimatter. “An
antimatter bomb is not physics nonsense,”
says Cramer. “However, in the absence of
any cheap way of producing and storing
antimatter, it is economic nonsense.”
And if economics weren’t already a big
enough obstacle, there’s also the problem of
ensuring that there’s no premature loss of
antimatter. Even the tiniest leak would see
the carrier of the device blown apart long
© Paramount

before they reached their intended target.

46
DID YOU KNOW? Antimatter could propel a craft to Mars in a month, a journey which takes current craft at least nine months

DEVELOPING ANTIMATTER
PROPULSION FOR SPACECRAFT
Even our Solar System’s nearest stars are finding a cheap way of producing and storing opposite direction. The problem is that the
an immense distance away from Earth. If a antimatter. “This will require significant products of annihilation spray outwards in all
spaceship were to reach them in a reasonable technological progress,” says Cramer. directions. So some kind of super-strong
time, it would need to accelerate to a sizeable For one thing, producing antimatter fuel magnetic field would be needed in order to
portion of the speed of light and travel about would be an immense undertaking. “At current direct them.
a million times faster than a passenger jet. rates of production, it would take more than If all of these problems are eventually solved
Unfortunately, this would require a lot of fuel, the age of the universe to make a gram,” says – and there’s no reason to assume they can’t
which would add to the mass of a spacecraft Hangst. “And you’d have to put infinitely more be – as Cramer points out, there’s one more
and make it even more difficult to push. energy into making it than you would ever get significant fly in the ointment: “A trip to a
The annihilation of antimatter and matter out.” Another problem is storing antimatter on nearby star would very likely require more than
unleashes the most energy of any known fuel board a spaceship without any leakage. If any a human lifetime.” But antimatter annihilation
– 100 times more than any conceivable nuclear did leak, it would be catastrophic. is faster than any propulsion system we have
fuel. “Antimatter would be an excellent fuel for Finally, there’s the issue of how precisely right now. And as shown by over 200,000
travel within the Solar System and to nearby you would have to use annihilation to create a people who applied to be part of Mars One
stars since it’s a way of storing energy in a rocket effect. This requires any subatomic Foundation’s one-way trip to the Red Planet,
light and compact form,” says Cramer. The shrapnel produced in the annihilation to be it looks like there would be no shortage of
proviso is “whether the technology problems ejected in one direction so that the spaceship, volunteers to sign up for the ultimate
could be solved”. These problems include obeying Newton’s third law, is pushed in the adventure – one to other star systems.

© Cineclassico / Alamy Stock Photo / Eleanor Crow / Cern

An antimatter-powered spacecraft
could transport us at incredible
speeds, but the technology faces
many obstacles at present

47
 SCIENCE
t
s can disrup
Alarm clock m and
n rhyth
your circadia

WHY SOME PEOPLE

ss levels
increase stre

ARE ‘MORNING PEOPLE’

Do you prefer to lie in, or are you keen on an early rise?
WORDS AILSA HARVEY

ow do you react to that early Although you can control when you wake up your body clock can increase your risk of heart

H morning alarm clock? Is one

wake-up call enough to get you
jumping out of bed, or do you need
by setting alarms and planning your sleeping
schedule, ‘morning people’ have no trouble
getting up feeling energised.
disease, depression and obesity. Most people
naturally sleep between the hours of 23:00
and 07:00, but 0.2 per cent of us have a
several to provide a forceful nudge? All of our In fact, trying to change your body’s natural delayed sleep phase where our biological clock
bodies are programmed to internal biological circadian rhythm can be detrimental to your varies by more than two hours either side of
clocks, which are largely dictated by genes. health. Studies show that living out of sync with this. Evolutionarily speaking, humans have
slightly varying sleep cycles to increase the
21:00 02:00 chances of survival. Of our early ancestors,
This shows the body’s MELATONIN DEEPEST
SECRETION STARTS SLEEP morning people were awake early to remain
changes in a typical
alert to any potential dangers, while others
circadian rhythm 18:00 04:30 stayed up later for the same purpose, like
HIGHEST BODY LOWEST BODY
TEMPERATURE TEMPERATURE employees taking on shifts in the workplace.

17:00
BEST MUSCLE
06:45
SHARP BLOOD
HORMONES IN
MORNING PEOPLE
STRENGTH PRESSURE RISE

Cortisol and melatonin are the main

hormones that control your sleep-
wake cycle. Cortisol is the wake-up
hormone, and it increases in the body
15:30 07:30 between 06:00 and 08:00. This
prepares the body for consciousness
and activity throughout the day.
Cortisol is produced earlier and often
includes a greater peak in morning
people. Melatonin is the sleep
FASTEST MELATONIN
REACTIONS SECRETION hormone, which has the opposite
STOPS effect. It tells the body that it needs to
prepare for sleep. Morning people also
experience peaks in this hormone
earlier in the evening than night
people do, causing them to sleep
14:30 09:30 earlier and be alert in the early hours.
BEST
Did
TESTOSTERONE
COORDINATION SECRETION

you know?
PEAKS

12:00 10:00
BLOOD PRESSURE HIGHEST ‘Social jet lag’
PEAKS ALERTNESS describes an

MORNING LARKS AND NIGHT OWLS out-of-sync

biological clock
The natural preference of your body to fall begin being productive
asleep or be wide awake is called a chronotype. straight away. Meanwhile, night
Chronotypes make up part of your body’s owl chronotypes can train their bodies to wake
circadian rhythm. This is the 24-hour biological up to an early alarm, but their brains may not
© Alamy / Shutterstock

cycle that assists your body clock alongside a be as productive until later in the day. Children
range of physiological processes such as body generally have early chronotypes, and this This graph shows when melatonin and
temperature, hormones and metabolism. gradually gets later until adulthood. This is why cortisol levels are highest
Early bird chronotypes are conditioned to be some teenagers are thought of as lazy – they
able to wake up daily at 07:00 or earlier and simply haven’t adopted a later chronotype yet.

48
 DID YOU KNOW? Though rare on Earth, helium makes up about 24 per cent of the universe’s mass

WHERE DOES HELIUM ELEMENTAL

ESCAPE ARTIST

COME FROM?
The same quality that brings us
floating balloons is also one that
makes helium easy to lose. Helium
is mostly unreactive with other
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD
elements. This means that once
helium is released into the
This lighter-than-air element could one day atmosphere, it enters a natural
cycle and doesn’t find its way back
disappear from our planet into the ground. Once released, the
extremely light element continues
elium is the second most abundant systems such as magnetic resonance imaging to move through the atmosphere,

H element in the known universe.

However, on Earth it’s rare,
(MRI) machines need liquid helium to cool
down powerful magnets that let them look
escaping Earth’s gravity and
floating away into space. This

Did
only found deep beneath inside the human body. Space rocket makes it difficult to harvest it from
the atmosphere. Helium-recycling
you know?
the surface. Natural helium comes launches also need to use helium to
from the radioactive decay of other pressurise fuel tanks and cool down systems do exist to reuse the
elements, such as uranium and The US has 8.5 vital systems. element and reduce the risk of
thorium, over millions of years. As billion cubic metres However, helium is an endangered helium escaping into space. However,
of helium reserves element and a finite resource. With these are quite costly endeavours.
they decay, the particles of radiation
they release can gather electrons to no known way to artificially create it,
form new elements, including helium. it’s estimated that the world’s supply of
This radioactive decay occurs in rock deep helium could run out in around 300 years
beneath the surface, releasing the gas into based on the current rate of consumption.
gaseous reservoirs. Once extracted, the gas is
put through cryogenic distillation under high
pressures and extremely low temperatures to
extract the atoms from other natural gases to
make over 99 per cent pure helium.
Along with inflating party balloons, helium
is one of the most handy elements on Earth,
especially when it comes to cooling stuff down.
Around 5,000 tonnes of helium is lost into
Unlike most elements, liquid helium can reach
space each year
temperatures as low as -269 degrees Celsius,
which can be beneficial for many different
industries. For example, in hospitals, imaging

3 MIGRATION 4 GAS RESERVOIR

With nowhere to go, helium gas
comes 5 EXTRACTION 4 Helium can filter through
The word ‘helium’ porous rock above its source pools in enormous reserves along
elios,’ Drills excavate
from the Greek ‘h until it reaches a bedrock with any other gases that have
meaning Sun past the rock made the same journey, such
that’s impermeable.
that’s capping as nitrogen and methane.
off the reservoir
before a piping
system is installed 1 SOURCE ROCK
to syphon the Helium comes from rocks
natural gas. that contain uranium and

DIGGING
thorium, such as granite.

FOR HELIUM
How engineers pop underground bubbles
5
of helium to extract the gas within
2 HELIUM-4
The natural helium 3
extracted from the Earth is
© Alamy / Shutterstock

an isotope called helium-4.

This is the same element
with a slightly different
atomic structure.
4
HE 2

1 3
HE
49
 HISTORY

Do you know your timekeepers

from navigation devices?
WORDS AILSA HARVEY

50
DID YOU KNOW? Watches measured to the quarter hour until minutes were introduced in 1577
2
5
5 BALL CONTAINER

TIMEPIECES
The string pulled on a
container in this gold dome,
which opened to release a ball.

2 HOUR INDICATION
The number of hours that had

A TIME BEFORE
passed since sunrise were
shown by the black circles on 4 STRING
CLOCKS
this disc. The white circles PULL
were balls that were released After half an
in half-hour intervals. hour, when
An easy one to start with:
1 these devices were a natural the bowl sank
to the bottom
way of telling time, with
the movements of the Sun throughout 6 SERPENT CATCHER 6 of the water,
the day casting shadows on different The released ball fell into the it fell to one
parts of the equipment. Their use can serpent’s mouth, causing the side, tugging
serpent to lean downwards. on this string.
be traced back to ancient Egypt, and
they were commonplace on church
walls across the UK during medieval
times. At the centre of its circular 2
plate was a protruding style, called a

7 SPINNING SERPENT
gnomon. This is what blocked the
sunlight to cast a shadow. Some
of the earlier versions had marked 12TH-CENTURY As the head moved
7
CLOCK
downwards, the tail
lines dividing a curved plate into 12
rotated anticlockwise,
segments. This signified the 12 hours
pulling the string
of the day. The line that the point of Medieval engineer Ismail al-Jazari upwards and resetting
the shadow reached indicated the was responsible for this invention. the bucket to start
hour of the day. However, because His masterpiece was one of his the timer again.
days were shorter in winter and longer most noteworthy designs of this
in the summer, hours were different time-telling instrument
periods of time based on the season.
4
They were called ‘seasonal hours’.
Islamic scientists invented more 9 30-MINUTE CHIME
accurate instruments that maintained This statue was 1
equal hours throughout the year. connected to the vase.
When the ball dropped
into the vase, it pushed a 9
lever that caused the
statue’s arms to move
downwards and hit the 8
symbols on the
elephant’s head.

Did
you know? 8 BALL 1 SCRIBE
COLLECTION A scribe statue
Mechanical clocks The serpent’s rotated on a
replaced ancient head lowered disc, moving his
tools from the to this point, pen’s position to
1300s releasing the display the time
ball from its and acting as
3
Is this a…? mouth into
this container.
the clock’s
minute hand.

A. Sundial
B. Water clock 3 WATER CONTAINER
C. Wristwatch Inside the model Is this a…?
elephant’s body was a
bowl that floated on water.
It had a small hole in the
A. Water clock
These instruments were often built bottom controlling the B. Sextant
vertically on south-facing walls speed it sank, and a string
attached to the scribe that C. Wristwatch
© Alamy

pulled him in a circle.

51
 HISTORY

CELESTIAL TRACKING
ASTRONOMY 6
This spherical tool tracked the movements of
planets and stars. Smaller versions were used
as a teaching instrument to
demonstrate how the known objects in the

UNIVERSE DEPICTION
Solar System moved. Its metal rings
represent the horizon, equator,
tropics and the Arctic and
This instrument represented the
3 observable universe of medieval times.
Antarctic Circle.
The centre point depicted the user of the
device. The line across the middle represented
the horizon, with the half of the instrument that Is this a…? Is this a…?
contains most of the inner circle representing
A. Quadrant
everything above the user and the other half A. Armillary
everything below the horizon and out of sight. B. Armillary
Each of the shapes pointing into the centre sphere
indicated a specific star, together forming a sphere
map of the night sky. There were around 1,000 B. Astrolabe
C. Equatorium
different ways to use this instrument, from
establishing the direction of Mecca for
C. Equatorium
Muslim prayers to telling the time.

ASTRONOMICAL
POLARIS POSITION CALENDAR
This was used to measure the angular
4
This was a medieval calendar that used
elevation of stars in the sky from the
horizon, with its first documented use
7 a rotating system to track events such as
Moon phases and astrological positions.
being to measure Polaris, the North Star, in the
The discs were held together with a pin, and each
mid-1400s. However, the instrument is thought
had different markings, from lunar phases to
to have been used before this. Based on Polaris’
zodiac signs. When different elements aligned,
height, explorers and sailors could work out their
it helped people predict
latitude, which was useful for navigating oceans.
astronomical events.
The user looked along one edge towards the star,
pointing the cornered edge towards it. The
pointer followed the angle along the curved
edge to record a reading.
Is this a…?
A. Torquetum
Is this a…? B. Armillary
A. Quadrant B. Torquetum C. Volvelle sphere
C. Volvelle

PLANETARY
POSITIONS PLANET PREDICTOR
Used to calculate the
5 position of planets, this This tool was useful for calculating planetary
instrument had a series of 8 positions and predicting their next
movements, based on the Ptolemaic
plates held together at different
angles. These measured three astronomy model. While instrument number 4 was
coordinate systems: equatorial, used for navigational applications, this one was for
ecliptic and terrestrial. It measured astronomical calculations.
the relative positions between
celestial objects, meaning it could
also be used to tell the time by Is this a…?
measuring the Sun’s position.
Is this a…? A. Astrolabe
A. Torquetum B. Quadrant C. Astrolabe B. Equatorium
C. Volvelle
52
DID YOU KNOW? The first universities emerged in the late-11th century, leading to advancements in science

ANGLE-MEASURING TOOL
SMOOTH SAILING: 11
These devices consisted of an arc shape marked with
degrees and a movable arm that pivoted so that the
end of the arm slid across the arc. The instrument

BOAT NAVIGATION TOOLS was used to find the angle between the horizon and a point in
the sky, such as a star. The purpose of this ancient
instrument was to calculate the longitudinal or latitudinal
position of the user. For example, the latitude of an observer
was determined by how high the Sun sat in the sky at noon.
By looking through the eyepiece at the horizon and lining up
the instrument’s movable arm with a celestial object, an angle
SAILING SPEEDOMETER was determined. The angle between the horizon and the Sun
was then calculated, showing the user’s position on Earth.
A way of measuring a
9 ship’s speed, this device
Is this a…?
used a rope knotted at
regular intervals. The rope had a Is this a…? Did
piece of wood attached to one A. Lead line you know?
end, which was thrown in the
water to float behind the boat. B. Chip log A. Sextant Magnetic
Within a set time, the number of
C. Nocturnal B. Chip log compasses were
used in Europe by
knots that had unravelled from the
log gave the vessel’s speed. D. Sextant C. Nocturnal the 1300s

D. Lead line

The knots were counted during a single run

of an hourglass, often lasting 28 seconds

This was used to map the SEAFLOOR

contours of the seafloor
for navigational charts SCOOPER
This marine navigation tool is
10 one of the oldest known. It
was primarily used to check
water depth. It was a rope marked
with depth lines with a hollow lead
weight attached to the end. The lead
sunk to the bottom of the ocean, and
pulling the rope tight enabled sailors
to read the depth against the water’s
surface. Animal fat was placed in the
middle of the lead,
which would
collect material
Is this a…? from the seafloor.
As sailors knew
A. Sextant the seas well, the
characteristics of
B. Lead line the seafloor could
Medieval instruments were often
C. Nocturnal help indicate the
© Alamy

boat’s location. made of brass for durability and

D. Chip log so they could be engraved

53
 HISTORY

Is this a…? E

A. Sextant
A
B. Lead line B
C. Nocturnal
D. Chip log D

C
F

12
MEDICAL
NIGHT NAVIGATION
At night, the stars could be used for time DEVICES
telling – this instrument collected essential
data to calculate the distance travelled
ly
CALCIUM This medical tool was an ear
specialised surgic al ins trument
A OUTER DIAL C ALIDADE
be used as
The calendar dial This moveable
reference points.
This is because
GRABBER
had the months of arm was rotated to When urine becomes too medieval period was often risky and
13
all stars move at
the year. This was point to specific consistent rates. concentrated, its calcium, unsanitary, but at the time, this
set before use to reference stars uric acid, salt and other invention was much less intrusive
be accurate with
seasonal star
and record an
accurate time.
F HANDLE dissolved chemicals can crystallise and safer than open surgery.
The navigator held and form hard stones in the bladder
references.
D STAR CENTRE
on here to keep the and kidneys. These stones cause
B INNER DIAL
instrument steady pain, ongoing infections and
A small viewing for alignment. blockages if left untreated. This
The inner dial had hole at the centre
medieval medical tool had two long Is this a…?
the hours of the day
marked around it.
was used to line up
reference stars,
G EYE ALIGNMENT arms that reached and grasped
Lining up the tool like Polaris.
The navigator
positioned their eye
stones like scissors. A small A. Scarificator
with the stars made incision was made in the patient’s
it point to the E REFERENCE STAR
at the sight hole so
that they could view
body for the tool to be pushed into B. Lithotome
correct time. Polaris, or other
nearby stars, could
the star through it.
the kidney or bladder. When it was
located, the tool opened and closed
C. Pill machine
around the stone. Surgery in the

54
DID YOU KNOW? Bloodletting was the standard treatment for gout, epilepsy, smallpox and the plague

BLOOD RELEASER
A common treatment for
WEATHER MEASURES
14 many diseases over multiple
centuries was to release blood
from the body in large volumes, as it
was believed toxins could be flushed
out, solving any fluid imbalances. This MEASURING HUMIDITY WITH HAIR
specific tool was one of the medicinal This masterful device was variables such as air
instruments invented for this common
practice. The metal device had up to
16 invented after it was discovered temperature could
that air humidity and hair length render the readings
16 small blades inside changed in direct proportion to each less accurate.
it. When its lever other: hair became longer when the air
was pulled, the was wetter. A single strand of hair was
blades quickly stretched taut in the machine and
punctured the attached to a movable pointer. In humid Is this a…?
skin to allow conditions, the hair absorbed moisture
blood to be
drained.
from the air that made it lengthen, while A. Hair hygrometer
in dry air the hair would shrink. As the
hair changed in length, it caused the B. Anemometer
Is this a…?
pointer to move to display the humidity
level. While humidity changed the length
C. Barometer
of the hair in a predictable fashion, other
A. Lithotome
B. Pill machine
D PLACEMENT B CUPS D
C. Scarificator HEIGHT These medieval
B
The instrument instruments had
was most cups or sails that
effective when were blown by the
above ground wind to measure
level and higher wind speed.
than other A
obstacles that
could block
the wind. A WIND VANE E
The larger tail of
C
17
the arrow caught
the wind until it
was streamlined, E PROPELLERS
ANCIENT
pointing to where Propeller systems,
MAKING MEDICATION
the wind was as opposed to
coming from.

WEATHER
cups, reacted
In medieval times, medicinal herbs were more quickly
15
STATION
combined by hand. These may first have to changes in
been ground into a powder and mixed wind speed.
with a binding agent, such as gum. The mixture How this spinning spectacle
was then rolled into lines and placed horizontally calculated wind speed C VERTICAL
along the grooves of this instrument. By taking SHAFT
the handheld part and rolling the mixture across The cups were
the board, the grooves separated it into mounted on a
smaller pieces before the mixture
Did
stable base,
was rolled off the machine to Is this a…? but moved
dry out. you know? freely around
Astrology and A. Barometer it on an axis.
religion were part B. Anemometer
Is this a…? of Medieval science
C. Hair hygrometer
A. Scarificator
© Alamy / Shutterstock

B. Pill machine
C. Lithotome 13. Lithotome 14. Scarificator, 15. Pill machine, 16. Hair hygrometer, 17. Anemometer
sphere, 7. Volvelle, 8. Equatorium, 9. Chip log, 10. Lead line, 11. Sextant 12. Nocturnal,
ANSWERS: 1. Sundial, 2. Water clock, 3. Astrolabe, 4. Quadrant, 5. Torquetum, 6. Armillary

55
 HISTORY

HOW THE DUTCH

MADE HOLLAND
BIGGER
Nearly 800 years ago, The Netherlands
was smaller than it is today
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

A RECORD
RECLAIMING
There are thousands of polders
throughout The Netherlands. One of
the largest is the ‘Noordoostpolder’,
or Northeast polder, in the province of
Flevoland. The polder, completed in
1962, spans 185 square miles and is
the largest in the world. Along the
west portion of the Noordoostpolder
dyke is The Netherlands’ largest
wind farm, with 86 wind turbines
generating around 1.4 billion
In the 13th century, windmills like this were used as kilowatt-hours of energy each year.
pumping stations to reclaim land lost in a giant flood That’s enough energy to power
approximately 400,000 homes.
In 1941, work began on a polder that
would have outshone the Northeast
ince the first settlers arrived in The Dutch reclaimed their land was using a ‘polder

S
polder, called the Markerwaard. Its
Netherlands around the 5th century system’. This worked by sectioning off a small initial design would have added 231
CE, its people have been finding chunk of the Zuiderzee with dykes, called a square miles to the reclamation count
ways to protect themselves from ‘polder’. Then windmills turned Archimedes and been encompassed by a 65-mile-
the thrashing waves of the neighbouring North screws, a kind of ancient water pump, to create long dyke. However, in 2006 the Dutch
Sea. From building villages on top of earthy a pumping station that lifted the water out of government abandoned the project,
mounds to barricading walls called dykes, the the polder. Eventually, all the water was largely due to silt along the lake floor

Did
early history of the nation was governed drained from the polder, returning it to that halted its construction.
by water management. However, in
1287, no amount of earth mounds
you know? land that residents could transform
back into settlements and fields.
A satellite view of Noordoo
could keep the North Sea out when The Netherlands To protect The Netherlands stpolder taken
by the Copernicus Sentine
a mighty flood surged inland during has an area of from another Saint Lucia-level l-1 mission
the Christian holiday of Saint Lucia’s around 16,000 flooding event and rising sea levels,
Day on 13 December. The flood square miles a 20-mile-long dam called the
swept through the country, killing up Afsluitdijk was constructed in 1932,
to 80,000 people in the process. The running across the Zuiderzee and
deluge also created a new body of water separating the seawater of the North Sea
around 60 miles inland called the Zuiderzee, from the freshwater of the IJsselmeer, also
meaning the Southern Sea. known as Lake IJssel. Since the installation of
To reclaim the land lost in the flood, the the Afsluitdijk, many polders have popped up
people of The Netherlands dug ditches and in Lake IJssel and across the nation. So far, it’s
built dykes to divert water back to the North estimated that more than 620 square miles of
Sea. One of the most ingenious ways the land have been reclaimed.

56
DID YOU KNOW? Around 27 per cent of The Netherlands is below sea level, behind an extensive dyke system

Around 20 per cent

THE POWER OF of The Netherlands’

land mass has been

THE POLDER
reclaimed from the
North Sea
How a system of windmills makes water
move uphill to reveal new land
1300 2024
3 MOTORS 2 WINDMILL 2
In modern-day polder PUMPING STATION
systems, electrical In medieval times, wind
motors are used to turn turned the sails of a
Archimedes screws. windmill, in turn
spinning the blades of
Archimedes screws.

5 DITCHES
Long ditches are dug to funnel the water
towards the pumping station. Once the
3 water is drained, ditches are used as
1 sites to install underground drainage.
4
5
6 6 SEEDING LAND
Once all the water has
been removed, the
ground is seeded
to strengthen and dry
out the ground.

1 DYKE
Large mounds of natural
materials, such as rock 4 ARCHIMEDES SCREW The North Sea is blocked
from spilling inland by a
and sand, are used to Rotating blades lift the
giant dam, the Afsluitdijk
create a perimeter called water from inside the
a dyke to separate the dyke and release it on the
ocean or river water from other side, back into the
the reclaimed land. ocean or river system.

“The early history of the nation was

governed by water management”

LAND RECLAMATION A THE PALM around 2.5 square miles. under construction in

PROJECTS AROUND JUMEIRAH, DUBAI

Construction of this
It’s expected the new city
will house 250,000 people.
Malaysia: Island A is set to
be around 3.6 square
© Shutterstock / Copernicus Sentinel; ESA / Illustration by Nicholas Forder

THE WORLD artificial archipelago

finished in 2007. By C LERWICK, SCOTLAND
miles, Island B around 2.2
square miles and Island C
dredging and building a The Lerwick Port Authority around one square mile.
0.7-mile dyke along will undertake a land-
C Dubai’s coastline, around reclamation project of E DALIAN JINZHOUWAN
two square miles of new around 4,000 square INTERNATIONAL
land became available for metres in the Scottish AIRPORT, CHINA
E hotels and resorts. harbour to expand the Due to be completed in
A fishing industry in the area. 2035, this airport is being
B D B EKO ATLANTIC built in China on around
CITY, NIGERIA D PENANG SOUTH eight square miles of
By 2023, a third of the land RECLAMATION reclaimed land. The
needed to create a PROJECT, MALAYSIA terminal building will have
residential city in Nigeria Three islands reclaimed the capacity for 40 million
had been reclaimed – from the sea are currently passengers annually.

57
 HISTORY

THE 50-YEAR
COAL MINE FIRE
An aerial view of Flames emerging from the
the abandoned coal mine fire beneath a
town of Centralia, village in Jharia
Pennsylvania

Why a mine beneath a Pennsylvanian ghost

town is perpetually engulfed in flames
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

once-busy town in Pennsylvania holiday for honouring and mourning US military

INDIA’S COALFIELD
FLAMES
A has been left to ruin in the wake of a
raging mine fire beneath its surface.
Over 100 years ago, Centralia was
personnel, a Centralia Borough resident is
thought to have ignited the waste to reduce its
volume, odour and possible ‘public health
In Jharia, a region in the Dhanbad
district of Jharkhand, India, coalfields
a bustling mining town with around 1,200 vectors’. Unfortunately, this is when the fire span more than 100 square miles.
residents. The town’s miners excavated vast likely spread to the mine nearby. The sheer Coal has been mined in the region
amounts of coal and created networks of mines heat and depth of the fire have made it difficult since the 1800s. Between 2022 and
at the edge of Centralia. However, in 1962 the to tackle, leading to people moving from the 2023 alone, Jharkhand produced
mine was set alight, and fire began to spread town over the years. In 2022, there were just more than 156 million tonnes of coal.
through the once-coveted coal within it. Over five permanent residents of Centralia. However, along with mining a lot of
90 metres below the surface, the fire burns at coal, Jharia has ignited 70 coal mine
over 480 degrees Celsius. It’s estimated that fires – one of which has been burning
Smoke bursting through a crack for more than 100 years. Discovered in
the fire will rage on for up to 250 more years,
along Pennsylvania Route 61 1916, the first coal mine fire in Jharia
ripping through around 3,700 acres of
underground coal. Around 2,000 boreholes has caused extensive subsidence on
have been installed throughout Centralia to the surface and thwarted attempts by
monitor its progress and vent the harmful the Indian government to extinguish it.
It’s estimated that around 37 million
smoke and poisonous gases.
tonnes of coal have been lost to coal
There have been many plausible stories as
mine fires in Jharia, with access to
to how the mine fire was ignited. However, a
over 1.4 billion tonnes of unmined
commonly accepted theory involves the coal blocked by flames.
intentional burning of waste at an adjacent
landfill site. Ahead of Memorial Day, a federal

HOW THE FIRES Did

you know?
KEEP BURNING
The cause and consequence of abandoned
6 5 Centralia was
once known as
coal mines burning underground Bull’s Head
4
1 ENTRANCE
Airflow is drawn in
through the
entrance and any 5 CREVICES
Cracks and
other openings 3 2
© Getty / Shutterstock / Illustration by Adrian Mann

crevices form in
to the mine, bringing 1 6 SMOKE the rock above the
with it the oxygen
needed to sustain Toxic smoke and gases, mine due to the
a fire. such as carbon monoxide building pressure
and methane, escape of gases released
through crevices to the surface. from the fire.

2 SUBSIDENCE 4 HOT AIR

As the mine burns and 3 COMBUSTION ZONES Air within the mine is heated by the fire
crumbles, the rock and sediment Pillars of coal spontaneously and vented through crevices, creating a
above it fall inside, causing combust under the heat of the change in pressure at the surface and causing
subsidence on the surface. fire and the presence of oxygen. cool, oxygenated air to run back into the fire.

58
A CAREFULLY CURATED SELECTION FROM THE LAST 13
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 WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

lack of wings and inability to

A fly hasn’t stopped people from

finding ways of soaring through
the sky. The bravest have fought
the forces of gravity by using a ‘wingsuit’ to
glide down from planes and jump from cliffs.
Commercially used since the late 1990s, a
wingsuit is a full-body suit incorporating
aerodynamic fabrics between the arms
and legs. Following an airborne jump or
BASE jump – Building, Antennae,
Did
Span (bridge) and Earth (typically
a cliff top) – gliders extend their
you know?
arms and legs outwards, stretching The highest However, that’s
the adjoining material. wingsuit BASE not always the case.
Transforming skydivers into
jump was 7,700 Wingsuit jumps are
metres
human flying squirrels, the wingsuit one of the most
exploits a force called lift to control dangerous sports in the
their descent through the air to glide world, and it takes advanced
horizontally rather than fall vertically. A skill and experience to execute one
wingsuit does this by increasing the surface successfully. Between 2002 and 2019,
area of the body, along with increasing the there were 344 recorded wingsuit flying
air resistance pushing up against the wings. fatalities, with an overall wingsuit death
For optimal gliding and lift generation, the of around one in every 500 jumps. What
wingsuit helps transform the shape of the separates a wingsuit from an aircraft is its
body into what’s called an ‘airfoil’. Much inability to generate enough lift to ascend
like the wings and propellers of an aircraft, during flight. However, with the help of some
the curved shape of an airfoil creates an electrified thrusters, wingsuits can quickly
environment where the air crossing over soar through the sky.
the top of the airfoil experiences lower BMW created the world’s first electrified
pressure than the air moving beneath it. wingsuit, which stuntman Peter Salzmann
This difference in pressure generates enough took for a spin in 2020. The dual chest-
lift for the wingsuit to glide around three mounted electric turbines gave Salzmann
metres horizontally for every metre it falls a 186-mile-per-hour speed, compared to a
vertically. To steer, the wingsuit wearer only typical non-electrified descent of around 62
needs to change the shape or angle of the miles per hour. To control his speed in the air,
wingsuit to change direction. Towards the Salzmann could operate a two-finger throttle,
end of the jump, gliders deploy a parachute as well as a cutoff switch in the event of an
strapped to their back to gently lower them emergency. Similarly, skydiving company Wingsuits increase air resistance
to the ground safely. SkyVibraton has created the ‘E-Wings’ project

60
 DID YOU KNOW? In 2016, former helicopter pilot Kyle Lobpries travelled 19.94 miles in a wingsuit

An electrified wingsuit
on display
1 LOW PRESSURE
WINGSUIT
at the Greentech Festi
val in 2021
During flight, low air

DYNAMICS
pressure forms over
the top of the wing.

The natural forces that keep SMALL DRAG

2 HIGH PRESSURE
gliders flying forwards The air beneath the
wing seeks to equal
out the lower pressure
on top and increases
JUMPER’S BODY 3 to compensate.
WHEN DIVING
4 3 DIVE
Airflow faces the
1 least resistance
over the airfoil during
a dive and generates
2 little lift.

SMALL ANGLE OF ATTACK LARGE DRAG 4 GLIDE

The airflow pressure
beneath the airfoil is
AIRFLOW greater than above it,
generating more lift to
5 slow its descent.

5 CREATING DRAG
A vortex forms at the
wingtips that disturbs
airflow and creates air
resistance, or drag.

6 POSITIONING
When the airfoil is at
an almost 90-degree
LARGE ANGLE OF ATTACK angle to the direction
of motion, it
experiences maximum
JUMPER’S BODY WHEN 6
drag, and thus the
SLOWING DOWN slowest descent.

5 FACTS: EVOLUTION OF WINGSUIT S

1 FIRST FLIGHT IDEA

Leonardo da Vinci was 2 FAILURE TO LAUNCH
French tailor Franz 3 THE ‘BIRD MAN’
In 1937, parachute 4 WOODEN WINGS
In the 1950s, French 5 1990S BIRDMAN
The first commercial
© Alamy / Getty / Shutterstock

first to study the potential of Reichelt designed a suit for jumper Clem Sohn put his daredevil Léo Valentin made wingsuit was created by
human flight in the late-15th pilots that, like a parachute, wingsuit to the test, jumping a wooden wingsuit attached professional skydiver
century. Among hundreds would expand if they were from an aircraft at around to a tubular steel corset. In Jari Kuosma. Kuosma
of da Vinci’s sketches on ejected from an aircraft. In 3,650 metres altitude. While 1954 he glided with the suit showcased the new
theories of flight was the 1912, he tested the suit by the fabric wings gave him for three miles from around BirdMan wingsuit in 1999
winged ‘ornithopter’ flying leaping from the Eiffel Tower. some movement through 2,700 metres to around when he carried out the
machine. However, the Sadly, the suit didn’t open, the air, his parachute failed, 900 metres altitude before suit’s first BASE jump from
design was never built. and Reichelt died. and Sohn fell to his death. parachuting to the ground. cliff tops in Arco, Italy.

61
 TRANSPORT

– a wingsuit equipped with two batteries and Jetman Dubai company to develop and

THE
four turbines, each capable of generating up manufacture more Jetwings.
to 14 kilograms of thrust and flight speeds of In 2020, the company launched its first

ORIGINAL
more than 173 miles per hour. autonomous human flight from the ground up
But if gliding with a fabric wingsuit doesn’t to 1,800 metres. The hard carbon-fibre wings

JETMAN
scratch your itch to fly, then strapping on a are propelled by four mini jet engines that can
mini jet backpack might be just the ticket. In generate enough thrust to propel the pilot up
2006, Yves Rossy, an Air Force pilot from to around 250 miles per hour. With the ability The technology aboard Yves
Switzerland, created a jet-powered ‘hard to hover, roll and reach altitudes of up to Rossy’s pioneering Jetwing
wingsuit’ that soared through the air for six 6,100 metres, the Jetwing transforms the
minutes. Two years later, Rossy became the pilot into their own aircraft.
first person to fly over the English Channel 2 SAFE DESCENT 2
using the same suit, now known as the Pilots are equipped with a
parachute, like any other
Jetwing. It took the Swiss pilot less than ten
minutes to cross the Channel after being Did 1 FUEL wingsuit, to be deployed
dropped from a plane 2,500 metres above you know? Each of the engines are
powered by kerosene fuel,
before landing.
Calais, France. Rossy reached speeds of The wingsuit speed which is stored in tanks on
around 186 miles per hour to make the record is 246.6 each side of the wings.
crossing before deploying his parachute miles per hour
for a safe landing in St Margaret’s Bay,
1
England. Over the years, Rossy has used the
Jetwing to cross parts of the Alps and even
the Grand Canyon, and in 2015 set up the

3 ROBUST WINGS
Carbon-fibre panels make up 4
the suit’s wings, which have
a span of 2.4 metres.

Pilot Yves Rossy flying his

jet-fitted wingsuit in the
region of Bex, Switzerland

7 TURBINES
Internal turbines within each
engine spin at around 98,000
revolutions per minute to
generate thrust.

62
DID YOU KNOW? The record time for the longest wingsuit flight is nine minutes and six seconds

ũ5RVV\EHFDPHWKHƉUVW
SHUVRQWRƊ\RYHUWKH(QJOLVK
&KDQQHOXVLQJWKHVDPHVXLW WINGLESS FLYING
QRZNQRZQDVWKH-HWZLQJŪ The era of real-life jetpacks is here.
Taking flight without the need to
launch from an airborne plane or
strapping on a pair of wings has
5 EMERGENCY CUTOFF now been made possible thanks to a
In the event of an emergency, company called Gravity Industries.
a release handle can be Using five gas turbines, the company
pulled to immediately cut the has developed the Daedalus Flight
engines and separate the Pack, which can lift pilots from the
pilot from the suit. ground and into the air to altitudes of
up to 3,658 metres. The jet suit can
top speeds of over 50 miles per hour
and has a range of around three miles.
Along with being used for recreational
flight experiences, Gravity Industries
has shown the suit’s possible use in
military and search-and-rescue
operations. In 2022, Gravity Industries
took part in the NATO mountain
warfare rescue exercise to deliver
blood plasma to injured soldiers.

Richard Browning, founder of Gravity Industries,

flying the Daedalus Flight Pack in Wiltshire, England

5 4 HEAT RESISTANCE
Pilots wear heat-resistant
flight suits to protect
their bodies from the
heat of the engines.

7 © Alamy / Shutterstock / Illustration by Adrian Mann

6 ENGINES
Four JetCat P400 jet
engines deliver the thrust
to propel the Jetwing
through the air.

63
 TRANSPORT

HOW CAR COMPUTERS WORK

Within almost 4 BATTERY
The battery management system
every car is a (BMS) controls and monitors the
performance of the vehicle’s 4
high-tech computer found battery and is more commonly
in electric or hybrid cars.
controlling and
1 ENGINE
monitoring how engine
Sensors within the
control module
1

we drive (ECM) monitor air 8

flow, temperature 7
and fuel injection.
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

odern-day cars are packed full

M of sensors, microprocessors
and different electronic control
units (ECUs), which take care of
different aspects of the car, including locking
systems, automatic braking and monitoring
engine efficiency. If you’ve ever seen the
check-engine light flash on your dashboard,
that’s the result of small sensors in the
engine’s ECU alerting you to a change in 7 SECURITY
A car’s immobiliser is an
one of the qualities it monitors, such as
electronic security system
temperature or oxygen levels. Together, that differs from car to car,
the ECUs create the car’s computer ‘brain’, but commonly sounds an
all connected through a communication alarm without the correct
‘nervous system’ called a controller area key fob and can stop the
network (CAN). The CAN relays information engine from starting.
gathered from up to 100 different sensors
around the vehicle to each ECU so that the the accelerator and an internal combustion
vehicle works in harmony. engine was replaced in 1998 to include an 8 NAVIGATION
Built-in global positioning
One of the first ECUs emerged in the 1960s electrical go-between. In the Volvo 280, this
systems (GPS) process your
from German car manufacturer Volkswagen severed the link between the pedal and the location and speed through
when it released the Type 3, the first car engine and bridged the connection with a sensors such as lidar and radar.
to host a computer-controlled electronic fuel computer. When the pedal is pushed, it
injection (EFI). The EFI controlled the mixture generates an electrical signal to the
of air and fuel in the car’s injection system
to prove fuel consumption efficiency and
computer that opens the throttle of the
car’s engine. Within the last 20 years, BEHIND THE
improve the quality of its emissions. Over the
decades, more and more ECUs have been
manufacturers have completely transformed
what a car is capable of. From built-in AI STEERING
added into the world’s cars to transform the
way we drive. For example, what was once a
assistants to driverless vehicles, the new
age of all-electric cars is reliant on onboard WHEEL
Discover the various
direct connection between the foot pedal of computers to function.
components your car’s
computer keeps tabs on

CAR TECHNOLOGY MILESTONES

1911 1940 1955 1958 1976

ELECTRIC STARTER ELECTRIC WINDOWS AIR CONDITIONING CRUISE CONTROL DIGITAL DISPLAY
In place of a hand crank The first electrically The first production The Chrysler Imperial The Aston Martin
starter, the first electric powered windows in a car car fitted with air was also the first car to Lagonda was the first car
ignition starter was were found in the doors conditioning was the have cruise control to feature digital display
invented and introduced of the Packard 180. Chrysler Imperial, with to maintain a on the dashboard.
on the 1912 Cadillac. three settings. constant speed.

64
 DID YOU KNOW? In 2024, Volkswagen presented the first vehicle with AI chatbot ChatGPT integrated into its onboard voice assistant

3 AIR BAGS 5 BODY

When the crash sensors Did
around the vehicle are
The body control module
(BCM) is responsible for
you know? CAR HACKING
triggered during a collision, the controlling the headlights, There are around Like your smartphone or laptop, car
air bag system is deployed. door locks and window 30 million computers are susceptible to outside
stitches throughout the car. driverless cars in interference. From cracking key fobs
the world to hacking into car servers, malicious
minds have found various ways to
break into cars without breaking any

6 TYRE PRESSURE
glass. Most cars have built-in digital
defences that make hacking a rarity,
Many vehicles are equipped
but sometimes vulnerabilities in
3 with pressure sensors in the
the car’s system make it easier for
5 tyres to alert the driver when
hackers to find their way in. For
they are under-inflated.
example, in 2024, researchers
discovered a vulnerability in the
website of the South Korean car
manufacturer Kia. The technical bug
allowed potential hackers to remotely
track vehicles with their number
6 plates. Researchers created an
experimental app that could track
the coordinates of Kia vehicles
through their onboard
computers and even control
different functions in the
cars, locking the doors and
starting the engines. After
reporting their findings to
Kia, the bug was resolved.

2 BRAKING
The anti-lock braking system
(ABS), which prevents wheel
locking during hard braking, Even cars aren’t safe from
operates by monitoring wheel the threat of hackers
speed and brake pressure.

1990 1996 2002 2003 2013

GPS CONNECTED CARS REVERSING CAMERA PARKING SENSORS INTERNET ENABLED

© Alamy / Shutterstock

In Japan, the Mazda The OnStar system was The Nissan Primera was In development since the Audi launched the SE
Eunos Cosmo became launched in the Cadillac the first car to integrate a 1970s, the first mass- Sportback, which could
the first car with an de Ville. The system could camera display on the produced car equipped connect to the internet
integrated GPS system. call 911 in the US in the dashboard of live footage with this technology via a sim card and act as
event of an accident. when reversing. was the Toyota Prius. a 4G Wi-Fi hotspot.

65
 ENVIRONMENT

How the origin of everything alive on Earth

today points to one ancient organism
WORDS SCOTT DUTFIELD

66
DID YOU KNOW? The first animal fossil evidence dates back to 574 million years ago
An illustration of a protocell, with a cell
rmation
membrane encompassing genetic info
umans have been trudging around reproduce, protocells are merely a collection

H the planet for the last 300,000

years or so, which is a mere fraction
of the 4 billion years that life has
of non-living components.
It’s taken scientists a long time to put an age
on a hypothetical cell, but in 2024, researchers
existed on Earth. Less than 4 million years after added an extra 300 million years to previous
the Earth formed, something brought the age estimates. Now it’s believed that the
ingredients for life together. It may have ancestral origin of all life came about 4.2

Did
triggered a biological domino effect, billion years ago. This new birthday

you know? genetic mutations of 700 living

culminating in life’s abundance in came from comparing the shared
every corner of the planet. But
where and how did it all begin? A typical human species of bacteria and microbes
If you ask a biologist, they’ll likely cell divides every called archaea.
tell you that a single cell named the 24 hours LUCA may have been born from
last universal common ancestor an oceanic concoction of organic
(LUCA) is the first organism to have compounds commonly known as
ever existed. This theoretical single-celled the ‘primordial soup’. The theory of a
organism likely had a simple membrane life-creating soup of organic molecules was
and used RNA (ribonucleic acid) to store proposed by Russian biochemist Alexander
genetic information, much like our DNA Oparin and British geneticist John B. S.
(deoxyribonucleic acid). LUCA may have Haldane in the 1920s. The theory suggests
started as a precursor to biological cells, that a lightning strike or ultraviolet radiation
called a protocell. Whereas biological cells brought together atmospheric methane,
are self-contained, gene-filled and able to ammonia and ocean water, creating the

PRIMORDIAL SOUP
LIFE’S BUILDING
7
BLOCKS
Why the specific ingredients that made
3
5 the first living cell are so important
1
1 SIMPLE SUGARS 5 AMINO ACIDS
SIMPLE FATTY ACIDS AMINO ACIDS NUCLEOTIDES Scientists are still unsure Amino acids are
SUGARS where simple sugars composed largely of
came from, but many nitrogen, which may have
believe they likely been derived from early
emerged from a small atmospheric sources
molecule called of nitrogen, such
glyoxylate. as ammonia.

8
2 CARBOHYDRATES 6 PROTEINS
2 4 6 When simple sugars join When amino acid
together, they form molecules link up they
cellular carbohydrates form proteins, which
COMPLEX LIPID MEMBRANE PROTEINS DNA, RNA that supply energy to a carry out almost every
SUGARS cell for growth and task done within a cell,
reproduction. such as metabolism.

3 FATTY ACIDS 7 NUCLEOTIDES

The origins of fatty The precursors to
acids on Earth remain DNA and RNA may
unknown. However, it’s have originated from
been suggested their gaseous molecules of
creation is linked to hydrogen cyanide.
carbon delivered by
meteorite impacts. 8 DNA
As the cell’s instruction
4 MEMBRANE manual, DNA sets out
When fatty acids bond to the genetic rules for
an alcohol called glycerol how the cell operates
© Shutterstock / Alamy

PRIMITIVE CELL and phosphate, they

form a membrane that
and develops.

controls what can move

in and out of the cell.

67
 ENVIRONMENT

5 ARTIFICIAL
LIGHTNING RECREATING
Electrodes housed
within the atmospheric
chamber generated
5 LIFE’S SPARK
How Miller and Urey conducted
sparks that simulated their pioneering experiment
lightning strikes.

3 3 ATMOSPHERIC GASES
4 CONDENSER This chamber was filled
A condenser was added with the gases Miller and
to cause precipitation of Urey thought made up the
the water vapour and prehistoric atmosphere,
atmospheric gases back including methane,
into the ‘ocean’ chamber. hydrogen and ammonia.

1 WATER
This chamber was
4 filled with water to
6 INGREDIENTS FOR LIFE represent the ocean.
After a week of 1
continually running the
experiment, the water 2 HEAT
inside had turned black, Water was heated, and the
and within it were 2 vapour entered a second
complex molecules, ‘atmospheric’ chamber.
including amino acids.
6

Proteins are made up of long chains

“Why these ingredients
of amino acids linked up together
ƉUVWFDPHWRJHWKHUWR
IRUPWKHVWUXFWXUHRI
DFHOOLVXQNQRZQŪ
In 2010, a team of researchers published a
study which turned the theory on its head.
“Despite bioenergetic and thermodynamic
failings, the 81-year-old concept of primordial
soup remains central to mainstream thinking
on the origin of life,” said William Martin, an
evolutionary biologist from Heinrich Heine
Did University in Düsseldorf. “But soup has no
you know? capacity for producing the energy vital for life.”
Hydrothermal Instead, many scientists have turned their
molecular building blocks or vents were created an experiment to simulate attention to another potential source of life
‘prebiotic’ components for life, such discovered the origins of life. With the help of in the deepest parts of the oceans.
as simple sugars, amino acids and in 1977 Harold Urey, the pair created the Some of the oldest evidence of life on
fats. Why these ingredients first came composition of an early atmosphere Earth comes from a place where the majority
together to form the structure of a cell is and ocean in a flask, then introduced a of the world’s modern-day life would not be
unknown – it may even have occurred continuous source of energy to simulate able to visit, or even survive. Deep on the
spontaneously. However, scientists believe lightning. After a week of conducting the ocean floor, where the continental plates are
that protocells might have arisen from the experiment, the scientists discovered up to pulling away from one another, are plumes of
creation of self-replicating RNA that became 15 per cent of the carbon in the flask had been black smoke billowing from rocky vents.
encapsulated by a fatty membrane, and over converted into organic compounds, along with These underwater chimneys are called
time this evolved and grew using proteins to amino acids. While the experiment had created hydrothermal vents and spew out extremely
become a living cell. some of life’s building blocks, scientists have hot water and sediment that have been
Putting the primordial soup theory to the questioned where a comparable energy source heated by Earth’s mantle. Despite the
test, in 1952, American chemist Stanley Miller in the real world would have come from. extreme environment, scientists believe

68
 DID YOU KNOW? Around 25 per cent of Earth’s internal heat is passed into the ocean via hydrothermal vents

1 HYDROTHERMAL SYPHON
Ocean water falls through 6 CHAIN REACTION
sediment and porous When the vent water and
volcanic rock before ocean water interact,
entering Earth’s crust. they exchange electrons
and trigger a chemical
reaction that leads to the

BORN AT THE creation of protocells,

building fatty acids.

BOTTOM OF
THE OCEAN
How underwater chimneys cycle 5 OCEAN WATER
water and potentially create an Ocean water is
environment for new life cold, acidic and
1 packed with
5 dissolved
6 carbon dioxide.
4 CHANGE IN PH
When the water escapes
through hydrothermal
vents, it becomes alkaline 4
and is packed with
dissolved hydrogen.
2

3
2 CHANNELS
Water flows through
channels in the crust,
which were likely
7 DEPOSITS
Flowing water
created by previous
deposits minerals
volcanic activity.
from the crust
onto the seabed,
3 SUPER-HEATED forming chimneys
The molten magma in up to around
Earth’s mantle heats the 60 metres tall.
water in the crust up to
400 degrees Celsius.

Clay crystals may have got the ball

CLAY CREATIONS rolling on organising DNA molecules

Could life have emerged from clay? In 1985, chemist Graham Cairns-Smith
proposed that clay crystals may have provided an environment for early life
to thrive. In Cairns-Smith’s controversial book Seven Clues to the Origin of
© Shutterstock / Science Photo Library

Life, the chemist suggests that the structure of these crystals may trap
molecules on their surface and arrange them in a way that’s similar to the
structure of DNA. After some time, these molecules would perform a
‘genetic takeover’, independently replicating. Although Cairns-Smith’s
clay theory has offered an alternative explanation for the origins of life,
it has not been widely accepted by the scientific community.

69
 ENVIRONMENT

that these might be some of the most likely

places where life emerged.
Hydrothermal vents are like underwater OUTER-SPACE
cauldrons where the vital ingredients for life
can be mixed together and combined. As cold
seawater falls through channels in the seafloor
DELIVERY
How early life might have travelled
and down into Earth’s crust, it’s heated and to Earth from another world
driven upwards, erupting into the ocean
through hydrothermal vents. Along the
Did
way, gases and minerals containing
you know? 3 SPACE TAXI
carbon and hydrogen are dissolved The rocks thrown up
in the water. There are 300 in the impact contained
Scientists have suspected that a million potentially microbes from the donor
habitable planets planet, which hitched a ride
change in the pH of the water may in our galaxy
have sparked enough chemical energy on these new asteroids.
to transform carbon dioxide and hydrogen
atoms in the water into complex molecules of
amino acids or proteins. After acidic ocean
water enters a vent, it emerges as an alkaline
fluid. At the point where this alkaline water
meets the acidic seawater, a natural charged
gradient forms, much in the same way that a
battery generates chemical power.
But if life didn’t cook up from a primordial
soup or erupt from the bottom of the ocean,
could it have flown in from space? Since the A hydrothermal vent emitting a cloud
time of ancient Greek philosophers, people of black smoke in a mid-ocean ridge
have pondered the possibility that life may have
originated on another world and found its way
to Earth. This extraterrestrial origin theory such as amino acids and sugars have been
has been dubbed ‘panspermia’. Panspermia found in meteorite samples. However, there’s
suggests that life is distributed throughout been no evidence of actual life travelling on
the universe and may have hitchhiked on an meteorites between planets. But the idea that
object that brought it to Earth. As to the life could exist in the vacuum of space isn’t
driver of that cosmic ride, scientists have far-fetched. Since 1998, when the International
two theories: lithopanspermia suggests Space Station (ISS) was being assembled in
that bombardment by life-carrying meteorites orbit, bacteria have been dwelling on its

4 ANOTHER IMPACT
may have brought life to Earth, while exterior. Possibly carried up from Earth on
radiopanspermia suggests that early a rocket launch or transferred during an
The microbe-carrying
microorganisms were propelled by the astronaut’s spacewalk, these ‘extremophile’ meteorites hit the
radiation of stars to the surfaces of celestial bacteria can survive the harsh conditions recipient planet, delivering
bodies, including the early Earth. of space. Scientists have studied different new life or life’s building
Over the years, scientists have uncovered space-bound bacteria over the years and found blocks along the way.
some evidence that might suggest life has that some species can survive, reproduce and
an extraterrestrial past – organic molecules grow in space.

Researchers used komatiitic

rocks from the mantle

SPACE-INDUCED LIFE beneath South Africa

to support the theory
Scientists at Cambridge University have conducted of impact-induced
research that suggests the molecules needed to form graphitisation
life may have been formed through a process called
‘graphitisation’. Researchers think a Moon-sized object
could have collided with Earth around 4.3 million years ago,
delivering enormous amounts of iron and other minerals to
the surface. Upon impact, the iron may have reacted with
Earth’s water and potentially condensed into tar. Magma
beneath Earth’s crust may have reacted with the newly
formed tar and superheated it, converting the carbon within
into graphite. What makes this process a potential catalyst
for life is that it releases nitrogen-rich compounds as a
byproduct, called nitriles and isonitriles, which are vital
for creating the building block of life.

70
DID YOU KNOW? Microscopic tardigrades have survived after being exposed to space for up to ten days

3 2

2 IMPACT
A meteorite
collided with the donor 1
planet, chipping its
surface and throwing
chunks of rock into space.

6 ROUGH JOURNEY
Any life aboard a
4 1 SEED meteorite would have
Life or its building had to survive intense
blocks emerged on radiation, extreme heat
a ‘donor’ planet and fluctuations in
somewhere else gravity to reach Earth.
in the universe.

5 SEEDING NEW LIFE

Life-making materials entered
Earth’s oceans, and may
have broken down to
release molecules into the
water that could be used 5
© Alamy / Shutterstock / Illustration by Nicholas Forder

to form protocells.

ũ7KHLGHDWKDWOLIH
FRXOGH[LVWLQWKH
YDFXXPRIVSDFH
LVQŧWIDUIHWFKHGŪ

71
 ENVIRONMENT

1 NUTRIENT RUNOFF
Agricultural land and urban
waste release nitrogen and
phosphorus into a lake.

WHAT ARE 4 DECAYING ALGAE

An increase in living algae
soon causes an increase
in decaying algae too.
4

ALGAL BLOOMS?
When algae populations in bodies of water
5 AQUATIC PLANTS
Algae blocks sunlight
from reaching the
depths, causing plants
to die as they can’t 5
3

photosynthesise.
grow rapidly, it causes problems for the
environment, wildlife and humans
Did 6
WORDS AILSA HARVEY
you know?
lgae are simple, photosynthesising sick. Algal toxins are often Algal blooms can

A aquatic organisms. The process heat-stable too, so the boiling clog fish gills
of photosynthesis involves using of water or cooking of seafood
sunlight to convert carbon dioxide can’t neutralise them. Not all
and water into energy to live. Many algae algal blooms are harmful, however.
species are single-celled organisms, and Some don’t release toxins, but still
some live in colonies. At their natural discolour the water and make
population levels, algae are an essential food taste unpleasant.
part of aquatic ecosystems, providing
life-sustaining oxygen to the water and
serving as a food source for many animals. Agricultural runoff often includes high level
s
of phosphorus, which is used in fertilisers
BEHIND THE BLOOM
But in some circumstances, this balanced
ecosystem can turn into a colony takeover
– all it takes is an imbalance of nutrients. What causes algal levels to become so Favourable conditions for algae species
When algae are overfed nutrients, their high that they’re toxic to the surrounding boost their growth, such as warmer
colonies overgrow and begin to dominate plants, animals and humans? One of the waters that result from climate change,
the surfaces of bodies of water. This is called leading causes is a nutrient overload. increased sunlight boosting algal
an algal bloom and can become visible as Nutrients such as nitrogen and photosynthesis and low wind speeds for
patches of red, green, blue and brown in the phosphorus are the main culprits, long periods so the surface water isn’t
water. As well as altering gas levels and entering bodies of water from farms in disturbed. In calmer conditions, the algae
blocking sunlight from entering the water runoff water. Nutrients in sewage and can form and float to the surface to
with their rapid growth, algal blooms can industrial waste have a similar impact. accumulate in thick layers.
also contaminate human water supplies and
seafood with toxins from algae, making us

72
DID YOU KNOW? Space satellites and seafloor sensors work together to predict the emergence of harmful algal blooms

UNDERSTANDING
EUTROPHICATION
This state of algal bloom is caused by
nutrient runoff

2 ALGAL BLOOM
The influx of nutrients
makes algae grow rapidly
at the surface.

7 7 SUNLIGHT
Sunlight can only boost
the growth of plants at the
surface due to the excessive
coverage of algae.

TRIPLE THREAT
There’s a variety of algal blooms,
but three main types of algae
are the most harmful within
these growths – cyanobacteria,
3 STRAINED WILDLIFE dinoflagellates and diatoms.
Fish and other aquatic Cyanobacteria is commonly known
populations decline due as blue-green algae and can grow in
to the buildup of toxins fresh and saltwater environments.
released by the algae. Despite being a type of bacteria,
their overgrown masses are still
considered algal blooms. Blue-
green algae is naturally found
6 DECAYING PLANTS in low levels in lakes and other
Plants and algae use up too much bodies of water, but they can form
oxygen in the decaying process, blooms that are poisonous to
causing hypoxic conditions that are wildlife, livestock and humans.
unsuitable for many life forms. Dinoflagellates and diatoms are
types of microalgae that mostly
grow in saltwater. These turn
the water brown or red.
Algal blooms are sometimes
called the red tide
Dinoflagellate algae have two
hairlike extensions, called flagella,
that make them more mobile
© Shutterstock / Alamy / Getty

73
 The Mammoet SK6000
has gained the title
of world’s strongest
land-based crane. How
can it help construct
a greener future?
WORDS AILSA HARVEY

n construction, the size and weight breaking lifting power means that companies

I
of engineering equipment is limited can use the crane to build with larger
by that which can be lifted by a components, while engineers can plan more
crane or other lifting apparatus. ambitious projects and energy-generating
This means that larger and more powerful goals, making the process more efficient and
machines, which are more efficient at their leading to more mighty constructions.
roles, aren’t feasible because they rely on The components are delivered to the crane,
cranes that simply aren’t strong enough to lift which is built close to where a wind farm site is
them. However, the capabilities of cranes are planned. This means the constructed turbines
always expanding and, on 30 August 2024, only have a short journey to where they need
heavy-lifting company Mammoet publicly to be installed. The SK6000 is powered fully
launched the world’s strongest land-based by electricity from the grid or by battery,
crane: the SK6000. This crane is capable of limiting the environmental impact caused by the
lifting a single 6,000-tonne load - the equivalent construction process too. The crane is also the
of around 45 Statues of Liberty. largest on the market and has an operating
The SK6000 is a ring crane, meaning it radius of 144 metres. Covering a large area, the
turns by pivoting on a ring-shaped track. The crane can pick up modules from the side of a
main industry this crane is designed for is the harbour and build floating turbines directly into
renewable energy sector, as there is a demand the deep water next to it, all from one fixed point.
for larger wind turbines to supply more green With power and precision, large cranes like the
electricity. Modern wind turbines have base SK6000 keep engineering innovative
modules that weigh up to 3,000 tonnes, which and help build strong structures
is no challenge for the SK6000. This record- and cleaner energy systems.

74
DID YOU KNOW? The first crane was built from wood by the ancient Greeks around 500 BCE

CRANE ASSEMBLY
The SK6000 was first assembled in July 2024
in Westdorpe, The Netherlands. After being fully
constructed, the crane could be seen from over six
miles away due to its vast size. To construct the
crane, Mammoet’s other cranes were used.
Large components, such as the boom, were first
assembled on the floor and hoisted up. The cranes
used to aid in the construction of the SK6000
included two 250-tonne crawler cranes, which
have an undercarriage with moving tracks to make
them mobile, and a 140-tonne Gottwald Mobile
Harbour Crane, a faster crane on rubber tyres. For
a crane of such great strength and stature, a Workers assembling the crane’s
strong, light material is required. The SK6000 is steel modules piece by piece
made of high-grade steel.

Bigger cranes can deal

with heavier loads

Did The SK6000 pivots on

you know? its base to move objects

200,000 cranes
operate around
the world
© All images: Mammoet

75
 TECHNOLOGY The SK6000 underwent testing
at Mammoet’s Westdorpe facility
in The Netherlands

NIELS JONKER
How It Works speaks to Mammoet’s
engineering team leader about the
significance of the largest ring crane
What makes the SK6000 stand
out from previous cranes?
What separates it from the other cranes
is not only the size, but the load
© Niels Jonker

moment. It can lift the most weight,

6,000 tonnes, but the load moment [the
force the load exerts on the crane] 6 WIND TURBINE TOWER
means it can lift an extensive amount of weight over a Large wind turbines can
large radius. Its load moment is 550,000 tonne-metres. be built by the crane
It can lift 550,000 tonnes at a distance one metre from onto a floating structure
the crane’s pivot point. The strongest crane before this and pulled out to their
offshore location.
one is 350,000 tonne-metres, so it’s quite a step up.

How will this crane support Did 8 PRE-LIFT ASSEMBLY

renewable energy? you know? Smaller cranes assist the
Where it will have a big part is in the SK6000. These can
marshalling yards, where all the parts of big The SK6000 assemble components
wind turbines, for instance, are being brought is as tall as a into larger modules.
60-storey
together. And then with the main boom you
building
can lift, for instance, the jackets [foundations].
And then, because you can build a jib onto the
crane, with this jib, you can build the towers and the
nacelles [energy-generating components]. Wind
turbines are getting bigger and heavier. With the
SK6000, we’ll be able to lift the newest turbines.

How long do large cranes last? This image, taken from

Within Mammoet, we have a lot of big cranes. And for above, shows the black
instance, these cranes, with the right care, can last a tracks the crane moves on
long time. I’m not saying forever, but to give you an idea, along the ring base
one of our oldest ring cranes that we are still operating
is from 1996. With these cranes, every time you build it
and take it apart again, the crane will be serviced and
parts will be renewed. So it’s not that a crane like this is
standing somewhere for ten years. When you keep
servicing them, these cranes can last forever.

How will this crane revolutionise construction?

I think the exciting part will be that with this crane is
the start of a new era of building even bigger cranes,

MAKING IT MODULAR
because modules are getting bigger, and these cranes
are setting new standards in the market. With this, I
think manufacturers will see that they can build even The crane is transported in 300 shipping containers to
bigger modules. When you’re standing next to the anywhere in the world, where it’s constructed for a specific
crane, it’s a massive machine to see. We have stepped project. The ring at its base can be built as needed. For example,
outside what we did before. Before, all our boom parts if the 360-degree rotation isn’t required, the full ring doesn’t
were based on container sizes and you were restricted need to be built, reducing the floor space needed. The
to container size. With this crane, the boom is all built counterweights can be altered based on the lifting capacity
from parts you put in a container. With this new building needed for each construction project. The modular element also
technique, you can go bigger and bigger. The sky’s the means the crane can swap out different parts to change its size
limit, I would say. or role. And when parts get broken or need replacing, they can
be swapped out rather than impacting the entire crane.

76
DID YOU KNOW? The world’s largest wind turbine can power 170,000 homes with the energy generated in one day

3 FIXED JIB
5 A horizontally positioned arm increases This shows the scale of the crane’s
3 the lifting height to 274 metres. The hook in comparison to a human
SK6000’s jib is in a fixed position to
increase the weight it can carry.

5 LOAD LINE
This cable connects
the hook to the crane’s
2 BOOM boom. This is tightened
and loosened with
The main mast
electric power.
of the crane
reaches a height
of 171 metres. 7 PARTS DELIVERY
The crane can be
operated anywhere
container ships have
6 access to.

1
THE CRANE
1 RING BASE
The crane moves
4 COUNTERWEIGHTS
40 containers, filled
IN ACTION
How does the SK6000 operate
along this curved with sand and gravel, to build a wind farm?
track to rotate and produce a 4,200-tonne
expand its reach. counterweight to prevent
the crane from tipping.
The final pieces of a
floating wind turbine are
assembled,, ready to be
transported out to sea

FIXED TO FLOATING
Despite being the strongest land-based crane, with a large floating base that sits just below the
one of its main applications is putting together water’s surface. After the floating turbines are
machinery that will operate far from land. For fully assembled, they’re tugged out to sea and
its construction of offshore wind farms to work, placed in prime position.
the crane operates next to deep water. Fixed Floating turbines are the chosen method
turbines are usually fully assembled and carried for farms farther out to sea, where winds are
out to sea on a floating platform closer to the stronger. The land-based SK6000 carries out
shore before being lowered and secured to the construction in more controlled environments
seabed. For large, fixed turbines with heavier with calmer winds before the turbines are towed
© All images: Mammoet

foundations, the foundation can be secured to deeper waters. Both forms of wind farm are which houses all the energy-generating
first, and the turbine is built on top. But with relying on stronger cranes to assemble the components, is called the nacelle. This sits at
turbines increasing in size and requiring access increasingly heavy components. Producing the middle of the turbine’s blades. Generally
to more open and windier waters, large cranes larger wind turbines results in greater power speaking, the higher the nacelle sits above the
like the SK6000 can assemble floating turbines generation. The central part of the turbine, water, the stronger the wind it has access to.

77
 TECHNOLOGY

APPLE AIRPODS
PRO TEARDOWN
This high-end earphone technology
includes a remarkable feature to
control the sound that enters your ears
WORDS AILSA HARVEY

arbuds have reduced in size over 2 RECHARGEABLE

E the years, while the audio quality

BATTERIES
There are two
has improved and features have
expanded. Apple released its
lithium-ion 2
batteries in the
AirPods in 2016, and since then the company case. The power
has introduced new variants. The AirPods Pro from these is
are wireless earbuds that were first released in transferred to the
2019, featuring noise-cancelling technology batteries in the
and touch controls. After activating AirPods earpieces when
near your other Apple products, a window pops the AirPods are
stored in the case.
up on the screen of the device they’re pairing
with to show that they are connected via
Bluetooth. In this window, details such as the
battery life of the earbud case and individual
earpieces are displayed. While wearing the
earbuds and listening to music, you can skip
tracks with a double tap on the side of an 1
earpiece, or you can change between audio 9 SILICONE COVERS
The tips of the AirPods have
modes by squeezing them.
replaceable silicone pieces
The earbuds’ noise cancellation works via that fit neatly into the ear
them generating their own sound waves to to form an audio seal.
cancel out noisy external sound waves. Spatial
audio creates an immersive surround-sound
experience, while transparency mode

Opening the lid of the case reveals 1 CHARGING CASE

this screen on a linked iPhone This is the lid of the charging
case, which encases all 9
the headphone components.

combines your audio with external noises.

AirPods Pro earbuds are designed to adapt
to an individual’s ear shape and use inward-
facing microphones to assess the audio quality.
The shape and size of your ear can change how
you hear an audio frequency, and the AirPods
Pro can adjust some of the audio frequencies
to meet the intended levels. automatically stops, resuming when the
Many of the features of the AirPods Pro are technology detects that both are inserted
integrated with Apple smartphones, utilising into your ears. When speaking on the phone,
intelligent features to control how you listen to the microphones prioritise your voice so that
your audio. These include microphones that you can be heard on calls using the wireless
listen for the key phrase ‘Hey Siri’ so that you devices, and the case contains sensors to
can make verbal commands. In addition, share earbud battery life and pairing status
when you take one earbud out, the audio with your other devices.

78
 DID YOU KNOW? Noise-cancelling headphones were invented for pilots to remove noise in cockpits

PEELING BACK THE PODS

What advanced technology lies within these earbuds?

3 CIRCUIT BOARD
The core electronics
control Bluetooth pairing,
audio processing and
voice activation.
7 FLEX CABLES
These cables connect the
AirPods to the case’s
3 logic board and battery
for charging.

7
Did
you know?
Apple sold 75
5 MICROPHONES million AirPods
Tiny microphones pick up in 2023
external noise for calls or active
noise-cancellation features.

4 VOICE COIL
This converts electrical signals
6 SEALS
8 BUTTON BATTERY into sound waves, which are
released from the earpieces Plastic seals
A small 0.16-watt-hour protect against
lithium-ion button battery for noise-cancelling.
water and sweat.
slots into each earpiece.
These are charged by the 6
batteries in the case.

5
4
8
“AirPods Pro are
GHVLJQHGWRDGDSWWRbDQ Airpods click into the
case with magnets
individual’s ear shape”

TRANSPARENCY MODE
Noise cancellation is ideal when you want to block to monitor audio levels and combine the external
out your surroundings and keep focused. But sounds with those produced in the device. This
being completely unaware of your surroundings means reducing the volume of loud traffic or
can also lead to dangerous situations, such as bracing airport announcements so that they can
when you’re running outside. The AirPods Pro be heard at a more comfortable volume. The
come with a transparency mode that doesn’t block outward-facing microphones pick up on external
© iFixit / Getty / Shutterstock

out external sound, but attempts to merge it with sounds and deliver them internally to give the
your audio so that harsh noises don’t overpower illusion that you have an open ear. Switching to
the content you’re listening to. To do this, the transparency mode can also be useful when
headphones use their microphones and speakers engaging in short conversations. To switch to transparen
cy
mode, the wearer sque
ezes
and holds the AirPods
’ stem

79
 TECHNOLOGY

SOFT TISSUE
SHRINKING THE SPOTTING
One major area where X-rays
could help with diagnoses is in

X-RAY MACHINE
mammography – the detection of
breast cancer. The X-ray device
developed at MIT has the ability to
map the network of blood vessels a
tumour creates to feed itself. “We
want to make X-rays as mainstream as
Forget room-sized machines… modern ultrasound,” says Velásquez-García,
one of the machine’s developers.
bone imagers have gotten much smaller “Ultrasound has less resolution than
X-rays, as the wavelength of X-rays is
WORDS IAN EVENDEN less than that of the ultrasound waves.
Because you don’t need to use
dvertisements in the back of comic X-rays towards its target, rather than the contrast media, and it’s incredibly

A books used to offer all-seeing X-ray single beam used in traditional systems. It sensitive to changes in density in your
glasses, guaranteed to let you look does this thanks to a nanostructured surface flesh, you can use this system to
beneath the skin, or possibly just – it’s essentially an array of tiny spikes, each image any structure you can think of.”
the clothes, of people around you. Bafflingly, of which is capable of emitting a beam of
they never worked, and genuine medical electrons. These beams then pass through a
X-rays have been – since Wilhelm plate that sends out the X-ray photons.
Röntgen discovered their use in Did Dr Luis Fernando Velásquez-
Detailed

you know? García, a principal research

maps of
1895, bagging a Nobel Prize in blood
Physics in the process – confined to X-rays are also scientist at MIT’s Microsystems vessels
large pieces of equipment taking used in computed Technology Laboratories in the US, could
up whole rooms in hospitals. All tomography scans led the research. He says that the save
that, however, has been changing system works thanks to a property lives
over the last decade. of X-ray waves known as ‘phase’. “If
A development from the Massachusetts you use the phase to construct the image
Institute of Technology (MIT) has seen an instead of the intensity, then the soft tissue has
X-ray machine shrunk down to the size of a a lot better contrast. If we look at a hand, we
shoebox. The images it takes are superior to can tell where the ligaments are and see the
those from traditional X-ray machines, too, fine bone structure. This is thanks to the
with increased detail and the ability to image energy we use, which is monochromatic [at a
soft tissues – something the old technology single wavelength] and has enough energy to
could only hope to do with the aid of potentially create an image, but is low enough that it won’t
troublesome contrast-enhancing agents such burn through the soft tissue.”
as barium or iodine. Today, smaller, more portable and more
MIT’s machine is developed from the affordable X-ray machines can be found all
same etching process that’s used to make over the world in different industries – not
microchips and sends multiple beams of just medicine.

80
DID YOU KNOW? X-ray takers were once known as ‘skiagraphers’, derived from the Greek for ‘shadow writer’

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE 1 POWER SUPPLY

The machine needs a

NEW X-RAY MACHINE

MIT’s X-ray machine works faster than traditional X-rays as it doesn’t need to warm up.
high-voltage feed to the
anode that emits the
X-rays from within the
It can even be used in non-medical settings, such as in distinguishing harmless vacuum chamber. The
toiletries from explosive chemicals in airport security checks. These machines can be more power that’s
incredibly accurate when used in conjunction with the advances we’ve made in provided, the more
artificial intelligence (AI) over the last decade penetrating the rays.

1 2 VACUUM CHAMBER DOOR

The machine’s vacuum
chamber measures just
20.3 centimetres across,
and since this design,
even smaller models
have been produced.

4 3 BERYLLIUM WINDOW
The opening into the
X-ray chamber is covered
in material thin enough
to allow the rays to
pass through.
4 SPECTROMETER
The spectrometer is placed here to
detect the X-rays passing through the
window. In a medical context, this is
where the patient would be.

SCAN REVOLUTION
The O-arm scanner is now being used during surgical
operations by NHS surgeons in the UK. The machine produces
2D or 3D X-ray images in real time, allowing surgeons to see,
for example, how deeply the screws they are inserting into
someone’s back are penetrating, or how close their scalpel is
© MIT / Medtronic / Shutterstock / Alamy

to healthy tissue as they remove a tumour. Developed by US

firm Medtronic, the machine means surgeons need no longer
rely on X-ray images that may have been taken weeks earlier.
It can spin through 360 degrees to give a view from any angle,
and is capable of taking almost 400 images in 13 seconds –
its speed helping minimise radiation doses for both
surgeons and patients.

81
 This month we’re giving you the chance to win five science and technology kits by
Thames & Kosmos: the marble-chasing Gecko Run Deluxe, a refractor telescope, a
Catapult Engineering Kit to build six medieval contraptions, a Spy Labs Forensic
Investigation Kit and a sound-sensing robot called Hero

WORTH
NEARLY

For your chance to win, answer the following question:

Which scientist proposed the theory of general relativity?
A: Charles Darwin B: Marie Curie C: Albert Einstein
© Thames and Kosmos

Enter online at howitworksdaily.com and one lucky entrant will win!

Terms and Conditions: Competition closes at 00:00 GMT on 3 January 2025. By taking part in this competition you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and
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82
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 BRAINDUMP
Amazing answers to your curious questions
HOWITWORKSMAG
[email protected]
@HOWITWORKSMAG

Has any satellite

orbiting Earth
ever been hit by
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

space junk or
DbPHWHRURLG"
The most notable collision involving a satellite was in
1993, when the large communications satellite Olympus-1
became caught up in a severe meteor shower. Spinning
out of control, the satellite used up all its fuel in an effort
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO:

to readjust its trajectory and was rendered useless.

Collisions are rare, and many satellites have tracking
systems in place to shift their course when potential
collisions are imminent. The biggest danger for satellites,
however, is not from large asteroids, but from the millions
of tiny leftover pieces of defunct satellites. At less than
one centimetre in diameter, they are far too small for us
to track, and can travel at speeds of 22,000 miles per
hour – so fast that even a fleck of paint could cause
devastation to a satellite.

84
WERE
HADROSAURS
LARGER THAN
A T. REX?
Hadrosaurs, commonly called
duck-billed dinosaurs, were large
plant eaters mostly about seven
to ten metres long with an
average weight of about 3,000 WHY DO
kilograms. Most hadrosaurs
were likely smaller than a
BATTERIES
Tyrannosaurus rex, but SEEM TO
perhaps the largest could have
reached a similar size. T. rex
EXPERIENCE
individuals were as big as 12.8 A REDUCTION
metres long and four metres IN OVERALL
CHARGE
high at the hip, and they weighed
in at almost seven tonnes.
OVER TIME?
The longer you own
WHERE ARE THE NEAREST a portable gadget –

STAR-FORMING SITES TO
whether it’s a laptop,
a smartphone or a
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM? tablet – the shorter its
battery life becomes.
The closest bright star-forming nebula to Earth is the Rho
One reason for this is the
Ophiuchi cloud complex – located about 460 light years away
chemical reaction that
– but there are plenty of other, fainter starbirth regions closer
powers rechargeable
to our Solar System. The closest known group of young stars
lithium-ion batteries.
is the TW Hydrae association, whose 30-plus members
Every time you charge
lie 175 light years away in the constellation of Hydra. At roughly
the cell, an electrical
5 million years old, several of these stars are still growing by
current pushes lithium
pulling in gas and dust from their surroundings.
ions from the battery’s
A number of full-blown starbirth nebulae lie around 500
cathode – made of
light years away in Southern Hemisphere constellations such
lithium cobalt oxide –
as Chamaeleon and Corona Australis. They appear dark as they
to a graphite anode.
are only generating low-mass Sun-like stars. They lack the
When you turn on
high-mass giants whose brilliant radiation lights up brighter
your device, the
nebulae like the Orion Nebula, 1,344 light years away.
lithium ions flow in
the opposite direction.
With each charge-
recharge cycle, the
cathode material

Is it possible to change ‘degrades’ slightly,

meaning its internal

RXUƉQJHUSULQWV" crystalline structure is

altered so that some of
the lithium ions refuse
Since fingerprints exist until the epidermis grows to make the trip to the
exclusively on the topmost back over 30 days. anode. As more lithium
layer of our skin, there are In extreme cases, criminals ions get tied down, the
many ways in which they can have intentionally burned or battery loses capacity.
be altered, although the effect otherwise scarred their hands High temperatures also
is usually temporary. Any in an attempt to disguise their speed up a chemical
repetitive abrasion to the fingerprints. However, the reaction that degrades
skin can wear down the only permanent way to the graphite anode. As a
ridges, which is why veteran change your full set of precaution, try not to
bricklayers can sometimes fingerprints would be to use or store your device
lose their fingerprints. undergo a double hand in temperatures above
© Shutterstock

Exposure to acids and bases, transplant, which although 35 degrees Celsius.

like agricultural lime, can also medically possible, does
‘erase’ fingerprints, at least seem a little excessive.

85
 BRAINDUMP
WHO WOULD WIN IN
A FIGHT BETWEEN A
HIPPO AND A RHINO?
It would be a fairly close thing, which is
probably why they almost never clash
head to head in the wild. Both animals
are highly territorial, but the hippo is
much more aggressive. Fights between
HOWITWORKSMAG

two male rhinos normally don’t amount

to more than some horn clashing and a
little urine spraying. Male hippos, on
IS DRINKING the other hand, regularly inflict serious

PEPPERMINT
injuries on each other with their massive
teeth. The rhino has an impressive
TEA AFTER charge, but in close combat the

SURGERY enormous gape of the hippopotamus’

mouth probably gives it the advantage
BENEFICIAL?
[email protected]

over the unwieldy horn of the rhino.

Peppermint tea is

What is the
recommended after
surgery due to its effects

*XOI6WUHDP"
on digestion. Peppermint
relaxes the muscles
along the intestinal tract
and can help patients
pass excess gas which
may follow an operation. The Gulf Stream is a warm the foam when you stir a
Some studies have also ocean current about 62 miles cappuccino. North of the
shown that peppermint wide and 800 metres deep equator these cells rotate
oil may ease the nausea which runs from the Gulf of clockwise, which means the
@HOWITWORKSMAG

from anaesthesia. Mexico, up the coast of North wind blows west in the tropics
Peppermint oil can America and across the and eastwards at mid-
relieve a number of Atlantic to the UK and latitudes. As warm surface
digestive ailments. Eastern Europe. water from the Caribbean
The menthol inside It actually starts in West is cooled by the wind, it
peppermint is also a Africa as the Atlantic North also becomes saltier via
decongestant and can Equatorial Current. In both evaporation, which makes it
thin mucus to relieve a directions, its power comes denser, so in the northern
blocked nose or cough. from the wind. Because Earth Atlantic the Gulf Stream sinks
is rotating, air currents tend to become a southward
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

to form large eddies, a little like deep-water current.

COULD WE BUILD A PLANE

WITH A GLASS BOTTOM?
Unfortunately, see-through planes are not yet
possible. For a 2013 April Fool’s joke, Virgin Atlantic
announced the launch of a new glass-bottomed
airliner. China’s state news service, China Central
Television (CCTV), missed the joke and reported it as
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO:

the latest eccentric whim of CEO Richard Branson.

The problem is, in a commercial airline, the area
beneath the cabin is occupied by luggage, landing
gear and critical structural supports, none of which
can be sacrificed for an unimpeded view of the
scenery below. Besides, unlike a glass-bottomed
boat, the view from the windows is pretty much
the same as what you’d see through the floor.

86
+RZGRHVWKH
Sun burn if
there is no
oxygen in
VSDFH"
At first glance, the Sun’s surface
might resemble the flames of a
roaring fire, but that’s deceptive –
our local star isn’t really burning in
the same way things do on Earth.
Confusingly, when astronomers talk
about the Sun ‘burning’, they’re
actually talking about a completely
different process called nuclear
fusion. This involves forcing together
the tiny nuclei of hydrogen, the
lightest element, to create atoms
of helium in the high temperatures
and pressures of the core. The
process releases energy in a much
more efficient way than the
combustion we’re familiar with in a
fire – and it doesn’t need oxygen.

WILL HOLDING YOUR BREATH WHEN SOMEONE

SNEEZES STOP YOU FROM CATCHING THEIR COLD?
Holding your breath may help you avoid lead to infection, but the most common
a cold, but a far more effective method way of catching a cold is actually by
for staying virus-free is to wash your touch. After sneezing into their hands,
hands regularly and encourage any sick the sufferer touches other people,
people around you to do the same. objects or surfaces such as towels
When someone has a cold, the cold or door handles. This can in turn
virus multiplies inside their nose and contaminate other people’s hands,
throat secretions. Each cough or sneeze enabling the virus to enter their
then expels tiny droplets containing the bodies when they touch their face
© Shutterstock

virus. Breathing in these droplets can or when they eat.

87
 BRAINDUMP
In which
direction do
we look to see
almost as far
HOWITWORKSMAG

back as the
Big Bang?
[email protected]

One of the strange things about our expanding

universe is that we can look in any direction and
see light from the Big Bang. If you think of the
Big Bang as happening at a single point in space,
this is pretty confusing, but it makes more sense
if you understand that the Big Bang happened
everywhere in space at the same time, and it’s
space itself that has expanded ever since.
The light we can detect from the Big Bang
emerged out of an expanding ‘foggy’ fireball
when the universe became transparent about
13.8 billion years ago, just 380,000 years after
@HOWITWORKSMAG

the explosion itself. Thanks to its long journey

across the ever-growing cosmos, it’s now been
stretched so that we detect it not as visible light,
but as microwave radio waves. We can only see
this ‘background radiation’ from parts of the
universe that are at just the right distance for the
radiation to be reaching us right now – so that’s
why it seems to come from 13.8 billion light years
away, regardless of the direction we look in.
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

HOW ARE ODDS AFFECTED BY

A DIE’S NUMBER OF FACES?
If you toss a coin, both sides have an equal chance of landing face up. There
are only two possible outcomes: heads or tails. Rolling a cubed die gives six
possible outcomes: six faces each as likely to land face up. 12-sided dice
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO:

have 12 possible outcomes, and therefore twice the uncertainty that a given
number will be rolled than with a standard die. The more sides, the greater
the uncertainty in trying to correctly predict a rolled number. A die must
have faces of the same shape and size, with angles that exhibit symmetry,
for an equal chance that each will land face up. Shapes following this rule
are called isohedra, and the most common isohedra for dice are the five
platonic solids; the tetrahedron (four faces), cube (six faces), octahedron
(eight faces), dodecahedron (12 faces) and the icosahedron (20 faces).

88
 WHAT ARE NEUTRINOS?
Neutrinos are elementary subatomic particles with
no electric charge, almost no mass and half a unit of
spin. As neutrinos are electrically neutral, they’re not
affected by electromagnetic forces, and as a result
they’re differentiated from charged particles such as
protons and electrons. In contrast, neutrinos are only
affected by the weak force, which underlies certain
processes of radioactive decay. There are three exceedingly weakly with other particles and fields.
types of neutrinos – electron neutrinos, muon This essentially makes them incredibly difficult to
neutrinos and tau neutrinos – each of which are detect – indeed, there are only a handful of neutrino
partnered by a corresponding antiparticle, referred detectors on Earth, such as the one at Los Alamos,
to as an antineutrino, with an opposite chirality – a New Mexico. However, their weak interactions could
ARE THERE property of asymmetry. also be useful if recorded or harnessed, as they are

TECHNICAL Interestingly, neutrinos pose both problems and

solutions to astrophysicists. The main problem
the only known particles that are not significantly
weakened by travel through an interstellar medium,
DIFFERENCES stems from their exceedingly low mass and neutral enabling scientists to probe and study distant areas

BETWEEN charge, properties that lead them to interact of space.

LAGER, ALE
AND BEER?
This is a common
IS IT TRUE THAT PEOPLE WERE
debate, and there are EXECUTED AS WITCHES
indeed some basic
distinctions. Beer is any
DURING MEDIEVAL TIMES?
Thousands of people accused of witchcraft were
alcoholic beverage
burned or hung across Europe, the UK and the
primarily made from
American colonies, but the height of the witch panic
grain, hops, water and
occurred well after the medieval period. In fact, the
yeast. Grain is heated in
worst frenzy of witch-hunting, known as the Burning
water to release sugar,
Times, occurred between 1580 and 1662. An estimated
then hops are added to
60,000 people were put to death for witchcraft during
lend a complex flavour
this period, mostly in Germanic regions of Europe,
and bitterness to
although about 500 were executed in England. Witches
contrast with the sugar.
were accused of conspiring with the devil to conjure
Yeast is then introduced
spells that caused all manner of misfortune: illness and
to ferment the sugar,
death, crop failure, storms and floods. The Witchcraft
producing alcohol and
Acts, which made sorcery punishable by death, were
carbon dioxide.
repealed in England and Scotland by 1736.
Lager and ale are
both types of beer, but
they undergo differing
fermentation processes.
Ale is fermented using
yeast that rises and
works best at warmer Why do humans and
temperatures of around
elephants cry, but
no other animals?
15 to 24 degrees
Celsius. Lager uses
yeast that sinks
and prefers cooler
temperatures of 5 to 12
degrees Celsius. As a All mammals produce tears from glands in the eye to
result, lager takes lubricate the cornea and flush out dust and dirt. But crying
longer to ferment than as a response to emotional distress might be uniquely
ale, plus the colder human. Elephants are known to shed tears, but we don’t
fermentation inhibits know their state of mind, and it may be that we only call it
the production of esters ‘crying’ because they already have such sad-looking faces.
– the compounds Behavioural neurologist Michael Trimble suggests in his
responsible for fruity book Why Humans Like To Cry that crying evolved along
aromas and flavours with the higher mental faculties that allow us to recognise
© Shutterstock

often found in ale. the tragedy of life – as opposed to the basic animal
emotions of fear, hunger or pain. Crying, he suggests,
provides an almost pleasurable form of release.

89
 THE LIBRARY
The latest book releases for curious minds

HOW TO EXPLAIN
CLIMATE SCIENCE
TO A GROWN-UP
EVERYTHING A CHILD
NEEDS TO KNOW
WHEN TALKING ABOUT

BEAT
THE ENVIRONMENT
AUTHOR RUTH SPIRO
ILLUSTRATOR
TERESA MARTÍNEZ

THIS PUBLISHER CHARLESBRIDGE

PRICE £15 / $17.99
RELEASE 4 MARCH

BOOK
In the latest instalment in the
How to Explain book series,
children tackle the topic of our
climate, and more importantly
LET THE GAMES BEGIN how humans affect it. In its
typically charming way of
AUTHOR HOWARD CALVERT turning the tables on who’s
ILLUSTRATOR GEMMA CORRELL teaching who, How to Explain
PUBLISHER QUARTO Climate Science to a Grown-
PRICE £12.99 / $19.99 Up gives children all of the
RELEASE OUT NOW information they need to explain
climate science. It includes how
he challenge begins right and really silly stuff, like when Book

T
to explain the differences
out of the gate: ‘Book’ challenges the reader to make a noise
between weather and climate,
speaks to the reader in a like an otter. A lot of the games involve
why our climate is changing and
tone that approaches that some direct interaction, bending pages
what we can do to help stop
of a comic supervillain, telling them or slamming the book shut, which is
things from getting worse. Its
that they cannot possibly beat the reminiscent of Tom Fletcher’s popular
humour and handy ‘pro tips’ on
challenges it sets – though that There’s a Monster in Your Book.
how to keep adults engaged
shouldn’t put them off and they will Similarities can be drawn between
while they learn are a brilliant
certainly have fun trying. Book’s super- these two narrative styles and the way
way to teach young readers how
confident demeanour lasts all of three both ask the reader to physically
to articulate what’s going on in
pages, after which it gives the reader a interact with the book itself, but Beat
the world. It’s yet another great
slow clap for spotting the smallest This Book packs many more puzzles
edition in this series that’s
dog among a tightly packed spread of into its pages and is far less of a
helping children learn through
cartoon pooches. one-trick pony.
teaching adults.
It’s downhill for Book from here as it There’s a loose educational aspect as
lines up one game after another, only Book throws the reader a curious fact
for its self-belief to waver as it assumes here and there, but Beat This Book is
the reader beats its every challenge. largely about encouraging younger
Challenges like, guess the longest of children to think outside the box –
five slippery creatures that include a outside the book, even. It’s silly, it’s fun,
worm, a boa constrictor and a deep sea it’s original and it’s a great way for
siphonophore, where the reader must young readers and their parents to read
turn the page to see where the tail ends. and play together at the same time.
Or, find the hole among all the spots on
several different creatures – it’s an
actual hole in the page of the book, as if “Packs many puzzles
someone had used a hole punch on it. into its pages and
is far less of a
Other challenges include those of the
physical variety, like the one where
the reader has to bend their body into one-trick pony”
certain shapes, lateral-thinking puzzles

90
 THEY WORK
HONEY BEES, NATURE’S
POLLINATORS
AUTHOR JUNE SMALLS
ILLUSTRATOR YUKARI MISHIMA
PUBLISHER FAMILIUS
PRICE £12.99/ $17.99
RELEASE 10 APRIL

The busy lives of honey bees are usually

concealed inside their complex hives.
But in They Work, you can uncover
the goings on in and around their
honeycombed homes. Through detailed
and varied illustrations, this book clearly

IMMUNE HEROES shows how bees work together to store

food, serve their queen, reproduce and
MEET THE PROTECTORS clean the rooms of their homes. There
OF THE WOUND AND may be more roles than you realised,
DISCOVER HOW THESE from nannies that care for young larvae
CELLULAR SOLDIERS to the construction workers, engineers “These animals are
DEFEND THE BODY and the queen’s ladies in waiting. This unique communicators
who have developed an
colourful book covers the complex
AUTHOR NAMITA GANDHI
instinctual behaviours and mesmerising
ILLUSTRATOR
TAMIKA BRAMWELL
map-making skills that bees have elaborate workforce”
learned in the form of a sophisticated
PUBLISHER INDEPENDENT
dance. In addition, biological cutaways carry their gathered supplies back to
PRICE £9.94 / $12.99
show the honey stomachs of their bases. These animals are unique
RELEASE OUT NOW
honey bees, which they fill with nectar communicators who have developed an
After a young boy named Mayu and water from flowers around the hive. elaborate workforce and family that you
tumbles from his bicycle and This separate stomach enables them to will meet throughout They Work.
scrapes his knee, an army of
immune cells, led by Captain T,
leaps into action to tackle the
infection and heal the wound.
In a brilliant blend of storytelling
and science, this playful
children’s book showcases how
BOATS
STEAMERS, ICEBREAKERS
the immune system works to
AND GHOST SHIPS
heal a wound. The battle-plan
narrative of the story sees a AUTHOR JAN VAN DER VEKEN
variety of real-life immune cells PUBLISHER PRESTEL
playfully transformed into PRICE £19.99 / $24.99
cartoon heroes, each with RELEASE OUT NOW
their part to play. From the
This visually entertaining book sails you
neutrophil first responders that
straight into the maritime world to explore
reduce swelling to the glutinous
the technology invented for traversing the
macrophage cells that devour
seas. As you navigate its pages, you will learn
bacteria invaders, there’s a
how to communicate in Morse code, use a
whole host of immune cells to
sextant and understand the science behind a
discover. Children will learn all
submarine. The scientific diagrams dispersed
about them as these cells fight
through Boats are subtle enough that they
off intruders that seek to wreak
blend into creative and charismatic ocean
havoc. By the end of this
scenes, while teaching the basic physics behind
charming story, children will not
floating boats, surging ships, radar reception
only be entertained but will walk
and many more marine mechanics. Boats
away with an understanding of
does exactly what its title claims, but what is diverse onboard devices that have evolved
how the body heals.
surprising is the great array of waterborne alongside them. From intricate engineering to
machines that have been produced throughout long-told sea superstitions, you will find
the history of human exploration and the something in Boats to intrigue you.

91
 BRAIN GYM
Give your brain a puzzle workout

:RUGbVHDUFK
Find the following words

Sudoku
Complete the grid so that
QUANTUM
MEDIEVAL
AIRPOD
ALGAL
LIFE
CRANE
WING
NEWTONIAN
DUTCH
RABBIT CHIP HELIUM
each row, column and 3x3 box
contains the numbers 1 to 9
A Y S O L A G L A I R P U D N
EASY
R A B D I T C H V U A L I U M
8 4 1 2 A Q I F E M E D L E N H P W P
3 7 2 8 4
7 2 1 4 6 3
Z U N A R C A I R P O D H I D
8 3 7 4 G A L A Q U N T N G M U H C U
3 7 S N D U T C H K O L J C Y M E
2 5 3 8 9 L T I F E N R C A G A L N K R
5 6 2 4
H U T C Z D A V X R N E A W A
3 6 5 4 7 8
2 3 8 5 E M T O N I E N H V U P I R B
MEDIUM
L O N F W I N G L E M U N J B
3 4 8 I X P A D H P D U F T C O H I
4 5 3 U Q U E M T G A L I N G T R T
1 7 2 3 6 M Y M H I P J E M L A H W N O
4 5 E D T
V A L E M Z U C H E K U
3 6 2 1
6 5 1 9 C R A N E B A C H J S F N I A
9 6 5 2
5 2 3 9
1 9 4 7

What
HARD

9 4 6

6 5
3
1 8
is
Hint:
it?
6 8 4 These blooms
7 3 6 can smother
2 1 8 6 5 aquatic life
9
4 9 A
8 1 2 5

92
6SRWWKHGLIIHUHQFH QUICKFIRE
See if you can find all six changes between the images below
QUESTIONS
Q1$PLQRDFLGVDUHWKH
EXLOGLQJEORFNVRIZKLFK
RIbWKHVHQXWULHQWV"
Proteins
Fats
Carbohydrates
Vitamins

Q2:KHUHZDVWKHIRVVLORI
Ŧ/XF\ŧIRXQG"
France
South Africa
Thailand
Ethiopia

Q3:KDWRWKHUKXPDQ
RUJDQKDVWDVWHEXGV"
Heart
Liver
Eyes
Kidneys

Q4+RZPXFKGLGGRPDLQ
QDPHFDUVFRPVHOOIRU"
$90 million
$345 million
$872 million
$1.53 billion

Q6:KDWQRQKXPDQEHDW
ZRUOGFKHVVFKDPSLRQ
*DUU\.DVSDURYLQ"
A chimpanzee
A computer
An extraterrestrial being
His pet dog

$QVZHUV Find the solutions to last issue’s puzzle pages Q6:KDWLVDFRUDFOH"

Q1 GREENLAND SHARK
Q2 MAUNA KEA What A small boat
GLIIHUHQFH

is it?
A mollusc
6SRWWKH

Q3 LUNGS
© Alamy / Shutterstock

Q4 500 MILLION YEARS OLD

A prophetic being
TEETH A white blood cell
Q5 3,260,257 MILES
Q6 CHINA

93
 HOW TO…
Practical projects to try at home
KIT LIST

Two identical birthday candles

Two identical drinking glasses
Pin

MAKE A CANDLE SEESAW

Tape
Aluminium foil
Lighter or matches
This candle balancing act combines heat, melting wax and mass distribution Knife

1 2
HOWITWORKSMAG

GATHER YOUR TAPE UP

MATERIALS THE BASES
Get all your materials Line up the candles
together. Make sure end to end at their
there is an adult bases, and secure
present for this them together with
experiment, as it strong tape.
involves fire.
[email protected]
@HOWITWORKSMAG

3 PLACE A PIN
Where the ends of the candles
meet, push a pin through the tape
perpendicular to the candles. You 4 LAY THE TABLE
Cover the workspace with a
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

will need a pin longer than the large piece of aluminium foil. This
candles’ diameter. will catch any dripping wax.
SEND YOUR IDEAS TO:

5 PIN BRIDGE
Place the two glasses next to
each other on the foil and balance 6 SET ALIGHT
Light both ends of the candles,
the pin across the gap so that the one at a time, with the help of an
candles lie balanced straight adult. Observe what happens as
between the glasses. the candles start to move.

94
 NE
XT
GU
GR M

ISS
M
OWY B

UE
DON’T

A R
DO IT

EA
ALONE!
If you’re under 16, make
sure you have an adult
with you

7 UNBALANCED
EXPERIMENT
Blow out the candles and cut
a section off one candle at
one end. Place the pin back SUMMARY
into position and light both
ends again while holding the When the pin is balanced across the
candles straight. glasses, it secures the candles and
makes them free to move, turning the
pin back and forth like a seesaw. As the
candles are identical, they’re around the
same weight, so when the pin is perfectly
central, the candles can balance straight.
If one side is shorter, however, the candles
are positioned vertically as the longer,
heavier one falls downwards.
When the candles are lit, the flame heats
the candle wax and turns it into a gas. The
hydrocarbons in the candle are converted
into carbon and hydrogen as part of this
chemical reaction, which are then released
as carbon dioxide and water vapour into
the air. The melted and burned wax
reduces the size of the candles. The candle
that’s lit first will lose wax slightly earlier,

8
becoming shorter and lighter than the
A SEESAW ONCE MORE other candle more quickly. The heavier
Leave both of the candles burning. Watch what side therefore tilts downwards due to the
happens to the unbalanced candles over time. force of gravity. If you observe the angle of
the flame on the heavier candle, you will
see that the flame is slightly below the wax
of the lower candle, heating and burning
the wax quicker. This makes it shorter and
lighter, so it rises above the other candle.
The process keeps happening in a cycle,
making the candles’ movements resemble
a seesaw.

Had a go? Let us know!

If you’ve tried out any of our experiments – or
conducted some of your own – let us know! Share
your photos or videos with us on social media.
DISCLAIMER
Neither Future Publishing nor its employees can accept any liability for any adverse
effects experienced during the course of carrying out these projects or at any time after.
Always take care when handling potentially hazardous equipment or when working with
electronics, and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.

95
 INBOX
Speak your mind
HOWITWORKSMAG

SEASONALSEA
Dear HIW,
How much does ocean
WIN!
AN AMAZING PRIZE FOR
LETTER OF THE MONTH
temperature change
during the year, and BEAT THIS BOOK
[email protected]

what causes this? The average NBA vertical jump is 71 centimetres An engaging, entertaining book
Markus Li that’s designed to be played
with, packed with clever

JUMPING BIOLOGY
facts and comic
How much the ocean genius
changes temperature
depends largely on
Dear HIW, stretch-shortening cycle has three main
the location and water
As someone who loves basketball, I have stages. The eccentric phase is when you
conditions. The nearer
been fascinated by how our bodies change bend your knees in preparation for a
you get to the equator,
in sport and adapt to different ones. I notice basketball jump. This is your muscles
the less drastic water
my vertical jump seems to be better after preparing to release stored energy. Next,
temperature changes
weight training. How does strength training the amortisation phase occurs, which is
become. These tropical
impact jumping ability? the short transition from stretching to
waters can remain
Liam Thompson contracting. This leads to the
between 25 and 30
concentric phase as you jump off
degrees Celsius
@HOWITWORKSMAG

By keeping consistent with the ground and your muscles

year-round, as they
have consistent
sunlight adding heat to
strength training, you’re
making it easier to execute
the quick and powerful
LETTER
of the
force you upwards.
The stronger your quadriceps,
glutes, calves and core are,
the water. Meanwhile,
more temperate
regions such as the
movements that make you
a good basketball player.
Strength training is great for
MONTH which can be built on through
exercises like squats and calf
raises, the more effective your
Atlantic coast and the
this sport as it increases muscle jumps will be, as the muscle
Mediterranean Sea can
power, which is a combination of contraction will be more forceful. Core
change by ten degrees
speed and force. This helps your exercises make your whole body more
Celsius between
HOW IT WORKS MAGAZINE

muscles store more energy and release stable, which can help absorb the impact
summer and winter.
it quickly, powering you through the air of landing and prevent injuries. In
Close to the poles, the
and towards the basket. addition, strength training makes your
sea may be just above
When you jump, your muscles carry out nervous system more efficient at
freezing in summer
a cycle of stretching and shortening. The activating muscle fibres quickly.
and below freezing in
winter. Deeper in
the ocean, water
temperature is
relatively stable and

PARROT
only changes slightly
in temperature.

PARENTING
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS TO:

Sea surface temperatures

have been rising since 1880
Dear HIW,
I have recently added a parrot to my family. I’m
amazed at how smart he seems. Do they have
similar cognitive skills to young children?
Sofia Rossi
A parrot’s brain-to-
You are right in your observations. Parrots are body ratio is similar
extremely intelligent. They can solve puzzles, to that of primates
understand simple cause-and-effect actions
and mimic humans and other sounds. Their
memory is also impressive, as they can in the wild and depend on interaction. Their
remember interactions for years. Like regular mental stimulation means they share
humans, parrots are generally very social many skills with young children.

96
 NOT-SO-SCARY
STORMS Future PLC Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA

Editorial
Editor Ben Biggs
Dear HIW, Senior Art Editor Duncan Crook
My toddler is terrified of storms. Production Editor Nikole Robinson
Senior Staff Writer ³ƬȒɎɎ(ɖɎˡƺǼƳ
Can you explain them in a way to Staff Writer Ailsa Harvey
stop him feeling scared? Editor-in-Chief Tim Williamson
Reynaud’s syndrome causes
Jaden Ahmed Contributors
fingers to appear pale
Ian Evenden, Sascha Pare, Andrew May, Sierra Bouchér, Ben
Turner, Harry Baker, Stephanie Pappas, Stefanie Waldek, Conor
It’s common for storms to scare IƺƺǝǼɵً0ȅǣǼɵ!ȒȒǸƺًkƺɖȅƏȸɀˡˡ‫ٮ‬³ƏƫƺɎًxƏȸƬɖɀ!ǝȒɯȇ

COLD AND children – the loud sounds can

make adults jump, too. One way
Cover images
Alamy, Getty, Shutterstock, Mammoet

CIRCULATION to help children feel safer

around storms is to give them
Photography
Alamy, Getty Images, NASA, Shutterstock, Wikimedia
All copyrights and trademarks are recognised and respected
Dear HIW,
more of an understanding. You Advertising
When my hands get cold I notice that they go Media packs are available on request
could explain to your child that Graduate Sales Executive Sophie Dickinson
a funny colour – they go pale halfway up my  ɀȒȵǝǣƺِƳǣƬǸǣȇɀȒȇ۬ǔɖɎɖȸƺȇƺɎِƬȒȅ
storms are nature’s way of
fingers. Does this mean I have bad circulation?
balancing electrical charges in Advertising Sales Director Lara Jaggon
Maya O’Neil  ǼƏȸƏِǴƏǕǕȒȇ۬ǔɖɎɖȸƺȇƺɎِƬȒȅ
the atmosphere, just like how 07515 961911

an electric shock releases the International Licensing

If you’re worried about your circulation, it’s How It WorksǣɀƏɮƏǣǼƏƫǼƺǔȒȸǼǣƬƺȇɀǣȇǕƏȇƳɀɵȇƳǣƬƏɎǣȒȇِÁȒˡȇƳ
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97
 FAST FACTS
Amazing trivia that will blow your mind

2.7 MILLION Nearly three-quarters

of the world’s

MILES PER HOUR

freshwater is in
Antarctica
Standing still, you’re travelling through the universe at 750 miles a second

UNDER EXTREME
PRESSURE AND
TEMPERATURE,
PEANUT BUTTER
Almost half a century ago,
NASA’s Viking 1 became the
first craft to land on Mars

CAN BE TURNED
Two more Neptunian moons

2,500
were discovered this
year, bringing its total

INTO DIAMOND MILES

closer to 20

MILES PER HOUR

Australia is wider than the Moon’s
diameter of 2,160 miles

China’s STAR1 robot could run a marathon in 3 hours and 16 minutes

Feet can
produce over
half a litre of
Vikings discovered the New World 500 years before Christopher Columbus
sweat a day
A LIGHTNING
BOLT CONTAINS
ENOUGH ENERGY
TO TOAST 20,000 LIGHT YEARS
PIECES OF BREAD
© Shutterstock

The first exoplanet discovered, 51 Pegasi b,

is a relatively short distance from Earth

98
9000