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SC SCIENCE CE•H HISTORY S O Y•NATURE•FOR O THE CU CURIOUS OUS MIND

N IE AL TT BU ER ID SP 1 p9

ASIA EDITION | VOL 9 ISSUE 9

THE ART OF SAVING LIVES p38

IN THRALL TO THE RED PLANET: MARS p53

DO SOCIAL NETWORKS MAKE US ANTISOCIAL? p58

COSTA RICA’S

PPS 1875/01/2016 (025609) MCI (P) 002/09/2017 ISSN 2529-7503

9 771793 983016 SGD 7.50 | THB 240 | NT 200 | RM 18

BIG IDEA

The country that is inspiring conservationists all over the world with its vast network of wildlife corridors p46

TV HIGHLIGHTS

FISHING IMPOSSIBLE

Wonderful World of NEW SEASON Puppies and Kittens Premieres 21 September

Thursdays attracking 9.45pm (JKT/BKK), 10.45pm (SIN/HK/MY/TW) Thanks to pioneering camera rigs, technology and audio tags, this captivating series follows puppies and then kittens through the key moments of their first year; their trials, tribulations and triumphs.

Premieres 11 September Mondays at 7.00pm (JKT/BKK) 8.00pm (SIN/HK/MY/TW)

The Supervet: Bionic Specials This series follows stories of pets throughout their ‘bionic’ journey; from the moment they are brought into the practice for treatment to their amazing physical transformations which bring relief and joy as owners are reunited with their beloved pets.

Premieres 5 September Tuesdays at 7.00pm (JKT/BKK) 8.00pm (SIN/HK/MY/TW)

The Mekong River with Sue Perkins With her inimitable genial charm, Sue brings to life the river’s compelling and profound stories, encountering some of Earth’s most incredible natural phenomena along the way.

Starts 8 September Fridays at 8.45pm (JKT/BKK) 9.45pm (SIN/HK/MY/TW) www.bbcasia.com /bbcearth @BBCEarthAsia BBC Earth is available in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, all Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Please ca sia.com your cable operator for more details or check out our website at www.bbcas

WELCOME

Y Send us your letters to edittoriaal-bbccearrth@ @regeentm mediaa.s .g

HEALTH IS WEALTH However much of a cliché you may think this is, it holds true. Keeping this in mind, medical technology and theoretical research relentlessly seeks to pursue new ways of ensuring a longer and healthier life for us humans. By reducing the chances of human error and increasing the precision of surgical procedures as well as laboratory research with the use of machines, the science of medicine has evolved so as to reduce human mortality rates. Advanced scientific endeavours have also contributed to reducing the pain and suffering cause by chronic conditions such as cancer, and are continuously working to better the lives of those suffering from these conditions. In this issue, we explore some of the lifesaving machines that have made a mark in medical and surgical technology. (p38) While this is true, there is also a flip side to the advancement of technology in our lives. While there are great advantages to being a part of the digital age, it is also true that being glued to one screen or another through our day causes tremendous harm to us both physically and mentally. Humans are social beings, and despite our growing network of virtual friends, could it be true that technology is also causing us to become increasingly isolated? This issue, we help you answer this question and investigate the realities of a fast growing virtual network. (p58)

BBC Earth Magazinne Includes selected articles from other BBC specialist magazines, including Focus, BBC History Magazine and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

www.sciencefocus.com www.historyextra.com www.discoverwildlife.com IMPO ORTANTT CHAN NGEE:

The licence to publish this magazine was acquired from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company on 1 November 2011. We remain committed to making a magazine of the highest editorial quality, one that complies with BBC editorial and commercial guidelines and connects with BBC programmes. The BBC Earth television channel is available in the following regions: Asia (Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan)

That’s it for now. We hope you enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed curating it!

SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE FOR THE CURIOUS MIND Know more. Anywhere.

Akanksha Nair akanksha@regentmedia.sg “LIKE” US ON FACEBOOK!

www.facebook.com/BBCEarthMagAsia

Y We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them for length and clarity. By sending us your letter you permit us to publish it in the magazine and/or on our website. We regret that we cannot always reply personally to letters.

BBC Earth Magazine provides trusted, independent advice and information that has been gathered without fear or favour. When receiving assistance or sample products from suppliers, we ensure our editorial integrity and independence are not compromised by never offering anything in return, such as positive coverage, and by including a brief credit where appropriate.

Experts in this issue…

JAMES LOWEN James Lowen is a naturalist, author, editor, guide, consultant and photographer. He is the author A Summer of British Wildlife, which also won Travel Guide Book of the Year at the 2016 Media Awards. (p46)

ERIC RABKIN Eric Rabkin is professor emeritus of English language and literature at the University of Michigan. He is the author (and editor) of more than thirty books on science ﬁction. (p53)

DR DEAN BURNETT Dr. Dean Burnett is a doctor of neuroscience at Cardiff University. He also moonlights as a comedy writer and stand up comedian. He is the author of The Idiot Brain. (p58)

DHRITIMAN MUKHERJEE Dhritiman Mukherjee is an Indian professional wildlife photographer and the co-author of Magical Biodiversity of India. In this issue he covers India’s wild west. (p64)

Vol. 9 Issue 9

CONTENTS

VOL. 9 ISSUE 9

FEATURES 12 BBC Earth Magazine School Challenge 2017 - Singapore This month we celebrate the participants and winners of the BBC School Challenge 2017 in Singapore 16 Science Centre Singapore: Mirrors And Illusions Discover the marvel of mirrors and illusions with the Science Centre Singapore’s fascinating new exhibitions 34 Cradling Natural Wonders Of Beauty: The Australian Continent From the Great Barrier Reef to Pink Lake, Australia’s wealth of natural offerings never cease to amaze 38 The Art Of Saving Lives Poignant, surprising and otherworldly, Tom Ireland explores Reiner Reiner Riedler’s photography project which shows medical machinery in a fresh light 46 Costa Rica’s Big Idea Costa Rica is creating a vast network of wildlife corridors to link its isolated reserves. James Lowen asks if this ambitious vision could inspire conservationists beyond Latin America

53 In Thrall To The Red Planet Eric Rabkin argues that depictions of mars in literature and film frequently reflect the political climate back on Earth 58 Do Social Networks Make Us Antisocial? Should we be worried about social media altering our behaviour? Dr Dean Burnett investigates 64 India’s Wild West Dhritiman Mukherjee spent 170 days photographing the unique flora and fauna of Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, India 72 The Man Who Built Modern Britain Julian Glover hails Thomas Telford, an engineer whose achievements arguably outshine those of Isambard Kingdom Brunel 80 Introducing Petrosains, The Discovery Centre! Petrosains is a 7,000sqm interactive science discovery centre housing many unique interactive exhibits 82 The Petrosains Science Festival 2017 Malaysia’s largest celebration of science, the Petrosains Science Festival returns with a bigger and better line-up of exciting activities and programmes! 4

Vol. 9 Issue 9

58 REGULARS

UPDATE

3 Welcome A note from the editor sharing her thoughts on the issue and other ramblings

19 The Latest Intelligence Have astronomers found the first evidence of the multiverse, What is a bubble universe, Lab-made human blood is now “tantalisingly close”

6 Snapshot Stunning images from the fields of science, nature or history 32 Comment & Analysis Helen Czerki on what causes turbulence on airplanes

83 Q&A Can plants get cancer, How can I survive a zombie apocalypse, Could you walk on a neutron star, Why do your ears pop...

RESOURCE 97 My Life Scientific Helen Pilcher chats to volcanologist Prof Tamsin Mather about getting up close and personal with nature’s most destructive forces, volcanoes 98 The Last Word Robert Matthews on the cholesterol drug controversy

94 Book Review Meet the plant messiah, Carlos Magdalena. His book The Plant Messiah traces his travels all over the world, for the purpose of rescuing tropical species of flora from extinction 96 Time Out Crossword puzzle to stimulate your brain

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EMA AILL US S AT: edito oria al-b bb earrth@ bbce th@re ege entm tme media a.sgg We welcome your letters, while reserving the right to edit them for length and clarity. By sending us your letter you permit us to publish it in the magazine and/or on our website. We regret that we cannot always reply personally to letters.

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UK T E A M Editor: Eckart Bollman Production Editor: Daniel Down Reviews Editor: Daniel Bennett Commissioning Editor: Jason Goodyer Science Consultant: Robert Matthews Contributing Editor: Emma Bayley Art Editor: Joe Eden CO ONTTRIB BUTTOR ORS Acute Graphics, Peter Bentley, Dan Bright, JV Chamary, Alexandra Chueng, Brian Clegg, Charlotte Corney, Helen Czerski, Lewis Dartnell, Emma Davies, Alice Gregory, Alastair Gunn, Tom Ireland, Christian Jarrett, Raja Lockey, Mark Lorch, Magic Torch, Tim McDonagh, James Olstein, Helen Pilcher, Aarathi Prasad, Dean Purnell, Angy Ridgway, Helen Scales, Kyle Smart, Luis Villazon, James Lowen, Eric Rabkin, Dr Dean Burnett, Dhritiman Mukherjee, Julian Glover, Jo-ey Chee DIS DIS STRIB BUTTOR RS Singapore - Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd Malaysia - MPH Distributors Sdn Bhd Thailand - Asia Books Co., Ltd Hong Kong/China/Macau - Times Publishing (HK) Ltd SUB BSCRIP BSC PTION AGEN NTS S Singapore - The Learning Craft, Adept Learning, ilovereading.sg, JSim Education, Magazine & Journal Subscription Services, Starmags International Malaysia - Worldwide Magazines Services Sdn Bhd Hong Kong - MI Asia Limited Taiwan - Jade Mountain Creative Marketing

BBC Earth Magazine, MCI (P) 002/09/2017, ISSN 2529-7503, PPS 1875/01/2016 (025609), is published by Regent Media Pte Ltd under license from Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited. Copyright © Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited. No part of this publication is to be reproduced, stored, transmitted, digitally or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. The information contained herein is accurate at time of printing. Changes may have occurred since this magazine went to print. Regent Media Pte Ltd and its editors will not be held liable for any damages, loss, injury or inconvenience, arising in connection with the contents of the magazine. Regent Media Pte Ltd will not accept responsibility for unsolicited contributions. Printer: KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd (197801823M) Address: 57 Loyang Drive Singapore 508968. The BBC logo is a trade mark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence. © British Broadcasting Corporation 1996

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Vol. 9 Issue 9

Solar Flare and a Coronal Mass Ejection A medium-sized (M2) solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) erupted from the same, large active region of the sun on July 14, 2017. The flare lasted almost two hours, quite a long duration. The coils arcing over this active region are particles spiralling along magnetic field lines, which were reorganising themselves after the magnetic field was disrupted by the blast. Images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). While these are the most common solar events, the sun can also emit streams of very fast protons – known as Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events – and disturbances in the solar wind known as Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs). The Solar Dynamics Observatory is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Its Atmosphere Imaging Assembly was built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, California. PHOTO: NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory

Vol. 9 Issue 9

Bird’s-eye view Meråker, Norway This golden eagle was snapped from the inside of its prey in Norway’s frozen mountains. The prey in question was a red fox – a common food source for golden eagles in this region. “I got the dead fox from a scientist friend,” says photographer Audun Rikardsen, who works as a biologist at the University of Tromsø. “I had to freeze it so that I could take it on the plane with me to the mountains. They wouldn’t allow it in hand luggage.” When Audun arrived, he cut a hole in the melting animal and placed his camera inside, its lens pointing out. It was then just a matter of waiting, with Audun triggering the camera via a remote control from his hide, 20m away. “I finally struck gold at the end of the day,” he says. “By the time this photo was taken, the eagle had already been eating for 20 minutes. You could see the fox’s guts and bits of bones sticking out, and then the eagle looked straight at the camera.” PHOTO: Audun Rikardsen

Vol. 9 Issue 9

Fiery fronds Anyang, Henan Province China In China’s Henan Province, performers throw searing hot molten iron on to the cold brick surface of the city wall causing it to explode into cascades of flares and sparks. Dubbed Da Shuhua, meaning ‘beating down the tree flowers’, the ceremony is a part of the Lantern Festival celebrations which take place on the 15th day of the Chinese New Year. The practice can be traced back 500 years and arose when poor blacksmiths, who were unable to afford fireworks to let off during celebrations, began to improvise their own displays using molten iron. The practice proved popular and soon became an annual fixture. Each year, villagers donate scrap metal to the blacksmiths who heat it to more than 1,500°C in a vast, burning furnace placed in the heart of the village. The liquid metal is then flung into the air using wooden ladles that have been soaked in water for three days to protect them from the intense heat. The practice is certainly not for the faint-hearted – the performers are often burned by the flying sparks. PHOTO: Eyevine

Vol. 9 Issue 9

BBC Earth Magazine Asia recently conducted the 2017 School Challenge in july, welcoming bright and energetic students from across Singapore to join us on a quest of knowledge for the curious mind, with prizes to win every step of the way The e BBC C Ea arth h Maga Ma azin ne Sc cho ool Cha alle eng ge 201 17 was successfully conducted for students across secondary schools in Singapore. All student groups were accompanied by a teacher-mentor from their respective schools. Held at Science Centre Singapore, the event proved to be a successful learning experience that engaged students and invited these young minds to challenge, innovate and discover.

ABOUT THE CHALLENGE Organised by Regent Media Singapore, the event aspires to bring together the leaders and innovators of tomorrow to help them learn more through the tests and activities that they engage in. The challenge consisted of two different 12

Vol. 9 Issue 9

levels. The first level consisted of a Multiple Choice Questionnaire (MCQ) that covered advanced questions from across the fields of science, nature and history. The 50 questions closely tested the awareness of the students around important developments in these subjects that may be outside the curriculum of their school work. The test endeavours to push the boundaries and inspire students to widen their knowledge base and play closer attention to details even as they read and learn every day. The written test also consisted of an extra essay question. This question was used to gauge the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; ability to cogently present a well-researched argument. After the first level, 10 teams were selected on the basis of their scores in the

MCQ to go further in the challenge. The next level put them to a different kind of test, challenging the participants to come up with a short five minute presentation on a given topic. The topics consisted of relevant issues and debates in todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s world, such as the possibility of robots taking over human jobs, or the possibility of bringing back the actual jungle to the cities. The students impressed the judges and the audience with well-researched and extremely relevant ideas that backed up creatively made presentations. They also had fun with their topics, with a lot of students introducing light-hearted skits and acts to complement their presentations. Their entertaining and informative presentations were then scored individually by a panel of three esteemed judges.

Ms Jan Moo Director of Marketing, Bintan Resorts International

Mr Kuek Public Relations & Advertising Manager, Yakult Singapore

Ms Joanna Sim Asst. Director of Marketing, Science Centre Singapore

All participants received a personalised certificate Vol. 9 Issue 9

2ND PRIZE: NANYANG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL CHEW YU EN RACHAEL, GUO RUI XUAN, JADE LEE, YVETTE CHUA

1ST PRIZE: NANYANG GIRLS’ HIGH SCHOOL CHLOE KOK YING-XUAN, RACHEL GOH SZE JEN, HENG RUI QING, MATILDA MAG JIA LIN

SINGAPORE CHINESE GIRLS’ SCHOOL JOANNA CHEN JUE NING, NG ASHLEY, VERA LEE KIT YENG, ELISA KHOO

RIVER VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL CHENG JING HAN, MEGAN CHUA TSUI SAN, NG TAT KIT, SHEN JIA JING

RAFFLES INSTITUTION LO YU SHAUN, BENJAMIN CHEK JUN KIET, MELVIN LOH ZHI YUAN, WINSTON WONG SOONG

CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL DELANEY LIM WEI JIE, LEE KENG YAN, YIP YING FUNG LESLIE, CHIANG KAI JIN COLIN ADAM

3RD PRIZE: HWA CHONG INSTITUTION NATHANAEL CHIA SHIAU JIUN, RYAN TAN JINN, SHAWN CHENG WEI XUAN, TAN CALEB

RAFFLES INSTITUTION BUKOH MING JUN BRYAN, ANG SHI HAN, HEW YU HENG, LIM JUN DE

CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL CHIA ZONG YING ELIJAH, KENNETH HOH JIA KHAI, NG ZEMING MICHAEL EUGENE, NG ZEWEI, DAVID ETHAN

CEDAR GIRLS SECONDARY SCHOOL HARWIN KAUR, PARIGYA ARYA, VANCHINATHAN NITYA, KERLYN KWA

THE JUDGES

MS SANJALI JAIN Publications & Communications Ofﬁcer, Science Centre Singapore

Vol. 9 Issue 9

MS SWAPNA HARESH TECKWANI Science teacher on attachment, Science Centre Singapore

MS AKANKSHA NAIR BBC Earth Magazine’s Editor

List of All Participating Schools • Bukit Panjang Government High School • Catholic High School • Cedar Girls Secondary School • Clementi Town Secondary School • Hwa Chong Institution • Nan Hua High School • Nanyang Girls’ High School • National Junior College • Raffles Institution • River Valley High School • Singapore Chinese Girls’ School

FANTASTIC PRIZES WON With a range of amazing prizes to be won, no participant left the event empty-handed. Goodie bags were handed out at the end of the first round and all participants took home exciting goodies. Awards and certificates were handed out to the winning teams, and special certificates were handed out to the sponsors of the challenge. These included Ms Joanna Sim, Organiser

Official Beverage Sponsor

Venue Sponsor

Assistant Director of Marketing, Science Centre Singapore, Mr Kuek, Public Relations & Advertising Manager, Yakult Singapore and Ms Jan Moo, Director of Marketing, Bintan Resorts International, all of whom were instrumental in making the event a spectacular success and providing the exciting awards for the winners to enjoy. The second and third prizes included one Columbia URBANEER watch for each

Educational Tour Sponsor

Supporting Partners

Appointed School Agents

participant, a pack of Yakult Ace Light, along with their certificates and trophies, while first prize winners were awarded with a highly-anticipated educational trip to Bintan, Indonesia.

FOR THE CURIOUS MIND The challenge successfully delivered on its intention to expand the minds of young students and help provide an outlet for them to engage in teamwork and push the boundaries of their own imagination. The final presentations in particular brought out various facets of the students’ personalities, including creativity, storytelling, fact-checking, research and presentation skills. We thank all sponsors and participants for making the event a success, and we hope to continue our endeavour to help inspire curious minds. ß Vol. 9 Issue 9

ADVERTORIAL

Discover the marvel of mirrors and illusions with Science Centre Singapore’s fascinating new exhibitions. Come check out the exhibits and ask yourself, do you know what you’re looking at? As part of itts 40th an nniverrsa ary y ce ele ebrattio ons, the fun and informative Science Centre Singapore has reopened its entrance gallery with two exciting new exhibitions to expand your minds. The exhibitions are The Mind’s Eye: An Exhibition on Illusions and Human Perception and Professor Crackitt’s Light Fantastic! – A Mirror Maze Experience, both fantastic permanent exhibitions available for visitors to enjoy.

they interact with and learn about science, technology, engineering and mathematics. With exhibits that attract and intrigue visitors, the Centre inspires curiosity and encourages people to discover the science that underlies fascinating occurrences in the world around us. Since 1977, the Centre has been inspiring over 30 million visitors with more than 1000 exhibits spread across 14 exhibition galleries and outdoor exhibition spaces.

ENGAGE AND DISCOVER

THE MIND’S EYE

Science Centre Singapore continues on its journey to reach out to students and the public, and transform the way in which

So many amazing things happen around us every single day, yet sometimes we get so caught in the fast pace of our impatient

Vol. 9 Issue 9

world that we forget to notice. The Mind’s Eye is a fascinating exhibition with illusions that are meant to make you do a double take - nothing is as it seems! Play with the exhibits to explore fresh perspectives and to understand human perception, while being reintroduced to the joys of observation. For instance, one of the installations features a set of chess pieces. Our interpretation of the illusion depends on edge-assignment, which means that depending on where we determine the edge belongs, we will either see columns shaped like chess pieces, or we might see four tall human figures in the negative space instead. Compare what

include a curated collection of works from artists around the world, such as France, Japan, South Africa and the USA.

you see with what your friends do, and be amazed at how different human perception can be. That’s not all though, you may want to wait to watch as the chess pieces and human figures somehow come to life! The exhibition is full of such engrossing installations, including a colourless room, as well as a wire sculpture that is both an elephant from one point of view, and two giraffe’s from another. It is curated by the Science Centre, designed by Jack Rouse Associates and fulfilled by SPACElogic Pte Ltd, and its exhibits manipulate human observation to draw attention to the gap between perception and reality. The exhibits

PROFESSOR CRACKITT’S LIGHT FANTASTIC! – A MIRROR MAZE EXPERIENCE An exhilarating mirror maze experience awaits at Science Centre Singapore, created by Adrian Fisher Design Ltd, the world’s leading creator of mirror mazes and a record holder of seven Guinness World Records. This maze is the largest mirror maze in Asia, and it’s sitting right here at Science Centre Singapore for you to enjoy. Featuring 105 mirror cells and 17 interactive exhibits within a compelling fantastical storyline, the whimsical exhibition invites visitors to assist the main character – the eccentric and forgetful Professor Crackitt in finding

his pet parrot, Wattnot, while exploring his experiments within his laboratory. An exciting interplay of light and mirrors, the maze thrills visitors with a variety of optical illusions while introducing simple science on how light, colours, and reflections work. Play the spy as you observe the progress of other visitors through a one-way mirror, and watch out for holograms and fake-exits that may trick you into getting lost in the maze! ß Intrigue and wonderment are for all ages, and the Science Centre Singapore welcomes both kids and adults to experience a thrill backed up by the marvels of science and technology. Admission to the two permanent exhibitions is free of cost, but the standard admission charges to Science Centre Singapore apply. For more information, visit science.edu.sg

Vol. 9 Issue 9

NEW ZEALAND

NORTHEAST INDIA

CASABLANCA

EXTRAORDINARY STAYS

Magical INDIA beyond the crowds TAHIR SHAH’S

CASABLANCA

MOROCCO’s most underrated city break

MAGAZINE ASIA

See Morocco’s largest city through the eyes of a novelist who moved there and discovered sights overlooked even by locals WORDS TAHIR SHAH @humanstew PHOTOGRAPHY PHILIP LEE HARVEY @philip_lee_harvey_photographer

AUGUST 2017

IS HANDS CLUTCHING THE STEM OF A DRIED palm frond, his thoughts far away, Mohammed sweeps the central path at Casablanca’s old Christian cemetery. On either side lies a sea of crumbling tombs. In some there are rosaries, cruciﬁxes, porcelain wreaths and weathered photos of moustached gentlemen posing with their wives. Mohammed swishes the broom rhythmically back and forth, dust clouds billowing in the searing heat of late afternoon. His clothing drenched in sweat, he pauses to wipe a hand down over his gnarled face. ‘If you want to know about Casablanca,’ he says in a voice hoarse from a life-long love affair with Marquise cigarettes, ‘you have to understand this cemetery. It’s here that the city’s founders sleep side by side. Listen hard,’ he mumbles, ‘and you’ll hear them whispering their tales.’ Encircled by a towering whitewashed wall, the cemetery is open to the public, although most locals don’t even realise it’s there. Fabulously grand, it’s a time-capsule monument to the colonial families who built modern Casablanca from scratch a century ago. The commercial heart of Morocco, the city is on few travellers’ itineraries – reason in itself to explore. The butt of many Moroccan jokes, it’s often lampooned for being chaotic, crowded, far too bling, and not very old. After all, more than a few of the kingdom’s cities were founded over a thousand years ago.

The edge of the world

Despite its traditional design elements, the huge Hassan II Mosque is Casablanca’s modern landmark, completed in 1993. OPPOSITE A crumbling Frenchera building on the seafront

Rent a vintag ge campervan to experience New Zealand’s extraordinary d landscapes in a way few others do – take the back roads North h Island to bl blaackk--sand beaches and caves that sparkle like the night sky, to the ’s big ggest lake and its wildest geyser eruptions counttry’s WO W ORDS S MIK KE MACEAC CHERAN @mikemaceacheran PH HOTOG OGR RAPHS @justinfoulkes P S JUSTIN J N FOULKES

Hidden New Zealand by campervan Great Escape Make it perfect in Northeast India

NORTHEAST INDIA

Gre eat Escape N O R T H E A S T I N D I A In n aan n overlooked ovverllook corner of a vast country, trek to the living bridges of the Khasi K ha asi si Hills, Hill before heading out to spot rhinos around Kaziranga National Then explore the stilt villages on the river island of National na Park. P Majuli, M ajulii, rrelax aju elax with a cuppa in a Jorhat tea garden, to finish among the hill tribes of Nagaland. @olivertomberry O PHOTOGRAPHS JONATHAN STOKES

@jonstokes1

G R E AT E S C A P E

WORDS OLIVER BERRY

M MINI GUIDE GUIDE Culture in Amsterdam Activities ities

Shopping

Sights

Sleeping

PLUS Eating and drinking in Perth Amsterdam sterd terdam am essentials essentials

C oss Cross out Catch a Sample some into 1 2 Seek 3 4 5 Venture i g y rhinos, ferry across of the the untamed ingeniously inge f d root brid b dges, elephants, water the Brahmaputra ﬁnest Assam teas wilderness of crafted ft living sculptures sculp uress d d tto endu dure designed gned o soon soo ﬂood oodss in monsoon mo the ills th K Khasi asii Hil ((p44) (p44)..

MCI (P) 101/12/2016, PPS 1747/12/2012(022909)

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Highlights H Hig ighl gh hli lig ghts VAN GOGH MUSEUM

RIJKSMUSEUM

MINI GUIDE

Culture in Amsterdam

Few cities meld history with modern urban ﬂair like Amsterdam. You won’t get far without discovering a masterpiece of art, traditional pub, buzzing market or waterway.

Off beat

Tear out page here then fold along the dotted lines

A reproduction Van Gogh selfportrait in the Van Gogh Museum

EASY TRIPS

Easy Tr Trip ips ps

ANNE FRANK HUIS The Anne Frank Huis is a powerful experience that draws almost one million visitors annually. The focus of the museum is the melancholy Secret Annexe, where Anne and seven others hid from the Nazis before being mysteriously betrayed and sent to their deaths. Pre-book tickets online to minimise queues (annefrank.org; Prinsengracht 267; 9am–10pm Apr–Oct, 9am–7pm Sun–Fri, until 9pm Sat Nov–Mar; £8).

Local life

RED LIGHT DISTRICT TOUR Most tourists end up in the centuries-old Red Light District at some point, but, for those intrigued by this facet of the city, try the fascinating one-hour tour run by the nonproﬁt Prostitution Information Centre. Guides explain the business and take you into a Red Light room. Profits go to the centre (pic-amsterdam.com; Enge Kerksteeg 3; tours £13).

The Netherlands’ premier art trove splashes Rembrandts, Vermeers and 7,500 other masterpieces across its galleries. The crowds huddle around the Golden Age artworks, so the remaining rooms are free for browsing antique ship models, Dutch Delftware pottery and magic lanterns. Visit after 3pm and pre-book tickets. The gardens are free (rijksmuseum.nl; Museumstraat 1; 9am–5pm; £15).

LO LONG W KEND WEE IN BINTA BINTAN NTAN

luxurious soak from your hotel room. The Presidential Suite on level 33 sits at a very literal pinnacle of luxury, and includes an outdoor terrace, gym, spa-treatment room, steam room, whirlpool, plunge pool, kitchenette and private host.

expl the wond explore o ers rs of BBintan intan Island Is

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REVIEW OF THE MONTH

VONDELPARK

A post-war living room in the houseboat museum

HOUSEBOAT MUSEUM

ELECTRIC LADYLAND

Living on the water became popular in Amsterdam after WWII and some 2,500 houseboats line the city’s Unesco-listed canals. This quirky museum, a sailing barge from 1914, offers a good sense of how gezellig (cosy) life can be on a boat. You can watch a presentation on houseboats and inspect the sleeping, living, cooking and dining quarters (houseboatmuseum.nl; Prinsengracht 296k; 10am–5pm Jul–Aug, Tue–Sun only Sep–Jun, closed Jan; £4).

The world’s ﬁrst museum of ﬂuorescent art features owner Nick Padalino’s psychedelic sculpture work on one side and cases of naturally luminescent rocks and manufactured glowing objects (money, government ID cards etc) on the other. His art gallery and shop is upstairs. Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles and other artists play on the stereo while Nick lovingly describes each item in the collection (electric-lady-land. com; 2e Leliedwarsstraat 5; 1pm–6pm Tue–Sat; £4.40).

The lush urban idyll of the Vondelpark is one of Amsterdam’s most magical places – sprawling English-style gardens with ponds, lawns, footbridges and winding footpaths. On a sunny day, a party atmosphere ensues when lovers, cyclists, in-line skaters, pram-pushing parents, spliffsharing friends and champagneswilling picnickers all come out to play (hetvondelpark.net).

ALBERT CUYPMARKT This is the city’s largest and busiest market. Named after landscape painter Albert Cuyp (1620–91), it’s legendary for its huge variety of food, fashion and bargain ﬁnds. Be sure to sample the cheese and a piping-hot stroopwafel (caramel syrup wafﬂe). Beyond the market, the area of De Pijp is home to galleries and fashion boutiques (albertcuyp.nl; btwn Ferdinand Bolstraat & Van Woustraat; 9.30am–5pm Mon–Sat).

FROM TOP LEFT The Pool deck on level 9 features a 40m outdoor saltwater pool with dramatic views; the standard room size spans 48-63sqm of space, ranking among the largest in the city

BANGKOK, THAILAND

Park Hyatt Bangkok WHY BANGKOK?

intan Resorts is a multi-award winning, integrated beach resort destination that is host to world-class resorts, designer golf courses and an array of recreational facilities and attractions. The Bintan Resorts area generally refers to the entire northern coast of the Indonesian island of Bintan. The island destination is more than just its resorts. A holiday at Bintan Resorts will not be complete without experiencing the easily accessible local heritage and culture of the island on top of unwinding at your selected accommodation. Here’s a three-day itinerary to get travellers started:

Vondelpark is Amsterdam’s most popular park, especially in summer

CYCLING AMSTERDAMNOORD The avant-garde thrives in Noord, the vast community across the river from downtown Amsterdam. This northern part of the city has shot up recently to become one of Amsterdam’s most fashionable areas. Free ferries depart from behind Centraal Station. The area is great for cycling; hire a bike and pedal north along the Noordhollands Kanaal to reach windmills, cows and farms.

Day 1

After arriving in Bintan, take the afternoon off to relax in one of Bintan Resorts’ many top accommodation options, then head out to explore what the island has to offer. Take a trip down the mangrove river and try spotting local wildlife such as kingfishers, silver leaf monkeys and mangrove snakes. Depending on preference, opt for the night tour and be enthralled by fireflies lighting up the mangrove river. Otherwise, spend the evening at the Lagoi Bay Lantern Park, which features large lantern displays of marine creatures and endangered animals of Indonesia that light up after dusk.

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Apart from the fact that the city is retail nirvana and a taste-bud friendly hub for some fantastic food, it also reverberates with cultural vibrancy. Bangkok abounds with beautiful temples (or wáts), intrinsic to the Buddhist culture ingrained in the city. Scale the city heights and hop from mall to mall by walking through the skywalks, or hop on a colourful tuk-tuk to traverse the buzzing streets by motor. The city is also renowned for its endless nightlife opportunities, and is home to many a rooftop bar with breathtaking views to accompany a glass of the ﬁnest spirit of your choice.

Day 2

Take the day to explore the local areas of Bintan. Trikora Beach, for example, is a hidden beach and a favourite weekend spot among locals. Here, tourists can rent a thatched hut and enjoy light refreshments while basking in the sea breeze with loved ones or travel buddies. Visit the local boat maker down the Trikora Coast to observe how traditional fishing boats are made. For lunch, make a stop at Pizzeria Casa Italia, a restaurant owned by an Italian family that fell in love with Bintan. Enjoy one-of-a-kind authentic wood-fire pizza while overlooking the beautiful vast views of the South China Sea. Following lunch, explore local culture by heading to the local villages. Panglong Village, Berakit, is the largest sea gypsy village in Bintan. The sea gypsies are sea nomads, who were born, live and die at sea. Get a peek into their interesting local life and culture with a visit here. Travel back in time to see stilt houses on waters that form most of the rural village and daily activities like salted fish being dried in the open.

After a long day of sightseeing, guests can head to the Penthouse Bar and Grill, a signature restaurant from the hotel, spanning its 34th, 35th and 36th ﬂoors, with panoramic views overlooking the busy Phloen Chit area. Sophistication and quality subsists even at the lower levels, for instance with the Living Room and Embassy Room restaurants. Wake up to an appetising breakfast at The Living Room restaurant, or sip your cocktails from the outdoor terrace at The Bar near the lobby. If all this is not enough, you’re just a quick elevator ride away from Central Embassy under the hotel, featuring options such as the Eating Deck at Open House, a selection of semi-service restaurants offering various styles of food to create your own custom meal.

CENTRAL EMBASSY The Central Embassy retail space just underneath the Park Hyatt Bangkok property is yet another reason for you to choose this property for your next trip to Bangkok. This luxury mall makes for a retail destination that is home to favourite brands, as well as a range of restaurants across cuisines. The Open House Bookshop features a stunning floor-to-ceiling display of books on level 6, where you can find and purchase out-of-print and rare books as part of their initiative to celebrate print culture. A collective living space packed with books for purchase, an art tower, and a range of quality eateries to choose from, Open House on level 6 is a must visit. Enjoy a social cuppa at the coworking space, and find like-minded friends in a hub that inspires creativity.

WHY PARK HYATT BANGKOK? A remarkable addition to the Bangkok skyline, the hotel is a tranquil oasis of luxurious rooms that provides the perfect birds eye view of the bustling capital city. With luxe rooms that will bowl you over with their sheer size, the hotel delivers on the quality service that is signature of Park Hyatt hospitality. A pool deck on level 9 features a 40-metre inﬁnity pool surrounded by sun loungers, cabanas, and terraced gardens while overlooking sprawling views of the cityscape. The hotel is also conveniently connected by skywalk to the MRT, which makes touring the city that much more convenient.

WHAT’S MY ROOM LIKE? Even the entry-level rooms are among the largest in the city, and the ﬂoor-to-ceiling windows add to the magniﬁcence of the room sizes. The plush interiors greet you like a warm hug after a long day of shopping and sightseeing. Luxurious bathrooms welcome you to soak in a warm and fuzzy bath inside the bathtub, so bring along your favourite bath bombs. Some rooms come with the additional experience of a bathroom with a view, so that you can enjoy the sun setting over the city skyline as you enjoy a 38

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ART AND DESIGN What stands out about the hotel is most certainly the almost anticipatory nature of the design, concept and hospitality. Spacious and elegant, the hotel invites you in with intelligently designed spaces and spectacular artwork. The exterior façade sits in an impressive coiled structure clad in extruded aluminium tiles, creating a shimmering moiré-like pattern, drawing on motifs and patterns from traditional Thai architecture. Even the interiors include stunning pieces of art, such as the Pagoda Mirage and Naga installations by renowned Japanese artist Hirotoshi Sawada, one among the many International and Thai contributors to the hotel’s exquisite collection of artwork.

WHAT’S THE DAMAGE Prices for a stay at Park Hyatt Bangkok start at £217 a night for a Park King Room and go up to £628 a night for the Park Executive Suite.

WORDS: AKANKSHA NAIR . PHOTOGRAPHS: PARK HYATT BANGKOK

A bridge on the Bloemgracht canal in the Jordaan district

The Co o b&b near t furnished w displays off and ice skaa have balco o is make-yo o free bikes De Lairesss

WORDS: RAEWYN KOH . PHOTOGRAPHS: BINTAN RESORTS

WHER R

This museum houses the world’s largest collection of the great 19th-century Dutch painter’s works. It is as much a tour through his troubled mind as through his work. There are also paintings by Gauguin, ToulouseLautrec, Monet and Bernard. Book ahead (vangoghmuseum.nl; Museumplein 6; 9am–7pm Sun–Thu, to 10pm Fri, to 9pm Sat, shorter hours Sep–mid-Jul; £15).

buffalo and possibly to Majuli, the available, straight even a tiger in world’s biggest river from the source, Kaziranga island, a haven of with a visit National monasteries and to the plantations Park (p46). stilt houses (p48). of Jorhat (p50).

Nagaland, a land of remote hill tribes once led by fearsome headhunters (p52).

MAP ILLUSTRATION: ALEX VERHILLE. PHOTOGRAPHS: SIMM REDDY/ALAMY, MAXIMILIAN STOCK LTD/GETTY, PRADEEP GAUR/MINT VIA GETTY IMAGES

Tours

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Some theories suggest our Universe is just one of many – and new evidence could lend weight to these ideas

COSMOLOGY

HAVE ASTRONOMERS FOUND THE FIRST EVIDENCE OF THE MULTIVERSE?

PHOTO: GETTY

‘Cold Spot’ found in the cosmic microwave background may have been caused by our Universe colliding with another It’s a trippy thought: somewhere, in a parallel universe, a version of you is the prime minister. In another parallel universe you’re a pop star, and in another you’re a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. But that’s exactly what it would mean if the multiverse theory were correct. It’s an idea that has long fascinated authors and film-makers. But while it may seem to be little more than a fanciful science fiction trope to most, many prominent physicists take the theory very seriously. Now, researchers from Durham University may have found evidence of the multiverse’s existence.

It all comes down the so-called ‘Cold Spot’ found in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the traces of electromagnetic radiation left over from the early stages of the Universe following the Big Bang. The Cold Spot is the largest known structure ever discovered, covering an area billions of light years across. It is around 0.00015 degrees colder than the area that surrounds it. There are other cold regions in the Universe caused by random fluctuations in the CMB but none as large as the Cold Spot – a fact that has puzzled cosmologists since its discovery several years ago.

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ABOVE: An artist’s impression of multiple ‘bubble universes’

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E X P E R T

“BILLIONS OF OTHER UNIVERSES MAY EXIST LIKE OUR OWN”

C O M M E N T

WHAT IS A BUBBLE UNIVERSE? According to the theory of cosmic inflation – an idea that is accepted by most, but not all, leading cosmologists – the Universe expanded incredibly rapidly in all directions in a tiny fraction of a second following the Big Bang, much like a balloon does as it is blown up. After this initial quick burst, it continued to expand, but much more slowly. In contrast, the theory of eternal inflation states that following the Big Bang, inflation did cease in some pockets of space, but also continued in others. This means that we could live in a so-called ‘bubble universe’ – an area of slowly expanding space embedded in a much larger, rapidly expanding space that is still undergoing inflation. What’s more, there might also be countless other bubble universes embedded in this larger space that are being propelled away from us at breakneck speed. In some of these bubbles, the laws of physics could be completely different from those that apply in our own Universe – making these other universes very strange worlds indeed.

PHOTOS: GETTY X2

The leading theory was that the Cold Spot is not cold at all, but is instead caused by a vast area of relatively empty space dubbed a ‘supervoid’. Radiation passing through this void would have its energy reduced, thus making the area appear cooler. However, new measurements suggest that there is no such supervoid in the direction of the Cold Spot. Assuming this is correct, then simulations of the standard model of the Universe give odds of just 1 in 50 that the Cold Spot arose by random fluctuations. “This means we can’t entirely rule out that the Cold Spot is caused by an unlikely fluctuation explained by the standard model,” said lead researcher Tom Shanks. “But if that isn’t the answer, then there are more exotic explanations. Perhaps the most exciting of these is that the Cold Spot was caused by a collision between our Universe and another bubble universe. If further analysis of CMB data proves this to be the case, then the Cold Spot might be taken as the first evidence for the multiverse – and billions of other universes may exist like our own.” The team now plan to further test their theory through more detailed observations of the CMB.

MEDICINE

LAB-MADE HUMAN BLOOD IS NOW “TANTALISINGLY CLOSE” Now here’s a bloody good piece of research! A team at Boston Children’s Hospital have generated blood-forming stem cells in the lab for the first time, a breakthrough that could enable the development of more effective treatments for genetic blood diseases To create the cells, the team used a combination of chemical processes and genetic engineering to coax human pluripotent stem cells – cells capable of forming any adult cell – to differentiate into hemogenic endothelium, an embryonic form of tissue that gives rise to blood stem cells. They then implanted the resulting tissue into mice. Weeks later, a small number of the animals began producing several types of human blood cells. Some mice were even able to mount a human immune response after vaccination. “We’re tantalisingly close to generating bona fide human blood stem cells in a dish. This is the

culmination of over 20 years of striving,” said researcher George Daley. “We’re now able to model human blood function in ‘humanised’ mice. This is a major step forward for our ability to investigate genetic blood disease.” Although the cells made from the pluripotent stem cells are a mix of true blood stem cells and other cells known as blood progenitor cells, they proved capable of generating multiple types of human blood cells when put into mice. “This step opens up an opportunity to take cells from patients with genetic blood disorders, use gene editing to correct their genetic defect and make functional blood cells,” said researcher Ryohichi Sugimura. “This also gives us the potential to have a limitless supply of blood stem cells and blood by taking cells from universal donors. This could potentially augment the blood supply for patients who need transfusions.”

IN N U MBERS

DEGREE C The temperature reached by human mitochondria, the energy factories found in our cells.

100 YEARS

The time the human race has left to colonise another planet to ensure its survival, according to physicist Stephen Hawking.

1.33 x 1029KG

The lab-produced blood stem cells can develop into different types of blood cell

The minimum size a star needs to reach in order to shine, as recently calculated by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin. Vol. 9 Issue 9

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The tiny lambs appeared to develop normally inside the artiﬁcial wombs

T H E Y DID W H AT ?!

RESEARCHERS GOT CRAYFISH TIPSY How did they do that? A team at the University of Maryland plunged two groups of social crayfish into a tank spiked with booze. Previously, one group had been housed together in a tank for 10 days, the other group had been kept in solitary conditions. The team observed the animals over three hours to determine how ‘drunk’ they were. What did they find? When crayfish are tipsy, they stand more upright and begin thrashing their tails around before finally flopping over onto their backs – a sight eerily similar to the scenes in UK town centres on a Friday night. The team found that it took larger quantities of alcohol to trigger drunken behaviour in the loner crayfish.

BIOLOGY

PREMATURE LAMBS LIVE IN ‘PLASTIC BAG’ WOMBS Talk about a womb with a view… researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in the US have created a plastic bag-like artificial womb and successfully used it to incubate premature baby lambs for up to 28 days. That’s a huge improvement on the maximum 60 hours achieved in previous attempts to develop artificial wombs. Extreme prematurity (where a baby is born less than 26 weeks into a pregnancy) accounts for one-third of infant deaths in humans. Currently, premature babies are placed in incubators,

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and put on ventilators to help them breathe. But this can lead to lung problems later in life, and the development of other organs is often impaired. In contrast, the ‘biobag’ system developed in Philadelphia is designed to more closely mimic conditions inside the mother’s womb. The infant’s lungs ‘breathe’ amniotic fluid, just as in a real womb, and their hearts pump blood through an artificial umbilical cord into an external oxygenator. This oxygenator is a substitute for the mother’s placenta in

PHOTOS: CHILDRENS HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA, SALK INSTITUTE ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

Why did they do that? Though they are keen to stress the fact that the research is still in the preliminary stages, the researchers say that socially isolated humans could show a similar increased tolerance to the effects of alcohol. This could help to explain why those who spend a lot of time on their own often drink more heavily.

HEALTH

THE BENEFITS OF EXERCISE: NOW IN PILL FORM We’re all told to exercise more, but for those with physical disabilities that isn’t always possible. For such people, the benefits of aerobic exercise have always been out of reach. But now a team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California has developed a pill that engenders such effects chemically, with mice given the drug able to burn fat more effectively while exhibiting increased stamina. When people exercise regularly, their bodies become more adept at using fat rather than glucose as an energy source. It’s been known for some time that this ability is linked to the expression of a gene called PPARD – mice that were genetically engineered to have this gene permanently activated proved more resistant to weight gain than normal mice, and had more stamina. The new research involved giving mice a chemical compound called GW1516, which also activates the

exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide. Nutrients are supplied via the umbilical cord, while the bag protects the foetus from changes in temperature and light, as well as keeping germs at bay. “[Extremely premature] infants have an urgent need for a bridge between the mother’s womb and the outside world,” said research lead Dr Alan W. Flake. “If we can develop an extra-uterine system to support growth and organ maturation for only a few weeks, we can dramatically improve outcomes for extremely premature babies.”

PPARD gene, over a period of eight weeks. Mice given GW1516 could typically run for 270 minutes before becoming exhausted, compared to 160 minutes for the control group. Closer examination showed that when the PPARD pathway is activated, the expression of 975 different genes within the muscles is affected, with those involved in burning fat increased and those involved in breaking down glucose suppressed. “PPARD is suppressing all the points involved in sugar metabolism in the muscle, so glucose can be redirected to the brain,” explained researcher Dr Michael Downes. “Exercise activates PPARD, but we’re showing that you can do the same thing without mechanical training.” The research sheds new light on the factors affecting endurance, and offers disabled patients the hope of improved quality of life.

Calf muscle of a mouse, stained to show three different types of muscle

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“WE CAN GAIN INSIGHT INTO WHAT GOES WRONG IN THE BRAINS OF PATIENTS WITH NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS”

Neuroscientists have grown ‘spheroids’ made of human cells. Dr Sergiu Pasca, who was involved in the research, explains how these 3D structures could be used to better understand the brain Where do the cells come from? The ability to transform skin cells into ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’ has been a revolutionary step and holds great promise for understanding psychiatric disorders. These stem cells can become anything. You can now take a simple skin biopsy and grow cells in a non-invasive way to become cell types of interest. But there are limitations to what you can do with neurones derived through conventional methods, which involves growing a single layer of cells at the bottom of a Petri dish. One is that the cells don’t interact in the same way as they would in the brain. So we’ve been building three-dimensional spheroid cultures. People have been calling these cultures ‘mini-brains’, which isn’t accurate. It resembles parts, but not the entire human brain. How do you make a ‘spheroid’? We move stem cells to plates where they cannot attach, so they curl and start making balls. We call them ‘spheroids’ because they’re sphere-like structures. With minimal instructions you can guide the cells to become derivatives of the ectoderm [embryonic tissue that develops into skin and nervous system]. There are all the cell 24

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types that make the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain that’s responsible for thinking and most higher brain functions. Which cells have you studied? The cerebral cortex has two types of neurones. It has neurones that release glutamate at a synapse (a connection with another neurone) – that excite the other neurone. About 80 per cent of neurones in the cortex are ‘excitatory’ or ‘glutamatergic’. We also have the 20 per cent of neurones we call ‘inhibitory’ or ‘GABAergic’ because they release GABA, another neurotransmitter, that puts a brake on the activity of cells. There’s a balance between the two types: if you have too much excitation, the consequence is epilepsy and seizures. What have you found so far? GABAergic cells aren’t made at the same time and in the same place as glutamatergic cells, but in deep structures, migrating over many months to reach the cerebral cortex. So in one dish we make the glutamatergic cells and in another we generate GABAergic cells. After two to three months of maturing, we put them in one tube, label the cells fluorescently and watch them. What happens is

PHOTOS: ANCA PASCA LAB, REX/SHUTTERSTOCK ILLUSTRATION: DAN BRIGHT

ABOVE: Transferred to plates where they cannot attach, stem cells form sphere- like structures

HONEST JOHNS It seems honesty really is the best policy. A team at University College London has found that when we act in a truthful manner our brains find it more satisfying, because a region called the striatum becomes highly activated.

THE FOUL-MOUTHED Swearing can help to increase our strength and stamina. The effect is thought to be due the stimulating effect foul language has on the sympathetic nervous system. @%#$!

GOOD MONTH BAD MONTH

STRADIVARIUS OWNERS really wonderful: the two spheres fuse. Within weeks they start making connections. We listened to electrical activity and showed theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re receiving input from cells around them. So we started recreating a complex neural network, a circuit-like structure that has both cell types, as in the cerebral cortex. BELOW: Dr Sergiu Pasca has been creating spheroids to ask questions about how different brain cells talk to each other

Why are spheroids useful? We call this a modular system: you can make specific brain regions and put them together. This is ultimately a platform that would allow scientists to ask questions about how different brain cells talk to each other, both in isolation as well as when you assemble them in a dish. We can gain insight into what goes wrong, presumably, in the brains of patients with neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, schizophrenia or epilepsy, which are still untreatable.

Thinking about dropping millions on a Stradivarius violin? You might want to keep your money in your pocket: a study at Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris has found modern listeners prefer the sound of new, much cheaper violins.

CHEESE LOVERS Edam it! Eating cheese made from raw milk could fuel the rise of superbugs. An antibiotic resistant gene found in bacteria from dairy cows could cause difficult-to-treat infections similar to MRSA in humans, researchers at the University of Bern have found.

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T H E DOW N LOA D

VAQUITA What’s that? A tequilabased cocktail? Yummy! Don’t be ridiculous. The vaquita is a species of porpoise that’s found in the clear blue waters of the Gulf of California.

ASTRONOMY

ASTRONOMERS PIECE TOGETHER STUNNING IMAGE OF THE CRAB NEBULA

So what’s so special about it? At 1.5m in length, vaquitas are the smallest species of cetacean in the world. They are often referred to as the ‘panda of the sea’ thanks to their distinctive black and white markings. Cute. Anything else? I’m afraid so. With an estimated 30 individuals remaining, the vaquita is thought to be the world’s most endangered marine mammal. Some experts believe that, without drastic action, they could be extinct by 2018. That’s terrible. How come there are so few left? Vaquita are often caught in gill nets: ﬁshing nets that are hung vertically so that ﬁsh get snagged by their gills. The problem is exacerbated by the illegal demand for the bladder of the totoaba – another critically endangered species that is native to the region – for use in traditional medicine.

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Voooll. 9 Issue VVol Vol. Issu Is suuee 9 sue

This image was created using data from ﬁve telescopes

Thousands of years ago, thousands of lightyears from Earth in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way, a supergiant star exploded in spectacular fashion. The explosion was so violent that when the light from it reached Earth in 1054, it outshone all the stars and planets in the sky. In the 19th Century, following the invention of the telescope, the remnants of the event were identified by Anglo-Irish astronomer William Parsons. It became known as the Crab Nebula thanks to the unusual shape of the sketch Parsons made of it. Now, using data from five different telescopes, astronomers have produced an image that shows the nebula in spectacular, unprecedented detail. The image is a composite of data that

spans almost the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves detected by the Karl G Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to X-rays as seen by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, with infrared from the Spitzer Space Telescope, visible light courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope and ultraviolet from ESA’s X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (also known as XMM-Newton) in-between. It is hoped that analysis of all this different data will help astronomers gain new insights into the complex physics of the nebula. “Comparing these new images, made at different wavelengths, is providing us with a wealth of new detail about the Crab Nebula,” said astronomer Gloria Dubner. “Though the Crab has been studied extensively for years, we still have much to learn about it.”

Neo is the most complete specimen of H. naledi that has yet been discovered

PHOTOS: ALAMY, NASA/HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE/STSC, GETTY, FLPA

ANTHROPOLOGY

ALMOST COMPLETE SKULL OF ANCIENT HOMININ UNEARTHED In 2015, a team from Witwatersrand University in South Africa announced their discovery of a previously unknown species of early hominin, dubbed Homo naledi. The creature, which walked upright and stood 1.5m tall, would have co-existed alongside Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis – modern humans and Neanderthals – around a quarter of a million years ago. The team’s findings were based on fossils that were discovered in 2013 in the Rising Star cave system, near Krugersdorp in Greater Johannesburg. Those original H. naledi fossils were found in the caves’ Dinaledi Chamber, and consisted of the partial remains of up to 15 individuals. Now, further exploration of the nearby Lesedi Chamber has unearthed over 130 further H. naledi fossils, which are believed to have come from just three individuals.

Of these, one adult specimen is remarkably complete and has been given the nickname ‘Neo’. This is the word for ‘gift’ in Sesotho, which is a language spoken in South Africa. Witwatersrand University’s Peter Schmid, who has spent hundreds of hours piecing together skull fragments from this individual, said when announcing the news: “We finally get a look at the face of Homo naledi.” As well giving us a more detailed picture of the species’ physical make-up, the new fossils may shed light on the birth of human cultural traditions. The fact that both caches of fossils were found so far into the cave network has led to speculation that this may be evidence of Homo naledi ‘burying’ their dead in caves. If this is true, it would be one of the oldest examples of such a practice yet discovered. V l 9 Issue Vol. I 9

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PALAEONTOLOGY

INCREDIBLY WELL-PRESERVED DINOSAUR FOSSIL PIECED TOGETHER It may resemble the sort of creepy statue that would look at home in a supervillain’s hidden lair, but this intimidating beastie is in fact the 112-million-year-old fossil of a nodosaur. Nodosaurs were herbivores whose bodies were encased in tank-like armour and spikes to protect them from predators. This particular example is 5.5m in length and weighs over 1,000kg. The fossil is currently on display at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta, Canada, but was originally discovered in the nearby Suncor Millennium Mine in 2011, by a Suncor employee who was excavating in the mine. 28

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“THE NODOSAUR SKELETON MEASURES 5.5M IN LENGTH AND WEIGHS OVER 1,000KG”

The fossil was then moved to the museum, where its bones were painstakingly cleaned and pieced together – a process that took some 7,000 hours to finish. Now complete, it is one of the best-preserved dinosaur fossils in the world, showing the animal’s anatomy in incredible detail. The reason for its almost unprecedented state of preservation, researchers say, is its manner of death. It’s likely that the dinosaur fell into a river and was swept out to sea by strong currents or a flood, where it sank to the seabed. Over the course of millions of years on the ocean floor, minerals took the place of its skin, forming an eerily life-like fossil.

PHOTOS: ROYAL TYRRELL MUSEUM, NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, NASA

Despite their ﬁerce, crocodile-like appearance, nodosaurs were actually herbivores

BIOENGINEERING

3D-PRINTED OVARIES LET MICE GIVE BIRTH TO HEALTHY PUPS Infertile women wanting to have children have been offered fresh hope, after scientists at Chicago’s Northwestern University have successfully 3D-printed fully functioning mouse ovaries. In a world first, the team implanted the artificial ovaries into mice, which were then able to produce eggs, mate and give birth to healthy pups. They were even able to nurse their young naturally after they were born. The technique has so far only been tested in animals, but the ultimate goal of the research is to produce artificial organs to implant into human patients who have damaged ovaries as a result of cancer or other illnesses.

“This research shows these bioprosthetic ovaries have longterm, durable function,” said researcher Teresa K Woodruff. “Using bioengineering, instead of transplanting from a cadaver, to create organ structures that function and restore the health of that tissue for that person, is the holy grail of bioengineering for regenerative medicine.” The ovaries were built on 3D-printed gelatin scaffolds that were then populated with immature eggs. Gelatin is rigid enough to handle during surgery but porous enough to interact with the mouse’s own tissues. Its open structure also allows space for the egg cells to mature and for blood vessels to form within the implant, enabling hormones to circulate and trigger lactation once the mouse has given birth.

Io’s not likely to become a space tourism destination any time soon…

HUGE WAVES OF LAVA SPOTTED ON JUPITER’S MOON Anyone travelling to Jupiter’s moon Io might find themselves in an environment resembling hell. Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, with a landscape peppered with hundreds of smoking volcanoes and vast, lava-filled lakes. Working at the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory in southeast Arizona, researchers from the University of California have observed huge waves flowing through the largest of these lakes, Loki Patera. They measured the infrared radiation emanating from Io in March 2015 when another of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, passed in front of it. As Europa’s surface is covered in ice, it reflects very little sunlight at infrared wavelengths. This gave the researchers a rare opportunity to isolate the heat emanating from volcanoes on Io’s surface. The infrared data showed that Loki Patera’s surface temperature steadily increased from one end to the other, suggesting that the lava had overturned in two waves that each swept from west to east at about a kilometre per day. “If Loki Patera is a sea of lava, it encompasses an area more than a million times that of a typical lava lake on Earth,” said researcher Katherine de Kleer. “In this scenario, portions of cool crust sink, exposing the incandescent magma underneath and causing a brightening in the infrared.” Vol. 9 Issue 9

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

W H AT W E LE A RNED T HIS M O N T H

EATING BOGIES IS GOOD FOR YOU According to research at Harvard University, nasal mucus is full of friendly bacteria that can boost your immune system when consumed. Ew.

FACE-TO-FACE REQUESTS ARE 34 TIMES FOR SUCCESSFUL THAN EMAIL ONES

BEAUTY SLEEP REALLY DOES EXIST The sleep-deprived are deemed to be less attractive and less healthy than the well rested, a team at Stockholm University has found.

HARDLY ANYBODY WILL OWN THEIR OWN CAR IN 2030 The advent of self-driving electric vehicles will see privately owned cars making up just 5 per cent of all traffic, a team at California think tank RethinkX has estimated. 30

Vol. 9 Issue 9

CT scanners are being used to study the wax dummies

IMAGING

FUNERAL EFFIGIES OF NELSON AND PITT THE ELDER SCANNED IN MINUTE DETAIL Here’s something to wax lyrical about: a team at King’s College London has 3D scanned the funeral effigies of British naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson and 18th-Century prime minister William Pitt the Elder, using a cutting-edge CT scanner at St Thomas’ Hospital. The waxwork heads were being investigated as part of a collaboration with Westminster Abbey. The team hopes to discover more about the structure and composition of the heads, which are currently undergoing conservation before going back on display. “Our high-tech scanner is used on a daily basis to diagnose and monitor patients, so it was a very different experience to use it to examine wax effigies which are hundreds of

years old,” said Ronak Rajani, consultant cardiologist at St Thomas’. “We hope that the findings from the scans can shed light on how these unique wax works were made.” The Abbey has a large collection of funeral effigies, dating back hundreds of years. They were originally made to sit on top of the deceased’s coffin, dressed in ceremonial clothes, in memory of the person lying inside. Nelson’s wax head was made during his lifetime and acquired by the Abbey as a tourist attraction after his death, while the wax head of William Pitt is the last known surviving effigy made by famous 18th-Century US wax sculptor Patience Wright. The two effigies will form part of the display in a new gallery at Westminster Abbey next year.

PHOTO: GETTY

If you want something doing, request it in person, say psychologists at the University of Western Ontario. The effect is thought to be due to the non-verbal clues conveyed when speaking face-to-face.

COMMENT & ANALYSIS HELEN CZERSKI ON … WHAT CAUSES TURBULENCE?

or me, being allocated a window seat on a plane is like being given a front row ticket to the majestic show of the sky. We spend our lives pootling about at the bottom of the atmosphere, but a flight gives us a chance to appreciate the sky from within. Still, I’m well aware that my eyes can only detect a tiny fraction of what’s going on. And there’s no better reminder of that than the familiar announcement: ‘the captain has requested that we turn on the fasten seatbelt signs’, just before the buffeting starts. Not many people like turbulence, and its seemingly unpredictable nature just makes it worse. Yet when I’m strapped into my seat and staring out across the wing, the vast, blue sky doesn’t seem to be in turmoil. In fact, everything looks quite still. What causes the turbulence and why does it occur? Turbulence is a reminder of what’s holding the plane up: vast hordes of air molecules bouncing off the underside of the wings. If the plane passes through a region where a column of air molecules is flowing up or down, the plane gets carried along with the flow. But winds travel horizontally – the atmosphere is generally stratified, which means that it tends to stay in layers. To bump a plane around, you need to disturb those layers, and there are two ways of doing it. The first is convection, which is common near clouds. Air can be heated either by the ground or by the energy given off when water vapour condenses. Warmer air is less dense than its surroundings, so tends to rise, breaking the layered structure. But convection is only responsible for about a sixth of the turbulence experienced in planes. The second mechanism is far grander and far more unexpected. What I can’t see, when I look out of the window, are the layers of the atmosphere moving over each other. Winds travel at different speeds and possibly in different directions 32

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as you go upwards. The invisible beasts of the sky are the jetstreams. These fast-flowing rivers of air snake across the Earth at exactly the altitude of most planes. Their discovery made a huge difference to aviation – a plane can hop on to this conveyor belt to speed up a transatlantic journey by an hour or so. But there’s a downside for the turbulence-haters. Think about when you blow onto a cup of tea: the air pushes up waves on the tea’s surface. That’s because a fastmoving fluid (air) is moving over a slower one (water). The same thing happens up in the air – when a faster fluid (the jetstream) moves over a slower fluid (the still air below), you get waves in the boundary between them. These waves march slowly across the sky, completely invisible to us. The peaks can be separated by many kilometres, and the greater the difference in wind speed between adjacent atmospheric layers, the more likely the waves are to form. Like any waves, if they grow steep enough, they will break, generating complex swirling patterns as the layers mix. This is thought to be the cause of most clear-air turbulence – gigantic breaking atmospheric waves. They’re hard to forecast, and the plane’s radar can’t see them. But planes are built to cope, so although my tea might get spilt, there’s little danger associated with them. If you don’t like turbulence, this probably isn’t much consolation. But I love looking out of a plane window and imagining the waves lurking out there, especially if I’m in an eastbound plane in the core of a jetstream. Since the patches of turbulence are relatively small (about five minutes of flying time on average), I know that the bumping will pass. And I reckon a bit of turbulence is worth it, just to experience what the sky is hiding from our eyes. ß

Dr Helen Czerski is a physicist and BBC science presenter. Her book, The Storm In A Teacup, is out now

ILLUSTRATION: KYLE SMART

“PLANES CAN COPE WITH TURBULENCE, SO ALTHOUGH MY TEA MIGHT GET SPILT, THERE’S LITTLE DANGER”

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SPECIAL FEATURE

Lucky Bay, Western Australia

From the Great Barrier Reef to Pink Lake, Australia’s natural W‫ٺ‬MZQVO[ VM^MZ KMI[M \W IUIbM 0MZM¼[ PW_ \W LQ[KW^MZ ,W_V =VLMZ¼[ UIOVQÅKMV\ VI\]ZM _PM\PMZ \PZW]OP TIVL [MI WZ M^MV IQZ TOP P WAYS TO O EXPERIEN ENCEE THEE GREEAT BAR RRIEER REEFF Australia’s greatest natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef contains so much to explore so we’ve rounded up the best experiences for you here to enjoy:

PHOTO: TOURISM AUSTRALIA, GLEN DAVIS

Cruise Michaelmas Cay Visit the Great Barrier Reef in style on board the Ocean Spirit, a 32m (105 feet) high-performance catamaran which sails daily from Cairns to Michaelmas Cay. You can either dive and snorkel around the reef alongside turtles and colourful fish, lie on the deck and soak up the sun, or enjoy a glass-bottomed boat tour. Michaelmas Cay is also home to more than 23 species of seabirds and is one of the most significant bird sanctuaries on the Great Barrier Reef. Seaplane Over Heart Reef Create the perfect romantic surprise for a loved one by flying over the world-famous natural wonder, Heart Reef. This scenic flight is just one of the tours offered by Air Whitsunday and GSL Aviation, with the white silica sand of Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island also on the menu. Cruise The Agincourt Reef Quicksilver Cruises will take you on a journey to the renowned Agincourt Reef, a jewel-like ribbon reef on the very edge of 34

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the Great Barrier Reef. From the spacious activity platform you can snorkel, dive and helmet walk in an underwater world filled with a kaleidoscope of colour and brilliance. Sail The Whitsundays It’s hard to beat the romance of sailing through the Whitsunday Islands. Think spectacular sunsets, clear moonlit nights, secluded beaches and pure air. You can sail, swim, snorkel and dive at sheltered anchorages such as Blue Pearl, Butterfly and Hook Island bays. Visit Whitsunday Island and walk the pure white, silica sands of Whitehaven Beach (Visit sailingwhitsundays.com for more information).

Turtle on Heron Island

Witness Turtle Hatchings At Heron Island Snorkel right off the beach or scuba dive at 20 sites just minutes away by boat from Heron Island. It takes only 20 minutes to walk around Heron, and you can enjoy both sunrises and sunsets over the water. Turtles lay eggs and hatch here between November and March. Both these events can be quite life-changing to behold, especially considering their ecological importance.

TOP P THIN NGS S TO DO ARO OUND D AUS STR RALIA A’S S PINK K LAK KES S OF WO ONDER Pink Lake Pink Lake is around 3km (1.9 miles) from in

Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Great Beach Drive, Rainbow Beach, Queensland

the town of Esperance, Western Australia. In the right weather conditions, the lake turns a soft shade of pink due to the high concentration of algae in the water. For excellent views and photo opportunities, there is a lookout along Eleven Mile Beach Road, just a 10 minute drive away from the Esperance Visitors Centre.

Great Barrier Reef, Queensland

Lake Hillier Lake Hillier is another incredible pink lake on Middle Island, the largest of the islands that make up the Recherche Archipelago, around 130 km (70 miles) from Esperance, Western Australia. One of the best ways to take in the spectacle is by air on a scenic helicopter flight. Esperance Island Cruises have full-day boat cruises to Middle Island, allowing you to view the lake up close. Cruises leave early in the morning and return at dusk. Snorkel Or Dive The Recherche Archipelago Consisting of more than 100 islands, the Recherche Archipelago offers top class diving and snorkelling. Esperance Diving & Fishing can arrange offshore diving or shore diving from the Esperance jetty. Explore Esperance The Aboriginal name for the town of Esperance is Kepa Kurl, which translates to “the place where the water lies down like a boomerang”. There’s plenty to see and do around Esperance including horse riding, walking, cycling, fishing, scuba diving, whale-watching (May to October), windsurfing, abseiling, kayaking and 4WD tours. The Esperance Museum is a must-visit with displays on local history, Aboriginal artefacts as well as pieces of the US Sky Lab, which fell to earth in the Esperance region in 1980. Vol. 9 Issue 9

SPECIAL FEATURE

Visit Nearby National Parks Esperance is also a gateway to Cape Le Grand National Park, Stokes National Park and Cape Arid National Park. Each park has its own set of unique attributes, but all of them boast beautiful coastal scenery, extraordinary native plants and animals, peaceful bushwalks and well-maintained campgrounds. Hit The Beach Pack a picnic and follow the Great Ocean Drive Tourist Loop to a string of beautiful white-sand beaches. Swim or snorkel in the calm, clear waters of Blue Haven Beach and Twilight Cove, just a short drive from town. One can even hit the surf at West Beach, Fourth Beach or Observatory Beach. Lucky Bay in Cape Le Grand National Park is one of Australia’s whitest beaches, where kangaroos sunbathe on the sand.

HOR RSER RID IDEE THE RAIINB BOW BE EAC CH

PHOTO: AUSTRALIA’S CORAL COAST, TOURISM WHITSUNDAYS, TOURISM AUSTRALIA, TOURISM PORT DOUGLAS AND DAINTREE

Rainbow Beach Horse Rides has the only permit in existence to ride a horse along Rainbow Beach, which was rated amongst the top five most incredible beaches in the world, the third most colourful beach

in the world and was also featured on the front cover of a publication titled 101 Best Beaches of Australia. Located 70 km north from the town of Noosa, Queensland, the coastal village of Rainbow Beach features one of Australia’s most beautiful horseriding experiences, available year round. No experience in the sport is necessary as all rides include prior riding instruction to ensure safety. The beach is also known for its pictureresque multi-coloured sand cliffs. Visitors will be glad to learn that photos taken by the trail guides during each ride are available free of charge for all guests.

GREEATT OCE OCEAN N ROA AD & GR REAT BEA ACH DRIIVEE GREAT OCEAN ROAD, VICTORIA Possibly one of the world’s most spectacular coastal road trips, this 243 km cliff-hugging drive starts off from Melbourne and ranges through natural rainforests, lonely lighthouses with jaw-dropping views, and iconic landmarks such as the 12 Apostles. Multiple other landmarks of interest such as the Australian National Surfing Museum at Torquay, the Great Ocean Road Memorial Arch – a good

4WD on Esperance Beach

Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Islands, Queensland

Southern Coral Coast, Western Australia

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place to stop for a souvenir photo – and the Otway Fly (an elevated boardwalk through the rainforest canopy 25m above the ground) await on this rugged adventure. Learn all about the many shipwrecks in the past at Flagstaff Hill in Warrnambool, and if you are here between June and September, head for Logans Beach where you might be lucky enough to spot one of the many female southern right whales that come here each year to give birth.

Fraser Island, Queensland

GREAT BEACH DRIVE, QUEENSLAND Scenic coastal drives don’t get any closer to the sea than the Great Beach Drive. It’s a 200 km (124 mile) wave-washed highway on the Sunshine Coast between Noosa and Hervey Bay, where the road is actually the beach. You’ll need a 4WD and will have to time your trip for low tide, but it’ll all be worth it for the feeling of sand beneath your wheels as the sun shines on. Highlights along the way include the famous multi-coloured cliffs known as the Coloured Sands, and Carlo Sandblow, a massive slow-moving sand dune that towers over Rainbow Beach, and is one of the largest piles of wind-blown sand on the Queensland coast. Make the good times last even longer by taking your car on the barge across to Fraser Island. Drive along the beach to its northern tip or tackle the sandy rainforest tracks through the island’s centre, and enjoy a stay at the Kingfisher Bay Resort. ß Maori Wrasse, Agincourt Reef, Great Barrier Reef

Vol. 9 Issue 9

SCIENCE

THE ART OF

SAVING LIVES Poignant, surprising and otherworldly, this new photography project by Reiner Riedler shows medical machinery in a fresh light WORDS BY TOM IRELAND

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hotographer Reiner Riedler became interested in medical equipment after finding himself in an intensive neonatal care unit, where his critically ill newborn son, Viktor, was being cared for. “I came from outside into a dark room, with all this soft light and beeping,” says Riedler, who is based in Vienna. “It was such a strong feeling of safety – I trusted the machines.” Six months later he started to photograph machines that are used to save human lives, initially spending time in operating theatres. He soon decided he was uncomfortable with trying to photograph unconscious people and busy doctors. Instead, he chose to photograph the technology itself, beginning with common hospital equipment such as dialysis machines. “Then I started to go to museums and archives, and I became more interested in those that tell a story, or those whose shape is metaphorical somehow,” says Riedler.

W TWO LEGS GOOD The Torque Controlled Humanoid Robot, or TORO for short, is used to study walking and balance. Keeping a 75kg machine upright is a huge challenge, but TORO can use its whole body to recover balance by, for example, grabbing onto solid objects or dropping to one knee. The aim is to create a robot that’s comfortable in domestic settings, able to climb stairs, step over obstacles and – we hope – do the dusting. Vol. 9 Issue 9

SCIENCE

SAFE PLACES Incubators provide controlled warmth, humidity and oxygen for premature or sick newborns, and allow continuous monitoring of a baby’s core body temperature. A double air curtain helps maintain a balanced climate inside the incubator. The incubator shown here is not the one that saved his now four-year-old son’s life, but it still provokes strong feelings for Riedler. “The machine itself looks almost alive inside,” he says.

W ROBO-DOC The German Aerospace Centre’s MiroSurge system is at the cutting edge of ‘telesurgery’, where surgeons manipulate robotic arms remotely rather than holding surgical implements themselves. The latest machines, such as this one, allow the surgeon to see a 3D display of the site of the operation and ‘feel’ what the robotic arms are touching, in real time, via the instruments at their workstation. This means a surgeon could, in theory, conduct an operation from anywhere in the world.

GROW A BACKBONEX This is a rear view of the ECCE2 (Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot), a world-famous bot built at the Technical University of Munich. “This was exciting because it was part of the Human Brain Project, and they’d built this robot based on how the actual human neural and anatomical system works and moves,” says Riedler. The robot has bones, joints, muscles and tendons, allowing researchers to investigate the brain mechanisms responsible for our own movement. 40

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SCIENCE

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W SOFT MACHINE Like the ECCE2, this rather lonely-looking robot, known as Roboy, is devised to emulate human anatomy and movement, with the aim of creating machines that can help us with our daily tasks in everyday environments. It is designed to move and interact with the physical world in the same way as our fleshy human bodies, and is part of a growing trend for ‘soft robotics’ – non-rigid machines built from deformable materials such as silicone and rubber.

CHANGE OF HEART X The S5 heart-lung machine completely replaces the function of the heart and lungs during cardiac surgery, maintaining the circulation of blood and its oxygen content. “The heart-lung machines are the most impressive,” says Riedler. “They’re really big, with all these screens and pipes. When the machine is in use, the pipes are full of blood, like blood vessels.” This particular model can continue to support the patient for over two hours in the event of a power failure.

BABY BUBBLET This bizarre-looking apparatus is an emergency breathing hood for infants in intensive care. “This is one of the more staged shots, but is one of my favourites,” says Riedler. “It provides breathing assistance for a baby, and its entire head is in this bubble. But for me it looks like an astronaut.” The device, which also comes in adult sizes, provides what’s known as ‘continuous positive airway pressure’, keeping the lungs inflated during respiratory failure.

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SCIENCE

W HEAD SHOT The ‘Alderson Radiation Therapy Phantom’ is a life-size sculpture for testing the effects of radiotherapy. The model has exactly the same density as a real human body, and the 2.5cm-thick slices can be filled with different types of artificial tissue for testing purposes. When asked why so many of the machines he photographed seem sinister or eerie, Riedler’s answer is simple: “If you open a body it can be terrifying. The machines reflect the complexity and fragility of life.”

OPEN WIDEX This ‘dental simulation unit’ is one of a range of devices medical students use to hone their dental surgery skills before being let loose in clinical situations. The patient simulators have a full set of teeth, movable jaws, latex skin, and the same range of movement a real human would have. Like so many of the devices shot by Riedler, it has an otherworldly quality.

SHOW OF HANDST Say hello to these prosthetic hands, waving from a test station. Each one is opened and closed 1,000 times before being delivered for use. The prosthetics respond to the tiny electrical signals sent from the brain down the nerves of the patient’s arm when they think about moving their hand. “As a photographer you see that sort of thing and just have to shoot it,” says Riedler. “You should see it when they are all moving!” ß

Vol. 9 Issue 9

NATURE

The red-eyed tree frog is among a host of rainforest amphibians to beneďŹ t from wildlife corridors in Costa Rica

Scan this QR Code for the audio reader 46

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Costa Rica’s

BIG IDEA Costa Rica is creating a vast network of wildlife corridors to link its isolated reserves. James Lowen asks if this ambitious vision could inspire conservationists beyond Latin America PHOTOS O OS BY Y NICK N C HAWKINS S

n a humid rainforest moistened by Pacific currents, Canadian photographer Nick Hawkins sits cross-legged amid tangled vines, his form concealed by a massive tree trunk thrusting skyward. Unseen in the soaring forest canopy, an avian orchestra flutes and frets. Hawkins is entranced by a family of white-nosed coati – bushy-tailed, long-snouted mammals with extravagant white mascara – rootling in leaf litter. “Being in Cabo Blanco Reserve feels like travelling back in time,” he grins. “It hums with natural energy.” Hawkins spent five months documenting the radical efforts of Costa Rican conservationists to future-proof their protected-areas system against the stresses imposed by a burgeoning human population and changing climate. Their solution? To join the dots of the country’s many reserves using biological corridors. Revered for its wildlife riches, Costa Rica is one of the world’s top destinations for ecotourism. Bernal Herrera-Fernández, vice-president of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, points out that despite covering barely one-third of 1 per cent of Earth’s landmass, this relatively small Central American state harbours 5 per cent of global biodiversity. An estimated half-a-million species cram into an area just two-thirds the size of Scotland. “Costa Rica also plays a hugely significant role in connecting the flora and fauna of North and South America,” Herrera adds.

BIODIVERSITY HOTSPOT The diversity of butterflies here is 20 times higher than in Britain, and there are 30 times more reptiles and amphibians. The mammal list edges towards 250 species, and upwards of 600 bird species are resident. It’s no wonder that Costa Rica enjoys a worldwide reputation for its astonishing biodiversity, as well as for setting the pace environmentally – its record puts many wealthier nations to shame. The UK’s influential New Economics Foundation think tank rates Costa Rica as the world’s “greenest and happiest” country. The evidence is persuasive. Costa Rica generates 90 per cent of its electricity needs from renewable sources, a quarter of its land is in protected areas and it has been a frontrunner in sourcing international finance for conservation. Yet even within a country as foresighted as this, wildlife is under threat. Its most famous amphibian – the golden toad – disappeared in 1989 and is presumed extinct. IUCN experts have catalogued more than 300 Costa Rican animals threatening to follow suit, from the iconic resplendent quetzal to Geoffroy’s spider monkey. As ever, Homo sapiens is to blame. A growing human population is encroaching on land surrounding reserves, destroying habitat to make room for subsistence crops, ranches and commercial monoculture. Costa Rica’s protected forests have increasingly become dispersed fragments – arks drifting amid a sea of deforestation. Vol. 9 Issue 9

NATURE

LUIS MENA BIOLOGIST, COSTA RICAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S NATIONAL SYSTEM OF CONSERVATION AREAS The biggest single problem that we have had to face in the Nicoya Peninsula Corridor involved a load of foreign investors buying land along the coast near Mal PaĂs and Santa Teresa. They displaced the original occupants, chopped down forests and built hotels that â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as a consequence of the global economic crisis â&#x20AC;&#x201C; have often ended up abandoned. Biological corridors depend on coopting privately owned land for their success, but here we had no alternative but to change the route of the corridor.

MALE THREE-WATTLED BELLBIRD: MICHAEL & PATRICIA FOGDEN/FLPA

CHAINS OF HABITAT Jan Schipper, a mammal expert at Arizona State University, has worked in almost every national park in Costa Rica. Like many conservationists, he became concerned that its much-lauded tropical rainforests were shrinking to spots on a map. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The more fragmented a forest, the closer the outside world gropes towards the animals clinging on there. Those that live solely in trees become locked in. No shy, self-respecting forest primate will ever descend to the ground and cross open pasture to reach another forest.â&#x20AC;? Luis Mena of SINAC â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Costa Ricaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s National System of Conservation Areas â&#x20AC;&#x201C; agrees, adding: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Conserving biodiversity is really difficult without connectivity between blocks of habitat, without education and without economic activities that are non-destructive.â&#x20AC;? The turning point came in 1997, when Central American presidents signed an agreement to consolidate a Mesoamerican Biological Corridor stretching from Mexico to Panama. Costa Rica â&#x20AC;&#x201C; one of the most stable countries in a region beset by political strife â&#x20AC;&#x201C; was among the first to seize the initiative. Under the auspices of SINAC, Costa Ricaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s programme of biological corridors hatched in 2006. To illustrate how corridors work in practice, Paco Madrigal, a naturalist and tourist guide, points to fruiteating birds. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Rainforest trees fruit at different times at different altitudes, according to a cycle, so corridors help specialist frugivores such as the spectacular barenecked umbrellabird and three-wattled bellbird to access food year-round. The chain of habitat enables these birds to visit multiple isolated forest reserves that might not otherwise be able to support them.â&#x20AC;? Schipper adds, â&#x20AC;&#x153;By allowing breeding adults and dispersing juveniles to move around, corridors add genetic diversity to peripheral populations lying at the edge of a speciesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; range, which might otherwise go extinct. Corridors also increase the habitable area available to animals that need large territories, such as jaguars and harpy eagles. And they can help some species relocate to areas with different ecological conditions â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as cooler higher elevations â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which gives them more chance of coping with climate change.â&#x20AC;? 48

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TOP: The Nicoya Peninsula wildlife corridor is a haven for the white-nosed coati (above left) ABOVE RIGHT: Three-wattled bellbird BELOW: Orangebarred sulphur butterďŹ&#x201A;y

Â´ $V WKHLU EHQHĂ&#x20AC;WV UHDFK PRUH SHRSOH WKH FRUULGRUV KHOS GHPRQVWUDWH WKDW QDWXUDO KHULWDJH LV ZRUWK VDYLQJ Âľ BIG AMBITIONS It is this resilience to climate change that caught the attention of GIZ, an offshoot of the German government that funds international development, which is supporting Costa Ricaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s corridor programme. â&#x20AC;&#x153;While important, the existing system of protected areas in the country is not enough,â&#x20AC;? says GIZ biologist Michael SchlĂśnvoigt. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To be sure of preserving biodiversity in the face of a changing climate, we have to massively expand our ambition.â&#x20AC;? SINAC has now defined 36 corridors covering roughly a third of the country, including one on the Nicoya Peninsula where most of the photographs on these pages were taken. A chunky protrusion into the Pacific, Nicoya is referred to as Costa Ricaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;thumbâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and exerts a special hold on the affections of local conservationists. Its largest protected area, Cabo Blanco, was also the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first: the rugged

coastal rainforest reserve turned 50 in 2013. María Teresa Cerdas is in charge of the Nicoya Corridor. “This peninsula once supported a whole range of tropical forest types, from the deciduous and coastal to the damp and sub-montane,” she says. “Most of the forest has been destroyed or degraded. But now with the corridor project we aim to reconnect more than 10 protected areas in state, private or mixed ownership.” There’s no doubting the Nicoya Peninsula’s importance for wildlife. “We have 26 species of amphibian here, plus 43 different reptiles,” says Cerdas. “Our 72 mammals include an impressive array of top predators, including jaguars, pumas, ocelots and Neotropical river otters.” But there are also about 20,000 people here. “Many locals depend on the land to eke out a living,” Cerdas says. “Cattle-ranching remains the most important source of income. Less than half of the corridor has any form of formal protection, and many parts suffer a litany of environmental problems, from fires to unplanned tourism and urban expansion, hunting, overfishing and the contamination of water supplies by pesticides.” Both Cerdas and Luis Mena, who chairs the Nicoya project’s local advisory group, are clear that the project can only succeed by putting local people at its heart. Mena explains: “We strive not for ‘pure conservation’, if such a thing exists, but for sustainable resource use

TOP:: Costa TO Cos a Rican ca f forests support pp an impressive varietyy p of cats, including ocelots ABOVE: half of all visitors to the country will go wildlife watching during their stay

PACO MADRIGAL NATURALIST GUIDE, COTINGA TOURS On a very personal level, the corridor programme has transformed my life. Growing up amid rainforests in Sarapiquí, subsistence farming and hunting were our way of life, but the region’s first ecolodge introduced me to a new way of seeing the forest. I stopped hunting and became a naturalist guide. It’s been my calling for 30 years now, and I have co-founded my own wildlife tour company.

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NATURE nia for ali fC lf o Gu

NORTH MEXICO The Sinaloa Corridor links two jaguar populations, the Sonora in the far north-west and the Jalisco on the Pacific Coast; the connection to the Eastern Sierra Madre is currently being tested.

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that improves livelihoods in local communities without destroying the forest. A good example is apiculture using native bee species.â&#x20AC;? This people-first philosophy informs the overall national programme, which requires that â&#x20AC;&#x153;society shares equitably in the conservation benefits of the corridorsâ&#x20AC;?. This is only realistic, says Jan Schipper: â&#x20AC;&#x153;People will not change unless you make it worth their while. Put simply, money talks. Conservationists must convince campesinos [farmers] not to succumb to the multinational pineapple industry. Instead we must facilitate a market for jaguarfriendly crops such as shade-grown coffee, and pay people for environmental services such as preserving forest or planting native trees.â&#x20AC;?

JAGUAR (CAPTIVE): MICHAEL & PATRICIA FOGDEN/FLPA

Â´ 3HRSOH ZLOO QRW FKDQJH XQOHVV \RX PDNH LW ZRUWK WKHLU ZKLOH 3XW VLPSO\ PRQH\ WDONV Âľ The more local communities are involved, Schipper argues, the higher the chances of long-term success. â&#x20AC;&#x153;To have a functional biological corridor you need good management, an open-minded community, incentives and local leadership. Often this battle for hearts and minds starts with children in schools and then trickles upwardsâ&#x20AC;Ś being shamed by your kids for shooting a jaguar is a more effective deterrent than being arrested.â&#x20AC;? Cerdas agrees with the importance of educating children about the environment. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We hold wildlife fairs and camp out with the kids, teaching them to count birds, how to manage their rubbish and so on.â&#x20AC;? Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a familiar story: get the next generation on side or your conservation achievements wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t last long. Cerdas is particularly proud of new social enterprises on the Nicoya Peninsula. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Our aim is to help local producers access Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s organic markets, so that they get paid to retain forests in the area,â&#x20AC;? she says. Meanwhile Mena cites community fire brigades as evidence of local people taking responsibility for â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;theirâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; forests. 50

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ABOVE: Wildlife corridors enable apex predators with big home ranges, such as this Neotropical river otter, to colonise new areas

NICOYA PENINSULA

JAGUAR CORRIDORS JAGUAR CONSERVATION AREAS

CASE STUDY: JAGUAR HIGHWAYS Howard Quigley, director of Pantheraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jaguar-conservation programme, explains how corridors link the catsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; isolated populations. In the early 2000s, two important genetic analyses were published on jaguars. They both described good levels of genetic diversity and gene flow. The conclusion: from Arizona to Argentina, the jaguar was a single species with no justification for subspecies definitions. Previously slight anatomical differences had led zoologists to describe nine subspecies. Following this reassessment, Panthera CEO Alan Rabinowitz came up with a new approach to jaguar conservation. If the species was truly moving its genes this effectively throughout its huge range in the Americas, avoiding the physical and ecological isolation that causes genetic differentiation, then it was up to us â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the jaguarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest competitor â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to maintain that connectivity. But how? Taking advantage of the newly developing science of biologicalcorridor mapping, Rabinowitz and landscape ecologist Kathy Zeller created the Jaguar Corridor Map. They identified 182 vital pieces of jaguar habitat connecting 90 recently described core populations of the cats. The next stage was to visit proposed corridors on the ground, to check that the modelling process had been accurate. Then it was time to take conservation action at a local level to help jaguars pass through human-dominated landscapes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; for example across roads and ranches. Today the jaguar programme involves scores of governments and NGOs in a dozen countries. It uses a combination of cameratraps and genetic fieldwork â&#x20AC;&#x201C; such as collecting and analysing scats â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to monitor progress, with the ultimate goal of maintaining connectivity within the jaguarâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s entire range.

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BELIZE Here the key challenge is helping jaguars negotiate a maze of cattle farms in the Central Belize Corridor without conflict. Panthera is testing electric fences, night corrals and even ‘guard donkeys’ that will bray loudly and chase jaguars away.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

This jaguar was photographed in Belize

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The arid caatinga biome in eastern Brazil is home to one of the most endangered and isolated jaguar populations. A series of corridors aims to link these cats to Amazonian strongholds in the west.

COSTA RICA In Costa Rica a scatdetection dog is being used to help find jaguar faeces so that scientists can extract DNA. This enables them to observe the gene flow between jaguar populations.

BRAZIL: AMAZON The vast Amazonian region holds the largest remaining jaguar population, in terms of both number of animals and their extent. In 2011 it was estimated that 10,000 jaguars survived here, mostly in Brazil.

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BRAZIL: PANTANAL

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FIND OUT MORE For more information about Panthera’s work with jaguars, visit www.panthera.org Watch a short ﬁlm about jaguar corridors at https://vimeo.com/109481253

This huge seasonal wetland is the second-largest jaguar hotspot, with seven cats per 100km2 in places. Corridors will link them with isolated populations farther south.

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FAR LEFT: surveys are key to deﬁning corridors – training university students in ﬁeldwork is vital LEFT: Panthera’s Howard Quigley tracking jaguars RIGHT: the Nicoya Peninsula Corridor links populations of jaguars in Cabo Blanco Reserve and further inland

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NATURE

SEAN GRAESSER BIOLOGIST, ROGER TORY PETERSON INSTITUTE Fabulous mangrove forests fringe the estuaries around the Nicoya Peninsula. Among their various trees, the tea mangrove stands out – its flowers are the primary food-source for the Endangered mangrove hummingbird. This beautiful bird is endemic to Costa Rica, so the quicker the coastal mangrove forests shrink, the rarer the species becomes. Nicoya’s biological-corridor project is today crucial to its conservation.

ABOVE AND BELOW RIGHT: Wildlife corridors have boosted numbers of the northern tamandua and great curassow ABOVE RIGHT: Local education is a key part of corridor programmes

Nicoya’s wildlife is reaping the benefit. Mena rattles off a list of charismatic species seen on the peninsula much more frequently than a decade ago: “The red-eyed treefrog, collared peccary, Neotropical river otter, northern ghost bat, king vulture, great curassow… all are much easier to spot nowadays.” Indeed great curassows have so far spread 70km from their stronghold in Cabo Blanco Reserve, taking advantage of the regenerating vegetation in the corridor to disperse. This optimistic assessment is backed up by Robert Timm, a University of Kansas mammalogist who has worked at Cabo Blanco for 15 years. “Populations of many mammals seem to be increasing. Take northern tamanduas – these striking, medium-sized anteaters are more numerous here than anywhere else in Costa Rica.”

BACK FROM THE BRINK GREAT CURASSOW: DAVID TIPLING/FLPA

Similar success stories are being reported in the country’s other biological corridors. Madrigal observes that numbers of the great green macaw, an Endangered species with probably no more than 200 individuals in Costa Rica, have stabilised since the creation of the San Juan–La Selva Corridor in the north-east of the country. “When I started guiding birdwatchers 30 years ago, we rarely saw macaws. Now most groups find them easily.” As the benefits of the corridor programme reach more people, they help to demonstrate that natural heritage is worth saving; the decline in the country’s forested area has already been reversed. The IUCN’s Herrera suggests 52

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that this positive experience is now inspiring the rest of Latin America. “Several countries have adopted Costa Rica’s model to promote habitat connectivity and create new opportunities for community engagement,” he says. Nevertheless biological corridors are far from a silver bullet for conservationists. There is some evidence of unintended consequences, such as facilitating poaching and exacerbating the spread of invasive alien species. Funds are often limited: Cerdas regrets that demand for financial incentives to conserve forest far outstrips supply. “Some interested landowners wait years for payment,” she sighs. And development pressure doesn’t go away. Timm says that a new highway bisecting the San Juan–La Selva Corridor is a catastrophe. And yet. If a country with a population of under five million and a GDP of not quite $50 billion in 2013 – compared with the UK’s $2.7 trillion – can push ahead with a programme as ambitious as this, perhaps the rest of us need to ask ourselves if our own landscape-scale conservation goes nearly far enough. ß

JAMES LOWEN is a naturalist and author who studied the lekking displays of long-tailed manakins in Costa Rica in the 1990s

HISTORY

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Eric Rabkin argues that depictions of Mars in literature and film – both as the cradle of hideous invaders, and humanity’s potential saviour – frequently reflect the political climate back on Earth

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A detail from a poster promoting William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 horror ﬁlm Invaders from Mars, above an image of the red planet. Mars has exerted a powerful hold over the residents of Earth for millennia

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HISTORY

1. ALIEN INVASION HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds arrived in a period in which wars of empire raged across the globe Introducing the world to hideous, tentacled Martians – who lay waste to mankind with devastating heat-ray guns – it’s hardly surprising that HG Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds made quite an impact when it was published in hardback in 1898. The novel tapped into a climate of global anxiety, as the world’s imperial powers continued to flex their muscles but encountered increasingly determined opposition as they did so. The Cuban War of Independence, the Philippine Revolution and the Spanish-American War were just three of the conflicts to rage in the dying days of the 19th century. The War of the Worlds was one in a long line of British invasion narratives – beginning with George Tomkyns Chesney’s The Battle of Dorking in 1871, a fictional Global unrest fed into HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Here the Boxer rebellion is depicted in a French illustration from 1900

account of a German attack on Britain. An invasion dominates Wells’s novel too. But, in this case, it’s not humans responsible for it. When Martian forces make a surprise crash-landing in southern England, British troops are helpless to stop their relentless and bloody advance. “With infinite complacency, men went to and fro about the globe, confident of our empire over this world,” the novel’s narrator tells us. “Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our planet with envious eyes and slowly, and surely, drew their plans against us.” As Britain stood on the brink of a second conflict with the Boers of southern Africa, and with tensions rising that would end in the First World War, it was but a small step to substitute Martian invaders with human armies.

Police distribute food to needy New Yorkers. Orson Welles’s Panic Broadcast preyed on the fears of a fragile nation

2. PANIC ON THE STREETS OF NEW YORK Just after 8.30pm on 30 October 1938, the thousands of Americans tuned to the radio show ‘Mercury Theater on the Air’ suddenly heard an alarming news flash: huge Martian fighting-machines were emerging from meteor-like spacecraft that had landed near Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. What they were listening to was an adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds. Many, however, mistook it for an invasion on American soil. “Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake,” a desperate voice shouted down the airwaves. “Now it’s another one, and another. They look like tentacles to me… There’s a jet of flame springing from the mirror, and it leaps right at the advancing men. It strikes them head on! Good Lord, they’re turning into flame!… Enemy now turns east… Evident objective is New York City…” The so-called Panic Broadcast, directed and narrated by 23-year-old radio actor

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GETTYX2

A fabricated Martian invasion hit a raw nerve in a country facing the prospect of war

3. THE RISE OF THE RED MENACE Amid anti-communist witchhunts, films and novels offered contrasting portrayals of Mars

and future filmmaker Orson Welles, caught America at a vulnerable moment. Still besieged by the Great Depression, which had seen half of its banks close and unemployment soar to 25 per cent, the nation was struggling, and many people felt themselves just a short mischance from disaster. Adding to the sense of dread was the rise of German imperialism across the Atlantic. Hitler was now the dark colossus of Europe, annexing Austria just a few months before Welles’s broadcast. Following the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 (which enshrined anti-Semitic Nazi doctrine in law), New York, a city with some 1.7 million Jews, seemed an obvious target for German aggression. An invasion, Martian or otherwise, was no longer unthinkable. Papers such as The New York Times seized on Welles’s broadcast (which you can listen to at youtube.com/ watch?v=Xs0K4ApWl4g), sparking a popular outcry against fake news. Congress even considered limiting freedom of speech, while the Federal Communications Commission launched an investigation to see if any laws had been broken. Ultimately, the real-life fears of 1938 overshadowed the fictional, and Welles escaped with an on-air apology.

As Nazism was consigned to history in 1945, so too – for a short while at least – was film-makers’ fascination with Mars. Hollywood now turned inward, looking for relief and escape after the horrors of war and economic turmoil. Mars was no longer deemed interesting subject matter and no theatrical films between 1945 and 1950 used Mars in their titles. But by the start of the fifties a new enemy had emerged, striking fear into Americans: communism and the USSR. For years the two superpowers leapfrogged in an arms race that saw the US produce atomic and hydrogen bombs and the USSR launch a man into space. Politically, they fought by proxy in the Korean War (1950–53); domestically, they traded spies and speeches. The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Americans convicted of passing top-secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union, only served to fan anti-communist feelings. The pair were investigated as part of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s ‘Red Hunt’. Anyone discovered to be a ‘Red’ – named for the colour of the USSR’s flag and that of international communism – could be imprisoned or black-listed for employment. From 1950 until McCarthy was censured as a demagogue by the Senate

in 1954, Mars, as the red planet, was only ever filmed in a sinister light. Invaders from Mars (1953) and Devil Girl from Mars (1954) are just two of the films that cast it as the cradle of malevolent forces. While cinema tended to portray Mars as a source of evil, in novels the planet often offered humanity redemption. Ray Bradbury’s 1950 linked-story collection, The Martian Chronicles, is an outstanding example of a tradition going back at least to the turn of the century in which Mars, in prose, offers mankind the chance to occupy a new Eden. One story, ‘The Green Morning’, sees the protagonist, Benjamin Driscoll, plant seeds that grow magically overnight into lush trees that oxygenate the Martian atmosphere. “It rained steadily for two hours and then stopped. The stars came out, freshly washed and cleaner than ever…”

New Yorkers heckle the city’s 1951 communist May Day parade TOP: A poster for 1954’s sci-ﬁ ﬁlm Devil Girl from Mars

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HISTORY

Buzz Aldrin walks on the moon in 1969. Suddenly Mars didn’t seem so unattainable

4. NEXT STOP MARS? One “giant leap for mankind” put the red planet firmly back on the cultural agenda After man first set foot on the moon on 20 July 1969, humans walking on Mars – rather than Martians walking on Earth – seemed more of a distinct, if distant, possibility. The moon landing had a global psychological impact. For the first time, humanity could claim to have found, walked on and photographed a truly new land. The moon itself was rarely taken seriously as a possible home. Instead, in the aftermath of Neil Armstrong’s ‘giant leap’, it opened up the tantalising possibility of humans colonising Mars. If only the atmosphere were not too thin; if only there were water.

Terraforming – the process of modifying another planet’s environment to make it hospitable to humans – was a word first used in a 1949 short story, but it became a staple concept of science fiction novels from the 1970s onwards. One of the most famous examples is Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (1993–96). This centuries-long saga drew on contemporary scientific and philosophical developments to take readers from the touchdown of the first 100 people on Mars to their subterranean habitat, the drilling of deep holes to release heat and water, and the ultimate thickening of the atmosphere.

5. SAVING FACE Could humanity’s salvation lie on Mars’s rocky exterior?

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with the purpose of creating “a second home for humanity”. Elon Musk, founder and owner of SpaceX – which develops rockets and sells launch services to fund efforts to reach and inhabit Mars – has declared: “The future of humanity is going to bifurcate in two directions: either it’s going to become multiplanetary, or it’s going to remain confined to one planet and eventually there’s going to be an extinction event.” We may develop the technology to explore Mars’s environment; we may not. Either way, there’s little doubt that we’ve long viewed the planet through the prism of our own environment here on Earth.

Eric Rabkin is professor emeritus of English language and literature at the University of Michigan. His books include Mars: A Tour of the Human Imagination (Praeger, 2005)

ALAMY

Nasa’s 1976 image of what appeared to be an enormous human face on Mars reignited interest in the planet

In 1976, Mars was back in the news once again, courtesy of the Nasa Viking 1 mission’s ‘discovery’ of what appeared to be an enormous human head, nearly two miles long, on the surface of the planet. Although refined imaging showed the ‘face’ to be nothing more than a cluster of rocks, with each new advance, Mars became more approachable. Recent films and books, such as the 2015 movie The Martian, based on a 2011 book by Andy Weir, treat the challenge of Mars not as that of a god of war but a hostile environment that can be overcome by human tenacity and science. The film sees astronaut Mark Watney stranded on Mars and forced to find a way to survive until a rescue mission can be sent. But future expeditions to Mars might not be confined to fiction. Back in the real world, the Mars One organisation aims to have landed humans on the planet by 2032,

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SCIENCE

Vol. 9 Issue 9

DO SOCIAL NETWORKS MAKE US ANTISOCIAL? Many of us have experienced the ways in which social media has changed the online world. But should we be worried about it altering our behaviour too? WORDS BY DR DEAN BURNETT

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SCIENCE

ecently, I witnessed the unpleasant breakdown of a relationship. One partner accused the other of infidelity and promiscuity; the other retaliated with claims of emotional abuse, drunken behaviour and an inability to perform sexually. All this, in much more sweary language than that conveyed here. It got nasty fast, with children being dragged into it, and friends taking sides and furiously rowing with those who’d taken the other side. All very grim, and it made me vow to avoid any and all of those involved as a result. That wasn’t difficult though, as I’d never actually met any of them to begin with. This whole breakdown happened on Facebook. Some friends of friends had asked to add me to their network, I’d unthinkingly agreed, and thus I ended up with a front-row seat to their hideous break-up. Ironic, that a social network was essentially responsible for the destruction of so many social bonds. You’ve no doubt heard many complaints about social networks before. They’re time-consuming, invasive, confusing, compromise your privacy and so on. But do they actually make us antisocial? Is there any credibility to that claim? If, like many do, you draw a clear line between online interactions and real-world interactions, with more importance being placed on the latter, then yes, arguably there is. But to really get to the heart of the matter, you have to look at how social networks affect our behaviour and actions towards other people. They can and do have significant impacts on these things, because of the way our brains work. The truth is, our social interactions, both online and in person, have a huge effect on our thinking and cognition. The social brain hypothesis, first put forward in the 90s by anthropologist Robert Dunbar, suggests that our sociable nature is why we have such big brains to begin with. The argument is that primitive humans banded together in communities, and this cooperative approach proved very

“The truth is, our social interactions, both online and in person, have a huge effect on our thinking and cognition” 60

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useful for our survival. But this lifestyle requires a lot of information to be processed; who do you trust? Who will help you? Who owes you favours? And so on. A substantial amount of detail needs to be available at a moment’s notice. Basically, you need a lot of grey matter to maintain this. That’s the theory, anyway (and there are others). In support of this, brain imaging studies have shown a network of regions, including cortical midline structures and tempero-parietal junctions, which show increased activity when the subject contemplates being part of a group. Areas like the ventral medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex show increased activity when processing our sense of self, our identity, and when processing awareness of the groups or communities we feel we’re part of. This all suggests our social interactions are a major component of our identity, at a very fundamental level.

SOCIAL BUTTERFLIES Humans need social interactions. Depriving humans of social contact, as when prisoners are sent to solitary confinement, is recognised by psychologists as a form of torture. On the other hand, too much social interaction isn’t good either. Social interaction is mentally taxing: engaging with someone is a lot of work for the brain, as it requires mental effort. This explains the apparent contradiction between humans needing social interaction, but also needing privacy. Social interaction wears our brain out, so we need privacy to get away for a bit and ‘recharge’. All this shows that the brain strikes a precise balance to ensure we get the most from our social interactions. But just as putting 10 times the required amount of sugar into a cake doesn’t make it 10 times better, so social networks can amplify aspects of socialising and social relationships in ways that are unhelpful, if not downright harmful. As early as 2010, professional psychiatrists were arguing that social network addiction was a real phenomenon that should be classed as a clinical disorder, citing a case study of an individual who

1 Compared with other animals, including our closest relatives, we are quite friendly 2 Dopamine is released by the brain when we enjoy a successful social interaction, giving us a rush of pleasure 3 We can control how we portray ourselves online by only posting the best updates, videos and images

PHOTOS: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY X2

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SCIENCE

Social networking can trigger reward pathways in the brain, and may lead to addiction

spent five hours a day checking Facebook, rarely leaving the house to do so, losing jobs and in one case interrupting the therapy consultation to check their updates – tantamount to opening a beer during an AA meeting. It essentially means cutting off all other forms of social contact to focus solely on social media, to the detriment of your overall existence. There are explanations for this. A successful social interaction means we experience a real-world reward in the brain. Oxytocin release gives a general sense of well-being and connection, and the mesolimbic reward pathway, buried deep in the centre of the brain, releases dopamine, giving a rush of pleasure. Some argue – and a few studies even provide some evidence – that a successful social interaction online, such as a popular Facebook post or widely shared tweet, can also produce this positive response in the brain. Unfortunately, these social ‘hits’ are a lot easier to get online, without all the effort of ‘normal’ social interactions. Drugs of abuse operate on similar principles, triggering the reward pathway, but without the hassle of actually doing the action that the brain would consider deserving of a reward. Over time, the brain adapts to expect these pleasurable signals, and does things like disrupt the areas responsible for inhibitions or conscious self-control to keep them coming. Indeed, a 2013 neuroimaging study at the

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We are social creatures –isolation is used as a form of torture and can warp the mind

University of Zurich led by psychologist Dr Katrin Preller revealed that cocaine addicts have diminished activity in areas like the orbitofrontal cortex, resulting in reduced emotional empathy and willingness to socialise. So if social network addiction is exploiting similar mechanisms to cocaine addiction, then social networks may well be having an ironically negative impact on individual’s ability to socialise, rendering them more antisocial. More research is needed.

CONTROL FREAKS Another issue is that people have a greater deal of control over their interactions online, meaning they can decide, to a much greater degree, how others experience them. You can put up only good photos, delete unwise comments, spellcheck, share smart memes and so on. This satisfies an underlying process the brain engages in known as ‘impression management’, where we’re constantly compelled to present the best possible image of ourselves to others, in order to make them more likely to approve of us. A 2014 study led by the University of Sheffield’s Dr Tom Farrow looked at impression management. Using scanning technology, the team asked subjects to choose behaviours that would make people like them, and that would make people dislike them. Activation was recorded in regions including the medial prefrontal cortex, the midbrain and cerebellum, suggesting that these brain regions are involved in processing the image of ourselves we want to present to others. However, these areas were only noticeably active when subjects tried to make themselves look bad – that is when they were choosing

Spending time socialising with people can be hard work for the brain

behaviours to make people dislike them. If they were choosing behaviours that made them look good, there was no detectable difference to normal brain activity. Coupled with the fact that subjects were much faster at processing behaviours that made them look good as opposed to bad, the conclusion was that presenting a positive image of ourselves to others is what the brain is doing all the time! It’s the brain’s default state. Granted, it was a small and limited study, but it’s an interesting outcome nonetheless. And if we’re constantly focused on presenting a positive image of ourselves, it’s no wonder social networks are so popular, as they offer a much greater sense of control of how we come across. But this control is a double-edged sword. Even if you’re just sitting with friends, the tendency to check your phone rather than talk can be overwhelming. The brain is usually averse to risk, preferring predictable options over less certain ones, and the cool, calm interface on the screen is often subconsciously more reassuring than the chaotic conversation going on around you. The people you’re with may consider this behaviour antisocial. And rightly so. More worryingly, a 2015 survey of men aged 18-40 by Jesse Fox and Margaret Rooney in the journal Personality And Individual Differences revealed that the amount of time spent on social networking sites, posting selfies and, revealingly, editing selfies to make them look better, was correlated with traits like narcissism and psychopathy. This isn’t to say social networks cause these things, but they offer an outlet, a way for them to be expressed free of consequence, where they may otherwise be criticised or challenged, thus ensuring more

socially acceptable behaviours. Another intriguing finding, from a 2015 study led by Prof Joy Peluchette at Lindenwood University, was that certain types of behaviour on social networks – namely extroversion and ‘openness’ – actually increase the odds of being a victim of cyberbullying. It may sound counterintuitive, but it makes a certain amount of sense. A person may typically keep their more flamboyant or expressive natures suppressed, because social norms deter such things. Subtle signs of discomfort in those around you, awkward body language and responses, muted atmospheres… these all act to keep gregarious or overly personal tendencies in check, to some extent. However, such cues aren’t present online, so you can be as overly expressive or personal as you like on there. But other people may find this unsettling or off-putting, or could see it as cynical attention-seeking. Either way, they react aggressively, and attack the person. But social networks also protect the attacker from the consequences of their actions, introducing a distance and degree of anonymity between themselves and their victim, shielding them from the immediate effects, but supplying the same ‘rush’ of having lowered someone’s status and boosted their own. So social networks again become a way to facilitate and perpetuate antisocial actions. Social networks also give us the ability to pick and choose what we see and hear from others, meaning we can end up in the oft-cited ‘echo chamber’. Social networks make it much easier to form groups, and constantly remain part of them. This can give us a more ‘extreme’ leanings, making more intolerant of contrasting views as we grow unused to encountering them. What should be a casual meet-up in a pub can easily become a blistering row about a football team. Antisocial behaviour, caused by social networks. It’s not all doom and gloom. More nervous or socially awkward people can be liberated by the controlled and organised communication offered by social networks, and great friendships and relationships can form across the world now that would never have been able to exist before. But the truth is, for all that they may sometimes not work that well, the human brain has evolved a variety of systems to make sure social interaction happens as efficiently as possible. Social networks, though, throw many spanners in the works here, causing overall disruption, which can sometimes mean they end up achieving the opposite of what they’re built for, and making people antisocial.

Dr Dean Burnett is a doctor of neuroscience at Cardiff University. His debut book, The Idiot Brain, is available now. You can follow him on Twitter @garwboy

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NATURE

Desert fox cubs stand outside their underground den in Little Rann of Kutch. Smallest of three subspecies of the red fox, the solitary desert fox ďŹ nds a mate in autumn. The vixen gives birth to between four and six cubs and nurses them in a designated nursing chamber. Ten days later the youngsters venture out of the den while their parents keep a close watch. By late summer, the cubs have become independent

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INDIA’S

WILD WEST

The Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, India, has one of the largest salt deserts in the world but experiences great change when the monsoon arrives. Dhritiman Mukherjee spent 170 days photographing the unique ÆWZI IVL NI]VI WN \PQ[ IZMI WORDS BY JANAKI LENIN

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NATURE

TOP LEFT: A striped hyena lopes across the dry plains of the Rann. Despite being nocturnal, the species is also known to venture out during the day. It likes to live in caves, digs its own den, or moves into burrows made by other animals. Wellknown for its scavenging habits and bonecrunching ability, the species also brings down prey by attacking its ďŹ&#x201A;anks 66

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ABOVE: Water eroded the salt-encrusted and fossil-embedded sandstone in the Layari riverbed. Located in the Great Rann of Kutch, these rocks date to the Jurassic period. The River Indus ďŹ&#x201A;owed into the Great Rann until 1819, when an earthquake changed its course westward. The sea receded and left a swathe of saline swamps in its wake

ABOVE: Short-eared owls have tufts of feathers resembling ears. When they are defensive, these ‘ears’ stick up perceptibly. The bird of prey nests on the ground between March and June LEFT: A migrant European roller kills a toad before swallowing it. In the autumn, some populations migrate to Africa through western India. Although they are insect eaters, they also prey on reptiles, amphibians and rodents. Males perform aerial acrobatics during courtship RIGHT: A desert fox cub dashes from one burrow to another. The light pelage provides excellent camouﬂage, but a cub is vulnerable outside the den. Until it becomes independent, its parents feed it regurgitated gerbils and other rodents

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NATURE

ABOVE: A collared hedgehog rolls up into a ball, the typical defensive posture. The spines protect it from predators such as foxes, mongooses and owls. Endemic to South Asia, it doesn’t hibernate during winter, unlike its temperate-zone cousins RIGHT: An Indian wild ass gallops across the ﬂooded Rann. It is one of the fastest animals in the country, clocking between 70 and 80 kmph. During the rains, when the Rann becomes ﬂooded, the asses graze on islands of grass. This is also the season when jacks seek out jennies in oestrus

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ABOVE: Bar-headed geese winter here. They hold the record for ﬂying at the highest elevation. In autumn, they move south from their breeding grounds in Mongolia and the Tibetan Plateau over high passes of the Himalayas, reaching altitudes of up to 6,400m LEFT: Bajana, the southern shore of Little Rann, is drenched during the rains. The Rann of Kutch, one of the largest salt deserts in the world, is a vast transitional area where marine and terrestrial ecosystems meld. Rann means ‘desert’ in Hindi, but during the monsoon it stays ﬂooded for a month

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NATURE

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Indian wild asses once ranged from south-east Iran to western India. In 1958 to ‘60 an epidemic of equine trypanosomiasis decimated the population to just 362. Today, about 4,800 of them roam parts of Gujarat and the neighbouring state of Rajasthan. Illegal salt manufacturers and invasive Mexican mesquite trees threaten the species

LEFT: The lesser flamingo is the smallest species of flamingo and also the most numerous. It lays one egg on a mound of mud. Chicks are white and become pink as adults. The crustaceans they catch by stirring up the mud with their feet give them the rich colour RIGHT: The osprey is, after the peregrine falcon, the world’s most widely distributed raptor. It wheels high in the sky, scouting for its favourite prey before swooping to catch the fish with its spiny-soled feet

Dhritiman Mukherjee is a wildlife photographer and co-author of Magical Biodiversity of India Vol. 9 Issue 9

HISTORY

The man who built modern Britain Scan this QR Code for the audio reader

From awe-inspiring aqueducts to fast, smooth roads, no building project was, it seems, beyond the genius of Thomas Telford. Julian Glover hails an engineer whose achievements arguably outshine those of Brunel 4

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INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONARY GENIUS Engineer Thomas Telford (left), painted in the heyday of his career in 1822 by Samuel Lane. His designs included: 1 The Menai Bridge (also shown in box 5) wasn’t the ﬁrst suspension bridge but arguably the most impressive 2 The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, which still carries vessels high above the river Dee over two centuries after it was completed in 1805 3 St Katharine Docks, London, as depicted during ofﬁcial opening celebrations on 25 October 1828 4 The 60-mile Caledonian Canal, completed in 1822, which connects the east and west coasts of Scotland 5 The Menai Bridge in an 1830 illustration viewing it from Anglesey 6 Göta Canal in Sweden, opened in 1832 to provide a link between Gothenburg and the Baltic Sea

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HISTORY

n 1829, two great engineers from two contrasting centuries clashed over the building of one famous bridge. The conflict pitted Thomas Telford (1757– 1834) against Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–59) – the builder of magnificent canals and roads against the creator of the revolutionary Great Western Railway. Though neither knew it at the time, this battle also marked the moment that Telford, celebrated in his lifetime as Britain’s greatest civil engineer but by that time old, unwell and out of his depth, began to be pushed aside in reputation by the 23-year-old Brunel. Today the latter is a national hero in the UK, the embodiment of the can-do Victorian age, his best-known photographs showing him standing proud in his tall stovepipe hat. Telford, by contrast, is half-forgotten, his name attached to a 1960s new town in Shropshire but little else. His story deserves to be rediscovered – and the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol is a good place to start. Few of those who now cross this fine structure each day realise that it was here that Brunel took on Telford – and won. It is a spectacular sight, slicing above wooded slopes that tumble down to the water below, and is celebrated as a monument to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s brilliance. But the story of its creation is complex. Brunel depended on others when he drew up his plans. The bridge was not finished until after his death, to an altered design. And its engineer was almost Telford – not Brunel.

BUILDING BRIDGES To understand all that happened, you need to rewind beyond the birth of either engineer. In 1754, Bristol wine merchant William Vick died, leaving $1,304 in his will with instructions that it be invested until the sum reached $13,040. He had believed that this amount would be enough to pay for a much-needed stone bridge from one side of the 75-metredeep Avon Gorge to the other. By 1829 Vick’s legacy, now grown to $10,500, was still unspent. It was clear that a stone structure, if it could be built at all, would cost far more than that sum. So the city fathers decided to launch a competition inviting designs for a cheaper iron suspension bridge, using the latest technology of the day. One man stood out as the obvious judge for the prize: Thomas Telford, the leading civil engineer in the land. Not long before, he had overseen the construction of the pioneering Menai suspension bridge, between mainland north Wales and the Isle of Anglesey, which 74

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carried the new fast road (which he also engineered) from London to the port at Holyhead. When it opened in 1826 his edifice over the Menai strait was the most elaborate and impressive suspension bridge ever built – although not quite the first. It boosted Telford’s fame even more. Yet his bridge-building career ended in humiliation in Bristol shortly afterwards. Examining entries to the competition for the Avon Gorge bridge – among them designs drawn up by the young Brunel – Telford dismissed them all as inadequate, and was asked, instead, to submit his own entry. This could have resulted in the finest Telford creation of all. But rather than the bold and light structure the city had hoped for, he proposed three timid, shorter spans, held up by mock Gothic towers built from the bottom of the gorge. It was the product of an engineering mind that had lost its spark after more than six decades of relentless work. The design was ridiculed. Brunel, in particular, was openly scornful. “As the distance between the opposite rocks was considerably less than what had always been considered as within the limits to which suspension bridges might be carried,” he wrote to the committee after his rejection, “the idea of going to the bottom of such a valley for the purposes of raising at great expense two intermediate supporters hardly occurred to me.” The younger man grabbed his chance. A second competition was run in which, initially, Brunel’s design was placed second – but with help from his father, the outstanding engineer Marc Brunel, he persuaded the judges to award him first prize. “Isambard is appointed engineer to the Clifton Bridge,” Marc wrote triumphantly in his diary entry for 19 March 1830. “The most gratifying thing,” he noted, was that the defeated engineers included “Mr T…d” – the only name in the whole of the diary that he could not bring himself to spell out in full,

Today there is fresh recognition of Telford’s importance to the Industrial Revolution and the creation of modern Britain

so strong were his feelings. Victory was the making of Brunel, though not quite of the Clifton bridge; construction was halted in 1831 amid financial trouble, and it was not completed until 1864, after his death. The project rooted Brunel in the city of Bristol, which he soon connected to London with the Great Western Railway. The debacle was, though, almost the end for Telford. Though he continued to work until his death just over four years later – after which he was buried in Westminster Abbey, the first engineer to be given that honour – his time in the front rank of engineers was over. By then, Britain was changing. The Georgian age was giving way to the Victorian, just as horsepower was being pushed aside by steam and canals, and roads giving way to new railways. Brunel was the engineer of the future, Thomas Telford of the past. Or so it seemed, for well over a century. Today, however, there is fresh recognition of Telford’s importance to the Industrial Revolution and the creation of modern Britain. It is not to diminish Brunel’s flair and success to say that Telford deserves to be seen as his equal – and, in some ways, as more of a pioneer. Unlike Brunel, for instance, who was drilled to learn engineering by his father almost from birth, Telford’s youth offered no clear path to greatness.

EVOLUTION OF AN ENGINEER Thomas Telford was born in 1757 on a remote farm in the hills of the Scottish Borders, among a landscape little changed today, the gentle beauty of which illuminates any exploration of his life. Telford’s father, a farm labourer, died before his son’s first birthday, and the young Tammy Telfer – as he was known – was soon set to work guarding sheep on the fellsides. He might have remained a poor farm worker all his life, but Telford was driven by a fiery internal energy. He forced himself to learn, to read books, and soon even to write poetry. In that he had something in common with Scotland’s greatest poet, Rabbie Burns, who also started life in a farm in the Borders, and whom Telford came to venerate. Most of all, however, Telford wanted to build. He trained as a stone mason; among his early tasks, it is said, was carving his father’s gravestone, which can still be found in a quiet churchyard near his boyhood home; the inscription honours the older man as an “unblamable shepherd”. From that point Telford drove himself forward and up, always looking for

O master Old LLEFT: Telford’s 1829 design for a bridge across the A Avon in Bristol, with towers rising from the valley ﬂﬂoor. This was ridiculed as old-fashioned by ccritics including Isambard Kingdom Brunel BBELOW: Thomas Telford, depicted at the age of aaround 40 years as his professional star was rrising at the turn of the 19th century

GETTY

Young pretender LEFT: One iteration of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s winning design for the Clifton Suspension Bridge, dating from 1830 BELOW: Brunel’s bridge today. Financial problems meant it was not completed until after his death INSET: Robert Howlett’s iconic 1857 photograph of Brunel wearing his trademark stovepipe hat

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HISTORY

opportunities and useful connections. First he went to Edinburgh, then to London, where he worked on the building of the grand new Somerset House by the Thames. By the 1780s he was in Shropshire, the county where he made his name and found his calling, first as an architect and then as a civil engineer. It was an extraordinary time to be in Shropshire, in a region that is now very rural but which at that time was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. The great ironworks in Coalbrookdale were pioneering new techniques, and the world’s first iron bridge had been built across the river Severn just before his arrival. It was here that Telford came to know the revolutionary possibilities of metal. First, in 1797, he built – with help from others – a short, radical iron aqueduct on a new canal near what is now the town of Telford. But this was only a precursor to the great Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, opened in 1805, a ribbon of iron that still carries barges 38 metres above the river Dee on what is now known as the Llangollen Canal, just over the Welsh border from Shropshire. The Pontcysyllte is Telford’s monument just as the Clifton Suspension Bridge is Brunel’s. Both structures speak of individual genius and the ability to draw on the skills of others. Some say that Telford should have shared the credit for his achievements more widely, though it was his skill in working with a team and managing many projects simultaneously that lifted him above the many other able engineers of the time. At Pontcysyllte, for instance, he was aided by a team including his nominal superior on the canal project, William Jessop. Men such as William Hazledine, the Shropshire ironmaster, went on to provide metalwork for most of Telford’s greatest iron bridges including the Menai. Many of Telford’s young pupils also went on to great careers of their own, among them Thomas Brassey, who built thousands of miles of railways all over the globe, making himself rich in the process. In 1820 Telford became the first president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a body that shaped – and still shapes – the modern profession. But Telford never became grand or formal, and shunned outward signs of wealth and status. Money never seemed to interest him much. Thick set, with dark hair, a rugged face and a Scottish accent, he was a man born to hard work outdoors who prided himself on his practical skills. He was also a flexible political operator with a deep, self-taught understanding of theory: his pocket 76

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Epic iron arch In 1799 Telford proposed to replace old London Bridge with a single iron arch spanning 180 metres (600 feet). The design was never used, and the bridge was eventually replaced by a structure of ﬁve stone arches designed by John Rennie

notebooks are full of demanding mathematical calculations and architectural study. He read and wrote late into the night. Telford worked hard and almost non-stop. There was no time and seemingly no desire for a marriage, family or partner. He had no siblings and, after the death of his mother, no immediate relations, but he had a number of close lifelong friends. In the right company he was cheerful, telling stories and making jokes with a sparkle in his eye that made people like him as soon as they met.

ON THE ROAD Telford was almost always on the move, keeping up a regular progress of inspection of his projects that, by the early years of the 19th century, reached into remote corners of England, Wales and Scotland. Roaming the country without a break, year in, year out, he must have travelled farther in Britain than any person alive – and even, perhaps, more than anyone ever had before. In the Highlands, for instance, supported by government commissions, he oversaw the construction of almost 1,000 miles of roads and countless bridges including elegant, light iron structures, one of which still survives,

In the Highlands, Telford oversaw construction of almost 1,000 miles of roads and countless bridges including elegant, light iron structures

leaping across the river Spey at Craigellachie. Telford managed the construction of the wide Caledonian canal, running from sea to sea across the Great Glen between Inverness and Fort William. This relentless, difficult, muddy task took two decades and could have been the focus of a lifetime’s work. But Telford combined it with an extraordinary range of other schemes: rebuilding ports, erecting churches, designing water works, building bridges and constructing the fastest, best roads since the Roman era. Telford’s famous express route from London to Holyhead smoothed the journey to Dublin – a route that grew in importance once the new United Kingdom was established in 1801. He upgraded the existing road from the capital to Birmingham and on to Shrewsbury, and engineered an elegant new section on through the hills of Snowdonia, including the fine suspension bridge at Menai and another by Conwy Castle – the only one to retain its original chains. And still there was more: a canal across Sweden, advice to projects in India, Russia and Canada, the new St Katharine Docks in London. All of it was impressive but much of it was made redundant by technological change: the coming of steam and railways. Even as he died, in 1834, Telford was going out of date – and he knew it. His creations are his memorial, built so well that the vast majority are still in use. You can drive on Telford’s roads, walk across his bridges and ride boats along his canals. They are worth searching out – and with them the story of a life that helped build modern Britain. ß

Julian Glover is a journalist and author. His latest book, Man of Iron: Thomas Telford and the Building of Britain, was published by Bloomsbury

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Take e a trip p in a cave ernou us oill-drop p ride e, meet a singing dinosaur or pretend to be Lewis Hamilton for a day and manoeuvre around the famed Sepang track in a Formula One simulator or simply slide down an emergency chute at an actual oil platform. A journey into Petrosains, which is located within the iconic PETRONAS Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, begins with the DARK RIDE. Shaped like an oil drop, this ride brings visitors through a dark and tranquil environment featuring Malaysia’s rainforests, mountains and underwater formations. The ride ends with an audiovisual presentation of a modern and competitive present-day 80

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Malaysia. Visitors are then encouraged to explore the 7,000 square metre centre, featuring countless unique exhibits which can handled, touched and played with for a more tactile learning experience. Among the exhibition highlights in Petrosains is SPACE, where visitors can find out about space science and technology. They can try programming a Mars Rover to roam over a Martian landscape or even step into a hurricane! Visitors eager to experience the working conditions on board an offshore oilrig can explore the OIL PLATFORM exhibition area, which is built to the scale of an actual

oilrig. Meanwhile, racing simulators and various exhibits on the science of speed are available at the SPEED gallery to allow visitors to test their reaction skills, powerto-weight ratio and discover the science of velocity, and so much more. Aside from the interactive exhibits, visitors are also treated to activities such as live science shows, mini demonstrations and science busking based on thematic campaigns, all for a more constructive and immersive learning experience. Petrosains was established as a corporate social responsibility arm in education of Malaysia’s national oil and

gas company, PETRONAS. Its role is to provide a rich and stimulating environment aimed at enhancing science literacy and instilling in the general public a passion for acquiring scientific knowledge. In extending its objective and thus supporting the need to raise awareness on the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education, Petrosains conducts various inreach and outreach programs for students, teachers and the general public both within and outside the Discovery Centre. Petrosains also organizes the Petrosains Science Festival, a three-day event that

pools the government, industry experts, formal and informal learning institutions, corporate organizations and the public to come together to celebrate science in a way that is accessible, engaging and fun. Together with an eclectic programming mix of workshops, talks, and forums bridging science with everyday life, the festival extends Petrosains’ reach beyond its traditional audience of families with children and school groups to engage with more adults and youths. First held in October 2013, the Petrosains Science Festival is set to return on 15 – 17 September 2017 with a holistic emphasis

on sustainable living. The festival will be headlined by exciting science shows, lively celebrity appearances, immersive augmented reality experiences, innovative craft workshops, creative hands-on activities and showcases by festival partners. ß For more information please contact Petrosains, The Discovery Centre, Level 4, Suria KLCC, PETRONAS Twin Towers, 50088 Kuala Lumpur. Info • Booking Line: +03 2331 8181 • www.petrosains.com.my • www.sciencefestival.my • petrosainsfest • #petrosainsfest Vol. 9 Issue 9

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Get ready to discover and experience science like never bef efore att the largest celebration of science in Malaysia - the Petroosains is Science Festival is set to make a big return on the Malay aysiaa Day public holiday weekend from 15 to 17 September 20017 with a line-up of exciting activities and programmes! Orga anized d by Petro osains s, The Discovery Centre in Kuala Lumpur in collaboration with partners from relevant corporates, government agencies, social enterprises and the academia, the festival promises to be a fun learning extravaganza. Themed ‘Sustainable Living’, it aims to highlight ‘Little Plans for the Big Planet’ – showcasing ideas to inspire the community to embrace a sustainable lifestyle and demonstrate how our small actions in our daily lives can help to bring positive impact to our planet. From augmented reality experiences, innovative craft workshops, to informative talks and creative hands-on activities, the Petrosains Science Festival will be packed with an eclectic mix of programming, set at highlighting sustainable efforts through the lens of science. Whether it is recycling, conserving energy, stopping food wastage, or disposing trash responsibly, the Petrosains Science Festival is the perfect place to learn how green ideas and innovations can help reshape the way we live and make a difference to the environment. With Petrosains Science Festival, caring for the planet has never

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this is! been more awesome and cooler coo e than a th s! The event will also be headlined by fun science shows and celebrity performances such as the performance by Malaysian celebrity Zainal Abidin – the environmental champion who will be belting out his iconic “Hijau” song during the Festival. Visitors will also be treated to engaging activities by festival partners such as Google, National Geographic, Fly FM and MDEC (Malaysia Digital Economic Corporation). The fun learning at the Festival does not stop at the on-ground offerings but extended through digital means. In line with the sustainability theme, collaterals on paper are kept to a minimum and visitors to the festival are required to navigate their way and gather information during

the fe the est stiv ival al using a digittal app. For fans of treasure hunts, get ready to raid for treasures in the digital realm with an online version of the hunt during the festival. With support from the key partner in this event, PETRONAS, the festival is on track to be a key highlight in Kuala Lumpur’s annual calendar of events and one that significantly promotes the learning of science while addressing the challenge to make the world a better place through sustainability practices. So don’t forget to mark your calendars! The Petrosains Science Festival 2017 will be held at Petrosains, Suria KLCC and the Esplanade, KLCC Park, Kuala Lumpur. ß For more information on tickets and festival activities, log on to www.sciencefestival.my.

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PHOTO: SURREY NANO SYSTEMS

What is the darkest human-made substance? In 2014, researchers at UKbased Surrey NanoSystems unveiled Vantablack, a coating that absorbs up to 99.96 percent of light that falls onto it. Vantablack is made up of millions of carbon nanotubes barely 200 atoms across, and it can be used to absorb stray light in the sensitive instruments of satellite observatories. When it is applied to ordinary objects, however, it creates the illusion of making them look totally flat. You can even buy a watch with a Vantablack dial! RM

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& QA How do microbeads affect ﬁsh?

Plastic microbeads (orange spheres) in a facial scrub

There’s no doubt that fish and other aquatic animals eat plastic fragments (under 5mm). These include ‘microbeads’ that are added to toiletries and household products, as well as fibres washed from synthetic clothing. A recent study found threequarters of flatfish in the River Thames, London have eaten microplastics. Even deep-sea animals have synthetic fibres in their guts. The impacts of this are complex. Some animals suffer from blocked digestive tracts, leading to starvation. Another concern is poisoning from microplastics coated in toxic chemicals. There’s still much we don’t know about exactly how plastics and toxins accumulate in food webs. HS

How do they make spacesuits airtight? Spacesuits are made of lots of different layers that each protect the astronaut from a different aspect of the outside environment. Only the innermost layer – known as the bladder – is airtight. It’s made of urethane-coated nylon that has machine-welded seams. The gloves are attached using airtight bearings that lock into place but still allow the hand to be rotated. These use precisely machined aluminium and titanium couplings with Teflon coatings for lubrication to prevent the metals cold-welding together in the vacuum of space. Astronauts also breathe pure oxygen so the suit can be inflated at less than a third of normal atmospheric pressure. Even so, spacesuits aren’t perfectly airtight. NASA allows the suits used on the ISS to leak up to 100ml of air per minute. LV

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Agrobacterium tumefaciens in action

Can plants get cancer? Yes. Crown galls are a kind of plant cancer, caused by the bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. This causes uncontrolled growth of plant cells around the infection, just like a tumour. Other tumours can be triggered by fungi or physical damage. But plant cells are anchored in place by the cell walls, so plant cancers never spread far or metastasise to other tissues. LV

Astronauts breathe oxygen before and during a spacewalk to rid their bodies of nitrogen, which could form dangerous bubbles

IN NUMBERS

The number of years that orangutans can nurse their offspring – the longest time of any wild mammals.

What if Earth had two moons? The consequences of a second moon orbiting the Earth depend on how massive that moon is and how far from the Earth it orbits. The most obvious effect would be that the ocean tides would be altered. Tides could be either smaller or higher and there could be more than two high tides per day. If the gravitational influence of a second moon were extreme, it could lead to phenomenally huge ocean tides (up to a kilometre high) which would also result in frequent tsunamis. It could also lead to enhanced volcanic activity and earthquakes. AGu

The number of seconds (± 7 seconds) that all mammals take to defecate, regardless of size.

The percentage of male sheep that are homosexual.

Why do cats like small spaces? Cats can spend 18 hours a day sleeping. As they are solitary animals, they want a safe hiding place to snooze. But a cat curled in a tiny box, even out in the open, is probably just avoiding your cold floor. Cats are happy in room temperatures around 14°C warmer than is comfortable for humans, and if there isn’t a convenient sunbeam to lie in, they will make do with a cosy shoebox. LV

THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

PHOTOS: ALAMY, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY X2, NASA ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

How can I survive a zombie apocalypse?

1. HEAD FOR THE HILLS

2. LAY LOW

3. FIGHT BACK

The spread of zombie disease can be modelled using epidemiological simulations. A 2015 study at Cornell University found that cities would be almost completely infected within a week but remote mountains would be untouched after four months. The Reproduction Ratio (R0) is the average number of new infections that each zombie creates. If R0 is between zero and one, the epidemic will eventually die out.

If the zombies need to eat brains to survive, humanity may be able to simply wait out the crisis. A human brain only contains a maximum of around 2,000 calories, so even the slow and shambling kind of zombie will need to feed every few days just to maintain its metabolism. And any humans that are eaten can’t rise to become new zombies, so the disease would also spread more slowly.

Conversely, a 2009 study at the University of Ottawa predicted that even if a cure for the virus is found, zombies will eventually overwhelm the population by infecting us faster than we can be treated. Of the possible scenarios, the only one with a happy ending gave us just 10 days to destroy all the zombies, with a series of increasingly devastating counter-attacks. Vol. 9 Issue 9

& QA

pop? Why do your ears p p The air pressure on your eardrum is no ormallyy balanced because your middle ear is connected c to your sinuses via a narrow duct calle ed the Eustachian tube. If the outside air presssure changes g oming too quickly though (in an aeroplane co g in ube can’t to land, for example), the Eustachian tu d the eardrum equalise the pressure fast enough and ccurs when bows in or out. The popping sound oc h the pressure rebalances and the eardrrum suddenly dd l flips back. LV

T O P 10

Longest living land vertebrates vertebrates*

*Where possible, ages have been taken from the oldest known individuals 86

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W While age e is usually thought of as just the number off years you’ve been alive, people w identic cal ages often look – and seem – very with different. In n 2015, scientists at King’s College London pu ublished research suggesting that measurin ng the activity of around 150 specific genes g g gives a measure of ‘biological age’ linked l more m strongly to longevity than mere ology. But genetic activity is only chrono one o factor f differentiating biological and chro onological age. Exercise, diet and we weight can also make a big difference. his has led to various questionnaires Th – such as the BBC’s online quiz ‘What’s My Real Age?’ (bit.ly/ age_quiz) – which can give clues about your current ‘real’ age, and er advice on what you can do about offe When using these quizzes, do bear it. W mind that some of the measures are in m still s controve co o ersial. RM

PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK, GETTY X2 ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

Can y C your body be older o than your age?

Could you walk on a neutron star? No. A neutron star has such an intense gravitational field and high temperature that you could not survive a close encounter of any kind. First of all, just getting onto the surface of the neutron star would be problematic. Its gravitational pull would accelerate you so much you would smash into it at a good fraction of the speed of light. Even before you arrived, the difference in gravitational pull between your head and feet would already have ripped your constituent atoms apart. Once there, though, your atomic nuclei and their free electrons would impact the surface with sufficient energy to spark thermonuclear reactions close to the super-dense surface. You would become a puff of gamma rays and X-rays, as your light elements were transformed into a cloud of heavy elements, neutrons and ultra-relativistic electrons. Even if you were somehow magically transported onto the neutron star, therefore avoiding this energetic impact, the million-degree temperatures at the surface would vaporise (and ionise) you immediately. The intense gravity would then flatten what was left of you as you merged into the super-dense crust of the neutron star. Under these circumstances, taking a leisurely walk would be extremely difficult! AGu

Mammals

Birds

Reptiles

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& QA

...Lipstick? The ingredients of lipstick need to create something that provides a glossy, smooth colour, which doesn’t wipe off immediately and is considerate to a rather delicate part of the body. The major constituents of lipstick are just wax and oil, but your favourite lippy could also contain materials derived from sheep, insects, fish and hot chillis! ML

t or)

Wax 30 per cent

Dyes 5 per cent

Often a mixture of beeswax, carnauba and lanolin (from sheep wool). Together these form the main structure of the lipstick.

This varies depending on the colour, but a scarlet shade might contain carmine red, which is derived from scale insects.

Plus... Oil 65 per cent Typically castor oil, this provides glossiness and dissolves the dyes.

Guanine: derived from fish scales, this gives the lipstick pearlescent sheen. Capsaicin: the chemical that give chillis their heat is added to some lipsticks to make the lips swell slightly, giving them a plumped-up look.

Why do planets orbit in the same direction? This is simply the result of the initial rotation of the cloud of gas and dust that condensed to form the Sun and planets. As gravity condensed this cloud, conservation of angular momentum increased the rotational speed and flattened the cloud out into a disk.

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Hence, planets that formed within this disk of material all ended up orbiting the Sun in the same direction, in almost the same orbital plane and with the same spin direction (apart from Venus and Uranus which were probably hit by other bodies, altering their spin). AGu

Are space launches bad for the environment? Space launches can have a hefty carbon footprint due to the burning of solid rocket fuels. Many rockets are, however, propelled by liquid hydrogen fuel, which produces ‘clean’ water vapour exhaust, although the production of hydrogen itself can cause significant carbon emissions. Rocket engines release trace gases into the upper atmosphere that contribute to ozone depletion, as well as particles of soot. Rocket launches are nonetheless relatively infrequent, meaning that their overall impact on our climate remains much smaller than aviation’s. But it’s not just our immediate environment: ‘space junk’ is a growing concern as disused satellites and other objects accumulate in our planet’s orbit. AC

PHOTOS: GETTY X3, NASA ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

W H AT ’ S I N . . .

How does ‘glow in the dark’ work? A lot of things can glow in the dark, including your washing powder and of course those funky stars you stick on a child’s bedroom ceiling. They work through phenomena called phosphorescence and fluorescence. The material absorbs energy (usually in the form of a particular colour light) and then releases it as another colour light. Fluorescent materials do this all at once, so when you shine UV light (from a torch or the Sun) on washing powder it absorbs the UV and then emits it as blue colour (which we associate with clean clothing, which is why the washing powder people add it to the mix). Meanwhile phosphorescent materials, like glow-in-the-dark stars, do their emitting much more slowly. This enables them to shine for a few minutes after the bedroom lights are switched off. ML

Why don’t we fall out of bed more often?

When we sleep, a lot goes on in our bodies. We continue to breathe and growth hormone is released – we do not need to be awake for these things to happen. Similarly, we have some awareness of our body position and movements, and some people even manage to sit up or walk during their sleep! Most of us have enough awareness to ensure that we do not fall out of bed, but this ability develops over time. Young children are still growing and understanding how their bodies fit into the world around them, which is why they might benefit from a bedrail. AGr Vol. 9 Issue 9

& QA W H O R E A L LY D I S C O V E R E D ?

Can eating a lot of sugar really lead to diabetes?

FRIEDRICH MIESCHER

OSWALD AVERY

Francis Crick and James Watson are most often associated with the famous genetic molecule, but their work in the 1950s came over 80 years after the identification of DNA by a Swiss physician searching for the ‘building blocks’ of life. Friedrich Miescher had focused on proteins in cells, but in 1869 he discovered a strange substance also lurking in the nuclei of the cells. He named it ‘nuclein’, and suspected it would prove at least as vital to cells as proteins. Crick and Watson were not the first to show he was right, either. Their celebrated discovery of DNA’s double helix structure was prompted by key experiments by a team led by the American biochemist Oswald Avery. In 1944, working at the Rockefeller University in New York, they published the results of painstaking studies using bacteria that revealed that DNA passed genetic information from one organism to another. This went against the accepted wisdom that proteins must be the carriers of genetic information, as DNA was ‘obviously’ too simple a molecule to perform so complex a role. Crick and Watson agreed with Avery – but his own claim to a Nobel was blocked by sceptics until the 1960s, by which time he was dead. RM

Francis Crick (left) and James Watson

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Yes. Too many calories of any kind will lead to obesity, which increases your chance of developing diabetes. But a 2013 study at Stanford University found that adding 150 calories of sugar per day to your diet increases your diabetes risk by 1 per cent, even after accounting for obesity, physical activity and total calorie intake. So sugar calories are particularly harmful. LV

Why is ozone depletion worse over Antarctica? 1979

1987

2006

Ozone depletion occurs when ozone molecules in the upper atmosphere are destroyed by chemical reactions with halogen gases, such as chlorine. Cold conditions above Antarctica in the winter months encourage the formation of extremely cold, high-altitude clouds. These clouds provide the ideal conditions for chlorine that was

2011

previously trapped in stable molecules to be transformed into highly reactive chlorine gas, which accumulates over the long polar night. As winter ends, sunlight breaks apart the chlorine gas molecules, freeing billions of chlorine atoms, which go on to react with ozone molecules, causing a sharp dip in ozone levels: the ozone ‘hole’. AC

Why does depression make you dream more? People suffering from depression may experience unusual patterns of sleep. Typically, they move into REM sleep (the stage in which we are most likely to dream) more quickly, and there may be a greater number of eye movements per unit of time during this stage of sleep. People who are depressed may wake up more frequently during the night, and are therefore more likely to remember their dreams. Finally, there is some evidence that certain medications for depression can increase the frequency of nightmares. Other medications appear to do the opposite, but nightmares can occur during withdrawal from these drugs. AGr

PHOTOS: SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY X4, CATERS NEWS

DNA

W H AT I S T H I S ?

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER This little spider is commonly known as the ‘alien butt spider’, thanks to the ‘eyes’ on its abdomen. The markings deter predators, by making the spider look like a much larger animal. The colourful arachnids are widespread across the east coast of Australia, living in a variety of different habitats.

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& QA W H AT C O N N E C T S…

...SMILING AND LONG LIFE?

Smiling probably evolved from displays of social submission. Chimpanzees make a smiling face when they are afraid. In humans this may have later evolved into an expression to diffuse aggressive encounters.

Collagen in meat breaks down into gelatine at temperatures between 71°C and 96°C. A stew that’s been bubbling on the stove will continue to break down its collagen for half an hour after you take it off the heat. In the fridge, this will set to a firm jelly and when you reheat it, the gelatine melts to create a silky feel in the mouth. Tomatoes also benefit from long and slow cooking to release flavour molecules within the skin, and a speedy mid-week spag bol won’t have time to reach peak tastiness until it has had those extra hours to marinade. Free

water in a dish will tend to soak into starch, taking dissolved flavour with it – pea and ham soup tastes better the next day because the ham stock has been absorbed by the pea starch. But there’s a psychological aspect too. Chef and food writer James Kenji López-Alt tried to perform scientific comparisons and found little difference when tasting fresh and day-old dishes side-by-side. Perhaps we get habituated to the cooking smells the first time round, and things taste better with a clear nose the next day. LV

Now that smiling indicates a positive mood, it’s also correlated with reduced stress hormones and blood pressure. Numerous studies have linked both of these to your chances of having a heart attack.

Marriage also lowers your heart attack risk and a 2009 study found that people who frown in college yearbook photos are ﬁve times more likely to get a divorce than those who smile.

4. Why is red light used on submarines? The human eye is less sensitive to longer wavelengths, so red light is chosen to preserve the night vision of the crew while still allowing them to see their instrument panels. Submarines switch to red light when it’s dark outside and crew members need to use the periscope or go on watch duty. RM

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And overall, smilingg correlates with good health. Researchers who looked at photos of 230 baseball professionals from the 1950s found that the players with the most genuine smiles tended to live the longest.

PHOTOS: GETTY X5, ALAMY, DEANSCARDS.COM ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

Why do bolognese, stews and curries taste better the next day?

HOW IT WORKS

Circadian Rhythms As we are primarily active during daylight hours, our bodies have evolved a schedule for different metabolic processes to make sure we use energy in the most efficient way. Muscle performance and reaction times are optimised during the day, while tissue repair and memory formation are handled during our downtime. The circadian rhythms are the 24-hour cycles of each part of our body. They are controlled by the fluctuating levels of different signal molecules in our cells – known collectively as biological clocks. All the clocks are synchronised by a master clock in our brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, which is a group of around 20,000 brain cells in the hypothalamus.

1am: Teenagers start melatonin production

4am: Morning people reach their lowest body temperature

3am: The deepest part of your sleep

7am: Cortisol levels spike, to prepare for the stresses of the day

6am: Night owls take another two hours to minimum temperature

2pm: Peak afternoon sleepiness – a good time for a nap

8am: 6 per cent lower muscle performance than in the evening

7pm: Highest alertness and fastest reaction times

6pm: Lowest levels of thyroid stimulating hormone

10pm: Digestion slows and bowel movements are suppressed

9pm: Adults begin producing melatonin, making them sleepy

How deep can corals live? In the tropics, it was long thought that corals build reefs only in shallow waters, down to around 40m. These microscopic creatures have algae living inside them that need sunlight to photosynthesise. Lately, using new and improved diving equipment, scientists are discovering much deeper corals living in the ‘twilight zone’ down to 160m, even though very little sunlight trickles that far down. It’s possible these deep corals could help recolonise shallower reefs damaged by impacts like coral bleaching. Other types of coral – without algae partners – live around the world, thousands of metres beneath the waves. HS

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RESOURCE

A FEAST FOR THE MIND

MEET THE PLANT MESSIAH

Carlos Magdalena is on a mission to save the plants. From his base at Kew Gardens, he travels the world to rescue tropical species from extinction. The botanical horticulturalist talks to James Lloyd

How did you end up working at Kew? I didn’t have any formal qualifications in horticulture, but I managed to secure an internship in the Tropical Nursery. I enrolled on the three-year Kew Diploma in 2003, and

over the next few years I began to earn a reputation for saving endangered tropical plants. The ‘Plant Messiah’ nickname was given to me by a journalist in Spain, who obviously thought that I looked a bit like Jesus! But don’t worry, I don’t actually have a Messiah complex… How do you actually go about saving a plant from extinction? Sometimes saving a plant is as easy as taking a cutting from it, or collecting some fruits. The hard part is often the political bureaucracy. Once you’ve found a plant that’s endangered, you need to convince the country’s government to let you come and take a cutting, and then you have to get the plant safely back to the UK so that the science can begin. Around 20 per cent of plant species are currently threatened with extinction. There are nearly 400,000 species of plants known to science, so saving all of them is a titanic task – we need a whole army of Plant Messiahs. What’s been the proudest moment of your career so far? It’s been saving the café marron plant. This gorgeous shrub has glossy green leaves and snow-white flowers, and it’s native to the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean. The plant was thought to be extinct, but in 1980 a schoolboy found a specimen by the side of a road. Kew managed to grow cuttings from it, but the flowers weren’t producing the seeds necessary for it to

LEFT: Carlos Magdalena examines a specimen of Nymphaea thermarum – the world’s smallest water lily 94

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PHOTOS: CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER X2, ALEX MONRO

What started your love of plants? I grew up in northwest Spain, in a region called Asturias on the Bay of Biscay. This is an incredibly biodiverse place, with the largest patch of primary deciduous forest in Europe, plus populations of wolves and brown bears! But it was also becoming one of the most industrialised areas in Spain. Within 30km, I could go from a lush, green world to a place of total destruction. I was fascinated by this contrast from an early age.

Carlos Magdalena teaching conservationists and locals about plant propagation in the Bolivian rainforest

survive in the wild. No one knew why; it became known as the ‘living dead’. I became totally obsessed with this plant. By the time I arrived at Kew in 2003, there were several specimens of café marron, all from the same parent cutting. They were constantly producing flowers, which gave me lots of opportunities to try different things. Eventually, I developed a way to transfer the pollen between flowers, pollinating the plants at relatively high temperatures so that they produced fruit and seeds. Over the course of a year, 300 seeds were harvested in total, and we could reintroduce the species into its native habitat. Does it really matter if a plant like the café marron goes extinct? Everything has a knock-on effect. We know that this plant is pollinated by moths, which could also be endangered. By protecting one plant, we’re protecting an entire ecosystem. It’s like a plane flying at high altitude. We can remove the seats, the toilet, the carpets, and nothing much will happen. But we don’t know which extinction is going to be the one that removes the engine and brings the whole thing crashing down. Why do you think plant extinctions get so much less media coverage than animal extinctions? We suffer from plant blindness. If we’re shown a picture of a monkey in a rainforest, we’ll see

the monkey but not the trees. Plants don’t run or fly; they don’t have fur or make funny noises, so we find it harder to feel for them. But economically, plants are more important to us than most animals. We depend on them for our clothes, medicines, food, building materials, oxygen, and so much more. Money really does grow on trees. What’s next on your list of plant species to save? There’s this palm on Mauritius that’s known as ‘the loneliest tree on the planet’. The species was once widespread, but there’s now only one left in the entire world. We haven’t been able to grow it at Kew so far, but I’m confident we can do it.

THE PLANT MESSIAH BY CARLOS MAGDALENA OUT NOW

Vol. 9 Issue 9

TIME OUT

CROSSWORD PUZZLE BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND DOWN 1 Speculator at home upsets voters (8) 2 Honest range includes one-dimensional object (8,4) 3 Furious wolf runs and ducks, say (8) 4 Take chants away (6) 5 Scale for use outside (8) 6 His contributions are always late (10) 7 Weep, having gone off freezing mixture (7) 8 Gossips on value of Derbyshire mansion (10) 11 Badly reign part of Africa (5) 16 Tenner wasted on cheese ingredient (6) 19 Turn up second form of secretion (3) 21 He’s careening about in program (6,6) 22 Gilding in refurbished room left to university (6) 23 Gloomy note rewritten in study (10) 24 Noble dummy ﬂourished in his element (10) 25 Join a religious man (3) 28 For every stretch of river, put in a missionary (8) 29 Use of old style has strange charisma (8) 30 Conﬁne alien in web (8) 31 Arab commando’s payment includes energy and time (7) 33 Fast old tempo (5) 34 Zen enlightenment as riot breaks out (6)

ANSWERS

ACROSS 9 10 12 13 14 15 17 18 19 20 23 96

Fool has share in conversion of organic compound (9) Bar thinly spread out in maze (9) Cheese additive encounters barrier (4) Chief rioted unexpectedly (6) The missing conclusion should be an idea (7) Insect that ﬂew in WW2 (5,4) Frightening ﬁgure races round to boast (9) Vitamin has role to play with metal (7) In favour of healthy gain (6) New arts supremo (4) Prise dime out of layer of skin (9) Vol. 9 Issue 9

25 26 27 29 32 34 35 36 37 38 39

Resulting situation following American subject (9) Ash, say, found in street (4) Plead to play with one bat, say (6) A sofa, initially indulging rodent (7) Easily inﬂuenced, blame all change to energy (9) Cactus, say, that’s good to eat (9) Family row takes time (7) Chat about a year in old China (6) Ottoman ruler registered for a laxative (4) Spore cluster makes giddy mogul reel (9) One’s crane turned out to have special meaning (9)

Solution to crossword in the previous issue

MY LIFE SCIENTIFIC PROF TAMSIN MATHER R “BANDITS MUST’VE SEEN OUR CAR ON THE CRATER R RIM; TWO GUYS WITH A R RIFLE AN ND A MACHETE TURNED D UP” This month, volcanologist Prof Tam msin i Mather h talk lkks to Helen Pilcher about getting up cloose andd personall with one of nature’s most destructivve fforcess Why study volcanoes? be They are a spectacular natural phenomenon. They Th can b ce. Because they’re hazardous, but they can also be a positive forc provide resources so big they can change rainfall patterns. They p s. They’re also a like mineral deposits. They’re tourist attractions er planets too. key force in shaping not just our Earth, but othe e? Which volcanoes are the most explosive? ed in it. Some, It depends on the magma and the gases trappe y viscous u mag us m like those in the Pacific Ring of Fire, have stickyy, gma allllyy bi b g ex exp pllo ossio on ns s. that traps gas at high pressures, leading to rea s trapp so pp ped e Others, like the ones on Hawaii, have runnier magma m g gases can escape more easily. So you end up with lava flows that ny people. look spectacular but that don’t tend to kill many

How so? The science is fascinating, the scenery is breathtaking and sometimes it can be surreal. When I worked on Villarrica volcano in Chile, we’d spend the day taking measurements at the summit, then strap our equipment to our backs and slide down the snowy ice cap on our bums.

helmet and eye protection. Sturdy boots. And synthetic clothes are better than natural cotton. The gases can eat through cotton trousers. You take them home and wash them, then find that they are full of holes. What’s the scariest experience you’ve had on a volcano? I was held up at gunpoint on Masaya volcano in Nicaragua. We were so excited about taking measurements that we went to the national park before the rangers arrived and it had officially opened. Some local bandits must have seen our car on the crater rim, so two guys with a rifle and a machete turned up. They were a bit confused when we didn’t have any money – just scientific equipment. In the end they just took a camera and a watch, but it was pretty nerve-racking.

What’s it like getting so close to an active volcano? It’s pretty intense. If you’re standing in a volcanic plume, the smell can be horrible. There’s sulphur dioxide, which smells of burnt matches, and hydrogen sulphide, which reeks of rotten eggs. There are also various acids, which make your skin feel really unpleasant.

Can you pronounce the name of ‘that’ Icelandic volcano? Eyjafjallajökull? Yes, I can, although not perfectly. It annoyed lots of people in 2010 when its ash clouds closed airports. I was on maternity leave at the time and got loads of phone calls from journalists, so it disrupted my life in a different kind of way. ß

Do you need any special gear? Some volcanoes are not easy places to be. You need a gas mask,

Prof Tamsin Mather is professor of earth sciences at the University of Oxford, specialising in volcanology and atmospheric chemistry Vol. 9 Issue 9

ILLUSTRATION: DAVID DESPAU

Is your work dangerous? Volcanoes can be dangerous for lots of reasons, not just their eruptions. These are big mountains. One time, I was on Mount Etna when the weather changed suddenly. It started snowing and hailing and we got really blown around. I was pretty nervous, but fortunately our guides were able to get us down safely. No measurement is worth risking your life for. It can be a lot of fun though.

THE LAST WORD ROBERT MATTHEWS ON… THE CHOLESTEROL DRUG CONTROVERSY

n these days of fake news and ‘alternative facts’, science gives us the tools to blast through the bluster. But even the scientific method can struggle to cut through really tough stuff. Take the ongoing controversy over statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs that millions of people take every day to help them avoid heart attacks and strokes. For years, patients have complained of getting muscle pain so severe they’ve stopped taking their pills. Why statins should have this effect isn’t clear; what is clear, though, is that while patients believe these pains are real, many medical experts don’t. Now a huge scientific study involving over 10,000 patients has shown that the experts were right: the muscle pains are all in the mind. The evidence comes from a ‘double blind’ randomised trial, widely recognised as the gold standard research study. The participants were randomly assigned either to receive the treatment or not – with neither they nor the researchers knowing who got what. When the results were analysed, they showed that around 2 per cent of participants reported muscle pains over the following year – regardless of whether they were taking statins or not. But then the researchers looked at what happened once people knew they were taking statins. Complaints of muscle pain suddenly became over 40 per cent more common among those taking the drug. Reporting their work in the peerreviewed medical journal The Lancet, the researchers explain that this is consistent with the so-called ‘nocebo effect’ – the evil twin of the betterknown placebo effect – in which simply knowing they are taking an active drug leads people to believe it’s having a bad effect on them. The results made headlines, and prompted calls for patients not to gamble with their lives by wrongly blaming statins for symptoms and ditching them, thus increasing their risk of heart attacks and strokes. On the face of it, this is a textbook example of 98

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“TELLING PEOPLE THEY’RE JUST FEELING ‘ALTERNATIVE PAIN’ ISN’T LIKELY TO PROVE ALL THAT HELPFUL”

how science can debunk ‘alternative facts’. Yet it’s not quite as simple as that. For a start – and as the lead researcher said at the time – just because the pain is caused by the nocebo effect, doesn’t mean patients don’t feel it. Telling people they’re just feeling “alternative pain” isn’t likely to prove all that helpful. But there are other issues with the research, too. First, the study itself was finished over a decade ago and involved only one type of statin, at a dosage lower than is commonly prescribed today. The participants were all European males – clearly unrepresentative of the population as a whole – and they were not instructed to report any side-effects, raising the possibility that many went unreported. Then there’s the awkward fact that the study was funded by drugs companies who make statins. So while the basic study design was scientifically impeccable, the details of how it was carried out leave question marks hanging over its conclusions. That’s also true for the bigger question surrounding statins: who should take them? While the benefits for patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease are undisputed, medical experts are divided on the merits of giving statins to anyone else. Anyone who thinks ‘alternative facts’ are the sole preserve of politicians should check out the ongoing spat between The Lancet and the British Medical Journal on all this. If you’re taking statins, you should see your doctor before deciding what to do in the light of all the conflicting messages, but it’s worth bearing in mind that while the side effects may be unpleasant, they’re not as life-threatening as a heart attack or stroke. For the rest of us, the statins controversy serves as a reminder that not even science can always guarantee nice, simple answers to complex questions. ß

Robert Matthews is a visiting professor in science at Aston University, Birmingham

ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

THE DEBATE ABOUT STATINS SHOWS THAT SCIENCE CAN’T ALWAYS SUPPLY EASY ANSWERS

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