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Everything you want to know about the world we live in
Annual 1000
Digital Edition
s OF AM AZING FACTS INSIDE
Science n Environment n Technology n Transport n History n space
Science n Environment n Technology n Transport n History n space
C ntents Transport
Science
Environment
010 Your secret superpowers
036 Next-gen motorbikes
016 The blood-brain barrier
042 Future aircraft cabins
060 Climate change myths busted
017 Recreating life in the lab
043 How to salvage a shipwreck
068 Animal pupils
018 Quantum power
044 Inside your dashboard
026 The science of roast dinner
046 San Francisco’s cable cars
069 How do plants communicate?
028 Mind tricks
050 Boaty McBoatface
070 Why all world maps are wrong
052 Inside the Jaguar I-Type
072 Urban animals
054 Hovercraft
076 Desert ships
026
052
078 Freaks of nature
072
050 006
066
152
028
Technology
space
086
History
086 Rise of the machines
112 Race to Mars
138 Deadliest warriors
094 Inside a recording studio
120 Inside mission control
096 Wonder materials
121 Rover twins
144 Medical marvel: Phineas Gage
102 Waste-to-energy plantsÂ
121 Future of the Solar System
144 The dancing plague
104 Hi-tech fitness
122 Welcome to Andromeda
145 Typewriters
Soyuz journeys 128
146 The marvellous machines of Da Vinci
130 Cosmic mysteries
112
152 Inside the Hagia Sophia 154 Building Central Park Prehistoric paintings 156
Š Panasonic Jaguar Racing; Playstation; Science Photo Library; Sol90; Thinkstock
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104 122
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Science Environment
The science of roast dinner
Learn the physics and chemistry that will help you cook the perfect festive feast
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or most Brits, Christmas dinner would not be complete without a plump and juicy roast turkey to enjoy alongside the crispy potatoes and Brussels sprouts. However, preparing the perfect bird can be a challenge, as it’s easy to misjudge cooking times and the temperature of your oven. Undercook the turkey and you risk giving everyone the unwelcome gift
How to roast a turkey
of food poisoning, yet overcook it and your guests will be left with a plate of dry meat. Thankfully, understanding the science going on inside your oven can help you get it right. The physics of heat transfer and the chemistry of flavour development both play an important role in cooking the perfect roast turkey, but resting and drying the meat are vital too.
Crispy skin
Let it dry
When the surface of the meat dries out, it heats to higher temperatures, creating a crispy skin.
Convection dries out the humid air just above the food, causing the surface of the meat to dry too.
Turkey essence As water boils away from the surface, juices travel up from below, causing the chemical reactions that create the food’s colour, taste and aroma.
What goes on inside your oven to create wonderfully moist meat?
Thermal radiation Some heat transfers from the oven walls to the meat via electromagnetic waves, which can lead to uneven browning.
Conduction cooking As particles at the surface of the meat heat up, they vibrate and collide with others, passing heat energy towards the middle.
Keep it moist Leaving the meat to rest after cooking allows the juices to cool and thicken, preventing them from leaking out when carving.
Christmas cooking science tips 026
1 Brine the turkey
Before roasting, soak the turkey in salty water for at least 12 hours. The salt will change the protein structure within the turkey’s muscle fibres, helping it to retain more moisture while cooking.
2 Start upside down
The turkey breast should be cooked at a lower temperature than the rest of the bird, so place it upside down in the oven for the first hour to shield it from the hotter temperatures at the top.
3 Circulate the air
When cooking, place the turkey on a rack that sits inside the roasting tray. This will allow air to circulate evenly around the bird, giving it a crispy brown skin.
DID YOU KNOW? The average Brit consumes more than 6,000 calories on Christmas day, equivalent to eating 25 chocolate bars
Turkey traditions
Humidity Water just beneath the surface of the meat begins to boil, creating steam to increase the humidity of the oven.
No one in Britain had even seen a turkey, let alone eaten one, until the mid-15th century when they were first brought over from the Ottoman Empire, now known as Turkey. King Henry VIII was the first monarch to demand the bird for his Christmas feast, but goose, boar’s head or pheasant were traditional Christmas feasts at the time. It wasn’t until the 1950s, when turkey was more widely available, that it became a tradition. It was seen as a practical way of feeding a large family and meant that livestock such as cows and chickens could be used for their milk and eggs instead.
Check the temperature of the turkey before you serve it to make sure it is cooked through
Convection cooking Heat energy transferred from the air inside the oven heats the outside of the food.
Added flavour Heat from the bones also triggers chemical reactions in the surrounding meat, giving it more flavour.
Up until the mid-20th century, Christmas dinner was more likely to involve pheasant or goose
Leave the bones in The bones quickly reach the hottest temperature of any part of the bird and conduct heat into the meat, helping to cook the turkey’s insides.
The juices at the bottom of the roasting tray will only reach the boiling point of water. Roast the potatoes separately in oil to make sure they go nice and crispy.
4 Check the temperature
When you think the turkey’s done, use a meat thermometer to check that the white meat in the breast is at 71 degrees Celsius and the dark meat in the legs and thighs is at 74 degrees Celsius.
5 Cook stuffing separately Stuffing must be heated through to 74 degrees Celsius due to its egg content, but at that temperature you risk overcooking the turkey. Therefore, it’s best to cook it outside of the bird.
“Understanding the science going on inside your oven can help you get it right”
© Alamy; Illustration by Nicholas Forder
Soggy vegetables
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Transport
San Francisco’s Cable cars
Uncover the mysterious methods used to power the city’s iconic transport network
A
s they travel up and down the steep city streets, San Francisco’s iconic cable cars appear to be effortlessly gliding along with no means of propulsion. Unlike traditional cable cars that hang in the air, these tram-like carriages crawl along the road, yet have no visible overhead wires providing power. Instead, they are driven by cables underground, continuously running in loops beneath the tracks. All the cars have to do is grab hold of these cables using a grip device below the carriage that reaches through a slot in the road. Once attached, they get pulled along for the ride, and simply have to let go when they want to stop.
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This simple yet effective mechanism has been driving the cars since they were first introduced in 1873 as part of the world’s first practical cable car system. By 1890, 23 lines had been established, but as buses and electric trams became more efficient, the service was scaled back. Today, it is the world’s last manually operated cable car system, and is comprised of just three lines driven by four cables; one for the California Line, one for the central Powell Line and one each for its outer ends: Powell-Mason and Powell-Hyde. The thick steel cables are driven by electric motors located in a central powerhouse and
travel at a constant speed of 15 kilometres per hour. As they leave the building they are slathered with pine tar, which not only helps to protect them but also helps the cars start more smoothly. When the grip first takes hold, the tar acts as a lubricant, allowing the cable to slip a little through its grasp while the car gets up to speed. The pressure of the grip causes the tar to heat up and vaporise, eventually resulting in full metal-on-metal contact and a tighter grasp. Despite the added layer of protection, the cables typically only last between six to eight months on average. At the powerhouse, they pass through a strand alarm that signals to the
DID YOU KNOW? Since 1949, a contest to find San Francisco’s best cable car bell ringer has been held in Union Square each July
Cable car mechanics The inner workings of a cable car that make it stop and start
Grip lever This lever can be pulled to close the grip around the cable or pushed to release it.
Track brake This lever presses a 60cm block of wood – located between each wheel set – down onto the track to slow the car.
Cable Emergency brake
Over 3cm in diameter, the cable consists of six steel strands made of 19 individual wires, all wrapped around a sisal rope core. It’s driven by a 380kW electric motor.
Pulling this lever forces a 45cm steel wedge into the slot between the tracks, stopping the cable car immediately.
Wheel brake Pressing down on this foot peddle pulls steel brake shoes against each wheel to stop them turning.
Bell When approaching an intersection, the bell can be rung to warn motorists and pedestrians that a cable car is crossing.
Turning around
Between the steel rails that the wheels run along is a channel containing the cable and a slot through which the grip grabs it.
© Shutterstock; Thinkstock; Alamy
Track
When the single-ended Powell Street cable cars reach the end of the line, they are turned around on giant turntables. These rotating platforms sit on top of steel rollers that allow them to move while the cable is passed round a spinning sheave located behind them. As the car approaches the turntable, the gripman drops the cable and coasts onto it before applying the brakes. They then get out and, with the help of the conductor, pull or push the car around by hand until it is facing the right way. In the past, the waiting passengers would sometimes help with this task, as it meant that they could jump on as soon as the car had been turned around and get the best seats. However, nowadays, they must wait in a queue until the car is safely off the turntable.
Grip The mechanical grip acts like a pair of pliers, latching onto the cable that pulls the car along.
The turntables are manually powered by the gripman and conductor
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Environment
The Skeleton Coast
Discover why so many shipwrecks can be found on the coast of Namibia
A
long the northern stretch of the Namibian coastline in western Africa, the desert sands are littered with the remains of ships and the bones of their ill-fated crew. The reason so many have met their fate on these shores is because of the region’s unusual climatic conditions. The warm, dry air of the Namib Desert colliding with the cold water of the Atlantic’s
Benguela Current creates a dense fog over the sea. The poor visibility combined with the strong force of the current and winds have made it difficult for ships to navigate safely along the treacherous coast, causing many to run aground. The crew members that managed to survive the initial wrecks were then faced with crossing the seemingly never-ending desolate desert wilderness in search of food and water.
Shipwrecked in the desert One of the Skeleton Coast’s most famous shipwrecks can be found far from the ocean
Shifting coastline Over time, the desert has slowly encroached on the ocean, moving the shoreline westwards.
Elephants migrate along the desert’s river channels in search of food and water
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Many sadly perished in the sweltering heat, but it’s not solely their remains that earned the Skeleton Coast its name. That came from the vast number of animal carcasses that washed up on the shore as a result of the whaling operations and seal hunting that were once common in the area. The harsh desert conditions have meant that the bones haven’t decomposed, and so can still be found alongside the human skeletons.
Tragedy strikes The Eduard Bohlen was a German cargo ship that ran aground on the Skeleton Coast in 1909.
DID YOU KNOW? This area is called ‘the land God made in anger’ by native Bushmen and ‘the gates of Hell’ by the Portuguese
Wildlife of the Skelton Coast
The remnants of many ill-fated ships can be found along the Skeleton Coast
It may be inhospitable for humans, but the Skeleton Coast is home to a variety of animals that have adapted to the extreme conditions. Elephants, rhinos, lions, giraffes and springboks can all be found roaming the four main dry riverbeds that snake towards the coast, while jackals and hyenas scavenge for dead birds, fish and seals along the shore. The latter belong to a colony of around 120,000 cape fur seals that take advantage of an Atlantic buffet created by the strong Benguela Current. As ice-cold water is forced up from the depths of the ocean, it dredges up masses of food for fish, which in turn provide a meal for the seals.
“ The harsh desert conditions have meant that the bones haven’t decomposed” The wreck can now be found around 500m from the ocean, surrounded by desert sand.
Warm-blooded cape fur seals can regulate their body temperature in the cold Benguela Current
Exposed to the elements The wreck is being slowly eroded by the wind, sand and salty sea air.
© Almay; Thinkstock
Stranded on land
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Space
The Mars Base Camp Lockheed Martin’s plan to put humans into Mars orbit Sending people to Mars will probably not be a single-mission endeavour. We will likely need other missions to prepare, such as test missions to Mars orbit, or even supply missions to the surface of the planet. An agency like NASA wouldn’t be too keen on sending people to Mars and having them fend for themselves – it would be wise to have some sort of infrastructure in place beforehand. With this in mind, Lockheed Martin unveiled its plan for a Mars Base Camp in 2016. The idea basically revolves around building an ISS-lite in Mars’ orbit. This orbiting laboratory could be visited by Orion spacecraft, and used by astronauts to study Mars and control rovers on its surface. The latter is known as telerobotics, and has been proposed as a way to speed up Mars exploration. There is a lag of tens of minutes when controlling a rover on Mars from Earth, but that would be reduced to just seconds from Mars’ orbit. Lockheed Martin’s proposal would involve beginning construction of the Base Camp first in cis-lunar space (near the Moon). The company say that NASA could use this as a place to dock its Orion spacecraft and, in 2023, astronauts could practice controlling rovers on the surface of the Moon. Then, in 2027, the entire station would be relocated to Mars. By 2028, it would be ready for humans to visit, and it could be used as a staging outpost for trips to the surface in the 2030s. Whether NASA will adopt the plan remains to be seen. But it’s an enticing one as it lays out a steady roadmap for Mars exploration. Unlike SpaceX’s plan, it also seems quite realistic. The technologies are not beyond our reach, and it builds on things we’ve done before.
Explore One of two Orion vehicles could be used to explore the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos.
Fuel tanks Liquid oxygen and hydrogen fuel will be stored in these tanks.
Mars Base Camp Building a space station in orbit around Mars
Habitat The station would have space for astronauts to live and work in.
“ Sending people to Mars will probably not be a single mission” It will cost around $16 billion to prepare Orion for its first manned mission, scheduled for the 2020’s
118 | How It Works
Laboratory Here astronauts could conduct experiments and control rovers on Mars.
Particle problems
DID YOU KNOW? Some theories suggest that by melting the ice at the poles of Mars, we could turn it into an Earth-like world
Hibernation One of the problems with getting to Mars is working out what to do with the astronauts on the way. With a journey time of up to several months, the astronauts will need to keep fit, ready and alert. One possible way to do this is to have a rotating section to simulate Earth’s gravity. But another way is to put the crew into hibernation, an idea that NASA has funded research for. A small crew could be unconscious for two weeks at a time on a rotational basis, with one person always staying awake for a brief time. Every two or three days, that astronaut would go into hibernation, and another would wake up. While asleep, the astronauts would be kept at temperatures as low as 32 degrees Celsius – down from our more regular 37 degrees Celsius – to slow their metabolisms.
Other potential exploration strategies involve setting up Martian moon bases on Phobos or Deimos
Radiators Like the ISS, the station would have radiators to expel heat into space.
US company SpaceWorks Enterprises Inc are investigating the feasibility of induced hibernation for space travel
Orion The Mars Base Camp would have two docking ports for two Orion vehicles.
A home on Mars?
One major criticism of the Apollo missions was that there were no plans to keep people on the Moon permanently. The longest mission on the surface, Apollo 17, was about 12 days, and we have not been back to the Moon since. Many are keen for Mars exploration to not simply be a series of ‘boots on the ground’ missions, but rather a plan to keep a base or colony on the surface. It’s unclear which route NASA is favouring at the moment, so time will likely tell what they are aiming for. As for SpaceX, we know that they want to have a massive colony on the surface in the next 100 years or so. They envisage sending 100 people or more at a time and reusing their rocket for multiple trips, eventually leading to a colony of 1 million people on Mars. Elon Musk has also touted the idea of terraforming Mars and making it liveable for humans, but that’s a story for another day.
The spacecraft’s power would come from large solar arrays.
© Lockheed Martin; SpaceX
Solar arrays
Propulsion A cryogenic propulsion stage would move the spacecraft from lunar orbit to Mars.
SpaceX wants to have a colony of 1 million people on Mars in around 100 years
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Environment Technology History
Hydraulic machines Da Vinci’s notebooks feature several ideas for complex yet workable devices powered by water
Paddleboat This reciprocating-motion vessel was a huge advance on the oar-powered boats of the age With the absence of internal combustion engines, boats and ships in the 15th century were powered either by wind or by oar. Writing between 1487 and 1489, da Vinci reasoned that a paddle-based mechanism that used reciprocating motion (repetitive back and forth movements) would be far more effective. By replacing the oars with paddle wheels, it would be easier for the boat to travel upstream. The paddleboat wasn’t an original da Vinci idea; Italian inventors Taccola and Francesco di Giorgio had both looked into the concept before, but this was the most realistic and workable proposal
yet. The operators would push down on alternate foot pedals, which powered a reciprocating-motion system, which in turn was transformed into rotary motion to turn the paddle wheels and propel the boat forwards. The principle was the opposite of a water mill, with the machine moving the water rather than the water moving the machine.
1 Pedal The mechanism starts with the operator pushing down on one of the two pedals.
“The inventions of other Renaissance men most likely influenced da Vinci’s own ideas”
2 Motor The reciprocating motion produced by the pedal is transformed into rotary motion by a series of cranks, springs and gears.
3 Paddles The rotary motion produced by the motor turns the paddle wheels to propel the boat forwards.
© Illustrations by Adrian Mann; Pexel; Pixabay; Shutterstock
4 Reciprocation The operators alternately press on the left and right pedals to keep the paddle wheels spinning.
Would it work?
Using steam engines rather than human power, the paddle wheel was later used extensively all over the world, notably in Mississippi paddle steamers.
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DID YOU KNOW? Da Vinci was fascinated by water and used 64 different words in his notebooks to explain its movement
Sawing
Trunk
The automatic saw cuts up and down in a linear reciprocating motion. The line of cut is maintained by the pulley system to create logs of equal size.
The wood is put on a track that pulls it over the saw blade to be cut.
Energy conversion The rotary motion is converted into linear motion by a ratchet wheel, a pivoted lever that moves a cogwheel in one direction only. This pulls the carriage at a constant speed.
Da Vinci inventions used today Ball bearings First seen in a drawing in 1497, da Vinci based his idea on ancient Egyptians rollers that were used to transport huge stones up ramps to construct the pyramids.
Double hull Da Vinci proposed the idea that a double hull would stop ships from sinking if its first was pierced by an enemy ship’s ram, a weapon commonly used in naval battles.
Parachute Waterwheel A channel of running water powers a waterwheel that powers the machine through a rotary motion.
Da Vinci devised this combination of linen cloth and wooden poles 300 years before the first parachute test. His design was tested in 2005 and was proved to work.
Robot
Pulleys
Mechanical saw
The mechanism is run using pulleys that gradually move the carriage as the wood is sliced.
Another hydraulic invention that was designed to cut wood quickly and efficiently Noted down circa 1478, da Vinci’s mechanical saw was a rapid cutting device. The saw utilised the energy of a water mill to power the slicing of logs into wood. The wood would then be used for construction, particularly in war time, where it would be used to quickly build military bridges (these bridges were easy to transport and could be rapidly assembled across a body of water to allow troops to cross). The saw’s mechanism was relatively simple: a channel of running water turned a mill, and this rotary motion was transformed into linear reciprocating motion that powered the up and down sawing movement. The mechanism also powered pulleys and crankshafts that kept the log moving towards the saw. Like the paddleboat, the mechanical saw had been thought of before but not in this level of detail. Once again, da Vinci took a clever concept and improved it.
Would it work?
The mechanical saw was one of da Vinci’s least innovative but most workable concepts. Its automatic cutting system worked using the same principles as a standard water mill.
Using a system of pulleys, weights and gears, da Vinci’s robot was a moving suit of armour that could move its limbs, turn its head and sit down and stand up.
Air conditioning After being asked to help ventilate a boudoir, da Vinci developed a mechanical water-driven fan in 1500 that can be seen as a precursor to modern cooling systems.
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