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TV HIGHLIGHTS Blue Planet II Since Blue Planet aired in 2001, our understanding of life beneath the waves has completely changed. This bold cinematic experience takes viewers on a magical adventure across the greatest, yet least known parts of our planet â&#x20AC;&#x201C; our oceans.

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

The Truth About HIV This inspiring film looks at the science of keeping HIV at bay, and examines the moral panic that erupted when the virus first took hold, leading to calls for patients to be quarantined for life.

Premieres 1 December Friday at 7.05pm (JKT/BKK) 8.05pm (SIN/HK/MY/TW)

What Makes A Psychopath? From the brain scans that could identify potential psychopaths, to the antidepressant used to reduce violent behaviour in prisons, this programme is the definitive guide to the brave new science of psychopathy.

Premieres 21 December Thursday 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, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Please call your cable operator for more details or check out our website at www.bbcasia.com

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SWAN SONG FOR THE YEAR From the American eclipse to the end of the Cassini journey, 2017 has been a pretty interesting year to cover for BBC Earth magazine. Yet somehow, we are far from exhausted in the number of things left to talk about and discover. Baffling riddles and unsolved enigmas will continue to excite us on our journey to dig deeper and explore further. This month’s issue brings with it some fascinating and groundbreaking concepts, including a peek into a theory that could rewrite the laws of physics and finally explain what dark matter is. Prof Robert Matthews briefs us on a theory that could put to question even the fundamental law of gravity. (p28) Earlier this year, Christopher Nolan doled out yet another cinematic masterpiece with Dunkirk. Carrying forward the conversation that the film stirred, this month we look back at history with Tim Benbow to answer some of the pressing questions that surround this iconic military operation. (p44) This month we also zoom into the curious place that is our own mind. James Lloyd describes his encounter with a form of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder that is lesser known yet devastating to those who suffer from it. Read his fascinating account on page 78. We hope you enjoy all that we have for you this month. It’s a wrap for 2017, but there is much more to come next year. Happy holidays!

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

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Experts in this issue…

PROFESSOR ROBERT MATTHEWS Professor Robert Matthews is a science writer and visiting professor of science at Aston University, Birmingham. In this issue he discusses Prof Erik Verlinde’s work on dark matter. (p28)

TIM BENBOW Tim Benbow is a reader in strategic studies at King’s College London. He won the Sir Julian S. Corbett Prize in Modern Naval History 2016. (p44)

JEN GUYTON Jen Guyton is an ecologist with a passion for wildlife conservation. She is now studying mammal ecology and conservation in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. (p62)

PIOTR NASKRECKI Piotr Naskrecki is an entomologist and an award-winning writer and photographer. He is the author of the book The Smaller Majority. (p62)

Vol. 9 Issue 12

CONTENTS

VOL. 9 ISSUE 12

FEATURES 14 Petrosains Science Festival Take a look at the festivities that took place at the Petrosains Science Festival in Kuala Lumpur 28 Something’s Wrong With Gravity A new theory could rewrite the laws of physics as we know them, and finally explain what dark matter is 36 The All Blacks Derek Niemann introduces the cormorant, a bird that provokes strong, often contradictory emotions 44 Dunkirk Tim Benbow tells the story of the iconic military operation 54 Hackers: Can They Be Beaten? The rise of the internet has transformed hacking into an opportunity for crime, activism and political interference. Chris Hall explores who the hackers are and how they can be stopped 62 Source Of Life Jen Guyton and Piotr Naskrecki photographed the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique 72 The Workers’ Revolution Stephen Bates relates the tragedy of the Pentrich working-class uprising from two hundred years ago 76 “I Still Remember The Day My Brain Broke” James Lloyd describes his battle with a devastating but little-known form of OCD

UPDATE 15 The Latest Intelligence NASA tests planetary defence system on nearby asteroid; Gigantic Iceberg separates from Antarctic peninsula; Brain’s ageing mechanism discovered; Is banning the sale of petrol and diesel cars really sustainable? 83 Q&A Are floating solar farms better than land-based ones? Do other planets influence Earth’s tides? Why is the Big Ben being turned off for four years? Do black holes collapse?

28 REGULARS 3 Welcome A note from the editor sharing her thoughts on the issue and other ramblings 6 Snapshot Stunning snaps from across the fields of history, nature or science 26 Comment & Analysis Helen Czerki on bad vibrations

RESOURCE 94 Book Review This month, we discuss Good for Nothing, where Abigail Marsh explores the acts of kindness and altruism

97 My Life Scientific Helen Pilcher chats to Emma Sherlock, curator of invertebrates at London’s Natural History Museum and champion of the humble earthworm

96 Time Out Crossword puzzle to stimulate your brain

98 The Last Word Robert Matthews on listening to the mavericks

Vol. 9 Issue 12

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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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Only have eyes for you Emilia-Romagna, Italy Peering through a hole in a poplar leaf, these two damselflies look ready to invite us in for a cup of tea. The pair, who appear to be holding hands, were spotted close to the river Po in northern Italy. “Damselflies are often sexually dimorphic,” says Prof Adam Hart, an entomologist at the University of Gloucestershire. “This means that the males and females differ, typically in size and colouration, with males often more colourful and smaller than females.” Here, the larger, green damselfly on the right is more likely to be the female, and she’s probably been wooed by an elaborate courtship display. “The males will hover, flap, bob, flicker and display their wing spots in order to show themselves off,” says Hart. “They’ll also engage other males in ‘flights of attrition’, where the two rivals try to exhaust each other with aerobatics.” Once successful, the male will clasp the female behind her head, and the female will curve her abdomen around to pick up his sperm. The shape of the two mating damselflies often resembles a heart. Incredible! PHOTO: AR Aldrovandi/Solent

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Robo rugrat London, UK Visit the Robots exhibition at London’s Science Museum and you’ll be greeted by this little whippersnapper. The realistic, wall-mounted robot baby was built by UK animatronics company John Nolan Studio, and is based on the puppet babies they make for use on film sets. The puppets are usually operated remotely, but this one’s been automated so that it runs through a routine of movements and expressions throughout the day – which is what the cables sticking out of the back are for. Creepy near-realism aside, then, the baby is actually a lowtech affair. But that’s the point: it’s the first thing you see on a journey through 500 years of robot history, while the last thing you see will be an all-singing, all-dancing, high-tech AI robot toddler – symbolising both how far we’ve come, and how far we still have to go in the world of robotics. “The exhibition is really about the human form as mechanism,” says head curator Ben Russell. “So we wanted something that would capture people’s attention and bring them into that headspace, before plunging them back to the 1500s to see automaton monks.” PHOTO: Associated Press

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When (Neutron) Stars Collide This illustration shows the hot, dense, expanding cloud of debris stripped from two neutron stars just before they collided. Within this neutron-rich debris, large quantities of some of the universeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heaviest elements were forged, including hundreds of Earth masses of gold and platinum. This represents the first time scientists detected light tied to a gravitational-wave event, thanks to two merging neutron stars in the galaxy NGC 4993, located about 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra. PHOTO: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

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Hubble Unravels a Twisted Cosmic Knot This image, captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space

be seen clustered both in the center and along the trails

Telescope, shows what happens when two galaxies

of dust and gas forming NGC 2623’s sweeping curves

become one. The twisted cosmic knot seen here is

(known as tidal tails). These tails extend for roughly

NGC 2623 — or Arp 243 — and is located about 250

50,000 light-years from end to end. Many young, hot,

million light-years away in the constellation of Cancer

newborn stars form in bright stellar clusters — at least

(The Crab).

170 such clusters are known to exist within NGC 2623.

NGC 2623 gained its unusual and distinctive shape

NGC 2623 is in a late stage of merging. It is thought

as the result of a major collision and subsequent merger

that the Milky Way will eventually resemble NGC

between two separate galaxies. This violent encounter

2623 when it collides with our neighboring galaxy, the

caused clouds of gas within the two galaxies to become

Andromeda Galaxy, in 4 billion years’ time.

compressed and stirred up, in turn triggering a sharp

spike of star formation. This active star formation is

PHOTO: ESA/Hubble & NASA

marked by speckled patches of bright blue; these can

CAPTION: ESA (European Space Agency)

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SPECIAL FEATURE

he Petrosains Science Festival held recently in Kuala Lumpur City Centre was a momentous celebration of science fused with activities which were both educational and fun. The show-stopping performance by Malaysia’s green advocate and performer – Dato’ Zainal Abidin who belted out his iconic “Hijau” song – was one of the highlights of the festival. Stomping to the beat of the music, the festival’s main stage area at KLCC Esplanade was brought to life by Dato’ Zainal Abidin’s performance with the public thronging to catch his act as well as to visit the festival booths.

The Petrosains Science Festival 2017 kicked off with the theme “Sustainable Living” and the tagline “Little Plans for the Big Planet” to showcase ideas on how to lead a more sustainable lifestyle. Whether it is recycling, conserving energy, stopping food wastage, or disposing trash responsibly, the festival helped visitors learn and discover how green ideas and innovations can help reshape the way we live and make a positive difference to the environment. The event, which took place from 15 to 17 September 2017, was the largest science-related festival in the country that aimed to promote the learning of science in an interesting and engaging way while addressing the challenge of making the 14

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world a better place through sustainability practices. With the joint effort of partners, which included industry players, government agencies, social enterprises and the academia, the three-day festival educated and entertained children and adults alike with a with an eclectic mix of programmes. These included augmented reality experiences, hands-on workshops, forums and talks, science shows, and performances by prominent local artists. Visitors learnt about ways to live life with zero waste, discovered how to harvest and create a rain water dispenser, watched a 3R fashion show highlighting eco-friendly outfits made using recycled materials, and explored the technological approach to greener living at a smart home showcase. All of these were activities underpinning the festival’s goal of highlighting sustainability practices and presenting it in a fun and immersive manner.

during the festival using the Petrosains Science Festival App. The festival is the culmination of the many different programmes and activities which Petrosains organises all year round such as the Petrosains Science Show Competition, Visit To School Programs, travelling exhibitions, satellite centres in Johor, Pahang and Sabah, and many others. As the corporate social responsibility arm of PETRONAS, Malaysia’s national oil and gas company, the inreach and outreach programmes and activities conducted by Petrosains are all contributions of PETRONAS to Malaysia’s development in education.

The fun learning at the Festival did not just stop at the on-ground offerings but extended through to digital means. In line with the sustainability theme, collaterals on paper were kept to a minimum.

With the support from PETRONAS as the Key Partner, National Geographic Channel as the Official Channel, FlyFm as the Official Radio Station and MDEC as the Official Community Partner, the Petrosains Science Festival provided visitors with a holistic learning experience centred around the importance of protecting our planet Earth. More than 60 partners joined in, including influential industry players in science and innovation, the academia, learning institutions as well as other related industries.

Visitors to the festival were required to navigate their way, gather information and even play a “3D Hunt and Redeem” game

For more information on the Petrosains Science Festival 2017, visit www.sciencefestival.my. ß

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

Update

NASAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s asteroid detection and defence systems underwent a dress rehearsal this October, thanks to asteroid 2012 TC4

PHOTO: GETTY

SPACE

NASA TESTS PLANETARY DEFENCE SYSTEM ON NEARBY ASTEROID In October, the space agency tracked the course of an asteroid that passed within a few thousand kilometres of Earth Vol. 9 Issue 12

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

The path (green line) that the asteroid took past Earth

Bruce Willis has nothing on these guys: NASA scientists geared up to test out their planetary defence system when an asteroid the size of a double-decker bus whizzed past the Earth. Dubbed 2012 TC4, the space rock passed as close as 6,800km to the planet’s surface on 12 October, giving space scientists a chance to trial planetary defence systems put in place should the Earth be in danger of being struck by an asteroid. “Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth, because they can make preparations to collect data to characterise and learn as much as possible about it,” said NASA’s Dr Michael Kelley, before the asteroid charted its path. “This time we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, and so assess our capability to work together in response to any potential real asteroid threats that may be discovered in the future.” Asteroid 2012 TC4 was thought to be between 10m and 30m across, making it slightly larger than the space rock that hit Earth’s atmosphere near Chelyabinsk, Russia in February 2013. It had not 16

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“WE KNOW THE ORBIT OF 2012 TC4 WELL ENOUGH TO BE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN IT WILL NOT IMPACT EARTH”

been seen since its discovery in 2012, when it sped past Earth at about a quarter of the distance from Earth to the Moon, as it had been too distant and too faint to be detected by ground-based telescopes. As it began to approach Earth this summer, large telescopes were used to detect it and re-establish its precise trajectory, in a move to improve tracking methods. “This is the perfect target for such an exercise, because while we know the orbit of 2012 TC4 well enough to be absolutely certain it will not impact Earth, we haven’t established its exact path just yet,” said researcher Paul Chodas. Though no plans were made to attempt to actually change the trajectory of 2012 TC4, there are several ideas about how we could deflect an asteroid that was on a collision course with Earth. The simplest would be to crash a spacecraft of some kind into it to steer it to safety, but NASA has also been working on the idea of steering asteroids away by beaming them with lasers. The theory is that the laser would heat up the surface of the space rock enough for it to release gas, which would in turn create a thrust that would lead to changes in its path.

PHOTOS: NASA, BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY

The Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii ﬁrst discovered the asteroid 2012 TC4

T H E DOW N LOA D ENVIRONMENT

GIGANTIC ICEBERG SEPARATES FROM ANTARCTIC PENINSULA The largest remaining ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula lost roughly 10 per cent of its area on 12 July. This is when an iceberg dubbed A68, which has an area around four times that of London, broke free. Since then, researchers from the University of Leeds and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have been tracking the iceberg’s journey using the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite. They hope the event will offer them a unique opportunity to study the implications of the future loss of huge shelves of ice from the Antarctic. So far the iceberg has drifted 5km away from the Larsen-C ice shelf, shedding 11 smaller chunks of ice around 10km long as it went. “The satellite images reveal a lot of continuing action. We can see that the

remaining cracks continue to grow towards a feature called Bawden Ice Rise, which provides important structural support for the remaining ice shelf,” said researcher Anna Hogg. “It looks like the Larsen-C story might not be over yet.” The team now intends to continue studying how the calving of huge icebergs like A68 affects the stability of Antarctic ice shelves and impacts on sea level rise. “With this large calving event, and the availability of satellite technology, we have a fantastic opportunity to watch this natural experiment unfolding before our eyes. We can expect to learn a lot about how ice shelves break up, and how the loss of a section of an ice shelf affects the flow of the remaining parts,” said researcher Hilmar Gudmundsson.

BREAKTHROUGH STARSHOT SPRITES Is that a new series on the Syfy channel? Er, no. Breakthrough Starshot is a research project that aims to send probes beyond the Solar System, and Sprites are their new, tiny satellites. Tiny satellites? We have those already, don’t we? Not this tiny. We’ve had ‘cubesats’ for a while, which measure just 10 x 10 x 10cm and weigh 1kg. But Sprites are in a new league of tininess: they’re essentially 3.5 x 3.5cm printed circuit boards, and weigh just 4g each. Sort of like a space-faring Raspberry Pi, then? Sort of, but even smaller! Despite that, they carry all sorts of sensors and cameras, generate their own solar power and can communicate with Earth – as the ﬁrst successful Sprite launches, piggy-backed on larger satellites, recently showed. And why is that useful? The smaller you can make space probes, the easier and cheaper it is to get them off the ground. It’s hoped the technology used in the Sprites can be developed further to build space probes capable of reaching exoplanets within the next 40 to 50 years.

The calving of iceberg A68 reduced the area of the Larsen-C ice shelf by a dramatic 10 per cent

A tiny Sprite satellite

Vol. 9 Issue 12

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

The silicone heart mimics the real thing as closely as possible

NEW ARTIFICIAL HEART GETS CLOSER TO NATURE Proving that medical researchers can be softhearted too, a team at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich has used malleable silicone and 3D printing to create the most human-like artificial heart to date. It’s just 60 years since the first heart patients were given pacemakers, and 50 since the first human heart transplant took place. So while these procedures are almost considered routine, the technology involved is still in its relative infancy. The artificial hearts currently given to patients awaiting a transplant use mechanical pumps, which can seize up or fail; they also leave the patient without a natural pulse, which can affect other bodily functions. The new heart, in contrast, replaces the

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mechanical pump with an additional chamber that is inflated and deflated by pressurised air, mimicking a heart’s muscle contractions and generating a realistic pulse. “Our goal is to develop an artificial heart that is roughly the same size as the patient’s own, and which imitates the human heart as closely as possible,” said researcher Nicholas Cohrs. The heart developed by Cohrs and his team has been proven to work; the catch is that it only lasts for around 3,000 beats, or roughly half to three-quarters of an hour. “This was simply a feasibility test,” explained Cohrs. “Our goal was not to present a heart ready for implantation, but to think about a new direction for the development of artificial hearts.”

PHOTOS: ZURICH HEART, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, BREAKTHROUGH STARSHOT

BIOLOGY

NEUROSCIENCE

BRAIN’S AGEING MECHANISM DISCOVERED

IN N U MBERS

30 Microscope image of the brain’s hypothalamus

It’s official: ageing is all in the mind. But when we say ‘the mind’, we mean ‘the brain’ – and specifically the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that is involved in growth, reproduction and metabolism. In 2013, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York proved that this region of the brain also governs the entire body’s ageing process – and now the same team has identified the precise mechanism involved. The mechanism lies in a small cluster of neural stem cells, which were already known to be responsible for the formation of new brain neurons. The number of these stem cells declines as we get older, but the team has shown that by injecting fresh stem cells into the brains of adult mice, the ageing process can be delayed or even reversed. Before they could get to that point, the researchers first had to prove that these were indeed the cells responsible for ageing,

which they did by selectively destroying such cells in the brains of middle-aged mice. “This disruption greatly accelerated ageing compared with control mice, and those animals with disrupted stem cells died earlier than normal,” said Dr Dongsheng Cai, who led the research. The researchers then tried injecting new stem cells into this region in the brains both of middle-aged mice whose stem cells had been previously destroyed, and of older mice. The injections produced exactly the kind of anti-ageing effects they’d anticipated. The team has further shown that the stem cells work their anti-ageing magic by releasing molecules called microRNAs, which affect gene expression, and which the stem cells release into the spinal fluid inside tiny particles called exosomes. It’s now hoped that new treatments for age-related diseases in humans can be developed, based upon injection of exosomes into the hypothalamus.

The number of vaquitas, a type of porpoise found in the Gulf of California, left in the wild. This makes them the most endangered marine mammal on Earth.

1 QUINTILLION The number of calculations China’s Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer is capable of. That’s 1 with 18 zeroes after it.

150 MILLION

The average amount of sugar in a single serving of branded soft drinks – 1.6g more than the recommended maximum daily intake. Vol. 9 Issue 12

No new petrol or diesel cars will be sold in the UK from 2040 onwards, but will this really help reduce air pollution?

Vol. 9 Issue 12

PHOTOS: TESLA, GETTY

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

IS BANNING THE SALE OF PETROL AND DIESEL CARS REALLY SUSTAINABLE? Dr Stephen Hall, an academic fellow at the University of Leeds, weighs up whether the ban will clean up our cities for good

The most eye-catching part of the government’s recent air-quality strategy is to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. This has polarised the debate around the sustainability of electric vehicles as the primary means of 21stCentury mobility. The impetus behind the government’s strategy is poor air quality: which is thought to be linked to about 40,000 premature deaths a year. The issue is that air quality limits in many UK towns and cities are breached regularly, and environmental campaigners, along with some city mayors, have been pushing for tighter controls on polluting vehicles. But Client Earth, the campaign group leading the call for reform, has described the ban as “not enough”. The group emphasises that clean air zones and sustainable transport infrastructures both work, and can be implemented more quickly. Even so, some argue that the target is too soon. The motor industry, however, does not argue that the cars won’t be ready in time. This is unsurprising, given that Tesla already has an all-electric fleet, most manufacturers have at least one hybrid on sale, and Volvo recently committed to phase out all conventional engines by 2019. The voices of dissent offer three main arguments: electric vehicles don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions; we don’t have enough power available; and there are not enough critical materials like lithium which underpin most new electric vehicle battery technologies. The first two arguments are closely related. The problem is not the absolute volume of electric vehicles on the road but when we charge them. The issue is ‘peak demand’ – the period, usually of one to

Tesla’s Model X offers a 416km (258-mile) range

“ELECTRIC CARS ARE NOT A PANACEA. THEIR POWER SOURCE NEEDS CAREFUL MANAGEMENT” three hours, when the most electricity is being used. We design our electricityinfrastructure systems, markets and power provision largely to ensure these peaks are covered. Peak demand in the UK is between 5pm and 7pm in winter. This is usually when electricity is at its most ‘dirty’, or polluting, as this is when we need almost all of our generating capacity, including the old coal plants, diesel back-up generation and gas. Without managed charging, drivers plugging the car in on return from work face using diesel engines and coalderived power to charge vehicles. Hardly a win for air quality or climate change. National Grid estimates that electric vehicles could add up to 8GW of demand at peak times by 2050, which is a little more than twice the capacity of the

Hinkley C nuclear reactor. However, this figure could be brought down by adopting managed charging, to move charge cycles to after the evening peak. The last problem, material availability, is a trickier prospect. Lithium, cobalt and the rare earth metals used in electric vehicles present several problems. It’s not only a question of whether there are enough of these materials, but also their toxicity, ease of recycling and – perhaps most pressing in the short term – their geopolitical availability and the ethical acceptability of their supply chains. Much like the issue of peak demand, without strong policy and behavioural and technical advances, we could easily see the onset of global conflict, ecocide and exploitation around the critical materials for electric mobility, just as we have for petrochemical mobility. While a ban on petrol and diesel car sales in 2040 is easily achievable, what really matters is how well the above issues are dealt with, as this will define whether electric mobility is a sustainable transition or just creates further problems. Electric cars are not a panacea. They do nothing for congestion, their power source needs careful management, and their supply chains may be no less problematic than those of petrochemical fuels. Conversely they can reduce air pollution, act as a smart grid resource, and help meet climate change commitments. Like many technical solutions they need strong governance and regulation around them. We should use the current debate to improve our dialogue on electric mobility, seeking clear government policy on energy market integration and strong standards on material sustainability. Vol. 9 Issue 12

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

ENVIRONMENT

THE EARTH WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY BE 2°C WARMER BY 2100 In December 2015, the Paris Agreement, which has been signed by 195 countries, pledged to take action on global warming. The Agreement aimed to limit worldwide temperature rises to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, and to endeavour to keep it below 1.5°C. But new research from the University of Colorado suggests that hitting those targets may be much harder than previously thought. “The window of opportunity on a 1.5°C target is closing,” said lead researcher Dr Robert Pincus. The team used no computer modelling in their research, instead relying entirely on real-world 22

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measures of climate change. They discovered that even if we cut fossil fuel emissions to zero tomorrow, we are already committed to warming of around 1.3°C by 2100. If we fail to act, and emissions remain at their current levels for another 15 years, then a temperature rise of 1.5°C is inevitable. There is some room for doubt here: the effects of carbon sequestration by the oceans could reduce those figures by as much as 0.4°C. Even so, Pincus estimates that the likelihood of 1.5°C of warming occurring by 2100 is currently around 13 per cent – and rising all the time.

PHOTOS: GETTY, NASA/HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

We urgently need to cut fossil fuel consumption to reduce global warming

SPACE

HALF OF THE MATTER IN THE MILKY WAY COMES FROM OTHER GALAXIES It seems we are all intergalactic travellers. Around 50 per cent of all matter in the Milky Way originated in a different galaxy, new research has revealed. It has long been believed that once galaxies start to form, they keep to themselves, with the matter that coalesced to form a galaxy in the first place essentially staying in it forever. But a new study carried out at Northwestern University in Illinois suggests that matter is, in fact, regularly transferred from one galaxy to another. “Given how much of the matter out of which we are formed may have come from other galaxies, we could all consider ourselves space travellers, or extragalactic immigrants,” said study co-author Daniel Anglés-Alcázar.

The Northwestern team used computer models to study the evolution of the Universe from just after the Big Bang, up to the present day. Their models showed that when a supernova occurs, large amounts of matter can be ejected from the host galaxy, and can traverse space in the form of an intergalactic wind before eventually being subsumed into another galaxy up to a million light-years away. It’s generally a one-way street, though, with gas and dust transferred from small galaxies to larger ones, rather than the other way round. This process of ‘intergalactic transfer’, as it’s been dubbed, is a new discovery, and means much of our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution may need to be reconsidered.

T HE Y DID W H AT ?!

WHALES’ SONGWRITING SKILLS STUDIED What did they do? A team at the University of Queensland listened in on the songs of a population of humpback whales, taking note of how the patterns, or verses, within them changed over time. What did they ﬁnd? All males within a group sing the same song. However, the patterns change over time as they are altered by individual whales. Other whales in the group then learn these new verses and the new version, or remix, of the song quickly spreads through the group.

Galaxies steal matter from other galaxies

Why did they do that? The study provides ﬁrm evidence of how animals learn complex behaviours and may help shed light on the evolution of human language, the researchers say. Vol. 9 Issue 12

Update

THE LATEST INTELLIGENCE

GENETICS

“THE CELL ITSELF WOULD GATHER INFORMATION, AND WE WOULD BE ABLE TO READ IT BACK”

ABOVE: Eadweard Muybridge’s famous images of a galloping horse have been encoded into DNA to make a ﬁlm

Why save moving pictures of a galloping horse in DNA? We’re trying to create a living ‘molecular recorder’ – a cell that would capture information and store it in the DNA bases [the letters A, C, G and T] of the cell’s own genome, and get that information back again by sequencing the cell [reading its DNA]. We did all this in E. coli. How do you encode images as DNA letters? You have a bunch of pixels, and each pixel has a different value on a greyscale of black or grey or white. We came up with a code that says each pixel value would be a combination of three DNA bases, in one case, ‘CTG’ might encode a medium grey. We used three bases instead of a single base because that’s how cells code for the amino acids that make up proteins. How do you write movies to DNA? The system we’re using is based on CRISPR, an immune system that bacteria use to defend themselves from viruses. When a virus puts its genome into a cell, two proteins – Cas1 and Cas2 – grab a chunk of that viral DNA and insert it into the cell’s genome. This serves as a memory. The

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cell is immunised, using that sequence to guide an enzyme – Cas9 – to cut up the virus. We’re using that first part of CRISPR: we code pixel values, synthesise DNA and deliver it to cells making Cas1 and Cas2. Those two proteins then grab the pieces of DNA and put them into one spot in the cell’s genome. The information gets copied every time the cell divides. We took all DNA that encoded pixel values for the first frame [of a movie] on one day, let the bacteria grow overnight, then provided the second, and so on until we’d done all five frames in order. When the CRISPR system inserts new DNA into that one spot, it goes to the beginning, everything else moves down. How do you read the movie from DNA? We take a sample of cells, break them open and sequence [read] just that one spot in their genome. We look at what the DNA says each pixel should be, but the physical arrangement in the genome also gives us time information. If you look at the images that are reconstructed, some pixels are ‘noisier’ – these are ones where information was never captured or we got the timing a bit wrong. It’s not quite perfect.

PHOTOS: GETTY X2 ILLUSTRATION: DAN BRIGHT

Synthetic biologists at Harvard University have managed to encode a ﬁlm of a galloping horse in bacterial DNA. Lead author Seth Shipman explains why they did it

THE WEALTHY Money can buy you happiness. A team at Harvard Business School has found that buying free time, by hiring a cleaner, for example, can lower stress and improve life satisfaction.

THE NEUROTIC Despite living with the constant worry, those with neurotic tendencies outlive calmer characters, a team at the University of Edinburgh has found. The effect could be down to neurotic people being more careful.

GOOD MONTH BAD MONTH

BELOW: The Cas9 enzyme (green and grey) using a guide (red) to cut a DNA sequence (blue)

What makes ‘molecular recorders’ useful? Information storage in DNA is a growing field and it has potential to be used for archive-quality storage. But we’d like to hook aspects of this system up to sensors for things within a cell or in its environment. The cell itself would gather information, and we would be able to read it back in the same way as we were able to reconstruct that movie. So bacteria could be living in soil, or in a stream, and sense contaminants or pollutants. It doesn’t require power, and we can just sample the cells and get instantaneous information, but also find out what’s been happening over time.

THE EARTH 2 August was Earth Overshoot Day, the day on which we used up planetary resources such as water, soil and clean air for the year. We will be living ‘in credit’ for the rest of 2017.

LONG DISTANCE DRIVERS Driving for more than two or three hours a day can make you less smart, a team at the University of Leicester has found. It could be due to the mind being less active when driving.

Vol. 9 Issue 12

COMMENT & ANALYSIS HELEN CZERSKI ON … BAD VIBRATIONS

here is an invisible line around every performance space that separates two worlds. On one side live the magic of performance, slick stage sets and an audience whose shared reactions almost merge them into a single organism. On the other side, there’s a glorified garden shed made of temporary wooden walls, webs of gaffer tape and dark corners in which lurk assorted equipment and used coffee cups. I was recently backstage at a music and science festival, in a gigantic tent in a field. The DJ from the previous evening had vanished into the night, and I was about to give a science talk. I put my laptop down on top of three concrete paving slabs on a wooden table, then wondered why anyone had hoiked these weighty monsters up all the rickety wooden steps to perch them on a table. The technician was amused that I had noticed. “They’re for the DJs,” he said, “it protects their decks from the vibrations”. My first reaction was that anything that solid would surely transmit vibration extremely well, but there’s more to it than that. Turntables for vinyl records have always been sensitive to vibration. But when vinyl disappeared, DJs couldn’t let the turntables go, so the electronic world had to provide something called a jog wheel, which lets the DJ mix music in the same manner. Unfortunately, it turns out that jog wheels are also pretty sensitive. When the whole event is based on colossal speakers and several hundred people dancing, that’s a problem. The task is to isolate the decks from their mechanical environment. The floor and the speakers are pounding, pushing hard on everything that they touch. One solution is to absorb the travelling vibrational energy and turn it into harmless heat. This is what damping does – things like padding and shock-absorbers. The vibration can travel in, but there’s an energy tax extracted as it travels through,

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and after some distance, the energy has all been dissipated. The problem is that sufficient damping is either very expensive or very wobbly. The other solution is far more elegant. In any travelling vibration, a force pushes on particles until they move a tiny distance before being pushed back into place. But the relationship between the force and the particle speed is crucial. As the vibration travels from one material into a new one, the force is the same, but the particles respond differently. That means only a fraction of the vibrational energy is transmitted – the rest is reflected back. The better matched the materials, the more energy is transmitted. If they’re badly mismatched, you’ve just built a mechanical shield. The crucial property here is called ‘impedance’. Air has a lower impedance than solid materials, so one solution for the DJs is a hovering airborne table, leaving an air gap between the deck and the stage. That one comes with some practical problems when you live on a planet, though. But concrete is at the other end of the scale, very dense and stiff, with a very high impedance. So in the music tent, vibrations could be humming through the stage, floor and table, but when they hit the concrete slabs, there’s a mismatch. Most of the energy is reflected back, so the decks are protected from the humming environment they’ve created. Concrete can transmit vibrations beautifully, if the vibrations get into it – but if it’s sitting on a wooden table, they can’t. So it isn’t just that the magical world in front of the stage never sees the scruffy world that’s hidden behind – the hidden heart of the musical system is also oblivious to the frantic world in front. I’m not generally a supporter of ignorance, but in this case it seems it really is bliss. ß

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

ILLUSTRATION: KYLE SMART

“THE TASK IS TO ISOLATE THE DECKS FROM THEIR MECHANICAL ENVIRONMENT”

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A new theory could rewrite the laws of physics as we know them, and finally explain what dark matter is WORDS: PROF ROBERT MATTHEWS

Vol. 9 Issue 12

ILLUSTRATION: MAGIC TORCH

SOMETHINGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S WRONG WITH GRAVITY

SCIENCE

Vol. 9 Issue 12

SCIENTIFIC RIDDLES DON’T COME MUCH MORE BAFFLING

SCIENCE

others have previously suggested dark matter may be some kind of illusion. What sets Verlinde apart is his explanation for the source of the illusion. He believes it’s the result of nothing less than a fundamental misconception about the most familiar force in the Universe: gravity. It’s a claim that brings Verlinde up against the work of some of the greatest minds in science – including Albert Einstein, whose celebrated theory of gravity is one of the cornerstones of modern physics. Known as General Relativity, it has led to a host of triumphs, including the detection in 2015 of gravitational waves – ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the collision of two black holes.

THE TRUTH ABOUT GRAVITY

cientific riddles don’t come much more baffling than this: entire galaxies seem to be in the grip of something that affects their behaviour, but no one knows what this ‘something’ is. If it’s a form of matter, then it must be the most abundant matter in the cosmos, yet all attempts to get a sample of it have failed. Not even the Large Hadron Collider has seen a glimpse of it. It remains as enigmatic as its name: dark matter. Now, one theorist has provoked controversy with a devastatingly simple explanation for why dark matter still hasn’t been found: it doesn’t exist. But that’s not the only reason Prof Erik Verlinde of the University of Amsterdam is attracting so much attention. After all,

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Verlinde has spent years piecing together clues from theory and observation to create a whole new vision of the force we call gravity. Now his ideas are being put to the test, with intriguing results. And at the centre of them all is the mystery of dark matter. Verlinde has been hailed as the intellectual successor to Einstein in the media, yet he sees his goal in more down to earth terms. “I’m just trying to explain where gravity comes from,” he says. That might seem a bizarre statement, coming a century after Einstein showed that gravity is the result of matter warping space and time around it. Yet according to Verlinde, this overlooks the fact that General Relativity remains just a description of the force we call gravity. It leaves unanswered the key question of exactly how matter affects space and time. To carry out his research, Verlinde has had to grapple with some of the deepest problems in science, including the quest for the so-called Theory of Everything – a

RIGHT: Erik Verlinde argues that dark matter doesn’t exist

theory that unites gravity with quantum mechanics that has been considered the holy grail of physics for decades. Theorists have long known that General Relativity cannot be the last word about gravity. That’s because it fails to incorporate the other cornerstone of modern physics, quantum theory. As well as describing the subatomic world with astonishing precision, quantum theory has been able to account for all the fundamental forces of nature apart from one: gravity. Since the 1950s, theorists have tried to marry the two views of nature to produce one overarching theory. The problem, says Verlinde, is that they are based on such radically different views of reality. For example, General Relativity presumes that it’s possible to pin down precisely where particles are and how they’re moving, while quantum theory shows that’s impossible. “So taking gravity into account gives us a bit of a problem”, explains Verlinde. For years, he worked on superstring theory, which many believe to be the most promising way of overcoming these problems. Yet despite decades of effort and a host of mind-boggling ideas, there is still no hard evidence that it works. This has led Verlinde down a different path in search for the truth about gravity. The origins of this truth lie in a series of surprising connections between gravity and an apparently unrelated part of science: thermodynamics, the physics of heat. In the early 1970s, theorists studying black holes – notorious for the intensity of their gravity – discovered they must also be packed with something called entropy. Widely used to understand the behaviour of hot objects, entropy reflects the number of ways of rearranging the constituents of objects without changing their appearance. Calculations showed that black holes contain the highest possible entropy that can be crammed into a given volume of space. Vol. 9 Issue 12

SCIENCE

JARGON BUSTER SWOT UP ON YOUR PHYSICS WITH OUR HANDY GLOSSARY, BY POPULAR SCIENCE WRITER BRIAN CLEGG BELOW: Visualisation of dust falling into a black hole. The bright ﬂash of light is Hawking radiation – one way in which black holes can lose mass

But they also revealed something else. Common sense suggests that as it depends on the constituents of objects, the entropy of a black hole should depend on its volume. Yet theorists found it depends only on the hole’s surface area. Stranger still, the calculations suggest the black hole’s surface is made up of a vast patchwork of so-called Planck areas. Named after the eponymous German pioneer of quantum theory, Planck areas are far smaller even than a subatomic particle, and appear to be the building blocks of space-time itself. Pondering these mind-bending connections between the physics of heat and space-time, Verlinde began to wonder if they were hints of a radical new way of thinking about gravity. Heat was once thought to be a fundamental property of matter that exists in and of itself, like electric charge, for example, but it’s now known to ultimately be the result of collisions between the millions of atoms and molecules that make up a gas, liquid or solid. The faster the atoms and molecules that make up a material move, the more energy they have and the hotter the material appears.

ENTROPY Central to the second law of thermodynamics, entropy is a measure of the disorder in a system. It reflects the number of different ways the components of a system can be rearranged. The letters making up the words on this page have low entropy – there’s only one way to arrange them (assuming each individual a, b, c, etc. is unique) to produce the text you’re reading. But if you scramble the letters, it will have higher entropy, as there are lots of ways to arrange them jumbled up. The second law of thermodynamics reflects that it’s easier to go from an ordered page to scrambled letters than it is to go from a pile of letters to the contents of this magazine. Similarly, it’s easier to break an egg than to unbreak it.

FUNDAMENTAL FORCES OF NATURE Physics recognises four fundamental forces: electromagnetism, which deals with interactions in matter and light; the strong nuclear force, which holds the particles of atomic nuclei together; the weak nuclear force, which is involved in nuclear decay; and gravity. All except gravity fit with quantum theory.

GENERAL RELATIVITY The General Theory of Relativity, published by Einstein in 1915, explains how mass warps space and time, and how these warps influence the way that matter moves. It provides equations that give us a precise description of gravity, indirectly predicting phenomena like black holes, gravitational waves and the Big Bang.

GRAVITATIONAL LENSING Einstein’s General Relativity predicts that massive objects warp space enough to make passing light curve around them. This means that large cosmic structures like galaxies can act like lenses. Light coming from behind the galaxy is bent around it towards the viewer, bringing distant bodies into focus.

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PLANCK AREAS German physicist Max Planck mathematically derived the Planck length, a unit of distance around 100 billion billion times smaller than the nucleus of an atom, using constants of nature such as the speed of light. If space is not continuous but made up of quanta – the minimum amount of a physical property that can be interacted with – it has been suggested that its quanta might be a Planck length across (see below for more on quantum theory). Below this distance, measurement would not be possible. A Planck area is a Planck length squared. In black hole theory, when a black hole absorbs a single bit of information, its event horizon – the boundary around it from which not even light can escape – expands by one Planck area.

QUANTUM THEORY This theory describes the behaviour of light and matter on a very small scale – that of individual particles such as atoms, electrons and photons. The theory takes its name from its central idea that phenomena are not continuous in nature but are instead broken down into tiny indivisible chunks or packets called quanta. In classical mechanics, objects always exist in a specific place at a specific time. But in quantum theory we can only determine the probability of an object being in a certain place at a certain time. This seems counterintuitive, but the theory is incredibly successful in explaining the interactions of light and matter.

STRING THEORY String theory was devised to explain inconsistencies in particle physics. It is a leading approach in the attempt to produce the so-called Theory of Everything. In string theory, particles are replaced with vibrating strings, but for the maths to work there need to be nine spatial dimensions rather than the three we observe.

THERMODYNAMICS Originally developed to provide a theoretical basis for the design and operation of steam engines, thermodynamics – literally the movement of heat – is now a fundamental area of study in physics. It has four laws, of which the most important are the first ‘energy is always conserved’, and the second ‘heat always moves from a hotter to a colder body’. The second law also shows that, on average, in a system that’s isolated from its surroundings, entropy stays the same or increases – to decrease it requires energy.

TULLY-FISHER RELATION The amount of light energy emitted by a spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way is roughly proportional to its speed of rotation. The faster the galaxies spin, the brighter they are. This is known as the Tully-Fisher relation, named after the astronomers Brent Tully and Richard Fisher who discovered it.

“ IT IS TI ME WE N O T O N L Y N OT IC E T HE A NA LO GY , A N D T A L K A BO U T TH E S I MI L A RIT Y , B UT F INA LLY D O A W A Y WI TH GRA V I T Y A S A F U ND A M ENT A L FO R C E”

MOND This stands for Modified Newtonian Dynamics – a theory that expands on Newton’s laws of motion. It offers a potential explanation for the unexpected behaviour of spiral galaxies and galactic clusters usually attributed to dark matter. It is based on the idea that the effect of gravity behaves in a subtly different manner on a vast scale. Even so, it still doesn’t explain all the observed oddities – but then neither does dark matter.

Thus heat is actually an ‘emergent’ property. So could the supposedly fundamental force of gravity also be emergent, its real origins being linked to entropy and those incredibly tiny Planck areas of space-time?

NEWTON AND EINSTEIN In 2010, Verlinde created a stir among theorists when he published a paper showing how his theory could be used to accurately derive both Newton’s and Einstein’s laws of gravitation. “The similarities with other known emergent phenomena such as thermodynamics have been mostly regarded as just suggestive analogies,” declared Verlinde. “It is time we not only notice the analogy, and talk about the similarity, but finally do away with gravity as a fundamental force.” While intriguing, many theorists remained unconvinced the finding was anything more than a quirk of physics. Verlinde needed to come up with something that didn’t merely reproduce existing theories, but predicted something new – and testable. He now believes he’s found it with the enigma of dark matter. While hints of its existence emerged over 80 years ago in studies of clusters of galaxies, it was a discovery of a curious effect inside galaxies that first convinced astronomers to take dark matter seriously. According to Newton’s law of gravity, stars further from the centre of a galaxy should orbit more slowly than those closer in. But during the 1970s, studies of stars within spiral galaxies showed that beyond a certain distance from the centre, this effect simply vanished. The most obvious explanation was that the stars were being affected by the gravity of an invisible cloud of matter surrounding the galaxies. It soon became clear that whatever this stuff was, it couldn’t be made from the standard building blocks of matter. That sparked a global effort to detect a viable alternative, which continues to this day – with no success. Vol. 9 Issue 12

TESTING, TESTING

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BELOW: According to the Tully-Fisher relation, the faster a spiral galaxy spins, the brighter it will be

While intriguing, what Milgrom called Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) simply replaced one mystery with another: where did this ‘critical acceleration’ come from? That’s what Verlinde decided to find out using his ideas of emergent gravity. “I quickly found a back-of-the-envelope calculation that might explain it, but I had to work for a number of years to make this more precise,” he says. And now believes he has succeeded. The key lies in the effect of the entire Universe on the vital ingredient needed for the existence of gravity: entropy. According to both Newton and Einstein’s theories, the entropy of objects like black holes increases with their area. But Verlinde has shown things change on the scale of the whole Universe, because of dark energy. First identified in the 1990s, dark energy is a kind of anti-gravitational force that is propelling the expansion of the Universe. Its origins remain mysterious, but calculations by Verlinde show that dark energy leads to entropy increasing with volume, not just area. That changes the behaviour of gravity at cosmic scales – and, says Verlinde, the result is an acceleration effect creating the illusion that dark matter exists. “In an expanding Universe, the gravitational laws have to be adjusted at the acceleration scale indicated by MOND,” he says. Unlike MOND, however, he has been able to calculate the effect using basic physics.

Verlinde’s theory does more than explain why dark matter has never been found. Astronomers have long been puzzled by a ‘law’ linking the brightness of spiral galaxies to their spin rate. Known as the Tully-Fisher relation, it makes no sense using conventional theories of gravity, but Verlinde has shown that it’s a natural consequence of the link between gravity and entropy. Further evidence backing Verlinde’s theory comes from recent studies of the light from distant galaxies. According to Einstein, the gravity field of galaxies can bend the path of light rays. This is known as the ‘gravitational lens’ effect. An international team of astronomers has found that this effect is consistent with the predictions of Verlinde’s theory, without the need for dark matter. Now the search is on for evidence that Verlinde’s theory does not just explain MOND, but outperforms it. And here some problems have emerged. Astronomer Dr Frederico Lelli and his colleagues at the European Southern Observatory have been studying the orbits of stars in galaxies, and they’re not behaving as expected. “Verlinde’s theory predicts a stronger gravitational pull than MOND in the inner regions,” explains Lelli. But this effect doesn’t seem to exist: “This seems to be a serious issue,” he says.

PHOTOS: GETTY X2

This has led to growing suspicions that the most obvious explanation is simply wrong. In 1983, physicist Prof Mordehai Milgrom of the Weizmann Institute in Israel, pointed out a curious fact about the galactic evidence for dark matter: it can also be explained if Newton’s law fails to accurately explain the motions of stars in the outer reaches of galaxies feeling an acceleration due to gravity at a rate less than a certain critical value: around 100-billionth that generated by the Earth.

“ W E’R E IN A PER IO D W H E N I T I S N E C E S S A RY T O E XPLO R E M A NY N EW I D E A S , A N D I T TA K E S A LO NG T IM E FOR SU C H T HI NGS TO S E T T L E O U T ”

SCIENCE

ABOVE: Visualisation of two black holes orbiting each other, warping space-time and emitting gravitational waves

The biggest problem facing Verlinde, however, is explaining a cosmic ‘coincidence’. Why does the amount of dark matter needed to explain galaxy rotation curves match the amount needed to explain observations of the early Universe? “The observational evidence for dark matter from a variety of methods is all amazingly consistent,” says astrophysicist Prof Neta Bahcall of Princeton University. The simplest explanation is that dark matter really does exist, but just hasn’t been found yet. But Verlinde points out that his work on the nature of gravity is far from complete. “To explain these effects one has to develop the theory to the point where

one can describe the cosmological evolution of the Universe,” he says. “I am currently working on these ideas, but it will take some time.” Given the huge pay-off if he’s right, many scientists are willing to cut Verlinde some slack. “We’re in a period when it is necessary to explore many new ideas,” says astronomer Prof Stacy McGaugh of Case Western Reserve University, Ohio. “And it takes a long time for such things to settle out.” ß

Prof Robert Matthews is visiting professor in science at Aston University, Birmingham Vol. 9 Issue 12

NATURE

PHOTOS BY BEN ANDREW

Vol. 9 Issue 12

BLACKS A serpent in the water, a pair of wings hung out to dry, a fish thief. Derek Niemann introduces the cormorant, a bird that provokes strong, often contradictory emotions

Fisher king: An adult cormorant with non-breeding plumage stands on a post while drying its wings after diving for fish. It will preen its feathers to expel trapped air after being in the water

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NATURE

BELOW: During the winter at Rutland Water Nature Reserve cormorants jostle at dusk for the best positions in a dead tree before settling down for the night

o cormorants have an easy life? They seem to be nature’s posers, sitting around for hours at a time in full view, loitering on a sandbank or an islet, the wild equivalents of a street corner, indifferent to their surroundings and the people staring at them. Studies show that members of the cormorant family spend up to 90 per cent of their time roosting or ‘loafing’. Our species, Phalacrocorax carbo – often called the great cormorant – is the most widespread of them all, found on every continent bar South America. It shares the apparent inclination of its fellows towards indolence and the tendency to sit out in the open in groups, like a pride of dozy lions, making it one of our most easily observable birds. On an exposed perch, a cormorant is the selfie on a stick. And it seems this bird is comfortably at home in both town and country: a metal handrail works as well as a branch for a perch, a pylon does as a tree, fish in a city reservoir are just as desirable as those from a rural river.

Birds are trained to ﬁsh from a boat, and a neck ring ensures that it is humans that will eat the catch

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Cormorants are ungainly, ugly, statuesque, beautiful. Watch one crash-land into the shallows before the beach, waddle up the shore on oversized webbed feet, splay its tail on the ground and cock its bill at a graceless angle. A flick of the wrist unfolds its wings into the classic stance, like a bent-armed version of the Angel of the North. It stands, wings out, for minutes at a time, tilting them to catch the breeze and dry its feathers.

SINISTER SYMBOL Our ancestors were unnerved. Poet John Milton cast Satan in Paradise Lost in the guise of a cormorant, landing in a tree where it “sat devising death”. Disturbed clerics ordered cormorants to be shot from the top of Boston steeple and the spire of Carlisle Cathedral. Perhaps there was something sinister in a dark bird that held its wings in the shape of a crooked cross, a bird that always seemed to be watching them. And maybe, in the silhouetted shape of a roosting cormorant at dusk, in the sinuous, serpentine body and great beak whipped at the tip into a terrifying hook, they saw a reptile in a bird, a devil. Yet at the same time, people wanted it tamed to fish for them. James I lavished the sum of $372 on his Westminster cormorant house. The practice began in China more than 2,500 years ago, and still persists there today. Birds are trained to fish from a boat, and a neck ring ensures that it is humans that will eat the catch and not the birds themselves.

Three chicks beg for food from an adult that has returned from a fishing trip. Holme Fen National Nature Reserve, Cambridgeshire, is one of the best inland sites to observe cormorants. BELOW: An adult tackles a large perch. Cormorants rely on their strong webbed feet to dive to depths of up to 10m

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NATURE

Over 200 cormorant pairs nest at Walthamstow Reservoir, London

TOP: Cormorants dry their wings in front of the The O2 Arena, London ABOVE: A juvenile (brown plumage) puts its whole head into the mouth of its parent to feed on regurgitated fish

Most people see black in a cormorant, but watch sunlight strike its feathers to illuminate iridescent sheens of green and purple, and bronze feathers over its back. Binoculars early in the breeding season will pick out face paint worthy of a drag queen, with rings that might be eye liner in black, yellow or grey, orange blusher beneath, white cheeks and a yellow throat. And then there are the eyes themselves, deep emeralds with pinprick black pupils. Appearances deceive: in observing the long periods of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;idlenessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, most of us probably do not understand the essential duality of a carnivore, the periods of inactivity while the animal rests, digests and recuperates, interspersed with short bouts of intense, exhausting effort. First and foremost, the cormorant is a fish hunter without equal. Its preparations are meticulous, preening over its feathers to expel trapped air, gobbling grit to act as ballast in its stomach. This bird is a diver and it needs to sink fast to save the energy it might otherwise waste going down, so its streamlined body is lacking in the fats that would make it buoyant. While its close relation, the gannet, relies on a steep dive, the cormorant is paddle-powered. A cursory leap and flip from the surface takes it under, then its great webs give Vol. 9 Issue 12

two-footed thrusts, propelling it to depths of up to 10m, while its wings are clamped firmly to its sides, its tail swishing as a rudder. The bird makes two or three hunting trips a day, flying up to 35km. On each foray, it dives up to 160 times. No fish is safe it seems. Cormorants have been recorded catching 86 species, from tiny tiddlers to 75cm conger eels. The bird has an exceptional eye for its catch, a thick, flattened cornea and strong muscles that exert close control over the size of the pupil and adjust the shape of the lens. In shallow water it uses its feet to rake the bottom, in the depths it jabs at the mud or sand with the tip of its beak to dislodge fish that try to hide. This hunter unhinges when it makes a big catch, pulling its prey to the surface, then unlocking its upper mandible to give it a wider gape. In the city an industrial light is a desirable perch for a cormorant

LICENSED TO KILL

Nothing is too big – eating a flounder must be like swallowing a frisbee and one bird was found with a kitten in its gullet. Cormorants are well known for their voracious appetites, a reputation supported by the evidence which shows they can eat a quarter of their own weight in fish a day. It has got them into deep trouble with humans. Historically, cormorant numbers were suppressed, both in Britain and on the Continent, largely by persecution. But when bird protection legislation came in, cormorant numbers soared. While the population on Britain’s coasts stayed fairly steady, there were big increases inland, with a tenfold rise in English breeding pairs between 1986 and 2002, and a massive hike in wintering numbers too, from 23,000 in 1988 to 34,000 20 years later. Most of the increase could be attributed to larger winter influxes of the continental subspecies sinensis, distinguished (but not infallibly) from UK breeding birds by a wider-angled throat pouch. Some continental birds, habitually inland nesters, stayed here in the summer of 1981 to breed at Abberton Reservoir in Essex. Others joined them, and soon resident birds were taking to inland breeding too, so that by 2005 cormorants had nested at 58 different inland locations in England.

Cormorants have been recorded catching 86 species, from tiny tiddlers to 75cm conger eels

Just like every other wild bird, the cormorant is fully protected by law in the UK. There are exceptions, however. In England, Natural England may issue licences to kill or take fish-eating birds causing significant damage to a fishery, where nonlethal methods of control have been tried but failed. The licences cover cormorants and other fish-eating birds, such as grey herons, goosanders and red-breasted mergansers. An alternative ‘area licence’ gives groups of fisheries within an area or river catchment a quota of birds they can legally shoot. Limits are set on the number of cormorants that can be killed (2,000–3,000 per annum) and also times of the year when shooting is permitted.

PLENTIFUL FEAST There was ample food for this burgeoning population of cormorants in well-stocked fishing lakes and reservoirs and it wasn’t long before anglers were not just calling for action, they were taking matters into their hands over what they called the ‘Black Death’. Illegal shooting was rife; one angler boasted of accounting for 200 birds. For the best part of 25 years, the conservation and fishing lobbies were at loggerheads, one of many nadirs being reached in 1996, when the front cover of Angling Times declared: “These birds must be killed”. The Government threw a sop by introducing a limited number of licences for the legal shooting of cormorants where other means of controlling predation of fish had failed. For anglers, it was not enough.

ABOVE: Cormorants are supreme fishers but this has brought them into conﬂict with anglers and they have been persecuted in the past

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NATURE

Actions and attitudes have shifted, and much of the credit goes to the angling community Adults have distinctive white head feathers when breeding

“Just shoot ’em all” and “Why can’t we just set fire to the trees?” were typical expressions of anger and frustration. Conservationists meanwhile, clung to the fact that the UK held 13 per cent of the world population – a significant responsibility. In only a few remarkable years, the heat has gone out of this seemingly irreconcilable conflict. The RSPB’s Jess Chappell was given the cormorant issue nearly three years ago. She confessed: “I wasn’t sure what to expect when I took the job on, but for me there just hasn’t been any aggro.” The cormorant population has stabilised over the past decade or more. But more fundamentally, actions and attitudes have shifted, and much of the credit goes to the angling community.

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The transformation is personified in the figure of Jake Davoile. A fisherman employed by the Angling Trust as a fisheries management adviser through a government review, he came with a freshwater ecology degree and seven years’ experience of finding non-lethal ways to reduce predation on a lake that had an overwintering population of 120plus cormorants. “I was used to anglers constantly moaning at me about what I was going to do about them,” he says. “I started looking at out of the box ways of dealing with the cormorants.” Manikins that looked like angry water bailiffs and judicious use of laser pens, which scared off but did not harm the birds, were just two of the techniques that Jake applied to shoo cormorants from commercial fishing lakes. He quickly gained the confidence of fellow anglers and, before long, most were willing to consider deterrence as the first and most important stage in tackling problem birds. “It’s fantastic to see people working together,” says Jake. “It’s about protecting fish and not shooting birds.”

ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE LANGMAN/RSPB-IMAGES.COM

Colin the cormorant visits Portsmouth Harbour every morning where he is fed by staff from the fish market

CLOSE COUSIN The cormorant’s near relative, the shag, can be confused with its big cousin, although there are significant differences. This bird is strictly seaside; you won’t find a shag inland, or even flying over headlands. It is smaller, slender-necked, with a much thinner bill, and compared with the ‘flat-capped’ cormorant the shag is round-headed (sprouting a crest briefly in spring). It is darker, too, lacking the pale feathers on the face and characteristic white thigh patches of a breeding cormorant. If you see cormorant-like birds flying low over the sea, the chances are they will be shags. O Watch a BTO video on how to separate the shag and cormorant: www.bto.org/about-birds/bird-id

ABOVE: Cormorants nesting inland have a long breeding season, meaning competition for food when chicks are large is reduced

The independent government review closed with the assertion that “cormorants are a localised problem rather than a nationwide issue”. Both sides saw it as progress in the right direction. In these less confrontational times, we can look forward with some equanimity to another breeding season. Male birds will return to time-honoured nesting colonies, especially if they bred there successfully the year before, and these are long-lived birds, frequently reaching 20 years of age. Once the male has settled, he will attempt to lure a mate, often by sitting in the nest and fanning the white patches on his thighs with his wings, or throwing his head back until the top is touching his tail.

UNFRIENDLY RESIDENTS Invariably, the male’s display is accompanied by guttural cries. In this courting period, bedlam reigns in a cormorant colony, with always-brief skirmishes taking place between too-near neighbours. Throw in nesting herons and egrets and the scene becomes a tower

block, with all the residents yelling from their windows. Once the pair bond is established, the male is the provider of sticks, the female the builder of the nest, and both share incubation of two to four eggs. Feeding of the young is a distinctly messy, precarious business, with each adult bird half-swallowing the newly hatched chick’s head, as it attempts to regurgitate fish into its mouth. Older chicks beat their wings furiously in a begging ritual that results in the adult being struck repeatedly on the head. But growth is very fast – over the first 30 days each chick is putting on about 75g in weight a day, and within two months they are fledged. All that is in the future. For now, look afresh at cormorants near you. Watch one drying its wings and imagine its other life, diving into murky depths in the pursuit of living silver. ß

Derek Niemann is a naturalist and author of A Tale of Trees. Find out more at www.wildlifetrusts.org/node/18722 Vol. 9 Issue 12

HISTORY

The Story And

The Big Questions

DUNK IWM ART LD 305

Charles Cundallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s painting The Withdrawal from Dunkirk, June 1940 shows troops crowding the beaches to the east of the port, awaiting passage across the Channel. In the background, Dunkirk burns as the German army closes in

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IRK

With a film having recently released about the rescue of 338,000 Allied troops from the clutches of the Germans, Tim Benbow tells the story of the iconic military operation. Then, from page 56, he considers six of the biggest questions on â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;the miracle of Dunkirkâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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HISTORY

Dunkirk:

The Story

Some of the 338,226 troops rescued over nine days. “The relief is stupendous and the results beyond belief,” wrote Vice-Admiral Ramsay in the wake of the operation

British troops in the rearguard attempt to slow the German advance as their compatriots ﬁght their way to Dunkirk

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various bold schemes for counter-attacks to stem the German tide lagged way behind the rapid pace of events on the ground and were quite beyond the capacity of the Allied forces. Gort was better aware than London, and even Paris, of the true state of affairs: to his north, the Dutch had surrendered and the Belgians were on the verge of following suit; to the south the German tanks were rapidly cutting off the hard-pressed British and French forces from supply and reinforcement. Gort therefore took the vital decision to fall back on the Channel ports. This was no easy task, involving a fighting retreat through a rapidly closing corridor, under constant air attack. RAF fighters were at the edge of their range and beyond the radar coverage that would be so vital later in the summer. But, although outnumbered, they were able, for the first time in the campaign, to prevent the Luftwaffe from having things all its own way. On 19 May, command of any large-scale evacuation that might be required was given to Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay, whose headquarters was in tunnels beneath Dover Castle – the operation took its name from the dynamo room from which it would be directed. Ramsay began to make preparations, gathering warships from other commands around the country. He also registered privately owned vessels that might be pressed into service – these would become the celebrated ‘little ships’.

STALLING TACTICS As the Germans continued to advance, it became clear that the only useable port for the BEF would be Dunkirk. It was far from ideal, with tides and sandbanks making navigation challenging. Inland from the port, however, the terrain was favourable to defence, with marshes and canals forming natural defensive lines. The British and French forces were given further respite by the German army’s decision

to order a pause in the advance of its tanks – a hugely valuable delay that gifted the Allies two days to build a perimeter. The German advance was further delayed by British troops holding the port of Boulogne as long as they could, finally being evacuated by the navy in an operation that saw destroyers exchanging fire with German tanks – an action in which three of the destroyers’ captains were killed. The navy also prepared to evacuate the British forces holding Calais but Churchill ordered this garrison to resist to the end, both to firm up allied solidarity and also to delay the enemy advance a little longer.

ACTION STATIONS At 6.57pm on Sunday 26 May, Ramsay received the order: “Begin Operation Dynamo.” The evacuation was entirely improvised and could have ended at any time with the fall of Dunkirk, but – with ships and naval parties, to provide control, already on their way to France – the plan he had started to formulate went into action. The following day, Captain Bill Tennant, appointed by Ramsay as senior naval officer for Dunkirk, arrived at his new command to discover that the main port was quite unusable due to heavy bombing. He therefore looked to the many miles of sandy beaches stretching from the east of the town up to and across the Belgian border. Divided into three sectors (Malo-les-Bains, Bray Dunes and La Panne), these offered plenty of space for the retreating troops to gather. But their gentle slope and the shallow water offshore prevented large vessels from coming in close to load men aboard. Initially, the warships used their own small boats to lift troops off the beaches, but many of these were wrecked by men inexperienced in their use. This was where the justifiably famous ‘little ships’ became so important – not so much in carrying men all the way home, but in picking them up from the beaches and carrying

GETTY IMAGES/ALAMY

od help the BEF… I cannot see that we have much hope of getting any of the BEF out.” So wrote General Edmund Ironside, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, in his diary of 21 and 23 May 1940. Ironside’s words reflected a wave of pessimism washing over the British government as it contemplated the dire situation of the British Expeditionary Force in France. If an evacuation should prove necessary, the consensus was that it would last just two days, with as few as 45,000 men being rescued, before the bridgehead was overrun by the Germans. This bleak assessment was far removed from the optimism with which the BEF had been deployed to France nine months earlier. The British and French were confident they could repel the long anticipated German offensive in the west. And when it began on 10 May, it took just the form that the Allies had expected, with an attack on the Netherlands and Belgium. The BEF and the French armies in the north carried out their plan to move forward to meet the Germans – but they were advancing into a trap. The Germans’ northern thrust was intended to fix the Allies in place, making them vulnerable to the main advance to the south, through the Ardennes. The French had seen this extensively forested area as impassable for tanks and so had only lightly defended it. It was a terrible mistake. Supported by air power, the panzers crossed the river Meuse near Sedan on 14 May, broke through the defences and dashed for the Channel coast, intending to encircle the Allied armies fighting there. Precisely as the Germans intended, the rapid advance of their tanks spread confusion and panic, shattering the will of the French high command as much as it overran their forces. The British government urged Lord Gort, commander of the BEF, to extricate himself from the closing trap by joining the French in an attempt to advance to the south. Yet the

As their bridgehead contracted in the face of advancing German armies, Allied troops were evacuated from Dunkirk’s outer harbour and the beaches snaking east towards the Belgian border

them out to the larger ships waiting in deeper water offshore. As Operation Dynamo picked up momentum, huge numbers of soldiers gathered on the beaches or among the sand dunes lying behind them, forming lines when boats became available, then wading out to board them. “As far as the eye could see it stretched away into the distance, the firm sand of the shore merging farther back into dunes where the surface was no more than a thin yellow powder interspersed with parched tussocks of coarse grass,” wrote Second Lieutenant Peter Hadley of the Royal Sussex Regiment. “And covering all this vast expanse, like some mighty ant heap upturned by a giant’s foot, were the remains of the British Expeditionary Force.”

MAP: PAUL HEWITT–BATTLEFIELD DESIGN

TORTUOUSLY SLOW The beaches were absolutely critical to the evacuation, with one in three of all soldiers rescued in the operation being picked up from the strips of sand snaking their way along the coast to the east of Dunkirk. But embarkation was painfully slow and, to make matters worse, the pocket around the BEF was steadily contracting before the German advance. Bill Tennant was well aware that taking off large numbers of men demanded use of proper harbour facilities, but the German bombing had knocked these out. He therefore turned his attention to the outer harbour, where there were two breakwaters: the West Mole, from the oil terminal, and the East Mole, from the town. The latter was about a mile long, made from concrete piles with a wooden walkway on top. It had not been designed for mooring large ships but Tennant tested it out, ordering a liner to come alongside. This brilliant improvisation worked: the East Mole was fragile and vulnerable to air attack, as were all ships moored next to it, but it allowed large numbers of men to be embarked directly

Back at home... they treated us as heroes. You’d have thought we’d won a battle instead of lost one on to ships that could carry them home. Around 70 per cent of those evacuated at Dunkirk embarked from the harbour, most from the East Mole. During the operation, the Territorial Army chaplain Reverend Ted Brabyn observed: “Never was a prayer more heartfelt than the one: ‘Thank God we’ve got a navy.’” Brabyn’s gratitude was directed not just at the vessels carrying the troops back to England but also at the naval parties charged with organising the evacuation itself. At the East Mole, that task was overseen by the Canadian commander Jack Clouston. As piermaster, he helped bring forward the waiting troops, hurrying them along the mole to board waiting vessels. It was a critical job but one that would cost Clouston his life. On Sunday 2 June, he returned to Dover to help organise the planned last lift and then headed back to Dunkirk. En route, the motor torpedo boat carrying him was sunk and, exhausted after several days of continuous work, Clouston was unable to make it to the ships picking up survivors. He slipped away and drowned.

SAFETY IN NUMBERS As the organisation of Operation Dynamo improved and more vessels arrived, the numbers carried off steadily climbed. While just 7,600 troops were evacuated on 27 May, two days later, 47,300 were saved. And still the number kept climbing: 53,800 on 30 May and

68,000 on 31 May, before dipping slightly to 64,400 on 1 June. By Sunday 2 June, Tennant was able to send the signal: “BEF evacuated.” Yet the desire not to abandon the French soldiers who had held the perimeter so staunchly led to the exhausted crews being asked to go in again and again, for three more nights, rescuing another 79,000 troops. Operation Dynamo ended on Tuesday 4 June. The following day, Vice-Admiral Ramsay wrote to his wife: “All is done now and the task is behind. The relief is stupendous and the results beyond belief.” He was right. An operation that was expected to be over in two days had lasted nine. During that time, 338,226 troops had been saved from the clutches of the Wehrmacht. While ships from France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland participated, over 90 per cent of those rescued were carried in British ships, the great majority in naval vessels, or civilian boats crewed by the navy. As Ted Brabyn acknowledged, the Royal Navy was critical to the miracle of Dunkirk but its assistance came at a price, including the loss of six invaluable destroyers. The navy was hurt but the army had been saved – a fact not lost on Britons following the drama unfolding on the Normandy coast. “Back at home I think they realised that we’d been beaten, and we’d had a real hammering,” observed Signaller Alfred Baldwin, Royal Artillery, “but nevertheless, they treated us as heroes. You’d have thought we’d won a battle instead of lost one.” The campaign to save France had indeed been a disaster for the Allies, with the Low Countries and France herself knocked out of the war. Yet the brilliance of Dynamo meant that Germany was denied a complete victory, and Britain would fight on. Vol. 9 Issue 12

HISTORY

The Big Questions

Soldiers climb a ladder to safety at Dunkirk. Troops were ferried from the shore on cockle boats, yachts, rubbish barges and ďŹ re tenders as well as Royal Navy warships

GETTY IMAGES

Dunkirk:

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DUNKIRK: SIX BIG QUESTIONS ON A REMARKABLE RESCUE MISSION 1

The German order of 23 May to halt the advancing panzers has led to a claim that Hitler deliberately allowed the British to escape – the idea being that avoiding humiliation would make them more willing to accept a peace deal that would free him to turn his attention to the east. This is utter nonsense. First, it does not make sense. Capturing most of the trained strength of the British Army would have provided a weighty bargaining chip. Second, the claim does not reflect what happened: only one of the two advancing German armies halted (and only for two days, pushing on when it became clear that an evacuation might be under way). The other pressed on and the Luftwaffe continued to attack. If this was an attempt to allow the BEF to escape, it was distinctly half-hearted. Third, there is a perfectly adequate explanation for the halt order. The German armoured forces were stretched after a long advance and needed a pause to recover, to allow infantry and supplies to catch up, and to prepare for the next stage of the campaign,

pushing for Paris and fighting the large French forces to the south. Some German commanders were nervous that their progress had been too good to last, influenced by a minor British counterattack near Arras on 21 May, which raised groundless fears that a larger Allied counterstroke might be imminent. What’s more, Hermann Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe, insisted that his force could mop up the remnants of the encircled Allied forces. Given the understandable assumption that their enemies were cornered with nowhere to go, why take a risk pushing on? Even the British did not believe that a large-scale evacuation was feasible, so why would the Germans? The decision to halt was a grave error that greatly assisted the British, gifting them time to continue their withdrawal and to strengthen the defences around Dunkirk. This does not mean that it can only be explained by a conspiracy theory.

GETTY IMAGES

A German military column pictured in the Ardennes on 12 May 1940 during the invasion of France. Hitler’s order that the panzers halt outside Dunkirk 11 days later has spawned numerous conspiracy theories

Did Hitler let the British get away?

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HISTORY

Dunkirk:

Did the RAF let the army down? Some of the troops who fought in France bitterly criticised the RAF, not least for what they saw as its lack of effort over Dunkirk. Jibes referring to the ‘Royal Absent Force’ stung – and were quite unjustified. Many of the RAF’s aircraft were obsolescent and, even alongside its French counterpart, it was badly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe. Squadrons from Fighter Command, Bomber Command, Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm did what they could to resist the onslaught, suffering terrible casualties that saw entire squadrons wiped out. But their activities were often out of soldiers’ sight. The troops’ wish to see friendly aircraft overhead was understandable but misconceived. Supporting aircraft might be better employed striking enemy land forces elsewhere, or intercepting their aircraft some distance from the bridgehead. There was also a need to find a balance between committing squadrons to the Battle of France and keeping enough back to defend Britain. One legitimate criticism is the charge that the RAF placed far too much emphasis on strategic bombing. At this stage, this was far short of achieving what its proponents claimed, and meant that other areas (particularly aircraft co-operating with the army and navy) were short of resources. However, despatches written by Lord Gort and Bertram Ramsay – high-ranking officers in the army and navy respectively, who were in a better position to appreciate the full picture than the infantry being bombed at Dunkirk – are striking. Both paid tribute to the sacrifice of the RAF, without which the evacuation would have been impossible.

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While overseeing the Dunkirk evacuation, Vice Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay combined a mastery of detail with the ability to delegate

Three aircraft of No 218 RAF Squadron in ﬂight over northern France. The RAF was badly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of France

Lord Gort, the clear-sighted commander of the BEF, salutes a sentry outside the War Ofﬁce, 1940

GETTY IMAGES/IWM C 449

The Big Questions

Who were the brains behind the operation?

IWM HU 41241

Two men stand out. General Lord Gort, commander of the British Expeditionary Force, deserves enormous credit for his calmness in a confusing and disastrous situation, in which he displayed a remarkable ability to grasp what was happening. He turned down a series of flawed proposals for counter-attacks, which his French allies were quite unable to carry out, in favour of pulling back towards the coast. Then, when news came of the imminent collapse of Belgium, he took swift action to redeploy his forces, filling a gap through which the Germans would otherwise have poured. Bernard Montgomery, a division commander at Dunkirk and future hero of north Africa, was not generally free with praise for others. But, in his memoir, he wrote of Gort: “He was a man who did not see very far, but as far as he did see he saw very clearly… It was because he saw very clearly, if only for a limited distance, that we all got away at Dunkirk.” The other key individual was Bertram Ramsay. Despite officially being on the retired list, at the start of the war Ramsay was appointed Vice-Admiral Dover, a critical command given its position on the English Channel. At Dunkirk, Ramsay proved the merits of that appointment, overseeing, with consummate professionalism, what the Dictionary of National Biography calls “the largest seaborne evacuation ever attempted”. Ramsay showed an ability to put together and lead a team in the most trying circumstances, mastering detail yet also able to delegate. Later in the war, he led the planning for the D-Day landing. Having rescued the army from the continent, it was appropriate that he masterminded its return four years later.

How important were the ‘little ships’? The ‘little ships’ are central to how Dunkirk is remembered and portrayed. They were the more than 700 privately owned vessels that participated in the evacuation, including motor boats, sailing ships and vessels towed across the Channel. They represented the full range of seafaring activities of the nation, including fishing trawlers, cockle boats, yachts, lifeboats, paddle ferries, pleasure cruisers, a fire tender, rubbish barges and vessels owned by the Pickfords removals company. The names tell a story of their own: Lord Collingwood and Lord St Vincent served alongside Yorkshire Lass, Count Dracula and Dumpling. Their limited capacity for passengers was outweighed by the priceless advantage of a shallow draft, which allowed them to go close inshore to pick up the waiting soldiers. The image of civilians answering the call to help save the beleaguered army

is undeniably a compelling one. It was subsequently exaggerated, just like the contribution of ‘the Few’ in the Battle of Britain. Yet, just like that later example, there was more than a kernel of truth to the story. The little ships’ contribution needs to be put in context. They carried few men all the way home, rather being used to ferry them out to the larger ships. Many were manned by civilian crews, yet there was also a good sprinkling of naval or naval reserve personnel. But Churchill’s ‘mosquito armada’ did play an important role. Many men would not have got home without them – and they paid a high price, coming under constant attack from the Luftwaffe and having to brave mines, fast tides, fog, and waters cluttered with ever more wrecks. More than 100 were lost, including many that were unidentified. The little ships deserve their place in history.

Three of the 700-strong armada of ‘little ships’ that rescued soldiers from the shores of France. More than 100 were lost in the operation

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HISTORY

Dunkirk:

Was Dunkirk really a miracle? The events of Dunkirk are often described as miraculous. While the fine weather was a remarkable stroke of luck – especially the calm seas, without which evacuation from the beaches would have been impossible – the explanation is for the most part more mundane. The Germans made a major mistake in pausing their advance, thereby easing the pressure on the bridgehead. While the Royal Air Force was not able to provide air superiority, it did enough to prevent the Luftwaffe from making the operation impossible. Ship losses were high but not sufficient to stop the evacuation. The BEF and the French army deserve far more credit than they usually get, for the determined and disciplined way that they fought their way out of the closing trap – while short of food and ammunition, against an enemy with air supremacy, and through roads choked with refugees – and then defended the ever shrinking perimeter long enough for the evacuation to take place. Most of all, though, the operation depended on the effective use of sea power. The Royal Navy had inflicted heavy losses on its German counterpart during the Norway campaign a few months earlier. This prevented the Kriegsmarine from interfering with Operation Dynamo (and also denied Germany any real option for invasion in late 1940). The Royal Navy, with great assistance from the merchant navy, then proved able to improvise a remarkably successful evacuation, despite near constant air attack. Civilian and naval crews (albeit far more of the latter) went back time and again, in difficult circumstances, to bring the defeated army home to fight another day.

A still from the new blockbuster, Dunkirk. If the operation had failed, Churchill might have been toppled, argues Tim Benbow

If the evacuation had failed, would Britain have lost the war? While the outcome of Operation Dynamo was as great a relief to the government as it was a boost to popular morale, what was its real significance? Some historians have argued that its impact has been exaggerated, that Britain would have fought on regardless. This is plausible; the RAF would have been no less ready to fight the Battle of Britain, while the Royal Navy would have been equally well placed to prevent any German attempt at invasion. But Britain’s situation in the summer of 1940 was dire. The defeat and occupation of Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium were followed by the collapse of France, Britain’s main ally. Germany was effectively allied with the Soviet Union, Italy now joined their side in the war, and any US entry was a long way off. Worse still, Germany controlled the coastlines of France and Norway, putting it in a far

Destroyers with an RAF escort return to Britain from northern France

better position to wage war at sea. Britain’s survival was in genuine doubt. But imagine if Britain had seen another 200,000 troops taken prisoner, losing the bulk of its trained army and the nucleus for its later expansion. This would have represented another heavy blow to its ability – and, crucially, willingness – to face the difficult years to come. At best, the successful campaigns in north Africa and the Mediterranean would have been far more difficult to fight, allowing Germany to invade the Soviet Union earlier, with better prospects for success. Material support from the US would have been slower to come – if it came at all. We’ve also got to consider that, while Churchill was resolute about fighting on, his position was far from unassailable. It is conceivable that, if Dunkirk had ended in disaster, his administration could have been toppled and replaced by a government willing to seek the best peace it could negotiate. Dunkirk therefore has to be seen as one of the key turning points of the war. ß

Tim Benbow is reader in strategic studies at King’s College London. He is editor of Operation Dynamo: The Evacuation from Dunkirk, May–June 1940 (Helion, 2016) 52

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MOVIESTORE COLLECTION-REX-SHUTTERSTOCK

The Big Questions

GETTY IMAGES

A ï¬&#x201A;eet of small boats are towed up the Thames after taking part in Operation Dynamo, June 1940

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SCIENCE

Vol. 9 Issue 12

HACKERS C A N TH E Y B E B E A TE N ?

Words: chris hall

PHOTO: GETTY

The rise of the internet has transformed hacking into an opportunity for crime, activism and political interference. So who are the hackers and can they be stopped?

he last few months have been busy for European politics, with Austria, the Netherlands, France and the UK all heading to the polls. Each one of these elections was preceded by fears that hostile powers, acting online, would seek to manipulate the outcome of the elections. These fears came closest to being realised in France, where eventual winner Emmanuel Macron and his En Marche! party were victim to a 9GB leak of emails, just 48 hours before the voting took place. Things are little different across the Atlantic, with four legislative committees, as well as the FBI, investigating alleged Russian influence over the US election, including the hacking of Hillary Clinton’s emails. In the UK, hacking was in the news when the WannaCry ransomware worm crippled computer systems in 40 NHS hospitals in May. In the wake of each attack, politicians spoke urgently of a need to ‘regulate’ the internet. Across the West, democracy and freedom are under sustained attack, and at the heart of the battle is our grasp on technology. Maybe that sounds like hyperbole, or even the stuff of a movie trailer. Well, consider this: the average person in the UK spends 25 hours a week online and has between 27 and 40 online accounts. There are set to be 8.4 billion connected devices in the world by the end of this year – 20 billion by 2020 – and last year in the US alone there were more than 1,000 recorded data breaches. Hacking isn’t just about pinching passwords any more: the geeks have truly inherited the Earth. “There’s no question that there is more malware now than there has ever been,” says David Emms, principal security researcher at antivirus and internet security specialists Kaspersky Labs. “And the volume is growing massively. We analyse a million objects [of malicious code] per day in our virus lab, and more than 60 per cent of our detections are of code that has never seen before.” Vol. 9 Issue 12

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CYBER CRIME Such a proliferation of threats is undeniably concerning, but also hard to grasp. One reason the subject of hacking can feel so nebulous is that the term covers a multitude of sins. Cybercrime attacks can be serious offences such as theft, extortion, espionage, libel or fraud, but they can also be low level nuisance behaviour. Where this comparison with real-world crime differs is that every hack and every leak can feed into greater crimes. For example, stolen user data can be bundled up and traded on the dark web (the dark web refers to encrypted sites that cannot be found using standard browsers or search engines), while compromised machines join sprawling botnets to be unwittingly used in bringing down large targets. Let’s take a look at the NHS ransomare attack as an example. It was carried out using tools leaked online by nefarious group the Shadow Brokers. The tools were recognised by the international security community as hailing from the NSA’s Equation Group cyberwarfare team. They contained a number of ‘zeroday exploits’, which could be used to gain access to computers running Microsoft operating systems from Windows 2000 to Windows 8. The toolkit – known as Eternal Blue – exposed a multitude of vulnerabilities and made it child’s play for the perpetrators to spread the WannaCry ransomware around the world. Where it gets murkier is when you start to consider the motive for the WannaCry attack. It would seem to be

/ TYPES OF HACK Don’t know your Trojan from your worm? Brush up on your hacker lingo here 56

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Hackers targeted Emmanuel Macron just 48 hours before French voters were due to go to the polls – he still beat his rival Marine Le Pen to become president of France

“Stolen user data is bundled up and traded on the dark web, while compromised machines join sprawling botnets to be unwittingly used in bringing down large targets”

VIRUSES AND WORMS

DDOS

Most malware tends to be either a virus or a worm. The difference comes down to the software’s ability to propagate. Like their biological namesakes, computer viruses require a host body, whereas worms can spread from one machine to the next unaided.

Short for distributed denial of service, a DDOS attack is basic yet effective. It works on the principle that if a website’s DNS server can be overwhelmed by traffic requests, the site will crash. Hackers run botnets – networks of zombie computers or devices – to besiege a server from multiple fronts simultaneously.

PHOTOS: GETTY X2

There are allegations that Russian hackers interfered with the US electoral system. Some claim this led to the defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016’s election

financial, yet relatively little cash was paid out – just $126,000 worldwide (this was easy to track, thanks to the open nature of the Bitcoin transactions that were used for payments). And the attack was relatively easily halted by a security researcher who inadvertently realised that by registering a domain name found within the malware, he activated a built-in ‘kill switch’. This doesn’t tally with the sophistication of the tools that were used in the attack, or the capabilities of those alleged to be behind it (some have pointed the finger at North Korea).

TROJAN

RANSOMWARE

SPEAR-PHISHING

As its name suggests, a Trojan is a form of malware that sneaks into your computer under an innocuous guise (like an email attachment). Its cargo can be any form of malware. A Trojan’s specific ability is getting in, then leaving a backdoor open for others to follow undetected.

This subset of malware made the headlines for the WannaCry attack, but has been around since at least 2012. It searches for important files, encrypts them and demands a ransom (usually paid in Bitcoin) for their safe return. In some cases, the ransomware can lock down a machine rather than specific files.

An evolution of phishing (the spelling harks right back to early phone-based hacking, or ‘phreaking’), spear-phishing is more direct, and consists of targeted campaigns, usually over email, to spread malware in a particular network or company. The messages sent out would be laden with Trojans.

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/THE BIGGEST HACKS IN RECENT MEMORY MACRON EMAIL LEAK Just 48 hours before the run-off poll between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, a 9GB cache of emails from Macron’s En Marche! party was posted on PasteBin, a filesharing platform. They were spread to WikiLeaks. “The attacks were so simple and generic that it could have been practically anyone,” France’s cybersecurity chief said.

BANGLADESH BANK HEIST In February 2016, hackers got the login credentials used by Bangladesh Central Bank for the international banking transfer system SWIFT. They tried to transfer $951m to accounts in Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Most transactions were flagged, but $101m was removed. A Trojan known as Dridex was used, which hides in MS Word or Excel attachments.

WANNACRY ATTACK On 12 May 2017, a global ransomware attack affected more than 230,000 computers, including PCs in the NHS, FedEx and Deutsche Bahn. The malware was leaked from the NSA, and targeted machines running Windows XP and Windows 2003. The attack yielded just over $126,000 in payments and caused considerable upheaval.

YAHOO! BREACH In 2016, Yahoo! was forced to confirm that its systems had been breached twice, in 2013 and 2014, resulting in the loss of more than a billion users’ personal information, including passwords. The hackers used fake browser cookies that allowed them to dupe the site’s login systems. To date, it is the largest loss of customer data by any single company.

CHIPOTLE ATTACK The Mexican restaurant chain, which has more than 2,250 outlets in the USA, reported that if you paid with a credit card between 24 March and 17 April 2017, your credit card details had almost certainly been obtained by hackers. The attack vector has not been confirmed, but the malware involved allegedly read the card data directly from the machines as they took payment.

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So how did we get to a point where hackers can rob and extort with impunity, and – if analysis is to be believed – nations such as Russia or North Korea can interfere in political campaigns? Russian president Vladimir Putin came close to conceding that Russian elements could be behind recent political hacks. “If hackers are patriotically minded, they start to make their own contribution to what they believe is the good fight against those who speak badly about Russia,” he said in a recent interview. (Those with longer memories will point out that interfering in the elections of satellite states was a favourite activity of the US during the 1980s – it just wasn’t done online.) One side of the answer is the exposure of people to the internet. As the Internet of Things grows, we are adding ‘attack vectors’ to our lives. We are opening more and more doors for hackers to walk through. “Smart home technology has not yet been universally adopted, so attackers don’t have much to gain from it other than nuisance value,” explains Emms. But that may soon change when smart home

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technology reaches a tipping point, and the weaknesses are there to be exploited. “Companies who have never had to think about internet security in the context of standalone products wake up to the need for security when they add Internet of Things functionality,” says David Harley, a security consultant and chief operations officer for the Anti-Virus Information Exchange Network. Although, he adds, the smart home’s sheer scale could also act in its favour. “Because of the wide diversification of brands, technologies and devices, the scope of an individual attack may be comparatively restricted.” Restricted or not, there is the potential for some creatively unpleasant hacking. “Imagine a ransomware attack linked to your heating system!” says Emms. So, you don’t have to worry about someone hacking into your smart kettle – yet. But that’s only because there are easier ways for criminals to get what they want, whether that’s by simply buying leaked data, sending out a few thousand phishing emails, or exploiting existing vulnerabilities that go unfixed by users who neglect to update their software.

BLAME GAME But we can’t place all the blame on lazy individuals or companies. The majority of security researchers concur that without punishment, crime is allowed to flourish. “It is a myth to think criminals have some magical edge,” says Stephen Cobb, senior security researcher at antivirus specialists ESET. “Right now it appears that way with cyber criminals because of the massive failure of governments to mobilise international law enforcement. How many culprits involved in watershed breaches have been brought to justice? Clearly, not enough to deter new entrants to the field.” But who are these hackers anyway? The security community is generally cagey about attributing attacks to certain groups or countries, seeing it as the responsibility of law enforcement to act on their pure analysis of the code. Nonetheless, the anonymity offered by the internet makes it hard to be certain. The few major hacking groups that are known to security researchers are the exception, not the rule, and their actual membership can be even harder to pin down. Cal Leeming gained notoriety as the UK’s youngest convicted hacker in 2007. According to Leeming, his natural talent was “given a bit too much freedom”. He was carrying out illegal attacks at the age of 12, then in 2006 he was sentenced for using stolen credit card data to buy $980,000 worth of goods. Now running his own security consultancy for high net worth individuals, he laughs when asked if hackers really fit people’s image of them. “Stereotypes do generally exist for a reason,” he says. Still, he doesn’t quite live up to these stereotypes, as his childhood hacking was borne of a need to support his family rather than a desire for mischief. “Back when I started, it really was the Wild West out there. And there was an innocence to it. When groups of us met in chatrooms, we didn’t really realise we were creating criminal gangs. I used to think the internet should be totally free, no rules, everything goes,” he explains. “But we have got to a point where the internet, and anonymity in particular, has brought out the very worst in our culture. It has brought out the best too, but we have become desensitised to how awfully we’re treating each other.” As an emerging hacker, Leeming lacked guidance but also felt that the law was too heavy-handed. “It has criminalised schoolkid mischief,” he says. He cites the tendency of small crimes to turn into bigger ones. “We need people who can interact with those kind of young adults – people who otherwise develop no grasp of ethics or personal responsibility.”

“Back when I started, it really was the Wild West out there. And there was an innocence to it. When groups of us met in chatrooms, we didn’t really realise we were creating criminal gangs”

‘Hactivist’ group Anonymous tend to attack religious and political groups, and large corporations. Many members opt to wear the stylised Guy Fawkes mask

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/THE BIG PLAYERS Who are the most notorious hacking groups out there and what do they want?

LAZARUS GROUP

SHADOW BROKERS

This group is known for the attacks on Sony Pictures and the Bangladesh Central Bank in 2014 and 2016, respectively. The Lazarus Group is also thought to have attacked the South Korean government between 2007 and 2013. Specialising in financial attacks and espionage, the group has been linked by researchers and the media to the North Korean regime, albeit not conclusively.

One of the newest groups to emerge, Shadow Brokers published leaked hacking tools from the NSA in summer 2016, with the possible assistance of a former military contractor at Booz Allen Hamilton. Little is known about the group’s identity or motives, but there is speculation that the leak’s main purpose is to send a message of mutually-assured destruction if the US were to retaliate for the group’s hacks on the Democratic National Committee in 2015 and 2016.

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UNITED CYBER CALIPHATE The UCC, also referred to as the Islamic State Hacking Division, refers loosely to all groups claiming to further the ideology of ISIS. Yet it is not known how coordinated it is with others, such as the Tunisian group that claimed responsibility for an attack on the NHS in February. The group has attacked American, British and Australian targets.

EQUATION GROUP Classed as one of the most advanced threats by security companies, the Equation Group (named for the complexity of its encryption) is commonly believed to be affiliated to the NSA and has been particularly involved in cyber attacks across the Middle East. One such attack was the Stuxnet worm, which destabilised Iranian nuclear centrifuges. PHOTO: GETTY

FANCY BEAR Also known by a myriad of aliases including Sofacy, APT28 and Pawn Storm, this highly capable group is widely believed to operate with at least the tacit approval of the Russian government. It has claimed responsibility for attacks on NATO, the White House, the French election, the DNC and German parliament.

However, the general consensus among experts is that hackers and hacking are something we need to accept will never disappear, yet that doesn’t mean we have to give up the fight. “There will always be some level of criminal hacking, but it is possible to improve human behaviour. For example, there’s a lot less crime in America and the UK today than there was 25 years ago, and not because all the criminals have gone online,” says Cobb. When the diagnosis is as all-encompassing as a global issue like cybercrime, so the prescriptions are going to be pretty far-reaching. For David Emms at Kaspersky, it’s an education issue. “Cyber attacks are so often reliant on humans and their mistakes, so big businesses could go a long way towards dealing with the problem by focusing more on a culture of awareness and developing education,” he says. “It’s like parenting, you can’t expect to tell your kids to do something once and they’ll never do it again. It’s a longerterm process.”

“The big tech companies need to take a step back and realise that their future profits are in serious jeopardy if we don’t improve cybersecurity across the board”

However, there’s no question that serious vulnerabilities remain. “I think the big tech companies need to take a step back and realise that their future profits are in serious jeopardy if we don’t improve cybersecurity across the board,” says Cobb. “There are massive tech companies sitting on billions in cash and I would argue a chunk of that cash came from the corner-cutting we have done so far.” But that doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom. It’s a glorifying myth, says Harley, to think of it as “genius hackers versus plodding security companies”. Instead, if we think of hackers like ordinary criminals and guard against them in the same way, then there’s no reason why society, including the public, the media, companies and governments, cannot keep cybercrime under control.

Chris Hall is a science and technology journalist who has written for Esquire, Men’s Health and GQ.

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NATURE

This composite image, taken during a drought, shows the variety of mammals and birds visiting a scarce watering hole in Gorongosa National Park over the course of one day. This ﬂeeting resource is vital during the dry season, which occurs between June and October. During this period, the Mussicadzi River no longer ﬂows and water in the ecosystem diminishes – species are forced to congregate at available pools until the rains arrive in December

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SOURCE OF LIFE

Following a 16-year civil war, Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, is brimful of wildlife again but dramatic seasonal changes QVĂ&#x2020;]MVKM\PM JMPI^QW]Z WN Q\[ ZM[QLMV\[ Jen Guyton and Piotr Naskrecki photographed this precious ecosystem while waiting for the rains to fall

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ABOVE LEFT: As the water evaporates in the dry season the situation becomes critical but the catfish still have a chance of survival. They can breathe atmospheric air and stay alive as long as their bodies remain moist. As the mud dries on their backs, they wait for the rains TOP: Towards the end of October, the most dramatic period in the life of Gorongosa, many aquatic animals such as giant sharptooth catfish become trapped in the last remaining puddles of the Mussicadzi River. Sensing an easy meal, marabou storks wade into the muddy water and try to grasp the slippery prey. The fish are a metre in length, though, and so are too strong for the opportunistic birds

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ABOVE: The rains arrived a week too late to save these catﬁsh. Exhausted and overheated, they lay motionless. The ﬁsh were now too weak to resist predators, and one by one they were dragged out of the mud and eaten by Nile monitor lizards

The grey foamnest frog can endure long stretches of time without access to water. Though these amphibians are grey-brown at night, they turn white during the day. Their skin contains cells that protect the animals from overheating by reďŹ&#x201A;ecting the light. A thin layer of hardened mucus produced by the skin provides an additional barrier to water loss

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LUNGFISH PHOTOGRAPHED UNDER CONTROLLED CONDITIONS

NATURE

ABOVE: Access to water shapes the behaviour of wildlife in Gorongosa, from microscopic crustaceans that hatch and die within a week in the ephemeral, seasonal ponds, to long-lived African elephants. These giants must drink frequently, so each herdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s matriarch knows where all the watering holes are in the park. This family is circling a seasonal pond in April. As muddy puddles like this dry, the pachyderms may dig for water, creating new puddles that beneďŹ t other species

RIGHT: This Cape pangolin was rescued from poachers by rangers who released it into a core park area in March. Here the animal will be safer and have access to lots of termites and plenty of water in the seasonal ponds. Pangolins are coveted in Asia for their meat and scales, which are used in traditional medicine 66

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ABOVE: A lungfish emerges in September to begin its aquatic life after spending several months underneath the cracked mud. It was protected in an underground cocoon connected to the surface by a strawlike shaft, which allows the species to survive the dry season. Lungfish have one lung and no functional gills, and can only breathe atmospheric air LEFT: An aerial image of floodplain channels, taken from an ultralight aircraft in July, reveals web-like patterns. The floodplain remains underwater for three months of the year; as it starts to dry out, hippos and antelopes use these natural highways to travel to and from drinking water, deepening them gradually each year. This movement creates beautiful patterns that can only be seen from the air

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Following the arrival of the rainy season, the parched grassland of a few weeks ago turns into an extensive water world. Here, a hippo charges across the Lake Urema floodplain in early April, startling an egret. In full flood, the lake expands from 12km2 to up to 200km2, hosting a lively aquatic community that also includes crocodiles, water birds, and fish

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ABOVE: Muddy edges of seasonal pans attract clouds of butterflies in December, which belong to the genus Graphium. These insects siphon large amounts of water to extract dissolved minerals, especially sodium, which is scarce in their diet of nectar. The behaviour is known as ‘puddling’ and in a single session a butterfly can drink, filter, and expel a volume of water equivalent to several hundred times its own body weight

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TOP: When the ﬁrst rains come in November, the park erupts into a cacophony of sound, colour and motion. These African bullfrogs join in the performance; they are explosive breeders that spend most of their lives buried underground. When they emerge, the males begin frantically calling to the females. After they have mated, the female deposits hundreds of fertilised eggs on the pond’s surface, and hours later the tadpoles hatch ABOVE: Winged termites emerge during the rains and often fall into the water and drown, becoming a meal for ﬁsh and aquatic insects. Here they mingle with black, pearl-like bullfrog eggs, which develop rapidly as they are warmed by the sun. The following morning, the eggs will be gone, replaced with millions of tiny tadpoles

JEN GUYTON and PIOTR NASKRECKI are biologists and photographers. Jen is a National Geographic explorer and Piotr is a founding member of the iLCP. Find out more at www.jenguyton.com and www.thesmallermajority.com Vol. 9 Issue 12

HISTORY

The workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

revolution

Two hundred years ago, a working-class uprising was brutally quashed amid accusations that government spies had deliberately incited the rebels. Stephen Bates relates the tragedy of the Pentrich revolt Illustration by LUKE WALLER

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n 9 June 1817, a mob of men marched nervously through darkness and driving rain down the country lanes of Derbyshire. They were on their way – or so they thought – to capture Nottingham, 14 miles away, as part of a national revolt to overthrow the government. They did not know it at the time but the Pentrich Revolutionaries, as they came to be called, were taking part in the last armed insurrection in English history – and, according to the late historian EP Thompson, the first entirely workingclass political uprising. Armed with pikes and a few muskets, and led by an unemployed stocking weaver called Jeremiah Brandreth – known to them for his Luddite activities as ‘the Nottingham Captain’ – they expected to be joined by thousands of others marching down “like a cloud” from Yorkshire and Lancashire. They were assured that a further 50,000 men in London could be quickly summoned to seize the government and capture the Bank of England. They did not know that, in reality, they were on their own. Most of the men were unclear as to what the political aim was, beyond cancelling the

national debt and shooting ministers. Perhaps a provisional government would be set up, one that would hand out provisions to the starving populace – but, more immediately, the men had been promised money, food, rum and boat rides on the river Trent. As they marched wearily on, Brandreth led the singing: “The time is come, you plainly see, The government opposed must be.”

AN UNLIKELY CATALYST The men on the march were weavers, farm labourers and iron workers. Most were related to each other, and many – including Brandreth – were Primitive Methodists. They blamed the autocratic government and aristocratic ministers for their distress. Many were out of work and without food, the result of the contraction of the economy after the Napoleonic Wars. But they were also victims of a natural phenomenon of which they had no idea. An ash cloud from the 1815 volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora, on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa, is now recognised to have affected the climate across the world over several seasons, wrecking harvests in the

northern hemisphere. As a result, food and particularly bread had become expensive – landowners’ incomes were protected by the newly enacted Corn Laws, keeping wheat prices high – and in short supply. To maintain morale and keep out of the rain, the men – who had been gathered mainly from villages around Pentrich, South Wingfield and Ripley – stopped at pubs, demanding beer, bread and cheese. Brandreth also led them to local farmhouses, where they coerced the residents into giving them money and firearms, and pressed workers to join the uprising. At the home of a widow named Mary Hepworth, they smashed the window shutters when the occupants refused to open up, and Brandreth fired his musket into the kitchen, fatally hitting a servant called Robert Walters in the neck. The next target was the Butterley iron works. The company had recently sacked several men for attending a political meeting – some of them had joined the march – and the manager, George Goodwin, had set his remaining workers to guard the gates.When the crowd approached, he confronted them and said they should go home or risk being hanged. One young

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man, Isaac Ludlum, trembling violently, retorted: “I am as bad as I can be. I must go on – I cannot go back.” Others were not so sure; many peeled off and vanished into the night, pursued by threats from Brandreth. The depleted mob approached Nottingham on the morning of 10 June, only to be met by a detachment of the 15th Hussars – the authorities had been expecting them. The men turned on their heels and fled back across the fields, into the arms of waiting magistrates.

A contemporary illustration depicts the gruesome fate of Jeremiah Brandreth. The leader of the uprising had tried to escape arrest before justice caught up with him

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An uprising against the government had been brewing for some time. While many people had joined Hampden Clubs (named after a 17th-century parliamentarian) across the country to discuss political reform, others vented their frustration more aggressively. Demonstrations in London’s Spa Fields in December 1816 had ended in violence as followers of the radical bookseller Thomas Spence campaigned for the abolition of private land and universal suffrage. Fearing a repeat of the French Revolution, which he’d witnessed first hand as a student visiting Paris, prime minister Lord Liverpool hurriedly introduced repressive legislation, including the suspension of Habeas Corpus (which requires a person under arrest to be brought before a court). And when a delegation of 5,000 unemployed Lancashire weavers attempted to march from Manchester to London in March 1817 to plead for food, they were dispersed by troops before getting beyond Stockport. In the absence of a police force, home secretary Lord Sidmouth relied on spies to keep the government informed of what was going on. One of these was a man named William Richards, a carpenter and surve or who had been an associate of radicals before being imprisoned for debt. On his release in March 1817, he went to see Sidmouth to offer his services, and was sent north as an undercover agent. He adopted the name William Oliver, and would become known as ‘Oliver the Spy’. Accompanied by his friend Joseph Mitchell, a genuine radical, Richards infiltrated meetings and reported back. Mitchell was arrested soon after, but Oliver escaped capture by showing authorities a secret letter from Sidmouth – “He is an intelligent man and deserving of your confidence” – and was allowed to slip back to London. He returned to the Midlands and Yorkshire in May, and continued to attend meetings. Known as “the London delegate”, Oliver told the organisers that thousands across the country were ready to join an uprising. To what extent he actively provoked potential rebels remains unknown, but he certainly did not discourage the desperate talk at

GETTY IMAGES

SECRET LETTER

“Labouring men were tried for treason… men who could scarce tell a letter in the alphabet” meetings in Huddersfield Stephen Bates is a journalist and author, who is currently researching the Peterloo massacre and Nottingham. One veteran radical, Tommy Bacon – described by the authorities as “a pertinacious old man” – returned home to Pentrich telling locals of a “coming blow”. Brandreth was another regular at the meetings, and in June he left his wife and three young children in Sutton-in-Ashfield, and moved to Pentrich, ready for the imminent uprising. He missed a meeting at the Punchbowl Inn in Nottingham, where increasingly suspicious plotters interrogated Oliver about his background. One told him: “They were not so fond of being hung for nothing at Nottingham as they were in Lancashire.” Lucky to escape with his life, the spy hurriedly departed for London.

BARBARIC PUNISHMENT In the days following the rebels’ dispersal, authorities arrested 47 of the men. They were charged as false traitors, for “not having the fear of God in their hearts, not weighing the duty of their allegiance but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil”. Among the 47 was Brandreth, who had tried to escape to America but returned penniless to Nottinghamshire. By the time of the trial before the Lord Chief Justice at Derby in October 1817, Oliver had been unmasked by the Leeds Mercury – he had been spotted outside a pub in Wakefield talking to a servant of local military commander General John Byng – and the authorities were worried about using him as a witness. Oliver was spirited to a nearby hotel but his name was never mentioned at the 10-day trial – incitement was no excuse for treason. Traditionally, charges of treason had been reserved for aristocratic rebels. Indeed, Tommy Bacon, who had lain low during the uprising but been arrested nonetheless, was quoted as saying: “[It’s been] never known in England before that labouring men were tried for high treason… men who can scarce tell a letter in the alphabet.” With a jury dominated by local landowners, the outcome was a foregone conclusion. In the dock, Brandreth cut a fearsome figure – the stuff of respectable

nightmares – as his black beard had not been trimmed in prison. He had killed a man during the march and expected no mercy. His lieutenants, Isaac Ludlum the Elder, William Turner and George Weightman, were also sentenced to death, though Weightman’s sentence was later remitted on account of his youth and good character. Of the remaining men, 23 – including Bacon – were sentenced to transportation (none of them ever returned to Derbyshire) and 21 were acquitted. The Duke of Devonshire, owner of Pentrich, had the cottages of the rebels demolished. The punishment for traitors was still barbaric, and included beheading and quartering, though the Prince Regent remitted the last detail. Brandreth, who was literate, left his pregnant wife Ann all his worldly possessions, which amounted pathetically to “one work bag, two balls of worsted and one of cotton, a handkerchief, an old pair of stockings, a shirt and a letter I received from my beloved sister”. On the scaffold, a furious William Turner shouted to the crowd: “This is all Oliver and the government.” But to what extent did the government deliberately provoke the uprising against them? The journalist William Cobbett was in no doubt. In his Political Register newspaper, he wrote: “The employers of Oliver might, in an hour, have put a total stop to those preparations and blown them to air. They wished not to prevent but to produce those acts.” However, Lord Sidmouth was having none of it. He wrote to the Yorkshire magnate Earl Fitzwilliam, insisting that such claims were incredible: “It was directly at variance with the instructions given to Oliver and with his communications…to myself.” The Pentrich revolt turned out to be the last attempt to overthrow a government by a general uprising – and not just because of the severe punishments meted out. In the ensuing years, prosperity returned to the country as harvests improved and the economy recovered. Eventually – gradually and reluctantly – parliamentary reform would be conceded. Soon, there would be local police forces (Derbyshire being the last to acquire one), governments would become more pervasive and responsive – and harassed ministers would grow more wary of employing untrained spies.

Regency Britain was not as tranquil as Jane Austen’s novels suggest LUDDITES CAUSE HAVOC Between 1811 and 1816, there were numerous outbreaks of Luddism across the Midlands and the North. Gangs of weavers thrown out of work or fearing the loss of wages following the introduction of weaving frames wrecked machinery at mills and factories under the leadership of the mythical Ned Ludd.

GOVERNMENT HIJACKING PLOT In November and December 1816, meetings at London’s Spa Fields – held to present a petition demanding parliamentary reform to the Prince Regent – were hijacked by radicals trying to incite an uprising to overthrow the government. There was arson and violence as a group marched towards the Bank of England, before being dispersed.

THE MARCH OF THE BLANKETEERS In March 1817, around 5,000 unemployed weavers, known as the Blanketeers because they carried blankets, attempted to march from Manchester to London to petition the Prince Regent for food. Most got no further than Stockport before they were dispersed by troops. The march alarmed ministers, leading to the arrests of several suspected radicals.

BLOODLETTING AT PETERLOO In August 1819, a peaceful crowd attending a Manchester rally to call for political reform was broken up by Yeomanry and Army cavalry. At least 18 people lost their lives, and hundreds more were injured, in what became known as the Peterloo Massacre.

CABINET IN THE FIRING LINE In February 1820, a radical named Arthur Thistlewood and his small band of followers plotted to assassinate the cabinet. The London-based gang were exposed by an undercover agent and later seized as they gathered above a stable at Cato Street, near Edgware Road. Five were hanged and then beheaded, while five were transported.

THE GREAT REFORM ACT

Stephen Bates is a journalist and author, who is currently researching the Peterloo massacre

In June 1832, in the face of a rising tide of disaffection at the absence of parliamentary reforms, the Whig government passed the Great Reform Act. This marginally extended the franchise, abolished rotten boroughs and gave parliamentary representation to new industrial cities.

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ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM FALCONER

I STILL REMEMBER THE DAY MY BRAIN BROKE Forget what you think you know about OCD. James Lloyd describes his battle with a devastating but little-known form of this mental disorder

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SCIENCE

was in a supermarket car park in Wales, in my early teens, on holiday at my grandparents’. It was a time of trips to the beach, limitless Welsh cakes, and peanut butter and jam sandwiches. But all was not well. Inside my head, a storm was brewing. I’d had obsessive thoughts for as long as I could remember. As a child, I’d lie awake at night, worrying that the house was going to burn down, or that something terrible would happen to my family if I didn’t go through my ritual of prayers. Once, I remember sitting in church, becoming gradually convinced that the man behind me was going to kill me. But on this particular day, for no apparent reason, something shifted. A switch had been flicked inside my brain. There was white noise. I had become acutely aware of my own thought processes, and my head hurt. Like a million tiny birds pecking at the inside of my skull, my mind began to buzz with repetitive

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thoughts – thoughts that I’d do anything not to have. My brain had got stuck. I didn’t realise it back then, but this was the beginning of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A long way from the media stereotypes of someone with a neatly organised CD collection and immaculate sock drawers, I wouldn’t get a diagnosis until I was in my 30s. In those intervening years, unable to explain what was going on in my own head, my mental health sank to depths that I didn’t know existed. But it turns out that I wasn’t alone. There’s a whole world of people out there who are tortured by their thoughts, afraid to get help and unable to tell even their own families. This is what it’s really like to live with OCD. The average person has tens of thousands of thoughts a day. Most of these are fairly mundane, but given the sheer amount of chatter running through our brains, it’s no surprise that we sometimes get strange, even disconcerting, thoughts that appear to

come from nowhere. You’re walking across a bridge and think of jumping off. You’re cradling a baby and get an image of throwing her down the stairs. You enter a hushed cathedral and have the sudden urge to swear loudly. Psychologists call these ‘intrusive thoughts’, and research has shown that everybody gets them. “When we asked people whether they experience these kinds of thoughts, 93 per cent said yes,” says Prof Paul Salkovskis, professor of clinical psychology and applied science at the University of Bath. “In a follow-up study, we tried to interview those who said they didn’t, and they didn’t want to speak to us. I’m as convinced as it’s possible to be that the real figure is 100 per cent.” Salkovskis believes we’re hardwired to have these thoughts. “Intrusive thoughts are our brain’s way of dealing with uncertain circumstances, which we’ve had throughout our evolution,” he says. “Thoughts will come into our minds that are loosely connected

“Our ancient ancestor, when faced with a tiger, might have thoughts about running away, or trying to befriend it”

Most people are able to dismiss the unhelpful intrusive thoughts as quickly as they arrive. But someone with OCD is unable to ignore them. They’ll interpret them as saying something fundamental about who they are. What if I’m a danger to myself? What if I harm this baby? What if I’m evil?

with what’s going on around us – some of them will be good ideas, and some will be bad.” According to this view, intrusive thoughts are part of our brain’s in built problem-solving system – a literal brainstorming mechanism that’s designed to keep us alive. Just as our ancient ancestor, when faced with a tiger, might have thoughts about running away (good idea) or trying to befriend it (bad idea), so our brains today are constantly coming up with ideas to help us make sense of our surroundings – ideas which might be helpful, weird, or just downright scary.

BRAIN LOCK It didn’t take long for my OCD to snowball. In that car park, my brain began to fire obsessive thoughts at me about my sexuality. I started to constantly obsess over whether I was gay, to the extent that I was checking my attraction to every single person I saw. At this stage, I thought it was just me grappling with my sexuality, but by the time I was 20, things had got a lot darker. My intrusive thoughts began to convince me that I was a horrible, evil person. I’d walk down the street, scared to

meet people’s eyes in case I had a terrible urge. If I was using a knife, I’d worry I’d suddenly lose control and stab someone. If I saw a serial killer in the news, I’d worry that I was going to turn into one. If I saw a kid in the street, I’d get intrusive thoughts that I was going to turn into a paedophile. It was mental torture. OCD is known as the ‘doubting disease’ because it makes you question everything. It slowly erodes your sense of identity, and every waking hour becomes consumed with unwanted thoughts. I developed acute anxiety, depression and debilitating headaches. Even going to the shops became an ordeal, as just one intrusive thought could bring my anxiety to tipping point. It was like living two lives at once, and there were days when I wanted to go to sleep and not wake up again.

Vol. 9 Issue 12

SCIENCE

Vol. 9 Issue 12

ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM FALCONER

“By trying to control my thoughts, I only made them worse. If someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant, you’ll immediately have pink elephants stampeding through your head” For over 15 years, I was in the grip of OCD. But there are a lot of us out there. It affects an estimated 12 in every 1,000 people – that’s almost 800,000 in the UK alone – but is often misunderstood as being a trivial personality quirk, or a penchant for order and cleanliness. OCD can come in a number of guises, but it always follows the same pattern. First is the unwanted thought, image or urge. This is the ‘obsessive’ part of the disorder. OCD can attach itself to pretty much any theme, but common ones include thoughts about harm (either to yourself or others), suicide, disease, contamination, blasphemy, forbidden sexual thoughts, and relationship obsessions. The intrusive thought causes anxiety, so the sufferer feels compelled to do something to relieve it. This is the ‘compulsive’ part of the disorder, and it could involve washing, checking, counting, repeating a phrase, praying, going over things in your mind, or a whole host of other coping mechanisms. These behaviours can be physical or (as in my case) purely internal, invisible to everyone except the sufferer. This internalised form of OCD is often called ‘Pure-O’ (purely obsessional OCD), but this is something of a misnomer, as compulsions are still involved – they’re just going on beneath the surface. Once a compulsion is carried out, it will only have a temporary effect. Soon enough, another thought or trigger will

occur, and the compulsions will ramp up again as the sufferer attempts to calm the anxiety. It’s a vicious loop, and one which can easily mushroom out of control. It’s no surprise that OCD sufferers are 10 times more likely to take their own life. I developed a number of ways to cope with my anxiety. All day, every day, I’d monitor my thoughts. If I had one that I deemed ‘bad’, I’d immediately have to think of a ‘good’ one to counteract it, or I’d wrestle with the thought until I was sure it didn’t mean anything. I’d monitor my facial expressions in case I somehow developed an ‘evil face’, and I wouldn’t be satisfied until everything in my head felt ‘just right’. But by trying to control my thoughts, I only made them worse. If someone tells you not to think of a pink elephant, you’ll immediately have pink elephants stampeding through your head. OCD is a shape-shifting beast. As I found out, the themes can evolve over time, and they often latch on to whatever the sufferer holds most dear. The new mother has an image of harming her baby. The priest thinks of blasphemy. Zoom out, though, and interesting patterns begin to emerge. “When I started working with patients in 1977, no one had intrusive thoughts about contracting HIV/AIDS,” says Salkovskis, “but then in the 1980s that became a common theme. OCD is often centred around whatever is society’s ‘invisible threat’. Today, intrusive thoughts about being a paedophile are common. A few hundred years ago, most of the thoughts would probably have revolved around religion.”

Salkovskis is keen to stress that people with OCD pose no danger. “There is absolutely no record of anyone with OCD acting on their obsessional thoughts,” he says. “The thoughts are completely at odds with the person’s values.” He offers an example of a therapy exercise he used to carry out with people who experienced intrusive thoughts about harming others. “I used to keep a sharp kitchen knife in my drawer, and I’d ask the person to hold it to my neck. I’m still here!”

ALWAYS HOPE I was formally diagnosed with OCD last year, and I’ve recently finished a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). This talking therapy is the go-to treatment for OCD, sometimes in conjunction with antianxiety medication, and it involves helping sufferers to see their intrusive thoughts for what they are – meaningless brain piffle. In my case, it involved a technique called ‘exposure and response prevention’ (ERP), in which I had to write out scripts of my most feared thoughts and learn to tolerate the anxiety without performing any compulsions. The idea is to accept and embrace the thoughts, until you’re so used to them that they no longer cause anxiety. I sometimes wonder whether I was destined to develop OCD. Did something go wrong in my brain’s wiring as I was growing up? There’s certainly evidence that the OCD brain is firing differently. Research points to the relationship between three brain areas: the prefrontal cortex, striatum and thalamus. With OCD, it seems that a neural loop between these regions becomes hyperactive, which neuroscientists think is linked to the repetitive thoughts and behaviours.

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SCIENCE

“In people with OCD it seems that a neural loop between these regions becomes hyperactive, which neuroscientists think is linked to the repetitive thoughts and behaviours” But it’s difficult to know whether these brain differences are the cause or the consequence of the OCD. And it’s likely that a number of other factors play a role. OCD is often linked to ‘thinking errors’ in the way someone sees the world. These cognitive distortions, which can begin to form in childhood, might include an inflated sense of responsibility (“I must not upset anyone at all.”), a desire for 100 per cent certainty (“how can I be certain my partner loves me?”), or the belief that having a nasty thought is as ‘bad’ as acting on it (“I’d be locked up if people knew what I was thinking.”).

OCD can also be triggered by a traumatic event, and there’s likely to be a genetic component, too. A 2011 meta-analysis looked at 14 separate studies involving identical and non-identical twins, designed to tease apart the contribution of genetic and environmental factors in someone developing OCD. Genetics was found to account for around 40 per cent of the variance in OCD behaviour, with the remaining variation down to environmental factors. However my OCD started, I still have it. But I’m beginning to see the light through the fog. I still get intrusive thoughts, but I’m getting better at letting them go. It took me years to find help, and that’s not uncommon. In fact, there’s so much stigma and misunderstanding around OCD that the average person goes 12 years between the onset of their illness and being diagnosed. That has to change. There are sure to be a lot of people suffering in silence, especially with the purely internalised form of the disorder. “People with this type of OCD can get away with it not being noticed,” says Salkovskis. “Tormented though they might be, they can go for longer before they hit the crisis point.” For Christmas, I’d like a time machine. My first stop will be that supermarket car park in Wales, and I’ll give that kid just one piece of advice: there’s no such thing as a bad thought. And then I’ll let him know that he’ll be okay. It won’t be easy, but he’ll be okay. ß

James Lloyd is a science writer. He holds a PhD in climate science

5 MYTHS ABOUT OCD

1 People with OCD wash their hands a lot Repetitive handwashing is one of the most well-known forms of OCD compulsion, but it only affects around one-quarter of sufferers. Similarly, compulsive checking (taps, locks, light switches, for example) affects around 30 per cent of sufferers.

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2 People with OCD are neat freaks Often confused with a liking for order and neatness, OCD is an anxiety disorder, characterised by frequent, distressing, and unwanted thoughts. A need for order or symmetry can sometimes arise, but this will be driven by an unbearable, underlying anxiety.

3 OCD always involves repetitive actions Not all OCD compulsions are visible. Around a quarter of OCD sufferers carry out covert, internalised compulsions. These might include praying, suppressing or neutralising thoughts, counting, and avoiding certain situations and places.

4 Having OCD can be a useful thing There is no joy in OCD. The World Health Organization once ranked it as one of the ten most debilitating illnesses of any kind, in terms of lost earnings and diminished quality of life. At least onethird of people with OCD also suffer from depression.

5 OCD only affects adults The average age of onset is 20, but OCD can also affect adolescents, as well as children as young as four. Making a diagnosis at this early age is especially tricky, as repetitive behaviours can also be a completely normal part of child development.

QA &

DR ALASTAIR GUNN

ALEXANDRA CHEUNG

DR PETER J BENTLEY

PROF ALICE GREGORY

PROF MARK LORCH

CHARLOTTE CORNEY

Astronomer, astrophysicist

Environment/ climate expert

Computer scientist, author

Psychologist, sleep expert

Chemist, science writer

Zoo director, conservationist

DR HELEN SCALES

DR CHRISTIAN EMMA DAVIES JARRETT

LUIS VILLAZON

DR AARATHI PRASAD

PROF ROBERT MATTHEWS

Marine biologist, writer

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Biologist, geneticist

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YOUR QUESTI0NS ANSWERED

Heath expert, science writer

editorial-bbcearth@regentmedia.sg

BY OUR EXPERT PANEL

PHOTO: EYEVINE

Are ﬂoating solar farms better than land-based ones? Where land is scarce, floating solar farms make it possible to generate renewable energy without taking up space that might be needed for farming or other purposes. The cooling effect of the water allows the floating solar cells to run more efficiently than on land. Most floating solar farms are installed on artificial lakes or reservoirs. For example, the world’s largest floating solar farm, recently unveiled in China near the city of Huainan, sits on top of a former coal mining area that has been flooded. By covering the water’s surface, floating solar farms reduce evaporation, saving water. AFC

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& QA

Can the body self-repair nerve damage?

The myelin sheath (yellow) on a nerve cell increases the speed at which nerve impulses travel. Here, the myelin of the nerve cell on the right has become damaged

Why can’t penguins ﬂy? Even the very smallest penguin, the fairy penguin, weighs 1kg, which is about as much as a herring gull. But herring gulls have a 1.4m wingspan, compared with just 32cm for the fairy penguin. Water is 784 times denser than air, and around 62 million years ago, penguins began evolving adaptations for swimming underwater. Their bones are filled with heavy bone marrow rather than air and they have much larger stomachs for undergoing long fishing trips away from the nest. LV

Up to a point. If the body of the neuron is still intact, the branches that extend out from the cell body can regrow at a rate of about 2cm per month. If the surrounding membrane of a nerve Up to a point. If the body of the neuron is still the bundle is still intact, the neuron canintact, grow along branches that out from theBut cell muscle body can regrow this, toextend its original target. cells left at a rate of about 2cm per month. the surrounding membrane of disconnected for tooIflong won’t accept new a nerve nerve bundleconnections. is still intact, the LVneuron can grow along this, to its original target. But muscle cells left disconnected for too long won’t accept new nerve connections. LV

Is gravity getting weaker? Over the years, theorists have proposed modification to Einstein’s theory of gravity that allow this fundamental force to vary with time. In the 1930s, the eminent British physicist Paul Dirac suggested that gravity might get weaker as the Universe expanded, prompting astronomers to look for evidence. During the 1970s, studies of the Moon suggested it was moving away from the Earth. Most of the increase in distance could be explained using standard theories of how the gravity fields of the Moon and Earth interact. But some of the increase pointed to a weakening of the force of gravity itself, as Dirac had predicted. The claim attracted a lot of media interest, but by the early 1980s experiments involving precise timing of signals from planetary probes found no evidence for changes in the strength of gravity. The original claim is now thought to be the result of faulty analysis of the Moon’s orbital motion. RM

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Why are most passenger planes painted white? The main reason is that it protects the aircraft from the effects of solar radiation. Aircrafts struggle to stay cool while loading and unloading passengers at airports in hot countries, and brilliant white paint helps bounce back some of the sunlight. It also helps protect aircraft parts made out of composite materials from damage through ultraviolet radiation, which is substantially higher in altitude. RM

Do other planets inﬂuence Earth’s tides?

How do mussels stick to wet rocks? Earth’s tides are dominated by the combined effect of the Sun and the Moon’s gravitational pull. But the other planets, since they have a gravitational pull oftheir own, also have a small effect on the tides. Venus is the strongest because it happens to come closest to Earth. However, even at its maximum, its influence is 10,000 times less than that of the Sun and Moon together. Even the giant planet Jupiter exerts a force less than one-tenth that of Venus. So, for all intents and purposes, the effect of the planets on Earth’s tides is imperceptible. AGu

Hundreds of sticky threads, known as byssus, glue mussels to slippery, wave-pounded rocks. Mussels make the threads by squeezing quick-setting liquid protein into a groove in their muscly foot. The key ingredients are called ‘mussel adhesive proteins’, or MAPs, which form weak bonds with the rock They’re being investigated as the chemical inspiration for surgical glues that would work inside living bodies, and for the production of hard-wearing, selfhealing polymers to manufacture replacement hip and knee joints. Synthetic MAPs may even be used to fix anti-fouling chemicals to the bottoms of boats, to stop animals like mussels from sticking on. HS

THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT

PHOTOS: GETTY X5, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

WHAT IF EVERY PERSON ON EARTH HAD A CAR?

1. MANUFACTURE

2. PARKING

3. FUEL

4. EXHAUST

There are 1.2 billion cars in the world today, and 7.5 billion people. So we’ll need at least 6.3 billion extra cars to make sure everyone has their own. This will require 5.6 billion tonnes of steel, which is 3.5 times as much steel as the world produces each year.

On the roads, those 7.5 billion cars will occupy 36 million kilometres of road – about half the total length of all the roads in the world. Cars normally only spend about 5 per cent of their time on the road network, but there aren’t 7.1 billion parking spaces either.

Even with 95 per cent of them parked, the world’s cars currently use 6.5 billion litres of petrol a day. If this demand scales linearly up to 7.5 billion cars, the oil industry will need to increase output more than ﬁve times, sending oil prices to hundreds of dollars per barrel.

Cars today emit 2.5 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. If driving habits stay the same, increasing the world ﬂeet to 7.5 billion cars will add another 13 billion tonnes per year. That’s nearly half the current CO2 produced globally by humans. Vol. 9 Issue 12

& QA IN NUMBERS

Why is Big Ben being turned off for four years? The Elizabeth Tower and the Great Clock are being completely renovated. Although the clock will only be out of action for two years, the bells have to be silenced for the entire renovation period to protect the workers’ hearing. The Big Ben bell weighs 13.76 tonnes and chimes at 118 decibels. At that volume you will suffer hearing damage after just 14 seconds of exposure. To stop the bells, the weights that drive the mechanism have to be lowered to the bottom of the tower and secured. This takes half a day to do, so it isn’t practical to restart them after each workday. But the chimes will be reenabled for New Year’s Eve and Remembrance Sunday. LV

217

The number of mice spotted in the Palace of Westminster in the ﬁrst half of 2017.

100m

The number of black holes in the Milky Way, according to a new census.

The age at which kids should start learning to code, according to computing pioneer Dame Stephanie Shirley.

Most people lie occasionally, although there are individual differences in how often lies are told. Lying is a part of normal child development, emerging early in life. Research published in 2016 by Prof Timothy Levine, a communications expert, investigated reasons for lying. Most lies were told for selfish reasons, such as covering up a personal transgression or gaining an economic advantage. Lies were also told to protect the feelings of others and to maintain social politeness. Overall, it seems that lies occur when the truth poses an obstacle that someone wants to overcome. AGr

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Do black holes collapse? The Schwarzschild radius (event horizon) of a black hole is sometimes thought of as the black hole’s ‘size’. It is proportional to mass, which means that more massive black holes have bigger Schwarzschild radii. Left alone, black holes lose mass due to ‘Hawking radiation’, so that their event horizons are slowly shrinking. A typical black hole would take many billions of times the age of the Universe to completely ‘evaporate’ and disappear. But, the interior of the black hole, or its ‘singularity’ (the point at which all the black hole’s matter is concentrated) has already reached the limit of its density and cannot ‘collapse’ any further. AGu

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

Why do humans lie?

W H A T H A P P E N S I N M Y B O D Y…

...WHEN I VOMIT? Your body vomits when it senses various different threats. These threats can take the form of toxic chemicals or stress hormones in the blood, swaying motions, or an upset stomach. Chemicals and hormones are detected by the brain’s chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ), swaying motions are detected by the inner ear, while an upset stomach is identified by the vagus nerve. Once the signal for a need to vomit arrives at the CTZ, it sets off a chain reaction.

1. Brainstem

2. Salivary glands

3. Diaphragm

The chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ) receives a stimulus that might warrant vomiting. The vomiting centre begins a choreographed sequence of actions.

Your mouth suddenly begins producing extra saliva. This is slightly alkaline and forms a buffer to protect your mouth and teeth from incoming stomach acid.

You take a deep breath to avoid getting vomit in your lungs, then the diaphragm contracts in a few short pulses, squeezing the stomach to create pressure.

4. Glottis

5. Abdominal muscles

6. Skin

The glottis closes, sealing the airway. Nothing enters or leaves the lungs. Diaphragm contractions without vomiting cause dry heaves.

The abdominal muscles contract to further increase pressure. The pyloric sphincter at the bottom of the stomach is held closed. The only way out is upwards.

The sympathetic nervous system raises your heart rate and makes you sweat across your whole body, to shed the heat from this sudden exertion.

How do schools of ﬁsh swim in perfect unison? A fish decides where and how to move relative to its position in the school. If the fish behind gets too close (less than two body-lengths), then it speeds up; if the fish in front gets closer than that, then it slows down. Schooling fish watch one another and also feel the waves their neighbours make as they swim,with pressure-sensitive pores along their body called thelateral line. And each fish hasits preferred spot in the school. Some are natural leaders and tend to hang at the front and guide the whole school, while others choose to follow. HS

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& QA

How do scientists know 86 per cent of species remain to be discovered?

Why are water and electricity a deadly combination? Water itself doesn’t conduct electricity particularly well, it’s the chemicals dissolved in it that are the source of the trouble. For example, the salt content of seawater makes it a million times better at conducting electricity than ultra-pure water. Even so, even a trace of water can prove fatal with high voltages. People have been killed thinking they can move live cables using a freshly broken tree branch. RM

This wide selection of wildlife can be found on California’s coastlines

You can estimate the total number of species in the world by graphing the decreasing number of new species discovered each year to predict the end point. Or you can extrapolate the number of new species found per hectare of rainforest, to the number of hectares that haven’t been studied. Or you can graph the body size of each new species found, on the assumption that larger species tend to be discovered

sooner, and extrapolate that. The different statistical models over the years have been gradually homing in on a figure of 8.7 million total species. Currently, 1.64 million have been named, so that’s 81 per cent left to find (the 86 per cent figure was based on 2011 totals). This only covers eukaryotes (animals, plants and fungi) though. A 2016 study estimated that bacteria could add almost another trillion species. LV

Yawning is contagious for both children and adults. Even certain animals, such as dogs, can catch a yawn! One study of adults showed that yawning becomes less contagious with age. Furthermore, children under the age of four and children with autism spectrum disorders may be less likely to yawn when they see others

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doing so. There are many theories as to why yawning is contagious. One possibility is that it helps synchronise people within a group, by signifying that it is bedtime, for example. Another suggests that it helps regulate our brain temperature. It may also be a sign of empathy – although not all studies support this idea. AGr

PHOTOS: GETTY X3 ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

Why is yawning contagious?

T O P 10

FASTEST ROLLERCOASTERS 1. Formula Rossa Ferrari World, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Top speed: 240km/h (149mph)

2. Kingda Ka Six Flags Great Adventure, New Jersey, USA Top speed: 206km/h (128mph)

3. Top Thrill Dragster Cedar Point, Ohio, USA Top speed: 190km/h (120mph)

4= Do-Dodonpa Fuji-Q Highland, Fujiyoshida, Japan Top speed: 180km/h (112mph)

4= Red Force Ferrari Land, Tarragona, Spain Top speed: 180km/h (112mph)

6= Superman: Escape from Krypton Six Flags Magic Mountain, California, USA Top speed: 160km/h (100mph)

6= Tower of Terror Dreamworld, Gold Coast, Australia Top speed: 160km/h (100mph)

8= Steel Dragon 2000 Nagashima Spa Land, Kuwana, Japan Top speed: 153km/h (95mph)

8= Fury 325 Carowinds, North and South Carolina, USA Top speed: 153km/h (95mph)

10. Millennium Force Cedar Point, Ohio, USA Top speed: 150km/h (93mph)

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& QA W H O R E A L LY I N V E N T E D ?

TELEVISION Can photosynthesis be recreated in the lab?

PHILO FARNSWORTH

Transmitting signals over long distances was one of the greatest triumphs of 19thCentury inventors. Yet even their ingenuity failed to solve the ultimate challenge: the transmission of clear sound and images. Many tried, leading to a long list of supposed ‘pioneers’ of television, the most famous being the Scottish inventor John Logie Baird. In January 1926 he gave the first-ever demonstration of the transmission of moving images, and by 1929 Baird was selling ‘Televisor’ sets for $33 – equivalent to $1,975 today. Baird’s design offered small, flickering, black-and-white images and involved the use of a spinning, perforated disk invented in 1894 by German engineer Paul Nipkow that scanned images for transmission as electrical signals. The technology needed to give television its mass appeal is generally credited to the brilliant American inventor Philo Farnsworth. While still a teenager, he realised that emerging electronic technology could scan images far faster and more finely than any mechanical device, and in 1927 demonstrated the first electronic television. A bitter patent dispute with the US electronics company RCA then broke out. Despite ultimately winning and being awarded a settlement plus royalties, Farnsworth and his key role in the invention of television are now largely forgotten. RM

Post-war German television

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Will electric cars reduce pollution? Electric vehicles’ engines don’t churn out polluting fumes, making them the obvious choice for improving local air quality in towns and cities. But although they have the potential to drastically cut pollution, they are only as green as the electricity they run on. Given that most electricity globally is still produced by

burning fossil fuels, charging an electric car can indirectly generate similar amounts of greenhouse gases to a petrol powered vehicle, particularly in countries that rely heavily on coal power. As the world embraces renewable energy, electric cars will increasingly gain the upper hand in years to come. AFC

PHOTOS: GETTY X3, ALAMY X2, ANDREI REINOL

JOHN LOGIE BAIRD

Photosynthesis is the process s of using n dioxide into light energy to convert carbon lants and oxygen and carbohydrates. Plants bacteria have been doing this happily n Italian for billions of years. In 1912, an mician had chemist called Giacomo Ciamician y years later, the idea to copy nature. Eighty the Swedish Consortium for Artificial hed to work on Photosynthesis was established the problem in earnest. Since then, artificial ajor area of photosynthesis has been a major research all around the globe.. The tricky things are making it efficient at the relatively low concentrations of carbon dioxide in the ab-based atmosphere and turning the lab-based ology! ML science into a working technology!

W H AT I S T H I S ?

ON ICE Sadly, this isn’t an alien world. These weird formations are ice-covered wooden poles emerging from the sea at low tide. The poles are all that remains of a dock on the Paljassaare peninsula in Tallinn, Estonia. It must have been chilly on that day, because seawater requires temperatures of -2°C to freeze, which is a little colder than the 0°C required by freshwater.

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& QA W H AT ’ S I N…

W H AT C O N N E C T S…

...THE MMR VACCINE?

...KOALAS AND TABLE MANNERS?

The active ingredient of vaccines can vary dramatically – they might take the form of live (but weakened) viruses, completely inactivated viruses or just fragments of a virus or bacteria. There are numerous ways the vaccine might be administered, for example, orally, nasally or by a jab. These factors require different components to make the vaccine easy to produce, effective and stable. Let’s take a single dose of a measles, mumps and rubella jab as an example. ML WATER 464.4mg (93.47 per cent) LIVE VIRUS PARTICLES about 0.003mg (0.0006 per cent) The smallest component of the vaccine are the weakened measles, mumps and rubella viruses. HYDROLYSED GELATIN 15mg (3 per cent) A stabiliser that protects the viruses from the effects of changing temperatures during preparation and storage. SODIUM PHOSPHATE 0.3mg (0.06 per cent) This keeps the whole thing at a pH that the viruses need to stay alive.

Koalas K Koalas mostly eeat eucalyptus leaves. These have a high water content, so koalas hhardly need to drink. This lets them stay in the trees, safe from predators.

RECOMBINANT HUMAN ALBUMIN about 0.3mg (0.06 per cent) Another stabiliser made by bacteria engineered to produce a human protein.

SORBITOL 15mg (3 per cent) This is more commonly used as an artiﬁcial sweetener. Here, it acts as another stabiliser.

SUCROSE 2mg (0.4 per cent) Yet another stabiliser!

Energy But eucalyptus is a low energy food. Even though koalas eat over 1kg of leaves per day, they must spend 18-20 hours a day sleeping, to conserve energy.

4. Do children have a better sense of smell than adults? Newborns can only smell a few different things, such as their mother’s body smell. Sense of smell improves up to about the age of eight. But from the age of 20 (or even 15, 92

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according to some studies), the sense gently declines. Yet some studies have found that children can’t detect certain musk odours until they reach puberty. LV

Table manners Their tiny brains can’t deal with unfamiliar situations. If you give koalas eucalyptus leaves on a ﬂat surface, like a plate, they won’t recognise them asfood and won’t eat them.

PHOTOS: GETTY X4, ALAMY X3 ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY

Brain power Their low energy lifestyle means koalas can’t sustain a large brain. At just 0.2 per cent of body weight, koala brains are one of the smallest of any mammal.

Could Jupiter become a star? Jupiter is often called a ‘failed star’ because, although it is mostly hydrogen like most normal stars, it is not massive enough to commence thermonuclear reactions in its core and thus become a ‘real star’. But the term ‘failed star’ is a bit of a misnomer. Theoretically, any object at all could be made into a star, simply by adding enough matter to it. With enough mass, the internal pressure and temperature of the object will reach the threshold needed to start thermonuclear reactions. That threshold is the least for the simplest element, hydrogen. In order to turn

Jupiter into a star like the Sun, for example, you would have to add about 1,000 times the mass of Jupiter. But, to make a cooler ‘red dwarf’ you would only need to add about 80 Jupiter masses. Although the exact numbers are still a bit uncertain, it is possible that a ‘brown dwarf’ could still form (in which deuterium, rather than hydrogen, fuses in the star’s core) with only about 13 Jupiter masses. So, Jupiter cannot and will not spontaneously become a star, but if a minimum of 13 extra Jupitermass objects happen to collide with it, there is a chance it will. AGu

Unlike other ﬂightless bird species, moa skeletons have no trace of wingbones or wishbones

How llong d H does DNA last? l t? A study of DNA extracted from the leg bones of extinct moa birds in New Zealand found that the half-life of DNA is 521 years. So every 1,000 years, 75 per cent of the genetic information is lost. After 6.8 million years, every single base pair is gone. Bacterial RNA is much tougher and sequences have been recovered from ice crystals that are 419 million years old. These are only short fragments of 55 base pairs though. LV

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

Why are most people right-handed? Many animals show a preference for one side of the body over another but the split between right- and lefthanded varies. Seven out of ten chimpanzees are right-handed, but almost all kangaroos are left-handed. In cats, males are nearly all left-handed and females are nearly all righthanded. Humans have a higher proportion of right-handers than any species, with left-handers making up just 10 per cent of the population. This is because we are a tool-using species, and also highly social. The very earliest flint tools, around two million years ago, don’t show a strong bias towards leftor right-handed versions. But it’s a big

advantage if you can use the tools someone else has made, and from about 1.5 million years ago we seem to have standardised on the righthanded versions. It’s not exactly clear why right-handedness won, but it may be that one side of our brain was already specialised for fine-motor control. One theory why left-handedness hasn’t been completely eliminated is that it provides an advantage in combat, precisely because it is rarer, and therefore unexpected. You can see this today in sports like tennis, where left-handed professionals are more common than in the general population. LV

Vol. 9 Issue 12

RESOURCE

A FEAST FOR THE MIND

LEND A HAND

What was the act of kindness that you personally experienced? When I was 19, I was driving home late at night on the biggest freeway in Washington State when a dog ran out in front of me. I swerved to avoid it, but ended up hitting it anyway, and my car was sent spinning. I found myself in the fast lane, facing backwards into oncoming traffic, and then the engine died. I was sure I was going to die. Cars and trucks were speeding towards me, swerving at the last minute. But then this guy suddenly appeared at the passenger window. “You look like you could use some help,” he said. I let him get into the driver seat and he managed to get the car going again, launching us across the freeway and parking me behind his own car. After making sure I was okay, he just left – I didn’t know anything about him. I figured out later that he had parked on the opposite side of the freeway and run across five lanes of traffic in the middle of the night. I live to this day with the regret that I don’t think I ever said thank you. And this got you thinking about the concept of altruism? Until a stranger has put their life on the line for you, you can’t fully grasp the gravity of it. Why would someone do that? It doesn’t make sense from a scientific perspective, either. There are lots of good evolutionary explanations for why showing altruism to those close to you can benefit them, and in turn benefit you. But why would someone sacrifice their own welfare for a stranger? That’s a real puzzle. 94

Vol. 9 Issue 12

How did you go about investigating this? For about seven years I’ve been studying a group of people who’ve all done something extraordinary: donating one of their kidneys to a stranger. This is at no small cost to themselves. A donor will lose over $2,000 due to travel, missed work and other expenses. Then there’s the recovery time – at least a couple of weeks – plus possible health complications later down the line, and even a small (less than one per cent) risk of death associated with the surgery itself. For most of the history of transplantation you weren’t allowed to donate a kidney to a stranger, because these people were assumed to be insane. Why are people willing to do it, then? I’ve asked the donors to unpack that moment between when they first heard about the need for organs and when they decided to donate one. A lot of us have that same information but don’t make the same decision. What I find really interesting is that the donors often have trouble understanding why someone wouldn’t donate. Their decision is happening at an intuitive level – it’s not a rational cost-benefit analysis. What do you think makes someone a ‘super altruist’? We’ve carried out brain scans and behavioural tests with these altruists, and found that they’re better at recognising other people’s fearful facial expressions – they’re more attuned to the suffering of others. They also show more activity in their amygdala – a

region of the brain that’s important for recognising fear. This makes sense, because when we see someone in distress we tend to have a spontaneous caring response, which in theory should give rise to altruistic behaviour. These findings also tie in with what we know about people who are psychopathic, who have very little empathy and under-reactive amygdalas, and don’t recognise when others are frightened. Are most of us selfish by nature? Very few of us are fundamentally selfish. There’s a continuum of caring, from psychopaths to these altruists, and most of us are somewhere in the middle. The average person has a capacity for altruism towards strangers, but it’s not as robust or as frequent as the people I’ve studied. We care the most for those dear to us, and then the caring response drops off as we move outside our closest circle. We don’t know exactly what makes someone an extraordinary altruist in the first place, but it’s likely to be a mixture of genetic and environmental factors – there’s no one thing, like a religion or family background, that links them all. What can we learn from these people? Just knowing these people exist gives you a different perspective on human nature. Helping strangers is becoming more common, and it’s been shown that people who help others, especially when it’s truly motivated by care, tend to be happier. Doing something altruistic is beneficial for everyone, even if it’s something small.

PHOTOS: GETTY

GOOD FOR NOTHING BY ABIGAIL MARSH

Why would someone risk their life for a stranger? After experiencing an extraordinary act of kindness, psychologist ABIGAIL MARSH made it her mission to understand altruism. She talks to JAMES LLOYD

Rescuers and volunteers look for survivors in a textile factory that collapsed two days after the recent Mexican earthquake

AUTHORâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S BOOKSHELF Three books that inspired Abigail Marsh while writing Good For Nothing

ON HUMAN NATURE BY EDWARD O WILSON

This lucid, seminal book explained human social behaviours, including aggression and love, in terms of basic principles of biology. It helped break down the barriers between the natural and social sciences, and paved the way for my discipline, social neuroscience.

MOTHERS AND OTHERS BY SARAH BLAFFER HRDY

A fascinating exploration of communal parenting around the world, this book persuasively dismantles the insane idea that human babies should be tended to by a single caregiver. In doing so, it showcases the many forms of care that permeate our societies.

BILL BRYSON BY SARAH BLAFFER HRDY

The ďŹ rst time I read this book about the English language I was nearly kicked out of a library for laughing too loudly. Bryson makes potentially obscure topics such as grammar and etymology vivid and accessible, which I hope is also the case for my discussions of fear, care and the brain. Vol. 9 Issue 12

TIME OUT

CROSSWORD PUZZLE GIVE YOUR BRAIN A WORKOUT

DOWN 1 Earth developed, Saturn initially follows suit (6) 2 A protein involved a poisonous alkaloid (8) 3 Graduation attire for big gun on panel (11) 4 Hid pear in strange excretory organs (9) 5 Blunder involves one registered animal (7) 6 Lie makes one ring about soluble protein (10) 7 German gets free network (4) 10 CIA involvement with detectives is corrosive (6) 11 Hide lubricant in front of waterproof material (7) 12 Quiet trade ruined by old explosive (6) 19 Beer with yours truly, adding last of oregano and pepper 21 Spoken about section of ring road (7) 24 Increases an assembly during artistic period (11) 26 Prince Tony confused by security system (10) 28 British weather greeting clever idea (9) 29 Pick tat out in imitation (7) 30 Nothing to recover as pill is taken (6) 32 Clear ban involved shellfish (8) 33 Request that may be final (6) 34 Preacher finds copy has lots wrong (7) 38 Waste has to leave marine mammal (6) 40 Instructed, say, when tight (4)39 Defraud out of a drink (4)

ACROSS 8 9 13 14 15 16 17 18 20 22 23

The lemon somehow has vitamin removed for flavouring (7) Direct lie about amount of liquid (9) Collector’s item brings copper to city (5) Temperature at elevated part of the leg (5) Shorten a connection (7) File – rough sleeper has one (7) Move over snow with fellows in boat (5) Father, after short sleep, finds soft leather (5) Large ice cream, outwardly an exact copy (5) Worried, I ring round first to find source (6) Maid runs after silver lizard (6)

Vol. 9 Issue 12

25 27 30 31 32 35 36 37 39 41 42 43 44

Nab her ingredients with unknown inductance (7) Shout about ordering men what’s left (7) Drinks supplier at school for branch of science (6) A drama about some ships (6) Family may be ﬂuid (5) Companion accepts old mixture (5) Indicate an element of no dimensions (5) Fred’s deployed with honour in old social system (7) Fibs about drink – that’s an understatement (7) Pagan religion that gets woven, say (5) Old ship, new element (5) Car left in grotto in pressurised vessel (9) Climb adjacent points of a sort of triangle (7)

ANSWERS

Solution to crossword in the previous issue

MY LIFE SCIENTIFIC EMMA SHERLOCK “Worms are hugely important, yet seem to be the most under-appreciated animal on the planet” This month, Helen Pilcher talks to Emma Sherlock, curator of invertebrates at London’s Natural History Museum and champion of the humble earthworm What do you do? I study earthworms and look after our fabulous collection of them here at the museum. How do people react when you tell them that? There’s normally a lot of face pulling. It stops a lot of conversations, or people sometimes ask me when I will work on ‘better’ animals like frogs or mammals!

So they’re not all boring and brown? Not at all. There are 29 species in the UK, over 500 in the world. They come in all different sizes and colours. Some are striped, some are spotted. Some are iridescent. Others, which often like golf courses or dung heaps, can fluoresce. The biggest, the Giant Gippsland earthworm of Australia, can grow to more than two metres in length. Impressive. But what have earthworms ever done for us? They break down decaying plant matter to make the earth rich and fertile. They aerate the soil and convert nutrients into a form that plants can use. They’re also an important food source for the many animals that eat them. They’re hugely important ecosystem engineers, yet they seem to be the most under-appreciated animals on the planet. Do they need our help? One big problem is we have no idea how well or otherwise earthworms are doing because there’s no baseline data. If you join the Earthworm Society, you can learn how to become a registered earthworm recorder. We’ll train you up, then you can start collecting and sending in your data. This will help us to build up a picture of how our native earthworms are doing.

I’ve heard there are worm charming competitions. Have you ever taken part in one? Yes, several times. You have to charm as many earthworms out of the ground as you can by twanging the earth with a pitchfork. I got about 40, so was quite proud of myself, but the winner was a kid and his dad, who got over 100. They were incredible. I have no idea how they did it. Do you have any unfulfilled earthworm ambitions? I’m hoping to set up the first Earthworm Conservation Centre, where we’ll store earthworm cocoons from around the world. These will be frozen carefully and stored away, so they could be revived later and used to boost flagging populations. There also used to be a worm festival in Australia. Every year, they’d crown someone ‘Queen Earthworm’. That’s a title I’d really like. What do you do when you’re not working with earthworms? I enjoy playing tennis. My old club had grass courts. When I finished a game I’d sometimes go to the bar, then as I walked past the courts on the way home I’d stop to see if any earthworms had come to the surface. Tennis courts are a great place for earthworm watching. ß

Emma Sherlock is curator of invertebrates at London’s Natural History Museum Vol. 9 Issue 12

ILLUSTRATION: DAVID DESPAU

Tell us something amazing about earthworms. They have five hearts or ‘pseudo-hearts.’ They can regrow certain nerve cells. Some species can jump into the air to avoid predators, while others deliberately detach their tail which then wiggles around while the front half sneaks away. Some are so strong they can pick up and move small stones with their mouths.

THE LAST WORD WE NEED TO START LISTENING TO THE MAVERICKS

hat would you make of this puzzle, which reared its head 50 years ago this month? A radio receiver near Cambridge picked up faint bursts of energy which appeared daily, as regularly as clockwork. Well, almost: they turned up four minutes earlier each day. That four-minute difference was a big clue: it suggested the radio waves weren’t coming from Earth. That’s because the world spins once on its axis every 23 hours and 56 minutes relative to the stars – four minutes shorter than a day as measured by a clock. Using more sensitive recorders only deepened the mystery. The bursts of energy looked more like signals, repeating every 1.3373 seconds. Graduate student Jocelyn Bell and her colleagues started to wonder if they’d discovered the first signs of alien intelligence. Publication of the discovery sparked a flurry of explanations. Bell and her colleagues suggested it might be a kind of vibrating star, but within a few weeks, the correct explanation had been found. It was a rapidly-spinning remnant of a supernova explosion known as a pulsar. Its identification as the source of the energy was one of the biggest breakthroughs in 20th-Century astronomy. Yet it had been made by someone with no formal training in the subject, who nearly flunked his degree and never bothered to get a PhD – Tommy Gold. Born into a wealthy Austrian family in 1920, Gold came to Cambridge where his quirky intellect was noticed by two brilliant university dons, Hermann Bondi and Fred Hoyle. One night, the three of them saw a movie whose storyline formed an endless loop – prompting Gold to wonder if the history of the Universe could do the same.

“RESEARCH TODAY IS DOMINATED BY THE SEARCH FOR BANDWAGONS, NOT BREAKTHROUGHS”

This led them to devise the so-called Steady State theory of the Universe, which argued that the cosmos had existed forever, the Big Bang being replaced by a force field which propelled the expansion. While debunked by the discovery of the heat left over from the Big Bang, the Steady State theory forced astronomers to test their ideas more thoroughly. Its proposal of a cosmic force field also presaged dark energy, which is now at the centre of cosmological research. But this was just the start of Gold’s career as a scientific maverick. While still a student, he’d pondered the mystery of how the human ear can distinguish musical notes so accurately. He decided the textbook explanation – that the brain does all the hard work – was wrong, and predicted the existence of amplifying structures within the cochlea. In what became a regular feature of his career, Gold’s idea was initially dismissed by experts, but years later the discovery of cochlear hair cells showed he’d been on the right track after all. Gold’s insights often got him into trouble. In 1968 he warned that NASA’s plans to make space travel cheap and routine using space shuttles would end in disaster. The agency responded by stripping Gold of his research funding, but history proved him all too prescient. Perhaps Gold’s craziest idea was that his suggestion that the Earth is teeming with life kilometres below the surface. Initially rejected as ludicrous, the latest review of the evidence, published by the US National Academies of Science this year, concluded there is now “overwhelming evidence” for vast colonies of bacteria deep inside the Earth. Gold died in 2004, but his way of doing science expired years earlier. Research today is dominated by the search for bandwagons, not breakthroughs. Quirky ideas are regarded as dangerous detours on the road to grants. But without letting mavericks like Gold suggest alternative routes, science risks going round and round in circles. ß

Robert Matthews is visiting professor in science at Aston University,

Birmingham 98

Vol. 9 Issue 12

ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

SOMETIMES SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS COME FROM THE MOST UNEXPECTED PLACES

HERE’S WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING ON

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