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AUSTRALIA government ufo files
AUSTRALIA’s SHOCKING SECRETs SECRET how Black holes eat galaxies
Plus!
rudd’s war with china
mystery spy base
Science
outback nuclear disasters
Nature
rocket propelled penguins
What iPhones really cost Life after death explored How painful are snake bites? ...and upside-down monks
Technology
is this warship INDESTRUCTIBLE?
PP100009783
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How does it feel to be bitten 66 by a venomous snake? PAGE
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60 Is your life run by hidden computer programs?
4
08 Why are these monks hanging upside-down?
How big is the Great 46 Pacific Garbage Patch? PAGE
JUNE 2013 THE HUMAN BODY 34 IS THERE A WORLD BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH? A look at near-death experiences, plus how a neurologist has managed to communicate with a coma patient.
NATURE 26 THE INCREDIBLE LIFE OF PENGUINS
ON THE COVER How these amazing creatures turn themselves into underwater rockets, and survive the world’s coldest conditions.
66 BITTEN! WHAT NEXT?
Just how painful is a bite from a poisonous snake? Photojournalist Mark Laita survived to tell the tale. Others weren’t so lucky.
HISTORY 18 AUSTRALIA’S SHOCKING SECRETS
ON THE COVER Fascinating tales from the nation’s classified historical files: from secret spy bases to new evidence on the real first settlers.
WORLD EVENTS 80 HOW DOES IT FEEL TO SAVE THE LIFE OF A KILLER? Drug wars continue to rage in Mexico. The hospital in one city even has armed guards to protect staff as they battle to save lives.
54 HOW MANY SLAVES WORK FOR ME?
A new website calculates how much slave labour has been used to help us live our lives. Five volunteers tried it: the results shocked.
SCIENCE 12 THE BIGGEST HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE
ON THE COVER Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole that is an astonishing 17 billion times the mass of our Sun.
46 PLASTIC OCEAN
Can dead 34 brains be brought back to life? PAGE
The Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating rubbish mound the size of New South Wales and South Australia put together, and kills countless wildlife. But radical plans are underway to eradicate it.
60 HOW PROGRAMMED IS MY LIFE?
Algorithms run every part of our lives, from the lift that gets you to your office, to the traffic lights ruining your journey home.
TECHNOLOGY 76 IS THIS SHIP REALLY INDESTRUCTIBLE?
ON THE COVER The $13 billion USS Zumwalt is the biggest, deadliest, most modern warship on the planet. But is it unbreakable?
REGULARS 06 PHOTO STORIES
Fascinating pictures.
84 LAB TEST: IPHONE 5
We calculate its real value.
88 GADGETS: 3D PRINTERS
How do they actually work? Will they change the world?
90 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Astonishing facts from science, technology and everyday life.
96 AND FINALLY…
Sea otters: furry, resourceful, and prone to the odd nap. 5
HISTORY
AUSTRALIA’S M THE REAL FIRST SETTLERS
IED CLASSIF S E L I F UFO
WORLD WAR TWO MUTINY
DESERT SPY BASE
OUTBAC NUCLEA K DISAST R ERS
NS S PLA E ’ D D U R HINES FOR C ION INVAS 18
MOST SHOCKING
SECRETS World of Knowledge delves into the nation’s classified files to reveal the events, documents and alternative histories they didn’t want you to know about
F
R ‘MASTE ’ E C RA ENT MOVEM
rom the surrounding hills, its white golf-ball domes can be seen popping out the red desert floor, shielding powerful satellite antennas beneath. Under horizon-touching skies, armed guards patrol the double-layered fencing that forms a protective boundary around the base. On the desolate stretch of outback highway leading to the gates, a sign gives warning to any potential snoopers: ‘No through road. Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap. Prohibited Area. Turn around now’. You’d be wise to heed the advice. For more than 40 years, Pine Gap has squatted strangely in the empty plains of the Northern Territory, used as a top-secret satellite tracking station by the United States’ most clandestine division, the National Security Agency, as they keep tabs on their ‘enemies’ around the globe. And it’s one of the many mysterious places, events and stories that World of Knowledge has dug up from Australia’s history files. From cover-ups about the real first settlers on these shores to Kevin Rudd’s confidential plans for war with China, we lift the lid on the secrets they’d rather you didn’t know… > 19
SKY’S THE LIMIT
Strange, gigantic ‘golf balls’ at Pine Gap – known as ‘randomes’ – protect antennae beneath.
CASE# 1863
K C A B T U O Y R E T S Y M SPY CENTRE
rritory are perfect nses of the Northern Te The vast, deserted expa n the outback’s stery; none more so tha breeding grounds for my gs. rin Sp ce d 18 kilometres from Ali alian and str Au Pine Gap facility, locate the n ee operation betw nt joi a lly cia offi h ug en Altho y by ag ts from the Pine Gap is staffed mainl ts, en rnm ve go can eri Am cy (NSA). Their job? National Security Agen and monitor United States’ shadowy mmunication satellites co m fro on ati orm inf t ecially the To intercep ns’ weapons systems, esp tio na er oth in nts me develop d ballistic missiles. ting spies and their stockpiling of nuclear an ginally housed 400 migra tably after the Built in 1970, when it ori no st wn in size ever since, mo the base. families, the base has gro on e liv 00 staff, all of whom an odd place to e Cold War. It now has 10 lik m see y ma alian desert The middle of the Austr im of mense strategic nce spies, but the area is send your highest-cleara s: from here, they can track their own can sdropping on China, importance to the Ameri a third of the globe, eave er ov d ss pa y the as s ite satell ns. It’s the only prohibite oil-producing Arab natio the d an a ssi Ru of rts pa s. to a height of 5500 metre ical spy David hn airspace in Australia, up tec can eri Am r me for of Based on the testimonies e Gap from 1990-2008, analysts sit on at Pin Rosenburg, who worked ts’ of military interest, r, listening in on ‘hot spo oo fl ns tio era op , keeping tabs lit ly dim a the 1998 Kosovo conflict ed lud inc ve ha ars ye ama bin Laden. which over the t and even hunting for Os ea thr ar cle nu ’s rea Ko on North
20
on ites listen in US spy satell a and Russia in activity in Ch
LEVELS OF SECRECYe Gap on
Anyone can view Pin ath the Google Earth, but bene it’s s, domes and outbuilding 12 ins nta co believed the base g lon th wi , els lev underground ttern pa r ila sim a in t ou d tunnels lai eral sev g din to wheel spokes exten t. ser de the kilometers under
CASE# 2382
COVER-UP OVER FIRST SETTLERS
It’s widely accepted th waters around 1606 at the European sailors arrived into our . The first ship to ch ‘undiscovered’ land art the coasts of th , and have its crew is m people, was the Du ake contact with th yfke e Aboriginal What’s not so wel n, captained by Dutchman Willem Ja l known is evidence nszoon. shipwrecks off Au of at least four Du stralia’s north-wes tch t one and two cent uries before James coast, dated between Co that hundreds of ok’s first endeavou Euro rs and settled with Ab peans are believed to have made it , and to shore original tribes. Th ey also married w local people and ha ith th d had discernible Eu children that grew up as indigenous e ropean features. but In 1848, the explor er A. C. Gregory wro he had travelled th rough the area whe te in his journal that landed and found re the Dutchmen ha a tribe whose skin tone differed from d indigenous tribe. In 1834, English ne the average wspaper The Leed reported that an En s Mercury gl discovered around ish expedition to Australia in 1832 ha 300 white people , descendants of Du d survivors from sh ipwrecks of the la tch te 1600s. As food and resour explored the cont ces became scarce, it’s believed the inent further. Now settlers re the-art DNA sam pling techniques to searchers are using state-ofsee whether Euro exists in present-da pean DNA y aiming to pin poin Aboriginals from Australia’s northt exactly when it entered the family west region, bloodline.
CASE# 3011
MELBOURNE’S ‘MASTER RACE’ PLANS Eugenics – the scie nc is now seen as a da e of improving the genetics of a po pulation – rk chapter in m part of the 20th ce ntury, the movem ankind’s history, but in the first ent was supporte governments. Som d by most Western e of the world’s m ost respected thin British wartime Pr kers ime Minister Winst on Churchill and th , such as John Maynard Keyn e ec es, were followers sterilisation of ‘le of an ideology that onomist sser’ members of society. Adolf Hitle believed in the ideas into Mein Ka r wove eugenic mpf and later into Naz wasn’t immune, an d had its own euge i Party thinking. Australia nic stronghold in spearheaded by am Melbourne, on at Melbourne Unive g others Richard Berry, Professor of Anatomy rsity from 1903 to state Premier Stan 19 ley Argyle, Berry he 29. Through his friend and Deficiency Bills, w lp hich sought to inst ed push through three Mental itutionalise and st groups, including erili Abor and people with sm iginals, slum dwellers, homosexua se ‘inferior’ ls, all heads and with attempts, the Bill low IQs. After two prostitutes, was unanimously failed pass practice because of the outbreak of W ed in 1939, but not put into atrocities of the Ho orld War Two and, later, due to the lo until 1961, and Mel caust. Berry’s Eugenics Society of Victoria operated bourne University still has a building bearing his name.
Hitle r-st were yle ‘mast e supp orted r race’ th eo in Au stral ries ia 21
NATURE
THE INCREDIBLE LIFE OF
PENGUINS ■ There are 17 species of penguin in the world – and they’re a resourceful lot.
From the ingenious way they keep themselves warm to a sophisticated hunting strategy, these canny ocean-dwellers never fail to astound wildlife experts
HOW DO PENGUINS USE ROCKET PROPULSION UNDERWATER?
Have you ever watched a dog trying to climb out of a pool? It looks pretty tiring but, luckily for the dog, it has powerful front legs and the pool edge is almost at the same level as the water surface. Emperor penguins have completely different challenges to meet. The birds, which can weigh up to 40kg, cannot simply heave themselves out of the water with their short legs or their wings. To make matters more difficult, ice rarely sticks out of the water at right angles. So how do they succeed in jumping onto an ice sheet projecting a metre out of the water? Well, by analysing super slow-motion underwater shots, researchers have now discovered that emperor penguins have a great speed trick: they wrap their bodies in a cloak of air bubbles, a technique also used to speed the movement of torpedoes through water. The trick has three stages: first, when on land, the birds raise their feathers to stock their plumage with air, then dive underwater. As they descend, the water pressure increases, decreasing the volume of trapped air. The birds then depress their feathers around this new, reduced air volume. When they move up towards the water surface again, the pressure reduces and the air in the plumage expands, pouring through the feathers. This acts as a kind of lubricant, reducing drag through the water and enabling the birds to reach lift-off speeds and explode from the water onto the ice. The air bubbles which trail behind the birds in this photo come from their plumage, then, rather than their lungs, as previously thought. 26
UNDERWATER ENGINE
Air bubbles trapped in the birds’ feathers can accelerate them to 40km/h in small bursts.
INTO THE DEEP
A penguin’s dive lasts just under six minutes on average and comprises 237 wing beats.
ASCENT TO POWER
Emperor penguins shoot out of the water so quickly that they can land on ice sheets up to a metre high.
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NATURE
BITTEN! WHAT NEXT? ◆ Snake venom can dissolve human
tissue in minutes, paralyse the brain’s respiratory centre and cause hallucinations. But when exactly does a snake bite become a death sentence?
INTERNAL BLEEDING AND TISSUE LOSS The basilisk rattlesnake, found only in Mexico, can grow as long as two metres and belongs to the family of pit vipers. Also known as a Mexican green rattler, the snake is easily identified by two heat-sensing pits on either side of its head that it uses to locate prey. If you come across one it will probably try to scare you with its rattle first; bites are administered only as a last resort. This snake’s venom is so potent that internal bleeding can lead to the loss of the affected limb. Damage to nerves, muscles and skin is so extensive that – without the proper antivenin – amputation is your only option.
66
15 HOURS TO RESPIRATORY FAILURE The coral snake’s name is a bit deceptive. Rather than finding them underwater lurking in the reefs, these reclusive reptiles make their homes in forests and swamps. There are 80 different species of coral snake across North and South America. The neurotoxins found in their venom are so potent that it only takes a few hours for the breathing muscles to be completely paralysed. Without an antivenin, respiratory failure sets in after just 13 to 15 hours.
67
A COCKTAIL OF AGONY
If you’re unlucky enough to get on the wrong side of a bamboo pit viper, you are in for some serious pain. Your arm would look like it was about to explode, and the skin would turn black almost immediately. The venom cocktail served up by this metre-long southeast Asian snake is quite complex. Its main ingredients attack tissue – in fact, victims usually die from necrosis, the premature death of muscle tissue. On the upside, the snakes do not produce enough venom to kill a fully-grown human.
68
D o n n d n r s n l d kn etro mp ould neu d u e o id h tha eali low t, a ast ead hoto w ow it let n ro su f t e t se e b ye ly g th as l n -bo e st orm tox ally he m ma day he’ r leg lack ar, bea rap So e in eft as a rn op al ins re o na wh d c . A m aft ut hed m ci w “ sn in ly w lea st ge en ap m am er ies m et de ith dr ap u br ith se ve to h tu az b w o o im nt j y” pe nd in e b no s e re in a or n re es by ust bi r, er g y ve et m urv wa d t gly ma kin a ev – fo te, the ha ou ry we ou ive s e he , L na g en pl ur w s lf r r bit en s l ? di m ait ge th us sm her nak an esp e – 10 and Aft tin om a d e b th a e e ho ir a 0 s er g h e igg e p ll p ven adm ur. ato n a an nak all is nt es ictu unc om in Lu ry mo d 4 es , bl t k re tu i is ck sy un 00 in ac k ill on re s n ter ily ste t m er t m ot e fo m g s c h a in d w r t an e r rks je h th o sh igh to cte at’s e ow t, o re d. m f co me Lait er u m a cy rs be . e. r
WH A AT O B HA th ver LA sim an a t C PP K fo p 10 w E to r tw le b 0 s o-y M (a di o la na ea AM NS g r k b c y o o i e k e p im n fil ve) ts fa ars bac s, c erio BA WH m sa n w k ap d a m E th am ges. un ys gs i itho grou turi , Ma BIT N t n h e n b B o il e t u n g rk E a th f d wo s a ut lat di o L t in d. T th La S a c at ead rld re how er o dn’t aita cid he ese ita ? w ly a o p ’ e n
STEALING BLOOD WITH A BITE The African rhinoceros viper is one of the most colourful species in the snake kingdom. But the snake’s beauty hides a deadly intent: if threatened, it can inject up to 200mg of venom into your system, with dire consequences for both blood and tissue. The bite of the rhinoceros viper is almost always fatal. Within minutes the bite site swells, bringing blisters and excruciating pain. There is so much blood rushing to the swollen area that victims go into a state of shock from the lack of blood – and that can lead to cardiac arrest.
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TECHNOLOGY
IS THIS SHIP REALLY
INDESTRUCTIBLE? ■ Due to be handed over to the US Navy later
this year, the USS Zumwalt has been labelled the most modern warship in the world. It’s deadlier, larger and more robust than anything else in its class, though its development has not been without controversy LOCK AND LOAD The ship’s
hull is full of ultra-modern technology. An 80-cell vertical surface-to-surface missile launching system, capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets up to 2400 kilometres away, is built into the sides of the deck. Integrated into the ship’s bow, meanwhile, is a dual-band sonar system to detect enemy mines and submarines.
CUTTING-EDGE DESIGN
At 183 metres long and 25 metres wide, the USA’s new destroyers are bigger than their predecessors. But at 8.4 metres, the draught – the depth of water needed for the ship to float – is a metre deeper. The reason for this is the new hull design, which is narrower at the deck than at the waterline. Naval architect Ken Brower has raised concerns that the vessel would be unable to recover in the event of being overturned due to the unusual centre of gravity.
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POWERED UP The US Navy’s newest ship is named after Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, the World War II and Vietnam War veteran. It will be powered by two Rolls-Royce MT30 engines producing an output of up to 35 megawatts – enough to power a small tram for a whole year. Two auxiliary turbines are on hand to produce an additional four megawatts each.
T
his warship is the pride of the US Navy – and part of one of the most controversial military projects in history. Three of these new destroyers are being built under tight security at the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine, USA. The development stage alone cost a staggering $13 billion, while it will cost a further eight billion dollars to actually build the USS Zumwalt (which lends its name to the class), the USS Michael Monsoor and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. Although the ships aren’t expected to be operational until 2016, their mission is already clear: to demonstrate the superiority of the USA in the Asia Pacific region and to counter potential missile threats from North Korea and Iran. But is this high-tech wonder equal to the challenge? China presented its first aircraft carrier to the world at the end of last year. Within two years, Chinese submarines could be equipped with nuclear weapons. This is a new threat that the US does not want to leave unanswered. By 2020, 60% of the country’s fleet is
expected to be based in the Asia Pacific region. In the vanguard will be the three Zumwalt-class ships – the most sophisticated warship afloat and, according to the brains behind the project, nigh-on unsinkable. The ship’s design seems tailor-made for the shallow seas between Australia and the Asian mainland. Despite being larger than the US Navy’s current Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the top speed of the Zumwalt class is roughly the same at 30 knots. Added to this is a superior manoeuvring capability and an arsenal that will make any rival vessel look like a rubber dinghy in comparison. At the heart of the destroyer lies an 80-cell vertical missile launch system, housing cruise and anti-aircraft missiles with a range of up to 2400. This would be enough to destroy large parts of a potential enemy’s infrastructure and logistics with the first strike. Indeed, the combined store of cruise missiles for the three ships is not far off the ordnance that the US unleashed during Operation Desert Storm in the Second Gulf War. > 77
NEXT MONTH THE HUMAN BODY
CAN YOUR BRAIN BETRAY YOU? From sudden blackouts to involuntary confessions, how you have less control over your grey matter than you think
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TECHNOLOGY
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