WELCOME TO
Annual Welcome to the seventh volume of the How It Works Annual, where your burning questions about how the world ticks finally get answers. Feed your mind, indulge your curiosity, get answers to your strangest questions and uncover the truth behind the greatest misconceptions. We delve deep into the mysteries of our world with in-depth and entertaining articles, accompanied by cutaways, illustrations and incredible images to show you exactly what goes on inside. The How It Works Annual explores the universe through six areas of knowledge: technology, transport, the environment, history, science and space. Our subjects run from the smallest of things in the natural world, like the Venus flytrap, to huge architectural accomplishments like the Palais Garnier opera house. We also uncover the things we cannot touch, like the science of fear, and the technology behind virtual reality. We go back in time to meet Egyptians and early humans, and gaze into our crystal ball to see what the future holds, like miraculous medicine and interstellar travel. Are you ready to learn more about the world around you? Then read on and be amazed.
Annual Imagine Publishing Ltd Richmond House 33 Richmond Hill Bournemouth Dorset BH2 6EZ +44 (0) 1202 586200 Website: www.imagine-publishing.co.uk Twitter: @Books_Imagine Facebook: www.facebook.com/ImagineBookazines
Publishing Director Aaron Asadi Head of Design Ross Andrews Editor in Chief Jon White Production Editor Ross Hamilton Senior Art Editor Greg Whitaker Assistant Designer Briony Duguid Photographer James Sheppard Additional cover images courtesy of Thinkstock, Getty, Alamy, DK images Printed by William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT Distributed in the UK, Eire & the Rest of the World by: Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU Tel 0203 787 9060 www.marketforce.co.uk Distributed in Australia by: Gordon & Gotch Australia Pty Ltd, 26 Rodborough Road, Frenchs Forest, NSW 2086, Australia Tel +61 2 9972 8800 www.gordongotch.com.au Disclaimer The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or damaged in the post. All text and layout is the copyright of Imagine Publishing Ltd. Nothing in this bookazine may be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publisher. All copyrights are recognised and used specifically for the purpose of criticism and review. Although the bookazine has endeavoured to ensure all information is correct at time of print, prices and availability may change. This bookazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. How It Works Annual Volume 7 © 2016 Imagine Publishing Ltd
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C NTENTS TRANSPORT
TECHNOLOGY
ENVIRONMENT
010 Become a top gun
038 Virtual reality
066 How the world could end
018 The world’s largest passenger jet
046 Drone racing
074 China’s rainbow mountains
047 Inside a wind turbine
076 Natural born killers
048 The science of football
082 Cats vs dogs
056 3D without glasses
086 Venus flytrap
056 How juicers work
086 Canada’s Spotted Lake
057 Harnessing the Sun
087 Life cycle of a frog
057 Shrink-wrap seals
088 The Galapagos Islands
020 Inside the Tesla Model S 026 How to stop a speeding car 026 GHOST ships 027 The mechanics of mountain bikes 028 Super submarines
058 Holiday 2050
048
066 027
028
Super submarines 006
112 110 010
Become a top gun SPACE
SCIENCE
HISTORY
094 Miracle science
122 The search for alien life
150 The afterlife in Ancient Egypt
104 The physics of dance
128 Space weather
104 The quietest place on Earth
130 Parallel universes
156 The Palais Garnier opera house
105 Gravity maps
134 What makes up the universe?
156 The world’s tallest statues
105 Tooth whitening
134 Clean and tidy galaxies
157 Henry VIII by numbers
106 Your guide to the elements
158 Medieval siege mining
110 Isolating deadly diseases
135 Taking the Solar System’s temperature
112 The science of fear
135 Seeing back in time
159 Beer through the ages
136 Living on the Moon
159 Five facts about the Berlin Wall
142 What makes a planet habitable?
143 Cannibal galaxies
158 Military acoustic locators
160 The Ice Age
142 What is a gravitational well?
168 Tudor beauty
143 Cannibal galaxies
169 Ancient Greek theatre
144 Interstellar space travel
170 History’s most gruesome inventions
157 088
The Galapagos Islands
TRANSPORT 010 Become a top gun Discover if you have what it takes to fly a combat jet
018 The world’s largest passenger jet How does the enormous Airbus A380 get off the ground?
020 Inside the Tesla Model S Just what makes Tesla’s electric cars so innovative?
026 How to stop a speeding car Police use the precision immobilisation technique
027 The mechanics of mountain bikes The incredible tech powering your off-road adventures
028 Super submarines The incredible tech powering the war beneath the waves
028 Super submarines
018 Inside the Airbus A380
008
010 Futuristic fighter jets
“Today’s fighter jets are configured for a variety of missions, engaging in air superiority operations and ground targeting”
020 Next-gen electric cars
009
TRANSPORT
FROM COCKPIT LAYOUT TO COMBAT MANOEUVRES DISCOVER WHAT IT TAKES TO FLY A FIGHTER JET he life of a fighter pilot requires courage, commitment and energy. While flying one of the most complex military machines in the world, monitoring and manipulating multiple systems, a pilot’s training, intelligence and sharply honed skills work seamlessly. However, pilots never stop learning, growing and pushing themselves to the limit – both physically and mentally. “Complete dedication is required outside the cockpit too,” says US Navy Lieutenant Joshua S Bettis. “The choice to fly jets for the Navy is life-consuming. The jets are expensive and dangerous. So, when a pilot isn’t actually flying he is practising flying or studying. The current ratio of maintenance hours per flight hour also means that many sailors spend long days preparing jets to fly for short periods. In a training environment, if a slip-up doesn’t end in
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010
a mishap, it will affect a pilot’s grades. There is seemingly an inexhaustible supply of young officers that would jump at the opportunity to take his spot.” Fighter pilot training is intense and ongoing. Young jet pilot candidates complete initial flight screening in propeller-driven aircraft such as the Cessna 172. US Navy pilots progress through primary and advanced flight training, familiarising themselves with additional aircraft such as the conventional Beechcraft T-34C Turbomentor and the McDonnell Douglas/ Boeing T-45C two-seat advanced jet trainer. Fighter pilots complete up to three years of training before earning their wings. During that time they spend countless hours in the classroom, respond to emergency situations in the simulator and endure the centrifuge, which spins the pilot vigorously to replicate the intense
G-forces they will encounter during the majority of in-flight manoeuvres. “The training we receive is everything from basic airmanship to air-to-ground munitions delivery and air-to-air combat,” explains Lieutenant Commander Josh Denning. “We also train to land on aircraft carriers and refuel in flight. Flying is hard work. It requires hours of preparation for each flight. A typical 1.5-hour flight would consist of approximately two hours of briefing before the flight, the flight itself, and then anywhere from one hour to many hours for a debrief of the event.” Navy fighter pilots are constantly reminded that the success of a mission depends on them. Once they’ve mastered a fighter capable of flashing into combat at more than 1,600 kilometres per hour, the fighter pilot must be ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.
DID YOU KNOW? By streaming real-time imagery to the helmet, the F-35 allows pilots to see ‘through’ the plane
FLIGHT GEAR
Every pilot’s outfit is meticulously thought out for their safety
Fighter pilots require specialist equipment to tackle death-defying manoeuvres similar to the flight suit, and are both fireresistant and warm in cold weather. “We carry a large assortment of mostly survival gear on our vest,” explains Lieutenant Commander Denning, “in case we ever have to eject.” The survival vest contains a hand-held GPS for orientation, waterproof matches, thimble-like lights that turn fingertips into miniature flashlights, camouflage paint, a tourniquet for wound treatment and more.
Next-gen helmets What tech makes the F-35 Gen III a pilot’s ultimate wingman?
Video recording helps to monitor the pilots’ performance on missions and identifies training opportunities.
Lieutenant Commander Josh Denning was commissioned in the US Navy through Officer Candidate School in 2007. He earned his wings in 2009, serving at naval air stations in Florida, Texas, and California. He flew the F/A-18E and F/A-18F Hornet fighters. He works as a police officer and as a reserve staff supply officer for the Seventh Fleet.
Night vision Integrated digital night vision technology provides superior awareness while flying in darkness.
Blind spots The headset provides a wide, unrestricted field of view, giving the pilot a clear view of their setting.
Visor The F-35 pilot’s £275,000 ($400,000) visor functions as a head-up display with six high-res cameras embedded on the outside of the plane.
Lieutenant Joshua S Bettis, US Navy
Lieutenant Commander Josh Denning, US Naval Reserve
Active noise reduction allows the pilot to focus and operate the F-35 with minimal distractions.
Camera
Meet the pilots Lieutenant Bettis graduated from the US Naval Academy in 2006 and was designated a student naval aviator. He earned his wings in 2009, subsequently serving with Squadron VFA-125 in Lemoore, California, flying the F/A-18C Hornet fighter. In 2011, he transitioned to the Civil Engineer Corps and currently serves with Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Washington, DC.
Quiet flight
The flight suit’s transparent thigh pockets usually hold the flight plan and a map
Lightweight The F-35 helmet shell is constructed of carbon graphite, reducing weight to 2.3 kilograms.
Precise fit A pupilometer calculates the distance between the pilot’s eyes, and a dozen other measurements help provide an exact fit. This avoids the helmet causing motion sickness.
G-suit integration Custom fitted hoses and cables, integrated with the pilot’s G-suit, allow freedom of movement.
© US NAVY; ROCKWELL COLLINS; Getty; WIKI
Suiting up is a critical aspect of the job. Fighter pilots’ equipment is often tailored to their mission, whether the jet aircraft is flying faster than the speed of sound, engaging hostile targets or the pilot is on the ground, evading capture or fighting for survival. “A pilot wears a helmet and visor, a mask which is worn at all times with a radio incorporated, a flight suit made from aramid (Nomex) – a material that is not fireproof but will char instead of melt – gloves, steel-toed boots, a G-suit, harness and survival vest,” explains Lieutenant Bettis. “Other types of equipment vary depending on your mission, whether it is peacetime training or combat.” The flight suit is ideal for protecting the fighter pilot in case of an onboard fire. “It’s like zip-up pyjamas with a few pockets. It’s pretty simple,” Bettis describes. “The G-suit, on the other hand, is an expensive piece of gear that plugs into a receptacle in the cockpit.” Heavy acceleration can generate high G-forces on the pilot, sending blood rushing towards their head or their feet. Either scenario can cause a pilot to pass out, so pressurised G-suits are worn to combat this. In cold weather, pilots don a rubber-lined exposure suit that functions much like a diver’s wetsuit, providing insulation and retaining body warmth if they land in water after a forced ejection. Gloves are made of Nomex material
TRANSPORT
IN THE COCKPIT The fighter pilot monitors and operates scores of switches, controls and buttons During all phases of operation, pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight, the fighter pilot is constantly aware of their surroundings, and the command centre of the jet aircraft is the cockpit. To those who have not trained as pilots, the confusing mass of control panels is overwhelming, but to seasoned professionals the operation of these instruments is second nature, thanks to years of training. “Pilots develop a cockpit scan over time, where each instrument is monitored at an appropriate interval,” relates Lieutenant Joshua Bettis. “The
scan varies depending on the pilot’s mission. Pilots also spend a significant amount of time in the books. They must know the proper use and limitations of every piece of gear on the jet.” Today’s fighter jets are configured for a variety of missions, engaging in air superiority operations and ground targeting. “Everything in the cockpit is as streamlined as possible for the pilot to operate the systems, their hands never leaving the controls,” says Lieutenant Commander Josh Denning. “Before we even learn to fly airplanes we go through many hours
of cockpit familiarisation, learning the systems and their respective controls in the cockpit.” The pilot has to know their stuff when a split second could be the difference between being the hunter or the hunted. “Training depends on the complexity of the gear the pilot is learning,” Bettis continues. “Ground school covers complex instrument function and theory, followed by simulators with seasoned instructor pilots. Next, the instruments are utilised in manoeuvres and tactics in the aircraft – normally in a ‘demo-do’ format, where the instructor demonstrates proper usage before the student makes an attempt.” Scores of knobs, buttons and switches govern the function of at least 20 systems, each of them
Staying in control
Canopy view The HUD combiner glass provides the pilot with the head-up display that shows critical data.
Fighter pilots must know their cockpit layout and the function of every console in it
Television The television sensor supplies real-time images for the pilot to monitor.
Airspeed indicator The airspeed indicator tells the pilot how fast they are flying.
Fuel indicator The fuel quantity indicator allows the pilot to assess flight time and distance.
Chaff/flare control panel Electronic countermeasures allow the jet fighter to jam enemy radar signals and prevent hostile missiles.
Throttle The throttle controls the starting and stopping of the engine, along with manual controls for communications and other systems.
Electrical panel The pilot can control whether the fighter jet is powered by its generator or battery. The Emergency Power Unit can provide power for an hour in the event of an engine failure.
Test panel On the test panel, switches and buttons can be used to test circuits, lights, onboard computers, warning systems and numerous other measurements.
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Engine controls Engine controls are used to manipulate the jet fuel starter system and computerised engine functions.
DID YOU KNOW? Ejecting from a fighter jet can make pilots a few centimetres shorter, as the high G-forces compress the spine
critical to the fighter’s performance and the survival of the pilot. These include the engine along with other systems related to fuel, environment and temperature, electrical systems, flight control, hydraulics, landing gear, autopilot, lighting, communications, navigation, IFF (Identification, Friend or Foe), weapons, radar and more. “As pilots progress in their careers and aircraft get more expensive to fly, the learning curve gets steeper,” explains Lieutenant Bettis. “Students
work through 20 or more flights in primary flight training just to be able to solo a T-34C. Conversely, a newly winged aviator that is transitioning into the Hornet is expected to solo on his third or fourth flight. Simulators are an excellent tool used to teach pilots and evaluate their performance in a low risk setting. They allow instructors to create emergency situations that otherwise wouldn’t be feasible, and adjust conditions such as weather to challenge a pilot that is working on instrument flight.”
The jets’ quick acceleration can generate high G-forces
All good in the HUD The head-up display shows pilots their essential real-time data
“A split second could be the difference between being the hunter or the hunted”
Airspeed scale
Horizon line
The airspeed scale indicates the current speed of the fighter plane in knots.
The horizon line indicates the orientation of the plane with respect to the horizon in the pilot’s line of sight.
The F-35B is specially designed to take off over short distances
Flight path marker This corresponds to the flight path or vector that the pilot has set.
Gun cross The gun cross shows where the nose of the aircraft is pointing.
Pitch attitude bars Nuclear consent switch If nuclear weapons are carried, manipulating this switch gives the jet consent to arm and release them.
Pitch attitude bars show whether the jet’s nose is tilted up or down.
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© WIKI; Getty; Illustration by Rebekka Hearl
Mastering the cockpit controls of a fighter jet takes years of training
The fighter jet head-up display (HUD) presents data to the pilot in their forward field of view through the integration of three basic components: the projector unit, combiner and video generation computer. This setup means they don’t have to divert their eyes while in flight, which minimises the distractions of looking down or away from the front of the aircraft, and avoids the pilot having to refocus their eyesight when assessing data. A typical HUD provides the airspeed, altitude, horizon line and global positioning, as well as navigational and aerial combat information. This includes data such as angle of attack, number of available weapons, range to target and whether or not they are locked onto an enemy aircraft.
TRANSPORT
IN FLIGHT
The force is strong
With great power comes great responsibility: how to handle a fighter jet like a pro Few fighter pilots would deny that the adrenaline rush of take-off, flight and landing is exhilarating, but they are also clear that the experience comes with significant responsibility. “Inside the cockpit there can be no complacency,” warns Lieutenant Bettis. “Even the greatest pilots are one mistake away from demonstrating their mortality.” The fighter jet is designed for speed and manoeuvrability, and pilots feel they are on the aircraft rather than inside it, surrounded by the cockpit. “You literally strap the plane on to you,” says David Collette, a former F-16 pilot in the US Air Force. “The plane is your life, but you are the brain.” The F-22 Raptor can cruise at supersonic speeds
In contrast to the wrangling of a fighter jet, commercial aircraft are designed for stability, a smooth ride and passenger comfort. In a fighter jet there are no passengers, just highly skilled professionals who are trained to complete dangerous missions. The fighter jet accelerates like a race car, and the characteristics of the aircraft shape and mould the flight experience. The shake of turbulence is never cushioned. “Flying a fighter is the most exhilarating feeling I have ever had,” explains Lieutenant Commander Denning. “There is an absolute sense of freedom while flying, especially in a high performance airplane such as the Hornet. G-forces feel as if you have weight pressing down on every part of your body. It takes a lot of practice to master the physiology of fighting the forces you experience in the cockpit to maintain consciousness and continue your mission. It is a very intense workout, and sweating out as much as five pounds [2.3 kilograms] of body weight is not uncommon under our most physically stressful missions.”
Tight turns, steep dives and swift climbs are all in a day’s work for the fighter pilot, and the laws of physics take their toll. The power of gravity exerted on the human body during acceleration, deceleration and turning is known as G-force (G). Standing still you experience 1G under gravitational pressure, but when flying the Gs that pilots feel are directly proportional to the jet’s changing velocity. Ordinary activities like riding a roller coaster, or heavily accelerating or braking in a car, could generate up to 3Gs. Fighter pilots, flying at tremendous speeds may ‘pull’ up to 9Gs, restricting the normal flow of blood and potentially causing a blackout. During manoeuvres the pilot is at great risk when blood pools in the lower extremities and the brain is starved of oxygen. To ward off the effects of G-forces, pilots wear a G-suit that provides a continuous flow of air, operating like a large blood pressure cuff. A US Marine Corps fighter pilot dons gear, including the G-suit, prior to a mission
Aerial combat manoeuvres Fighter pilots execute precise moves to gain the decisive edge on an adversary
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Turning in
Lead turn
Rolling scissors
A pilot seeking the most advantageous firing position on the tail of their adversary may execute this turn to close in.
This move enables a pursuing fighter pilot to close in on their opponent by starting to turn before the planes pass each other.
Often following a high-speed overshoot, an evader reverses into a vertical climb and barrel roll, compelling the pursuer to follow.
Flat scissors
Bracket
Hook-and-drag
This manoeuvre involves two planes weaving from side to side as they each try to get behind the other.
Two pursuers launching a pincer attack force the evader to choose which opponent they will engage.
Two persuers launching a pincer attack can take advantage of an evader’s turn towards either of them.
DID YOU KNOW? The Predator drone burns 300 times less fuel than a fighter jet Ejecting is always a last resort for fighter pilots
SAFETY FIRST Fighter pilots must be vigilant at all times The warning light flashes. Sights, sounds and sensors alert of potential disaster. Instinctively, the pilot takes action, as safety is second nature. Then, the exercise is over. The flight simulator has done its job so the pilot will know how to do theirs. “The simulators are run by former pilots with a breadth and depth of experience,” remarks Lieutenant Bettis. “However, nothing replaces seat time in the jet.” During that “seat time” the pilot is constantly alert, blending their knowledge with onboard systems that keep both pilot and plane safe. Flying is a risky business. Not only does the pilot’s life depend on it, the fate of a jet aircraft worth millions is also in their hands.
The last resort Pilots only eject from their jets when all other options are exhausted
“Flying an airplane like the Hornet demands 100 per cent of your focus and situational awareness for 100 per cent of the time,” relates Lieutenant Commander Denning. “Flying is terribly unforgiving for any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. There are systems in the airplane that alert us to several different types of emergencies, but most importantly it’s the focus you must maintain that keeps a pilot safe.” Safety begins with pilot awareness and follows established procedures. From suiting up with indispensable gear to a huge range of pre-flight checks, the pilot works to minimise risk, through take-off, mission fulfilment and landing.
4 Clearing
3 Acceleration
One second after the ejection, the pilot – along with their survival gear – is released from the seat.
Seat and pilot are shot upwards, to around 60 metres above the plane. The intense force means there is a 30 per cent chance of spinal fracture and 10 per cent chance of death.
5 Parachute deployment
“Flying a fighter is the most exhilarating feeling I have ever had” – Lieutenant Commander Denning
The parachute deploys automatically. Some models have sensors to activate the chute below 3,000 metres, otherwise the pilot may run out of oxygen during the descent.
1 Activate ejection
© WIKI;; Illustrations by Nicholas Froder and Phil Martin
The pilot pulls the ejector handle or face curtain to initiate the ejection process. The plane’s canopy is released.
6 Descent The pilot prepares to land as safely as possible. For example, if they are over water, they can deploy a life raft.
Man versus machine Military applications of drones are revolutionising the future of the fighter pilot. The virtually silent, sophisticated drone removes the risk to human life, and executes its lethal task with pinpoint accuracy. However, the human element may never completely disappear from the sphere of aerial combat. “Manned combat aircraft will be around for the foreseeable future,” asserts Lieutenant Commander Denning. “Today’s unmanned aircraft
2 Rockets fire The ejection rocket ignites as the seat zips up guide rails, onboard systems disconnect, emergency oxygen activates and the parachute is primed.
mainly focus on intelligence and surveillance missions with the capability to launch some limited air-to-ground missions, but as far as fighter aircraft are concerned, there are no limits.” While engineers may one day remove the fighter pilot from the cockpit, a new breed of expert fliers will remain, stationed at remote locations on the ground, handling the drone, watching and waiting, locking onto targets and firing.
Unmanned aerial vehicles like the MQ-9 Reaper can carry out missions via remote control
TRANSPORT An F-35B undertakes one of its many test flights before being assigned to a fleet
F-35 jets have clocked up a total of 60,000 flight hours since 2006
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DID YOU KNOW? F-35s cost $32k per hour to fly
Pilots can communicate securely with commanders on the ground
Huge tanker aircraft can refuel fighter jets in mid-air
Two F-35C Lightning II jets (foreground) fly alongside two F/A-18 Super Hornets
© WIKI; Lockheed Martin
Pilots flying the F-35 have a 360-degree view of their surroundings
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TRANSPORT
Lightweight materials The majority of the wings and fuselage are made from aluminium alloys, but 25 per cent of the structural weight is composite materials.
The Airbus A380 is greener and quieter than many other passenger jets
Cabin comfort 220 cabin windows provide plenty of natural light and the cabin air is recycled every two minutes for a fresh atmosphere.
Thrust reversers Located on the innermost engines, these slow down the aircraft to assist the brakes when landing on a wet runway.
Boarding the A380 The incredible technology inside this sky giant
Crew bunks On long flights, the pilots and crew can get some rest in bunks located below the lower deck or behind the cockpit.
The world’s largest passenger jet How does the enormous double-decker Airbus A380 get off the ground? errying travellers all over the globe is an expensive business for the world’s airlines, so it makes sense that they would want to pack as many passengers as possible onto each aircraft, reducing the number of flights they need to make. Thanks to its double-decker design, the Airbus A380 is capable of carrying up to 853 passengers at a time, if it is in a single-class cabin
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configuration. That’s over 150 more than the aircraft’s competitor, the Boeing 747-8. Most A380s, however, feature four separate classes, with economy and premium economy on the lower deck of the airplane and the more spacious business and first class upstairs, which reduces the passenger number to 544. This is still a 40 per cent increase on the 747-8’s four-class capacity.
As well as being the largest passenger jet, the A380 is one of the quietest, with dampeners reducing engine noise to half that of other jets. It is also more environmentally friendly, because it needs to take fewer flights to deliver the same amount of passengers, and the fuel-efficient engines are claimed to give off 22 per cent fewer CO2 emissions than the jet’s closest competitor.
DID YOU KNOW? The Airbus A380 is covered in three layers of paint weighing around 500 kilograms
Upper deck Business and first class have room for full-flat beds, as well as bars and lounge areas for socialising.
Two staircases provide access to the aircraft’s upper and lower decks
Landing gear
Lower deck The economy seats are a roomy 45 centimetres wide, with more headroom and personal overhead storage.
Powerful braking Pistons inside each wheel apply powerful pressure to stop them from turning, bringing the aircraft to a halt.
Next-gen flight deck The cockpit of the A380 is designed to be very similar to that of other Airbus aircraft, minimising the amount of time that pilots have to spend training to fly it. It features an instrument panel with eight large, interactive liquid crystal display units showing navigation, engine and systems information, as well as a transparent head-up display that superimposes information over the pilot’s view. An electronic library also replaces the traditional paper documentation used by pilots, allowing them to locate operational information more easily and analyse the aircraft’s performance. As the plane prepares for landing, the process is made easier as the flight crew can pre-select the optimum runway exit at their destination airport, and leave the autopilot to regulate deceleration after touchdown accordingly. This helps to reduce runway occupancy time and therefore increase the number of aircraft the airport can handle at any given time. The A380’s cockpit is designed to make Airbus pilots feel at home
Efficient engines The four-jet engines are designed to be incredibly fuel-efficient, burning 22 per cent less fuel per seat than the nearest competitor.
Building an aircraft of this enormous size does present a few problems, though. Many airlines have had to modify their aircraft hangers to accommodate the increased height and wingspan of the A380, and some airports just don’t have enough space for them to park. Also, to speed up the process of boarding and offloading such a large number of passengers, two
gangways from the aircraft to the terminal building are needed – a set-up that only certain airports are capable of. As a result, the A380 can usually be found travelling to and from the world’s biggest international airports, making the most of its 15,200-kilometre range to deliver passengers to far-flung destinations in style.
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© Airbus; Getty
Two sets of landing wheels help to spread the weight of the enormous aircraft on the ground, putting less stress on the runway.
TRANSPORT
INSIDE THE TESLA MODEL S
They’re the most talked-about electric car manufacturer in the world, but just what makes Tesla Motors so innovative? he concept of an electric car is not a new idea. Manufacturers were building them as far back as the 19th century, with Porsche building their first car, the electric P1, in 1898. Despite its deep-rooted foundation with vehicles, electricity was never substantially developed enough to become the power of choice for cars. Instead, vehicles have been powered by igniting fuel in internal combustion engines. However, this petroleum – a product of crude oil – is in limited supply, prompting car
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manufacturers to look at alternative forms of power, such as hydrogen and hybrid systems. Electricity has once again come to the fore, and California-based Tesla Motors is leading the charge for this viable, greener technology in our modern world. Unlike other manufacturers, Tesla (led by renowned entrepreneur and CEO Elon Musk) is a relatively new company that
specifically produces electric vehicles. Their innovation and commitment to making futuristic cars has ensured that this small Californian company has garnered an impressive reputation across the globe, and we will show you why…
Auto-close boot Boots can be heavy to lift, but the Model S provides the perfect answer with an auto-open/close function at the touch of a button.
Rear-view camera Mounted above the rear licence plate, a camera passes a live feed through to the large interior screen, so the driver can see behind the car when reversing.
More storage space With no engine to speak of, the Model S actually has two luggage storage compartments: one in the front of the car under the conventional ‘hood’, and the other in the rear.
“Tesla Motors is leading the charge for this viable, greener technology” 020
Regenerative brakes As well as using electricity, the Model S is also able to generate it while driving through town. When a driver lifts off the accelerator pedal, gentle braking is automatically applied, and the energy harvested by the brakes is then fed back into the motor to reuse. This is a key component in helping the Model S to maintain its exceptional range.
DID YOU KNOW? Model S owners are guaranteed the free use of Superchargers at Tesla charge stations for life
Software updates One of the most creative innovations over a conventional car is Tesla’s use of software updates. This is all done over-the-air, meaning cool new features can be added to the Model S overnight. An example of this is the addition of the ‘creep’ function when releasing the brake pedal in traffic, which was added after Tesla consulted with Model S owners on how to improve the driving experience.
Preconditioning Thanks to the intuitive Tesla Model S app, owners can precondition the on-board climate of their vehicle remotely, so the car reaches the perfect temperature by the time they enter.
No more keys! The Model S doesn’t use a conventional car key as we know it. Instead, owners are presented with a small fob – sculpted to mimic the shape of the car itself – which has a built-in transmitter that talks to the car via onboard sensors. This means an owner only needs to have the key on their person and, when they approach the car, the door handles pop out and the car is ready to start.
Interactive interface The huge dash-mounted touchscreen is the technological epicentre, providing access to navigation, entertainment, HVAC controls and more.
Air suspension
With a noisy engine replaced by a beautifully silent motor, the Model S glides along the road with virtually no audible soundtrack. From inside the car, the only noise that remains (with the radio switched off) is rolling road noise. To combat this, ContiSilent tyres from Continental are used, which have an extra layer of foam inside to reduce the noise it produces when rolling along a surface.
The Model S is simple and speedy to charge up, with free use of Tesla Superchargers
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© Tesla
Quiet tyres
Want to lower the Model S for sportier handling or raise it to clear a steep driveway? This can be done with a tap of the dash-mounted touchscreen.
TRANSPORT
INSIDE THE TESLA FACTORY See how the Model S is assembled in Fremont, CA Tesla Motors can lay claim to producing some of the most innovative and technically advanced electric vehicles on the planet. Currently, Tesla produce one car – the Model S – which is available with a variety of power and drive options, however, a Model X SUV is planned for 2016. This Model X will be manufactured alongside the existing Model S from Tesla’s main factory in Fremont, California. The facility was once home to General Motors and Toyota, producing half a million vehicles per year. Tesla purchased the premises on Fremont Boulevard in 2010. They transformed the building into a factory that’s as advanced as the cars that roll out of it, all on a site that covers an area of 492,000 square metres (5.3 million square feet), used for both manufacturing and office space. Old assembly equipment was torn out and robots were installed that can perform complex functions, from assembling the chassis to welding and laser-cutting parts. Each one is named after an X-Men character, as they have the ‘superpowers’ to lift and manoeuvre entire cars with ultimate precision. The factory floor itself is split down into five sections: stamping, assembly, body, paint and plastics. Every part of the Model S build process is carried out at the factory in California, from the early panel beating to final test-driving. State-of-the-art technology used by Tesla in the production of its cars also means high efficiency, reducing its carbon footprint. This includes basic measures, such as replacing fluorescent lights with energy-saving LED lamps, all the way to using ultrasonic waves inside the car instead of wasting gallons of water for a leak test. They also use powder coatings for the primer and clear coat layers instead of traditional liquid paints (which contain harmful compounds), another modification that helps lower emissions. The addition of advanced robots and conveyors enables the factory to process one million battery cells every day. Soon it is hoped that the robots will also be able to install the battery packs in the cars, which will relieve factory workers of one of the most labourintensive jobs in the process. Currently, Tesla can produce up to 100,000 vehicles annually. Not bad for a company that is less than 15 years old.
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A robot named Xavier lifts cars down to the floor so the other ‘superhero’ machines can assemble them
From factory floor to your driveway Discover what it takes to create a Tesla Model S
1 Stamping
Aluminium sheets are machine stamped into doors, roofs and hood panels using a hydraulic press.
2 Sub-assembly 3Framing Groups of workers on the production line join the stamped pieces together as sub-assemblies, while outer panels are welded to the car’s inner structures for strength and safety.
Robotic arms take the sub-assemblies and begin gluing, welding and riveting. All doors and lids are hung on the main frame, and the entire primary structure is checked for imperfections.
DID YOU KNOW? Tesla’s first production vehicle was the Roadster, which looks similar to the Lotus Elise but shares 6% of parts
This is a four-step process that involves preparation and three layers of paint. The car then travels on a belt to a 176°C (350°F) oven to cure the paint.
5 Final assembly
The painted doors and lids are removed for further work, while carpet, air bags and the main console are installed inside the car. The entire sub-assembly containing the motor, transaxle, inverter and rear suspension is bolted to the body of the car.
6 Quality testing
Tests include a rolling road and checking for leaks, as well as a visual examination at an inspection station within the factory.
7 Delivery
The car is now ready to be delivered and is shipped to various Tesla showrooms all over the world. © Tesla
4 Paint
“Old assembly equipment was torn out and robots were installed”
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TRANSPORT
AUTOMATED FEATURES How the Model S can switch lanes and park by itself Although not quite a driverless car, the Model S does boast an array of automated features including autopilot, lane change assist and automated parking. The most revolutionary of these, autopilot, works by utilising a forward radar, 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors positioned around the car, a forward-facing camera and a digitally-controlled electric braking system. The camera reads road signs and checks for objects in front of the Model S’ projected line, while the radar and ultrasonic sensors
constantly sense five metres (16 feet) around the car to check for objects such as cars in traffic. The data is fed to the car’s engine control unit (ECU), which determines what lane or path the Model S needs to take. The idea is to take the strain out of situations such as congestion, offering increased comfort for the driver. Similarly, the software and hardware is able to steer to keep the Model S within a designated lane, or even change lanes with just a tap of a turn signal, all while managing speed by
Autopilot explained Find out how this futuristic feature helps drivers to keep a safe distance
reading road signs. Automatic parking is also possible under the same technology. The car will notify the driver when it detects an available parking space and be capable of smoothy manoeuvring into it.
Radar This emits waves that bounce back off nearby objects, helping the car to build a picture of its surroundings.
Ultrasonic sensors Resuming cruise control If you are at a standstill for a long time, tapping the accelerator will re-engage autopilot mode and the car will accelerate by itself to your preset speed.
A total of 12 long-range ultrasonic sensors are placed around the car and detect objects that are up to five metres (16 feet) away.
Adjusting autopilot A stalk by the steering wheel enables the driver to manually adjust the distance between the Model S and another car.
The forward-facing cameras and sensors can scan up to 160m (525ft) of the path ahead
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Forward-facing camera
Electric braking system
The forward-facing camera reads road signs to ensure the Model S is travelling at a legal speed at all times.
The Model S uses the information from the sensors and radar to judge how much space it has between itself and an object in front. When that space reduces, the brakes are automatically applied.
The Speed Assist function makes sure that the Model S keeps within the speed limit of the road
DID YOU KNOW? Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also the founder of advanced spacecraft and rocket manufacturer SpaceX
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT It may look like a conventional car from the outside, but the interior is laden with next-gen tech
The touchscreen is the focal point of the Model S’ interior, negating the need for a plethora of controls
Q&A with Tesla UK’s Georg Ell, country director What do you think is the biggest advantage of owning a Tesla right at this moment? It’s the opportunity to be part of something that is shaping the future of motoring. It’s future-proof, fun, exciting and safe at the same time. In 200 years from now, people will say Tesla was the [point] where we, as a planet, decided to turn our back on internal combustion engines that poison our air and damage the atmosphere. The quality of air is so bad that 50,000 people die per year due to poor air quality. Tesla is leading the change: people will soon look at motoring today much in the same way as when they think back to a time when smoking on aeroplanes and in pubs was permitted. It’s a slice of the future, today.
How will you ensure a Model S is still on the road in ten years’ time? Because there are so few elements to a Tesla. It’s more viable than a conventional car as the system is simpler: all that’s left on our car when stripped back is a single moving part – the motor. This makes it far more easier to maintain financially than a conventional internal combustion-engined vehicle. Lithium-ion batteries are known to deteriorate after a number of charges. What is Tesla doing to combat this? Tesla currently gives an eight-year, unlimited mileage warranty on the battery and drivetrain. We’re also developing a drivetrain that can achieve a million miles! Batteries will have an element of degradation, about one per cent per 10,000 miles, but our battery capacity is improving year-on-year by five per cent. We
The Tesla map enables you to locate nearby charging stations
are also working on a system where Tesla owners can pay to upgrade their battery in future, should they wish. We also guarantee to buy a customer’s car back from them in three years’ time, and that’s at a minimum of 50 per cent of the value of the car. What are the greatest challenges for Tesla over the next five years? A lot of it comes down to our own execution of following the plan and doing a good job. We’re doing a lot with consumers, government and the wider industry to show our cars are more viable and better than a conventional car. The increase in consumer acceptance will grow competition and we welcome that. We are a drop in the ocean in terms of our size as an automotive company, but the pie will get bigger. National government is very excited about electric cars, we just need to ensure [that] local governments are equally [as] excited, helping us put more chargers in the street to ensure more people can feasibly drive our cars.
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© Tesla
Aside from there being no transmission tunnel running through the middle of the car (or even a gear stick for that matter) offering up more space, the interior is akin to that of a conventional vehicle. There are two seats up front, a rear bench in the back, and even an extra two rear-facing child seats in the boot space, should you wish to pay the optional £2,500 (nearly $4,000). However, the genius of the Model S lies with the huge 43-centimetre (17-inch) touchscreen in the centre of its dashboard. This interface is the main control hub for the entire car: the driver operates the touchscreen to access a variety of menus and settings, which control everything from opening the sunroof to providing satellite navigation. On purchase of a vehicle, an owner is encouraged to download the Tesla Model S app, which lets you precondition the car’s climate ready for your arrival, as well as flash the headlights or honk the horn – useful if your Tesla is parked in a busy multi-storey car park. The app also provides a live location of the car’s whereabouts via a satellite view powered by Google, ideal in the event of the car being stolen. Added to this, the app remotely notifies the owner when the Model S has finished charging, aiding the efficiency of the car in fitting in with the driver’s day-to-day lifestyle.
TRANSPORT
How to stop a speeding car Police use the precision immobilisation technique Losing traction The rear wheels lose grip against the road, sending the suspect’s car into a skid.
Speeding car High-speed chases can last hours and are very dangerous, so officers use the precision immobilisation technique (PIT) to stop the fugitive’s car.
End of the road The fugitive either lets the car spin out of control, or resorts to braking, ending the chase either way.
Keep turning In pursuit
Sharp turn
The police officer begins the manoeuvre by aligning the front of their car with the back of the car being chased.
The pursuing officer then steers their car sharply into the side of the fugitive’s vehicle, making them spin.
The officer continues to turn in the same direction until they are clear of the car, preventing the criminal from correcting the skid.
GHOST ships M inimising drag is an important consideration when designing ships, as friction between the vessel and water greatly reduces efficiency. Juliet Marine Systems (JMS) Inc has tackled this problem by incorporating innovative technology into its demonstration ship called GHOST. This twin-hull ship is similar to a catamaran, with two wing-like struts attached to the main cabin. The end of each strut features a submerged tubular hull containing the propulsion system. Instead of being pushed along, front-mounted propellers on each hull pull GHOST through the
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water. Whereas a conventional propeller vessel leaves a trail of foam in its wake, GHOST’s unique design redirects the bubbles to surround the twin hulls with pockets of gas. This effect is known as supercavitation, allowing the boat to glide through air rather than water, which JMS claims can reduce drag by a factor of 900. GHOST’s wings can also be repositioned to lift the main cabin above the water. Rising above the bumpy waves ensures a smooth ride, protecting the crew from impact injuries and sea sickness, while also improving the stability and accuracy of onboard sensors and weapon targeting.
GHOST is designed for military use, but can be adapted for commercial and recreational purposes
© Juliet Marine Systems; Dreamstime; Illustration by Adrian Mann
The next-gen stealth ship that flies through the waves
DID YOU KNOW? A ‘fat bike’ is a more specialised mountain bike with tyres designed for riding on sand and even snow
The mechanics of mountain bikes The incredible tech powering your off-road adventures icycles are remarkably efficient modes of transport. Just look at a typical car, which converts petrol into motion via combustion: only around 20 to 25 per cent of that fuel will be transformed into useful kinetic energy, while the rest ends up as waste heat and pollutants. Compare that to the 90 per cent efficiency that a typical bike derives from the driving force of your legs. But just like motorised vehicles, a bike specialised for a Tour De France-style road race or cruising along a flat promenade, will be very different from those designed for a rough, off-road track. The rigours of off-roading – which include uneven terrain, wet and slippery mud and wild
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inclines – mean that mountain bikes need to be much more robust than other types of bike. It’s easy to spot the differences when a mountain bike and a road bike, for example, are side by side. Mountain bikes will have much wider tyres – three or four times the width of a road bike – with a more pronounced grip. The bike will feature front and sometimes rear suspension, often twice the number of gears, a thicker frame and a disc brake system. Even a bad cyclist on a road bike could outpace a person riding a mountain bike on flat, even terrain because road bikes are so much lighter and their tyres are smoother. But in unforgiving, off-road conditions, a mountain bike is in its element.
Gear up to go The pace at which you can turn the pedals will be dictated by the incline your bike is on. Obviously, this is going to be a lot more difficult cycling uphill than on a flat surface, so mountain bikes incorporate a number of different-sized sprockets – or cogs – to produce a gear ratio that will allow you to ride more comfortably. A 27-speed gearing system, for example, will incorporate three chainrings at the front and nine sprockets at the back. Changing the gear ratio will allow you to cover more or less ground while maintaining the same pace, so tackling a steep incline or taking advantage of a downhill is never out of the question.
Mountain bikes typically have 21, 24 or 27 gears, compared to the 11 of a road bike
Brace for impact
Built for punishment
Front suspension is mandatory for mountain bikes. Each fork contains a spring and an oil-filled damper, which keeps the wheel in contact with the ground and absorbs the impact of jumps.
These components allow a mountain bike to go where no other bike dares
Soft tail Some mountain bikes have rear suspension. This often involves bigger springs than front suspension, because the shock is much greater on this single spring.
Strong frame Some higher-end off-roaders will forgo welded steel or aluminium for rectangular frames made of carbon fibre, which are stronger against up-down stresses.
Wide tyres
© DK; Thinkstock; Alamy
The greater width of a mountain bike tyre will improve stability when cornering, but the increased surface area and friction will slow the bike down.
Disc brakes Many mountain bikes will be equipped with disc brakes that, like a car, contain hydraulic fluid that transfers and multiplies your squeeze pressure to the brake pads.
Sprockets Lugging weight The knobs on a tyre, or ‘lugs’, dig into loose dirt and mud to provide extra grip.
The number of cogs, or sprockets, determines the number of gears a bike has and thus, the variety of terrain it can tackle.
Mountain bikes with full suspension are ideal for rough terrain, as they help to absorb impact
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TRANSPORT
urking in the depths, hundreds of submarines are currently patrolling the world’s oceans, performing a range of very important, and often covert, missions. These stealthy vessels were first widely used during World War I, with Germany’s U-boats responsible for destroying several British supply ships during the conflict, and have since changed the face of naval warfare forever. Always referred to as boats rather than ships, as a matter of naval tradition, submarines have come a long way since the human-powered
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vessels of the past. Most modern submarines use either diesel-electric propulsion or nuclear reactors to keep them running. The former are equipped with diesel engines to drive the submarine’s propellers and charge its batteries while on the surface. Then, when submerged, those batteries power electric motors that spin the propellers to move it through the water. The need to recharge the batteries and replenish fuel for the engines gives these submarines a limited range, so many navies prefer nuclear-powered vessels instead. These
DID YOU KNOW? In 1960, the USS Triton completed the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe in 60 days
Submarines: in depth Major milestones in the development of underwater vessels
1620 Drebbel I
boats can stay underwater for weeks at a time, using nuclear fission to release energy in the form of heat, which in turn generates steam to drive a turbine and spin the propellers. Now crucial tools for navies large and small, submarines transport crews all over the world; sneaking up on enemy ships, launching missiles, and gathering information while remaining hidden in dark, murky waters. They can generally be divided into two categories: attack submarines, which are designed to seek and destroy enemy ships, and ballistic missile submarines, which attack land-based targets. The US Navy currently has 72 submarines in active service, 54 of which are attack vessels. It’s not just the military that uses these clever underwater crafts, though. With scientists knowing more about outer space than they do about the world’s oceans, submarines are incredibly useful for studying marine environments, at depths too great for human divers to reach alone. In recent years, new unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) have begun appearing in the water, capable of conducting dangerous missions, while human crews remain safely on the shore or a nearby ship. These vehicles are small with a limited range, but in the future they could replace the submarines we know today.
“The US Navy currently has 72 submarines in active service”
Max depth:
4.5 metres Max speed: Unknown
Range: 3 hours
CREW: 16
1776 Max depth:
Unknown
Turtle The first recorded submarine attack was during the American War of Independence by the Turtle. It was used in an attempt to blow up the HMS Eagle, but the pilot was unable to attach the bomb to the ship’s hull.
CREW: 1 Max speed: 5km/h
Range: 30 mins
Max depth:
7.5 metres CREW: 3
Nautilus American inventor Robert Fulton’s submarine was driven by a hand-cranked propeller, but a collapsible mast and sail provided the propulsion. The sub was commissioned by Napoleon to use against the British.
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Max speed: 7km/h
Range: 6 hours
1863 Max depth:
10 metres CREW: 12
Plongeur Powered by engines running on compressed air, the French Navy’s Plongeur was the first submarine to not rely on human propulsion. It had a ram and torpedo, but engine problems meant the boat never passed the trial stage.
USS Holland Irish engineer John Philip Holland was the first to use electric motors and an internal combustion engine to power an underwater vessel. His creation was purchased by the US Navy and influenced many designs.
Max speed: 7.2km/h
Range: 1 hour
1900 Max depth:
23 metres CREW: 6 Max speed: 9.3km/h
1954 Range: 5 hours
Max depth:
213 metres
Range: 2 weeks Max speed: or more 54km/h
CREW: 116
USS Nautilus
HMS Astute firing a cruise missile
The first nuclear-powered submarine combined stealth and speed in order to revolutionise naval warfare. Constructed under the direction of US Navy Captain Hyman G Rickover, the 97-metre long USS Nautilus accomplished the first voyage under the geographic North Pole, and had a career spanning 25 years.
© Getty; WIKI; Boeing; Illustrations Nicholas Forder
The unmanned Boeing Echo Voyager
The first submarine was invented by Dutch engineer Cornelius Drebbel. It was an enclosed wooden rowing boat covered with watertight greased leather, and had air tubes protruding to the surface to supply oxygen.
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LIFE ON BOARD A SUBMARINE
Deep-sea rescue If a submarine is damaged, perhaps due to a collision or an onboard explosion, then the crew will radio a distress call and launch a buoy that will signal their location. Rescue will come in the form of a Deep-Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV), a mini-submarine that can be transported by truck, aircraft, ship or another submarine. Once it is near to the damaged vessel, the DSRV can dive down, search for it using sonar, and then latch on to its hatch. When an airtight seal has formed, the hatch is opened and the crew can load on to the DSRV in groups of 24.
How crews survive hundreds of metres beneath the sea The job of a submariner is physically, mentally and emotionally demanding, as they can spend months at a time living in cramped conditions, with only the other members of their 100-plus crew for company. In the past, they had no means of communication with the outside world for the entire length of their mission, but today email can be used to keep in touch with loved ones at home. Of course, the human body isn’t built for life below the waves, so keeping a crew alive requires some clever technology and engineering. To protect them from the crushing water pressure, the submarine features a strong inner hull in addition to the outer hull that gives the vessel its streamlined shape. Oxygen is supplied via pressurised tanks, or can be created on board by splitting seawater into hydrogen and oxygen using an electric current. The carbon dioxide the crew breathes
out is then removed using scrubbers – devices that trap the CO2 in soda lime using a chemical reaction. Fresh water is also created on board, as seawater can be heated to remove the salt, and then the water vapour can be cooled and condensed into a drinkable liquid.
The US Navy’s Deep-Submergence Rescue Vehicle, Mystic, attached to the USS La Jolla attack submarine
Crewmembers of the USS Augusta (now decommissioned) moor their sub to the pier
How a nuclear submarine works Take a tour of a modern deep-sea vessel to discover how it powers through the depths
Propeller The propellers push water backwards to generate thrust, propelling the submarine forward.
Rudders The submarine can be steered left, right, up and down by adjusting the position of the rudders to deflect water flow.
How do submarines dive? Normally, a boat floats because the volume of water it displaces weighs the same as the boat itself. In order to sink, a submarine must weigh more than the water it displaces, creating a negative buoyancy. This is achieved by flooding ballast tanks, located between the sub’s inner and outer hulls. To maintain a set depth, there needs to be a precise balance of air and water in the ballast tanks so that the sub’s density is equal to that of the surrounding water.
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Nuclear reactor The reactor produces heat to generate steam, which drives a turbine that directly turns the propellers.
Missile tubes Missiles can be launched via hatchways in the top of the submarine, sending them flying into the air and towards enemy targets.
Surfacing The water inside the ballast tanks is pumped out and replaced with air stored in tanks, making the submarine lighter and able to surface.
Diving Hatches are opened to fill the ballast tanks with water, making the submarine heavier than the water it has displaced, and causing it to sink.
DID YOU KNOW? DSRVs were developed as a result of the USS Thresher submarine accident in 1963, when the crew was killed
“Keeping a crew alive requires some clever technology and engineering”
Underwater navigation
HMS Ambush returning to its home port, HMNB Clyde
Antenna Snorkel When surfaced, air enters the sub through a snorkel, but when submerged, oxygen is generated on board the boat.
Underwater communications are carried out using low-frequency radio waves, which are able to penetrate the water.
Periscope
Little light is able to penetrate 200 metres below the ocean surface, so submarine crews use other methods to find their way. Inertial guidance systems can help to keep track of the sub’s journey from a fixed starting point, using gyroscopes and accelerometers to measure changes in motion, but must be regularly realigned to ensure the vessel remains on course. On the surface, this can be done using GPS, radio and radar satellite navigation systems, but underwater, sound navigation and ranging (sonar) are used. This helps to identify oceanfloor features, allowing the crew to plot the sub’s location.
Ballast tanks This compartment is used as a ballast to provide stability for the submarine, and works by controlling the boat’s buoyancy.
Sound waves The sonar sphere emits pulses of sound waves that travel through the water.
Objects above the surface can be observed via a series of mirrors that reflect light down to the viewer’s eye.
Calculating distance By measuring the time that it takes for the sound wave to get back to the sphere, the distance between the sub and the object can be calculated.
Crews of around 100 submariners live on the boat for months at a time without resurfacing, sleeping in cramped bunks between shifts.
Torpedo room Torpedoes are launched via tubes in the side of the submarine and then travel through the water towards the enemy.
Control room Navigation, communications and weapons systems are operated from the submarine’s nerve centre.
New recruits learning the ropes at the US Navy’s Basic Enlisted Submarine School in Connecticut
© Getty; WIKI; Dreamstime
Crew cabins
Bounce back When the sound waves hit an object, they reflect back towards the sonar sphere.
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TRANSPORT
Speeding through the water
SUPERSONIC SUBS This underwater craft could circumnavigate the globe in just half a day Moving at speed through water is very difficult, as liquid creates more drag than air. This means that you need a lot of energy to push through water at high speeds, and most modern submarines are only powerful enough to travel at around 75 kilometres per hour. However, researchers at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China are developing technology that could allow submarines to travel at the speed of sound, so around 5,400 kilometres per hour in seawater. Their method is based on supercavitation, which was first developed by the Soviets in the 1960s to create high-speed torpedoes during the Cold War. It works by creating a supercavity of air around the vessel, reducing drag and allowing it to reach much faster speeds. The Soviets successfully achieved this with their Shkval torpedo, which could reach speeds up to 370 kilometres per hour, but it could only travel for a few kilometres, and couldn’t be steered. Steering is a problem because rudders, the typical method of navigation underwater, require water to create drag, and so will not work in a bubble of air. To overcome this, the Chinese scientists have created a liquid membrane that can be sprayed over the submarine, reducing drag on one side so that it can be steered in the other direction. So far, however, a method of underwater propulsion for long-range supersonic travel has yet to be developed, so their dreams of travelling from Shanghai to San Francisco in 100 minutes are still a long way off. The cavitator of the Shkval torpedo
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How would a supersonic submarine reach the speed of sound?
Drag Friction between the water and submarine resists its motion through the water, creating drag.
Ordinary submarine
Turbulent drag
Thrust
Speed limit
The submarine’s propellers generate thrust, which pushes the submarine through the water.
To reach high velocity, lots of energy is needed to generate an amount of thrust much greater than the drag.
Supercavitating submarine
Rocket motor
Steering Various amounts of the liquid membrane can be applied to each side of the submarine, enabling its direction to be controlled.
Less drag As air is much thinner and less viscous than water, there is less drag to slow the submarine down.
Air
Rocket motors help the submarine to accelerate to the high speeds needed to maintain the air bubble.
Cavitator Liquid membrane When first launched, a special liquid is sprayed over the submarine to reduce drag and get the vessel up to speed.
Inside the USS Bowfin torpedo room. This sub has since been decommissioned
Once the submarine is travelling fast enough, the cavitator ejects gas from the nose with enough force to create a bubble around the vessel.
DID YOU KNOW? Russia’s Typhoon class submarines are 175m long and weigh 48,000 tons, making them the largest in the world
SUBMARINE DRONES The autonomous underwater vehicles that render crews unnecessary Keeping crews safe and alive at sea is a risky and costly business, so it’s no wonder that the world’s navies are already developing unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to do the dangerous work for them. One particular area where these underwater drones are useful is mine hunting, as they can search for and even destroy underwater explosives while keeping the crews of nearby ships out of harm’s way. The
US Navy currently uses the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI) Remote Environmental Monitoring UnitS (REMUS) vehicles for this very purpose, as each one is capable of doing the work of 12 human divers. It’s not just the military that these UUVs can help, as the ability to fit them with a variety of cameras and sensors also makes them useful for conducting scientific research. Underwater
drones can survey and monitor places that are incredibly difficult for humans to reach, and gather information about marine wildlife in their natural environment. For example, WHOI’s SharkCam drone has enabled scientists to observe the underwater hunting behaviour of great white sharks for the first time, showing that they use the darkness at great depths to avoid detection before ambushing their prey.
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Sub hunting
Ocean robots Discover the important roles of
The US Navy’s Sea Hunter is the world’s largest unmanned ship. It can sail on its own for up to three months at a time, using its short-range radar to detect diesel-electric submarines.
unmanned vehicles
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Unmanned surface vehicles
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Deep diving
Long-distance gliding
Hull inspections
Cargo delivery
Built by Boeing, the ECHO Ranger can dive to depths of 3,000 metres, and was developed to capture high-res images of the ocean floor for the oil and gas industry. It is now also being used for underwater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
WHOI’s Spray Glider uses small changes in its buoyancy, combined with lift from its wings, to propel itself through the water. This means it uses little power, so can travel for 3,600 kilometres at a time, taking scientific measurements from its surroundings over long periods.
The US Navy’s Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle inspects the hulls of ships for explosive devices or damage. Data is gathered by the high-res imaging sonar, then sent to operators on board the ship in real time via a fibre-optic tether.
The dual-use Proteus submersible can operate autonomously or manned, as it can transport divers or deliver payloads over hundreds of kilometres without human intervention. There’s space for up to six people inside, and it has a top speed of 18 kilometres per hour.
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Harbour protection
Animal tracking
Inspired by a tuna fish, the BIOSwimmer drone is being developed for the US Department of Homeland Security to patrol harbours and inspect ships. It has a flexible back section and fins to help it manoeuvre through the water, even in harsh environments.
WHOI has outfitted one of its REMUS UUVs with instruments that enable it to locate, track and film marine animals. The SharkCam is pre-programmed to home in on a signal from a transponder beacon that is attached to an animal such as a great white shark.
Unmanned underwater vehicles
Amphibious missions
Mine hunting
Capable of flying in the air and swimming underwater, the Naviator is the first amphibious drone. It has to stay tethered to its operator for continuous communications, but should help the military detect and map mines, and assist with search and rescue operations at sea.
Designed to swim ahead of a ship, Saab’s Double Eagle SAROV can detect, classify and dispose of mines in the vicinity. It can be remotely operated or function autonomously. Once a mine has been detected, it deploys a smaller mine sniper vehicle to destroy it.
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© Dreamstime; WIKI
Unmanned underwater vehicles
TRANSPORT
THE FUTURE OF SUBMARINES
The A26 submarine will be 62 metres long and weigh around 1,800 tons
What will underwater crafts look like in years to come? With technology advancing at speed, it will not be long before we find out whether the future of submarines is supersonic, unmanned or something else entirely. In fact, the latter is being explored by defence and security company Saab, and it is currently constructing two new super-stealthy Type A26 submarines for the Swedish Navy. With intelligence gathering and surveillance along coastlines becoming increasingly important, these high-tech submarines will be able to operate in shallow waters, and also feature Genuine HOlistic STealth (GHOST) technology, making
GHOST sub The Swedish Navy’s new high-tech submarine that will be invisible in the water
them virtually silent and almost impossible to detect. Per Neilson, program manager for the A26, says: “It will be much quieter, the sensors will be more advanced – detecting and documenting everything that goes on in the sea – and there will be a number of new capabilities such as the multi-mission portal in the bow that allows for the hosting of divers and small manned or unmanned vehicles. It will be a first-class intelligence-gathering platform.” The A26 sub will dive to depths of 200 metres and carry a crew of 26. It is due to be completed by 2022.
Clever coating The hull is coated in a material that absorbs noise and makes the submarine difficult to detect using infrared cameras.
Silent operation Endurance Next-generation, air-independent engines burn liquid oxygen and diesel fuel, and allow the submarine to stay fully submerged for several weeks undetected.
How you can explore the ocean High-tech submarines aren’t just reserved for the world’s navies and scientists; DeepFlight has created a personal underwater craft that just about anyone can use to explore the oceans. The Super Falcon Mark II is an electric craft that can be operated with minimal training, and dives to a maximum depth of 120 metres. It can carry two people, a pilot and a passenger, and is small enough to fit on a standard yacht, so you can take it for a dive wherever you are in the world. The submarine is safe to use around marine wildlife, and if you do encounter any trouble, whether it’s sharkrelated or not, it will automatically return to the surface.
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Rubber mountings minimise noise from the engines and other operating machines, as well as help to absorb shocks from impacts.
The Super Falcon Mark II is the underwater equivalent of an airplane, able to fly through the ocean
DID YOU KNOW? The longest submarine mission lasted 11 months, and the crew spent 4,700 hours underwater
The A26 has a maximum speed of 22 kilometres per hour, and can stay at sea for 45 days at a time
Reconnaissance Sophisticated sensors allow for improved intelligence gathering, which is collected and analysed using the onboard combat management system.
Magnetic detection Sensors control the electric current flowing through the hull, cancelling out any distortions to the Earth’s magnetic field that can reveal the boat’s location.
Modular design A sectional hull means that the submarine can be easily customised and upgraded, making it more cost-effective in the long-term.
Multi-mission
Weapons
Unique shape
The submarine is constructed from special steels to ensure that it can withstand significant shocks from any underwater explosions.
© WIKI; Illustration by Alex Pang
Shock resistant
The weapons tubes can handle various types of armaments, and are flooded by gravity to eliminate the use of noisy pumps.
The sub can be easily customised for different missions. For example, the bow can be used to launch and retrieve either divers or UUVs.
The hull design helps to reduce noise caused by the movement of water around the submarine.
The A26 will be able to withstand temperatures down to -2˚C
Divers can be deployed from the sub’s bow for stealth missions
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TECHNOLOGY 038 Virtual reality From training doctors to planning military ops, discover how VR is changing the world
046 Drone racing The new high-octane sport putting pilots to the test
058 Vacations of tomorrow
047 Inside a wind turbine How do these structures generate clean electricity
048 The science of football The tech and tactics that take teams to the top
056 3D without glasses Throw away those specs and immerse yourself in 3D
056 How juicers work The machines that turn your fruit into a refreshing drink
057 Harnessing the Sun How vast solar power towers generate electricity
057 Shrink-wrap seals How does plastic cling so tightly to products?
058 Holiday 2050 Your ticket to the high-tech vacation of the future
047 Inside a wind turbine 036
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The science of football
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Virtual reality
046 Drone racing
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TECHNOLOGY
From training ning n la p o t s r o t c do cover is d , s p o y r a it mil to how VR is set rld change the wo
DID YOU KNOW? Jack White has an app that plays a 360-degree video of one of his gigs when viewed using Google Cardboard
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“Hundreds of groundbreaking applications for VR are currently being explored” sync, but in a simulated scenario, you observe movement – like the rickety track of a rollercoaster – but you don’t feel it. It’s the opposite of traditional motion sickness, which occurs when you feel movement in your inner ear, but you don’t see it. The result is the same though, and it’s a big obstacle to making virtual the new reality. Receiving feedback other than visuals and sound is another issue, as it is difficult to recreate a sense of touch that enables you to fully interact with the world around you. On top of this, virtual reality is currently a solitary experience, as others cannot share what you’re viewing through the headset. However, with developers already working on ingenious solutions, such as haptic feedback gloves, wireless tracking technology and programmes that can create avatars of your friends, the virtual future is set to be one of endless possibilities.
Predicted uses of VR by the year 2025 Engineering
Gaming
Virtual reality can bring ideas to life, helping engineers improve their designs before they enter production.
Don’t just play as a character – be the character, as VR transports you into a variety of gaming worlds.
Military Entering virtual combat zones is helping to prepare soldiers for real-life military operations.
$1.4bn
$4.7bn $11.6bn
$5.1bn
Education $0.7bn
Real estate $2.6bn Retail $1.6bn
Video entertainment $3.2bn
Live events $4.1bn © SPL
his is the year when virtual reality changes life as we know it. That’s according to research from Deloitte, which predicts sales to reach $1 billion (£700 million) in 2016 when the Oculus Rift and headsets from Sony, HTC and PlayStation are finally released. “Head-mounted displays are going to be like toasters,” says Dr Albert ‘Skip’ Rizzo, Director of Medical Virtual Reality at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies. “You might not use it every day but everybody’s going to have one.” Whether you want to step inside the video games you play, or explore far-flung places from the comfort of your sofa, VR is set to usher in an entirely new era of home entertainment. For some people though, VR is already drastically changing day-to-day life, as the technology has a wide range of uses that extend far beyond gaming. From performing remote surgeries and treating medical conditions, to training soldiers and planning military operations, hundreds of groundbreaking applications are currently being explored. But while this tech is getting most of us excited, there are some that are left feeling cybersick. The symptoms are similar to motion sickness and it’s caused by a mismatch of sensory inputs. The brain expects things to be in
Space exploration The next giant leap for mankind is set to be virtual, as VR helps us explore new worlds beyond our own.
Medical From assisting surgeons to treating post-traumatic stress disorder, VR is already helping to save lives.
TECHNOLOGY
NEXT-LEVEL GAMING
Step into the game How the Virtuix Omni treadmill lets you take a virtual stroll
Get ready to redefine the meaning of fun
Safety first
Gaming and other forms of entertainment have been the main driving force fuelling the development of this technology. It’s predicted to be the main function for VR in the coming years, and already a wide range of accessories have been designed to enhance the experience. The Virtuix Omni is a motion platform that enables you to walk or run to control your avatar in a virtual world, as opposed to just staying seated and turning your head while you tap at an Xbox controller. Then there’s Oculus Touch, a pair of wireless controllers that let you feel as though your virtual hands are your own, meaning you can reach out and interact with objects in the game.
A support ring and safety harness keep you tethered to the treadmill to stop you from falling out.
Natural motion Special low-friction shoes allow your feet to glide across the concave treadmill surface for smooth, 360-degree motion.
Smart tracking Tracking pods in the shoes help the game calculate the speed and direction of your movements.
Haptic feedback
Virtual hands The tech that gives you the power to reach into the game
The controllers are able to deliver feedback when you interact with objects in the virtual world, helping them feel real.
Cable-free The wireless controllers are tracked by the Rift system using infrared LEDs and sensors, so it knows where your hands are.
Wireless set up The Virtuix Omni connects to your PC or mobile VR headset via Bluetooth and is compatible with much of the latest VR content.
Pull the trigger A ‘hand trigger’ input mechanism replicates the feeling of firing a gun for a fully immersive first-person shooter experience.
“Gaming is predicted to be the main function for VR”
VR coasters and virtual cinemas You can already ride virtual rollercoasters using a VR headset – so long as you can stomach the slightly nauseous feelings – but one of the UK’s biggest theme parks is now taking things a loop further. The new Galactica rollercoaster at Alton Towers requires each rider to pop on a VR headset, making them feel as though they are flying through space while they are in fact hurtling along a track at 75 kilometres per hour. For the adrenaline averse, there’s virtual cinema – apps that recreate the traditional movie theatre experience. Already available for the Oculus and Google Cardboard, they allow you to choose a seat and then enjoy the film without any annoying distractions from popcorn munchers. That’s not all though, as film directors such as Ridley Scott are already producing VR content that will enable you to step into the films themselves.
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Galactica is the world’s first rollercoaster entirely customised for the full virtual reality experience
DID YOU KNOW? The British Army is attracting new recruits by giving them a taster of army life using VR headsets
BATTLEFIELD VR Forget Call Of Duty – how can virtual reality revolutionise real-life military operations? Military organisations are often among the first to adopt the latest technological innovations and virtual reality is no exception. There are many potential applications for VR in combat, but British engineers from BAE Systems are working on some truly groundbreaking concepts. They are planning to create a ‘mixed reality’, using headsets to overlay virtual images, video feeds, objects and avatars onto footage of the operator’s actual surroundings, which are recorded by a front-facing camera. One use for this is in developing a portable command centre that can be transported in a briefcase and set up anywhere. The user would simply put on a headset and interactive gloves, and be able to monitor situations anywhere in the world. This would enable them to direct troops and even bring in artificially intelligent avatars to provide updates and advice. Another use for mixed reality is the ‘wearable cockpit’, a headset that overlays virtual displays onto the pilot’s real-time view, enabling them to customise controls based on their own preferences and mission objectives. As well as assisting soldiers when they are in battle, VR can also be used to train them before they get there. Headsets can be used to simulate a real-life combat zone, which can be experienced from a safe, controlled environment, keeping the soldier out of harm’s way. Of course, staying stationary during training isn’t ideal, so a variety of devices have been designed to give soldiers complete freedom of movement in virtual environments. The Virtusphere is a hollow ball on wheels, which rotates in any direction as the person moves inside. Sensors communicate the user’s movements to their VR headset, so their view can be updated accordingly. Alternatively, the Cybersphere is another human-sized hamster-ball, which doesn’t even need a headset to create a virtual battlefield.
A portable command centre would let military personnel manage emergencies from anywhere in the world
The Virtusphere lets soldiers move freely in a virtual battlefield environment
Step into the Cybersphere The hamster ball for humans trains soldiers for battle
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BAE Systems’ wearable cockpit overlays the pilot’s view with useful graphics
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1 Freedom of movement
2 Rolling around
3 A second sphere
4 Motion tracking
5 Wraparound view
A hollow, translucent sphere measuring 3.5 metres in diameter sits on a cushion of air, which allows it to rotate freely.
As the user walks, runs or crawls, they cause the sphere to rotate, although the structure itself remains stationary.
The movement of the large sphere is transferred to a smaller sphere; spring-loaded supports connect the two parts.
Rotation sensors record the movements of the smaller sphere to update the images that are then seen by the user.
Images of a virtual world are projected onto the interior walls of the sphere, so the user inside does not need to wear a headset.
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© SPL
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TECHNOLOGY
GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH? The groundbreaking applications in healthcare In a recent report about the growth of virtual and augmented reality, investment banking firm Goldman Sachs estimates that the industry will be worth $80 billion by the year 2025. It also predicts that, aside from video games, healthcare will be one of the biggest applications for the technology. Already, VR is being used to train surgeons, allowing them to practise complex procedures on a virtual patient before they get to the real thing, and it can even be used to conduct robotic surgeries too. Wearing a head-mounted display, the surgeon can
control a robotic arm that is capable of making smaller, more delicate movements than human hands could ever manage, plus it enables them to operate on a patient remotely from an entirely separate location. There is also a wide range of applications for which virtual reality can be used to treat patients directly. For example, VR can enable people with phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder to face their fears in a virtual world, in order to help combat them in the real one. Surgeons can better plan for complex surgeries with a virtual image of the patient’s brain
Virtual treatments At the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies, Dr Albert ‘Skip’ Rizzo and his team are using virtual reality for a number of game-changing clinical purposes. We spoke to him about their amazing work… How are you using VR to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)? One of the typical treatments for PTSD is prolonged exposure therapy. You ask the person to close their eyes and imagine the trauma that they went through as if it’s happening right then and get them to describe it to you. By doing that repetitively in a safe and supportive environment, eventually the anxiety that it provokes in them diminishes. It sounds kind of counterintuitive at first but there’s actually quite a lot of research to support this. What we do with VR is simply to deliver this previous imagination-only approach in an immersive virtual reality simulation. We have developed 14 different virtual worlds that represent a diverse range of experiences, and the clinician is able to adjust them in real-time, for example to change the time of day or introduce sound effects. The patient does exactly what they would do in traditional exposure therapy, but the clinician then tries to mimic their experience in the simulation to enhance the effects. What other clinical VR projects are you working on? One project is building a job interview training system for people with high-functioning autism – people that are very bright but have a difficult time with social interaction. We’ve built a simulation that has six different job interviewers, that can be set at three different levels, from a soft touch, nice interviewer to a more hostile interviewer that puts you ill-at-ease, giving them the opportunity to practise. We’ve also made virtual patients that give clinicians an opportunity to essentially mess up with a digital character before they get to a live one. Are there limitations of the tech in this field? The limitations right now have really diminished. I started in this game back in the early 90s, when it required a $200,000 computer, and you had bulky head-mounted displays with low resolution, limited field of view, poor tracking and primitive graphics. There was a network of people that wanted to do this work, but it was challenging because the technology really sucked. But now the technology has finally caught up with the vision. Computing power has consistently gotten better and faster, which is needed for good rendering, and of course the games industry has driven advances in graphic development that are phenomenal. So the limits right now are the limits of our imagination and the funding to evolve these applications and test them in a consistent way.
EDUCATION Discover how VR can really bring lessons to life Imagine being able to visit outer space or walk with dinosaurs instead of just reading about them in a textbook. Virtual reality could transform the way subjects are taught in the classroom, and one company is already developing a library of experiences that can educate students of all ages. “Virtual reality offers a new way to view the world,” says David Whelan, CEO of Immersive VR Education. “For the first time in humanity we can walk a mile in other people’s shoes.” The Apollo 11 experience, for example, lets you step onto the Moon as Neil Armstrong. “This is much more powerful than reading about the moon landing in a book,” he adds. “Virtual reality has the potential to revolutionise education in the same way that reading and writing did thousands of years ago.”
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Dr Rizzo uses virtual reality simulations to treat post-traumatic stress disorder
Virtual reality can enable students to experience events from history and impossible-to-visit places
DID YOU KNOW? VR could keep astronauts from feeling homesick on long space missions by providing virtual Earth experiences
Virtual reality helps astronauts train for life and work in space
Virtual world Stereoscopic tech will touch almost every industry
Archaeology VR headsets enable archaeologists to walk around places as they would have appeared in the past, giving them a better understanding of what life was really like there. They also make it possible to see ancient sites that are otherwise too remote, dangerous or fragile to visit in person.
SPACE EXPLORATION A new way to work in space and tour the Solar System Virtual reality has already become a crucial part of astronaut training, enabling them to practise spacewalks in a virtual environment before doing them for real, and is even being used once they get into space. A Microsoft HoloLens onboard the International Space Station enables ground operators to see through the eyes of the astronauts and provide real-time guidance, as well as project helpful holographic illustrations onto their view. For tasks that astronauts are not able to do themselves, a head-mounted display enables operators on the ground to see through the eyes of NASA’s Robonaut instead, which can then mimic
its operator’s movements to perform tasks just like a human. Virtual reality also makes it possible to explore other planets from the safety of Earth, as NASA scientists now have the ability to step into images taken by the Curiosity Rover to walk on Mars for the first time.
“Ground operators can see through the eyes of astronauts and give real-time guidance”
Crime solving Based on factual data and photographs, 3D reconstructions of crime scenes can be created and explored using head-mounted displays. This enables investigators and even juries to examine the scene in great detail without contaminating any evidence, helping them to deduce what may have happened.
Sport
DESIGNING
VR can help visualise engineering designs
When designing a new product, it’s difficult to get a sense of what the finished item will be like from 2D illustrations. With virtual reality, designers and engineers can use 3D modelling to create virtual prototypes of ideas, and use a head-mounted display to examine them from
all angles. For example, car manufacturers can sit inside the design of a new vehicle to make sure it looks and feels right before they build the real thing. Any tweaks can easily be made in the 3D design, rather than creating a new prototype from scratch.
As well as creating a more immersive way to watch sporting events at home, virtual reality can also be used to improve the athletes’ performance. While training in a virtual simulation, their body movements can be monitored in real-time, providing useful feedback to improve their game and help them avoid injury.
Microsoft HoloLens will enable engineers to view and interact with their designs in 3D
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© SPL; Alamy
Tourism Before you book your next holiday, your travel agent may be able to give you a taster of your destination using virtual reality. Popping on a headset will transport you to far away places, and even let you visit locations it’s not possible, or too expensive, to travel to in real life.
TECHNOLOGY The Gates of Hell
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This abandoned power plant is the ultimate drone obstacle course
1 Ready, set, go From the start line, the drones fly along a 68-metre hallway before making a hard left turn to avoid crashing into a wall.
2 The Cathedral
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After flying through the second storey, the drones make a vertical hairpin, diving onto the ground level of the Cathedral.
3 The Alley The competitors weave in and out of iron beams, then take a sharp turn out of a window and down the outside alley.
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4 Turn around Once they have passed the back of the building, the drones fly around a pole and then back in through another window.
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5 The Coal Room At the end of the hallway, the drones complete a sharp vertical drop into the basement and pull a 180-degree turn.
6 The finish line After two laps of the course, each 1km long, the drones cross the finish line at the end of the basement hallway.
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Built for speed
Drone racing The new high-octane sport putting quadcopter pilots to the test
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wooping through the air at 130 kilometres per hour, flying through narrow hallways and veering around tight corners, this isn’t your average quadcopter flight. In the world of professional drone racing, pilots’ skills are pushed to the limits as they manoeuvre their flying machines around some of the toughest obstacle courses on Earth. One of the biggest tournaments of this kind is the Drone Racing League (DRL), a global competition that sees the world’s top drone pilots compete for prize money and, more importantly, world champion status. This Formula 1 for drones features a series of races held in enormous sports stadiums and derelict buildings around the world. All of the competing pilots fly the same
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model of drone, the DRL Racer 2, in order to test their skills on a level playing field. In each race, they score points by passing checkpoints and finishing the course within the allotted time, and at the end of the heats the pilot with the most points is crowned the winner. The 2016 season is already underway, with the first race held in New York at a course nicknamed ‘The Gates of Hell’. Lit by neon lights and featuring multiple floors, this three-dimensional racetrack is a true test of aerobatic skill as the pilots must fly their drones right, left, up and down at great speed. There are plenty of daring manoeuvres and spectacular crashes to keep the audience entertained and inspire the next generation of master pilots.
The custom-made DRL Racer 2 drone is piloted using a remote control, which sends signals to the craft via radio link. DRL’s patented new radio technology ensures reception is never lost, even when the drone flies out of sight through hallways and underground, so the pilot is always in control. HD cameras mounted on the drone transmit a live video feed, also via radio link, to goggles worn by the pilot, enabling them to get a drone’s-eye view of the course as if they were in the cockpit. The drones themselves are made from lightweight carbon fibre, so they only weigh around 800 grams, and can reach top speeds of 130 kilometres per hour. 100 colour LEDs make each quadcopter easily identifiable and are bright enough for the audience to see the action from hundreds of metres away. After every lap, each pilot’s drone is replaced with a new fully-charged model, ensuring they can go the distance.
All DRL pilots have a fleet of DRL Racer 2 drones to use for each race
DID YOU KNOW? The University of Virginia is designing a mega-turbine, with each of its blades wider than two Airbus A380 planes
Inside a wind turbine
Wind turbines are usually found near the coast or on hilltops
The process of generating clean electricity from the power of the wind
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rotating blades are connected to an electric generator via a heavy-duty gearbox. Essentially, it acts like a set of bike gears; every time the blades complete one rotation, a shaft on the other side of the gearbox rotates 30 times. The generator’s job then is to turn all of this kinetic – or moving – energy into electrical energy. For this it uses electromagnetic induction, where a moving wire in a magnetic field produces electricity. In a wind turbine’s generator, a huge magnet surrounds a loop of wire connected to the gearbox’s shaft. Thanks to the wind, the blades rotate, spinning this wire up to 1,800 times every minute, and generating a stream of electricity in the process.
Behind the blades Hidden inside the sleek structure is a complex
Technician Highly trained technicians are on hand to ensure that the turbine is running smoothly.
system that turns wind into electricity
Anemometer This measures the speed and direction of the wind and communicates constantly with the controller.
Controller The onboard computer collects data and can switch the turbine off if the wind is fast enough to cause damage.
What can we use wind energy for? In countries like Denmark, wind turbines produce enough electricity to power millions of homes, and it makes its way to them via the grid – a nation-wide network of cables and pylons. However, the amount of electricity they produce is tricky to manage, because wind turbines produce electricity intermittently (only when the wind blows). Often, much of the electricity they produce is wasted, but the German city of Mainz has a found a clever way to harvest this surplus electricity. By using it to split water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen, it can produce hydrogen gas, which is perfect for use in emission-free fuel cell cars.
© Thinkstock; WIKI/Molgreen
ind turbines are a familiar sight on hilltops and coastlines, their huge blades turning high above the ground. They’re tall for a reason – as wind flows over the land and around buildings, it’s broken into uneven packets of air that are too slow to turn a turbine’s enormous blades. To capture the smoothest, fastest wind, the blades need to be far off the ground. Each of the turbine’s blades shares its shape with bird and airplane wings – they are rounded on one surface and flat on the other. This design is called an aerofoil and gives the blade lift as it turns, so it can use the energy from wind more effectively. Inside the wind turbine’s cabin, the
Blades Wind turbine blades are typically made from fibreglass, and their shape allows them to slice through the air easily.
Gearbox The generator is a coil of wire that is spun rapidly inside a huge magnet. This generates an electric current.
Yaw drive This can move the rotor to ensure the blades face directly into the wind.
The gearbox steps up the speed of the rotating blades, so that a single rotation turns the generator 30 times. © XXXX
Generator
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TECHNOLOGY
S C I T C A T D N A H C E T E H T : D E P L O A T E E V E H T R O T S M A E T E THAT TAK 048
“We can predict what a football match of the future may be like based on current tech”
Smartphones and apps Smartphones are now the primary communication devices for millions of people, and a huge selection of apps allowed for fans to show their support, and discuss their favourite teams with other fans online.
icture it now: it’s the 2050 World Cup final. Three-time winners China are facing off against Germany in the newly renovated Wembley Stadium. Around the world, millions of fans sit in their homes wearing virtual reality (VR) headsets; they all have the best seat in the house, right on the half-way line for kick-off. As the first goal is scored, the VR viewpoint switches to that of the player and suddenly millions of people are seeing the goal as the striker saw it, then as the goalkeeper, then from behind the goal. Those that couldn’t get to their VR headsets watch the replay projected as a 3D hologram by their smartphones, and as the players run to the corner to celebrate with their fans, biometric sensors built into their kits, or even their skin, give the team managers minute-by-minute readouts of their fitness levels. It might sound far-fetched, but when you think back to football matches just 20 or 30 years ago, it’s astonishing how far the game has come in such a short time. Some of the things we take for granted in the modern game still weren’t even
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World Cup tech The gadgets and gizmos that made the 2014 World Cup the most advanced yet
part of the rules back then – did you know, for example, that shin pads weren’t even made compulsory by FIFA until 1990? When you consider what has changed, the concepts above don’t seem so unlikely. Recent advancements in tech like VR, camera systems and even kit design have meant that the latest competitions have been the most sophisticated yet. And, with more and more technology being introduced at each tournament, the future of the beautiful game is likely to be one that is as reliant on computers and smartphones as it is on players at the top of their game. The exciting thing is that we can predict what a football match of the future may be like based on the technology that has been added to the game in recent years, and advancements that are being developed right now. Whether it’s simple things, like the disappearing spray now carried by referees, or more cutting-edge tech like cameras that allow for 3D replays, read on to discover how football matches will evolve even further in the next few years.
Nike Mercurial Superfly Boot technology also advanced for the World Cup. Nike’s Mercurial Superfly boots added a micro-textured upper that made it feel like players weren’t even wearing boots, while providing excellent stability.
Nike kit
Brazuca ball By far the most important part of the game, Adidas’ ‘Brazuca’ ball used six polyurethane panels that are bonded to keep the ball exactly the same throughout the game. Its aerodynamics were even studied in a NASA wind tunnel!
To combat the intense temperatures in Brazil, kit manufacturers focused on creating more airflow through their kits. Nike’s jersey, for example, combined polyester and cotton to create 56 per cent more airflow than previous versions.
Vanishing spray This smart spray can be used by the referee to mark free kick lines. It is made up mostly of water and butane gas, which expands when sprayed to form bubbles. The bubbles collapse after around a minute, leaving only water on the pitch.
Goal-line tech The 2014 World Cup was the first to use goal-line technology. Seven cameras at different angles accurately track the ball, and notify the referee if it crosses the line.
Portugal’s 2016 kit features Nike’s AeroSwift technology for improved breathability, stretch and fit
© Adidas; Nike; PixelSquid; Illustrations by Rebekka Hearl
DID YOU KNOW? There is an app called Score! that lets you recreate classic goals from famous players by swiping your screen
TECHNOLOGY
TRAINING TEAMS OF THE FUTURE
Individual aspects of a player’s game can be closely analysed
The techniques that will take footballers to the next level While many of the advancements in the sport over the next few years will certainly be in the stadium, on the pitch and in the homes of fans, some of the biggest changes will actually occur away from the cameras. Training sessions are being transformed as coaches learn more about how athletes’ bodies work, as are the ways in which players prepare for their next big match.
New technology, like the Adidas MiCoach smart ball, now allows training sessions to be tracked more closely, and individual aspects of a footballer’s game to be closely analysed on the training field. Sensors built into the ball present data about each kick – for example, you can see how hard a shot was struck, follow the flight trajectory, and reveal impact points to
help give more insight into how the player is performing. The information feeds straight into a smartphone app via Bluetooth, so players and coaches can instantly see how to get more curl on a free kick, generate more kicking power, or take better penalties.
Virtual reality training Players are using VR systems to improve without even having to move a muscle
Cameras everywhere The test
The system uses cameras around the pitch and combines images with data about players’ physiques to recreate parts of the game in 3D.
Players watch scenarios unfold, and are then asked a question about the best course of action to work out how they think in-game.
Training the future The system can be used on players as young as 12, and coaches can explain why they should have played a certain option afterwards.
Q&A
Does it feel real?
Choosing the right pass is important, but the speed of the choice is also analysed to improve how quickly players react.
Currently the graphics look like a FIFA game from a few years ago, but as computers get more powerful it will look more realistic.
Professor David Sumpter reveals the maths behind the match
What are the similarities and differences between maths and football? At first sight they look very different. One is a game where you kick the ball about and the other is a mental activity. But when you dig a bit deeper, there are real similarities. Maths is not as abstract as we sometimes paint it. Solving applied maths problems involves lots of the spatial thinking and problem solving that confronts footballers. There is also a lot of
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Speed is key
theory, in terms of formations and tactics, in football and this requires logical thinking very similar to mathematics. Do footballers actually use maths when training and on the pitch? They do, and they have done for a long time! I was speaking with ex-Chelsea and Everton player Pat Nevin about this recently. He told me that when he played for Scotland in the 1980s they would plan attacking triangles. So, long before the current interest in data in football, coaches would use
mathematical concepts to describe how they wanted their teams to play. What I have found in my research is that a lot of the patterns of play we see on the pitch are mathematically optimised. The positioning of the players uses space efficiently and maximises the chance of a pass being successful. How can maths help a team win a penalty shootout? The secret of a good penalty is unpredictability. Of course the striker needs to hit the ball hard and a long way from the keeper, but choosing the side is the difficult part. If you always kick to a random side then
DID YOU KNOW? Patents filed by major tech companies like Apple show ideas for smartwatch bands that analyse sweat
to their pulse, and tailored drinks could be made up by machines on the side of the pitch to give them what they need to perform. Training sessions are no longer just a place to work on your own game, but to study the opponents’ too. Tablet computers are regularly provided to players, which contain notes and videos on specific members of the opposition team. In the future, VR systems may allow players to relive moments in virtual environments to study the movements of opposition players. Technology will, undoubtedly, improve the quality of football in the next few years, as well as the way we watch.
Tracking the action Technology that tracks a player’s status might sound like something we can expect 20 years from now, but thanks to the Viper Pod, it’s already here. The device weighs less than 50 grams and is just eight centimetres tall, slipping into the pocket of a custom-made base layer. A built-in GPS module allows the player’s position to be tracked without the use of cameras, and the accelerometer and gyroscope can measure acceleration, collisions and more. There’s even a heart-rate monitor that reads a player’s pulse. The data is sent to a computer, so coaches can see these real-time stats, as well as analyse it later. It’s currently used by Manchester United, Barcelona, Juventus and many other teams for training, with more being added to the list all the time. Soon, we may know if that big-name player really is giving 110 per cent! © PixelSquid
Coaches are also focusing on how to get more from the players physically, and modern tech is helping to prolong the fitness of top professionals. In the 2014 World Cup, for example, the England team had coolers filled with drinks, each one tailored to a specific player’s needs. Exercise scientists, coaches and nutritionists worked together with experts from a university to create drinks customised for each player, with different electrolytes depending on the amount of fluid that each player lost during the match. In future, kits will likely include sensors that can accurately track a player’s physical state, from their temperature
There are multiple sensors built into the Viper Pod to track a player’s movement and body status
people and it is important to explain to them ‘why’ some things work on the pitch and why others don’t. It is here that maths comes in. It shouldn’t be explained so much in equations but in concepts like angle, spin and passing networks. Attacking triangles are an example of maths in football
the keeper has no way of predicting which way the ball will go. How can maths be used to train footballers? I think it is an important part of training. Football players are typically intelligent
What’s your favourite example of football maths? It’s hard to choose! The book is full of them. Here are a few: Le[\ijkXe[`e^_fnk_\k\Z_e`ZXcjkX]]Zi\Xk\ half-time maps of the opposition’s playing style to identify weaknesses. DXb`e^gcXp\i]fi\ZXjkj#ZfdgXi`e^_fn Andrea Pirlo stands in the eye of a storm
and how Bastian Schweinsteiger creates a whirlwind. C\Xie`e^XYflkn_XkgcXp\ijkXkj[fXe[[fe¾k tell us, and how teams use them on the transfer market. C`jk\e`e^kfZ_Xekj spread through the ground and understanding why songs grow exponentially. Soccermatics by David Sumpter is out now, published by Bloomsbury
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TECHNOLOGY GETTING A DRONE’S-EYE VIEW
The next-gen stadium What new tech will soon be packed into the pitch and stands?
As drone technology gets smaller and cheaper, we may well see them buzzing over the pitch. The important thing here is for the drones to be so small and light that, if the ball struck them, they wouldn’t change its trajectory or deflect it towards the goal, for example.
Lighting made smarter LEDs now make lighting more efficient, but balloons carrying special coloured bulbs could create a more ambient natural light that would make evening games more comfortable to watch.
Flying cameras While drones are currently large and easily damaged, soon the technology will be so small that tiny cameras could fly above the game, following players without disrupting the match.
Personalised ads If augmented reality becomes more commonplace, fans could start seeing personalised advertising while they watch the game, showing products they are actually interested in.
Tiny drones could even be piloted by fans wanting to watch on their phones
“LET’S SEE THAT AGAIN… IN 3D” The FreeD system currently used in NBA uses a series of cameras to capture a moment from every angle. Software combines these viewpoints and creates ‘3D pixels’ to draw a view of the event in 3D space. The footage plays, then pauses – allowing the camera to spin around the subject and create a 3D picture of the scene – before the action completes.
Player-worn cameras As technology advances, it will be easier for cameras to be included in kits, so fans can relive goals from the point of view of the scorer.
The camera system freezes the action and spins around it, giving a 3D view
THE TECH-DRIVEN FAN EXPERIENCE How new advancements will change the way we watch the game For the moment, there really isn’t anything like sitting in the stands with tens of thousands of fans as you cheer for your favourite team. However, in the future, things could be very different. While currently fans pay a premium to watch a game, soon they may be accessible to everyone via the power of VR. Special camera set-ups can now film a full, 360-degree view
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that records video for VR playback. Soon, these may be used to broadcast games live to VR devices around the world, which would allow you to slip on a headset and watch the game as if you were sitting in the stadium. Combine these visuals with a specially designed seat that vibrates alongside the chanting, cheering or foot-stamping of the
crowd, and a surround-sound headset that records the sound from inside the stadium, and you’d be experiencing something close to what the fans with tickets see and hear. Even better, with multiple camera rigs around the stadium you could change your seat throughout the game, so you’re always behind the goal when your team scores. This
DID YOU KNOW? The smallest camera-carrying drone measures less than four centimetres across and can stream 420p video
Smart camera systems Much like the goal-line system, cameras may be positioned around the stadium to help referees make decisions about penalties and other key moments in the match.
Maintaining the surface
Live data The big screens in stadia currently show replays of goals and display team information, but this could be taken further with live stats or other facts about the game.
Sensors will soon be built into pitches to monitor the hardness and wetness of the surface, as well as the player and ball position.
THE MAGIC SPRAY You may have seen physios charging onto the pitch to fix a player with a ‘magic spray’. Of course, this concoction is actually just a mix of chemicals that reduce pain and swelling, increase blood flow to aid tissue repair, or dissipate heat around the site of the injury.
The ‘magic spray’ rapidly relieves pain so players can get back to the game
Pitch-level cameras There may soon be cameras that rise out of the pitch to track the action from ground level. Sensors would allow them to retract automatically if players are nearby.
Augmented reality VR might help fans at home to feel like they’re in the stadium, but augmented reality could also allow fans watching live to see stats and replays on special glasses while watching the game.
experience may be a few years away, but it’s an exciting prospect. Something that will likely happen a little sooner, though, is the addition of detailed player stats for fans, both at home and in the stadium. As sensors like the Viper Pod become smaller and more common, fans can compare the performances of their favourite stars and cheer on the players who are reaching exhaustion, as well as make suggestions for how to change formations or make substitutions based on performance.
“As body sensors become more commonplace, data can be broadcast to fans” 053
© Populous; Thinkstock
Sofa fans will soon get the same experience as those inside the stadium
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Each player’s biometric data will be analysed by sensors either sewn into their kits or embedded in their skin, giving fans and coaches extensive access to stats and player information.
Biometrics
While much of the tech mentioned in this feature is already being developed, or is available right now, we couldn’t blow the final whistle without looking a little further into the future of football. By 2050, technological advances will have changed the game that we know and love so that it goes far beyond virtual reality and goal-line sensors. By then, technology like ‘active skin’ will allow computers to link to the nervous systems of players. At first, this will be used to track players’ physiological data in real-time, but as the technology advances it will become more expansive. When training, a player’s movements will be tracked in real-time, and neural stimulation will help players tweak their technique to bring it close to what the computer would consider ‘perfect’. Spectators might be able to watch miniature 3D recreations of games at home on their coffee tables, and they could be in control of the camera angle. But why stop there? Beyond 2050, we could see fans actually controlling the players on the pitch via an android! Excited? You only have 35-50 years to wait…
Body cameras
Players will wear special glasses, or even contact lenses, that will add a ‘head-up display’ to their vision. Messages from the coaching team will be displayed, as well as tactical changes for them to implement on the pitch.
Augmented reality
Every player on the pitch will have cameras built into their kits, allowing fans at home to see the game from the player’s point of view, and help coaching teams analyse their performance.
How much will the beautiful game have changed by 2050?
THE FUTURE OF FOOTBALL Preview the gadgets players could be sporting
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If you’ve ever watched clips from the RoboCup championships – with teams of Nao robots shuffling towards a ball and frequently falling over – you wouldn’t think that android football has any hope of taking the place of the real deal. The goal of RoboCup is to develop an autonomous team of droids capable of beating the top human team by 2050, but the project is still in its early days. With continued advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, these androids could even be capable of learning from footage of today’s legends. A robot that combines Ronaldo’s trademark free-kicks with Neymar’s unbelievable flicks and Messi’s close control could well be named humanoid of the match in the 2050 World Cup final.
The Building the footballer perfect player of 2050
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TECHNOLOGY
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holographic replays and more
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The ultimate ball
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Sensory gloves
DID YOU KNOW? The International Football Association Board is going to trial using video replay assistance in the 2017/18 season
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© Alamy; Nike; Adidas; PixelSquid; SPL
TECHNOLOGY
Throw away those tired old specs and immerse yourself in a 3D movie at home ith more and more 3D content heading our way, 3D TVs are the latest must-have in home entertainment. However, there’s one big disadvantage; most people don’t want to wear a pair of chunky 3D glasses while sitting in their living room. Unfortunately, without the glasses, the picture is just a blur, as they are needed to filter the light that reaches the viewer’s eyes so that each one sees a different image. Now though, TV manufacturers are experimenting with glasses-free 3D, which
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uses a technique known as autostereoscopy. A parallax barrier is placed in front of the screen to direct a different image to each of the viewer’s eyes. For 2D content, the barrier can be deactivated, but at the touch of a button the picture can be made to jump out at you on the sofa. Normally for this to work, the viewer would need to sit in a ‘sweet spot’ directly in front of the screen, but software can be used to form strips of images, creating additional viewing points, so multiple people can enjoy the 3D action together.
2D viewing
Flat image In 2D mode, light from all of the pixels on the screen travel straight to the viewer, so each eye sees the same view.
How juicers work The machines that can turn the contents of your fruit bowl into a refreshing drink here are a few different types of juicer you can buy for your kitchen. Some use a corkscrew-like device to squeeze the juice from the fruit, but the most common are centrifugal juicers, which work through spinning. When the fruit is pushed through the feed tube at the top, it falls into a basket, which acts as a centrifuge. A centrifuge is any machine that spins its contents in one continuous direction, and the ones found in juicers can spin at over 97 kilometres per hour. An electric motor spins the basket, which has a grater at the bottom to chop the fruit into smaller pieces. As the fruit spins, inertia and centrifugal force push it up against the basket wall, which features lots of tiny little holes. The spinning motion forces the liquid from the fruit though these holes, and it collects in the juice container, ready to drink. Meanwhile, the remaining pulp is forced up and over the edges of the basket, where it falls into a waste container, ready to be thrown away.
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3D viewing
Parallax barrier A panel featuring evenly spaced vertical slits directs the light from certain pixels into either the viewer’s left or right eye.
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Immersive viewing With each eye seeing a different picture, the illusion of depth is created in the brain, and so the viewer sees a 3D image.
Centrifugal juicers spin fruit at high speeds to extract the liquid goodness
© Dreamstime
3D without glasses
DID YOU KNOW? A solar power project started by American rapper Akon provides electricity to 14 African countries
Harnessing the Sun W
The Sun’s rays are focused onto the power tower
How vast solar power towers generate electricity hen light hits a solar panel, it generates an electrical current by nudging electrons away from their atoms, but solar power towers are different. These harness the heat of the Sun. Power towers sit at the centre of rings of angled mirrors, or ‘heliostats’, which track the Sun as it passes across the sky. They reflect the light, focusing it all onto the tower. Inside, fluid (originally water, but now more often molten nitrate salt), heats up under the intense light. The heated liquid is used to generate steam, which in turn is used to drive a turbine. This ingenious way of collecting solar energy allows heat to be stored even when the Sun goes down, providing a supply of electricity that can be used overnight and on cloudy days. Solar power towers aren’t without their problems, though. The mirrors concentrate the Sun’s energy to such intensities that wildlife entering the ring is in serious danger. Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada reportedly vaporised over 100 birds in just six hours. However, when compared to the environmental damage caused by coal-fired power plants, these towers still come out on top.
Inside a power tower The key to harnessing the Sun’s power lies inside a network of pipes
Molten salt A variety of fluids were tested, including water, air and oil, but molten salt seems to work best.
Cooling tower
Heliostats
The fluid is cooled and cycled back through the power tower.
Angled mirrors reflect sunlight onto the central tower.
Water Reflected light Steam
Cold salt storage
Hot salt storage
Turbine
Generator
Steel pipes
The heat is used to generate steam, which drives a turbine.
The spinning turbine is attached to a generator, which produces electricity.
A network of steel pipes carries fluid into the tower, and out to the turbines.
Collector tower The tower is covered in paint designed to absorb as much sunlight as possible.
Shrink-wrap seals S How does plastic cling so tightly to products?
The packaging process
Shrink-wrap clings tightly to cans and bottles from factory to supermarket
Sealing food packets in plastic is surprisingly simple 4
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1Products 2Wrapping 3Sealing 4Shrink tunnel Food products are transported on either boards or trays.
The products are encased in plastic wrap, covering the top and bottom edges.
At this stage, the plastic is sealed, although it is still loose.
Inside the shrink tunnel, the plastic is heated and polymer chains curl up.
5Cooling fan 6 Finished product The plastic is then cooled by fans, which sets the chains into their new positions.
The shrunken plastic fits snugly around the product, ready for shipping.
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© Thinkstock
hrink-wrap contracts when heat is applied, forming a secure seal around food products as they travel to and from our supermarkets. The secret behind the stick is polymers – long molecules made up of smaller units joined together. Before the wrap has been shrunk, these molecules are stretched out, forming neat, parallel bundles. When heat is applied, they curl up, knotting together and shrinking down by up to 50 per cent. The most common material for shrink-wrap used to be polyvinyl chloride (PVC), but it is quite sensitive to changes in temperature. When it gets hot, it hardens. The newer plastic, polyolefin, is much more stable. Shrinkwrapping machines coat products in plastic, before running them through a heated tunnel to shrink the covering down to size.
TECHNOLOGY
T E K C I T R YOU HG I H E H T TO ION T A C A V H TEC E R U T U F E OF TH CHOOSE YOUR MODE OF TRANSPORT
Dassault Systèmes’ concept for a flying cruise liner
t’s 2050 and taking a vacation is easier than ever, thanks to the latest technological breakthroughs. Over the next few pages, we’ll guide you through every step of your trip, from planning and booking, to travelling and making the most of your stay. Some of the tech involved might seem unbelievable, but all of it was in fact already real, or in development, in the year 2016. Take the process of booking your trip, for example. You may have been using websites to find the best deals, but now you don’t need to enter your information, as online travel agents already know your preferences. Gareth Williams, CEO and co-founder of travel company Skyscanner, said: “Travel search and booking will be as easy as buying a book on Amazon.” There’s no longer any guesswork involved in picking your destination either, as Nik Gupter, Skyscanner’s
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director of hotels, predicted back in 2016: “In ten years’ time a traveller will be able to take a virtual reality walk through the hotel he is planning to book in real-time.” The stress of travelling is long gone and getting to your destination is almost as enjoyable as the holiday itself. In 2016, Melissa Weigel from design studio Moment Factory said: “In the near future, airports will be an intrinsic part of the holiday experience.” Since then, automated check-in and speedy security scanning has made boarding your flight a breeze. Holiday destinations have also changed a great deal, as futurist Daniel Burrus predicted: “Relatively affordable trips in low Earth orbit that enable you to experience a few minutes of weightlessness will happen very soon.” With spaceflight commonplace, we’ve now got our sights on the Moon and Mars.
Avoid the airport altogether by taking your TF-X flying car
The 90-metre luxury JAZZ yacht features an indoor pool
© Zaha Hadid Architects/Bloom+Voss Shipyards/Moka-Studio
The Spike S-512 jet will mirror the speed of Concorde
DID YOU KNOW? Disney’s Revel interface can convey the feel of rough terrain as you slide your fingers across a map
BOOKING YOUR HOLIDAY Get the VIP treatment from the off Use an e-agent
Choose a destination
You can rent an artificially intelligent e-agent from your local travel company to help plan your trip. The tech is similar to JIBO – the personal assistant released in 2015 that uses two hi-res cameras to recognise faces and algorithms to learn your preferences and adapt.
Social media and online retailers use members’ profiles to monitor activity and alter the content they see. Travel brands now operate in a similar way, logging your likes and dislikes, while facial coding algorithms, as developed by Affectiva, enable search engines to read human expressions and gauge how happy you are with the results.
Book with ease While apps like Expedia enabled 2016 holidaymakers to arrange most aspects of their trip, 2050 takes the tech a step further. You can use a one-stop app to book your flights, hotel and holiday activities with a couple of taps of your smartwatch. Even transport to the airport will be taken care of.
Take a virtual vacation VR headsets enable you to try before you buy. By using dual lenses with a slightly different image in front of each eye, it recreates your normal stereoscopic vision and fools your brain into thinking virtual worlds are real. Disney’s Revel system, developed in 2012, uses electrical signals to create the feeling of touch.
AT THE AIRPORT How tech will take the stress out of travelling Smart tags
Biometric scans
Speedy checks
As you drop off your bags, they’re fitted with tags containing Near Field Communication (NFC) chips. When they come into close contact with another NFC chip inside the scanner, your personal and flight data is transferred wirelessly. You can then track each scan via an app.
Instead of a passport, a biometric data card is used to identify you. Images of your eye, taken with a camera that records visible and infrared light, capture the exact position of the iris’ unique patterns and features. As you board the plane, your eyes are scanned and matched.
The Picosecond Programmable Laser is a scanner that vibrates the molecules in your body and possessions to identify different substances, from traces of gunpowder to the contents of your stomach. It’s 10 million times faster than a conventional scanner.
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TECHNOLOGY
ON THE PLANE
Sit back, relax and fly Skyscanner’s personalised aircraft seat concept will provide ultimate comfort on your journey
Your journey will fly by as you explore the onboard entertainment options Instead of waiting around at the gate, you are free to explore the airport’s rooftop gardens, art exhibitions and shops at your leisure, safe in the knowledge that a 3D holographic assistant will appear to tell you when the plane is boarding. Holograms have been around since the development of lasers in the 1960s, but recent advancements in technology mean they’re now much more impressive. They used to be created by splitting a laser beam in two and directing each beam towards an object using mirrors. The beams were then reflected off the object and at the point where they recombined, a still hologram of the original object formed. In recent years, we’ve mastered moving holographic images, resulting in ultra-realistic 3D content for entertainment and practical uses. When it’s time to stroll onto the plane, you’ll find that the Airbus Concept Cabin has become reality, and you’re no longer confined to your own seat. First class and economy have been replaced with zones tailored to your different needs, whether you want to relax, mingle with other passengers or play some games.
Modular aircraft A cabin design with zones for work, rest and play
Smart lighting
Constant connection
Red wavelengths of light stimulate the brain’s production of the sleep hormone melatonin, helping you drift off and fight jetlag.
Next-gen 5G mobile internet and advanced satellite broadband are available throughout the flight.
Sonic disrupters Devices embedded in the seat rest prevent other passengers from hearing your private conversations.
Holographic hub Hold 3D conversations with friends and family back home or become fully immersed in the movies of your choice.
Relaxing atmosphere
Climate control Built-in climate control lets you monitor and adjust heating and cooling systems for your individual seat.
Private pods
Soft aromas and gentle sounds fill the cabin to help ease you into a deep sleep.
Pop-up rooms allow you to hold business meetings, have a romantic meal or read the kids a bedtime story on the flight.
Immersive entertainment Practise your tennis or golf at the virtual gaming wall or put on a VR headset to be transported to a cinematic world. Interactive window displays provide interesting information about the view
Panoramic views With the wave of a hand, the aircraft wall becomes transparent, offering a spectacular view of the outside world.
Self-cleaning Dirt repellent coatings inspired by nature ensure the aircraft’s fittings and furnishings are kept in good condition.
Memory-foam seat The roomy aircraft seat moulds to your body shape, providing comfortable support that minimises back pain.
DID YOU KNOW? Self-service kiosks at Incheon airport in South Korea allow a three-minute check-in for eight major airlines
YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION
Motion sensors
Smart mirror
Upon entering the room, the lights automatically switch on and the coffee machine whirs into action.
As you get ready for the day, the local weather, news stories and your emails are projected over your reflection.
The smart hotel room will ensure the stress-free experience continues Once you’ve stepped off the plane and swiftly passed through immigration with your biometric card, you will find another driverless taxi waiting to take you to your hotel. Instead of having to pick up your room key at the check-in desk, you can proceed straight to your room and unlock it using your smartphone, a system that was adopted early by Hilton and Marriott hotel chains. Your bags are delivered to your door by a robot butler, such as Botlr, the droid employed by Aloft Hotels at their Californian establishments. He can be summoned via an app to bring you any toiletries you may have forgotten to pack, or deliver a tasty snack to help you refuel after your long journey. Just as everything in your own home is connected to the internet, all of your hotel room’s appliances are smart and intuitive too. You can even upload your home temperature preferences to the room’s Nest thermostat, and display family photos on the digital wall displays, to help you feel really at home. A good night’s rest is guaranteed as the Sleep Number x12 bed features sensors that monitor your sleep, ensuring the alarm clock gently wakes you at the optimum time, and can tilt the pillows to stop your partner snoring. All of this tech already existed as of 2016, but has since been adopted by hotels throughout the world.
Future hotel rooms The intuitive tech-filled rooms that will provide a home away from home
Touchscreen control A central interactive hub gives you control over all internet-connected appliances to fully customise the temperature, humidity and lighting in your room.
Keyless entry Avoid check-ins by downloading your key code onto your phone and scanning it at your hotel room door.
Biometric safe Keep your personal possessions secure in a safe that only opens when it scans your fingerprint or retina.
Robot butler Your luggage, room service, fresh towels and more are delivered by a robot that you can summon via an app.
Wireless charging VR headset Get a taster of local attractions by paying a virtual visit via the VR headset in your room.
Forget to bring your phone charger or plug adapter? Don’t worry, there’s an inductive charger built into the bedside unit.
© ICEHOTEL/Paulina Holmgren
WEIRD HOTELS THAT ACTUALLY EXIST The frozen hotel
The salt palace
Made entirely from ‘snice’ – a mixture of snow and ice – the Icehotel in Sweden melts in the summer and is rebuilt every winter, with construction taking just six weeks. Temperatures inside the hotel are between -5 and -7 degrees Celsius.
Located on the edge of the world’s largest salt flats in Bolivia, the Palacio de Sal has been built using one million blocks of salt and features 16 rooms, a spa and a golf course. Everything from the walls to the beds is made entirely from salt.
The jumbo experience If you haven’t had enough of airplanes by the time you leave the airport, then Jumbo Stay will let you dwell in one too. The converted 747-200 jumbo jet is grounded near Arlanda Airport in Sweden and features over 30 rooms.
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TECHNOLOGY
At the spaceport
Remote location
Catch a space plane into orbit from your local spaceflight hub
Airspace
Due to the higher risk involved with rocket vehicles, spaceports are located away from densely populated areas.
Space plane operations are conducted in segregated special-use airspace, away from normal air traffic routes.
World View’s heliumfilled balloon will float a capsule full of space tourists to the edge of space
Spaceflight operators Refuelling
Lots of different commercial spaceflight companies operate from the same spaceport, so a number of different vehicles are catered for.
Terminal building Not just for check-in and shopping, the terminal also hosts astronaut training facilities to prepare passengers for their flight.
Runway
Rocket engines need both fuel and a source of oxygen, and different types are needed for different spacecrafts.
Space planes like Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo need a long runway for horizontal take-off and landing.
SPACE TOURISM Take a trip that’s literally out of this world If you really want to escape from it all, then how about leaving the planet altogether? Space tourism is a billion dollar market in 2050 and there are several companies offering trips. Blue Origin, the company set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, can offer you breathtaking views from its New Shepard spacecraft as you soar over 100 kilometres above Earth. You’ll need to arrive at the desert launch site in West Texas two days before your flight so you can begin your astronaut training. You’ll receive mission and vehicle overviews, in-depth safety briefings and instructions on how to move in a weightless environment. When the morning of your flight arrives, it’s time to scale the steps of the launch tower and climb through the hatch of the capsule, which sits on top of an 18-metre tall rocket. Once you’re strapped in and have received final clearance for launch, the countdown to lift-off will begin. The extreme acceleration will
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force you back into your seat and you’ll experience over 3 g for 150 seconds and Blue Origin first then the booster engine will cut off as vertically landed a you glide into space. The capsule will booster in 2015, separate from the booster, and from the paving the way for reusable rockets serene silence will come the signal to release your harness. As you float out of your seat and marvel at the weightless freedom, you’ll forget that you’re travelling faster than Mach 3 – three times the speed of sound – and stare back at Earth out of the capsule window. XCOR Aero space is plan ning to laun Lynx spacep Before descent, you will return to your seat to ch its lane from its Curaçao sp aceport strap in for re-entry. Forces of over 5 g will push against you before the parachutes deploy and thrusters fire, reducing your speed as you gently float back to Earth. Once you’ve landed, just miles from where you launched, you can go and collect the complimentary souvenirs of your thrilling trip. That’s right; novelty keyrings still exist in 2050.
DID YOU KNOW? The first space tourist was US multimillionaire Dennis Tito, who paid $20m to spend eight days on the ISS in 2001
UNDERWATER HOTELS Sleep, eat and relax with the fishes Back in 2016, the closest thing to an underwater suite was the five-star Atlantis, The Palm, in Dubai. The floor-to-ceiling views of a colossal aquarium created such a spectacular illusion that celebs like Kim Kardashian were willing to splash the cash to stay there. But while a fully-fledged underwater haven like the Water Discus Hotel was just a concept
in 2016, its doors are open in Dubai in 2050. Once you arrive by boat or helicopter from the shore, you can relax in your room and watch the marine critters swim by, or sign up for a diving course to get even closer to the action. You don’t even need to go back up to the surface in order to get in the water, as there’s sea access direct from the underwater disc. Underwater suites at The Palm, Dubai, offer views of 65,000 marine animals
Upper disc Located five to seven metres above the water, this disc features a restaurant, spa, swimming pool, garden and helipad.
The Water Discus Get up close with marine life in Dubai’s ocean hotel
View to the sky A wide shaft with a view of the sky helps to minimise any claustrophobic feelings you may have underwater.
Sturdy structure The two large discs of the structure are anchored to the seabed by four legs, and joined by a vertical shaft containing a lift and stairway.
Remote-controlled cameras Underwater vehicles equipped with cameras can be operated from inside the hotel, giving you an even closer view of your marine surroundings.
Underwater disc Submerged around ten metres below sea level, this disc features 21 hotel rooms, an underwater dive centre and a bar.
Safety first The underwater disc will automatically float to the surface in the event of an emergency, such as an earthquake.
Underwater airlock Divers can go straight out into the ocean from the underwater disc, which is equipped with a decompression chamber.
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ENVIRONMENT 066 How the world could end From supervolcanoes to nuclear winters, the scientific theories in danger of becoming reality
074 China’s rainbow mountains The vivid colours of the Zhangye Danxia formations are a mineral marvel
076 Natural born killers The deadly tactics of the world’s greatest hunters
082 Cats vs dogs It’s time to settle this age-old rivalry once and for all
086 Venus flytrap Insects don’t stand a chance when they land on this plant
076 Nature’s top predators
086 Canada’s Spotted Lake Nestled in a forested landscape is a masterpiece of nature
087 Life cycle of a frog Discover how a cluster of cells transforms into a hopping, croaking amphibian
088 The Galapagos Islands Uncover the secrets of the Pacific islands so special, they changed our natural history
086 Canada’s Spotted Lake
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How the world could end
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Venus flytrap
087 Life cycle of a frog
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The amazing Galapagos Islands
Cats vs dogs
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ENVIRONMENT
IT IS ESTIMATED THAT 99.9 PER CENT OF ALL SPECIES THAT HAVE EVER INHABITED EARTH ARE EXTINCT. ARE HUMANS NEXT?
Illustration by Tobias Roetsch
FROM SUPERVOLCANOES TO NUCLEAR WINTERS, THE SCIENTIFIC THEORIES IN DANGER OF BECOMING REALITY
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DID YOU KNOW? Many experts believe that the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park is long overdue an eruption
A SUPERVOLCANO BLOWS S A cataclysmic eruption plunges the planet into a brutal volcanic winter upervolcanoes are the leviathans of volcanism. Defined by their ability to blast more than 1,000 cubic kilometres (240 cubic miles) of material into the air, they are a thousand times larger than the 1980 Mount Saint Helens eruption – the most destructive volcanic eruption in recorded US history. Geologists have never witnessed a supervolcanic eruption, but by looking at remnants of previous cataclysms, they can piece together alarming details. These eruptions rain
debris and fiery destruction on a geographical region as large as Europe, but it’s the gases they inject into the stratosphere that could spell disaster for humanity. During a super-eruption, a scalding plume of gas would belch almost to the edge of space. Levelling off, it would spread out around the globe, forming a veil of sulphate aerosols that would persist for several years and trigger a volcanic winter. The veil would reflect and absorb incoming solar radiation, warming the upper atmosphere and
1 Ash cloud
6 Fallout
Volcanic winter 1
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Ash and rubble buries homes, roads, power grids, sanitation systems and agricultural land; famine and disease rage.
Global climate in the aftermath of a supervolcanic eruption
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2 Increased cloud formation
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7 Acid rain Sulphate aerosols combine with water and fall as acid rain, stripping vegetation and poisoning soils, acidifying lakes, damaging structures and causing respiratory irritation.
Sulphate aerosols also act as cloud condensation nuclei, encouraging thicker cloud formation and further blocking of sunlight.
Incoming sunlight is reflected and absorbed, warming the upper atmosphere and affecting air circulation and weather patterns.
Illustration by Ian Jackson
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3 Stratospheric warming
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5 Aerosol veil Sulphate particles disperse widely, blocking sunlight for years and causing surface temperatures to plummet.
Buried by ash, ravaged by acid rain, or strangled by freezing summer temperatures, crops fail, livestock dies, causing widespread famine.
9 Oceanic circulation chaos
4 Ozone depletion Chlorine, bromine and other aerosols interfere with atmospheric chemistry, encouraging depletion of the ozone layer.
8 Vegetation dies
“A veil of sulphate aerosols would trigger a volcanic winter”
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Reduced sea surface temperatures scramble normal oceanic circulation, altering global weather patterns in unpredictable ways.
10 Marine biology collapse Disturbed circulation and reduced deep-water upwelling hampers nutrient flow, threatening the entire oceanic food chain.
Mount Tambora and the year without summer
Mount Tambora’s colossal caldera is 6km (3.7mi) wide and 1.1km (0.7mi) deep
In 1815, Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa erupted, ejecting 50 cubic kilometres (12 cubic miles) of material skywards in one of the most powerful eruptions in recorded history. Tambora claimed an estimated 70,000 lives in the region, and caused climate mayhem across the Northern Hemisphere. Dubbed “the year without a summer”, 1816 saw June snowfall in New York and widespread crop failure, famine, disease and riots, bringing the death toll to several hundred thousand. Despite its far-reaching consequences, Tambora was at least ten times smaller than a supervolcano.
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© Dreastime; CGTextures
Suspended ash blocks the Sun for several weeks and all air traffic – including aid to the region – is disrupted.
preventing heat from reaching the surface. The result would be extreme instability in the climate system. Surface temperatures would tumble rapidly, leading to agricultural collapse and famine. Some even speculate that these conditions could lead to the onset of an ice age. Such catastrophic super-eruptions are rare; the last we know of occurred 27,000 years ago in New Zealand. But they are inevitable. Critically, we have no idea when the next one will strike and absolutely no way to prevent it.
ENVIRONMENT
NUCLEAR WINTER
The smouldering aftermath of nuclear conflict blacks out the Sun With the power to demolish entire cities in seconds, nuclear bombs are the most devastating weapons on the planet. In many ways, those annihilated in the first moments of a blast could be considered the lucky ones. In the 1980s, prominent scientists including Carl Sagan warned that a nuclear war between
the US and the Soviet Union could drive the globe into a catastrophic nuclear winter. Incinerated cities and forests would send heaving clouds of Sun-blocking ash into the stratosphere – it could take years for particles to be rained out. In a worst-case scenario, it is theorised that 99 per cent of the Sun’s light would be blocked for
several months, resulting in noontime twilight and the halting of photosynthesis. Surface temperatures could plummet tens of degrees below normal levels for years or even decades, bringing crippling arctic conditions to the entire globe. Plants, animals and humans would perish in the darkness.
Nuclear winter Ash cloud
How nuclear conflict could wreak havoc on global climate and the environment
Clouds of ash spread out and absorb almost all incoming solar radiation, causing noontime twilight.
Blast damage
Black rain
Ozone depletion
For months, rains are black with ash and dangerously acidic, due to nitrogen oxides released in the blast burn and firestorms.
Hot ash warms the surrounding atmosphere, fuelling chemical reactions that destroy up to 70 per cent of the ozone layer.
Everything close to the epicentre is vaporised; damage further afield is caused by a rapidly expanding fireball and pressure wave.
Vegetation Razed by blasts, stripped by acid rain or starved of sunlight, plants die off en masse, causing agricultural collapse and global famine.
Nuclear firestorms Raging for weeks, firestorms produce billowing black pyrocumulus clouds that inject ash into the upper atmosphere.
Surface temperature Average temperatures drop suddenly for several months and remain below the pre-nuclear average for decades.
Fauna Those creatures that manage to endure the harsh temperatures face radiation poisoning and starvation as vegetation dwindles.
Radioactive fallout Radioactive dust disperses throughout the atmosphere, poisoning water supplies and the food chain and causing radiation sickness.
How many nukes would destroy Earth?
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Long-term radiation effects
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Survivors of the nuclear winter face a bleak future, with skyrocketing rates of birth defects and cancer.
Energy of explosion (megatons of TNT)
40mt
How the world’s most famous nuclear bombs stack up
30mt 25kt
Energy of explosion (kilotons of TNT)
20kt
Little Boy (Hiroshima)
Fat Man (Nagasaki)
3.6 million blasts
20mt
15kt
B53
10kt
10mt The mushroom cloud of the ‘Fat Man’ bomb after it detonated in Nagasaki, Japan, instantly killing around 80,000 people
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5kt
Castle Bravo
2.8 million blasts
49,000 blasts
35,000 blasts
Tsar Bomba 16,000 blasts
DID YOU KNOW? Tsar Bomba unleashed over ten times the energy of the entire combined firepower of World War II in one blast
ASTEROID IMPACT A celestial wrecking ball smashes into Earth Asteroids are hunks of rocky space debris, left over from the creation of the planets, which whizz around our Solar System, orbiting the Sun. From time to time they cross paths with us and, while impacts on the scale of the infamous ten-kilometre (6.2-mile) dinosaurdestroyer are rare, an asteroid a fifth the size could spell disaster for civilisation. With energy greater than 10 million Hiroshima bombs, the impact shock would flatten everything within a 300-kilometre (186-mile) radius. Dust and debris would cause an ‘impact winter’ and most living things would perish. An ocean strike would trigger monumental tsunamis, obliterate entire coastlines, and inject seawater into the atmosphere – destroying huge swathes of the ozone layer and exposing survivors to devastating levels of UV radiation.
3 Push it
Five ways to head off an asteroid
Land an ion-drive rocket engine on the surface, and build up enough thrust to nudge it off course.
Given enough forewarning, there are a few tricks that might successfully avert a collision
1 Pull it Position a ‘gravity tractor’ 250m (820ft) from the surface; the spacecraft’s gravitational pull would gradually tease the asteroid onto a new path.
2 Slam into it Smash a fast-moving spaceship into it, altering its velocity by a sliver and eventually creating a significant path drift.
4 Nuke it Detonate a nuclear bomb nearby; vaporising surface material would deflect the asteroid’s course.
5 Blow it up Bury a thermonuclear bomb deep beneath its surface, detonate, and hope none of the fragments head our way.
Did an asteroid cause the K/T extinction? Famous for the demise of the dinosaurs (and 80 per cent of all animal species), the K/T extinction event occurred about 66 million years ago. Scientists’ theories that a gigantic space rock was to blame are strongly supported by the existence of a 180-kilometre (112-mile) impact crater – dated as 66 million years old – at Chicxulub in Mexico.
RUNAWAY GREENHOUSE EFFECT Human activities set in motion an unstoppable warming of the planet Absorption
Outgoing infrared
Greenhouse gases absorb outgoing infrared and reradiate some of it back towards Earth, trapping heat in the lower atmosphere and causing an overall warming.
Some of the outgoing infrared energy is absorbed by the atmosphere and reflected back down towards the surface, while the rest is radiated into space.
Reflection About 30 per cent of incoming radiation is scattered by the atmosphere or reflected by clouds back out to space.
Illustration by Ian Jackson
Greenhouse gas emissions Emissions include carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, methane from agriculture and nitrous oxide from synthetic fertilisers.
Surface radiation Earth’s surface absorbs solar radiation and re-emits it as thermal infrared radiation.
Incoming sunlight
Melting ice
About 70 per cent of the Sun’s energy penetrates the atmosphere and heats Earth’s surface.
As global temperatures rise, glaciers, sea ice and ice sheets melt, causing sea levels to rise.
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© Thinkstock; CGTextures
The greenhouse effect is essential to life as we know it. Just like a glass greenhouse lets in light but traps heat, insulating gases in our atmosphere protect us from the deathly cold of space. But since the Industrial Revolution, humans have upset the delicate balance of the atmosphere. Concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), released when fossil fuels are burned, and other ‘greenhouse gases’, have risen at an alarming rate, forming a thick blanket around Earth, trapping excess heat and nudging global temperatures upwards. While warmer weather might be welcome in some places, ‘feedback loops’ complicate the effects of higher temperatures. Increased evaporation will cause denser cloud cover, exacerbating the warming effect because clouds themselves are strong insulators. Longstanding carbon ‘sinks’ – rocks and oceans that pull CO2 out of the atmosphere – will become unstable and release their stores, accelerating the problem still further. Scientists warn of a tipping point – a temperature beyond which the problem can no longer be dialled back. If we reach this point, a runaway greenhouse effect would cause temperatures to soar to several hundred degrees Celsius, boiling the oceans and making life on Earth impossible.
ENVIRONMENT
THE SUN DIES
Planet-gobbling star caught in the act
In its twilight years, our local star turns on us The Sun supplies the energy for almost all of life on Earth, but all good things come to an end. When the Sun’s time comes and it starts to run out of fuel, its core will collapse as the outward force – due to fusion – can no longer balance the strong inward force of gravity. At the same time, its outer envelope will inflate, expanding the star into a red giant, and
Temperature rises
Red giant Sun The view from Earth as the Sun grows old
Plants disappear
engulfing the orbits of Mercury, Venus, and – potentially – Earth. Eventually, the dying Sun will transform into a dense white dwarf surrounded by a dazzling planetary nebula. Humans won’t be around to see this; the Sun’s fuel supply will start to run low about five billion years from now, but Earth will be inhospitable long before.
In 2012, astronomers stumbled upon a planet murder in progress. They found that red giant star BD+48 740 currently contains unexpected levels of lithium. This rare element is easily destroyed in stars, indicating that it has recently digested something with the mass and composition of a planet.
As it ploughs through its fuel reserves, the Sun gets about ten per cent brighter – and therefore hotter – every billion years. The increase makes Earth inhospitable to all life in under a billion years.
As the climate warms, carbonate rock formation – which sucks CO2 from the atmosphere – speeds up. Although this temporarily stunts overall warming, eventually there is no longer enough CO2 for plants to photosynthesise. All animal life is doomed.
A swallowed planet is vaporised and its material blends into the star
Red giant approaches Billions of years after Earthly life is obliterated, the Sun will begin its red giant phase, swallowing Mercury and Venus and bearing down on our now barren rock.
Earth’s fiery demise Although some experts suggest that the Sun’s reducing gravitational pull will allow Earth’s orbit to spiral outwards to safety, most agree that it will be devoured and vaporised.
Oceans evaporate Soaring temperatures cause the oceans to boil. The atmosphere fills with water vapour and the surface turns into a desert. Without water, all but the hardiest microbes die off.
Sun
Mercury 0.38 AU
“The dying Sun will swallow Mercury, Venus, and – potentially – Earth” 070
Venus 0.72 AU
Earth 1 AU
Mars 1.52 AU
Today: the Sun is at a distance of one astronomical unit (1 AU) 150mn km (93mn mi) - from Earth
Mars 1.9 AU
7.5 billion years from now: the Sun has expanded and engulfed the innermost planets
DID YOU KNOW? Gamma-ray bursts have an ‘afterglow’ that covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum
GAMMARAY BURST An explosion hundreds of thousands of light years away annihilates the ozone layer
Anatomy of a long GRB Step-by-step guide to the brightest electromagnetic events in the universe
1 Star death
When a massive star’s energy dwindles and it nears the end of its life, it swells to become a red giant. When its fuel supply finally runs out, the star collapses under its own gravity, crushing its core into a black hole.
2Supernova
The heat created by the collapse (around 100bn°C/180bn°F) forces particles violently outwards from the core. As these slam into the star’s collapsing outer layers, a shock front forms and blasts the layers away in a supernova explosion that lasts days, weeks or months.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the brightest events in the universe. Produced by the explosion of massive stars, they emit focussed beams of intense gamma radiation. They can last anywhere from a fraction of a second to several hours, and can release as much energy in ten seconds as the Sun will produce in its entire lifetime. If the Earth were unlucky enough to get caught in a GRB’s almighty death beam, the effects would be catastrophic. It would trigger atmospheric chemistry that would destroy the ozone layer – leaving life on the surface exposed to deadly ultraviolet radiation.
3Expulsion
Matter falls into the rapidly spinning black hole. As it is devoured, narrow jets of intense radiation blast out along the black hole’s axis of rotation, producing an intense flash of high-energy gamma rays.
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© James Gitlin/STScI AVL; Science Photo Library / Alamy; Freepik.com
Earth in the firing line According to astronomers, GRBs are triggered close enough to affect life on Earth about once every five million years. Evidence in the tree ring record suggests our latest hit was nearly 1,250 years ago. Tree rings from all over the world show 20 times the normal level of carbon-14 in the year 774, an effect that scientists calculate could have been caused by a GRB about 13,000 light years from Earth. Some scientists believe that GRBs may also have been responsible for some of the major extinction events that have happened throughout Earth’s history, including the Ordovician-Silurian event approximately 440 million years ago, where 60 per cent of marine invertebrate life perished.
GRBs are astronomical showstoppers that briefly shine a million trillion times as bright as the Sun
Jet and gamma rays
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ENVIRONMENT
GLOBAL PANDEMIC
The Black Death One of the deadliest pandemics in human history, the Black Death was the second plague pandemic. Originating in China in the 1330s, it spread along the Silk Road trade routes to Europe, where it claimed the lives of an estimated 60 per cent of the population. Victims developed high fevers, vomited blood, and usually perished within a week.
Infectious disease sweeps the planet, eradicating the entire human race A pandemic is an outbreak of infectious disease that spreads throughout much of the globe. Human history is punctuated by debilitating pandemics and, despite medical advances, it’s only a matter of time before we see another. Today’s standards of sanitation and medical research help us stay one step ahead of most infectious agents, but widespread international travel and increased population densities make it much easier for a global pandemic to threaten us all. In 2003, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) – a serious form of pneumonia – spread to six of the world’s seven continents within months, infecting an estimated 8,000 people and killing 750. More recently, Ebola
– a grisly disease ravaging West Africa with a death toll over 11,000 – threatened to go pandemic in late 2014 after cases popped up in travellers arriving back in North America and Europe. Emerging diseases pose the biggest problem, since they involve unknown pathogens with no existing vaccinations. The most dangerous are highly contagious but have delayed symptom onset, meaning that infected people unwittingly spread the disease to many others before realising they are sick. Shapeshifting diseases that mutate fast are almost impossible to vaccinate against. In today’s hyper-mobile, citydominated world, a deadly disease combining these three features could spell doom for the human race.
Outbreak
Medieval doctors did not know what caused the Black Death, and were unable to stop it spreading
SPANISH FLU
The deadliest pandemics in human history
1918-1919
50-100 million
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MEASLES
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“Shape-shifting diseases that mutate fast are almost impossible to vaccinate against”
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BLACK DEATH
PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN
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Cough
Bubo (lymph node swelling)
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DID YOU KNOW? Engineers have already managed to design a machine that can autonomously create a better version of itself
ROBOT TAKEOVER Artificial intelligence transcends human intelligence and turns on its creators I, Robot, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Terminator movies; we all know how this goes down. But some computer scientists believe that we’re fast approaching a moment known as ‘the singularity’ – a tipping point where self-aware machines surpass the capabilities of the most intelligent human mind. Beyond this point, it’s impossible to predict how things will pan out. An unchecked superhuman intelligence would be so incomprehensible to us that we would no longer be able to control it, and if it decided to terminate the human race, we would be powerless to stop it.
AI could supersede the human race if appropriate controls aren’t built in
Experts weigh in You may dismiss public fears about artificial intelligence (AI) as the result of too much sci-fi entertainment. But when prominent thinkers and technologists start expressing concern, it’s time to take notice. Some of the leading minds of our time – including physicist Stephen Hawking, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, and engineer and entrepreneur Elon Musk – have spoken out publicly over the last year, warning that the majority of people don’t appreciate the speed with which AI technology is advancing and the very real threat it could pose. Musk and Hawking were also among thousands of AI scientists and tech-savvy thought leaders to sign an open letter calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN APOCALYPSE Which of these doomsday scenarios will become a world-ending reality?
© Dreamstime; Thinkstock; CGTextures
Optimists would assure you that humanity will avoid foolish nuclear wars, begin to behave responsibly in response to climate change, get serious about controlling AI, and stay one step ahead of emerging diseases. These things, at least, are feasibly within our control. Beyond that, we are at the mercy of the laws of physics. Statistically, a supervolcano is most likely to hit first. A devastating super-eruption is thought to occur about once every 100,000 years, whereas world-threatening GRBs and asteroids rear their heads perhaps only once in every 500,000. In truth, it’s likely that a combination of catastrophic events – and a chaotic human response to them – will secure our demise. If they don’t – the Sun will be hot on our heels in a billion years’ time.
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ENVIRONMENT
China’s rainbow mountains The vivid colours of the Zhangye Danxia rock formations are a mineral marvel
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hina’s Gansu Province, in the central north of the country, is home to a truly spectacular view. The striated colours of the Zhangye Danxia National Geological Park rise up from gullies and canyons in the rocks, and perfect stripes of earthy reds, oranges, whites and browns form craggy peaks that cover over 500 square kilometres. The stripes in the rocks were originally horizontal, as layers of sandstone and other minerals built up over millions of years. Each layer was created as particles of rock were deposited through wind or water to form sediments. As new sediment layers gathered over time, their weight compacted the layers beneath until they cemented together to form rock. We are able to see all of these cemented layers in the rock at Zhangye Danxia because tectonic activity has crumpled the Earth’s crust and forced the rock upwards, exposing the different sediment sections in stunning rainbow stripes. Some 50 million years ago, the Indian Plate smashed into the Eurasian Plate, causing the tectonic event that formed (and is still forming) the Himalaya mountain range. This caused a geological ripple effect, uplifting mountains and buckling the ground in different areas. In the case of the Zhangye Danxia Geological Park, the layers of sedimentary rock were exposed. After the rainbow rocks were uplifted, other physical properties were then immediately at work, eroding and sculpting the landscape as it appears today. Sandstone is typically rather soft, and so forces of dust-laden wind, rushing water and the freezing and thawing of ice have all helped to mould the landforms. The last piece of the rainbow mountain puzzle lies within the sediment layers themselves. Various minerals were deposited in the layers alongside the grains of sand and rock, and as these have been exposed to the elements as the ground uplifted, they have begun to oxidise and stain the sandstone layers. For example, one of the most prevalent colours in the landscape is a burnt copper hue. This occurs as elemental iron reacts with oxygen in the air – the same way that metal rusts – staining the landscape a dusky red.
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“Tectonic activity forced layers of rock upwards, exposing stunning rainbow stripes” 075
© Getty
DID YOU KNOW? ‘Danxia’ means ‘rosy cloud’, and is used to describe several striking red sandstone landscapes in China
unters h t s e t a e r g e world’s h t f o s ic t c a deadly t e h T : d le a e v Re
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DID YOU KNOW? Wolves have astounding endurance capabilities and will track and chase their prey all day if they have to
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“Wolves are able to communicate effectively and work as one ruthless unit”
Hunting with the wolf pack Strength and wit are used to take down prey APPROACH
SEARCH
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When the pack is on the prowl, they’re searching for signs of food and assessing favourable factors such as the weather and terrain.
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Once the prey is spotted, the pack approaches. They may herd the prey into an advantageous area, or track them to cause panic and fatigue.
ATTACK GROUP
3
When the prey (often a herd of deer, or other hoofed animals) is panicked and running, the wolves will come in from different sides to lunge at the group.
CAPTURE
IDUAL ATTACK INDIV
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Smaller and slower individuals of the herd, such as the very young, weak or elderly are the easiest for the individual wolves to pick off.
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Once a wolf has taken down a victim, the chase will stop. The wolves will bite to restrain and dispatch the prey before tucking in.
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© Corbis; Getty; Thinkstock; Dreamstime
hether it’s a lion taking down a wildebeest, or a spider devouring a wasp, the predator–prey relationship is a constant carousel of eat or be eaten. It’s survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, it’s very often the little guy that pays the price for the never-ending march of life. That’s because Mother Nature has gifted many of the predators of the animal kingdom with incredible adaptations to lighten the load and simplify their task, no matter how high up they are in the food chain. There’s no stronger hunting force than that of a pack. It has the benefit of teamwork, the use of varied skills, as well as safety in numbers. The drawback for animals hunting in groups is that there has to be enough food to go around, but that’s remedied by the fact that many hands, or paws, make light work. Wolves are a key example of pack hunters, where the relationships between the animals are so intricate that they are able to communicate effectively and work as one ruthless unit. Each individual animal will have a specific role to play, often based on age, gender and social standing. A similar structure applies to many other animals. For example, an African community of chimps have been hunting together so efficiently that they have decimated the population of their prey, the red colobus monkey. Dolphins, too, will maximise their prey intake by working together to trap fish. Living in close familial units, dolphins communicate in a conversation of complex clicks and whistles for efficient fishing. Dolphins’ cetacean cousins, killer whales, also employ this technique. These highly intelligent ocean giants have been frequently witnessed swimming in formation to create a giant bow wave, washing the seals perched atop ice floats into their waiting jaws. Killer whales have been known to spend hours and hours chasing down their prey, relying on their stamina to keep up the pursuit until their prey tires. This type of persistence hunting is employed by many other group predators as well as lone rangers, usually those with athletic builds and ravenous appetites. Wolves and wild dogs use the combined strength of the pack to pursue the prey until they collapse with exhaustion. A successful predator is not a fussy eater; take the hyena, for example. These animals are known for being first-class scavengers, able to sniff out carrion from over four kilometres away, but they’re also skilled hunters. Prone to marauding in pairs, one hyena will distract a mother
ENVIRONMENT Red foxes use the Earth’s magnetic field to line up an accurate pounce on prey
wildebeest and the other will move in for the calf. In larger groups, it’s possible to take down even larger animals for a more profitable kill. Hyena too use the endurance hunting method; they can sprint at 60 kilometres per hour, and can sustain a speed of 40 to 50 kilometres per hour over a distance of five kilometres, snapping at the hooves of their quarry until the panicked beast gives up the ghost. Lone hunters don’t have the combined strength of a pack or a pod to rely on, and so will often have some amazing adaptations to help them in their quest for nutrition. One such critter is the red fox. These brush-tailed foragers pick up low frequency sounds and are able to hear small rodents as they scamper under nearly a metre snow. Without even seeing the target, a fox can launch an accurate pounce, leap into the air and then land to pin its prey down. Scientists believe that foxes actually align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field to pinpoint the exact location of their prey, preferring a northeasterly attack for an incredible 73 per cent success rate.
THE BEARS AND SALMON RUNs fish
bear How brown st mouthful out the tastie
Sit and wait Learning the ropes Cubs will learn to hunt by watching their mothers from the bank. In adulthood, bears will mostly use the primary fishing method employed by their mothers.
The bear sits in the water, focusing on the spot in front of him. When a salmon swims into view, he pins it to the streambed.
Snakes also use super senses to hunt. They detect a cocktail of visual and chemosensory cues to track down a suitable victim, and are also capable of seeing endothermic heat signatures. Once they have singled out a tasty morsel, constrictor species will deploy the death squeeze. Studies have shown that snakes can match the strength and duration of the constriction to the heartbeat of their prey, making for a scarily efficient dispatch. Burly brown bears, on the other hand, have the advantage of being at the very top of the food chain. They are solitary and omnivorous and will nibble on nuts and berries or use their sheer bulk to take down deer and even moose. Yet for many lone hunters, the element of surprise is crucial for success, and that is where
the ambush hunter thrives. Setting traps and lying in wait is a very energy-efficient way of hunting. On land, one of the largest ambush hunters is the tiger, which relies on its rich camouflage of stripes for concealment until the opportune moment to strike. Tigers are also excellent swimmers and have been known to attack from the water. As well as camouflage, the use of tools to hide in plain sight is a feat of magnificence in the animal kingdom. Devious species of both crocodiles and alligators are known to place twigs and sticks across their noses, then lie in wait for unsuspecting birds. Thinking that they’re plucking up some prime nesting material from the water, the bird is then quickly snapped up – the first ever evidence of tool usage in reptiles.
“A predator’s environment can govern how it interacts with its prey” Smash and grab When the salmon run is in full flow, bears will stand in the stream and hook out nearby fish using their long, sharp claws and giant, paddle-like paws.
Dinner is served
Beware of pirates
Once a salmon is safely landed, the bear will take it off to a secluded spot. It typically eats just a quarter of the fish: the fatty and delicious parts.
‘Pirating’ refers to sneak-thief bears that simply wait for others to do all the hard work. It’s not a common behaviour, but daylight salmon robbery does happen occasionally.
Fishing at the falls The bear takes its position at the top of a small waterfall and simply waits for salmon to leap up the falls into its waiting jaws!
Defending the spot The best fishing spots are generally occupied by the most dominant bears in the area, and are defended fiercely from encroaching competition. At the peak of the salmon run, a dominant male can catch up to 30 fish per day
DID YOU KNOW? Predators must balance the energy they expend hunting with the energy gained when prey is caught and eaten
S POD TACTIC array of clever
Herding Dolphins surround a shoal of fish, and work together to confine the prey with a net of bubbles.
ve an Dolphinsfoha hing their prey tricks r catc
Bait ball With the fish contained in a tight ball, dolphins take turns to swim into the foray and grab a fish.
Tail slapping
Bottom feeding
A dolphin will use its powerful tail flukes to strike out and stun a fish, immobilising its getaway.
Dolphins use their beaks and flukes to churn up sediment on the sea floor, exposing fish and crustaceans within.
Strand feeding
Easy meal
Dolphins can swim fast directly toward the shoreline, pushing a bow wave, and the fish, ahead of them.
With their disorientated prey stranded at the shore, dolphins can enjoy the easy pickings of fish out of water.
Echolocation
Dolphins push the fish into shallow waters close to the shoreline, cutting off the fish’s escape.
The rate of hunting success can vary. Polar bears only have a ten per cent success rate, but just one 55-kilogram seal has enough blubber and energy to sustain a bear for around eight days. Here are some more killer statistics to show just how hard predators have The time it takes for a hyena pack to to work to survive. devour a whole zebra, bones and all
Beaching The fish are pushed in a large wave onto the beach; the dolphins follow and beach themselves.
5,000
ITEMS OF PREY
UNDER
30 MINS
48%
The amount a breeding pair of barn owls catches in a year, for themselves and their owlets
95%
The dragonfly’s success rate; it singles out, catches and eats each individual fly
The number of successful surface attacks on seals launched by great white sharks
© Alamy; Thinkstock
Corralling
Sometimes dolphins will stun fish in the water using echolocation, to immobilise them for an easy meal.
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ENVIRONMENT The predatory sleuth of the marine world is the octopus. Hunting crabs and crustaceans, these cephalopods are able to disguise both their colour and texture to avoid detection. Once close enough to its victim, the octopus will then swoop down to envelop the morsel in its arms, delivering a bite laced with a potent neurotoxin capable of turning crab innards to mush.
The animal kingdom also hosts opportunistic predators who sit back and wait until an ideal situation happens upon them. The lemon shark is one such beast. It positions itself in the middle of a large shoal of fish, but doesn’t make its move until another predator enters the fray. As the other encroaching hunter launches an attack and panics the shoal, the lemon sharks are free to take
Target acquired When an item of prey is spotted, the falcon locks its gaze onto the bird.
Keen eyesight A peregrine falcon’s eyesight is incredible. It can function like a telephoto lens and spot prey over 3km away.
their fill of fish from the chaos, a fine meal served with minimum effort. A predator’s environment can govern how it interacts with its prey, and how it is adapted to suit its place in the food chain. In water, predators must be quick and agile, hydro-dynamically shaped and capable of instant bursts of speed. The bluefin tuna is an excellent example of this. Unlike most fish it is warm-blooded, which helps its muscles work faster and more efficiently for nifty prey-snatching sprints though the water. Great white sharks are also well adapted. Their huge rows of pointed, serrated teeth are the best possible tool for tearing through skin and blubber, sawing up and devouring the prize before any scavengers get a look in. On land, the cheetah is an excellent example of an animal perfectly suited to its hunting environment. On the open grassland plains of Africa, there is nowhere to hide, so the cheetah must be stealthy to get close to its hoofed prey. Once in position, the big cat can reach 100
High flyer To begin its hunt, the falcon climbs high in the air and scans below for prey.
The stoop Forming its body into a super-aerodynamic V-shape, the falcon reaches terminal velocity at around 320km/h.
The launch The peregrine prepares to execute its stoop, where it drops out of the air in a dramatic precision dive.
P E’S STOO N I R G E R more, E P E km H 0 /h orhu T nter eeds of 32 sp de ra ed -g at an tim pi es lym
Precise manoeuvre The falcon can make instant strategic decisions as it dives, for better chances of a mid-air kill.
Reaching falcon is an O the peregrine
Incredible adaptations Wingspan With over 1m of super-strong wingspan and expertly arranged feathers, the falcon is well prepared for mid-air encounters.
The peregrine has extra eyelids and coned nostrils that act as a protective barrier against the high-pressure stoop.
Prey secured Prey selection Up to 99 per cent of a peregrine’s diet is made up of birds – mostly pigeons
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The prey of choice is any kind of bird, especially those that can be snatched on the wing.
The falcon grabs the bird with its strong talons and kills with its beak before retreating to a perch to feast.
DID YOU KNOW? Hyenas sometimes store food underwater to keep it away from other scavengers such as vultures and jackals
CK A HYENA POAW PR L ON THEtim rs are ate scavenge ers The ul d speedy hunt also skilled an
The animal will die from shock and loss of blood and once it falls, the pack tucks in.
Testing the herd In small groups, the hyenas will charge at herds of prey, such as wildebeest, in order to single out the weaklings.
The chase Once a single animal is chosen, the hyenas will doggedly attempt to run the prey down.
Dinner etiquette Hyenas are noisy, lively eaters. They often chase one another around, but don’t fight over a kill.
Securing the kill
Cornering prey
Hyenas will tear at the prey’s flesh to bring it to the ground, aiming at soft tissue and major blood vessels.
“One hyena distracts the mother, while the other moves in for the calf” kilometres per hour during an incredible sprint, secure their next meal. The electric eel for catching its prey unawares. The cheetah’s long example, is capable of discharging thousands of tail aids balance and its claws don’t retract to tiny, battery-like cells to produce shocks of 600 provide traction on the dry soil. volts. These fish stun their prey and tuck in. Where larger animals have the advantage of The marine cone snail has another curious size and power, smaller critters have to develop strategy. At night, it sneaks up on a resting fish, more cunning ways of taking down prey. Being then quickly extends a proboscis, a nose-like toxic is a helpful trait, as in the case of the black organ shaped like a harpoon. It swiftly injects the widow spider. The venom used by this infamous fish with toxins to paralyse it and then swallows arachnid paralyses its prey, which can include it whole. small mammals and reptiles. One of the most ingenious predation methods Similarly, the box jellyfish is shockingly toxic. belongs to the archerfish, the small Asian species Jellies are at the mercy of ocean currents and that uses a water pistol to gun down its insect don’t really look predatory, yet the sting of this dinner. The fish compresses its gills to shoot a jet gelatinous hunter can kill a human in seconds. It of water from its mouth and accurately knock delivers a potent neurotoxin via prey into the water. It even adapts its firing angle to compensate for the stinging cells called nematocysts. Changing colour and refraction of light in water. The fish or shrimp is killed at texture helps the octopus to Whether it’s speed, claws the touch of a tentacle, and sneak up on its victim or deception that makes the jelly can get to work these predators so on digestion. deadly, they all have The common view of one thing in common: a predator is one that the motivation to charges in with tooth survive. Killer and claw, and there are instincts and cunning plenty of those on skills have been honed Earth. But the natural over generations to world is constantly produce a natural world showing us ingenious full of elite hunters. methods that animals use to
As the prey begins to tire, the hyenas snap at its hooves and belly. Other pack members encircle it.
TISTICS PREDATOR STA
40 KG
The amount of prey a brown bear eats per day when fattening up for hibernation
15
X MORE DEADLY... ...than a rattlesnake; the black widow spider’s venom makes it a small but mighty predator
1 IN 3 The number of successful hunts in which a peregrine falcon catches its prey with the first strike
13% The increase in success rate for a lion if it works in a team of two or more, rather than alone
© Thinkstock
The pack feasts
Communication Hyenas have a large vocabulary of vocalisations, and will communicate with one another to coordinate a hunt.
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ENVIRONMENT
It’s time to settle this rivalry once and for all. Which pet comes out on top?
t’s no surprise that dogs and cats have the majority vote as domestic pets. Humans are a tactile bunch, and nothing gets the pleasure centres in our brains firing more than petting an adorable animal. Nearly half of all UK households have pets, with 24 per cent having a dog and 17 per cent owning a cat. We are hard-wired to take care of things we find cute and helpless like our own offspring, so we can’t help but coo over little puppies as if they were our own. This relationship is enhanced by the almost intuitive way that our pets respond to us, and when you realise that dogs and humans have evolved together, it’s not hard to comprehend how the mutts have been branded as ‘man’s best friend’.
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Recent studies have proven that dogs can recognise emotion on faces, display jealousy and they’re even able to coherently watch TV (when there are animals involved). They learn in the same way that children do, are susceptible to emotional contagion (try yawning next to your pup and see if he yawns too) and have a distinct awareness of time. Although cats, as solitary creatures, aren’t fussed about joining in every aspect of our lives, they’ve been proven to pay more attention than we often assume. Cats can recognise our moods and react accordingly, they can get us to help them without us even noticing and even replicate sounds that subliminally galvanise us into action. Cats also see humans as their surrogate family – has your
kitty ever brought you back a live-or-dead gift? She’s actually trying to impart her hunting knowledge. Kittens are raised by their mothers, who will begin to teach them by bringing back dead prey. If Tibbles is delivering you large, live prey to dispatch yourself, then congratulations – you’re ready to accompany her on the hunt. Felines are the natural survivors of the pet world and although we love caring for them, cats could survive just fine without our help. Interestingly, evolutionary research has shown that cats have been involved in the extinction of over 40 dog species by outcompeting them for food. Whether you’re a cat person or a dog person, read on to find out the amazing attributes of both species, and you might just switch your side.
DID YOU KNOW? For a human to see in the same way that a domestic cat does, our eyes would need to be eight inches across!
ROUND 1: PHYSICAL ABILITY Cats are the gymnasts of the pet world – they are light, nimble and have an amazing ‘righting’ reflex that means they always land on their paws. They also have impressive night vision, acute hearing and two ways to sense smells. Ever seen your cat lifting his lips in a snarl? That’s him using his Jacobson’s organ to home in on a scent. So in the battle of the senses, the kitties seem to win by a whisker – apart from in the nose
category. Dogs ‘see’ the world through scent, and can sniff out some odours in parts per trillion – the equivalent of detecting one teaspoon of sugar in a million gallons of water! A study has also shown that dogs favour using different nostrils, depending on how the smell makes them feel. When it comes to physical strength and stamina, the moggies put up an excellent fight, but the hounds have the edge. There’s a breed for
every task, and dogs are capable of going to extremes. Cats can run fast, with a top speed of 48 kilometres per hour, but dogs can run fast for a very long time. Cats can jump high, but dogs can jump far, time and time again. Greyhounds can hit 68 kilometres per hour, huskies can brave sub-zero temperatures, collies are super agile, and there are even Newfoundland dogs that jump into water from helicopters to save human lives.
Vision
Smell A dog’s nasal cavity is lined with at least 125 million sensory receptors, compared with our 5 to 10 million.
Strength
Retracted claw
Claw extended
Hearing 18 muscles help to move a dog’s ears into perfect position, and they can hear up to 45 kHz.
Cat claws are part of a cat’s ‘toe’ bone, extending and retracting with flexing muscles
Teeth Adult dogs have 42 permanent teeth with large canines and incredibly strong jaws.
Your cat’s rough tongue has many tiny backwards-facing barbs (papillae) for rasping meat and grooming
Hearing Vision With lightreflective layers in their eyes, cats use twice as much available light as humans to see.
Each breed of dog has different strengths, but most have incredible stamina – able to run for three kilometres or more at high speed.
Their large, pointed ears swivel to hear frequencies up to 80kHz, while humans can only hear 20kHz.
Smell As well as using their nose, cats have a Jacobson’s organ in the roof of their mouth, which they also use for scent. The front paws have additional pads to protect the bones in the foot, acting like shock absorbers
Tail Tails help with balance, communication and act as a rudder to steer the body when running at full speed.
Skeleton When a dog inhales, some of the air is respired and the rest is dedicated to scent identification
Evolutionary advantages Dogs have been domesticated for a very long time. Last year, a genetic study suggested the process began over 30,000 years ago, and that modern-day domestic dogs are descended from various regional wolf populations. It’s thought that wolf domestication happened as opportunistic animals followed nomadic humans, benefitting from their scraps. The aggressive wolves would likely have been eradicated as humans would not have tolerated toothy predators. In time, the gentler wolves would have been selectively bred. In contrast, domestic cats first appeared around 9,500 years ago, probably in the Middle East. Their ancestors are wildcats, which still roam various wildernesses across the world today and whose lineage can be traced back 130,000 years. It’s thought that domestication occurred as plentiful rodent populations attracted wildcats to live near human settlements, and then they may have been fed and homed in order to keep rat numbers down.
The feline’s super-flexible spine and lack of collarbone helps it to twist the body and fit through tiny gaps.
The first domesticated dogs descended from grey wolves, most likely from China
All domestic cats are thought to descend from the European wildcat
© © Thinkstock; Science Photo Library
A dog sees the world like human red-green colour-blindness, and their field of view stretches 240 degrees – wider than a cat.
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ENVIRONMENT
ROUND 2: COMMUNICATION Dogs and cats spend a huge amount of time with us. We cuddle them, stroke them and let them into every part of our daily lives – so it’s not surprising that our furry friends have developed intuitive ways to communicate with us. Vocalisations play a large part. Dogs have a hugely flexible range, including whimpering, yipping, growling and barking. Adult wolves don’t bark (although juveniles do), so barking has been developed through human-dog evolution specifically as a language for us to understand. Dogs will also use eye contact to connect with us and even follow our gaze in order to figure out what we’re looking at. This is a purely domestic habit, as wolves in the wild don’t make eye contact with humans. Cat meows have an even more ingenious hook than a dog’s woof, however. From living alongside humans for so long, cat noises have evolved to contain acoustic patterns that connect with us on a subliminal level. A cat’s ‘solicitation purr’ – a mix of purr and loud meow that no one can resist – uses the same frequency as a baby’s cry and kick-starts our
instinctual desire to protect and care. Body language plays an even larger part in pet communication. This is how animals show their emotions. A happy cat that wants to be stroked will arch his back under your hand and purr, but if a cat shrinks away, he’s not interested. Flattened ears can mean they’re worried or anxious, and hissing and spitting means they’re ready to fight. Conversely, when your cat does that curious ‘slow-blink’ at you, this is a relaxed gesture that means all is well with the cat’s world. Dogs also use body language in many different ways. When Fido’s ears are perked up, his head high and tail wagging, he’s a happy boy. But if he’s hiding, with ears down or flattened with his tail between his legs, this is a sign of a dog that’s worried or frightened. A truly content dog will lie on his back, exposing his neck and tummy to the world. When a dog strikes this pose, scratch away – he’ll love it. Yet when a cat does it, you might just get a scratch yourself, as this generally isn’t an invitation.
Emotions and our pets It’s no secret that our pets seem to be in tune with our emotions, but how much do they actually know? One recent study presented dogs with pictures and sounds showing both positive and negative emotions in humans. They found that the animals spent more time focusing on the image when it matched the sound of the associated emotion. Instead of being a learned response as previously thought, this highlights that dogs can distinguish moods. Another recent study was able to show that cats exhibit – albeit modestly – different behaviours by taking cues from their owners. For example, if the owner was happy, the cat was more likely to purr and want to be close to them. It’s possible that cats associate their owner’s good mood with rewards, in turn making the cat happy. The fact that dogs show stronger reactions could be because they have had longer to adjust to life with humans.
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Science shows us that pets can calm us down and make us happy
Stress relievers Both cats and dogs are winners when it comes to helping us relax. Studies have shown that petting a furry friend lowers the heart rate and blood pressure, reduces the stress hormone cortisol and promotes the release of feel-good hormones serotonin and oxytocin. Cats and dogs provide unconditional love, and can relieve loneliness and help with depression. Both types of pets can work as therapy animals, where they make visits to hospitals and care homes to cheer up those in need.
Reactions to our moods
Happy
Angry
Mouth open
Tail between legs
Tail wagging
Ears back
Energetic and bouncy
Cowering, hiding
Purring
Avoidance
Closeness
Waving tail
Slow blinking
Jumping up high
DID YOU KNOW? Dogs don’t feel guilt, so when Fido looks sorry, he’s not – he’s just reacting to your tone, smell or body language
ROUND 3: INTELLIGENCE
Numeracy Recent studies have shown dogs can identify higher numbers of dots when faced with a selection of images. This is likely to be because dogs are pack animals, and in the wild, wolves need to know numbers of their own as well as rival groups. Dogs can also detect simple additions and subtractions. But how do cats fare? A numeracy test isn’t really a fair game, because as solitary creatures it’s more important for them to be able to perceive size rather than numbers. This is the outcome of a few tests on moggies, but it’s also notoriously difficult to hold their interest in these kinds of tests, making it hard to gain a clear comparison!
Dogs can perceive numbers somewhat better than cats, who aren’t really interested in being tested!
comparing dog breeds for intelligence – the border collie wins, in case you were wondering) but each species has intelligent attributes in its own right. One thing to consider is training. Dogs are very easy to train because they love to work for a reward. They also learn in the same way that human children do. But it’s not widely known for cats to perform so well. This is because they’re fiercely independent animals, but don’t be fooled; although it’s difficult, they can be
trained, just not in the specific way that dogs can (although there are some cases that claim otherwise). If your cat wakes you up in the night and you get up to feed him, you’ve unintentionally trained him to do this again and again. Cats are very perceptive, and will use your actions and reactions to govern their behaviour as it benefits them. Some might say that this is an even more intelligent attribute than a dog’s ability to do a handstand on demand!
Do our pets listen? The doggy brain interprets voices rather like ours do. MRI scans of dogs and people showed that similar regions of the brain responded to human voices – the first time this has been witnessed in non-primates. Dogs also respond to the emotion conveyed in the voice, explaining why vocal communication between humans and dogs is so successful. With cats it’s a slightly different story; although they can recognise their owners’ voice over that of a stranger, studies show that compared to dogs, they don’t place as much significance on this and easily ignore us. It’s thought that this is because cats weren’t actively domesticated by humans in the same way as dogs.
By placing dogs in an MRI scanner, researchers found their brains react to voices in the same way as human brains
German shepherds are bold, athletic and brainy, making them ideal dogs for police work
Dogs with jobs Canines are keen to please and love nothing better than to complete tasks for a reward – whether that’s a tasty treat or a quick tug of war. This trainability coupled with their amazing senses can be honed for a huge array of jobs for human benefit. Service dogs such as guide dogs, therapy dogs and medical detection dogs make everyday lives easier. Search and rescue dogs, police dogs, sniffer dogs and military dogs work hard to keep us safe. They can also be trained for other manual work, such as herding, sledding, retrieval and even pulling carts.
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© Thinkstock
The average dog has the intelligence of a two-year-old child, and they also have a larger brain in comparison to their body size than cats. However, cats have a larger cerebral cortex than dogs, which is the area of the brain responsible for cognitive information processing. As these animals are different species with wildly different histories and lifestyles, it’s difficult to compare them to decide who is the beast with the biggest IQ (as opposed to
ENVIRONMENT
Venus flytrap Insects don’t stand a chance when they land on this killer plant he carnivorous Venus flytrap sports a menacing-looking mechanism. The spiked, collapsible leaf is laced with drops of sweet nectar to lure in its insect prey. When a bug lands, it touches the sensitive trigger hairs on the Venus flytrap’s leaves. According to the latest theory, touching one hair does nothing, but touching two causes the trap to snap closed. When the fly struggles, it’s likely to trigger three hairs, which readies the plant’s cells for digestion, and touching five hairs starts the release of digestive enzymes. The plant can even adjust the amount of digestive fluid produced, depending on how large the prey is. Exactly how these bug-catching plants manage to snap shut so quickly is not fully understood. However, research suggests that it is related to very sudden pressure changes within cells in the trap’s leaves. When the Venus flytrap is open, the leaf tissue is held under tension. When an insect lands on the trap and triggers the hairs, this tension is released and the leaves close in a fraction of a second. The large guard hairs fold together, depriving the insect of any means of escape. The digestive fluids break down the soft parts of the prey and absorb the nutrients. Five to 12 days after capture, the trap will reopen to expel the waste exoskeleton.
A trap will catch three to five meals before photosynthesising for around three months and dropping off the plant
Trigger bristles When a fly lands, sensitive hairs on the inside of the leaf trigger the trap.
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Digestive glands Spots inside the leaf secrete digestive fluids and absorb nutrients from the prey.
Marginal spines These protrusions of the leaf prevent the prey from escaping the trap.
Canada’s Spotted Lake
Nectar The leaves secrete a sweet nectar to lure in its unsuspecting prey, typically insects and spiders.
There are 365 circles in Spotted Lake, one for every day of the year!
ear the town of Osoyoos, in Canada’s British Columbia, lies a lake covered in large, round patches that look as if they have been drawn on by hand. This amazing natural phenomenon appears every summer when scorching temperatures cause the shallow water of the lake to evaporate. Covering an area of around 16 hectares, the patches that give Spotted Lake its name are actually pools of rich minerals, including calcium, sodium sulphates and magnesium sulphate, as well as traces of silver and titanium. Hues of green and blue decorate the landscape,
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and throughout the summer the spots change colour and shape as the minerals adapt to further evaporation. When the fresh water disappears, the bed of the lake is exposed, providing natural walkways through the mineral-rich pools. However, walking through the Spotted Lake pools isn’t a possibility for visitors, as it’s owned by the Okanagan Nation. To the native community of the Okanagan Valley, the lake is known as ‘Kliluk’ and holds special spiritual and historical significance. It was bought back from a private owner in 2001 so that it could be protected from development.
© Getty
Nestled in a mountainous, forested landscape is a masterpiece of nature
DID YOU KNOW? Frog spawn is laid in large clumps of eggs, whereas toad spawn is laid in long strings
Life cycle of a frog Discover how a cluster of cells transforms into a hopping, croaking amphibian he cycle begins when frogs mate. The male holds the female in a position known as amplexus and fertilises her eggs as they are laid. A female frog can lay a clutch of around 3,000 to 6,000 eggs. Within each jelly-like sphere is a black dot – the developing tadpole. The embryos feed off the surrounding jelly as they grow, and then once they have developed rudimentary gills and
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a tail after about a week or a month (depending on the species), tadpoles hatch. The hatchlings feed on the rest of the frogspawn jelly mass, as well as any algae that has grown on it. Throughout the next few weeks the tadpoles undergo a fast metamorphosis. First their external gills disappear, replaced by internal gills, which in turn are replaced as lungs develop. The tadpoles also grow legs while they
turn into froglets – strange round critters that resemble their adult form, while still retaining their powerful tail. The front legs are the last to develop, and the tadpole’s tail is shortened as it is reabsorbed into the body. The little frog is now a miniature version of its parents at just one centimetre in length. After around 16 weeks of development it can leave the water, breathe air and feed on bugs and insects.
1
1 Amplexus
The male positions himself behind his mate and holds her firmly with his front legs.
2
2 Spawning
During spawning the female lays her eggs, which are then fertilised by the male.
3Eggs
Frogspawn is buoyant, and large clumps of the gelatinous egg mass can be seen floating on a pond’s surface.
4Tadpole
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After a few weeks, the small tadpoles hatch with external gills and long tails.
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5 Froglets
As the tadpole grows, it develops a strong tail as well as powerful back legs.
3
6 Metamorphosis
In several stages, the tadpole grows adult eyes and front legs and loses its tail.
7Adult frogs
The young frog continues growing once it leaves the water. After around three years it is ready to reproduce.
Tadpoles are often seen in large groups, sometimes called ‘clouds’
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© Pixabay
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ENVIRONMENT
The
Galapagos Islands
Nestled on the equator in the Eastern Pacific are islands so special, they changed our natural history forever ound far off the coast of continental Ecuador is an archipelago of 13 main islands, along with many other rocks and islets that form one of the most extraordinary ecosystems on Earth. Famous for spurring on Charles Darwin to develop his game-changing theories of evolution and natural selection, the rocky ocean outcrops of the Galapagos Islands were first discovered in 1535 by the Bishop of Panama. He was on his way to Peru when his ship was carried to the islands by currents. There started a long history of the islands’ use by pirates, whalers and sailors alike, before Darwin made his famous visit on the HMS Beagle in 1835. Today, the main islands support around 25,000 people in communities on Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, Isabela and Floreana. Much like Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands were formed by volcanic activity. Situated above
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On the map Ecuador
Galapagos Islands
The animals of the Galapagos are surprisingly tame, having never needed to fear humans
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a tectonic hotspot, giant plumes of molten rock from the Earth’s core forced their way to the surface, sputtering upwards and solidifying in layers through the water. Over time, the new rock finally broke the surface, and so the Galapagos Islands were born. And they aren’t finished forming yet, as volcanoes on the youngest island still erupt. The most recent was in 2009, when La Cumbre Volcano on Isla Fernandina blew on April 11, releasing pahoehoe lava flows and giant swathes of volcanic ash. Beneath the sea, the volcanic island chain continues for hundreds of miles, where the underwater islands that failed to break the surface provide shelter for countless marine species. The exact location of this archipelago in the Pacific means that the Galapagos benefits from the confluence of three major ocean
currents: the warm Panama current, the deep-sea Cromwell current and the cold Humboldt current. Where deep-sea currents collide, there are areas of nutrient upwelling, which produces a fertile boom of life and forms the base of the entire island food chain. This happens in abundance around the Galapagos, bringing oceanic visitors from far and wide to enjoy the bountiful buffet delivered by the currents. And where the oceans are teeming with unique species, life on land follows suit. One of the most fascinating things about these islands is the astounding array of plants and animals that live there. Unique species call the islands home – creatures that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Giant tortoises, marine iguanas and flightless cormorants are all local favourites, not to mention the Galapagos penguins – the only
DID YOU KNOW? ‘Galapagos’ is an old Spanish word for saddle, originally used to describe the shells of giant tortoises
penguins to be found north of the equator. What is more amazing is that each island has its own completely separate subspecies of many of these creatures. The region has one of the highest levels of endemism in the world, making the islands incredibly fascinating for scientists to study. But how does an island chain so extremely isolated in the middle of the Pacific, 966 kilometres (600 miles) from continental Ecuador, bloom into an oasis of life? The answer, once again, lies in the sea. The archipelago is found along the equator; couple this with the presence of the cool Humboldt and Cromwell ocean currents and this allows the islands to display both tropical and
temperate climates, a property that is mirrored by the array of animals living on the islands. Yet although the wildlife is bountiful, it’s also rather unevenly balanced. There are lots of reptiles such as marine and land iguanas, but no amphibians; plenty of birds including the blue-footed booby and waved albatross, but few mammals save for a handful of species including the Galapagos sea lions. There are also lots of grasses and ferns, but a distinct shortage of flowering or seeding plants. This is a direct reflection of how Galapagos was populated by life. Plants and animals had to find their way there by chance, which can happen two ways: by air or by sea. Grasses and ferns have much lighter seeds that can be
blown in the wind, and seabirds simply fly there (bringing hitch-hikers with them on feathers or in their guts)! Those that arrived by sea are hypothesised to have travelled on makeshift craft – such as rats on rafts of floating debris – bringing in hardy, salt-tolerant seeds from coastal plants on the mainland. Because of these incredible creatures, the Galapagos Islands became an Ecuadorian national park in 1959 and was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Due to the amazing marine life that lives in and visits the surrounding waters of the archipelago, the area was declared a biological marine reserve in 1986, and in 1990 the Galapagos waters also became a whale sanctuary.
Galapagos habitats
The islands and Charles Darwin
The distinct environmental factors of this archipelago provide plenty of complex habitat variations
Dry season From July to December, the southern trade winds bring the cold Humboldt current to the islands. The water is cooler, and the highlands are shrouded in mist, while the rest is dry.
Southern winds Trade winds blowing from south to north combined with ocean currents help to regulate the climate.
Pampa zone
Miconia zone
This is the most humid area of the Galapagos, occurring at the islands’ highest elevations. Meaning ‘grasslands’, it is full of ferns and mosses.
This zone is very humid, and found between Scalesia and pampa zones on Santa Cruz and San Cristobal Islands.
Warm season January to June is the warm season – the climate is more tropical with daily rain, cloudier skies and warmer seas.
Scalesia zones This is the lowest lying of the humid zones, where rainfall begins to increase and the endemic Scalesia forests thrive.
The Galapagos Islands are famously linked to Charles Darwin, and his groundbreaking theory of evolution. Darwin visited the chain of islands in 1835 on the second voyage of the HMS Beagle, where he explored numerous islands and was captivated by the extraordinary biodiversity. Although he took a great many notes, it wasn’t until he returned to Britain that he came to thinking about how the species on each island had developed. He compiled his journals and sketches alongside those of this fellow travellers and then two years after the Beagle’s return he began to develop his theories of evolution and natural selection. His monumental book On The Origin Of Species was published in 1859.
Brown zone Between the miconia shrubs and the Scalesia forests, foliage dies back to reveal a brownish colour in the dry season.
Transition zone Separating the arid and humid zones, biodiversity begins to increase in the transition zone, with lichens, shrubs and trees, as well as giant tortoises.
Darwin speculated that Galapagos finches evolved from a common ancestor and adapted to their habitats
Sandy bottoms
Arid zone
Littoral zone
Lagoons
Formed when water movement is minimal, deposited sand and silt provide a home for oysters, rays and sea cucumbers.
One of the most diverse zones covers much of the islands. Cacti, insects, land iguanas, sea birds and rodents live here.
The shoreline where the islands meet the ocean supports thousands of marine species, as well as the marine iguanas and plenty of sea birds.
Lagoons with brackish water provide a feeding ground for various Galapagos creatures, such as flamingos.
Coral reefs
Hydrothermal vents
The Galapagos only has a few true reefs, off Darwin Island, but stony corals build habitats throughout the clear waters.
Along the Galapagos Rift on the sea floor, vents spew out super-heated water and support life based on chemosynthesis.
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ENVIRONMENT
FLORA AND FAUNA
Short-eared owl
The plants and animals of this unique archipelago are like no others on the planet The Galapagos is an ecosystem populated by incredible living things. Probably the most well-known creatures that call these islands home are the giant Galapagos tortoises – huge reptiles that can reach up to 1.5 metres (five feet) in length and live for over 100 years! Each island is home to a distinct giant tortoise species, and there are approximately 14 known members of their genus. Their populations suffered after being hunted by whalers, pirates and sailors, and the introduction of new animals to the islands led to increased predation and competition for food. Perhaps one of the most famous Galapagos inhabitants was Lonesome George – the last Pinto Island tortoise – who died in 2012, marking the extinction of his species. Another of the Galapagos’ superstar species is the marine iguana, also exclusive to this island chain. Despite their fearsome appearance, the iguanas are herbivorous. They are the only kind of iguana to use their long, flattened tails to propel them through the saltwater to feed on algae and seaweed beneath the waves. The islands have been designated as a national park and conservation area to protect their incredible species diversity; approximately 80 per cent of land birds and 97 per cent of reptiles and land mammals found there are endemic. The waters around the islands are also a protected marine reserve, and the list of unique species doesn’t stop on land. The reserve protects over 50 species of fish that are only found in that location. It’s a haven for sea turtles and even a whale sanctuary to protect the larger ocean visitors.
Magnificent frigatebird These almost-silent seabirds can soar to staggering heights. The males puff out their red chests as mating displays.
Galapagos mockingbird Giant tortoise These quintessential Galapagos residents have such a slow metabolism that they can fast for up to a year.
Sally Lightfoot crab Blue-footed booby Named from the Spanish word ‘bobo’ for ‘fool’, boobies are clumsy on land but elegant and speedy in the water.
New species spotted
Sir David Attenborough was thrilled to be the first to film the Galapagos pink iguana
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Galapagos hawk
It seems that the Galapagos Islands are still surprising scientists in the 21st century, with new species being unearthed at a surprisingly high rate. An ocean survey in 2009 revealed coral species new to both the Galapagos and to science, as well as some thought to be extinct. In 2012, a new deep-sea catshark species was discovered, and even the third species of land iguana remained unstudied until the turn of the millennium. The huge pink iguana is found only on the slopes of Wolf Volcano on Isabela Island.
Marine iguana These marine reptiles can be found lounging around on shorelines, soaking up the Sun to warm their cold blood.
DID YOU KNOW? Marine iguanas sneeze out excess salt from their bodies, leaving distinctive white patches on their heads
Galapagos fur seal Land iguana
Lava heron
Three species of land iguana can be found on the islands. They eat cacti and succulent plants for water.
Brown pelican
These small seals can be seen rearing their young on western Galapagos beaches from August to November.
Flightless cormorant The curious evolution of this bird has seen it forsake the gift of flight to become an expert swimmer underwater.
Green sea turtle The only sea turtles to nest on the islands return to the same beaches each year; hatchlings usually appear in April and May.
Whale shark The largest fish in the sea cruises by the Galapagos to take advantage of plankton blooms between June and November.
It’s thought that these penguins travelled to the Galapagos on the Humboldt current, which brings cold water north from Antarctica.
The delicate Galapagos ecosystem has been vulnerable to numerous threats in the past, such as invasive species arriving and outcompeting the natives for food and space (goats and fire ants are particularly destructive), illegal fishing and human overpopulation. To tackle these issues, the various charities and foundations that look after the islands, such as the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation have laid out plans for ecosystem management as well as education, to allow communities of the Galapagos to be involved in the protection of their island home.
© Freevectormaps.com; Corbis; Thinkstock, Sol90
Threats & conservation Galapagos penguin
Populations of waved albatrosses are closely monitored
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SCIENCE 094 Miracle science The breakthroughs that will save your life revealed
104 The physics of dance Ballet dancers perform a precise balancing act every time they take to the stage
104 The quietest place on Earth The rooms that make it possible to hear your own heartbeat
105 Gravity maps The Earth might look round, but our gravity is bumpy
105 Tooth whitening How do you get that perfect Hollywood smile?
106 Your guide to the elements How these chemical building blocks make up everything
110 Isolating deadly diseases When serious infection strikes, biocontainment unites work to keep us safe
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The science of fear Why this primal emotion is key to your survival
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The physics of dance
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The quietest place on Earth
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Your guide to the elements
“Modern medicine can already seem miraculous, but the advancements on the horizon are even more incredible”
094 Miracle science
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The science of fear
110 Isolating deadly diseases 093
SCIENCE
REVEALED: THE BREAKTHROUGHS THAT WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE odern medicine would seem miraculous to people living less than 100 years ago, but the advancements on the horizon are even more incredible. Scientists and engineers from a wide range of different specialisms are bringing the latest developments together to create an array of new medical technologies that could completely transform the way we diagnose, treat and even cure disease.
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Nanotechnology is taking medical treatment down to the molecular scale, focusing on the minute machinery that keeps the body ticking over, while stem cells could provide a renewable source of replacements for every cell in the human body. Personalised medicine promises to tailor treatments to each patient’s individual genetic profile, and advances in neuroscience, computing, robotics and electronics are allowing advanced prosthetics to respond directly to
commands sent by the brain. Vaccinations could one day be delivered painlessly by thousands of microscopic projections, while custom combinations of vitamins or drugs could be printed into convenient daily pills. We can’t be sure which of today’s cutting-edge techniques will make it to the medical clinics of the future, but with technology moving this rapidly, there are certain to be more medical ‘miracles’ just around the corner.
DID YOU KNOW? Liposomal doxorubicin is a cancer medicine that enters the body packaged inside fatty nanocapsules
NANOMEDICINE The molecular machinery that keeps the human body running is built on a nanometre scale. Haemoglobin molecules (the proteins that carry oxygen in your blood) are roughly 5 to 7 nanometres in diameter – that’s about 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair! Nanomedicine attempts to interact with this miniature world using materials that measure less than 1,000 nanometres across. Down at this tiny scale, scientists
hope to develop high-precision nanotechnology that could repair or replace damaged cell components. Nanomaterials have already entered the clinic, where they are being used to make capsules that carry tiny packages of drugs into the body. Some capsules help to protect the drug from being broken down as it travels to the right part of the body, and others assist with targeting, ensuring that the treatment gets to the right place.
Nanomedicine in action Nanoparticles made from fatty molecules can help to guide drugs to the right part of the body, such as a tumour
Protective coating
Through the gaps
These nanoparticles are made from fatty molecules known as lipids. They surround the drug and protect it as it travels through the body.
The nanoparticles are able to sneak through gaps in the walls of blood vessels, entering the tissues.
Tumour
Endothelial cell
Precision targeting
Blood vessel
Targeting molecules can be added to the nanoparticle to make it stick to molecules found on the tumour cells.
Drug accumulation Drug delivery The nanoparticle is engulfed by the tumour cell, triggering the release of the anti-cancer drugs within.
Tumour cell
Due to the slow drainage into the lymphatic system, the nanoparticles start to build up inside the tumour.
Drug
Inspired by the Star Trek Tricorder, the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE offers $10 million (over £6.5 million) to a team able to design a portable medical analyser. The aim is to be able to detect 16 common diseases, such as anaemia, diabetes and tuberculosis, and to monitor five vital signs, including blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen saturation. Technology like this could make diagnosis much simpler,
potentially even allowing people to monitor their own health at home. The competition has been running since 2012, and the winner is due to be announced in 2016. Finalists include the Scanadu Scout, which can monitor vital signs like pulse and blood pressure when held next to the head, and the rHEALTH sensor, which can detect pneumonia or even Ebola from a tiny drop of blood.
Miniature ‘lab-on-chip’ technology allows portable medical testing
© Thinkstock; Alamy
Detecting diseases
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SCIENCE
REGENERATING DAMAGED TISSUE
Teixobactin stops bacteria making the cell walls that they need to protect themselves
With incredible capacity for regeneration, stem cells have the potential to replace every cell in the body Most of the cells in your body are highly specialised; each is dedicated to its individual role, and once it has committed to becoming a certain cell type, the decision is permanent. Stem cells, however, have not yet chosen a specialism. Instead, they support growth and repair, and are able to carry on making copies of themselves long after most other adult cells would have stopped dividing. Each of those
Growing stem cells There are two main approaches to producing human stem cells in the lab
copies can rest, make more copies, or begin the process of transforming into a specialist cell. The specialism that the stem cell chooses varies based on the signals that it receives, and depending on the type of stem cell that it is – an embryonic stem cell, or one of the many different kinds of adult stem cell. Embryonic stem cells are by far the most powerful; they are found in the developing embryo and, with the right
signals, can transform into any type of cell in the human body. Given these properties, it is no wonder that stem cells are receiving a lot of attention. Doctors already perform stem cell transplants to replace lost bone marrow, and stem cells are used to create skin grafts. In the future, it is hoped they will be used to repair damaged tissues inside the body, or even to rebuild entire organs.
Method 2: Embryonic stem cells These powerful stem cells are found in human embryos, but research is limited in many countries due to ethical concerns.
Method 1: Induced pluripotent stem cells Adult cells can be ‘reprogrammed’ by scientists to behave like embryonic stem cells.
Fertilised egg The cell that is formed when a sperm and egg combine must go on to produce all of the cells in the body.
Adult stem cells Adult stem cells have already made some commitments, and in this state, can only go on to make certain cells.
Blastocyst After around a week the embryo is a ball of cells surrounding a cluster called the inner cell mass. The stem cells in this bundle have the potential to become any cell in the body.
Reprogramme Adult stem cells can be ‘reprogrammed’ back to an earlier state using viruses, allowing them to transform into many more cell types.
Change culture conditions
Culture
Stem cells can be encouraged to become different types of specialised adult cells by varying their conditions.
The embryonic stem cells are harvested, and given signals that tell them to make copies of themselves.
Red Blood Cells
Skins Cells
Advantages Stem cells could be used to repair tissues. They could help to build entire organs for transplant. Your own stem cells would be a perfect genetic match.
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Muscle Cells
IS STEM CELL THERAPY A GOOD IDEA? There are arguments for and against using stem cells for medicine
Neural Cells
Gut Cells
Disadvantages The long-term effects of using stem cells are not yet known. There are ethical concerns surrounding the use of human embryos. There are many diseases that stem cells cannot treat.
DID YOU KNOW? It is predicted that 700,000 people in the United Kingdom will be living with late-stage AMD by 2020
CURING THE BLIND Could stem cells be used to restore sight? The London Project to Cure Blindness is a collaboration between Moorfields Eye Hospital, University College London, the University of Sheffield, the British Government, and pharmaceutical company Pfizer. It aims to tackle a disease called ‘wet age-related macular degeneration’ (wet AMD), which causes rapid loss of central vision. The team are using stem cells to grow sheets of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells. These cells form a brown-coloured layer on the back of the eye that helps to absorb scattered light, aiding with vision, and help to nourish and protect the rods and cones that detect light entering the eye. The RPE cell layer can become damaged in wet AMD, so the team have used stem cells to grow a patch of new RPE cells to replace them. The new cells behave just like the real thing in the lab, so in 2015, the first patient received the new treatment as part of a clinical trial. The initial results of the two hour operation will not be known until December 2015, and after that, a further nine patients will be tested to find out whether this pioneering treatment is safe, and crucially, whether it works. In the future, the team hope to be able to use stem cells to grow new rod and cone cells, repairing damage to the lightsensing machinery of the eye.
The treatment process How stem cells can be transformed into specialised eye cells in the lab
1Collect stem cells
The stem cells are given chemicals called growth factors, which encourage them to divide over and over to produce hundreds of identical clones.
3Add differentiation factors
Researchers can control what type of cell the stem cells will become by using different combinations of chemicals. This process is known as differentiation.
What is age-related macular degeneration? Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of sight loss in adults the UK, affecting more than half a million people. The most common type is ‘dry’ AMD, caused by the breakdown of light-sensitive cells at the back of the eye, but people can also have more aggressive ‘wet’ AMD, caused by abnormal blood vessel formation. Both types lead to a loss of central vision.
2Add growth factors
Stem cells are able to make copies of themselves indefinitely, and are capable of transforming into any cell in the human body, making them the perfect tool for repairing damaged tissues.
Retina Macula
4 Implant the cells
The layer of new retinal pigment epithelium cells are implanted into the back of the eye using a special patch.
Optic nerve
5After treatment
AMD doesn’t cause complete blindness, but affects the central vision, leaving only the edges intact
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© Alamy; Thinkstock
It is hoped that this treatment will help to restore some central vision to patients with age-related macular degeneration.
SCIENCE
DEFEATING SUPERBUGS If we are going to survive future infections, we need to tackle antibiotic resistance Just like humans, bacteria have variations in their genes that give them slightly different characteristics. This means that some bacteria will succumb to antibiotics faster than others. If the more hardy bacteria survive until the course of
antibiotics has finished, they can then go on to create an entire colony with the same genetic advantages. The antibiotic you took before will no longer be effective in treating the infection. The more antibiotics are used, the more this cycle
repeats, and there are now several strains of bacteria that are able to resist the effects of some of our most powerful drugs. Even more worryingly, antibiotic resistance genes can be passed from one bacterium to the next, and even between species.
Antibiotic resistance How do bacteria manage to survive high doses of our most powerful medications?
1Different genes
Like us, individual bacteria from the same species can have slightly different genetic profiles.
2 Antibiotics
Antibiotics kill bacteria or stop them dividing, and they can affect both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria.
How it spreads
3Some survivors
Some bacteria have genetic traits that help them to survive antibiotic treatment, so they can continue dividing.
4Sharing genes
Resistant bacteria can sometimes pass their genes on to neighbouring bacteria, giving them resistance too.
Antibiotics
Overuse of antibiotics in people and animals is driving antibiotic resistance
Every time antibiotics are used, bacteria have the chance to adapt.
Use in animals Antibiotics are widely used to prevent and treat illness in domestic livestock.
Use in people Many people are prescribed antibiotics when they do not really need them.
Hospital acquired infection
Uncooked meat
Antibiotic resistant bacteria can be transferred in hospital on unwashed hands, or on surfaces like door handles.
Antibiotic resistant bacteria can turn up on meat, and can spread if not properly handled and cooked.
Infection in the community
Contaminated veg Some antibiotic resistant bacteria may end up on the produce grown in the contaminated manure.
Infected fertiliser Antibiotic resistant bacteria from animals can be found in their faeces, which is used as fertiliser for vegetables.
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In the community, antibiotic resistant bacteria can spread by direct contact or by contact with surfaces.
DID YOU KNOW? One of the best things you can do to combat antibiotic resistance is to wash your hands thoroughly
Teixobactin The first new antibiotic discovered in 30 years! In 2015, scientists unveiled Teixobactin – a new antibiotic that has the potential to combat fatal infections such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. This latest discovery was found in the same source of many other antibiotics – soil – where it is produced naturally by other bacteria. It marks a huge step in the bid to control drugresistant strains of superbugs.
PERSONALISED MEDS In the future, treatments will be designed for your unique genetic characteristics The genetic differences that make us all unique also affect how we respond to medical treatment, and the genetic makeup of bacteria and viruses directly impacts their reaction to different drugs. Armed with an understanding of the genetics driving these different responses, we are moving
toward a time when treatments could be personally matched to each patient. Steps are already being made with this kind of precision medicine in the treatment of cancer, where genetic differences in the tumour cells play a huge role in whether or not different treatments will work.
Matching medicines to genetics People have different genes, so they respond differently to the same drugs
Patients awaiting treatment
Different responses
Tailored dosage
These people all have the same cancer, but their genes are subtly different.
Genetic differences affect how long it takes to clear the drug from the body.
The patient can be given a dosage that matches their genetic makeup.
£10 million prize to solve antibiotic resistance The 2014 Longitude Prize encourages both amateur and professional scientists to develop a test that can be used to help doctors choose the right antibiotic quickly and cheaply. Ensuring that we only take antibiotics when we need them, and that we are only given ones that will work on our specific infection, is crucial if we want to slow antibiotic resistance.
The Longitude Committee will judge entries every four months until the end of 2019
Normal drug clearance
Gene version one
Normal dose
Most patients can clear the drug quickly from their bodies.
A blood test identifies the patients as having the gene for normal clearance.
The patients that will clear the drug quickly are given a normal dose.
Slower drug clearance
Gene version two
Medium dose
If the drug is cleared slowly, it can build up in the body, increasing side effects.
The blood test reveals a different gene, that gives a slower drug clearance.
The patients that clear the drug more slowly are given a lower dose.
Poor drug clearance
Gene version three
Low dose
A few patients clear the drug so slowly that normal doses become dangerous.
The gene identified in these patients means the drug will clear very slowly.
The patients that struggle to clear the drug are given a small dose.
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© Dreamstime; Thinkstock
Teixobactin stops bacteria making the cell walls that they need to protect themselves
SCIENCE
PRINTING BODY PARTS The future holds custom-printed drugs and prosthetics, and even replacement body parts Plastic 3D printers are a natural fit for creating prosthetics, but some of the most exciting medical 3D printers use a different kind of ‘ink’. Using precision techniques, scientists are working on combining different medicines into one compact pill. Different ingredients could be included in the printer to control when each drug is released, and custom pills could be printed for each patient. This goal is still decades away, but printers could be used to make vitamin supplements much sooner. 3D printers can also be used to create custom surgical implants, from plates, to replacement joints, to scaffolds used to encourage cells to grow into new tissues. These printed structures can either be long-lasting or soluble. However, 3D printers don’t just produce artificial body parts; they are also able to recreate the real thing. Some 3D printers are designed to print with living human cells, forming sheets of tissue that could be used as grafts to repair damage. Researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, North Carolina, are also working on printing cells directly on to the body to repair wounds. Printing entire organs is the ultimate goal, but whether it is actually possible is a topic of debate among scientists.
Gel medium The gel medium can be added separately, or mixed directly with the cells.
Bioink The living cell mixture, known as ‘bioink’, is stored above the printer in a syringe.
1Computer control The shape of the final printed structure is first mapped out on a computer, providing a template that can be used by the printer to construct the real thing.
3D medicine Printed medical supplies are on their way, and some are already available
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Replacement organs
Prosthetics
Dentures
DID YOU KNOW? A doctor in Gaza has designed a 3D-printed stethoscope that can be made for less than £2 ($3)
2Printing the cells The printer lays down living cells in layers of nutritious gel. It follows the programmed pattern for each layer to build a framework of the tissue.
3Cell growth
The framework of cells are incubated and allowed to grow. They fill in the gaps left by the printer, forming a functioning structure.
Remove gel The gel is designed so that it can be removed once the cell structure is complete.
HELPING PEOPLE WALK AGAIN The future of medicine is not just about biological advancements – robotics, prosthetics and complex electronics are set to play an increasingly important role in health care. Existing medical prosthetics are able to respond to nerve impulses or muscle movements in the body of the wearer, and now research teams are plugging medical aids into the brain. Brain-to-tech interfaces read the electrical patterns of the brain. These can be recorded across the scalp using an electroencephalogram (EEG), and the patterns can be decoded by a sophisticated computer algorithm. A team at the University of California, Irvine, have developed a system that monitors signals from the brain, and transforms them into a series of electrical pulses. The pulses travel down wires attached to the muscles in the legs – effectively doing the job of the spinal cord. The technology is still in development, but in early tests it enabled a man with a spinal cord injury to walk for the first time in seven years. Similar interfaces are also being trialled for use with prosthetics, and scientists are even working on sensors that can recreate the sensation of touch.
EEG Electrodes record the electrical activity across the scalp, picking up the patterns generated by the brain.
Electrical activity When the wearer thinks about walking, electrical activity in the brain makes recognisable patterns.
Gel layers Layers of gel support the cells, and provide them with an environment that encourages growth.
Blood vessel The final product of this printer is a functioning blood vessel.
Living cells The printed cells divide in response to growth factors in the surrounding gel.
Harness and frame The harness and frame bear some of the weight of the wearer, and provide stability.
Electrodes attached to the knees deliver electrical impulses into the muscles that move the legs.
Gyroscopes The position and movement of the legs is monitored by sensors on the ankles.
© Alamy; Rex Features
The printed tissue is then transplanted into the body. If the patient’s own cells were used, it will be a perfect match.
A computer programme interprets signals from the brain and creates a pattern of signals to send on to the legs.
Electrodes
illustration by Nicholas Forder
4Transplant
Processor
Skin grafts
Medical equipment
Splints, casts and braces
Bone implants 101
SCIENCE
FUTURE VACCINES Most vaccines are made from a weakened or inactivated form of the pathogen, or even just some of its parts. These are injected into the body along with chemicals known as ‘adjuvants’, which help to get the immune system moving. The infection never takes hold, but as the immune system works to clear the vaccine, it develops highly targeted weaponry that can be used to fight the real thing. These types of vaccinations have changed the world. Smallpox was eradicated in 1980 after a vaccination programme, and vaccines keep dozens of other infectious diseases at bay, but new techniques are being developed to take this protection even further. ‘Recombinant viral vector’ vaccines hijack viruses and use them as vehicles. Viruses inject their genetic information into cells, but using genetic engineering scientists can delete the genes that make them dangerous and replace them with something useful. Using this technique, harmless viruses are being created to carry training materials into the body to teach the immune system how to fight infections, or even non-infectious diseases like cancer. A similar technique, known as DNA vaccination, directly injects genetic information into the muscle (usually attached to something like microscopic gold beads). These genes carry the instructions to make molecules found on infections, allowing the immune system a sneak peek before it has to encounter the real thing.
Painful needles could be replaced with harmless silicon patches in the future
Painless injections The Vaxxas Nanopatch is one square centimetre (0.2 square inch) of silicone, coated in around 20,000 microscopic projections. These spikes are too small to see, but the end of each one is coated in vaccine.
Silicon patch The patch is made from silicon, and placed on the skin using a specially designed applicator.
lls in ce d sk a e D r) laye skin r e t u is (o erm Epid yer) in la k s er (inn mis r e D
Immune cells The vaccine is delivered straight to white blood cells beneath the skin, helping to kick-start the immune response.
Projections
Under the skin
Instead of one large needle, the patch uses thousands of microscopic projections.
The Nanopatch still penetrates the skin, but the microprojections cause much less disruption.
A vaccine for HIV? Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida are designing a vaccine that could help to prevent HIV infection. Their new treatment blocks the virus when it tries to stick to human cells, and has stopped HIV taking hold in animals
HIV
Still dangerous
Tail
Like other viruses, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) needs to find its way into a living cell to reproduce.
HIV can still stick to CCR5.
The long tail contains a fragment of CCR5, blocking the binding site.
CD4
HIV
HIV gets inside cells by holding on to a molecule called CD4.
gp120 CCR5 Holding on to CD4 allows HIV to stick to another molecule called CCR5, gaining entry into the cell.
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HIV enters cells using a structure called gp120, which interacts with molecules on the surface of immune cells.
Antibody Antibodies – the immune system’s homing missiles – can be adapted in the lab to block the part of gp120 that sticks to CD4.
Modified antibody A modified antibody prevents HIV getting close to CD4.
illustration by Nicholas Forder
The immune system fights infections much more efficiently if it has encountered them before
DID YOU KNOW? In October 2015, the first malaria vaccine was approved for use by the WHO, pending further assessments
NEEDLE-FREE EBOLA CURE How a nasal spray could protect against one of the world’s most deadly diseases
How did you develop the Ebola vaccine? I was contacted by two scientists who were First Responders to many of the Ebola outbreaks and very interested in my project to develop a needle-free vaccine. I spent two months in their laboratory, where they had the genetic material for Ebola, and we developed the vaccine, which is essentially a cold virus called the adenovirus.
We took out the DNA from the cold virus that allowed it to replicate and make us sick, and replaced it with the sequence of the protein that covers the outside of the Ebola virus. We figured if we could get an immune response against that protein, the virus is pretty much dead in the water and can’t make someone sick. Why does it take so long to develop a vaccine? It’s great to rush something out to the people that need it, but if there is any chance that it may not be safe, that could completely destroy a vaccine that may otherwise be very good. So that’s why there is something called the ‘three animal rule’. Essentially you have to test the vaccine in three animal models that reflect the human disease. Throughout the whole process, not only did we look for the fact that there’s a good immune response, we also looked for toxicities that could cause a problem. What are the most important benefits of a needle-free vaccine? A lot of places affected by the Ebola outbreak are very isolated villages where they are not used to people that aren’t part of their culture. It isn’t acceptable for someone outside of that to go after them with a needle. Plus, the nasal spray alerts the immune system to the areas where one would be exposed to Ebola – through The needle-free Ebola vaccine is inhaled through the nose instead of injected
cuts or abrasions in the skin – much faster than an injection does. What stage is the vaccine at right now? It’s ready to go. We’re currently in the process of talking with two major companies that have the resources to produce it on a large scale and can really help to get it to the people who need it most. We really hope within the next year it will be available. How do you think the process of producing vaccines will change in the future? The way we stabilise the vaccine is unique and we think it will change the way certain vaccines that need refrigeration are produced. In our studies with mice and guinea pigs, we found that if we placed the vaccine under the tongue, it seemed to work really well. So we stabilised the vaccine in this thin, flexible film that almost looks like a fruit rollup. This way, we found that we could store it at room temperature for at least three years. We could then simply put it in an envelope, ship it to where it was needed and once it got there, add water to the sheet of vaccine and in minutes it could be used as a nasal spray.
Breakthrough is the ground-breaking series about some of the world’s leading scientists and how their cutting-edge innovations and advancements will change our lives in the immediate future and beyond. It is currently airing on Sundays at 10pm on the National Geographic Channel.
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The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has taken the lives of over 10,000 people so far, but finally a cure is on the horizon. For the past seven years, Dr Maria Croyle and her team at the University of Texas have been working on a vaccine that offers long-term protection against the deadly virus, and their latest tests show that it has a 100 per cent success rate in primates. The vaccine, which is inhaled through the nose instead of injected, could enable fast control of future outbreaks and revolutionise the way life-saving drugs are produced. It’s just one of the incredible discoveries explored in National Geographic’s new series, Breakthrough. We spoke to Dr Croyle to find out more about her work and what the future holds for vaccines.
SCIENCE
The physics of dance
Ballet dancers perform a precise balancing act every time they take to the stage
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ravity pulls ballet dancers downwards, while the floor pushes up, counteracting and balancing the force. But balanced forces don’t necessarily mean a balanced dancer. Mass is the overall amount of matter that the dancer has inside their body, and to stay on their feet, they need to ensure that the centre point of that mass remains right above the spot where their feet touch the floor. If the dancer were spherical, their centre of mass would be smack in the middle, making balancing easy. But they have a head, arms and legs, and each time they move, their centre of
mass moves too. This makes balancing more challenging, but by using their limbs as counterweights, dancers can stay upright in the most incredible poses. The dancer’s feet in contact with the floor also generate another force: friction. This stops them slipping as they move, and it can also be used to generate torque, or spin. During spins, arms and legs can be used to stunning effect. Thanks to the law of conservation of angular momentum, if a dancer brings their arms and legs inwards during a spin, they will spin faster. Bringing them out again can slow the dancer down to a gentle stop.
Ballet forces Dancers work hard to keep their centre of mass in line with the floor
Balance
Counterweight
This position might look unsteady, but the dancer’s mass is equally distributed above her feet.
Outstretched arms adjust the dancer’s centre of gravity, and therefore help her to balance.
The quietest place on Earth The extraordinary rooms that make it possible to hear your own heartbeat
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ou haven’t truly experienced silence until you’ve been in an anechoic chamber. These rooms are made from heavy concrete with rubber-sealed doors to prevent any sound at all from getting in. Inside, the walls are covered in foam wedges to absorb internal noise, and the floor is a suspended mesh to eliminate the sound of footsteps. Every inch is designed to absorb reflections of sound waves, so you hear absolutely nothing. These chambers are mainly used to test the performance of speakers, microphones and other products, but they also help astronauts to prepare for the eerie silence of space. The longest anyone has been able to bear the quiet for is 45 minutes. Orfield Laboratories, which is in the US, currently holds the Guinness World Record for the quietest place on Earth, as the walls can absorb 99.9 per cent of sound. In this environment, all a person can hear is the thumping of their heart, which can quickly drive them crazy, and with no perceptual cues to help them balance, it’s also incredibly disorientating and difficult to stand or move. So next time you wish for a bit of peace and quiet, think again. Anechoic chambers absorb all sound so there are no echoes
Gravity The dancer is constantly pulled towards the floor by gravity.
Centre of gravity The mass of the dancer is concentrated at this point, balanced equally on all sides.
Floor
© Dreamstime
The floor pushes up against the dancer, balancing the downward force of gravity.
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DID YOU KNOW? Anomalies are detected by satellites like those used by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE)
Gravity maps
Earth’s gravity Positive anomaly
Heat maps like this one show areas of high and low gravity across the planet’s surface
Areas shown in red have greater gravitational pull, and tend to be positioned over mountain ranges.
The Earth might look round, but our gravity is lumpy f Earth were smooth like a ball, its gravitational field would be equally smooth, but you only have to look out of the window to see that our planet has lumps and bumps. It is uneven both inside and out, and this affects our gravitational pull. Albert Einstein explained that gravity occurs because mass distorts space and time. Stars, planets, and even humans create dips in the fabric of the universe, and objects that come close will fall in to these. The more mass in a given space, the more of a dip is created, and the stronger the gravitational field. It makes sense then, that Earth’s gravity is not uniform. The planet is covered with mountain ranges, valleys and seas, and is made up of chemical elements with different atomic weights and densities. Even the movement of water in the oceans or the melting of glaciers can have an impact. All of these inconsistencies across our planet create an ever-changing map of so called ‘gravity anomalies’.
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Negative anomaly Mid-Atlantic ridge The Atlantic Ocean conceals part of the longest mountain range in the world.
Areas shown in blue have lower gravitational pull, and often coincide with valleys and trenches.
Tooth whitening he hard enamel outer surface of each tooth is coated in a layer called the pellicle. It is made mainly from proteins found in the saliva, but can also contain trapped particles from food, drink, and cigarette smoke. Over time, these can cause discolouration. The film can be removed by brushing, or by scraping, sonication, or chemical treatments, but if the compounds sit on the teeth for too long, the underlying enamel can also become stained. This doesn’t tend to cause any harm, but it can’t be removed by cleaning alone.
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Dentists offer two main forms of tooth whitening: carbamide and hydrogen peroxide. They both act as bleaching agents and work to lighten the stains. The chemicals are most often applied as gels inside a specially made gum shield that is moulded to the shape of your teeth, and laser light can also be used to speed up the process. At-home treatments are also available, but the NHS advises against their use. The kits might not be strong enough to have the desired effect, and if the gumshield doesn’t fit properly, the chemicals could leak and cause gum damage.
Dentists can use custom-made gum shields and controlled laser light to whiten teeth
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© Dreamstime; SPL
How do you get that perfect Hollywood smile?
SCIENCE
YOUR GUIDE TO How these chemical building blocks make up life, the universe and everything ll of the 118 elements in the periodic table are made from the same three key ingredients – protons, neutrons and electrons. The protons and neutrons make up the nucleus at the centre of each atom, while the electrons whizz around the outside and make chemical bonds with other atoms. The identity of each atom is determined by the number of protons in its nucleus, known as the atomic number. Hydrogen has one, helium has two, lithium three, and so on. The periodic table lists the elements in this order. Protons are positively charged, while electrons are negatively charged; an atom will have an equal number of each. The electrons are arranged in ‘shells’ around the nucleus. Each row of the periodic table represents a new layer of electron shells, and each column represents how full the outer shell is. For example, elements in the first column of the periodic table – including lithium and sodium – have just one electron in their outer shell, while those in the second column – such as beryllium and magnesium – have two. The number of electrons in the outer shell affects how the element behaves, so those in the same column have similar properties. Atoms like to have a full outer shell of electrons, so those with one or two extras are keen to give them away, and those with gaps want to fill them up. If you drop any of the elements from the first column into water, they will fizz, flame or even explode as they race to share their spare electron with other atoms, but if you did the same with the elements in the last column, nothing would happen. These elements have a full outer shell, so don’t need to share their electrons with other atoms. Most of the elements in the periodic table occur naturally on Earth, but any element heavier than lead (number 82) is unstable and gradually undergoes radioactive decay. Elements heavier than uranium (number 92) have to be made artificially. Join us as we explore the periodic table, and delve into the elements that shape our everyday lives.
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How to read the periodic table There are three key pieces of information about each element to look out for
Atomic number The atomic number tells you how many protons each atom has. This is different for every element.
Chemical symbol Each element has a one or two letter symbol. It is often based on Latin, and may not relate to the English name.
Atomic mass Some tables also give the atomic mass, which corresponds to the total number of protons and neutrons in the atom.
Alkali metals These elements each have a spare electron. They are highly reactive and, in nature, are always found bound to other elements.
Alkaline earth metals These elements have two spare electrons, and are also highly reactive. Like the alkali metals, they do not naturally exist on their own.
SPOTTING PATTERNS The chemical elements have more in common than you might think
6
C
Carbon 12.011
DID YOU KNOW? Element number 101 is named Mendelevium, after Dmitri Mendeleev, who invented the modern periodic table
THE ELEMENTS Filling in the gaps In the 1800s, just 63 of the 90 naturally occurring elements had been discovered, and many scientists tried and failed to come up with a system of organising them. The puzzle was finally solved by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. He arranged the elements in order of their atomic mass, and noticed how elements with similar properties grouped together periodically. While others had tried to order them strictly according to atomic mass, he wasn’t afraid to move elements around, leaving gaps where he thought that undiscovered elements should sit.
Non-metals
Halogens
Noble gases
The elements in the top right corner of the periodic table are the non-metals. Most are gases or solids at room temperature.
The halogens are missing one electron from their outer shell, and will react violently with the alkali metals to form salts.
These elements have a complete outer shell of electrons and do not react with other elements.
Transition metals
© SPL
The elements in this block have more than one partially filled electron shell, giving them interesting chemical properties.
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SCIENCE Gas-discharge lamps These lamps typically contain neon, argon, krypton, or xenon, which are noble gases. When an electric current is passed through the gases, they become excited, and when they drop back down to a normal energy level, they release photons of visible light.
EVERYDAY ELEMENTS
Heat resistant glass Borosilicate glass, which is found in the kitchen and in the lab, contains at least five per cent boron oxide. Boron has a high melting point, which helps the glass to resist thermal shock, going from hot to cold and back again without shattering.
Look around and you’ll discover dozens of different elements Coins
Ne Ar Kr Xe
In the UK, 1p and 2p coins are made from copperplated steel (iron and carbon), 5p and 10p coins are nickel-plated steel, 20p and 50p coins are cupro-nickel (copper and nickel), and £1 and £2 coins are nickel-brass (copper, nickel and zinc). These elements are cheaper than gold or silver, and durable too.
Sr
Am
B
Li Ca Na Ba Cu Fireworks
Smoke detectors
Fe
Many smoke detectors contain small amounts of americium. This radioactive element releases alpha particles, which ‘knock’ electrons away from gases in the air and towards a positively charged plate in the smoke detector, generating a current. When smoke gets in the way, the current stops and the alarm sounds.
Phone ingredients The shiny metal, glass and plastic exteriors of smartphones can contain lots of different elements, including aluminium, magnesium, carbon, and oxygen, but this is just the tip of the iceberg; the circuitry, battery, cameras and speakers contain dozens more. Silicon chips coated with antimony and arsenic sit beside batteries containing lithium and cobalt, and the features that we take for granted, like colour screens, are made possible by rare Earth metals like terbium and europium. Finding uses for all of these elements is a real achievement, but as demand for electronics soars, our limited resources could start to run out.
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C
Cu Ni Zn
In
Sn
O
La Gd Dy
Indium tin oxide film
Rare earth circuitry
Three elements – indium, tin and oxygen – make up the conductive film inside touch screens.
Al
Si
O
K
Aluminosilicate glass This tough glass is made from a mixture of aluminium, silicon, oxygen and potassium.
Li
Co
The colours of fireworks are produced using various combinations of elements, which burn with different coloured flames. Strontium and lithium salts burn red and calcium salts burn orange, while sodium salts burn yellow, barium salts green, and copper salts blue. Purple can be made by mixing strontium and copper.
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Lithium ion battery The positive electrode contains lithium, cobalt and oxygen, and the negative electrode is made from carbon.
Smartphone circuitry contains rare earth metals like lanthanum, gadolinium and dysprosium.
Cu Ag Au Ta
Precious metal wiring Copper, silver, gold and tantalum are used in micro-electrical components and wiring.
DID YOU KNOW? The radioactive element radium was once used to make glowing backlights in wristwatches
YOU ARE MADE OF
STARDUST
P
Phosphorus, like calcium, helps to provide strength to bones and teeth. It is also involved in energy use, and is a vital component in DNA, helping to hold the whole structure together.
The elements that make up our bodies were forged inside ancient stars
“The remnants of old exploded stars go on to make more star systems”
65%
0.4% POTASSIUM Potassium ions are found dissolved inside cells and in body fluids. They carry an electric charge, and are used by nerve cells and muscle cells in the transmission of electrical impulses.
O
OXYGEN Oxygen makes up over half of our body weight. It is one of the key components of water, and is one of the three essential elements needed to make biological molecules like fat and protein.
18.5%
K
C
CARBON Carbon can make four bonds to other elements, making it the perfect scaffolding for building large, complex molecules. It is an essential component of fats, proteins, sugars and DNA.
9.5%
H
S
0.3% SULPHUR
Sulphur is found in some of the building blocks of protein. It can make strong bonds to other sulphur atoms, helping to fix proteins into their 3D shapes.
Na
0.2%
HYDROGEN
SODIUM
Hydrogen is the third element found in all biological molecules. There are actually more hydrogen atoms in the body than carbon or oxygen, but they are much lighter.
3.2%
N
NITROGEN Oxygen, carbon and hydrogen make up the core of all biological molecules, but lots of other elements are used in smaller amounts. Nitrogen is found in both DNA and protein.
1.5%
Ca
CALCIUM Calcium is found in bones and teeth, and also plays an important role in signalling between cells, in muscle and nerve function, and in blood clotting.
Sodium is another electrolyte that carries charge inside the body. Along with potassium and chlorine, it is one of the key elements responsible for normal nerve and muscle function.
0.4% AND THE REST There are many other elements in the human body, including chlorine, magnesium, manganese, iron, fluorine, cobalt, copper, zinc, selenium, molybdenum, iodine, lithium, and aluminium.
Cl Mg Mn Fe Cu Zn Se Mo
I
F
Co
Li
Al 109
© Thinkstock
Hydrogen is the smallest element, and formed in vast quantities after the Big Bang, along with a less plentiful supply of helium, and even smaller amounts of lithium and beryllium. But making the heavier elements required more energy. Hydrogen and helium gas clumped together to form clouds, and these clouds collapsed to form stars with enough heat and pressure to trigger nuclear fusion; inside the stars, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms slammed together, fusing to form helium. As the stars aged, the helium atoms started to create even heavier elements, including carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. Depending on the mass of the star, this process sometimes continued, producing the nuclei of most of the elements up to number 26, iron. After this critical point, fusion reactions stop releasing energy. When stars run out of useable fuel, they collapse, kicking layers of gas and heavy elements out into space. For the most massive stars, this process involves a powerful explosion called a supernova, which provides enough energy to make the elements that are heavier than iron. The remnants of these old exploded stars mix with yet more hydrogen gas and go on to make more star systems, like our own Sun and planets, providing us with the range of elements we have on Earth today.
1%
PHOSPHORUS
SCIENCE Patient rooms
Isolating deadly diseases
Autoclaves sterilise equipment with high pressure and high temperatures
Rooms are equipped to deliver high-level patient care, with facilities for intensive treatment and even minor surgery.
When serious infection strikes, biocontainment units work to keep us safe azard group 4 pathogens – such as smallpox, Lassa fever and Ebola – cause severe human disease. They are likely to spread, and there is usually no effective prevention or cure, so when infected patients come through the door, hospitals must act fast. The patients may be rushed to a separate facility known as a biocontainment unit. There are only a small number of these facilities worldwide, and every detail is geared towards infection control. Biocontainment units are designed to be isolated from the main hospital, providing everything that the staff and patients might need in one safe, sealed space. The rooms have facilities for normal, high-dependency and emergency care; there are en-suite bathroom facilities, and staff can even perform minor surgery. Dedicated lab facilities allow tests to be performed immediately, without the need to transport dangerous samples. To minimise the chance of airborne pathogens escaping into the hospital, these units have their own dedicated ventilation systems, and the pressure inside is kept slightly lower than the pressure outside. This means that air will have a natural tendency to move inwards, creating a constant breeze that helps to blow any infectious particles back inside. All air leaving the facility is first passed through high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters. These dense mats of glass fibres block, slow and stick to particles, filtering contaminants and preventing their escape. The filtered air is released high above the roof of the hospitals, dissipating into the atmosphere. Inside the unit are clear divisions between the rooms. Staff members enter through designated areas to don their protective equipment, and exit through different areas to take it off again. The rooms are fitted with glass panels and intercom systems, and CCTV allows close patient monitoring, while minimising the risk of infection. Nothing that goes in to the unit can come out until staff are sure it is clean. Items like suits,
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swabs and spoons are sterilised, either by searing steam or high-heat and high-pressure autoclaves. Disposable items are burnt. Patient waste is bleached until nothing can survive, lab samples are dunked in sterilisation tanks before they are taken for testing, and some equipment is exposed to burning ultraviolet radiation. All of these measures help to ensure that the patients inside and outside the unit receive the best possible care, while minimising the risk of further infection.
Inside a biocontainment unit The extreme measures that help to prevent outbreaks
En-suite facilities Each patient has access to bathroom and shower facilities.
Surgical cap
Goggles or face shield
Respirator
Multiple gloves
Apron
Overalls
Rubber boots
Keeping staff safe No amount of bleach would protect against infectious disease without highly trained medical staff. The selection process to become a member of a biocontainment unit team is rigorous. On top of their medical expertise, dedicated unit staff are educated in microbiology, sterilisation, disinfection, emergency planning and laboratory maintenance. The medical teams wear several layers of protection when interacting with patients inside the units. They are covered from head to toe, and staff are employed specifically to help the team get dressed and undressed for work. They wear full body suits that include respirators to clean the air they breathe, and their hands are protected by several pairs of gloves. All of this equipment needs to be put on and taken off in a specific order every time they enter or exit the unit, and there are specialist areas that allow this to be done safely.
DID YOU KNOW? There are only four specialist biocontainment hospital units in the US and two in the UK
Protective equipment
Decontamination shower
Staff in the unit are provided with protective equipment for interaction with the patients.
Emergency facilities are present on site in case any staff member is exposed.
Windows and intercoms CCTV, windows and intercoms allow staff to communicate with patients without having to enter the rooms.
Waste management Disposable waste is first sterilised with steam, heat and pressure, and is then incinerated.
Negative pressure Pressure inside the facility is lower than it is on the outside, so air flows inwards, helping to prevent infectious particles from escaping.
Lab Samples are dipped in sterilisation fluid before they go to the lab.
The samples are tested in their own dedicated lab, under the same high-level controls as the facility.
Bleached waste Liquid waste from the unit is bleached for several minutes to kill or deactivate any infectious material present.
“Nothing that goes in to the unit can come out until staff are sure it is clean”
© Dreamstime; Illustration by Ed Crooks
Sterilisation
Sample tubes are dunked to sterilise the outside before they are sent for testing
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DID YOU KNOW? Studies show that we identify images of snakes and spiders more quickly than non-threatening pictures
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experiences. Despite this, most of us are able to ignore our fears when it’s clear we aren’t in any immediate danger. We can enjoy the view from the top of a skyscraper rather than worry about falling, or turn out the lights safe in the knowledge that a predator won’t devour us in the night. However, people with phobias have an excessive fear response that causes both physical and psychological distress. These extreme fears are divided into three different groups: agoraphobia, social phobia and specific phobias. Agoraphobia is generally referred to as the fear of open spaces, but it applies to the dread of any situation that is difficult– to escape from, or where help would not be available if something went wrong. Social phobia is the intense fear of interacting with people or
NATURAL FEARS Some of our fears have developed as an evolutionary response to danger We are more afraid of what hides in the dark, rather than the darkness itself
performing, while specific phobias are the fear of a particular situation, activity or thing. These irrational fears can cause major disruptions to everyday life; somebody with acrophobia – an extreme fear of heights – may experience a panic attack simply trying to walk across a bridge. Depending on the trigger of their phobia, sufferers often go to great lengths to avoid situations that could affect them. The cause of phobias is not always clear, but many cases are linked to experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. For example, somebody may develop cynophobia – the fear of dogs – after being bitten. But whether the trigger is rational or irrational, as soon as the brain registers a scary stimulus, it activates the fight-or-flight response, thus preparing the body for action.
“Even today, the majority of African lion attacks on humans occur after dark”
The fear of heights helps us avoid falls that could injure or kill us
Although most snake and spider species aren’t poisonous to us, we are innately cautious around them
Darkness
Heights
Poisonous creatures
Sight is arguably our most important sense. When we are faced with pitch-darkness we are left vulnerable, unaware of what is around us. At night, our early ancestors were at risk of being attacked by nocturnal predators. A study from 2011 found that even today, the majority of African lion attacks on humans occur after dark, and are more likely when the Moon is below the horizon. Although being hunted while we sleep isn’t a risk for most of us, we are instinctively more anxious when unable to see.
A fear of heights is necessary to our survival, ensuring we are cautious in situations where we might injure ourselves. To study this, researchers set up a platform surrounded by a transparent material, giving the illusion of a cliff, and put young children on the platform to test their reaction. They found that most infants didn’t try to move onto the transparent section, suggesting that they inherently avoided risking a drop. As our ancestors explored the world, this fear ensured they were wary of climbing to dangerous heights.
While we may not be terrified of them from birth, evidence suggests that we are predisposed to detect and recognise spiders and snakes quicker than non-threatening animals. One theory is that our early mammal ancestors, evolving in a world dominated by reptiles, needed to identify and react to snakes to avoid becoming dinner. Another hypothesis is that our ancestors evolving in Africa coexisted with a number of poisonous spider species for millions of years, so being able to spot and avoid them was a vital skill.
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ome alone at night, you hear a loud crash. In an instant your heart starts racing, your muscles tense and your breath quickens. You are immediately alert, primed to fight or flee the source of the sound, which turns out to be a pile of books falling off that shelf you’ve been meaning to fi x. But in that moment, your brain and body reacted as if you were in mortal danger. Fear is one of our strongest and most primal emotions. It’s a big bad world out there, and being afraid of certain things protects us from potential danger to make sure we survive. Some evolutionary fears are hard-wired into our brains, but we can also develop new fears throughout our lives. As children we pick up on what makes our parents anxious, and we may also learn to fear certain things after negative
SCIENCE
FIGHT OR FLIGHT How your brain and body trigger this evolutionary survival instinct Under normal circumstances, sensory information from your body is sent to the thalamus in the brain. The thalamus relays these signals to the cortex and the hippocampus for further processing, to provide a better understanding of what you’re experiencing and put it into context. This analysis is forwarded to the amygdala, which triggers an appropriate emotional reaction to the situation. When your brain receives signals that indicate some kind of danger, the course of action is slightly different. The process above still occurs, but this higher-level analysis takes precious time. The fraction of a second it takes to fully understand what’s happening might be the difference between life and death. To make sure your body is instantly prepared to face a threat, the thalamus also sends the raw sensory information via a shortcut, directly to the amygdala.
As soon as the amygdala is alerted, it signals the hypothalamus. This part of the brain activates systems that release a cocktail of around 30 different hormones into the bloodstream. One hormone in particular, adrenaline, causes a variety of physiological reactions all around the body. For example, in the lungs it makes smooth muscle cells relax, expanding the air passages so more oxygen can reach the blood. It also stimulates cardiac cells so the heart beats faster, and makes muscles in the eyes contract to dilate the pupils. The physical changes produced by this sudden flood of hormones make up what is known as the fight-or-flight response. This instinctive reaction gets you ready to either take a stand and defend yourself, or escape to safety. Not many of us experience life-threatening situations day-to-day, so more often than not our
Fear on the brain
A fear of flying is relatively common, and may have roots in the evolutionary fear of heights
fight-or-flight response is triggered by a false alarm. The moment of panic you feel after hearing a loud bang, for example, is because neural signals from the shortcut reach the amygdala first. The fight-or-flight response automatically kicks in before the brain evaluates the situation, just in case. Once the amygdala receives more information and concludes you aren’t in danger, it signals the thalamus to stop the fight-or-flight reaction, returning your body to normal. The human brain is hard-wired to prepare for the worst; it may seem silly to treat every loud noise as a danger, but if the threat turns out to be real, this overreaction could save your life.
Sensory cortex Specific regions of the brain analyse the sensory information from each of our different senses. They process the signals passed on from the thalamus to give them meaning.
What happens when the brain goes into survival mode?
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Thalamus The thalamus is the first port of call for most sensory signals from the body. It relays this information to the relevant areas of the brain, like a switchboard.
Hypothalamus The hypothalamus’s primary role is to maintain homeostasis – keeping the body in a stable condition. It also regulates the secretion of hormones and initiates the fight-or-flight response.
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Amygdala The amygdala processes our emotional reactions and plays a role in decision-making and the formation of memories. It moderates our responses to events that affect our survival.
1 Stimulus
When a potential threat is detected, the thalamus sends signals to the amygdala via two different pathways. One route is fast and direct, while the slower path analyses the situation and decides what should happen next.
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Hippocampus The hippocampus plays an important role in long-term memory formation. It compares incoming sensory information to past events to help establish a context for the situation you face.
2 Act first
The first pathway immediately assumes there’s danger even if there is none – a safer option than vice versa. It goes directly to the amygdala, which sends signals to the hypothalamus to initiate the fight-or-flight response.
3 Analysis
The same information is sent along the more investigative route. Signals from the thalamus are sent to the sensory cortex, which interprets the data, followed by the hippocampus, to analyse the context of the situation.
4 Fight or flight? 5 Judgement The hypothalamus activates both the sympathetic nervous system and the adrenalcortical system to trigger the fight-or-flight reaction. The impulses and hormones produced prepare the body for action.
Once the situation has been analysed by the longer pathway, the hippocampus sends signals to the amygdala to either seize the fight-orflight response if there is no danger, or to maintain it if there is.
DID YOU KNOW? The ‘Wilhelm scream’ sound effect has been used in over 200 films, from Star Wars to Toy Story
Anatomy of fear The extreme reactions that occur when your body is put on high alert
Wide-eyed
Hormones
The pupils dilate to let in more light, so you can take in more of your surroundings and identify the threat.
The activated sympathetic nervous system and adrenalcortical system release dozens of hormones into the bloodstream to cause changes in the body.
Respiration increases Heart rate increases
Faster breathing sends more oxygen to your muscles to prepare them for action.
The hormones adrenaline and noradrenaline are released to increase your heart rate, sending more blood to your muscles and brain.
Goosebumps As your muscles tense up, the small hairs on your skin are forced upright. This evolutionary reflex probably helped our hairier ancestors look bigger and scarier.
Cold sweat Your body anticipates immediate action, so you pre-emptively start to sweat in order to keep cool.
Butterflies Blood flow is diverted away from non-essential systems such as digestion. This causes the nervous ‘butterflies in your stomach’ feeling.
Blood runs cold
Energy boost Your liver starts breaking down glycogen into glucose, ready to supply the body with instant energy.
“The time it takes to understand what’s happening might be the difference between life and death ”
The vessels in your skin constrict to help divert more blood to your muscles and reduce blood loss from potential injury. This makes you feel cold.
Shaking muscles More blood is pumped to the muscles so you can defend yourself or make a quick getaway. This can make your limbs feel tense and twitchy.
However, the study showed that when we hear a scream, the signals are sent straight to the amygdala to activate the brain’s fear response. The team also found that ‘rougher’ screams – those that change volume more quickly – were the most distressing. The results show that screams are a very effective method of communication in humans. They not only help convey danger, but also help make those who hear them more alert.
© Thinkstock
Why do we scream? Screaming is an innate reflex; it’s usually the first thing you do when you’re born. Although we might also scream from excitement or pleasure, it is most often a cry of distress. Researchers from New York University conducted an experiment using brain scans to see how our minds react to screams. When we listen to normal speech, what we hear is sent to the auditory cortex for processing so we can make sense of the sounds.
Screams are an example of a universal vocalisation; they are the same in every language
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ARE FEARS GENETIC? Your phobias could be passed down through generations in DNA It was previously assumed that all irrational fears are learned through personal experience or taught to us by others. In cases where a person develops a phobia related to a traumatic event in their past, this is most likely the case. If somebody nearly drowns while swimming in the sea, for instance, it wouldn’t be surprising if they develop aquaphobia, the fear of water. The brain makes a connection between the situation and the feeling of pain and panic, and commits it to memory. However, it is now thought that some phobias have a genetic origin. Identical twins are more likely to share the same irrational fears than non-identical twins, even if they are raised apart from one another. Experiments with mice have shown that fears they develop can be passed down to their children and even their grandchildren. The mice
were conditioned to fear the scent of acetophenone – a sweet smelling chemical. Researchers found that the pups, and even the grand-pups, of the conditioned mice were startled by the scent too. One explanation for this could be that parent mice communicate with their pups to effectively teach them what to fear. Studies have found that when mice are scared, they release pheromones that act as an alarm signal to other mice. However, in the acetophenone experiment, the pups proved to be sensitive to the scent from the very first time they encountered it. What’s more, some pups of conditioned mice were fostered by non-conditioned mice. The non-conditioned foster parents were not afraid of the scent, but the pups were, suggesting the fear’s origin was genetic rather than social.
Inheriting fears
“Sets of identical twins often share the same irrational fears”
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A study with lab mice suggests that fear is a family affair
Shock Every time the scent is released, the mouse is given a mild electric shock.
Genetic change The conditioning caused a small change in the parent mouse’s DNA, which was inherited by the pups.
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It is not clear exactly how the conditioned fear is passed on to future generations of mice, but the current theory is that it is down to something called epigenetic inheritance. The original conditioning process leads to chemical modifications that change gene expression (which genes are switched on or off), without changing the DNA sequence itself. The researchers found that the conditioned mice and their offspring developed more scent receptors in their brains compared to non-conditioned mice. With more of these receptors, they can detect the presence of acetophenone at lower concentrations and so are alerted to it more easily. Epigenetics is a relatively new area of research, but it stands to reason that fears and other memories may well be inherited this way in humans too.
Scent
Non-conditioned mouse
The mouse is exposed to the scent of acetophenone, a chemical that smells like cherry blossom.
Fear conditioning
The foster parent has not been taught to fear the smell of acetophenone.
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The mouse learns to associate the smell of acetophenone with pain, and becomes startled by the scent alone.
Pups The conditioned mouse has pups, some of which are given to non-conditioned foster parents to be raised.
Future generations The study found that a second generation of pups were also more sensitive to acetophenone.
Foster parent The foster mouse doesn’t react to the scent, so it is unlikely the pups’ fear was passed on socially.
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Scared pups Both sets of pups are startled by the scent of acetophenone, despite never encountering it before.
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DID YOU KNOW? A growing fear in the modern world is nomophobia – the fear of being without a mobile phone
LIVING FEARLESSLY
People with damaged amygdalas are more complacent around potential threats
Self-help gurus and motivational posters encourage us to be fearless, but in reality a life without fear would be incredibly dangerous. Studies have shown that when the region of the brain called the amygdala is damaged, people are more likely to take risks. Severe damage can even leave people with no sense of fear whatsoever – which can land them in some pretty scary situations! For the past 25 years, scientists have been studying a patient (known as SM for anonymity) who lacks an amygdala. SM has experienced many traumatic events in her life – she has been held at both knife and gun-point, and was nearly killed during a domestic violence attack – but she did not react with any sense of desperation or urgency, even though her life was in danger. Researchers took SM to an exotic pet store where, despite claiming she hated them, the snakes and spiders captivated her. Scientists noted her curiosity and compulsive desire to touch some of the more dangerous creatures, following repeated warnings from staff. The researchers concluded that SM’s inability to detect or react appropriately to threats likely contributed to her disproportionate number of traumatic experiences. By studying patients like SM, it is hoped that scientists can understand more about fear and discover new methods of helping people whose lives are plagued by it. For example, treatments that target the amygdala could benefit those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
It’s not just a figure of speech – it turns out you really can die of fright. The adrenaline released during the fight-or-flight response can be damaging in large amounts. This stress hormone encourages the heart muscle Regularly activating the to contract, but if your body fight-or-flight response releases too much through anxiety or stress can cause serious adrenaline, your heart is health problems unable to relax again. Adrenaline can also interfere with the cells that regulate your heart rhythm, causing it to beat abnormally, which could be lethal. While not directly deadly, prolonged anxiety
on your health. The fight-or-flight response suppresses the immune system, leaving you vulnerable to illness. Going into survival mode on a regular basis can lead to digestive disorders as this non-essential system is repressed. Long-term stress can also lead to weight issues by disrupting the metabolism; elevated levels of cortisol can make the body less sensitive to insulin. Muscles that are constantly tense and ready for action can cause headaches, stiffness and neck pain. The list doesn’t end there; chronic anxiety has also been linked to cardiovascular problems, asthma and insomnia. Such a broad range of effects can be harmful to both physical and mental wellbeing.
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© Thinkstock; Dreamstime
Sometimes it is just the thrill that makes people take unnecessary risks
SCIENCE
PHOBIA TREATMENT
Fear is an instinctive survival mechanism that helps protect us from danger
FACING YOUR FEARS Can you retrain your brain to overcome a phobia? Some phobia triggers are much easier to avoid than others. For example, people who suffer from a fear of bats (chiroptophobia) are highly unlikely to be plagued by these creatures day in, day out. Someone suffering from a social phobia, however, will struggle to lead a normal life. There are a variety of different methods used to treat phobias. Among the most popular are talking treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy and exposure therapy, which work by retraining the brain to change how it responds to a phobia trigger. The approach is essentially the opposite of fear conditioning – the patient learns to associate their trigger with more rational, positive thoughts. Another approach being investigated is tricking the brain into treating itself. Mentalist and illusionist Derren Brown conducted an experiment on his programme Fear And Faith, in which he gave people with different phobias a new wonder drug called Rumyodin. One subject, usually terrified of heights, was comfortably able to sit on the edge of a tall bridge. Another volunteer with a fear of performing in public was able to go to an audition. It was revealed that Rumyodin (an anagram of ’your mind’) didn’t exist, and the participants had simply been injected with saline solution and given sugar pills. The incredible results are a demonstration of the placebo effect, a phenomenon in which a fake treatment has a very real result. Scientists are investigating how this effect can be exploited to treat both physical and psychological problems.
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Exposure therapy involves facing your fears one step at a time
“The patient learns to associate their phobia trigger with more rational, positive thoughts” Exposure therapy The aim of exposure therapy is to gradually desensitise the patient to the source of their phobia. The patient ranks situations from least to most terrifying. For example, an arachnophobe might place thinking about a spider at the bottom of their list, and having a spider crawl along
their arm at the top. The patient works with a psychologist to systematically work their way through the list, using relaxation techniques or other coping mechanisms until they are comfortable with each stage. The patient’s brain learns to relate each scary situation to being calm, reducing their anxiety. Therapists can control the virtual scenario to suit the patient’s progress
Research suggests that CBT actually causes physical changes to the brain
Cognitive behavioural therapy
Virtual reality therapy
The aim of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is to change how we think about certain situations. It is thought that irrational anxiety issues are caused by a patient’s negative interpretation of events, rather than the events themselves. CBT is a talking therapy that helps patients assess their reactions to situations, replacing the worry cycle with more useful or realistic thoughts. Patients’ brain scans indicate that CBT reduces the overactivity in the amygdala and hippocampus associated with phobias. Studies have also shown that CBT is as effective as medication in the treatment of many anxiety disorders.
Exposure therapy isn’t a viable option for all phobias, but modern technology offers an alternative. Advancements in virtual reality systems mean that patients can now face their fears through a headset rather than in the real world. This allows patients to face any number of situations relating to their phobia, while knowing they are in no physical danger. For example, somebody with a phobia of flying can take a course of sessions – in which they board a virtual plane and experience announcements, take-off, turbulence and landing – without having to buy a plane ticket each week.
DID YOU KNOW? Anatidaephobia, the fear that a duck is watching you, is fake – it was invented for a cartoon
TOP 10 STRANGEST PHOBIAS The most common phobias stem from rational fears, but others are completely bizarre
Papaphobia
Heliophobia
An irrational phobia of the Pope
Fear of the Sun, sunlight, or bright lights
Trypophobia An intense fear of small holes or bumps
Phobophobia
Xanthophobia
The fear of developing a phobia
The fear of the colour or word yellow
Somniphobia
Soceraphobia
Lutraphobia The irrational fear of otters
Arachibutyrophobia
Omphalophobia
The fear of having peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth
The fear of belly buttons
© Thinkstock; Dreamstime
The fear of falling asleep
An irrational fear of your parents-in-law
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SPACE 122 The search for alien life How the ground-breaking search could prove we’re not alone
128 Space weather Get the forecast for the Sun’s explosive activity
130 Parallel universes Does this controversial theory have any scientific basis?
134 What is the universe made of? The cosmos is filled with invisible material and energy
134 Clean and tidy galaxies A cleaner galaxy makes for more accurate readings
135 Taking the Solar System’s temperature
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The search for alien life
How hot are our nearby planets?
135 Seeing back in time When looking at the stars, we’re seeing into the past
136 Living on the Moon How we could turn craters into colonies for human life
142 What makes a planet habitable? Discover what makes Earth special enough to support life
142 What is a gravitational well? How this invisible force shapes the universe
143 Cannibal galaxies Inside the galaxy-eat-galaxy world of the galactic food chain
144 Interstellar space travel The multimillion-dollar project taking us further into space than ever before
130 Parallel universes 120
128
Space weather
136 Living on the Moon
144 Interstellar space travel
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SPACE
HOW THE GROUND-BREAKING SEARCH FOR LIFE COULD PROVE WE’RE NOT ALONE Green Bank Telescope Parkes Telescope This 64-metre movable radio telescope is located in New South Wales, Australia.
Located in West Virginia, this is the largest movable radio telescope in the world, with a 100-metre dish.
Search time The Green Bank telescope will spend 20 per cent of its time hunting for alien civilisations, while the Parkes Telescope will dedicate 25 per cent.
Automated Planet Finder Telescope The Lick Observatory in California will hunt for optical laser messages in case they are being used instead of radio signals.
Hours of data The telescopes will spend thousands of hours scouring the universe for signals, compared to tens of hours in previous projects.
n this possibly infinite universe, could Earth truly be the only inhabited planet? Are we really that special, or is the universe actually teeming with life? Could there be advanced civilisations out there trying to make contact right now? In July 2015, Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking announced an ambitious new initiative to search for communications from advanced alien worlds. Breakthrough Listen is described by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory as “the most powerful, comprehensive, and intensive scientific search ever for signs of intelligent life in the universe”. The initiative has set aside $100 million (£66 million) over ten years to listen for signals from the nearest million stars in the Milky Way, and
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from the nearest hundred galaxies around us. Led by a team of internationally renowned experts that includes Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, the project will use some of the world’s largest and most powerful telescopes. The search is based on the idea that among the hundreds of billions of stars in our close galactic neighbourhood, there are thousands of planets similar to our own. With the right environment and optimal chemistry, many scientists believe that life could evolve on some of these distant Earths. If life exists on other planets, so too might intelligent life, who like us, could be interested in exploring the universe around them, and in making contact. This is not the first time that Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) experiments have been attempted. Dr Frank
Drake, author of the Drake Equation and one of the scientific leads on the Breakthrough Listen project, was among the first to start scanning for extraterrestrial life back in 1960. The Breakthrough Initiative builds upon more than 50 years of experience, allowing the team to look further and wider than ever before. So far, we have no proof that life has ever existed on any planet other than Earth, but if we can find just one example elsewhere, it will completely change the way that we view the universe. As Frank Drake said at the Breakthrough launch, “Right now there could be messages from the stars flying right through the room, through us all. That still sends a shiver down my spine. The search for intelligent life is a great adventure. And Breakthrough Listen is giving it a huge lift.”
DID YOU KNOW? One of the first promising signals detected by a SETI experiment was actually from an American U2 spy plane
“The search for intelligent life is a great adventure”
Scanning for alien transmissions Breakthrough Listen will use three of the world’s most powerful telescopes
Dr Frank Drake Optical lasers If civilisations are using lasers to send signals instead of radio waves, the Lick Observatory will pick them up.
A hundred galaxies Breakthrough Listen will examine the 100 closest galaxies.
Radio signals The two radio telescopes will scan five times more of the radio spectrum than before.
Sensitive search A million stars The survey will cover the closest million stars to Earth, scanning each for signs of intelligent life.
The signals Breakthrough Listen is looking for could be produced by equipment less powerful than some of the technology we have on Earth today.
The Arecibo Observatory was used to send Earth’s first communication beacon into space
The search for intelligent life
Four of the scientists behind Breakthrough Listen: (left to right) Martin Rees, Frank Drake, Ann Druyan and Geoff Marcy
© Getty; Wikimedia Commons
We have begun searching for signs of life in our own Solar System, but the search for intelligent life is different. We can reach our neighbouring planets and moons with probes and rovers, allowing us to sample the atmosphere and the soil directly to find even the tiniest traces of biological materials. But to find out whether there is life beyond the reaches of our spacecraft, scientists must take a different approach. We cannot yet tell whether primitive life exists on distant planets, but if advanced, intelligent civilisations have developed the technology to send messages out into space, we might be able to detect their signals.
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SPACE Numbers
SIGNS OF LIFE What do we actually look for when searching for aliens? The search for intelligent life focuses less on what aliens might be made of, and more on how they might communicate. Distant planets in other star systems are too far away to see clearly, but we can pick up signals released into space. But how do we know what to listen for? We live in the same universe, so we share the same fundamental physics and chemistry. Communications have to reach over vast distances, travelling through the dust and gas of the universe without being lost or degraded, and scientists think that it is most likely that they would be sent using radio waves or powerful optical lasers. Listening out for every single signal across the entire electromagnetic spectrum would be impossible, so to detect these communications, we need to try to think like aliens. This was first attempted in 1959 by two scientists from Cornell University; Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison suggested focusing in on a specific frequency, the 1,420 MHz ‘hydrogen line’. Hydrogen is the smallest and most abundant element in the universe, and when its energy state changes it creates a characteristic spectral line, which is always at a frequency of 1,420 MHz. This falls into the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and is able to travel through dust and gas that block the path of visible light. Looking at the universe in this frequency allows us to see through dark clouds that normally block our view. Cocconi and Morrison reasoned that civilisations more advanced than our own would also have used hydrogen line emissions to map the universe around them. If intelligent life forms also realise that other civilisations might be tuning in to this special frequency, they might use it to try and send a message. Frequencies either side of the hydrogen line are also monitored, in case alien life forms choose to reserve 1,420 MHz for scientific use, and some SETI experiments, including Breakthrough Listen, also monitor for pulses of laser light in case they are used instead of radio. As the SETI Institute points out, “optical SETI requires that any extraterrestrial civilisation be deliberately signalling in the direction of our Solar System.” This could happen by chance, but if aliens are signalling right at us, they might already know we are here.
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We’re over here! The Arecibo Observatory greeted the universe in 1974 The Arecibo Message was a coded image sent out in the direction of 300,000 stars in the nearby M13 star cluster, over 40 years ago. It was constructed by shifting the frequency of the broadcast to spell out binary 0s and 1s. In less than three minutes, the message attempted to paint a picture of life on Earth for any intelligent life that might be watching.
The first ten digits are written here one to ten.
Important elements Atomic numbers of elements such as carbon and oxygen.
DNA components Formulae of some of the chemical building blocks of the genetic code.
DNA code This chain represents the number of DNA nucleotides (building blocks of DNA) in the human genome.
Double helix The distinctive structure of DNA is shown here.
Human A human figure is shown, with average height represented to the left.
Earth population
“ Scientists are searching for planets and moons in the Goldilocks zone”
The population of Earth is written to the right of the stick figure.
Solar System This line of symbols shows the Sun (left) and the planets, with Earth highlighted.
Arecibo telescope The telescope is shown at the bottom of the message, with its diameter beneath.
Extreme Earth life Alien worlds needn’t be exactly like ours; even on Earth, organisms survive in environments that are completely unsuitable for humans. Meet the Earth extremophiles.
Tardigrades
Animals that live without oxygen
Tardigrades can survive without water, in extreme cold, under high levels of pressure or radiation, and even in the vacuum of space.
In 2010, scientists reported three complex species living at the bottom of the sea, in an area known as a ‘dead zone’, where there is no oxygen.
Electric bacteria
Extremophiles
Shewanella bacteria can use metal ions and other compounds to release energy, instead of oxygen. This is not seen in any other organisms on Earth.
Many other species thrive in extremes. For instance, thermophiles survive at high temperatures, and acidophiles withstand acidic conditions.
DID YOU KNOW? Venus is blisteringly hot, but some scientists think life could survive high up in the clouds
How to hunt for aliens There are billions of stars in our galaxy alone, but which should we focus on? The first step in the search for life is to define what life actually is. This is still a topic of debate, but it is generally agreed that living things are complex and organised. They use resources from their environment to generate energy, and build molecules for replication and growth. They react to their surroundings, adapt and reproduce, all of which requires complex chemistry. The most abundant elements in the universe are hydrogen and helium, but helium does not form molecules with other elements, and hydrogen can’t make complex molecules on its own. Oxygen and carbon are the next most
plentiful, and together with hydrogen are the most abundant elements in Earth’s organisms. It might seem a bit egocentric to assume that life elsewhere in the universe will be based on the same components as life on Earth, but a closer look at the chemistry reveals why scientists are so focused on finding carbon and water. Carbon can make four bonds to other elements, providing the scaffold that allows complex molecules to be made. This property can be matched by silicon, but the chemistry is not quite the same. While we exhale carbon dioxide, a silicon-based equivalent might exhale sand.
Water provides a solvent in which these large, complex molecules can dissolve, enabling them to interact. Water is also good at maintaining stable temperatures, and the fact that ice floats means that lakes don’t freeze solid. These properties are hard to match, although ammonia and hydrogen fluoride come close. Given what we know about the chemistry and composition of the universe, scientists are searching for planets and moons in the so-called ‘Goldilocks zone’ or ‘habitable zone’, where liquid water might exist. If these conditions can support life on Earth, why not elsewhere?
Life in our Solar System
Mars
Europa
Enceladus
Titan
NASA’s rovers have shown that Mars was once home to vast pools and rivers, and in 2015, NASA confirmed that liquid water still flows on the Red Planet today.
Jupiter’s icy moon may have a salty ocean beneath its surface. NASA believes that it touches the moon’s rocky core, providing chemical elements that could sustain life.
Saturn’s moon Enceladus releases jets from its icy surface. Scientists believe that they could be carrying materials from a hidden liquid water ocean underneath.
Saturn’s largest moon has an atmosphere of nitrogen and methane that intrigues scientists. Some suggest that methanebased life forms could inhabit Titan’s seas.
Hunting for planets Spotting distant planets is tricky, but new technology could help To identify Earth-like planets elsewhere in the galaxy, scientists watch out for their shadows as they pass across their parent stars, but the closest stars are so bright that their planets are a real challenge to detect. The private aerospace and defence company Northrop Grumman are developing a screen known as the ‘Starshade’, which will fly in between orbiting telescopes and the stars they are trying to image. The petal shape should block out most of the star’s light, letting only the reflected light from the planets pass through.
6 Line of sight
1 Star
The petal design allows the planet to be seen directly.
Nearby Sun-like stars are so bright that their planets become invisible.
5 Safe distance The Starshade is positioned tens of thousands of kilometres away from the telescope.
4 Space telescope The Starshade will orbit alongside a space telescope.
2 Exoplanet 3 Starshade The centre of the Starshade blocks the bright light of the star.
Planets in the ‘habitable zone’ are particularly hard to see.
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© NASA; JPL/University of Arizona/University of Colorado; Space Science Institute; Goldstein Lab; Liza Gross/PLOS Biology; Roberto Danovaro, Antonio Dell’Anno, Antonio Pusceddu, Cristina Gambi, Iben Heiner & Reinhardt Mobjerg Kristensen
We might not have to look far to find aliens
SPACE
ARE WE ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE?
Top scientists think that Earth is just one of many inhabited planets
There are billions of stars in the universe, and some astronomers think it’s likely that each one in the Milky Way galaxy has at least one planet. The director of the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, Matt Mountain, told NASA: “What we didn’t know five years ago is that perhaps ten to 20 per cent of stars around us have Earth-size planets in the habitable zone.” Being in the right zone is one thing, but being home to life is another. And being home to intelligent life with the technology to send signals out into space is something quite different again. On Earth, moving from single-celled organisms like bacteria, to complex, multicellular organisms, like worms, fish, and humans took around 2.5 billion years, and it
only happened once. As Professor Stephen Hawking pointed out in a lecture entitled Life in the Universe, “This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up.” Assuming that life can get past this bottleneck, at least one species then needs to become intelligent enough to want to communicate with the universe. If this is possible, where is everybody? This question, known as the Fermi Paradox, was asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950. He argued that technologically advanced civilisations could colonise entire galaxies in just ten million years, fractions of the age of the Milky Way, so we really should have seen evidence of them by now. It could be that there really are no other intelligent life forms in the galaxy, but there are
dozens of other explanations. One of the most widely discussed is the idea that intelligent life might not survive long enough to make contact; it could be that asteroid impacts, supernova blasts, natural disasters and warfare wipe intelligent life forms out before they have a chance to explore. Ultimately, the lifespan of a civilisation is limited by the life of its parent star, unless of course, the life forms find a way to leave.
“Being in the habitable zone is one thing, but being home to life is another”
Have there always been Earth-like planets? © THINKSTOCK; NASA;ESA; Hubble Heritage; Ames; JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
The universe is nearly 14 billion years old, but it hasn’t always been able to sustain life. In the early days, as everything began to cool after the Big Bang, there were only two elements available: hydrogen and helium. These simple elements are not sufficient alone to build any kind of life. These gases formed the first stars and galaxies, and these new nuclear reactors smashed the small atoms together to make heavier elements like carbon and nitrogen. When these stars exploded, the new elements went on to form new stars. Our Solar System formed around 4.6 billion years ago, and star-forged elements like silicon and iron make up the planet that we live on. Until recently, scientists thought that the oldest stars wouldn’t have Earth-like planets, but NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has found some that are orbiting stars more than twice the age of the Sun.
Kepler 452b orbits in the habitable zone around a star 1.5 billion years older than the Sun
How many worlds could send us signals? Dr Frank Drake is a pioneer of SETI, and his equation uses probability to estimate the number of inhabited planets in the Milky Way that may be trying to make contact. It takes the rate of star formation in the galaxy and asks, how many of those stars have planets? Then how many of those planets are habitable, and how many of those are inhabited? Then how many have intelligent inhabitants? Finally, how many intelligent civilisations are actually sending signals? And for how long?
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N
The number of alien civilisations with detectable signals in our galaxy
=
R* The rate of formation of suitable stars
x
F(p) x The fraction of suitable stars with planets
DID YOU KNOW? NASA will attempt to land on an asteroid in 2018 to recover samples that could hold clues to the origins of life
Are we being buzzed?
Will we find alien life?
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are brief, high-energy pulses of electromagnetic waves that have been appearing in scientific data gathered at the Parkes Telescope since the early 2000s. The bursts contain high and low frequency wavelengths, which travel at different speeds through space, and the delay between the arrival of the highest and lowest frequency waves can be used to calculate the distance to the source. Strangely, the ten FRBs all had delay times nearly divisible by 187.5. There is no natural object known to be able to do this, leading scientists to speculate about a possible alien source. However, other signals, called perytons, have since been found to have much more local origins – scientists discovered that they could produce the same interference patterns by opening the door of the microwave oven.
Top scientists think that life is out there, but it could be hard to find MANY SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THERE COULD BE ALIENS…. “What is the likelihood that only one ordinary star, the Sun, is accompanied by an inhabited planet? ... To me, it seems far more likely that the universe is brimming over with life.” – Carl Sagan, Cosmos “To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational” – Stephen Hawking “I think we’re going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years,” – Ellen Stofan, NASA chief scientist
A Dyson Sphere is one idea for an alien megastructure, designed to capture the energy emitted by a star
“I think life is common in the universe. We may be the only civilisation in the Milky Way. There will be other civilisations in the universe” – Brian Cox
…BUT PROVING IT COULD BE A CHALLENGE “We have a galaxy full of ten billion planets, in habitable zones, roughly Earth-size... no visits, no communications… How can that be?” – William Borucki, ex-NASA Kepler scientist “Life outside of Earth is probably going to be really hard to find… We can’t even agree on a definition of what life detection is.” – John Grunsfeld, NASA “Right now there are maybe only 10,000 civilisations we can detect in the galaxy. That’s one in ten million stars. We have to look at ten million stars before we have a good chance of succeeding.” – Frank Drake
IT COULD EVEN BE DANGEROUS
Rovers, like NASA’s Curiosity, are scouring Mars to see whether it was, or is, capable of supporting life
Every dot in this image is a galaxy with millions or billions of stars
N(e) x F(l) The number of planets in each system that could support life
“Active SETI is not scientific research. It is a deliberate attempt to provoke a response by an alien civilisation whose capabilities, intentions, and distance are not known to us.” – Michael Michaud, International Academy of Astronautics
The fraction of suitable planets that are actually inhabited
x
F(i)
The fraction of alien civilisations with detectable electromagnetic signals
x
F(c)
The fraction of intelligent civilisations that develop technology to send signals
x
L
The length of time that the civilisations actually transmit signals into space
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SPACE
Space weather Get the forecast for the Sun’s explosive activity and how it affects us on Earth
Solar wind Streams of charged particles called plasma are constantly escaping the surface of the Sun, as the star’s powerful gravity fails to contain them. Known as solar wind, it can reach speeds of up to 800 kilometres per second as it hurtles towards Earth, where it continuously batters our planet’s magnetic field. Solar wind is so powerful that it is believed to have stripped away the atmospheres of many other planets, such as Mercury, but Earth’s relatively strong magnetic field is keeping it at bay.
he Sun, and the vast vacuum of space surrounding it, may seem pretty peaceful to us on Earth, but it is actually alive with violent activity. Although you might not hear about it on television forecasts, it’s the source of a variety of space weather, and there are some very important reasons why we should be aware of it. Throughout its 11-year solar cycle, the big ball of hot plasma at the centre of our Solar System bombards our planet with solar winds. During periods of peak activity, this can disrupt many of the technological systems we rely on for communication, navigation and more. Read on to discover how…
T
How does space weather affect us? While the magnetosphere provides us with some protection from space weather, its effects can still impact our daily lives. Geomagnetic storms interfere with Earth’s upper atmosphere, interrupting radio communications, disrupting Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and even inducing electric currents at ground level, resulting in disruptions to power grids and widespread blackouts. Increased levels of solar radiation also pose a threat to spacecraft and astronauts in orbit and can even reach aircraft travelling at high altitudes, presenting health risks for passengers. To minimise these effects, space weather is constantly monitored so that steps can be taken to prepare for extreme events. Not all of the effects of space weather are bad, though. Auroras, such as the Aurora Borealis (also known as the Northern Lights), are the result of solar wind entering Earth’s atmosphere above the magnetic poles. As the charged particles collide with gas particles in the atmosphere, they light up to create a colourful display in the sky. Auroras are certainly the most visually pleasing effect of space weather
Earth’s protection Earth’s magnetic field forms a magnetosphere, which acts as a shield to protect our planet from the effects of space weather. However, the constant battering of solar winds has had a dramatic impact on its shape, compressing the side closest to the Sun and stretching out the other. Sometimes, the solar winds can disconnect the magnetic field lines on the night side, and when they snap back into position, they push charged particles back towards Earth’s upper atmosphere.
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DID YOU KNOW? In 1859, the strongest geomagnetic storm on record made the Northern Lights visible as far south as Hawaii
Solar flares When twisting magnetic field lines in sunspot regions cross and reconnect with one another, they cause massive explosions called solar flares. The energy released is the equivalent of millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs exploding at the same time, sending huge amounts of radiation out into the Solar System. The radiation emitted spans across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to X-rays and gamma rays, and travels at the speed of light to reach Earth in just eight minutes.
“Throughout its 11-year solar cycle, the Sun bombards our planet with solar winds”
Coronal mass ejections The magnetic field lines that produce solar flares sometimes become so twisted that they snap and reconnect at other points. The gaps that form can no longer hold plasma on the Sun’s surface, and release billions of tons of it into space as a ‘coronal mass ejection’. Their speed can vary greatly, meaning they can reach Earth in a matter of hours or days, and when they do their own magnetic field slams into Earth’s to generate geomagnetic storms.
Sunspots Visit www.spaceweather. com to get the latest forecast and keep up to date with the current conditions in space. Additional space weather information can also be found at the Space Weather Prediction Center’s website, www.swpc.noaa.gov.
Magnetic field lines breaking through the Sun’s surface create dark regions known as sunspots. As heat is inhibited from rising up from the solar interior, these regions are comparatively cooler than the rest of the Sun’s surface, but still reach scorching temperatures of around 3,500 degrees Celsius. Sunspots are usually found near to the Sun’s equator and are the source of most extreme space weather. The number of them varies throughout the 11-year solar cycle, creating periods of peak activity.
© NASA; WIKI
Learn more
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SPACE
PARALLEL UNIVERSES Infinite Earths and alternate realities: does this controversial theory have any scientific basis? t’s an understatement to say that the multiverse theory is one of the most controversial theories in science. In fact, merely putting this in the Space section of the magazine, and not a newly created Theology section, would ruffle a few astrophysicists’ feathers. But why is this the case, and is there any basis for suggesting we live in a multiverse? The origins of the multiverse theory are a grey area. Some, like David Deutsch in his book The Beginning of Infinity, point to Erwin Schrödinger and his famous equation. This broadly introduced the idea of quantum mechanics, in which a particle can be in two states at once, in the first half of the 20th century. It would be many years until the broader implications of the theory were given serious thought, though.
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You’re probably more familiar with the multiverse theory in different terms – parallel universes – so let’s begin there. At its core, the multiverse theory suggests that our universe is not alone, but perhaps one of many in some form or another. Just as we discovered Earth was one of many planets, and that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies, some scientists think the same could be said of the universe. As of yet, we have no direct evidence for multiverses (and even that prospect is contentious, which we’ll come on to later). But our best indirect evidence for its existence is a peculiar one. It stems from how exact certain mathematical constants in the universe are. The cosmological constant, for example, is a value for the energy density of the vacuum of space. Its
existence explains how the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing speed, something first discovered in 1998. But the cosmological constant is 120 orders of magnitude smaller (that is, ten to the power of minus 120) than theory predicts it should be. Thus, even a small change in its value would have rendered our universe a mess of nothingness after the Big Bang. So, too, for the values of dark energy. How were these mathematical constants so finely created? “If [dark energy] had been any bigger, there would have been enough repulsion from it to overwhelm the gravity that drew the galaxies together, drew the stars together, and drew Earth together,” Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind told Discover Magazine in 2008. “It’s one of the
DID YOU KNOW? The furthest galaxy we’ve seen, GN-z11, existed 13.4 billion years ago, just 400 million years after the Big Bang
greatest mysteries in physics. All we know is that if it were much bigger we wouldn’t be here to ask about it.” The multiverse theory has an answer, though. It suggests that in our universe, the cosmological constant is exactly the right value for everything as we know it to exist. But there are an infinite number of other universes, where it is ever so slightly different. Working on the pretence that this is true, what form would these other universes take? That’s the tricky part. There are a large number of theories, from Max Tegmark’s four levels of classification (explained later), to M-theory (which encompasses string theory), to cyclic theories, where the universe is in an infinite number of cycles between Big Bangs and Big Crunches.
Tegmark’s four levels encompass the broader multiverse theories. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor suggested them in 2003, presenting them as a way to classify ideas for the multiverse. “Parallel universes are not a theory, but a prediction of certain theories,” he said in his 2014 book Our Mathematical Universe. The first level deals with the observable universe, which is the extent to which we can see in the universe. Owing to the finite speed of light, we are only able to see as far as light has been able to travel to us since the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. Due to the expansion of the universe, though, we are able to see light that is now more than 42 billion light years from us, which we call the observable universe. But we cannot see beyond this; what is there, we just don’t know.
Building a multiverse Event horizon
Are universes born in black holes?
Inside this region of the black hole, gravity is so intense that nothing – not even light – can escape.
Tegmark’s first multiverse level suggests that there is no end. Instead, the universe just keeps going and going, infinitely. If true, this would create an infinite number of instances for everything to occur. So, at some astronomical distance away from us, we would find an Earth exactly the same as ours, and you would find yourself sitting there reading this very article. The second level is similar to the first, but proposes that while the whole multiverse is expanding, there are regions within it that expand at different rates, forming bubbles of self-confined space – in other words, bubble universes. Our universe would be one bubble, with an untold number of other bubbles beyond, each with their own laws of physics. In 2015, a later, widely discredited theory suggested our
“As of yet, we have no direct evidence for multiverses”
Inflation The new universe rapidly expands, a period we call cosmic inflation.
Singularity Inside a black hole is a pea-sized singularity, where gravity is essentially infinite.
Black hole One theory is that black holes are responsible for creating new universes.
Rip This theory suggests that the singularity can rip a hole in the universe, perhaps when it collapses.
Expand
Death
The singularity then begins to expand, forming a new universe – a Big Bang moment.
The black hole collapses, leaving behind the new universe.
Physics Each new universe would form with its own laws of physics, and only some would survive.
Controversy This is of course only a theory at the moment. There is no direct evidence that this actually happens.
Feeding One version of this theory suggests material sucked in by the black hole ‘feeds’ the new universe.
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SPACE bubble universe had actually ‘bumped’ into one another, producing a noticeable glow in the far reaches of space. In the third level, things start to get a little bit strange. Like the first, it suggests that the laws of physics are the same everywhere, but rather than different universes being separated by distance, as in the second level, they are in fact separated by time. The laws of quantum mechanics, as mentioned earlier, allow for a large number of uncertainties and possible futures (for example, whether Schrödinger’s famous ‘cat in the box’ is dead or alive). In this level, all of these
possibilities would play out. Every single eventuality would occur, and each time, a new universe would be created along with it. For us as observers, though, we only see one universe – our own. The fourth and final level, the mathematical multiverse, is fairly difficult to comprehend. It is Tegmark’s own theory, presented in Our Mathematical Universe. It essentially implies that the universe is composed entirely of mathematics, and we are merely constructs within that. But the book and theory have come under some heavy criticism.
One of the main arguments against the multiverse theory, though, is that it fails one of the very cornerstones of science itself: falsifiability. This is the ultimate test for any scientific theory, namely that it can be proven wrong. For example, if you put forward the theory that every animal on Earth had four legs, someone else could refute that theory by finding an animal with more or less than four. No multiverse theory is currently falsifiable. We simply don’t have the means to disprove some of the claims being made. We will never be able to journey beyond the observable universe, and
DIFFERENT TYPES OF MULTIVERSE “We have no way of jumping to another universe”
LEVEL ONE: An extension Our views into the universe are limited by the age of the universe. We cannot see further than the time light has had to travel to us, which when you take the expansion of the universe into account, comes to 42 billion light years. But this multiverse theory suggests that, beyond this distance, the universe continues into infinity. And this would mean that eventually, by chance,
everything would start to repeat itself – even Earth itself. It will be impossible to ever know what is beyond our observable universe though, without finding some fanciful way to travel faster than light. Until then, we may never know what is beyond our vision.
Learn more
LEVEL TWO: The bubble universe This theory proposes that there are many ‘bubble’ universes living alongside each other. The key behind the theory is cosmic inflation, which is the period of rapid expansion the universe went through in its first trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second. This ultimately gave rise to the universe as we know it.
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To learn more about multiverse theories, check out Issue 46 of our sister magazine, All About Space, which goes into far more detail on the controversial topic.
According to this theory, different regions of space expanded at different rates, forming their own ‘bubble’ regions alongside ours. In theory, there could be an infinite number of these bubble universes alongside ours, with a contentious version suggesting each has its own laws of physics.
DID YOU KNOW? One bizarre multiverse theory suggests, in an infinite multiverse, we could be a simulation made by aliens
thus could never disprove the notion that there are other parallel bubble universes out there, or an infinite universe. As such, many argue that the multiverse theory should not be treated as a theory at all. It should be condemned to the pseudoscience bin. “The trouble is that no possible astronomical observations can ever see those other universes,” said cosmologist George Ellis in an article published in Scientific American in 2011. “The arguments are indirect at best. And even if the multiverse exists, it leaves the deep mysteries of nature unexplained.”
Of course, falsifiability itself has its detractors. Other more widely accepted theories, such as the existence of dark matter or dark energy, may not be falsifiable. Should we also consign those to the scrapheap? It’s fair to say that this is a topic that draws heated debate in the scientific community. And even aside from falsifiability, we run into a problem. Not only can we not disprove multiverse theories, but we can’t currently prove them either. We have no way of jumping to another universe, or even observing one. How are we supposed to sift through the myriad of claims being made when there is no direct evidence available?
The idea of a multiverse is undoubtedly an intriguing one. It has inspired a huge range of science fiction, and has garnered support from some of the most prominent physicists today. “It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies another different universe,” Professor Stephen Hawking said in 2015. But it remains divisive, and will do so for the foreseeable future. For now, it remains a fringe theory in some corners. And perhaps in an issue of How It Works in an alternate universe, it is indeed confined to the Theology section.
LEVEL THREE: Many worlds The many-worlds theory relies on quantum mechanics. The quantum world is odd, in that things such as photons can appear to be in two places, or states, at once. It is only when we observe the photon that its state is decided. In this theory, though, both states exist. And, in fact, this is happening constantly for
everything around us, at all times. Each time there is a ‘split’, a new universe is created, giving rise to an infinite number of universes. This is probably the closest theory to the idea of ‘parallel universes’ where one could envision jumping into a nearby universe. It’s pretty unlikely that’ll ever be possible, though.
LEVEL FOUR: Mathematical universe This theory is probably the one that is most widely derided. Max Tegmark goes into detail in his doorstop of a book Our Mathematical Universe, but in essence, it suggests that our universe, and all other universes, are nothing but mathematical constructs. We are quite simply lumps of mathematics manifested as a consciousness that can
perceive this seemingly ‘real’ world. It is described by some as the ‘ultimate ensemble’ and, owing to its nature being everything broken down into mathematics, there cannot be another broader multiverse theory beyond it. As you might have guessed, it’s a bit controversial.
Arguments for and against the multiverse FOR
AGAINST
Cosmic inflation
Falsifiability
Our universe grew exponentially in the fi rst moments of its existence, but was this expansion uniform? If not, it suggests different regions of space grew at different rates – and may be isolated from one another.
There is no way for us to ever test theories of the multiverse. We will never see beyond the observable universe, so if there is no way to disprove the theories, should they be given credence?
Mathematical constants
Occam’s razor
How are the laws of our universe so exact? Some propose that this happened only by chance – we are the one universe out of many that happened to get the numbers right.
Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best. Some physicists argue that we don’t need the multiverse theory at all. It doesn’t solve any paradoxes, and only creates new complications.
The observable universe
No evidence
What is beyond the edge of the observable space around us? No one knows for sure, and until we do (which could be never), the thought that our universe extends infinitely is an interesting one.
Not only can we not disprove any multiverse theory, we can’t prove them either. We currently have no evidence that multiverses exist, and everything we can see suggests there is just one universe – our own.
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SPACE
Clean and tidy galaxies A tidy galaxy allows its stars to sparkle and astronomers to measure its precise distance
31.7% Matter
nlike our dusty, dirty Milky Way galaxy, the nearby dwarf galaxy IC 1613 is comparatively clean, sporting very little in the way of cosmic dust. Galaxies become dusty because their member stars are like cosmic soot machines. When they die, either by expanding into red giants and planetary nebulae, or as explosive supernovae, stars throw out huge amounts of dust into space. For example, the supernova that exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987 produced enough dust to make 200,000 Earth-sized planets! This dust is not like the dust bunnies that collect by your skirting board, but smoke particle-sized grains of heavy elements that go into producing the next generation of stars and planets. The last main burst of star formation in IC 1613 took place 7 billion years ago. Without many stars forming, dust has not been produced in great quantities. This is an advantage though, because dust tends to scatter blue light, leaving stars and galaxies looking redder than they really are. When this happens, it’s hard to judge their distance based on their luminosity. In the case of IC 1613, however, we can see its stars clearly and measure its distance as 2.3 million light years, which is closer than the Andromeda Galaxy.
Less than a third of the cosmos is made from physical material.
The IC 1613 is the Milky Way’s clean and tidy galactic neighbour
What is the universe made of? The cosmos is filled with material and energy that we cannot see f you look up at the night sky, you can see the light of hundreds of stars, as well as nebulae of gas and giant galaxies tens of thousands of light years across. Believe it or not, everything that we can see in the universe emitting light in the electromagnetic spectrum makes up only 4.9 per cent of its total matter and energy. This accounts for all the planets, moons, comets, stars and nebulae, and all the atoms in the periodic table. So what is the other 95.1 per cent? It was Albert Einstein, with his famous equation E=mc 2, who said that matter and
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68.3% Dark energy Over two-thirds of the universe is formed of pure energy, known as the mysterious dark energy.
4.9% Ordinary matter Ordinary matter is made of atoms – the same stuff that makes up humans.
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energy were equivalent. This allows for most of the universe (68.3 per cent to be exact) to be made from energy and it is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate. No one knows what it is, so scientists call it ‘dark energy’. The remaining 26.8 per cent is made from another dark substance, called dark matter. Astronomers know it exists because its gravity affects the motions of stars and galaxies, and it can bend the light of more distant galaxies. But it emits no light of its own and no one knows what it’s made of.
26.8% Dark matter Dark matter can only be detected by its gravitational pull.
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© X-ray: NASA/CXC/M Markevitch et al; Optical: NASA/STScI, Magellan/U. Arizona/D Clowe et al/ESO WFI; ESO
The Bullet Cluster of galaxies; the blue indicates dark matter, while the pink is normal matter in the form of hot gas and the galaxies themselves
DID YOU KNOW? The US Department of Defense keeps a catalogue of all space-debris larger than a tennis ball
Taking the Solar System’s temperature I
Seeing back in time When we look into space, we are actually looking into the past
How do we know how hot the other planets really are? nfrared cameras can reveal hotspots on the human body, and the same techniques can be used to take the temperature of objects in outer space. All objects above absolute zero emit infrared radiation, and the hotter they are, the more they release. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as pointing a detector at the sky. The gases in our atmosphere absorb infrared light, so to get clear data from planets and stars we need to take our equipment out into space. Sensitive infrared instruments can
Hot or not The temperature of each planet depends on more than just its distance from the Sun
be carried by hot air balloons, probes, and space telescopes, like Hubble and Spitzer, allowing us to detect the radiation emitted and reflected by the planets in the Solar System, and by objects even further away. It is tempting to assume that the closer a planet is to the Sun, the hotter it will be, but this isn’t strictly true. The temperature also depends on how much light the planets reflect (known as the albedo), and how good their atmosphere is at holding on to heat (the greenhouse effect).
500°
Venus 464°
400°
Mercury 167°
Earth 300°
15°
f the Sun suddenly vanished, it would take a full eight minutes and 20 seconds for anyone to notice. This is because sunlight does not reach us instantly; it has to travel through space to get here, and that takes time. Light travels at a speed of just under 300,000,000 metres per second in a vacuum, so the delay when looking at nearby objects isn’t noticeable, but when we look out into space, we start to experience some serious lag. The Moon is just over 384,000 kilometres away, so it takes a bit more than a second for its reflected light to reach us. Light from the Sun, at 150 million kilometres away, takes over eight minutes, while light from our next closest star, Proxima Centauri travels for four years. When light travels from our neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda, it takes an incredible 2.5 million years to reach us. This effectively means that looking out into space is the equivalent to looking back in time, and the further we look, the further back in time we see. Powerful telescopes, like Hubble, are able to see light released by ancient galaxies more than 13 billion years ago.
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Mars -65° 200°
Jupiter -110° 100°
Saturn -140°
0°
Uranus -195° -100°
Neptune -200°
When this light was emitted by Andromeda, our ancestors hadn’t even learnt to use fire
© NASA
-200°
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SPACE
How we could turn craters into colonies for human life he Moon is our closest neighbour, but only 12 people have ever set foot on its surface. Since 1972, the only visitors have been robots, orbiters and probes. For a long time there was little interest in going back, but at just three days journey away from Earth, the Moon is an obvious target for further investigation. With more countries establishing their own space programmes, and an increasing number of private companies entering the field, interest in the Moon is growing once again. The environment on the Moon’s surface is hazardous, but if we can find a way to construct a base we would gain access to a wealth of off-world resources. It is a prime location for telescopes and communications equipment,
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and its unique environment could hold clues to the history of the Solar System. The Moon’s potential has been recognised by organisations across the world, and there are now several exploratory missions in development. At the moment, these are focused around finding out more about the Moon’s potential, but over the next few decades, manned missions and even base construction could be on the agenda. Russia’s Roscosmos are planning a series of Luna-Glob missions as a starting point for establishing a robotic base, and in collaboration with the European Space Agency, they are hoping to scope out the Moon’s south pole in 2019 and 2020. The China National Space Administration are developing a series of Chang’e probes to collect lunar samples in
preparation for future mining missions, and they are building a shuttle capable of lifting human astronauts to the Moon. What’s more, in 2007, Google launched the Lunar XPRIZE, encouraging private companies to land rovers on the surface by 2017. Even NASA, who has chosen to focus their resources on manned missions to asteroids and to Mars, are developing a probe to map the water deposits on the lunar south pole. At the moment, we are just taking our first tentative steps towards further exploration of the Moon, but in the future a science fictionstyle base on the surface could become a reality. We explore what such a lunar outpost might look like, and what hazards and challenges could get in the way..
DID YOU KNOW? The last person to have set foot on the Moon was Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan in 1972
WHY THE MOON? With preparations already underway for manned missions to Mars, some might question the logic behind a return to the Moon, but a lunar outpost could bring several advantages. A trip to the Moon and back could be completed in under a week, and the surface is rich in resources. Lunar dust contains hydrogen, oxygen, iron and other metals, and if these resources could be mined, it could provide a close off-world source of water and building materials. The far side of the Moon is shielded from the noise of Earth’s communications, providing a quiet vantage point for looking out into the universe, and the near side has a constant view of the surface of our planet, making it an ideal place to set up monitoring stations. Navigational support could also be provided for a variety of operations, from search and rescue on Earth to deep space exploration. A base on the Moon would also allow us to look closer at its geology, which in turn would help us uncover more about its history and the evolution of the Solar System. Experiments could be conducted, and materials and equipment could be tested, away from the familiar conditions on Earth.
Colonising space
Stepping stone
A lunar base could perform many different functions, from mining to communications
Establishing a base on the Moon would be a big step towards colonising Mars.
LUNAR HOLIDAYS With space tourism barely in its infancy, it might seem a bit premature to consider the idea of holidaying on the Moon, but if humanity were to establish a base up there, visitors would almost be inevitable. The company Space Adventures has already sold two $150 million tickets for a trip to visit the Moon in 2018, and more private organisations are looking to set up their own tours. Rules set out in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty state that the Moon cannot be claimed by any country, even if they have set up a base there. However, laws regarding the exploitation of the Moon and its resources for commercial gain have not yet been fully established.
A base on the Moon could pave the way for a new kind of holiday
Mining and excavation The Moon is rich in resources and could be used for construction or to make fuel, oxygen and water.
Space outpost The Moon’s location and lack of atmosphere make it a good place for communications equipment and sensitive telescopes.
Exploration Large vehicles could be used to carry explorers away from established bases to explore the Moon.
Refuelling The low gravity on the surface would allow spacecraft to land, refuel and take off much more efficiently than on Earth.
Technical testing
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© ESA_Foster + Partners; NASA
Building a protective habitat on the surface of the Moon will test technologies to their limits.
SPACE
HOW TO BUILD A BASE The Moon has little atmosphere and none of the protective shielding that we enjoy here on Earth; as a result, the surface is hostile. It is pummelled by solar winds, scorched by radiation, and chunks of rock regularly fall from the sky. The ground is coated in the shattered remains of ancient asteroid impacts, forming a thick layer of sticky dust, and with no atmosphere or weather to wear the particles down, the grains are razor sharp. A successful base would need protection against all of these threats, and, for people to stay there long-term, it would also require a steady supply of food, water, oxygen, power, shelter and rocket fuel. One of the most popular concepts for a lunar base is inflatable housing – lightweight and easily assembled by pressurising from the inside. With the airlock from the landing capsule used as a door, these structures could provide a quick and simple solution to setting up a base. However, a puncture could prove catastrophic, so the pods would need to be shielded in underground chambers or beneath piles of Moon dust. Flat-packed panels could also be shipped in from Earth to build sturdier dome or hangar structures, but it would be much more fuelefficient to use building materials found on the surface of the Moon. When heated, lunar dust can be transformed into a tough solid that could be used to construct buildings and roads, and 3D printers could one day be used to make structures from the regolith. In the right location, solar panels could provide renewable power for the base, and, if plants are able to grow on the Moon, it could one day be possible to set up a semi-sustainable farming and composting system. Then, if water, oxygen and hydrogen (rocket fuel) could be extracted from lunar dust, a base might even be able to become self-sufficient. Unfortunately, there are still major challenges to be overcome before we reach this stage, not least the devastating effects of lunar dust. The dust seems to find its way inside even tightly sealed spaces, causing rapid damage to equipment. There are some ideas to get around this, including cable cars or covered transport tubes to minimise the disturbance on the surface, and clean rooms and air locks to keep inside spaces dust-free.
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Inflatable habitats are light, but vulnerable to asteroid impacts
Buildings coated in Moon dust would be shielded from impacts and radiation
Excavation equipment would need to resist the damaging effects of fine dust particles
Dust from the Moon could be used as a material for 3D printing
DID YOU KNOW? NASA held a Regolith Excavation Challenge to encourage engineers to built robots that can dig up lunar soil
Permanent shade The north pole is smoother than the south pole, but parts of it are in constant shadow.
Craters Craters near the poles could provide protection against solar wind.
Helium-3
WHERE TO BUILD?
Solar winds have left rich helium-3 deposits near the equator, providing a potential source of clean energy.
Choosing the right spot could mean the difference between success and failure
Smooth terrain The surface near the equator might be easier to land on, but the temperatures here vary by hundreds of degrees.
NEAR SIDE
FAR SIDE
Lava tubes Caverns beneath the surface of the Moon could provide shelter from radiation, space weather and temperature changes.
Sunlight
Water ice
The equator is in darkness for 14 days at a time, but some places near the poles are in near constant sunlight.
There is frozen water locked away near to the Moon’s north and south poles.
The Apollo missions landed close to the Moon’s equator, where the surface is smooth and entering orbit is easy, but these regions have serious problems with temperature control. The Moon turns on its axis once every 28 Earth days, so daytime at the equator lasts for two weeks, and temperatures climb to more than 100 degrees Celsius. For the other two weeks, the same spot is plunged into total darkness and the surface cools to 150 degrees below freezing. These wide fluctuations could pose real problems for buildings and equipment, and
with sunlight absent for days at a time, solar power would be intermittent. Facing head on to the Sun and with little in the way of atmosphere, the equator is also blasted by radiation and solar winds. At the poles, night and day are less dramatic. The surface is rougher, but certain areas receive sunlight for most of the year, and the temperature remains more stable at around zero degrees Celsius. There is also water ice trapped at the poles, which could provide gases, fluids and even rocket fuel.
One promising location is Shackleton Crater, which is found at the Moon’s southern pole. It receives sunlight for around 80 per cent of the year, which could provide a near constant source of electricity from solar panels. Building a base near the equator would be more challenging, but underground habitats could provide enough protection in more exposed locations. Lava tubes like the Marius Hills pit could offer ready-made shelter from temperature fluctuations, solar wind, radiation and surface dust.
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© ESA; NASA; REX
LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
SPACE Inflatable habitats Building materials are heavy, so one option is to use inflatables. These would need to be protected from impacts.
WHAT WOULD A LUNAR COLONY LOOK LIKE? The Moon is not a safe place for humans; the base will be essential for survival
Water supply Water could be extracted from lunar dust by heating it with hydrogen gas.
Launch and landing The gravity on the Moon is low, so launching and landing spacecraft requires much less fuel than it does on Earth.
Telescopes and equipment Away from the interference of Earth’s atmosphere, a lunar base could house powerful telescopes.
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Radiation shielding Buildings would need to be protected from radiation. A popular idea is to bury them under layers of moon dust.
DID YOU KNOW? The Moon is an average distance of 384,400km away, equal to about 30 Earths lined up side by side
“Only a handful of people have visited the Moon’s surface, and the longest stay lasted three days”
Oxygen Water extracted from the lunar surface could be split into hydrogen and oxygen using a technique called electrolysis.
Glass roads Microwaves could be used to melt the dust on the surface of the Moon to produce smooth, tough roads.
Food
Flatpack buildings
Farming resources would need to be transported to the Moon, but waste could then be recycled to keep plants growing.
Buildings could be constructed using geometric frameworks shipped in pieces from Earth.
Mining operations The dust – or regolith – could be mined for use as a building material, or to make oxygen, water and rocket fuel.
Humans have been living in space since the 1970s, falling around the Earth inside orbiting space stations like Salyut, Almaz, Skylab, Mir and the International Space Station (ISS), but no one has been away from home for longer than a year, making the long-term success of space colonies hard to predict. Over 200 astronauts and cosmonauts have lived on the ISS, and by monitoring them closely we have learnt a lot about the effects of microgravity on the human body, but the Moon is a different environment. Only a handful of people have visited the surface, and the longest stay lasted for only three days. The Moon has a sixth of the Earth’s gravity, and comes with its own unique challenges. The dust that coats the surface could prove one of the most difficult problems to overcome. During the Apollo missions, the sharp particles found their way into equipment, through vacuum seals, and even inside spacesuits, irritating the eyes and lungs of the astronauts. Permanent settlements on the Moon will only be possible with proper protection
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© DK; Dreamstime
HOME AWAY FROM HOME
SPACE
What makes a planet habitable? Discover what makes Earth so special that it can support life or life to exist on a planet, there’s a bit of a Goldilocks situation. The conditions can’t be too hot or too cold, with somewhere in the region of -15 and 115 degrees Celsius being about right. Within this range, liquid water can exist, and therefore, in theory, so can life. In order to be at this optimum temperature, a planet must be the right distance from its host star. This is known as a habitable zone, and lies closer to smaller, cooler stars than large, hot ones. If
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the habitable zone is too close to a star, stellar flares can destroy the planet’s atmosphere, which is needed to keep it warm and protect it from radiation and meteorites. To maintain an atmosphere, a planet must be the right mass to have enough gravity to hold on to it, and needs a magnetic field to protect it from stellar flares. It is believed that Earth’s magnetic field is driven by the flow of molten iron in its outer core, so a planet’s structure is also a key criterion for supporting life.
Kepler-62f is a super-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone of a star
What is a gravitational well? W How this invisible force shapes the universe
hile we are all familiar with gravity being the force that causes a dropped phone to clatter to the ground, Albert Einstein was the first to describe gravity as what happens when space is warped around a mass, creating a dip called a gravitational well. To better understand this, think of a large rubber sheet, held taut. The sheet acts as an analogy for space-time. Then take a bowling ball – which
will act as a planet in our example – and place it on the rubber sheet. The sheet will dip and bend with the mass of the ball, forming a concave shape – the gravity well. Now put a marble on the sheet, which represents a smaller object in space such as a comet or an asteroid. It creates its own gravity well, but it’s much smaller than that of the bowling ball. If the marble gets anywhere near
the larger gravitational well, it will roll into it – seemingly ‘pulled’ by gravity. Everything with mass is able to bend space and the more massive an object is, the more it bends. An object can only escape a gravitational well if it is moving fast enough. Moons and satellites that orbit planets, for example, do not fall any further into the gravitational well of the planet they orbit.
The Solar System’s gravitational wells The inner planets The inner planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – all create their own little wells.
Saturn Saturn is the second most massive planet and has a sizeable gravitational well of its own.
Finally, there are the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. As the distance from the Sun increases, its gravitational influence decreases.
Jupiter
The Sun is the most massive object in the Solar System and therefore creates a gravitational well so large (it would be 100 times deeper than Jupiter’s) that all the planets are caught in it.
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Depth The depth of the well is proportional to the amount of energy required to escape the gravity of each object.
The Solar System The Solar System is the taut rubber sheet acting as the fabric of space-time in our analogy.
© NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
The Sun
The second biggest gravitational well is caused by the most massive planet, Jupiter. The small dips either side are formed by its four largest moons.
Ice giants
DID YOU KNOW? Fast moving dwarf galaxy M32 punched a hole in Andromeda nearly 10,000 light years across when they collided
Cannibal galaxies Inside the galaxy-eat-galaxy world of the cosmic food chain hile small galaxies create new stars from gas and dust, their more massive counterparts grow by gobbling up what’s around them. The very strong gravitational forces they exert pull on smaller galaxies that can be millions of light years away, sending the two racing towards each other until they merge in a spectacular galactic feast. This can currently be seen happening between the distant Antennae galaxies, which began colliding a few hundred million years ago. However, this galactic cannibalism has also been observed much closer to home. A stream of debris, known as the Sagittarius Stream and extending out from our very own Milky Way, is believed to contain the leftovers of its last meal. The stream contains stars that are still travelling in the direction from which they came, creating a trail of breadcrumbs leading to their original source, the nearby Sagittarius dwarf galaxy. Eventually, it will be the Milky Way’s turn to be on the menu, as it is expected to collide with the much larger Andromeda galaxy in about 4 billion years. When this happens, computer simulations have revealed that there is a one in ten chance that our Solar System will be evicted from this new galaxy, making the night sky appear far darker. However, it’s more likely that we will end up closer to the core of ‘Milkomeda’, filling our night sky with even more stars.
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THREE MORE SCARY SPACE OBJECTS Stellar vampires Many of the stars in our galaxy share their space with another star, forming a binary system. The one with the lower mass can suck away the other’s hydrogen, using the gas to fuel itself. This increases its mass until it strips its neighbour’s stellar envelope completely.
Franken nebula It may look like Frankenstein’s menacing monster, but this is actually the open star cluster NGC 2467, located 20,000 light years away in the Puppis constellation. It contains hundreds of hot, massive stars belching out radiation to sculpt the clouds of the nebula into an eerie, colourful shape.
Massive galaxies fatten themselves up by feasting on smaller, nearby galaxies
When a star the size of our Sun ran out of hydrogen and switched to using helium, its temperature soared. Eventually it expanded and became a red giant, which expelled its outer layers into space, creating a nebula. After about 10,000 years, the stellar remnant in the centre of the Little Ghost nebula will begin to cool off, forming a white dwarf star.
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© ESO/M. Kornmesser/S.E. de Mink, ESO; Hubble Heritage Team/NASA
Little Ghost nebula
SPACE The StarChip will be accelerated by lasers to 20 per cent the speed of light
INTERSTELLAR SPACE TRAVEL The multimillion-dollar project taking us further into space than ever before o date, we’ve done a pretty good job of exploring the Solar System. But in our half a century or so as a space-faring species, we have not yet truly ventured to any of the 100 billion stars in our own galaxy, or beyond. In 20 years, though, that could all be set to change. On 12 April 2016, Russian billionaire Yuri Milner announced an ambitious project as part of the Breakthrough Initiatives to send a series of small spacecraft to the nearest stars to our own Sun, the Alpha Centauri system. And he wasn’t alone; alongside him at this announcement were respected scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne, who have all signed up to help with the project. “The human story is one of great leaps,” said Milner. “55 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space. Today, we are preparing for the next great leap – to the stars.” So, what’s it all about? The project is known as Breakthrough Starshot, and it is utilising an
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oft-touted – but little explored – technique known as laser sails to reach tremendous speeds, and make a trip to another star possible in as little as a generation. You’ve probably heard of solar sails before. These are sheets of thin material that expand to massive sizes in space. Like a wind sail on Earth, these sails then pick up speed not from regular wind, but solar wind, the stream of particles given off by our Sun. The rate of acceleration is very slow but over time, a spacecraft could theoretically reach a significant fraction of the speed of light. This proposal is slightly different, though. Instead of using solar wind, the team is proposing to fire giant lasers on Earth at sail-mounted spacecraft. These spacecraft, known as a StarChips, would have several instruments packed into them, but be small enough to fit on the palm of your hand, thanks to huge advances in techology. The sail itself would be larger, spanning a metre, although
just a few hundred atoms thick. Theoretically, shining a 100-gigawatt laser on one of the sails should accelerate the spacecraft to 20 per cent of the speed of light – or 216 million kilometres per hour – in minutes. At these speeds, traversing the Solar System would be a breeze. In hours, the spacecraft would reach Mars, a journey that takes several months for conventional spacecraft powered by chemical fuels. In three days, it would reach Pluto, which took New Horizons almost ten years to reach. Most importantly, in 20 years, the spacecraft would reach Alpha Centauri, 4.37 light years (40 trillion kilometres) away. Existing spacecraft would need to be adapted for interstellar travel
DID YOU KNOW? The furthest spacecraft from Earth, NASA’s Voyager 1, would take 73,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri
One of the main reasons for going to Alpha Centauri – which is actually a triple system made of three stars – is that it’s the closest star system to our Sun. We now think that almost every star plays host to at least one planet, and Alpha Centauri A, B and C should be no exception. The goal of the mission would be to study these planets, returning images and priceless data to Earth. Owing to the distance, this information – travelling at the speed of light – would take 4.37 years to make it back. But a total of less than 25 years for such data is pittance, considering the implications. “Earth is a wonderful place, but it might not last forever,” Stephen Hawking said in a statement from Breakthrough Starshot. “Sooner or later, we must look to the stars. Breakthrough Starshot is a very exciting first step on that journey.” So far, so good. But this is just scratching the surface of the technical challenge of this hugely ambitious project. We’ve never sent a spacecraft beyond 240,000 kilometres per hour before; the StarChip would travel almost 1,000 times faster. There will be a huge number of unknowns of accelerating to and travelling at these speeds. How the spacecraft will hold itself together during the intense acceleration phase, and how it will communicate with Earth at great distances, will also need to be resolved. Breakthrough Starshot, therefore, is a bid to overcome such hurdles. Milner is investing $100 million of his own money, but he readily admits that this is merely seed funding. The final cost of the mission could spiral into the billions of dollars, and he is hoping for funding from a number of sources in order to support the project. As such, there is no definitive launch date yet, although some time in the next couple of decades is not unthinkable. One way to overcome some of the challenges facing the project will be to send not just one spacecraft, but to launch a ‘mothership’ with thousands of StarChips on board. All of them
Sailing to the stars To travel at high speeds, Breakthrough Starshot’s nanocrafts will be propelled by a powerful laser on Earth. Each would be a chip weighing just one gram, with communications, cameras and a battery built in. But expanding from this would be a larger sail spanning a metre. An array of lasers on Earth would shine a combined 100 gigawatts on the spacecraft. Each one would accelerate 60,000 times faster than Earth’s gravity, reaching 20 per cent of the speed of light in just two minutes. At these speeds the journey to Alpha Centauri, just over four light years away, would take 20 years.
How a laser sail works The science behind using lasers
Yuri Milner (third from left) and other scientists, such as Stephen Hawking (front centre), announcing Breakthrough Starshot
Laser An array on Earth fires a combined laser of 100 gigawatts.
to reach incredible speeds
Direction The laser will be directed at the StarChip in Earth orbit.
Propulsion As the laser hits the sail, it transfers its momentum, causing acceleration.
Speed Continued firing of the laser over several minutes increases the speed to 20 per cent that of light.
Warp travel
Nuclear power
Slow and steady
Some theories suggest it may be possible to ‘warp’ space time, allowing us to travel huge distances in a short amount of time. This is mostly science fiction at the moment, though.
Launching a spacecraft with nuclear reactors would give it a lengthy source of fuel, allowing it to accelerate and decelerate constantly to reach far-off destinations, but safety is a concern.
Instead of fast travel, we could send a colony of humans on a ‘generation ship’, with them travelling for hundreds of years towards a new world.
© Breakthrough Initiatives ; Alamy; Thinkstock; SPL
Exploring space
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SPACE
Breakthrough Starshot timeline Here’s how the spacecraft will make their way beyond the Solar System
Interstellar wind
The Moon
Interstellar
It will take the StarChips less than a minute to reach the Moon.
Within a matter of days, the spacecraft will pass beyond the Sun’s influence, and become true interstellar travellers.
101 AU
102 AU Kuiper belt
103 AU
Voyager 2
Asteroid belt
Mars
Voyager 1
After an hour, the swarm of spacecraft will make their way past the Red Planet’s orbit.
Once they pass Voyager 1 at 20 billion kilometres, the StarChips will become the most distant man-made objects.
Termination shock
Interstellar wind
AU = Astronomical Unit, the distance between Earth and the Sun
would be released in orbit, where the powerful Earth-based laser would shine upon them, firing them off in the direction of Alpha Centauri. Think of this mission not as a single man-made vehicle making a lonely journey, but an entire fleet venturing off into the cosmos. If it works, this form of propulsion could prove invaluable. Not only would it let us reach Alpha Centauri in 20 years, but it would also let us explore destinations closer to home, such as the Moon and Mars, in a tiny fraction of the time that is currently possible. Imagine if, on a regular basis, scientific organisations from around the world could send their own prospecting spacecraft to places all over the Solar System, letting us frequently explore worlds closer to home, rather than sending a mission every few years or so. Once the spacecraft reached Alpha Centauri, they would not stay for long. Owing to the method of travel, this would very much be a one-way trip. The spacecraft would merely fly by any worlds we discover, snapping as many images as possible and gathering data. They may also collect information on the atmospheric composition of the planets, their temperature, their rotation rate, and so on.
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As for Alpha Centauri itself, the system may hold invaluable secrets. At the moment, we’re not actually sure if any of the three stars host planets. Previous detections have since been ruled uncertain. But it’s fair to assume there are probably some planets in orbit, considering two of the stars are similar to our Sun. We know all stars form in a debris of dust and gas, a planetary disc, which often gives rise to A giant array on Earth will fire a 100-gigawatt laser at the StarChip
planets. It’s hoped the same would be true of Alpha Centauri. Initially, astronomers had thought that there was a planet orbiting in the desirable habitable zone of one of the stars, Alpha Centauri B, an orbital position that is not too hot nor too cold, where liquid water is able to form on the surface. The nature of whatever planets are there still remains uncertain, but
DID YOU KNOW? The first planet outside the Solar System was not discovered until 1992, but thousands have been found since
Deep space
Phone home
Obstacles
Now entering unchartered territory, the StarChips could provide information on the characteristics of interstellar space.
Once data is collected, it will be sent back home at the speed of light, taking 4.37 years to reach us.
Space is so vast that, throughout the journey, there are unlikely to be any obstacles in the way.
Beyond After the flyby, the spacecraft will be left to drift endlessly into space.
Local Interstellar Cloud
G Cloud
104 AU
105 AU Alpha Centauri After 20 years, the spacecraft will reach the Alpha Centauri system and begin their mission.
The StarChip is small enough to fit between finger and thumb
Oort Cloud
the chances that one might be habitable are indeed fascinating. For decades now, we have been looking for worlds beyond our own that are Earth-like; that is, they have the necessary conditions to host life. After all, we are just one planet orbiting one of 100 billion stars in one of 100 billion galaxies. It seems unlikely that ours is the only planet teeming with life. But so far, finding planets exactly like our own has been difficult, owing to the limited methods of detection we currently employ. However, if we could send probes to a potentially habitable world around Alpha Centauri, we may be able to discover if our planet really is unique – or if there are many others like it. Imagine images being returned of a glorious alien world abundant in water, clouds or perhaps even vegetation. Such a discovery would no doubt change life on Earth forever, with untold money being pumped into missions to find more worlds like our own – and even visit them. For now, the project is in its infancy, and these dreams are at least 40 years away. But perhaps we’ll soon make the first steps to becoming a truly interstellar species, and discover our place among the stars.
© Breakthrough Initiatives ; SPL
It will take more than five years to exit the Oort Cloud, the region of comets surrounding our Solar System.
“Sooner or later, we must look to the stars” Stephen Hawking The Alpha Centauri System Alpha Centauri is not a single star. The system is actually composed of three stars: Alpha Centauri A and B, which are somewhat similar to the Sun, and Alpha Centauri C, or Proxima Centauri, which is a small and faint red dwarf. It’s not known which of the three Breakthrough Starshot would visit yet. Early in 2015, it was announced that Alpha Centauri B might play host to a planet, dubbed Alpha Centauri Bb, which was thought to be located in a tight and uninhabitable orbit. Later research suggested that Alpha Centauri Bb might not actually exist at all, and could simply have been a blip in observations. But considering how similar two of these stars are to our Sun, it is rather likely that at least one has some planets – and with more powerful telescopes in the future, these should hopefully reveal themselves. By sending spacecraft there, we could return not only images of these planets, but also information on their atmospheres, and potential habitability. Even if they’re molten rocks, images of such alien worlds It’s quite likely there are planets in would be astounding. the triple Alpha Centauri system
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HISTORY 150 The afterlife in Ancient Egypt Explore the rituals, demons and gods of the underworld
156 The Palais Garnier opera house Check out the building that inspired Phantom of the Opera
156 The world’s tallest statues Rounding up the most gigantic figures ever built
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History’s most gruesome inventions
157 Henry VIII by numbers Shocking facts and figures about the infamous Tudor
158 Medieval siege mining The final strategic option for a daring commander
158 Military acoustic locators These huge listening devices could hear the enemy coming
159 Beer through the ages The history of the world’s most popular alcoholic beverage
159 Five facts about the Berlin Wall A few things you didn’t know about the Cold War icon
160 The Ice Age Uncover the lost world and giant beasts of frozen Earth
168 Tudor beauty The dos and don’ts of looking good in 16th-century England
169 Ancient Greek theatre Uncover the civilization that set the stage for Western culture
170 History’s most gruesome inventions These terrifying contraptions reveal the dark side of innovation
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157 Henry VIII by numbers
150 The afterlife in Ancient Egypt
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The Ice Age
159 Berlin Wall
168 Tudor beauty
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HISTORY
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DID YOU KNOW? For nearly 4,000 years, the Great Pyramid of Giza was the tallest man-made structure on Earth
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“Wealthy Egyptians spent years building tombs more elaborate than their own homes”
Pyramids and tombs In the early days of the Ancient Egyptian kingdom, pharaohs and other wealthy members of society were buried in mastabas. These were flat-roofed, rectangular structures with sloping sides, which helped to protect the grave from scavenging animals and thieves. But during the Third Dynasty, an architect named Imhotep came up with the idea of stacking multiple mastabas on top of
each other, creating a much taller structure composed of a number of ‘steps’. This would act as a gigantic staircase, allowing the deceased to ascend to the heavens. The first was called the Pyramid of Djoser, and it was built around 2680 BCE. Over the next few hundred years, pyramids became the norm for pharaonic burials, and eventually the sides became
smooth, not stepped. Kings and queens competed to build the tallest, most magnificent monuments, but this came at a cost. Huge amounts of stone were needed to build them, not to mention the costs of labour. Pyramids were also easy targets for gravediggers. By the time of the Seventh Dynasty, it was much more common for pharaohs to be buried in tombs carved deep into the rock.
The first Egyptian pyramid, built by Pharaoh Djoser, is 60 metres high
Nephthys The mother of Anubis, Nephthys protected the dead as well as the reigning pharaoh.
The Book of the Dead With so many demons, monsters and gatekeepers to tackle in the underworld, a magic spell or two could always come in handy. The Book of the Dead was a funerary text used from the beginning of the New Kingdom (around 1550 BCE), and contained spells that would help a person on their journey to the afterlife. Only the rich could own a copy, as they had to be specially commissioned and were written
and illustrated by many scribes. The book was then placed in the coffin or tomb of the deceased, and extracts were inscribed on the walls, sarcophagi and amulets that were wrapped up with the mummy. Each spell had a different purpose. Some would help the deceased to identify different gods, while others would protect them from evil forces or give them control over the world around them.
© Thinkstock; WIKI
ew cultures conjure as much intrigue and horror as that of the Ancient Egyptians. The civilisation that sprung up along the banks of the Nile around 3000 BCE was among the most powerful on Earth. Though much of Egypt was an uninhabitable desert wasteland, the river was a life source that nourished soil and watered crops. It gave birth to a society of farmers, doctors, builders and soldiers, whose achievements and inventions were greater than any seen before. They created one of the first writing systems, were among the first to practise science, and their art was a blueprint for the Renaissance masters. But the achievements that the Ancient Egyptians are best remembered for are their towering pyramids and gory mummification rituals. Death was an industry, and a booming one at that. Religion was the pillar upon which this society was built, and it guided every aspect of life. They believed that there were many gods, each of which had a different role – from Sekhmet, the goddess of war, to Hapi, the god of the Nile, who brought the floods every year. But perhaps the most important element of the Ancient Egyptian religion was the belief in the afterlife. When a person died, it was thought that their soul could live on, but only if it successfully navigated the underworld. First it would have to battle demons and gatekeepers, before arriving at the Hall of Judgement where it would have to prove itself worthy of eternal peace. Those who passed the test could proceed to the Field of Rushes – a heavenly reflection of life on Earth. Those who failed would be forever restless, stuck in a purgatory that was worse than death itself. Because of these beliefs, the Ancient Egyptians spent their whole lives preparing for their journey through the underworld. Not only did this mean avoiding sin as much as possible, but it also meant ensuring that their physical being had somewhere to rest, and it was accompanied by all of the things their spirit would need to thrive in the afterlife. Wealthy Egyptians spent years building tombs that were often more elaborate than their own homes, and filling them with priceless treasures. In Ancient Egypt, death really was an awfully big adventure.
Spell 17 of the Book of the Dead, which helps the deceased to recognise the god Atum
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HISTORY
MAKING A MUMMY The embalming process was long and gruesome, but the Ancient Egyptians believed it was necessary for the soul to survive The key to eternal life wasn’t just preserving the soul. Ancient Egyptians believed it had to return to its body regularly in order to survive, so that too would need to be kept intact. They also believed that the deceased must resemble the living as much as possible in order for the spirit to recognise its physical home. Initially, this was achieved by burying the dead in the desert, where the hot sand would dehydrate bodies and delay decomposition. But over time, the Egyptians developed an artificial method of preservation that would enable their remains to last for millennia. This now-iconic process was called mummification. The first mummies date back to 2600 BCE, but it wasn’t until around 1550 BCE that the most effective and well-known method of mummification was developed. This involved removing the deceased’s internal organs, dehydrating the flesh, and then wrapping the entire body in linen bandages. The process took around 70 days and was extremely costly, so only the very rich could afford it. Poorer families were treated with another method of embalmment, which involved liquidising the organs with cedar tree oil and draining them out through the rectum, before placing the body in a salty substance called natron that would help to dry it out. Because of the climate, embalmment was carried out as soon as possible after death. First the body was taken to an ‘ibu’, or ‘place of purification’ – usually a tent close to the Nile. Here it would be ‘purified’ using water and palm oil, representing the deceased’s rebirth, and helping to keep them smelling sweet for longer. Then the body was taken to the ‘per nefer’, another tent where the embalmment would take place. Only priests were qualified to carry out this procedure, with the chief embalmer known as the ‘hery seshta’. This man represented Anubis, the god of embalming and the dead, and often wore a jackal mask to show his importance. The hery seshta was responsible for wrapping the body and performing religious rites over the deceased – an element of the embalmment process just as vital as the physical preservation of the body. Thanks to the ingenuity of the Ancient Egyptians, we can now gaze upon the faces of men, women and children almost exactly as they were 3,000 years ago.
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A beginner’s guide Follow these easy steps to create a mummy that will last for eternity
Purification Before embalming can begin, the body is purified using water from the Nile and palm wine.
Step one Washing the body Washing the body symbolises a rebirth, as the deceased passes into the next life.
Removing the organs An incision is made in the left side of the body, and the lungs, liver, intestines and stomach are removed.
Hooking out the brain The brain is not thought to be important, and is hooked or drained out through the nose and discarded.
Step two Cats were worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians, so they were also mummified at death
Keeping the heart The heart is left inside, as it is believed to be the centre of intelligence, and needed in the afterlife.
Anubis The jackal god, Anubis, was guardian of cemeteries and the god of embalming.
DID YOU KNOW? Many animal mummies have turned out to be empty ‘fakes’, which some embalmers sold for large profits
Step five Wrapping Linen bandages are used to wrap up the entire body. Liquid resin is used as glue.
Oiling up
Maat As the goddess of truth and justice, Maat’s role was to determine if a soul was fit for the afterlife.
Step four
Oils are rubbed all over in order to help the skin to stay elastic.
Saying a prayer A priest recites prayers and spells over the deceased to help ward off evil spirits.
Dry stuffing Storing
The body is washed and the natron scooped out. It is then stuffed with sawdust, spices and linen.
The organs are washed and then packed in natron before being placed in canopic jars.
© Thinkstock; WIKI; Illustration by Nicholas Forder
Step three
Leaving to dry Salting the insides The body is stuffed with natron – a type of salt – which will absorb any moisture.
Next, the body is completely covered in natron and left to dry out for 40 days. This mummy, on display in the Louvre, is that of a man who lived in the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BCE)
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HISTORY Osiris
FUNERALS AND BURIAL Egyptians departed this world with all their home comforts Long before their deaths, wealthy Egyptians would build their tombs and pile them high with things they would need in the afterlife. From tables and chairs to chariots, jewellery and mummified pets, they could guarantee that their spirit would never want for anything. Food was just as important in the afterlife as it had been in their worldly one, so copious amounts of wine, fruit and grains were also buried with the dead. Even meat was included, which was often salted or even mummified to prevent it from rotting. If the worst came to the worst, they could always paint food on the walls – the Ancient Egyptians believed that in the land of the dead, depictions were just as edible as the physical products.
Also placed in the tomb were shabtis. These were small figurines, often made from clay, wood or stone, which would act as servants in the afterlife. Some people were buried with just one or two, whereas others – like Pharaoh Taharqa – were buried with over a thousand. Poorer Egyptians had less elaborate tombs, while those at the very bottom of society were simply wrapped in cloth and buried in the desert with everyday objects like pots and perhaps a weapon of some kind. But everyone, rich or poor, was given a ceremony, as this was considered necessary in order for his or her spirit to pass to the underworld. Wealthy Egyptians were given an elaborate funeral, during which the body of the dead was
carried to the tomb accompanied by a procession of mourners and dancers. Two women called ‘kites’ were also present, whose job it was to mourn overtly. According to Ancient Egyptian religion, the greater a showing of grief, the better the soul would fare in the Hall of Judgement. At the tomb, a priest performed the ‘Opening of the Mouth’ ceremony, in which the mummy was propped upright and a ceremonial blade pressed against the mouth. This would enable them to breathe, talk and eat in the afterlife. The action was repeated on the eyes and limbs to allow the spirit to see and move. The coffin was placed in a sarcophagus, offerings left, prayers recited and the tomb sealed.
Death mask
A funeral fit for a pharaoh These elaborate send-offs prepared the body for the lands of the living and the dead
A funerary mask resembling the deceased ensures that the spirit will be able to recognise its body.
Into the coffin
Funeral procession
A painted ‘cartonnage’ case is attached to the mummy, then it is placed in a ‘suhet’ (coffin).
A procession of mourners carries the coffin and grave goods to the tomb. Some of the mourners are paid to weep loudly throughout.
Opening of the Mouth
Sarcophogus
Sealed with a spell
The coffin is placed in a sarcophagus – an alabaster box designed to provide extra protection.
At the tomb, a priest performs the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, allowing the deceased to breathe and speak in the afterlife.
Both the sarcophagus and tomb are sealed before the priest casts a spell to protect them, known as the Curse of the Pharaohs.
Tutankhamun’s meteorite dagger In June, researchers announced that a dagger found by Howard Carter in the tomb of Tutankhamun appeared to be made with iron from a meteorite. The blade had puzzled archaeologists for
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Osiris, depicted as a mummified pharaoh, was god of the afterlife.
decades, as ironwork was rare in Ancient Egypt and the metal had not rusted. An X-ray fluorescence spectrometer was used to discover its chemical composition. The high nickel content, as well as the presence
of cobalt “strongly suggests an extra-terrestrial origin,” and similar levels have in fact been found in a meteorite that crashed 240 kilometres west of Alexandria before or during the time of Tutankhamun.
The iron blade (right) is believed to be made from a meteorite
DID YOU KNOW? Tutankhamun’s tombs also contained the mummies of his two stillborn twin daughters
Anubis The god of embalming attended the ceremony and ushered successful souls into the afterlife.
Balancing the scales If the heart balanced against the feather, the soul of the deceased could continue to the afterlife.
Osiris The ceremony took place before Osiris, god of the dead and the afterlife, and a tribunal of 42 deities.
Heart Feather of truth
If the heart was heavy with the weight of wrongdoings, it was devoured by the crocodile demoness, Amuut.
The heart was weighed against the feather of the goddess Maat, which represented truth and justice.
JOURNEY TO THE AFTERLIFE Securing an eternal place in the heavens was easier said than done potentially pass this stage of the test without being entirely innocent. Next, the spirit could proceed to the Weighing of the Heart ceremony. This was overseen by Osiris, the chief god of the underworld. The Egyptians believed the heart contained a record of all of the deceased’s actions in life, so it was weighed against the feather of the goddess Maat to determine how virtuous they had been. If the scales Isis balanced, the spirit was Along with her sister, Nepthys, welcomed into the afterlife by Isis protected Osiris. If the heart was heavier the dead, and than the feather, it was thrown was goddess of children. to the crocodile demoness, Ammut, and the soul was cast into the darkness, condemned to an eternity of restlessness. Of course, the dead could always rely on their trusty book for help. A simple recital of spell 30B could help to prevent the heart from giving away their murky past. Those lucky enough to secure a place in the afterlife would experience the magnificence of the Field of Rushes. The dead would be granted a plot of land on which to grow crops, assisted by the shabtis they had been buried with, and look forward to a future of eternal peace.
Egyptians were buried with all their worldly possessions, including beds and chariots
In the underworld, the spirit would have to battle giant serpents and other monsters
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© Alamy; WIKI; Thinkstock
No amount of money spent on tombs or time spent memorising spells could guarantee an Ancient Egyptian a place in the afterlife. First, their soul would have to conquer the obstacles and demons of the underworld, and then face the judgement of the gods in the ‘Weighing of the Heart’ ceremony. Only the worthiest souls could then proceed to the Field of Rushes, where they would exist in pleasure for eternity. The Ancient Egyptians believed that when a person was buried, their spirit departed their body and descended to the underworld (Duat). There, it must pass through 12 gates, each of which was guarded by a different deity, which the spirit must recognise and name. That may sound easy, but there were also monsters, demons and lakes of fire to contend with. The Book of the Dead provided a list of spells that would help the spirit to overcome these obstacles. If successful, the soul would pass into the Hall of Judgement, where it would have to prove its worthiness in front of 42 deities. The Book of the Dead also helped the spirit with the right answers to their questions, so that it could
HISTORY
The Palais Garnier opera house Check out the building that inspired Leroux’s Phantom Of The Opera ormally opened in 1875, this grand opera house was designed by architect Charles Garnier. Built in the Neo-Baroque style, the lavish interior sports iconic, gilded staircases and lounges that allow vast numbers of people to flow through the foyer areas into the horseshoe-shaped auditorium. A huge chandelier hangs in the centre of the room, from which a counterweight fell to the ground in 1896, killing a construction worker. This, along with many more of the building’s quirks, inspired Gaston Leroux’s 1910 gothic love story, The Phantom Of The Opera. When work began on the site in 1861, the workforces cleared hundreds of square metres of ground but were delayed in laying the concrete foundations. Despite many attempts to drain the site, the only way to stem the flow of water was to install a huge stone water tank. The pressure of the tank stops any more water rising, and it also stabilises the building. As well as inspiring Leroux’s Phantom’s underground lake, Parisian firefighters now use the tank to practise swimming in the dark.
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Backstage Rehearsal spaces, dressing rooms and offices can be found behind the stage.
Emperor Napoleon III commissioned the construction of the grand opera house
Stage The huge stage was built to hold up to 450 cast members.
Inside the Palais Phantom or not, the opera house has plenty of secrets to tell
Auditorium
Lake
The elegant auditorium is arranged around a colossal chandelier that weighs around seven tons.
The underground water tank is reportedly home to a large white catfish, fed by opera staff.
The world’s tallest statues Rounding up some of the most gigantic figures ever built
155m
155m
Peter the Great, Russia The Motherland Calls, Russia
106m
108m
93m
Christ the Redeemer, Brazil 38m
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130m
120m
98m
85m
Height (metres)
Ushiku Daibutsu, Japan
Laykyun Setkyar Buddha, Burma
© Getty; Thinkstock; Dreamstime
Statue of Liberty, US
Emperors Yan and Huang, China
Guanyin of the South Sea of Sanya, China
Spring Temple Buddha, China
Statue and location
DID YOU KNOW? Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were married for 24 years – twice as long as all his other marriages combined
Henry was a well-respected musician and composer. Among his collection of musical instruments there were:
Responsible for up to
,000 72 EXECUTIONS
26 lutes 154 recorders
19 viols
Estimates for the death toll vary greatly, but sources claim that anyone who refused to recognise Anne Boleyn as his lawful wife or who didn’t agree with his break from the Catholic Church was killed, as well as anyone he took a general disliking to.
5
65 flutes sets of bagpipes
1.88m
60
Henry towered over most of the other men in his court
HENRY
6 wives
VIII
by numbers
Anne of Cleves (m. Jan-July 1540)
Anne Boleyn (m. 1533-1536)
Catherine Howard (m. 1540-1542)
Jane Seymour (m. 1536-1537)
Catherine Parr (m. 1543-1547)
1.85 1.80
Shocking facts and figures about the infamous Tudor dored, feared, respected and reviled, Henry VIII is perhaps the most controversial king to have ever ruled England. He is best remembered for doing the unthinkable and breaking with the Catholic Church, instead declaring himself head of the new Church of England in 1534, in a period known as the English Reformation. The break was down to a dispute after the Pope had refused to annul Henry’s marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had been unable to bear him a son. He turned his gaze to Anne Boleyn, and as they say, the rest is history.
A
Henry’s wives bore him many children, but only three survived past their first birthday. He also had an illegitimate child by his mistress Elizabeth Blount.
Mary I (1516-1558)
Elizabeth I (1533-1601)
9 Edward VI (1537-1553)
17
YEARS OLD
When he came to the throne, Henry was still a teenager. He reigned for 37 years until his death, aged 55.
Weight at death
Henry’s appetite and inability to exercise due to ulcerated legs – the result of a riding accident – eventually took a toll on his waistline.
178kg 157
© WIKI; Thinkstock
Henry was a prolific palace builder. His most famous, Hampton Court Palace, had:
A HUNTING PARK OF MORE THAN 445 HECTARES KITCHENS COVERING 3,340 SQUARE METRES A GARDEROBE (LAVATORY) THAT COULD SEAT 28 PEOPLE
1.90
Legitimate children
HOUSES
Catherine of Aragon (m. 1509-1533)
(similar to violins)
HISTORY
Medieval siege mining If a castle proved resistant to attack, every good commander knew he could literally undermine its defences Solid defence n Medieval warfare there were many ways to bring a fortress crashing to its knees. Battering rams, trebuchets, ladders, or simply starving the garrison into submission were all perfect tools and tactics for winning a siege. If none of these usual methods worked, however, the attacking force could dig under the walls themselves, and destroy them from beneath. With a huge hole in the castle’s defences, the attackers could swarm in and overwhelm the unfortunate defenders.
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The ‘cat’
Defenders would hurl boiling tar, water and rocks, as well as shoot arrows down onto the attacking force.
A strong wooden structure, known as a ‘cat’, would shield the miners from attack while they began digging under the walls.
In 1215 CE, Rochester Castle came under siege by King John, who used mining to bring down the defences
Underground battlefield If an attacking and a defensive tunnel met, bloody hand-to hand combat would begin.
Detection The defenders used buckets of water to detect mining – the surface would ripple from the vibrations of any nearby digging.
Wooden props As the tunnel grew longer and deeper, the miners would prop up the roof with wooden beams to prevent it collapsing.
Collapsing the tunnel Once the attackers reached underneath the tower or wall, the wooden props would be set on fire to collapse the tunnel and bring down the defences above.
Countermining If they could detect an enemy tunnel, the defenders would begin digging their own to intercept and stop the attackers.
Military acoustic locators These huge listening devices could hear the enemy coming before they came into view efore the development of radar, there was only one reliable method for detecting enemy aircraft from far away: to listen carefully. Devices known as acoustic locators were developed to intercept the sound of an approaching aircraft. The sound would travel down an attached cable and into the earphones of the operator, just like a doctor’s stethoscope. Hundreds of different designs were developed during and after World War I, ranging from smaller portable equipment, to devices resembling massive trumpets. At the time,
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aircraft were relatively slow and their engines loud enough that their approximate direction and elevation could be detected from a distance. As enemy bombing raids increased over the south of England, huge ‘acoustic mirrors’ were built to provide early warning of approaching aircraft. These large concrete structures looked like stone satellite dishes, and were designed to capture the engine noise of incoming German zeppelins. However, with the invention of radar and the development of faster aircraft, these structures and acoustic locators became obsolete.
Japan’s Emperor Hirohito inspects two Type 90 Large Detectors, nicknamed ‘war tubas’
DID YOU KNOW? Japanese sake, while often referred to as a ‘rice wine’, is actually a type of beer
Beer Five facts about through the Berlin Wall the ages A few things you didn’t know about the defining symbol of the Cold War
The history of the world’s most widely consumed alcoholic tipple 1988
PLASTIC WIDGETS Invented originally for Guinness, plastic widgets are nitrogen-filled spheres. Now common in many lightly carbonated beers, they help release some of the dissolved carbon dioxide bubbles when pouring, creating a frothy ‘head’.
1933
BEER CAN The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company was the first to produce beer cans, initially creating 2,000 which were given to its customers to trial. The original aluminium design weighed roughly seven times the average beer can today.
1
It fell by mistake
On 9 November 1989, East German politician Günter Schabowski prematurely announced that the Wall’s travel restrictions would be lifted immediately. The original plan was for East Germans to apply for a visa to gain access to the West, but once a mob of angry protestors gathered, the gates were opened that very same day.
1858
FERMENTATION The French chemist Louis Pasteur demonstrated that yeast was responsible for fermenting sugar into alcohol. He also showed that bacterial life could spoil beer, and invented a method called pasteurisation that killed microbes with heat.
3
Circa 1500 During the Middle Ages, beer became hugely popular, particularly in Europe. In 1516 Germany introduced the first purity law, stating that beer may only be brewed from water, hops and barley.
Circa 800
HOPS
4
5,000 people tried to escape before it fell
Many East Berliners were desperate to escape to the more lucrative West, and would often stow away in cars or dig underground tunnels to try and reach the other side. Some border guards were also keen to flee – among the very first successful escapees was an East German guard, two days after the Wall’s gates were sealed.
The first written evidence of hops being used as a beer ingredient is from a French monastery. By the 13th century they were used as a preservative, replacing traditional mixes of herbs and spices, and imparting a bitter, tangy flavour.
Circa 9000-7000 BCE
© WIKI; Dreamstime
BARLEY Although beer’s true origins are unknown, many believe it was invented by accident during the Neolithic era. Wild yeast may have settled on barley that had germinated, starting the fermentation process and creating alcohol.
East and West Berlin were actually separated by two concrete walls, with tall wire fences either side. Between the towering concrete structures was the ‘death strip’, a gap up to 150 metres wide filled with watchtowers and trip-wire that could trigger automatic guns, all to deter people from crossing.
It separated three ‘zones’ from the Soviet sector
After World War II, Germany was divided into four sections – three of these were controlled by Western countries (Britain, the US and France) while the Soviet Union ruled over the fourth. The Berlin Wall split the three Western sectors from the Sovietgoverned fourth, preventing East Germans from crossing into the western part of the capital.
GROWING POPULARITY
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The Wall contained many layers
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JFK was relieved when the Wall was built
Before the Wall was erected, there was talk of Soviet forces blockading West Berlin if Western forces did not leave. When the Soviet Union announced the construction of the Wall, President John F Kennedy is said to have confided: “It’s not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war.”
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HISTORY
Uncover the lost world & giant beasts of frozen Earth or most of Earth’s history, the planet has been free of ice, even at the poles. However, for the last 2.4 billion years, Earth has been cycling in and out of freezing ice ages. For millions of years at a time, temperatures plummet and large areas of the globe become trapped under sheets of ice. These glacial periods start gradually. Snow falls during the winter, and fails to melt in the summer, and over time, layer upon layer is built up. The white surface reflects sunlight back into space, and a cycle of cooling begins. Vast glaciers form at the poles, creeping inwards towards the equator, and Earth’s water is locked away into slowly moving ice. As it creeps along, it carves great scars into the landscape beneath. When Earth’s water freezes, sea levels drop, revealing land once hidden beneath the oceans. Winds and currents change direction, and even those places untouched by ice undergo significant climate change. There have been at least five ice ages so far, the first of which transformed the entire planet into a giant snowball. However, within these periods of extreme chill, there have been occasional bursts of warmth. During each ice age, the Earth cycles in and out of glaciation, freezing for tens of thousands of years, thawing temporarily, and then freezing again. As the glaciers warm, water floods back across the
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land, filling valleys and carving out new tracks in the landscape. Sea levels rise, and winds and currents shift. In fact, we are in the middle of an ice age right now – but we are in a temporary thaw that began around 11,000 years ago. These warm periods are known as ‘interglacials’ and we don’t know exactly how long they last for. Ice sheets still cover Antarctica and Greenland, trapping 75 per cent of Earth’s fresh water, and when these finally melt, it will mark the end of the current ice age. Until then, join us as we delve into the history of ice on Earth.
“Vast glaciers form at the poles, creeping towards the equator”
DID YOU KNOW? Around 52 to 57 million years ago, Earth was so warm that there were trees in the Arctic and Antarctic
TRIGGER POINT Earth’s temperature depends on where it’s at in its Milankovitch cycles The Sun warms our planet, but the amount of heat we receive varies over years, decades and millennia. This is because Earth’s orbit, tilt and axis angle fluctuate in three different patterns, known as the Milankovitch cycles. The first cycle is known as eccentricity. Earth moves around the Sun in an elliptical orbit, coming in close and then moving further away. However, the shape of this orbit changes over
time, becoming more elongated (or ‘eccentric’) and rounder in a cycle that lasts 100,000 years. The second cycle, known as obliquity, refers to the tilt of Earth relative to the plane of its orbit, which varies from 22.1 to 24.5 degrees over a 40,000-year period. The bigger the tilt, the more extreme the seasons are on our planet. Finally, Earth also wobbles as it spins, a little like a spinning top as it slows down. This wobble is
The making of an ice age
Precession
Several factors come together to tip the Earth into a big freeze
Obliquity Earth’s axis tilts back and forth over a 40,000-year period.
Eccentricity Earth’s orbit around the Sun becomes more circular and then more elongated on a 100,000-year cycle.
Sunlight received
known as precession, and it takes 26,000-years to complete one cycle. The amount of solar energy that reaches Earth depends on where it is in all three Milankovitch cycles. At times when the planet receives the least energy, summer temperatures are coldest, and an ice age may be triggered. But the planet’s fate also depends on the position of continents, ocean circulation and composition of the atmosphere.
The Earth wobbles as it spins, completing a full wobble every 26,000 years.
When Earth’s water freezes, sea levels drop, and the land beneath is revealed
The amount of sunlight that the Earth receives depends on the tilt of its axis, the time of year, and the eccentricity of its orbit.
Cloud cover
Perpetual cooling Ice reflects 80 per cent of the sunlight that hits it, keeping temperatures low.
Greenhouse effect
Reflection Beneath the clouds, sunlight can be reflected back down towards the Earth, keeping some of the heat in.
© Alamy; Illustration by Nicholas Forder
Particles in the atmosphere, including clouds or volcanic dust, can block incoming sunlight.
Melting ice
Bare ground
If ice starts to melt, the amount of reflected light decreases, and cloud cover increases.
Bare ground absorbs sunlight, contributing to warming.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that makes the atmosphere warmer. It is trapped in ice, but when this melts, it is released.
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HISTORY
THE LAST GLACIAL PERIOD What did the world look like at the height of the last ice age? Cordilleran ice sheet A second, smaller ice sheet periodically covered the northwest of North America.
Greenland ice sheet Today, the Greenland ice sheet is the largest in the Northern Hemisphere, and contains eight per cent of Earth’s fresh water.
Laurentide ice sheet This ice sheet started in Canada, and gradually crept over the northeastern United States.
Geological evidence Ice sheets are made from layers of ice and snow, laid down year after year. As more layers build up, the ones below become compacted. Drilling down into glaciers allows researchers to recover cylinders known as ice cores, which contain information about the age of the ice and the climate at the time it was laid, tracing back hundreds of thousands of years. For information further back in time, sediment cores can be taken from the oceans, providing data about the Earth millions of years ago. More recently, scientists have used icepenetrating radar to detect layers under the surface of the Greenland ice sheet.
Patagonian ice sheet Most of the land in the Southern Hemisphere remained ice-free, but a sheet formed in South America.
Earth’s ice through the ages The Greenland ice sheet contains evidence of the last ice age, and the warm period that preceded it
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Our landscape has changed dramatically over the last 2.4 billion years
Antarctic ice sheet Antarctic ice is relatively new, appearing during the last ice age. It’s now the largest ice sheet on Earth.
3 BILLION YRS AGO
2.4-2.1 BILLION YRS AGO
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850-630 MILLION YRS AGO
2 BILLION YRS AGO
460-430 MILLION YRS AGO
1 Snowball Earth 2Slushball Earth 3Mass extinction Our entire planet froze over during the first ever ice age, called the Huronian.
During the Cryogenian ice age, a band of liquid ocean remained at the equator.
The Andean-Saharan ice age accompanied the second largest mass extinction in history.
DID YOU KNOW? Ten per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered in glaciers, holding 75 per cent of the planet’s fresh water
“When Earth’s water freezes, sea levels drop, revealing land once hidden beneath the oceans”
Siberian ice sheet A sheet of ice one kilometre thick extended into the Arctic Ocean, leaving scratches on the seabed.
Yellow Sea Now a haven for wildlife, the Yellow Sea was empty of water during the last ice age.
Persian Gulf This shallow sea dried up as water levels dropped by more than 100 metres.
Scandinavian ice sheet Most of Northern Europe was encased in ice, covering everything from the UK to western Russia.
Land bridges When Earth’s water freezes into glaciers, sea levels drop, exposing land once hidden beneath the waves. These ‘land bridges’ connect islands and continents, allowing animals to move from one place to another. The most well-known is the Bering Land Bridge, which once linked Siberia to Alaska, closing the gap between Asia and North America. This bridge provided a sheltered path that took early humans to the Americas. In the past, solid ground has also appeared between the UK and Europe, connecting the islands of the Indonesian archipelago, and linking Australia to New Guinea.
1 BILLION YRS AGO
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100 MILLION YRS AGO
Today, the Bering Strait is flooded with water
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10 MILLION YRS AGO
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8 TODAY
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arrival 4The of plants
Plants sucked carbon dioxide from the air, causing the Karoo ice age.
20 MILLION YRS AGO
2.5 MILLION YRS AGO
making of 5The Antarctica 6Quaternary ice age The beginnings of the Antarctic ice sheet started to form.
The latest cold snap started very recently, and is still going on to this day.
11,000 YRS AGO
7Interglacial period
We are in the middle of a short intermission in the current ice age.
1300-1800 YRS AGO
THE FUTURE…
8Little Ice Age 9Next ice age In recent history, Earth experienced a sharp drop in temperature.
Human activity is warming the planet, and the date of the next ice age is uncertain.
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© SPL; Dreamstime
360-260 MILLION YRS AGO
HISTORY
THE SURVIVORS Meet the giant beasts that conquered the frozen wilderness Before the end of the last ice age, Earth was inhabited by weird and wonderful mammalian megafauna. Food was abundant, allowing animals to grow to enormous sizes, and the larger they got, the more protection they had from the cold. Not all of the animals that lived during the ice age inhabited the coldest parts of the planet; many, like ground sloths and sabre-toothed cats, preferred to live in warmer and more temperate regions further south. There were also many true ice survivors, including fur-covered woolly mammoths, musk oxen, and giant dire wolves. Their stocky bodies helped to minimise heat loss through their skin, and layers of fat and hair provided thick insulation. However, when the temperatures started to rise, these animals began to struggle. During interglacial periods, glaciers melt and sea levels rise; valleys flood and lakes appear in the landscape. Ocean currents change direction, and winds shift. And as if that weren’t enough pressure, at the end of this particular ice age, humans were roaming the landscape with spears. Our ancestors competed with top predators, and hunted some of the largest animals. Mammoths and mastodons were ‘keystone’ species, so large and numerous that their activities carved out vital niches that other animals needed for survival. But around 50,000 years ago, the ice age megafauna started to die out, and by the time the glaciers had retreated, at least 177 large mammal species were extinct.
Sabretoothed cat
Sabre-toothed cats had 15cm canines
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“At the end of the ice age, humans were roaming the landscape with spears”
There were three species of sabre-toothed cat, all found in the Americas. They were similar in size to modern lions, but with shorter legs and significantly larger teeth. Their curved canines were over 15 centimetres long, and their mouths opened almost twice as wide as those of modern cats. Surprisingly, however, their bite force was nowhere near as powerful as a lion’s. Although they are often called tigers, the colour and patterning of their fur is not known and they are not closely related to modern tigers.
DID YOU KNOW? The first fossilised mastodon tooth was found by a farmer in 1705 and weighed 2kg – he traded it for rum!
Woolly mammoth
Dire wolf
These iconic ice age animals were covered in thick hair and layers of insulating fat. Unlike modern elephants that have large ears to aid heat loss, mammoths had small ears to conserve heat, and even their blood was adapted to cold weather. Their haemoglobin – the molecule that transports oxygen in the blood – functioned over a much wider temperature range than that of modern elephants, allowing oxygen to reach their extremities even in the freezing cold.
These prehistoric wolves were slightly larger than their modern counterparts, with short legs, broad heads, and smaller brains. While grey wolves use speed and teamwork to wear their prey down, these snow hunters are thought to have preferred ambush tactics. Grey wolves existed alongside these fearsome hunters but 10,000 years ago, dire wolves had disappeared, along with other ice age predators like sabretoothed cats and American lions.
Ground sloths Megatherium, or ground sloths, were the size of modern-day bison. They lived in the savannahs, forests and grasslands of North America, subsisting on a plant-based diet. They had long hair, huge jaws and powerful claws, which they used for digging and reaching up to tear leaves off branches.
Other ice age critters Giant beaver These rodents were the size of bears, but their teeth were markedly different to those of modern beavers. There is no evidence that they built dams.
Ice age horse Horses went extinct in the Americas 11,000 years ago, but they managed to survive in Eurasia and Africa. Modern horses in the Americas – as well as donkeys and asses – are the descendents of these survivors.
Musk ox These heavy-set, woolly animals almost went extinct due to hunting during the last ice age, and the warming climate that followed. There are still some musk oxen in Canada today, but their numbers are vastly reduced.
American lion
Short-faced bear These ferocious bears are thought to have been the fastest of their kind, with front-facing feet that allowed them to reach speeds of more than 64 kilometres per hour. Their blunt snouts are thought to have helped them to get the maximum amount of air into their lungs while chasing their prey.
Larger than modern lions, and with longer legs, these animals would have had to compete with sabre-toothed cats and short-faced bears for prey.
Mastodon Relatives of mammoths, these elephant-like animals had long trunks and woolly hair. Some fossilised bones show evidence of tuberculosis, which could have been one of the factors leading to their extinction.
Glyptodonts These bizarre-looking beasts were the size of a car, and the heaviest weighed more than a ton. Related to modern armadillos, they had a protective exoskeleton made from plates of bone
called osteoderms, and a fearsomelooking clubbed tail. While armadillos can flex their armour, glyptodonts had fused bones with rigid shells that turned them into walking tanks.
With stilt-like legs, these animals were adapted to pick their way through damp marshland and boggy ground. They had large, complex antlers and faces similar to modern-day elk.
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© Alamy; SPL
Stag-moose
HISTORY
LIVING IN A FROZEN WORLD How did early humans survive the ice age? Early humans had begun to explore Europe, Asia and North America by the time the last glacial period set in around 110,000 years ago – this is what is often referred to as the Ice Age. Although many humans lived far enough to the south that they escaped the advancing ice, some had to brave fierce drops in temperature. They had three choices: migrate, adapt or die. Humans weren’t alone in their struggle. Another hominid species, Neanderthals, were also attempting to brave the cold. They were stockier than humans, with shorter forearms and shins, which would have helped to conserve body heat. Neanderthals built simple shelters, used animal skins for blankets, and kept themselves warm beside wood-fuelled fires. In mild conditions, they hunted red deer, and as it grew colder, they switched to reindeer. Eventually, when the landscape froze, they moved south in search of warmth. However, humans had something that Neanderthals did not: advanced technology and sophisticated communication skills. They moved south to escape the worst of the cold, but some were still exposed to chilling temperatures and challenging environments. They learnt to burn bones when wood was scarce, built more complex shelters, and traded over great
distances, thereby making the most of their social networks. Humans banded together and used sharp tools to hunt large animals like mammoths and mastodons, securing the biggest calorie payoff for their efforts. And when the meat had been consumed, they made needles and stitched the skins into well-fitting clothes. Neanderthals were extinct by the time of the glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago, but humans’ intelligence and ingenuity helped them to cling on through the cold.
“Humans moved south to escape the worst of the cold”
Big game Large animals like mammoths and mastodons provided huge numbers of calories to teams of hunters.
Skins Pelts were removed from hairy animals, and stitched into clothes using primitive needles.
The secrets of survival Clever thinking and advanced technology allowed humans to make it out alive
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Hunter-gatherers
Stone Age tools
Ice age humans were huntergatherers, foraging for edible plants and killing animals for meat and skins.
Flint could be chipped to produce a sharp point, allowing hunters to take on large, thick-skinned animals.
DID YOU KNOW? Ice age humans dug into the permafrost to build ‘ice cellars’, where they stored supplies of food
THE END OF THE ICE AGE What caused frozen Earth to thaw?
Is winter coming?
20,000 years ago
19,000 years ago
17,500 years ago
Towards the end of the last ice age, Earth tilted on its orbit, pointing the Northern Hemisphere towards the Sun. With more light and more heat striking the frozen surface, ice sheets in this area finally began to melt, and water flooded into the Atlantic Ocean.
The influx of cold water into the Atlantic disrupted the ocean currents, slowing the flow of warm water moving up from the south. With nowhere to go, these hot streams remained in the Southern Hemisphere, warming oceans and melting ice.
The flow of ocean currents affects the wind, and with the disruption in the north, winds pushed downwards. As the southern glaciers melted, more water was released into the oceans, and with it came carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas that helps to trap heat.
Using the landscape
Migration
Trade
Sheltered areas in low-lying land would have provided some protection against the cold weather.
Moving south, and sticking to sheltered, ice-free areas would have helped humans to survive the worst of the cold.
Different groups traded across long distances, helping to maximise the use of different environments.
Technically, we are still in the middle of an ice age. The cold period that saw the rise and fall of woolly mammoths has not yet ended. We are in an interglacial period, and if history is anything to go by, these last for around 15,000 to 20,000 years. 11,000 years have already passed, but whether another cold snap is around the corner is a matter of debate. In the late 17th century, there was a Little Ice Age, during which time rivers froze and ice fields refused to melt during the summer. This is thought to have been caused by a period known as the Maunder Minimum. The Sun’s changing magnetic field produces sunspots, which normally increase and decrease in a pattern that repeats every 11 years, but during the Little Ice Age, this cycle all but stopped. For 70 years, there were only around 50 recorded spots, when normally there would have been closer to 50,000. In 2008, sunspots disappeared again, and when they eventually returned in 2014, they were weaker than at any other time on record. However, since the 17th century, humans have been busy expanding and industrialising, and, at least in part thanks to us, global temperatures are rising. Whether this will have an effect on the ice age cycle remains to be seen. The Little Ice Age is thought to have inspired tales of white Christmases
Shelter Some shelters were built with hearths inside to provide additional heat.
Fire Community Symbols and communication allowed groups of people to work together to plan for the future.
Wood was scarce in some places, so humans burnt bones as fuel.
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© Thinkstock; Illustration by Jo Smolaga
The impact of humans on Earth could affect the forecast
HISTORY
Tudor beauty
The model queen The Darnley Portrait of Elizabeth I was completed circa 1575 and shows her as a picture of popular beauty
The dos and don’ts of looking gorgeous in 16th century England erception of beauty varies greatly throughout history, and the Tudors went to great lengths to achieve the ideal. They looked to their Queen, Elizabeth I, for inspiration, so it became very fashionable to have fair hair with porcelain skin and blue or grey eyes. Pale skin was a sign of wealth and relaxation, as by contrast, tanned, freckled or sunburned skin was an indication of hard labour out in the fields. In the early Tudor period, women softened their skin with creams and ointments, but towards the end of the era ladies used ceruse, a cream made of white lead and vinegar, to whiten their complexion. Many suffered from lead poisoning as a result, but they also went to further extremes, such as bleeding themselves to remove any rosy flush. Darker-haired ladies dyed their locks red with henna, or attempted to lighten it using urine or a mixture of cumin, saffron seeds, celandine and oil. Wigs were also very fashionable, and high-class women would wear these to achieve the desired colour without a messy dye job.
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Anne Boleyn wasn’t considered traditionally beautiful, due to her dark hair and sallow skin
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Light hair A Tudor ideal was fair hair – either blonde or red. Wigs were very popular.
Soft skin During Henry VIII’s reign, women used cream containing beeswax and honey for soft, dewy skin.
High hairline Ladies would pluck their hairline to achieve a higher forehead, and heavily arch their eyebrows.
Pale complexion During Elizabeth I’s reign women painted their faces with ceruse.
Red cheeks and lips Tudor ladies used mercuric sulphide on their cheeks and lips for a bright vermillion colour and blush.
DID YOU KNOW? The word ‘tragedy’ is derived from two Greek words: ‘tragos’ meaning ‘goat’ and ‘aeidein’ meaning ‘to sing’
Ancient Greek theatre Uncover the civilisation that invented the play and set the stage for Western culture
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Performances were staged at the Theatre of Dionysus, considered by many to be the first ever built. This was a huge open-air arena that could seat up to 17,000 people on rows of benches set into a hill. The actors performed in the centre, known as the ‘orchestra’, while a backdrop was painted onto a building behind the stage known as the ‘skene’. This was also where the actors changed into their masks and costumes. The theatre’s acoustics were so well thought out that every single audience member would have been able to hear the actors performing, even in the days before microphones and sound systems. Over two thousand years later, we still base our theatre designs on these incredible ancient structures.
How to put on a play in Ancient Greece
1
Pick a genre
In Ancient Greece, tragedy and comedy should never mix. The City Dionysia pits the writers of these two genres against each other in its annual theatre competition, so choose a side and get planning.
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Start writing
Not only do your plays have to be written in verse, you’ll also need to compose the music to accompany them. As for subject matter, the more revolutionary the better.
2
Get funding
5
Perform your play
The ruins of the theatre of Dionysus as they appear today
Follow these steps to produce your very own dramatic masterpiece
Plays in Athens are publicly funded, but you will need to pitch your idea to an official, who is known as the eponymous archon, and get his approval, before you see the colour of his money.
Once rehearsals are over, it’s time to bring your work to the stage. The competitions can attract up to 17,000 people and last from dawn until dusk.
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Decide your actors
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Collect your prize
The eponymous archon is responsible for deciding your lead actors, which is done by drawing random lots. The chorus actors are paid for by wealthy citizens looking to win public favour.
The judges write their scores on tablets and place them in urns. The eponymous archon draws five of them at random and the winner is awarded with a wreath and a goat!
© WIKI
e have a lot to thank Ancient Greece for. From democracy to philosophy, this thriving collection of city-states was the birthplace of so many things that we take for granted today – including theatre. The first mention of it dates back to 532 BCE, when an actor called Thespis performed a tragedy. His name has been immortalised as a term for a performer – a ‘thespian’. A few decades later, a festival called the City Dionysia was established in Athens to honour Dionysus, the god of wine. The events centred on competitive performances of tragedies and, from 487 BCE, comedies. Thousands flocked from all over Greece, businesses closed and prisoners were released to take part in five days of festivities.
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HISTORY
History’s inventions rom the wheel to the World Wide Web, we have invented some truly ground-breaking things during our time on Earth. Yet throughout history, inventors have also been known to put their skills to use in horrifying ways, creating contraptions that have caused unimaginable suffering. In the past, if you committed a terrible crime, a punishment much worse than a long prison sentence awaited you. From boiling people alive to sawing them in half, execution methods were often developed to be as cruel as possible. These
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gruesome events were usually carried out in public to deter others from following in the footsteps of the accused. Even if you weren’t sentenced to death, there were plenty of ghastly implements that could be used to torture you instead. Typically used to extract a confession or information about accomplices, torture was popular in medieval times, with the screams of victims echoing from castle dungeons across Europe. War has also inspired a wide selection of horrific innovations. While guns and bombs
were designed to kill instantly, chemical weapons could draw out death for several agonising days – thankfully, this form of warfare is now prohibited. We are also lucky that some medical devices from history are no longer used. Despite being designed with good intentions, many medieval procedures were truly stomach-churning, making a trip to the doctor quite the ordeal. So as you drive around in your car and browse the web on your phone, be grateful that the inventions you use aren’t gruesome like these…
© Corbis; Look & Learn
From brutal torture devices to bizarre medical treatments, these terrifying contraptions reveal a darker side of innovation
DID YOU KNOW? The last guillotine execution in France took place less than 40 years ago, in 1977
5 Hear the bull roar
1 Through the trap door
The victim’s screams leave through the nostrils of the bull, sounding like the bellowing roar of the beast.
The victim is placed inside the hollow brass bull through a trap door in its back or side.
THE ZEN BRA BULL ms
4 Modify their screams A series of pipes in the bull’s head amplify and distort the victim’s cries.
The heat from the fire turns the bull into an oven, slowly roasting the victim inside.
a the screthe g n i n r Tu ing into y d e h t of beast a f o r a ro
2 Light the fire The door is closed and a fire is lit beneath the belly of the bull.
One of the most brutal methods of execution ever created took the form of a hollow bull statue. Invented in ancient Greece by Perillus, a bronze worker in Athens, it was given as a gift to a cruel tyrant named Phalaris of Agrigentum. As well as roasting criminals alive, the device
also doubled as a musical instrument, converting the victim’s desperate cries into what Perillus described as “the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings”. Distrustful of the inventor’s claims, Phalaris ordered Perillus to climb inside and prove the
Crucifixion
device’s musical capabilities himself. However, as soon as he was inside, Phalaris shut the door and lit a fire beneath, causing Perillus to scream for real. However, rather then letting him die at the hands of his own creation, Phalaris had him removed and thrown off a cliff instead.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were both publically executed using the guillotine
Devised over 2,500 years ago as punishment for the most serious crimes, crucifixion would kill victims in a horribly drawn-out and painful way. With their wrists and feet nailed or tightly bound to a cross, and their legs broken by the executioners to speed up death, the victim’s weight would be transferred to their arms. This would gradually pull the shoulders and elbows out of their sockets, leaving the chest to bear the weight. Although inhaling would still be possible, exhaling would be difficult and the victim would eventually suffocate due to a lack of oxygen. This excruciating process could take 24 hours. Crucifixion would lead to suffocation and multiple organ failure
Illustration by Tom Connell / Art Agency
3 Slow cooking
Guillotine Although beheading methods had already been around for centuries, in 1789 French physician Dr Joseph Guillotin proposed a much more efficient and humane device for decapitation. When the executioner released the rope holding the guillotine’s weighted blade in place, it would drop onto the victim’s neck, killing them in a fraction of a second. This helped to eliminate the human error that was common with axe and sword beheadings, which sometimes required the executioner to deliver multiple swings to fully remove the head. Although quick, guillotine executions were popular spectator events during the French Revolution and the guillotine operators become national celebrities.
Electric chair Electrocution was introduced as a quicker and supposedly less painful method of execution than hanging in the 1880s. When brought to the electric chair, a person has their head and one calf shaved to reduce resistance to electricity and is strapped in across their waist, arms and legs. A moistened sponge is then placed on their head and an electrode in the shape of a metal skullcap is secured on top. Another electrode is attached to their shaved leg and then the power is switched on. 2,000 volts pass through their body, paralysing the respiratory system and causing cardiac arrest.
Electrocution is still used as a method of execution in some US states
171
HISTORY
A E D I S IN TURE TOR MBER t CHA ices tha v e d g n ifyi
“Many prisoners would say anything to end their suffering”
1
r The terd intense pain inflicte
Torture has been used as a method of punishment and interrogation for centuries, with the ancient Greeks and Romans regularly torturing criminals as part of their justice system. However, by the Middle Ages torture had become particularly prevalent, especially in response to crimes of treason. If you had been disloyal to the sovereign and your country, a whole plethora of horrifying torture devices awaited you. Torture was usually conducted in secret, with most medieval castles featuring an underground dungeon in which these diabolical deeds took place. A great deal of ingenuity and artistic skill went into developing instruments that would inflict the maximum amount of pain. Often simply threatening to use one on a person was enough to get them to confess, while others would quickly give in after seeing it used on a fellow prisoner. Some torture devices were designed to only inflict pain, but others would result in a slow, drawn-out death that prolonged the suffering until the victim drew their last breath. However, even if a prisoner was lucky enough to survive the torture, they were usually left severely disfigured and often had to be to be carried to their resulting trial, as they could no longer walk on their own. From the mid-17th century onwards, torture became much less common as there was much speculation about its effectiveness. Many prisoners would say anything to end their suffering, so it often produced inaccurate information or false confessions. It wasn’t until 1948 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, banning the use of torture.
172
2
1 Breaking wheel 2 The rack
3 Iron maiden
With the victim’s limbs tied to the spokes of this large wooden wheel, it would be slowly revolved. As it spun, the executioner would bludgeon the victim’s arms and legs with an iron hammer, shattering their bones one by one. If the victim survived this, they were placed on top of a large pole, so birds could peck at their body until they eventually died of dehydration, which could take several days.
A series of menacing spikes protruded from the interior of this iron chamber. With the victim inside, the door was closed slowly, causing the strategically placed spikes to pierce their body. However, the spikes were not long enough to be instantly fatal. Instead, the victim would be left to slowly bleed to death.
With their hands and feet tied to rollers at each end of the wooden frame, the torture victim would be subjected to intense interrogation. If they failed to confess to their crimes or give up the information the torturer was looking for, a crank would be turned to rotate the rollers. This would pull on the ropes, gradually stretching the victim’s body and causing intense pain, eventually dislocating their limbs.
DID YOU KNOW? Guy Fawkes was tortured for three days after his failed attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605
3 8
6
7
4 5
4 Head crusher
5 Thumbscrew 6 Choke pear 7 Heretic’s fork 8 Lead sprinkler Used as punishment or a method Also known as the ‘pear of Usually reserved for
With the victim’s chin placed over the bottom bar and their head beneath the metal cap, the executioner would slowly turn the screw to bring the two together, only stopping if the victim gave the right answers. As the victim’s head was crushed, their teeth would shatter into their jaw and their eyes would pop out from their sockets.
of extracting information, the victim’s fingers, thumbs or toes were placed between two horizontal metal bars. When the screw was turned, the two bars were pressed together, crushing the digits inside. Some thumbscrews even featured metal spikes on the bars to increase the pain.
anguish’, this device was inserted into one of the victim’s orifices, such as their mouth. When the key or crank was turned, the ‘petals’ of the pear-shaped end would slowly open up, painfully mutilating the victim’s insides, but not causing death.
blasphemers, this metal rod with two prongs at either end was attached to a leather strap around the victim’s neck. One end would pierce their chin, while the other dug into their sternum, causing immense pain if they attempted to move their jaw or neck, making it more or less impossible to talk.
Deceptively designed to look like a holy water sprinkler, this device was actually filled with molten lead, acid or boiling hot oil or water. The long handle was shaken to shower the victim’s body with the substance inside. This caused horrific burns and was potentially lethal.
173
HISTORY
E L B A R MISEICINE MEDal practices that did
dic The mearm than good more h
Nowadays, when you’re feeling unwell, you can visit a clean hospital and receive tried and tested treatments from a doctor with years of medical training. We often take this modern medicine for granted, but our ancestors throughout history were not quite so lucky when it came to health care. In medieval England for example, poor hygiene and fi lthy living conditions meant that disease was very common. However, with little knowledge of the human anatomy, many illnesses were attributed to witchcraft, demons, the will of god or even the positions of celestial bodies. Trepanning, which involves drilling a hole into the skull, was a popular treatment prescribed to allow the disease-causing evil spirits trapped inside to escape. Others believed that diseases were caused by the fluids in the body becoming unbalanced, and so bloodletting – draining the blood from a particular part of the body – was thought to restore things to normal. The ‘doctors’ who carried out these procedures were usually monks, as they tended to have a basic medical knowledge, or barbers or butchers who simply had the right tools for the job. The equipment used was very rarely sterilised, as little was known about contamination, and procedures were carried out with no form of anaesthesia to numb the pain. It’s no wonder that people would put off seeking treatment for as long as possible!
174
Terrifying treatments Horrifying medical instruments and procedures from the past
Trepanning Used to treat:
Headaches, seizures, mental disorders Trepanning is one of the oldest surgical practices in history, with evidence dating back to prehistoric times. It involves drilling a hole in the skull to relieve pressure.
Dental key Used to treat:
Toothache To remove a damaged tooth, the claw end of the dental key was clamped around it and then the entire device was turned like a key in a lock to lift it out of the gum.
Artificial leech Used to treat:
Various infections and diseases Used for bloodletting a popular treatment for a wide range of medical conditions, this device mimicked the action of reel leeches, with rotating blades that cut into the skin whilst a vacuum in the cylinder sucked out the blood.
Lithotome Used to treat:
Bladder stones With the patient still awake, the lithotome was inserted up the urethra and into the bladder to grip onto smaller bladder stones or cut up larger ones so they could be passed naturally.
Osteotome Used to treat:
Infections in the arms or legs Rather then cutting down trees, this early chainsaw was actually used to amputate limbs. Unlike a hammer and chisel, the hand-cranked osteotome could cut through bone without causing it to splinter.
DID YOU KNOW? World War I soldiers described the smell of chlorine gas as a combination of pepper and pineapple
S N O P WEA AR e OF W rms rac a l a c i chem nflict e o How thd the face of c change
CI2
Chemical weapons On 22 April 1915, Germany shocked the world by launching the first large-scale gas attack in war. After waiting several weeks for the wind to blow in the right direction, German soldiers released clouds of chlorine gas near the enemy trenches in Ypres, suffocating the unprepared Allied troops. Although The Hague Convention of 1899 prohibited the use of poisonous weapons, Germany justified its actions by claiming that France had already broken the ban by deploying tear gas grenades in 1914. The chlorine gas attack kick-started a chemical arms race and by the end of
COCl2
World War I, around 50 different chemicals had been used on the battlefield. The most prevalent were chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas, which would result in slow and painful deaths if soldiers were exposed to large enough quantities. Eventually, gas masks were developed for protection, but chemicals such as mustard gas could still cause horrific blisters if they came into contact with the skin. Among the most devastating chemical weapons are nerve agents, such as sarin, which attack the nervous system. Even small concentrations can be lethal, killing in mere minutes.
C4H8Cl2S
C4H10FO2P
Chlorine
Phosgene
Mustard gas
Sarin
Appearing as a pale green cloud with a strong bleach-like odour, chlorine gas reacts with water in the lungs to form hydrochloric acid. This damages the lung tissue, causing coughing, vomiting and eventually death.
This colourless gas with a musty odour reacts with proteins in the alveoli, tiny air sacs found in the lungs. This leads to fluid in the lungs and eventually suffocation, but the symptoms can take up to 48 hours to manifest.
With the odour of garlic, horseradish or sulphur, yellow-brown clouds of mustard gas cause chemical burns on the skin, eyes and respiratory tract, leading to large blisters, temporary blindness and shortness of breath.
Colourless, tasteless and odourless, this gas blocks normal communication between nerves. The nerve signals become stuck ‘on’, and muscles are unable to relax. This can lead to spasms, paralysis and asphyxiation.
The Geneva Protocol By the end of World War I, over 125,000 tons of poison gas had been deployed in battle. Although it was only responsible for less than one per cent of the war’s total fatalities, the psychological terror it had inflicted on soldiers was immense. On 17 June 1925, seven years after the war had ended, the Geneva Protocol was introduced, prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons. 138 states have now signed the treaty.
Napalm is a flammable liquid with a gel-like consistency, allowing it to stick to surfaces easily. In a bomb, it is combined with gasoline or jet fuel to explode upon impact, capable of burning at more than 2,760 degrees Celsius. Even the slightest contact with skin can result in severe burns and it can also cause death by asphyxiation. When ignited, napalm generates carbon monoxide and removes oxygen from the air, suffocating those in the vicinity.
Greek fire Developed by the Byzantine Greeks in the 7th century, Greek fire was a flammable liquid that could burn on water, making it particularly effective for naval warfare. This liquid fire was sprayed at the enemy using early flamethrower devices, or thrown in primitive hand grenades, creating a raging fire that could only be extinguished with sand, vinegar or urine. The true ingredients are a mystery, but scientists believe it could have contained petroleum, sulphur and pine tar.
© Alamy;SPL; WIKI; Dreamstime
Napalm
38 states originally signed the Geneva Protocol to ban the use of chemical weapons
Napalm fires combust oxygen in the air, turning carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide
Greek fire was the napalm of its day, but its ingredients are a mystery
tr Sp ia ec l o ia ff l er
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