Indholdsfortegnelse for April 2023 i BBC Science Focus Magazine

If you want to lose weight, don’t look at social media. It is a bin fire of hot takes, dude bros and con artists. The latest diet craze pulling in the clicks is the carnivore diet. Supposedly, if you want to sort out your mood, energy and get pumped, you just need to cram as much minced meat, bone stock and steak into your pie hole as you can stomach. Not a single fruit, vegetable, legume, nut, grain or seed should pass your lips, depriving you of all the fibre, antioxidants, vitamins and other nutrients (and joy!) they provide. Clearly, this is a terrible idea for your health, not to mention your gut, and indeed we’ve already written pieces debunking it. But I bring it up because the carnivore diet…

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EYE OPENER This image of a Nile crocodile lurking in the thick mud at Mana Pools National Park in Zimbabwe was recently awarded the top prize at the World Nature Photography Awards. According to photographer Jens Cullman, there had been a lack of rain during the wet season, so a lot of the water in the region had dried out, leaving muddy pools behind. “I had to be very careful not to disturb the crocodile, even though it was buried in dry mud,” says photographer Jens Cullman. “They will launch themselves with tremendous speed and power at any animal foolish enough to come too close.” Nile crocodiles are native to freshwater habitats on the African continent. Their eyes, nostrils and ears are positioned on top of their head, enabling them…

FUTURE VACCINES COULD BE DELIVERED IN A PUFF OF AIR Not keen on needles? Here’s an invention that will pique your interest. Engineers at the University of Texas at Dallas have designed a system that could deliver drugs into the body by puffing them through the skin. Known as the ‘MOF-Jet’, the device works by encasing drugs in structures known as metalorganic frameworks, or MOFs, and shooting them into the body in puffs of air. Delivering drugs in this way causes no more pain than being hit with a child’s toy foam bullet, the researchers say. They are currently using MOF-Jet to deliver chemotherapeutics as a treatment for skin cancer, and plan to extend its use to other drugs in the future. YEARS TO GO 25 COSMIC CONCRETE MADE OF…

Years ago, my therapist recommended I read a dog-training book, telling me that “the same principles work for humans”. I thanked her, but said it felt too condescending to train my husband like a dog. “No,” she laughed, “the book is to help you train yourself.” If therapists refer their patients to generalisable frameworks (in this case, even to dogs), then couldn’t an AI hot function as a therapist by giving the same advice? The short answer is yes, but we don’t know at what risk. Finding a therapist is hard. The pandemic saw stark increases in depression and anxiety, leading to a global shortage of mental health professionals. Therapy can be expensive, and even for those who can afford it, seeking help requires the effort of reaching out, making…

On TikTok, a craze has run wild under the hashtag #LuckyGirlSyndrome, which at the time of writing has over 600 million views. You can take your pick of popular female TikTokers who purport to explain the concept. Their shared claim is that once they started repeating mantras or ‘affirmations’ on a regular basis, such as “I genuinely believe that the best things just happen to me” or “Things are always working out for me no matter how it looks at any given point in time”, they created their own luck and amazingly good things started happening. For instance, one typical advocate of the method, who credits the technique with her launch of a successful business, a new friendship circle and much more, explains that “if you revert back to the…

Homedics Myti Mini Massage Gun £119,99, homedics.co.uk The Homedics Myti is only 14cm high and weighs just 350g, but it packs an impressive 3,000 percussions per minute (ppm) at top speed, which is the peak of its four modes. Its petite size is matched by its petite sound, as this is one quiet gun. It comes with four head attachments: ball, U-shaped, flat, targeted and even heated. The heated flat massage head warms up to 45°C in just 15 seconds and is designed to further stimulate bloodflow within the muscle tissue to accelerate recovery. It’s USB-C rechargeable for use on the go, lasts for a maximum of three hours and comes in a svelte protective case. All in all, it’s impressive stuff, though we’d like a little more exercise guidance…

FEATURE WEIGHT LOSS many of us would like to shed a few kilos, and keep them off. This has never been more relevant, as three years of pandemic living has resulted in some of us putting on unwanted weight. But if you head online for some advice, prepare to be disappointed. Doctors, scientists and influencers seem to be locked in a tussle over what exactly works when it comes to shedding fat. There’s the like of diet expert Prof Tim Spector, who set TikTok ‘influencers’ into a sweaty flurry over his soundbite on the Diary Of A CEO podcast when he said “exercise doesn’t work”. To clarify, it is of course possible to lose weight through exercise. After all, Tour de France cyclists eat around 5,000 calories a day and…

MANDY WILSON, LONDON It sounds as if you suffer from the common affliction of postprandial somnolence, otherwise known as a food coma. Postprandial somnolence is not completely understood in humans, although there have been experiments on rodents, fruit flies and nematode worms. A meal filled with high-carb and high-sugar foods, such as potatoes, breakfast cereals and white bread, may be more likely to make you slump. These foods have a high glycaemic index, rapidly releasing sugars in the body. The spike in blood glucose instructs the body to produce more insulin, which sets off a chain of biological events leading to muscle and fat cells taking up glucose. This can cause blood sugar levels to crash, leading to low energy. When you eat, your body activates its parasympathetic nervous system…

EXPLAINER There is a network of brain structures, known as the limbic system, that is involved in fear and anxiety and the acquisition of phobias. Perhaps the most important structure is the amygdala (there’s one each side of the brain), which plays a significant role in learning fears. Imagine as a kid, hearing a buzzing sound and then getting stung by a wasp - your amygdala would play a key role in helping you learn an association between the buzzing sound and the future risk of getting stung. If the fear is intense enough, the amygdala will communicate with other parts of the limbic system such as the hypothalamus, to help initiate the fight or flight response, and the hindbrain (including the brainstem), to trigger a startle response such as…

There is a scene in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2, the Marvel movie released in 2017, where the character of Mantis - an alien played by Pom Klementieff - touches Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill on the hand. “You feel love!” she tells him, her face beaming. “I guess, yeah,” he replies, nervously. “I feel a general, unselfish love for just about everybody…” “No! Romantic, sexual love,” she says, before pointing a finger at Quill’s teammate, Zoe Saldana’s Gamora. “For her!” Some superheroes have superstrength. Others fly. Mantis’s superpower is a souped-up version of empathy, meaning that she can touch someone and feel their emotions as though they were her own. Yet according to neuroscientist Dr Dean Burnett, author of new book Emotional Ignorance, this isn’t quite as fantastical as…

Dementia: Unexpected Stories Of The Mind In this short-form five-part series, a neurologist visits the homes of patients with rare forms of dementia to explore the varying natures of the condition and its causes. BBC Radio 4, 10 April, 1:45pm Deep Waters: The Hidden World Of Global Shipping Okay, a radio show about shipping might be a hard sell, but logistics makes the world go round. In this episode we meet a salvage man who discovers shipping crates that get left behind, cracks them open and then makes millions from if what’s inside. BBC World Service, 9 April, 10pm Also available on BBC Sounds Just One Thing Michael Mosley is back with his tips for better living. This time it’s something that’s close to hearts: writing. Tune in to find…

EYE OPENER Nestled amidst the majestic Alpine mountains in the town of Bolzano, Italy, lies the Sant’Antonio hydroelectric plant; a subterranean engineering marvel that harnesses the power of nature to produce sustainable energy. The cavernous basin pictured here is a vital part of the hydroelectric plant; it controls the flow of water and manages the release of energy in the turbine system. With a capacity of 95,000m3, it works by slowing down the flow of water, allowing any excess energy to dissipate, preventing pressure surges that could damage the turbines or other equipment. This process, known as ‘demodulation’, allows the system to compensate for variations in water flow caused by changes in power demand, or fluctuations in the natural supply. Without the basin, rapidly increasing and decreasing water flow can…

reply@sciencefocus.com BBC Science Focus, Eagle House, Bristol, BS14ST @sciencefocus www.facebook.com/sciencefocus @bbcsciencefocus “THE USE OF ANECDOTES RATHER THAN EVIDENCE DEVALUES THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENTIFIC DATA IN WOMEN’S HEALTH AND IS AT THE CORE OF A GROWING PROBLEM” DR MICHELLE GRIFFIN, P39 LETTER OF THE MONTH Responsibility for AI Dr Kate Darling’s commentary on the responsibilities of the creators of Al applications (February, p34), is really no different to a parent’s responsibility towards the education of their children. If you decide to educate your child by allowing them to get all their education from randomly surfing the internet, then the result would be akin to child neglect. No parent would be allowed to claim that they are in no way responsible for their child’s misdirected education. An Al application is still just…

Researching a cosmic mystery like dark matter has its downsides. On the one hand, it’s exciting to be on the road to what might be a profound scientific discovery. On the other hand, it’s hard to convince people it’s worth studying something that’s invisible, untouchable, and apparently made of something entirely unknown. While the vast majority of physicists find the evidence for dark matter’s existence convincing, some continue to examine alternatives, and the views in the press and the public are significantly more divided. The most common response I get when I talk about dark matter is: “isn’t this just something physicists made up to make the maths work out?” The answer to that might surprise you: yes! In fact, everything in physics is made up to make the maths…

INNOVATIONS …the pizza oven goes electric The pizza oven brand Ooni has established itself in gardens across the UK. However, for those in a rush, or who are quite frankly too lazy to start the fire in the bottom of the oven, Ooni has a solution. The Ooni Volt 12 uses no pellets, fire, or gas. Instead, it’s powered by electricity to make a perfect pizza in two minutes. Plus, the Ooni Volt 12 can be used indoors, so your pizza party won’t be a washout when the inevitable British weather arrives. Ooni Volt 12 £739, uk.ooni.com …surrounded by music Sonos isn’t exactly known as the most adventurous audio brand, offering an array of powerful but plain speakers. Now, it is taking a slightly different route with its Era speakers.…

WEIGHT LOSS FEATURE DETOX Any foods or supplements that claim to help ‘detox’ your body are red flags. Our liver and kidneys are our professional detox organs, and nothing we eat will change that. SUPERFOODS There are many foods that are ‘good’ for you, meaning that you can eat a lot of them - most fruit and vegetables sit in this category. There are, however, no such things as ‘superfoods’, which are simply foods with good PR. FAT IS GOOD (OR BAD) It doesn’t matter if you are part of the fat is GOOD for you or BAD for you brigade, the important question to ask is the source of the fat. If it comes from a land-based animal, and is likely to be solid at room temperature, then it…

DEAR DOCTOR… HEALTH QUESTIONS DEALT WITH BY OUR EXPERTS Your urine can change colour and smell according to what you eat. Foods like beetroot, blackberries, and broad beans can turn urine pink or red, for example, as the pigments are excreted by your kidneys. But if truth be told, your urine shouldn’t really smell sweet. Google brings up various anecdotal articles about sugary cereals making our urine smell like them, but this has not been scientifically proven. You might want to consider getting checked for diabetes if you really thinkthis is the case. Diabetes results from issues with the hormone insulin and leads to more blood glucose circulating in the bloodstream. When these blood sugar levels get really high, the body tries to find balance in any way that it…

Dust has always been a problem when exploring Mars. The thin atmosphere kicks up the planet’s fine dust, which then settles on solar panels. This steadily reducesthe sunlight reachingthe panels, until power drops too low for the spacecraft to function. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers avoided this fate as the wind periodically blew the dust away. Not every spacecraft is so lucky. NASA’s most recent victim was the InSight lander, which lost contact with Earth on 15 December 2022 after four years on the surface. So why not just include a ‘windscreen wiper’ to brush away the dust? One of the biggest issues is weight. The mass you can send to another planet is a limit set by the power of your rocket. Every gram counts and adding a cleaning…

WHY DO I GET SO JEALOUS? Not to be confused with envy, which is coveting another person’s status or belongings, jealousy - aka the green-eyed monster - is the unpleasant range of feelings you experience when you sense that your relationship with someone is under threat from a third party. Usually, it occurs in a romantic or sexual context - for example, if you see your boyfriend flirting with someone else - but it can also play out in the context of friendships or in family situations. If you experience a lot of jealousy, perhaps worrying that your partner facies someone else, or you feel an urge to check their text messages for signs of disloyalty, it might be because you have low self-esteem, or because you tend to feel…

Q&A Dubbed ‘part fashion, part mindfulness’, dopamine dressing is the TikTok trend that encourages people to choose clothing that matches their desired mood. So, if we opt for colourful clothing over the drab and dreary, we’ll get a boost of dopamine and feel happier. Dopamine, as a neurotransmitter, is involved in several brain functions including the forming of emotions. It’s not the only molecule that can affect how we feel - serotonin, oxytocin and various endorphins interact with dopamine to give rise to our mood But dopamine does play a fundamental part in our brain’s reward system. As to whether our outfit choice can offer a dopamine boost, to put it plainly, we don’t know - there is no study that has asked participants to change into brightly coloured clothes…

DR DEAN BURNETT Riding a unicorn through a forest filled with iridescent trees?Sounds like you’re dreaming. But what is actually going on in your brain? Neuroscientist Dean explains in his new column. ->p32 PROF DAVID NUTT The recreational use of laughing gas has sky rocketed, and now politicians are calling for tighter regulation. Neuropsychopharmacologist David breaks down its effects, legal status and risks. ->p36 PROF GILES YEO BBC presenter Giles studies how your brain and genetics control your body weight. In this issue, he looks at what we actually know about successful diets.->p52 DR LOUISA PRESTON The JUICE mission blasts off to explore jupiter’s moons this month. Astrobiologist Louisa gives us the lowdown on what sort of life could be lurking there. ->p66…

When astronauts return to the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years as part of NASA’s Artemis missions, this is the spacesuit they will be wearing. Named the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, or AxEMU, the suit was designed by private company Axiom Space. It was unveiled to the public as part of the Moon 2 Mars Festival at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, on 15 March. “Our expert team is ready to provide NASA the next-generation spacesuit,” said Mark Greeley, the Extravehicular Activity (EVA) program manager at Axiom Space. “We carefully considered years of lessons learned by NASA and used that experience to build a spacesuit for the Moon and for our future Axiom Space customers.” The prototype suit on show was fitted with a…

GARMIN EDGE 1040 SOLAR A pricier alternative, this is for serious cyclists. Its big selling point is that it charges via solar, so if you’re cycling in the sunshine, you can go days without needing to charge it. Along with being able to plan routes and show the best directions, it can also display your riding times, speeds and other statistics, and can show you where your weak points were on a route. £629.99, garmin.com SIGMA ROX 11.1 EVO At a similar price to the Beeline Velo 2, the Sigma Rox 11.1 Evo is an affordable yet feature-packed bike tracker. It offers a user-friendly interface and some handy training data. You can put in destinations to be tracked, and it can measure the cadence of your ride, and check your…

…YET ANOTHER SMART GLASSES ATTEMPT Ten years ago, Google released the Google Glass, a pair of smart glasses that were set to change the world. They did not. Since then, countless brands have tried the same, all falling short of the mainstream. Now Xiaomi is giving it a go. The prototype Xiaomi Wireless Glasses aren’t exactly inconspicuous, with two large cameras and a bulky frame. Through augmented reality, you can watch TikTok via theglasses, try out furniture in a room and generally interact with an altered version of your reality. It’s fun, but nothing we haven’t seen countless times before. mi.com …A NEW WAY TO LOOK AT VINYL Like dumping caviar and gold flakes on food, slappinga ‘limited edition’ label on something is a surefire way to ramp up the…

ROBO-CROP In the last 70 years, agriculture has lost the majority of its workforce as generation after generation has turned away from family farming businesses. Despite this, agriculture has found ways to increase food production, with machines playing a key role. But in 2020, the United Nations warned that agricultural productivity would need to increase by 60 per cent in order to feed the predicted global population in 2050. With big producers like the US still struggling to find agricultural labour, that demand simply can’t be met if farming doesn’t change how it operates. “There’s still a massive gap between the labour that agriculture needs and the labour that agriculture has,” says Walt Duflock, vice president of innovation at Western Growers, a crop growers’ association covering the western US. “So…

… WHAT IS A DORMANT BLACK HOLE? WHY CAN’T ROBOTS ON MARS CLEAN THEMSELVES? .. WHY DOES SUGARY PUFFED WHEAT CEREAL MAKE MY WEE SMELL? … WHERE SHOULD YOU STORE YOUR EGGS? … HOW DO SHARKTEETH WORK? … WHY DO I GET SO JEALOUS? … WHY IS LITHIUM SO RARE IN THE UNIVERSE? … WHY CAN’T YOU EAT OR DRINK BEFORE A GENERAL ANAESTHETIC? … HOW INCOGNITO IS INCOGNITO MODE? …CAN THE CLOTHES YOU WEAR REALLY AFFECT YOUR MOOD? … WHY DOESN’T FUSION GENERATE RADIATION? Email your questions to questions@sciencefocus.com or submit on Twitter at @sciencefocus OUR EXPERTS PETE LAWRENCE Astronomy expert AMY ARTHUR Science writer DR NISH MANEK GP and medical expert HOLLY SPANNER Staff writer, BBC Science Focus DR HELEN PILCHER Biologist and science writer DR EMMA DAVIES…

Black holes, although emitting no light of their own, interact with their environment because oftheir enormous gravitational fields. They usually form an accretion disc of material or biting faster and faster as it is pulled towards the event horizon. Friction in the accretion disc heats up the material and produces X-rays, which reveal the presence of the black hole to astronomers. In many cases, the accretion disc, combined with strong magnetic fields, channelsthe flow of matter and energy away from the black hole, in powerful ‘jets’ that are at right angles to the disc. If there is no material available to a black hole, then the accretion disc eventually dissipates. The black hole has stopped ‘feeding’ and there is no material producing X-rays. The black hole has become ‘quiescent’ or…

Although common in the British countryside, a recent viral video has shed new light on the seemingly bizarre adaptations of the muntjac deer; facial glands that can open so wide, they can actually turn inside out. As the smallest species of deer in the UK, around the height of a small to medium-sized dog, muntjac have two sets of scent glands on their face that grow and swell, like balloons filling with air. When relaxed, they look like nothing more than small bumps on the deer’s face, but to other muntjacs, they are a crucial tool for communication and bonding. As the scent glands expand, they secrete a personalised concoction of chemical compounds that convey information about a deer’s sex, age and reproductive status, as well as their overall health,…

EXPLAINER In the context of mental health, a phobia is far more serious than a mild aversion. Many of us dislike flying, or giving a talk in front of our colleagues, and we might not be too happy if a large, slobbery dog, no matter how gentle, came bounding toward us. But as long as we can tolerate these kinds of situations without too much distress, and our lives aren’t adversely affected, then we haven’t got a phobia for any of these situations as such. In contrast, people diagnosed with a relevant phobia would experience an intense, extremely unpleasant fear reaction that could be overwhelming. So much so, that it might interfere with their day-to-day lives. Flying phobias, social phobias, and a fear of dogs (even cute ones) are common…