Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2019 i BBC Science Focus Magazine

Many of my earliest memories are painful ones. There’s the time I bloodied my nose head-butting a rocking horse, the time I burned my finger touching an iron or the time I took half the skin off my forearm learning to ride my bike. Pain is a great teacher and so these days I keep away from rocking horses and hot irons, and do my best to stay vertical whenever I ride my bike. But what would have happened if none of those accidents had hurt me? That’s a question that a few hundred people might be able to help answer: they have a genetic glitch that effectively renders them unable to feel pain. It’s an incredible twist of nature that has drawn scientists to their genome, who hope to…

Rusty water GERMANY Though this dark landscape might look like it’s criss-crossed by rivers of lava, it’s actually a highly polluted watercourse. The vibrant colour of the river is down to iron hydroxide – the orangey-brown compound which gives rust its colour – and sulfate, which have run into the water as the result of coal mining. When mining lignite – a soft, brown coal used for steam-electric power generation – the groundwater must be lowered, as moisture can damage the stability of the mine. This opens minerals such as pyrite to the air. Pyrite, often found in coal beds, is also known as fool’s gold due to its metallic shine and colour. When exposed to oxygen and water, pyrite reacts to form sulfate and iron hydroxide.…

@sciencefocus Why is Leonardo da Vinci’s scientific legacy so often overlooked? bit.ly/sciencefocus_leo @Nick Wallace Total genius in all areas of his works. Incredible! @sciencefocus Caster Semenya: will limiting testosterone in female athletes make sport fairer? bit.ly/sciencefocus_caster @Richard Goodger Either she is a woman or she is not. If she is a woman how is it even remotely fair to limit or redefine her nature to fit someone else’s subjective idea of ‘fairness’. Shall we bar all basketball players above 6’6” from playing? Ridiculous!…

An antiretroviral treatment developed by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Copenhagen has reduced the possibility of passing on the virus that causes AIDS to zero. The study, named PARTNER2, involved nearly 1,000 European gay couples in which one partner was HIV positive and the other HIV negative. Over the course of the eight-year study the couples reported having sex without the use of condoms nearly 80,000 times. None of them was found to pass on the virus to the HIV negative partner. The researchers…

Over the last 200 years or so, following the Industrial Revolution, the urban population has been growing. People have been flocking to cities, lured by promises of better jobs, more money, and improved quality of life. Experts estimate that this trend will continue, and all these people will need places to live, leading to a larger number of tall buildings and megacities. What makes a skyscraper? Building heights are measured by the The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. In ranking the world’s tallest buildings, structures are measured to their ‘architectural top’, which includes spires, but excludes things like flagpoles. If a building is over 300m tall, it’s defined as being ‘supertall’. Over 600m tall and it’s classed as ‘megatall’. More ambiguity exists over the wider definition of a…

Who doesn’t want to increase their productivity, keep sharp and deliver their best work without suffering any energy dips? Those Silicon Valley types are on the trail of cracking the code. The likes of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are trying biohacking, by living their lives through a strict structure of routines and intermittent fasting. Biohacking is quite literally ‘hacking’ your lifestyle in a bid to enhance mental and physical performance. Techniques include strict diets (including meal-replacement shakes), unusual working regimes, meditation, exercise, oral supplements, ice baths and infrared saunas. In the extreme, biohackers even get implants. Companies that advocate this claim they do so in the name of bionic human augmentation. Dorsey’s biohacking following is huge. He eats only one meal per day, fasts on weekends, walks eight kilometres to…

Angela Saini is an award-winning science journalist and broadcaster. She has two masters degrees, one in engineering from Oxford University and another in science and security from King’s College, London. She has been the recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Kavli Science Journalism gold award and was named the European Science Journalist of the Year by the Euroscience Foundation in 2009. Her new book Superior: The Return Of Race Science is released on 30 May.…

There aren’t any accurate measures of exactly how much of what’s online is fake (content that’s deliberately misleading or inaccurate, rather than honest mistakes). Part of the problem is that a lot of fake stories creep past the algorithms designed to spot them – recent studies suggest these algorithms are only around 75 per cent accurate. Online fakery takes many forms. While we’re most familiar with fake news in politics, there’s a growing roster of phoney content, from deepfake videos to ‘sockpuppet’ accounts created to post positive reviews on consumer websites. The main problem with fake content isn’t necessarily the volume, it’s the fact that it propagates like wildfire. A study published in Science last year found that fake stories are shared far more widely on Twitter than real ones.…

Welcome to our 2019 reader survey! You will probably have noticed that we’ve recently changed the name of BBC Focus to BBC Science Focus. We’re really excited by this evolution and the other modifications we’ve made, all using your feedback to previous research – so thank you! This is your chance to tell us what you think about the new-look BBC Science Focus and continue to help shape how we move forwards. Please return your completed questionnaire by 13 June 2019 to the Freepost address supplied at the end, or alternatively you can fill it in online at sciencefocus.com/readersurvey UK residents who return a completed questionnaire have the opportunity to enter our prize draw for a chance to win one of four £100 Amazon vouchers; please see our T&Cs on…

DR ALASTAIR GUNN Astronomer, astrophysicist ALEX FRANKLINCHEUNG Environment/ climate expert DR PETER J BENTLEY Computer scientist, author PROF ALICE GREGORY Psychologist, sleep expert DR HILARY GUITE Former GP, science writer CHARLOTTE CORNEY Zoo director, conservationist DR HELEN SCALES Oceans expert, science writer DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT Neuroscientist, science writer DR EMMA DAVIES Chemistry expert, science writer LUIS VILLAZON Science/tech writer JULES HOWARD Zoologist, science writer PROF ROBERT MATTHEWS Physicist, science writer…

JOIN A GYM A 2017 study at the University of Bath found that going to the pub once a week adds four additional people to your available pool of potential matches each month. But the gym is even better – you’ll meet seven new people in an average month. ORGANISE A WORK NIGHT OUT The University of Bath study also found that after-work drinks were four times more effective as a way of meeting ‘the one’ than waiting to be set up with friends of friends. CREATE A DATING PROFILE Meeting people online is more effective than any of the traditional strategies. A third of Americans married between 2005 and 2012 began their relationships online. A 2013 study also found that marriages that begin online are less likely to end…

MAY 2019 MARKS THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF LEONARDO DA VINCI. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MARK THE OCCASION? In the Royal Collection, we’re fortunate to have the most important group of Leonardo’s drawings to survive. It’s more than 500 sheets that have been together as a group since Leonardo’s death all those years ago. In the summer we’re having an exhibition of 200 drawings by Leonardo at the Queen’s Gallery next to Buckingham Palace. We’re hoping that it gives people an opportunity to see Leonardo’s drawings in a way that they’ve never done before. CAN YOU CONTEXTUALISE FOR US THE IMPORTANCE OF THESE DRAWINGS? Drawing was central to Leonardo’s work. It’s the paintings that have survived today, but he was also a sculptor, an architect, an engineer…

WHY WEARABLES? I have a keen interest in methods for monitoring stress in athletes, and that’s where my interest in health and wearable technology comes in; understanding how they work, whether they’ve been validated, and whether they agree with gold standard technology. HOW DOES VALIDATION WORK? There’s no standardised method, but a comparison to gold standard is the best way to go. Some Fitbit devices allow you to monitor sleep patterns and sleep quality, so the comparison there would be to send someone to a sleep clinic. You’d hook them up to cables to monitor brain activity, and also give them a Fitbit device to wear. You’d compare the two to see the level of agreement. For a heart rate monitor, you’d compare it with a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG). Getting…

BBC Sounds Dr Kevin Fong tells the dramatic story of how the Apollo 11 mission was narrowly saved from disaster. 13 Minutes To The Moon is available to download from bbc.co.uk/sounds Radio BBC Radio 4’s All In The Mind delves into the psychology of motivation in a special episode recorded live at the Cheltenham Science festival. Hear the broadcast on 11 June. TV Brian Cox returns to our screens soon with his brand new series The Planets . Check Radio Times for details.…

Road rage I have been a keen supporter of cycling for many years and am also a driver and pedestrian. In recent years, however, I have been disappointed by the antics of what appears to be a growing number of cyclists. They seem to consider that signs do not apply to them, and ride in such a selfish manner as to antagonise and frustrate other road and pavement users. They ignore traffic lights or swerve onto pavements to bypass them, pay no attention to pedestrian crossings and ride in a manner that makes passing them extremely dangerous. I could go on. I do think this minority group of cyclists bring of a lot of the anger against cyclists on themselves. They also put themselves and others in unnecessary danger by…

HUMANS CAN SMELL WITH THEIR TONGUES Humans can detect smells with their tongues, according to a study from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Pennsylvania. Human taste cells contain a molecule which allows them to respond to smells as well as tastes. It was long thought that the flavour of a food or drink was the result of the brain merging the smell and taste inputs. This research suggests the two could be combined before they even reach the brain. This unusual feature could be harnessed to encourage healthier eating: for example, by modifying a snack’s smell, scientists could make it taste sweeter, so you can eat less and still satisfy your sweet tooth.…

#beluga It seemed something fishy was going on in the small harbour town of Tufjord, Norway when a group of locals came upon an unusually friendly beluga whale wearing a harness with the words ‘Property of St Petersburg’ written on it. This has led some to speculate that the whale may have been trained by the Russia army. Dr Helen Scales @helenscales In 2017 Russian media reported that Soviet military bases in the Arctic were training captive Beluga whales to ‘assist military divers and help kill enemy intruders’ So, it seems likely this one could be a defector from the Russian navy. Sarah Durant @SarahMDurant This is why we need a Fifth Geneva Convention to safeguard wildlife and the environment at times of war - no state should be allowed…

As a result of her rare genetic mutation, Jo Cameron experienced no pain during the birth of her two children. Friends who had given birth before her told her to take every form of pain relief she could get. “I promised them I’d take something as soon as I needed it, but I never did,” she says. New research shows that Jo is by no means a one-off – and the pain experiences of many of us are influenced by our genes. Prof Geoff Woods and a team from the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research have found a more common genetic trait that seems to confer on some women a relatively pain-free state during labour. Examining a group of 196 women who didn’t request or require analgesia during their first…

“There were around 500 genes that were affected by the amount of sleep the volunteers had” Recently, I celebrated my 62nd birthday. On the whole I am in pretty good shape, but one of the most annoying things about ageing is that over the years my sleep has become shallower and more fitful. These days I rarely get more than seven hours sleep a night, and I often get less. So how much does that really matter? A while ago I was involved in an experiment for the BBC series, Trust Me, I’m A Doctor, where we decided to assess the effects of sleeping fewer than seven hours a night. We asked a group of volunteers to come to the University of Surrey Sleep Research Centre. The volunteers were randomly…

SPOTTING BRAIN TUMOURS It’s widely predicted that AI, and deep learning in particular, will transform medical diagnoses, through being trained to spot everything from breast cancer to Alzheimer’s disease in scans. The trouble is, the AI software needs a lot of data to hone its detection skills. Deepfake technology can help by generating vast numbers of fake scans containing realistic tumours and lesions. BETTER LIP-SYNCING What if a film could be shot in one language and then translated into others with perfect lip syncing? Last year, BBC Click created a video showing presenter Matthew Amroliwala delivering the news in Spanish, Mandarin and Hindi, despite the fact that he only speaks English (bit.ly/language_news). The same tech has enabled David Beckham to speak nine languages ( bit.ly/Beckham_malaria). RESURRECTING THE DEAD The British…

to win one of four Amazon vouchers worth £100, please clearly in the spaces below. Please return your questionnaire by 13 June 2019 to: FREEPOST DATAGEMS MARKET RESEARCH Immediate Media Co (Publishers of BBC Science Focus) would like to keep you informed of newsletters, special offers and promotions via email. You may unsubscribe from these these from us IMMEDIATE MEDIA COMPANY LIMITED PRIZE DRAW TERMS AND CONDITIONS The promoter is Immediate Media Company. The promotion is open to all residents of the UK, including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, aged connected with the promotion or their direct family members. The closing date for entries is 13 June 2019. By entering the promotion, the participants agree: (a) to be bound by these terms and conditions; (b) that their…

Billions of tonnes of magnetised plasma are periodically ejected into space by the Sun’s churning convection currents in the upper layers of its atmosphere. These ‘coronal mass ejections’ (CMEs) travel at speeds of up to 11,000,000 kilometres per hour, and the Sun can fire off as many as 20 per week, depending on where it is in its 11-year activity cycle. Although CMEs are common, they are launched in a narrow arc, and the chances of a large one hitting the Earth are relatively low. We had a near miss in 2012, but the last big strike was in 1859, before society became reliant on electricity. If a CME on a similar scale was to strike the Earth today, it could damage the electronics  in orbiting satellites, disrupting navigation and…

I’M IN MY 30s AND I NEVER FOLLOW THE NUTRITION LABELS ON FOOD.AM I ABOUT TO DIE? Probably not immediately, but you may be compromising your long-term health. That’s because those colour-coded labels on the front of packaging – introduced by the government on a voluntary basis in 2013 – are a quick guide to the content of food widely held to affect health: energy (calories), total fat, saturated fat, total sugars and salt. Each is categorised red, amber or green depending on how they compare to so-called daily ‘reference intakes’ (RIs) set by the European Food Safety Authority. Admittedly, these aren’t a perfect guide, though. Take the RI for energy: 2,000kcals (kilocalories) per day. This figure is used across the board, but strictly it’s the RI for a moderately…

1. Pink Floyd’s best-selling album was The Dark Side Of The Moon. There is no dark side, though: the hemisphere of the Moon facing away from Earth experiences just as much sunlight as the side that we see. 2. On 3 January 2019, China’s Chang’e 4 lander became the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the far side of the Moon. 3. It carried the ‘Lunar Micro Ecosystem’, a sealed 3kg cylinder containing insect eggs and seeds of various plants, designed to test whether they could successfully grow in lunar gravity. 4. Several of the seeds germinated, including some potatoes. The seedlings grew successfully for several days, until they eventually succumbed to the -50°C temperatures of the lunar night.…

WHAT I’M READING Helen Glenny EDITORIAL ASSISTANT MURMUR BY WILL EAVES (£8.99, CB EDITIONS) Murmurtakes its inspiration from the last years of Alan Turing’s life, starting with his arrest and conviction for gross indecency with another male. Turing’s punishment was state-enforced chemical castration; a series of weekly injections with stilboelstrol, a synthetic oestrogen, which altered both his body and his mind. Turing predicted that “no doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I’ve not found out”. In Murmur, Eaves explores these changes through the character Alec Pryor, a fictional representation of Turing. The first part of the novel is presented as Pryor’s personal diary, in which he writes bursts of thoughts around his arrest, the beginning of his treatment, and his appointments…

Reality check HISTORIANS USE LASERS TO UNLOCK MYSTERIES OF GOTHIC CATHEDRALS Watch Andrew Tallon capture the details of a cathedral in Washington DC using the same laser scanning method he used in Notre-Dame. bit.ly/notre_dame_lasers MEET THE BIOHACKERS These ‘biohackers’ are trying to optimise their lives by inserting technology under their skin, radically changing their diets, or trying to create an entirely new human species. bit.ly/bbc_biohackers BIOHACKING Prof Jonathan Ball explores gene hacking technology to see just how easy it is to edit the human genome. bit.ly/radio4_biohacking No more pain FROM AGONY TO ANALGESIA Irene Tracey, a professor of neuroimaging, explores the science of how we see pain in the brain and body and how we treat it. bit.ly/bbc_agony THE OTHER SIDE OF HAPPINESS: EMBRACING A MORE FEARLESS APPROACH TO LIVING…

DR STUART CLARK Mars is alive with activity, but what about actual life? Astronomer Stuart takes us through the latest Martian discoveries and what they tell us about life in the Solar System. p70 ANGELA SAINI The author of Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong reveals how misguided ideas about race have shaped the scientific agenda and the danger they pose. p48 PROF CATHARINA SVANBORG Immunology scientist Catharina is on the hunt for cancer-killing compounds. She talks to us about how she found them in human breast milk. p20 DR SALEYHA AHSAN Being a doctor and TV presenter, Saleyha knows what it’s like to be busy. She looks into the growing trend of hacking your health to become more productive. p33…

Magic of music I recently read your article about dementia (May, p66). My wife was first diagnosed with ‘early stage’ Alzheimer’s in 2012 and has gradually declined. She has been in a care home now for two years and sleeps the vast majority of the time, is totally immobile and incontinent, with reduced eyesight and hearing. The home is excellent with an ‘outstanding’ overall review from the Care Quality Commission, so I am lucky in that respect. The reason for writing is that when I read that a recent House of Lords inquiry had taken place about the untapped potential of music with the intention that in 2020 a new campaign is to launch, I was genuinely shocked. The majority of good care homes use music already. When a patient…

• PoweReverse™ – AutoMatic Drive System senses and delivers power to the front wheels to provide a reverse assist for easy manoeuvring. • Enhanced comfort and control – the Iso-Flex™ handle is designed to float with a high/ low range for enhanced operator comfortand control. • Reduce storage space – the SmartStow® mower stores upright, reducing the storage footprint needed by up to 70%*. • Recycle on Demand – quickly switch from recycling to collecting in seconds by flipping the quick-change lever.…

Being bullied in school can drastically increase your chance of developing mental health problems, according to a new study from Lancaster University. The researchers looked at data from 7,000 students aged 14 and 16, who were interviewed again at 21 and 25. Bullying increased the extent of mental health problems at age 25 by 40 per cent. Plus, those who were bullied were 35 per cent more likely to be unemployed, and those who were working earned about 2 per cent less on average.…

200, 000 The number of populations of marine viruses found in the world’s oceans as part of a pole-to-pole survey led by researchers at Ohio State University 23 BIOLOGY million The number of girls not born worldwide since 1970 due to sex selective abortions, as estimated by researchers at the National University of Singapore. 16 The number of minutes of lost sleep per night that can lead to increased stress levels, poorer judgment and worse workplace performance, according to a study at the University of South Florida.…

Want six-pack abs but don’t fancy bashing out hundreds of crunches every morning? Good news: a team at the University of Miami has devised a new method of removing stubborn fat from your muffin top. Dubbed ‘abdominal etching’, it uses precisely targeted liposuction to sculpt the abdominal fat to accentuate the patient’s natural six-pack lines. The researchers trialled it on 26 men and 24 women who were in reasonable shape. The patients kept their chiselled torsos for up to six years.…

The lander touched down on the surface of Mars in November and will study the planet’s interior structure with the hope of answering key questions about the early formation of rocky planets in the Solar System for the next two years.…

For centuries the problem of pain has eluded easy answers. It’s part of everyone’s daily life and causes constant agony for the millions suffering from chronic conditions that refuse to respond to treatment. Now, though, new answers about the nature of pain are emerging not from the everyday, ordinary experience of it but from the extraordinary: from the handful of people who don’t experience pain at all. These ‘real-life X-Men’ are pain-free from birth because of genetic mutations. And studying them is revealing that, amid all the other complex contributors to the way we feel pain, the role of our genes may be crucial. BURNS, BLEEDS AND BRUISES Until she was in her 60s, Jo Cameron, 71, thought she was just like everybody else – a bit more accident-prone, carefree…

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT RACE SCIENCE? I grew up as an ethnic minority in London at a time when it was a very racist place, during the 80s and 90s. For me, the big event that kind of overshadowed my teenage years was the Stephen Lawrence murder – I lived quite close to where he was killed. It was quite a dark place anyway: the BNP bookshop was nearby and they used to march in my town quite regularly. This is the book I always wanted to write. I think we’re living in an age when there’s a rise in racism, the far right and nationalism. I never imagined that politics would take such a dark turn again, but here we are. Whatever else is…

“Inside that machine, Robert discovered that his son hadn’t been lonely or solitary” When Mats Steen died, his parents, Robert and Trude, thought their son had lived a lonely life. He’d spent much of his time in a dark apartment with only his caregiver for company. And that was a source of great sorrow for his parents, who grieved when Mats had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at the age of four, and had been confined to a wheelchair not long after. They lamented that Mats would never climb trees, never fall in love. Never have a ‘normal’ life. And somehow what they understood about living a full and rich life with a physical disability stopped there. When Mats was 10, Robert gave him a computer. As his body continued…

It’s 2 November 2020, the eve of the US presidential election, and a secretly recorded video is all over the news. Donald Trump has been filmed saying that he’s been “talking to the Russians. Believe me, I’ve been doing some incredible spying. Really incredible”. Despite Trump’s protests that he never said those words, it proves to have a major effect on voters, and the rival Democratic candidate wins the election. But Trump was telling the truth – he didn’t say those words. The footage of him was generated by ‘deepfake’ technology, which uses sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) to create video and audio that impersonates real people. The technology is in use already and, if left unchecked, could lead us to start doubting everything we watch and hear online. But it’s…

JUDITH ROBINSON WHY CAN BABIES CRY FOR HOURS, BUT ONE FOOTBALL MATCH CAN LEAVE A FAN HOARSE FOR DAYS? Crying is an important behaviour for babies to make sure that they get prompt attention from their parents when they need something. Newborn babies cry for an average of 6.7 hours per day, something that would make an adult become hoarse, lose their voice and eventually develop growths (‘nodules’) on their vocal cords. Infants have so much endurance because their vocal cords don’t have stiffening ligaments yet, and are packed with hyaluronic acid, which makes them much more elastic and shock-absorbing. A side effect of these adaptations is that babies are unable to accurately articulate sounds, which goes some way to explaining all their babbling. LV ROBERT LUCAS, WEST MALLING IS…

HEXOSKIN SMART SHIRTS These t-shirts and vests allow you to move away from using a wrist-based tracker. They’ll record the basics like heart rate (which has been clinically validated) and GPS data, and a tonne of other metrics, like breathing rate, ECG, acceleration and exercise intensity. FROM $399 (£310 APPROX), HEXOSKIN.COM SUUNTO 9 The Suunto 9 takes care of everything you might possibly need from a watch, with a price tag to match. It combines GPS and motion sensors for super-accurate distance tracking, uses a barometer to track altitude, predicts the weather, reads your heart rate, and has customised modes for more than 80 sports. £625, SUUNTO.COM COROS PACE Designed for triathletes, this watch focuses solely on the important variables; it measures heart rate at the wrist, give you information…