Indholdsfortegnelse for June 2024 i BBC Science Focus Magazine

When it comes to identifying the cause of earthquakes, you may think you're on solid ground (excuse the pun) by first setting your sights below the ground. According to new research, however, you probably should be looking up to the sky. Scientists at MIT have published findings in the journal Science Advances which suggest that increased heavy snowfall and rain linked to climate change could contribute to earthquakes around the world. It follows their investigation into seismic activity in Japan's Noto Peninsula, which has been hit by hundreds of earthquakes in recent years, including a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in January 2024. A new ‘swarm’ of earthquakes – a pattern of multiple and ongoing quakes – is thought to have begun in northern Japan in 2020. Along with their colleagues in…

A new study has not only found that time-restricted eating is most effective when combined with high-intensity exercise, but also that the timing of these two approaches could enhance their benefits. Time-restricted diets limit when, but not what, you eat. In the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, this counted as eating within an eight-hour window and then fasting for 16 hours. High-intensity functional training (HIFT), meanwhile, combines aerobic and resistance exercise in repeated sets. The research team from the University of Sfax, Tunisia, found that women with obesity had an improved body composition and cardiometabolic health after completing a 12-week programme where these two methods were combined. Crucially, the exercise took place just after the eating period had ended. “Combining exercise (or simply physical activity) and diet is…

Deep in the basement of the physics department at the University of Bristol, Dr Dave Megson-Smith is telling me about how much he dislikes wearing a hazmat suit whenever he goes to Chernobyl. “Once you get in the field, you just start sweating,” says the nuclear physicist. “And suddenly, you're far less aware of your surroundings. You're less safe.” Standing next to Megson-Smith, his colleague Dr Yannick Verbelen adds: “You're tucked into plastic and you're perspiring. It's already a stressful environment because there's radiation around and you don't want to linger too much.” As we talk in the basement, I'm getting an inkling of what that's like. Granted, we're wearing thin blue lab coats rather than hazmat suits, but the heat emanating from the large machines whirring away around us…

COMMENT You may have come across the notion that if you're under 25, your brain isn't fully developed yet. It's been widely reported as fact and supposes that people who haven't yet reached 25 years of age can't think things through or make rational decisions, and so are less responsible than older folk. This fact has formed the basis of official government advice, prison sentencing and more. The only problem is it's not a fact. Never has been. No matter how many TikTokers insist otherwise. Why is it wrong? Well, for lots of reasons. Despite its prevalence, there's no actual data set or specific study that can be invoked or pointed towards as the obvious source of the claim that ‘the human brain stops developing at age 25.’ It could…

ANALYSIS REALITY CHECK For hundreds of years, seafaring folk have told of ‘rogue’ or ‘freak’ waves coming out of nowhere and threatening their vessels. It wouldn't be until New Year's Day 1995, however, when a 26m-high (85ft) surge was recorded at a gas platform in the North Sea, that scientists started taking such reports seriously. The extreme and unpredictable activity has been blamed for numerous incidents at sea. In 2018, eight crew members had to be rescued when waves sank their fishing boat off the Hawaii coast. More recently, a rogue wave slammed into a cruise ship in the Antarctic Ocean, shattering windows and injuring several passengers, one of them fatally. Yet it remains unclear how common rogue waves are. One study based on media reports recorded just 210 waves worldwide…

… RETRO GAMING Let's get real for a second. Handheld gaming has never quite managed to live up to the Game Boy era. Sure, there's been the Nintendo Switch, the Steam Deck and even the PSP, but nothing quite like the classic Game Boy. While all of these devices have given us some great memories, the nostalgia of playing Pokémon, Super Mario and Metroid on the Game Boy's simple, tiny, greyish-green screen feels particularly special. That's why the gaming company Analogue designed the Pocket – a sleek and modern tribute to the Game Boy. By slotting your old cartridges into this system, you can play over 2,780 Game Boy games, while enjoying some modern additions, including Bluetooth connection for headphones, a brighter display and louder speakers. The most modern feature…

The future of human flight arrived quietly, at a time when no one was clocking up air miles. It was June 2020 and the skies were unusually empty as the world reeled at the speed of the COVID-19 outbreak. But down on the ground, something pretty huge was happening with a very small aircraft. EASA, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, certified a two-seater plane made in Slovenia as safe to fly. Within a few years it was certified by equivalent bodies in the UK, the US and elsewhere. The Pipistrel Velis Electro became the first fully certified electric aircraft in the world. It's still the only one. “The achievement represents a growing interest and trust in the reliability of electric aircraft,” says Dr Tine Tomažič, director of engineering and…

END OF THE UNIVERSE FEATURE Most cultures have stories and myths detailing the end of days, from the eventual fate of humans to what will happen to our world and any other realms inhabited by their respective deities. These legends often promise the arrival of a reorganised existence after the cataclysm, a paradise. But what does modern science have to say about the end of days – or to put it in more scientific terms, the end of the Universe? We know that Earth, if it's not destroyed by us or an errant asteroid first, will likely be incinerated when the Sun expands into a red giant. Luckily, that's not likely to happen for at least another five billion years. As for the Universe as a whole, do we have any…

Tempus fugit: time flies. If it ever feels like your days are hurtling by in a blur of meetings, phone notifications and caffeine stops, know that you're not alone. That Latin phrase has its roots in the writings of Roman poet Virgil, a couple of millennia ago, after all. More recently, a survey last year found that six in ten people feel like they don't have enough time in the day to get everything done. ‘Flies’ doesn't quite cut it; time can feel like it's gone supersonic. But new research from George Mason University in the US gives a hint of a much-needed deceleration. Neuroscientists there are studying time dilation, a phenomenon where your perception of time seems to stretch and slow down. In their latest study, they're looking at…

EYE OPENER This is neither a contour map of strange, underground lakes nor the swirling diffusion of a toxic gas. It's the inside of a human bone – a cortical bone from the femoral neck at the top of the femur, to be exact. The blueish lines show the structural units that make up bone, known as mineralised collagen fibrils and lamellae, while the black pools are the canals of soft tissues and blood vessels that deliver vital nutrients to the bone cells. The image was captured at ScopeM at ETH Zurich with second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. SHG analysis can identify what standard imaging can't, such as the structure of collagen. New imaging like this will improve our understanding of the bone structure in healthy, diseased and treated tissues, says…

A watershed review into whether wildlife conservation projects around the world actually work has found success in two-thirds of cases. However, conservationists such as wildlife presenter Chris Packham have warned that much more work is needed in order to prevent mass extinctions. The review, the first of its kind, found that global conservation projects had an overall positive impact on biodiversity: the measure of how much variety in living species there is in a given area. However, the analysis also found that conservation actions will need to be vastly scaled up if we truly want to make a difference in tackling the biodiversity crisis. “Actions will need to be vastly scaled up if we truly want to make a difference in tackling the biodiversity crisis” “It's important to celebrate success,”…

If you were told that the Moon we see in our night sky isn't Earth's only one, you'd probably be a bit surprised. But some people have started to call the strange object that seems to orbit our planet, Earth's ‘second moon’ – and now scientists may have discovered where it came from. In fact, there are many moon-like objects around us in space, but only a handful of the over 200,000 ‘near-Earth asteroids’ (NEAs) have similar orbits to Earth. One of these, named 469219 Kamo‘oalewa, orbits the Sun, but moves in sync with our orbit so appears to orbit the Earth. This makes it our ‘quasi-moon’ or, to some, an ‘Apollo asteroid.’ Potentially as big as the Statue of Liberty, Kamo‘oalewa is between 40 and 100m (131–328 feet) across…

Five thousand slices of brain, each the width one-thousandth the thickness of a human hair, individually scanned. That's what it took to make this image: a microatlas of the human brain. In just a single cubic millimetre, it contains 57,000 cells, 230 millimetres of blood vessels and almost 150 million synapses. The team behind the image, from Harvard University and Google, obtained the live tissue from a woman's brain as she had surgery to control her epileptic seizures, before cutting it into slices. The team then scanned each wafer with a high-speed electron microscope, and used a machine-learning model to stitch the 5,000 scans together to form the image. A mammoth computational challenge, the images took up 1.4 petabytes of data. That's the equivalent of streaming 14,000 full-length, 4K-resolution films.…

Almost all of us snore, just in different ways. Some of our bedrooms are accompanied by the soundtrack of a gentle rhythmic hum, while others are filled with a loud rumble. For most, snoring can be considered entirely normal (if a little irksome for their partners), but for some people, it's a sign that not all is well. It may be an indication of sleep apnoea. Sleep apnoea is a condition characterised by stops and starts in one's breath during sleep. Rarely, this may be due to the brain not signalling for us to breathe, something known as central sleep apnoea. The far more common type, however, is obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). This occurs when there's a mechanical obstruction in the airway that prevents air from entering the lungs when…

FEATURE MOTIVATION Here's a quick question. On a scale of 1–10, how motivated do you feel about doing whatever it is you need to do when you finish reading this? And what does that even mean? As humans, most of us are intrinsically driven to pursue a few things – food, shelter, companionship and recognition. But when it comes to more abstract or long-term goals, some people seem endlessly energised while others struggle to get off the starting blocks. So, what's happening in your brain when you feel motivated? Can you harness that feeling or encourage it to happen more often? And is motivation actually what you need – or can you operate without it? “From a neuropsychological perspective, the main regions of the brain that take part in motivation are…

It's definitely not a ‘honey’ and it's not much of a badger either. While it may belong to the same family of mammals as ‘regular’ badgers, the honey badger doesn't really look like one. Anatomically, it's much closer to a weasel or a polecat. This feisty, cocksure carnivore is found across much of Africa, Southwest Asia and India, where it's renowned as one of nature's badasses. Famed for their strength, tenacity and toughness, honey badgers will pick a fight with seemingly any animal, of any size, and win, much of the time. They actively attack scorpions, pythons and venomous snakes. When threatened, they'll scrap with and see off large predators such as leopards, lions and hyenas. They'll also go for horses, cattle and Cape buffalo, if the animals mess with…

COLIN BULLEN, VIA EMAIL WOULD A PLANET NEED A MOON FOR LIFE TO EVOLVE? The Moon has a significant influence on Earth. The most noticeable one is the rising and falling of tides (although the Sun is also partly responsible for this). But there are other effects that are less noticeable. For instance, the Moon influences the tilt of Earth's rotation axis and how fast it wobbles (called ‘precession’). Without the Moon, that wobble would be greater and would change much more quickly. The result would be much greater differences between the seasons and much greater variation in climate with latitude over evolutionary timescales. So, without the Moon, it's probable that life on Earth would have developed and evolved very differently. It may even have not developed at all. But,…

HEALTH One in five children suffers from atopic eczema (the type related to allergies). For half of those children, the skin condition will last for life. Eczema, while not life-threatening or contagious, can cause serious discomfort, especially in younger years, with common symptoms including itchy and dry skin and, when bacteria are involved, weeping wounds that can lead to infections. A new vaccine could soon prevent it from happening, however. Researchers from Trinity College Dublin have identified how flare-ups of bacteria-driven eczema impact the immune system. A vaccine could bolster the immune system and limit the severity of eczema, as well as reduce the need for antibiotics. It may even treat other atopic diseases, such as hay fever and asthma. Examining a total of 93 children aged from 0–16 years,…

With so many wonders spread out in space, it's daunting to think how much is happening when no one is looking. That's why astronomers were thrilled when a satellite happened to be looking in just the right direction as a rare explosion in space occurred. The giant eruption lit up a whole galaxy, known as M82, 12 million light-years away from Earth. Thinking two colliding neutron stars caused the explosion, astronomers searched for an afterglow, but there wasn't one. They realised this intense gamma-ray burst must have come from a single, megapowerful neutron star. Neutron stars are the remains of massive stars, eight times larger than our Sun, after they explode in a supernova. Instead of turning into a black hole, the remains form compact spheres with strong magnetic fields.…

Neurological conditions are the leading cause of illness and disability around the world. According to the World Health Organization, they affect more than three billion people. The state of our collective brain health has even been described as an ‘emergency’ by the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies. And it's easy to see why: declining neurological health on this level is a new threat, on both a micro and macro level. Poor brain and mental health is linked to lower lifetime earnings for people and the social care costs of dementia in the UK now outstrip those for cancer, stroke and heart disease combined. This all means finding ways to protect neurological wellbeing should be a public health priority. And recent research suggests that nutrition could be a valuable tool. In…

INNOVATIONS PREPARE YOURSELF FOR TOMORROW There's a change occurring in the way we get our food. Steadily, farms are being switched for labs; fields of crops with vertical walls of produce; and meats with cultured cells. And now, a protein made from air. Solein was developed by Solar Foods to be a safe, environmentally friendly and delicious way to get protein into our diets. Launched in 2021, Solar Foods is now upping the ante by unveiling its first factory in Vantaa, Finland. PULLING PROTEIN FROM THIN AIR So how do you turn air into food? “It's a gas fermentation process, similar to beer,” says Ying Zhang, a molecular microbiologist and assistant professor at the University of Nottingham. “Where beer uses sugar, wheat and starch to convert the sugar material into…

1. DUMB DOWN YOUR PHONE Before you do anything else, minimise the influence of things that are competing for your attention. Your smartphone, for example. Studies suggest that just having a smartphone near you makes you more likely to pick it up. Try keeping it out of sight by leaving it in a drawer or your bag if possible. There are also apps available that will transform your home screen from the colourful, alluring delight it is now to a boring blank screen with nothing but text on it. Turn off notifications for anyone who doesn't need to contact you urgently and consider changing your lock screen to a reminder of what's actually worth worrying about – like your family or that cottage in the Cotswolds you're hoping to own…

Gravity is one of the four fundamental forces that glue the stuff of the Universe together. Because the three non-gravitational forces (electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces) have been successfully described as arising from the exchange of force-carrying subatomic particles, theorists suspect a similar ‘quantum’ description also exists for gravity. The force carrier of the electromagnetic force that binds together the atoms in your body is the photon. For the weak nuclear force, which operates within the cores, or nuclei, of atoms, there are three force carriers: the W-, W+ and Z0 bosons; and, for the strong nuclear force, eight kinds of gluons. The hypothetical force carrier of gravity has been christened the ‘graviton.’ The properties of the graviton aren't hard to deduce. In quantum theory, the greater…

SUMMER'S NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS WHEN: JUNE AND JULY From the UK, June and July are the peak months for spotting noctilucent, or night-shining clouds (NLSs). Although clouds may sound like a strange thing to be looking out for in astronomy, these are related to meteor activity and so have an astronomical link (lingering meteor dust high in the atmosphere provides a footing for ice crystals to form around). With the period of night-time darkness rather short currently, NLCs provide an interesting and relatively easy target to try and spot. NLCs are ice-sheet clouds that form around 82km (51 miles) up in the mesosphere, roughly seven times higher than regular tropospheric clouds. At such heights, they're still bathed in sunlight when the Sun is below the horizon for us on the ground…

ACROSS 1 Glorify old sailor? Not initially (5) 4 Buck's mates having small amounts of medicine (5) 8 Behold, behind church: large instrument (5) 9 Cleaning out – not new, but heavenly (7) 10 A great deal to find at the auction (3) 11 Puppets found on board? (5) 12 Not broken during diplomacy (6) 14 Filming line in practice area (8,5) 17 Savage has some champagne with a Liberal (6) 19 Mine volunteers some bread (5) 22 I will shortly be unwell (3) 23 Treated smile as random (7) 24 One transaction is perfect (5) 25 Sentences punishment? (5) 26 Restaurant or its client (5) DOWN 1 Aspect is strangely distracting from reality (8) 2 Radiant silver and blue (5) 3 Excessively regulated, having left group of software functions (7) 4 A number enjoy something (5) 5 Colin is regenerating semiconductor (7) 6 Poorly staff having time off…