Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2025 i BBC Science Focus Magazine

Look into my eye NORTH CAROLINA, USA Bigger doesn’t always mean better, certainly not in the case of this eyeball anyway. About the size of an orange, this particular orb once belonged to a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae), one of the largest mammals swimming in the world’s oceans. But despite its scale, this eye – a preserved specimen, which came from a young male that died after colliding with a boat in 2011 – didn’t offer much in the way of sight. That’s according to researchers at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and Duke University, North Carolina, in the US, whose study of it suggests these whales have relatively weak eyesight. Based on their examinations of the enormous eyeball, humpbacks can detect large, simple shapes in the open ocean…

“Just like a well-tuned instrument doesn’t need to be played louder to be heard, the brains of older musicians stay finely tuned” Tickling the ivories could help protect you from dementia, according to two recent studies looking into the brain health of older musicians. While one study looked at the effects of practising music for decades, the other investigated picking up a new instrument later in life. In both, playing music was associated with less age-related cognitive decline. FIGHTING BRAIN STRAIN The first study, published in PLOS Biology, was a collaboration between scientists in Canada and China, who recruited 50 adults with an average age of 65. Half didn’t play an instrument, and half had played an instrument for at least 32 years. They also recruited 24 young people, with…

When I started studying honeybees in 1998, I quickly noticed just how much people loved them. I also realised that people’s knowledge rarely extended beyond “bees make honey” and “they live in hives”. Sometimes there would be mention of beeswax or queen bees, but in general, love for these insects was based on surface knowledge and cultural links – very often Winnie the Pooh. Over the next 10 years or so, I noticed things changed. Pollination became something people started to recognise and care about. Suddenly, bees were essential for our food production. Then disaster struck. Around 2007, the first reports of mysterious mass disappearances of honeybees -especially in the US – started to appear in the world’s news. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was at the forefront of people’s minds…

Let’s be honest, I’d much rather be playing Mario Kart than writing this. That’s the power the Nintendo Switch 2 wields: you’ll be thinking about it long after you put the console down. That’s because it’s the only place you’ll find the likes of Mario, Zelda and Donkey Kong. Their respective games are era-defining and, perhaps, the last bastion of pure, unadulterated fun in a gaming universe plagued by microtransactions, gambling mechanics and tedious dialogue. They make the Switch 2 simply joyful. As for the new hardware, it’s brilliant, but not ground-breaking. This is an overdue refinement of the winning formula that made its predecessor such a hit. A new, bigger, sharper, brighter screen and a more powerful chipset means that the Switch 2 balances the demands of a living…

1. KNEE-TO-WALL Tests your: ankle flexibility Stand with your big toe 5–10cm (2–4in) from a wall and bend your knee to try and touch the wall. If you can, move your foot back until you reach a point where you can just touch the wall before your heel lifts up. “8–10cm (3–4in) is a good distance. Shorter than that would suggest you’re a bit tight,” Ingram says. “It’s also important that you’re roughly equal on both sides because an imbalance can cause other problems.” 2. LEG RAISE Tests your: hamstrings Lie on your back and, while keeping your leg straight, lift it off the ground (it’s helpful to have someone to support it). Lift until you feel a tightness, then measure the angle from horizontal. “80° and above seems to…

Speaking to Lynn over Zoom, I can’t help but inspect the shelves behind her. The upper two hold a handful of vases and some ceramics. On the lowest shelf sit two small, neat piles of papers and books. All is tidy, the scene uncluttered. Lynn, who’s 66, says she was forced to confront her hoarding behaviour around 12 years ago when her widowed father wanted to move in with her but couldn’t because her house was too full of stuff. “There were bags everywhere. I couldn’t have sat at the dining room table like this,” she says. Her dad, like many people unfamiliar with hoarding, thought he could help by starting the clearing process. This wasn’t helpful. She recalls coming home one evening to find he’d put a load of…

Sport and exercise stopped being compulsory the moment you left school. And if you’ve been giving them a wide berth ever since, you’ll have been missing out on the many benefits that regular exercise has to offer. If you’re the other side of 40, however, you may have fallen into the trap of thinking you’ve missed out on those benefits for good – that fitness is something that passed you by a long time ago and there’s no point starting to chase it now. But you’d be wrong. Even if you’ve led a slothful existence up to now, you can still reap significant health benefits simply by moving more. In a recent paper published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers found that those who consistently exercised in adulthood…

Forget what you thought you knew about alpha males. A major new study suggests that clear-cut male dominance in primate societies is far from universal, and that in many species, females hold equal power or even come out on top. Researchers spent five years compiling data from 253 primate populations across 121 species to investigate power dynamics between the sexes. Instead of relying on assumptions, they gathered detailed behavioural records – for example, who fought whom and who won. In all, the team observed male dominance, where they win over 90 per cent of contests with the opposite sex, in just 25 of the 151 populations with measurable data on intersexual aggression (fights between males and females). Female dominance occurred in 16 populations, with the remaining 70 per cent of…

Matching your exercise routine to your personality could be the key to sticking with a fitness programme, a new study has found. The study, led by Prof Flaminia Ronca at University College London, found that people who enjoy exercising are more likely to stick with it long term. “Enjoyment is key to behaviour change,” Ronca told BBC Science Focus. “If we want to encourage people to be more active, we should be more strategic in finding activities that they enjoy doing, so they keep coming back to them.” The researchers categorised the study’s participants according to the ‘Big 5’ personality traits: agreeableness (willingness to cooperate); openness (willingness to try new things); conscientiousness (self-control and attention to detail); extraversion (how social they were); and neuroticism (tendency towards anxiety, depression and other…

You may have heard of ‘fibremaxxing’. The recent health trend has been popularised on social media platforms like TikTok and involves people increasing their daily fibre intake dramatically – often well beyond the recommended amount of 25–30g (0.9–1oz) per day -with the aim of improving their gut health. Influencers have been hailing fibre as the “new protein” and loading up on high-fibre foods such as beans, lentils, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and even taking extra fibre supplements to hit their elevated daily consumption targets. The theory is that doing so has a suite of health benefits. It’s said to improve digestion, help to make bowel movements more regular, increase gut bacteria and potentially help ease the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The trend has grown out of the…

How far can you run? One kilometre? Five? 10 perhaps? Maybe you’re fit enough to run a half-marathon without too much fuss. Possibly even a full one. Whatever your record for distance might be, it’s nothing compared to some of the planet’s birds. During a migration, certain species will cover hundreds of kilometres in one go – all without stopping for a snack or even a drink. These birds’ incredible feats of athleticism have piqued scientists’ interest, because understanding the physiology behind them could give us a deeper insight into the fundamentals of biology and even improve our own health. Globally, some 20 per cent of bird species are regular migrants, with the Arctic tern snatching the top spot for having the longest annual round trip, covering up to 90,000km…

When the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched on Christmas Day 2021, astronomers hoped it would revolutionise our understanding of the early stages of the Universe. And they were right. Almost as soon as the telescope was switched on, astronomers saw something surprising: there seemed to be big, bright galaxies everywhere in the early Universe. They had predictions about how many galaxies they should see and how large those galaxies would be, but there were far more of them than they had imagined. This led to a flurry of headlines and a whole lot of head scratching in the field, because, at first glance, the galaxies the astronomers were seeing seemed to be impossible. There simply wasn’t enough time since the Big Bang for that many stars to have formed…

Remember the last total lunar eclipse back in March of this year? There was a lot of cloud so you may have missed it, but to jog your memory, it happened as the Moon approached setting. Well, on 7 September, we have the other half! No, it’s not the same event of course, but it is a total lunar eclipse and this one takes place as the Moon rises. There are several issues trying to observe such an eclipse, however. For one, the full Moon will be rising while covered by the darkest part of Earth’s shadow, the umbral shadow. This means that as it pokes above the horizon, it’ll be darker than usual and harder to see. Totality ends just after moonrise, so the UK will see the second…

It may sound like a bit of a stretch, but being more flexible could add years to your life. Our body’s ability to bend and flex gives us more than just the ability to touch our toes or claim bragging rights at a yoga class. It keeps us mobile and healthy, and researchers are beginning to wonder if the effects could actually be profound. A long-term study published in 2024 looked at people’s flexibility in middle age, testing the range of motion in their ankles, knees, hips, spine, shoulders, elbows and wrists. When the study began 13 years ago, participants were given an overall score for flexibility, then tracked over the intervening years. Researchers found that people with greater flexibility had a lower risk of premature death. The study observed…

My mind does a strange kind of somersault whenever I’m reminded of my approaching 40th birthday. It’s as if the turning of the decade is a complete surprise – when I have, of course, had half a lifetime to get used to the idea. I look to my past and wince with pain as I see how many of my childhood dreams have been unfulfilled; then I look to the future and see a kind of blank space, without any clear direction. I mostly avoid articulating the fears behind my midlife crisis and the questions that arise from them: Why am I here? What will be left behind when I’m gone? The trouble is, this existential uncertainty doesn’t bode well for my health in the years ahead. “If you have…

The spider-tailed horned viper contains the raw ingredients of two of the world’s most common phobias: arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and ophidiophobia (fear of snakes). The only way it could possibly up the ante would be if it was hanging out on a high ledge (acrophobia) wearing a clown costume (coulrophobia). This, however, is unlikely. The spidertailed snake spends most of its time hiding in the rocky crevices of the Zagros Mountains on the border between Iraq and Iran. It’s named for its remarkable tail, which sports a bulbous tip fringed by long ‘leggy’ scales that give it the appearance of a spider. The first recorded specimen was captured in 1968 and then pickled in formaldehyde. When researchers at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, in the US, studied it…

PENCILS AT THE READY! ACROSS 1 Informant on the lawn (5) 4 A pot initially concealed garden pest (5) 8 Surprise in a labyrinth (5) 9 Idiot is not much of a comedian (7) 10 Garland from fertile island (3) 11 Right time to come back and send money (5) 12 Vital review on a country (6) 14 Inheritance share split - that’s the difference with kids (10,3) 17 Pairs reforming large shape (6) 19 Tried working when exhausted (5) 22 I am putting pressure on rascal (3) 23 Drinks to some tennis (7) 24 Loathing element - not sulphur (5) 25 Woman has a right to cut (5) 26 Pick-me-up, usually after a gin (5) DOWN 1 Good boy mocks finery (4,4) 2 Panic that wakes you up (5) 3 Lets her stray in sanctuary (7) 4 Distribute a great deal, by the sound of it…

Life is more than a series of numbers, but these days it doesn’t always feel that way. We live in the age of wearable technology, health tracking and obsessive optimisation. Armed with just a few discreet gizmos, a willing human being can practically turn themselves into a sentient spreadsheet. We can monitor – by the hour -our blood oxygen, respiratory rate, glucose levels, REM sleep, skin temperature, heart rate variability, body composition and many other biomarkers. You can track your diet, your mood, your menstrual cycle, even your bowel movements if you really want to. The idea, of course, is that with all of this data at our fingertips we’ll fine-tune our existence and extend it. But how do you make it make sense? How can we glean genuine health…