Innehållsförteckning för March 2022 från BBC Science Focus Magazine

There’s a certain genre of social media that sets my teeth on edge, and that’s celebrity routines. If you haven’t seen them, it’s when the rich and famous share what they do in a day. It turns out the secret to their success is actually a meticulously devised routine: hey wake up at 2:30am, play golf at 7:30am, and they’re in the cryo-chamber by 9:30am while the rest of us are still scratching around for coffee. For them, breakfast might be a nourishing Buddhist chant or perhaps an algal powder cocktail because they haven’t earned a meal yet. By the end of the day, the only way to really recharge is to sit in front of a Himalayan salt lamp for half an hour. If you can’t find one of…

Optimus wine CHANGI AIRPORT, SINGAPORE If you find yourself in Changi Airport, Singapore, this pair of robotic arms will offer you a free drink. Inside the airport’s duty-free shop, Toni the robot bartender can provide you with a sample from the selection of 150 bottles hanging from the ceiling. To kick things off you have to install the Makr Shakr app on your smartphone, and from there you can concoct your very own cocktail. The robotic arms, built by KUKA, have been spared from a life working on a factory floor and have a suite of laser scanners to pull off the delicate, precise movements required to handle glass and make a vodka martini (shaken, not stirred). In case you’re wondering, should any tipsy customer decide to lurch behind the…

In January, Elon Musk’s SpaceX once again made headline news: a large section of rocket booster belonging to the spaceflight company was found to be on course to smash into the Moon. The errant chunk of space junk, which has been careering around the Earth for the last seven years, was spotted by American astronomer Bill Gray. He identified it as the upper section of a Falcon 9 rocket, launched from Florida in 2015, which had run out of fuel and become trapped in an ‘chaotic orbit’. Many internet pundits and social media users were incensed. Then shortly after Gray’s announcement, a group of students based at the University of Arizona’s Space Domain Awareness lab eventually identified the offending piece of defunct space hardware as belonging to a Chang’e 5-T1 rocket…

There are neurons in the human brain that light up when we hear singing, neuroscientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have discovered, publishing their results in Current Biology. Found in the auditory cortex, the part of the brain’s temporal lobe that processes sound, these neurons appear to respond to the specific combination of voice and music, rather than just ordinary speech, or instrumentals with no vocals. “The work provides evidence for relatively fine-grained segregation of function within the auditory cortex, in a way that aligns with an intuitive distinction within music,” said lead author Dr Samuel Norman-Haignere. These findings build on a 2015 study from the same team, where they investigated the relationship between music and the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In this earlier research, the…

SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES Retiring the ISS | Air quality on the Tube | UK renewable energy “There are some adults who can now say that there has been someone in space for every single day of their lives” It is one of the most iconic pieces of space hardware in history, but the days of the International Space Station are now officially numbered. NASA has announced that the curtain will finally fall on the ISS in 2031. The football-pitch-sized orbit outpost will be decommissioned and brought crashing back to Earth before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. HOW LONG HAS THE ISS BEEN UP THERE? The ISS has a rich history. The first segment was launched in 1998 and it has been continuously inhabited since November 2000, with crews…

WOUND HEALER Using shape memory polymers (SMPs), a scientist at Virginia Tech has developed a material that can be formed into a temporary shape when exposed to heat. This could be applied to an injury where it would expand out to fill the wound when it reached body temperature. INSPIRED BY NATURE In a study published by the American Chemical Society, researchers printed liquid metal circuits onto a piece of polymer that curls under pressure. It could be used in soft robots to mimic behaviours seen in nature. This is normally hard to do, due to the clunky machinery that is needed. ENERGY COLLECTOR Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a rubber-like solid, capable of absorbing and releasing large amounts of energy. This could be used to…

…an electric surfboard Awake is a company that specialises in electric surfboards and with the RÄVIK S22, they’re happily claiming it’s the “most extreme electric surfboard in the world”. Rad, dude. With a top speed of around 56km/h (35mph) and a 0-50km/h (0-31mph) acceleration in four seconds, it certainly sounds extreme, tubular even. But with only 15-20 minutes of riding time between charges, you’ll need to cram your bodacious board time into small bursts. Awake RÄVIK S22 €12,900 (£10,760 approx), awakeboards.com …a lighting setup for your webcam For those of us in office jobs, video meetings are going nowhere, so why not look your absolute best while you do them? Logitech’s new webcam light, built for budding streamers, beams out a soft glow that should conceal just how recently you’ve…

reply@sciencefocus.com BBC Science Focus, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST @sciencefocus www.facebook.com/sciencefocus @bbcsciencefocus Pie in the sky? There are several drawbacks to the idea that air taxis are about to take off in a big way (January, p44). First, these flying machines require batteries to power their electric motors, so can supply and demand constraints limit their growth? Second, as the skies fill up with these machines, won’t this just lead to congestion? Third, what about the increased risks of collisions as the skies fill up? Fourth, these machines are likely to be expensive, so it is only the rich who are likely to benefit. No, I suspect this is just another pie-in-the-sky idea. Steve Jones Stay cool We have heard so much from Dr Michael Mosley on his Just One…

Our love of the natural world is partially baked into our genes, a study carried out by researchers from the University of Queensland and the National University of Singapore suggests. Using data collected by TwinsUK, the most detailed and extensive twin study ever carried out, the team compared the genetic heritability of two types of trait – how strongly a person feels connected to nature, and the amount of time they spend in nature – in more than 1,000 sets of twins. They found that identical twins, who share almost all of their genes, were more similar to each other than fraternal twins, who share around half of their genes, in their appreciation of nature. This genetic influence was present in between 34 per cent for frequency of garden visits…

These stunning images are some of the highlights from eight cutting-edge projects that will receive millions of pounds of funding from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) in 2022. The funding is going to be raised by the 2022 TCS London Marathon. “BHF-funded research has spearheaded treatments to give people with heart failure longer, healthier lives, but there is no cure. Regenerative medicine offers that hope,” said Prof Metin Avkiran, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation. “The money raised by the 2022 TCS London Marathon will enable these researchers to push the boundaries of medicine by finding ways to teach the heart to repair itself. Unlocking these secrets could help heal hearts and transform the outcomes for people living with devastating heart failure.” 1 & 2. Researchers at King’s…

ROBOTICS Transformers… activate! Shape-shifting tech inspired by kirigami allows robot to change shape and function This new soft robot (pictured left) can morph from a four-wheeled car into a drone and back again, with the application of a little heat. To create this bot, a team at Virginia Tech needed to develop an entirely new type of flexible material. “When we started the project, we wanted a material that could do three things: change shape, hold that shape, and then return to the original configuration, and to do this over many cycles,” says Michael Bartlett, an assistant professor who led the team. “One of the challenges was to create a material that was soft enough to dramatically change shape, yet rigid enough to create adaptable machines that can perform different…

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve cracked my knuckles. I don’t want to do it, but it’s compulsive – the release of the pressure pent up in my fingers. And so, despite years of resolutions, promises to myself and systems of reward and punishment, I continue. I know that eventually I will end up with terrible arthritis. But wait – it turns out I won’t. Just the other day I discovered that a doctor in 2009 won the IgNobel Prize for Medicine for doing the research that broke the long-held link between knuckle-cracking and arthritis. He cracked the knuckles on one hand for 60 years, to find out if he would develop arthritis (he didn’t). The IgNobel Prizes are awarded annually for extraordinary research achievements in science that make…

... HOW IS COAL FORMED? ... WHAT IS PAROSMIA? ... DO DOGS GET TIRED WAGGING THEIR TAIL? ... HOW DOES NUCLEAR FUSION WORK? ... WHY DOES LEFTOVER PIZZA TASTE SO GOOD? ... HOW DO MILANKOVITCH CYCLES AFFECT CLIMATE?... WHY DO WE GET BORED? ... WHAT IS WATERMELON SNOW? ... HOW DID DINOSAURS SLEEP? ... HOW DO YOU READ BINARY NUMBERS? ... HOW DO I KNOW IF MY TOE IS BROKEN OR JUST BRUISED? Email your questions to questions@sciencefocus.com or submit on Twitter @sciencefocus OUR EXPERTS DR EMMA DAVIES Science writer DR PETER BENTLEY Computer scientist DR STEVE BRUSATTE Veteran palaeontologist DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT Psychologist and author PETE LAWRENCE Astronomy expert DR ALASTAIR GUNN Astrophysics lecturer DR NISH MANEK Medical expert and GP trainee DR HELEN PILCHER Biologist and science writer…

PROF BILL MAGUIRE A professor of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL, Bill looks back at a year of volcanic activity to explain what it’s taught us about Earth’s geology. →p44 DR KAELI SWIFT Crows are incredibly smart: they can learn, imitate sounds, and even carry out rituals for their dead. Bird expert Kaeli tells us more. →p66 HAYLEY BENNETT What if we could have spotted COVID-19 sooner? Science writer Hayley finds out whether it’s possible to create a system that could stop a pandemic in its tracks. →p72 PROF DANN MITCHELL Tornadoes, waterspouts, fire devils and snowspouts. Professor of climate science Dann gives us the lowdown on twisters and how they form. →p86 CONTACT US AdvertisingDavid.DSouza@ourmedia.co.uk0117 300 8110 Letters for publicationreply@sciencefocus.com Editorial enquirieseditorialenquiries@sciencefocus.com0117 300 8755 Subscriptionsbuysubscriptions.com/contactus03330 162 113* Other…

DR YICHAO YU AND PROF MARK LYTHGOE Neuroscientists YOUR TECHNIQUE FOCUSED ON ASTROCYTES. WHAT EXACTLY ARE THEY? Yichao Yu: They’re a type of glial cell [non-neuronal cells that are found in the brain and spinal cord]. They’re very abundant, they outnumber neurons [nerve cells] many times over. Traditionally they’re viewed as support cells, they recycle the neurotransmitters that neurons release. They do many logistical maintenance jobs in the brain. But in recent years, as we’ve learnt more about these cells, we’ve found that they have many other functions, such as regulating cognitive behaviour. Mark Lythgoe: For the last hundred years they’ve been the second-class citizen in the brain in terms of cells. Neurons have taken the limelight because they’re electrically active [send electrical signals] and supposedly control all our functions.…

From April 2022, average household energy bills will jump by more than 50 per cent as a result of energy providers having to swallow massive increases in the cost of gas. Gas supplies come from global supply chains that are subject to changing market demands and regional geopolitics. And the pandemic, of course, has created all kinds of anomalies. But why, in an age of renewable energy, is the UK still at the mercy of gas prices? The contribution to UK power generation from renewable sources has more than doubled since 2014. Yet we’re in a situation of dependence on fossil fuels that is going to put a serious strain on people’s finances for the foreseeable future. The most obvious explanation is that the capacity of our renewable sources isn’t…

“WAKING UP AT 4AM WILL MAKE YOU MORE PRODUCTIVE!” (FALSE) It’s regularly claimed that you’ll be more productive if you get up early. Very early. According to a 2016 Wall Street Journal article, the most successful (and therefore productive) people typically rise at 4am. There’s some logic to it. For instance, if you’re awake while everyone else is still asleep, they won’t distract you, so you’ll be more productive. However, there are many reasons why waking up at 4am could be actively unproductive. An important one stems from our own biology; sleep is crucial for our ability to function, and depriving yourself of it does more harm than good. A typically healthy amount of sleep for adults is around seven to nine hours. Less than that quickly has negative health…

WHAT EXACTLY IS A CORVID? Corvids are a kind of songbird. Corvids, so the Corvidae family, includes crows, ravens, magpies, jays, rooks, jackdaws and choughs. Ravens are the biggest songbird in the world. THEY’RE SONGBIRDS? BUT A CROW MAKES A ‘CAW CAW CAW’ NOISE, WHICH SOUNDS PRETTY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER BIRDS. ‘Songbird’ is a little bit of a tricky name because the designation of songbird is based on both the positioning of the feet and, most importantly, the anatomy of the vocal area. And that’s the feature that these birds share with birds like robins and sparrows and all that kind of thing. Humans produce the sounds that we do using a larynx, and most birds, including songbirds, have what’s called a syrinx. The anatomy does differ a little bit…

WHY DO WE GET BORED? Boredom is like an annoying itch that flares up when you know you want to do something other than what you’re currently doing. Sometimes it’s the situation that’s to blame, such as when you’re stuck on a repetitive work shift or listening politely to a loquacious neighbour. Other times, you might be free to act as you wish, and you know you want to do something, but you just don’t know what to do. Notice how these scenarios are different from the apathetic state of simply not wanting to do anything. Boredom is uncomfortable and, evolutionarily speaking, its adaptive function would seem to be that it motivates us to make a change to our circumstances, to do something more personally meaningful. Related to this, there’s…

The exact maximum speed of Sonic the Hedgehog is debatable (and trust me, there are many people on the internet debating it), but it’s fair to assume that at the very least he is capable of running at l,225km/h (761mph) – the speed of sound. The human world record, for comparison, is 44km/h (27mph), achieved by Usain Bolt during the 100m sprint at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. But while Sonic would surely win every gold medal, would travelling faster than the speed of sound be survivable? “Humans have flown in supersonic vehicles since the late 1940s and in hypersonic vehicles since the 1960s,” says Richard Leland, president of the National Aerospace Training and Research (NASTAR) Center. For clarity, supersonic flight is defined as speeds up to Mach 4.9,…