Innehållsförteckning för March 2024 från BBC Science Focus Magazine

Move over intermittent fasting, Atkins, Dukan, keto, paleo, Mediterranean and all the rest: there's a new diet on the scene to make you healthier and keep you young. At least, that's according to a new study led by the University of South Carolina Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, and published in the journal Nature Communications. It suggests that cycles of a fastingmimicking diet (FMD) can lower risk factors for disease and reduce biological age in humans. Developed by Prof Valter Longo and his team, the FMD involves a five-day diet high in unsaturated fats and low in overall calories, protein and carbohydrates. Mimicking the effects of a water-only fast, it provides necessary nutrients while making fasting more manageable. Researchers studied two groups of men and women aged 18 to 70,…

REALITY CHECK | REVIEW THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES Social media | Digital healthcare | Prostate cancer “Data gathered in 168 countries across 18 years suggests there's no causal relationship between the introduction of the internet and the wellbeing of young people” For more fact-checking news, visit the BBC's Verify website at bit.ly/BBCVerify What's the most effective way to protect children's mental health? The answer that's been echoed by waves of politicians across the world over the last two decades is to ban them from social media. Such calls have, understandably, seen a recent resurgence in the UK. They follow the murder of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey and the revelation that her teenage killers had frequently shared violent videos on social media apps. As Conservative MP Miriam Cates recently argued, such a crime…

THREE-BODY PROBLEM FEATURE THIS MONTH, A NEW TV ADAPTATION OF ONE OF THE BIGGEST (AND ONE OF OUR FAVOURITE) SCI-FI BOOKS FROM THIS CENTURY LANDS ON NETFLIX. IT'S A THRILLING STORY ANCHORED BY IDEAS AND BREAKTHROUGHS FROM THE CUTTINGEDGE OF SCIENCE AND TECH. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T READ THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM YET, HERE'S A GUIDE TO THE SCIENCE ON SHOW THE SOURCE MATERIAL The sheer scale of Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem and its two sequels, The Dark Forest and Death's End, is extraordinary. Known collectively as the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, it's a masterpiece of science-fiction storytelling in which the Universe itself is as much a main character as the humans, aliens and artificial intelligences that the readers encounter. From the detection of an extraterrestrial signal…

We've all seen the adverts. 'This one, simple trick will blitz the blubber around your belly'; 'Turn your body into a furnace and burn off your spare tyre with this diet hack'; 'Get Adonis abs by doing this five-minute workout'. But exactly how sceptical of their claims should we be? What does science actually tell us about getting rid of belly fat? Well, the first thing to say is that not all fat is bad. To maintain good health, it's critical that our bodies can store excess energy, and they do this using fat. Fat tissue is also structurally important in our bodies – it helps keep us warm through insulation and it cushions the palms of our hands, the soles of our feet and, yes, our bottoms. The fat…

ASTRONOMY FOR BEGINNERS Locate the Plough (aka Saucepan), which is almost overhead near to midnight. Viewing it as a saucepan, identify the two stars in the pan nearest the handle. Extend the line they make down from the saucepan and eventually you'll arrive at Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, the Lion. Above Regulus, the lion's head is represented by a backward question mark of stars known as the Sickle. The lion's body is a rectangular shape to the east, or left, of the Sickle, while its tail is marked by a pointed triangle formed by the eastern side of the rectangle and the middle-bright star Denebola. Legend has it that this wasn't the original end of Leo's tail. A story tells that Queen Berenice II of Egypt was so…

PENCILS AT THE READY! ACROSS 1 Dance jacket (6) 4 Prose about exhibitionist (5) 8 London building that's small and solid (5) 9 Obvious I have overcome damage (7) 10 Glum, working with old tycoon (5) 12 Suffering is wrong next to river (7) 13 Different opinion regarding transplant (6,2,5) 15 Members of the clergy with elaborate stripes (7) 17 Caught nobleman backing an undesirable person (5) 19 Worker bringing queen back an aerial (7) 20 Sugary dessert (5) 22 Health worker runs off to Spain (5) 23 Time for sorceress to quiver (6) DOWN 1 Head of broadcasting upset some cleaner (5) 2 Pleased about meadow (3) 3 Warning making socialist tire (3,4) 4 Previous cleric (5) 5 Argument included dubious clue with European gamble (9) 6 Go back to refuge (7) 7 Celestial object performing ornate turns (7,4) 11 Warrior pleased to stir up a riot (9) 13…

CrowdScience: is the BMI fatphobic? Scientists help the team unpack whether having a high body mass index means you're unhealthy. BBC World Service Also available on BBC Sounds The Space Shutttle That Fell to Earth Twenty-one years after the reentry disaster that stunned the world, this thoughtful and incisive three-part documentary tells the story of the crew and the spacecraft, Columbia, that would ultimately fail them. Available on BBC iPlayer Sliced Bread: Pots and Pans A subject close to many of our hearts: cooking. Greg Foot helps consumers navigate the dizzying array of cookware to explain what works best and, ultimately, what's the safest to cook with. BBC Radio 4 Also available on BBC Sounds…

EYE OPENER In the two years since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched into space, it has dazzled us with high-quality images of exploding stars, distant planets, massive nebulae and more. In one of its more recent collections, the JWST has captured images of 19 relatively nearby spiral galaxies, such as this one: the catchy-sounding NGC 4254, looking spectacular with its orange arms and anchored by its blue central region. In this image, it's possible to see clearly how densely populated the galaxy is. Within the blue light are clusters of older stars, noticeable as tiny dots. The orange arms – made of stars, gas and dust – circle out counterclockwise from the centre and appear darker in more populated areas. Captured using both near-and mid-infrared light, this…

DISCOVERIES PHYSICS Quantum gravity has long baffled scientists. Now, a breakthrough discovery could change physics forever What happens inside a black hole? How did the Big Bang begin? How do forces unite to form the cosmos? Scientists could be closer than ever to answering humanity's biggest questions because they've finally found a way to measure gravity in the quantum world. Using a new technique, a team from the UK, the Netherlands and Italy detected a weak gravitational pull on a tiny particle. So tiny was the particle, in fact, that it's the smallest mass at which gravitational signals have ever been recorded. The technique involved levitating the particle in extremely cold temperatures, close to absolute zero (about -273°C/-459°F). By using magnets and superconducting devices (known as 'traps'), they then isolated the…

It may look like the Eye of Sauron, but the tiny purple-blue sphere in the image above is actually an incredibly dense neutron star surrounded by stellar debris. The image marks the moment an international team of astronomers found the neutron star hidden inside a giant supernova that exploded 37 years ago. Named Supernova (SN) 1987A, the exploded star is the most studied supernova and the brightest one in 400 years. For a few months before it faded, it could even be seen with the naked eye from Earth. But what remained hiding at its centre has been a source of mystery for almost four decades. “What remained hiding at its centre has been a source of mystery for almost four decades” Supernovae form when a star over 8-10 times…

A new study has found that we may be overlooking the truly happiest people in the world because they're rarely included in the figures. In global happiness rankings such as the World Happiness Report (WHR), scientists tend to observe a correlation between high levels of life satisfaction and high income. However, these polls often do not distinguish small-scale Indigenous and local societies from whole nations. In some of these communities, money plays a small role in everyday life. In fact, the new study suggests that not all happiness is money-related. Instead, it reveals that some societies with low incomes (who depend on nature, rather than money) have remarkably high life satisfaction, which could even make them the happiest people in the world. “The strong correlation frequently observed between income and…

From artificial intelligence algorithms that spot early cancers, to the 'doctor-in-your-pocket' smartphone video consultation, a string of next-generation healthcare technologies are being unveiled at a rapid rate. For instance, as recently announced in England, users of the NHS app can now collect medications from a pharmacy without having to visit a healthcare centre – the usual paper slip given by doctors being replaced by an in-app barcode. Such innovations have brought huge benefits to millions of patients. But the advantages of such digitisation are not distributed equally. According to a 2023 Ofcom report, one household in 13 has no access to the internet and a similar proportion has no home computer. Yet even within connected households, the so-called 'digital skills gap' means many people could still struggle. Imagine this typical…

In 2023, ChatGPT took off. The online artificial intelligence (AI) tool became so big that even your uncle who doesn't own a smartphone knew about it. But as its owners, OpenAI, continue to polish and improve their prodigy, there's a competitor ready to take over. Soon after the launch of ChatGPT, Google announced it was working on its own AI tool, Bard. A rival to OpenAI's offering, Bard could do all the things ChatGPT could, but with the might of the world's largest search engine behind it. Now, Google is taking another step forward with its latest AI project: Google Gemini. Currently being rolled out, Gemini is claimed to already be outperforming ChatGPT and it's left plenty of us wondering if Google will take the AI top spot in 2024.…

FEATURE | WEIRDEST PLACES IN THE UNIVERSE THE DIAMOND PLANET PLANET 55 CANCRI E Forty-one light-years away lies a star known as either 55 Cancri, or Copernicus. Ripping around it at a roaring pace is the planet 55 Cancri e, also called Janssen. The planet takes a little over 17 hours to complete an orbit. At eight times the mass of Earth, 55 Cancri e is a scorched super-Earth. The temperature climbs as high as 2,400°C (4,350°F) – enough to melt almost every type of metal. Back in 2010, a study concluded that the carbon-to-oxygen ratio of the planet's host star was unusually high. If that ratio also exists on 55 Cancri e, then, combined with the planet's vital statistics, models suggest that the carbon would mostly exist in diamond…

SPACE Thanks to a tell-tale scar, scientists have labelled a white dwarf star as a 'cannibal' for probably ingesting the surrounding planets and asteroids that it was born with. Known as WD 0816-310, the white dwarf is now an Earth-sized remnant of a star that was previously as big as our Sun. Researchers have spotted a unique clue regarding its nature on its surface: a metallic scar, the likely remains of one of its 'meals'. “Nothing like this has been seen before,” said the study's co-author John Landstreet, Professor Emeritus at Western University in Ontario, Canada. The results of the observation have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. Researchers made their discovery using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. A concentration of metals makes up…

Microscopic robots might be a common sci-fi theme, but they're increasingly finding their way into real-life applications. The most recent application comes from a team of researchers in Canada who are using tiny bots, in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, to treat liver cancer. As the robots are made of iron-oxide nanoparticles, they can be guided by an external magnetic field – in this case, the field generated by the MRI machine – to theoretically provide targeted medical treatment. To do this, the researchers have developed an algorithm to guide the microrobots to the arterial branches that feed a tumour. The algorithm fine-tunes the magnetic field to overcome the force of gravity acting on the robots (in case the spot where the robots are injected is lower than…

The first quarter of this year has heralded outbreaks of measles in the US and the UK; a global shortage of the cholera vaccine; and even a case of bubonic plague for the unlucky owner of an infected cat in Oregon. Infectious diseases we thought were long gone are resurfacing, thanks in part to global conflict, international travel and climate change. But how much disease re-emergence is normal? To find out, we spoke to Paul Hunter, Professor in Medicine at University of East Anglia's Norwich Medical School. HOW NORMAL IS IT FOR DISEASES THAT WE THINK ARE GONE TO COME BACK? The issue is whether they've actually gone or not. A lot of infections that were common once and still spread within society can come back with force in the…

The news of King Charles's recent prostate issues and subsequent cancer diagnosis has brought the subject of prostate health problems into the public consciousness. It seems the King doesn't have prostate cancer, but he has been praised for raising awareness of the issue, especially for older men. The charity Prostate Cancer UK has been asking men, via billboards up and down the country, to check their risk of cancer and to see their GP if there are any warning signs, such as frequent, difficult-to-control urination. Prostate cancer remains a complex and nuanced condition, however. The prostate gland sits under the bladder and tends to get larger with age. The urethra – the tube that drains urine from the bladder to the outside world – passes through it. This means that…

ROY MEDDINGS VIA EMAIL HOW CAN A VIRUS SURVIVE IN ICE FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS? Permafrost, ground that is continually frozen, appears to be an unlikely place to find life. In recent years, however, scientists have discovered an abundance of micro-organisms frozen in the permafrost (below left), many of which are still alive. A wide range of viruses have been found, including those called Pandoraviruses, which were found frozen in 30,000-year-old permafrost in Siberia. The researchers were able to revive one frozen Pandoravirus that, thankfully, only infects amoeba. Other more concerning viruses have also been found, including the strain of influenza that caused the 1918 pandemic and a relative of the smallpox virus that was found in a 300-year-old Siberian mummy. In both cases, the genomes of the viruses had…

Spring is here, which means the trees and shrubs aren't the only things that are blossoming. So too is the itch in every gardener's mind to start work on this year's blooms. We don't want to prune your enthusiasm, but you might want to sheath the shovel and stow the hoe, as the prevailing wisdom on soil science is to go easy on the earth in your garden. No-dig gardening is fast becoming the way to grow for soil scientists and horticulturists alike. The rationale is simple: it's a greener, easier way to grow plants and vegetables. But why is digging no good? “Digging disrupts natural processes that keep soil healthy and productive,” says Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). “Minimising cultivation is desirable when trying…