BBC knowledge - April 2014
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Volume 4 Issue 3
April 2014 `125
R.N.I.MAHENG/2010/35422
PREPARING FOR
SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND
A Times of India publication
Your guide to survive on the Red Planet
p26
CONTENTS
corbis x2, oEWF/KATJA ZAnEllA-Kux, hdWAllpApErs.in, sciEncE phoTo librAry, WiKi, 123rF.com x2, sAmEEr pAWAr
RegulaRs
6 Q&A
Our panel of experts answer the
questions you’ve always wanted to ask
14 Snapshot
Outstanding photographs to inform
and engage
20 Update
The latest intelligence - A nano drug delivery
breakthrough and how scientists can now detect
water vapour on exo-planets
82 Inside The Pages
An excerpt from
The Great Speeches of Modern India
,
edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, which recounts
former PM Indira Gandhi's speech declaring a state of
emergency on 12 June 1975
84 Resorce
Our picks oer the best of science, history and nature
on the web
featuRes
32 Portfolio: Nocturnal Animals
The animals all come out to play at night; Eric Médard
captures the nocturnal wildlife in an array of photographs
40 10 Things You Didn't Know About Sleep
Ever wonder what your body does while you are sleeping
42 The Shadow Universe
Making sense of the Universe and what lies within it
50 NASA’s Craziest Ideas
NASA is synonymous with space technology.
Take a look at 10 projects that border on the bizzare
58 Origins Of Islam
Historian Meenakshi Jain talks about the genesis
and the formation of Islam as a religion
62 How Smart Are Dolphins?
Find out whether the large brain size of the dolphins
equates to them having higher intelligence
68 India's Border Wars
The cloak and dagger circumstances that led
India to defend its borders post independence
70 How Do We Know:
The Structure Of The Periodic Table
The periodic table is a familiar classroom aair.
Find out what led to the discovery of the elements
76 Ye Olde Travel Guide: Madrid, 1621
Pretend you are taking a trip through Madrid in
the year 1621
78 Killed By Their Own Inventions
The stories behind the ironic demise of scientists
killed by their own inventions
CoveR stoRY
26 Preparing For Mars
We look at what you need to pack in your bag
for a journey to Mars
2
April 2014
86 Edu Talk
Interview with Kiran Bir Sethi,
Director of Riverside School,
Ahmedabad
87 Games Review
We review the latest video games
released in the market
88 Gadgets
Lowdown on gadgets riding the new
green technological wave
90 Puzzle Pit
A veritable buet of brain teasers
guaranteed to test your mind
94 In Focus
Elon Musk, billionaire visionary,
engineer, and entrepreneur who is
transforming the way we travel
90
42
62
50
82
58
78
68
The great Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was
in the country recently and BBC
Knowledge got the rare opportunity
to speak with her. For those
unacquainted with Burnell, she
was the one who discovered radio
pulsars in the late 60s. Hers’ is a
very intriguing story. There was an
outrage in the scientific circles as
Burnell was left out when the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 was
given to her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish and Martin
Ryle for the discovery. Of the episode, she said, “I believe
it would demean the Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to
research students, except in very exceptional cases, and
I do not believe this is one of them.” Read Burnell’s
interview on page 24.
The discovery of radio pulsars has affected fascinating areas
of research in astronomy, such as black holes and dark matter.
Another feature inside, The Shadow Universe, (pg 42) is
about the enigma of dark matter – a phenomenon suggested
to explain some wonky behaviour of the Universe, such as
the whizzing stars (faster than usual) circling on the outskirts
of spiral galaxies like ours. What is keeping them in check
from flinging themselves into far off space?
But questionable behaviour is not only some stars’
prerogative. NASA has laid claim to some of that too.
Audacious and insane, these ideas are set to change how we
will explore space (pg 50). Exploring Mars on the other
hand is on the cards sometime very soon. A TV show plans
to send manned-missions from 2024 every two years. And
over 200,000 people globally have applied to travel one way.
Read the cover story on page 26.
This issue is not only about space and astronomy. Find out
about scientists who died while testing their own inventions.
And the real story about dolphins’ intelligence. And the
Origins of Islam, along with the 10 Things You Didn’t
Know About Sleep. Starting with this edition, we
introduce Ye Olde Travel Guide – a witty informative
walk around a city of the world from a time that is not the
present. We start with Madrid of the 1620s. On page 76.
Enjoy.
mrigAnK shArmA (indiA suTrA)
KnowledgeMagIND
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4
April 2014
Jocelyn Bell-Burnell discovered radio
pulsars. She is an astrophysicist who
has worked in areas of the
electromagnetic spectrum, and
observing new sources from radio frequencies to
high energy gamma rays. See page 24
Sean Blair is a freelance writer, a
space expert, science journalist and
currently is the web editor for the
European Space Agency website. In
this issue, he talks about how to make the journey
to Mars and how to live the Martian way of life.
See page 26
Meenakshi Jain is a former Fellow of
the Nehru Memorial Museum and
Library. She is currently the associate
professor of History at Delhi
University. In this issue, she takes us through the
conception and formation of Islam as a religion.
See page 58
Justin Gregg is a science writer and
the author of the book Are Dolphins
Really Smart? A background interest
in linguistics and the evolution of
language, his research focuses on the dolphin's
social cognition. In this issue, he talks about what
is intelligence and how animals use their grey
matter. See page 62
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6
April 2014
experT paneL
A zoologist-turned-science
writer, Stuart is a contributor
to BBC Wildlife Magazine.
A visiting professor at the
University of Plymouth, UK,
Susan is an expert on
psychology and evolution.
Alastair Gunn
Alastair is a radio astronomer
at Jodrell Bank Centre for
Astrophysics at the University
of Manchester, UK.
Robert Matthews
Robert is a writer and researcher.
He is a Visiting Reader in Science
at Aston University, UK.
Gareth Mitchell
As well as lecturing at Imperial
College London, Gareth is a
presenter of Click on the BBC
World Service.
Luis Villazon
Luis has a BSc in computing and
an MSc in zoology from Oxford.
His works include How Cows
Reach The Ground.
Ask the experts?
to questions individually.
Molecules of lactic acid will be
the bane of everyone trying to
shed the festive season pounds
in the New Year
YouR QuEstIoNs ANswEREd
&
What is the maximum number of names a person can remember?
p8
Why do cold drinks give me 'brain freeze' and how do I avoid it?
p9
How
did the goldilocks zone move from Mars?
p11
What makes Google so
much more successful than other search engines?
p12
Why does lactic
acid build up in
our muscles?
VITAL STATS
miles per gallon is the fuel
economy that the world’s rst
road-ready car built using
3D printing, the Urbee 2, will
hopefully achieve
348
During aerobic exercise our muscles ‘burn’
glucose with oxygen to produce carbon
dioxide, water and energy. But when we are
exercising hard, the lungs can’t keep up with
the muscles’ demand for oxygen. Rather
than just giving up, our muscles switch to an
anaerobic chemical reaction that doesn’t
need oxygen.
This is less efcient because it doesn’t
produce as much energy per molecule of
glucose burned, but it’s better than nothing.
Unfortunately, instead of water and carbon
dioxide, anaerobic respiration produces
lactic acid as one of its waste products. If
you exercise hard, this will be produced
faster than your bloodstream can transport
it away to your liver where it is processed
and broken down.
As the level of acid builds up in your
muscles, you feel a burning sensation that
acts as a warning that your muscles are
almost out of energy. Like other sorts of
pain, the ‘purpose’ is to signal that your
body needs to rest. So, next time you go for
a run bear your overworked body a thought
and maybe catch your breath. LV
The appendix was classically
regarded as unnecessary –
even its name implies that it
is a leftover bit. It’s a thin
tube, about the size of half a
pencil, that sticks out of the
cecum, which is a pouch at
the start of the large
intestine. Charles Darwin
thought that our ancestors
ate a lot more plant roughage
than us and needed a larger
cecum to digest it, so the
appendix was originally a
useful compartment of the
intestine that had dwindled
through millions of years
of disuse. Koalas, which
eat very indigestible leaves
have a two-metre-long
cecum that is essentially a
giant appendix.
Certainly it’s true that you
can amputate the appendix
without any obvious long-
term consequences for the
patient. But that same
argument applies to a toe.
Being able to get along
without something doesn’t
mean it’s entirely useless.
Recent research that
compared the intestines
of 361 mammals found
that 50 different, quite
unrelated, species have an
appendix. This means that
the appendix must have
evolved independently at
least 32 times, which
suggests it must be doing
something useful.
It’s now thought that the
appendix acts as an
emergency bunker for your
gut bacteria to shelter in. Its
narrow opening and out-of-
the-way position mean that
bacterial infections don’t
normally get inside it. So
after diarrhoea has ushed
the last of any bad bacteria
out of your intestines, the
good guys can emerge from
the appendix and re-colonise
your colon. LV
What is the function of
the human appendix?
The appendix (pictured on the
left in this X-ray image) could
be a safe-haven for friendly
bacteria in emergency situations
Blood viscosity, or how thick your blood is, is partly
determined by the number and size of your red blood cells.
These make up 41-53 per cent of the blood volume in men
and 36-46 per cent in women. This value is higher if you are
obese, which can increase blood viscosity by as much as 15
per cent and can cause a heart attack. But being dehydrated
can also have an impact. One study found that just sitting in
a warm room for four hours without drinking was enough to
increase blood viscosity by 10 per cent. LV
Keep your blood running
smoothly by staying hydrated
Why can’t we trace the
sender of an email?
Each email has an invisible header containing information
like time stamps and routing information. It does not contain
personal details like the sender’s street name or phone
number. However, the header does contain the originating
IP address. That can narrow the origin down to a city or
district, but seldom anything more specic and certainly
not to an individual.
Online webmail services like Gmail are even more
anonymous. A Gmail message, for instance, can only be
traced back to a Google IP address. GM
sciEncE phoTo librAry, gETTy, ThinKsTocK x2
Does your body’s level of
hydration aect your
blood’s viscosity?
What is the
maximum number
of names a person
can remember?
kNOW spOt
The air around a lightning
There’s no known limit! If you ask a
mnemonist or memory savant to learn a
list of names they may remember
thousands, tens of thousands or even
hundreds of thousands with no trouble,
just as they can learn lists of thousands
of digits. Some people, who have a
neurological condition called
‘hyperthymesia’, remember everything
that happens to them every day,
including the name of every person they
have ever met.
The rest of us evolved to cope with
no more than about 150 social
relationships. This is known as Dunbar’s
number after the anthropologist Robin
Dunbar. He discovered that groups of
hunter-gatherers, units in armies,
divisions in businesses and many other
groups tend towards a limit of 150. And
it seems that social media do not
change our basic nature. Even people
who have thousands of ‘friends’ on
Facebook rarely maintain more than 150
meaningful relationships. SB
Some people don’t need name tags
and can put a name to thousands
Q A
&
ThinKsTocK x3, gETTy, AlAmy, ThinKsTocK
Goats are adapted to living and
feeding on steep, rugged slopes.
Their slim bodies help them creep
along next to near-vertical walls and
their cloven hooves have two toes
which can spread out wide, improving
their balance and allowing them to
grip onto rocks or even the branches
of trees. The soles of their feet are
soft and the rough pads under each
toe provide extra grip. They also have
two vestigial toes higher up their
legs, called dewclaws. These are
found on other species, including
cats and dogs, but goats’ dewclaws
are much stronger and stubbier and
help them clamber up branches, or
scramble down sheer cliff faces. SB
8
April 2014
Can dogs laugh?
They make a sort of
breathy, panting sound
when they are playing.
If you record this and play
it back to other dogs, it
appears to reduce their
stress behaviours, such as
barking and pacing,
and increase their social
behaviours, such as lip
licking. Is that the same
thing as laughter? Or is it
just the dog equivalent of a
broad smile? It’s hard to
say. Humans mostly laugh
at verbal jokes and seeing
other people fall over,
neither of which have
much effect on dogs. SB
Dogs don’t laugh? Tell
that to Scooby-Doo
The ultimate
rock climber:
the humble goat
Why do
goats have
such good
balance?
Substances generate a smell when their molecules land on so-called
olfactory neurones in our noses (which, for some things, is a pretty
unpleasant thought). But the exact nature of the interaction is somewhat
controversial. Until recently, it was believed it took the form of molecules
physically docking with protein receptor molecules in the walls of the
olfactory neurones, like keys tting into locks. This in turn implied that
molecular shape is what determines a specic smell. But this fails to
explain why some molecules with similar shapes can smell completely
different, while others with quite different shapes can have a similar scent.
These conundrums have led Dr Luca Turin of the Alexander Fleming
Research Centre, Athens, to suggest that molecular vibrations are critical.
He’s recently published intriguing evidence that molecular shape is not
everything by showing that two molecules with identical shape but
different vibrational properties can have a different smell. RM
What gives substances their scent?
Next time you smell
something interesting,
think about the substance’s
molecules jiggling around
inside your nose
Why do cold
drinks give me
‘brain freeze’ and
how do I avoid it?
Anything cold against the roof of your
mouth cools the brain, which is right
above it. To maintain temperature, the
anterior cerebral artery dilates to
bring more warm blood to the brain. If
the cooling is very sudden, the artery
dilates too quickly and the pressure in
the brain jumps up, which gives you a
headache. Drinking more slowly, with
pauses to warm your mouth back up,
is normally all you need to do to avoid
it, but brain freeze is worse in people
who are prone to migraines. LV
Walt Disney was delighted
to be offered the chance to
appear in Focus Magazine
Q A
&
Plants use carbon dioxide (CO
2
) during
photosynthesis to make glucose. It takes
six molecules of CO
2
to make every
molecule of glucose, and this basic building
block is then used for energy and to make
the structure of the plant itself. This
biochemical reaction is the same for all
plants, but the faster a plant grows, the
more carbon dioxide it will use up per
second. By that measure, bamboo might be
the best at sucking up CO
2
. However,
fast-growing plants tend not to live long
and when a plant dies, all the carbon in the
plant is broken down by insects, fungi and
microbes and released as CO
2
again.
So the plants that are considered the
most adept at locking away carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere are the longest-living
ones, with the most mass – hardwood trees.
It’s all temporary though. Eventually every
plant returns all the carbon dioxide it uses
back to the atmosphere. LV
Are some plants better than others
at sucking up carbon dioxide?
Hardwood trees will happily
feast on your exhaust fumes,
but you probably don’t
need to go to these lengths
gETTy, AlAmy, ThinKsTocK
10
April 2014
The home of Anakin
Skywalker is slowly being
consumed by the desert
How long can a structure
last in a desert before being
swamped by sand?
Top Ten
bIggEST MOONS IN OUR SOlAR SYSTEM
10. Oberon
Radius: 761km
Location: Uranus
9. Rhea
Radius: 764km
Location: Saturn
8. Titania
Radius: 788km
Location: Uranus
7. Triton
Radius: 1,353km
Location: Neptune
6. Europa
Radius: 1,561km
Location: Jupiter
5. Moon
Radius: 1,737km
Location: Earth
Q A
&
Buildings don’t actually sink into the sand, they are covered
as it’s blown sideways by the wind. Without any plants to
hold the sand in place, it is blown into horseshoe-shaped
dunes, called barchans. Each grain gets blown from the
bottom of the dune up to the crest and then tumbles down
the steeper slope on the leeward side. This means that the
barchan as a whole gradually creeps downwind at about
15m per year. In Tunisia, the set of Anakin Skywalker’s home,
used for
Star Wars Episode I
, is currently being engulfed. In
another ve or six years it will be completely covered. LV
What’s better: one
big bet, or lots of
small ones?
For many people, the best advice is probably not
to have a bet at all, as gambling is notorious for
messing with people’s minds. But if you insist on
doing so, it’s vital to use probability theory. This
shows that how you bet depends on the odds,
and in a casino they’re stacked against you.
The best advice is surprising: the biggest
hope of, say, doubling your money lies in putting
all your money on a single spin of the roulette
wheel. The reason is partly because the payout
on a simple red or black bet in roulette is twice
your stake. The odds of achieving this outcome
are, however, slightly less than 50 per cent, the
difference being the casino’s prot margin. And
that’s why you should make just one big bet. If
you split up your funds into lots of small bets,
you’re effectively giving the casino more
opportunities to nibble away at your funds. That
said, it’s a brave person who can follow this
mathematical advice. But one person who did is
British gambler Ashley Revell, who in 2004 put all
his personal wealth – then around £100,000 – on
a single roulette spin. He won. RM
AlAmy, ThinKsTocK, nAsA x10, sciEncE phoTo librAry
And the winner is… Hong Kong! Internet
users there enjoy top speeds of 63
megabits per second, according to the
most recent gures from the internet rm
Akamai. Hong Kong’s blistering
broadband speeds compare to a
worldwide average of 18.4Mbps. The UK
is number 12 on the list with average
speeds of 36Mbps. GM
Where can you find the fastest
broadband speed in the world?
Hong Kong: a city in
the internet fast lane
4. Io
Radius: 1,821km
Location: Jupiter
3. Callisto
Radius: 2,410km
Location: Jupiter
2. Titan
Radius: 2,576km
Location: Saturn
1. Ganymede
Radius: 2,631km
Location: Jupiter
The ‘goldilocks’ zone is a region around a star (such as the
Sun) where planets are able to retain surface liquid water
– and therefore be suitable sites for life to develop. The
young Mars probably had a dense atmosphere necessary
for liquid water to exist on its surface. But once it became
volcanically inactive early in its history the atmosphere was
no longer replenished and, thanks to Mars’s small
gravitational eld, seeped away into space. Furthermore,
the Red Planet has lost its magnetic eld and so has no
protection from harmful radiation. So, while the position of
the goldilocks zone can change due to changes in the
Sun’s energy output, this isn’t why Mars is no longer
habitable. Changes in Mars itself have turned a once warm,
moist world into a cold, dry one. AG
How did the goldilocks zone move from Mars?
A couple of billion years ago
you could have rolled out a
towel on a Martian beach
12
April 2014
Q A
&
NASA has developed a sort of
jetpack called SAFER (Simplied
Aid For EVA Rescue), which res
compressed nitrogen from 24
thrusters to steer the astronaut
back to safety if they become
detached. Theoretically, astronauts
could also vent some gas from
their suits or even throw a tool in
the opposite direction to push
themselves forward. But the
problem is that unless the thrust is
exactly in line with the astronaut’s
centre of mass, they will start
spinning uncontrollably and very
quickly become disorientated.
SAFER automatically detects
rotation and uses its jets to keep
the astronaut oriented the same
way. LV
Could an astronaut
be rescued if he/she
became untethered
on a space walk?
Does a brainwave equate to a
mental state?
No. The term ‘brainwave’ comes
from the patterns detected by an
apparatus called the
‘electroencephalogram’ (EEG) that
measures electrical signals from
electrodes on the scalp. The overall
frequency gives an indication of a
person’s mental state. For example,
‘alpha waves’ (8-13 per second) are
associated with a relaxed state. But
these surface waves are created
from millions of small electrical
signals in the underlying brain,
so they are a very crude measure
that could not equate to a precise
mental state.
If you mean to ask whether any kind of
brain process equates to a mental state
then you are in the realms of seriously
difcult philosophical questions. ‘Identity
theorists’ say yes – mental states really
are brain states. ‘Functionalists’ argue
that the function being carried out
equates to mental states. For instance,
if a human brain and a computer were
both trying to solve the same chess
problem they would be in the same
mental state. SB
The relaxed signature of alpha waves, which are
enhanced when we close our eyes to chill out
What’s the secret to
Google’s success?
Just google it!
nAsA, sciEncE phoTo librAry x2, googlE, nAsA, ThinKsTocK x2
Astronaut Mark C
Lee tests NASA’s
SAFER back pack
high above Earth
VITAL STATS
years is the time it took for
light to reach us from the most
distant galaxy known. The light
was emitted only 700 million
years after the Big Bang
13.1 billion
What makes Google so much more
successful than other search engines?
Before Google, search results were less
to do with relevance than who was
paying for prominent listings. Early
tools also matched search terms to
sites based on a textual analysis of
their pages. Websites often
manipulated that by littering pages with
irrelevant words inserted for the benet
of the search bots. The breakthrough
for Google was Larry Page’s
eponymous PageRank algorithm. It
listed pages according to the number
of sites linking to them. It also weighted
the results so that a few big pages
linking to a site had more prominence
than many small ones. Google’s
commercial advance was fuelled by
AdWords, where advertisers pay for
their websites to appear above the
search results for the relevant
keywords. The prots from advertising
drove a huge research and
development operation at Google,
feeding back into an ever further
rened engine, ever more targeted ads
and more and more services. GM
snAPsHot
naTUre | sNApsHot
dAniEl KAriKo/bnps
Snug as a bug
UNWANTED ROOMMATES
This odd-looking character is a weevil, which was
found on a doormat in Greensville, North Carolina.
It was taken by Daniel Kariko as part of a collection
of ‘portraits of our often-overlooked housemates’.
It shows the weevil’s head, antennae and long
snout. The full insect is 7mm long.
The image was created by combining details
taken using a scanning electron microscope
with the colours seen under a regular optical
microscope. “It takes 5-10 hours of post-
production to apply the colour,” says Kariko.
Vine weevils, a common garden pest, are all
asexually reproducing females, says Tom Pope,
an entomologist at Harper Adams University,
Shropshire. “When alarmed, an adult vine weevil
will often feign death,” he says, adding that
researchers are looking for ways to exploit this to
control them.
15
April 2014
cORBIs
SCIenCe | sNApsHot
Jet ight
WATER WAY TO TRAVEL
Seen in action is Belgium’s Ludovic Lucas,
demonstrating the latest extreme sport: yboarding.
Invented by Francky Zapata, the Flyboard was
developed in the spring of 2011 and is inspired by jet-
skiing and acrobatic diving.
The device consists of a board attached to a pair
of shoes on one side and a jet-ski turbine on the
other. This provides 90 per cent of the propulsion,
with the last 10 per cent coming from two water
jets on the user’s forearms that are attached to
the turbine by pipes. This allows additional stability
and manoeuvrability, although according to Lucas,
improvements to the technology are planned “to
make it lighter, less bulky and more manoeuvrable.”
“It requires a lot of power to lift a man,” says
Lucas. Indeed, to keep the rider seemingly ying over
the surface, the machine delivers 300 horsepower to
move up to half a tonne of water a second.
16
April 2014
Fluoro yer
UPWARDS AND ONWARDS
In a darkened wind tunnel a model of a prototype
aircraft glows as it is buffeted by gusts. Fluorescent
oil shows up turbulent air as psychedelic
swirls, which enables engineers to study the
craft’s aerodynamics.
The yer is a 5.8 per cent scale model of the
X-48C aircraft created by NASA and Boeing to
investigate Blended Wing Body (BWB) technology.
BWB planes have wings smoothly merged with
the body of the aircraft, resulting in greater fuel
efciency. The whole body of the plane generates
uplift rather than just the wing. They are harder to
control than conventional planes, hence the need
for extensive testing. BWB planes are also quieter
because the engines are mounted on the top.
“The remotely piloted research vehicle was
own 122 times between July 2007 and April
2013 to explore its basic handling qualities. The
project was extremely successful but it is really
just the beginning for the hybrid blended wing
body concept,” explained Peter W Merlin of NASA’s
Dryden Flight Research Center.
nAsA
18
April 2014
UPDATE
ThE lATEsT inTElligEncE
W
e’ve all been there. You’re happily
working away on your computer
when, without warning, the
processor grinds to a halt, leaving you to
look on in frustration as the spinning wheel
of death
Well, today’s lacklustre laptops have
taken a small step closer to obsolescence.
Researchers at Canada’s Simon Fraser
University have managed to store quantum
Two particles exhibit quantum
spin; a quantum computer takes
advantage of this property
information at room temperature for 39
minutes, smashing the previous record of 2
seconds. It’s a step towards the holy grail of
quantum computing, explains Simon Fraser
University’s Prof Mike Thewalt.
“It would have a huge impact on
security, code breaking and the transmission
and storage of secure information. It would
solve problems that are impossible on any
conceivable normal computer and could
lead to the development of new drugs by
a deeper understanding of interactions
between molecules,” says Prof Thewalt.
The quantum computer exploits a
property of subatomic particles known as
‘spin’. The idea is that an atomic nucleus
acts like a tiny bar magnet when placed
in a magnetic field. The spin can be
manipulated to point up or down. If the
spin is up, it represents zero; if down, a one.
This is the equivalent of the familiar ‘bit’.
But a quantum computer deals in ‘qubits’
– these can be in a ‘superposition’ state to
represent ones and zeros at the same time.
It’s why a quantum computer would be so
fast – it would perform multiple calculations
simultaneously.
Until now, quantum systems have
been unable to reliably store data unless
they’ve been first cooled down to incredibly
low temperatures. So storing quantum
information at room temperature for as
long as 39 minutes is a major breakthrough,
says the University of Oxford’s Stephanie
Simmons, who collaborated on the project.
“Thirty-nine minutes may not seem very
long, but in theory, this means that over
20 million operations could be performed
in the time it takes for the superposition
to decay by one per cent,” she explains.
However, there’s still a way to go before
you’ll be turning on a quantum computer
at home. The spins of the 10 billion
phosphorus ions used in this experiment
were all in the same quantum state. To run
calculations, the qubits would need to be
in different states.
“Having such robust, as well as long-
lived, qubits could prove very helpful
for anyone trying to build a quantum
computer. To have them talking to one
another controllably would address the last
big remaining challenge,” says Simmons.
A quantum leap
Superfast computing takes a step forward
with a record-breaking experiment
20
April 2014
sciEncE phoTo librAry x2, mpi For EvoluTionAry AnThropology, iKg.uni-hAnnovEr.dE/dAniEl FiTZnEr
Water found on alien worlds Cars to drive rainfall research
ASTRONOMY METEOROLOGY
The Hubble Space Telescope
has detected water in the
atmospheres surrounding five
distant worlds. The planets
are all massive Jupiter-sized
bodies that orbit close to
their host stars. But thanks
to their blazing hot surface
temperatures they are unlikely
to host life as we know it.
“We’re very confident that
we see a water signature for
multiple planets,” said NASA’s
Avi Mandell. “This work really
opens the door for comparing
how much water is present
in atmospheres on different
kinds of exoplanets, for example
hotter versus cooler ones.”
The studies were part of a
census of exoplanet atmospheres
using Hubble’s Wide Field
Camera 3. The researchers
can identify the gases that
are present on a planet by
determining which wavelengths
of the parent star’s light are
transmitted and which are
partially absorbed.
The study also revealed a
layer of haze or dust around
the planets.
For some people cars are an
outward expression of their
personality, for others they’re
simply a means of getting from
A to B. But researchers at the
University of Hannover have
a different take: they want
motorists to measure rainfall.
Inspired by the observation
that drivers put their wipers
on faster in torrential rain and
slower in light showers, the
team has devised RainCars,
GPS-enabled vehicles that tour
German towns and cities to
record levels of precipitation.
Being mobile gives the
RainCars an advantage over
conventional rain gauges.
While accurate, they are often
too sparsely distributed to
capture the intricate regional
variations in weather patterns.
The team is also hoping to
collaborate with taxi drivers
in the near future.
Nano drug breakthrough
MEDICINE
Nanoparticle drug delivery
systems have proved to be a
huge success in the targeted
treatment of everything from
arthritis to cancer. However,
nanoparticles have had to be
injected into patients – when
taken orally they are unable to
break through the barrier of
cells lining the intestine. Being
able to take them in pill form
would make it easier for patients
to manage their own treatment.
Now a team based at
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
has hit upon a novel solution
that may see the cutting edge
treatments reaching more
patients. “The key challenge
is how to make a nanoparticle
get through this barrier of
cells. Whenever cells want to
form a barrier, they make these
attachments from cell to cell.
It’s a bit like a brick wall where
the bricks are the cells and the
mortar is the attachments,
and nothing can penetrate
that wall,” said team leader
Omid Farokhzad.
A RainCar undergoes tests in
the team’s rain simulator
We can detect water vapour on a
planet by studying the starlight that
has passed through its atmosphere
The hope is that we will
soon be able to swallow a
pill of nanoparticles to fight
disease more effectively
For inspiration, Farokhzad
looked at how babies absorb
antibodies from their mothers’
milk. The antibodies act as a
key to unlock receptors found
on the surfaces of cells that line
the intestine. This allows them
to break through the intestinal
walls and enter the bloodstream.
By coating the nanoparticles
with antibodies, they were able
to reproduce this effect.
So far the technique has only
been used for the oral delivery of
insulin in mice, but researchers
say it could be used to carry
any kind of drug that can be
encapsulated in a nanoparticle.
UPDATE
22
April 2014
ThE lATEsT inTElligEncE
Life from Earth
BIOLOGY
It’s surely one of the biggest
mysteries of all time: how did
life originate on Earth? Now,
scientists may be a step closer
to finding out after the chance
discovery that clay may have
acted as a breeding ground for
the chemicals that form the
building blocks of life.
Researchers from New
York’s Cornell University
stumbled upon the idea after
using clay hydrogels in the
production of proteins. The
team noticed that the clay
boosted protein production,
leading them to think it might
provide the answer to a long-
standing question concerning
the evolution of biomolecules.
“In simulated ancient
seawater, clay forms a hydrogel
– a mass of microscopic spaces
capable of soaking up liquids
like a sponge,” the paper’s
author Dan Luo explained.
“Over billions of years,
chemicals confined in those
spaces could have carried out
the complex reactions that
formed proteins, DNA and
eventually all the machinery
that makes a living cell work.
Clay hydrogels could have
confined and protected those
chemical processes until the
membrane that surrounds living
cells developed.”
Earlier experiments have
shown that amino acids and
other biomolecules could have
been formed in primordial
oceans, drawing energy from
lightning or volcanic vents.
But it was uncertain how these
molecules could go on to form
more complex structures, and
how they were able to survive
the harsh conditions. Clay is
a promising possibility because
biomolecules tend to attach
to its surface. The hydrogel
structure helps to protect
the delicate contents from
damaging enzymes that might
strip down and destroy DNA.
Where it all started? Clay cliffs like these on
an island off the coast of Massachusetts in
the US could be a cradle for life
Nasal navigation
ZOOLOGY
Ever wondered how pigeons
can find their way home having
been released hundreds of
kilometres away? It turns out
they may be simply following
their noses. Hans Wallraff of
the Max Planck Institute for
Ornithology in Seewiesen,
Germany, has developed a
theory that pigeons are able to
smell their way by accurately
perceiving the ratios of various
scents given off by organic
compounds. The pigeon is
then able to find its way by
associating certain smells with
wind directions.
“If the percentage of a
compound increases with
southerly winds, a pigeon
learns this wind-correlated
increase. If released at a site
some 100km south of home,
the bird smells that the ratio of
the compound is above what it
is on average at its loft and flies
north,” Wallraff explains.
In order to test his theory
Wallraff made a computer
model based on atmospheric
data. In this simulation,
virtual pigeons were able to
navigate successfully armed
only with knowledge of
winds and odours.
FOOD SCIENCE
It’s every meat lover’s dream,
a nice juicy burger that
can be enjoyed without the
accompanying risk of an
expanding waistline. Well,
that dream may soon be
realised as researchers have
found a way to pack reduced-
fat mince with meaty flavour.
According to a study
published in the journal
Meat Science, plasma proteins
taken from beef can be used to
replace fat in mince without
adversely affecting the taste.
The proteins were obtained
from the meat through ultra-
filtration and freeze-drying and
then combined with inulin,
a type of carbohydrate often
found in chicory. The resulting
concoction was then added
to reduced-fat mince and fed to
a group of taste testers.
The process had no observable
effect on colour, flavour, taste
or texture and fared well when
pitted against full-fat mince
despite containing 20 to 35 per
cent less fat, the paper says.
Mmmmm… mince. And now with
the added benefit of helping you keep
the pounds at bay
Patties without the podge
The humble pigeon follows its
nose to find its way home
gETTy, ThinKsTocK x2, JAmiE yAng/icEcubE collAborATion, ThinKsTocK
Keeping abreast of the top science, history and nature research from around the world
Neutrinos on ice
Keep t for smarter babies
Calling all pregnant ladies. If you want your
child to win a Nobel Prize then you’d better
put on your trainers. Just 20 minutes of
moderate exercise taken three times a week
during pregnancy can speed up the newborn
child’s brain development, say researchers
at the University of Montreal. The team
found the brains of newborns aged eight
to 12 days displayed greater activity when
they were exposed to new sounds if their
mothers took regular exercise.
ROUND UP
NEWS IN BRIEF
neighbours would describe them as
Billions of the near-massless subatomic
anything they are incredibly difcult
to detect.
reactions in the Sun or from cosmic rays
further aeld. “This is the rst indication
of very high-energy neutrinos coming
The neutrinos may carry information
the neutrinos.
The IceCube Neutrino
Observatory uses
thousands of sensors
beneath the Antarctic ice
to catch fleeting neutrinos
PARTICLE PHYSICS
Mount Sidley is part of a
range in West Antarctica
where the new volcano
was found
Maven headed for Mars
NASA’S Maven spacecraft has embarked
upon its 10-month journey to the Red Planet
following a successful launch from Florida’s
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Assuming
that all goes to plan, the $671 million (£410
million) probe will gather data about the
Martian climate in an attempt to understand
how the planet was deprived of most of
its atmosphere, turning it from warm and
wet into the cold, dry and hostile world we
see today.
Fire and ice
The effects of global warming are well
documented, but things could really heat
up in Antarctica if a newly found volcano
erupts. Researchers spotted the volcano
buried beneath 1km (half a mile) of ice while
investigating earthquakes in West Antarctica.
While an eruption would be unlikely to
breach the surface, the heat could create a
signicant amount of meltwater, scientists
from Washington University in St Louis claim.
123rF.com, cupc2012.phAsubc.cA
that contributed to your research in
At the time, the work that we were meant to
be doing involved looking at things, which
fluctuated rapidly in brightness. And nobody
had done that systematically before, so that
was pretty important. The other factor that led
to the discovery was the ‘Impostor Syndrome’.
The Impostor Syndrome is something
known in Europe and the US, which affects
people who have less confidence. For example,
these people find themselves in college
surrounded by lots of brilliant people. And then
they think, “Oooh! I’m not as clever as these
people and the college has admitted me by
mistake.” This is the impostor effect. They
believe that they are going to be made out and
some go as far as quitting.
Before going to Cambridge for my PhD, I
had been on the fringes of Britain. I suddenly
found myself in this Mecca of learning
amongst the best and brightest. And I
thought to myself, "Aahh I shouldn’t be here,
I’m not that bright." But instead of leaving
before ‘they threw me out’, I decided I
would work as hard as I could, be as
careful as I could, so that when they threw
me out I would not have a guilty conscience. I
was being very thorough, checking everything
from this new radio telescope, this new
wave of operation and that’s what led to
the pulsars’ discovery.
Pulsars have helped test Einstein’s Theory of
Relativity, forced us to learn about materials
that are extremely compact and have a high
density. They are quite hard to understand
because of their huge magnetic fields, electric
fields, and huge gravitational fields. They are
extreme in every sense of the word, so there
are a lot of fascinating things there that I yet
don’t understand.
Amanda Peters talks to , the astrophysicist who discovered
pulsars and created a whole new subeld of astronomy
H
I started life in Northern Ireland and was
schooled there till the age of 13. I then
went to boarding school in England, where I
was first introduced to science. While I found
biology boring, I was good at physics and
chemistry. From then on it looked like I would
become a physicist.
At that time in Northern Ireland, the general
assumption was that when girls moved into
high school they would opt for domestic
science like needlework and cookery, while
the boys went into the field of science. But I
was keen to get into the field. So my parents
and those of two other girls made a big fuss
and managed to break the general norm. We
ended up being the only three girls in class and
I topped the science exam in the first term.
There were more women in astronomy than
in other areas, than in physics actually. I
knew when I started science that I was good
at physics. My father was very widely read
and brought home a lot of books from public
libraries. One day he brought home some
astronomy books and I read them cover to
cover. Looking back they were quite a tough
read. I was completely hooked and realised that
the physics I was learning at school level could
be applied to these big galaxies and stars. So
that’s how I wanted to be an astronomer. My
classmates remembered it because not a lot of
people at the age of 15 knew what they wanted
to be but I knew.
The radiation from a pulsar star
can only be observed when
the beam is pointing towards
the Earth, much like in the
functioning of a lighthouse
COMMENT & ANALYSIS
24
April 2014
It was a bit of a joke. It would have been a very
unintelligent group of Little Green Men because
why would they signal planet Earth? Why would
they signal at 81.5 mega hertz? That’s not
sensible and why would they use amplitude
changers, changing the height of the pulsars.
Why would multiple different groups of Little
Green Men use the same signal at the same
time to contact Earth?
One big change at the time of the discovery of
pulsars was that it made the existence of black
holes more likely. Until then people weren’t that
sure about black holes.
There has been a huge change in the Universe
since I started studying astronomy. When I
started, we more or less thought we understood
the Universe and subsequently we found out
that there is something we call dark matter, and
recently we found something we know as dark
energy. The net result is that all that we thought
we understood about the Universe actually
makes up only five per cent. So we went from
thinking we understand 95 per cent to knowing
it was only five per cent, which may not be
progress, but it is a step further.
Well NASA is launching a satellite fairly soon,
which is going to see if we can use pulsars as
navigating beacons. But pulsars are lighthouses,
so my thesis advisor Antony Hewish, patented
the idea that they could be used as navigation
beacons when we start travelling through the
galaxy in spaceships. They are beginning to be
important in understanding how materials react
under very high density. One study suggests
that the stars have so much density that they
have quarks in it.
Probably not in that sort of a field but in
astronomy there are all sorts of things going on.
One of the things that excite me are fast radio
bursts, one was discovered several years ago
and now suddenly in the last 12 months they
have started finding more. We now know of
about 25 of them. Do you know of the principle
of dispersion? It’s a single sharp radio blast
with different frequencies. Radio waves travel
at different speeds and different frequencies.
The high frequencies come first followed by the
lower ones. These new pulsars have turned out
to have much greater dispersions, which means
they encompass a lot of electrons far more than
what is in our galaxy. They come from beyond
the galaxy, so they are probably at a red shift
of one, which is when the Universe was half
its present size. They last about a millisecond.
There has not been a repeat burst from any of
them and there is nothing when you look at the
same spot after the burst. So what they are is a
very interesting issue at the moment. Now we
know they exist and know what to look for. We
are now going to find them faster and faster
even though they are all over the sky and not
confined to the galactic plane.
I’m 70 now and retired from the field. I am
no longer doing active research, but I do
travel to give talks. Doing interesting high
level committee work, judging prizes
make for a very interesting life.
signicant in understanding the celestial bodies
in the Universe using radio frequencies. She is
“the discovery of pulsars made the
existence of black holes more likely”
