2022’S MOST MIND-BLOWING IMAGES

Understand The treasure Should you take

HOW HORMONES WORK BENEATH THE MELTING GLACIERS A GENETIC HEALTH TEST?

HEALTH TARGETS
DO THEY WORK?
Five-a-day, 10,000 steps, 2,000 calories...
How recommended daily allowances stand up to modern science

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ISSUE #386 NEW YEAR 2023

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Michael Mosley Physics Carnivore diet

Eccentric exercise: how to make The mysteries of matter’s The pros and cons of
your workout more efficient most basic building block ‘eating like our ancestors’
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 FROM THE
Can animals be
allergic to
humans? –›p75

EDITOR CCOONNTTRRI IBBUUTTOORRSS

Five-a-day, eight hours of sleep, 2,500 calories… recommended SIR PETER DONNELLY
daily allowances or amounts make me anxious. It’s my fault, Peter, a professor of statistical
I rarely meet them. It’s not just these guidelines either, I don’t science, gave us the lowdown
think that there are any ‘public health commandments’ that on the new wave of genetic
I follow. Exercise for 150 minutes every week? Nope. Two litres of health tests that tell you your
risk of developing certain
water a day? Never. No more than 14 units of alcohol in a week?
diseases in the future. –›p32
Not this month.
Evidently, I’m going to fall to pieces any minute now. Or maybe not. These
COVER: JOE WALDRON THIS PAGE: ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, PAUL WILKINSON/ ROYAL INSTITUTION, DANIEL BRIGHT

guidelines, many of them ingrained in the public consciousness, though well-

intentioned, are clearly not the final word on how to lead a healthy life. But DR WENDY HALL
how well do they stand up against our current thinking? At a time of year Social media is awash with
health gurus who believe that
when we collectively emerge from a turkey-fuelled stupor, we look at what
a meat-based diet is best. We
kind of health targets you really ought to be setting yourself and what health
asked nutritional scientist
‘truths’ aren’t set in stone. Turn to p66 to find out more. Wendy to examine the claims
As it’s that time of year, we’ve also taken a moment to look back at the of the carnivore diet. –›p42
images that blew our minds in 2022. Clearly, the James Webb Space Telescope
upstaged everyone in this regard this year, but there are some absolutely
staggering photos that I bet you’ve never seen before (including my favourite, DR MICHAEL MOSLEY
a robot made out of a dead spider!). Head over to p6 to see them all. Are you exercising
See you in the New Year! eccentrically? Michael, who
presents BBC Radio 4’s Just
One Thing, explains why you
should pick up a top hat and
invest in a unicycle… only
kidding. Turn to his feature to
find out more. –›p58
Daniel Bennett, Editor

JHENI OSMAN
For BBC Radio 4’s Costing The
Earth, science writer and editor
WANT MORE? FOLLOW SCIENCEFOCUS ON FACEBOOK TWITTER PINTEREST INSTAGRAM Jheni scaled the Alps to learn
more about the artefacts
emerging from the melting
glaciers and the race to
ON THE BBC THIS MONTH... preserve them. –›p60

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures

Okay, so we told you about this last month. But we’re still
super excited to see Prof Dame Sue Black take centre stage at
the Royal Institution to share the secrets of forensic science.
And if you’re too busy thrashing your family at Monopoly to
CONTACT US
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CONTENTS 23
DISCOVERIES
42
REALITY CHECK

REGULARS

20 CONVERSATION 38 DR JULIA SHAW

See what’s been in our inbox Eco-anxiety is on the rise,
this month. but we can harness it to
help make the world a
23 DISCOVERIES better place.
Artificial sweeteners found in
sugar-free foods can kill 42 REALITY CHECK
antibiotic-resistant bacteria; The science behind the
AI can predict the risk of heart headlines. Can all-meat Homo naledi, an extinct hominid, Can a meat-and-offal-filled diet
diets keep us healthy? Is it may also have harnessed the keep you ripped and healthy, as
disease by analysing a single
possible to overcome ability to control fire. claimed by the Liver King?
chest X-ray; bats grunt like
death metal singers to social anxiety? Are food
communicate; irritable bowel aversions learned or
genetic?

75
syndrome may be caused by
body’s inability to deal with
gravity; there are no signs of 49 INNOVATIONS
aliens on Venus; can genetic The latest tech and
tests reliably predict disease? gadgets news. Q&A
34 DR KATIE MACK 75 Q&A
A proton should be one of the Our experts answer
simplest particles in physics, this month’s questions.
yet its weird properties send Can animals be allergic to
scientists down a rabbit hole humans? Why do I feel
of complexity. better after I’ve cracked my
neck? Do we really need to
36 DR KATE DARLING accept cookies on a
website? Why are fish
We can now have a ‘real’
fish-shaped?
conversation with an AI, but
who is benefiting from this
tête-à-tête? 82 EXPLAINER
Everything you wanted to
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Our pick of the pics
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58 THE NEW WORLD

OF ECCENTRIC
EXERCISE
Forget running up the
stairs and climbing hills, it
turns out that doing the
exact opposite might be Can’t wait until next month to get
better for you, says Dr your fix of science and tech?
Michael Mosley. Our website is packed with news,
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brain satisfied.
60 FROZEN IN TIME sciencefocus.com
As the planet warms,
melting ice is revealing
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visits the Swiss Alps to
find out more.

INSTANT
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Do we really need to eat
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54 66
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 2022 IN PIC TURES

Window on
the Universe
LONDON, UK
12 JULY

This stunning image beamed to Earth by the

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
reveals details of far-flung regions of the
Milky Way that we’ve never seen before.
Launched on Christmas Day 2021, from a
spaceport in French Guiana, the JWST is the
largest telescope ever sent into space. It
uses infrared light to show us stars that
were previously obscured from view by
dust. Its first images, broadcast here to
crowds in Piccadilly Circus, London, show
the edge of a star-forming region around
7,600 light-years from Earth, in the Carina
Nebula, which is home to stars millions of
times brighter than our Sun.

ALAMY

7
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Hole at the heart

of the Galaxy
EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE
12 MAY

You would have thought if there was a

supermassive black hole at the centre of the Galaxy,
we’d have noticed it before. But that’s the thing
about black holes: you can’t see them. You can only
see the gas whirling around them. The one at the
centre of the Milky Way, named Sagittarius A*, is
around 27,000 light-years away from Earth and we
only found it by training eight radio telescopes on it
all at the same time. It took 300 researchers and
their supercomputers five years to analyse the data
they collected before they could finally release this
first portrait of the previously unseen object.
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Big baby mummy

YUKON, CANADA
21 JUNE

This 30,000-year-old baby woolly mammoth, ‘Nun cho ga’ (big baby
animal), takes her name from the Hän language spoken by
Indigenous peoples in Yukon, Canada, where she was found in June.
Nun cho ga’s remains were discovered by gold miners and rescued
by geologists. It’s thought she probably died after getting stuck in
mud, which would have initially preserved her body, but permafrost
kept her intact over the millennia. DNA has previously been
extracted from much older mammoths, but none so well preserved.
Her future is in the hands not just of scientists, but also of the
Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people who own the land where she was found.

Shackleton’s
lost ship
WEDDELL SEA
5 MARCH
ESO, FALKLANDS MARITIME HERITAGE TRUST, GOVERNMENT OF YUKON

In 1915, the 28-strong crew of Ernest Shackleton’s

Endurance found themselves stranded as the
explorer’s ship hit pack ice off the coast of
Antarctica. Their 1,300km expedition to safety –
involving death-defying journeys on small lifeboats
– is a tale as harrowing as it is inspiring. So it’s no
wonder that the discovery of their lost ship
(pictured here from the stern) reignited interest in
the story. After a previous failed attempt in 2019,
Endurance was finally located 3km down and intact
by a team working with autonomous and remotely
operated vehicles from a polar research vessel.
Icy currents had caused it to drift, but ultimately it
lay just 6km from its last known position recorded
over a century earlier.

9
 2022 IN PIC TURES

10
 2022 IN PIC TURES

The ruins of success

JEZERO CRATER, MARS
19 APRIL

These shattered remains may look like a failed space mission, but
they’re very much a sign of success – for two reasons. First, these
are the backshell and parachute of NASA’s Perseverance rover
– landing gear the robot no longer needed after surviving a 126km/h
descent to the surface of Mars in 2021. Second, the picture was
taken by Ingenuity, a miniature helicopter with a metre-wide rotor
span that caught a ride to the Red Planet with the rover. Ingenuity
has a flight range of only 300m but, as of November 2022, had
clocked up 34 flights and covered a total of 7km. Images like these
help NASA to understand whether a landing occurred as expected
and what could be improved for future missions.

NASA/JPL

11
 2022 IN PIC TURES

One of a kind
SERVION, SWITZERLAND
MAY

Hatched at a Swiss zoo in May, this

newborn tortoise is the first example of
an albino Galapagos giant tortoise
(Chelonoidis nigra) known in captivity or
the wild. Its mother, pictured in the
background, and sibling are both black.
According to the zoo, albinism is rarer in
GETTY IMAGES, NICHOLAS PAPAS, ESA, NASA/JPL

tortoises than in humans, with the

chance of any tortoise being albino
estimated to be around 1 in 100,000.
However, while this baby may be unique,
its lack of the skin pigment melanin
makes it particularly susceptible to skin
cancer. In the wild, this extra threat to an
already endangered species would seem
to make survival unlikely, but in captivity
it can be kept out of sunlight.

‘necrobotics’ (robots made from

Spiderbot dead things). Actually, their
technique is pretty simple: take a
RICE UNIVERSITY, TEXAS spider, stick a syringe in it, then
25 JULY
apply pressure by squirting air
into its cold, dead body. This
Researchers from Rice University works because spiders use
thought it would be fun to turn a hydraulics to force haemolymph
dead spider into a robotic gripper, (their version of blood) into their
in order to pick up other objects. limbs, forcing them to extend.
Overkill, perhaps, but they claim When spiders die, they lose this
that it heralds a new era of ability, and so they curl up.

12
 2022 IN PIC TURES

No bum non-ancestor
INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH TEAM
17 AUGUST

Are we descended from a 530-million-year-old animal with a giant mouth and no anus? Apparently not.
Well, good. That’s one thing scientists have sorted out this year. We’re all done here. Unless, of course,
you’re wondering whose family tree this bumless blob (officially Saccorhytus coronarius) belongs to. The
answer, according to the latest thinking, is crabs, spiders and roundworms. Previous evidence linking it to
our line was based on limited specimens. The new work, involving high-resolution imaging and many
specimens, enabled researchers to create the detailed reconstructions shown here.

T-minus
11 seconds
DIMORPHOS
GETTY IMAGES, PRESTON INNOVATION LABORATORY/RICE UNIVERSITY, NIGPAS, NASA/JPL

26 SEPTEMBER

This was one of the last images NASA’s

DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)
spacecraft transmitted. Just 11 seconds later,
it crashed into its target, the asteroid
Dimorphos (pictured here from 68km away),
at around 24,000km/h. Despite being fatal
for the spacecraft, the mission proved a hit
for the US space agency. After crunching the
data, it confirmed that DART had
successfully altered the trajectory of
Dimorphos in its orbit around its parent
asteroid, Didymos. So, hopefully, when
bigger, badder asteroids look set to destroy
Earth, we now have the knowledge to send
them off-course.

13
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Tiny tower block

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, UK
7 MARCH

Two-thirds of a millimetre might not sound very tall,

but when you’re a bacterium, it’s bigger than the
Empire State Building. It’s also the height of these
600-micrometre-high ‘nano-skyscrapers’, which
are actually tiny 3D-printed towers of electrodes that
UK researchers built to house light-harvesting
organisms called cyanobacteria, which make their
energy via photosynthesis, just like plants. The
towers are designed to cram in as many
cyanobacteria as possible while maximising their
exposure to sunlight. By plugging into the electrodes,
the scientists show that it’s possible to use
cyanobacteria as a source of sustainable energy.

14
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Satellite spinner
NEW MEXICO, USA
SEPTEMBER

This is SpinLaunch: a prototype system for

launching satellites and other payloads into
space using kinetic energy instead of the
chemical fuel in traditional rockets. The
prototype is a third of the size of the planned
100m-wide full-scale system, but is capable of
spinning payloads at 8,000km/h and 10,000G
before flinging them skyward through a
launch tube. Although small rocket engines
will still be needed to get payloads into orbit,
it’s claimed the system cuts down on fuel and
infrastructure by around 70 per cent. In April,
SpinLaunch signed a ‘Space Act Agreement’
with NASA and by September was testing the
system with components of the space
agency’s own satellites.

Historic mission
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
22 JULY

On 22 July, Samantha Cristoforetti emerged

from the airlock of the International Space
Station (ISS) as the first-ever European
woman to take a spacewalk. There was no
GABRIELLA BOCCHETTI, SPINLAUNCH, NASA/ESA

time to bask in the glory though, as the Italian

astronaut had work to do on the new
European Robotic Arm (ERA), a robotic
attachment to the space station designed to
cut down on the need for human spacewalks.
Staying outside for seven hours in all, she and
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev installed
new parts on the ERA. In September,
Cristoforetti became the first female
European commander of the ISS before
returning to Earth safely in October.

15
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Plants in pain
NORWICH, UK
21 OCTOBER

Plants don’t have nerves. For a long time,

though, scientists were fascinated by the
fact that they seemed to deploy one of the
chemical messengers that humans use to
transmit nerve impulses – calcium – when
they get injured. However, this year,
scientists at the John Innes Centre in the UK
used new fluorescent imaging techniques
(pictured here in cress seedlings) to show
that this calcium rush isn’t a moving wave or
impulse. Instead, it’s a response to another
chemical, glutamate, that’s released at the
injury site. Glutamate molecules travel along
the corridors between plant cells, triggering
the opening of cell ‘doors’ that let out
calcium as they go. So it’s glutamate, not
calcium, that’s the messenger.

Black Beauty’s
birthplace
ANNALISA BELLANDI, ODYSSEAS CHLORIDIS, LAGAIN ET AL/NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
CURTIN UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA
12 JULY

In 2011, a nomad named Bahba picked up a

lump of black rock in the Sahara Desert. It
turned out to be a piece of 4.5-billion-
year-old meteorite forged in magma
chambers below the surface of a young Mars
and flung to Earth when a comet hit the Red
Planet 5-10 million years ago. Now known as
‘Black Beauty’, it took scientists until this
year to pinpoint the meteorite’s origins in
the Terra Cimmeria-Sirenum province
(circled). The Australian team did it by
analysing 94 million Martian craters,
colour-coded here by age and size. Given
Black Beauty is so old, they think the region
could hold clues to the planet’s early history.

16
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Hiking hotspot
REYKJANES PENINSULA, ICELAND
3 AUGUST

Iceland is well known for its lava fields, but new volcanic activity on
the Reykjanes peninsula close to Reykjavik is proving particularly
accessible to day-trippers from the capital. This eruption in the
Meradalir Valley, starting on 3 August, attracted thrill-seeking hikers
to a 300km fissure in the Earth’s crust that, within a fortnight, had
spewed out 10 million cubic metres of lava. It came just a year after
another large vent opened up a kilometre away. Until then, the region
hadn’t seen any major volcanic activity since the 12th Century, when
medieval Iceland was ruled over by chieftains known as goðorð.

17
 2022 IN PIC TURES

Brightest-ever starburst
NEIL GEHRELS SWIFT OBSERVATORY
9 OCTOBER

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) emanate from high-energy explosions

occurring when massive stars much hotter than our Sun collapse to
form black holes or neutron stars. Pictured is GRB 221009A, the
brightest GRB ever witnessed, detected on 9 October and lasting a full
10 hours. It was so bright that even the Fermi Gamma Ray Space
Telescope – designed specifically for GRBs – couldn’t deal with what it
was emitting. But as the energy emitted by such an explosion is
converted into different kinds of radiation, the X-ray telescope
aboard the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory was able to capture this
image from X-rays as they bounced off dust in the Galaxy. GRB
221009A took place about 1.9 billion light-years away, which is close
in GRB terms.

18
 2022 IN PIC TURES

War scene
in a war zone
AL-RASTAN, SYRIA
12 OCTOBER
NASA/SWIFT/A BEARDMORE/UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER, GETTY IMAGES X2

Part of this 120m2 mosaic was unearthed in the

Syrian city of Al-Rastan during the Syrian Civil
War, but it’s only now that archaeologists have
been able to excavate it more completely. The
1,600-year-old artwork, photographed in
October, depicts scenes of soldiers fighting in
the Trojan War, which according to Greek
mythology involved the Greeks sneaking into
the city of Troy in a wooden horse. It may
extend even further than 120m2 – the
excavation is still ongoing. Other artworks and
places of historical importance, including
mosaics and churches, were destroyed during
the Syrian conflict in the last decade, but
museum researchers still hope to discover
more beneath the ruins.

Intelligent
exoskeleton
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
18 OCTOBER

The Atlas 2030 exoskeleton was

specially designed for children by
Spanish robotics engineer and
inventor, Elena García Armada.
Until now, exoskeletons have
been a high-tech addition to
rehab programmes for adult
patients who have suffered
strokes or traumatic brain and
spinal injuries. But the suits can’t
just be downsized for children,
whose physical limitations are
more often related to
neurological conditions – as in
the case of David Zabala
(pictured), who has cerebral
palsy. These conditions require a
more ‘intelligent’ suit that can
read the intention of the walker
and adapt its gait accordingly.

19
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LETTER OF THE MONTH Black hole paradox

I listened to your podcast entitled Holding The
Universe In Your Hands, with Dr Kimberly
Musical tombs Arcand. In the discussion on the ‘sound’ of a
Could it be possible that Tutankhamun’s tomb,
black hole, I was able to imagine (most likely
KV62, was originally built by Tutankhamun to
incorrectly) the sound being generated by
hold his relatives from el-Amarna, including
matter rushing towards the black hole, pretty
Queen Nefertiti, and tomb KV55 was
much like a vacuum. This did prompt a
commissioned for his own burial
question for me: if matter is being sucked into
(November, p68)? But because he died
a black hole (to where even Brian Cox doesn’t
young, and before the tomb was ready,
know), does this contradict the laws of the
the priests would have been on a tight
conservation of the mass and energy, as mass
schedule to get the young pharaoh
and energy are not being returned to the
entombed. So they utilised KV62
system? Or, are they being returned to the
instead, the previous occupants being
system, and the black hole (and beyond) is still
unceremoniously dumped In KV55,
part of the system?
with all the respect befitting heretics Jim Slattery, Co. Limerick
who crippled Egypt at the time. Could
the rather feminine images of The pressure waves/sound waves are moving
Tutankhamun once attributed to outwards from the area of the black hole
Hatshepsut, be of Nefertiti? system (versus matter rushing towards the
Pat McDonnell, Crosshaven, Ireland
black hole). The sound waves are thought to
have been generated by cavities blown out by
Both KV62 and KV55 are located right in the centre of the Valley of the
jets from the supermassive black hole at the
Kings and are small tombs of similar design. It may be that they were
centre of the Perseus Cluster of galaxies.
originally intended for senior nobles, but KV62 was extended to include
Supermassive black holes can pull material
a crypt when it was pressed into service for the burial of Tutankhamun.
swirling around them into their gravitational
There has been a lot of speculation that Tutankhamun originally started
either KV23 (used by his successor Ay), or KV57 (used by Horemheb),
without any firm proof. As far as we know, Tutankhamun salvaged the
burials of his relatives from Amarna and placed them directly into KV55.
He certainly usurped quite a lot of the funerary goods of Nefertiti, which,
as you say, are often distinctly feminine in appearance. I’m not aware of
similar speculation with regard to Hatshepsut. She dates to much earlier
in the 18th Dynasty and her images would reflect the style of that age.
Dylan Bickerstaffe, Egyptologist

WRITE IN AND WIN!

The writer of next issue’s Letter Of The Month wins a WORTH
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includes the space opera Children Of Memory, by award-
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sci-fi Leech, by Hiron Ennes; and the contemporary tale of
love, space and time Alone With You In The Ether, by Olivie
Blake, the author of the much-acclaimed The Atlas Six.
panmacmillan.com Jim Slattery ponders the ‘sound’ of a black hole

20
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 DISCOVERIES

“The animals
of the Ediacara
biota were a mixed
bag of downright
weirdoes”
Dr Ilya Bobrovskiy p28

PALAEONTOLOGY You may know

that bats chirrup
FIRESTARTERS to echolocate,
but did you
Evidence suggests another species of
know they grunt
hominid may have harnessed fire p24
like death-
metal singers to
BIOLOGY communicate
with each other?
A SPOONFUL OF FAKE SUGAR
Artificial sweetener may help us beat
antibiotic-resistant bugs p26

MEDICINE
X-RAY VISION
AI can predict your risk of heart
disease from a chest X-ray p27

PALAEONTOLOGY
WHAT DID YOU EAT LAST?
Evidence of the last meal eaten by one
of the first large animals found p28

ZOOLOGY

BATS ARE METALLERS

Well… they communicate in a range that’s equivalent
to death-metal singers p29

HEALTH
GRAVITY HATES YOUR GUTS
Could gravity be to blame for
irritable bowel syndrome? p30

SPACE
VENUS LIFELESS AFTER ALL?
ALAMY

Analysis of planet’s atmosphere

suggests no phosphine present p31

23
 I
PALAEONTOLOGY t’s often said the ability to make fire is one of
ABOVE An artist’s
impression of a the key skills that defines Homo sapiens – it

LIKE MODERN HUMANS, male Homo naledi allowed our ancestors to cook food, keep warm
and eventually become the most dominant species

HOMO NALEDI on the planet.

Recently, evidence has been found across Europe to
suggest that Neanderthals were also skilled fire users,
HARNESSED FIRE but now we may have to add another species to the list.
Researchers excavating a complex network of caves in

FOR LIGHT, WARMTH South Africa say they have unearthed evidence that
Homo naledi, an extinct species of hominid that lived

AND COOKING 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, also used fire.

The finding was announced at a lecture given at the
Carnegie Institution of Science in Washington, DC, on
Researchers excavating South Africa’s 1 December by Prof Lee Berger of the University of
the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Rising Star cave system have unearthed
“We’re fairly confident to formulate the hypothesis
evidence that Homo naledi, an extinct that this small-brained hominid, Homo naledi, [which]
species of hominid discovered in 2013, existed at the same time we believe Homo sapiens were
built fires in underground chambers sharing parts of Africa, was using fire for a variety of
purposes,” he said.
H. naledi was discovered in 2013 by a team of
excavators, led by Berger. The remains were found
hundreds of metres into a claustrophobically tight
network of passages known as the Rising Star cave
system near Johannesburg.

24
 DISCOVERIES

ABOVE LEFT carbonate. The roof above my head was grey above
“There were blackened Prof Lee Berger fresh flowstone. There were blackened areas across
with a replica Homo the wall. There were soot particles across the whole
areas across the naledi skull of the surface. The entire roof of the chamber where
we have spent the last seven years working is burnt
wall. There were soot TOP RIGHT Some
of the charcoal
and blackened,” he said.
At the same time, the expedition’s co-director,
found in the Rising
particles across the Dr Keneiloe Molopyane, uncovered the remains of a
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES X2, LEE R BERGER/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Star caves
small hearth containing burnt antelope bones, as well
whole of the surface” ABOVE RIGHT
A reproduction of
as the remains of a much larger hearth in a nearby cave.
Further investigation of the cave system led to the
what’s believed to
team finding several other caves and passages containing
be the skull of a
Homo naledi child
chunks of burnt wood and charred animal bones.
Subsequent excavations have since unea rt hed found in the Rising “Fire is not hard to find. It’s everywhere within this
fossils from more than a dozen individuals (male Star caves system,” said Berger. “Everywhere there’s a complex
and female, juvenile and adult) as well as evidence juncture, they built fire. Every adjacent cave system to
of ritualistic burial practices in which the remains of the chambers where we believe they were disposing
certain individuals appear to have been washed and of the dead, they built fires and cooked animals. And
deliberately placed in position. in the chamber where we believe they were disposing
Then, earlier this year, Berger finally entered the of the dead, they built fire but didn’t cook animals.
difficult-to-reach network of caves for the first time That’s extraordinary.”
himself. And once he was inside the chamber where The team now plans to work on radiocarbon dating
his team found the H. naledi remains, he noticed their finds in an attempt to confirm the link between
evidence of soot on the cave’s surfaces. the hearths and the H. naledi fossils.
“As I looked up and stared at the roof, I began “This is the most extraordinary period of exploration
to realise t hat t he roof was not a pure calcium and discovery. And it’s going to continue,” said Berger.

25
 DISCOVERIES

BIOLOGY

ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS FOUND IN SUGAR-FREE FOODS

CAN KILL ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT BACTERIA
The discovery could help in the war against superbugs

T
he key to beating antibiotic-resistant bacteria and misuse in animals is accelerating the process.
could have been hiding in plain sight on our It is currently considered to be one of the biggest
supermarket shelves. threats to global health and food security.
Th ree a r t if icia l sweeteners t hat a re “It has created a dangerous situation where a ‘post-
commonly used in diet drinks, yoghurts and desserts antibiotic era’ is becoming a reality,” said McCarthy.
can dramatically halt the growth of multidrug-resistant “It threatens all aspects of healthcare, from cancer
bacteria, a study carried out at Brunel University treatment to dental work.”
London has found. The researchers now plan to run further tests
The sweeteners saccha r in, cycla mate a nd and are optimistic that all three sweeteners could
acesulfame-K inhibited the growth of two bacteria, potentially offer new treatments for multidrug-
Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, resistant infection.
which cause pneumonia and sepsis. These bacteria
are on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of
‘priority pathogens’ that urgently need new antibiotic THE SWEET STUFF
treatments, thanks to the deadly threat they pose to
those with compromised immune systems. The team Artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame K and BELOW
saccharin are chemical compounds used in place of sugar to
found that acesulfame-K was particularly effective in Acinetobacter
sweeten food and drinks such as desserts, ready meals and soft
preventing the bacteria from developing the biofilms drinks. They provide a sweet taste when consumed because baumannii is
their molecules are similar enough in shape to sugar molecules a multidrug-
that protect them from antibiotics.
to fit on the sweetness receptors that line the tongue. Although resistant bacteria
When used in conjunction with antibiotics, all that causes
some sweeteners contain calories, the quantities needed to
three sweeteners reduced the bacteria’s resistance, provide a sweet taste are so small that their contribution to a infections in the
meaning that lower doses of the drugs were needed person’s overall daily intake is negligible. blood, urinary tract
for effective treatment. and lungs
“A r t if icia l sweeteners a re
present in all diet and sugar-
free foods,” said study leader Dr
Ronan McCarthy, a bioscientist
at Brunel University London.
“We discovered that these same
sweeteners that you have with
your coffee or in your ‘sugar-free’
soda could kill very dangerous
bacteria and make them easier to
treat. This is exciting, because
nor ma lly it ta kes billions of
dollars and decades to develop
a new antibiotic drug, whereas we
GETTY IMAGES, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

found a compound which can not

only fight the pathogenic bacteria
but also reverse its resistance
to already existing antibiotics.”
Antibiotic resistance arises
thanks to bacteria’s ability to
adapt in response to antibiotics.
It occu rs natu ra lly, but
overprescribing drugs in humans

26
 MEDICINE
have developed a deep learning AI model that can
AI CAN PREDICT THE RISK OF reliably predict a patient’s 10-year risk of death from a
heart attack or stroke by analysing a single chest X-ray.

HEART DISEASE BY ANALYSING The team trained the AI, named CXR-CVD Risk,
using 150,000 chest X-rays taken from more than

A SINGLE CHEST X-RAY 50,000 participants in a prostate, lung, colorectal,

and ovarian cancer screening trial carried out by the
National Cancer Institute.
The model could be used to identify at-risk patients who They then tested it on data taken from more than
11,000 patients with a mean age of 60 who were
are not currently taking preventative medication
potentially eligible for statin therapy and who’d had
routine outpatient chest X-rays.
They found that almost 10 per cent of the patients
suffered a major cardiac event such as a heart attack or

H
eart disease is one of the biggest killers in the stroke within the 10-year period following the X-rays.
UK. According to the British Heart Foundation, Of these, the CXR-CVD Risk model was successfully
cardiovascular diseases are currently responsible for able to predict 65 per cent.
around a quarter of all UK deaths, which is around “We’ve long recognised that X-rays capture information
160,000 deaths per year. Patients deemed to be most at risk beyond traditional diagnostic findings, but we haven’t
are prescribed statins, which are drugs that lower the level of used this data because we haven’t had robust, reliable
cholesterol in the blood and protect the insides of the artery methods. Advances in AI are making it possible now,”
walls. But signs of the disease are not always picked up early, said Dr Jakob Weiss, of Massachusetts General Hospital.
meaning that many patients who would benefit from taking “The beauty of this approach is you only need an
the drugs are not receiving them. X-ray, which is acquired millions of times a day across
Now, researchers based at Massachusetts General Hospital the world.”

27
 DISCOVERIES

PALAEONTOLOGY

WORLD’S OLDEST MEAL FOUND IN

550-MILLION-YEAR-OLD FOSSILS
The bizarre ocean-dwelling creatures are relatives of all living animals

T
he contents of the last meal eaten Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, who
by one of the world’s first large collaborated on the research.
animals has been discovered by “Our findings suggest that the animals of the
researchers from the Australian Ediacara biota were a mixed bag of downright
National University (ANU). It is the earliest weirdoes such as Dickinsonia, and more
evidence of food eaten by an animal, they say. advanced animals like Kimberella that already
The team analysed a pair of Ediacara biota had some physiological properties similar to
fossils, which are ancient forms of life that humans and other present-day animals.”
are the ancestors of all living animals and The researchers speculate that the energy-
were the first creatures to develop bodies rich diet of Edicara biota may be one of the
with features such as heads, tails and guts reasons they were able to grow so much
more than 550 million years ago. larger than the microorganisms that came
To determine what the animals had been before them.
eating, they analysed the fossils in search “Scientists already knew Kimberella left
of preserved phytosterol molecules, which feeding marks by scraping off algae covering
are natural compounds found in plants. It the sea floor, which suggested the animal
turns out they ate green algae and bacteria. had a gut,” said the study’s co-author Prof
One of them, a slug-like creature called Jochen Brocks of ANU.
Kimberella, ate via a mouth and digested “But it was only af ter a nalysing t he
the food in a gut much in the same way that molecules of Kimberella’s gut that we were
modern animals do. The other – Dickinsonia, able to determine what exactly it was eating
which looked a bit like a ribbed f latfish and how it digested food.”
and measured 1.4m long – was a more basic
beast with no eyes, mouth or gut, and likely
absorbed food through its body as it moved
along the ocean floor. “Animals of the Ediacara biota were
“Ediacara biota really are the oldest fossils
large enough to be visible with your naked a mixed bag of downright weirdoes
such as Dickinsonia, and more
eyes, and they are the origin of us and all
animals that exist today. These creatures

advanced animals like Kimberella”

are our deepest visible roots,” said Dr Ilya
Bobrovskiy from the GFZ German Research

RIGHT
Dickinsonia fossils
look a bit like
ribbed flatfish,
but in reality they
were far simpler
animals
SCOTT EVANS, ALAMY

28
 DISCOVERIES

Many bats, including all bats in Britain,

hibernate from late autumn to spring.
During this period, their heart rates drop to
20 beats per minute. When flying, their
hearts can reach 1,000 beats per minute.

1,400
There are around 1,400 species of bat
worldwide. They can be found in almost
every corner of the planet, apart from areas
with extreme climates such as the polar
regions and deserts.

The oldest recorded living bat was a

Brandt’s myotis bat found in Siberia.
It was captured in 2005, and bore a
band put on it by researchers in
1964, making it at least 41.

ZOOLOGY mimic the animals’ natural vocalisations and filmed

the movements with a high-speed camera that could
BATS GRUNT LIKE DEATH METAL image 250,000 frames per second. They then used
machine learning models to reconstruct the motion

SINGERS TO TALK TO THEIR of the bats’ vocal membranes.

They found that the bats use a specific structure

ROOSTMATES in their voice boxes known as false vocal cords that

are not used in normal vocalisations to lower the
frequency of their calls. The bats lower the false
vocal folds down so that they oscillate together with
The animals use structures in their voice boxes in the same
their regular vocal cords. The additional weight this
way as the extreme singers to produce deep, guttural sounds provides significantly reduces the pitch of the call. It
is the same technique used by death metal singers to
produce their trademark guttural growls.

I
t turns out that heavy metal singers and bats have more in common The pitch of the growls is between 1 and 5kHz – the
than their mutual love of the dark and a tendency to move in groups. same pitch as the highest two octaves of a standard
They both use distinct structures in their larynxes, or voice boxes, piano. Sounds that bats use for echolocation can reach
to produce booming, demonic vocalisations, a study carried out at frequencies of up to 120kHz.
the University of Southern Denmark has found. The bats often make the growling sounds when
Echolocating bats are known to have an incredibly wide vocal range. they fly in and out of a densely packed roost, so it is
They can make sounds spanning around seven octaves, which is pretty unclear what their purpose is.
impressive, considering how even Mariah Carey can only manage five. “Some seem aggressive, some may be an expression
To investigate how they achieve such a feat of vocal gymnastics, the of annoyance, and some may have a very different
Danish team removed the larynxes from five adult Daubenton’s bats, Myotis function. We don’t know yet,” said the study’s co-author
daubentonii, mounted them in a frame, applied an airflow designed to Lasse Jakobsen.

29
 HEALTH hypothesis adds another idea to the mix.
“As long as there’s been life on Earth, from the earliest
IBS MAY BE CAUSED BY organisms to Homo sapiens, gravity has relentlessly
shaped everything on the planet,” said Spiegel. “Our body

BODY’S INABILITY TO systems are constantly pulled downward. If these systems

cannot manage the drag of gravity, then it can cause
issues like pain, cramping, light-headedness, sweating,
COPE WITH GRAVITY rapid heartbeat and back issues – all symptoms seen
with IBS. It can even contribute to bacterial overgrowth
in the gut, a problem also linked to IBS.”
The constant downward pull could According to Spiegel, gravity can cause our internal
lead to the gut pain and cramping organs to shift downward from their proper position.
experienced by sufferers Some people are less able to cope with its pull than
others, due to conditions such as spinal problems that
cause the diaphragm to sag down or the belly to bulge.
Issues such as these could potentially trigger

T
he cause of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) complications with the movement of muscles in the
has remained a mystery ever since it was first gastrointestinal tract, or even bacterial growth within
described more than a century ago. Now, Prof the gut. This could also explain why physical therapy
Brennan Spiegel at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and exercise can often help ease the symptoms of IBS
in Los Angeles, has published a theory in the American by strengthening the body’s support structures.
Journal Of Gastroenterology that suggests it could be “The body evolved to hoist this load with a set of support
caused by the body’s inability to cope with gravity. structures. If these systems fail, then IBS symptoms can
IBS affects around 10 per cent of the population. occur along with musculoskeletal problems,” said Spiegel.
Sufferers experience painful cramps, bloating, diarrhoea Researchers at Cedars-Sinai now plan to investigate
and constipation, which can last for weeks or months at a the theory further so they can look into the development
time. There is currently no cure, but certain medications of potential treatments.
ALAMY, NASA/JPL-CALTECH

or dietary changes can help ease the symptoms. “This hypothesis is very provocative, but the best
There are several more traditional theories for the thing about it is that it is testable,” said Prof Shelly Lu,
cause of the disorder, including abnormalities in the a gastroenterologist at Cedars-Sinai.
gut microbiome, miscommunication between the gut “If proved correct, it is a major paradigm shift in
and the brain, or issues with the movement of muscles the way we think about IBS and possibly [its] treatment
within the gastrointestinal tract. But Spiegel’s gravity as well.”

30
 DISCOVERIES

SPACE you would think that would be fairly easy to produce.

But on Venus, it’s not obvious how it could be made,”

IT IS UNLIKELY THAT THERE said Martin Cordiner, a researcher in astrochemistry

and planetary science at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight

ARE ALIENS ON VENUS Center, Maryland.

SOFIA was a telescope mounted on a Boeing 474 that
was recently retired from service. It was positioned
in orbit around 13km high in the Earth’s stratosphere,
Data collected by NASA’s SOFIA observatory overturns previous putting it above 99 per cent of the atmosphere’s infrared-
findings that phosphine gas, a potential sign of microbial life, blocking effects. This allowed astronomers to study the
is present in the planet’s atmosphere Solar System in ways not possible with ground-based
telescopes.
The data analysed in the study were collected during
observations of Venus’s atmosphere over the course of

A
n analysis of data collected by NASA’s three flights in November 2021. The SOFIA telescope’s
Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared BELOW The high resolution allowed it to scan for traces of phosphine
spectral data from
Astronomy (SOFIA) has turned up no evidence around 75 to 110km above the entirety of the planet’s
SOFIA overlain on
of phosphine in Venus’s atmosphere. top of this image surface – the same region as the original 2020 finding.
The NASA researchers were following up on the detection of Venus. If a However, no sign of the compound was found.
of phosphine by Japan’s Akatsuki satellite back in 2020. significant amount The new research complements data taken from other
At the time, the discovery got astronomers excited, as of phosphine experiments carried out since 2020 that all point to
phosphine is considered to be a sign of life. This is because were present phosphine not existing anywhere in Venus’s atmosphere,
in the planet’s
phosphine is unlikely to arise from chemical processes from the equator to the poles.
atmosphere, there
on worlds such as Venus, but is known to be produced would be dips in
Many aspects of Venus’s atmosphere continue to
by microbial life in bogs, swamps and marshes on Earth. the graph at the puzzle scientists, and further discoveries may be made
“Phosphine is a relatively simple chemical compound four locations with NASA’s VERITAS and DAVINCI missions, slated
– it’s just a phosphorus atom with three hydrogens – so labelled PH3 for launch in the late-2020s.

VENUS

475°C
Venus is the hottest planet in
the Solar System with the
surface temperature reaching
around 475°C – hot enough to
melt lead.

12,100KM
Venus has a diameter of
12,100km, making it slightly
smaller than Earth.

1,600
The planet’s surface is
peppered with volcanoes,
around 1,600 in total. Scientists
suspect four of these may be
active: Maat Mons, Ozza Mons,
Sapas Mons and Idunn Mons.

31
 DISCOVERIES

PRIMER

What can it tell us about our future health risks, and should we all be
getting tested?

Actor Chris Hemsworth, who you might letters of DNA from our father. In every
know as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic cell in our bodies, each of us has six
Universe, recently announced that he billion letters.
was taking a break from the limelight
after carrying out a genetic test that WHAT IS A GENE?
highlighted he had a heightened risk A gene is a piece of our DNA where the
of developing Alzheimer’s disease. letters contain explicit instructions that
6QƂPFQWVYJGVJGTYGCNNQWIJVVQ help our cells make a protein. They can
be considering testing ourselves, we differ in length.
spoke to Sir Peter Donnelly, CEO and A gene might be just a few hundred
co-founder of Genomics PLC, and or thousand DNA letters long, but some
emeritus professor of statistical science genes are much longer. If we look at
at the University of Oxford, about what the totality of our DNA, only about
genetic screening can tell us about 1 per cent of it is the genes. The rest
our health. used to be called ‘junk DNA’ before we
understood what it was doing.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE TAKES We now understand that it contains
A GENETIC TEST? other information. For example,
Usually, the test would involve taking a information that tells a particular gene
biological sample from the individual. when it should be making a protein.
Typically, that’s either a blood sample, All of our cells have all of our genes.
or a saliva sample. Then the sample There might be a gene that makes a
would be sent to a laboratory, which protein that’s really important in the any effect at all, but some of them can
would extract the DNA and then analyse retina, but you absolutely don’t need have consequences and sometimes
it for the piece of genetic information that protein in your tongue. And so those consequences can be really severe.
VJCVVJGVGUVKUVT[KPIVQƂPF there’s instructions in the DNA that will +PEQPFKVKQPUNKMGE[UVKEƂDTQUKUHQT
be able to tell that gene, ‘I want you to example, where if you inherit a mutated
WHAT IS DNA? make this protein if you’re sitting in copy of a gene that doesn’t work the
DNA is the chemical material that a retina, but not if you’re sitting in way it’s meant to, you can end up
contains all of the information our the tongue.’ getting really sick. Sometimes, if you
cells use to do their stuff – to make the have one copy of a gene that doesn’t
proteins that allow them to function, HOW BIG AN INFLUENCE CAN A SINGLE GENE YQTM[QWoTGƂPG(QTGZCORNGKHVJG
and to build up tissues and organs. HAVE ON OUR BODIES? one from your mother doesn’t work, but
We get one copy of our DNA from our We’ve got about 20,000 genes in total. VJGQPGHTQO[QWTHCVJGTKUƂPG
mother and one from our father. The In Chris Hemsworth’s case, he’s been
totality of the DNA is called our genome talking about one particular gene. We HEMSWORTH HAS BEEN TOLD HE’S AROUND
– that’s just a word for all of the DNA. know some things about what that gene 10 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DEVELOP
DNA itself is a long chemical made up does, but there are many mysteries – as ALZHEIMER’S DUE TO THIS GENETIC FACTOR.
of different components. You can think there are with lots of human biology. HOW SIGNIFICANT IS THAT?
of it as a long list and at each position We all have two copies of that gene, There are some diseases where if you
there’s one of four possibilities that one from our mother and one from our inherit the genetic change, you will get
GETTY IMAGES

happen to start with letters, A, G, C or father. The issue is that there can be sick. There are other examples, and this
T. In total we get three billion letters of slight differences between the copies. is one of those, where if you inherit a
DNA from our mother and three billion Lots of these differences don’t have particular genetic change, you can be

32
 DISCOVERIES

A genetic test taken for a TV

programme revealed the
actor Chris Hemsworth has
a higher risk of developing
Alzheimer’s disease

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY TO PEOPLE WHO

WOULD RATHER NOT KNOW ABOUT THEIR
POTENTIAL GENETIC RISK FACTORS?
It depends on the disease and on
how big the impact is. In the case of
Alzheimer’s disease, the gene that
was checked for Hemsworth is called
APOE and it has quite a big impact on
his risk of getting the disease. At the
moment, there’s not much you can do
about it, so I think different people
will take different views. Some would
rather know and some would rather
not know, and that’s absolutely up to
the individual. But I think Alzheimer’s
research is progressing really quickly.
So it might well be the case that, before
too long, there might be things you
could do and drugs you could take
to help reduce the risk or slow its
progression. I think that it’s a slightly
different question for different diseases.

WILL WE EVER SEE A DAY WHERE WE HAVE

ENTIRE POPULATIONS ROUTINELY HAVING
GENETIC TESTS LIKE THESE?
I think that will happen. First of all, it
should be up to the individual. No one
should be forcing people to have tests
like this. But for most common diseases,
genetics is a risk factor and if we knew
about it, instead of just saying: ‘here
more likely – sometimes quite a bit are the 10 or 20 diseases you should
“In Hemsworth’s more likely – to develop the disease.
For most of the common conditions,
be most worried about and here’s some
generic advice’, we could be saying: ‘in
case, we’re such as heart disease, diabetes and
many of the common cancers, genetics
your case, you’re at particularly high
risk of heart disease’. We can actually
talking about is a big part of the risk. But it’s not just
one change or two changes; it’s millions
tell you this when you’re in your 20s,
so you should work even harder on
one particular of positions that each contribute a tiny
bit to that risk. So Hemsworth’s example
diet and lifestyle, or maybe it would be
appropriate to go on drugs to reduce

gene. We know is in the middle, where he’s probably

about 10 times more likely to develop
your cholesterol a bit earlier in life.
We could do that because we have that
disease. And although we’re all very special information about you.
some things aware of diseases like Alzheimer’s, it’s
quite rare. So there’s a big difference
about what between relative risk, which is how
much more likely you are to get the S I R PET E R D ON N E L LY
that gene does, disease than someone else, and absolute
risk, which is about whether you’ll
Peter is an emeritus professor of
statistical science and director
but there are actually get it. So the important point
is it doesn’t determine that he will or
of the Wellcome Trust Centre for
Human Genetics at the University

many mysteries” won’t get the disease. It just increases

the risk for him.
of Oxford. He is also the CEO of
Genomics PLC.

33
 DISCOVERIES

COMMENT

A
proton should be one of the simplest objects in

WE STILL HAVE A LOT physics. It’s a basic building block of all atoms,
or, alternatively, the simplest possible atom
all by itself, since hydrogen (one positively
TO LEARN ABOUT charged proton plus one negatively charged electron) is
still hydrogen when it’s ionised. Most of the atoms in

THE PROTON the Universe are hydrogen, as are most of the atoms in
your body. In fact, since electrons are tiny and weigh
very little, it’s straightforward to conclude that you
Physicists investigating the subatomic are mostly, specifically, protons.
particle’s properties quickly find themselves Given all this, you’d think physicists would understand
going down a rabbit hole of complexity protons very well by now. You would be wrong.

34
 DISCOVERIES

If you ask your physics teacher what protons are

made of, they’ll likely tell you protons are made
of three smaller particles called quarks. Quarks
come in six different types, or ‘flavours’: up, down,
charm, strange, top, and bottom (they were named
in the 1960s and 1970s), with up and down quarks
combining to make protons and neutrons.
Since the up quark has a charge of +2/3 and the “So how do we build a
down quark has a charge of -1/3, the sums all work
out if a +1-charged proton is two ups and a down proton that weighs 938MeV
(2/3 + 2/3 - 1/3 = +1) and a neutral neutron is two
downs and an up (-1/3 -1/3 + 2/3 = 0). out of three quarks that
So far, so good.
But while the charges add up perfectly, the masses
don’t. In particle physics, we usually measure mass
weigh a total of 9MeV, and a
in terms of energy (interchangeable via that old
standard, E = mc2), and for this purpose we’ll use
handful of particles with no
units of MeV, for Mega-electron-volts.
If you look up quark masses online you’ll find
mass at all? The answer is
that the mass of an up quark is around 2MeV
while a down quark is close to 5MeV. But those
even more complicated than
same sources will tell you the mass of a proton is
a whopping 938MeV. Our sums are off by about
you might imagine”
99 per cent.
Before we panic, we can ask, what else is in the
proton? And we have a convenient answer: gluons!
Gluons are the aptly named particles that carry
the strong nuclear force, just as photons carry
light – the electromagnetic force. Gluons are in
the proton to hold the quarks together, so surely
they must contribute something. But gluons have
something else in common with photons: they’re that bond will spontaneously create two new quarks,
entirely massless. one bound to each of the ones you just separated.
So how do we build a proton t hat weighs Quarks do NOT like to be separated.
938MeV out of three quarks that weigh a total of The energy inherent in quark confinement solves
9MeV and a handful of particles with no mass at the proton mass puzzle, but the calculations of
all? The answer is even more complicated than you exactly how this term arises, and what its magnitude
might imagine. For one thing, it’s not quite right is, are incredibly complex, and the more you look
to say there are three quarks in a proton. Really, a into them, the more complex they become. Recent
proton is a roiling quantum sea of an uncountable experiments have shown that protons can sometimes
number of quarks, antiquarks and gluons, constantly be observed containing charm quarks, which is
shifting in and out of existence by transforming particularly surprising, since charm quarks are
into one another. And those ethereal particles more massive than protons are.
zipping around inside the proton carry kinetic Measurements of the proton’s size have been
energy, which, via E = mc2, gets us about 60 per controversial for decades: you get different answers
cent of the 938MeV that we need. depending on whether you measure it by scattering
NERISSA ESCANLAR ILLUSTRATION: MATT HOLLAND

The final piece comes from the energy of the electrons off the proton or by watching the electron
strong nuclear force itself. The quarks are not in a hydrogen atom pass right through the proton,
merely bound by the strong force, but confined. which is a thing it does routinely, just on a normal
This is different from gravity or electromagnetism, day, because nothing at that scale is sacred at all.
where the more separation you get, the weaker
the attraction – you can, with enough effort, pull
With new, advanced computational techniques,
we’re making progress. And the measurements are DR KATIE MACK
(@As troKatie)
magnets apart, or accelerate a rocket away from already incredibly precise. If we can unlock the Katie is a theoretical
Earth. But the strong force will just keep pulling. mysteries of this most basic of atomic building astrophysicist. She currently
There’s so much energy tied up in the force itself blocks, we’ll be closer to understa nding t he holds the position of Hawking
Chair in Cosmology and
that even if you manage to pull two bound quarks fundamental laws that govern reality itself. Or
Science Communication at
apart hard enough to overcome their strong force maybe we’ll discover something even more bizarre the Perimeter Institute for
attraction, the energy you have to put in to break hiding within it. Theoretical Physics.

35
 DISCOVERIES

COMMENT
requires careful design, as well as rules to ensure that
CAN ARTIFICIAL AGENTS these systems aren’t used against people.
A chatbot may, for instance, blurt out racist terms,

BE TRUSTED? provide false health information, or instruct your

child to touch a live electrical plug with a coin – all of
which have happened. The newest language models are
AI systems can now generate and use language that trained on vast amounts of text found on the internet,
feels like a real conversation. But to whose benefit? including toxic and misleading content. These models
also use neural networks, which means that instead of
following rules (‘if the input is x, respond y’), they create

I
magine being able to chat with an artificial an output by learning from a mishmash of examples in
intelligence (AI) about anything. What if you a way that is harder to understand or control.
could discuss last night’s game, get relationship As it becomes more difficult to anticipate a language
advice, or have a deep philosophical debate model’s responses, there’s more risk of unintended
with the virtual assistant on your kitchen counter? consequences. For example, if people ask their home
Large language models – AIs capable of this level of assistant how to deal with a medical emergency, invest
communication – being developed by companies such their money, or whether it’s okay to be gay, the wrong
as OpenAI, Google and Meta are advancing quickly kinds of answers can be harmful.
enough to make this our new reality. But can we trust The information that people may share with their
what artificial agents have to say? devices is also troubling. When computer scientist Joseph
There are many reasons to embrace conversational Weizenbaum created a simple chatbot called ELIZA in
AI. The potential uses in health, education, research, the 1960s, he was surprised to find that people would
and commercial spaces are mind-boggling. Virtual give it personal information that they wouldn’t disclose
characters can’t replace human contact, but mental to him, even though he had access to the chat data.
health research suggests that having something to talk Similarly, people may tell artificial agents their secrets,
to, whether real or not, can help people. Besides, it’s without thinking about whether and how companies
may collect and mine that information.
We need to ask who creates and owns large language
“We need to ask who creates models, who deploys the devices that use them, and
whom this harms or benefits. Personal information
and owns large language that people reveal in conversation can be used for and
against them. The idea of having an artificial agent
models, who deploys the who remembers things about you is appealing, but it
could also allow others to manipulate you and your
devices that use them, and loved ones. One day, your home assistant could alert
you to a deal on a car you can’t really afford, at a time
whom this harms or benefits” when it knows you’re emotionally most likely to buy it.
Imagine if it gave you selective political information,
or asked for a software upgrade it knows you’re willing
to spend money on.
fun to banter with an artificial agent that can access If that sounds dystopian, consider that we’re almost
all of the knowledge on the internet. there. Last week, the Amazon Echo in my kitchen tried
But conversational agents also raise ethical issues. to sell my kids an ‘extreme fart package’. Advertisers
Transparency is one: people may want to know whether invest massive amounts every year to reach children and
they’re talking to a human or a machine. This makes teenagers, and recent research I collaborated on with
sense, but it’s probably also fairly easy to address in MIT PhD students Anastasia Ostrowski and Daniella
contexts where it matters. The bigger problem with these DiPaola indicates that kids are confused about the role of

DR KATE
systems is that we trust them more than we should. companies when an artificial agent advertises products
As conversational agents become more compelling, to them – a very near-future consumer protection issue.

DARLING will we rely on them for information? We may even It’s wild to think that my kids will not remember a
ILLUSTRATION: VALENTIN TKACH

grow fond of the artificial characters in our daily lives. time before we could talk to machines. As we enter this
(@grok_)
Kate is a research There’s a large body of research in human-computer reality, it’s both exciting and concerning to imagine the
scientist at the MIT and human-robot interaction which shows that people different paths this era could take. As people begin to
Media Lab, studying will reciprocate social gestures, disclose personal forge relationships with, and perhaps even demand
human-robot
information, and are even willing to shift their beliefs rights for, artificial agents, we need to ensure that this
interaction. Her book
is The New Breed or behaviour for an artificial agent. This kind of social technology is designed and used responsibly. After all,
(£20, Penguin). trust makes us vulnerable to emotional persuasion and humanity deserves protection, too.

36
DISCOVERIES

37
 DISCOVERIES

COMMENT
and deforestation. The scale also measures whether
CLIMATE CHANGE IS ALREADY we ruminate on these issues, to see if we’re unable
to stop thinking about climate change or losses to
HAVING AN EFFECT… ON OUR the environment.
It also asks how these thoughts and feelings

MENTAL WELLBEING change our behaviour, such as whether they lead

to difficulty sleeping, working, or enjoying social
situations, and how responsible we feel for the
People’s growing anxiety about the future crises we’re facing – for instance, whether we feel
of the planet is becoming increasingly obvious, anxious about the problems our personal behaviours
but it’s not an entirely bad thing are causing for the planet, or that our individual
actions will do little to solve them.
If you just thought, “wow, that’s me most days”,

H
ow worried are you about environmental then you probably have high eco-anxiety. This
issues? If thinking about climate change is common around the world and across all ages,
and biodiversity loss stresses you out, but it seems to be the most pronounced among
you’re not alone. Psychologists a re young people.
trying to understand this feeling – referred to as In 2022, researchers working with UNICEF, the
eco-anxiety – and they’re finding that this worry United Nations Children’s Fund, published the first
may be essential for our fight to save the planet. large-scale international survey on climate anxiety
In late 2021, Australian applied psychologist in children and young people. They surveyed
Teaghan Hogg and colleagues proposed a new 10,000 people aged between 16 and 25, across 10

DR JULIA SHAW scale to help us measure eco-anxiety: the Hogg countries (Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India,
ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT BALMER

(@drjuliashaw)
Eco-Anxiety Scale. It uses 13 questions to capture Nigeria, Portugal, the Philippines, the UK and the
Julia is a psychological our complex feelings about the environment. USA). They found that 59 per cent of people were
scientist at University The scale asks about negative emotions like feeling very or extremely worried about climate change,
College London, the author nervous, on edge or afraid about environmental and 84 per cent were at least moderately worried.
of multiple best-selling
books, and the co-host of issues, including global warming, ecological Tapping directly into facets of eco-anxiety, the
the hit podcast Bad People degradation, resource depletion, species extinction, UNICEF researchers also found that half of the
on BBC Sounds. the hole in the ozone layer, pollution of the oceans, children and young people reported feeling sad,

38
 DISCOVERIES

“The climate crisis is a found that it is associated with depression, anxiety,

stress, insomnia, lower self-referred mental health,

very real danger so it’s impairment to memor y a nd attention, a nd a

reluctance to have children.

good that our brains This doesn’t mean that today’s young people
are all going to be crippled by eco-anxiety. But

are trying to make us it does mean that we need to keep an eye on the
psychological effects that climate change is having.

pay attention and do There is a positive side to eco-anxiety, though, as

it has been linked with pro-environmental action

something about it” and climate activism. It’s because of this that some
researchers have argued that, overall, eco-anxiety
is a good thing because it’s a practical anxiety.
Anxiety is the body’s way of telling us that we
may be in danger. This anxiety leads us to try and
anxious, angry, powerless, helpless and guilty figure out what that threat to us is, driving us to
about environmental issues. More than 45 per cent find more information and figure out a solution
said their negative feelings about climate change to make us safe. The climate crisis is a very real
affected their daily life, with fears about the future danger, so it’s good that our brains are trying to
dominating their thoughts along with deep feelings make us pay attention and do something about it,
of betrayal from governments. because that’s how we counter this threat.
This is a potential problem for mental health. The researchers who examined the link between
Constantly feeling anxious and worried about the eco-anxiety and health found that pro-environmental
climate can lead to chronic stress in childhood, action could buffer against this anxiety evolving
which can have long-lasting consequences. into depression. Which is to say that if you’re
So are young people in danger of becoming experiencing eco-anxiety, then simply carrying Listen to Dr Julia Shaw on
mentally ill because of the constant stress these out behaviour that is good for the planet – like the Bad People podcast,
issues have on them? In a review of research on the recycling, petitioning local government officials, available on BBC
health consequences of eco-anxiety published in joining a march, or taking trains instead of planes Sounds.
2022, a team of Spanish and Brazilian researchers – might also do wonders for your mental health.

39
 RE ALIT Y CHECK REVIEW

REALITY CHECK S C I E N C E B E H I N D T H E H E A D L I N E S

The carnivore diet | Social anxiety | Food aversions

REVIEW

THE CARNIVORE DIET: CAN EATING A

MEAT-ONLY MENU BE GOOD FOR YOUR HEALTH?
The meat-only diet has gone viral on social media, with its proponents claiming that
humans evolved to exist on animal protein alone

42
 REVIEW RE ALIT Y CHECK

“Side effects are similar to those reported for the

ketogenic diet: bad breath, constipation, diarrhoea,
headaches, dehydration”

Side effects are similar to those reported for the

Visit the BBC’s Reality Check ketogenic diet: bad breath, constipation, diarrhoea,
website at bit.ly/reality_check_ headaches, dehydration and other symptoms
or follow them on Twitter associated with being in a state of ketosis (when
@BBCRealityCheck the body has used up all its glycogen stores and
breaks down fat into ketone bodies that can be
used as a source of energy, instead of glucose).
ou’ve probably heard of the ketogenic These side effects may eventually subside as the

Y diet and you may have heard of the paleo

diet, but have you heard of the carnivore
diet? This emerging diet trend takes low-
carbohydrate diets to a new extreme.
The carnivore diet excludes all plant foods;
only foods derived from animals are consumed,
body adapts to the diet after about a month.

WHAT ARE THE NUTRITIONAL BENEFITS OF THE

CARNIVORE DIET?
Meat is an excellent source of high-quality
protein, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin D, vitamin
including meat, fish, animal fats (lard and ghee, B6 and vitamin B12. Fish contributes high-quality
for example) and low-lactose dairy products. So, protein, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D, selenium
breakfast might be eggs and bacon with cream, and iodine. Dairy foods are also rich in high-
lunch could be cheese-topped meatballs (no herbs quality protein, as well as calcium, iodine and B
BELOW
added) with chicken breast and, finally, roast beef vitamins. The UK dietary guidelines, embodied in Brian ‘Liver
and salmon for dinner. the NHS’s Eatwell Guide, recommend dairy foods, King’ Johnson
Advocates of the carnivore diet contend that lean meats (no more than 70g per day of red or built a social
plant toxins and residual pesticides used in plant processed meat) and two portions of fish per week media
food production are harming our health. They (one of which should be oily fish). following
claim that starchy foods only became a major However, the Eatwell Guide also recommends by promoting
part of the human diet with the agricultural consuming at least five 80g portions of fruits and his version of
revolution. Finally, it’s proposed that eliminating vegetables per day, and that a third of what we the carnivore
diet, called
all plant foods is the best way to go sugar-free for eat should be wholegrain and higher-fibre starchy
‘the primal
weight control and metabolic health. foods. Cutting out fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds
diet’
Authors of carnivore diet books tend to frame and wholegrains on the carnivore diet would
their subject as the answer to the problem of mean zero fibre intake, with unknown long-
obesity and non-communicable chronic diseases, term consequences for gut and heart health.
and often claim that decades of nutritional science In fact, there’s strong global consensus that
research have culminated in flawed dietary increased dietary fibre consumption
recommendations. Most of these authors draw on is associated with lower risks of
the argument that Homo sapiens evolved to hunt cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes
for meat and fish, and that plant-eating was only a and colorectal cancer, whereas
back-up plan for times of animal food scarcity. high red and processed-meat
consumption increases risk.
WHAT COULD YOU EXPECT IF YOU CONSUMED ONLY Evidence from randomised
ANIMAL-SOURCED FOODS FOR A SIGNIFICANT PERIOD? controlled trials shows that
Unfortunately, there’s no scientific evidence plant foods rich in soluble
available on the health impact of excluding all fibre can lower blood low-
plant foods from the diet. The only available density lipoprotein (LDL)
sources of information are anecdotal reports and cholesterol and triglyceride
GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY

testimonials reporting better weight management, concentrations, decrease

improved heart and metabolic health, superior the rate of progression
cognitive function and lower inflammation, as of atherosclerosis – fatty
well as better digestive function and resolution lesions that can damage
of auto-immune diseases. and block arteries, causing 5

43
ABOVE Fibre-rich plant foods help decrease the build
up of fatty lesions that can damage and block arteries

5 coronary heart disease and stroke.

Conversely, fatty meats and butter can raise
LDL cholesterol. Plant foods are also rich
in potassium, vitamin C, folate and other
micronutrients – all essential for health
and derived mainly from fruit and veg.
Additionally, we know that healthy
plant-based diets are associated
with more diverse and beneficial gut
microbiome profiles, resulting in microbial
fermentation products from fibre and non-
nutrient bioactive compounds that may
reduce inflammation.

WHAT’S SO APPEALING ABOUT THE

CARNIVORE DIET?
Supporters of the carnivore diet often claim
that subsisting entirely, or nearly entirely,
on animal-sourced foods is close to the
natural human diet, aligned with what was
eaten in early human history. But biological
anthropologists would point out that the
ANALYSIS
anatomy of our brains, teeth and intestines
show that we evolved as resourceful and
flexible omnivores who can adapt to varied
environments to meet our nutritional needs SOCIAL ANXIETY:
HOW TO DEFEAT THE
from both animals and plants.
Collectively, we must accept that global
food production needs a major shake-up

DREAD OF PARTY SEASON

if population nutritional needs are going
to be met while also attempting to hold
back climate change. Reducing meat
consumption is an essential component of
the move towards sustainable, healthy food Christmas comes but once a year,
systems. The carnivore diet flies in the face and its many parties fill some with fear
of this global mission for planetary health,
for the sake of perceived personal gains.
Regardless of the potential long-term harm
to healthy life expectancy, this seems to be s December draws to a close, so too does
the ultimate selfish act.

by DR W E N DY H A L L
Wendy is a registered nutritional scientist and reader at King’s
College London. Her research focuses on the impact of diet
on risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. She
A pa r t y season. Whet her it’s t he of f ice
Christmas party, a Yuletide family get-
together or New Year’s Eve, the idea of
socialising fills many people with dread.
If all the parties over the festive period stressed
you out, the first thing to say is you’re not alone.
is Theme Leader for Nutrition and Optimum Life Course Of course, there’s a spectrum of severity, but feeling
for the UK Nutrition Society. nervous about socialising is incredibly common.

44
 ANALYSIS RE ALIT Y CHECK

“The simple truth is a

lot of people are so
wrapped up in their
own worries that
they’re not judging
you as closely as you
might think”
prep – get up to speed on the latest current affairs
or sports news, so that you’ve got some material at
hand to lighten those initial interactions.
If you’re quiet by nature and don’t socialise much
during the rest of the year, it can be helpful to use
so-called ‘if-then plans’ so that you don’t freeze or
feel overwhelmed when you first walk into the room.
For instance: if I’m feeling stuck for conversation,
then I’ll ask the person next to me what they think
of Elon Musk taking over Twitter; or, if I’m feeling
left out, then I’ll look for the friendliest-looking
person or people in the room and ask them one
question (such as, ‘do you have any big plans for
The reason for t h is is t he way we evolved. ABOVE Look the New Year?’).
Throughout our ancestral history, humans needed out for anyone There are some psychology findings that you might
to work in groups to stay alive. That’s why we’ve who may be find comforting. One of my favourites is a study by
developed instincts to care a lot about social stuff, feeling left out psychologists at Washington University in St Louis
why we’re so concerned about things like reputation and try to make that asked volunteers with social anxiety to rate the
it easier for
and status, and why we dread making a fool of quality of their relationship with a given friend.
them to feel
ourselves or being left out. included
Then the researchers approached that named friend
But don’t forget, social occasions are an opportunity, and asked them to rate the relationship too. The
not just a threat – they’re a chance to forge shared reassuring finding was that the named friends rated
memories, bond and have fun together. So as an the friendships more positively than the volunteers
initial step towards alleviating your anxiety, try with social anxiety – in other words, your friends
boosting your hopefulness about these events. For probably like you more than you realise.
example, remind yourself of occasions – however Here’s a not her comfor t ing study t hat led
rare they might be – when things went well and you psychologists to propose somet hing called t he
had a fun time or you made new friends. ‘spotlight effect’ (the way that we tend to think
Next, from a practical perspective, one of the most people are scrutinising us much more closely than
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES

effective ways to reduce your social anxiety is to be a they really are). It involved volunteers wearing an
little strategic and proactive. So rather than waiting embarrassing item of clothing (at the time, around the
for the obligations to roll in and letting them hang year 2000, this was considered to be a Barry Manilow
over you like a dark cloud, be clear about which T-shirt) in a group setting and then estimating how
ones you really want or need to go to. many people in the room noticed it.
If there are friends you’d love to go with, don’t wait The volunteers massively overestimated how many
for them to ask you – reach out and make it happen people noticed their embarrassing attire; in reality,
(they’ll probably be thrilled to hear from you). If you the others just weren’t paying that much attention
struggle with small talk, don’t be afraid to do a little to them. Bear this in mind when you’re agonising 5

45
 COMMENT

FOOD AVERSIONS: ARE

THEY LEARNED OR GENETIC?
Ever wondered why you love some foods but
can’t bear the smell, let alone taste, of others?

here are some tastes that we’re hard-wired

You’re not obliged to accept every invite. You’re more likely to

have a good time if you accept only those you want to attend
T to favour. One of those is sweetness. Not
only does an early preference for sweetness
help to ensure that babies are attracted to
the slightly sweet taste of breastmilk, but
our general preference for sweetness is understood
to be an evolutionary adaptation, motivating us
to seek out and consume (once rare) energy- and
carbohydrate-rich foods. Sweetness may also have
5 over what to wear or what to say. The simple become a signal for safety, as there are hardly any
truth is a lot of people are so wrapped up in their naturally sweet foods that are toxic.
own worries that they’re not judging you as closely The bumps on your tongue, called papillae, also
as you might think. contain thousands of receptors for the other basic
Indeed, excessive self-focus is one of the main tastes: bitter, sour, umami (the rich, savoury taste of
drivers of social anxiety. Constantly monitoring cheese, meat and mushrooms), salty, and the recently
your own behaviour and utterances will fuel your added oleogustus – which describes the unique taste
nerves and, in worst-case scenarios, lead you to act of fat. Again, these tastes indicate the nutrient content
more awkwardly. Anything you can do to try to get and safety of a food.
out of your head and focus your attention outwards Mineral-rich foods taste salty. Not only are minerals
ought to alleviate your anxiety. You could even give important helpers for enzyme activity in the body,
yourself another if-then plan to help with this: if but nerves send their messages using sodium ions,
I find myself being self-focused, then I’ll make a making minerals essential for the proper function of
conscious effort to listen to what someone is saying your brain and nervous system. Like carbohydrates,
or look at what they’re wearing. fat is an important energy source. Umami indicates
Taking this further, why not set yourself a little the presence of amino acids, the building blocks
goal to be on the lookout for anyone else at the of proteins required for ma k ing a nd repairing
party or dinner who seems uncomfortable or left cells and tissues, as well as for the production of
out. There are bound to be people feeling that way neurotransmitters.
and you could be the one to make their experience Conversely, we tend to find bitter and sour tastes
more positive. aversive, particularly in childhood, which is a
Above all, remember that avoidance (either not crucial protective adaptation because these tastes
going out or resorting to excess drink or drugs) never can indicate the presence of toxins. For example, a
helps anxiety – it just fuels it. Like all challenges class of bitter-tasting compounds called alkaloids
in life that we find difficult, socialising gets easier have psychoactive effects. Nicotine and cocaine are
with practice. But don’t expect too much of yourself in this group, but so are caffeine and theobromine
either – pace yourself and do your best. Plan ahead (found in chocolate). The heightened risk of toxicity
and focus your attention on the other people you’re or other harmful side effects is thought to be why
there with, and who knows, you might even have babies are so much more sensitive to these tastes
a little fun along the way. than adults. Our sensitivity to bitter tastes reduces
over time, which is why babies can’t stand the taste
of coffee but many adults love the stuff.
Actually, that’s not the only reason adults like
GETTY IMAGES X2

by DR CH R IST I A N JA R R ET T coffee, because food preferences are not simply

Christian is a psychology and neuroscience writer. about flavour; they’re also about sensation. If you
His latest book is Be Who You Want: Unlocking The are a regular coffee drinker, the likelihood is that
Science Of Personality Change (£14.99, Robinson). you baulked at your very first sip. A few moments

46
 COMMENT RE ALIT Y CHECK

“While many aversions are psychological, a few

are genetically driven”

you elicit and neurologically relive those associations,

meaning a big part of the enjoyment is in the memory.
In contrast, if the first time you ate walnuts you
became sick (perhaps because you were coming down
with the flu), you might make a negative association
with them. Essentially, your brain tagged walnuts as
a risky food, making it difficult to even think about
eating them. This aversive response can be powerful,
persisting even when you know the food in question
had nothing to do with the sickness.
So is t here any chance of changing our food
preferences? Yes and no. While many aversions are
psychological, a few are genetically driven. If, for
example, you’re someone who hates coriander and
think it tastes like soap, then it’s possible you possess
a variant of a gene that affects your sensitivity to
certain naturally occurring chemicals in the herb.
But most of our aversions are like the one mentioned
above or culturally acquired. The difference between
many of the things we like or dislike comes down
to culture, for example, in some parts of the world,
guinea pigs are beloved family pets; in others they’re
a delicious source of protein. What this means is that
we learn to like the foods that we most frequently
encounter and that are valued by those around us.
And this is good news if you have an aversion
that you would like to overcome (to be clear, we’re
not talking about allergies or intolerances here). By
trying small amounts of the food you’re averse to
repeatedly, and in a calm and relaxed state, you can
learn to appreciate it. It can also be helpful to try
the food cooked in different ways. So if you grew up
later, however, as the caffeine made its way to your ABOVE There hating boiled Brussels sprouts, try them shredded and
brain, you might have experienced a pleasant feeling, may be strong stir-fried or roasted with garlic. It can also be good
one of mild euphoria or heightened alertness. These psychological to challenge your beliefs about the food. Reading up
associations at
pleasurable sensations become encoded alongside about why sprouts are so good for you can help make
the root of your
the taste of the coffee. So part of the reason you like dislike of certain
you more willing to try them, and this willingness
coffee is because of the feeling it provides. foods can help to nudge you over the line to acceptance.
And this offers another hint as to why we like For most things, a shift in attitude and repeated
some foods and not others: psychology. If a beloved exposure can help to make a formerly hated food
grandmother always made you a walnut cake for your more palatable.
birthday as a child, the flavour of walnut cake (and
perhaps also the texture and smell of toasted walnuts) by KIMBERLEY WILSON
will be associated for you, largely unconsciously, Kimberley is a chartered psychologist with an MSc in nutrition.
with fond memories and pleasing sensations. In a She is the co-host of BBC Radio 4’s Made Of Stronger Stuff. Her
sense, every time you eat walnut cake as an adult, book, How To Build A Healthy Brain (£16.99, Yellow Kite), is out now.

47
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 PREPARE YOURSELF FOR TOMORROW

ANALYSIS FIVE OF THE BEST NEW TECH

GOOGLE PIXEL WATCH ELECTRIC BIKES IDEAS WE LIKE
Fancy slapping this high-tech Bicycles that put the power The gadgets we’re lusting after
timepiece on your wrist? p50 in pedal power p52 this month p54


Can Google’s Pixel
Watch compete with
Apple and Samsung?
Find out on p50

1895 130 million

The year How much faster

21%
the first the average journey
patent for on an electric bike is,
an electric compared to a
bike was The estimated number of electric bike traditional bike.
filed. sales globally in 2023.

49
 INNOVATIONS

REVIEW

Google Pixel Watch: plenty

of style, slightly less substance
Alex Hughes straps on Google’s first smartwatch to see if it has a future in wearables

E
verything points to the idea that
Google should be a dominating
force in the world of wearables.
Google owns the massive wearable
brand Fitbit; it’s the maker of Wear OS, the
software that most Android smartwatches
run on; and it’s Google, one of the biggest
names in technology! So it’s surprising
that Google hasn’t made a smartwatch…
until now.
The Google Pixel Watch is the brand’s first
smartwatch. But with a hefty £339 price
tag and some tough competition, is this
the future of wearable tech or yet another
device we’ll forget about in a few years?
I spent some time with it to find out.

DRESS TO IMPRESS
The watch looks great. It’s one of the best-
looking smartwatches out there, dare I
say. It’s sleek, stylish and – compared to
other smartwatches – manages to actually
look like a watch, rather than a computer
strapped to your wrist. Google is looking to
The face features a curved screen that take on Apple and
Samsung with its
blends into a silver metal back. Two
small, sleek and
detachable strap connectors fit into each stylish Pixel Watch
side and easily pop in and out if you want
to try a different look.
Google has done a great job at making
the watch comfortable to wear. It’s light
and the strap fits well without feeling tight. at the screen trying to press buttons or I was having to charge it for an hour or
This is especially useful when exercising type, its size quickly becomes frustrating. so before sleeping, and then again in the
or sleeping, places where other wearables morning once I woke up. It’s not the end
can quickly become uncomfortable. YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE of the world, but makes life difficult if
While it isn’t tiny, it’s certainly smaller The biggest disappointment of this watch you’re a ‘roll out of bed at the last minute’
than your average smartwatch, which is the battery life. Google claims it can last kind of person.
makes for a sleek design, but it isn’t ideal 24 hours but I was never able to achieve The watch does charge quickly, though.
when you’re trying to use a display with this. If you plan on only wearing the watch Google claims that you can get up to 50 per
already itsy-bitsy icons. Complicating during the day and charging it each night, cent in 30 minutes, and I achieved similar
matters further is the fact that a significant then you’ll manage to get by. charge times. Note, however, that Google
portion of the face isn’t actually a usable The problem of battery life is most supplies a charging cable for the watch,
screen, but a large bezel that wraps around obvious when making use of the watch’s but says third-party chargers can’t be used.
it. Google does a great job at hiding this sleep-tracking function. By the time I was There is a battery-saving mode, but this
with a blacked-out backing on most apps going to bed each day, the charge would turns off some of the watch’s most useful
and functions. But as you jab and poke be down to between 20 and 40 per cent. functions, such as the ability to turn on

50
 THE BEST
ALTERNATIVE
SMARTWATCHES
APPLE
WATCH 8
Apple has been
dominating the
smartwatch
market for a
while. The Apple Watch 8 is the
brand’s best overall
smartwatch, blending features
and price for a comfortable
package. It has a solid battery
life, great GPS tracking, the

“EMAILS, MAPS, NOTES AND

prefix ‘Fitbit’ at everything to keep that ability to track everything from
brand recognition alive. You can use ‘Fitbit ovulation to ECG and blood
ECG’, ‘Fitbit today’ and ‘Fitbit exercise’ to oxygen, and the integration of a

OTHER PRODUCTIVITY OPTIONS track a wide range of health stats.

Through the Google Play app store,
host of workouts. It’s a less
conventional design than most

ARE ESPECIALLY WELL you can download a huge list of other smartwatches, but looks great.
apps and most work really well with the

IMPLANTED IN THE WATCH”

watch. Emails, maps, notes and other SAMSUNG
productivity options are especially well GAL A XY
implanted in the watch, using intuitive WATCH 5 PRO
layouts and designs. Samsung is the
the screen when you flick your wrist and biggest Android
the always-on display. VERDICT smartwatch
brand, so perhaps Google’s
Battery life could be improved in the The Google Pixel Watch is almost the
main rival. The Samsung Galaxy
future through updates. Right now, the perfect Android smartwatch. This is a 5 Pro is made for fitness
watch tracks your heart rate constantly, good sign that Google is heading in the enthusiasts looking to track
unlike most smartwatches that monitor right direction with wearables. every bit of exercise. It has
it periodically. Why you’d need to know The watch looks and fits great, offers all advanced GPS and a huge
your heart rate at every second, I have no the important features of a smartwatch and, battery life to get you through
idea, but it can’t be good for battery life. while it comes together a bit awkwardly, multiple days. Its look is rugged
the integration of Fitbit helps to offer a rather than glamorous.
FEATURES full range of fitness tracking.
This is hands-down one of the best examples The battery life and the small screen FITBIT
of Android smartwatch software. While hold the watch back from its full potential, VERSA 3
that sounds like a big claim, it’s more a however. Hopefully, software updates If you’re looking
reflection on a history of somewhat poor or future iterations can take the Google for something a
attempts from different brands. Pixel Watch to a level where it can fight bit more
On the watch’s home screen, you’re Samsung and Apple for that top spot. affordable, Fitbit
presented with a customisable face. There could be the way to go. It’s
is an overwhelming amount of choice here, Google-owned, but focuses on
affordability and features over
ranging from simple clock faces, to the
always dangerous custom-image option.
RATING:  design. The Versa 3 includes
built-in GPS, is both lightweight
From the home screen you can also and comfortable and has
PROS: CONS:
swipe to access ‘tiles’, which are your plenty of fitness features. You’ll
z Stylish design zPoor battery life
most-used functions. Quick buttons for the z Comfortable fit zSmall display need a Fitbit subscription to
torch, Google Pay and other tools are also z Fitbit zCan’t use access the best features, but
accessible here, along with notifications. integration third-party the watch still performs well
Google really wants you to know that it chargers without this.
owns Fitbit with this watch, chucking the

51
 INNOVATIONS

Five of the best

electric bikes
Battery and leg power combine
to propel these five bikes.
James Witts jumps in the saddle

Brompton Electric you’ve selected. That

C Line Explore assistance comes via
£2,995, brompton.com the motor built into
As Hoover is to the front wheel. In
vacuum cleaners, so theory, reaching over
Brompton is to folding bars to change modes
bikes. It’s the name. on the battery is
Brompton forged its hazardous; in practice,
reputation on a superb it’s fine. Range is
folding mechanism 30-70km (20-45 miles)
that collapses the bike depending on which
down into a compact mode you’re in, the
package. The C Line temperature and
Explore makes great terrain. You still
use of this to fold and have to pedal, but
unfold in fewer than you get six gears
30 seconds. to help with
With the 300Wh that. The ride is
battery mounted on the great fun and
front, the bike weighs there’s also a
17.4kg. On the top of Brompton app
the battery is a small should you want
LED display to show to use your
its charge and which phone as a
of the four power dashboard as
assistance modes you ride.

Riese & Müller UBN you which one you’re in.

Five singlespeed The UBN Five weighs
£4,719, r-m.de/en-gb 18kg, has a battery
The UBN Five has just that slots into the tube
one gear, signalling behind the front wheel,
its urban, commuting a 65-160km (40-100 mile)
intentions and ensuring range and a svelte rack
it’ll be easier to maintain (panniers not included).
than a geared bike. The The built-in headlight is
motor provides a smooth, plenty for urban riding
natural-feeling assistance and, rather neatly, the
with a maximum power LED mode panel lifts up
of 450 Watts. You can to reveal a USB-C port
shift through its three for charging your phone
assistance modes via a (although the mount to
thumb lever, while the attach the phone to the
LED on the top tube tells bars is sold separately).

52
 INNOVATIONS

Volt Connect behind the front wheel

£2,499, voltbikes.co.uk and is removable for
The Volt Connect is a easy charging, although
utilitarian bike with you need a key to do
mudguards, a sturdy so. Activating the
rack (complete with motor requires the key,
elastic straps), front too. That strengthens
and rear lights, and security, but isn’t ideal
an integrated lock on if you tend to misplace
the rear wheel. Its things (keep the spares
no-nonsense aluminium safe). As for the motor,
frame and reinforced it’s a 250W unit that sits
wheels shout that this is between the cranks. It
a machine designed to delivers a smooth drive
batter the elements into across its three modes
submission. and, used wisely, will
The lithium-ion power you for around
battery sits in the tube 100km (60 miles).

Ribble Endurance behind the handlebars.

SL e How often you’ll need
£3,199, ribblecycles.co.uk assistance, however,
Ribble has gone to great depends on the terrain.
lengths to make this The bike’s lightweight
bike light. Choose one nature means that on the
of the smaller models flats, it’s pretty easy to
and it could weigh as hit the motor’s 25km/h
little as 10.5kg. It’s so limit. So the assistance
light you don’t notice the is solely for helping you
battery that’s integrated out on the hills, which
into the tube behind the means its range is over
front wheel. The 250W 100km (60 miles). The
motor is nestled within bike also comes with 22
the rear wheel and gears, bulletproof wheels
provides three levels of and a comfy saddle –
assistance, which you albeit if you’re wearing
choose via a button just cycling shorts.

Saracen Ariel 50E less than many of its

£4,499, saracen.co.uk contemporaries, so
Saracen’s Ariel 50E uses choose your mode
a 250W Shimano EP8 carefully if you plan on
motor that sits between riding all day.
the cranks. It has three There’s 160mm of
riding modes (Eco, travel in the suspension
Trail and Boost) and a fork at the front and
Walk mode – a common 150mm at the shock
feature on electric absorber rear – enough
mountain bikes for when for even the most serious
the gradients and mud of trails. It’s a solid
make even pushing the e-mountain bike, though
bike a battle. Shimano’s perhaps one for the
504Wh-capacity racier riders out there, as
battery provides the there’s a relatively long
juice, though it’s reach to the bars.

53
 INNOVATIONS

Ideas …start a radio show from anywhere

In a world where everyone thinks they should host a podcast, the
Blast Mic is a dangerous but brilliant tool. A small device slapped
with an aggressively neon display, the Blast Mic lets you record

we like… audio and upload it live to the Blast Radio app (for podcasts and
audio shows). This cuts out all of the fiddly steps in the middle,
allowing anyone to easily start a radio show without needing loads
of equipment and time. It’s the perfect gift for that family member
Our pick of the month’s who has a lot to say this Christmas, giving them a speaking platform
that isn’t the dinner table.
smartest tech Blast Mic
$249 (£205 approx), blastradio.com

54
 INNOVATIONS

IDEAS WE
  DON’T LIKE...
…a watch for every sport ever …the ultimate powerbank
Garmin’s new Instinct Crossover Solar Shargeek has tapped into the collective
is for people who exercise all the time. hearts of nerds with the Storm 2, by
It doesn’t matter what sport you do, this making the power bank interesting. Yes,
watch’s endless menus will have a mode it charges up your devices on the go, but
for you. It tracks everything from your it also lets you adjust the voltage and
heart rate, to your sleep, and even how current, so you can choose how much
smoothly you ride mountain bike trails. power is sent to each device. You can
And to help you fit even more exercise track this through a display fitted into
…EXCLUSIVE AND
into your life, it can run using solar its stylish transparent top. But it’s a big PRICEY SPEAKERS
power, so it can stay on for an estimated spend even for those who are obsessed Porsche has now seemingly
70 days without a charge. with optimising their charging potential. turned to interior design with its
Instinct Crossover Solar Shargeek Storm 2 new speaker, adopting the
£529.99, garmin.com $229 (£187 approx), shargeek.com unusual style of ‘expensive car
driving through your wall’. The
911 Soundbar will set you back a
ridiculous £9,100, rewarding you
with an exclusive car exhaust
system strapped to a soundbar.
It’s not exactly a bad speaker – it
has Dolby Atmos, 4K HDMI ports,
and the kind of specs you’d see
on leading competitors. It’s just
that you’re just having to pay a
hefty amount extra for the
privilege of being one of the 150
owners to get one.
Porsche 911 Soundbar 2.0 Pro
£9,100, porsche-design.com

…HEATING YOUR HOME

WITH BITCOIN
  “Warmth never felt so
…smart lights on a budget …dress to impress the metaverse rewarding” say the people
Making your home smart is expensive, Although we’re not quite sold on the behind Heatbit, a heater that
especially when it comes to lighting. To metaverse yet, motion capture tech that earns you Bitcoin while it warms
combat this, Wyze has created a range can input your movements into it does your home. It’s a clever idea in
of budget smart bulbs, with 16 million sound like a lot of fun. Up until now, theory, until you realise the
minuscule amounts of Bitcoin
colour options. These clever bulbs can ‘mo-cap’ tech has been bulky, finicky,
you earn – the digital currency
be programmed to adjust their colour in expensive, or all three. Sony’s new that lost roughly half of its value
response to the light outside, to help you Mocopi is looking to fix this. By dotting during 2022. Still, small earnings
stay in sync with the sunlight. You can six sensors around your body, the Mocopi are better than nothing though,
even programme warning lights if you will be able to accurately replicate your right? Maybe not when the heater
leave your door open. Or you could movements online. It probably won’t be itself costs a whopping $1,149!
just paint your interior in an array of perfect, but we’re sure the eight active You can buy one of Dyson’s
GETTY IMAGES

neon colours… users on the metaverse won’t mind. air-purifying heaters and have a
Wyze Bulb Color BR30 Sony Mocopi nice holiday for that sort of cash.
$23.99 (£20 approx) for two, wyze.com £TBC, sony.com Heatbit
$1,149 (£935 approx),
heatbit.com

55
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 FE ATURE ECCENTRIC EXERCISE

THE NEW WORLD OF

ECCENTRIC EXERCISE
RUNNING UP STAIRS? LIFTING WEIGHTS? CLIMBING
HILLS? IT TURNS OUT DOING JUST THE OPPOSITE
Listen to
the Just One Thing
series with Dr Michael Mosley.
Available on BBC Sounds.
MIGHT BE BETTER FOR YOU bit.ly/just_one_thing_

WORDS: DR MICHAEL MOSLEY

O
ne of the best ways to get
the most out of any workout
is to make it ‘eccentric’. You
might think that running
up a hill is better for you than jogging
down it, or that climbing a flight
of stairs is going to challenge your
muscles more than walking down,
but in fact, the opposite is true. It
seems crazy, but this is the new
science of ‘eccentric exercise’.

rate and increases strength in a far

more effective way than conventional
forms of exercise.”
In one study, volunteers were
randomly allocated to walking either
up or down a set of stairs in a 10-storey
The name comes from the fact that muscle stronger than before. building twice a week, and taking
that contracting your muscles (to Concentric exercises (such as bicep the lift in the other direction. Both
climb stairs or lift weights) is called curls or squats) recruit and fatigue groups saw health improvements,
‘concentric exercise’, but any work many different muscle fibres. but the group who walked down
that goes into those muscles while Although the eccentric part of the rather than up the stairs ended
they are stretched and elongated exercise (as we lower the weight, or up with greater improvements in
(as you go downstairs or lower the sink down into a squat) recruits fewer resting heart rate (a reliable overall
weights) is known as ‘eccentric fibres, it does so with a load that is measure of fitness). They also saw a
exercise’ (pronounced ‘ee-centric’). up to four times higher. This, says greater improvement in their insulin
ILLUSTRATION: JOE WALDRON

Tony Kay is professor of Kay, creates far greater microscopic sensitivity and blood fat levels.
biomechanics at the University of damage to those cells and fibres. Plus, the group walking down
Northampton. He explains that all “The greater damage means the saw greater improvement in muscle
forms of exercise create microscopic body burns more calories in the function and bone density than the
damage to the muscles. This process of repair and recovery after group walking up. In fact, the group
stimulates the release of hormones the exercise has been performed,” doing what I would consider to be
which trigger your cells to rebuild he says. “This raises the metabolic the easier task improved their muscle

58
 ECCENTRIC EXERCISE FE ATURE

“STUDIES HAVE SHOWN THE BENEFITS

OF ECCENTRIC EXERCISE IN YOUNG,
HEALTHY MALE FOOTBALLERS,
AS WELL AS IN OVER-65S”

strength by 34 per cent – that’s twice

as much as those who had to walk
up the stairs each time!
In addition, the group walking
down showed greater improvements
M This extract
was taken
from Dr Michael
in a balance test, which would lead effects are far, far greater than we and have to work harder to protect Mosley’s new book,
to a reduced risk of falls and injury. would expect from normal exercise,” your body from damage. Just One Thing
Another study comparing older concludes Kay. Kay points out that both yoga and (£16.99, Short
adults doing traditional versus This is really impressive – and pilates feature poses which require Books), which is
eccentric exercise found the eccentric completely counterintuitive. And you to slowly lower yourself, thereby based on the BBC
group had a 38 per cent improvement it turns out that any exercise that causing an eccentric contraction, Radio 4 podcast of
in leg strength, compared to just requires you to lengthen your which will, he says, “increase the same name.
an 8 per cent improvement in the muscles under resistance will have flexibility, muscle mass, bone density
traditional exercise group. the same beneficial effect, whether and strength”.
Other studies have shown the it is running downhill or slowly Done right, not only will eccentric
benefits of eccentric exercise in lowering yourself down into a squat exercises keep you in good shape,
young, healthy male footballers or a press-up. The way it works they will also help your body to burn
(who saw dramatic increases in is that when you are going down, calories after you have finished –
strength), as well as in over-65s (who the muscles in your legs or arms more so than a seemingly ‘tougher’
showed 30 to 50 per cent increases in lengthen to slow the pace of descent. workout. This could be the metabolic
strength and a 10 per cent increase in Similarly, when you are lowering a secret that has been hiding in your
muscle mass in just six weeks). “The set of weights, the muscles lengthen workout all along!

59
 FE ATURE FROZEN IN TIME

Listen to Jheni on The Lost

World Of Ice on
BBC Sounds
bit.ly/lost-ice
.

by J H E N I O S M A N

RAPIDLY MELTING
GLACIERS ARE
REVEALING ALL SORTS
OF ANCIENT TREASURES.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS ARE
NOW RACING AGAINST
THE CLOCK TO PROTECT
THESE ANTIQUITIES
BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

60
FE ATURE

61
 FE ATURE FROZEN IN TIME

“IT IS INCREDIBLY EXCITING

n top of a nearby rock, a marmot perches, rotund
from a summer of feasting. Cowbells chime in the
green pasture below. The path ahead is blocked by

FOR ME TO FIND SUCH ARTEFACTS,

a stubborn herd of sheep. As I approach, they scurry
up the rocky cliff.
Balancing stone to stone, I cross a small stream,

BUT IT’S ALSO VERY SAD. I’D RATHER

before zigzagging up the mountainside. The higher I
go, the harder it is to breathe, the altitude and heavy
backpack weighing me down. I’m now past the tree
line. The ground is barren, except for some lichen

THE ARTEFACTS REMAINED

clinging to the rocky ground.
A vulture circles above. Its vast wings outstretched, swooping
in for a closer look, before soaring upwards on a thermal and

COVERED BY SNOW AND ICE”

disappearing from view into a cloud. Another looms out of the
white-grey sky, then another. Soon five are overhead, eyeing up

JHENI OSMAN, ARCHAEOLOGICAL SERVICE BERNE/ROLF WENGER, GETTY IMAGES X2

the carcass of a dead sheep lying beside the path.
Not far ahead is our destination – the Lötschepass in the Swiss
Alps. Despite the pass being at an altitude of 2,690 metres, it
was historically a trade route between the valleys far below. made – those people knew how to use ABOVE LEFT Regula
“Colleagues once found the remains of a medieval cow raw materials to create leather straps and Gubler and a colleague
skeleton at the top of the pass,” says archaeologist Regula Gubler. bindings, for example.” catalogue artefacts
“Radiocarbon dating revealed the cow was from the 15th or 16th Melting glaciers and ice patches around
Century. There are also written sources from that time showing the world have created an opportunity for ABOVE Gubler found
people brought cattle across the pass to market.” (Read more archaeologists to dramatically expand this bow in melting ice
about radiocarbon dating on p80.) their understanding of how mountain
ABOVE RIGHT Ötzi
The cow skull was discovered around a decade ago by a team of life has changed through the millennia. ‘the Iceman’ was
archaeologists surveying the remains of a permanent ice patch up One intriguing find revealed by melting discovered in a glacier
on the pass. Since then, the site has yielded all sorts of treasures. ice was Ötzi ‘the Iceman’ who lived more on the Austria-Italy
“Our best finds have been a whole assemblage of early Bronze than 5,000 years ago. border in the 1990s
Age things, from about 2000 BC,” says Gubler. “There was a box But archaeologists recognise such
made out of wood, two bows, fragments of arrow shafts and three discoveries are bittersweet. Since Gubler RIGHT A shoe found
flint arrowheads. Inside the box were cereal grains, which tells has been involved in the project, the ice with the remains of a
us what those people took along to cook. It seems like someone patch has dwindled. Now, in the summer prehistoric man in the
left half their equipment up here. The artefacts were really well months, it is just a small pool of water. Bernese Alps

62
 “As an archaeologist it is incredibly exciting for me to find
such artefacts,” says Gubler. “But it’s also very sad. I’d rather the
artefacts remained covered by snow and ice.”
Glaciers move downhill, albeit extremely slowly. So whatever
artefacts go into the glacier get spat out the other end. Ice patches,
on the other hand, are stationary, so artefacts can be trapped in
the ice for thousands of years. But as the artefacts emerge from
the ice, the race is on to save the ancient treasures before they
decay in the open air. Gubler is the only archaeologist working
on such sites in this region of Switzerland.
All around the world, archaeologists are facing the same huge
challenge of surveying and cataloguing sites in time, because
thawing is occurring too fast for their limited resources.

THE RACE IS ON
Climate change is to blame for the rapid melting of glaciers, ice
patches and permafrost. The rate of melting in the Alps is faster
than in some parts of the world, because the level of warming at
higher latitudes is greater than closer to the equator.
“In this year alone, we’ve lost about 6 per cent of the total
glacier ice volume that is still present in Switzerland,” says
Matthias Huss, a glaciologist and head of Glamos, an organisation
that monitors glaciers in Switzerland. “That is much more than
ever before. In the last decade, we’ve typically seen 2 per cent
ice volume lost per year. This year [2022] is three times more
than the average of the last 10 years.”
Glaciologists put 2022’s dramatic ice loss down to a combination
of three factors: minimal snowfall, heat waves and Saharan
dust. With little snowfall during winter, there was a thinner
protective layer than usual by the start of the summer, so the
snow melted sooner, exposing the ice, and so ice loss started
earlier in the season. Dust blown across the Mediterranean from
the Sahara Desert between March and May made Alpine snow
dirty, so it absorbed more solar radiation and melted faster. 2

63
ABOVE LEFT 2 The final nail in the coffin was the scorching heatwave in the For example, the route to the summit of Mont
Workers at a Swiss Alps from May through to the beginning of September. Blanc is becoming more treacherous earlier
ski resort cover The rate of melting across the Alps is so severe that the Glamos in the season because of the increased risk
snow with a researchers are starting to abandon some measuring stations. The of rock falls. In July 2022, a glacial ice shelf
blanket, to prevent station at Corvatsch has been shut down, as there remains little in Italy collapsed, killing 11 hikers. Severe
it from melting
ice on the glacier left to measure. Glaciologists predict that 95 glacial melt in the Himalayas exacerbated
ABOVE MIDDLE
per cent of the 4,000 or so glaciers dotted throughout the Alps the deadly floods in Pakistan.
The flooding in could disappear by the end of this century. Extreme weather conditions need
Pakistan in 2022’s “2022 was worse than we expected,” says Huss. “For some extreme measures. There has been talk
monsoon season time, climate models have been predicting extreme weather of large-scale geoengineering projects to

GETTY IMAGES, SHUTTERSTOCK, JHENI OSMAN, JULIA BARTOLI/CHANTAL ABERGEL/IGS/CNRS/AMU

was exacerbated would become more frequent, and our glacier models have shown help save the glaciers.
by glacial melting that such extreme melt rates are possible. But we wouldn’t have “Geoengineering projects work at a
expected to see such extreme events yet. The future has already local scale, but they’ll never work at the
ABOVE RIGHT become reality.” glacial scale,” says Huss. “One could put
This archway in the some white blankets over the ice below
Lötschepasse was
SAVING GLACIERS AND LIVES a ski run to retain economic activities.
at the surface of
the glacier just 10
Globally, melting glaciers also threaten the lives of communities But these technologies won’t ever be able
years ago, but now living nearby. Glaciers are like ‘water towers’ – they store to save one entire glacier, and even less
juts far above it snow that falls during the winter months then gradually all the glaciers in the Alps or worldwide.
release it through the summer, providing drinking water, “We can save some of the glaciers in
irrigation for crops, and a cooling mechanism for power the Alps by reducing carbon emissions, it
stations. Melting ice also impacts the local tourist industry. has been computed that about one-third of
the ice volume that we have today in the

“WE WOULDN’T HAVE EXPECTED TO SEE

Alps can be saved if the Paris Agreement
is fully implemented. But this is pretty
ambitious. Even then, we will lose most of

SUCH EXTREME EVENTS YET. THE FUTURE

the glaciers in the Alps – that is assuming
we only see limited further temperature
rise from today.”
The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit

HAS ALREADY BECOME REALITY”

global warming to well below 2°C, ideally
1.5°C, compared to pre-industrial levels.
Whether that can be achieved is a challenge

64
 FROZEN IN TIME FE ATURE

for us all. Even if the Paris Agreement is implemented,

COULD MELTING PERMAFROST temperatures are expected to rise for several decades before
they stabilise in the second half of the century.
RELEASE THE NEXT PANDEMIC? TICKING TIME BOMB
As its name suggests, permafrost is Back at the Lötschepass, I climb slightly higher to get a good
permanently frozen ground. It view of a nearby glacier. Relatively small in size, its ice sheet
covers one-quarter of the northern snakes down the valley, covered by rocks and scree. The
hemisphere. Rising global most striking feature is the head of the glacier. An arch is
temperatures are causing permafrost carved into the rock face. A decade ago, this arch marked
to melt, raising concerns that the 1.5 the surface of the glacier. The surface now lies 10 metres
trillion tonnes of carbon trapped in below. It shows the glacier is not just shrinking in length,
frozen ground will be released into but also in depth – rapidly.
the atmosphere. But now a new The still mountain air is broken by a shout. I head back
concern is also rearing its head – the down to the archaeological site.
release of contagious bugs. “Birch bark! We’ve found birch bark!” yells Gubler
Recent research published in the Proceedings Of The Royal Society B triumphantly. “This was on my colleague’s wishlist. She
in October 2022 revealed that the risk of viruses being transferred to did her PhD on methods of conserving birch bark. I once
new hosts was more likely in areas where there were large amounts found a whole bag made of birch bark, and she asked me
of glacial meltwater. to find her another!”
In 2021, researchers at Ohio State University in the US discovered Buoyed on by the birch bark discovery, I scour the silt
15,000-year-old genetic material from 28 new viruses taken from ice and rocks around the pond. I’m in luck. A vertebra – too
samples from the Tibetan plateau in China. And back in 2014, under large to be from a human. Gubler says that it’s part of the
lab conditions, scientists at the National Centre for Scientific Research medieval cow skeleton. I’m tasked with carefully bagging and
in France revived a virus taken from Siberian permafrost (pictured), cataloguing my find, so it can be taken down the mountain to
making it infectious again after 30,000 years of being locked away in the laboratory for analysis, along with the other discoveries.
the frozen ground. Who knows what other treasures lie nearby, emerging
As the climate warms, melting permafrost does increase the risk of from the melting mountain
deadly bugs being released. It’s a big leap to claim this melting could landscapes, waiting to be discovered. by J H E N I O S M A N
cause the next pandemic. But there are concerns that ancient viruses But as climate change kicks in, (@jheniosman)
and bacteria could come into contact with new hosts that didn’t exist at t he Lötschepass site, and all Jheni is a freelance science
years ago when they were initially locked away in the frozen ground. around the Alps, time is rapidly journalist, author and BBC
running out. radio presenter.

65
FE ATURE HEALTH TARGETS: DO THEY WORK?
 HEALTH TARGETS: DO THEY WORK? FE ATURE

RECOMMENDED
HEALTH TARGETS:

)GV[QWTƂXGCFC[5NGGRGKIJVJQWTU&TKPMGKIJVINCUUGUQH
YCVGT6JGUGCTGLWUVCHGYQHVJGnGUUGPVKCNoJGCNVJIWKFGNKPGU
YGoTGUWRRQUGFVQNKXGD[DWVYJQECPTGCNN[OCPCIGCNNQHVJG
CDQXG!#PFFQVJGUGnEQOOCPFOGPVUoUVCPFWRVQUETWVKP[!
by AMY FLEMING

150 MINUTES OF EXERCISE A WEEK

;QWFQPoVJCXGVQUYGCVKVQWVKPCUOGNN[I[OENCUUVQUVC[ƂV
The NHS recommends that UK adults get 150 minutes of In surveys on physical activity, people tend to exaggerate
moderate, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. how much they’ve done, says Sandercock. It’s easier to
“These recommendations are the minimum that people need to determine accurately how much vigorous activity you did, and
do to gain health benefits from physical activity, based on four not kid yourself about it. “If I asked you how far you’d run, you
decades of research,” says Gavin Sandercock, professor of sport, probably know, whereas if I asked you how far you walked this
rehabilitation and exercise sciences at the University of Essex. “If week, you’d have trouble answering because it’s more of an
you follow the recommendations, you’re about 11-15 per cent less incidental activity,” he says.
likely to die of anything, compared to people who do nothing, Dr Koula Asimakopoulou, a reader in health psychology at
and your risk of dying of a heart attack is about 20 per cent lower.” King’s College London, worries that these targets don’t provide
But he says they’re a watered-down version of the first any sense of motivation. “Different people will have different
activity guidelines from 1991, which were for 150 minutes of ideas of what ‘moderate’ and ‘vigorous’ mean,” she says.
moderate – but preferably vigorous – activity, in addition to But even if you’re motivated to read the small print for
what you already do, in bouts of at least half an hour a pop. examples (which for ‘moderate’ exercise include walking,
ILLUSTRATION: JOE WALDRON

“The science is really strong for vigorous activity,” says lawn-mowing and rollerblading, versus running, swimming or
Sandercock. “That doesn’t mean with the eyes popping out, it aerobics for ‘vigorous’ activity), that alone is unlikely to be
just means having a higher heart rate. Everything we know enough to start new behaviour so you can get fitter. Planning,
about exercise physiology, everything I’ve learned in the past removing any friction by getting your running kit or
25 years, tells me that vigorous is best and I recommend it to wet-weather gear ready the night before, finding an activity
anyone who is healthy enough to do it. If you want to get fitter, you enjoy and doing it with friends will all help make those
you have to work harder.” fitness dreams become real.

67
 FIVE
PORTIONS
OF FRUIT OR
VEG A DAY blocks of meals. If you take the
vegetables out of the meal, the risk is
No, chips, mash and crisps your meal is going to comprise things
YKVJNGUUXKVCOKPUOKPGTCNUCPFƂDTG
don’t count as three and more calories. You need to make
vegetables the bulk of a meal, and then
Five-a-day started out as a health try to make them interesting.”
marketing slogan in the US. Variety is important, agrees Dr Sarah
“[It was] loosely linked to populations Berry, associate professor of nutritional
that had more fruit and vegetables sciences at King’s College London, and
having lower risk of heart disease or chief scientist at personalised health
longer lives,” says Dr Duane Mellor, a research company, ZOE. According to
British Dietetic Association Berry, recent research by ZOE’s partner
spokesperson and registered dietitian. organisation, the American Gut Project,
“The World Health Organization data has highlighted the importance of
now shows eating half a kilo of fruit and GCVKPICXCTKGV[QHƂDTGHTQOCTQWPF
vegetables daily is a minimum to see different plant species as being key to
lower instances of disease.” better health.
Five good handfuls should provide While some argue that we should be
this quota, but the more the merrier. UWTRCUUKPIƂXGRQTVKQPUQHHTWKVCPFXGI
Five-a-day may be super catchy, but in a day, Berry is cautious. “The majority
practice it can be problematic. Fruit QHRGQRNGKPVJG7-sRGTEGPVQH
juice counts as a daily portion in the UK, CFWNVUCPFQXGTRGTEGPVQHEJKNFTGP
even though you’re getting the sFQPQVTGCEJVJGƂXGCFC[VCTIGVUQ
concentrated sugar hit of many more changing it to something more
HTWKVUVJCP[QWoFGCVYKVJQWVVJGƂDTG ambitious may not be helpful,” she says.
potentially causing a sugar rush and Asimakopoulou warns that short
tooth decay. In the UK, we don’t count catchphrases are not enough to
starchy, carb-rich potatoes (or yams), but spark behaviour change. Instead, we
in Australia spuds are allowed – after all need to consider SMART objectives.
they are a key source of vitamin C. 5/#46UVCPFUHQTURGEKƂE
“A simpler message is try to eat as measurable, achievable, realistic
many different fresh or frozen – or if and time-based targets.
that’s not possible, tinned – fruit and “Having a goal is not equivalent to
vegetables as possible, in two meals a performing it,” she says. “Psychologists
day,” says Mellor. have discovered that if you have an
Mellor says giving the vegetables a KPVGPVKQPVQIGVƂXGCFC[[QWoNNDG
starring role in meals is key to long-term most likely to translate it into
JGCNVJDGPGƂVUp9GOC[DGVGORVGFVQ behaviour if you plan when, where and
eat more fruits because they taste nicer,” how you will achieve this goal, along
he says. “Likewise, condensing the fruit with forming a Plan B for what you will
and veg down to a smoothie, you’re do if the when/where/how plan is
losing the foundation, the building broken by life events.”

68
 “NOBODY CAN REALLY
SAY HOW MUCH EVERYONE
NEEDS TO DRINK, AS WE ALL HAVE
DIFFERENT BODIES, DIETS
AND ACTIVITY LEVELS”

If in doubt, check your pee

In the UK, the NHS recommends six to But nobody can really say how much during a typical day, if adequately
eight glasses, or up to 1.2 litres of fluids, everyone needs to drink, as we all have meeting your water requirements.”
a day, pointing out that we also get water different bodies, diets and activity More than six pees means you’re
from food. Harvard Medical School levels, not to mention varying overdoing it, while less than four means
recommends four to six cups a day. But environments (hot, dry, humid, etc). you probably need to drink more.
it’s the more extreme two litres of water a Most people can tell if they need more “This approach can have some
day advice that has won the internet. water because they feel thirsty, shortcomings, such as impacts of any
+PVJGKFGCVJCVIGVVKPIOQUVQH although this urge diminishes in old alteration in kidney function with age,
your liquids from water is more age. If in doubt, for the majority of certain medications, or different
beneficial was debunked by Dr Stuart adults, the number of trips to the loo can beverage compositions that all affect
Galloway, an associate professor in be a potentially useful guide to adequate urine concentration and volume,” he
physiology, exercise and nutrition at the hydration, says Galloway. warns. “So it is a rough rule of thumb
University of Stirling. His study showed “It accounts for differences in fluid rather than an accurate guide.”
a range of drinks, including diuretics losses due to environment, or activity Urine colour is also useful, with
like lager and instant coffee, didn’t level, as well as variations in fluid similar caveats, he says. “To get the best
stimulate any additional fluid loss than intake. A rough rule of thumb would be idea, don’t rely on a single marker but
water when drunk in normal quantities. four to six visits to the toilet to pee evaluate using a combination.”
 FE ATURE HEALTH TARGETS: DO THEY WORK?

SHOULD WE DITCH RDAs?

RDA – a term from the US that’s also familiar in the UK – stands for
Recommended Dietary Allowance. In the UK and Europe, the official
ideal daily measure for nutrients is called the ‘dietary reference intake’.
They’re not identical, but both indicate the optimum levels of nutrients
needed every day to keep most of the population healthy.
Based on averages, these figures can be misleading for individuals,
says Dr Susan Fairweather-Tait, professor in health policy and practice
at the University of East Anglia Medical School, with a special interest
in micronutrients. “Not everybody needs that level of intake,” she says.
Nevertheless, she adds, seeing these figures on product and
supplement labels is useful as a rough guide. But rather than being
taken as instruction for what you need to ingest each day – which
would be impossible to calculate precisely, as foods vary so much and
you’re unlikely to weigh each portion – they are most important in
avoiding overdosing.
“[With supplements] people often think, ‘one capsule good, two must
be better’. But you can buy supplements in massively high doses, and
it’s dangerous. Taking too much vitamin C won’t do you any harm, but
things like vitamin D and vitamin A can be quite dangerous. With
selenium, the gap between what you require and what becomes toxic is
very narrow, so if people read an article saying selenium is a great
antioxidant, they could go over the top and make themselves ill.
Consumers are being misled, they’re wasting money and putting their
health at risk.”
Dr Sarah Berry, associate professor of nutritional sciences at King’s
College London, agrees. “While RDAs are useful on a population level,
not everybody will need to supplement to reach their ideal amount of a
certain nutrient,” she says. “As humans we eat food, not individual
nutrients, so for most people eating a variety of foods is likely to
provide the necessary key nutrients needed for health.”
Exceptions include pregnant women, vegans and people with
specific health conditions taking their doctor’s advice. If in doubt, Berry
does not believe there is any harm in taking a standard dose
14 UNITS OF
multivitamin as an ‘insurance’ policy.
ALCOHOL A WEEK
Moderate consumption can still
cause harm
According to UK guidelines, adults should stick to no
more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread over
a period of three days or more.
“If you stick to a maximum of 14 units a week,
your chances of dying of an alcohol-related disease
are probably one in 100 or less,” says Sir Ian
Gilmore, chair of Alcohol Health Alliance UK and
founder of Liverpool Centre for Alcohol Research.
“It’s estimated most people would accept a risk
of one in 100, as nothing in life is free of risk.”
The struggle, however, is getting people to
adopt those recommendations. The drivers of how
much people drink, and how much harm is seen,
are basically price, availability and marketing,
he explains.
Plus, as he says, most people enjoy a drink. “It’s
associated with fun and celebrations. I’ve never

70
 “THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THAT
ALCOHOL IS LINKED TO SEVEN COMMON CANCERS, INCLUDING
BREAST CANCER AND COLON CANCER”
heard someone say ‘so-and-so is a really good smoker, he Reading up on the cold, hard facts is the first step
can really hold his fags’. There’s still that heroic image towards that motivation, she says. If you don’t know
around drinking.” and believe in the benefits of cutting down, it’s never
People are also very bad at remembering advice on going to happen. Planning when you will and will not
units, says Gilmore. “I can’t help sometimes thinking drink is useful, as is knowing the units in actual drinks
people are quite keen to be confused and say, ‘Oh, well, that you enjoy.
it’s all too difficult. It’s not my problem anyway.’” “The vast majority of people do not know that alcohol
But he says the majority of harm is not just seen in is linked to seven common cancers, including breast
heavy, dependent drinkers. “It’s actually in the people cancer and colon cancer,” says Gilmore. Alcohol-free
in the middle who are not alcohol-dependent. And if you months can help, he says, as long as they’re not seen as
could just shift the whole of the consumption curve down a free pass to get blotto the rest of the year (they’re not).
by a couple of units, you would save thousands of lives.” “Alcohol Change, the charity behind Dry January, has
According to Asimakopoulou, lowering your alcohol shown that six months and 12 months afterwards there is
GETTY IMAGES X2

consumption is all about intention. “You need to think a significant improvement in some people’s relationship
about opportunity and motivation – so you would need with alcohol. It’s about showing people that they can go
to make the conscious decision to not have a drink if, without, allowing them to reset their relationship with
for example, you are out every evening.” alcohol,” says Gilmore.

71
 “If you’re going to look at calories, go for foods with more

2,000 CALORIES A DAY fibre, protein, vitamins or minerals in them which give
you bulk and more satisfaction,” he advises. But rather
than sweat the numbers, he says to focus on more variety
All calories are not made equal in terms of colour, fibre and nutrients.
Berry doesn’t believe that calories are a useful measure
Calories give us an idea of how much energy foods and drinks for health. “We know that there is much more to food and
contain, and have been a dietary obsession in recent decades. health than calories. Moving the conversation away from
Most of us can recite that women need 2,000 calories a

“A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE OUT OF TOUCH

day, and men need 2,500. But as NHS guidelines point out,
“an ideal daily intake of calories varies depending on age,
metabolism and levels of activity, among other things.”
Calories are nice theoretical units, says Mellor, but
are flawed. While a hazelnut contains a certain amount WITH THEIR HUNGER AND FULLNESS
CUES, THEIR ENERGY LEVELS AND
of energy potential, when eaten it requires quite a lot of
energy to break it down – and still more energy will escape

THEIR ENJOYMENT OF FOOD”

digestion. “This is because the energy is inside the fibre,
which we can’t break down. Whereas the same number of
calories from instant noodles are a lot easier to get hold
of,” he says.
Mellor points to the work of Kevin Hall at the US Department calories and how much you weigh, and towards how you
of Health and Human Services, who has found that eating feel and improving our relationship with food and eating
ultra-processed foods compared to unprocessed foods led healthier foods, is much more helpful. Focus on how healthy
to greater energy intake and weight gain, despite the foods a food is, not on how many calories it has.”
having the same calories, sugar, fat, sodium, fibre and As ZOE’s studies have found, different foods cause harmful
GETTY IMAGES X2, ALAMY

macronutrients. blood sugar or fat spikes in different people. “Understanding

Then we need to account for variation in unprocessed what works for you is simple but crucial,” says Berry. “A lot
foods. “If you’ve got a number on a label, because of biology, of people are out of touch with their hunger and fullness
it can vary by about 20 per cent,” says Mellor. cues, their energy levels and their enjoyment of food. Our
Even apples from the same tree can differ in sugar content members want to feel better, not worry over a number on
by 10 per cent, according to which got the most sunshine. the scales. Nutritious foods lead to enjoyable meals.”

72
 HEALTH TARGETS: DO THEY WORK? FE ATURE

10,000 STEPS A DAY

Count your steps, but tread carefully…
“The 10,000 steps target was a gimmick that was produced
for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, by a pedometer company,”
says Sandercock.
But one of the big controversies is whether we should count
incidental movement in the activity guidelines. “If we did
10,000 [proper] steps a day everyone would be doing around
1,680 minutes per week of activity, but it’s just moving
around. If you’re wearing an accelerometer or pedometer, it
could misconstrue any movement as a step.”
If you’re trying to increase your walking, a pedometer can
help, but might it not work for long. One 2013 study found
that over a period of four weeks, a pedometer increased
participants’ walking more than being given walking goals
in minutes, although after this time, walking times started to
decrease again. Perhaps the novelty had worn off. If you want
to sustain these gains, you might be better off getting a dog.
Sandercock’s advice, depending on how old you are, is to
up your steps by 15 per cent. “That’s been shown to be
effective in studies, and there’s also really good evidence to
show that older adults don’t need to do 10,000 steps. Usually,
6,000 steps is enough to keep them out of things like frailty
classifications, and this is associated with better health.”

Seven to eight hours of sleep a helping you sleep better, another

night has been proven to be the target to strive for is eliminating
magic number of hours for adults, electronics at least one hour
with babies, children and before bedtime. “This is an
teenagers needing more. extraordinarily hard task and
“This amount of sleep will target to achieve for many.
ensure the brain has the However, prioritising both targets
appropriate time to do what it will ensure an avalanche of health
needs for healthy functioning. benefits,” says Vyas.
Some people can tolerate a shorter In terms of behaviour change, “it
window of time, and others need a is more about placing the sleep
bit more, but seven to eight hours goal within a lifestyle that allows
is the average,” says Dr Nilong you to do it, by telling yourself
Vyas, managing director at that the sleep goal is higher value
paediatric sleep consultancy to you than the staying-up-late-to-
Sleepless in NOLA and a medical get-the-overdue-report-written
review expert at the Sleep goal,” says Asimakopoulou.
Foundation. Planning when, where and how
EIGHT HOURS OF The majority of people who get
seven or eight hours per night
you will achieve the goal is vital,
she says, along with consciously

SLEEP A NIGHT report feeling better rested, with

improved mood and health, she
says. But it’s an ideal target rather
deciding to drop competing goals
that prevent
you from by A M Y FLEMING
Get enough shuteye and reap than something to get stressed getting (@amy_fleming)
VJGJGCNVJDGPGƂVU about. So if focusing on seven to enough Amy is a freelance science
eight hours of shuteye is not sleep. and health writer.

73
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YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED
... WHY DO I FEEL BETTER AFTER I’VE CRACKED
MY NECK?
... WHY DOES MY MOUTH OPEN WHEN I APPLY
MASCARA?
... DO WE REALLY NEED TO ACCEPT COOKIES ON
A WEBSITE?
... MY WORK CREATIVITY HAS HIT ROCK BOTTOM.
ARE THERE ANY TRICKS TO GET THE CREATIVE
JUICES FLOWING?
... WHICH DINOSAUR WOULD HAVE THE BEST CHANCE
OF SURVIVING IN TODAY’S MODERN WORLD?
... WHY ARE FISH FISH-SHAPED?
... ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS TO USING A DAYLIGHT
SAD LAMP?
... HOW DOES RADIOCARBON DATING WORK?
... WHAT IS BIPHASIC SLEEP?

Email your questions to

questions@sciencefocus.com
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@sciencefocus

OUR EXPERTS
DR HELEN PETE DR CHRISTIAN
SCALES LAWRENCE JARRETT
Marine Astronomy Psychologist
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DR STEVE PROF ALICE HAYLEY

CAN ANIMALS BE ALLERGIC
BRUSATTE
Veteran
palaeontologist
GREGORY
Sleep
expert
BENNETT
Science
writer
TO HUMANS?
You probably know someone with a cat or rare, some pets are allergic to our dead skin
ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

DR HELEN DR NISH MANEK LUIS VILLAZON

PILCHER Medical Science and dog allergy, but can pets also be allergic to cells, known as dander. Different pets can
Biologist and expert and technology us? Allergies are caused by an overreaction even be allergic to each other’s dander!
science writer GP trainee writer
of the immune system to a substance, such Common allergy symptoms include
as pollen, peanuts, or pet saliva. Just like breathing difficulties or skin irritation. If
PROF PETER DR CLAIRE humans, animals can have allergies to a you think your pet may have an allergy,
BENTLEY ASHER variety of substances, and although it’s seek advice from your vet. CA
Computer Science
scientist writer

75
 Q&A

NATURE’S WEIRDEST CREATURES...

FRIED EGG JELLYFISH

How do you like your eggs? If the answer is, ‘fried, salty, and weirdly pulsing
with life’ then read on. With its yellow dome sitting on top of a smooth
translucent bell, the fried egg jellyfish, Cotylorhiza tuberculata, bears an
uncanny resemblance to the popular breakfast item. Beneath this egg-like bell
is a frilly, ruffled ‘underskirt’ of trailing appendages. Some are tipped with
purple blobs that house zooxanthellae, the same symbiotic algae that give
certain corals their characteristic hue. The symbiotic organisms receive a place
to live, and in return, generate energy for their hosts via photosynthesis. KE VIN HARDING, BEDFORD
The fried egg jellyfish feeds on tiny aquatic organisms, such as zooplankton
and phytoplankton, which it ingests via specialised tentacles called oral arms.
WHY DO I FEEL BETTER AFTER I’VE
It is common in the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Adriatic Seas, where the adult CRACKED MY NECK?
form can grow up to 35cm across. Vast blooms of it can appear during summer
and autumn months, which can be an annoyance for swimmers. We should be
more tolerant. The jellyfish’s sting has little or no effect on humans, and the It is thought that one of the most common
blobby invertebrate could even prove to be our ally. An extract derived from causes of neck ‘cracking’ is gas bubbles in the
the fried egg jellyfish has been shown to possess anticancer activity. So maybe synovial fluid escaping a tight space. This synovial
one day, we will learn to love them; not just for their looks, but for their fluid is a lubricant between the joints, formed
pharmaceutical value too. HP by a combination of carbon dioxide, nitrogen
and oxygen.
If you deliberately roll your neck, it is thought that
you can sometimes release these bubbles, resulting
in a series of popping sounds that may sound like
cracking. The release of the gas build-up explains
why muscles or joints often feel looser and
more comfortable after they’ve been ‘popped’ or
‘cracked’. NM

AMY MILLS, VIA EMAIL

WHY DOES MY
MOUTH OPEN
WHEN I’M
APPLYING
MASCARA?

‘Mascara face’, as it’s sometimes called, is thought to

be a result of nerves in our brains cross-firing. The
two nerves controlling our eyeball and eyelid
movements are rooted in a very similar part of the
brain to another nerve that controls the opening and
closing of our jaw. So, it’s possible that when the two
nerves in charge of eye movements are activated,
they trigger off the nearby mouth-opening nerve.
This is only a theory, though. A simpler explanation is
that we’ve learnt that opening our mouths stretches
our skin, which helps with applying make-up, so we
keep doing it. HB

76
 Q&A

STE VEN CHURCH, VIA EMAIL

DO WE REALLY NEED TO ACCEPT

COOKIES ON A WEBSITE?
DEAR
DOCTOR...
Website cookies are little files of information that a MENTAL HEALTH
webpage tells your computer to store, and then access
later. They’re named after fortune cookies, an object
QUESTIONS DEALT
with an embedded message. They tend to be the same WITH BY OUR EXPERTS
size: 4,096 bytes. Not so big, but when each website
could be saving 50 or more of them, they can be used to RACHEL HARDMAN, SOUTHEND-ON-SE A
store a lot about you.
There are three types of web cookies: session cookies, MY WORK CREATIVITY HAS HIT ROCK BOTTOM.
persistent cookies, and third-party cookies. When you ARE THERE ANY TRICKS TO GET THE CREATIVE
click into ‘manage cookie preferences’, the first two
types may be listed under ‘necessary’ or ‘preferences’, JUICES FLOWING?
while third-party cookies may be listed under ‘tailored
advertising’, ‘marketing’ or ‘analytics’.
Session cookies only last while you have that Humans are inherently lazy – we a voice memo or pencil and paper,
webpage open. They are often helpful – they enable an can’t help it, it’s just that we evolved and let your ideas flow.
online shop to remember you placed items in the cart to conserve our energy. But one Other tips to try include: reminding
so that when you check out you still see them there. consequence is that we tend to revert yourself of the creative challenge just
If you were to block these cookies, then many to tried-and-tested thinking patterns. before you go to bed at night and
websites – including social media, online shopping and They’re low effort and usually then coming back to it the next day
banking – would not work. reliable, but unfortunately, they also (this will allow the problem to
Persistent cookies, also known as first-party, tend to be boring and predictable. incubate and your unconscious
permanent or stored cookies, don’t go away so easily. One way to jolt your brain out of processes to get to work); going for a
These cookies remember your preferences, such as such ruts is to mix up your routine. brisk walk; brainstorming with
login information, language selections and bookmarks. So, let’s say you’re used to someone who has a completely
They make your browsing experience more efficient brainstorming ideas on your different background and
and easier. It is possible to block first-party cookies, but keyboard at your desk in the perspective than you do; or try
some websites may not function properly if you do this afternoon. Instead, get out of the exploiting the creative power of
– you might not be able to log in and online shopping office early in the morning, go up to relaxation – light some candles, run a
may malfunction. the top floor, or into the garden, or up bubble bath, close your eyes and see
Third-party cookies, also known as trackers, are more a hill or by a river – somewhere that what your brain comes up with (just
insidious. They are used to track your online behaviour: feels completely different – and take don’t fall asleep). CJ
what you click on, what you buy, what you like and
dislike. The data from these cookies are secretly sold by
the websites to marketing companies, who then use it
to profile you for personalised advertising or marketing
campaigns. You can deselect all such cookies, or even
block all third-party cookies in your browser (browsers
NATUREPL.COM, GETTY IMAGES, ALAMY X2 ILLUSTRATIONS: DANIEL BRIGHT

such as Safari, Firefox and Chrome disable trackers

already). If you disable these cookies, you will no longer
see personalised adverts and your data will be a little bit
safer, and webpages will work just fine. PB

77
 Q&A

MEL C ARTER, VIA EMAIL

Dinosaurs do live today: as birds. Birds
WHICH DINOSAUR WOULD HAVE THE BEST evolved from dinosaurs, and are part of the
dinosaur family tree, so technically some
CHANCE OF SURVIVING (OR EVEN THRIVING) dinosaurs did survive the asteroid impact
IN TODAY’S MODERN WORLD? 66 million years ago, by virtue of their fast
growth, their biology that allows them to
eat seeds, and their ability to fly away from
danger. And there are some 14,000 species
of them flourishing today. But what about
the dinosaurs that perished? Many of them
probably could survive today.
Dinosaurs ruled the world for 150 million
years, and endured hot and cold spells,
volcanic eruptions, and changing sea levels.
There is nothing about today’s world that
would be fatal to them. With that said, the
major difference between the world of
dinosaurs and today is that our modern
Earth is considerably colder, with ice caps at
the poles. In cooler climates, big animals are
often favoured, because they can retain
heat more easily, as are smaller animals
that have insulation like hair or feathers to
stay warm. That suggests that huge
dinosaurs like the long-necked sauropods
and small, feathered-covered dinosaurs like
Velociraptor and kin would be especially
resilient in today’s world. Smaller dinosaurs
without feathers would probably be the
most vulnerable. SB

CROWDSCIENCE
Every week on BBC World Service, CrowdScience answers listeners’ questions on life, Earth and the Universe.
Tune in every Friday evening on BBC World Service, or catch up online at bbcworldservice.com/crowdscience

WHY ARE FISH creating minimal drag. This is

the best energy-saving shape
FISH-SHAPED? for swimming animals,
including not just fish, but
also dolphins, whales, and
extinct ichthyosaurs.
The classic fish-shaped body — a Other components of the
GETTY IMAGES X2, ALAMY ILLUSTRATION: PETE LAWRENCE

squashed teardrop with a pointed nose classic fish shape are the fins,
and tapered tail — has evolved time and in particular the tail or ‘caudal
again. There are tuna shaped like this, fin’, which swishes from side
sharks, marlin, mackerel and thousands to side to create propulsion.
of other species that spend a lot of time Fish with different swimming
swimming. The reason it’s so common habits have differently
comes down to the fact that water is shaped caudal fins. Tuna and other fast speed when they ambush prey over
around 800 times denser than air, and swimmers tend to have a forked or short distances.
much stickier, which means it takes far crescent-shaped tail which is good for Of course, there are many ways of being
more energy to move through it. You can long-distance, endurance swimming. Fish a fish and not all are superb swimmers.
feel the difference, when swishing your such as groupers and barracudas have Many other body shapes have evolved
hand through water compared to air. much wider caudal fins, which are harder among slow and sedentary fish, from
Being fish shaped, or ‘fusiform’, allows a work to push through the water but S-shaped seahorses to four-legged
body to cut through the water while excellent for putting on quick bursts of frogfish and square boxfish. HS

78
 Q&A

LISA SEYMOUR, DURHAM

ASTRONOMY FOR BEGINNERS ARE THERE ANY BENEFITS

TO USING A DAYLIGHT
SAD LAMP?

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of

depression that comes and goes in a seasonal
pattern. The exact cause isn’t fully understood, but
it’s often linked to reduced exposure to sunlight
during shorter days.
Some people find that a light box, called an SAD
lamp, can help. These produce a very bright light to
simulate sunlight. This is thought to encourage your
brain to reduce melatonin (the hormone that makes
us sleepy).
Light therapy has been associated with a
reduction in fatigue on a short-term basis. However
in 2019, Cochrane (the global independent research
network whose reviews are considered the gold
standard for research) published a systematic
review of light therapy for SAD, and concluded that
the quality of evidence about whether light therapy
prevents winter depression is very low. However,
some studies have found it’s effective for treatment
during a SAD phase, especially first thing in the
morning. It’s worth bearing in mind that it can take
a few weeks to work, and is often not available on
the NHS.
Most people can use light therapy safely. The
HOW TO SPOT A COMET recommended light boxes have filters that remove
harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, so there’s no risk of
skin or eye damage for most people, but make sure
that you choose a light box that is medically
WHEN: THROUGHOUT JANUARY approved for the treatment of SAD, and produced
by a fully certified manufacturer. It’s rare for people
If you find the precision of astronomical the 3rd (3) comet discovered in the fifth using light therapy to have side effects, but some do
predictions impressive, this month’s half-month of that year (E). Comet report agitation or irritability, headaches, eye strain,
topic might change your mind. C/2022 discovery half-months are indicated by sleeping problems (avoiding light therapy at the end
E3 ZTF is a well-placed comet, possibly the letters A, B, C and so on, with I being of the day may help prevent this), and blurred
about to break the naked eye visibility omitted to avoid confusion with 1. The vision. You must be especially careful if you have an
threshold. However, comets are ‘ZTF’ in this comet’s name indicates eye condition or take any other medicines that
notoriously difficult to predict, that it was discovered by the Zwicky might sensitise you to bright light, such as some
sometimes likened to cats in the way Transient Facility at Mount Palomar antibiotics. NM
they ignore predictions and do just in California.
whatever they please. In astronomy, As it tracks near to the North Star,
a bright comet roughly describes any Polaris, comet C/2022 E3 ZTF passes
such object visible through binoculars close to the two middle brightness
or a small telescope. Many fall well stars in Ursa Minor, called Kochab and
short of this requirement! Pherkad. Being relatively close to
Comet C/2022 E3 ZTF is a long period Polaris, the pair are often described as
comet discovered on 2 March 2022, with ‘the Guardians of the Pole’. To navigate
an orbit estimated as longer than this area of sky, the best starting point
50,000 years. Consequently, this is a is the Plough or Saucepan pattern. Use
non-periodic comet; that’s what the our chart and see whether you can get
‘C/’ in the name means. A periodic a view of this comet, but be prepared
comet is typically regarded as one with because it may not be as bright as you
an orbital period of less than 200 years. might imagine. Then again, if something
The ‘2022 E3’ part of the name indicates unexpected happens, it may well be
2022 as the year of discovery, it being brighter! PL

79
 Q&A

MARK BRADY, MANCHESTER

WHAT IS BIPHASIC SLEEP?

1

Biphasic sleep refers to that which is taken in two

phases within a 24-hour period. Examples of
biphasic sleep include taking a nap during the day
before sleeping again at night. Another example is of
waking during the night for a period before falling
asleep again.
In certain circumstances, biphasic sleep can offer
advantages. For example, naps may be particularly
beneficial for young children as they can support
learning and development. Naps may also be useful
for those who live in hot locations and might
struggle to function during the midday heat. Napping
2
more generally can increase our alertness and
functioning, support the immune system and mental
wellbeing and reduce stress. Nonetheless, naps are
not appreciated by everyone as they can sometimes
lead to sleep inertia (a groggy state experienced
upon waking). They can also make it more difficult to
fall asleep at night, so are best avoided in those
6 reporting insomnia.
3
When it comes to waking during the night, the
historian Arthur Roger Ekirch discovered that before
the Industrial Revolution it was standard to have
two sleeps (perhaps going to bed at 9pm or 10pm
and waking after midnight for an hour or two; and
then falling back to sleep until the morning). This too
5
4 offered certain advantages as it was possible to visit
the toilet and attend to tasks during the night such as
stoking the fire and brewing ale. AG

HOW DOES RADIOCARBON DATING WORK?

1 High-energy cosmic rays, in the form of 4 Scientists can measure the ratio of carbon-14 to
neutrons, strike nitrogen atoms in the upper the stable isotopes carbon-12 and carbon-13 with
atmosphere and convert them to the radioactive an accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS). This
isotope of carbon, which is carbon-14 (also known uses an electric field to accelerate carbon ions
as radiocarbon). This quickly oxidises to create past a magnet that deflects their trajectory.
mildly radioactive carbon dioxide. About 1.1 per Carbon-14 is heavier, so is deflected less. The
cent of the carbon atoms on Earth are carbon-14. older the sample, the less radiocarbon is
still present.
2 Plants absorb radiocarbon, along with normal
carbon dioxide, during photosynthesis and 5 Radiocarbon dating is believed to be accurate
incorporate it into their tissues. Herbivores eat to within a few decades or centuries, with lower
the plants, and carnivores eat the animals, and so accuracy the older the sample. Dating anything
the radiocarbon spreads through the food chain, older than 50,000 years is very difficult since so
eventually reaching even the deepest oceans. little radiocarbon remains after that long, but
some measurements of samples up to 75,000
3 Radiocarbon is unstable, and slowly decays years old have been made.
back to nitrogen. The half-life of carbon-14
(the period of time after which half of a given 6 In the 1950s and 1960s, nuclear weapons tests
sample will have decayed) is about 5,730 years. briefly doubled the levels of radiocarbon in the
When a plant or animal dies, it stops absorbing atmosphere and radiocarbon dating needs to
new carbon, so the proportion of radiocarbon account for this to remain accurate. Conversely,
in their body gradually drops due to this burning fossil fuels since 1900 has steadily
radioactive decay. lowered the amount of radiocarbon, because
coal, oil and gas are all formed from plants and
animals that died millions of years ago and so
have essentially no radiocarbon left. LV

80
 Q&A

surface of the ball causes the airflow to initially follow the contour of
the ball before forming a turbulent wake that trails behind. The
interactions of this wake with the surrounding air are extremely
complex but they form a significant part of the overall aerodynamic
drag on the ball. This interaction changes when the ball is initially
kicked off-centre, sending it spinning on its own axis as it travels. The
air flowing past the side of the ball rotating towards the direction of
travel has a higher relative speed than the air over the opposite side.
This deflects the ball’s wake sideways, in the direction of the spin,
which creates a reaction force in the opposite direction. This means
that a ball kicked at the right of its centre will spin anti-clockwise and
be deflected to the left. This deflection is called the Magnus effect,
after the 19th-Century German physicist Heinrich Gustav Magnus.
ADRIAN FLINT, VIA EMAIL
Although the spin of the ball slows down as it travels, due to friction
WHAT IS THE MAGNUS EFFECT? with the air, this is much less significant than the aerodynamic drag
that causes the ball to lose forward speed, so the Magnus effect stays
fairly constant even as the ball slows down. This causes the curvature
When David Beckham curled a free kick into the goal against Greece to to increase noticeably towards the end of the ball’s trajectory and the
take England into the quarter-finals in the 2001 World Cup, he was effect is even more pronounced with very light balls. Table tennis
exploiting the Magnus effect. A ball that is kicked head-on travels with provides the most extreme demonstrations of this with very dramatic
the air flowing past it symmetrically in all directions. Friction with the deflections achieved by experienced players. LV

QUESTION OF THE MONTH

PE TER JACK SON, CORNWALL

WHERE WERE THE ATOMS I AM MADE

OF 100, 1,000, 1,000,000 YEARS AGO?

Four elements account for 96 per cent of your mass: oxygen, carbon,
hydrogen and nitrogen. Oxygen makes up over 61 per cent of your
mass, compared with hydrogen at just 10 per cent, but hydrogen is a
much lighter element, so around 63 per cent of your atoms are
hydrogen atoms, 24 per cent oxygen and 12 per cent carbon.
Most of your hydrogen atoms come from the water you drink, and
if this is tap water from a reservoir, then 100 years ago these atoms
could have been in any of the world’s oceans. Groundwater aquifers
exchange water more slowly though, over timescales of several
thousand years. So even 1,000 years ago, some of the hydrogen in
your body may have been in the groundwater beneath your feet.
Your oxygen atoms got into your body from the air you breathe.
Gases in the atmosphere are churned in a chaotic way by the
weather, but it’s safe to assume that any given oxygen atom could WINNER
have been anywhere in the world as recently as a few years ago. The winner of next issue’s
Your carbon and nitrogen atoms come from food, and today’s Question Of The Month wins a bundle
GETTY IMAGES X2 ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT

globalised agriculture also imports those atoms from all over the of science books from Reaktion Books,
world. A million years ago is long enough that most of your atoms worth £48.94 – just right for some winter
reading! The prize includes Curious
were evenly distributed throughout the planet’s surface and
Devices And Mighty Machines by Samuel
atmosphere. Some of them would have been bound up in rocks, JMM Alberti, Robin by Helen Wilson,
waiting to be weathered and released into the atmosphere or and Mushrooms by Nicholas P
absorbed by plants. But around 5,000 tonnes of new material falls Money. reaktionbooks.co.uk
to Earth every year from space. So, it is a statistical certainty that
a million years ago, some of the atoms destined to form you were
trapped in asteroids, flying through space on trajectories that
would eventually collide with Earth. LV

EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO QUESTIONS@SCIENCEFOCUS.COM

81
 E XPL AINER

HORMONES

THE E XPL AINER

THE CHEMICAL REGULATORS THAT KEEP YOUR BODILY PROCESSES IN BALANCE

ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM FALCONER

82
 E XPL AINER

What do hormones do?

Hormones provide an internal

communication system between different
parts of the body. The majority of hormones
are produced and released by endocrine
glands, which monitor and maintain the
body’s internal environment – a process
known as homeostasis. When imbalances
in the body are detected, these glands
release hormones that travel in the
bloodstream carrying information to tell
other glands or organs what to do to bring
the body back into balance.
There are more than 200 hormones in the
body, each with its own unique function. For
example, after you eat a sweet treat, your
blood sugar levels rise. This is detected by
the pancreas, which responds by releasing
the hormone insulin to stimulate muscle
and fat cells to increase the absorption of
What are hormones? glucose (sugar) from the bloodstream.
Hormones also communicate with other
glands, telling them to increase or decrease
Hormones are chemical messengers optimal health. But sometimes, the release of certain hormones.
that travel throughout the body, telling hormones become imbalanced or lose We often associate hormones with things
our cells and organs what to do. They their ability to function effectively. This like puberty or periods, but they actually
regulate nearly all bodily processes can cause a number of serious negative play a major role in nearly all bodily
and affect every aspect of our daily impacts on our health. processes. You might not realise it, but
lives, influencing how we feel, what we In other words, hormones are of under the surface, hormones are
look like, and how we act, whether great importance to every one of us, so continuously working to maintain nearly
that’s hungry, hairy or happy. keeping them regulated and in balance every aspect of your health.
Crucially, hormones are responsible is vital, because they affect us when This complex network of glands,
for maintaining the body’s delicate they work, but they can have drastic hormones and organs is what’s known as
internal balance, which is required for impacts on us when they don’t. the endocrine system.

“Hormones regulate nearly every aspect of our

daily lives, influencing how we feel, what we look
like, and how we act, whether that’s hungry,
hairy or happy”

83
 E XPL AINER

HORMONES: NOT JUST

FOR PUBERTY…

1. OXYTOCIN
Oxytocin is produced by the hypothalamus
in the brain and is secreted into the
bloodstream via the pituitary gland. It’s
responsible for facilitating childbirth, 3 1
stimulating lactation for breastfeeding, and
2
promoting human bonding.

2. SOMATOTROPIN
Also known as the growth hormone,
somatotropin is produced by the
pituitary gland. It supports growth and
development, and regulates normal body 5
structure, metabolism and blood sugar. 4

3. MELATONIN
Melatonin is produced by the pineal gland
in the brain and is responsible for
regulating the sleep-wake cycle, by
stimulating feelings of sleepiness.

4. THYROXINE
Thyroxine is produced in the thyroid gland
and plays a role in regulating metabolism,
digestion, muscle and heart function, brain
development and bone health.

5. PARATHYROID HORMONE
The parathyroid hormone is produced in
the parathyroid gland in the neck (behind
the thyroid gland) and helps regulate
calcium levels in the body. This is 7
particularly important for nervous system 6 6
function and muscle and bone strength.

6. ADRENALINE
Adrenaline is released from the adrenal
glands, which are situated on top of the
kidneys. It helps prepare the body for the
effort of fleeing or defending itself, in
response to stress or danger.

7. INSULIN
Insulin is produced by the pancreas. It’s
responsible for regulating blood sugar
levels and the availability of glucose for
cells to use as energy.

8. TESTOSTERONE
In men, testosterone is produced by the
testes. It plays a key role in sperm
production, sex drive and the development
9 9
of male physical characteristics. It also
regulates bone mass, fat distribution and
muscle strength.

9. OESTROGEN
ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM FALCONER

In women, oestrogen is produced by the

ovaries. It’s responsible for the
development of female physical 8 8
characteristics and regulating the
menstrual cycle, fertility and bone
strength. Oestrogen also affects the
function of other parts of the body,
including the brain, heart and muscles.

84
 E XPL AINER

“Typically, endocrine disorders cause abnormally

high or low levels of hormones. They can also affect
the body’s ability to respond effectively to
certain hormones”

How do hormones
trigger changes in
the body?

When a hormone is released

from a gland, it travels in the
bloodstream through the body
in search of its target. Organs,
tissues and other glands in the
body have receptor sites that
hormones must bind to in order
to deliver their message and
cause an effect. But because
every hormone has its own
unique shape, they are highly
targeted and can only act on the
parts of the body that have a
receptor site with the
corresponding shape. This mode
of action can be likened to a
lock and key mechanism – if the
key doesn’t fit the lock, then What happens when hormones don’t function properly?
nothing will happen.
When a hormone binds to its
target, it sets off a cascade of Hormones are essential for our survival and gland doesn’t produce enough thyroxine.
other signalling pathways to support the everyday function of many This causes a range of symptoms including
create a change in the body. important bodily processes. But sometimes, fatigue, constipation, weight gain,
Once the desired effect has parts of the endocrine system don’t behave depression, and muscle weakness. Gigantism
taken place, this signal is fed as they should, resulting in a type of medical is another endocrine disorder, but in this
back to the glands to suppress condition called an endocrine disorder. instance the pituitary gland produces too
any further hormone release. Typically, endocrine disorders cause much growth hormone (somatotropin) in
This is what’s known as a abnormally high or low levels of hormones. children or adolescents, causing them to
feedback loop and, when it’s They can also affect the body’s ability to grow abnormally tall.
functioning correctly, it allows respond effectively to certain hormones. Endocrine disorders can arise for several
the endocrine system to ensure When this happens, our delicate internal reasons, such as a genetic disorder, problems
the conditions in your body balance becomes disrupted, and our health with the endocrine feedback system, injury
remain in balance. suffers. Think of it like a recipe for a cake – if to an endocrine gland, infections, or a
you add too much or too little of any one tumour on an endocrine gland. Most
ingredient, the final product is affected. hormonal conditions can’t be cured, but,
For example, hypothyroidism is an thankfully, they can be managed effectively
endocrine disorder in which the thyroid with medication.

85
 E XPL AINER

How do you keep

your hormones
balanced?

While hormone imbalances

are sometimes caused by
endocrine disorders, there are
other factors that influence
hormone health. Eating a
healthy, nutritious diet
supports good gut health, and
optimises the production and
function of hormones and
their signalling pathways.
Hormones love healthy fats,
fibre and protein, but they
aren’t so fond of sugar,
processed foods, or alcohol.
Alongside a healthy diet,
regular exercise also helps
keep hormones in check. This
is because physical activity
increases blood flow and
hormone receptor sensitivity,
How can you tell if you have a hormone imbalance? allowing hormones to deliver
their messages more
effectively.
Some hormones fluctuate naturally as you Other imbalances are related to sex Sleep is also important for
age, or because they’re part of a cycle, such hormones, which can cause a loss of libido, regulating hormone levels.
as the menstrual cycle. But for others, even loss or excessive growth of body hair, Not getting enough shut-eye
the slightest increase or decrease can cause infertility, menstrual cycle and vaginal at night can upset the balance
major changes and impact your health. changes, and erectile dysfunction. But all of of multiple hormones. For
Some of the most common signs of these symptoms can also be signs of other example, sleep deprivation
hormone imbalances are related to your medical conditions, making it difficult to tell increases levels of the stress
metabolism (the chemical reactions that if you have a hormone imbalance without hormone cortisol and
convert food into energy), including changes the help of a professional. If you experience decreases levels of the
to your heartbeat, weight, energy levels, any unusual changes in your body, always appetite-suppressing
bowel movements, skin and mood. seek medical advice. hormone leptin. As a result,
you might wake up the next
day feeling unusually stressed
and hungry.

“Sleep deprivation Stress is another factor that

may harm your hormones.
Generally, when you
increases levels of experience a stressful
situation, your body releases
the stress hormone stress hormones like cortisol
and adrenaline, which initiate
cortisol and a cascade of other effects in
the body. Once the stressor

decreases levels of has passed, the endocrine

HOLLY MCHUGH system’s feedback mechanism

suppresses the production of
the appetite- Holly is a freelance
health writer with a BSc
further hormones. However,
long-term stress prevents this
in biological sciences.
suppressing She specialises in writing
about hormones, nutrition,
from happening, meaning
your hormone levels aren’t
hormone leptin” women’s health, human
anatomy and physiology.
able to return to normal.

86
 FIVE WAYS HORMONES CAN
INFLUENCE THE WAY WE FEEL

Mood Sleep Hunger Stress Love

Serotonin and dopamine Melatonin helps Ghrelin is an appetite- Cortisol is released by the Oxytocin is often referred
are two key players control your body’s stimulating hormone, adrenal glands in to as the ‘love hormone’
involved in regulating our natural sleep-wake mainly produced by the response to stress. It because it plays a role in
ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM FALCONER

emotions. These are often cycle. As night draws in stomach. When you helps the body prepare romantic attachment.
referred to as ‘happy and low light levels are haven’t eaten in a while for ‘fight-or-flight’ by Levels increase during
hormones’ as they detected by the eyes, and your stomach is making glucose and other physical intimacy, such as
promote feelings of melatonin production empty, ghrelin secretion nutrients more available, hugging and sex. It also
pleasure, positivity and, increases, telling the increases. This sends a while suppressing promotes parent-child
as the nickname body it’s time to go signal to your brain to tell non-essential bodily bonding and feelings of
suggests, happiness! to sleep. you that you’re hungry. processes like digestion. trust and empathy.

87
 NEXT ISSUE

CROSSWORD LOVE HURTS

Nature’s most gruesome
PENCILS AT THE READY! mating rituals.
     

 



 



  

   

 

 

 

ACROSS
1 Painter encountered having
no trouble (5)
DOWN
1 Design strongbox to remove
risk (4,4)
PLUS
4 Climb aboard to be friendly (3,2) 2 Why one has to knock audibly SPACE SCIENCE IN
for prize guy? (5)
8
9
British Bake-off initiated food (5)
Bird causes two types of fight (7) 3 List gold at scene (7) THE SOUTHWEST
10 Allow to hire out (3) 4 Two types of soldier become a The key role that Cornwall’s Goonhilly Earth
12 I can’t be agitated about huge figure (5)
nothing in director’s call (6) 5 Time to mix rum with fuel in Station has played in the Artemis mission.
14 Clairvoyant giving a lot of confusion (7)
money to cashier (7-6) 6 Went out to get an amphibian (4)
17 Making holes is dull (6) 7 Property seller gives gate CRISPR EXPLAINED
19 Approximately translated into neatest treatment (6,5)
Latin (5) 13 Badly torn name’s trinket (8) How the technique can be used for
22 A woman’s revealed inside (3) 15 Register around old bird (7) gene-editing.
23 Pet, male, has its own 16 Save rook inside passage (7)
language (7) 18 Lied about daughter and did
24 Heard critical appraisal as form nothing (5)

ON SALE 20 JAN
of entertainment (5) 20 Topless yellow bird (5)
25 Herds meandering a bit (5) 21 Performs part of the Bible (4)
26 Principle of reversibility? (5)
ALAMY

ANSWERS For the answers, visit bit.ly/BBCFocusCW

Please be aware the website address is case-sensitive.

88
 DON’T JUST READ THIS
MAGAZINE… LISTEN TO IT TOO
Discover the weekly podcast from the team behind BBC Science Focus,
available on Acast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all other podcast platforms
sciencefocus.com/instant-genius-podcast

FEATURING

SEASHELLS BEE COGNITION LIFE ON MARS ARTEMIS

with Dr Helen with Prof Lars with Lewis with Libby
Scales Chittka Dartnell Jackson
 Could we make robotic companions for kids?
January sees the release of M3GAN, a movie about a doll with artificial intelligence and killer dance moves
by S T E P H E N K E L LY

N
ew horror movie M3GAN is says. “It might just have an elbow,
essentially Chucky meets the a wrist, some at the hands. Maybe
Terminator. Its titular star is four or six degrees of freedom.
posited as the future of mass- But that dance requires a level
market robots: a lifelike doll that of precision that is currently not
has been progra mmed to be a possible.” This is why robots are
child’s best friend. It can listen, famous for their jerky dancing.
it can learn, it can dance (trust “Robots don’t have sufficient
me, watch the trailer, it can dance) degrees of freedom to achieve
and it can also, in what is surely that fluidity of movement.”
a big design flaw, kill. Not ideal. Yet Bentley’s main argument
Deadly robots are nothing new, against a doll like M3GAN has
of course, but how feasible is the more to do with business than
idea that a non-homicidal version technology. He points out that
of M3GAN could appear on shop recent advances in the field of AI
shelves anytime soon? have been driven by companies
To a nswer t hat question, we such as Google a nd Meta
must first examine what M3GAN (Facebook), because there is a
is; an apparent marvel of artificial “clear business case” for an AI
intelligence (AI). “An autonomous that can recognise cars or faces
robot does think for itself, but the or fingerprints.
scope of its actions are very limited,” “But to develop a robot as
says Prof Peter Bentley, a computer sophisticated as M3GAN would
scientist based at University College cost billions, maybe trillions,
London and a regular contributor of dollars,” he says. “Is there a
to BBC Science Focus. “More often good business case for a freaky
than not, even the most advanced little humanoid robot that might
AIs are just big encyclopedias of kill us? It would be way more
our nonsense. They’re amazing at what But M3GAN is not only a fantastical complex than your autonomous family
they can do, but there’s no consciousness vision of artificial intelligence, she is also car and therefore the price tag is going to
there. There’s no understanding. There’s a genius feat of robotics. “With current be equal, if not more [than a self-driving
certainly no emotion. We’re very far away humanoid robots, you’re lucky if they don’t car]. Ultimately, the best example of a
ILLUSTRATIONS: ADAM GALE MAIN ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL CRESPO
from anything remotely close to M3GAN.” fall over most of the time,” says Bentley. humanoid child-shaped intelligent friend
And that, according to Bentley, also “We can’t make a robot as complex as for your child is another child.”
includes the idea of an AI capable of the human body. And even if we could,
autonomous violence. “How do you tell we don’t have a power source that would
an AI never to kill, except when we’re at work. There are a lot of actuators to think VERDICT
war?” he asks. “What if a man is holding about: all the different joints, movements Thank goodness,
a gun to a child’s head? Should the AI and muscles we’ve got.” In reality, says creepy AI robot
shoot? What if it’s a toy gun and the man Bentley, the robot would either require dolls will not be
is the child’s father and the robot blows an “enormous battery backpack” or would appearing in any
his head off? Building in morality and have to be plugged into a wall permanently. toy shops. For now…
experience of the world is not something As for M3GAN’s souped-up TikTok dance
we’ve got the hang of.” Indeed, the biggest moves, Bentley doubts that robots could
danger to us is not ‘evil’ AI, he says, “but ever achieve such sass. “In robotics, we
by S T E P H E N K E L LY (@StephenPKelly)
that we believe AI is better than it actually talk about degrees of freedom [joints] and Stephen is a culture and science writer, specialising
is. Just look at self-driving cars.” a robot arm might not have that many,” he in television and film.

90
Environmental Science:
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environmental challenges
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Fundamental questions
Elemental answers Registered charity number: 207890
This was
Sylvia’s
promise
to you...

A generation ago, a woman named Sylvia made But it doesn’t have to be like this. You can change
a promise. As a doctor’s secretary, she’d watched the story, just like Sylvia did, with a gift in your Will.
stroke destroy the lives of so many people. She was All it takes is a promise.
determined to make sure we could all live in a world
You can promise future generations a world where
where we’re far less likely to lose our lives to stroke.
researchers discover new treatments and surgeries
She kept her promise, and a gift to the Stroke DQGHYHU\VLQJOHVWURNHVXUYLYRUKDVWKHEHVWFDUH
Association was included in her Will. Sylvia’s gift rehabilitation and support network possible, to help
helped fund the work that made sure many more of them rebuild their lives.
us survive stroke now than did in her lifetime.
Will you make that promise to generations to
Sylvia changed the story for us all. Now it’s our turn come? Please, leave a gift in your Will to the
to change the story for those who’ll come after us. Stroke Association.

Stroke still shatters lives and tears families apart.

And for so many survivors the road to recovery is
still long and desperately lonely. If you or someone Find out how by calling 020 7566 1505
\RXORYHKDVEHHQDƦHFWHGE\VWURNHƇ\RXƊOONQRZ or email legacy@stroke.org.uk
just what that means. or visit stroke.org.uk/legacy

Rebuilding lives after stroke

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