BBC knowledge - April 2014

BBC knowledge - April 2014

Volume 4 Issue 3 April 2014 `125

PREPARING FOR

SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

A Times of India publication

Your guide to survive on the Red Planet p26

An excerpt from The Great Speeches of Modern India, edited by Rudrangshu Mukherjee, which recounts former PM Indira Gandhi's speech declaring a state of emergency on 12 June 1975

Our picks offer the best of science, history and nature

on the web

featuRes

The animals all come out to play at night; Eric Médard captures the nocturnal wildlife in an array of photographs

Ever wonder what your body does while you are sleeping

Making sense of the Universe and what lies within it

NASA is synonymous with space technology

Take a look at 10 projects that border on the bizzare

58 origins of Islam

Historian Meenakshi Jain talks about the genesis

and the formation of Islam as a religion

Find out whether the large brain size of the dolphins

equates to them having higher intelligence

The cloak and dagger circumstances that led India to defend its borders post independence

the structure of the Periodic table

The periodic table is a familiar classroom affair

Find out what led to the discovery of the elements

Pretend you are taking a trip through Madrid in

the year 1621

The stories behind the ironic demise of scientists

killed by their own inventions

CoveR stoRY

We look at what you need to pack in your bag

for a journey to Mars

86 edu talk

Interview with Kiran Bir Sethi,

Director of Riverside School,

Ahmedabad

We review the latest video games

released in the market

Lowdown on gadgets riding the new

green technological wave

A veritable buffet of brain teasers

guaranteed to test your mind

Elon Musk, billionaire visionary,

engineer, and entrepreneur who is

transforming the way we travel

The great Jocelyn Bell-Burnell was

in the country recently and BBC

Knowledge got the rare opportunity

to speak with her For those unacquainted with Burnell, she was the one who discovered radio pulsars in the late 60s Hers’ is a very intriguing story There was an outrage in the scientific circles as Burnell was left out when the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974 was given to her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle for the discovery Of the episode, she said, “I believe

it would demean the Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and

I do not believe this is one of them.” Read Burnell’s

interview on page 24.

The discovery of radio pulsars has affected fascinating areas

of research in astronomy, such as black holes and dark matter

Another feature inside, The Shadow Universe, (pg 42) is

about the enigma of dark matter – a phenomenon suggested

to explain some wonky behaviour of the Universe, such as the whizzing stars (faster than usual) circling on the outskirts

of spiral galaxies like ours What is keeping them in check from flinging themselves into far off space?

But questionable behaviour is not only some stars’

prerogative NASA has laid claim to some of that too

Audacious and insane, these ideas are set to change how we will explore space (pg 50) Exploring Mars on the other hand is on the cards sometime very soon A TV show plans

to send manned-missions from 2024 every two years And over 200,000 people globally have applied to travel one way

Read the cover story on page 26.

This issue is not only about space and astronomy Find out about scientists who died while testing their own inventions

And the real story about dolphins’ intelligence And the

Origins of Islam, along with the 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Sleep Starting with this edition, we

introduce Ye Olde Travel Guide – a witty informative

walk around a city of the world from a time that is not the

present We start with Madrid of the 1620s On page 76

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FRoM tHe eDItoR

senD Us YoUR letteRs



Jocelyn Bell-Burnell discovered radio pulsars She is an astrophysicist who has worked in areas of the electromagnetic spectrum, and observing new sources from radio frequencies to high energy gamma rays See page 24

sean Blair is a freelance writer, a space expert, science journalist and currently is the web editor for the European Space Agency website In this issue, he talks about how to make the journey

to Mars and how to live the Martian way of life

See page 26

Meenakshi Jain is a former fellow of the Nehru Memorial Museum and library she is currently the associate professor of History at Delhi University In this issue, she takes us through the conception and formation of Islam as a religion

See page 58

Justin gregg is a science writer and

the author of the book Are Dolphins

Really Smart? A background interest

in linguistics and the evolution of language, his research focuses on the dolphin's social cognition In this issue, he talks about what

is intelligence and how animals use their grey matter See page 62

exPeRts tHIs IssUe

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400001 and printed at Rajhans Enterprises, No 134, 4th Main Road, Industrial Town, Rajajinagar, Bangalore 560044, India Editor- Preeti Singh The publisher makes every effort to ensure that the magazine’s contents are correct However, we accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions Unsolicited material, including photographs and transparencies, is submitted entirely at the owner’s risk and the publisher accepts no responsibility for its loss or damage All material published in BBC Knowledge is protected by copyright and unauthorized reproduction in part or full is prohibited BBC Knowledge is published by Worldwide Media Pvt Ltd under licence from Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited Copyright © Immediate Media Company Bristol Limited All rights reserved Reproduction in whole or part prohibited without permission The BBC logo is a trade mark of the British Broadcasting Corporation and is used under licence © British Broadcasting Corporation 1996

WEbSItE

UK Team

Editor graham southorn

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ImmedIaTemedIaCo

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bbc WorLDWIDE MAGAzInES UnIt

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Unit Coordinator Eva Abramik

A visiting professor at the

University of Plymouth, UK,

susan is an expert on

psychology and evolution.

alastair gunn

Alastair is a radio astronomer

at Jodrell Bank centre for

Astrophysics at the University

of Manchester, UK.

Robert Matthews

Robert is a writer and researcher

He is a Visiting Reader in science

at Aston University, UK.

gareth Mitchell

As well as lecturing at Imperial

college london, Gareth is a

presenter of Click on the BBc

World service.

luis villazon

luis has a Bsc in computing and

an Msc in zoology from oxford

His works include How Cows

Reach The Ground.

Ask the experts?

Email our panel at

in the new Year

YouR QuEstIoNs ANswEREd

Why do cold drinks give me 'brain freeze' and how do I avoid it? p9 How did the goldilocks zone move from Mars? p11 What makes Google so much more successful than other search engines? p12

Why does lactic acid build up in our muscles?

miles per gallon is the fuel

economy that the world’

s first road-ready car built using

will hopefully achieve

348

During aerobic exercise our muscles ‘burn’ glucose with oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, water and energy But when we are exercising hard, the lungs can’t keep up with the muscles’ demand for oxygen Rather than just giving up, our muscles switch to an anaerobic chemical reaction that doesn’t need oxygen

This is less efficient because it doesn’t produce as much energy per molecule of glucose burned, but it’s better than nothing Unfortunately, instead of water and carbon dioxide, anaerobic respiration produces lactic acid as one of its waste products If you exercise hard, this will be produced faster than your bloodstream can transport

it away to your liver where it is processed and broken down

As the level of acid builds up in your muscles, you feel a burning sensation that acts as a warning that your muscles are almost out of energy Like other sorts of pain, the ‘purpose’ is to signal that your body needs to rest So, next time you go for

a run bear your overworked body a thought and maybe catch your breath LV

The appendix was classically

regarded as unnecessary –

even its name implies that it

is a leftover bit It’s a thin

tube, about the size of half a

pencil, that sticks out of the

cecum, which is a pouch at

the start of the large

intestine Charles Darwin

thought that our ancestors

ate a lot more plant roughage

than us and needed a larger

cecum to digest it, so the

appendix was originally a

useful compartment of the

intestine that had dwindled

through millions of years

of disuse Koalas, which

eat very indigestible leaves

have a two-metre-long

cecum that is essentially a

giant appendix.

Certainly it’s true that you

can amputate the appendix

without any obvious

long-term consequences for the

patient But that same

argument applies to a toe

Being able to get along without something doesn’t mean it’s entirely useless

Recent research that compared the intestines

of 361 mammals found that 50 different, quite unrelated, species have an appendix This means that the appendix must have evolved independently at least 32 times, which suggests it must be doing something useful.

It’s now thought that the appendix acts as an emergency bunker for your gut bacteria to shelter in Its narrow opening and out-of- the-way position mean that bacterial infections don’t normally get inside it So after diarrhoea has flushed the last of any bad bacteria out of your intestines, the good guys can emerge from the appendix and re-colonise your colon LV

What is the function of

the human appendix?

the appendix (pictured on the

left in this x-ray image) could

be a safe-haven for friendly

bacteria in emergency situations

Blood viscosity, or how thick your blood is, is partly determined by the number and size of your red blood cells These make up 41-53 per cent of the blood volume in men and 36-46 per cent in women This value is higher if you are obese, which can increase blood viscosity by as much as 15 per cent and can cause a heart attack But being dehydrated can also have an impact One study found that just sitting in

a warm room for four hours without drinking was enough to increase blood viscosity by 10 per cent LV

Keep your blood running smoothly by staying hydrated

Why can’t we trace the sender of an email?

Each email has an invisible header containing information like time stamps and routing information It does not contain personal details like the sender’s street name or phone number However, the header does contain the originating

IP address That can narrow the origin down to a city or district, but seldom anything more specific and certainly not to an individual

Online webmail services like Gmail are even more anonymous A Gmail message, for instance, can only be traced back to a Google IP address GM

the air around a lightning

strike is the hottest place on

Earth For a split second temperatures hit

30,000°c; hotter than the surface of the Sun

There’s no known limit! If you ask a

mnemonist or memory savant to learn a

list of names they may remember

thousands, tens of thousands or even

hundreds of thousands with no trouble,

just as they can learn lists of thousands

of digits Some people, who have a

neurological condition called

‘hyperthymesia’, remember everything

that happens to them every day,

including the name of every person they

have ever met

The rest of us evolved to cope with

no more than about 150 social

relationships This is known as Dunbar’s

number after the anthropologist Robin

Dunbar He discovered that groups of

hunter-gatherers, units in armies,

divisions in businesses and many other

groups tend towards a limit of 150 And

it seems that social media do not

change our basic nature Even people

who have thousands of ‘friends’ on

Facebook rarely maintain more than 150

meaningful relationships SB

some people don’t need name tags

and can put a name to thousands

of trees The soles of their feet are

soft and the rough pads under each toe provide extra grip They also have two vestigial toes higher up their legs, called dewclaws These are found on other species, including cats and dogs, but goats’ dewclaws are much stronger and stubbier and help them clamber up branches, or scramble down sheer cliff faces SB

Can dogs laugh?

They make a sort of breathy, panting sound when they are playing

If you record this and play

it back to other dogs, it appears to reduce their stress behaviours, such as barking and pacing, and increase their social behaviours, such as lip licking Is that the same thing as laughter? Or is it just the dog equivalent of a broad smile? It’s hard to say Humans mostly laugh

at verbal jokes and seeing other people fall over, neither of which have much effect on dogs SB

Dogs don’t laugh? tell that to scooby-Doo

the ultimate rock climber:

the humble goat

Why do goats have such good balance?

Substances generate a smell when their molecules land on so-called olfactory neurones in our noses (which, for some things, is a pretty unpleasant thought) But the exact nature of the interaction is somewhat controversial Until recently, it was believed it took the form of molecules physically docking with protein receptor molecules in the walls of the olfactory neurones, like keys fitting into locks This in turn implied that molecular shape is what determines a specific smell But this fails to explain why some molecules with similar shapes can smell completely different, while others with quite different shapes can have a similar scent These conundrums have led Dr Luca Turin of the Alexander Fleming Research Centre, Athens, to suggest that molecular vibrations are critical He’s recently published intriguing evidence that molecular shape is not everything by showing that two molecules with identical shape but different vibrational properties can have a different smell RMWhat gives substances their scent?

next time you smell something interesting, think about the substance’s molecules jiggling around inside your nose

Why do cold

drinks give me

‘brain freeze’ and

how do I avoid it?

Anything cold against the roof of your

mouth cools the brain, which is right

above it To maintain temperature, the

anterior cerebral artery dilates to

bring more warm blood to the brain If

the cooling is very sudden, the artery

dilates too quickly and the pressure in

the brain jumps up, which gives you a

headache Drinking more slowly, with

pauses to warm your mouth back up,

is normally all you need to do to avoid

it, but brain freeze is worse in people

who are prone to migraines LV

Walt Disney was delighted

to be offered the chance to appear in Focus Magazine

Plants use carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) during

photosynthesis to make glucose It takes

six molecules of CO 2 to make every

molecule of glucose, and this basic building

block is then used for energy and to make

the structure of the plant itself This

biochemical reaction is the same for all

plants, but the faster a plant grows, the

more carbon dioxide it will use up per

second By that measure, bamboo might be

the best at sucking up CO 2 However,

fast-growing plants tend not to live long and when a plant dies, all the carbon in the plant is broken down by insects, fungi and microbes and released as CO 2 again

So the plants that are considered the most adept at locking away carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are the longest-living ones, with the most mass – hardwood trees

It’s all temporary though Eventually every plant returns all the carbon dioxide it uses back to the atmosphere LV

Are some plants better than others

at sucking up carbon dioxide?

Hardwood trees will happily feast on your exhaust fumes, but you probably don’t need to go to these lengths

10 April 2014

the home of Anakin skywalker is slowly being consumed by the desert

How long can a structure

last in a desert before being

8 Titania

Radius: 788km Location: Uranus

7 Triton

Radius: 1,353km Location: Neptune

6 Europa

Radius: 1,561km Location: Jupiter

5 Moon

Radius: 1,737km Location: Earth

Buildings don’t actually sink into the sand, they are covered

as it’s blown sideways by the wind Without any plants to

hold the sand in place, it is blown into horseshoe-shaped

dunes, called barchans Each grain gets blown from the

bottom of the dune up to the crest and then tumbles down

the steeper slope on the leeward side This means that the

barchan as a whole gradually creeps downwind at about

15m per year In Tunisia, the set of Anakin Skywalker’s home,

used for Star Wars Episode I, is currently being engulfed In

another five or six years it will be completely covered LV

What’s better: one big bet, or lots of small ones?

For many people, the best advice is probably not

to have a bet at all, as gambling is notorious for messing with people’s minds But if you insist on doing so, it’s vital to use probability theory This shows that how you bet depends on the odds, and in a casino they’re stacked against you The best advice is surprising: the biggest hope of, say, doubling your money lies in putting all your money on a single spin of the roulette wheel The reason is partly because the payout

on a simple red or black bet in roulette is twice your stake The odds of achieving this outcome are, however, slightly less than 50 per cent, the difference being the casino’s profit margin And that’s why you should make just one big bet If you split up your funds into lots of small bets, you’re effectively giving the casino more opportunities to nibble away at your funds That said, it’s a brave person who can follow this mathematical advice But one person who did is British gambler Ashley Revell, who in 2004 put all his personal wealth – then around £100,000 – on

a single roulette spin He won RM

And the winner is… Hong Kong! Internet

users there enjoy top speeds of 63

megabits per second, according to the

most recent figures from the internet firm

Akamai Hong Kong’s blistering

broadband speeds compare to a

worldwide average of 18.4Mbps The UK

is number 12 on the list with average

speeds of 36Mbps GM

Where can you find the fastest

the internet fast lane

2 Titan

Radius: 2,576km Location: Saturn

1 Ganymede

Radius: 2,631km Location: Jupiter

The ‘goldilocks’ zone is a region around a star (such as the

Sun) where planets are able to retain surface liquid water

– and therefore be suitable sites for life to develop The

young Mars probably had a dense atmosphere necessary

for liquid water to exist on its surface But once it became

volcanically inactive early in its history the atmosphere was

no longer replenished and, thanks to Mars’s small

gravitational field, seeped away into space Furthermore, the Red Planet has lost its magnetic field and so has no protection from harmful radiation So, while the position of the goldilocks zone can change due to changes in the Sun’s energy output, this isn’t why Mars is no longer habitable Changes in Mars itself have turned a once warm, moist world into a cold, dry one AG

How did the goldilocks zone move from Mars?

A couple of billion years ago

you could have rolled out a

towel on a Martian beach

12 April 2014

NASA has developed a sort of

jetpack called SAFER (Simplified

Aid For EVA Rescue), which fires

compressed nitrogen from 24

thrusters to steer the astronaut

back to safety if they become

detached Theoretically, astronauts

could also vent some gas from

their suits or even throw a tool in

the opposite direction to push

themselves forward But the

problem is that unless the thrust is

exactly in line with the astronaut’s

centre of mass, they will start

spinning uncontrollably and very

quickly become disorientated

SAFER automatically detects

rotation and uses its jets to keep

the astronaut oriented the same

‘electroencephalogram’ (EEG) that measures electrical signals from electrodes on the scalp The overall frequency gives an indication of a person’s mental state For example,

‘alpha waves’ (8-13 per second) are associated with a relaxed state But these surface waves are created from millions of small electrical signals in the underlying brain,

so they are a very crude measure that could not equate to a precise mental state

If you mean to ask whether any kind of brain process equates to a mental state then you are in the realms of seriously difficult philosophical questions ‘Identity theorists’ say yes – mental states really are brain states ‘Functionalists’ argue that the function being carried out equates to mental states For instance,

if a human brain and a computer were both trying to solve the same chess problem they would be in the same mental state SB

the relaxed signature of alpha waves, which are enhanced when we close our eyes to chill out

What’s the secret to Google’s success? Just google it!

lee tests nAsA’s

sAFeR back pack

high above earth

years is the time it took for light to reach us from the most distant galaxy known.

The light was emitted only 700 million years after the Big Bang

13.1 billion

What makes Google so much more successful than other search engines?

Before Google, search results were less

to do with relevance than who was paying for prominent listings Early tools also matched search terms to sites based on a textual analysis of their pages Websites often manipulated that by littering pages with irrelevant words inserted for the benefit

of the search bots The breakthrough for Google was Larry Page’s

eponymous PageRank algorithm It listed pages according to the number

of sites linking to them It also weighted

the results so that a few big pages linking to a site had more prominence than many small ones Google’s commercial advance was fuelled by AdWords, where advertisers pay for their websites to appear above the search results for the relevant keywords The profits from advertising drove a huge research and

development operation at Google, feeding back into an ever further refined engine, ever more targeted ads and more and more services GM

snug as a bug

UnWAnteD RooMMAtes

This odd-looking character is a weevil, which was found on a doormat in Greensville, North Carolina

It was taken by Daniel Kariko as part of a collection

of ‘portraits of our often-overlooked housemates’

It shows the weevil’s head, antennae and long snout The full insect is 7mm long

The image was created by combining details taken using a scanning electron microscope with the colours seen under a regular optical microscope “It takes 5-10 hours of post-

production to apply the colour,” says Kariko.

Vine weevils, a common garden pest, are all asexually reproducing females, says Tom Pope,

an entomologist at Harper Adams University, Shropshire “When alarmed, an adult vine weevil will often feign death,” he says, adding that

researchers are looking for ways to exploit this to control them

15

April 2014

SCIenCe | sNApsHot

Jet flight

WAteR WAY to tRAVel

Seen in action is Belgium’s Ludovic Lucas,

demonstrating the latest extreme sport: flyboarding Invented by Francky Zapata, the Flyboard was

developed in the spring of 2011 and is inspired by skiing and acrobatic diving

jet-The device consists of a board attached to a pair

of shoes on one side and a jet-ski turbine on the other This provides 90 per cent of the propulsion, with the last 10 per cent coming from two water jets on the user’s forearms that are attached to the turbine by pipes This allows additional stability and manoeuvrability, although according to Lucas, improvements to the technology are planned “to make it lighter, less bulky and more manoeuvrable.”

“It requires a lot of power to lift a man,” says Lucas Indeed, to keep the rider seemingly flying over the surface, the machine delivers 300 horsepower to move up to half a tonne of water a second

16 April 2014

SCIenCe | sNApsHot

Fluoro flyer

UPWARDs AnD onWARDs

In a darkened wind tunnel a model of a prototype aircraft glows as it is buffeted by gusts Fluorescent oil shows up turbulent air as psychedelic

swirls, which enables engineers to study the craft’s aerodynamics

The flyer is a 5.8 per cent scale model of the X-48C aircraft created by NASA and Boeing to investigate Blended Wing Body (BWB) technology BWB planes have wings smoothly merged with the body of the aircraft, resulting in greater fuel efficiency The whole body of the plane generates uplift rather than just the wing They are harder to control than conventional planes, hence the need for extensive testing BWB planes are also quieter because the engines are mounted on the top.

“The remotely piloted research vehicle was flown 122 times between July 2007 and April

2013 to explore its basic handling qualities The project was extremely successful but it is really just the beginning for the hybrid blended wing body concept,” explained Peter W Merlin of NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center

18 April 2014

working away on your computer

when, without warning, the

processor grinds to a halt, leaving you to

look on in frustration as the spinning wheel

information at room temperature for 39 minutes, smashing the previous record of 2 seconds It’s a step towards the holy grail of quantum computing, explains Simon Fraser University’s Prof Mike Thewalt

“It would have a huge impact on security, code breaking and the transmission and storage of secure information It would solve problems that are impossible on any conceivable normal computer and could lead to the development of new drugs by

a deeper understanding of interactions between molecules,” says Prof Thewalt The quantum computer exploits a property of subatomic particles known as

‘spin’ The idea is that an atomic nucleus acts like a tiny bar magnet when placed

in a magnetic field The spin can be manipulated to point up or down If the spin is up, it represents zero; if down, a one This is the equivalent of the familiar ‘bit’ But a quantum computer deals in ‘qubits’ – these can be in a ‘superposition’ state to represent ones and zeros at the same time It’s why a quantum computer would be so fast – it would perform multiple calculations simultaneously

Until now, quantum systems have been unable to reliably store data unless they’ve been first cooled down to incredibly low temperatures So storing quantum information at room temperature for as long as 39 minutes is a major breakthrough, says the University of Oxford’s Stephanie Simmons, who collaborated on the project

“Thirty-nine minutes may not seem very long, but in theory, this means that over

20 million operations could be performed

in the time it takes for the superposition

to decay by one per cent,” she explains.However, there’s still a way to go before you’ll be turning on a quantum computer

at home The spins of the 10 billion phosphorus ions used in this experiment were all in the same quantum state To run calculations, the qubits would need to be

in different states

“Having such robust, as well as lived, qubits could prove very helpful for anyone trying to build a quantum computer To have them talking to one another controllably would address the last big remaining challenge,” says Simmons

long-A quantum leap

Superfast computing takes a step forward

with a record-breaking experiment

20 April 2014

The Hubble Space Telescope

has detected water in the

atmospheres surrounding five

distant worlds The planets

are all massive Jupiter-sized

bodies that orbit close to

their host stars But thanks

to their blazing hot surface

temperatures they are unlikely

to host life as we know it

“We’re very confident that

we see a water signature for

multiple planets,” said NASA’s

Avi Mandell “This work really

opens the door for comparing

how much water is present

in atmospheres on different kinds of exoplanets, for example hotter versus cooler ones.”

The studies were part of a census of exoplanet atmospheres using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 The researchers can identify the gases that are present on a planet by determining which wavelengths

of the parent star’s light are transmitted and which are partially absorbed

The study also revealed a layer of haze or dust around the planets

For some people cars are an outward expression of their personality, for others they’re simply a means of getting from

A to B But researchers at the University of Hannover have

a different take: they want motorists to measure rainfall

Inspired by the observation that drivers put their wipers

on faster in torrential rain and slower in light showers, the team has devised RainCars,

GPS-enabled vehicles that tour German towns and cities to record levels of precipitation.Being mobile gives the RainCars an advantage over conventional rain gauges While accurate, they are often too sparsely distributed to capture the intricate regional variations in weather patterns The team is also hoping to collaborate with taxi drivers

in the near future

nano drug breakthrough

MeDIcIne

Nanoparticle drug delivery

systems have proved to be a

huge success in the targeted

treatment of everything from

arthritis to cancer However,

nanoparticles have had to be

injected into patients – when

taken orally they are unable to

break through the barrier of

cells lining the intestine Being

able to take them in pill form

would make it easier for patients

to manage their own treatment

Now a team based at

Brigham & Women’s Hospital

has hit upon a novel solution that may see the cutting edge treatments reaching more patients “The key challenge

is how to make a nanoparticle get through this barrier of cells Whenever cells want to form a barrier, they make these attachments from cell to cell

It’s a bit like a brick wall where the bricks are the cells and the mortar is the attachments, and nothing can penetrate that wall,” said team leader Omid Farokhzad

A Raincar undergoes tests in the team’s rain simulator

We can detect water vapour on a

planet by studying the starlight that

has passed through its atmosphere

the hope is that we will soon be able to swallow a pill of nanoparticles to fight disease more effectively

For inspiration, Farokhzad looked at how babies absorb antibodies from their mothers’

milk The antibodies act as a key to unlock receptors found

on the surfaces of cells that line the intestine This allows them

to break through the intestinal walls and enter the bloodstream

By coating the nanoparticles with antibodies, they were able

to reproduce this effect

So far the technique has only been used for the oral delivery of insulin in mice, but researchers say it could be used to carry any kind of drug that can be encapsulated in a nanoparticle

22 April 2014

ThE lATEsT inTElligEncE

life from earth

BIoloGY

It’s surely one of the biggest

mysteries of all time: how did

life originate on Earth? Now,

scientists may be a step closer

to finding out after the chance

discovery that clay may have

acted as a breeding ground for

the chemicals that form the

building blocks of life

Researchers from New

York’s Cornell University

stumbled upon the idea after

using clay hydrogels in the

production of proteins The

team noticed that the clay

boosted protein production,

leading them to think it might

provide the answer to a

long-standing question concerning

the evolution of biomolecules

“In simulated ancient

seawater, clay forms a hydrogel

– a mass of microscopic spaces

capable of soaking up liquids

like a sponge,” the paper’s

author Dan Luo explained

“Over billions of years,

chemicals confined in those

spaces could have carried out the complex reactions that formed proteins, DNA and eventually all the machinery that makes a living cell work

Clay hydrogels could have confined and protected those chemical processes until the membrane that surrounds living cells developed.”

Earlier experiments have shown that amino acids and other biomolecules could have been formed in primordial oceans, drawing energy from lightning or volcanic vents

But it was uncertain how these molecules could go on to form more complex structures, and how they were able to survive the harsh conditions Clay is

a promising possibility because biomolecules tend to attach

to its surface The hydrogel structure helps to protect the delicate contents from damaging enzymes that might strip down and destroy DNA

Where it all started? clay cliffs like these on

an island off the coast of Massachusetts in

the Us could be a cradle for life

nasal navigationZooloGY

Ever wondered how pigeons can find their way home having been released hundreds of kilometres away? It turns out they may be simply following their noses Hans Wallraff of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, has developed a theory that pigeons are able to smell their way by accurately perceiving the ratios of various scents given off by organic compounds The pigeon is then able to find its way by associating certain smells with wind directions

“If the percentage of a compound increases with southerly winds, a pigeon learns this wind-correlated increase If released at a site some 100km south of home,

the bird smells that the ratio of the compound is above what it

is on average at its loft and flies north,” Wallraff explains

In order to test his theory Wallraff made a computer model based on atmospheric data In this simulation, virtual pigeons were able to navigate successfully armed only with knowledge of winds and odours

FooD scIence

It’s every meat lover’s dream,

a nice juicy burger that can be enjoyed without the accompanying risk of an expanding waistline Well, that dream may soon be realised as researchers have found a way to pack reduced-fat mince with meaty flavour

According to a study published in the journal Meat Science, plasma proteins taken from beef can be used to replace fat in mince without adversely affecting the taste

The proteins were obtained from the meat through ultra-filtration and freeze-drying and then combined with inulin,

a type of carbohydrate often found in chicory The resulting

concoction was then added

to reduced-fat mince and fed to

a group of taste testers The process had no observable effect on colour, flavour, taste

or texture and fared well when pitted against full-fat mince despite containing 20 to 35 per cent less fat, the paper says

Mmmmm… mince And now with the added benefit of helping you keep the pounds at bay

Patties without the podge

the humble pigeon follows its nose to find its way home

Keeping abreast of the top science, history and nature research from around the world

Neutrinos on ice

Keep fit for smarter babies

calling all pregnant ladies If you want your

child to win a nobel Prize then you’d better

put on your trainers Just 20 minutes of

moderate exercise taken three times a week

during pregnancy can speed up the newborn

child’s brain development, say researchers

at the University of Montreal the team

found the brains of newborns aged eight

to 12 days displayed greater activity when

they were exposed to new sounds if their

mothers took regular exercise

RoUnD UP

neWs In BRIeF

If neutrinos were people their

neighbours would describe them as

‘keeping themselves to themselves’

Billions of the near-massless subatomic

particles pass through the Earth every

second, but as they rarely interact with

anything they are incredibly difficult

to detect

the overwhelming majority we have

spotted originate from either the nuclear

reactions in the sun or from cosmic rays hitting the Earth’s atmosphere However, after three years of searching the skies, the Antarctic-based Icecube neutrino observatory has detected a group of neutrinos likely to originate from much further afield “this is the first indication

of very high-energy neutrinos coming from outside our Solar System,” says Francis Halzen, principal investigator of

Icecube “It is gratifying to finally see what we have been looking for this is the dawn of a new age of astronomy.” the neutrinos may carry information all the way from supernovae, black holes and pulsars occurring in the farthest reaches of the Milky Way and beyond, astronomers would be able

to examine these events by studying the neutrinos

the Icecube neutrino observatory uses thousands of sensors beneath the Antarctic ice

to catch fleeting neutrinosPARtIcle PHYsIcs

Mount sidley is part of a range in West Antarctica where the new volcano was found

Maven headed for Mars

nAsA’s Maven spacecraft has embarked upon its 10-month journey to the Red Planet following a successful launch from Florida’s cape canaveral Air Force station Assuming that all goes to plan, the $671 million (£410 million) probe will gather data about the Martian climate in an attempt to understand how the planet was deprived of most of its atmosphere, turning it from warm and wet into the cold, dry and hostile world we see today

Fire and ice

the effects of global warming are well documented, but things could really heat

up in Antarctica if a newly found volcano erupts Researchers spotted the volcano buried beneath 1km (half a mile) of ice while investigating earthquakes in West Antarctica

While an eruption would be unlikely to breach the surface, the heat could create a significant amount of meltwater, scientists from Washington University in st louis claim

At the time, the work that we were meant to

be doing involved looking at things, which fluctuated rapidly in brightness And nobody had done that systematically before, so that was pretty important The other factor that led

to the discovery was the ‘Impostor Syndrome’ The Impostor Syndrome is something known in Europe and the US, which affects people who have less confidence For example, these people find themselves in college surrounded by lots of brilliant people And then they think, “Oooh! I’m not as clever as these people and the college has admitted me by mistake.” This is the impostor effect They believe that they are going to be made out and some go as far as quitting

Before going to Cambridge for my PhD, I had been on the fringes of Britain I suddenly found myself in this Mecca of learning amongst the best and brightest And I thought to myself, "Aahh I shouldn’t be here, I’m not that bright." But instead of leaving before ‘they threw me out’, I decided I would work as hard as I could, be as careful as I could, so that when they threw

me out I would not have a guilty conscience I was being very thorough, checking everything from this new radio telescope, this new wave of operation and that’s what led to the pulsars’ discovery

What fascinates you most about a pulsar?

Pulsars have helped test Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, forced us to learn about materials that are extremely compact and have a high density They are quite hard to understand because of their huge magnetic fields, electric fields, and huge gravitational fields They are extreme in every sense of the word, so there are a lot of fascinating things there that I yet don’t understand

How high was the probability of finding

‘Little Green Men’ as opposed to detecting

amanda Peters talks to (Susan) Jocelyn bell burnell , the astrophysicist who discovered

pulsars and created a whole new subfield of astronomy

How was school life while growing up?

I started life in Northern Ireland and was

schooled there till the age of 13 I then

went to boarding school in England, where I

was first introduced to science While I found

biology boring, I was good at physics and

chemistry From then on it looked like I would

become a physicist

At that time in Northern Ireland, the general

assumption was that when girls moved into

high school they would opt for domestic

science like needlework and cookery, while

the boys went into the field of science But I

was keen to get into the field So my parents

and those of two other girls made a big fuss

and managed to break the general norm We

ended up being the only three girls in class and

I topped the science exam in the first term

When you were growing up, was it rare

to find women in science, especially in astronomy? What drew you to the field?

There were more women in astronomy than

in other areas, than in physics actually I knew when I started science that I was good

at physics My father was very widely read and brought home a lot of books from public libraries One day he brought home some astronomy books and I read them cover to cover Looking back they were quite a tough read I was completely hooked and realised that the physics I was learning at school level could

be applied to these big galaxies and stars So that’s how I wanted to be an astronomer My classmates remembered it because not a lot of people at the age of 15 knew what they wanted

to be but I knew

the radiation from a pulsar star can only be observed when the beam is pointing towards the earth, much like in the functioning of a lighthouse

coMMent & AnAlYsIs

24 April 2014

stars that emitted electromagnetic radiation?

It was a bit of a joke It would have been a very

unintelligent group of Little Green Men because

why would they signal planet Earth? Why would

they signal at 81.5 mega hertz? That’s not

sensible and why would they use amplitude

changers, changing the height of the pulsars

Why would multiple different groups of Little

Green Men use the same signal at the same

time to contact Earth?

How has the discovery of pulsars changed

the understanding of the Universe?

One big change at the time of the discovery of

pulsars was that it made the existence of black

holes more likely Until then people weren’t that

sure about black holes

Does the Universe still surprise you?

There has been a huge change in the Universe

since I started studying astronomy When I

started, we more or less thought we understood

the Universe and subsequently we found out

that there is something we call dark matter, and

recently we found something we know as dark

energy The net result is that all that we thought

we understood about the Universe actually

makes up only five per cent So we went from

thinking we understand 95 per cent to knowing

it was only five per cent, which may not be

progress, but it is a step further

What do you think has been the most

significant development in another area due

to your discovery?

Well NASA is launching a satellite fairly soon,

which is going to see if we can use pulsars as

navigating beacons But pulsars are lighthouses,

so my thesis advisor Antony Hewish, patented

the idea that they could be used as navigation

beacons when we start travelling through the

galaxy in spaceships They are beginning to be important in understanding how materials react under very high density One study suggests that the stars have so much density that they have quarks in it

Has there been a recent discovery in the field of pulsars as significant as yours?

Probably not in that sort of a field but in astronomy there are all sorts of things going on

One of the things that excite me are fast radio bursts, one was discovered several years ago and now suddenly in the last 12 months they have started finding more We now know of about 25 of them Do you know of the principle

of dispersion? It’s a single sharp radio blast with different frequencies Radio waves travel

at different speeds and different frequencies

The high frequencies come first followed by the lower ones These new pulsars have turned out

to have much greater dispersions, which means they encompass a lot of electrons far more than what is in our galaxy They come from beyond the galaxy, so they are probably at a red shift

of one, which is when the Universe was half its present size They last about a millisecond

There has not been a repeat burst from any of them and there is nothing when you look at the same spot after the burst So what they are is a very interesting issue at the moment Now we know they exist and know what to look for We are now going to find them faster and faster even though they are all over the sky and not confined to the galactic plane

What are you currently working on?

I’m 70 now and retired from the field I am

no longer doing active research, but I do travel to give talks Doing interesting high level committee work, judging prizes make for a very interesting life

Dame (Susan) Jocelyn bell burnell , as a post graduate student in cambridge University, UK, first discovered the existence of radio pulsars in 1967 Her discovery led to the branch of radio astronomy, significant in understanding the celestial bodies

in the universe using radio frequencies she is currently a Visiting Professor of Astrophysics, oxford University, and Professorial Fellow of Mansfield college, oxford burnell is currently on a visit to several scientific institutions in India including tata Institute of Fundamental research (tIFr), Mumbai.

“the discovery of pulsars made the

existence of black holes more likely”

26 / FOCUS / FEBRUARY 2014

In some of the most remote corners of the world, researchers are flocking to try out the Martian

way of life Sean Blair reveals why the quest to

conquer the Red Planet starts on Earth

PREPARING FOR

FEBRUARY 2014 FOCUS / 27

Upwards of 200,000 people from

140-odd countries have applied for one-way tickets to the Red Planet from Holland’s Mars One television project Producers are now starting a two-year selection process, seeking participants suitable for both colonising Mars and becoming reality

TV stars In December 2013, Mars One announced it would send an unmanned rover and communications satellite to the Red Planet, to arrive in 2018 It hopes to follow this with manned

missions from 2024, with four-strong crews setting off every two years But do Mars One’s applicants have any idea what they’re letting themselves in for? They’d be spending their lives on a cold, radiation-blasted and dust-shrouded world, 225 million kilometres from home on average Any unprotected exposure to the outdoors would make their blood boil, while the merest contact with bleach-like surface dust might risk chemical burns

Rock samples are

collected in Utah before

being taken back to the

Mars Desert Research

station in Utah; how long

before a similar scene is

played out on Mars itself?

plANEtARY ExploRAtIoN | SCIenCe

27

April 2014

28 / FOCUS / FEBRUARY 2014

Thankfully, by the time they launch,

they may know what to expect This year

is shaping up to be the busiest yet for dress

rehearsals on Earth For the whole year,

a succession of crews are living in a habitat

in the Utah desert – a desolate environment

resembling Mars And from August 2014,

a crew of six will simulate a Mars mission

for 12 months in the Arctic chill of

northern Canada

It’s the scientific pull of the Red Planet

that’s attracting researchers to the bleakest

corners of our world They live as if they are

on Mars: toiling within confined modules,

their power, food and water rationed Just

to step outside means donning a realistic

spacesuit and passing through a simulated

airlock.Even radioing the outside world

involves a 20-minute time delay

“The analogue suit makes you feel

isolated,” recalls Ashley Dale, an aerospace

PhD student at the University of Bristol,

who in 2011 spent two weeks at the Mars

Desert Research Station (MDRS) in western

Utah “The gloves are bulky and there’s an air

circulation system – you can’t hear a thing

except through the radio The high altitude

puts strain on your cardiovascular system, and

the suit weighs more than 10kg The helmet

limits your view too – you don’t normally

realise how seeing your feet helps you walk.”

During one ‘Extra Vehicular Activity’

Ashley and his crewmates heard

blood-curdling screams from back in the ‘Hab’

They sped back, still observing the standard

re-pressurisation protocol: “We didn’t know

if it was some kind of test.” It wasn’t –

a mouse had snuck inside, surprising

the occupants

January sees Ashley returning to the Utah

station for another fortnight, leading its first

UK crew Plans include trying out a new

suit with inbuilt air supplies, testing how

‘extremophile’ bacteria take to the Utah

desert and operating the Canadian Space

Agency’s Artemis Jr rover, a prototype lunar

explorer: “You need to take systems like this

out of the lab to really put them to the test,”

“I was attracted by the advert,

offering: ‘Hard work, no pay,

eternal glory!’”

Vladimir Pletser of the European space Agency

SCIenCe | plANEtARY ExploRAtIoN

Ashley adds “The same is true of people.”

The University of Bristol is also working

on some specially designed gloves that will feed information from the outside surface through to the user’s fingertips using ultrasonic pulses The hope is that the gloves will allow astronauts to be more aware of the environment as well as helping them with manual tasks when gripping tools

Human confinement studies, mimicking the isolation of long-term space missions, started in the 1960s The major ‘Biosphere 2’ experiment began in 1991 in the Arizona desert, with eight ‘bionauts’ sealed away for two years, growing their own food and generating their own oxygen Veteran bionauts are now advising Mars One on life support technologies

Interest in ‘planetary analogues’ – locations

on Earth with similarities to aspects of other worlds – arose more recently “Analogues have become more sought after as planetary science becomes more interdisciplinary,” says Anita Heyward of Europlanet, a European network of planetary scientists that supports field trips to analogue sites from Tunisia to Siberia “It’s not just geology these days, but areas like astrobiology – studying life in extreme environments.”

AnAtoMY oF A MARs sPAcesUIt

Aouda.x is designed to give wearers a feel for Martian gravity

The Austrian Space Forum’s ‘Aouda.X’ is designed to let wearers feel what it would be like to take a stroll in Mars’s light gravity, powerful radiation and toxic atmosphere Costing around £1 million, it’s not a true spacesuit but instead is designed to simulate the same stresses and limitations astronauts would experience if they were to wear a suit while walking on Mars.

FEBRUARY 2014 FOCUS / 29

A researcher conducts a field test

of the Aouda.x spacesuit as part

of a simulated Mars mission in the

Moroccan desert

With average temperatures on Mars

at –63°c, heated boots will keep astronauts’ feet warm the suit weighs 45kg – much less than current 145kg spacesuits but their equivalent

in one-third Martian gravity

like current spacesuits, Aouda.x combines a ‘hard upper torso’ with pressurised hinged limbs, incorporating fireproof and bulletproof layers, and

an outer aluminum covering It can be safely worn between temperatures of -110°c and +35°c.

A 12-volt battery powers an on-board wireless connection enabling biomedical and engineering data to be transmitted, including glove accelerometers that check energy expended there’s also

a heads-up display.

Moving inside a spacesuit has been likened to folding a balloon An adjustable exoskeleton submits the wearer to the equivalent forces of various pressure regimes for all joints, including fingers.

there’s no on-board oxygen supply;

ambient air is circulated with fans

sensors check temperature, humidity and build-up of co2 to warn of overheating or stale air.

30 / FOCUS / FEBRUARY 2014

SCIenCe | plANEtARY ExploRAtIoN

Alien worlds on earth

It was the Mars Society – advocating

manned missions to the Red Planet

– that began combining confinement

and analogue studies “The society took

advantage of the fact that NASA already

had a research presence on Devon Island

in the Canadian Arctic In 2000 the society

received permission to site the Flashline

Mars Arctic Research Station (FMARS)

there,” explains Vladimir Pletser of the

European Space Agency, veteran of both

FMARS and MDRS Nearly twice the

size of Belgium, uninhabited Devon Island

is the site of the 23km (14-mile) diameter

Haughton Crater, formed about 39 million

years ago but largely intact, offering

intriguing geology

The MDRS next took shape in Utah

“I was attracted by the advert, offering:

‘Hard work, no pay, eternal glory!’” recalls

Vladimir, who oversees ESA zero-G flights

as his day job

This year saw a new Mars base arise,

the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and

Simulation (HI-SEAS), on the volcanic

slopes of Mauna Loa During an initial

four-month stay, the eight occupants of

HI-SEAS undertook various experiments

These included charting links between food

freshness and preparation with crew

well-being, as well as modelling anti-microbial

clothes – one participant wore a single

unwashed T-shirt for the duration

“Does it help the experiments generally

for us to be located here?” asks Kim

Binsted, overseeing HI-SEAS experiments

“Well, the participants benefit from having

genuinely meaningful work HI-SEAS is

near a lava field with unexplored lava tubes;

there is the chance to do actual science

each time they go out.” HI-SEAS has a

novel geodesic dome design compared to

the cylindrical Mars Society Habs

Days start early, at about 5 to 6am, with

plenty to do, from scientific research to

maintenance That includes a typical two

to three EVAs per day, with quad bikes

in the Arctic and Utah for geological

surveying further afield “With the suits,

there are all kinds of problems you can’t

anticipate,” explains Vladimir “I needed to

fix computer equipment, but my gloves

were so big I was tapping four keys at once

I didn’t get permission to take my glove

off, so I taped a screw to my finger, letting

me press what I wanted.” Evenings are for

rest: crews typically make the effort to eat

dinner together, often followed by a movie, usually sci-fi

Not that simulating Mars demands a habitat: last February, non-profit research group the Austrian Space Forum undertook

a four-week field study near Erfoud, in Morocco’s northern Sahara More than a tonne of equipment was shipped out to the desert, assisted by the Moroccan authorities who also provided security

Camping by night, they evaluated various European space hardware, including

a Hungarian lunar rover, a prototype planetary lander and weather station, and their own Aouda.X simulated Mars suit, and performed geological retrieval amid other mock experiments inspired by the Apollo moonwalkers’ tasks The suit performed well, although fine Saharan sand got everywhere, including backpack electronics

“Eventually it had to be taken apart for cleaning, though we were well prepared for

this,” says Forum’s Alexander Soucek For World Space Week last October the Forum’s timing tests went one step further, with synchronised testing of three different analogue Mars suits: their own, in Austria, the Mars Society suit at MDRS, and another from the University of North Dakota This networked ‘World Space Walk’ was a first step towards setting a common standard for suit evaluation

Next year FMARS and HI-SEAS both plan year-long tours, paralleling the scheduled year-long crew stay on the International Space Station And if Mars One does go forward, the concept of analogue tours should come into the mainstream TV viewers will play their part in history as they choose the first humans to walk on Mars for real

30 April 2014

GRoW YoUR oWn

Astronauts cultivating their own food would not only reduce the monotony but provide an oxygen bonus too In fact, soybeans are already cultivated on the International Space Station so there’s already a precedent

PAcK VeGGIe

Hawaii’s HI-SEAS project proposed spam-fried rice for its crew But tinned meat takes up too much space so Tofu offers a lighter, easier to store, protein- rich alternative Martian explorers may have to be veggie.

3D PRInt It

Cornell University is working on 3D-printed food Layers of edible gels build the desired dish and can be given various textures, tastes and nutrients by the printer Cheese (pictured) and chocolate are among the successes so far.

HoW to FeeD A MIssIon to MARs

Mars at its most distant is a thousand

times further than the Moon, which is

itself a thousand times further than

the International Space Station This

is a major reason why more than half

of all Mars probes have failed A

manned mission would need some

redundancy, including twin

spacecraft A suitable ‘launch

window’ opens every two years and a

chemical rocket trip might take seven

to nine months The main spacecraft

would remain in orbit while landers

dropped to the surface Alternatively,

‘docking’ with Martian moon Phobos

might be simpler than immediately

landing on the surface Either way, after three to four months, the return launch window would open, unless this is a long-term (or one-way) trip

Cruising between worlds spells danger from cosmic radiation Food and water (plus waste) packed around the hull would double as radiation shielding But the best way to cut exposure is to slash travel time NASA hopes to do this with the VASIMIR plasma rocket – due for ISS testing in

2015 This could take a crew to Mars

in 39 days, but to power the rocket for this length of time would require a yet-to-be developed fusion reactor.

HoW to Get to MARs Reaching the Red Planet is a long and perilous journey –

at least with current rocket technology

naTUre | poRtfolIo

32 April 2014

awakened,” he explains “Our focus naturally shifts to sounds, smells and the feel of the wind During the day many mammals take refuge, and it’s only at night that they really become active There is so much to learn then, but we’re not equipped to see everything that’s going on Infra-red cameras have allowed me to unlock a few of these secrets ”

WHAT A MOUTHFUL

Nocturnal photography requires good naturalist skills and detective work to decide where to place your cameras and sensors You can use data from websites to work out where you’ll see wildlife in the daytime But at night you need to create your own data by looking for tracks and droppings to

determine the paths animals use I often position a camera along this track near my house, and it’s pretty common to see roe deer, badgers, pine martens and foxes So this image was no great surprise

But what did catch my attention was the size of the prey that the fox had captured

I zoomed in and saw that it was carrying kittens I assume that they were the offspring

of a feral domestic cat that lives nearby

BRIDGE OF BATS

 While I was out researching locations to

photograph otters (see p39),

I came across this beautiful ivy-covered bridge and realised that it would be the perfect setting for a picture of bats in flight However, I had

no idea whether these nocturnal aeronauts actually did come through here.

I got my answer on the first night, though they were in only one photo My second attempt was more promising with a lot of images, but nothing that was sufficiently sharp It was only on the third night that I captured this picture I shot it with a single exposure and five flashes, because I wanted to fill the space underneath the arch with a number of bats.naTUre | poRtfolIo

April 2014

WINGED WONDER This little owl is a daily visitor to my garden – it’s good practice to get to know the habits of animals on your patch I’ve found that owls are loyal

to a perch for weeks at a time before suddenly moving on to another This means that, as a photographer, you have to be very vigilant, constantly looking for clues as to their preferred spot Fresh droppings in one location several mornings in a row are a clear indicator, and when you think that you have managed to find their perch, you just position the camera and hope for the best.

A DREAM sUBJEcT

 If there is a single animal that represents the night for me, it is the genet Photographing one had always been something of a dream, but I live above the Loire Valley north of the river, where the species is very rare so to get this shot I had to head south.

A friend of mine knew a rock where a genet marked its territory, and showed me the location This was a great place to position a camera-trap, particularly because the surroundings were so

photogenic I set up two flashes, one above the camera and the other to the side I was lucky that the genet looked up at just the right time to allow me to get this photograph.

naTUre | poRtfolIo

36 April 2014

TINy NOISE-MAKERS

 I visited this forest in Slovenia several times, mostly to photograph bears, before I realised it was full

of edible dormice In autumn they make a lot of noise all night, and since they are attracted to fresh fruit they are pretty easy

to photograph.

I set up a camera in this location after finding spraints here, telling me that an otter was marking its territory Photography excites me but this kind of detective work, when you really have

to understand animals and their behaviour, is even more fascinating In this shot I clearly didn’t capture the otter I was looking for, but I did get this beautiful grey heron The bird visits this location to fish every night.

BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOGRAPHy

 My interest in documenting nocturnal wildlife began 25 years ago with an image of a badger outside his set, but my approach

to photography has developed enormously since then This shot was taken on a path through the woods that gets a lot of night- time traffic.

It was a single badger track that indicated this was a suitable spot, and by positioning a sensor here I knew I could use the large oak to give a sense of scale in the image – and to show the animal’s quirky charm.

on his native France

You can see more of eric’s spectacular photos, including shots of his resident tawny and barn owls, in a gallery on

E www.discoverwildlife.com

find out more

OTTER MAGIC

It took me several weeks to find

enough evidence to identify a

spot that this male otter visited

regularly Even then I had to wait

for two months to get a photo of

him, though I made sure that my

equipment was totally

soundproofed so I wouldn’t

cause any disturbance Once I

missed my chance because the

camera failed to work after

getting soaked in the rain!

Sometimes the otter passed

here five or six times in the

same evening In this photo he

has just got out of the river and

is leaving a spraint on a rock.

poRtfolIo | naTUre

Ever wondered what your body’s doing while you’re off in the land

of nod? David K Randall delves into the science of snoozing

THInGS YoU

dIdn’T KnoW aBoUT SLeep

10

SCIenCe | tHE scIENcE of slEEp