Table of contents for October 2016 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

Scientists may have found another Earth. This newly discovered exoplanet ticks all the right cosmic boxes: it orbits its star within the habitable zone, it’s similar in size to our planet, it’s probably rocky and, in astronomical terms, it’s just around the corner, circling ‘nearby’ star Proxima Centauri. But using current technology, it would still take 70,000 years to get there. The trouble is that the rocket – the notion of burning a fuel to create hot gas that pushes a vessel upwards – is getting on in years. The Ancient Greeks had the idea first, around 2,500 years ago, though it wasn’t until 1232, when Chinese archers used gunpowder-fuelled rocket arrows to repel the Mongols, that anything recognisable as a rocket actually flew through the skies. The rockets that…

Who’s a cheeky monkey? Researchers from Japan’s Kyoto University have discovered that macaques sometimes break out into smiles while sleeping – a behaviour previously thought to be unique to higher order primates such as humans and chimpanzees. The facial expressions, known as spontaneous smiles, are considered to be the evolutionary origin of human smiles and laughter. “About a decade ago we found that chimp infants also display spontaneous smiles,” said researcher Masaki Tomonaga. “Since we see the same behaviour in more distant relatives, we can infer that the origin of smiles goes back at least 30 million years, when Old World monkeys and our direct ancestors diverged.” The team observed seven infant macaques during their routine health checks, with all of them smiling at least once. “Spontaneous macaque smiles are…

Here’s one bot we definitely have a soft spot for. Researchers at Harvard University have created the world’s first entirely soft robot capable of moving around under its own steam. Dubbed ‘octobot’ for obvious reasons, the robot is around the size of an SD memory card and is able to move its limbs pneumatically by transforming liquid hydrogen peroxide fuel into a much larger volume of gas. This gas flows from a central reservoir into the bot’s arms, inflating them like a balloon and allowing it to move its limbs without the need for rigid electronic components such as batteries and circuit boards. “One long-standing vision for the field of soft robotics has been to create robots that are entirely soft, but the struggle has always been in replacing rigid…

THE LAZY Like nothing more than putting your feet up? Well, you might be a genius. Smart people spend more time lost in their thoughts and so are less likely to alleviate boredom with physical activity than less intelligent counterparts, researchers from Florida Gulf University have found. SINGLETONS After looking at 800 studies on single people carried out over the last 30 years, the University of California’s Bella DePaulo found that single people are more likely to feel a sense of continued growth and development than those in relationships.…

HUMANS CAUGHT THE COMMON COLD FROM CAMELS This is enough to give anyone the hump: the first human to ever suffer a common cold caught it from a camel, researchers at the University Hospital of Bonn say. They made the discovery while studying Middle East respiratory syndrome, which is also passed from camels to humans. WHY WE NEED TO PARTY If you’re the sort that loves nothing more than a good ol’ knees-up, thank your ancestors. Gathering in groups and dancing was a key way for early humans to bond and ultimately prosper, researchers from the University of Montreal say. YOUR BRAIN HAS A ‘PHYSICS ENGINE’ It doesn’t matter whether you understand Newton’s laws of motion or not, we all have a ‘physics engine’ in our brains that allows us…

Verne: The Himalayas This app lets kids explore the Himalayas as Verne the yeti, who can climb mountains, or y using a jetpack, balloon or hang glider. Free, Android Paper Paperis a new Google Docs-style collaborative working tool from Dropbox. It’s just gone into public beta, and now comes with apps for Android and iOS devices. Free, iOS/Android BBC+ This new app lets you select topics you’re interested in, from business news to rugby league, then alerts you when relevant content appears anywhere across the BBC. Free, iOS/Android…

Photographer Reiner Riedler became interested in medical equipment after finding himself in an intensive neonatal care unit, where his critically ill newborn son, Viktor, was being cared for. “I came from outside into a dark room, with all this soft light and beeping,” says Riedler, who is based in Vienna. “It was such a strong feeling of safety – I trusted the machines.” Six months later he started to photograph machines that are used to save human lives, initially spending time in operating theatres. He soon decided he was uncomfortable with trying to photograph unconscious people and busy doctors. Instead, he chose to photograph the technology itself, beginning with common hospital equipment such as dialysis machines. “Then I started to go to museums and archives, and I became more interested…

Cosmologists are always telling us about the beginnings of our Universe, but where are we heading? Can anything, the Universe included, last forever? It’s hard enough being sure exactly what the Universe is, but thinking about how it ends is arguably even tougher. So strap in for a bumpy ride to the end of everything. Will the universe be ending soon? No need to panic. We don’t envisage anything close to an end to the Universe for many billions of years. Depending on the scenario, we have between 20 billion and 100 billion billion years left to enjoy our cosmos. That’s long after the Earth becomes uninhabitable in a mere billion years or so, and by then, humans are likely to have gone anyway. The idea that the Universe can’t…

1 HOW TO COMBINE GENERAL RELATIVITY AND QUANTUM THEORY Many of the scenarios describing the end of the Universe can only be properly assessed if we can combine the impact of gravity with the behaviour of very small things described by quantum theory. At the moment these are incompatible. Approaches like string theory and loop quantum gravity are still a long way from being effective, and a whole new theory may be required before this is possible. 2 WHAT DARK MATTER IS It is impossible to make an accurate model of the evolving Universe without knowing what’s in it. There is five times as much dark matter as ordinary matter in the cosmos, yet we don’t even know if dark matter is a single type of particle or a whole…

British people have boycotted circuses with wild animals to such an extent that they are now defunct The time is ripe for a revolution. Humans have been keeping animals in zoos since 1752 (the Tiergarten Schönbrunn zoo in Vienna), and in private menageries since Egyptian times. Since then we’ve made huge leaps forward in our scientific understanding of animals – but our steps to implement change for their well-being have not progressed at the same rate. Over the last few hundred years, wild landscapes have been desecrated and their inhabitants persecuted at an unprecedented pace, while zoos have failed to convert visitors into passionate conservationists. So what now? Do we acknowledge our failings and just ‘give up’, at this most critical time when we’re facing a sixth mass extinction? Or…

“SOME BELIEVE THAT IF YOU’RE JOKING ABOUT SOMETHING, YOU HAVEN’T COME TO TERMS WITH IT” Public speaking is thought so wretched a torture that it ranks as more stressful than moving house, and more horrible than being cooked alive in lard while a drunk Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall clumsily spatchcocks you with skewer after skewer. Therefore, those uninfected with the desire to make rooms of strangers laugh often see the comedian as a diseased anomaly. When I made a documentary about comedians and melancholy a couple of years ago, Jo Brand told me that she didn’t necessarily think all the comics she knew were categorically mentally ill, but that most were “damaged people”. Despite the weight of anecdote, there’s little hard research. Perhaps one way of finding out how comedians think is…

1 MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY This museum features the world’s most complete dodo remains. Parks Road, OX1 3PW oum.ox.ac.uk 2 MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Here you’ll find an enchanting collection of oddities, including a blackboard bearing Einstein’s chalked scribblings. Broad Street, OX1 3AZ mhs.ox.ac.uk 3 PIERRE VICTOIRE A popular French bistro. 9 Li le Clarendon Street, OX1 2HP pierrevictoire.co.uk 4 ASHMOLEAN CAFE Fantastic eatery at the historic Ashmolean Museum. Beaumont Street, OX1 2PH ashmolean.org 5 WYTHAM WOODS Owned by the university and used for research. Apply online for a visiting permit. www.wytham.ox.ac.uk 6 TRINITY COLLEGE This college was founded in 1555. Alumni includes three Nobel Prize winners. Broad Street, OX1 3BH trinity.ox.ac.uk Oxford may be a city, but it is full of trees, parks and gardens. It’s also…

Half of the population say they believe in some sort of paranormal phenomenon. I’ve never experienced one. My work examines the evidence for psychic abilities, like mind reading. I’m also interested in the psychology of ghostly experiences. I get sent loads of photos of supposed ‘ghosts’ and ‘evil faces’ but more often than not, I can’t see the ‘thing’ that I’m meant to see. No one knows what a ‘ghost’ is, so it’s tricky to set up studies to look for them. Some people run around with meters that detect electromagnetic activity, then when they get a blip they say they’ve found a ghost. But plug sockets, fridges and other things emit electromagnetic activity. It’s a big leap for these people to say they have detected a ghost. We’ve run…

DR LORI MARINO Neuroscientist and animal behaviour expert Lori is founder and executive director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy. In this issue, she tackles the tricky topic of captive animals. p76 JHENI OSMAN In the world’s most extreme environments, scientists have discovered intriguing microbes that feed directly off electrons. Science writer and former BBC Focus editor Jheni went to find out more. p42 REINER RIEDLER Inspired by the machines that kept his critically ill newborn son alive, Austrian photographer Reiner set about capturing the world of medical equipment. We showcase the incredible results. p50…

4.243 LIGHT YEARS The distance of the nearest known exoplanet from Earth, Proxima B, discovered by astronomers at the Carnegie Institute orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. 1,075 YEARS The age of a Bosnian pine tree found growing in northern Greece by a team from the University of Stockholm. It is the oldest living thing known in Europe, they say. £5 BN The amount of money required to save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef from dying of coral bleaching, as estimated by Queensland’s Water Science Task force.…

What did they do? Researchers at the University of California played a constant click track to a sea lion named Ronan, rewarding her with fish every time she nodded along in time. They then upped the ante by playing her Earth, Wind and Fire’s funk-soul floor-filler Boogie Wonderlandand varying the tempo at random intervals. What did they find? Not only was Ronan able to keep the beat better than any other non-human animal ever tested, she could also quickly adapt to the new tempos. The manner in which she did this suggests that neurons in her auditory brain centres first synchronised with the rhythm and then passed on the timing to the motor centres that control movement. Why did they do that? Over the last decade chimps, bonobos, parrots and…

How do you peer inside an animal without taking an X-ray or MRI scan? By making it transparent, of course. Researchers at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany have developed a technique to render the bodies of small mammals such as mice and rats completely see-through, allowing their nervous systems and organs to be studied in greater detail than ever before. Dubbed uDISCO, ultimate 3D Imaging of Solvent-Cleared Organs, the new method works by stripping the water and fat out of the bodies of dead mice and rats using a solvent. After three or four days of treatment, the researchers are left with a shrunken, almost entirely transparent version of the animal. By targeting the organ systems of interest with fluorescent proteins, the researchers were able to create detailed…

GOGORO REACHES BERLIN Gogoro, the battery-swapping electric scooter network we told you about in August 2015, has launched in Berlin, with 200 scooters available for hire in the city. MISTAKEN IDENTITY A US couple is suing IP mapping company MaxMind after it used their address as the default location for over 600 million IP addresses – leading to numerous visits from the police investigating identity theft and other crimes. NO MORE MOORE? A new study has suggested that Moore’s Law – which says that computer processing speed doubles every two years – will no longer apply by 2021. Then again, its demise has been predicted several times before… BITCOIN HEIST At the start of August, hackers managed to infiltrate Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex and made off with over $60m…

Logic of logarithms Neelofer Banglawala referred to John Napier as the inventor of logarithms (August, p107). The purists among us would of course insist that logarithms have always existed! However, it took a mathematical genius like Napier to discover their presence. Fraser Gillespie, Dumbarton Sticky fingers Regarding Helen Czerski’s problem with opening plastic bags in supermarkets (August, p55), I was told a few years ago by someone ‘in the know’ that there is a trick to opening the bags without having wet fingers. If you take the handles of the bag in your hands and gently but firmly pull them apart this opens up the inner corners of the bag enough to get your fingers in. Also, could Helen provide any explanation as to why children’s hands are always sticky,…

Proxima b For our first interstellar trip, it’s a no-brainer that we should go to the nearest exoplanet, Proxima b. The Earth-like planet was recently discovered orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, which lies around 4.2 light-years away. Proxima b is a rocky planet, and is close enough to its host star to allow liquid water to exist. Could life be lurking on its surface? Kepler 452 If we had a warp drive, this star would be worth a visit. At 1,400 light-years away it is a fair distance to travel but in 2015 NASA announced that this star possesses a planet similar to Earth. The star itself is almost identical to the Sun, the planet is as far from it as Earth is from the Sun, and it’s…

Every organism gains its energy by the flow of electrons from an electron donor to an electron acceptor. In humans and other animals these electron donor and acceptor molecules are free to diffuse insideour cells, where they synthesise the ‘energy currency’ of cells, adenosine triphosphate (ATP), in the power stations of the cells. The same process happens in single-celled organisms (such as archaea and bacteria), but the electron transfer also occurs outsidethe cell. The microbes that feed on electricity alone transfer electrons to metal oxides, such as iron and manganese minerals in rocks, either by electron-shuttles called ‘flavins’ or along nanowires known as ‘pili’. Key: 1 Cytochromes are proteins that are present on the outer membrane of the bacteria. Cytochromes contain ‘heme groups’ that accept and donate electrons, enabling charge…

Brane Some theories combining quantum physics and gravity require there to be at least 10 dimensions. In such scenarios, objects with fewer dimensions called branes (short for membranes) could float in the multidimensional environment. Cosmology The branch of astronomy concerned with the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the Universe. Quantum particles Small particles such as electrons and photons of light obey completely different physical rules to ordinary objects. Such ‘quantum particles’ respond to the probabilistic rules of quantum theory. Singularity Various physical models predict that certain characteristics of cosmic objects – their density, for example – will get bigger and bigger until they become infinite. When this happens, it’s called a singularity and current theory breaks down. Space-time Albert Einstein showed that space and time were not separate but…

1 THERE WILL BE COSMIC DEATH The Universe as we know it can’t last forever. It’s not just that stars will burn out – the whole cosmos is running down at the same time as it expands faster and faster. Eventually, billions of years in the future, we expect our Universe to come to an end. 2 THERE ARE ALTERNATIVE ENDINGS Exactly how the Universe will end isn’t clear. However, most cosmologists think that the expansion of the Universe will continue to accelerate, ending up with everything ripping apart. 3 THERE ARE KNOWN UNKNOWNS As yet we still don’t understand two fundamental components of the Universe: dark ma er, which makes up over 80 per cent of the mass of the Universe, and dark energy, which drives the accelerating expansion.…

“HISTORY SHOWS THAT MOST BIG BREAKTHROUGHS COME FROM SMALL BUT SMART SCIENCE” On a recent trip through the state of Texas, I saw a signpost that directed visitors to the scene of a bitter battle where a band of plucky heroes tried to defend a frontier outpost against a huge army, but lost. No, it wasn’t the Alamo, but a town called Waxahachie. And many physicists remember all too well what happened there in the early 1990s. The outpost took the form of a particle accelerator called the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), and its role was to push back the frontiers of knowledge about the Universe. Like today’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the SSC was designed to smash together particles with energies similar to those that prevailed just after the…

This month, I was able to use the sentence “Don’t worry, I’m a mathematician”. I have never been in a such a super-position of delight and embarrassment. The backyard of my house is on a serious gradient, and I’m keen for it not to get any ideas about becoming the front yard. So I had someone around to give me a quote on how much holding back the gravitational potential energy could potentially cost. They took some measurements, drew some diagrams and then expressed regret that they couldn’t measure the exact height of the back of the yard. It’d be nice to know this, they said, but getting a surveyor in would be too costly. Which is where we came in: some string, a homemade inclinometer and a bit of…

Sea lions have the most accurate sense of rhythm in the animal kingdom. No one tell Seal… p17 Being ‘hangry’ (angry when hungry) is a real thing. In psychological tests, low glucose levels correlated with low tolerance levels. p97 Newborn monkeys smile in their sleep. This lends credence to the idea that smiling isn’t uniquely human. p15 20° is the optimum throwing angle for skimming stones at the beach. p104 A spacecraft with an ‘e-sail’ could allow us to travel across interstellar space – but the ‘sail’ would need to be roughly the size of London. p34 WANT MORE BBC FOCUS? FOLLOW SCIENCEFOCUS FACEBOOK TWITTER PINTEREST YOUTUBE…

According to particle physics, there are four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the weak force and the strong force. Electromagnetism, the weak and the strong forces have particles associated with them called bosons, which are the force-carriers. Gravity is yet to be integrated into the Standard Model, but is thought to have a force-carrying particle known as the graviton. Last year, a group of Hungarian researchers spotted an unusual radioactive decay signal while searching for evidence of ‘dark photons’ – a hypothetical particle proposed to be the electromagnetic force carrier for dark matter. Though details were unclear, the signal appeared to have come from an unknown particle just 30 times the mass of an electron. “If true, it’s revolutionary,” said researcher Jonathan Feng. “For decades, we’ve known of four fundamental forces:…

Despite being 5,300 years old, this outfit probably wouldn’t look out of place as part of one of the edgier catwalk shows at London Fashion Week. The clothes belonged to the Tyrolean Iceman, or ‘Ötzi’, a mummy discovered in the Ötztal Alps on the border of Italy and Austria in 1991. The garments were stitched together from the hides of at least five different animals, according to a DNA analysis carried out at University College Dublin. The finding suggests that Neolithic people were skilled tailors who selected different animal skins based on their different properties, the researchers say. “Given that there appears to be pattern to the Iceman’s clothes assemblage, he was a resourceful individual using all that was available to him,” explained researcher Niall O’Sullivan. The leggings were made…

These are just a few of the 1,007 robots that recently set a new Guinness World Record by dancing in unison for 60 seconds. The record attempt was staged as part of China’s Quingdao Beer Festival by Chinese battery manufacturer Ever Win. The robots, which stand 43.8cm tall, were reportedly controlled from a single smartphone. Even though 33 of the robots keeled over during the attempt, those remaining were more than enough to smash the previous world record of 450 dancing robots, which was set by UBTECH Robotics Corp at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala back in January. To watch the record-breaking robots in action, visit bit.ly/dancing_bot…

Smoke signal Robert Matthews’ article on diesel pollution (September, p81) appears to be based on some very controversial ‘science’. In 2014 there were 36,000 deaths from lung cancer in the UK, the vast majority of those being heavy tobacco smokers. He now tells us there are 50,000 additional deaths per year from inhalation of NOx and particles from diesel engines. This can only be true if millions of people have taken up the habit of inhaling directly from diesel exhaust pipes. He then states that diesel cars are bigger and heavier than petrol cars. They are the same size as their equivalent petrol-powered siblings and on average about five per cent heavier. A BMW 320i weighs 1,505 kg and a 320d weighs 1,580 kg, but the 320i uses about 30…

The biggest problem with spaceflight is always mass. Robotic space probes can be fairly compact and lightweight, but when you add humans, things get more complex. People need to space to live and work, as well as complicated life support systems, water and food stores. Put this all together and the mass of a spacecraft skyrockets. But what if you could send humans as cargo and revive them when the craft reaches its destination? NASA has been investigating a ‘torpor-inducing transfer habitat’ in conjunction with an American company called SpaceWorks Enterprises. The inspiration comes from the care of heart attack victims. For years, doctors have been inducing a sleep-state, or torpor, in such patients by lowering their body temperature. This slows the metabolism and gives a chance for their body…

POTTY MOUTH Microbes are often used to break down waste at sewage treatment plants. Brocadia anammoxidanscan survive without oxygen and loves nothing better than to lunch on ammonia and nitrate in human waste, producing a fuel that could, theoretically, be used for space probes. SLICK SOLUTION In April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burst into flames, spilling almost five million barrels of oil. Genetically modified Alcanivorax borkumensis microbes were brought in to help with the clean-up operation by breaking down the oil’s molecular structure. NUKED! In 2014, a team from the University of Manchester discovered that various microbes can degrade the organic material found in nuclear waste. The microbes use the waste as a source of food and energy, and prevent radioactive elements leaking into the environment. SMARTY PANTS…

Science-fiction fans will likely be familiar with the work of Daniel Simon, a German-born vehicle designer and futurist responsible for some of the coolest machines to ever grace a big screen. Despite humble beginnings at the Volkswagen Group, he went on to design the Light Cycles from Tron: Legacy, the awe-inspiring Bubbleship from Tom Cruise’s epic Oblivion and various neo-Art Deco bad guy vehicles that feature in the recent Captain America franchise. “My goal was to create a vehicle that takes full advantage of the unusual opportunities of having no driver without ever compromising on beauty,” he said of his Roborace creation. The result is a visually stunning concept that adds truly innovative features, such as an aerodynamic oor that generates maximum downforce, to a genuinely jaw-dropping carbon fibre shell.…

“THIS SIMPLE MOVEMENT IS CAPABLE OF GENERATING AIRFLOW THAT IS FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF SOUND” A hand clap is an odd thing, when you start to think about it. We clap all the time, to accompany music, to communicate approval, to set a rhythm or to attract attention. A clap can be the sharp crack made by a flamboyant flamenco dancer, or the polite pattering of the unimpressed. But we rarely think about how that sound is made. Recently, I had to clap to synchronise cameras repeatedly over a few days. I noticed that the sound of my clap varied a lot, even though I thought I was doing the same thing every time. So I started to experiment. I hope that you’re not reading this on a train…

Lori is a neuroscientist and animal behaviour expert at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. She is also the founder and executive director of the Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, and president of The Whale Sanctuary Project. Not so long ago, the collections of unusual creatures at zoos included humans from other cultures Until fairly recently, zoos and aquariums were primarily places to take children for a fun afternoon. Few people gave ethics much thought as they stood in front of a cage watching a tiger pacing back and forth. Today, however, the entire enterprise of displaying wild animals is under intense scrutiny, by both the general public and the scientific community. We now know a lot more about how animals fare in zoos and aquariums (and we therefore understand why…

DR CHRISTIAN JARRETT Christian is a psychology and neuroscience writer. His latest book is Great Myths Of The Brain. DR ALASTAIR GUNN Alastair is an astronomer at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. PROF ROBERT MATTHEWS Robert is a physicist and science writer. He’s visiting professor in science at Aston University. DR PETER J BENTLEY Peter is a computer scientist and author who is based at University College London. His latest book is Digitized. LUIS VILLAZON Luis is a freelance science and tech writer with a BSc in computing and an MSc in zoology from Oxford University. ALEXANDRA CHEUNG Alexandra has a degree in environmental science, and has worked for CERN and Imperial College London. How do drought balls work? ANNA KENDAL, TIVERTON The warmer…