Table of contents for September 2015 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

PREDICTING THE FUTURE is tricky. Even Arthur C Clarke, who foresaw modern computing, 3D printing and the mobile phone, got it wrong from time to time. In 1964, in a BBC Horizonspecial at the World Fair, Clarke explained that scientists would be able to bioengineer creatures in the year 2000. On that front he was right. But Clarke then said that these creatures would take the shape of intelligent chimps, bred in the lab to help us with chores. Yet I still have to empty the dishwasher every morning; so on this rare occasion, Clarke was wrong. It was his great verve for predictions, and his knack for getting them right more often than not, that inspired this issue of the magazine. Rather than look at the world in 50…

It’s been good for: COUCH POTATOES If your idea of a good workout involves walking to the cupboard to get another doughnut, read on. Scientists from the University of Southampton have developed a molecule that can mimic the positive effects of exercise. Dubbed ‘compound 14’, the molecule reduced blood glucose levels, improved glucose tolerance and promoted weight loss in obese mice. SARCASTIC SO-AND-SOS It may be derided as the lowest form of wit, but it seems sarcasm may help to improve our creativity. Studies carried out by Harvard and Columbia Universities have found that those who either used or were exposed to sarcasm performed up to three times better in subsequent creativity tests. It’s been bad for: PERFECTIONISTS IF YOU INSIST on things being ‘just so’ it might be worth…

EMDrive What’s that? A controversial ‘engine’ proposed by British aerospace engineer Roger Shawyer that theoretically generates thrust by bouncing microwaves around within a closed container. Recently, the University of Dresden’s Martin Tajmar claimed to have built a functioning EMDrive. Wow. That sounds fantastic There’s more. As the microwaves could be generated using solar power, the device could potentially operate indefinitely without the need for fuel. It is also potentially capable of travelling incredibly fast, allowing a spacecraft to travel to Mars in as little as two months. That sounds too good to be true. What’s the catch? The engine’s design seems to violate the conservation of momentum. This fundamental tenet of physics states that if something is being propelled forwards, then something needs to be pushed in the opposite direction.…

Nuclear planes COULD AIR TRAVEL be powered by lasers and nuclear explosions? A patent from Boeing reveals an engine that uses laser beams to vaporise a fuel pellet. This pellet – possibly a blend of deuterium and tritium – would undergo nuclear fusion, generating enough thrust to power the craft. High-energy neutrons produced by the fusion reaction could be reacted with uranium-238 to power a turbine, recharging the lasers and creating a self-sustaining device. Patent application number: US 9,068,562 Damage-proof data WE ALL KNOW how annoying it is to lose files, so how about etching all your digital documents onto an indestructible disk? French company Fahrenheit 2451 has patented a way to laser-engrave microscopic text and images onto a transparent, synthetic sapphire wafer. A 20cm disk can store up to…

WITH THE START of the new school year, a whole generation will begin a journey of exploration culminating in the discovery that they hate maths. Everyone has their reasons why they despise the subject. But many of them were crystallised in one of the social media sensations of the summer, surrounding a girl called Hannah. Apparently, she had bought a bag of sweets, half a dozen of which were orange, and had eaten two of them. Hardly headline-grabbing stuff, but here’s the thing: while the number of sweets in the bag wasn’t clear, there was a one in three chance that both of Hannah’s sweets were orange. And that meant the number of sweets in the bag was given by… a quadratic equation. Who cares? The examiners who’d devised this…

IT MAKES UP 85 per cent of the matter in the Universe and without it our Galaxy would fly apart. But since its discovery some 80 years ago, scientists have been unable to figure out exactly what dark matter is. The only way that dark matter interacts with anything is via gravity. Because it doesn’t interact with electromagnetic radiation, it appears to be invisible. It has widely been assumed that it is a completely new exotic form of matter unlike anything previously discovered. But now an international group of researchers has proposed a theory that dark matter behaves in a similar manner to pions. These are subatomic particles responsible for binding atomic nuclei together. “We have seen this kind of particle before. It has the same properties - same type…

IN 2008, AN Indian court sentenced 24-year-old student Aditi Sharma to life imprisonment for murdering her ex-fiance. An EEG-based lie detection test was accepted as key evidence. Brain-based lie detection has often been put before courts, but in most countries it is rejected as unreliable. In fact, India has since declared it inadmissible. One issue is whether the brain activity seen in lying is indicative of deception. A major neural ‘marker’ of deception is high activity in the frontal brain areas that concoct stories. The assumption is that lying involves making things up while telling the truth does not. In standard lab tests the marker is pretty reliable, but a similar pattern of activity can occur in other situations giving false results. In one study, volunteers were shown a series…

SUSAN BLACKMORE Susan is a visiting psychology professor at the University of Plymouth. Her books include The Meme Machine DR ALASTAIR GUNN Alastair is a radio astronomer at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester ROBERT MATTHEWS After studying physics at Oxford, Robert became a science writer. He’s Visiting Reader in Science at Aston University GARETH MITCHELL Starting out as a broadcast engineer, Gareth now writes and presents 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 EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO questions@sciencefocus.com or post to Focus Q&A, 2nd Floor, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3BN RICHARD SHAW, BROMLEY Q What happens to old aeroplanes? A…

WHAT’S HOT RETRO GAMING Commodore is about to launch a smartphone. Named PET after the company’s original game-changing computer, the Android device will have emulators that let you play old C64 and Amiga games. Spectrum fans, meanwhile, will soon be able to get their hands on the ZX Vega, a £100 emulator with 1,000 vintage games built in. WHAT’S NOT AIBO Sony’s robot dog caused a sensation when it launched back in 1999. But Sony cancelled the line in 2006, and announced last summer it would no longer be repairing them – with the result that some Buddhist priests in Japan are now offering AIBO cremations so that distraught owners can see their robotic loved ones off in style.…

1 REAR-VIEW RADAR Around 40 per cent of cycling fatalities occur when a bicycle gets hit from behind. Reduce your chances of that happening with Garmin’s high-tech rear-light radar. The Varia detects vehicles approaching from as far as 140m behind you. It then relays the proximity info to you via a small handlebar unit. The rear light will also start increasing in brightness, alerting the drivers to your presence. Garmin Varia Rearview Bike Radar £240, garmin.com 2 TIMBER TIMEPIECE The smartwatch gets a makeover in the form of the Kisai Blade Wood Link Watch from TokyoFlash, which pairs with your iOS device via Bluetooth. The wooden face conceals red or green LEDs that reveal the date and time, while icons on the strap will light up whenever you receive a…

1860S Gregor Mendel (pictured) establishes the basic rules of inheritance. Friedrich Miescher isolates DNA, a substance he calls nuclein, from cells found in pus. 1944 Oswald Avery (pictured), Colin MacLeod and Maclyn McCarty demonstrate that DNA is the material that’s controlling inheritance. 1953 James Watson and Francis Crick describe the structure of DNA, deduced using images produced by Raymond Gosling, Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins. 1972 DNA from two different organisms is spliced together for the first time by Paul Berg, paving the way for genetic modification and GM foods. 1996 Dolly (pictured with her lambs) is born. Dolly is the first mammal cloned from a non-embryonic cell. Her DNA is identical to the sheep she was cloned from. 2003 After £3bn and 13 years of work, the Human Genome…

TUESDAYS Natural Histories BBC Radio 4, 11am THERE’S STILL TIME to catch Brett Westwood’s fantastic wildlife series. This month, he’s looking at daffodils, birds’ eggs, bears and bramble, illuminating the intricate relationships between humans and the natural world. Head to the Natural Histories website for more episodes, plus facts and quizzes galore: http://bbc.in/1KOLGkE 26 AUGUST 3D Bioprinting BBC World Service, time TBC HOWARD STABLEFORD investigates the exciting new field of 3D bioprinting, finding out how scientists are able to print using living cells, and whether the technique could bring species back. If they make a 3D-printed dodo, we’ll be first in the queue. FROM 31 AUGUST Life-Changers BBC World Service, time TBC FOR EVERY Z-LIST celebrity, there a scientist or doctor who’s changing the world. In this new four-part series,…

Hardback Paperback “It’s exceptional and laudable for someone so young to be determined enough to achieve so much” The Boy Who Played With Fusion Extreme Science, Extreme Parenting And How To Make A Star Tom Clynes Faber & Faber £16.99 SOME BRANCHES OF science are stashed away by public perception on a special shelf labelled: ‘only to be touched by a certified genius’. Nuclear fusion is right up there with rocket science. So the claim made by the title of this book, that a mere boy could play with fusion, is worth some examination. The book tells the story of Taylor Wilson, an intelligent Arkansas teenager who was for a while the youngest person ever to have achieved nuclear fusion. Tom Clynes weaves together the story of how Taylor’s unusual…

Nuclear weapons in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. IN GUY RITCHIE’S new film, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., secret agents Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin must thwart a criminal gang working to proliferate nuclear weapons. But building your own nuclear bomb, fortunately, is not as easy as Hollywood makes out. It all boils down to one equation, penned by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago. E=mc2 describes how a tiny amount of mass can release a huge amount of energy, and is the principle that led US scientists to develop the destructive power of the atomic bomb. But this equation is also the name of Mariah Carey’s 11th studio album… both these facts would probably have Einstein turning in his grave. In a fission bomb, atoms are split to generate energy and…

Michael Banks Michael is news editor of Physics World. On p56 he reveals Robert Hooke’s key discoveries and takes us on a journey through the history of microscopy. Rita Carter Rita is an experienced writer, lecturer and broadcaster who specialises in the human brain. On p50 she takes a look at the machines that can read our minds. Tom Ireland Tom is a science writer and managing editor at the Royal Society of Biology. This month, he rises to the challenge of deciphering DNA in 10 minutes. Turn to p86 to find out more. Michael Mosley As a doctor, BBC presenter and willing guinea pig, Michael was just the person to investigate high street genetic tests on p44. Can they truly offer a glimpse at your future health problems?…

THE AUDITORIUM WAS packed for an electrifying chapter in space exploration: the release of the first close-ups of Pluto. I was sitting with the engineers running NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. They had waited nine-and-a-half years for this moment and were jumpy with nerves and excitement. And so was I. Make notes or tweet? I couldn’t decide. Nearby were relatives of Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. Some of Clyde’s ashes were on board the probe as it skimmed past the distant world. His son Al told me that “a little piece of Dad is now at the edge of the Solar System”. A group of schoolchildren added their voices to the fervour. Dressed in Pluto T-shirts, they were born on the day that New Horizons was launched in 2006…

DON’T YOU THINK it’s weird when you first notice something that’s been staring you in the face for a long time? It happened to me a few weeks ago as I was tidying up in the bathroom. I was looking at the mirror and feeling vaguely grateful that it was sparkly and clean and didn’t need any attention from me. And then it occurred to me that it doesn’t ever seem to fog up. I dug around in my memory a bit. Mirrors definitely used to fog up. I’m pretty sure that my sister and I drove our mother potty at bathtime by scrawling in the fog on the large bathroom mirror in our family home. So I started to pay attention. Showers, baths, hot days, cool days… no fog.…

THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY of Arboriculture (ISA) holds its annual conference in Florida in August. It claims that “through research, technology, and education, the ISA promotes the professional practice of arboriculture and fosters a greater worldwide awareness of the benefits of trees.” Those are worthy goals. Trees are central to our sense of ourselves. We evolved from forest creatures, and today our world is still largely dominated by trees. Even after millennia of deforestation, there are 60 trees for every human being alive. No wonder trees show up so frequently in our stories, from Adam and Eve’s Tree of Knowledge through the World Tree of Norse mythology, all the way to Groot, the living tree in Guardians Of The Galaxy. Nowadays, human activity is impacting the trees. The greatest of our…

Fly’s eye When investigating the eyes of insects, Robert Hooke chose a drone fly as it had “the largest cluster of eyes in proportion to its head”. He estimated the number of “hemispheres” in his sample at 14,000. Plant cell During his observations of the internal honeycomb-like structure of this slice of cork, Hooke first coined the biological term ‘cells’ to describe the individual repeating components. He saw similar structures in other plants too. Urine crystals In his typically curious fashion, Hooke put samples of urine under the microscope noting that he had “often observ’d the gravel or sand of urine”. Under the microscope, he found that the crystals looked yellow, red, brown and white. Nettle hairs Hooke decided to put nettle leaves under his microscope in order to figure…

THIS COLOURFUL CREATURE is a species of water flea. These are tiny crustaceans often found in freshwater environments. It was photographed using a polarised light microscope. This kind of microscope allows you to see ‘birefringent’ structures (those that bend light in two directions) more clearly. Collagen and crystals are two such structures. In the case of this water flea, this technique allows us to see its form and inner workings in sharper contrast. Polarised light microscopy takes advantage of the way that light behaves. Light travels as a wave, which can oscillate in many different orientations. But it is possible to ‘polarise’ light so that it is made to fluctuate along one single axis. This type of light allows us to study structures that appear different when viewed from multiple…

TONY HERSH, NEWBURY Q How do spacecraft avoid hitting asteroids and meteoroids? A THEY DON’T! THE main asteroid belt is actually much less populated than is often depicted in the movies. It has a volume of about 50 trillion trillion cubic kilometres (which would take about 35 million Suns to fill!). Astronomers estimate the number of asteroids bigger than about 1km in size in the main asteroid belt is about 80,000. This means that, on average, the distance between large asteroids is about 17 million kilometres. Even if we include estimates for the number of smaller asteroids in the main belt, we still find that the average distance between asteroids is millions of times the size of a typical spacecraft. Outside the main asteroid belt, the average distance between potentially…

Q&A SPECIAL What happens when cream is whipped? A CREAM CONTAINS WATER, milk sugars, a small amount of protein and lots of fat. When cream is whipped, small air bubbles become trapped in the mixture. Meanwhile, the fat, which exists as fairly stable droplets inside a cream carton, begins to break up when whizzed around with a whisk. As the fat droplets break apart, molecules of fat rearrange themselves around the air bubbles. As the air can’t escape from the fat, the cream starts to increase in volume until it becomes stiff enough to spread over cakes and pies. TIP: You should stop whipping cream when it forms stiff peaks – if you carry on, the fat breaks up even further, the air bubbles collapse, and you’re on the way…

PREVIOUSLY, I WAS the online editor for the Cambridge Film Festival. I’m still a big fan of watching a great film in a fine cinema with an engaged audience – dark rooms with good sound systems are a fabulous forum for shared experiences. But just when cinema looked like it had managed to cope with the advent of television and the growth of smaller and more portable screens, it has to cope with the next big thing – immersive video. The rapid development of augmented/virtual reality headsets is changing the rules. They offer new ways to tell stories, along with a compelling experience that could challenge cinema viewing. Virtual reality headsets have been around for a while. Oculus Rift, one of the main developers, is now owned by Facebook, while…

1. APPLE MACBOOK AIR From £750, apple.com/uk Still the undisputed king of thin, light laptops, the MacBook Air doesn’t offer all the bells, whistles and sheer processing grunt of a MacBook Pro. Nonetheless, it handles almost everything a student could throw at it more than adequately, while being eminently user-friendly and reliable. The battery lasts up to 12 hours in the 13-inch version, while its 11-inch little brother offers nine hours of life, so it’s very unlikely to conk out on you when you need it most. 2. ACER CHROMEBOOK 15 £230, acer.co.uk Pictured here is the model C910, and if you’re operating on a tight budget, this 15.6-inch notebook makes for a great working companion. It’s not the thinnest or lightest laptop around, but it’s a lot speedier than…

Ultimate Dinopedia iOS 6.0 or later, iPad, National Geographic, £3.99 KIDS LOVE PLAYING with mum or dad’s iPad. I’ve yet to meet one that doesn’t love dinosaurs too. This app wraps the two things up brilliantly with an encyclopaedia stuffed full of images, sounds, animations and educational content. It’s split into meat-eaters, plant-eaters, a discovering dinos section, and an A to Z, allowing young palaeontologists to swipe their way through the 150 million years that these impressive creatures ruled the Earth. It even comes with a dramatic voiceover guy who wouldn’t be out of place introducing a wrestling match. EarthViewer iOS 4.0 or later, iPad, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, free EXPLORE EARTH’S GEOLOGICAL past with an interactive globe that tracks the movements of the continents over the eons. You can…

…checked out Land Rover’s cutting-edge virtual reality design cave, in which they test out new vehicle conceptions before bringing them into the real world. …chatted to Taylor Wilson the Arkansas teenager who successfully produced fusion at 14, after becoming interested in nuclear science at the age of 10. Turn to p98 for our interview with Taylor. …welcomed our new online editor Alexander McNamara to the Focus team! Alexander will be in charge of our fabulous website at sciencefocus.com FOCUS DIGITAL Available for Android • iOS • Kindle Fire • Kindle e-reader…

What did he say? Woerner has proposed that we build a ‘village’ on the far side of the Moon. Why would we want to do that? The village could serve as a testing base for future manned missions to Mars, where new technologies could be trialled. It could also be used as a vantage point for telescopes to look deep into the Universe, he says. How would we build it? Woerner suggests that a large-scale 3D printer could be transported to the Moon and used to create the base. Who would build it? He hopes that countries from all over the world will pitch in. He believes that cooperating on such a large-scale project could help to strengthen ties between different nations. When is it happening? So far the whole…

What did they do? A team at the Australian National University trained fairy wrens to understand the warning calls of other species by playing recordings, while throwing a model glider of a sparrowhawk over them. What did they find? After just eight playbacks, the fairy wrens were able to associate the warning calls with danger and fled upon hearing them. The same effect was not seen when other unfamiliar warning calls that had not been associated with the model sparrowhawk were used. “Recognising other species’ calls is a remarkable ability, because there are lots of species in a natural community, and lots of different types of calls. It’s like understanding multiple foreign languages,” says Prof Robert Magrath, who took part in the study. Why did they do that? As well…

IT MIGHT BE time to list your old guitar on eBay and take up another hobby, because when it comes to learning a musical instrument, it seems practice doesn’t make perfect. Researchers at McGill University in Canada have found evidence that musical ‘talent’ is, instead, related to specific patterns of brain activity. The team put young adults with little or no musical background through six weeks’ musical training, during which time they were required to learn simple piano pieces. FMRI scans showed that the type of activity in the auditory cortex and hippocampus – parts of the brain linked to memory and the processing of sounds – reliably indicated how quickly an individual would learn. “Predisposition plays an important role for auditory-motor learning that can be clearly distinguished from training-induced…

THE SEAHORSE CLINGS to coral reefs and seaweed using its tail, which has a vertebral column surrounded by bony plates. This square structure is stronger, stiffer and more resilient than other animals’ cylindrical tails, according to Oregon State University engineers. Since it can also bend and twist, the structure could be used for military armour or surgical robots that move around organs or bones in your body.…

“THE ONLY THING we can be sure of about the future is that it will be absolutely fantastic.” These were the words of Arthur C Clarke, delivered during a 1964 episode of BBC Horizon broadcast from the World Fair. He was right. Even as the planet’s outlook becomes bleaker with the looming threat of climate change, humans search for smart solutions to the world’s problems. Hundreds of great ideas come across our desks every week at Focus, but here we’ve handpicked the very best of them to paint a picture of your world might look like tomorrow. 01 THE HYDROGEN STATION Toyota’s hydrogen-powered car goes on sale this year. Mirai boasts zero emissions, unless you count harmless water vapour. But hydrogen cars are likely to remain expensive because, for safety…

1931 Electron microscope The properties of visible light mean that it is not possible to resolve features less than about half a micrometre. The invention of the cathode ray tube made it possible to create a microscope that used beams of electrons instead of light. This new method of microscopy was capable of resolutions of 50nm. 1934 Phase contrast microscope This microscopy technique allows scientists to observe features of biological specimens that would ordinarily be transparent to an optical microscope. The microscope works by taking advantage of the fact that light travels at different speeds through different materials. It was developed by Frits Zernike (pictured). 1951 Field ion microscope Erwin Müller (pictured) invented the first microscope capable of imaging atoms. The metal under investigation is made into sharp tip and…

1. Formula Rossa Location: Ferrari World, United Arab Emirates Speed: 240km/h (149mph) 2. Kingda Ka Location: Six Flags Great Adventure, USA Speed: 206km/h (128mph) 3. Top Thrill Dragster Location: Cedar Point, USA Speed: 190km/h (118mph) 4. Dodonpa Location: Fuji-Q Highland, Japan Speed: 172km/h (107mph) 5. Superman: Escape From Krypton Location: Six Flags Magic Mountain, USA Speed: 167km/h (104mph) 6. Tower Of Terror Location: Dreamworld, Australia Speed: 160km/h (99mph) 7= Steel Dragon 2000 Location: Nagashima Spa Land, Japan Speed: 153km/h (95mph) 7= Fury 325 Location: Carowinds, USA Speed: 153km/h (95mph) 9. Millennium Force Location: Cedar Point, USA Speed: 150km/h (93mph) 10. Leviathan Location: Canada’s Wonderland, Canada Speed: 148km/h (92mph)…

WHAT IS IT? Ford’s Camera-Based Advanced Front Lighting System is being developed at the car maker’s Research & Innovation Centre in Aachen, Germany. The manufacturer’s system builds upon current ‘smart’ features to produce headlights that can self-adjust, enhancing the headlights when approaching hazards such as animals in the road, bends or junctions. HOW DOES IT WORK? An infrared camera in the car’s front grille detects body heat from people or animals up to 120m away, then two independent spotlights illuminate them. The system also incorporates GPS, which monitors your whereabouts and boosts your headlights at blind bends or junctions. When there’s no GPS signal, the camera can track road markings by ‘reading’ traffic signs. WHEN WILL IT BE IN ACTUAL CARS? Ford says that “we expect this technology to be…

What is DNA? In 1953, two biochemists, James Watson and Francis Crick, walked into a pub in Cambridge and declared: “We have discovered the secret of life!” They weren’t exaggerating. They had worked out the structure of DNA, and with it, unlocked many of the mysteries of how living things make and replicate themselves. DNA, or to use its full name, deoxyribonucleic acid, is found at the heart of every cell of every living thing. It carries all of the instructions for an organism to build, maintain and repair itself. By replicating and passing on their DNA, animals, plants and microorganisms can impart their characteristics to their offspring. In humans, half the DNA in our cells stems from our mother, and half from our father. This is why we inherit…

BASE PAIRS DNA consists of building blocks called nucleotides. There are four different types and each is assigned a letter: A, C, G or T. A always links with T and C always links with G. When connected, these form the base pairs. DNA SEQUENCING This is an important technique in biology that allows us to ‘read’ the sequence of nucleotides. GENE A section of DNA that has a particular function. Genes rarely do just one thing and often it is the combination of many genes that result in a physical characteristic like eye colour or height. You inherit genes from both your mother and your father. GENOME This entire DNA sequence of an organism. The human genome was sequenced in 2003. Everyone’s genome is unique, but we can tell…

SEPTEMBER Six Degrees BBC Two, September, dates TBC INSPIRED BY THE idea that everyone is no more than six acquaintances away from everyone else, Prof Brian Cox (pictured left) presents a one-off panel show exploring the unlikely scientific connections underpinning our lives. He’s joined by guests including Ben Miller, Prof Alice Roberts and Prof Jim Al-Khalili. Kevin Bacon, sadly, won’t be present. FROM 1 SEPTEMBER Animal Fight Club Nat Geo Wild, 8pm BRAD PITT AND Edward Norton have nothing on these brawling beasts. Enormous cats clash in a whirlwind of teeth and claws, brown bears bicker over tasty salmon, honey badgers hustle, two Siamese fighting fish live up to their name, and even tiny shrews prove that size isn’t everything. Just promise not to talk about what you’ve seen. Sir…

27 AUGUST The Great Eclipse Expedition Mystery Royal Observatory, London, 7pm-8:30pm, £7, rmg.co.uk JOIN ROYAL OBSERVATORY astronomer Tom Kerss as he delves into the 1922 Australian expedition that tried to confirm the experimental ‘proof’ of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. 5 SEPTEMBER Autumn In The Urban Meadow National Museum, Cardiff, 11am-4pm, free, museumwales.ac.uk DISCOVER HOW TO collect seeds from plants, take part in a seed swap event and find out how to entice wildlife into your garden. UNTIL 6 SEPTEMBER Statues From Easter Island Manchester Museum, free, museum.manchester.ac.uk RESEARCH CLAIMS THE Easter Island statues were ‘walked’ to their coastal resting places. Check out one of these iconic statues and discover why they were created in the first place. UNTIL 6 SEPTEMBER Wales’s Newest Dinosaur National Museum, Cardiff, free, museumwales.ac.uk SEE…

Can you tell us about the fusion reactor you built? I got into nuclear science when I was about 10 years old, and a year or two later I decided I wanted to start producing these nuclear reactions myself. My nuclear fusion reactor used a concept called ‘inertial electrostatic confinement’, which uses electric fields and very high temperatures to confine and fuse hydrogen ions [charged atoms]. But for me that was just the start – it’s where all the other experiments began. What have you worked on since? I have a variety of programmes and projects underway, and they all revolve around nuclear physics. I developed a low-cost system for detecting [smuggled] nuclear material on a cargo container, and medical technologies for producing isotopes used in treating and diagnosing cancer.…

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