BACK FROM THE DEAD: De-extinction is real (but not for the mammoth)

BUILD AN
E V E RY T H I N G -
PROOF HOUSE

AFTER THE

How Technology Will Save the World

(no matter what happens) PLUS

The Ultimate
Kit For Your
Doomsday
Bunker

THE EXTREME THINK OF THE CLOUD

CLIMATE LAB ANIMALS! SEEDING
Exposing our best The species that Making it rain
stuff to brutally can't wait for us to is real science.
punishing conditions get our act together No really, it is...
 I S S U E # 1 0 4 , J U LY 2 0 1 7

EDITORIAL
Editor Anthony Fordham afordham@nextmedia.com.au
Contributors Gemma Conroy, Dan Lander, Daniel Wilks

DESIGN

Pushing From
Group Art Director Malcolm Campbell
Art Director Danny McGonigle

ADVERTISING

the Front
Group Advertising Manager
Cameron Ferris cferris@nextmedia.com.au
ph: 02 9901 6348

National Sales Executive

Sean Fletcher sfletcher@nextmedia.com.au
ph: 02 9901 6367 The 10.5-inch iPad Pro is here. And the response to it is... odd.
Production Manager Peter Ryman
Circulation Director Carole Jones
Even the Apple fans agree: With its 120Hz display, A10X Fusion
chip and 12MP camera, the new iPad Pro is simply overkill.
US EDITION
Editor in Chief Joe Brown
Articles Editor Kevin Gray
Managing Editor Jill C. Shomer
Senior Editor Sophie Bushwick
But wait a second. What am I doing people what they wanted from their
Technology Editor Xavier Harding writing about a speciic consumer phone, but rather told people what they
Assistant Editors Dave Gershgorn, Matt Giles
Editorial Assistant Grennan Milliken electronics product in a PopSci editorial? wanted. And it worked.
Copy Chief Cindy Martin
Researchers Ambrose Martos, Erika Villani Consumer electronics is technology “Can I copy and paste text?”
Editorial Intern Annabel Edwards
at is most prosaic, its most mundane “Why would you care about that? It
ART AND PHOTOGRAPHY and, well, boring. No one is launching works like magic!”
Acting Design Director Chris Mueller
Photo Director Thomas Payne reusable rockets or cracking the problem After the iPhone, because of the
Digital Associate Art Director Michael Moreno
Associate Art Director Russ Smith of fusion power with an iPad Pro. iPhone, an obscure Google project from
Acting Production Manager Paul Catalano
Ah, but I’m not really talking about 2005 called Android was given new life.
POPSCI.COM
Online Director Carl Franzen the iPad Pro. I’m talking about how And for the irst few years, with some
Senior Editor Paul Adams
Assistant Editors Sarah Fecht, Claire Maldarelli
Apple has changed technology. exceptions, Android phones sucked.
Contributing Writers Kelsey D. Atherton,
Mary Beth Griggs,Alexandra Ossola
Innovation does, to some extent, Apple responded with a better iPhone.
follow the same rules as natural Then the iPad. Everyone loved the
BONNIER’S TECHNOLOGY GROUP
Group Editorial Director Anthony Licata evolution. Many devices die out concept, but half the people said: “We
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(vale Palm Pilot), others get more still want full computers, so give us
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Senior Vice President, Digital Bruno Sousa
Vice President, Consumer Marketing John Reese maximum possible proit. “is the iPad Pro overkill” but rather “if
Speaking of evolution: Steve Jobs’ Apple hadn’t been nuts enough to build
return to Apple in 1997 was a four- the iPad in the irst place, would we have
kilometre-wide bolide smashing into touchscreen notebook PCs today?”
Chief Executive Officer David Gardiner a tropical peninsula, driving 75% of Evolution in nature is driven, at
Commercial Director Bruce Duncan
Apple’s products into extinction with a least partly, by external environmental
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P O P S C I .CO M . AU 3
 JULY 2017

Contents For daily updates: www.popsci.com.au

54 THE PUNISHER(ER)
Our machines don’t deserve our respect. They deserve
our fury, in the form of simulated natural disasters and
extremes of wind and temperature! Hit ‘em again Bill!

04 POPULAR SCIENCE
08 17

State of the Art

Your guide to everything

06 Making fans interesting again

08 Tech that takes a beating
20 28 10
11
Sunglasses with an inner life
Rubber bits for your car
12 Predict the weather with tech!
14 Next-gen umbrellas. No really.
16 A light throwing jacket
17 Dyson embraces coal carbon
18 An electrified business desk

Insight
Important stuff for futurists

20 Oversight: Inside a supertornado!

24 24 Going shopping in VR
26 *sigh* Climate change is real...
28 ..but this is truly crazy weather
29 Mars: Our backup planet.
30 Op Ed: The LP
32 Op Ed: Rethink
34 Op Ed: amuse.bouche

Features
Many many words

38 Resurrecting dead animals!

70 48 Cloud seeding!
60 Nature’s greatest losers

How 2.0
Made for you, by you

70 Build an everything-proof house

72 The ultimate safe-room
73 Why concrete domes win
74 Stock your doomsday bunker
76 Please invent!

The Other Stuf

Bonus Extra Material!

03 Our Editor Rants

78 From the Archives
80 Retro Invention
82 Next Issue

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 05
6 POPULAR SCIENCE
 State
of the
Art
BREEZY LISTENING

A M i g h ty

PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FORHALLEY RESOURCES

(Q u i et ) Wi n d
by ROB VERGER

A COOL BREEZE CAN INSTANTLY

take the edge of a sweaty day. Inside, a
fan is a perfect substitute—throw a bowl of
ice in front of it, and you’ve got yourself a
lo-i air conditioner. Still, nothing harshes
that cool feeling quicker than the prop-
plane racket most air-movers make. The
Rowenta Turbo Silence Extreme lets you
use your inside voice. On its lowest setting,
it registers just 35 decibels (shhhh, that’s
library level); on the highest, it’s about
50. That’s roughly one-quarter the din
of the average fan. Five 115-mm plastic
blades (many fans have three) create more
surface area, so the motor doesn’t need
to crank as hard or spin as fast to push the
same amount of airlow. Plus, because the
blades are tapered at their edges, they’re
able to slice through the air with less
choppy turbulence. Ahhhh, that’s the stuf.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 7

State
of the
Art
ALL-WEATHER FRIENDS
Ruggedly
Hand some
by MALLORY JOHNS
EVEN CUSHY CUBICLE LIFE
can be too rigorous for some
gadgets. (We’re looking at you,
pile of dead hard drives.) So we
assembled a brigade of cavalier
devices ready to endure the rigours
of the great outdoors. They can
survive rain, wind, dust, freezing
temperatures, and even the
occasional encounter with an
especially pointy rock. Don’t
be afraid to toss them in your
pack and head out into the wild.
8 POPULAR SCIENCE
3
1/ Land-scrape
Photographer
2/ Hikey Talkies
Many of the best
3/ Drop It Like
Ansel Adams lugged a adventure spots lack
huge film camera to mobile reception. The
photograph US Motorola T600 H2O
national parks. The Two-Way Radios
Pentax KP DSLR (with won’t send Snaps, but
weather-resistant they can keep you in
zoom lens) would have contact within 50 km
been a lot more and pick up emergency-
convenient. Rubber weather stations.
gaskets seal the The waterproof
magnesium-alloy body walkies have gaskets
at 67 critical points, at every potential leak
keeping out moisture, point and a built-in
dust, sand, and flashlight for
backpackers—all of navigating trails —
which could damage or making scary
the 24-megapixel faces around
image sensor inside. the campfire.
1
It’s HDD
4/ Sub(mersible)
The typical hard drive is
about as durable as a
Fabergé egg, but the
G-Technology 1 TB
G-Drive ev ATC can
protect precious data
from a 2-metre drop.
The double-walled case
has interior strips of
foam to protect
against impacts and
pressure. Plus, the 370g
drive floats for up to 30
seconds, so you have at
least a fighting chance
to save it in the wild (or
ifyou drop it in your
soup at lunch).
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES
Woofer
You might not know it
from the fabric exterior
of the Ultimate Ears
Wonderboom, but a
watertight chamber
underneath this
Bluetooth speaker’s
skin lets it survive under
a metre of water for up
to 30 minutes. Inside, a
pair of 40-millimetre
drivers sends crisp,
bassy sound to every
corner of the pool
party. Its onboard
battery has enough
juice for up to 10 hours
of grooving.
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 LIKE AN ONION A L M O S T A N Y PA I R O F S U N G L A S S E S, E V E N T H O S E
cheapo gas-station shades, can make you instantly look cooler. Decidedly less cool:
low-rent spectacles that can’t cut the glare of a day at the lake, or prevent UV rays
State
Means To fromslowlycookingyoureyeballs.Toprovidethatcrucialextraprotection,Ray-Ban—
of the A L ens makers of the iconic Wayfarers so often imitated but rarely matched for quality or
durability—craftsitslensesfromasandwichedstackofspecialisedmaterials.Here’s
Art by STAN HORACZE the recipe for its prescription sunglasses.

LAYER 1

Scratch-Resistant Shell
Ray-Ban encases the entire lens
in a layer of silicone resin to protect
the surfaces from scratches and
nicks. Applied via wet-bath for
uniform coverage, the coating
hardens under heat and UV light.

LAYER 2

Coloured Tint
Rather than shading the lens
itself—which could lead to
uneven coloration as a result
of the prescription-cutting
process—Ray-Ban applies colour
as a separate polycarbonate
layer. Dyes mix with the raw
material prior to moulding.

LAYER 3

Polarizing Film
Light reflecting off flat surfaces like
the ocean can oscillate horizontally,
creating glare in situations where
sunglasses matter most. When
stretched thin, a layer of polyvinyl
1 alcohol creates a molecular
structure that allows only vertically
oscillating light to pass through,
2 cancelling out harsh rays.

LAYER 4

I PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN LLUSTRATION BY JOHN KUEHN

3
Prescription Lens
A computer-guided diamond
cutter contours polycarbonate
4 lenses to ‘script-perfect
magnification. The impact-
resistant material filters vision-
5 impairing UV light and is roughly half
the weight of the hardened
glass common in other shades.

LAYER 5

Anti-Reflective Coating
A dark, shiny surface tends to
act like a mirror, especially in
bright sun. On the back of the lens,
invisible layers of silica oxide,
titanium oxide, and zirconium
oxide refract light in different
directions, keeping reflections
of your own face out of sight.

10 POPULAR SCIENCE

State
of the
Art
TRACTION HEROES
A Tyre For
Ever y Season
by STAN HORACZEK
WHETHER YOU’RE CRAWLING
over rocks, runnin’ hot laps, or just
trying to keep your car from slid-
ing around like a figure skater in the
winter, you need the right tyre.
All of them use variations of the
same technologies: specialised
rubber compounds, unique tread
designs, and specific structures
and shapes. These four tyres are
each purpose-built—because if you
wouldn’t wear a hiking boot to run the
50-metres, why should your car?
PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES
2/ Winter Stud
Those tiny cuts across your tyres’
treads are sipes, and they’re
heroes of wet-weather traction.
The Nokian Hakkapeliitta 9 has
a ton of them, plus deep voids
near the shoulder to increase
grip. Your tyre’s compound is
another key ally in the fight
against fishtails: The Hakkapeli-
itta’s secret blend stays pliable
below 4 degrees. The studs are
also new, with different shapes
at the centre and edge that
boost bite during acceleration
and cornering.
1/ Rubber to Burn
The asymmetrical tread
displaces just enough water to
make the Pirelli P-Zero Trofeo R
road-legal, but it really belongs
on a racetrack. The square
shoulder shape and lack of deep
voids puts more rubber in
contact with the pavement to
push the car around. Don’t
expect the soft, performance-
oriented material to last very
long in any situation. It might
grip like the dickens, but you
leave a lot of this very porous
rubber on the asphalt.
3/ All-Season All-Star
The tyre chefs at Hankook
added a healthy dash of silica
(basically grit) to the Ventus S1
Noble2’s rubbery brew, serving
up a firm tyre. Why? Because
not only does this car-shoe roll
easily, using less fuel, but it’s
quiet too. Wouldn’t want to
disturb the passengers of the
luxury sedans this tyre was born
to serve. ‘Sipes’ across the
asymmetric treads increase
traction and funnel water out of
the centre grooves, while a solid
rubber rib along the edge of the
tread aids cornering.
4/ Grateful Tread
Treads don’t work very well when
packed with dirt, grass, and the
occasional lawn ornament, so
the Goodyear Wrangler MTR
Kevlar’s 15-mm-deep voids’
tapered walls help mud flow out.
The 35 per cent Kevlar sidewalls
resist punctures, which is handy,
because they sometimes have to
work just as hard as the tyre’s
bottom. Extra tread there grips
terrain when you crank the
pressure down to well below 20
PSI—a common practice during
rock crawling.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 11
 LOW-PRESSURE SYSTEM

State
Storm
of the Brain
Art by ROB VERGER

A WET FINGER WILL TELL YOU WHICH WAY THE

wind blows, but most of us rely on serially inaccu-
rate apps or spray-tanned local meteorologists for de-
tailed readings. The Davis Vantage Pro2 weather 1
station—a favourite of barometer-tracking fanatics—
delivers a personal, hyperlocal forecast from your own
backyard. A suite of highly accurate sensors tracks the
plunging pressure that precedes a storm, the winds in
the build-up, and the downpour that follows. You can
also feed your data to Weather Underground, boost-
ing the accuracy of their forecasting algorithm. All
that aside, just imagine what it’ll do for your small talk.

2
1/ ANEMOMETER

The wind vane points into a blowing breeze, indicating

its direction. To measure speed, three cups attached
to a central rod catch gusts. As the apparatus spins,
it rotates a magnet past a sensor, which calculates
velocity from 1 km per hour to more than 300.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCE
2/ RAIN COLLECTOR

Precipitation falls into a bucket, through a debris

screen, and onto a 15-cm-long seesaw mechanism. A
vessel on either end holds 0.2 mm of water, so as the
3 teeter-totter rocks back and forth, it’s also tallying the
rainfall. The spikes keep birds away.
3/ POWERPLANT

A 38cm2 solar panel collects energy, while a capacitor

and backup battery hold enough voltage to keep the
station running for up to a year without sunlight.
Onboard processors ready sensor data to broadcast
up to 300 metres via radio antenna.
4/ THERMOMETER

4 A radiation shield protects a digital temperature

and humidity sensor nestled inside. The white plastic
reflects the sun’s rays rather than absorbing them,
keeping the sensor accurate within 0.1 degree—from
40 below zero up to 65 degrees Celsius.

5/ MISSION CONTROL

Every 2.5 seconds, the system sends metrics to a

7-inch-display-equipped control station. Using this
data and an onboard barometer, it can generate
forecasts for the next 12 to 48 hours. It also stores
weather recaps going back years.

12 POPULAR SCIENCE
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 PARADIGM SHIFT

State The Most Expensive

of the Umbrella Ever
Art by ANTHONY FORDHAM

US COMEDIAN JIM GAFFIGAN DOES “It was struggle because these things expanding ribs are over-eng
a bit where he says that umbrellas aren’t are built in their millions,” Brebner says. strength, but also to be effortless to use.
bought and sold, they’re just passed around. “Factories know how to make umbrellas and “We’re even future-proofing the latest
His core point: find a wallet in the street they kept saying to us no you don’t want to models ” h says unscrewing the handle
and you’ll think: “Huh, someone lost their
wallet.” Find an umbrella and you’ll think:
“Hey, I just got a new umbrella.”
But according to the inventor of the Blun
umbrella, Greig Brebner, that’s at least par
because today, typical umbrellas are built a
cheaply and flimsily as possible.
“They want it to break so you’ll buy
another one,” he says. But the worst part of
the umbrella for Brebner isn’t the break-it-
and-dump-it standard of construction. It’s
the little spiky bits all around the edge.
“They kept poking me in the eye in
crowds,” he says. So, as an engineer, Brebn
set out to fix this very particular problem.
It’s fair to say Blunt is the Dyson of
umbrellas - another everyday object, made
awesome. A Blunt is, well, blunt around the
edge. A unique expanding plastic hinge (th
trademarked Blunt tip) does the job of the
traditional spike in keeping the edge of the
canopy taught. Does it better than the old
design, in fact, resulting in an umbrella tha
can withstand serious punishment.
Of course, this means a Blunt umbrella
can be five times the price of an (especially
cheap and nasty) pharmacy/newsagent
brolly. But Brebner is happy to declare his
product should last five times as long.
Establishing production wasn’t easy,
though. One early challenge was convincin
factory operators that yes, Brebner and his
partners really did want to build an umbrel
that would end up costing $109.

AN EXTREMELY BRIEF
HISTORY OF THE UMBREL
< 3,000 BCE 3,000 BCE 500 BCE 500-0 BCE 1530 1708 1768
Humans get wet. Ancient Egyptians The women of Many cultures Girolamo da Libri The dictionary Paris accepts the
use parasols to Ancient Greece experiment with paints Madonna finally defines umbrella as a
defy Ra carry collapsible parasols. Not dell Ombrello, an umbrella as “a fashion item,
parasols much talk of using early depiction of screen commonly while London
them to keep off a (very tasselly) used by women to ridicules men
rain, just sun. umbrella. keep off rain.” who carry them.

14 POPULAR SCIENCE
 THE COMPETITION FOLDS
hich we mean, here are some other umbrellas that also fold, but are also
er than the usual $19.95 “quick it’s raining grab one from the chemist!”
ella. High-tensile-strength materials, frames engineered to withstand
and fabric that won’t get sopping wet add up to rain blockers that you
can replace for free—instead of angrily stuff in a bin.

L LARGE
locator tiles on the market.
Brebner says it took the team a full s Titan Mini Gustbuster Pro
ver 200g and under 20 cm long when closed, the Series Golf
decade to get the first Blunt to market in It’s not impossible to
Titan Mini hides neatly in the bottom of your everyday
2009. Today, they have a bunch of models, rry or in a jacket pocket. The 101-cm canopy keeps flip or break the
including golfing umbrellas. The next step u—and itself—dry thanks to a hydrophobic coating Gustbuster umbrella,
is to push the form factor as far as it will go. at repels rain. That means less drippage once you but your grip will
ep back inside or shove it into your bag. almost certainly fail
“We have the Metro, but I wanted
before its frame does.
something even smaller, something that Teardrop-shaped
has a metre-wide canopy, but packs down vents in the underlayer
to 30 cm long. And we’ve managed to get allow wind to whoosh
it down to 28 cm.” Brebner says to look for out the top, with-
standing gusts up to
that diminutive model “soon”. 90 km per hour. In
Blunt’s cheapest brolly on the such harsh conditions,
market right now is the 95cm-wide you’ll be glad the
Metro, for $89. The most expensive is massive 1.5-m canopy
has enough room for a
the $159 Golf_G2, a 1.03kg monster with
friend to help you cling
a fibreglass shaft and 146cm canopy. on to the handle.

MEDIUM

BY SARA CHODOSH / PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN

Davek
Solo
Carbon ligaments in the
Solo’s frame keep it
flexible, so while it might
invert when gusts hit, it
won’t snap. Its 109-cm
canopy has a tight weave
(190 thread count, to be
precise) to stop leaks and
snags, and it folds down
to a tidy 30-cm package.
A button on the handle
opens, but also works as
a repair switch when
things go inside out.

1788 1852 1860-198 1980-2000 1996-2004 2008 2009

London accepts Samuel Fox Extensive period Umbrella-patent 1996-2004 2008 2009
Paris was right invents the of umbrella boom. The US Various radical There are now Greig Brebner
about umbrellas. steel-ribbed innovation with Patent Office different canopy 3000+ active releases the Blunt
umbrella. minimal must employ shapes are umbrella patents to market, after
commercial four examiners patented. in the US. 10 years in
success. just for brollies. development.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 15
 PFC-YA LATER!
State
of the Membrainiac
Art by STAN HORACZEK

THE STORMTROOPER STYLING OF THE COLUMBIA

OutDry Extreme Eco isn’t purely an aesthetic decision; it’s a by-prod-
uct of the jacket’s Earth-conscious underpinnings. Columbia wove
the polyester outer shell from recycled bottles and left the fabric white,
which saves the 50 litres of water it’d take to dye each garment. This
shell is also missing something found in most waterproof breathable
apparel: an outer layer with a durable water-repellent coating, a treat-
ment that uses toxic chemicals called perluorocarbons (PFCs) during
production. The Extreme Eco needs none. Instead, Columbia made
the breathable membrane just porous enough to keep rain out while
allowing evaporated sweat to escape. And because there’s no coat-
ing to rub of over time, you’re less likely to get soaked down the line.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FOR HALLEY RESOURCES

16 POPULAR SCIENCE
 THE UPGRADE

State Carbonated
of the Cooler
Art by ANTHONY FORDHAM

THE LATEST ITERATION OF DYSON’S (other purifiers use multiple filter sheets)
Pure Hot+Cool Link air purifier adds an outweighs this. A plastic shroud on the filter
activated carbon layer to its internal filter. is still recyclable, at least.
This means the purifier now captures gases Now all Dyson needs to invent is a de-
like formaldehyde and benzene, along with humidifier, and our uniquely Australian
99.5% of the kinds of allergenic particles you atmospheric needs will be totally covered!
might encounter in the typical home.
Dyson further coats the filter with
something it calls TRIS, which boosts the
filter’s ability to bind those harmful gasses.
Like last year’s purifier, the 2017
Hot+Cool Link connects to Wi-Fi and
reports outside air quality via an app.
In our testing, the new Pure Hot+Cool
Link was noticeably more effective
at removing “musty” smells in small
bedrooms, and even freshened up a
cramped laundry. Dyson Pure Hot+Cool Link
The downside of this fancy new filter Price: $799
is more limited recyclability. Dyson says Web: www.dyson.com.au
the convenience of a “single piece” filter

GALAXY ON GLASS SPECTACULAR

WALL ART FROM
ASTRO PHOTOGRAPHER
CHRIS BAKER

Available as frameless
acrylic-aluminium mix
or framed backlit up
to 1.2 metres wide.

A big impact in any room.

All limited editions.

www.cosmologychris.co.uk
www.facebook.com/galaxyonglass
or call Chris now on +44(0)7814 181647

GALAXY
ON GLASS
 PERSONAL SPACE

State
of the Be Upstanding
Art by ANTHONY FORDHAM

STANDINGDESKSARESOHOT top of each leg. Tap a button, and the

right now. Hemingway wrote A Farewell
to Arms at a standing desk, how ironic is
that? Super ironic if it’s not actually true,
but he certainly wrote his later books while
standing. Which reminds us: a standing
desk might not be convenient at all times -
and that’s why convertible desks exist.
But those too can be a pain. Gas struts
and whatnot are supposed to stop all
your stuff crashing down when you
release the lock to go back to sitting
mode, but it’s hardly elegant.
This desk, on the other hand, is
elegant. Called the Professional
(L-shaped Executive versions are also
available), there’s an electric motor on
desk rises or falls.
Better still, Zen Space also sells
a range of monitor arms and laptop
mounts. By securing the monitor to the
desk, there’s much less risk of upset.
Need to stand? Hold the up button, wait
a moment, done. The motors are quiet
and the action is smooth.
Convertible sit-stand desks are even
making their way into government
offices now, so don’t be surprised if
you arrive at work one day to find all
the cubicles ripped out and a big crank
where your fax machine used to be. Zen Space Professional
At least this desk has electric motors. Price: $1274 as tested (with monitor arm)
And a five year warranty. Web: www.zenspacedesks.com.au

1. Motors are located

at the top of each leg,
to reduce lifting weight
and simplify the
telescoping leg
extension system.
4
2. A control panel
allows height
1 adjustment in 10mm
increments, and
3 preferred heights can
be stored in four
memory positions.

3. Cable management
tray is big enough hold
power boards, so with
a little fiddling, it’s
possible to have just
one cable hanging
down (desk power).

4. Zen Space offers a

range of colours, from
corporate brutalist grey
to destined-for-coffee-
stain white. (There are
some wood grain
finishes too, and legs
can be black or grey.)

18 POPULAR SCIENCE
 Oversight

PICTURE-PERFECT

Supersize
Supercell
Supersimulation
by ROB VERGER

SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS
are giant tempests with powerful rotating
updrafts at their cores—and one out of every
four or five spawn tornadoes. Most of
these twisters are little, but some can grow
fierce. To predict the rare killers—and
thus give more-targeted warnings—
meteorologists need to better understand
how tornadoes form. But simulating a
supercell thunderstorm and the tornado it
produces involves hundreds of terabytes of
data—an amount so vast that Leigh Orf, an
atmospheric scientist at the University of
Wisconsin at Madison, had to use a
supercomputer to make it happen.
Some of that data came from the sheer
size of the storm (similar supercells can
stretch more than 20 km high). But Orf
needed most of the power in order to capture
all the details and see the whole system at
a high resolution. To get started, he used
observations from an actual storm that raged
through central Oklahoma in 2011. Then he
created a digital version similar to the real
thing, spinning together the most high-
resolution supercell simulation ever made.
“For the first time, we’ve been able to peer
into the inner workings of a supercell that
produces a tornado, and we’re able to watch
that process occur,” Orf says.

Under the (Digital) Skin

Although this storm looks realistic, it’s actually an image based on a simulation.
The circle highlights the tornado that the virtual storm spawned.

20 POPULAR SCIENCE
1,839,200,000
Number of data points
In order to see the digital storm in as
high a resolution as possible, Orf
divided the virtual space into nearly
2 billion pieces, the majority of them
cubes about 30 metres per side. In
each of these chunks, the
supercomputer simulated factors
like wind speed and direction,
temperature, barometric pressure,
humidity, and precipitation.
20,000
Supercomputer cores used
Simulating all those pieces required
a massive amount of computing
power, although it was just a small
amount of the roughly 800,000
cores, or processing components,
the University of Illinois’ Blue Waters
supercomputer has to offer. Orf
used the rough equivalent of
1,250 Mac Pros.
30
Computing time, in hours
Although the actual calculations
took Blue Waters less than a
standard workweek, Orf has
worked toward making a simulation
like this one since 2012. His result
produced 400 terabytes of
data—enough to fill more than
3,000 iPhones. It’s also the most
detailed tornado model ever.
“We can see everything going
on inside it,” Orf says.
340
Maximum wind speed
The twister that inspired this
simulation struck on May 24, 2011.
It began as a supercell thunder-
storm, started rotating, and
ultimately birthed an EF-5 tornado,
the most powerful category. For
nearly two hours, it carved a path
63 miles long and up to a mile wide.
Along the way, it ripped the bark
off trees, tossed cars, injured 181
people—and killed nine.
COURTESY UNIVERSITY OF
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 21
 INSIGHT
ISSUE 104 JULY 2017

24 28
SHOP UNTIL YOU IS IT HOT IN HERE OR IS IT DROUGHT SUCKS. A RAIN STUFF IT. LET’S JUST
VIRTUALLY DROP JUST CLIMATE CHANGE? OF FROGS SUCKS MORE TERRAFORM MARS
 FUTURE PERFECT

360 Degree
Insight Spending
by GEMMA CONROY

THESE DAYS, IN OUR SUPER

connected digital lives, we’ve become used to
buying stuff from all over the world with a tap of
a credit card or swipe of a smartphone app - all
without putting on pants or leaving the house.
But what if you could just casually go to New
York or Tokyo from your living room to buy
the latest pair of jeans in your own private de-
partment store? Imagine being free to roam
through the shelves without being constantly
asked by a uninterested clerk if they can help
you? No wallet, passport or pants required. Just
a few simple hand movements and you’ll be
wearing those jeans in no time.
Welcome to shopping in virtual reality, a sci-
fi sounding dream that is fast becoming an ac-
tual reality with the help of Worldpay.
The London-based global payment service
has designed a virtual reality payment system
that allows shoppers to buy products and servic-
es while immersed in a 360 degree virtual store.
The prototype design could offer a more
secure payment option than purchasing items
online or in person at a real store.
VIRTUAL BARGAIN
Surveying 2,000 Australian consumers,
Worldpay’s report revealed that over half
could see themselves using virtual reality to
shop in physical stores or on apps in the near
future. Interestingly, just 22% of the respond-
ents had ever used virtual reality and 61% said
that the technology could change the way we
shop as much as e-commerce has.
Half of the respondents also believed that
virtual reality is set to become as popular as
the smartphone. With good cause: According
to technology analyst firm Telsyte, 216,000
virtual reality headsets were sold in Australia
in 2016, almost double the 110,000 predicted
for the year.
“Australians are seeing how virtual reality
can be useful for a number of different pur-
poses, from retail to long-distance techni-
cal repairs,” said Phil Pomford, Asia-Pacific
general manager at Worldpay. “While not
many people are using virtual reality today,
Australians are beginning to see how it could
be used in the future.”
Although consumers are only just warming
up to the idea, retailers are already seeing virtu-
al shopping as a powerful way to keep custom-
ers engaged with their brand.
THE INVISIBLE BAZAAR
In 2016, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba
launched Buy+, an immersive virtual shop-
ping experience, as part of the annual Singles
Day shopping festival.
Using a 15-cent cardboard headset (plus
their own smartphone), shoppers can be trans-
ported to several foreign stores, from Macy’s in
New York to Matsumato Kiyoshi in Tokyo.
After walking through the virtual store en-
trance, shoppers could browse shoes, clothes
and handbags with the help of a probably still
very annoying virtual assistant.
Last year, Myer joined forces with eBay
Australia to launch the world’s first virtual
reality department store app. After slipping
a smartphone into a cardboard headset, the
customer selects which departments they
want to explore.
Based on these selections, a virtual store is
built where the customer can browse through
12,500 products and add them to a cart using
eBay Sight Search.
And if you’d prefer getting lost in a virtual
maze rather than an actual one when shop-
ping for minimalist Scandinavian furniture,
Ikea has also launched a VR app that allows
users to design a living space and swap out
different elements with a few gestures,
whether it’s a bench top or dining table. And
it’s not just static: the app will simulate differ-
ent times of the day, different lighting con-
ditions, and allow the user to cycle through,
say, fabric options on soft furniture.
REALITY IS OWNERSHIP
“If you can experience a new pair of jeans or
a bike in a realistic environment, you’re much
less likely to return it for a refund, which is a
massive plus for the retailer,” said Pomford.
But despite the appeal of wandering through
Macy’s from the comfort of your own lounge,
or redecorating your flat while laying in bed,
armed waving at the ceiling, Worldpay’s sur-
vey found that people lack of confidence in the
security of virtual reality payment methods.
Having to remove the headset to fetch a credit
card also breaks the immersion.

24 POPULAR SCIENCE

To work properly, VR shopping must mimic
real shopping as closely as possible.
“One of the concerns is the risk of cart aban-
donment when customers take off the headset
to make a payment,” Pomford said. “The cost
and security element is another gap that needs
to be plugged before before virtual reality shop-
ping truly goes mainstream.”
Worldplay believes it has a solution. For pur-
chases that are under $100, the prototype uses
host card emulation (HCE) - the same technol-
ogy behind chip cards and contactless payment
methods. The shopper is presented with a vir-
tual version of their credit or debit card, which
they can drag over a virtual terminal to make a
payment using the controller.
When making larger payments, Worldpay
uses AirPIN, which enables customers to enter
their pin number using the virtual controller.
Before making a purchase, the user sees a ran-
dom set of numbers float around their virtual
environment. Then just like an addictive game,
the shopper collects the numbers that make up
their four-digit pin. Seamless...?
Of course, only the person wearing the head-
set can see the pin they are entering.
So, while regular “retail therapy” sessions
in virtual reality may still be a ways down the
track, Pomford is confident that VR shopping
will become a part of our daily lives.
“Although virtual reality payment is still nas-
cent, we only have to remember that just 10
years ago, people were nervous about storing
their card as a token on a website or using their
smartphone to make purchases,” said Pom-
ford. “But we have moved well beyond that
now, and once people feel confident about the
security, virtual reality will grow from there.”
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 25
 2016 WAS OUR PLANET’S HOTTEST YEAR SINCE HUMANS
YES, IT’S HAPPENING began keeping records, with average global land and water
surface temperatures spiking to 14.82 degrees Celsius. That’s 1.1

Insight
The Heat is on degrees warmer than the 20th-century average. It might not
sound like a lot, but the difference between our current global
by RACHEL FELTMAN average and one during an ancient ice age—when the US sat under

15

Below 1º to 1.3º above

average average

0º to 0.4º above 1º or more above

average average

14.6

The Record Begins The 1940s Spike

Meteorologists in England Booming industry and
14.3
started collecting weather widespread car ownership
statistics back in 1659, but likely spurred this jump
it wasn’t until 1873 that above average. It was cut
countries began to share short, ironically, by a burst
annual data through what of aerosol pollution from
would later become the coal and oil, which actually
World Meteorological cools the planet by seeding
Organization. So the clouds that scatter
official global record sunlight. But by the 1970s,
14 doesn’t begin until 1880. emissions of compounds
like CO2 outpaced any
pollutant-related
cooling effects.

13.7
CENTURY-LONG AVERAGE

13.3

13
1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s

Above-Average Years per Decade

°C These days, Earth pushes the mercury half a degree or more above the 20th-century average
far more often than it used to. Here we see the number of years per decade that had above-average
temperatures—and how many of those years rose a half, or even a whole, degree above the norm.

26 POPULAR SCIENCE
glaciers 1,000 metres deep—is only 2.7 degrees or so, according to the
climate record preserved in ice and trees. The same record shows that
changes of this magnitude simply don’t happen over a mere century.
Human fingerprints are all over the recent temperature trends. In-
dustry boomed in the late 1800s, sending new pollutants into the
air. As a result, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which
trap heat inside Earth’s atmosphere, have multiplied. One estimate
suggests that CO2 emissions in 2011 were 150 times higher than in 1850.
Natural fluctuations, such as El Niño, played a part. But if global
warming is like riding the up escalator, these cycles amount to jump-
ing up or crouching down along the way: Temperatures might rise
or fall, but overall, climate change keeps pushing them skyward.

Record-Breaking Years

The Upward Climb

You don’t need a science
degree to see that our
average global tempera-
ture is going up. Natural
weather fluctuations may
keep 2017 from breaking
yet another heat record,
but as our hottest years
get hotter, so do the ones
that don’t manage to hit a
new benchmark.

INFOGRAPHIC BY STORY TK

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 27
 HOW BIZARRE

WE ALL ACCEPT RAIN, WIND, THUNDER, AND LIGHTNING

Weather as regular occurrences. But the same natural patterns that

Insight
Gets Weird cause normal forecasts can also result in bizarre, terrifying, and
downright mythical phenomena. Here are some of the strangest
by MARK D. K AUFMAN effects of extreme weather that humans have ever observed.

6 2

5
3

1 2 3 4 5 6

Wall Buster Frog Fall Blood Rain Bugnado Paper Trail Great Balls
A 1.6-km wide tornado Waterspouts— In 2013, crimson rain In 2014, a photogra- A tornado’s updrafts of Ice
that hit Joplin, vortexes that pull drenched the coastal pher captured a can hurl papers and In 2010, huge
ILLUSTRATIONS BY KAGAN MCLEOD

Missouri, in 2011 water into tornadolike Indian state of Kerala. 300-m-tall funnel of other light debris hailstones rained on
flattened neighbour- columns—can also The cause: red algal insects (probably 20,000 feet into the Vivian, South
hoods into piles of suck up objects. In spores, likely trans- locusts) over Vila air and carry them Dakota. One broke
wood and rubbish— 2005, a spout rudely ported from the ocean Franca de Xira, kilometres. The records with a weight
and embedded a plucked thousands of to rain clouds by Portugal. Small wind farthest recorded of nearly a kilo.
kitchen chair deep into frogs from their cosy strong winds. The eddies can pull in journey happened in Normally the size of
the exterior wall of a aquatic homes and not-uncommon midges, but larger 1915, when a personal marbles, these stones
store. Hurled by winds dropped them from occurrence stained “bugnadoes” usually check from Great got tossed around
over 320 km/h, the the sky over the clothing and collected result from optical Bend, Kansas, travel- longer, and coated in
legs hit the stucco nearby town of in what looked like illusions or swarms ed about 320 km to extra ice, by the
like flying spears. Odzaci, Serbia. puddles of blood. rather than weather. Palmyra, Nebraska. storm’s updrafts.

28 POPULAR SCIENCE
 GREEN LIGHT
2065 YEAR 1

As the first colonists arrive, robots

Let’s Just
Terraform
Mars!
by MARY BETH GRIGGS
MARSMIGHTNOTACTUALLY
be a Red Planet, but we can still
make it green. By unleashing
greenhouse gases that trap the
sun’s heat—something humans
happen to be very good at—we
could build a warmer, breathable
atmosphere that protects our TV-
start colonists from deep-space
radiation. NASA astrobiologist
Chris McKay thinks we could have
mild temperatures after about 100
yearsofterraforming(andTV).But
it’ll take much longer to re-create
the sweet cocktail of 21 per cent
oxygen, 0.04 per cent carbon
dioxide, and 78 per cent nitrogen
that fills our lungs on Earth.
YEAR 50
The heat boost from PFCs helps
release carbon dioxidefrozen
in the soil and ice caps, dialling up
the temperature. With the warmth,
ice melts and water accumulates in
lakes and streams; snowstorms and
rain sweep across the Martian
plains. Microbes and small plants
accustomed to polar environments
might survive outdoors.
mine rocks for the critical element
fluorine to produce perfluorinated
compounds (PFCs)—mostly
nontoxic gases that are great at
trapping heat. The sun can do the
rest of the work; McKay estimates
that four hours of Martian sunshine
contains more energy than all of
Earth’s nuclear weapons.
2115
2165 YEAR 100
Skies on Mars are even bluer than
Earth’s, thanks to the thick
atmosphere enveloping the planet,
and trees from mountain climes can
thrive. Now that the temperature
and pressure are comfortable,
settlers can go outdoors without
space suits. But the carbon-dioxide-
rich air is still poisonous to humans,
so oxygen masks are a must.

102,065

YEAR 100,000
Sorry dogs: Plants are humanity’s
ILLUSTRATION BY SUPERTOTTO

best friend on Mars. After many

millennia of photosynthesis,
abundant trees, crops, and maybe
even decorative flowers have
broken the relentless hold of carbon
dioxide on the atmosphere; the
oxygen-filled air is finally breathable
for our Martian colonists! Hope it
was worth the long wait.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 29
 OP ED / THE LP

Is Music Sustainably
Digital At Last?
BY
BACK IN EARLY 2000, I WROTE MY FIRST Spotify currently has 50 million “paying” users (though
DAN LANDER
full-length feature story for a real music magazine. The as a business its continued existence is hardly assured),
subject was a software format that was able to compress and Apple Music another 20 million, and as modest
an audio file small enough that users could share it via and as badly-invested a revenue stream it may be, other
the internet – the MP3. Although it had been around for industries have been rebuilt on less.
a few years, the MP3 was only just getting mainstream So, while it’s not quite out of the woods yet, the
attention, and it was such a novel thing we actually much-maligned music business may now stand as a
organised a listening session. model of hope for the digitalisation of old institutions.
Frenzal Rhomb and some hot producer came That the technology that threatened to destroy it is
into the office, we compared tracks from the band’s what looks to have saved music is hardly surprising –
new album, MP3 versus CD, drank a few beers and that is so often the way.
laughed. The MP3s didn’t sound that good, we thought, Stephen Fry recently gave a talk – at the quincentenary
and anyway, who would want to sit in front of their celebration of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses, no less – where
computer to listen to music? he admitted his fear that technology is
Jump forward 12 months and moving at frightening pace and
Napster – the first global peer-to- destroying much in its path.
peer sharing service to capture But Fry then evoked the
the public imagination – had myth of Pandora’s Box,
the music industry on its reminding us, “We must
knees. By June of 2001, understand that it is going
80 million users were to happen, collywobbles
swapping almost three or not, because the lid
billion songs a month is already off the jar. So
on Napster, all “royalty the best we can do is
free” – or, more keep the lid off the jar
accurately, stolen. and let hope fly out.”
A few months Troubling jars full
after that, Steve Jobs of aggressive, buzzing
delivered to the world hope aside, Technology
a shiny little device that has made life better,
would let you put “1,000 unquestionably. We live
songs in your pocket” and longer and larger now than
the music industry went into even the richest of our recent
a brutal downward spiral, most ancestors could. It’s worth it. It’s a
due to despair at losing the cash-cow price we must pay, but it’s worth it.
of the Album. The Album, after all, was And I think I can say that I, along with
a $30 collection of songs that included Past or Future? the hundreds of colourful characters I
only one or two that people actually Vinyl rocks because there’s have known in the record business over
wanted to listen to. so little that’s analogue the years, have paid a fair portion of that
these days.
This, and other aspects of the digital price for the future of music.
music shift, shows how music was really As a listener though? It’s never been
the first of the old-school culture empires to be hit by the better. MP3 didn’t destroy music, it freed it from the
rapid rise of the internet - ironic, since pop music is also publishers. Even better, to get Soundcloud and Spotify,
the youngest of those empire. Pandora and iTunes, we didn’t have to give up CDs.
It’s been a hard road, but after 15 years of kicking Even vinyl has made an incredible comeback, marketed
and screaming and drowning and moaning, the music to those of us who love the ceremony, the ritual of
industry has now enjoyed two straight years of growth. “putting on a record” - but this comeback exists Dan Lander was
At last, after a 3.2 per cent jump in 2015, global revenues only thanks to the internet making LP distribution once editor of
in 2016 grew by 5.9 per cent to US$15.5 billion, half of commercially viable again. Rolling Stone so
which was from digital sales. Weep not for the lost billions of the record executives. he’s hopelessly
Streaming revenues increased by 60 per cent, and Weep not even for the indie bands who only make $2 a biased. He also ran
a music shop,
Goldman Sachs have tipped that, on the back of this month off Spotify. If we’re honest, the old music industry doubling his bias.
subscription boom, the industry will have doubled in used to rip them off just the same. At least now you can That’s right. He’s a
value by 2030. click “like” and give them a little encouragement... double bias player

30 POPULAR SCIENCE
 OPED / RETHINK
Tax the Meat!
THE DEBATE OVER VEGETARIANISM IS
complicated by the way, in the absence of a modern
civilisation, humans do in fact need to eat meat to survive. out the greenhouse gas contribution of the entire aviation
For the majority of human history, meat was either a
rare treat, a hard-won reward, or part of a sacred ritual.
What’s happened in the last probably only 50-60 years, is
that meat has become super-cheap.
Meat is now so cheap, it’s used as an example of a new
way of thinking about economics, and that “supply and
demand” is no longer considered enough to fully and
neatly explain consumer behaviour.
Consider that nobody buys chicken because they think
“I need a certain amount of protein, who can supply
me this protein at a cost I can bear?” Rather, chicken
producers set their prices as low as they can to attract
sales (actual supply is just one of many
factors in setti g this price) and then
consumers th
whole chicke
mad not to ta
that bargain!
The inevit
unpleasantly
goo-stained
is factory farm
meat. We’re
good at prod
tonnes of ton
good quality
least, largely
free quality)
we have the s
phenomenon
being mocked
vegetarianism
is now consid
of “opting out of the status quo.
How the heck did that happen? How did
a decision to eat readily available plants
from the same shop as sells the meat Cheap Chicken Kills!
turn into a political thing? If not you or the environ-
ment, at least the chicken.
Cheap meat has done much for
nutrition and, at first, it probably extended
the average life expectancy. Even before the obesity thing,
the downsides of factory meat farming included the fact
that billions of animals die every year - 80% of them to
feed us and 20% of them to be thrown away. And the
processes we use to grow the meat consume resources,
and pollute the environment.
And about that obesity thing: Medical evidence is
getting pretty conclusive about how the human organism
is designed to eat meat only sometimes, and that eating it
all the time messes us up.
Economists are starting to notice the deferred
healthcare costs of a meat-rich diet. Some even now
advocate the creation of a “meat tax”, a simple 40% levy
32 POPULAR SCIENCE
that they say would reduce consumption by over 13%.
That might not seem like a lot, but it’s enough to cancel
BY
ANTHONY
industry. And if everyone cut their meat consumption to
FORDHAM
just three nights a week, that could be the same as taking
every car off the road, pollution-wise.
A meat-tax has precedent if you consider that we
usually end up taxing “socially undesirable” products. Use
of cigarettes and alcohol can place a later cost burden on
society, and it’s difficult to figure out who should pay the
bill for the treatment of the people who have been made
sick by these products. So ciggies and booze get taxed,
and that tax (supposedly) goes toward healthcare.
The purpose of the meat-tax is the same. Not just to cut
consumption, but to create a war-chest, as it were, to treat
obesity and cardiac diseases.
No that thi will happ n. There’s a
and besides
ous.
debate is just
r in a rising
future. We can
ves and our
configuration
sphere, by
acticing a
denial.
ne meat-free
eek, every
veryone,
millions of
duce pollution,
asurable
But can we
this?
anity has,
for the most part, been a desperate
struggle for survival. If you could kill
two antelope instead of just one, that’s a
cause for celebration. This mentality - if
you can grab an extra one then by God
you grab it - is deeply ingrained. The idea
of saying “I know I can just reach out and
take that, but I won’t” is very alien to us.
Humanity now dominates the environment. Our meat
factories are a perfect example. Want steak for dinner?
Just make sure you have a job that pays okay. No hunting,
no risk, no fear of starvation if you don’t succeed. Jut stir
fry beef in black bean sauce.
The point of all this, the reason this is now a problem,is Anthony Fordham
the dawning realisation that, if this civilisation is going to eats meat, but he
go on to bigger and better things, we’re going to have to doesn’t really eat
learn the art of compromise. pork in non-bacon
form, or veal. Not
The current politics - prices must never increase, that it makes any
availability must never decrease, choices must never be difference to all
limited, quality must never go down - just isn’t sustainable. those chickens...
 L

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 OPED / amuse.bouche

Ethical Dilemma
HERE’S A DOOZY OF A QUESTION – IS IT anything remotely “progressive”.
entirely possible or ultimately ethical to divorce a In light of Soret’s posting history, the socialist dystopia
person’s personal philosophy or actions from the content in which The Last Night takes place, where losers waste BY
they create? That question comes up in all forms of their lives and make no effort thanks to a universal basic DANIEL
entertainment, from the sex crimes of filmmaker of income, seems to be communicating more than the usual WILKS
Roman Polanski, the homophobia and bigotry of sci-fi “Bladerunner was cool!” message.
author Orson Scott Card, the paedophilia of Ian Watkins To his credit, Tim Soret has come out in front of the
or Gary Glitter, or the ongoing trial of Bill Cosby. controversy, again using Twitter as his medium. In a series
Each man has been responsible for delivering genuinely of three tweets, Soret made his case.
excellent - and in many cases definitive - works, but can “Controversy time. That’s fine. Let’s talk about it, because it’s
we look at their catalogue without considering not just the important. 1 - I completely stand for equality & inclusiveness.”
crimes, but the character of these people? “2 - In no way is The Last Night a game against feminism or any
Does an enjoyment of their work tacitly absolve the artist, form of equality. A lot of things changed for me these last years.”
failing that, at least ignore the hand behind the curtain? “3 - The fictional setting of the game does challenge
It’s a difficult question with no definite answer, and the techno-social progress as a whole but certainly not trying to
question becomes even more difficult in the era of the promote regressive ideas.”
Internet and social media. People may forget... but the For a while this seemed to work quite well, with
Internet remembers everything. Damn its eyes. numerous Twitter users saying Soret’s approach to the
One of the most interesting-looking indie videogames controversy was mature and thoughtful, but the same long
highlighted in the pre-show press conferences at this Internet memory that made the tweets a problem in the
year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) was “The Last first place again caused a sort of social schizoid fracture.
Night”. This gorgeous-looking pixelart cyberpunk action Remaining GamerGate supporters flocked to the
adventure had people all excited for the right reasons. developer’s defence. Soret was encouraged to recant his
Unfortunately, then they got excited by... well, not wrong, earlier recant, to stick up for his belief that white men are
but different reasons, when the Twitter history of game oppressed, and giving poor people moeny will destory the
director Tim Soret copped a quick review. world. Also girls smell.
Between 2014 and April this year, Soret expressed In the case of The Last Night, both sides of the debate
a number of anti-feminist ideals as well as espousing (that term is used loosely) can’t or won’t divorce Tim
support of GamerGate, an online group that claimed to Sorets from his past actions, with one side condemning
be about ethics in games journalism and honest debate, him for tweets he says he no longer agrees with, and the
but far more frequently harassed other praising him for the same tweets.
female game developers and anyone Meanwhile, the rest of us just want to
All these moments
they thought was trying to promote won’t be lost in time. play some games.
They’re permanently scrawled
on the wall instead.

Daniel Wilks is
the editor of PC
PowerPlay,
Australia’s
favourite
videogame
magazine. He
has strong
opinions about
mid-90s Hong
Kong cinema, but
wouldn’t stoop
to TWEETING
about it. Yech.
 $0- 6<5,);165 .69 ;0-
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 FEATURES
ISSUE 103 JUNE 2017

WHY THE MAMMOTH FORCING CLOUDS TO ABUSING AIRCRAFT THE REAL LOSERS IN
WON’T RIDE AGAIN RAIN ON US FOR SCIENCE! THE CLIMATE DEBATE
 SCIENTISTS ARE ON THE VERGE OF

A Sec (JUST NOT THE MAMMOTH...)

38 POPULAR SCIENCE
 ne on the list for de-extinction,
lse, and it’s almost deinitely going
ants of our ancestral imagination
he resurrection of all those species
that have been wiped from the face of the planet.

So it’s a cruel irony that, as de-extinction moves from sci-i to theory to possible reality,
the return of the mammoth itself might be drifting further and further away...

story by Dan Lander

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 39
DE-EXTINCTION

we have an extinction crisis on our hands, back-breeding, cloning via somatic cell nu-
but even if you could bring back a woolly clear transfer, and genetic engineering.
mammoth, what ecological role would it ac- The irst of those, back-breeding, is a form
tually play anymore?’” of selective breeding whereby mating pairs
And that, as it turns out, could be very bad of an extant species are chosen based on a
news for the mammoth. phenotype – a physical or behavioural trait –
Global extinction rates have increased that is characteristic of an extinct ancestor.
sharply over the last 200 years, enough to Over generations of back-breeding, this trait
suggest that we’re currently in the midst of – or a series of traits – can be accentuated to
Earth’s sixth mass extinction event. recreate the features of the extinct species.
If so, it’s a consequence of global warming As an example, imagine noticing a chick-
and habitat destruction, both caused by hu- en born with tiny nubs in its jaw that remind
mans, and this is why so many people are will- you of teeth. This chicken is bred with a
De-extinction started as fringe theory 30 years ing to take the idea of de-extinction seriously. rooster that shows the same nubs. Hope-
ago, and was given a huge boost in 1990, irst There are currently three potential paths: fully, the nubs reinforce each other, and the
by That Dinosaur Novel by Michael Crichton
(which was really about Chaos Theory), fol-
lowed by That Dinosaur Film in 1993.
Yet as soon as the merchandise started
rolling out to toy shops, other scientists be-
gan pointing out how the resurrection of
dinosaurs from mosquitoes trapped in am-
ber was impossible on a number of levels.
Even putting aside the likelihood of actually
getting dino DNA from a mozzie, the mole-
cule itself doesn’t even survive for hundreds
of thousands of years, let alone millions. A
bunch of frog DNA wouldn’t be enough ix
the holes. De-extinction, it seemed, was it-
self quickly rendered extinct.
Extinct? Perhaps not. Because the rise of
gene editing means de-extinction is once
again worth talking about.
Dr Amy Fletcher, author of Mendel’s Ark:
Biotechnology and the Future of Extinction,
has been mapping the de-extinction debate
since 2005, and like many, she feels the param-
eters of discussion are changing to relect the
increasing likelihood of technological success.
“Watching this play out the last 12 years
has been interesting,” says Fletcher, who
delivered a Ted-X talk on the subject in
Christchurch at the end of 2016.
“It started as a very renegade, controver-
sial idea, then we moved into the higher vis-
ibility hype cycle, and now we’re starting to
see the correction. Now people are starting
to think about it practically.”
In fact, the likelihood of practical de-ex-
tinction has been so widely touted that some
sections of the scientiic community have
begun asking not just if it’s possible, but if
it’s inevitable, and if so, what are we going to
do with these revived species?
“These are primarily conservation biol-
ogists and ecologists,” explains Fletcher.
“They are saying, ‘Well, we certainly would
like something to add to the toolkit, because

40 POPULAR SCIENCE

chicks have slightly more pronounced nubs.
Repeat a few thousand times, and you’ve
bred hens with teeth, with a mouth more
resembling the theropod dinosaurs from
which the chicken descends.
Of course it’s not as simply as this. It’s
not actually all that new either. In fact, it’s
old enough to ind roots in a curious tale of
Nazi obsession. Born at the turn of twentieth
century, German brothers Lutz and Heinz
Heck were sons to the keeper of the Berlin
Zoo, and were brought up surrounded by all
manner of breeding programs.
In the 1920s, they became fascinated with
the aurochs, an ancient breed of cow that
Mammoths everywhere
Unlike dinosaur fossils, which are
rock, many mammal remains still
contain fragments of DNA.
Sorry, Richard Attenborough
Animals trapped in amber aren’t
fossils, but their DNA is likely too
degraded to be of any use.
DE-EXTINCTION
has been extinct since 1627. An early an-
cestor to many varieties of domestic cattle,
aurochs was a huge, ierce beast, straight out
of the sort of Germanic myths that Lutz in
particular was obsessed with.
The Heck brothers became convinced they
could recreate the aurochs through selective
breeding: “What my brother and I had to do,”
Lutz wrote in his 1954 autobiography, Ani-
mals: My Adventure, “was to unite in a single
breeding stock all those characteristics of the
wild animal which are now found only sepa-
rately in individual animals.”
The Hecks scoured Europe for breeding
stock based on historical records and fos-
sil remains, selecting everything from
Spanish bullighting beasts to Hungar-
ian steppe cattle.
By the early 1930s, both brothers
claimed to have succeeded in
reviving the aurochs.
While it is generally accepted that
those claims were inlated, the re-
sultant animals – now known as Heck
cattle – were certainly aurochs-like:
proud, viscous beasts that were im-
pressive enough that Adolf Hitler’s sec-
ond-in-command, Hermann Göring, com-
missioned Lutz to repeat his de-extinction
feat with other animals.
At Göring’s urging, Lutz experimented,
relatively successfully, with back breeding
tarpans – a species of aggressive wild horse
– and wisent, a European species of bison.
Bizarrely, Göring desired these ancient
beasts to populate immense private hunting
grounds so that he and his friends could rec-
reate mythic scenes from the German epic
poem Nibelungenlied.
As if we needed another reason to doubt
the sanity of the Nazis…
The decedents of Heck’s experiments
are still scattered across Europe, but few bi-
ologists believe Heck cattle represent true
de-extinction of the aurochs. Even mod-
ern back-breeding programs, such as the
long-running efort to recreate the quagga
(a type of zebra) have at best resulted in ap-
proximations of the lost species.
SO MUCH FOR BACK-BREEDING.
In the current debate, the more compelling
visions of de-extinction stem from either
cloning or genetic engineering. In the former,
somatic (that is, non-reproductive) cells are
taken from a preserved sample, then fused
with the egg of a closely related species.
Through a process called somatic cell nu-
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 41
DE-EXTINCTION

clear transfer (SCNT), the host egg reprograms

the somatic cell to transform into a so-called
“pluripotent stem cell”, which can then devel-
op in the same way that an embryo would.
This is a very similar process to that which
famously produced Dolly the sheep, and in-
terspecies cloning has been demonstrated
to be possible, notably with some success in
cloning endangered species using closely re-
lated surrogates.
Most signiicantly, this process has also
produced the only genuine example of bio-
logical de-extinction to date. In 2003, cells
from the clinically frozen remains of the last
bucardo – a breed of Spanish wild goat – were
fused with eggs from domestic goats, and
while most of the resulting embryos failed
to develop, one did, leading to the birth of a
single female bucardo.
Although she died shortly after from a
lung defect, this bucardo stands as proof mitochondrial DNA of the donor egg, and Puzzle of a billion pieces
that de-extinction by cloning is possible. She as the embryo develops, this mismatch can DNA is easy to describe but nearly im-
possible to reconstruct. Each strand
also stands as a stark reminder of the dii- cause developmental issues that leave cells has billions of proteins.
culties of the technique – of the 208 embryos starved and vulnerable to mutation.
the researchers implanted, only seven goats Signiicantly, the bucardo project’s leet-
became pregnant, and just one bucardo ing success was achieved operating under While experiments have shown it is pos-
made it to term. close to ideal circumstances – the somatic sible to perform SCNT with non-viable cells
Fusing the DNA of one species into cell material used in that case was harvested (those that had been frozen after dying)
the egg of another species, even a closely and frozen prior to death, meaning the cells the process is much more diicult, and the
related one, creates a hybrid embryo that were living or viable (that is, they could be longer the cells have been frozen, the less ef-
often fails to develop. revived and made to divide). icient their transformation to embryos.
Usually, the surrogate mother will reject In most proposed de-extinction scenari- Also, those experiments with non-viable
the embryo outright if her body identiies it os, this is not likely to be the case – generally, cells are based on material that had been
as foreign. However, even if this doesn’t oc- we’re talking about resurrecting things from frozen at a constant temperature in a stable
cur, such embryos possess the nuclear DNA cells that died irst and froze later, not live environment, which is rarely the case in na-
of the cloned species, but still contain the tissue that was clinically frozen. ture. DNA is fragile, and is easily damaged.

THE
CANDIDATES PASSENGER PIGEON MOA DODO MAMMOTH/MASTODON
We’ve driven EXTINCT: 1914, EXTINCT: c.1400, EXTINCT: 1640s, due to EXTINCTION: 2000 BC,
plenty of species to due to hunting due to hunting hunting, predation from due to climate change
DNA: Yes, DNA: Yes, from shells rats and pigs. and hunting.
extinction, but not from taxidermied and bones DNA: Yes, many DNA: Non complete
all make compelling specimens PLAUSIBILITY: Low specimens, bones etc. PLAUSIBILITY: Low.
candidates for PLAUSIBILITY: to moderate. No close PLAUSIBILITY: Lots of interest,
resurrection. Here’s Moderate. The similar relative still extant. Moderate. Close extant relative in Asian
band-tailed pigeon relative Nicobar elephant, but requires
the generally could be used. pigeon still extant. many advances in gene
agreed-upon list. manipulation.

42 POPULAR SCIENCE
 DE-EXTINCTION

Today a mouse pristinely frozen for sixteen
years represents the oldest specimen success-
fully cloned. The youngest mammoth speci-
men we have so far? 20,380 years old.
Not exactly good news for the mammoth.
The remaining option for de-extinction is
genetic engineering, and as the University of
California’s Professor Beth Shapiro argued in
the recent special edition of Functional Ecolo-
gy, “The third approach to resurrecting extinct
“Advances in ancient DNA extraction and
DNA sequencing technologies are making
it increasingly feasible to reconstruct full
genome sequences from extinct species,”
writes Shapiro. “These genomes can be
aligned to genome sequences from the liv-
ing species to which the extinct species is
used for SCNT.”
In other words, through genetic engineer-
ing, we are theoretically no longer depend-
ent on the ability, or lack thereof, of old cells
to undergo eicient transformation into em-
bryos. Manipulating the cells of a modern
relative to genetically resemble its extinct
cousin theoretically provides access to fresh,
vibrant and viable examples of ancient so-
matic material.

species takes advantage of recent advances in
two ields, ancient DNA and genome editing,
which together pave what I believe is the most
likely route to de-extinction.”
The great promise of genetic engineer-
ing for de-extinction is that it can make use
of relatively poor quality remains. Ancient
DNA can now be extracted from a bewil-
dering array of sources, ranging from parch-
ment and hair and other material collected
in museums and archaeological inds, all the
way down to the dust of degraded bones in
the dirt on the loors of ancient caves, which
has been recently investigated by research-
ers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolution-
ary Anthropology.
For samples that have been frozen in per-
mafrost, partial DNA has been successfully
extracted from specimens as old as 700,000
years, and even for material that hasn’t been
frozen, remains over 300,000 years have
yielded useable DNA fragments.
These ancient remains suggest some very
exciting opportunities when they are com-
bined with our burgeoning ability to manip-
ulate living DNA.
TODAY A MOUSE
FROZEN FOR 16 YEARS
REPRESENTS THE
OLDEST SPECIMEN
SUCCESSFULLY CLONED.
most closely related. Once the key sequence
diferences between the extinct and extant
species’ genomes are known, genome engi-
neering can be used to edit the genome of
the living species in cells in vitro, resulting
in living cells with genomes that express
extinct genes. These living cells can then be
Problem is, that’s an awful lot of manip-
ulation – lumping more bad news on the
mammoth, to transform its DNA into that of
its closest living relative, the Asian elephant.
The genomic editing would require at least
2020 changes, and possibly twice that many.
At the moment, the highest number of ge-
nome edits that has been successfully made
to any sequence is 62.
The answer to this not-insigniicant short-
fall, in the medium term at least, is to focus on
changing one characteristic genotype (that is,
the set of genes in our DNA responsible for
a particular phenotype) at a time, or at most
targeting small groups of related genes.
For instance, researchers at Harvard have
spliced 45 mammoth genes into the Asian
elephant genome, including 14 thought to
inluence cold-tolerance. An international
team including three researchers from Aus-
tralia has independently demonstrated that
several of these cold-tolerance genes, when
expressed in E. coli, increase the ability of the
bacteria to carry oxygen at low temperatures.
The Harvard research, in particular, drew
a frenzy of futuristic excitement earlier

GASTRIC FROG PYRENEAN IBEX AUROCHS QUAGGA THYLACINE

EXTINCTION: 1981, EXTINCTION: 2000, EXTINCTION: 1627, due EXTINCTION: 1883, EXTINCTION: 1936,
due to habitat loss due to overhunting. to hunting, bred into due to hunting. due to targeted culling.
and pollution DNA: Yes, many modern cattle. DNA: Yes, technically DNA: Yes, including
DNA: Yes, many specimens DNA: Yes, in same species as preserved joeys
specimens PLAUSIBILITY: High. modern cattle Plains Zebra PLAUSIBILITY:
PLAUSIBILITY: High. Samples from last PLAUSIBILITY: PLAUSIBILITY: Low to moderate.
The ‘Lazarus Project’at living female were used Moderate to high. Moderate to high. Like Reconstruction of DNA
UNSW and University of to clone embryos. One Resurrection via the aurochs, could be from museum samples
Newcastle successfully carried to term in goat, artificial selection. resurrected via artificial is underway, advances
cloned embryos. died 7 min ater birth. Experiments continue. selection of plains zebra. in gene tech still needed.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 43
DE-EXTINCTION
this year when a number of news sources
interpreted the indings to suggest ele-
phant-mammoth hybrids would be walking
the Earth within a couple of years.
Those reports were, sadly, very misguided
– it’s going to take longer than that just to un-
derstand the edits, let alone integrate them
into 90-odd kilograms of newborn elephant.
The situation even prompted paleoan-
resurrected mammoths “false news”, but
while his concerns over sloppy journalism
may hold true, Fletcher, among others, ar-
gues is “a very harsh characterisation of the
whole situation.”
The fact is, in their proper context, ear-
ly experiments in splicing Asian elephant
DNA with mammoth genotypes may only
represent small steps towards de-extinc-
represent very real proof of concept.
FOR A GROWING NUMBER of scientists,
the genetic engineering path to de-extinc-
tion is exciting because all the techniques
required are already within our grasp. Even
if the scale of the lab work remains a little
overwhelming for our present systems, ge-
nome editing is one of the most rapidly ad-

For instance, although it represents only
one branch of the ield, the headline grab-
bing gene-editing tool CRISPR is providing
mindboggling new opportunities and in-
sights at a stunning pace.
Even so, the challenges that remain are
substantial, and it’s almost inconceivable
that there’s going to be a moment when we
wake up to the news that suddenly, some-
h i l l b b b
Plenty to choose from
Perhaps the cruellest irony of the
mammoth project is that there are so
many specimens, yet no useful DNA yet.
moth has been born.
More likely, various phenotypes could be
stabilised over generations in a combination of
genome editing, SCNT and controlled breed-
ing programs – one genotype could be edited
into somatic cells from an extant species and
used to create an embryo through SCNT; this
animal could then be raised and bred with an-
other animal that, through the same process,
h d been given a diferent genotype from the
me extinct species.
Not only does this overcome the current
chnical limitations of large scale genome
iting, it also reduces the risk associated
th the technique, because we still aren’t
rtain how large-scale editing may efect
nome stability.
However, even if our gene editing chops
ere to quickly catch up to our imagination
d a softly-softly approach proved unnec-
ary, the challenges of de-extinction don’t
d at birth – in fact, many scientists are re-
sing that birth could be the moment the
al challenges begin.
Which, surprise surprise, is very bad news
r the mammoth.
HE CHALLENGES FACED BY current en-
ngered species conservation eforts – such
captive breeding, habitat reintroduction
d ongoing management of threatened pop-
ations – would be at least as great, and more
ely even greater, for a resurrected species.
This fact has prompted many researchers
urge caution in how we consider de-extinc-
on as part of a conservation strategy, and
w we prioritise it as part of science in soci-
y. These concerns go far beyond the moral
d ethical arguments, focusing on more
actical concerns: where will a revived spe-
es live, what will it eat, is there any chance
at a population could ever be returned to
e wild, and if it is, what impact might that
ve on currently extant creatures?
Dr Gwen Iacona from the Australian Re-
arch Council’s Centre of Excellence for En-
onmental Decisions, was lead author on an
ticle exploring some of the ecological practi-
lities of de-extinction in Functional Ecology.
“From a conservation perspective,” ex-
ains Iacona, “you have to ask what you are
ing to achieve. Are you looking to get a car-
n copy of the genetic material, are you try-
g to ill some ecological niche that has been
st, are you bringing something back just to
t it in a zoo or do you want to be in the wild?
l these kinds of questions have to be asked
the beginning of the process and once you
DE-EXTINCTION
have been clear about what your objective is
then you can igure out what the steps are to
get there and how far away we are.”
Assimilating the potential function of
de-extinction into the wider conservation
agenda is a complicated task. On the one
hand, de-extinction would necessitate a
clear change in the conservation decision
process, transforming the management
of biodiversity from controlling a inite re-
source to controlling a renewable one. This
changes the maths and models that are used
to reach decisions and prioritise resources –
if resurrecting a species becomes an option,
so too does allowing a species to go extinct,
SPLICING ASIAN
ELEPHANT DNA WITH
MAMMOTH MAY ONLY BE
A SMALL STEP TOWARDS
DE-EXTINCTION
with the idea of bringing it back later.
“Most of the formulas and equations that
we currently use in conservation come from
natural resources management economics,”
explains Iacona. “They come from non-re-
newable resource economics, were we have
this hard boundary – if something’s gone, it’s
gone and you cannot make any decisions after
that. That makes you change your behaviour
right the edge of the threshold. But removing
that threshold gives you a diferent set of math-
ematical tools that you can use to approach
this problem, from a theoretical perspective.”
This would, theoretically, allow conser-
vationists to prioritise the preservation of
more ecologically signiicant species (those
that make the biggest contribution to their
ecosystem) even if they were less threatened
than a less ecologically signiicant species.
It would also allow for riskier, higher yield
conservation techniques to be attempted,
especially those that might jeopardise one
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 45
DE-EXTINCTION

species to promote population security in a

number of others.
However, despite de-extinction adding
new theoretical options for conservation,
the question remains whether or not these
options would actually offer any benefit.
“I don’t know how it would function, in a “EVEN IF YOU COULD BRING BACK THE
WOOLLY MAMMOTH, WHAT ECOLOGICAL ROLE
practical sense,” admits Iacona. “We’re a
long way from de-extinction being useful
in that sense – it would be exceedingly
risky at this point in time to think, “Well,
I can let this species go extinct as I can WOULD IT PLAY ANYMORE?”
bring it back later.’”
Not surprisingly, the potential negative
consequences of this sort of bring-it-back-
later thinking poses one of the biggest co- pared to saving extant species – you would dangered species in the natural environ-
nundrums for de-extinction, even for those get more species saved more cheaply and ment. In just the same way it is currently for
who can envision its beneits. more easily with conventional conservation a highly endangered species, the challenges
“It’s what the economists call a moral haz- than by investing your money into some- associated with establishing a founder pop-
ard,” says Fletcher. “If people start to think thing like de-extinction.” ulation for a de-extinct species would be,
that bringing back extinct species is just a The difficulty for de-extinction in erm, mammoth – to exist in the wild, the
bunch of laboratory tricks, that it somehow this cost-benefit equation comes in part group would need enough genetic diversity
is becoming easy, then people start to think, from the huge challenges associated to ensure there weren’t inbreeding issues
‘Oh well then, I will just go ahead and build with establishing and managing the that could quickly lead to... well... extinction.
that new development…’” resurrected population, and in also from Although genetic engineering could po-
the uncertainty of how the resurrected tentially be used to introduce some of that
THE CURRENT CONSENSUS IS THAT, species might impact on the environment diversity, this approach would be accompa-
even when de-extinction becomes a labo- to which it has been reintroduced. nied by high costs with uncertain outcomes.
ratory reality, it may have to wait a while Both these issues, however, also confront Then there is also the fascinatingly un-
before it becomes an ecological one. attempts to re-establish populations of en- answerable question of whether or not the
Being possible is not enough – from one newly resurrected species would actually
perspective at least, the technology also “remember” how to do anything it used to
needs to be practical. That stupid bird do. While some traits and behaviours are
“Even if you could bring back the wool- The dodo is the extinction archetype. hardwired and instinctual, many more are
But its death may have saved the rest
ly mammoth, what ecological role would it of the biosphere, since it made humans learned from parents and social groups. Ex-
play anymore?” asks Fletcher. “On the one realist extinction was a thing. tant predators born in captivity struggle to
hand, they travelled in herds, so if you could
bring back one or two, well, that’s just sort
of cruel, isn’t it? And if you’re going to have
a herd of 100,000, then you’ve got all sorts
of questions about where you put them and
how they interact with the modern world
and humans.”
The most recent modelling suggests that,
from a purely ecological perspective, once
the technology becomes available, attempt-
ing to re-establish populations of extinct
species could initially be a low priority, with
greater beneit to biodiversity still deriving
from the preservation of existing species.
“One recent study took a process that
was developed to rank endangered spe-
cies according to priority for action, and
included 11 possible candidates from New
Zealand and New South Wales for de-ex-
tinction in the ranking process,” explains
Iacona. “De-extinction never came out as
anything that was worth doing when com-

46 POPULAR SCIENCE

adapt to the wild, even with training and a
wider population to model their behaviour
on – that problem is likely to be even great-
er with a resurrected species. (This was one
of the themes in Crichton’s second novel,
the Lost World, where InGen-hatched ve-
lociraptors, born without parents to teach
them, fail to nurture their young and or show
them how to feed properly.)
“You do have to make sure it’s going to
know how to eat and not leap of a clif before
you let it go into the wild,” points out Iacona.
So, would we be able to teach a resurrect-
ed Tasmanian Tiger how to behave like a
pre-European thylacine, given how little we
know about the creature’s most intimate be-
haviour in its natural habitat?
This question has massive implications,
not just for the survival of the resurrected
species, but also for any potential it may
possess for restoring lost ecological function.
If a newly resurrected thylacine doesn’t
instinctively know how to do whatever its
decedents did in the pristine ecology of the
Tasmanian bushland, and we can’t teach
it, is there any ecological benefit to putting
it back there? Likewise, given there have
been massive changes in that ecosystem
since the thylacine went extinct, is it
realistic to think it could now find any kind
of ecological niche there?
The upshot of all this is a dominant
viewpoint that we should focus on species
that have only become extinct quite recently.
Rather than rely on amber, we can use
actual specimen preserved by museums.
This would not only increase the amount
of genetically diverse material available,
it would also help ensure that the
environmental and ecological scenario into
which they are returned would be favourable
for survival.
“There is a lot of interest in trying
to revive things like frogs that have
gone extinct very recently because the
feasibility of succeeding is so much
higher,” says Iacona. “You know, you can
put a frog in an aquarium to start with
while you’re trying to get it back to the
wild, rather than trying to find somewhere
to put a mammoth. So the feasibility end of
that equation is much higher.”
And yes, that is about as bad as news can
get for the mammoth.
That does, however, finally bring us to
the good news for the mammoth, which
in a case of life imitating art, isn’t too far
from Jurassic Park.
While it might not make ecological
sense – yet – to spend billions of dollars
bringing our favourite hirsute pachyderm
back from the ether, other forms of sense
exist in modern society, many of which, for
better or worse, command more attention
DE-EXTINCTION
Slipped through our fingers
But for the attitudes of a few farm-
ers, the Thylacine could today be part
of a breeding program, instead of a
candidate for de-extinction.
than sound science – the endless pursuit of
money chief among them.
Charismatic species have long been
used to drive interest in conservation, with
good efect and better reason – anyone
who has ever stood at a zoo and watched
a giant panda do its best to act like you’re
not there will understand why it’s a key
igure in modern conservation marketing,
rather than, say, one of the many species of
caddisly that no longer live along the Rhine. TASMANIAN TIGER PHOTOGRAPHY BY JANA DOLEZALOVA
Whatever the ethical conundrums,
resurrecting even a single example of such a
species would be akin to the moon landing –
a demonstration of what we can do.
“The notion of de-extinction, as it has
been put by some people, injects hope back
into the environment,” says Fletcher.
“As long as you keep that critical
perspective, if it does get people excited
again, if it gives attention to the species crisis
and for genetic research, if it helps people
see that maybe we can come up with some
alternatives with all this great biotechnology
that’s now coming online, that in and of
itself could be a good thing.”
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 47
48 POPULAR SCIENCE
With drought parching the West,
seeding clouds for snow is more
important than ever. Could this team
of scientists prove it really works?

by Sarah Scoles
illustration by Stuart Patience

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 49
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and a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-

THE RESEARCHERS HAD ALREADY DONE FOUR FLIGHTS, EARLIER
in January, before they saw the first hints of what they were
looking for. The crew of meteorologists, atmospheric sci-
entists, and students had converged near Idaho’s Snake
River Basin, a horseshoe-shaped depression between
ranges of the Rocky Mountains that is 200 km at its wid-
est point. Most of the state’s famous spuds come from this
arable land. Each day that the weather was right—clouds
containing the perfect amount of super-cooled moisture at
the ideal temperature and altitude— the team flew up into
the fluff, dropped silver iodide, and watched to see if they
were making more snow than there would’ve been if they’d
stayed home and hung on to their silver.
It’s called cloud seeding. And people have been plant-
ing little chemical seeds into puffy white masses, hoping
to change the weather, for some 70 years. But after all that
time, no one knows for sure how well it actually works:
when or even if the practice makes more snow fall, or how.
That’s what the team behind SNOWIE—an acronym for
Seeded and Natural Orographic Wintertime clouds: the
Idaho Experiment—had come to find out.
“These questions have been around since it started,”
says Bob Rauber, one of SNOWIE’s principal investigators
Champaign. He has been studying the phenomenon since the ’70s. Today, even
though scientists have a computer model that theoretically calculates for success,
“we don’t know if it’s right because we haven’t been able to validate it,” he says.
The day of that fifth flight, January 19, 2017, principal investigator Jeff French, an
assistant professor of atmospheric science at the University of Wyoming, sat inside a
tiny King Air prop plane. The pilot flew to 14,000 feet, then back down a couple thou-
sand. The air just above them was around -15 to -10 degrees Celsius, optimal for the
super-cooled liquids needed to make snow. The plane’s radar was humming, as were
instruments that collected information on atmospheric pressure, temperature, water
vapor, and wind. The measurements poured into a set of computer-processor racks
packed into the four-seater, making it look like the inside of a sound booth.
French knew that about 1,000 feet above, a second aircraft was sowing flares of
silver iodide, cylinders lined up like firework cartridges before a show starts. These
either smoldered in place on the plane, leaving a trail of particles drifting down, or
sprung from its wings and burned out as gravity pulled them down to Earth. But
French couldn’t see the other plane. In fact, he couldn’t see much at all. That is the
thing about flying inside a cloud. What he could see was a feed from the plane’s radar
in real-time, showing the cloud’s structure above and below him, and he could watch
the cloud particles’ sizes, shapes, and concentrations change.
Below him, unseen, the land rose jagged and treeless at its highest points,
blanketed in white. When that frozen snowpack melts each spring, it flows into the
basin below, providing Idaho residents not just with household water, but also with
electricity from the hydroelectric dams that power much of the state.
The craft above French flew back and forth, leaving silver iodide and, if they
were successful, snow drifting in zigzags over the mountains. His plane then
cruised through those plumes, its instruments able to see what French himself
couldn’t: They could detect spikes in reflectivity that meant ice crystals were
blooming, watch them travel with the weather, and perhaps discern whether snow
actually appeared where the silvery chemicals had fallen.
On the ground below, radars at two remote mountain sites scanned for the
same measurements. Staffed by students who’d snowmobiled up the slopes, these
instruments were the first to see a zigzag suggesting they were indeed making snow.
THERE IS SOMETHING SEDUCTIVE ABOUT THE IDEA OF CONTROLLING THE WEATHER.
Nature has foisted precipitation on humans forever, forcing us to be wet, iced-over,
snowed-in, hail-stung, flooded, parched—whatever, whenever. Synthetic weather
modification is the ultimate statement that we are supreme beings and can make

Far-Out Plans for Taming Our Weather

A Planetwide Air Purifier

Here’s a lung-stuffing fact: Each year, factories, automobiles, and other belchers of
carbon dioxide spit 36 billion tonnes of the heat-trapping gas into our atmosphere.
Cutting back on those greenhouse emissions is key to cooling the planet.
Unfortunately, we’re not cutting fast enough. That’s why companies in the U.K.,
the U.S., and Switzerland are building plants that can soak up CO2 with direct air-
capture machines. They work like this: Enormous fans blow air past a filter infused
with a CO2-bonding chemical, such as potassium hydroxide. Once saturated, workers
can heat the filters to remove the CO2, which we can use to feed plants, carbonate
beverages, and create useful minerals.
But you’d need a massive scaling up to impact the climate: 10 gigawatts of power
(enough to fill your flux capacitor to get your DeLorean back to the future seven times)
to run the millions of DAC machines necessary. Still, the Swiss and Canadian govern-
ments are investing in the technology. Noah Deich, executive director of the nonprofit
Center for Carbon Removal, says, “I expect to see a lot more R&D support for direct
air capture in the coming years.” M A T T H O N G O L T Z - H E T L I N G

50 POPULAR SCIENCE
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the world perform to our needs. Programs developed in the 20th century thus try to
mitigate hail, make it rain, curb hurricanes, and increase snowfall.
SNOWIE deals with only the latter. By necessity, the team’s attempt involved
mountains, which play a role in creating and steering precipitation. When air ap-
proaches a mountain, it rises with the land itself. (After all, it can’t blow through rock
and dirt.) This air chills as it ascends, and then condenses into an “orographic” cloud. Far-Out Plans for Taming Our Weather
Inside clouds, natural snowflake embryos often form when ice crystals grow on
tiny particles, like dust or gas or pollution. Scientists call these nuclei. To make more A Laser Lightning Killer
snow, the thinking goes, add more nuclei. Silver-iodide sprinkles have become the Lightning is pretty. But near airports, it can
go-to material because when they bump into super-cooled liquid water, they relia- threaten ground crews, sending them indoors
bly make it freeze if the temperature is below 21 degrees Fahrenheit. Ski resorts and and delaying flights. Around power stations,
drought-dry regions spend millions sending silver into the sky, but there’s actually it can cut the juice to entire cities.
Jean-Pierre Wolf, a physicist at the
no scientific consensus about whether the strategy works. University of Geneva, says that new long-
In 2015, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences—a col- range lasers can travel for kilometres and stop
laboration between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the electric zingers before they fry stuff. When
University of Colorado at Boulder—came the closest to a conclusion after evaluating pointed into a storm, their beams lay down a
channel of low-density, ionized molecules and
a decade of snow-focused programs and research in a 148-page review. “It is rea- plasma filaments that draws electricity—just
sonable to conclude that artificial enhancement of winter snowpack over mountain like Dr. Evil’s tractor beam seizing an asteroid—
barriers is possible,” it stated. But later in the same paragraph the authors equivo- and this controls the lightning’s path.
cated, saying: “No rigorous scientific study…has demonstrated that seeding winter Wolf demonstrated the beams’ effective-
orographic clouds increases snowfall. As such, the ‘proof ’ the scientific community ness in the skies above South Baldy Mountain
in New Mexico more than a decade ago. And
has been seeking for many decades is still not in hand.” he recently commissioned a working proto-
type from TRUMPF Scientific Lasers, which
THE IDEA FOR CLOUD SEEDING SOLIDIFIED—WHERE ELSE?—IN A FREEZER. SPECIFICALLY, THE makes industrial and medical cutting lasers.
freezer of General Electric scientist Vincent Schaefer. Schaefer had become inter- When completed in about three years, he’ll
deploy it around an actual airport or power
ested in ice early, according to his 1993 obituary in The New York Times. When he station. The laser will be able to fire off 1,000
was an ice-skating teenager, he obsessed over the structure of snowflakes and de- pulses per second—hopefully bleeding off any
vised a way to transfer their likenesses to film before they disappeared. As an adult bolt that Zeus can hurl. MHH
in the 1940s, he put some dry ice into a freezer and breathed into the cold box.
“Instantly the little cloud turned into tiny ice crystals,” the obit reports. Schaefer
took that knowledge to the skies of Massachusetts in 1946 and dropped two kilos
of dry ice from a plane. He watched water ice form and snow fall below the plane. gested a possible precipitation uptick of 5 to 15 percent.
That same year, physicist Bernard Vonnegut—writer Kurt’s brother—realised that In 2014, Rauber and French, along with Bart Geerts,
silver iodide could also be used to seed clouds. Dry ice had to be dropped inside a professor of atmospheric science at the University of
the cloud to work, but silver iodide could be sowed outside the cloud and drift in. Wyoming, and Katja Friedrich, an associate professor of
Scientists have primarily used the compound ever since. atmospheric science from the University of Colorado at
SNOWIE investigator Rauber worked on some of the big follow-on research pro- Boulder, joined forces with the Idaho Power Company and
jects that came after Schaefer and Vonnegut’s efforts. In Steamboat Springs, Col- the National Center for Atmospheric Research and ap-
orado, he and his Ph.D. adviser, Lew Grant, impregnated clouds in an attempt to proached the National Science Foundation. Collectively
understand their inner churnings. It was basically like SNOWIE, he says, “but with they possessed the brains and the brawn to answer all the
instrumentation that was the ’70s and ’80s version of what we have today. We were lingering questions about cloud seeding, they said. And
walking around with Coke-bottle glasses.” finally, they had the right glasses: instruments that were
Other scientists conducted research as well, in states like Colorado, Montana, powerful enough to see it in action. SNOWIE’s radars can
and Utah. One of the most conclusive experiments, in Australia in the aughts, measure clouds with fewer and/or smaller particles; they
suggested that seeding could increase snow by 14 percent. But even those results can distinguish at much higher resolution spatially and
weren’t definitive. The equipment just wasn’t good enough to see what investi- temporally; they can use higher frequencies that are sen-
gators needed to see. sitive to smaller particles. In general, says French, they
Before SNOWIE, the last big study was 2005’s state-funded Wyoming Weather have a “significantly improved ability to directly meas-
Modification Pilot Program. After nine years and $13 million, the final results wer- ure cloud particles.” They would collect the same kinds
en’t conclusive. While one experiment showed no result from seeding, others sug- of data they always had, but this time they could see the

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 51
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Far-Out Plans for Taming Our Weather
A Hurricane Chokehold
Hurricanes feed off warm water. As our
oceans grow steamier, these whirlwinds
gain power like supervillains. Choking off their
thermal energy can sap their strength, which
in turn can save lives, while also lessening the
billions of dollars in damages they inflict with
every season’s new landfall.
Stephen Salter, an engineer at the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, created a pump that
sits atop the ocean and uses wave energy to
send warm water to the cold depths, where
it becomes lukewarm, rises, and thus cools
the surface. But to achieve the storm-stop-
ping temperatures you need in the Atlantic
Ocean’s Hurricane Alley, you’d have to deploy
“wave sinks” over thousands of square miles.
As with all geoengineering interventions,
this requires more research to understand
collateral effects; the pumps could boost nu-
trient and oxygen flow and benefit marine
creatures. But changing temperature could
change the ecosystem, bringing harm to
those creatures. The pumps might find other
uses; its early backers have used them in lakes
to combat zero-oxygen zones. MHH
microphysics of the situation.
Idaho Power, which has run a seeding program since
2003 despite the scientific uncertainty, would use its
plane to disperse the silver iodide and would run its usual
data-collection systems. The scientists would employ in-
strument-laden planes and mountaintop radar stations.
The information would be recorded on machines provid-
ed by the researchers, the National Center for Atmospher-
ic Research, and Idaho Power, and would be pooled later
for all of them to analyze. Together, they would evaluate
what actually went on inside clouds, and what it meant for
thirsty areas, ski resorts, and hydroelectric plants.
By now, these questions have taken on greater urgency.
What may have started almost a century ago as a willful
urge to make the weather more convenient for humans has
evolved into a necessity to support drought-parched regions.
The county of Los Angeles has funded seeding projects in
52 POPULAR SCIENCE
areas that drain into its watersheds. Utah, California, and Idaho try to boost the snow-
pack that melts and then supplies their drinking water and drives their hydroelectric
dams. Colorado ski resorts in Vail, Aspen, and Winter Park want more snow to survive
their critical tourism season. “We’re very, very desperate for water,” says Friedrich,
one of SNOWIE’s principal investigators. “That’s the bottom line. Even if it’s just a lit-
tle bit of water, that helps.”
The second time the SNOWIE team submitted a proposal, the National Science
Foundation agreed to sponsor the project.
THE GROUP SET UP ITS BASE IN IDAHO FROM JANUARY 7 TO MARCH 17, WITH THE RESOURCES
to do around 20 seeding sessions. Every day they would determine, via their own
weather balloons and outside forecasts, whether the clouds saturated with su-
per-cooled water would form at the right temperature and height over the mountains.
Josh Aikins, Friedrich’s graduate student, was a key member of the mountain ra-
dar group. He’d snowmobiled only once before, when he was a teenager on vacation
in Vermont. But he quickly got the hang of sliding up to the Packer John Mountain
radar site, at 7,000 feet of elevation—even when the snow was so new and light that
the machine meant to float atop it instead sank down and needed to be dug out.
Aikins had fallen in love with snow as a kid when the Blizzard of ’96 blanketed the
Mid-Atlantic. The snow drifted into banks that reached over the roof of his family’s
York, Pennsylvania, home. He graduated from Penn State with a degree in meteorolo-
gy but knew he didn’t want to be a weatherman. “I’m a T-shirt and shorts guy,” he says.
When the SNOWIE team decided to try for a seeding run, Aikins and the other
radar-runners packed up a week’s worth of food and clothes into the vehicles; given
that they were purposefully driving up the mountain during storms, they never knew
how soon they’d be able to get back down. One time the 10-mile ride was so chal-
lenging, it required seven professional snowmobilers to help them out.
Each time they arrived at their site—a mountaintop with a radar system atop a
big truck and an old camper as their luxury accommodations—Aikins would fire up
the generator, warming up the radar and the camper. “We had a bunch of comput-
ers that we didn’t want to start up cold,” he says, because some electronic compo-
nents won’t function well in that condition. They’d stash their clothes and food in
the camper and dig out the drift-covered porta-potties.
Then they would scan with the radar and watch what the weather was doing.
When the seeding started, they’d search for changes in reflectivity that suggested
the electromagnetic waves were bouncing off an area of newly formed ice particles.
Aikins remembers well the day of the first signal. “We saw these linear bands
coming through the area,” he says, referring to the radar readout. “It didn’t look nat-
ural.” He sent an email to the command center, asking if the planes were out. They
were. “We could see the seeding in real time. We could see the path of the flares.”
In his public field report of that flight, principal investigator Geerts wrote
impassively of their finding: “Possible seeding signature…two bands of higher
reflectivity aligned with the seeding aircraft, drifting with the wind and dis-
persing over time.”
Put simply: They got it.
AIKINS AND GEERTS SOUND PRETTY STOIC ABOUT THAT FIRST finding, considering it was
exactly the gold they’d gone West seeking. But that’s probably because, as Frie-
drich says, everyone was —and still is—suspicious. They haven’t fully analyzed
the data. Their results haven’t undergone peer review and been published in an
academic journal.
But their online reports note three instances where snow formation could be linked
to their activity. The second time, Rauber wrote, “The seeding signatures were unmis-
takable and distinct, with the lines mimicking the seeder flight track.” They started to
believe maybe the signatures weren’t a coincidence—and they wanted more. Soon
enough, they were rewarded.
“The remarkable thing was not that we saw it,” says Friedrich, “but that we were
able to repeat it multiple times.”
Rauber, who’s worked in seeding without certain results for decades, cops to
 MOD SQUAD

his excitement. “Honestly, the first time we saw this, I was giddy,” he says. “I was
almost dancing around in the room.” Think of it from “the perspective of an old
cloud seeder,” he implores. He labored throughout the ’70s and ’80s, trying to see
a signal those Coke-bottle glasses just couldn’t bring into focus. And now it’s like
he’d had Lasik surgery.
Of SNOWIE’s data, Derek Blestrud—a meteorologist with Idaho Power and presi-
dent of the North American Weather Modification Council—said, “What we got was
well above and beyond what anybody imagined.”
EVEN THOUGH THE TEAM CAPTURED THOSE ZIGZAGS, THEY STILL HAVE A LOT of work to do
before they can tell the world exactly how—and how well—cloud seeding might
work. Depending on who you ask, they’ll be digging into data for four to six years,
although they aim to get the whiz-bang results out within 12 months. “We have more
data than any of us ever dreamed of being able to collect,” French says.
The plane alone scooped up 25 gigabytes of data on each of its 18 flights, gleaned
from the radar and laser systems, as well as from its direct temperature, pressure,
and water-vapor probes. The scientists will sort through that and ground-based
research, and do some interpretation and analysis on local machines at their uni-
versities and at the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado.
That will give them a rudimentary understanding of what the gigabytes signify:
the physics of how snow forms and falls naturally in the mountains, how burn-
ing bits of inorganics alter them, the impact on weather
as a whole. As French puts it, they’ll have 100 pieces of a
5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
To get the complete picture, they’re gonna need a bigger
box—a supercomputer. The National Center for Atmos-
pheric R search has a new one named Cheyenne, with 5.34
petaflops of capacity. It’s the 20th-fastest calculator on the
planet. Cheyenne will show how well the physical obser-
vations—from the planes, the radars, and the real world—
match up with the predictions. And based on how well they
do or don’t, the SNOWIE team and other scientists can
then tweak the predictors to better see which weather is
the most fertile for modification.
This isn’t just about Idaho. SNOWIE will figure out the
underlying mechanisms that determine how clouds come
to form, evolve, and drop snow—whether seeded or not—
down to Earth. “It should apply anywhere,” says Geerts.
After all, physics is physics, on Earth as it is in heaven, as it
is where the two meet.
Sarah Scoles is the author of Making Contact: Jill Tarter and

Far-Out Plans for Taming Our Weather

A Rain Un-maker
Severe and continuous rainfall is not only depressing, but it also can
create crop-killing floods, sweep away homes, and destroy infrastruc-
ture. To curb the deluge in hard-hit locales, researchers are firing lasers
into clouds—both natural and lab-simulated ones—to stop the drops.
Physicists have found that as lasers ionise air inside the clouds, the
tiny nucleation sites where water forms (around dust and bacteria)
become moisture magnets. As more sites attract more moisture, they
compete with each other. Water droplets need mass to fall, so they
take much longer to become fully grown and do that dance. While
clouds still might rain, at least it won’t be until after your parade. MHH

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 53
54 POPULAR SCIENCE
 STORM KINGS

Creating fearsome weather, indoors by Kevin Gray

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 55
STORM KINGS
AUGUST DAYS IN THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE, THE TROPICAL
heat steam-cooks everything. UPS drivers slap wet
bandannas to their foreheads. Pirate-themed mini-golf
parks, shimmering like mirages, lay deserted. But a few
miles from the Gulf motels and sandy beach malls, en-
gineers like Kirk Parrish face the worst snowstorms of
their lives. Sheathed in parkas, they cold-start their pick-
ups and drive straight into stinging, minus-40-degree
whiteout blizzards. Indoors.
“It’s absolutely crazy seeing an indoor snowstorm,”
says Parrish, a diesel engineer at Ford Motor Company
whose job is to make sure your F-150 can start and run in
Prudhoe Bay extremes. To prove it can, and tweak things
if it can’t, he treks each summer to the McKinley Cli-
matic Laboratory at Elgin Air Force Base. Sprawled over
several buildings, the lab is the largest indoor-weather
testing facility in the world and can conjure nearly any
meteorological hazard: ice storms, corrosive fog, driving
rains (up to 685 mm per hour), 73-degree heat, jungle hu-
midity, and 70-km-per-hour sandstorms.
The lab has been operating since 1947, when the US
Army Air Corps (now the Air Force) began assessing
warbirds there. A few years later, it opened its doors to
the rest of the military and, in the late 1980s, to private
56 POPULAR SCIENCE
companies. It has since served as a proving ground for
all sorts of consumer goods, from Ford trucks to Good-
year snow tires to Google’s Internet-beaming Project
Loon balloons. It’s the last stop for most commercial
jets seeking FAA certiication. And the lab has tested
just about every warplane in the US arsenal, including
Northrop Grumman’s B-29 bomber, Lockheed Martin’s
C5 Galaxy transport (which barely cleared the ceiling),
and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. “I cannot tell you of a
military aircraft that hasn’t been through here,” says lab
chief Dwayne Bell, who has seen hundreds of jets roll
through in his 26-year tenure.
On a mid-April day, Bell was juggling logistics for at
least a dozen products of every make and size. They
were coming, going, or begging for a slot in his sched-
ule. Later this year he expects to see the Bombardier
Global 7000, a new ultra-long-range business jet.
“The fact is, we get requests for all manner of things,”
he says. “We’re talking to a company that makes
ofshore-drilling equipment. I got a call yesterday from
one that wants to bring in a snow blower.”
A LOT OF BUSINESSES WHOSE PRODUCTS NEED TO HOLD UP IN
nasty weather subject their boots, tents, gloves, planes,
boats, and trucks to Mother Nature’s direct assault. But
waiting for her to rain down her worst—and apply it
evenly to your prototype in remote places like the Arc-
OPENING SPREAD: U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MICHAEL D. JACKSON/RELEASED: THIS PAGE: COURTESY FORD MOTOR COMPANY
tic or the Amazon—is a huge time chew. And it clips the
R&D budget. Plus, it’s really hard to accurately meas-
ure results and track problems in harsh conditions, and
then hit repeat. And isn’t that, after all, the essence of
Torture the scientiic method: to replicate an experiment, to of-
Chamber
The steel-clad fer skeptics rock-solid proof that your stuf works?
doors to the Main That, in fact, was the shrewd insight of a little-known
Chamber (below)
weigh 100 tons
World War II-era US Army Air Corps commander:
each. Lt.  Col. Ashley McKinley. Stationed at Ladd Field,
Alaska, the former pilot—who had photographed
American explorer Richard Byrd’s Antarctic expedi-
tions in 1928 and 1929—ran the Army’s Cold Weather
Test Detachment. With a global war on, the military
had to operate in many extremes, from Arctic tundra
to Far East rainforests. McKinley found hauling ma-
terial to Alaska expensive. And testing in the variable
outdoors yielded spotty results. He igured it would be
more efective and eicient to create weather on de-
mand and test under controlled conditions at one-tenth
the cost. In September 1943, the cold-test program
moved to the easily accessible Elgin Field air base, on
northwestern Florida’s Gulf Coast. Four years later,
the newly built Main Chamber began punishing its irst
planes. And over the next 50 years, the lab tested some
300 aircraft and 2,000 other pieces of equipment, in-
cluding missiles, bombs, Howitzers, and Humvees.
In the early 1990s, the lab’s engineers, welders, and
electricians embarked on a $100 million, ground-up
rebuild to accommodate larger aircraft and to install
updated refrigeration and heating machinery, as well
as electrical and steam equipment. When the retooling
inished in 1997, the centre expanded its commercial-
 client roster. As military equipment became more
sophisticated, it took longer to get to the testing phase.
So commercial clients, Bell says, “help pay the bills.”
Today, the lab has six chambers. Two of the most
extreme rooms were added in the early 1970s to
meet the military’s global portfolio. In the Salt Test
Chamber (16 m by 5 m wide, and 5 m tall), techni-
LOCKHEED MARTIN PHOTO CREDIT
MICHAEL D. JACKSON/RELEASED
cians can spray metal-eating sodium chloride to
test for corrosion resistance. The Sun, Wind, Rain
and Dust Chamber (16 m by 16 m, and 10 m tall) has
fans that can blow 70-km-per-hour sandstorms, the
kind you see US Army grunts in Afghanistan posting
on YouTube. And to better simulate doing time in a
Middle East gulf state, techs can switch on heat lamps
set as high as 73 degrees to bake tanks, radar systems,
missile launchers, aircraft tugs, and Army transports.
The crew at McKinley recently vetted a new Army gen-
erator that will sit outside “little tent cities,” says Bell,
to power air, iltration, and electrical systems.
The main attraction at McKinley, however, is its Main
Chamber. At 75 m wide, 79 feet deep, and 23 m tall at
its highest point, its size allows the lab to test extreme-
ly large planes. The most notable ones to roll through
its 200-ton steel-sheathed doors include Boeing’s 787
Dreamliner, which earned its foul-weather wings there
in 2010, and Lockheed’s C-5M Galaxy transport, the
(Above) Solar
lamps heat-soak largest plane ever to enter the US leet.
an F-35B Joint The Main Chamber’s primary modes are hot and
Strike Fighter.
cold. During heat testing, crews can use lamps to bake
an aircraft or switch on steam vents to also bathe it in
humidity. The lamps can mimic a 24-hour solar cycle,
coming on at dawn, peaking in a 60-degree sizzling
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 57
STORM KINGS
How’s That
Antifreeze?
Ford tests
as many as 75
prototypes at
McKinley each
summer. Here, an
engineer checks
an Explorer in
minus-30-
degree temps.
heat, and then gradually sunsetting. Engineers will also
Freeze, check to make sure the plane’s aviation and communi-
Then Bake cations electronics hold up. “Most electrical is happy
In 2002, McKinley
subjected when it’s cold, not when it’s hot,” says Tom Sanderson,
Lockheed manager of research and technology for Boeing, who
Martin’s F-22 also served as a light-test director for the 787.
Raptor fighter
jet to Arctic The lab’s closed-loop cold mode was created for the
lows (left) and other end of the thermometer. To create a deep freeze,
desert-heat
extremes (right). the system works just like your home air conditioner. It
cools a liquid refrigerant, sends it through some coils,
and then blows air over them. Then it recycles the cold
indoor air to chill things down even more. But this is
no window unit. McKinley’s supersize compressors
can run at 1,200 horsepower (like having a Bugatti as
your power source). Its six primary cooling coils stand
10 feet tall, with 100-horsepower ducted fans that can
move 78,500 cubic feet of air per minute. It can take
Bell’s crew around 12 hours to drop the chamber’s
mercury to minus 40, the preferred temperature for
simulating an overnight stop on tarmacs in the Cana-
dian Arctic or Siberia. After cold-soaking its 787 for 12
hours, Boeing’s engineers went through a textbook re-
start: draining luids, servicing hydraulics, and using an
auxiliary-power unit to warm the cabin, just like they
would if they were preparing for boarding passengers.
McKinley’s staf doesn’t actually test planes or
anything else that rolls through its doors. That’s the
job of the corporate employees and test pilots. Because
these machines are prototypes, they’re rigged with
thousands of sensors and are often accompanied by as
many as 30 to 40 engineers, a dozen of whom might sit
inside a craft during assessments. McKinley can run a
cable from the jet to an instrumentation booth where
58 POPULAR SCIENCE
the lab’s technicians can record indings for the client.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NICK TOMECEK/NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS VIA AP; COURTESY USAF—LOCKHEED MARTIN (2)
“It’s just raw data to us,” Bell says. “We don’t know
whether the numbers mean it passed or failed.”
THE REAL FUN ENGINEERING STARTS WHEN A PLANE IGNITES
its engines inside the Main Chamber. The physics of
air pressure say that doing this could destroy the build-
ing and everything in it. A jet engine can suck in 1,000
pounds of air mass per second. Without precautions,
that force would pull down the walls of the hangar. Thus
Bell’s team must feed air into the hangar at the same
rate the engines devour it. They achieve this feat—and
maintain the target temperature—via what they call an
air-makeup system.
For cold testing, engineers super-cool a
powerful refrigerant known as R30, or methylene chlo-
ride, to minus-70 degrees or lower. They then send
this potion through a set of coils while fans blow fresh
air over them, generating a powerful wind that travels
through ducts and enters the Main Chamber slightly
below the target temperature of minus 40. There, the
jet engines draw it in and blast it back into the world via
an exhaust duct.
“There’s no automation to the system,” says Bell.
“We have a refrigerator operator on a headset with the
pilot in the cockpit. As the pilot advances the throttle,
he’s telling the air-makeup operator, getting permission
to proceed, and our guy is speeding up our air-makeup
fans to match the mass of his airlow, and manipulating
valves to control how much luid goes back and forth so
we can control the temperature.”
McKinley took on one of its most challenging tests
ever on September 24, 2014, when a small tug pulled
 Lockheed’s F-35B into the Main Chamber for six months
of harsh weather. “That was a major, major test for this
facility,” says Bell. “The things we had to do to prepare
were the same as always, but on a much grander scale.”
The setup was a brain-bender. The centre’s maniacal
weather-makers would have to hurl every climatic ex-
treme at the F-35B while its engine and turbofan blasted
at hover and light speeds—putting out 40,000 pounds
of thrust—without actually hovering or lying.
The F-35B had to sit 13 feet of the loor to accommo-
date its exhaust pipe, which can swivel 90 degrees and
allows the ighter to take of and land vertically. McK-
inley’s crew anchored the jet to the cement loor by at-
taching pipes to the landing struts and connecting them
to an I-beam frame. Welders had built a custom duct
system to collect all of the über-jet’s exhaust.
After engineers spent several weeks evaluating, test pi-
lot Billie Flynn climbed aboard for the light test. No one
U.S. NAVY PHOTO BY MICHAEL D. JACKSON/RELEASED
had ever started an F-35B inside. Dozens of engineers and
government oicials huddled in a portable cabin near
the plane’s wingtips to monitor data feeds as Flynn went
through the prelight checklist.
“I wouldn’t say I ever get scared,but I was really, really
anxious to igure out what it would be like to turn this jet on
in a building where there was nowhere to eject.” The test
platform was the largest setup ever assembled at McKinley.
When Flynn ired up the engine and pushed the throttle, he
felt the usual surge of light, but the plane—and the build-
ing—stayed put. “When you feel that and you’re chained to
a platform,” he says, “that is a pretty darn cool trick.”
Flynn sat in the cockpit for several days, testing the
engine in minus-40-degree Arctic chills and ice storms
conjured by 20-foot-tall spray bars, each with 300 water-
atomizing nozzles. “We had to make sure ice didn’t build up Blow-Out
in the lab’s wind tunnel,” says Marc Thompson, a Lockheed Like a massive
engineer who took part in the test. “You want to make sure hair dryer,
nine ducted fans
a big chunk of it doesn’t come lying at your plane.” inside this cone
Hundreds of the F-35B’s system parameters were tested blast power-
ful winds over
across dozens of foul-weather scenarios. The engineers the spray bar in
examined the oil, which turns viscous in the cold, mak- front-creating
ing sure it would be able to move deep into the engine at ice clouds and
whiteout
minus-40 degrees. They tested the pilot’s display, making blizzards for
sure it didn’t get wonky in 45-degree heat, still allowing its this F-35B
operator to lock in an enemy target 160 km in the distance. fighter.
You’d expect anyone working on a $100  million
stealth plane to be evasive about what they learned, but
Flynn and Thompson swear they’re being candid—and
that the jet performed better than expected. “The com-
putational models were good,” says Thompson. “We
really didn’t get surprised during this test.”
The price tag for all this was reportedly as much as
$25,000 a day, which Flynn considers better than the al-
ternative: chasing bad weather around the globe and hop-
ing for the best. “This is the only place in the world where
we can control all conditions to the nth degree. And do it
again and again, like in a controlled science experiment.”
Or maybe he’s just grateful for the expertise that
enabled him to throttle the engine without collaps-
ing the building and crushing everyone inside it. “I
remember thinking,” he says, “if something goes
wrong, this is not what I want to have in my obituary.”
Kevin Gray is a long-time tech and business journalist and, more
important, PopSci’s executive editor.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 59
 WHOOPING
CRANE
Grus americana

BY THE 1940S,
North American
hunters and devel-
opers had driven
these birds to near
extinction. Though
they rebounded,
changing weather
threatens them anew.
Cranes nest in Arctic
wetlands, surround-
ed by natural moats.
Persistent warmth
shrivels these defens-
es, exposing chicks to
predators. But intense
storms can drown
hatchlings. Annual mi-
grations to Texas bring
other challenges: Dry
watering spots along
the way force them to
fly farther between
rest stops.

JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

Humans aren’t the only ones battling the forces of nature. Meet eight other
creatures living on the brink— thanks to extreme weather and climate change.

by Mary Beth Griggs

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 61
 THE LOSERS

HARLEQUIN FROG
Atelopus sp.

VIBRANT HARLEQUIN FROGS ONCE

carpeted the ground throughout
Central America. Now, more than a dozen
species of the genus Atelopus are thought ex-
tinct.El Niño-related weather changes have
driven clouds higher than normal in the An-
des, creating a cool, moist environment that’s
ideal for frog-killing fungi. In other regions,
drought bakes surviving frogs’ skin. “The fact
GREGORY MD/GETTY IMAGES

that these are small animals and people don’t

know as much about them doesn’t mean that
they are not important,” says Ecuadorian
biologist Luis Coloma, whose hometown
was once rich in these frogs. “They are as
important as the polar bear or the panda.”

GIANT PANDA
Ai l u r o p o d a m e l a n o l e u c a

H I G H LY S E N S I T I V E M A M M A L S ,
pandas start to overheat at temperatures
of just 25 degrees. As climate change drives
the mercury higher, they run out of cool
mountainside refuges to chill in. Forced
to climb ever higher for relief, Central
China’s roughly 1,800 wild pandas might
eventually have to move beyond their only
source of food. Pandas evolved to rely on
nutrition-poor bamboo, and can only di-
JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

gest a tiny portion of the quantity that

they eat. So to survive, they chow down
on around 13 kg of the plant each day. But
bamboo forests are slow-growing and
not likely to migrate with the pandas—
dooming them to a hot or hungry future.

62 POPULAR SCIENCE
 THE LOSERS

KOALA
Phascolarc tos cinereus

T H E S E M A R S U P I A L S R E LY O N
eucalyptus trees for everything: shelter ,
food, and water, even though the leaves are
mildly toxic. Unfortunately, an increase
in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is
changing the basic chemistry of eucalyp-
tus leaves, leaving them less nutritious and
more poisonous. To make matters worse,
rampant droughts across Australia dry out

JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

foliage, meaning less moisture for koalas.
In parched areas, the creatures can die of
kidney failure brought on by dehydration.
Some of these animals are now drinking
from watering stations set up by research-
ers. Until recently, it was thought to be in-
credibly rare for koalas to actually sip liquid.

WOODLAND
CARIBOU
Rang ifer tarandus caribou

THE DEEP SNOW OF NORTH AMERICA’S

sodden, peat-covered forests
has long kept competitors of the wood-
land caribou at bay. But warming tem-
p e ra t u r e s d raw i n o t h e r d e e r — a n d
w o l v e s f o l l o w, e a g e r l y d e c i m a t i n g
the caribou population. Their tundra-
dwelling cousins—reindeer and caribou—
are also threatened by changing weather.
JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

As sea ice retreats along their habitat, it

evaporates, enters the upper atmosphere
as moisture, and turns into intense rain
that freezes atop the snow, trapping the
plants they eat underneath a layer of ice.
This vicious water cycle can starve to death
tens of thousands of creatures at a time.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 63
 THE LOSERS

CHEVRON
B U T T E R F LY F I S H
Chaetodon trifascialis

THIS STRIPED SWIMMER IS A PICKY

e a t e r, d i n i n g o n o n l y t a b u l a r a n d
staghorn corals. Normally, that’s fine. Both
fish and corals live in waters all over the
world, from Hawaii to the Red Sea. But ocean
temperatures are rising, killing the corals in
massive bleaching events in which they lose
JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

their symbiotic algae. When cyclones smash

up the already vulnerable reefs, fish suffer
all the more. It’s possible some outposts
of butterflyfish will survive, waiting to re-
turn to their old haunts should corals ever
recover. But that process could require that
seas stay calm and cool for a decade or more.

64 POPULAR SCIENCE
 THE LOSERS

ADELIE PENGUIN
Pygoscelis adeliae

W I T H N E S T S B U I LT O N BA R R E N,
craggy ground, the newborns of this
species already get a hard start to life. But
rising temperatures on the West Antarctic
Peninsula have led to more snowfall and
made puddles a more common sight,
submerging or swamping their already
exposed roosts. Cold, wet nurseries can

JOEL SARTORE/GETTY IMAGES

prove fatal to chicks that have yet to de-
velop waterproof adult feathers—assum-
ing the eggs don’t freeze in frigid pud-
dles before the birds even get the chance
to hatch. The result: Populations in this
area are decreasing rapidly, and research-
ers worry what the future might hold.

SNOW LEOPARD
Pa n th e ra u n c i a

THIS SPOTTED AND THICK-COATED

cat thrives in a Goldilocks zone between
2,900 to 5,450 metres across the Tibetan
Plateau, a frigid, rocky region that offers
wild goats and sheep as prey. But rising tem-
peratures are pushing the zone higher,
forcing leopards and their quarry up the
slopes, fragmenting their habitats into iso-
lated summits. Rising temps also pull in
competing predators like common leop-
E/GETTY IMAGES

ards, which previously avoided the chilly

heights in favor of forested hunting grounds
at lower elevations. Humans are moving in
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On sale now
 HOW 2.0
ISSUE 104 JULY 2017

BUILD THE
ULTIMATE HOUSE...

...AND STOCK IT FOR

DOOMSDAY!

NEXT GENERATION
SAFE ROOM

CONCRETE DOMES
ARE THE BEST

INVENTIONS
WE WANT
 The Everything-
Proof House
by HARL AN MURPHY
4) Ceramic
Windows
In an intense fire, cold
water from a fireman’s
hose delivers a thermal

W e’re used to nature’s wrath in Australia.

But the US? Not so much. They know
disasters, but not like us. Except... things are
changing for the worse, even over there. The
environment can, at any time, put even an
American’s home under siege. But with clever
architecture and advanced materials, houses
can defend themselves.
Of course, this home, with its mash-up of
different windows and walls, isn’t particularly
realistic. It doesn’t have to be; no part of the
shock that shatters
traditional windows,
feeding oxygen to the
United States has to face all of these weather flames inside. But clear
disasters at once. But the technology that ceramic windows can
went into it is real. So anyone preparing to withstand temperatures
batten down every possible hatch, should up to 700°C without
consider incorporating some of these designs. expanding or contracting.

1) Foundation
Foundations, which
prevent homes from
sinking into the ground,
typically come in one
solid piece. But a vented
design lets floodwater
pass underneath the
living structure, leaving it 3) An Air-Gapped
unaffected. Alternately, Exterior
mount the house on piles Wind and rain drive
and cover the gaps with water up and behind
3
breakaway walls, which traditional siding,
detach during a flood. soaking a home’s frame.
Solution: Keep an air
barrier between the
fibre-cement siding
panels and the house. If
a little rainwater gets
2 past the siding, it will
simply drain out through
the bottom.

2) Trees
Keep trees at least 5
metres away to protect
your home from
windborne branches.

70 POPULAR SCIENCE
5) Unsmashable 7) Steel Siding
Windows Worried about wildfires?
When struck with Clad your home’s exterior
high-speed hurricane in fire-resistant panels.
debris, shatter-resistant By sandwiching closed-
6) ...Or Shutters cell flame-resistant
polymer layers laminat- To protect windows
foam inside a metal shell,
ed between the panes
allow this glass to act
like a car windshield: It
and doors, try storm
shutters, particularly
retractable ones like you
these siding alternatives
keep fire at bay. (They’re
How 2.0
might crack but won’t great insulators too!)
might see over a closed
shatter. The material shop. When deployed—
comes in varying either with a motor or by
strengths—the sturdiest hand—the aluminium 8) Concrete Wall
can stop bullets. slats interlock and fasten For simple fire and wind
along the bottom to resistance, no material
create an armoured beats concrete. Of
shell. When not in use, course, natural light is 9) Roof
they roll into a 6-inch box. nice, and so are doors. A In cold regions, most
solid slab of concrete homes have angled roofs
can’t provide that. So, with generous overhangs
in fire-prone areas, a mix to let snow slide off.
of concrete and steel- Why? On a flat surface,
siding-covered walls the fluff can melt,
offers a compromise. refreeze, and thaw
again, putting strain on
the structure and slowly
leaking H2O into your
home. To further reduce
warm, melt-inducing
spots, keep the attic cool:
Ventilate it well and
9 insulate it along the floor
rather than the rafters.

7 8

10) Lawn
Your lawn is the unsung
hero in the fight to halt
wildfires. Plant water-
retaining succulents like
agave, yucca, and
cactuses, and eliminate
dry or dead plants near
6
the house. Prune trees at
least 2 m up so smaller
branches will be safe
from a low spreading
fire, and clear away dry,
flammable plant
materials and mulch.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY L DOPA

10

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 71
 OVERENGINEERING
H ey did you notice? It’s the 21st century; you don’t need an underground bunker
for a safe room. It might even be a worse shelter—because you’re less likely to
actually use it. The three safe-room manufacturers we spoke to emphasized that

How 2.0
Safe Room the room must be comfortable, accessible, and generally a pleasant place in which
to hole up for hours at a time. That is, of course, in addition to being able to
by HARL AN MURPHY withstand the 350-km-per-hour winds of a category EF-4 tornado.

1 Walls 2 Air Supply 3 Interior 4 Foundation 5 Door

The ideal material for The room needs Make the safe room Anchor the safe room As any cop film will
the room’s walls is a adequate passive a familiar, easily to custom-poured remind you, the door is
nearly indestructible ventilation, meaning accessible space—in concrete footings or the weakest part of
insulated concrete air can still flow if a a disaster situation, to a home’s existing your wall. A safe
form, or ICF. It has a power outage takes it needs to be foundation. With the room’s storm door
concrete and rebar down the HVAC. comfortable, even for latter design, hooked needs several locks;
core, sandwiched Beyond that, the vent small children. A lot of J-bolts, which some use as many as
between foam system should access people use a normally tie a house six 25-mm steel bolts
insulating layers, with the roof of the wardrobe, pantry (the to its foundation, to connect the door to
drywall or another building. That way, if food’s there already), won’t be as strong the frame. And it
finish outside. Not the house collapses or master bathroom, as robust epoxy- should swing inward
only do the ICFs resist around the room, which provides access anchored bolts. One so you can still get out
heat in fires and those sheltering inside to running water as two-square-metre of the room if debris
impacts in storms, can still get that long as it remains safe room, held with 19 blocks the entrance.
but they also reduce sweet oxygen. during the emergency. such bolts, can
the sound of those withstand up to 90
scary noises outside. tonnes of uplift.

72 POPULAR SCIENCE
 TECHNIQUE
Dome Home
by HARL AN MURPHY
M ost buildings have lots of stuff that can come flying
off in a storm—like, say, a roof. But the top won’t pop
off a gigantic concrete hemisphere. Building a house from
one solid piece of concrete certainly helps defend against
weather: A single curved slab lacks those points of
weakness that, when struck, can make a regular four-
walls-and-a-roof collapse. But this home’s real strength
comes from its rounded shape. That’s because, when
something strikes a sphere, the force gets distributed
evenly over the curved surface. So a blow that might shake
the seams of a standard house won’t find a similar weak
point on a dome. To build that perfectly round shape,
builders inflate a giant balloon in the shape of the outside
shell. They then spray that bubble with75 mm of urethane
foam insulation. When the coating cures, they add 75 mm
Exterior Coating
Embedded
Rebar
Hangers
How 2.0
of concrete, reinforced with rebar, on top of it, kind of like
constructing a swimming pool in reverse. How well does the
dome design work? One beachfront residence, built in 2003
in Pensacola, Florida, withstood 2004’s Hurricane Ivan as it
decimated the surrounding neighbourhood. That house has
gone on to weather two more major storms. And
hemispheres aren’t just suited to squalls. In 2003, a
2,200-kilo bomb reportedly hit a rounded Iraqi mosque
that was built using the same company’s designs. The blast
destroyed everything inside the building but left its exterior
structure standing. Most homeowners seek out familiar
shapes. But as survivalists and doomsday preppers look for
secure buildings, more people are moving outside the box
and into the dome. These houses provide all the security of
an underground shelter—with the added bonus of sunlight.
Urethane Layer
Concrete
Layer
Special thanks to: the staff at Kingspan Panels,
Equitone, Technical Glass Products, Fortress Storm
Rooms, BuildBlock Building Systems, and the
Embedded Rebar Monolithic Dome Institute, particularly Gary Clark and
David B. South; and the architects John Berg of Berg
Design Architecture, Hector Magnus of Architects
Magnus, and Robert Klob of Robert Klob Designs.
P O P S C I .CO M . AU 73
 APOCALYPSE LATER
2

Find Your Inner Prepper

F or most of us, an elaborate doomsday bunker is overkill. But, when facing
down a cyclone, bushfire, or whatever Mother Nature flings at you, a little
preparation can save you from becoming part of a zombified mob. Start with
basics, like a three-day supply of water, batteries, and the infinitely versatile
duct tape. Then store these other essentials in a waterproof bucket.
by ROB VERGER

1
For Health
A good first-aid kit 1
includes more than
just antacids, latex
gloves, and Band-Aids.
The Backpacker
Extended First Aid
Kit by REI includes
sponges for bleeding,
a mould-able splint
for bone breaks,
and a bandage for 3
making a sling.

2
For Sanity
Step one: Explain to
any nearby children
what playing cards
are. Step two: Enjoy
games like Go Fish
or SlapJack with
the Hoyle Clear
waterproof deck.
It will be a welcome
distraction once
the iPad batteries
inevitably give out.

For Warmth

3 The 2-m SOL

Emergency Blanket
uses a shiny-silver
aluminium coating to
reflect 90 per cent of
your body heat back
to you. Unlike other
space blankies, its
flip side is bright
orange, making you
easier to spot in
an emergency.

4
For Alerts
Listen to tunes or
local news on the
battery-powered
WR400 Midland
Weather Alert Radio
via the AM/FM bands. 4
It’ll automatically
interrupt with
National Weather
Service emergency
alerts affecting
your county.

74 POPULAR SCIENCE
 6

How 2.0

5
For Illumination
Don’t risk dropping
your light. The Black
Diamond Storm
5 Headlamp works in a
metre of water, so it’ll
keep shining in a
deluge. The beam
reaches over 80 m,
and you can squeeze
up to 160 hours of
light out of four
AAA batteries.

6
For Life
A whistle is the best
way to help rescuers
find you when
things go sideways.
The multichamber
Whistles for Life
8
Tri-Power can reach
120 decibels (as loud
7
as thunder). Two side
chambers send tones
in opposite directions,
maximising range.

7
For Repairs

PHOTOGRAPH BY SAM KAPLAN / PROP STYLING BY WENDY SCHELAH FORHALLEY RESOURCES

The Gerber
Centre-Drive’s bit
driver (one of eight
appendages, including
pliers and blades)
lines up nicely with
the device’s centre,
making it easier to
hold, and providing
better leverage
and torque during
tough tasks.

8
For Sustenance
Each Meal Kit Supply
MRE pouch provides a
two-course meal that
cooks itself. Water
triggers a chemical
reaction that warms
up grub in about 1
5 minutes. Entrees
have a five-year
shelf life thanks to a
steaming process
that kills bacteria.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 75
 MIND MAP

I Wish Someone
Would Invent…
How 2.0 by CICI ZHANG, ELEANOR CUMMINS, AND MARK D. K AUFMAN

A Force-Field Umbrella to Stop Rain

ADRIENNE ANGELOS VIA FACEBOOK

An energy field that halts your enemy—or a downpour—would be

neat. But given that it defies gravity, it belongs solely to the
world of science-fiction, according to Caltech physicist Philip
Hopkins. However, you might be able to feign a force field, he
says, by positioning lenses at various angles so they bend light
and make an umbrella appear invisible, thus stopping rain and
inciting awe. Hopkins has made similar “invisible” objects, but no
one has found a way to perform the trick with an umbrella—yet.

Roads That Never Need Ploughing

ALLAN YOUNG VIA FACEBOOK

Christopher Tuan, a civil engineer at the University of Nebraska,

has already cleared a path for snow-melting roads. He figured
a way to lay conductive metals—such as steel shavings—on top
of existing asphalt roads, hook them to power poles, flip a
switch, and turn them into snow- and ice-busting griddles. You
might land on one soon: The US Federal Aviation Administra-
tion has agreed to test the design on airport runways.
Snow-prone states, like Tuan’s Nebraska, could be next.

A Way to Redistribute Excess

Rainfall to Drought-Stricken Areas
JOE BROWN (EIC OF POPSCI ) VIA SLACK

Nearly every water-ferrying proposal flounders on the same

challenge: Water weighs a tonne. Literally. A cubic metre of it—
the size of a washing machine—tips the scales at 1,000 kg. A
ILLUSTRATIONS BY RAMI NIEMI

convoy of trucks or cargo ships carrying the stuff might quench

a short-term thirst. But the fuel costs, says David Cwiertny, a
civil engineer at Iowa State University, would sink your efforts. A
kilometres-long canal would also work, but it would take at
least five years to finish. By then, your drought might be over.

76 POPULAR SCIENCE
 JULY 1947

From The
Terrible Automatic
Archives Washing Machines For All!
SOMETIMES THE MOST SIGNIFICANT
inventions aren’t the ones that let us fly, that
give us (nearly) unlimited energy, or allow us
to communicate across the planet. Sometimes,
the most significant inventions are the ones
that gave us back our time.
Most of us take our washing machine for
granted. Unless it breaks down, of course,
then we curse the uncanny way it managed to

Cover Soap Dispenser

Water Inlet and

Filter Screens Temperature Control

Damp-Dry Basket

Activator

Sealed-In Motor
and Mechanism explode three days after the warranty ended.
But to a world recovering from war, where
rationing was still in effect, not having to
spend an entire day washing clothes must have
Pumps Spring Mounting
seemed almost too good to be true.
Doing the laundry was a back-breaking
Casters job that involved boiling water and quite a lot
of lye. A generation before, rich people had
Simplicity itself! servants, and poor people were smelly. From
Slower than the nonauto models, more around 1900, the rising “middle class” found
expensive, and does a worse job.
Still, at least it catches on fire! itself richer than ever, but also having to do
the kind of work that was traditionally done
by, well, the Work.
A 21C washing machine is a sophisticated
chunk of tech. It has a circuit board. It knows
how heavy the load is. Some of them even know
Basically a death trap
Powered wringers were also known
as “mangles” for traumatically
obvious reasons
how dirty the load is. Some of them have apps.
Seventy years ago though, a washing
machine was rather more basic. But it still
beat, uh, beating your smalls with a stick, on
a flat rock in the river. Let us then give thanks,
to this rarely-celebrated device that changed
your grandmother’s life, saved your mother’s
life, and now has to be simple enough that
even MEN can run it.
by ANTHONY FORDHAM

Panama: Land of
Nothing Much At All
J U LY 1 9 4 7

The war is over but the Russians are coming! This exciting depiction
of 10 posts, three sailors, two randoms and a guard was supposed
to get us fired up about Panama. The Canal Zone remained under
US control after the war, but Panama sort of wanted it back. Don’t
worry, they’d get their precious water slot in due course - Panama
eventually regained full control of the canal on the last day of 1999.

8 POPULAR SCIENCE
 F YOU wanted to buy a washing machine last
I year, a clerk put your name on a waiting list; if
you were among the 2,203,981 lucky ones, you
took the first make he offered you. This year, you
may find yourself in a quandary, forced to
choose which of several new washers you want.
Like the 1947 cars, most of the washers
resemble the prewar models. Several makes
with a variety of features are available, but there
are still only two major types: the conventional,
or nonautomatic washer, with either a wringer
or a spinner for drying clothes, and the
automatic washer that washes, rinses and
damp-dries clothes at the flick of a switch.
Without wetting a hand, the user of an
automatic can do a nine-pound wash in half an
hour, a chore that still takes two hours using the
conventional washers, according to time and
motion studies...
...What happens in an automatic washer when
the clothes basket is filled with soiled laundry
and the time dial is set? The basket revolves in
sudsy water, while the clothes are agitated. At the clothes up and down in the water, thus washer-wringer accident...
the end of the washing cycle, the dirty, soapy squeezing the suds through them, but washing- ...Your washer is likely to need repairing at
water is pumped off. At the same time fresh machine authorities agree that the agitator type least once in its 15-year life. If you place an
water is sprayed over the clothes for three is the most effective for removing dirt... unmovable automatic well away from the wall to
complete rinses ... Finally, the machine cleans ... No washer equipped with a power permit easy access on all sides, you won’t have
itself, then automatically turns itself off... wringer can be called “safe” to use. Clothes the additional expense of moving the machine
...Nonautomatic washers are much older, are passed by hand through the rolls of the from its base whenever repairs are needed.
having been on the market since 1874. A washer wringer, and the 800-pound pressure of the Though clothes are washed cleaner in the
of this type is usually a portable, vitreous- revolving rollers wrings the water out. The present nonautomatics, scientific research should
enamelled tub that contains an aluminum Underwriters Laboratories require wringers soon produce an automatic washer with a higher
agitator. From six to nine points of dry clothes to have emergency releases that will spring degree of washing effectiveness...
can be placed in the water-filled tub, and a the rollers two inches apart if clothes or ...Because the wringer-type washer is the
1/4-horsepower motor moves the blades or fingers are caught between the rollers, but in cheapest (it costs $60 to $120)m it continues to
vanes of the agitator back and forth, swishing spite of all the safety releases, the wringer outsell the others. Washers with spinners cost
the clothes through the water. Some machines remains a wash-day hazard. Scarcely a day about $50 more, and automatic washing machines
have a vacuum-cup arrangement that moves passes that a newspaper doesn’t report a range in price from $200 to $300...

AMAZING PREDICTIONS!
Like we still do today, the PopSci team of 1947 loved to call upon the future to invent awesome stuff.
Here are four picks from July 1947. They got three right... sort of.

1. THINK BIGGER! 2. EXCEPT THEY’RE FREE! 4. THE LAST POST 6. WOULD SELL FEWER SHOES...
Push pedal doors? Pfft. Try Toaster in a fake tree, no. Sticker stamps have been The only 100% fail. But how
electric proximity-sensing But phone recharging in the around for years... but letter could 1947 predict Imelda
automatic doors! food court, yes! post itself is dying. Marcos? (She was 18.)

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 79
 Hail the Can !
As Xerxes logged the Hellespont f
his leet, so too have generations o
huge cannon into the sky to punish

by ANTHONY FORDHAM

T H E R E A R E T W O P E R F E C T LY Instead of hail, the storm

normal reactions to getting screwed over by cipitates sleet or slush.
nature. One is to accept it, and rebuild. The The distinctive cone-sh
other is to rebuild, and then viciously curse barrel focuses the shockw
nature and vow to mither her at every turn! such that when the hail c
Burn the forests! Salt the earth! Shoot the hail! non fires, it makes a distin
Wait, shoot the hail? Indeed. To most of us, tive whistling sound. F
hail damage means an awkward conversation the device to work prop
with a car insurer. To farmers though, a good erly, it must be fired ever
hailstorm can ruin an entire season’s crop. three seconds as the
Stopping this stuff before it starts is vital. storm approaches, passe
overhead, and departs.
The Hell of Hail Perhaps you are begin
Hail is of course a kind of “solid precipitation”. ning to see the downside
It’s more than just frozen rain, as it forms in Hail cannon manufac
thunderstorms. Super-cooled water droplets turers make it clear th
(water that is below-freezing but still liquid due these cannon aren’t po
to pressure conditions) strike condensation nu- erful enough to break-a
clei - bits of dust etc - and form tiny balls of ice. As existing hailstones. A ca
this ice whirls around in a cumulonimbus cloud, must be fired as the st
more water droplets stick to it and it grows. proaches, to prevent ice
In certain conditions, hailstones can com- ing around nucleation pa
bine together into horrific mace-like mutants So the farmer must discharge a super-loud
with weird knobbly edges that will seriously explosive whistle dozens to hundreds of times
mess up your Golf GTI, cornfield, and scalp. whenever a thunderstorm comes along. Some
Hail has ruined many lives, so it’s understand- neighbours object to the constant super-loud
able that after losing a few crops, farmers - espe- whistling noise, especially when they learn
cially farmers in the US - developed a powerful that there’s no scientific consensus that hail
urge to punish the sky with huge cannon. cannon even do anything.
The idea makes good sense on paper. Thun- All the Rage
derstorms are a part of (sometimes daily) life, Theory vs Practice Hail cannon were
extremely popular in
but not all thunderstorms produce hail. There- It’s easy enough to dismiss scientists who 1901, before we knew
fore it must be possible to somehow disrupt say there’s no evidence that hail cannon work. how hail worked
the formation of the hail in the first place. All you need to do is point out a cloud that
Heating the storm to prevent ice isn’t
practical (except on a planetary scale... ix-
nay ixnay) and shooting actual projectiles
into the sky can cause... awkward “what
does up must come down” with neighbours
and passing interstate travellers.
So the hail cannon works by producing a
shockwave - that’s why it has a conical barrel.
It doesn’t need to direct a projectile, but rather
it wants to disrupt as much of the sky overhead
as possible.

Big Loud Cone

Hail cannon are pretty straightforward. A mix
of acetylene and oxygen is mixed in a chamber,
and the resulting hypergolic explosion is di-
rected through the barrel. The shockwave hits
the clouds overhead and hopefully jostles the
hailstone nuclei enough to break them apart.

80 POPULAR SCIENCE
looks like it might produce hail, fire the can-
non and it, and then look smug when the cloud
doesn’t produce hail.
Unfortunately for the hail cannon, the tech-
nology doesn’t seem that compelling even in a
theoretical context.
Thunderstorms - obviously - produce thun-
der, which is far far more powerful, as a shock-
wave, than a hail cannon. Yet thunder doesn’t
seem to prevent hail.
But maybe it’s the shape or vector of the
shockwave though, right? Maybe the way the
hail cannon comes up from below makes a dif-
Extreme Church Bell
French vineyards used
to ring bells to warn
of incoming storms.
Things... got
out of hand.
ference. Maybe... come on... don’t tell me I paid
$50,000 for a giant cannon that doesn’t work!
Live Fire Exercise
You’ll notice I’ve been using the present
tense, when it comes to hail cannon. As a (cra-
zy) idea, they have their origins back in the
18th century, but further development and
sophistication in the last 30 years has been in-
versely proportional to the continued indiffer-
ence of meteorological institutions.
Not that the core functionality has changed
- explosion, shockwave focused through a
cone into the sky - but rather the precise diam-
eter and length of the cone, what it’s made of,
how strong the explosion is, and so forth.
There are also many more bits and acces-
sories you can add to your cannon to make it
individually an identifiably yours.
For instance, it’s now possible to buy a hail
cannon with a bolt-on weather radar. This al-
lows the farmer to sit snug in his noise-insulat-
ed house while the cannon whistles down the
wind every time it thinks it detects a hailstorm.
Companies like New Zealand’s Eggers are
quite open in saying a single cannon will only
protect an area of about 500 square metres
around the cannon’s base. Need more cover-
age? Buy more cannon!
The powerful desire to do something damnit
as yet another violent storm rolls through is
hard to fault. But there’s something troubling
about how hundreds of people complain how
the wind turbine on the ridge is giving them
bowel upsets (even when it’s not turned on)
while at the same time, farmers are blowing
giant whistles at the sky.
At least the wind farm makes electricity.

R
LINING
s in Australia that
rms, our attempts
ther normally focus
me - making more
claims of hail
seeding does seem
nt. The CSIRO has
since the 1960s,
fall by up to 30 per
wy Hydro Ltd also
to boost snowfall.
difficult to
lly that the program
ked.

P O P S C I .CO M . AU 81
TRAILER

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Issue!
POPSCI #105,

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AUGUST 2017,
ON SALE
3 RD AUGUST 2017

BLUE
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