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 FROM THE How can I get
better at taking

EDITOR
compliments?
–› p84

CONTRIBUTORS

A big mug of freshly brewed coffee, a pair of over-ear SOPHIE FREEMAN

headphones and the remixed version of Radiohead’s The King of Are you forever finding your
Limbs album (named TKOL RMX 1234567, if you’re curious) – focus is faltering? Science
this is my formula for finding focus. writer Sophie explores the
For me, coffee is like brain juice. It’s magic. I don’t even think easy, actionable ways in
which you can fortify your
it’s the caffeine; it’s the ritual of making the hot drink that seems
attention span. –› p68
to notify my brain it’s time to get to work. The headphones work
like a pair of blinkers, not just shutting out the world, but telling it not to
distract me. And the music, electronic and sparse in lyrics, seems to scratch
COVER: JIAQI WANG THIS PAGE: GETTY IMAGES X2, BBC/FREEMANTLE/JOSEPH SCANLON, BERNARD LEONARDO

the part of my brain that gets an itch to check out whatever interesting stuff DR EMMA BECKETT
might be going on in the rest of the world. Just how easy is it to avoid
This is wholly unscientific, of course, but it works for me and it’s never ultra-processed foods (UPFs)?
been more vital. I couldn’t tell you whether my attention span has gotten Nutrition scientist Dr Emma
worse (it was never very good to begin with), but it’s clear that there are more Beckett looks at the UPFs
distractions than ever before. I’m not just talking about the advent of the hiding behind healthy
packaging. –›p34
pinging, look-at-me-now smartphone notification either. Offices, the very
place where we’re supposed to get stuff done, seem to be designed to make it
impossible to actually get anything done. Open-plan, noisy and full of people
who insist on interrupting what you’re doing (I’m one of them) with their own PROF JENNIFER WEN
work, they seem to be the antithesis of what I need to be productive. As the UK legal limit for ebike
Meanwhile email, messaging apps and video calls give colleagues more ways battery power looks set to
than ever of disturbing you. It never ends. double, Prof Jennifer Wen
So, if like me you’re always on the lookout for ways to help you wean explains whether we should
yourself off distractions and keep your focus fixed firmly on the things you be worried about an
need to get done, head to p68. increased fire risk. –›p38

SOFIA QUAGLIA
Daniel Bennett, Editor It’s the bed bugs’ world, we’re
just sleeping in it. Science and
WANT MORE? FOLLOW SCIENCEFOCUS ON FACEBOOK X (FORMERLY TWITTER) PINTEREST INSTAGRAM nature author Sofia takes us
on an itchy tour of why bed
bugs are enjoying a huge
ON THE BBC THIS MONTH... resurgence right now. –›p54

The Documentary: Things Fell Apart: Season 2

Forward Thinking Okay, this isn’t strictly science, but if you’ve ever
wondered how the world became so polarised
CONTACT US
Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist
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consequences of us all living longer. Will series is vital. Jon Ronson gets to the human
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CONTENTS
REGULARS
06 EYE OPENER
Awe-inspiring pictures
from the world of science.
13 FEEDBACK
Catch up with reader
feedback, opinions and
engaging discussions here.
15 DISCOVERIES
All the month’s biggest
science news, including:
Quantum tornadoes could
usher in a new era of black
hole research; Mini organs
grown from unborn babies;
Mysterious waves detected
in Jupiter’s core; Lone orca
surprises scientists by
attacking a great white
shark; And more…
28 PROF KATIE MACK
How total solar eclipses
shaped our understanding
of gravity, space and time.
30 DR DEAN BURNETT
Why you believe your
misguided mate rather than
experts and evidence.
46
SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
Save 50 per cent on the cover
price when you subscribe to
BBC Science Focus today.
4
15
DISCOVERIES
34
REALITY CHECK
32 DR MICHELLE
GRIFFIN
Why the increasing
prevalence of
osteoporosis is a bigger
problem for women.
34 REALITY CHECK Breakthroughs in astrophysics Ultra-processed foods are hard to
The science behind the
headlines: Ultra-
are promised by the machine
that makes mini black holes.
avoid and often hiding in places
you least expect to find them.
processed foods and
where to find them; The
next generation of drugs
80
could be made in space;
Why more powerful ebike
batteries are no more
likely to catch fire.
Q&A
40 INNOVATIONS
A roundup of the hottest
trends in tech.
76 THE BIG QUESTION
Who is more intelligent:
cats or dogs?
80 Q&A
Our experts answer your
questions. This month:
How can I get better at
accepting compliments?
Do we really collect space
dust in our hair? Should
I be mixing protein into
my coffee? What is a fever
dream? Can a black hole
ever die? What is shadow
work? And more…
89 CROSSWORD
Engage your grey matter!
89 NEXT MONTH
Take a sneak peek at the
upcoming issue.
90 BETTER LIVING
THROUGH SCIENCE
Learn how to embrace
‘slow running’ and reap
maximum gains.
 FE AT URE S WANT MORE ?

48 THE EYES THAT 62 Don’t forget that BBC Science

Focus is available on all major
digital platforms. We have
WATCH THE SKY GOING ROGUE versions for Android, as well as an
iOS app for the iPad and iPhone.
The advanced new
satellite that will reveal
how humans are
changing Earth’s
atmosphere.

54 BED BUGS VS
THE WORLD
Why the bloodthirsty
bugs are so hard to kill
and why they could be Can’t wait until next month to get
about to spread. your fix of science and tech?
Our website is packed with
news, features and Q&As to
62 GOING ROGUE keep your brain satisfied.
sciencefocus.com
How more planets than
you think are wandering
interstellar space after
becoming untethered
from their home stars.

68 5 SIMPLE WAYS
TO RECLAIM INSTANT
YOUR ATTENTION! GENIUS
Our bite-sized masterclass in
Modern life is distracting
podcast form. Find it wherever
and our brains are primed you listen to your podcasts.
for constant interruption.
Here’s how you can learn
to regain your focus.

40 32
INNOVATIONS DR MICHELLE GRIFFIN LUNCHTIME
The tiny, ear-mounted device that claims to slow ageing and
ease depression… by sending electrical shocks into your brain. GENIUS
“IT’S ESTIMATED
A DAILY DOSE OF
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OSTEOPOROSIS
RELATED
FRACTURE AT
SOME POINT”
5
 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
Nightmare
fuel
TURIN, ITALY

This might look like something

pulled from the depths of your
unconscious mind during a
nightmare, but in reality, it
could be the key to eliminating
global hunger.
One of the Sustainable
Development Goals set by the
United Nations is to create a
world free of hunger by 2030.
Arguably, the most promising
(and slightly creepy) solution
to reach this goal is insects.
While crops and harvests are
at risk from climate change,
insects remain a useful source
of nutrition. They’re
sustainable, high in protein and
farming them has a low
environmental impact. This is
why researchers are studying
the best ways to not only farm
insects, but to also promote
them as a food source, both for
livestock animals (in this case)
and for people.
At the University of Turin,
researchers are breeding
Hermetia illucens (black soldier
flies) to test the effects of
insect meals on single-
stomached animals, such as
poultry, pigs and people. The
hand reaching into this
chamber belongs to Prof Laura
Gasco, who is collecting boxes
of the flies’ eggs to breed
another batch.

MAURIZIO DI PIETRO

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6
 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
Laser
guidance
KRUIBEKE, BELGIUM

Don’t believe what you see.

This room isn’t bathed in red
light; it’s actually pitch black,
save for the laser shooting off
to the right. An infrared
camera allows you to see
what’s happening here, which
is a test of the laser-guided
positioning system for the
European Space Agency’s
Proba-3 mission.
Due to launch from India in
September, Proba-3 involves
two satellites flying in precise
formation to produce an
artificial eclipse. One of the
two (known as the ‘Occulter’)
will be tasked with blocking
the Sun’s light from the other
(the ‘Coronagraph’). The
artificial eclipse produced by
the Occulter will enable the
Coronagraph to gather data on
the corona around our host
star, which is otherwise
invisible due to the Sun’s glare.
The shadow cast by the
Occulter will be just a few
centimetres wide, hence the
need for a high-precision
positioning system to keep the
spacecraft aligned. With the
help of laser guidance and
other sensors, they will fly
approximately 150m (492 ft)
apart while maintaining a
formation to within a few
millimetres (less than 1/8 inch).

ESA/M PEDOUSSAUT/J VERSLUYS

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9
 EYE OPENER

EYE OPENER
A house
made of jelly
NORTH SULAWESI, INDONESIA

You’re probably looking at this

and thinking: ‘What is that?’
This alien-looking sack isn’t
floating through space, but
rather the dark depths of the
ocean. It’s a tiny, jellyfish-like
creature teeming with even
tinier fish, worms, shrimp,
lobsters and crabs. There’s
even a seahorse tucked up
inside there too.
This is a salp, which is a kind
of semi-transparent barrel of
jelly that typically moves
through the ocean by
contracting bands of muscles
around its body. Though
they’re often mistaken for
jellyfish, salps are a completely
different kettle of fish (sorry)
and, taxonomically, are
actually closer to humans.
This photo was captured by
lowering lights deep into the
waters off the coast of
Indonesia to attract the weird
creatures that lurk beneath
the surface. The lights were
then hoisted up, drawing the
marine life upwards and
allowing divers to photograph
them in all their glory.
The array of sea creatures
holed up inside the salp aren’t
being eaten by it (salps feed
mostly on phytoplankton);
they’re using it as a refuge
from predators that would
otherwise devour them.

MASSIMO GIORGETTA

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LETTER OF THE MONTH
Solving the pothole problem
I noted all the high-tech solutions to the
problems of weather extremes destroying
FROM
Tarmac (February, p36). In France, Napoleon
SUN
planted lines of trees alongside the roads to
shade his marching troops. It has been my
observation, in France and in the UK, that such
shade prevents Tarmac from melting in
ALEXANDRIA
summer and protects it from frost in winter.
Here is an overlooked and environmentally
SYENE
sound solution to the pothole problem.
Tom Moody, via email
Regarding the potholes article – nothing new
Trends editor Tom Howarth
Staff writers Alex Hughes, Holly Spanner
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Shadows and a step counter enabled

there. Anyway, the cure is simple: a mix of LICENSING & SYNDICATION

Eratosthenes to work out Earth’s size polyurethane glue and granite gravel poured Director of International and Licensing Tim Hudson
into the potholes, when it’s raining. It will Head of Licensing Tom Shaw

In the shadows
In ‘The Counterintuitive Cosmos’ (February,
p73) you mentioned Eratosthenes measuring
the size of the Earth. He would have needed
an accurate measurement of the distance
anchor itself to the sub-strata and could be Head of Syndication Richard Bentley
PRODUCTION
dispensed from a truck similar to those that
Production director Sarah Powell
paint road markings. Minimal cost and Content operations coordinator Lauren Morris
hundreds of potholes filled daily – easy peasy! Ad services manager Paul Thornton
Richard Graham, Ellon Ad designer Camilla Owen

from Alexandria to Syene, about 1,000km PUBLISHING

(620 miles) and a very accurate way of
measuring time. How could he have done this?
Anthony Fenwick-Wilson, Shropshire
Marcus Chown replies:
Ancient people were smart! While working
at the library in Alexandria, Eratosthenes
learned that on the first day of summer there
were no shadows cast in the Egyptian town
of Syene. So he needed only to observe the
shadow of a vertical pillar at Alexandria on
the same day. He made his estimate of the
distance between Alexandria and Syene from
the time it took walkers, who were trained to
measure distances by taking regular strides,
to trek between the cities.
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There are many ‘solutions’ to the pothole problem
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Live forever? Circulations 132,360
(combined, Jan-Dec 2023)
Your headline on the hearing aids article
(January, p16) of BBC Science Focus has to be
the most sensational headline I have ever
seen. ‘Hearing aids reduce the risk of death by
BBC Science Focus Magazine is published by Our Media Ltd, under licence
almost 25 per cent’. I’d always thought death from BBC Studios who help fund new BBC programmes.
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Letter of the Month wins was one of the very few 100-per-cent © Our Media Ltd 2024. All rights reserved. Printed by William Gibbons Ltd.
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 FROM THE
MAKERS OF

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 “Reducing one major
health risk in the
population will,
indirectly, reduce
other major risks”
Dr Germán D Carrasquilla p19

ASTROPHYSICS

HOME-MADE BLACK HOLES

Machine that produces artificial black holes could provide
new insights into the fabric of the Universe p16

ENVIRONMENT
SPEEDY RECOVERY
Coral transplants help reefs return to
health faster than expected p18

HEALTH
ANOTHER REASON TO QUIT
Study shows smoking is linked to
harmful belly fat p19

MEDICINE
CATCHING PROBLEMS EARLY
New technique could allow us to treat
medical problems before birth p20

SPACE
INNER TURMOIL
Odd behaviour of Jupiter’s magnetic field
hints at waves running through its core p21

MEDICINE
CANCER BREAKTHROUGH
AI analysis leads to startling discovery A machine that
about the nature of prostate cancer p22 produces mini black
holes is allowing
NATURE scientists to study the
fundamental nature
GETTY IMAGES

WHALE VS SHARK of these powerful

Scientists witness a shocking encounter astronomical
between an orca and a great white p22 phenomena

15
 ASTROPHYSICS

I
f you think normal tornadoes are scary, buckle
up: scientists have created one so strong that

NEW ERA FOR BLACK it resembles a black hole. In fact, the lab-based
vortex mimics black holes so well, that it holds
huge possibilities for black hole research.
LEONARDO SOLIDORO/UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM X2

HOLE RESEARCH An artificial vortex this powerful is something that’s

never been seen before and has been described as a
‘quantum tornado’. While a regular tornado rips up
OPENED BY NOVEL trees and houses and reels them around, a quantum
tornado reels atoms and particles around.

‘QUANTUM TORNADO’
Lab-based vortex promises new insights into
the nature of space-time and gravity
The team behind the vortex, led by scientists from
the University of Nottingham working in collaboration
with colleagues from King’s College London and
Newcastle University, published a report on their
work in the journal Nature.
To get the vortex to mimic a black hole, the scientists
had to use helium in its ‘superfluid’ state, where it

16

has low viscosity and can flow without any resistance. ABOVE LEFT The
These properties allow the scientists to closely observe machine used to
how the helium interacts with its surroundings, produce the vortex
that mimics a black
as the helium reveals the smallest movements in
hole
detail. This quality enabled them to discover that
the tiny waves on the liquid’s surface, simulate the ABOVE A light is
gravitational conditions around rotating black holes. used to illuminate
But superfluid helium doesn’t do this automatically. the vortex produced
It must first be chilled to t he lowest possible by the machine
temperatures, lower than –271°C (close to absolute when in operation
zero –273°C/–459°F), because, usually, tiny objects
inside liquid helium called ‘quantum vortices’ spread
apart. But, at this ultra-cold temperature, liquid
helium takes on quantum properties that stabilise the
vortices. Using a new cryogenic device, the researchers
managed to confine tens of thousands of the vortices
to create a ‘vortex flow’ resembling a tornado.
“When we first
observed clear
signatures of
black hole
physics, it was a
breakthrough
moment”
The successful experiment opens up new possibilities
for scientists to simulate their theories about curved
space-time and gravity, as researchers will be able to
compare the interactions in the simulated black hole
to their theoretical projections.
“When we first observed clear signatures of black hole
physics in our initial analogue experiment back in 2017,
it was a breakthrough moment for understanding some
of the bizarre phenomena that are often challenging,
if not impossible, to study otherwise,” said Prof Silke
Weinfurtner, from the University of Nottingham who
led the work that resulted in the creation of the black-
hole mimicking vortex.
“We have taken this research to the next level,
which could eventually lead us to predict how
quantum fields behave in curved space-times around
astrophysical black holes.”
17
 ENVIRONMENT

I
t’s the positive environmental “The speed of recovery that we saw
CORAL REEFS CAN news we all need to hear: efforts
to heal the natural world can be
was incredible,” said Dr Ines Lange
from the University of Exeter, author

RECOVER IN JUST FOUR successful… and over relatively

shor t time scales. At least, t hat’s
of the study published in the journal
Current Biology. “We didn’t expect a full
THE OCEAN AGENCYX4, GETTY IMAGES

YEARS ACCORDING according to scientists in t he UK

and Indonesia who led a project that
recovery of reef framework production
after only four years.”

TO A NEW TRIAL has managed to successfully regrow

Coral ‘transplants’ could bring
back reefs quicker than we
thought possible
damaged coral reefs in just four years.
Most of the world’s coral reefs are
now under threat, with some even
damaged beyond repair. But this new
research brings hope.
Coral reefs are vital habitats for
marine life and also protect coastal
areas from storms and erosion. One
such coastal area is South Sulawesi,
a province in Indonesia, where one
of the largest coral reef restoration
 DISCOVERIES

CLOCKWISE FROM FAR LEFT A diver

inspects coral growth; reef stars are coated
in sand to encourage corals to settle on them; HEALTH
local people helped the reef restoration
project; the restoration project had plenty
of support from the local community
NEW STUDY SUGGESTS SMOKING
projects in t he world is currently
INCREASES HIDDEN BELLY FAT
taking place. A large-scale statistical study reveals yet another
Known as t he Ma rs Coral Reef reason to quit the habit
Restoration Programme, the project
builds hexagonal ‘Reef Stars’ (sand-

coated steel structures) and attaches
young corals to them. They then place
the stars in reefs damaged by blast
fishing, a practice that uses explosives
to trap fish.
The team observed corals growing
onto the structures. When corals grow
they add calcium carbonate to the
frames, but at the same time, certain
fish species and sea urchins eroded
“We didn’t
expect a full
S
tereotypes of smokers include
the slender, chic Parisian type
enjoying a ciga rette while
sitting outside a café. But a
new study suggests that even slim
smokers could be hiding an unhealthy
type of fat inside their bodies.
There’s a common belief that smoking
suppresses your appetite – and many
smokers worry about gaining weight
if they quit. However, while they’re
more likely to have lower body weights,
a new study has found that smokers
also tend to have more harmful deep
abdomen fat.

recovery of This is called ‘visceral fat’, and

it’s the unhealthy fat that’s linked to

reef framework higher risks of heart attacks, diabetes

production in
only four years”
t he ca rbon away. This beca me a n
important measure to the scientists:
whether the reefs had a positive or
negative ‘carbonate budget’ told the
scientists whether the reef was growing
or shrinking.
They found that, in just four years,
the carbonate budgets of the damaged
reefs had tripled – bringing them in
line with the carbonate budgets of
healthy reefs.
The scientists pla n to continue
observing the recovering reefs to see
how they respond to stress, such as
warming oceans during climate change.
Restoration doesn’t necessarily mean
full recovery, as the restored reefs have
not yet recovered their full diversity.
“As is so often the case, there’s no
one-size-fits-all solution,” said Lange.
“But we hope that this positive example
can be used as inspiration for other reef
restoration projects around the world.”
and dementia. In fact, visceral fat is
so hard to spot that you could have
a flat stomach and still be full of it.
To establish t he link between
lifelong smok ing a nd belly fat,
researchers from the University of
Copenhagen used a statistical analysis
tool called Mendelian randomisation.
This looks for causal relationships
between exposures and outcomes (in
this case, smoking and belly fat) by
grouping people according to their
genetic code.
They applied this tool to the results
f rom different genetic studies on
smok ing exposure a nd body fat
dist ribution. These were la rge
European ancestry studies: a study
on smoking involving 1.2 million
people who had just started smoking
and over 450,000 lifetime smokers, as
well as a body fat distribution study
that included over 600,000 people.
First, t he scientists identified
which genes were associated with
different smoking habits and body
fat dist ributions (such as waist-
to-hip ratios). They then used this
genetic information to work out
whether people with these genes had
different body fat distributions to
other people.
They adjusted the results to account
for ot her inf luences on body fat,
such as alcohol consumption and
socioeconomic background, to make
sure the link between smoking and
belly fat was as clear as possible.
What they found, though, was that
the impact of smoking on belly fat
was the same regardless of all these
other factors.
“From a public healt h point of
view, these findings reinforce the
importance of large-scale efforts to
prevent and reduce smoking in the
general population,” said the study’s
lead author Dr Germán D Carrasquilla
who published the findings in the
journal Addiction.
“[Such efforts] may also help to
reduce abdominal visceral fat and all
the chronic diseases that are related to
it. Reducing one major health risk in
the population will, indirectly, reduce
other major health risks.”

19
 DISCOVERIES
MINI ORGANS GROWN FROM UNBORN BABIES
MARK A BREAKTHROUGH IN PRENATAL MEDICINE
A new technique could allow congenital conditions to be diagnosed and treated before birth
A
pioneering approach is enabling
scientists to monitor human
development during the latter
stages of pregnancy. By growing
miniature organs – known as organoids –
from stem cell samples collected during
an active pregnancy, scientists can now
open the ‘black box’ of human growth.
The technique could also enable
doctors to not only identify congenital
conditions before birth, but potentially
treat them too.
20
MEDICINE
“The [organoids] will allow us to study
what is happening during development in
both health and disease, which is something
that hadn’t been possible before,” said the
study’s first author, Dr Mattia Gerli of
University College London.
Organoids are complex, 3D models of
organs created from human cells. They
resemble human tissue and retain the
biological information of the original cells
they were harvested from.
Until now, organoids have been derived
from adult stem cells or post-termination
foetal tissue. But regulations restrict when
stem cell samples can be obtained from a
living foetus – in the UK foetal samples
can only be collected during the first 22
weeks of a pregnancy.
These restrictions have limited the study
of normal human development beyond
that point in a pregnancy, as well as the
study of congenital diseases and potential
treatments.
But researchers at University College
London and Great Ormond Street Hospital
hypothesised that it may be possible to grow
organoids from stem cells that have passed
into the amniotic fluid, which surrounds the
foetus in the womb and protects it during
pregnancy. Because the foetus wouldn’t
“We know so little be touched during the collection process,
sampling restrictions would be overcome
about late human and the cells harvested would carry the
same biological information as the child.
pregnancy, so it’s “The organoids we created from amniotic
fluid cells exhibit many of the functions of
exciting to open the tissues they represent, including gene
and protein expression,” said Gerli.
up new areas of “We know so little about late human
pregnancy, so it’s incredibly exciting to
prenatal medicine” open up new areas of prenatal medicine.”

HOW TO GROW AN ORGANOID
1 Live foetal cells
are extracted from
the amniotic fluid
2 RNA sequencing shows
what organs the cells
came from
3 Cells begin to proliferate
when put into culture
GIUSEPPE CALÀ/PAOLO DE COPPI/MATTIA GERLI, NASA/JPL ILLUSTRATION: FINANCIAL TIMES GROUP
4 Organoids begin to form
and are separated so they
can expand independently
5 In just two weeks, mini-organs have formed
SPACE
MYSTERIOUS WAVES DETECTED
IN JUPITER’S CORE
Scientists hope unusual fluctuations in the gas giant’s
magnetic field might reveal what’s inside
U
nder the swirling surface
of t he Sola r System’s
biggest planet, unseen
forces hold clues to what
is hidden inside the gas giant. Now,
a team of scientists from Harvard
University say changes to Jupiter’s
magnetic field indicate the presence
of mysterious waves moving deep
within the planet.
A planet’s magnetic field provides
a window onto what’s going on
below its surface. Any changes to
these fields can reveal interactions
between a planet’s magnetism, fluid
flow and other forces.
Using observations from NASA’s
Juno spacecraf t, t he scientists
observed that a jet (a high-speed
current) deep in Jupiter’s atmosphere
was fluctuating in roughly four-year
periods. Their study, published in
Nature, shows that the fluctuations
were concentrated in a particularly
intense magnetic field on Jupiter
known as the ‘Great Blue Spot’.
“These changes can be explained
in large part by an eastward drift
of t he spot, but, as repor ted in
t his paper, t hat rate of drif t is
DISCOVERIES
fluctuating,” corresponding author
Jeremy Blox ha m, professor of
geophysics at Harvard University,
told BBC Science Focus.
Bloxham and his team say that
t hese f luctuations in t he Great
Blue Spot indicate the presence of
waves travelling around in Jupiter’s
metallic core: a crucial step towards
working out what’s hidden inside.
He compares these waves to waves
in the ocean that change speed as
they move. But, unlike ocean waves,
these waves may travel through
Jupiter’s core, either in parallel to the
magnetic field lines or by circling
around the planet’s rotational axis.
Working out whether the waves
a re t ravelling in line wit h t he
magnetic field (Alfvén waves) or
circling the axis (torsional waves)
will help the scientists get closer to
understanding the forces that govern
Jupiter’s magnetic field.
What’s holding them back is the
mystery that remains around the
jet at the planet’s equator. They say
they will need more precise details
about the jet before drawing further
conclusions.
21

MEDICINE
AI REVEALS PROSTATE CANCER
IS NOT JUST ONE DISEASE
DNA analysis carried out by artificial intelligence has helped
scientists make a discovery that could
revolutionise future treatment
S
cientists have used artificial
intelligence (AI) to make a
discovery about prostate cancer
that has the potential to save
thousands of lives. Prostate cancer
is the most common cancer to affect
men, with 52,000 cases of the disease
diagnosed in the UK each year. But
the AI revealed that it’s not just one
disease; it’s actually two.
An international team including
scientists f rom the Universities of
Oxford, Manchester and East Anglia,
used AI to look for changes in the DNA
of samples taken from 159 prostate
cancer patients. The AI revealed that
there were in fact two distinct types of
prostate cancer affecting them.
“Our research demonstrates that
prostate tumours evolve along multiple
pat hways, leading to two distinct
disease types,” said the study’s lead
researcher Dr Dan Woodcock, of the
University of Oxford.
“This understanding is pivotal as it
allows us to classify tumours based
on how the cancer evolves rather than
solely on individual gene mutations or
expression patterns.”
Funded by Ca ncer Resea rch UK
a nd published in t he journal Cell
Genomics, the study marks the first
time researchers have distinguished
types of cancer using AI.
In many cases, prostate cancer is
not fatal. The new AI analysis method
can help diagnose if a patient has a
less harmful type, which could help
them avoid unnecessary treatments,
as well as the potential side effects
those treatments might have, such as
incontinence and impotence.
The AI could soon also help doctors
deliver tailored treatments according to
the results of individual genetic tests.
One of the study’s co-authors Prof
Colin Cooper, from the University of
East Anglia’s Norwich Medical School,
said: “We hope that the findings will not
only save lives through better diagnosis
and tailored treatments in the future,
but that they may help researchers
working in other cancer fields better
understand other types of cancer too.”
NATURE
VIDEO IS FIRST
EVIDENCE OF AN
ORCA KILLING
A GREAT WHITE
Tourists sailing off the South African
coast film a never-before-seen event:
a lone orca attacking a 2.5m shark
O
rcas may not have the same fearsome
reputation as great white sharks, but,
as surprising new footage reveals,
t hey’re more t ha n a match for
Hollywood’s favourite predator of the deep.
Videos captured by tourists and scientists
aboard a boat off the coast of Mossel Bay,
South Africa, show a lone orca killing and
devouring a great white. Such an event has
never been seen before.
“The astonishing predation represents
unprecedented behaviour underscoring
the exceptional proficiency of the orca,”
said t he paper’s cor responding aut hor
Dr Alison Towner from Rhodes University,
South Africa.
The videos of the event, which took place in
2023, were crucial to scientific observations
published in a new study in the African
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, ARIANNA DI BARI/SHARK STUDIES CENTER SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTE,
Journal of Marine Science.
Those on t he boat watched as a 2.5m
(8.2 ft) juvenile great white shark appeared,
followed soon afterwards by an orca known
to local scientists as Starboard (because
its dorsal fin has collapsed to the right).
Starboard immediately seized the shark’s
left fin and thrust it forward several times
before disembowelling its prey.
CHRISTIAAN STOPFORTH/DRONE FANATICS SA X2
The whole event took place in just two
minutes. It’s likely the orca was after the
shark’s nutrient-rich liver, which was seen
being carried in its mouth as it left the scene
of the attack, swimming by the boat with the
tourists and scientists on board.
Later, the scientists discovered the carcass
of a second great white that had washed up
on a beach nearby. This one measured 3.6m
(11.8ft) and had an injury consistent with a
similar style of attack.
 MAIN Starboard the
“The astonishing predation represents orca attacks the shark

unprecedented behaviour underscoring ABOVE A second great

white carcass with a
missing liver was found
the exceptional proficiency of the orca” washed up on a nearby
beach after the attack

In 2022, the same research team discovered
that orcas could hunt great whites in pairs.
When hunting together, orcas (also known
as killer whales) work together to surround
and attack a shark. But this is the first time
an individual orca has been caught hunting
a great white on its own.
The new discovery will improve scientific
understanding of orca behaviour and marine
ecosystems. However some ecosystem
scientists worry that if orcas eat too many
great whites, it could disrupt the food chain.
ABOVE LEFT
“Upon reaching Mossel Bay’s Seal Island, Starboard, the orca
named for the side its
the scent of shark liver oil and a noticeable dorsal fin has collapsed
slick indicated a recent kill,” said boat on to, swims towards the
boat carrying the people
passenger Esther Jacobs, from the marine who witnessed the attack
conservation initiative Keep Fin Alive.
“Witnessing a great white shark’s fin break
the surface initially sparked excitement, but
it turned to a sombre realisation as Starboard
swiftly approached. The moment Starboard
attacked was devastating and powerful.”
Watch footage of the attack (from a safe
distance) at bit.ly/OrcaAttack.

23
NATURE

H
idden away in the dusty vaults of natural
INSIDE THE PROJECT TO SCAN history museums is a treasure trove of rare
species. Now, a new project brings over
THOUSANDS OF RARE SPECIMENS
OPENVERTIBRATE

13,000 digitised 3D scans of specimens into

public and scientific view.
A major collaborative project has created 3D reconstructions Over five years, the openVertebrate (oVert) collaboration
of previously locked away museum specimens involved 18 institutions performing thousands of
computed tomography (CT) scans that are now allowing
us to see inside the vertebrates in their collections.
There are colourised scans of amphibians, reptiles,
fish and dinosaurs… even a humpback whale.
The new approach unlocks research possibilities for
scientists and researchers, who have already used data
from the project to gain astonishing insights into the
natural world. For example, the scan of a Spinosaurus (not
seen here) has revealed that what was previously thought
to be an aquatic dinosaur was likely a poor swimmer.
“Now that we’ve been working on this for so long, we
have a scaffold that allows us to take a broader view
of evolutionary questions,” said oVert co-principal
investigator Edward Stanley.
25
 DISCOVERIES

HEALTH

TIME-RESTRICTED EATING LINKED TO

HIGHER RISK OF CARDIOVASCULAR DEATH
Skipping breakfast might not be so good for your health, after all

major new study could rock people’s opinion of time- The study’s senior author Prof Victor Wenze Zhong, chair of the

A restricted eating (a form of intermittent fasting), after

finding the practice could significantly increase the
chances of death due to cardiovascular disease.
The new research, presented to the American Heart Association,
claims that restricting your eating to a period of fewer than eight
Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Shanghai
Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, was surprised by the
results. “[I] had expected that long-term adoption of eight-hour
time-restricted eating would be associated with a lower risk
of cardiovascular death and even all-cause death,” he told
hours per day raises your risk of death due to cardiovascular BBC Science Focus.
disease by a staggering 91 per cent. “Even though this type of diet has been popular due to its
The study evaluated 20,000 participants’ diets and health potential short-term benefits, our research clearly shows that,
outcomes over a period of 17 years. However, it failed to identify compared with a typical eating time range of 12–16 hours per
even one cause of death for which the risk was reduced by day, a shorter eating duration wasn’t associated with living
restricting eating to an eight-hour window. A total of 2,797 longer,” he added.
deaths were recorded among the participants in the study, 840 Despite the study’s compelling statistics, scientists are unsure
of which were from cardiovascular causes. The average age of exactly why time-restricted eating could heighten the risk of
the study participants was 49. cardiovascular death. One possible explanation, Zhong said,
could be that restricting eating reduces muscle mass. “Loss of
lean body mass has been linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular
“Time-restricted eating may mortality,” he said.
Time-restricted eating has gained a lot of attention over the
have short-term benefits, past few years for the various health benefits it’s purported to
offer, such as weight loss, and reductions in blood sugar and
but long-term adverse effects” cholesterol levels. But even if those benefits stand up to scrutiny,
the new study casts doubt over the practice’s long-term efficacy.
“This study suggests that
time-restricted eating may
have short-term benefits, but
long-term adverse effects,”
said Dr Christopher Gardner,
Professor of Medicine at
Stanford University. But
Gardner emphasised that
t he study still has to be
peer-reviewed and details
of what foods participants
ate have yet to be revealed.
This information could
reveal nutrient density as
an alternative explanation
to the study’s results, which
Zhong acknowledges.
“Based on the evidence
as of now, focusing on
what people eat appears
GETTY IMAGES

to be more important than

focusing on the time when
they eat,” he said.
 COLUMNISTS
COMMENT
HOW A SOLAR ECLIPSE OPENED A
NEW WINDOW ONTO THE UNIVERSE
Gravitational lensing, demonstrated by a solar eclipse that
happened over a century ago, has since enabled scientists to
observe more of the Universe than was previously possible
O
n 8 April 2024, a slice of land across
North America was treated to the rare
and wondrous sight of a total solar eclipse.
The awe-inspiring event saw the Sun
completely blotted out by a perfectly positioned
Moon, temporarily turning day into night.
Millions of people watched eagerly, but from a
scientific perspective, the spectacle simply couldn’t
compare to the paradigm-shattering impact of the
solar eclipse on 29 May 1919.
Af ter t he event, t he New York Times ra n a
story on it with the headline: “Lights All Askew
In The Heavens; Men of Science More or Less
Agog Over Results of Eclipse Obser vations.”
(The women of science couldn’t be reached for
comment.) The headline wasn’t an overstatement.
Astronomers had observed a dramatic warping
not only of our understanding of gravity, but of
space and time.
From an astrophysical point of view, solar eclipses
aren’t particularly significant – they’re just the
momentary alignment of the Sun, Moon and Earth,
having little effect on anything other than a few
minutes of highly localised day/night confusion.
But they do give astronomers a special opportunity
to see things that are usually outshone by the light
of the Sun. Such things as the hazy solar corona,
for example, or any nearby stars. And it was
the nearby stars that astronomers found all askew
back in 1919.
It all relates to Albert Einstein’s theory of General
Relativity. Published in 1915, it was a fundamental
re-formulation of how gravity works. Instead of
a force between objects, General Relativity says
that gravity is actually the bending of space in
the presence of massive objects such as stars,
planets and galaxies.
“Astronomers had
observed a dramatic
warping of space and time”
28
DR KATIE MACK
(@As troKatie)
Katie is a theoretical
astrophysicist. She currently
holds the position of Hawking
Chair in Cosmology and
Science Communication at
the Perimeter Institute for
Theoretical Physics.
An apple falls toward the ground not so much
because of a force between the apple and Earth, but
because Earth is bending the space around itself.
As it happens, when space is bent by something
with mass, it’s not just other massive objects whose
paths are altered – it’s light, too. This effect is called
‘gravitational lensing’ and it provided some of the
first experimental confirmation that Einstein’s
weird, bendy-space theory actually works.
The original papers Einstein published included
a set of predictions that could be used to confirm
General Relativity, or rule it out. One of these was
the prediction that the mass of the Sun should
bend any starlight passing by it.
This effect is small but detectable: the angle of
deflection for a beam of starlight just grazing the
edge of the Sun should be only a tiny fraction of a
degree. The problem is that close to the Sun, seeing
any stars at all is impossible due to its bright light.
Except during a total solar eclipse.
The total solar eclipse of 1919 allowed astronomer
Arthur Eddington and his colleagues to photograph
and measure the positions of stars around the Sun
during those few moments of darkness.
When they returned with confirmation of the
effect, it was widely hailed as a resounding success
for General Relativity and immediately made
Einstein a household name.
These days, gravitational lensing is one of
astronomy’s most versatile tools, opening up
incredible new avenues for cosmic exploration.
Because lensing can magnify as well as shift or
distort images, it allows us to see objects that our
telescopes would otherwise be unable to detect.
It allowed us, in 2022, to observe the most distant
single star ever seen. Earendel was spotted in a
Hubble Space Telescope image as a distorted smudge
near a galaxy cluster, the image having been bent
and magnified by the cluster’s mass.
The ancient star is so far away that its light has
taken nearly 13 billion years to reach us.
Similarly, more than 200 exoplanets have been
detected through gravitational microlensing. When
a nearby star passes in front of a more distant star,
it can lens the more distant star’s light and make it
appear temporarily brighter. If the closer star has
an orbiting planet, however, and the alignment is
just right, a tiny blip of extra brightness appears
when the planet adds to the lensing.
Even invisible t hings ca n be revealed by
ILLUSTRATION: MATTHEW HOLLAND
gravitational lensing. Because the effect depends
only on mass, we can use it to map out dark matter
or light-swallowing black holes.
A huge part of science is the process of creating
tools to better observe the natural world. But
sometimes the cosmos builds the tools itself. It’s
up to us, as we stare, more or less agog, into the
heavens, to figure out how to use them.
29
COMMENT
WHY YOUR MISGUIDED MATE IN THE
PUB TRUMPS EXPERTS AND EVIDENCE
A friendly face can make all the difference when it comes to
presenting information… whether that info is right or wrong
T
he recent prevalence of ‘fake news’ may make it seem
like misinformation is a relatively modern invention.
But wild claims, falsehoods and conspiracy theories
have been part of human culture for about as long as
it’s existed. This is because misinformation originates with,
and is spread by, other people; and the people factor has a
really strong influence.
If you’ve ever had to communicate an important, but complex,
issue to a general audience, you’ll be well aware of just how
frustrating the people factor can be.
You may have terabytes of the most reliable data, meticulously
worked-out rebuttals to any possible argument, the most elegant
PowerPoint slides and the full backing of every renowned
expert in the relevant field. And yet, you can still be less
persuasive than someone whose entire argument is: “A guy
I met down the pub told me something different.”
The source of this revered information isn’t always some
random stranger in a pub, obviously. Sometimes it’s a friend,
30
or a friend of a friend, or a distant cousin. It
may even come from a series of people with
ever-more tenuous connections (“My mother’s
neighbour’s stepson’s boss’s milkman said…”)
In fairness, the individual source of the
information will (supposedly) have some relevant
experience or insight. Say you’re discussing
the safety of vaccines and end up arguing with
someone whose cousin’s roommate “works
for a pharmacist.”
In a perfectly sensible, logical world, someone
who knows someone that’s loosely affiliated
with a vaguely connected field or industry
wouldn’t carry the same clout as actual data,
or the leading experts in the field. But humans
aren’t perfectly sensible, logical creatures and
neither is the world we live in.
For all our impressive cognitive powers,
how we see the world, and the information we
latch onto and retain, are heavily shaped by
the instinctive, subconscious and emotional
processes that make up much of our brain.
And if there’s one thing that engages these
subconscious, emotional processes, it’s our
fellow humans.
ILLUSTRATION: DAQ
While our brains can and will take in and
retain abst ract information and raw data,
they don’t really like to. The ability to think
rationally and analytically is a relatively recent
“Newsreaders give
a human face to
abstract information”
addition to our suite of mental abilities (in the
evolutionary sense). And it costs our brains a lot
of energy and effort.
The more established, fundamental systems in
our brain, which shape memory and learning, are
heavily reliant on emotion. The more emotionally
stimulating something is, the easier it is to retain
and remember, particularly compared to objective
data and facts.
That’s why we can spend months revising
the material for a crucial exam, but struggle to
remember any of it once we’ve passed. Meanwhile,
the humiliating time we slipped and landed on
our backside in the school dinner queue… that
memory endures until our dying day.
Logically, the emotions of guilt or embarrassment
can’t occur if nobody else is involved in the
events. And we’ve evolved very sophisticated
neurological systems for recognising and sharing
the emotions of others, aka empathy.
It goes beyond just the emotional connection, though,
because so much of our brains are dedicated to gleaning
information from other people. We have dedicated regions for
processing faces, language, speech and more. Indeed, some
experts argue that the reason we evolved language at all is
so we could gossip.
The importance of other people when it comes to the
information we absorb is visible everywhere you look. For
instance, it would be much easier, cheaper and more practical to
share important information, such as the latest news bulletins,
with simple words on a screen – especially in the earlier
days of television. But even so, every culture you can think
of used – and continues to use – newsreaders. Why? Because
they give a human face, a human connection, to otherwise
abstract, intangible information.
It’s also (partly) why so many of us react with, “At last, a
human being!” after spending long periods dealing with an
automated calling system.
Ultimately, we’ve evolved to accept information more readily
when it’s provided by another person. They help us process, DR DEAN
contextualise and relate to the abstract, the intangible. Whether
the information we get from others is reliable or even plausible
BURNETT
Neuroscientist
doesn’t seem to matter. Unfortunately. Dean explores
The more hardcore sceptic type will often say, “Facts don’t the nature of
care about your feelings,” which is correct. But feelings don’t dreaming in
necessarily care about facts either. And ultimately, feelings his latest book
Emotional
have more of a say in what we think and do.
Ignorance
And that’s why your mate down the pub can seem more (£14.99, Guardian
believable than a whole archive of published research. Faber).
31

COMMENT
WHY OLDER WOMEN FACE A
GREATER RISK OF BROKEN BONES
The prevalence of osteoporosis increases with an ageing
population. But it won’t increase equally between the sexes
T
he world’s population is undergoing an
enormous shift because the average person is
living longer. According to the World Health
Organization, in 2020 there were more people
aged 60 and over, than there were children under five.
In the UK, there are more than 11 million people aged
65 or over and in 10 years this will have increased to
13 million, equivalent to 22 per cent of the population.
Due to this demographic change, an often-ignored
health condition – especially in women – is gaining
attention: osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to break
more easily. Worldwide, it’s responsible for almost nine
million fractures each year and it’s estimated that one in
three women over 50 will have an osteoporosis-related
fracture at some point.
It’s all due to age-related changes in our bones.
Special cells in our bones called osteoblasts are
responsible for forming new bone tissue, while cells
known as osteoclasts dissolve old and damaged tissue
“Up until the age of 30 we’re
building more bone than
we’re losing”
so it can be replaced with new, healthier tissue. A key
factor in bone health is the ratio between the activity
of these two cells.
Up until the age of 30, there’s generally more osteoblast
activity, so we’re building more bone than we’re losing.
ILLUSTRATION: KOEN DE GUSSEM/KAAN ILLUSTRATION
This doesn’t mean we’re growing additional bones,
just that our osteoblasts are building new bone tissue
– remodelling existing bones and healing damaged
ones by laying down the structure to be filled by bone
DR MICHELLE matrix (the calcium, collagen and other substances that
form the mass of our bones).
GRIFFIN
Michelle is the
But when we hit 35, our bone quality and density
begin to decrease as osteoclast activity starts to take
director of MFG Health over. This results in a small loss, approximately one
Consulting, as well as a
per cent, of bone tissue each year.
women’s health expert
and strategy advisor in This loss significantly increases in women post-
women’s health tech. menopause, when the level of oestrogen produced
COLUMNISTS
by the body has dramatically decreased. The drop in
oestrogen is thought to result in a reduction in the
number of osteoblasts and an increase in osteoclast
lifespan, so they remain active for longer.
A condition called osteopenia can arise when bone
density drops below a certain level. And if this continues
to a point where bone density is reduced to such a
degree that the bones easily break, it can progress to
osteoporosis. People say osteoporosis ‘thins bones’, but
it doesn’t; it changes bone density, microarchitecture
and quality, which reduces their strength.
Unfortunately, neither osteopenia nor osteoporosis
show any symptoms. Currently, osteoporosis is commonly
diagnosed as an ‘incidental’ finding when a woman has
already sustained a fracture and the condition shows
up in scans.
Other risk factors for developing osteoporosis include
smoking and health conditions, such as thyroid disease
and diabetes. Some medications, like steroids, can also
have an effect.
There’s no cure for osteoporosis, but its effects can be
reduced. A significant way to protect your bones is by
eating a well-balanced, varied and calcium-rich diet.
If you eat dairy products (milk, eggs, cheese) you’ll
likely get a sufficient dose. If you’re vegan or don’t
consume dairy products, however, you may need to
take supplements to top your calcium levels up.
Calcium alone isn’t enough, though. We also need
vitamin D, which our bodies produce through safe
exposure to sunlight. But most people living in countries
with low levels of sunlight, such as the UK, have
low levels of vitamin D and would benefit from taking
a supplement.
Exercise, especially activity that puts ‘strain’ on the
bones, such as progressive resistance training, can also
prevent and delay the progression of osteoporosis by
stimulating osteoblast activity. This increases the rate of
new bone formation and changes the microarchitecture
of bones, including the arrangement of collagen, all of
which increases skeletal strength.
Studies also show that resistance training helps to
build muscle strength and improves balance, so helps
us to maintain a healthy posture and reduces the
overall risk of falls and fractures. It should be noted,
however, that post-menopause, the effectiveness of
exercise in increasing bone minerals depends heavily
on the adequate availability of calcium and vitamin D,
so supplementation is strongly advised.
There are also various medications that can treat or
delay the progression of osteoporosis. Oestrogen, taken
as part of hormone replacement therapy, is the current
recommended treatment for osteoporosis prevention in
menopausal women.
While osteoporosis can be an issue for many, with
awareness, education, prevention and the correct
treatments, we can reduce its effects. And we absolutely
need to, given our growing ageing population.
33
 RE ALIT Y CHECK REVIEW

REALITY
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES

CHECK
REVIEW

Ultra-processed foods and where to find them

Ultra-processed foods can be found in some unexpected places. But they're not always bad news

ome pre-packaged foods, such as pasta and ABOVE The But exactly what constitutes an ultra-processed

S rice, are staples that many of us eat as part

of a balanced diet. Others, such as crisps
and sugary snacks, are clearly not health
foods. But for some packaged and processed
foods, the claims on the label can make it hard to
decide what’s healthy and what isn’t.
packaging and
labelling of foods
doesn’t always
provide a clear
indication as to
whether they're
ultra-processed
food isn’t always clear, certainly not from the labels
on such foods. There are some that obviously fall
into that category, but there are others that you might
not expect, for instance…

PREMIUM READY MEALS

With a recent study showing diets high in ultra-
processed foods increase the risk of more than 30
health outcomes (including cardiovascular disease
and mental ill-health), the level of processing and its
effect on our bodies is now under greater scrutiny.
Ready meals labelled with phrases like ‘finest’
and ‘best’ are marketed as premium shortcuts to a
balanced meal. At first glance, the ingredients may
look pretty good. But cooking equivalent dishes
from scratch is still a better option, nutritionally,

34

than going for the pre-packaged version. Ready
meals often contain added preservatives, stabilisers
and salt to increase their shelf life and improve
their flavour. Mass-producing ready-made dishes
is easier and cheaper for manufacturers if they use
fewer ingredients. This leads to ‘meals’ often being
imbalanced and low in vegetables. You could try
adding vegetables to a ready meal to help balance
nutrition with convenience.
PLANT MILKS
Plant milks are marketed as ‘alternatives’ to dairy
– we use them in the same way as cow’s milk and
having ‘plant’ in the name makes them sound
like a healthier option. But they aren’t nutritional
equivalents. Dairy is minimally processed, whereas
plant milks are ultra-processed. The plants
are heated, juiced, powdered or extracted, and
reconstituted in water at levels as low as two per
“It’s important
not to base your
nutrition plans
on claims made
on food labels”
cent. Key nutrients like calcium are added later,
but sink to the bottom – if the carton isn’t shaken
well and often, they won’t make it out. Plant milks
are essential for people who can’t, or don’t want to,
drink dairy milk, but the long-term effects of their
consumption haven’t been studied enough – most
of the evidence comes from studies on the plants
themselves, not the milk made from them.
MEAT SUBSTITUTES
Like plant milks, meat substitutes wear ‘health
haloes’ due to being made from plants. But crisps,
vodka and sweets are all technically made from
plants too. Any benefits come from eating plants
in their natural form, not as ingredients processed
into artificial meat. Eating less meat, particularly
processed meats, has been shown to improve overall
health. But what you replace meat with, contributes
to any potential benefits.
MEAL REPLACEMENT DRINKS
GETTY IMAGES X2
These drinks claim to provide complete nutrition
in calorie-controlled portions and with minimal
effort. This is true and, in some situations (such as
illness or injury, low appetite or just for the sake of
REVIEW RE ALIT Y CHECK
For more fact-checking
news, visit the BBC’s
Verify website at
bit.ly/BBCVerify
convenience) it can make them a necessity. However,
while they do contain all the essential nutrients our
ABOVE Plant
milks have an aura
bodies need, they are lacking in several other ways. of health, despite
Natural foods also contain ‘bioactives’, compounds
known to promote health such as carotenoids,
being ultra-
processed foods
flavonoids, carnitine and polyphenols. Meal
replacements also lack diversity, which is important
to help us enjoy what we’re eating and for spreading
any risk of repeatedly consuming the same thing. So,
it’s important that they’re balanced with other foods
and that professional advice is sought if they’re
relied upon heavily.
BREAKFAST CEREALS
These can be a mixed bag in terms of nutrition and
health. Some are hardly processed, low in sugar and
linked to health benefits, such as oats and shredded
wheat. But others are highly processed and high
in sugar, making them more like a dessert than
breakfast. Some studies have linked eating breakfast
cereals to better overall nutrition, however, so the
context of the whole diet matters.
The thing to remember is that all foods can be part of
a healthy, balanced diet, but not all foods are equally
nutritious. It’s important not to base your nutrition
plans on claims made on food labels, but to consider
how you consume these foods in the wider context
of your life and goals. We all have different health,
financial, work, time and other life pressures. by DR EMMA
Similarly, there’s no need to panic based on BECKET
headlines that claim certain foods can lead to an Dr Emma Beckett is a
increased risk of one disease or another. These can food and nutrition
scientist and
make it sound like your personal risk is doubled, but
registered
this isn’t the case. Such figures are based on relative
nutritionist at
risks for the whole population, not individuals. In
FOODiQ Global, and
other words, the percentages aren’t absolute; they’re adjunct senior
dependent on how much of the particular food you lecturer at the
eat, how often you eat it, what else you eat and what University of New
the overall likelihood of the disease is to start with. South Wales.
35
A N A LY S I S
The next generation of drugs could be made in space
A California start-up recently recovered a batch of drugs manufactured by an automated satellite
O
n 21 February, a metre-wide (3ft) space
capsule landed in the Utah desert after
eight months in orbit. Its cargo: a batch of
Ritonavir, an antiviral drug used in the
treatment of HIV and COVID-19.
Carried out by Californian start-up Varda Space
Industries, the mission was intended to demonstrate
t he potential for t he automated ma nufacturing
of pharmaceutical drugs in space, possibly paving
t he way for new a nd more efficient met hods of
developing medicines.
Varda’s W-1 mission launched aboard a SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket in June 2023. The capsule being tested
weighed around 90kg (almost 200lbs), even though it’s
theoretically capable of manufacturing nearly 100kg
of products over several months spent in orbit. For
this initial mission, however, just a small amount of
Ritonavir was manufactured during a 27-hour test run.
In-flight analysis indicated that the manufacturing
process ran as planned and although final results are
not yet available, Varda is already busy preparing for
36
a second mission that will carry its first commercial ABOVE Salt
payload into space. crystals grown in
But why go to all of the trouble? an experiment that
Over the past few decades, experiments aboard the took place aboard
the International
International Space Station and other spacecraft have
Space Station
proved that it’s possible to make small quantities of
pharmaceutical drugs in space.
It turns out that microgravity conditions cause many
of the processes used to build complex crystalline
NASA/JSC, VARDA SPACE INDUSTRIES/JOHN KRAUS X2
molecules – such as the proteins and antibodies used
in many medicines to treat everything from cancer to
heart disease – to behave differently from how they
do on Earth.
For instance, the liquid solutions from which crystals
form no longer separate according to density, plus solids
don’t naturally fall or rise within them. And the lack
of gravity means any structures that grow don’t warp
out of shape and change their nature.
“The evidence suggests that crystals grown in a
microgravity environment have an 80 per cent or
better chance of being superior compared to their
 ANALYSIS RE ALIT Y CHECK

“Evidence suggests that crystals

grown in a microgravity environment
have an 80 per cent or better chance
of being superior”

Earth-grown counterparts,” says Prof Anne Wilson, a Pharmaceutical companies have already harnessed
researcher based at Butler University in Indianapolis t he lessons lea rned f rom space experiments to
who conducted a series of experiments growing improve manufacturing processes on Earth. But
crystals in 2022. space-grown crystals can also display unusual and
“Our studies have shown that microgravity-grown useful properties, and could potentially be more
crystals are more uniform, structurally improved and effective than medicines made on Earth.
often larger,” she says. “Microgravity enhances crystallisation so that
LEFT The main you get more perfect and similar crystals,” says Dr
unit of the Varda Katie King, a microgravity researcher based at the
W-1 mission under UK space medicine firm BioOrbit.
construction (the “This technology can also be used to crystallise
automated drug protein receptors from the body that medicines target.
manufacturing We can then better understand these in laboratories
capsule is on Earth. The other application is to use the crystals
upside-down at the themselves in medicines.
top, between the
“Varda is attempting to use microgravity to find
solar panels)
potential new and more effective forms of drugs.
BELOW An We at BioOrbit, in contrast, are working on turning
illustration of the existing drugs into something that patients can
Varda’s W-1 take at home.”
mission during its When it comes to making materials in space for use
re-entry into on Earth, economics remains a big challenge. While
Earth’s atmosphere reusable launch vehicles such as Falcon 9 lower the
costs of reaching orbit significantly, Varda also plans
to make its own spacecraft increasingly versatile and
reusable, allowing refurbishment and turnaround for
relaunches on shorter timescales.
The company’s co-founder Delian Asparouhov says
the initial run cost is around $12 million (£9.5m),
but predicts that could rapidly be lowered to about
$2m (£1.6m) million per mission. With plans for later
generations of larger and more economical space labs
already in the works, other players could soon start
throwing their hats into the ring.
“There are huge benefits,” says King. “The full extent
has yet to be tapped into and there’s a lot more to
learn for drugs, medicine and life science in general.
Varda’s re-entry system is really the most pioneering
part of what the company is doing because it opens
the space for other companies to use microgravity
in a variety of new applications.”

b y G I L E S S PA R ROW
Giles Sparrow is a science journalist who
specialises in space and astronomy.

37
 RE ALIT Y CHECK COMMENT

COMMENT

More powerful
ebike batteries
are no more likely
to catch fire
With more powerful batteries, ebikes
could travel further and carry greater
loads, but there’s concern that they
could also pose a greater fire risk

T
he UK Government recently launched a
consultation that seeks public and industry
opinion on doubling the legal power output
(not speed) of ebikes sold in the UK from
250W to 500W. The plan has sparked concerns
within the fire safety community.
There’s a wide range of batteries used on ebikes, but
those currently in commercial use are all based on
lithium-ion technology. They’re battery packs made of
individual battery cells (which can be cylindrical or
box-shaped), connected together to provide the required
voltage and capacity to power the bike.
While ebikes and escooters offer a great way to get
around a city, if the batteries become damaged or
fail, they can start incredibly ferocious fires that can
quickly spread out of control. And incidents of fires
involving lithium-ion batteries are increasing. Under mechanical impact or through overcharging, ABOVE Four
According to the London Fire Brigade, lithium-ion these materials react with each other to generate heat, people were killed
battery fires represent the fastest-growing fire risk in which is accompanied by abnormal electrical behaviour in the fire that
destroyed this
the capital. There was a 78 per cent increase in battery and an increasing reaction rate. This results in cell
ebike repair shop
fires in 2023 compared to 2022, with 155 ebike fires rupture and the ejection of gases and sparks that can
in New York’s
and 28 escooter fires recorded. A recent Freedom lead to fires and even explosions. Chinatown in 2023
of Information request by The Guardian found that, When an ebike battery catches fire, it’s extremely
as of May 2023, fires sparked by faulty ebikes and difficult to extinguish because of the underlying
escooters in the UK had injured at least 190 people electrochemical reactions.
and killed eight. The wattage of a battery can be doubled by switching
Transport for London, the body responsible for the to a higher-voltage system. Increased wattage would
capital’s buses, trains and taxis, banned escooters give an ebike notably quicker acceleration, higher
from the transport network in December 2021 due to unrestricted maximum speeds and a better ability to
GETTY IMAGES

the growing concern over fires. climb hills. But, in theory, doubling the wattage won’t
So how are the fires started? Lithium-ion batteries necessarily make the battery any more likely to catch
contain flammable components and reactive materials. fire. Doubling the wattage would lead to larger battery

38

packs, however, increasing the risk of severe battery
fires and other injuries.
While several factors can contribute to lithium-
ion battery fires, the biggest risk is from the use of
off-brand products.
For example, most high-end electric bikes feature
a Battery Management System (BMS), which helps
prevent the battery cells from being over-charged
or over-discharged. These protection circuits are
intended to stop the battery pack from overheating
and catching fire.
But some cheaper off-brand battery replacements
might not feature a BMS, so not only can the battery
cells be discharged too far (and become impossible
to fully recharge as a result), but they can also be
overcharged and possibly explode.
TO REDUCE THE RISK OF
BATTERY FIRES…
• Do not open, service or tamper with
batteries.
• Charge the battery pack within its
recommended voltage range.
• Do not charge batteries on combustible
or insulating surfaces such as beds, sofas
or carpets and keep them away from
highly flammable materials such as
clothing and paper.
• Store batteries in a clean, dry and
temperature-controlled environment.
Do not store them on or near heaters or
in direct sunlight.
• Make sure a working smoke or heat alarm
is installed in areas where devices or
batteries are being charged or stored.
• Handle the battery pack carefully and
avoid exposing it to sharp objects or
excessive force.
• Always dispose of damaged batteries in
bins intended solely for this purpose.
Mechanical impact caused by dropping a battery on
a hard surface or subjecting it to a severe external force
is also highly likely to result in internal physical or
mechanical damage, which can lead to failure and fire.
Whatever the wattage, always follow the manufacturer’s
instructions when charging, storing and maintaining
your battery. Contact the manufacturer directly if you
are experiencing any issues or if the battery has been
damaged. Most companies will replace a faulty battery
if the warranty procedure has been followed.
by PROF JENNIFER WEN
Prof Jennifer Wen is head of the Fire and Explosion Modelling Group
and programme lead for Energy and Environment at the University
of Surrey’s Institute for Sustainability.
39

exercise, a better diet and even something as
brain active. But for something a bit different,
what about sending electrical shocks to your brain?
health benefits. It could be the latest tech
trend to help you effortlessly upgrade your life.
It’s not a new idea. Neuromodulation has
been around for years, but relied on implants
to deliver the electrical stimulation directly to
the nervous system. The recent development
of wearable devices capable of delivering
similar stimulation has renewed interest
in the practice, with a few companies such
as Parasym and gammaCore, developing
neuromodulation products for consumers.
There are a lot of big claims being made about
the potential of this new wave of wearable-
delivered neuromodulation, and how it can
significantly improve your quality of life. It
sounds too good to be true, but the tech is
backed by research from Harvard University
and University College London. So how does
it work? Is it safe? And why would you want
to send daily zaps of electricity coursing
through your body?
WHAT IS NEUROMODULATION?
Put simply, neuromodulation is a procedure
that alters brain activity by delivering a
stimulus of some kind. A neuromodulation
device is akin to a dimmer switch, but instead
of changing the light, it changes
“OUTSIDE OF AGEING, THE
the activity of specific nerves or
brain regions. It can be used to
increase or inhibit nerve activity
to, for instance, decrease pain
signals. Equally, neuromodulation TECHNOLOGY HAS BEEN LINKED
TO REDUCTIONS IN BRAIN FOG
can alter neural patterns altogether
to disrupt t he abnormal ner ve
signalling observed in conditions
AND DEPRESSION”
such as epilepsy, chronic back pain,
or Parkinson’s disease.
There are lots of ways to do this,
but in the case of the wearable
– electrical signals delivered via the ear.
and digestive system.
the brainstem sending targeted signals,” says Nathan Dundovic,
co-founder of Parasym.
recommend one or two sessions a week for an hour at a time.”
INNOVATIONS
IS NEUROMODULATION SAFE?
Neuromodulation can be done in two ways: implants and
wearables. Implants are more effective and the method used in
more serious cases (implants deliver the stimulation directly
to the area being targeted). But they’re also riskier. Implants
are invasive and can be linked to side effects, including skin
irritation and headaches, but also infection at the implant site,
seizures, bleeding and major fatigue.
Wearable neuromodulation devices are
the safer option. Not only are they non-
invasive by their very nature, but any side
effects they can be linked to are limited to
occasional reports of mild skin irritation.
The downside to wearable devices is that,
because they have to send signals through
the skin, they’re unlikely to work as well,
since they’re not stimulating the vagus
nerve as directly or consistently. Safer?
Yes, but probably not as effective.
HOW CAN IT SLOW AGEING?
Vagus nerve stimulation has been linked
to the slowing of chronic inflammation,
which contributes directly to the ageing
process. What’s more, research shows a
connection between neuromodulation and
improvement in cardiovascular function,
which could help combat heart failure,
hypertension and high blood pressure.
Neuromodulation has also been linked to
improvements in metabolic regulation,
including ageing factors like weight,
obesity and insulin resistance.
Outside of ageing, the technology has
been linked to an improvement in
heart rate variability and reductions
in brain fog and depression. Even
lesser-known issues such as postural
tachycardia syndrome (a rapidly
increasing heart rate after standing
up) have seen improvements.
So is neuromodulation a miracle
cure? “We’re in a world of subjective
measurements, here,” says Dr
Simon Thomson, founder of the
Neuromodulation Society of the UK
and Ireland, and a leading expert
in the field. “We’re modulating the brain circuits, but those
circuits can be modulated by other factors. It’s challenging to
prove something is causing the positives.”
“However, [wearable neuromodulation devices] have a very
low risk, as they aren’t implanted, so it’s perfectly reasonable
for patients to use their own money to buy these things. We
can’t help everyone who walks into a hospital, so it’s a great
alternative if you can afford it.”
That’s really what it all comes down to. While neuromodulation
via wearable devices is safe, it’s still experimental. And they’re
expensive. A Parasym device will cost you €699 (£600) while
gammaCore prices can cost £625 for a couple of months of use.
And while there are cheaper alternatives available, you soon find
yourself wading into unregulated health technology territory.
41
 INNOVATIONS

FIVE TRANSPARENT DISPLAYS TO MAKE YOUR

HOME MORE LIKE TONY STARK’S WORKSHOP
Complete transparency is the hot new home tech trend. It’s experimental,
somewhat impractical, but exciting (even if it can’t help you design a suit
of Iron Man armour). Here are our five favourite see-through devices so far…

THE TRANSPARENT TV
Samsung is the market leader when it comes to TVs and
has been since 2006. Quickly and successfully embracing
new tech and trends has helped the company maintain that
position. Hence, we’ve seen Samsung’s big-screen models
go from having 4K resolution to 8K resolution, to being
mounted on walls and even disguised as artwork. But now
they’re going transparent. Samsung’s latest offering can act
as a normal TV or one that’s completely see-through while
still capable of displaying high-quality, almost hologram-
like images. The TV is razor-thin and has a rear panel that
slides up when you no longer want to see what’s behind the
screen. It looks impressive when seen against the backdrop
of a tastefully decorated showroom, but might lose some
appeal when you consider how many TVs are hiding tangles
of cables, poorly positioned plug sockets and the occasional
damp stain.
Samsung Transparent MicroLED
Samsung.com

42

THE TRANSPARENT DOORS
If you want doors with a bit more
drama, why not install these? LG’s
Transparent OLED sliding doors are
made with four 55in (140cm) displays
– two on either side – to create what
amounts to TV doors. They can play
TV programmes, show adverts or
display stats, all while allowing you
to see what’s on the other side of
them. They’re probably better suited
to shop fronts and offices, but if
you must have them in your home,
consider fitting them somewhere
other than the bathroom.
LG Transparent OLED Doors
LG.com
THE TRANSPARENT LAPTOP
Lenovo’s transparent ThinkBook
laptop is just a concept for now,
albeit a slightly puzzling one
introduced at this year’s Consumer
Electronics Show. The display is
transparent, meaning people can
see through it from either side – a
feature that makes it perfect for
working on private documents,
typing in passwords or searching
Google for things you shouldn’t.
Lenovo ThinkBook Transparent
Lenovo.com
INNOVATIONS
THE TRANSPARENT SPEAKER
Right now, the places you expect to find transparent display
technology are pretty obvious: TVs, laptops and touchscreen devices.
But what about audio equipment? Specifically, speakers? Well, you’re
in luck: you can find the tech there too. The LG DukeBox is a speaker
that uses a transparent screen to display a user interface. It can show
you what music is playing, who made the music and how far through
the particular piece you are, all while allowing you to admire the
speaker’s retro inner workings. If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, you
can opt to have the speaker show you a faux fireplace, with flames
crackling away in front of the vacuum tubes inside. And if you get
bored of that, you can (yes, you guessed it) watch TV and movies on it.
LG DukeBox
LG.com
THE TRANSPARENT
DISPLAY
Interactive holographic
displays are a staple of
science-fiction and superhero
movies. But although they
might not make you feel like
billionaire industrialist (and inventor of the Iron Man armour) Tony
Stark, transparent touchscreens are the closest thing you can get right
now. Pro Display makes a range of them geared towards museums,
events (like the one pictured) and shops, and in those settings, they
appear to have a lot of potential. Museums could display delicate
or precious exhibits behind a screen that can show various types of
information about the item; shops could do something similar with the
products they sell. Quite how this particular application of transparent
technology could be integrated into the home is another question,
although when taken together with transparent laptops, it may be sign
that transparent smartphones are just around the corner.
Prodisplay.com
43
 INNOVATIONS

IDEAS
WE LIKE…
Our pick of the month’s
smartest tech

…AN EBIKE WITH UNIQUE LOOKS

The Frankenstein’s monster of the ebike world, BMW’s new CE 02 looks like a bike made with parts from at least three
others. The end result is modern and stylish, can cover 90km (55 miles) on a full battery, will go from 0-50km/h (0-30mph) in
three seconds and charges from 20-80 per cent in a claimed 100 minutes. All of this makes it a great bike for getting around
town, but not so much for long journeys. All the same, it can be specced with a range of bags offering storage for
‘adventures’ (albeit ones fairly close to home).
BMW CE 02
bit.ly/BMWCE_02, £8,450

44

…A SLEEPING BAG YOU CAN WALK IN
The warmth of a sleeping bag inside a
cold tent is an experience like no other.
But that comfort is quickly ripped away
when you need to emerge into the frigid
air. So what if you never had to emerge?
The Dreamwalker sleeping bag can be
turned into a large parka, complete with
pockets and ventilation in case you get
too hot. It can even be converted into a
picnic blanket. Sure, you might look a bit
ridiculous shuffling around with your
arms and legs sticking out of a sleeping
bag, but if you’re cosy, who cares?
Dreamwalker
Expedusa.com, $149.95 (approx £120)
…A NEW WAY TO MEND A BREAK
Break your arm and you face a prospect
that’s almost as bad as the pain: the
dreaded cast. They’re itchy, smelly and
an inconvenience, but Cast21 is hoping
to change that with its alternative.
Waterproof, breathable and strong, the
“immobilization net” is made of silicon
tubes filled with a fast-hardening resin to
create a surprisingly stylish alternative to
the traditional cast. Best of all, it doesn’t
have to be removed with a saw.
Cast21
Cast21.com, £TBC
…A SIMPLIFIED SET OF SMART GLASSES
The makers of smart glasses desperately
want their spectacles to be exciting, so
they stuff so much into them that all
you get is an overwhelming light show
right in front of your eyes. Brilliant Labs
seems to have understood how this can
be a bit much and so has pared back its
smart glasses. The sleek specs use AI, a
camera and a small display on the lenses
to let you search the web, translate signs
and even get the nutritional values of any
foods you might spot, but without all the
intense visuals we’ve come to expect.
Brilliant Labs Frame AI glasses
Brilliant.xyz, $349 (approx £275)
…A PLANET-FRIENDLY PAIR OF EARBUDS
An 8-hour battery life for wireless
earphones is pretty poor. While other
brands can keep theirs going for 40-plus
hours, Skullcandy’s latest earbuds don’t
even last for 10, but that’s part of what
makes the Ecobuds great. As the name
suggests, these earbuds put the planet
first. Instead of a lithium-powered
charging case, which are notoriously
hard to recycle, they use a small pad.
This, via a USB jack, plugs into wall
chargers, power banks or even your
smartphone, to bring these earbuds back
up to full charge in around 40 minutes.
Skullcandy Ecobuds
Skullcandy.com, £29.99
INNOVATIONS
IDEAS WE
DON’T LIKE...
...A CONFUSING AT TEMPT
AT MINIMALISM
Sometimes you need a break
from your phone, an excuse to
stop scrolling and checking
every notification that pops up.
So what’s the best way to do
that? A second, highly
stimulating screen you can put
anywhere, of course! The Tidbyt
is designed to display all the
info that your phone does
– weather forecasts, train
times, sports scores, messages
and so on. But it’s all done with
8-bit-style graphics that, quite
frankly, make for an intense
and stressful visual experience.
The perfect option when you
need a break from your phone!
Tidbyt Gen 2
tidbyt.com, $189 (approx £150)
…AN OUT-OF-TOUCH
SPE AKER
The Louis Vuitton Horizon Light
Up Speaker “amplifies your
listening pleasure, transforming
music into a unique,
multisensorial experience,”
that’s according to Louis Vuitton
anyway. Strong words for a
£2,590 speaker that flashes and
costs a great deal more than
some of the best portable
speakers on the market. Sure,
this is more of a statement
piece, but even in the style-
over-substance stakes, it can’t
compete with the likes of B&O,
Klipsch or even Porsche,
another company that loves to
make fancy-looking speakers
that cost far too much.
Louis Vuitton Horizon
Light-up Speaker
louisvuitton.com, £2,590
45
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t’s a rather delicious irony that one of the most
valuable things to come out of the space programme
wasn’t the ability to look into the deepest regions
of the Universe, but to look back at Earth; to see
our world as a beautiful disc of white clouds, blue
oceans and multicoloured continents.
Since Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, was
launched more than 70 years ago, an armada of
Earth-observation spacecraft has been put into
orbit. Together with more than a century and a half
of consistent Earth-based weather measurements,
the data these satellites have gathered has allowed
us to develop a much better understanding of our
planet’s climate and our effects upon it.
GETTY IMAGES
As is now well known, Earth’s climate is changing,
with average global temperatures increasing. This
occurs because of the industrial and domestic
EMISSIONS MONITORING FE ATURE
burning of fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide
(CO2) into the atmosphere, where it traps heat. We
rely on this ‘greenhouse effect’ to make the planet
habitable, but in recent decades so much CO2 has
been released by humans that we’ve thrown Earth’s
natural balance off-kilter.
In December 2015, 196 Parties at the UN Climate
Change Conference (COP21) in Paris, France,
agreed to a legally binding international treaty on
climate change. This treaty’s goal is to hold global
temperatures to below an increase of 2°C. To do
this, countries are required to report how much
anthropogenic (man-made) CO2 they emit and,
starting this year, they must also report on the
actions they’re taking to reduce these emissions.
This will allow us to do a global carbon ‘stocktake’
and, from that, recommend further actions that ´
49
 FE ATURE EMISSIONS MONITORING

´ need to be taken on a country-by-country basis. At

present, countries calculate their carbon emissions
based on statistical and economic factors, such as
how much fuel is being imported or produced in
the country. The assumption is then that this fuel is
used within the country and produces its waste CO2.
“There are specific guidelines that have been
agreed as part of the IPCC [Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change], and people work hard
to make sure it’s all accurate. It’s a huge task,”
says Dr Richard Engelen, the Deputy Director of
the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service at
the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather
Forecasting (ECMWF) in Bonn, Germany.
The good news, however, is that Engelen and
an army of scientists, engineers and technicians
are about to make the job of reporting a country’s
CO2 emissions much easier. In 2026, the European
Space Agency (ESA) will launch the first spacecraft
in its Copernicus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide
Monitoring (CO2M) mission. It won’t be the first
European satellite to measure CO2. That honour
will go to the MicroCarb mission. This joint venture
between CNES, the French space agency, the UK

Space Agency and the European Union, is slated for launch next
year. But CO2M will take the measurement of carbon dioxide
being released into Earth’s atmosphere to another level.
“Nobody has measured these gasses with the accuracies that we
have to meet. The scale of this development is orders of magnitude
bigger than for previous greenhouse gas missions – and it has
to be like this in order to make a difference,” says Dr Ruediger
Lang, CO2M missions scientist for the European Organisation
for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT),
Darmstadt, Germany.
CO2M will make it easier to tie CO2 and other greenhouse
and industrial gases to their points of origin. It’ll provide more
detail in our understanding of how and where carbon dioxide
is emitted, how it interacts with any vegetation around it and
how much of it ends up in the atmosphere.

THE SCIENTIFIC CHALLENGES

CO2M is an ambitious mission. When it comes to greenhouse
gas monitoring, previous spacecraft have either concentrated
on providing detailed views of small regions (so that emission
plumes from factories, power plants or cities could be seen)
or observations that cover large swathes of the
ground – but never both combined. This was the

“NOBODY HAS MEASURED THESE

challenge handed to Dr Yasjka Meijer, ESA’s CO2M
mission scientist.
“I was given the set of requirements to observe

GASES WITH THE ACCURACIES

plumes. But at the same time be able to estimate
country-scale emissions. So that required us to have
wider swathes and also to be very accurate,” he says.

THAT WE HAVE TO MEET"

To do this, the satellite will be placed in a polar
orbit at an altitude of 735km (about 455 miles). It’ll
continuously measure sunlight reflected from Earth ´

50
 EMISSIONS MONITORING FE ATURE

Copernicus: the Sentinel fleet

Europe’s Copernicus programme is the European Centre for Medium-Range

LEFT The Copernicus Carbon
Dioxide Monitoring (CO2M)
mission will measure the
amount of man-made CO2
in Earth’s atmosphere
BELOW LEFT The Paris
Agreement was agreed by 194
states and the European Union
at COP21 in December 2015.
The city was decorated to
mark the occasion
the world’s largest supplier of Earth
observation data. This data is collected
by the Sentinels, a flotilla of spacecraft
designed to monitor different aspects of
Earth’s environment.
Funded by the European Commission,
Copernicus is implemented by the EU
Member States through the European
Space Agency (ESA), the European
Organisation for the Exploitation of
Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT),
Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) and others.
Following Brexit, the UK was forced
to leave the Copernicus programme,
but a bespoke agreement announced in
September 2023 has essentially allowed
the UK to rejoin.
The Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide
Monitoring (CO2M) is one of six Copernicus
Sentinel Expansion missions that ESA is
developing on behalf of the EU. The other
five missions are…

COPERNICUS L-BAND
COPERNICUS SYNTHETIC APERTURE COPERNICUS IMAGINE
HYPERSPECTRAL IMAGING RADAR (ROSE-L) MICROWAVE RADIOMETER
MISSION FOR THE ROSE-L will provide radar (CIMR)
ENVIRONMENT (CHIME) observations of Earth to CIMR will provide
CHIME will provide routine support forest management, observations of
observations from visible precision farming and food sea-surface temperature,
to infrared to support security, and monitor polar sea-ice concentration and
sustainable agricultural ice sheets. sea-surface salinity to
and biodiversity support Arctic
management, as well as communities. COPERNICUS POLAR
soil property ICE AND SNOW
characterisation. TOPOGRAPHY
COPERNICUS LAND ALTIMETER (CRISTAL)
SURFACE CRISTAL will measure
TEMPERATURE sea-ice thickness and
MONITORING (LSTM) overlying snow
LSTM will measure deposits, to support
land-surface polar maritime
temperature to operations. It’ll also
support agricultural measure the height of
productivity in a world ice sheets and glaciers
of increasing water- around the world.
scarcity and climate
ESA/MLABSPACE, GETTY IMAGES ILLUSTRATION: ACUTE GRAPHICS

variability.

51
 FE ATURE EMISSIONS MONITORING
´ across a 250km-wide (155 mile) swathe, split into
4 x 4km (2.5 x 2.5 miles) columns of atmosphere, or
‘pixels’. As that light passes through the atmosphere,
the gases will absorb certain wavelengths. These
will show up as dark lines when the sunlight is
split into a spectrum by CO2M. The intensity of
those dark lines will reveal the concentration of
gases in each pixel. But to get to those final figures
is a complex multistage process.
Once the data is collected by the spacecraft and
beamed back to Earth, it must be prepared for
analysis. “The raw data coming out of the spacecraft
is voltages or binary counts,” says Lang, readings he
and his EUMETSAT colleagues can’t immediately
make sense of. These readings are subject to the
way the instruments work. So, Lang and his team
are developing computer models to remove the
instrumental effects from the data.
“SOMEWHERE HIDDEN IN
THERE ARE THE EMISSIONS
FROM THE POWER PLANT"
“We have to get [the readings] back to what will be measured
by the instrument, just before the light enters it,” he says. It’s
an incredibly difficult task, but absolutely necessary to meet
the required accuracies for the mission. Whereas MicroCarb
will measure CO2 to around one part per million, CO2M will
measured it to a precision of 0.07 parts per million, and another
greenhouse gas, methane (CH4), to 10 parts per billion.
THE NATURAL CHALLENGES
Once thoroughly cleaned of instrumental effects, the data is sent
to ECMWF for analysis. Here, the big issue is knowing which
emissions are anthropogenic and which are natural. “That’s
the ultimate challenge we face because the atmosphere is a big
mixer,” says Engelen.
Once the CO2 is released it quickly diffuses into the atmosphere,
and its origins become ever more difficult to determine. The
problem is that, in general, the satellite doesn’t actually observe
the emissions directly; instead, it observes the changes in the
atmospheric concentrations that come from the emissions. So,
the analysis must work out the likely origin of the gasses that
are changing the concentration.
To help with this procedure, CO2M will also detect nitrogen
dioxide (NO2). This gas is mainly produced by combustion
engines and manufacturing. Even existing satellites can see
the plumes of NO2 rising from power plants or from cities, so,
it’s easier to visualise exactly where the gas is coming from.
For CO2, however, it’s a different story.
While there are still plumes of the gas pouring out of power
plants and cities, biology then gets involved. “There’s a huge
LEFT Daily and seasonal
variations in the amount of CO2
absorption by vegetation makes
it difficult to accurately
calculate the gas emissions from
a single factory or power plant
ABOVE RIGHT A map
showing CO2 emissions over
Europe and Asia, with higher
concentrations in red and lower
concentrations in blue

interaction between land surfaces and the atmosphere
through vegetation,” says Engelen.
For example, if there’s a forest near the power
plant, this will alter the amount of CO2 that makes
it into the atmosphere. This is because plants absorb
CO2 during the day, when sunlight is available, and
emit CO2 during the night, when the sunlight has
gone away. This results in a diurnal cycle of CO2
emissions coming from the forest. And it doesn’t
end there. A seasonal variation is present too. In
spring, summer and autumn there’s a lot of CO2
absorption; in winter, the reverse.
“Somewhere hidden in there are the emissions
from the power plant,” says Engelen.
This means that the project must also monitor
the ways vegetation absorbs and emits CO2, so that
sophisticated computer models can make all the
necessary adjustments.
One thing in the team’s favour is that they already
know where the main CO2 sources are located. Power
plants, roads and cities are all marked on maps and
this information will help guide their analysis. Better
still, in the US, cities are often found in the middle
of deserts, so the emissions aren’t contaminated or
modified by vegetation.
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY, GETTY IMAGES
THE POTENTIAL OUTCOME
While the challenge of unpicking this information
from the data isn’t to be underestimated, over
time, the mission will build a continuous map of
greenhouse gas emissions that will all be made
publicly available. Users, both big and small, from
governments to individual businesses, can then freely
use the data. “It’s really there to support countries
in their obligations to report emissions, but I can
EMISSIONS MONITORING FE ATURE
see in the future that there are a lot of
people that would like to demonstrate
that they’re making progress,” says
Meijer. For example, he can see the
data being used by city authorities to
show how carbon-efficient they are,
or by financial institutions to provide
evidence that they’re investing in
green infrastructure and companies.
The clear, accurate measurement of
greenhouse gas emissions is a giant step
forward for fact-based environmental
stewardship of the planet – and a real
coming of age for Earth observation.
Dr Simon Pinnock is an Earth
Observation Applications Engineer
at ESA’s Climate Office, in the UK. He
started working with Earth observation
satellite data in the mid-90s. Back
then, his job was to monitor forest
fires from space. While the satellite
infrastructure to assist with weather
forecasting was well established, for
wider environmental monitoring there
were still huge gaps.
“For much of Earth, there was just
a bit of a question mark. It’s amazing to think how much has
changed in just over 25 years,” he says, “It’s only really been
in the last 10 years with the Sentinels that we’ve really got
operational environmental monitoring.” (See ‘Copernicus: the
Sentinel fleet’, p51.)
These days, Pinnock is managing projects in ESA’s Climate
Change Initiative, which is designed to collect data on essential
climate variables (ECVs). There are 55 ECVs; their measurement
and analysis form the basis upon which Earth’s changing climate
can be assessed.
At present, about 60 per cent of these variables can be supplied
by satellite data. The rest come from ground-based observations
and measurements. Of those available to satellites, the Climate
Change Initiative focuses on the 21 ECVs for which there are
satellite records that not only cover the entire globe, but also
stretch back more than 30 years.
“We take data from all the available satellites, not just ESA
satellites,” says Pinnock.
It’s a huge job, but by collating the various Earth-observation
satellite data, ESA’s climate office is developing the global,
long-term data records that show the evidence of our changing
climate. As such, it forms the foundation for international action
to be formulated and agreed upon through the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change.
CO2M is the central component of this work. Rather than
just a single mission, up to two follow-on CO2M missions are
planned. And while they may not be showing us other worlds
in the Solar System, if their data makes it easier for us to avoid
the worst ravages of climate change, then that alone could be
said to justify the whole programme of space exploration.
by DR S T UA RT C L A R K
Stuart is an astronomer, science journalist and author of several popular science books.
His latest, Beneath the Night: How the stars have shaped the history of humankind
(Guardian Faber, £14.99) is out now.
53
 FE ATURE
BED BUGS

SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

 BED BUGS FE ATURE

BED
BUGS
VS THE
WORLD
When bloodthirsty bed bugs made headlines for infesting
Paris Fashion Week in 2023, it shone a spotlight on a
problem that’s been making experts itch for decades: the
arms race going on between bed bugs and humans.
Now, with the 2024 Summer Olympics fast approaching,
the stakes are higher than ever
by S O F I A QUAG L I A
 FE ATURE BED BUGS

They’re wingless, six-legged, rust-coloured, and the size

and shape of an apple seed. They’re also obligated-blood
feeders, meaning they can only feed on the blood of warm-
blooded animals. But only three of these 100 species have
a penchant for human blood: the common bed bug (Cimex
lectularius), the tropical bed bug (Cimex hemipterus) and
the West African bed bug (Leptocimex boueti). All three of
these species still also feed on birds and bats, because they
never specialised completely.
While the common bed bug is the most widespread, the
rounder and chubbier tropical bed bugs have recently started
showing up all over the northern hemisphere, according to
Prof Chow-Yang Lee, chair of urban entomology at University
of California, Riverside. They’ve crept all the way to Norway,
Sweden and Finland – corners of northern Europe once thought
too cold for the vampiric critters, but now made hospitable
thanks to warming global temperatures and modern amenities
like controlled household heating. “Of course, global travel
contributes tremendously to this spread,” says Lee.
ed bugs have been around longer than humans.
When researchers used bed bug DNA to get an
idea of when they first evolved, they found that
the ancestors of today’s bed bugs were already tiny
but successful predators over 115 million years ago,
during the reign of the dinosaurs.
What they were preying on back then, we don’t
know, possibly ancient birds. What we do know is
that when the first bats appeared, bed bugs were
present. A few enterprising individuals crawled into
the caves where bats slept to enjoy a hearty meal.
From there, several species of bed bugs evolved to
feed on their blood, according to the research of
Prof Klaus Reinhardt, an evolutionary biologist at
University of Tübingen, Germany.
As early humans took shelter in those same
caves, bed bugs suddenly found they had a larger,
juicier mammal to feed on. Somewhere between
900,000 and 100,000 years ago (Reinhardt reckons
245,000 years ago) bed bugs added humans to their
roster of victims – a unique move for a parasite,
which usually thrive by being highly specialised to
one type of host.
The oldest recorded proof of bed bugs that
mingled with humans are the 11,000-year-old bugs
archaeologists found in caves in North America.
There are also fossilised tracks left by bed bug
SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2

ancestors in ancient Egyptian workers’ living

quarters from 3,550 years ago, as well as Greek
comedy texts from 423 BCE with characters saying
“What a torture the bugs will this day put me to.”
Today there are about 100 species of bed bugs,
all part of the insect family, known as Cimicidae.

56
ABOVE These For most of the day, the blood-thirsty insects hide in the
blood-sucking critters can
be difficult to shift once nooks and crannies of our homes, hotel rooms, hospitals
they’ve found their way and university dorms, seeking shelter and shying away
into your home
from human interaction. But when we lay down to rest
LEFT The anaesthetic in at night, they come out of hiding, lured by the warmth
bed bugs’ saliva keeps of our bodies and the carbon dioxide we exhale. (There’s
their bites from being
noticed while they feed, nothing stopping bed bugs from biting during the day if
but they’re impossible to they’re hungry.) They perch on our bodies and puncture
miss once you wake up our skin with their straw-like beaks, then suck blood out
while injecting anaesthetic and anticoagulant chemicals
to allow the feeding to go ahead unnoticed.
While bed bug bites don’t transmit any diseases – like
those of bloodsucking ticks or mosquitoes can – they
do leave a nasty, itchy bump on human skin and make
it increasingly hard to sleep. Some people describe the
“THE ROUNDER AND CHUBBIER
TROPICAL BED BUGS HAVE STARTED
SHOWING UP ALL OVER EUROPE"
bites as “hardened, ping-pong-ball-sized
welts that itch for over a week.” Studies
show that bed bug infestations can leave
victims with long-lasting depression,
paranoia, hyper-vigilance and obsessive
thoughts.
Something about our musty scent lures
the bugs in. When researchers at the
University of Sheffield put bed bugs in
a room with a pile of dirty clothes, the
insects emerged looking for a feed more
often than they did if the clothes were
clean. (Experts say this may explain how
bed bugs travel internationally, by finding
refuge in the laundry of travellers.) But
similar experiments suggest something
about the fatty molecules in our skin
also repels the bed bugs once they’ve
fed – after a few minutes, the bug will
have had its fill, with three to four times
its body weight in blood, and leave to
digest its meal, rather than live on the
host like a tick or flea.
THE CIRCLE OF LIFE
Right after feeding is also the best time
for bed bugs to mate, because the females
are lethargic from their feast and so less
likely to rebel when males force them
into intercourse. Although females have
the equivalent of a bed bug vagina, ´
57
 FE ATURE BED BUGS

RIGHT American soldiers

spray mattresses with DDT
to protect those sleeping
on them from bed bugs

FAR RIGHT A French pest

controller treats a Parisian
home infested with bed
bugs in 2023

´ males prefer to jab their equivalent of penises straight into

the females’ abdomens and release their sperm there. To cope
with this, female Cimex have evolved a special organ, known
as a spermalege or ‘organ of Berlese’, to quickly seal the wound
and deal with the sperm. Despite this traumatic insemination
method, they have a prolific sex life, reproducing every two
months and laying up to 500 eggs a lifetime. The eggs take
up to 10 days to hatch into beige nymphs that shed their skin
five times in seven weeks before reaching maturity.
Interestingly, although inbreeding usually leads to mutations
and unhealthy offspring in most animals, it holds no such
dangers for bed bugs, according to Schal. “One mated female
can start a whole population,” says Schal. Scientists have
made brothers and sisters mate for up to 30 generations with
nothing but health and prosperity.
Cross-breeding different populations actually doubles their
fertility. When researchers marked and tracked a select few in a jiffy. Their numbers dropped so drastically that, from the
insects from large bed bug populations in six infested flats, early 1950s to the late 1990s, people in developing countries
they found there were anywhere from 2,400 to 14,000-plus thought the bloodsuckers were no longer a problem. But some
bed bugs in each home. It took the colonies just two weeks bugs were adapting in the face of this new adversity. They
to spread into the 24 adjoining flats in the building and bed had already started developing resistance to the powerful
bugs were still present and active more than five months after insecticide sprays as early as 1948; a resistance that only
the human residents had abandoned the premises. grew in strength over the subsequent years.
This promiscuity allows for bed bug infestations to propagate When DDT was banned in 1972 due to its toxicity to humans,
easily. By the 1760s, bed bug infestations in Europe’s hospitals bed bugs made a comeback and, by the early 2000s, their
were so bad that a British surgeon described them as “frequently populations were growing again with a vengeance.
a greater evil to the patient than the malady for which he seeks “By then, when the pest controllers came across bed bugs
a hospital.” Hotel owners suggested guests drink themselves they had no training [in how to handle them]. They didn’t
to sleep to bear the itch. Some travellers journeyed with pigs know anything about their biology; they were as ignorant as
and made the animals rest in bed before them each night, anybody else,” says Nina Jenkins, professor of entomology at
so the bugs would be satiated by the time the gentlemen lay Penn State University. “It took them by surprise.”
down. By the 20th century, more than 75 per cent of homes
in the United Kingdom had bed bugs. CHEMICAL WARFARE
People have tried all sorts of tricks to eradicate them over Since then, bed bug populations have been growing and
the decades. Some thought hanging the feet of a hare or stag growing. According to ANSES, the French Agency for Food,
on the bed would keep bed bugs at bay, while others resorted Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety, 11 per cent
to a lighted candle in the middle of a
slice of bread sticky with glue. The most
desperate cases have seen people try

“WHEN DDT WAS BANNED IN 1972

spraying arsenic and mercury, which
are toxic to humans; homes have even
been burned down in a bid to get rid of
an infestation.

DUE TO ITS TOXICITY TO HUMANS,

It took until the 1930s for scientists to
discover potent chemical insecticides
such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane
(DDT) and organophosphates, turning

BED BUGS MADE A COMEBACK"

the tide on what, up to then, had largely
been a losing battle.
DDT was so potent and lasted for so
long that it reduced bed bug populations

58

of households in France were infested by bed bugs between
2017 and 2022. Hence, the Paris Fashion Week fiasco in 2023
was just a snapshot of a very real, very growing trend that’s
been hundreds of years in the making. The increased travel
to the French capital for the event, and the media frenzy
surrounding the scandal shone a light on a problem that’s
long been lurking in the cracks – literally.
Now, bed bugs are resistant to most of the chemicals
designed to kill them, like carbamates, neonicotinoids and
pyrethroids. “Insecticide resistance is real,” says Lee. “We’ve
seen populations of bed bugs that are more than 10,000 times
resistant to insecticide. You can practically dip the bugs in
the insecticide solution and they’ll still be alive afterwards.”
Cimex have developed harder outer shells so that insecticides
can’t easily permeate into their organs; they’ve evolved gene
mutations that make them immune to the specific toxins
in those products; and they’ve amped up the enzymes that
break down the insecticides if they do get inside their bodies,
according to Dini Miller, professor of urban pest management
at Virginia Tech.
“We’ve selected for what I like to call ‘hard-drinking bed
bugs’,” says Miller. “Just like some people can stay awake
while drinking alcohol all night and be fine while others pass
out, well, these are the bed bugs that have enough enzymes
to stay awake and drink all night.”
As a result, there are very few pest control methods that
can get around these super-powered bed bug evolutions, and
better methods are still a long way off. “We’re pretty much
having to hit every single bed bug with a hammer to get rid
GETTY IMAGES, REUTERS
of it,” says Miller.
Powerful chemical pesticides that combine various types of
bug killers are holding on in the market, but it’s likely Cimex
is already developing resistance to those too. Some scientists
are inventing slippery tape to wrap around our beds so the
bugs can’t crawl up onto our sheets; others are trying sticky
BED BUGS FE ATURE
TOP TIPS TO
NOT LET THE
BED BUGS BITE
Although there’s not a silver bullet for
avoiding bed bugs when travelling, the
right combination of techniques can help
you tackle the issue head-on…
O Before making yourself comfortable in bed, check
under the sheets and in the corners of the mattress for
bed bugs, bed bug eggs or bed bug poop, says Prof Nina
Jenkins of Penn State University.
OUse an extra-sticky lint roller all over your clothes to
make sure no bugs or eggs have hitched a ride on your
attire, says Prof Dini Miller of Virginia Tech.
OAvoid using hotel drawers, don’t fully unpack your
suitcase and keep your luggage in the bathtub or
bathroom, instead of on the hotel luggage holders, says
Prof Chow-Yang Lee of the University of California,
Riverside. And keep your dirty clothes in a sealed bag
that you can chuck straight into the washing machine
and dryer as soon as you get home.
bed legs so the bugs get stuck along the way. One tech company
has designed smart hotel bed legs that collect bed bugs and
send a text message alert to the hotel staff. But these methods
are hardly versatile enough for large infestations.
Bed bug baits that could be placed around the house, like
rat or cockroach traps, are being developed in Schal’s lab. But
since the bugs aren’t attracted to the tangy scent of cheese
or the sweet smell of leftover cake, recreating the perfect
combination of human odour, heat and exhaled breath they
love has proven a difficult task. “The challenge is to develop
an artificial human,” says Schal – a lure attractive enough
to entice the bugs out of hiding, with a skin-like membrane
for them to sink their beaks into, and the right type of deadly
liquid for them to consume that’s a convincing blood substitute.
(Boric acid might do the trick, Schal thinks, since a one-per-
cent solution of it is enough to poke holes through bed bugs’
digestive systems, according to his experiments.)
We could also go from treating the environment to treating
the host, just like we went from spraying anti-flee medication
to giving our pets pills to rid them of the parasites. “We call
them drugs, but they’re basically insecticides,” says Schal.
This sort of medical solution to the problem is being tested in
bed bug-infested poultry farms, but it’ll take at least 10 years
before scientists can test and approve a tablet that works for ´
59
 FE ATURE BED BUGS
´ bed bugs and doesn’t intoxicate humans. “We still have a
lot to learn about the basic biology of bed bugs to find their
weak links,” says Schal.
NATURAL REMEDIES
One of the most promising bed bug countermeasures harnesses
the power of an insect-killing fungus called Beauveria bassiana.
This fungus is a parasite to bed bugs and, once its spores come
into contact with a bed bug’s moisture, it seeps into the cracks
of its shell and spends the next 10 days growing inside its
body. “It buds off and uses all of the nutrients inside the blood
of the bed bug to feed itself,” says Jenkins, who developed the
product. “So the bed bug dies of starvation and dehydration.”
Although Jenkins had spent several years studying the
fungus, which is already widely used in agriculture, she was
surprised to find it worked so quickly when she tested it on
bed bugs. “Bed bugs did die the quickest we’ve ever seen any
insect die from Beauveria,” she says. “It’s amazing.”
The fungal spores can be sprayed as a thin, oily boundary
around a bed. When the bugs cross it they become infected
with the fungus and take the spores back to their nests and
spread the disease to their entire colony.
60
But while this kills the bugs crawling
onto your bed each night, it doesn’t stop
them from hitching a ride on something
you might be taking into bed with you.
After successful Beauveria treatments,
people have managed to reintroduce bed
bugs in their sheets by bringing infested
plush toys, books or even guns to bed,
says Jenkins.
Some old-fashioned techniques still
work, too. Heat is one: adults and eggs
die between 48 and 54°C (118 and 130°F)
so putting infested clothes and bedding
in the dryer at maximum heat for a
couple of cycles will do the job. Some
exterminator companies heat entire
homes to eradicate colonies, but ensuring
every crevice in a house reaches such
high temperatures for long enough to
kill bed bugs is hard work, says Miller,
not to mention expensive. Professional
fumigation is effective, but also expensive
 BED BUGS FE ATURE

LEFT Hatched bed bug and most people can’t afford to leave their homes for several
eggs remain stuck to the days while the procedure is underway. Furthermore, you
pages of a book with an
adhesive secreted by the can’t fumigate a single flat; if you live in a block, the whole
female during oviposition building has to be fumigated.
Nevertheless, getting professionals involved is the top
ABOVE A common bed
bug (Cimex lectularius) recommendation for handling bed bug infestations. It’s these
imaged with a scanning practical and economic barriers that perpetuate the bed bug
electron micrograph
crises, which, according to the experts, often leaves elderly
and low-income people out on a limb because they don’t have
the means to address the problem.
Bed bugs don’t discriminate: blood is blood, whether the
person it comes from is wealthy or not. But they’re less of a

“IT'S THESE
problem for wealthy people as they can afford to pay pest
controllers to get rid of them. And since bed bugs don’t transmit
diseases, as other bloodthirsty insects do, local and national
governments don’t tend to put a lot of effort into developing
strategies to tackle the problem for people who can’t afford

PRACTICAL AND
to do so on their own.
“The worst cases are where the bugs are affecting people who
DR RICHARD NAYLOR/BED BUG FOUNDATION, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRRAY

are disadvantaged and who can’t afford any form of control,”

says Lee. “These people are basically left to get eaten alive.”

ECONOMIC BARRIERS
This means that bed bugs are never totally exterminated:
pockets of the population have constant, ongoing infestations,
and from those hotspots, the bed bugs can re-infest places
they’ve been eradicated from all over again. Addressing bed
bugs as a public health issue is the only way out, Lee says.

THAT PERPETUATE THE

“This problem will continue until, finally, one day, we
regard bed bugs as a community problem, rather than as an
individual problem.”

BED BUG CRISIS” by S O F I A Q UAG L I A (@SofiaQuaglia)

Sofia is a freelance science journalist who specialises in stories concerning
the natural world, wildlife and the environment.

61
FE ATURE ROGUE PLANETS

GETTY IMAGES

Some planets are
stuck following the
same orbital paths
their entire lives.
Others break free to
wander alone
through the vast,
empty darkness of
interstellar space.
And there’s a lot more
of them than you
might think
by C O L I N S T UA R T
ROGUE PLANETS FE ATURE
magine a world where the sun never rises.
A planet that doesn’t even have a sun. A
place with no pastel-painting-sunsets and
no dawn choruses, just a constant veil of
faint stars twinkling in a perpetual, indelible
inky night.
This unfamiliar scenario would be the
reality for any life calling a starless planet
home, such as one that’s somehow become
untethered from its star, rendering it free
to wander through the Universe.
When we think about planets, we usually picture
the eight worlds of our Solar System silently
orbiting the central star that’s pulling on invisible
gravitational strings to keep them close. Yet in recent
years astronomers have uncovered an increasingly
large population of a very different kind of planet.
Worlds that no longer orbit a star at all, worlds
that wander the void between stars. Free-floating,
rogue planets.
“They are planets that originally orbited a star,
but then something happened and they were kicked
out,” says Dr Alexander Scholz, an astronomer from
the University of St Andrews, who studies these
strange, orphaned worlds.
Early in their lives, solar systems are particularly
chaotic places. Two sibling planets could
gravitationally duel for supremacy, flinging the
losing planet out of the system entirely. A planet’s
trajectory could also be set onto a similar exit route
simply by interacting with the disc of material that
it formed from in the first place.
Or perhaps the planet’s banishment came later. A
passing star could wrench a planet out of place, or
the death of the planet’s star could tip the delicate
gravitational balance and destabilise that planet.
Computer simulations have shown that somewhere
in the region of 20 to 30 per cent of gas planets
could get ejected from their home solar systems to
end their lives wandering free. “There are likely
to be billions of rogue planets in the Milky Way,”
says Scholz. There may even be trillions.
ALONE IN THE DARK
Despite their large number, finding these worlds-
gone-walkabout is no mean feat. For one thing,
there’s no light from a star to illuminate them.
Worse, many of the usual methods for finding
planets beyond our Solar System rely on spotting
the effect they have on their host stars.
Without a host star, many rogue planets are found
through their gravitational influence instead, thanks
to a technique called microlensing. “Microlensing
occurs when the light of a distant star is magnified
by the gravitational field of an intervening object,
[such as a rogue planet],” says Dr Przemek Mróz,
a free-floating planet researcher at the University
of Warsaw, Poland. ´
 FE ATURE ROGUE PLANETS

RIGHT The Orion Nebula is host to a

number of free-floating worlds, some of
which exist in pairs

BELOW Brown dwarfs fall into the

overlap between stars and planets

´ “Microlensing’s advantage is that it doesn’t

depend on the brightness of the object acting as
the lens, so it allows us to detect dark objects that
don’t emit any light, such as planets.” From the
amount of magnification they see, astronomers
can estimate the mass of the otherwise invisible
lensing object passing in front of it.
Just because an object has the same mass as
a planet doesn’t necessarily mean it is a planet,
though. “Some astronomers prefer the term
‘planemo’,” says Scholz, referring to a shortened
form of planetary-mass object (PMO).
The issue is that the line between a planet and
a star is a blurry one. For example, in December
2023, astronomers using the James Webb Space
Telescope (JWST) found a free-floating object
that was between three and four times the mass
of Jupiter, the Solar System’s largest planet. This
object wasn’t thought to be a planet though, but
rather a brown dwarf, an astronomical object that
sometimes goes by another name: failed star.
Brown dwarfs form in the same way as stars,
through the gravitational collapse of interstellar gas
clouds. The difference is they never gain enough
mass to ignite nuclear fusion in their cores – the
hallmark of all true stars.
The problem is brown dwarfs aren’t planets
either, even though they form from the dusty discs
around newborn stars. Given that astronomers
have found planets in other solar systems with
masses equivalent to more than ten Jupiters, there’s
a significant overlap between massive planets and
small brown dwarfs.

SCRUTINISE AND ANALYSE

So how do astronomers tell which category a free-
floating object, or planemo, belongs to? Thankfully
the JWST is making life considerably easier for
those who study these so-called rogue planets.
Astronomers have already used it to directly image
free-floating objects in dense star-forming regions.
Crucially, these rogue planets are still young and
hot, meaning they’re bright enough to be seen on
their own. Much older ones that have cooled during
their long voyages through empty space can’t be
scrutinised in the same way.
“Brown dwarfs and planets have different
chemistries,” Scholz says. By using JWST’s powerful

64
 LEFT NASA is currently
building the Nancy
Grace Roman Telescope,
which will monitor 200
instruments to prise apart each object’s light into a colourful
million stars for signs of spectrum, astronomers can tell what they’re made of. In
microlensing caused by these spectra, the familiar colours of the rainbow are littered
potential rogue planets
with conspicuous dark lines, known as absorption lines. The
different chemical elements present in the object swallow
some of the light, meaning it never leaves the object to travel
ESO, NASA/ESA/CSA, BALL AEROSPACE
to us. The dark lines are gaps in the spectrum where those
colours should have been.
These spectra look a lot like colourful barcodes and, in
effect, that’s what they are. Scanning them tells us what the
free-floating object is made of and whether it’s likely to be a
brown dwarf or a true rogue planet. Ingredients similar to the
gas planets of our Solar System – such as water ice, methane
and ammonia – rule out the possibility
of the object being a brown dwarf.
Astronomers have had to be patient for
abilities such as these. “I’ve waited 15
years for JWST to be ready,” says Scholz.
Now that it’s finally in space, JWST is
already throwing up surprises.
Last year, a team led by Samuel Pearson,
a research fellow at the European Space
Agency, found a host of free-floating
worlds in the Orion Nebula, ten per cent
of which appear to exist in pairs. They’ve
been dubbed JuMBOs, short for Jupiter
Mass Binary Objects. It’s not unusual
for stars to exist in such binary pairs,
but many of these objects have chemical
inventories that scream planet.
“It was completely unexpected,” Scholz
says. “We expect planets to be ejected
in isolation.” If these duos are in fact
jettisoned planets, it’s unclear how they
managed to escape from their solar
systems still entwined with one another.
If indeed that’s what happened.
“It’s a real conundrum,” says Scholz.
It could well be a unique quirk of the
Orion Nebula, the densest star-forming
region in our local Universe. Scholz has
already found hints that such binary
pairs don’t exist in less-crowded regions
of the Universe. ´
65
 FE ATURE ROGUE PLANETS

WHAT ELSE DARK ENERGY

IS IN Galaxies themselves seem to be moving apart
from one another as the Universe expands.

INTERSTELLAR What’s more, this expansion seems to be

accelerating. Astronomers don’t really know

SPACE why, but usually they point the finger at a

mysterious entity called dark energy, which
could well be a property of space itself.

DARK MATTER
There doesn’t seem to be enough gravity in
galaxies to hold them together, so astronomers
suspect there’s some invisible gravitational glue
stopping them from flying apart. The whole of
the Milky Way, our home galaxy, would be
embedded in a large dark matter halo, meaning
the stars are just icing on the cosmic cake.

´ Perhaps it’s only possible where multiple young stars jostle
around in such close proximity to one another. The exception
and not the rule.
GROWING OUR ROGUES’ GALLERY
Our ability to spot rogue planets may soon undergo a significant
change. In 2027, NASA hopes to launch the Nancy Grace
Roman Space Telescope (Roman, for short).
“Due to its location in space, Roman is expected to provide
data of exquisite quality, much better than those that ground-
based observatories can obtain,” says Mróz.
Named after a former NASA Chief of Astronomy, Roman will
be a wide-field infrared telescope. One prediction suggests
that Roman’s extreme sensitivity will allow astronomers to
use microlensing events to spot 400 rogue planets the same
size as Earth. It may even be possible to spot worlds the size
of Mars, the second smallest planet in the Solar System.
According to Mróz, it will also help us to measure them
more accurately.
“Simultaneous observations of
microlensing events from Roman and
ground-based telescopes will enable us to
measure precise masses of free-floating
planets,” he says.
What Roman finds could boost the
total estimate of free-floating worlds in
the Milky Way from the billions into
the trillions.
Once in space, Roman will be able
to team up with a telescope already
up there: the European Space Agency’s
Euclid, which launched in 2023. Euclid’s
main goal is to probe the dark matter
and dark energy thought to dominate the
Universe, but a recent study concluded
that a joint survey using both Roman
and Euclid would find over 100 rogue
planets in the first year alone.

66

THE COSMIC
MICROWAVE
BACKGROUND
Even empty space isn’t truly empty. It’s warmed
to almost three degrees above absolute zero
(–273°C/–459°F) by the cosmic microwave
background, the leftover energy from the Big
Bang released when the Universe was 380,000
years old. It makes up about one per cent of the
interference on analogue TVs and radios.
With all these orphaned worlds
swarming through interstellar space,
what are the chances of there being life
on some of them? After all, it would be
a huge chunk of cosmic real estate to
dismiss out of hand.
“Life, as we know it, requires an
external source of energy,” says Mróz.
“For us on Earth, the Sun provides much
of the energy living organisms need.”
With non-solar energy adding just
one per cent of the total, life on rogue
planets would likely require an alternative
source of energy.
Young rogue planets would still be hot
from their formation. What’s more, if they
were ejected from their solar system very
early, they wouldn’t have been exposed
to the fierce ultraviolet light that usually
sees young stars strip atmospheres away
from their fledgling planets.
With much of this insulating blanket
GETTY IMAGES X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY X2, ESA
still intact, perhaps it would be enough
to maintain a snug temperature in the
frigid wastelands of interstellar space.
Another option would be a rogue gas
giant that manages to hold on to a large
Earth-sized moon during its ejection,
similar to the binary worlds spotted in
the Orion Nebula. We know from our
own Solar System that the mighty gravity
of Jupiter and Saturn constantly flexes
their moons, injecting energy into them
through a process known as tidal heating.
VIRTUAL
PARTICLES
According to the weird and wonderful rules of
quantum physics, there’s no such thing as a
perfect vacuum. Instead, quantum fluctuations
cause pairs of so-called virtual particles to
briefly pop into existence before quickly
disappearing again.
NEUTRINOS
Neutrinos are almost massless particles that
travel very close to the speed of light. Often,
they’re spat out by the supernovae that mark
the ends of the lives of massive stars.
Astronomers routinely detect neutrinos
when they slam into Earth at high speed,
and they’re everywhere.
On moons such as Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus,
this is enough to maintain a sub-surface ocean of liquid water
despite being far from the Sun.
“Nature is very rich and we know living organisms on Earth
are present in even the most extreme conditions,” says Mróz,
alluding to the extremophiles that eke out an existence in
the driest, saltiest, coldest and most acidic places on Earth.
“It’s conceivable that life on free-floating planets might
exist, but such planets would need to be shielded by thick
atmospheres or thick layers of ice to maintain liquid water
in their centres,” he adds.
One 2023 study, led by Giulia Roccetti from the European
Southern Observatory, concluded that with the right distance
from the planet, and the optimal atmospheric pressure, an
ocean of liquid water could persist on the moon of a free-
floating planet for over a billion years.
There have already been tantalising hints that such moons
exist. As far back as 2013, astronomers announced a microlensing
event known as MOA-2011-BLG-262 involving two foreground
objects magnifying the background light. All astronomers
could do, however, is measure the relative masses of the two
objects. It could have been a star and a planet, or a rogue planet
bigger than Jupiter with a moon smaller than Earth in tow.
That’s the agony and the ecstasy of microlensing: it’s a
powerful tool, but once the all-important alignment is broken,
the object can never be studied again. All astronomers can do
is keep on looking in the hope of one day finally revealing
the secrets of some of the Universe’s strangest planets.
by C O L I N S T UA R T (@skyponderer)
Colin is an award-winning astronomy author, science writer and speaker,
as well as a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.
67
 FE ATURE ATTENTION
ILLUSTRATION: SAM PEET

Primed for constant interruptions, your brain is now distracting

68
 ATTENTION FE ATURE

itself, says science. It’s time to break the cycle and retrain your focus

69
 FE ATURE ATTENTION

ay I have your attention, please?

I’ll try and be quick, as I
probably only have about 47
seconds before your mind starts
wandering. That, according to
psychologist Dr Gloria Mark,
from the University of
California, Irvine, is now our
average attention span, based
on her latest study of people’s
use of screens in the workplace.
When her team conducted a
similar study back in 2004
(before anyone had a
smartphone and there was no
such thing as TikTok) we could
focus for two and a half minutes
before wanting to switch to something new.
Of course, these figures have their limits. Your
declining concentration when grinding out a report
may not mean your overall focus levels are collapsing.
After all, if you were sent a long message about some
juicy gossip, you’d likely be able to give this your full
focus for the required time.
As other psychologists have argued, your
concentration can vary so much, that the very idea
of an ‘average’ attention span is almost meaningless.
Because of this, there isn’t even a scientific consensus
on how to measure focus.
Nevertheless, it’s likely you feel like yours is
dwindling. As one recent survey from the Centre for
Attention Studies at King’s College London suggests,
nearly half the population now feel as if theirs is
worse than it was. With the ever-present pull of our
emails (we check them 77 times a day, according to
Mark’s research) and social media (up to 237 times a
day for some), it’s easy to see why. Mark describes how knowing that we can access almost
Of course, we can silence notifications, put on anything online feels like “we’re immersed in the world’s largest
noise-cancelling headphones and work with candy store and it’s hard to resist sampling the wares.” To borrow
applications that take up the full screen (tab a phrase from psychologist and economist Herbert A Simon,
clutter causes a significant drop in productivity, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.
according to one 2021 study). Even when Even TV and film directors are pandering to our
we’ve done all that, however, there’s still allegedly tiny attention spans (or being driven by
the enemy within to contend with. their own), with shots lasting just four seconds on
You see, we’ve become so used to average now. “It’s reinforcing our already short
being distracted that we now distract attention spans,” says Mark. “It’s what people
ourselves. Unknowingly, you’re are getting used to.”
probably sabotaging yourself with
“self-interruptions” all day long, THE GREAT MULTITASKING MYTH
according to Mark. But is there a flip side to all this? Could the ability
Even while reading this you may to shift the spotlight of our attention so easily
have gotten the sudden urge to look lend itself to efficient multitasking?
something up online, check your Unfortunately not. That’s because multitasking
ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM PEET

emails or anything else – even when in
the middle of an activity – all because
you’re so used to being bothered. “It’s
really an unconscious action to switch,”
Mark says. “People maintain this pattern of
being interrupted all by themselves.”
doesn’t really exist – we can’t do more than one
thing at once.
When we think we’re multitasking, all we’re
really doing is rapidly shifting our attention
between several singular tasks. This creates a
cognitive load that, as research has shown, means

70
 ATTENTION FE ATURE

LISTEN TO BINAURAL BEATS

Binaural beats create a fascinating
auditory illusion. When one tone is
played into your left ear and another
one – with a slightly different frequency
– is played into your right, your brain
synthesizes a third tone, the difference
between the two. For instance, if a
240Hz tone is presented to one ear and
a 280Hz tone to the other, we perceive a
tone of 40Hz.
Yet binaural beats are more than an
aural oddity – they could be the key to
better focus. “It’s due to a process
known as brain ‘entrainment’,” says Dr
Sandhya Basu from the Birla Institute of
Technology and Science in India. “Our
brainwaves start mimicking the
frequency of an external stimulus to
produce a frequency-following
response that has cognitive effects.”
This effectively means that listening
to lower-frequency binaural beats could
nudge your brain waves into lower
frequencies, which promotes relaxation
(when you’re asleep, your brain waves
are low frequency). In the same way,
listening to higher-frequency beats
could lead to improvements in
concentration.
In a 2022 paper, Basu and her
colleagues combined the findings of
previous studies and found that ‘alpha’
binaural beats (8-13Hz) work best for
improving attention. It’s waves at these
frequencies that dominate your brain
when it's alert, but relaxed.
“When we’re relaxed, our cognitive
activities can strengthen because of a
lack of cognitive load and stress,” says
Basu. “We need more robust research
on generalising the results and
understanding the neural
underpinnings of entrainment,
however,” she adds. “Nonetheless, there
seems to be a promising future for using
entrainment for improving cognition.”
In short, when you need to get your
head down, playing alpha binaural
beats (stream for free with a simple
online search) might be worth a try.
You may soon be able to try a visual
form of binaural beats too, as Basu did
with a class of children. She took lights
and made them flicker at alpha and beta
frequencies.
The children’s brains – tracked using
electroencephalogram (EEG) – differed
in how well they were entrained. It may
sound distracting, but for those with
high-quality entrainment, psychometric
tests showed improvements in their
attention and memory scores.

that it’ll take you longer to complete your to-do list

than if you tackled each of your jobs one by one,
concentrating, as fully as you can, on them in turn.
Even worse, constantly flitting your concentration
between tasks is likely to leave you frazzled. When
Mark fitted heart rate monitors to office workers, she
found that, as their attention shifting got faster, they
started getting more and more stressed (as measured
by heart rate variability).
As she explains, switching attention from a task to
an email inbox and back again was a real problem:
“We measured mood using a technique called
experience sampling, where you keep probing people
at different points in the day and then they answer a
quick question on their phones or computers about
their mood. We found that when people did emails
they were in a bad mood.”
And the solution to all this? For those of us who
yearn to be more productive at work, to be more
present for our loved ones, or simply to read a book
without our fingers fidgeting towards our phones,
here are some science-backed techniques that can
help boost our attention spans…

71
 FE ATURE ATTENTION

SYNC
YOUR
BODY
CLOCK
Lining up your most
mentally taxing
tasks with your
natural peaks of
focus is key to
concentration, says
Mark. Her research
has found that, on
average, these high
points occur around
10am in the morning
and around 2-3pm in
the afternoon.
There are, however,
variations around these
times, depending on
whether you’re more of a
morning lark or a night owl
(what’s known as your
‘chronotype’). “If a person is an
early type, their peak focus would be
earlier – before 10am,” explains Mark.
“And if they’re a late type, their peak focus
will be later.”
So, how do you work out what your
chronotype is? One way is to complete the
‘morningness-eveningness questionnaire.’
The self-assessment was developed by
Prof Jim Horne way back in 1976 and you
can find examples of it online.
“But you can also keep a diary and, without a break? The annoying answer is task (focus declines with less motivation)?
every 30 minutes, note down what your that it varies. Finally, there’s the amount of stress you
level of focus and engagement is. You can “The length of your peak focus times experience – we need some amount of
then map out your focus over the day,” depends on several things,” says Mark. stimulation to focus, but too much stress
ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM PEET

says Mark. “Do this for several days,
ideally over a week, to try to get a good
sense of your regular focus times.”
Once you’ve worked out when your
peak concentration times are, the next
question is how long should you work for
“Firstly, the task itself – does it require a
lot of effort, or not? Then consider the
amount of resources you have available
– did you take good breaks to replenish
spent resources? Also, how much
motivation do you have to work on the
impacts our ability to sustain focus.”
And, while it’s often easier said than
done, the best way to stretch your length
of focus is, according to Mark, to make
sure that you start your day after a night
of good, high-quality sleep.

72

TAKE A YOGA NIDRA BREAK
The best way to refuel your focus could be practising yoga nidra,
which when translated, literally means ‘yoga sleep’. As Dr Brandon
Peters – a Seattle-based neurologist and fellow of the American
Academy of Sleep Medicine – explains, it’s a way of entering a “deeply
relaxed state of consciousness with brain activity similar to sleep,
even though you remain awake.”
Also referred to as ‘non-sleep deep rest’ (NSDR), it may boost
attention by helping remove waste from the brain. “There’s a
decrease in sympathetic nervous system activity when yoga nidra
is practised,” says Peters, which includes a decrease in heart rate
and blood pressure.
“THIS SLOWDOWN OF THE SYMPATHETIC NERVOUS SYSTEM MAY CORRELATE
WITH SLOW-WAVE ACTIVITY IN THE BRAIN, CREATING A CLEANSING EFFECT
THROUGH THE GLYMPHATIC SYSTEM AND THIS MAY BOOST ATTENTION”
ATTENTION FE ATURE
“This slowdown of the sympathetic nervous system may correlate
with slow-wave activity in the brain, creating a cleansing effect
through the glymphatic system – the waste management system
of the brain – and this may boost attention.”
Google’s chief executive Sundar Pichai is said to be a fan and if
you’d like to give it a go yourself, Peters recommends downloading
a narrated guide.
“While sitting or lying down with your eyes closed, the recording
will take you through specific visualisation and breathing exercises,”
he says. “Various audio and video NSDR guides can be found online.
They should be done while wearing comfortable clothing in a quiet
place, free of distractions and interruptions.”
73
 FE ATURE ATTENTION
COOL YOUR
LIGHTING
You might want to paint your walls a shade
of blue or green, or invest in a tinted light
bulb for your desk. That’s because just as we
work best at certain temperatures (usually
16–24°C/60–75°F), visual warmth can have
an impact too.
Researchers at the Technical University of
Valencia tested 160 people in virtual reality
classrooms, painted in different shades of
12 cold-hued colours (greens and blues) and
12 warm-hued ones (oranges and reds). They
measured pupils’ attention by asking them
to click on their mouse when they heard a
specific sound, while also ignoring a series of
other sounds.
The results: people performed better on
the attention task (and a memory test too)
when they were in rooms decorated in cooler
colours, compared to the warmer ones. Using
electroencephalogram (EEG) machines, the
74
researchers also monitored the participants’
brain activity and heart rates throughout,
which showed that people had different
levels of physiological arousal in different
coloured rooms.
The activation of the sympathetic nervous
system in the cool-hue rooms was
“appropriate to the maintenance of higher
alertness and cognitive performance,” the
researchers said.
White walls, meanwhile, may be especially
distracting. Studies, including one by the
Lund Institute of Technology and another by
the University of Nevada, have found that
children taught in classrooms with white
walls found it harder to maintain
concentration. As the founder of the Color
Research Institute of America, Louis Cheskin,
said in 1947: “White walls…. are an optical
strain and a psychological hazard!”

TRY
MARTIAL
ARTS
Mr Miyagi could focus on his
Bonsai trees for hours, so could
martial arts work for the rest of us
to improve our general attention,
too? Yes, according to research by
Bangor University, which found
that people who practised martial
arts achieved long-lasting
improvements in their focus.
Study author Dr Ashleigh
Johnstone explains that
techniques to improve our focus
mainly fall into two camps:
attention training (AT – think
typical ‘brain training’ exercises)
and attention state training (AST).
“AT tends to be based on
practising the same task
repeatedly and developing that
specific skill,” says Johnstone.
“You’ve improved your attention
on that task, but it often doesn't
transfer to other tasks so your
general attention likely isn't
improved. On the flip side is AST,
which is more about developing a
state of mind that allows for a
strong level of focus.” And that’s
where martial arts come in.
“Because it’s based on a state of
mind rather than practising one
ATTENTION FE ATURE
specific task, it tends to be more
transferable and so you find those
attentional improvements in
other areas of your life too,” says
Johnstone. “You’re developing a
new state of mind that’s getting
stronger.”
In her study, some of the martial
artists hadn’t trained in the days
leading up to the experiments, yet
“still showed improved attention,
which suggests that it’s not a
short-term boost immediately
following a training session that
will fade away,” says Johnstone.
“We found that martial artists
had particularly good vigilance
(also known as alertness). This is a
specific type of attention, which
refers to being able to sustain a
level of attention such that you
can quickly and efficiently respond
to unexpected events. We believe
that this is due to attention-state
training, with martial artists
needing to really focus on the PICTURE YOUR
present moment so they’re able FUTURE SELF
to respond appropriately
while training.” Imagining your future selves at the end of the
“I like to explain this by asking day – where you are, what you’re doing, who
people to imagine they’re sparring; you’re with – can seriously help stop you
nobody wants to get hit in the getting side-tracked, according to research.
face, so you need to be able to All you need to do, says Mark, is think
clear your mind and focus on about how “at 7pm at night you want to feel
what’s happening right now!” rewarded and fulfilled, and you want to
visualise yourself being with family and
friends or reading and relaxing.”
She says: “Having a strong visualisation
like that can help curtail that urge to check
social media or do email because you have
this goal of where you want to be at the end
of the day.”
Similar future-self visualisations (including
staring at photos of your own digitally aged
faces) have been shown to increase the
desire to save for retirement and to eat more
healthily too. But if you’re simply looking to
focus in the present moment, it’s best to
start your day by imagining how you want to
feel at its end.
ILLUSTRATIONS: SAM PEET
by S O P H I E F R E E M A N
Sophie is a science writer who specialises
in psychology.
75
 THE BIG QUESTION CATS VS DOGS

THE BIG QUESTION

In the ultimate pet showdown, we size up the cerebral powers

of our favourite furry friends

by DR Z A ZI E TODD

W
hether cats or dogs are
cleverer is a perennial
question. There’s no
denying dogs normally
have bigger brains
(especially if they’re a bigger breed). But
pooches also have more neurons – one
golden retriever was found to have 623
million neurons in its cerebral cortex,
compared to 429 million for a smaller dog
and 250 million for a cat. The dogs also
had more neurons in their brains overall.
Of course, it’s not how many neurons
you’ve got, but what you do with them
that counts. There’s more research on
canines than felines, so dogs’ abilities are
better known. And, of course, studying
“While some cats pet cats is hard because they don’t like
to go to new places, like a laboratory
would gaze between for example (think of how they hide
whenever the cat carrier comes out).
inaccessible food Nevertheless, science has been able to
measure up our favourite pets, based on
and a human, the three key types of intelligence.
majority would SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
One way to assess an animal’s ability to
simply keep trying understand others’ mental states (social
cognition) is through something called
to get it themselves” the unsolvable task paradigm.
It’s a simple test. After a dog has
learned to get food out of a container,

76
 “You’ve asked the audience; you’ve used your 50/50. One correct answer stands between the pair of you and £1,000,000. Would you like to phone a friend?”
VJGEQPVCKPGTKUƂZGFUJWVUQVJCVVJG
food becomes inaccessible. Scientists
then watch to see if the dog will look to
a nearby human for help. This looking,
from a person to the container and back
again, is a form of referential signalling
or ‘showing’ behaviour – the canine
equivalent of pointing.
When faced with an unsolvable puzzle
like this, dogs do indeed look to a nearby
person. When both their owner and a
stranger are present, they look only to the
owner in some studies, and they look to
both in others. It’s not clear why. But if
ALAMY
one person always opens the container,
YJKNGCPQVJGTCNYC[UTGƂNNUKVFQIUPQVKEG
this and look more at the appropriate
person to solve their problem.
So far, so adorably clever. But what
about cats? There are fewer such studies
on felines, but in one experiment both
FQIUCPFECVUEQWNFƂPFCJKFFGPRKGEG
of inaccessible food when a person
pointed at it. Unlike dogs, however, most
cats didn’t ask for help. While some cats
would gaze between inaccessible food
and a human, the majority would simply
keep trying to get it themselves.
Cats do have some skills in visual
communication, though. Another study
found that cats show marginally more
gaze alternation between a human and
a food container if the container was
impossible to open, rather than one that
could be opened by solving a puzzle.
This study also found that cats
interacted more with the container and
a human if that person was inattentive –
and also that they can tell if a person is
giving them attention or not (something
dogs can also do).
COUNTING
Suppose you normally give your pet
three treats at a time. Then one day you
just give them one treat. Will your cat or
dog notice? Can they count? Absolutely,
in both cases. ´
77
 THE BIG QUESTION CATS VS DOGS
´ To test ‘quantity discrimination’,
scientists offer different food options
(one piece versus eight pieces of food,
for example) and see which the animal
chooses. If it’s always the larger amount,
you know they can tell the difference.
These studies show that adult cats and
dogs can discriminate quantity, as can
kittens and two-month-old puppies,
though not quite as well.
Importantly, both species rely on sight
to ‘count’ the largest amount of food
– other senses aren’t as effective. For
instance, when dogs could only smell
the food, they didn’t reliably pick the
larger quantity.
SELF-AWARENESS
In the mirror test, a mark (such as red
dye or a sticker) is applied to an animal
and then they’re put in front of a mirror.
The idea is that if they look in the mirror
and try to remove the mark, it shows
they recognise themselves. Bonobos,
EJKORCP\GGUCPFENGCPGTƂUJCTGCOQPI
the animals who pass. And cats and dogs?
Well, both of them fail this visual test.
But what about a smell version?
Biologist Dr Marc Bekoff tried a ‘yellow
snow’ test with his dog Jethro. In a
(slightly gross) experiment, Bekoff found
that Jethro was more interested in snow
marked by another dog’s urine than in
snow marked by his own, even if it had
been moved without Jethro seeing.
Prof Alexandra Horowitz formalised
this ‘smelly’ mirror test by adding scent
from the spleen of a sick, deceased dog
to a healthy dog’s urine. She found that
FQIUURGPFNQPIGTUPKHƂPIVJGKTQYP
urine when the odour was added,
compared to the urine of a dog they
didn’t know. In short, the dogs passed
VJKUVGUVYKVJƃ[KPIEQNQWTU
And cats? Well, based on time spent
UPKHƂPIYGMPQYVJCVECVUECPKFGPVKH[
their own faeces and tell them apart from
the faeces of familiar and unfamiliar cats.
This is kind of like Bekoff’s yellow snow
test, but another odour would have to be
added to make it a true ‘smelly’ mirror
test. And unfortunately, this hasn’t been
tried yet with cats in a lab setting.
FINAL VERDICT
Being smart involves a lot of different
factors, in many varying scenarios. And
78
we shouldn’t just consider intelligence
“One way to think from our human perspective. One way
to think about it is to ask whether dogs
about it is to ask and cats could manage without us. In
VJKUUKVWCVKQPOQUVECVUYQWNFDGƂPG
whether cats or and could easily provide their own food.
Some dogs would be okay, but others
dogs could would struggle.
Of course, there are individual
manage without differences and the dog or cat that’s next
to you on the sofa right now may or
us. In this may not be smarter than average. Their
genetics, socialisation, early experiences
situation, most and daily life all make a difference.
We can probably make them smarter
cats would be fine” by training them more (yes, even cats can
be trained with positive reinforcement).
We don’t know for sure, but it’s possible
that the extra socialisation and training
that dogs tend to get gives them the edge
when faced with tasks that require help
from others.
Breed likely makes a difference too.
Take the Genius Dog Project, for example,
that investigates which pooches can
memorise the names of at least 10 toys.
Almost all of the ‘dog geniuses’ are border
collies, but there are ‘geniuses’ in other
breeds and mixed breeds too. There aren’t
cats known who can do this, but it’s a rare
by D R Z A Z I E T O D D ability even among dogs.
(@CompAnimalPsych) Ultimately, both dogs and cats are
Zazie is an animal behaviour expert and the author surprisingly smart, but in different ways.
of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy So the best thing to do is to simply love
and Purr: The Science of Making Your Cat Happy. the pet you’ve got, for who they are.
GETTY IMAGES
Some treats are easier to access than others, however intelligent your pet might be
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 Q&A

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

LINA MCBRIDE, NORWICH

WHAT IS
SHADOW WORK?
AND COULD
EMBRACING MY
SHADOW SELF
BOOST MY
MENTAL HEALTH?
Browse the ‘mental health’ hashtag on TikTok
and you’ll find an abundance of videos about
‘shadow work.’ Collectively they’ve attracted
over a billion views and helped sell over a
million copies of The Shadow Work Journal by
Keila Shaheen, a former TikTok employee.
It sounds mysterious, but the shadow work
craze is actually a modern take on an idea
first put forward by the Swiss psychiatrist
Carl Jung about halfway through the 20th
century. Jung was a friend and collaborator of
Sigmund Freud and, like Freud, he believed in
the profound importance of the unconscious capture the way we see it as dark and rationale for doing this is that your shadow is
to human psychology. unwanted. Jung believed your shadow self a genuine part of you, so by acknowledging it
One of Jung’s ideas about the unconscious can manifest when you make an unguarded and processing that side of yourself you’ll feel
was that we all have a ‘shadow’ self – the remark or act impulsively, and he believed it more authentic and whole.
part of ourselves made up of traits that we showed up in dreams too. Moreover, Jung argued that the shadow can
fear and dislike. He used the term ‘shadow’ to Essentially, the goal of shadow work is to have valuable aspects to it, such as raw
reflect the fact that this side of ourselves is get to know your shadow self better, learn power and insight, that could be worth
always there, we can’t escape it, and to from it and integrate it into who you are. The expressing, for instance, as a way to boost

80

DR HELEN DR NISH DR HELEN
SCALES MANEK PILCHER
Marine biology The human body Nature
your creativity, your personal understanding
and your resilience.
Shadow work typically takes the form of
reflective exercises designed to help you get in
touch with your shadow. In The Shadow Work
Journal, for instance, Shaheen recommends
spending some time in a quiet, dimly lit space,
tuning into your shadow and reflecting on
what words come to mind when you listen to
your inner voice.
There are also many visualisation exercises
in shadow work. One involves picturing two
doors, one leading to your ideal self and the
other leading to your shadow self, then
imagining yourself walking through each one
and how it would feel. Other therapists
suggest creating spontaneous art to tap into
your shadow or keeping a dream diary.
“THE GOAL OF SHADOW
WORK IS TO GET TO KNOW
YOUR SHADOW SELF BETTER”
Some Jungian psychoanalysts have
welcomed the fresh attention to their field
and the idea of people being reflective about
themselves. Others fear that the way the
shadow concept is discussed on social media
is often superficial and fails to capture the
depth of genuine Jungian psychology. Another
GETTY IMAGES ILLUSTRATION: BERNARD LEONARDO
concern is that for people with traumatic
pasts, the reflective exercises could provoke
difficult emotions that would be better
confronted in a safe therapeutic space.
For scientifically minded psychologists, a
related problem with Jung’s theories (as with
Freud’s) is that they lack empirical support
and could even risk psychological harm. For
example, it might arguably do more harm
than good to tell someone that their
distressing intrusive thoughts are somehow
part of them. CJ
DR ALASTAIR DR CHRISTIAN DR CLAIRE
GUNN JARRETT ASHER
Astrophysics Psychology Planet Earth
C ATRIN PHELPS, WINCHESTER
COULD A BLACK HOLE EVER DIE?
Yes, black holes can die, but in a very
slow and mundane fashion.
Empty space isn’t actually empty.
Although it contains no mass or energy,
the ‘quantum fields’ that define mass
and energy still exist. These fields,
because they’re not required to have
zero energy, can create pairs of
‘virtual particles’, normally a particle-
antiparticle pair, which quickly annihilate
each other.
But, according to the usual
explanation, near a black hole, it’s
possible for one of those particles to
disappear inside the black hole, while the
other one escapes as ‘Hawking radiation’.
To conserve the total energy of the black
hole, the infalling particle must carry
‘negative energy’ (and hence ‘negative
mass’) and the escaping particle must
have positive energy.
Hawking radiation is the result of how
gravity affects space-time. The quantum
fields in empty space obey Heisenberg’s
Q&A
PROF STEVE PETE
BRUSATTE LAWRENCE
Dinosaurs Astronomy
Uncertainty Principle, which means
there’s a limit to the certainty with which
we can know their energy, or the time at
which a specific energy can be assigned
to them. Since a gravitational field bends
space-time and affects the local passage
of time, this means that regions of
space-time with different gravitational
curvatures cannot agree on the energy of
the quantum fields. It’s this difference in
the energy of the vacuum at different
locations in the gravitational field of a
black hole which creates the so-called
‘virtual particles’.
The escaping positive energy from a
black hole gradually reduces its mass
and energy. So black holes that aren’t
actively sucking in new material will
slowly shrink and ultimately vanish.
The timescales for this are immense,
however. For example, a black hole of
one solar mass would take 1064 years to
evaporate, whereas the age of the
Universe is only of order 1010 years. AG
81
 Q&A
NATURE’S WEIRDEST CREATURES
THE FURRY
HEDGEHOG
Think all hedgehogs are spiky! Think again.
The aptly named furry hedgehog sports a
fine pelt of floof with ne’er a prickle in sight.
Furry hedgehogs, also known as
gymnures, are found in the subtropical
evergreen forests of Southeast Asia,
including Vietnam, Sumatra, China and the
Malay Peninsula.
Their pointy snouts are hedgehog-like
and their naked tails are rat-like, but there’s
also something of the shrew about them.
They’re not, however, closely related to
rats, and instead nestle happily within the
82
family of Erinaceidae, which incorporates
both furry and spiky hedgehogs alike.
Where regular hedgehogs have spines
made from stiff, hollow, keratin-dense
hairs, furry hedgehogs, which are thought
to have evolved before their spiky relatives,
are covered in dense fur. Depending on the
species, the fur can be soft or bristly, and
the size can vary considerably. In Indonesia,
for example, the dwarf gymnure grows to
about the same size as a house mouse,
while a different variety, known as the
white-faced moonrat, grows as big as a
domestic cat.
The body plan of furry hedgehogs is
thought to resemble that of the earliest
mammals, with a long, pointy head, a
naked tail for regulating body heat and a
plantigrade stance, which sees the base of
all four feet firmly in touch with the ground.
Like the regular hedgehogs you might
find in your garden, they’re omnivores.
Foraging in darkness or the twilight hours,
furry hedgehogs use their bristly whiskers
to help them find worms, insects, scorpions,
spiders, frogs, fish, fruit and other
delicacies. The solitary beasts also have a
strong scent, likened to rancid garlic, which
they produce from scent glands and use to
mark their territory.
 Q&A

OLLIE PE TERSON, VIA EMAIL

WHAT CAUSES
“THERE WERE THOUGHT RAINBOW CLOUDS?
TO BE TWO KNOWN In the depths of winter, when conditions clouds are named after. They also scatter

SPECIES OF are just right, glittering clouds turn the

polar skies into a spectacle of colour.
light forward, resulting in a pearlescent
appearance. Because they’re found at such

SOFT-FURRED
Rainbow clouds – also known as high altitudes, the curvature of Earth
‘nacreous’ or ‘mother-of-pearl’ clouds after means that rays of sunlight from below
their resemblance to the iridescent shells the horizon hit the underside of these

HEDGEHOGS, BUT A of some molluscs – are an extremely rare

atmospheric phenomenon.
high-altitude clouds and are reflected,
illuminating the clouds brightly around

2023 STUDY REVEALED

Known scientifically as ‘polar dawn and dusk.
stratospheric clouds’, they’re found much The thickest, most vivid rainbow clouds
higher in the atmosphere than clouds are formed of pure water crystals. But

AN ADDITIONAL FIVE”
normally form. Most clouds are found less atmospheric pollutants, such as nitric acid
than 10km (6 miles) above Earth’s surface. often from the production of fertilisers,
But rainbow clouds form at altitudes can form high-altitude ice crystals at
between 15 and 25km (9 and 15 miles), in warmer air temperatures, producing thin
Until recently, there were thought to an atmospheric layer known as the lower clouds that are less vibrant. This type of
be two known species of soft-furred stratosphere. Usually, the stratosphere is polar stratospheric cloud is linked to
hedgehogs (genus Hylomys), but a far too dry for clouds to form, but when degradation of the Antarctic ozone layer.
2023 study revealed an additional five. the air temperature drops below about If you’d like to witness a rainbow cloud
Researchers studied 232 physical -80°C (-112°F), the sparse water molecules for yourself, your best chance is to visit
specimens and 85 tissue samples, group together to form tiny ice crystals, Antarctica during winter and look skyward
which came from fieldwork and which aggregate into clouds. around sunrise or sunset. They can also
decades-old museum collections. The tiny ice crystals scatter sunlight, occur in parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland
Genetic analyses revealed two species separating it into different colours and and Alaska, however, and have even been
that were new to science and three creating the dazzling rainbow effect these observed as far south as Scotland. CA
that were elevated from subspecies
level (the taxonomic rank below
species) to species level.
One of the species, dubbed
H. macarong, has dark brown fur and is
around 15cm (almost 6in) long. It’s
found in Dalat, Vietnam, and is named
after a Vietnamese word for vampire
(Ma cà rong) because males of the
species have long, fang-like incisors.
H. vorax, meanwhile, is a little
smaller, with dark brown fur, a black
tail and a delicate, narrow snout. It’s
found only on the slopes of Mount
Leuser in Northern Sumatra and is
named for its supposedly voracious
appetite. After the respected
mammalogist Frederick Ulmer
captured some during a 1939 field trip,
QUENTIN MARTINEZ X2, GETTY IMAGES

he wrote, “they were voracious beasts

often devouring the whole bait before
springing the trap. Ham rind, coconut,
meat and walnuts were eaten. One
partially devoured the chicken head
bait of a steel trap before getting
caught in a nearby Schuyler trap
baited with ham rind.” Not fussy
eaters then! HP

83
 Q&A

L AURA WOLF, COUNT Y DURHAM

IS IT TRUE WE COLLECT SPACE DUST

IN OUR HAIR WHEN WE’RE OUTSIDE?
Earth is constantly bombarded by
‘micrometeorites’; tiny bits of
asteroids and comets. Scientists have
measured the typical accretion rate
of these particles at between 20 and
60 million kilograms per year. So, on
average, more than 100,000kg fall to
Earth each day.
The mass distribution of these
particles peaks at about 1.5×10–5
grams, with a diameter of about
200 micrometres (1mm = 1,000
micrometres). So, on average, there’ll
be about 6.7×1012 micrometeorites
falling to Earth each day. If these fall
uniformly across Earth’s surface
(which is not perfectly true), each
75m2 (807ft2)of Earth’s surface would
receive one micrometeorite per day.
If we also assume these particles
are falling vertically and the average
human head has a diameter of
14.4cm (5.5in), then you have about a
1 in 4,600 chance of being hit by one if
you stand in the same spot for 24
hours. In other words, you’d have to
stand in the same spot for almost 13
years to be sure of a micrometeorite
being caught in your hair.
Of course, these are only average
numbers and it’s possible that you
have, at some point, collected cosmic
dust in your hair while outside. But it
doesn’t happen very often. AG

GEORGE ALVIN, VIA EMAIL

HOW CAN I GET BETTER AT
TAKING COMPLIMENTS?
Compliments can be a minefield. In fact, psychologists in Belgium have
identified a number of ways that compliments can make the
person being complimented feel uncomfortable.
As soon as someone pays you a compliment, you
might feel judged and self-conscious. For
instance, if you meet up with friends and one
of them pays you a compliment about your
outfit, you might feel an uncomfortable
sense of being in the spotlight. Social
awkwardness or inappropriateness can
they anticipated that their compliment would make you feel good. If the
compliment is from a friend or partner, they probably hoped that the
exchange would bring you closer together.
Seeing things this way isn’t always easy and research suggests it
might be particularly challenging for people who are low in self-esteem.
If this is something you struggle with, you might find that what
you really crave is to be understood and when people pay
you compliments, the message you get is that they
really don’t ‘get you’.
Psychologists have studied these dynamics in
romantic relationships and found that for
partners with low self-esteem, receiving
compliments from their other half can
backfire – the person with low self-

GETTY IMAGES X2 ILLUSTRATIONS: BERNARD LEONARDO, PETE LAWRENCE

also be a factor, for instance, if your boss
pays you a personal compliment.
Aside from these, you might also feel
indebted to the person complimenting
you and under pressure to reciprocate; or
you might feel misunderstood (perhaps
the compliment is at odds with your
feelings about yourself); or you might feel
undeserving – if you were disappointed with
something you did, it might be annoying if
someone praises you for it. There could even be
situations where you’re delighted with something
you’ve done – preparing a romantic meal, for instance, and
your partner’s compliment (“that was nice”) is underwhelming.
One way to overcome some of these feelings is to remind yourself that
the person complimenting you had good intentions. They probably
wanted you to know that they’re thinking highly of you in some way and
esteem is left feeling misunderstood and
anxious that they won’t be able to live up
to their partner’s unrealistic beliefs.
Other studies have looked at ways to
help people with low self-esteem to
benefit from receiving compliments. The
main takeaway is to try to get out of the
mindset of whether the compliment matches
with your own views of yourself. Instead, try to
focus on what the compliment means in the
specific situation (for example, that you just did
something that someone thinks is praiseworthy) and also
what it implies – in a good way – about your relationship with
this person and how they see you.
Longer-term, if you can find ways to address your low self-esteem,
you’ll probably discover a welcome side-effect is that you’ll begin finding
it easier to take compliments. CJ

84

KERRY WILKINS, LONDON
WHAT DINOSAUR
WOULD BE MOST
DANGEROUS TO US?
If you believe the films, it would be a never-ending
battle if dinosaurs and humans had to coexist. But,
as with animals today, some dinosaurs would have
been dangerous, and others would have been
harmless … at least if left alone. We would probably
be a bigger threat to them than vice versa.
The most dangerous would surely have been the
meat-eating theropods, like Tyrannosaurus and
Giganotosaurus. These animals were the size of
buses, with heads the size of bathtubs, and an
average human could have fit into their jaws. But
many of them, particularly Tyrannosaurus, were
also intelligent animals, with large brains and keen
senses of smell, hearing and vision. Our best hope
would be if they found us too small to make a
satisfying meal.
Most dinosaurs, however, were plant-eaters.
They wouldn’t actively hunt us, but they could still
be dangerous as many of them were enormous.
Some long-necked sauropods like Patagotitan and
Argentinosaurus were heavier than passenger jets.
One misstep and they could crush a human like we
might step on a bug. Also, many horned and
duck-billed herbivores were herd animals, which
lived in big groups, and their social dynamics would
probably make them wary of outsiders.
Some little dinosaurs would have looked cute
and fluffy, with their feathery coats. These were
the raptor ancestors of birds, like Velociraptor, no
bigger than lapdogs. Yet they would be tenacious
pests, liable to slash you with their sickle-shaped
foot claws and bite you with razor-sharp teeth. SB
ASTRONOMY FOR BEGINNERS
HOW TO SPOT ARCTURUS
WHEN: SPRING
The star Arcturus is an iconic sight in the
spring night sky. It’s easy to locate by
extending the arc of the handle of the
Saucepan (aka Plough) away from the
pan. Arcturus lies on this curve, shining
with a noticeable orange hue.
For those of us who live in the
northern hemisphere, it’s an important
object, being the brightest night-time
star in this half of the sky. The brightest
night-time star is Sirius, in Canis Major
(the Great Dog), but this lies in the
southern half of the sky. The northern
and southern celestial hemispheres are
separated by the celestial equator,
which represents the projection of
Earth’s equatorial plane into the sky.
Arcturus sits towards the southern
end of a large, kite-shaped pattern
representing the body of the
constellation Boötes, the Herdsman.
The kite asterism is about as high as the
Plough is long, with Arcturus sitting at
the pointed, bottom end. If you can
identify the kite shape, look out for a
WATCH THE SKY AT NIGHT ON BBC FOUR AND BBC IPLAYER
Q&A
small but distinctive semi-circle of stars
off the kite’s eastern (left) ‘shoulder’.
This is the constellation of Corona
Borealis, the Northern Crown, another
defining pattern of the Northern
Hemisphere’s springtime night sky.
Occasionally you may see a dim star
appear within Corona Borealis. This is
R Coronae Borealis, an irregular variable
star, which, when brightest, just peaks
above the threshold of naked-eye
visibility from a dark site. R Coronae
Borealis is a carbon star, which
occasionally releases clouds of carbon
into the space around it. When this cools
to form soot, it blocks the star’s light
making it appear to dim. For this reason,
R Coronae Borealis is known as the Dust
Puff Star. At its dimmest, you’d need a
large telescope to even glimpse it. PL
by P E T E L AW R E N C E
(@Avertedvision)
Pete is an astronomy expert and
presenter on The Sky at Night.
85
 Q&A
JACOB BURNE T T, PE TERBOROUGH
HOW CUTE ARE BABY SHARKS
IN REAL LIFE?
That all hinges on what you consider to
be cute. Depending on the species, a
newborn shark can be anything from
an adorable, hand-sized tiddler, like the
small-spotted catsharks that hatch
from ‘mermaid’s purse’ egg cases, or
they can emerge directly from their
mothers, with bodies as long as your
outstretched arms. This is the case with
sand tiger sharks, and how these baby
sharks get so big is rather shocking.
Sand tigers are one of many species
of sharks in which fertilised eggs hatch
inside the female, then develop in her
uterus. It’s quite common for unborn
shark embryos to feed on unfertilised
eggs, which happens in more than a
dozen species. Sand tiger shark
embryos go further – ultrasound scans
of a pregnant sand tiger shark detected
embryos swimming between the two
prongs of her uterus, presumably
hunting for more baby sharks to eat.
After a year-long gestation, a female
sand tiger gives birth to one or two
enormous pups, the winners of a
prolonged intrauterine battle. Being so
big at birth means they’re safe from a
lot of predators, but, sadly, makes them
vulnerable to getting caught in fishing
nets. Sand tiger sharks are critically
endangered of going extinct.
To find out more about why unborn
sand tigers eat each other, researchers
studied the bodies of sharks snagged in
86
nets around South Africa. The pregnant
female sand tiger sharks that were
caught, varied in the number of
embryos they were carrying. Those
that were further along in their
pregnancy had fewer unborn babies
because the game of shark-eat-shark
had been playing out for longer.
Sequencing the DNA from the
unborn pups, scientists worked out the
paternity of each embryo. Female sand
tigers, as many sharks do, mate with
multiple males within the same
breeding season and so their eggs can
be fertilised by different fathers. DNA
tests showed that in litters of five, six or
seven, the embryos came from at least
two fathers. Meanwhile, the litters of
just two pups were the offspring of the
same father.
It’s not clear why, but it seems the
offspring of one male shark tend to
have an edge over their half-siblings
and emerge victorious. It’s possible
they’re first to be fertilised and get
biggest first, priming them to devour
their siblings. It could also be a strategy
females employ to pick good mates. A
female doesn’t need to be choosy and
fend off the advances of all the males
that want to mate with her, because
the highest quality sperm will likely
produce the fittest embryos, which will
then be most likely to survive inside her
and swim off into the ocean. HS
LUCIA HERRERA, VIA EMAIL
PROFFEE: SHOULD
I BE ADDING PROTEIN
TO MY COFFEE?
TikTokkers have been mixing protein powder
into their coffee as a convenient way to
increase their protein intake, a combination
that has become known as ‘proffee’. It isn’t
necessarily harmful, but there are a few
factors to consider.
Firstly, protein is an essential nutrient that’s
crucial for various bodily functions, including
muscle repair and immune system support.
Ideally, whole sources of protein from foods
are more beneficial than powders, as they
contain additional, essential vitamins, minerals
and compounds that aren’t found in all protein
powders. Similarly, a lot of protein powders
are often filled with added sugars, additives
and sweeteners.
If you’re going for a powder, try to choose a
high-quality, well-balanced one without
excessive added sugars or artificial ingredients.
Coffee can of course boost alertness and
energy, but may also lead to
increased heart rate and
potential digestive
discomfort in some people.
You also need to be mindful
of just how much caffeine
you’re consuming, especially
if you struggle with sleep.
Sensitivity to caffeine varies,
but sleep experts advise
avoiding caffeine at least
8-10 hours before bedtime
to ensure a better, more
restful night’s sleep.
The other thing to bear in
mind is that some people
may experience digestive
discomfort when consuming
both protein and coffee
together – anyone with
irritable bowel syndrome
will tell you how
uncomfortable they
can both be!
So overall, there’s
probably not a great deal of
harm in trying a ‘proffee’,
but, as with anything, it
should be consumed in
moderation and with
consideration of any side
effects you might
experience. NM
 Q&A

PAULINE TERRY, MANCHESTER

BEN MIDDLE TON, VIA EMAIL

DOES COLD WEATHER WHAT IS A

CAUSE THE FEVER DREAM?
COMMON COLD?
A fever dream is a vivid and often
“You need to wrap up or you’ll catch a cold!” bizarre hallucination you might
Most people have probably heard some experience during a high fever. It’s
variation of that parental plea while growing thought that when the body’s
up, or have even given such advice to their temperature rises significantly, the
own children. But contrary to popular belief, brain’s normal functioning can be
cold weather itself does not directly cause temporarily altered, leading to intense
the common cold. and surreal perceptions.
Why, then, do colds seem more frequent Although they can occur during any
when it’s cold outside? It’s because the stage of sleep, most of our vivid dreams
common cold is caused by viruses, such as happen during rapid eye movement
rhinoviruses, not exposure to chilly conditions. (REM) sleep. It’s speculated that fevers
When it’s colder, the weather can contribute can disrupt our REM sleep, which is why
to the spread of these viruses, and during vivid dreams occur. These dreams may
colder seasons, people tend to spend more involve distorted images, unusual
time indoors creating an environment where sensations or fragmented thoughts,
viruses can be easily passed on. and can be quite disorienting.
Also, the dry air in colder weather may While fever dreams are typically
affect the respiratory tract, potentially temporary and not harmful, they can
making individuals more susceptible to be unsettling. Ideally, if the fever is
infections. All of these might explain why we controlled, for example with regular
feel the common cold is more prevalent when paracetamol, or the fever passes, the
the temperatures dip, but it’s not being cold dreams should settle on their own. NM
that’s the culprit. NM

QUESTION
OF THE
MONTH
HENRY PARR, FROME
GETTY IMAGES X2, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY ILLUSTRATION: BERNARD LEONARDO

DOES GRAVITY DISTORT

SPACE, MOVE THINGS
THROUGH IT, OR BOTH?
Einstein’s General Theory of space-time is most curved and
Relativity says that the presence vanishes where space-time is
of mass warps or bends space ‘flat’. The curvature influences
(it actually warps the four- how an object moves through W IN NE R
The winner
dimensional construct known space-time. So, it’s true to say of nex t issu
Question of e’s
as ‘space-time’). Gravity is the that gravity both distorts the Month
a pair of har wins
force that objects experience space and (as a consequence) dback scie
books: Path nce
less Forest
due to that curvature of influences how objects move The Immun and
e Mind,
space-time. It’s strongest where through it. AG worth £47!

EMAIL YOUR QUESTIONS TO QUESTIONS@SCIENCEFOCUS.COM

87
 DISCOVER
THE VERY BEST OF EUROPE
ON A FULLY ESCORTED COACH HOLIDAY
Everything is taken care of when you choose a holiday with Leger, with 100s of tours to choose from
and prices from only £399pp.

EXPERIENCED LUXURY COACH EXPERTLY PLANNED KNOWLEDGEABLE THE GOOD

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It starts with a local
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of points across the UK.
Your experienced driver takes
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you every step of the way.
Sharing tips and advice, there’s
always someone on hand!
You’re never alone on a
Leger holiday...
TRAVEL
Travel by luxury coach with
state-of-the-art Luxuria.
Exclusive to Leger Holidays and
the business class of coaches,
sink into your deluxe, armchair-
style seat, unwind with a vast
choice of entertainment on your
personal touch-screen TV, and
enjoy more space around you
with only 31 seats.
ITINERARIES
We’ll cross the best Europe
has to offer, so don’t forget the
cameras! Travelling by coach
means you’ll take in sights
along the way that you wouldn’t
otherwise see… the rolling
countryside, the spectacular
landscapes, the traditional
towns along the way – this is
what the others miss!
GUIDES
From start to finish, we’ve got
you covered… food, drinks,
hotels, itineraries: sorted.
Once there, our specially
selected, knowledgeable
guides ensure you won’t miss
a thing! Every trip, every
historic detail… and by the end
of your holiday, you’ll be an
expert too.
COMPANY
Travelling in the comfort
of a group of like-minded
people, you’re in good
company with Leger.
Soak up the relaxing,
sociable atmopshere, enjoy
new experiences, share
stories, create unforgettable
memories, and you may even
make friends for life!

“ A combination of a first-rate tour guide, well organised coach crew, very full and informative itinerary,
and great company made this tour one to remember.” – Geoff Mould Rated ‘Excellent’

COMBINING STATE-OF-THE-ART COACH TRAVEL WITH SOME OF EUROPE’S MOST FASCINATINGLY

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018093

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T&Cs apply. NG C O MP
 NEXT ISSUE

CROSSWORD NIL BY MOUTH

Are intermittent-fasting diets
a safe and effective way to lose weight?
PENCILS AT THE READY!
     

  

 

   

 



  

 

ACROSS
7 Majestic lager’s re-ordered (5)
DOWN
1 Cart fate about - that’s not
PLUS
9 Personnel reduced in top style
(4,3) 2
natural (8)
Everyone that is around can
EARLY
10 Family member misses initial
happiness (7) 3
form union (8)
Setting is a bit of an act (5)
WARNING SIGNS
11 Set fire to hill beside church (5) 4 Reportedly, some distance is Untangling the complex link between
12 Fancy hat also accessible (2,4) an achievement (4) depression and dementia
13 Breaking news from city trial 5 Colourful fellow always gets
(6) infection (7,5)
16 Check off alien voucher (6) 6 Fletcher’s groove (4)
17 Mistake repelled first leader
(6)
8 Comic is sensational and new
(7,5)
THINGS DON’T ADD UP
19 Weight of rock (5) 14 Silent inlets listen, for example The cracks that are appearing in our
21 Disentangle a French (8)
understanding of the Universe
composer (7) 15 Vigorous tenor relies unwisely
22 Launch opportunity (7) on son (8)

ON SALE 14 MAY
23 Extra serious start for 18 Shift first half of bird (5)
conventions (5) 19 Small jump to the store (4)
20 Give out the wrong time (4)
GETTY IMAGES

ANSWERS For the answers, visit bit.ly/BBCFocusCW

Please be aware the website address is case-sensitive.

89
 BETTER
LIVING
THROUGH
SCIENCE
TAKE IT SLOW
Slow running is a fitness trend
with some hard and fast
science behind it
D
eceleration isn’t really in t he
runner’s vocabulary. For many of
the people who do it, from Olympic
champions to 5K enthusiasts,
running is the pursuit of speed itself;
a sport defined by personal bests,
competition, striving and Strava.
Slow? That’s a four-letter word.
Or at least it was, until quite recently.
In the last year or two, slow running
has become ‘A Thing’, backed not
just by wellness gurus on Instagram,
but also by a growing number of
coaches, amateur runners and exercise
scientists, too.
The thinking is that going slow
could be a fast way to enjoy the benefits
of exercise.
“Slow running helps to reduce
resting blood pressure, for example.
And it promotes a stronger heart,”
says Prof Dan Gordon, an exercise
physiologist at Anglia Rusk in
University in southeast England.
“You’re still putting your system
under stress, but what we’re starting
to understand is that you don’t need to
by I A N
put the body under excessive amounts
TAY L O R of st ress to get a ca rdiovascula r
Ian is a
freelance adaptation.”
science Slow running is usually defined as
writer and a pace at which you can comfortably
the former hold a conversation. Think of it as an
deputy
editor of
effort of 4 or 5 on a scale of 1–10, where
BBC Science 10 is an all-out sprint. If you know your
Focus. sports science, it’s referred to as ‘zone
“WHAT WE’RE STARTING TO UNDERSTAND
IS THAT YOU DON’T NEED TO PUT THE BODY
UNDER EXCESSIVE AMOUNTS OF STRESS
TO GET A CARDIOVASCULAR ADAPTATION”
90
2 exercise’ and it’s a physiological
sweet spot t hat can improve and
extend your life.
In 2015, researchers in Copenhagen
made a surprising discovery when
they studied the long-term mortality
of light, moderate and st renuous
joggers, as well as non-runners. The
light and moderate joggers had a
lower mortality rate than either the
non-runners or the strenuous runners.
The strenuous joggers had a mortality
rate that wasn’t statistically different
to the non-runners.
So, what ma kes t he unhur ried
approach so healthful? As well as
improving the strength and pumping
capacity of your heart, slow running
boosts your health at the molecular
level. It fends off metabolic disease by
improving your insulin resistance. It
increases the density of mitochondria
(essentially, the batteries) in your cells
and encourages your body to use fat
for energy.
Slow runners also recover faster
and are less likely to suffer fatigue
or injuries from overtraining. They’re
also more likely to feel good.
“There a re huge positives for
emotional health,” Gordon says. “The
benefits for things like mood state,
depression and anxiety don’t really
decrease any more if we increase the
exercise intensity. And then there’s
the social aspect. One of the things
to emphasise with slow running is,
you can actually have a conversation!”
Gordon believes that promoting
slow running might encourage more
people to exercise and stick with it,
partly because you can do it with
friends and partly because there’s
no pressure to perform. It might be
the reason why Parkrun and Couch
To 5K running plans are so popular.
“If you’re t r ying to get people
physically fit, t here’s no better
way of doing it than in a group,”
Gordon says. “You have that sense
of encouragement. People struggle to
meet targets when they’re exercising
on their own.”
For runners with one eye on the
stopwatch, it might sound like slow
running isn’t the way to chase down
that PB. Again, researchers like Gordon
think otherwise. “It requires a change
of mindset. We’ve fallen into the trap of
thinking that high-intensity exercise
is best, but you don’t need to get
a massive sweat on, you don’t need
to feel your heart pounding out of
your chest. If you run slower, you’ll
still get gains.”
He points to research which shows
that even elite runners spend up to
80 per cent of their training at a slow,
zone 2 pace.
This builds what coaches a nd
researchers call your ‘aerobic base’ –
the basic engine of your cardiovascular
fitness. Improving it means your heart
ILLUSTRATION: DANIEL BRIGHT
delivers more oxygen to your legs and
your lungs with every heartbeat. It
ensures you’ll run farther, faster, and
at a lower level of perceived effort.
In other words, slow down and you
won’t just live longer, you’ll become
a better runner too.
Use the code: SPRING24 for a 20% discount.