Table of contents for November 2021 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

I touched a human brain once. At university, while I was studying psychology, a professor invited us to sign up for an extracurricular course on brain dissection: to study and understand the structures and geography of the thing we had been learning about. I signed up. It didn’t seem like the kind of opportunity that came around often. Before the first lesson, I was nervous and excited. To take part in any dissection is an honour. Bodies donated to science are a special gift, and so students are reminded that it’s a privilege to be able to learn in this way. My brain was going to touch another brain with its hands and I was prepared for whatever revelation that might bring. “Well, that’s weirdly beige,” was my first thought.…

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Fetch the engines This summer has seen yet another plethora of forest fires destroying trees, people’s homes and doing untold damage to the environment. But the main fire-fighting technique is still to throw water on them, just as we did in the Great Fire of London. Surely science can come up with a better solution? Dr Barry Culpin Wildland firefighting nowadays differs very much from the techniques used to fight urban fires. Indeed, many countries have separate teams, training and equipment for wildfires. Water is still used and is what’s often seen on TV. But in bigger, more intense fires, there’s no way you can extinguish all the flames; you can only stop them from spreading by removing the fuel available and letting the wildfire burn itself out – a…

The most overused phrase of the last 18 months has to be ‘unprecedented times’. And yes, it was accurate, for a while. But after that while, the times had precedent. Sure, we were still figuring out how to take ourselves off mute, and whether to wear one mask or two in the supermarket, and if shaking hands was okay when greeting someone we’d not seen in the flesh for several months. But we were, in a nutshell, going about our business as usual. It’s just that the usual was somehow different. We had arrived in the new normal. We’re remarkably adaptable creatures, and to now try to return to a world as it was before COVID-19 is both disrespectful and impossible. Disrespectful because it’s not giving us enough credit for…

PRIMORDIAL (A RANGE OF DIFFERENT MASSES) These are as-yet-unconfirmed relics from the formation of the Universe in the Big Bang. So far we’ve been able to rule out their existence in certain mass ranges, but the door is still open to the possibility that the Universe is littered with tiny black holes. Together, they could explain the dark matter mystery – the fact that there appears to be an invisible glue binding galaxies together. STELLAR MASS (5 TO 100 SOLAR MASSES) These are your so-called ‘ordinary’ black holes. When the most massive stars die – those more than 30 times the mass of the Sun – they explode into a supernova. The star’s core collapses into an infinitely small, dense point called a singularity. The gravity is so strong that…

BEN SIMPSON, LEICESTER I WORK IN CUSTOMER SERVICE. WHY IS BEING POLITE ALL THE TIME SO EXHAUSTING? Being polite at work when you don’t feel like it is similar to any situation in life that requires you to make the effort to mask your true feelings. That could be feigning gratitude for that revolting meal your partner just spent hours making for you, or putting on a brave smile for the birthday socks from your aunt that you really didn’t want. As you say, it’s exhausting, especially if your job means you have to do it all day long. In a work context, psychologists call it ‘emotional labour’, which involves either ‘surface acting’ – concealing your true feelings – or ‘deep acting’. The latter means altering your actual underlying feelings,…

ISS gets a power up THERMOSPHERE, EARTH NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough waves as he and his fellow crew member, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet, install new solar arrays on the International Space Station (ISS). The arrays, made up of photovoltaic panels, generate electricity for installed during three spacewalks in June 2021, the power available to astronauts on the ISS is now 215kW a day. That’s enough to power the average home for nearly the ISS. Unlike the fold-out solar arrays that you might have seen on images of the ISS, the new ones, called roll-out solar arrays (ROSAs), unfurl like sails. For the last 20 years, the scientific investigations conducted on the ISS have been powered by solar arrays that were deployed in 2000 and only designed for 15 years of…

Malaria is the largest cause of childhood illness and death in subSaharan Africa, killing more than 260,000 under-fives every year. For context, that means one child dies of malaria every two minutes. Now, following a successful pilot scheme that involved giving at least one dose of the RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine to more than 800,000 children across Ghana, Kenya and Malawi, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending a widespread immunisation programme for children aged five months or older living in subSaharan Africa. This marks the first time that a vaccine for malaria has been recommended for use across large swathes of the continent. “This is a historic moment. The long-awaited malaria vaccine for children is a breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control,” said WHO director-general Dr Tedros…

There are currently more than 850,000 people in the UK living with dementia, of these between 50 to 75 per cent have Alzheimer’s. If current trends continue, the Alzheimer’s Society estimates that there could be 1,590,000 people with dementia by 2040. There are as yet no effective treatments for Alzheimer’s, but a team from the University of Delaware has found new clues that diet could have an impact on the progression of the disease. In the brains of humans with Alzheimer’s, a buildup of the protein amyloid beta causes toxic effects in cells, resulting in reduced energy, fragmentation of the mitochondria – the cells’ power plants – and oxidative stress. In C. elegans, tiny soil-dwelling worms often used to study biology and disease, an accretion of amyloid beta causes paralysis…

Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, Diplodocus... it turns out that the hundreds of species of dinosaurs we know today may have arisen because of volcanoes, according to an international team of researchers. During the late Triassic Period, there was a stretch of time known as the Carnian Pluvial Episode (CPE), which ran from 234 to 232 million years ago. Before the CPE, the supercontinent of Pangaea was dry and arid, but then the CPE came along with its ‘mega monsoon climate’, leading to an increase in global temperature and humidity. This transformation of conditions had a major impact on plant and animal life. “Within the space of two million years, the world’s animal and plant life underwent major changes, including selective extinctions in the marine realm and diversification of plant and…

Computer scientist When he died in 1827 at the age of 56, Ludwig van Beethoven left his 10th Symphony unfinished. Only a few handwritten notes briefly detailing his plans for the piece have survived, with most just being incomplete ideas or fragments of themes or melodies. Now, a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists at Rutgers University-based start-up Playform AI have trained an AI to mimic the great composer’s style and used it to write a complete symphony based on these initial sketches. We spoke to the lead researcher on the project, Prof Ahmed Elgammal, to find out more. HOW MUCH OF BEETHOVEN’S MANUSCRIPT WAS AVAILABLE FOR YOU TO START FROM? Beethoven left sketches in different forms, mainly musical sketches, but also some written notes with some ideas in as well.…

The new series of Universe with Prof Brian Cox starts on 27 October on BBC Two. Check Radio Times for details. WHAT CAN VIEWERS EXPECT FROM YOUR NEW SHOW? At one level this is a cosmology series. Cosmology forces us to approach the deepest questions because it’s ultimately about the origin of the Universe and its fate. Within it, questions are raised about the nature of life in the Universe. How common is life? How did it begin? We’re essentially talking about creation stories – so this series is the scientific creation story. I say right at the beginning that the value of astronomy and cosmology is not so much about the things we discover. It’s the fact that it challenges us. So we are forced to accept that we’re…

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU WERE HIT BY A PRIMORDIAL BLACK HOLE? Well, first off, you’d probably be the unluckiest person in human history. According to Prof Sohrab Rahvar, an astrophysicist and cosmologist from Sharif University of Technology in Iran, Earth has only been hit by a maximum of four primordial black holes in its entire 4.54-billion-year existence. For one to pass through the Earth during your lifetime is almost impossible. For it to pass through the narrow one-metre corridor that coincides with where you are is off-the-scale unlikely. That said, you’re in for a torrid time should you be fortune’s fool. The primordial black hole will only be in your body for 10 microseconds, but will be travelling at 160km/s (0.05 per cent of the speed of light). Although…

Nearly a decade ago, an Israeli technology firm called the NSO Group, run by former members of the Israeli Intelligence Corps, created mobile phone spyware software called Pegasus. Classed as a weapon, the Israeli Ministry of Defense licenses the export of Pegasus to foreign governments. Recently it has been discovered that this spyware has been used by many countries to infect the phones of activists, journalists and political leaders. The spyware software is extremely clever, using multiple vulnerabilities in different apps on your phone. It may be installed by clicking on a link, but most insidiously it could even infect modern iOS iPhones through a simple iMessage with no clicks needed. Once infected, it provides access to your passwords, location, text messages, call and app data, and even the microphone…

PROF AHMED ELGAMMAL Ahmed and his team of computer scientists have been training an artificial intelligence to complete Beethoven’s unfinished symphony. →p24 PROF BART VAN DER SLOOT Are Facebook’s new glasses a nightmare when it comes to personal privacy? Bart, a privacy expert at Tilburg University, weighs up the concerns. →p31 DR HELEN SCALES Marine biologist Helen takes us on a deep dive into the world of octopuses and reveals some incredible facts about these alien creatures. →p42 COLIN STUART What would happen if you got hit by a black hole? That’s a very real consideration for Colin, who’s been talking to the people hunting for black holes in our Solar System. →p70 CONTACT US → Advertising Gino.DeAntonis@immediate.co.uk 0117 300 8140 → Letters for publication reply@sciencefocus.com → Editorial enquiries editorialenquiries@sciencefocus.com…

reply@sciencefocus.com BBC Science Focus, Eagle House, Bristol, BS1 4ST @sciencefocus www.facebook.com/sciencefocus @bbcsciencefocus “THE WAY AI GENERATES MUSIC IN GENERAL IS SIMILAR TO THE WAY YOUR EMAIL TRIES TO PREDICT THE NEXT WORD FOR YOU … IT JUMPS INTO SUGGESTING WHAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO WRITE NEXT”PROF AHMED ELGAMMAL, P24 That’s the spirit! I noticed that Aleks Krotoski is wondering what could replace tea as the national beverage (September, p62). Well, we already have a suitable homegrown, sustainable drink produced in Scotland that would resolve all the supply problems, as well as preventing the population from rioting: uisge, or whisky (otherwise known as the water of life). And if HMRC removed the duty from said beverage, all our problems would be solved! Richard Graham, Aberdeenshire Suffering in solitude Loneliness is certainly…

“This variability can be explained by the excellent knowledge these people had regarding fish behaviour” Ancient humans in the Middle East used sophisticated fishing tools 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, a study has found. Ancient fishing is hard to study, since many of the materials used, such as plant fibres and wood, are perishable. But one of the largest collections of early fishing technology provided a team of researchers with an insight into the techniques used. The team, led by Dr Antonella Pedergnana of the Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Archaeological research institute in Germany, studied 19 bone fish hooks and six grooved stones from the Jordan River Dureijat (JRD), an Epipalaeolithic site in Hula Valley, northern Israel. “The hooks are amazingly similar to modern hooks – in size, in features like barbs,…

…a smart telescope that deals with light pollution Minimum effort, maximum results. Loosely speaking that’s the philosophy behind the smart telescope: input the cosmic object you wish to view and the telescope pinpoints its location in the night sky. Then you can enjoy the view via the digital eyepiece or a smartphone app. From there you can take long-exposure images (ideal for deep-sky targets), process your images or share them with the community of fellow astronomers. In particular, this update to the eVscope from Unistellar has added an impressive ‘enhanced vision’ mode which is designed to help counter the light pollution most of us live under. It’s also reportedly easy to set up, and you can even buy a backpack for the eVscope 2 so you can take it into…

My new podcast series, Just One Thing, which has featured in this magazine before, has proven to be an unexpected hit, with millions of downloads. If you haven’t heard it, the idea is very simple. In each episode (which lasts just 15 minutes) I explore one thing you can try that could make a big difference to your life. The list of subjects I’ve covered so far includes things like cold showers, early morning walks and eating fermented foods. One of the things that has made a big difference to my life, and which is very simple to do, is to practise a bit of deep breathing. When I feel stressed or when I’m awake in the middle of the night and struggling to go back to sleep, which is…

Out there among the stars lies a hidden swarm of black holes. They have been around ever since the dawn of time, quietly and not so subtly influencing the evolution of the Universe. Without them there would be no stars, no planets and no life to marvel at the Universe’s wonders. Now, for the very first time, we may finally have the tools to find them. Black holes are one of astronomy’s most famous objects. Their gravity is so extreme that escape is impossible if you venture too close. There are different sizes of black holes, but they are normally gargantuan monsters considerably more massive than our own Sun. They usually remain hidden from view because no light can escape to reveal them to us. Yet we have seen them,…

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED ... DOES SITTING BY A WINDOW HELP YOU WORK BETTER? ... COULD WE HARNESS ENERGY FROM A BLACK HOLE? ... CAN ANY ANIMALS PHOTOSYNTHESISE? ... WHY DO OUR VEINS LOOK BLUE? ... WHY IS SKIN SO RUBBISH? ... HOW MANY BIRDS ARE KILLED BY WIND TURBINES? ... HOW LONG DID DINOSAUR EGGS TAKE TO HATCH? ... I WORK IN CUSTOMER SERVICES. WHY IS BEING POLITE ALL THE TIME SO EXHAUSTING? ... WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF ALL THE VOLCANOES ON EARTH ERUPTED AT ONCE? ... WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MIGRAINE AND A HEADACHE? Email your questions to questions@sciencefocus.com or submit on Twitter @sciencefocus OUR EXPERTS DR CLAIRE ASHER Science journalist DR PETER BENTLEY Computer scientist DR STEVE BRUSATTE Veteran palaeontologist ALEX FRANKLIN-CHEUNG Environment and climate expert PETE…

MARY COLLINS, BEDFORD WHY IS HUMAN SKIN SO RUBBISH? If you’ve ever tripped and grazed your skin, broken out in a rash, or suffered from acne or eczema, you might have found yourself wondering why human skin is so frail and fragile. Bruises, dry skin, callouses, hives, sunburn and scar tissue are among the many skin ailments that can at best irritate us and at worst seriously harm our health. But these gripes are minor when we consider all the things skin does for us. Skin is the largest and fastest-growing organ in the body. It provides a waterproof yet breathable barrier that protects us from the elements, parasites and pathogens. It is strong, yet extremely flexible. It helps regulate body temperature, reduces water loss and manufactures vitamin D. And,…