Science Illustrated Australia - Issue 33 2014 PDF

UNTAPPED
ENERGY
HOLOGRAMS
ARE HERE!
Real tech that will

make coal obsolete
THE CHICKEN
FROM HELL
The ultimate
in 3D TV
More terrifying
than a T. Rex!
AU STR ALI AN
TOP 10
ENGINEERING
DISASTERS
When bad maths
can kill
THE CALL
THAT COULD
CHANGE EVERYTHING
FIRST
CONTACT
NOT
S
C
HOW HUMANS ARE PREPARING SER I-FI:
IO
TO COMMUNICATE WITH ALIENS SCIENCUES
LAND
BEYOND TIME
The amazing beauty of

Litchfield National Park
GENETIC
DETECTIVES
Could police use your DNA...

to recreate your face?
ISSUE #33
SCIENCEILLUSTRATED.COM.AU
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EDITORS LETTER
Issue #33 (20th November 2014)

EDITORIAL
Editor Anthony Fordham
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THE SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED CREDO
We share with our readers a fascination
with science, technology, nature, culture
and archaeology, and believe that through
education about our past, present and future,
we can make the world a better place.
The truth will

always be stranger...
uring the
production of this
issue of Science
Illustrated, there
was a bit of a hullaballoo
in the media about
celebrity scientist Brian
Cox. In his BBC show
Human Universe, he suggested that humans
may be the only advanced, technological
species in the entire Milky Way galaxy.
Mainstream media, including the Sydney
Morning Herald jumped on this for some reason,
yet initially (and mistakenly) claimed Cox said
humans were alone in the entire universe.
Cox in turn jumped on Twitter to express
displeasure at this misinterpretation of his show,
and all the stories were edited accordingly - the
word universe replaced by galaxy.
But the whole incident highlights an odd
attitude out there - some people really, really
want to insist that humans are unique. That we
are the only life, and that aliens dont exist.
However, every decent scientist knows
that making a definite negative statement is a
recipe for looking like an idiot a decade or two
later. We will NEVER be able to fly in heavierthan-air machines. We will NEVER break the
sound barrier. We will NEVER be able to mine
enough uranium to build a functioning reactor.
Computers will NEVER be small or cheap
enough for use in everyday appliances.
Today, the tedious song goes on: we will
NEVER generate significant power from
renewable sources, electric cars will NEVER
replace internal combustion, we will NEVER get
fusion working commercially, we will NEVER
live on Mars. Etc and etc.
One of the biggest negative claims continues
to be this almost shrill insistence that aliens
dont exist. People have constructed elaborate,
mathematically-backed arguments for why the

conditions on Earth were so unlikely, so one-ofa-kind, that any species surviving long enough
to develop advanced technology is essentially
impossible. Except for us.
For some reason its important to these people
that we are alone. Perhaps because the idea of
other planets teeming with life and society and
technology is just too overwhelming. Maybe they
just cant wrap their heads around it.
All I know for sure is that the ultimate
truth of whats really going on out there in the
wider universe will be much stranger than
anything a scientist or a science-fiction writer
can think up on paper.
The question of just how many technological
civilisations exist within this galaxy will one day
be answered, and the answer will change us in
ways we cant even conceive.
The other thing I know is that the neverheads will keep up their chant, no matter
what happens. Find another civilisation
tomorrow? Well, there are only TWO in the
whole galaxy. Find thousands? Well, there are
NO civilisations in OTHER galaxies. Figure out
interstellar travel? Well, we will NEVER have
intergalactic travel. Figure that out too? Well,
we will NEVER be able to travel in time or
fold space... or do any of the really cool things
that quantum physicists (or whatever comes
AFTER quantum physics) think up.
Just like we could never cross the Atlantic
ocean, or visit the great southern continent
that didnt exist. The future will be strange, and
different, and not exactly like what even the
most optimistic of us can predict.
But never say never.
Anthony Fordham
Twitter: @sci_illustrated
Facebook: facebook.com/ScienceIllustratedAus
Things we learned in this issue

+ Smartphones and TVs could soon have
HOLOGRAPHIC displays (right).
+ The Earth is full of ENERGY SOURCES
and we are getting better at using them.
+ When we finally MEET REAL ALIENS we
will establish dialogue with them using
pure mathematics.
+ After T.rex and before tigers, the scariest
predator was the CHICKEN FROM HELL.
scienceillustrated.com.au
CONTENTS
#
ISSUE
33
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN EDITION
PUBLISHED 20TH NOVEMBER 2014
24
UNLIMITED POWER
Digging stuff up and burning it has to end
some day. But how can we meet our energy
needs? The planet already has the answers.
56
HOLOGRAMS
The dead will rise... and sing. Holograms are
here and coming to a concert venue near
you. After than, theyll be on your phone...
48
FIRST CONTACT
COVER STORY
Imagine we found a bunch of aliens.

How would we talk to them? Will they
look like anything like us? And could
maths be our common tongue?
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
REGULARS
36 42
ANCIENT IRON MAKERS
How an African culture from the Middle
Ages set up iron-making at industrial scale centuries before Europe had the same idea.
EXTREMOPHILES
MEGAPIXEL
Amazing pictures (and stories) from the

latest in science and nature.
Life is tough. Really tough. Tough enough to

survive - even thrive - in boiling temperatures,
dry deserts, and radioactive wastelands.
10
SCIENCE UPDATE
All the latest developments in science,

technology, archaeology, biology and more!
18
ASK US
The science answers you demand!
64 70
LITCHFIELD NATIONAL PARK
Another jewel in Australias amazing
crown of natural beauty. Wet season or
dry, theres always something to see.
GENETIC DETECTIVES
Forget CCTV or drone surveillance. What if
computers could reconstruct an accurate
picture of your face.. from DNA in a flake of skin?
72
HELL CREEK DINOSAURS
Fossil evidence that shows T.rex got

out-evolved by a giant killer chook...
78
TOP 10 ENGINEERING
DISASTERS
When you do some bad maths at work,

do entire towns get wiped off the map?
80
TRIVIA
Now with more cladistic conundrums!
82
BIODIVERSITY
Australias answer to the poison arrow frog.
SUBSCRIBE
NOW!
62
Get Australian Science
Illustrated delivered to
your door and save $$$!
megapixel
ENTOMOLOGY
Confusing pattern
fools honey bee brain
H & H KocH/Ina agency
Honey bees think that the distance to their food is

longer when they pass through a tunnel lined with
an elaborate pattern. Scientists base their conclusion
on an experiment, in which bees flew past different
patterns, as scientists decoded the dance that the bees
use to let each other know how far away the food is. The
study also reveals that the expression of genes in some
cerebral centres such as those for memory and vision
change, as bees are fooled to believe that the distance is
longer. As a result, bee behaviour can alter bee genes.
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
megApixel
GEOGRAPHY
H & H KocH/Ina agency
naSa
North AmericAs
loNgest river
eroDes A short cut
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
At 3,767 km, the Missouri River is the longest

in the US. As it winds its way through
the country, the river flows into this
distinctive, U-shaped bend called
Lake Sharp in South Dakota. There,
the rapid waters of the legs of the
U are slowly eroding the soil at the
centre, so the distance between
the legs is now only about a
kilometre. The photo was taken
from the International Space
Station, in December, when, like
the circular fields of the peninsula,
the river was covered by ice. The
shape of the fields is due to rotating
irrigation sprinklers in their centres.
SCIENCE UPDATE
LATEST NEWS AND DISCOVERIES
Editors: Karen Grubbe & Rasmus Palludan
A helium balloon lifts

NASAs new toy to an
altitude of 35 km.
NASA
TESTS FLYING
SAUCER
Mars is the final destination of a new, UFO-like craft

which NASA is testing near Hawaii.
AEROSPACE Could the first humans travel to
FLYING SAUCER BY THE NUMBERS

Weight (including fuel): 3,120 kg
Diameter: 4.7 m
Helium balloon for launch:
140 m wide and 120 m tall
Braking parachute for landing:
has a diameter of 30.5 m
During test flights, the craft lands in the ocean

after an approx. 650 km test flight.
NASA
Maxium speed:
Mach 4 or 4,900 km/h
craft approaches the planet, a kind of swim

ring is released around it, increasing its
surface area and reducing speed. The
landing itself is carried out by means of a
huge parachute, oversized for the thin
atmosphere, for a soft landing on Mars.
NASA
Mars by flying saucer? The NASA American

space agency is testing the UFO-like LowDensity Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD).
The craft is launches from Hawaii under a
huge helium balloon, after which a rocket
engine is ignited to take the flying saucer
further away from Earth. The test flights
stretch all the way to the stratosphere,
where the thin air resembles the Martian
atmosphere. The LDSD could carry up to
three tonnes of equipment and, at a later
point, humans to Mars.
Further exploration of Mars requires NASA
to be able to land heavy and fragile
equipment on the surface. The new craft
begins its 55-million-km voyage to the Red
Planet at a speed of around Mach 4. As the
E. coli bacteria, which

exist in great numbers in
our guts, mutate faster
far away from peers.
SPL/SCANPIX
MUTATIONS PER CELL
BACTERIA MUTATION RATE:

Bacterium
10
5
2
1
POPULATION DENSITY
1
10
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
LONELY BACTERIA
MUTATE FAST
BIOLOGY Friendless bacteria get weird. That is
the surprising conclusion reached by scientists
from the British University of Manchester.
In their lab, the scientists cultivated E. coli
bacteria, which exist in great numbers in our
intestines, and discovered that bacteria which
live far away from their peers mutate three
times faster than bacteria living close together.
If scientists can make the bacteria feel less
lonely, they can reduce the speed at which the
bacteria mutate. In the long term, scientists can
reduce the number of antibioticresistant bacteria produced when the
genetic material of bacteria mutates.
NEWS FLASH!
SHORT MEN
LIVE LONGER
A team of scientists has studied
8,006 Japanese-American men
and discovered that the length
of our lives has (a little bit) to
do with our height. The short
men of the study more often
possessed a specific version of
the FOXO3 gene which has
been linked with longevity.
Scientists do not know why
short men have the gene.
CRAFT TESTED AT AN ALTITUDE OF 55 KM
A chemical substance
blocks the suckers'
ability to suck.
NASAs new spacecraft is tested at an

altitude of 55 km, where the air resembles
the Martian atmosphere.
55 km
FLIGHT
35 km
Altitude (km)
The swim ring

is inflated,
reducing speed to
Mach 2 or
approximately
2,450 km/h.
Chemistry
prevents
octopus
entanglement
LANDING
ASCENT
The speedreducing
parachute
unfolds, and the
craft lands softly
in the ocean.
A helium balloon
hoists the craft
to an altitude
of 35 km, where
the balloon is
disconnected.
370 km
Length of flight(km)
ALAMY/IMAGESELECT
NEANDERTHALS
USED THEIR
MOUTHS AS A
THIRD HAND
A unique aspect of Neanderthal
anatomy was an impressive set of
teeth. Analyses carried out by
Spanish scientists demonstrate that the
hominid evolved the big teeth early.
According to the scientists, the
Neanderthals used the teeth as a kind
of third hand, gripping objects that they
then cut with tools.
NASA
75-280 km
NATURE PL
The rocket engine

takes the craft to an
altitude of 55 km at
a speed of Mach 3.8
or 3,675 km/h.
GLIDING
ZOOLOGY The eight arms of an

octopus are lined with suckers,
and scientists have long wondered
how the animal prevents the arms
from tangling up.
Now, scientists from the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem
have solved the mystery: The
octopuses' skin secretes a
chemical substance, which
briefly prevents the suckers from working, when
the arms touch.
The octopus arms
are highly independent
entities. If an arm is
amputated, it keeps
on moving and sucking
for an hour. So, the
octopus will not touch
the part of the amputated
arm on which the suckers
are located. Instead, it holds on
to a place where the flesh is
exposed. The scientists also discovered that octopuses know the
difference between their own
arms and those of peers.
11
SCIENCE UPDATE
6,879.7 km
CHETWOODS ARCHITECTS
CHINA TO
BUILD GREEN
SKYSCRAPERS
STRANGE
BUT TRUE!
Sunbathing is addictive
Phoenix Towers will be the tallest and greenest.
TECHNOLOGY Wuhan in Central China is

about to make history as the city with the
tallest and greenest structures in the
world. In late 2014, the first turf will be cut
for the large-scale Phoenix Towers project,
which involves two skyscrapers that will
both rise more than 1000 m into the sky.
Together, the structures will easily
outcompete the present record holder, the
828-m-tall Burj Khalifa in Dubai. But the
height is not the only trump card held by
the British Chetwoods architectural studio.
The Phoenix Towers are designed with
focus on sustainability. According to plan,
the skyscrapers will not only be selfsufficient in energy, they will also help
combat the massive air pollution in the city.
The two towers have been named Feng
and Huang. Feng will include offices,
homes, and shops, whereas Huang will
feature a 100-storey vertical garden.
of forest was destroyed in fires

last summer. That is the lowest
worldwide loss in 10 years.
FENG
You can become addicted to

sunbathing, US scientists warn.
Experiments show that sunbathing
mice produce endorphins,
a type of happiness-inducing
chemical often implicated in the
addictiveness of various drugs.
WIND TURBINE
generates power.
HUANG
THERMAL
CHIMNEY
sucks in and purifies
air, as electricity is
generated.
SOLAR CELLS
convert solar
energy into
electricity.
FLICKR
1000 metre towers

The twin towers of Huang and
Feng will have a footprint of
70,000 square metres and rise
more than 1 km into the sky.
GREEN WALLS
in the shape of
vertical gardens.
INSECT HOTELS
designed to
attract insects,
which will eat and
breed.
12
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
SYSTEM
for harvesting and
reusing
rainwater.
Milky Way galactic core

smells like berries
Max Planck Institute astronomers
have used the Spanish IRAM
telescope to study the Sagittarius B2
dust cloud, which is located close to
the centre of the Milky Way. One of
the chemicals of which astronomers
found signals was ethyl formate,
the dominant flavour of raspberries.
NERVOUS TEENAGERS
CRASH CARS LESS
For 1.5 years, scientists have
observed the driving of 40
teenagers, measuring the
level of cortisol stress
hormone in their blood. The
result: the higher cortisol
level, the fewer accidents.
GLOBAL FOCAL POINT

Gulf of Mexico
Gas pockets in ancient rocks have

revealed that the Earth and the Moon are
60 million years older than previously
believed. So, the two were formed only 40
million years after the birth of the Solar
System. The discovery was made by
scientists from the University
of Lorraine in Nancy, who
determined ages of the
gases in the rocks.
ROV films sea lily

D. GERONDIDAKIS/NASA
THINKSTOCK
New birth dates for the

Earth and the Moon
PALAEONTOLOGY It was six metres long, weighed
The winged
dinosaur probably
used its head gear
to impress mates
and defend itself
against enemies.
D. DUFAULT & NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN
6-METRE-LONG
DINOSAUR WITH
BEAK AND WINGS
For three weeks, an ROV has livestreamed from the depths of the Gulf of
Mexico, providing the internet with sensational video from an otherwise
inaccessible world. A sea lily, which belongs to the phylum of
echinoderms, is one of the odd creatures captured in the depths.
two tonnes, and had a parrot beak. Meet a newly

discovered dinosaur of which palaeontologists
have found fossils in the US state of Montana and
the Canadian province of Alberta.
The huge lizard lived some 77 million years ago
and only fed on plants. Despite being a herbivore,
it had a fearsome appearance. Apart from the
peculiar beak, the dinosaur had a pair of massive
bone plates mounted on its head. The animal
probably used the plates to impress mates and to
defend itself. Scientists have named the new
dinosaur Mercuriceratops Gemini - for the Roman
god Mercury who had wings on his helmet.
13
SCIENCE UPDATE
NATURE PL
Fossilised tartar has revealed that

our ancestors consumed healthy,
varied meals 7,000 years ago.
NASA FINDS OCEAN

ON SATURN MOON
KOALAS COOL
OFF IN TREES
ZOOLOGY When koalas get too hot, they
hug a tree. That is the conclusion of a
new scientific project revealing that to
a koala, a tree trunk is an air conditioner.
Normally, the hairy and disagreeable
marsupial licks its fur to cool off, but
during heatwaves, it clings to a tree
instead. This strategy makes good sense,
as the trees are cooler than the air in some
cases by up to 10 degrees C.
Share of observations
0.5
Very hot
Less hot
0.4
The chart indicates the
share of observations in
very hot and less hot
weather.
NASA
0.3
The warmer it is, the more the

koala hugs the tree.
ASTRONOMY Deep below the ice cap of

Saturn's moon Enceladus, there is a huge,
liquid ocean which contains the basic
ingredients of life: salt water and organic
molecules. The measurements were made
by NASAs Cassini space probe, and the
discovery has excited scientists, as it
supports the theory of Enceladus being one
of the most obvious places to look for
microscopic life in space.
The the ocean is 30-40 km below the
moon's ice-covered surface and holds 245
times as much water as Lake Garda in
Italy. With a diameter of approximately
500 km, Enceladus is Saturns sixth
biggest moon. Back in 2005, Cassini
registered water squirting out of cracks
close to the moons south pole.
The ocean is located 30-40 km
below the surface.
0.2
0.1
Koala posture
Astronomers have discovered an ocean below the

ice-covered surface of Saturns sixth biggest
moon, Enceladus.
JOBY AVIATION
New plane
needs no runway
The S2 plane takes off vertically
like a helicopter and uses 12
compact electric motors, which are
three times as energy-efficient as
those of a traditional two person
plane. The plane has not yet been
built, but according to plan, it is
going to take its passengers the
300+ km from New York to Boston in one hour.
14
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
NEWS FLASH!
MATHEMATICIANS MAKE
APP TO BEAT JET LAG
Jet lag occurs, when your circadian (sleep)
rhythms are out of sync with your
surroundings, and it can easily ruin your
holiday. But now, scientists have made an app
which tells you when to expose yourself to
light and darkness to beat the jet lag.
ALLEN INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN SCIENCE & OH ET AL.
SCIENCE UPDATE
Mouse brain exposed to light
1. Scientists injected a luminous

tracer in different places of more
than 1,000 mouse brains.
2. The tracer moves in the same direction as

the nerve signals. The connecting roads of the
nerve cells are revealed in scans.
3. All observation data was collected into

a 3D map of the mouse's neural network, which
is freely accessible on the Internet.
MAPPING THE
MOUSE BRAIN
Rodent brain map provides scientists with new weapons against brain disorders.
MEDICINE The human brain will not be mapped any
time soon, but scientists have managed to produce
a map of a mouse brain, which is also the very first
map of a mammal brain.
The mouse brain map is in 3D, revealing how
groups of nerve cells are linked to big highway
systems or nerve paths
running in all directions
DICTIONARY
throughout the brain. A
Neural network:
mouse brain is only the size
The nerve cells of the
of a hazelnut, but it
brain are linked in a
contains more than 86
neural network,
million nerve cells which
allowing them to
are each linked to more
send/receive signals
than 1,000 other nerve
to/from each other.
cells in extremely complex
16
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
interaction. As mammal brains are basically very

much alike, the brain map also provides scientists
with more knowledge about the interaction
between the different networks of the human brain.
So, the mapping makes scientists more wellequipped to solve the major mysteries of modern
brain research such as how diseases like
Alzheimer's, dementia, and schizophrenia arise and
how they could eventually be cured.
The mouse brain map is not yet complete.
Expressed in popular terms, it only indicates the
motorways of the brain and says nothing about the
small roads or about the traffic on the roads. In
other words, the map functions as an outline of the
most important routes of neural networks, but it
does not represent the working brain.
MICROSOFT FORTUNE
SUPPORTS PROJECT
The brain mapping
project is funded by Paul
Allen, who founded
Microsoft together with Bill
Gates back in 1975.
Paul Allen supports the
research,
hoping that
the human
brain will
one day be
mapped.
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ASK US
THE ANSWERS
TO LIFES
LITTLE MYSTERIES
EDITOR: Anne Lykke
Can a baby transfer

stem cells to mum?
Can a pregnant woman get stem cells from her
baby? And can they repair damage in her body?
Thyroid gland
Cells from baby
1. During pregnancy, stem
During pregnancy, mother and baby exchange cells

through the placenta. Studies have shown that
some 80% of all mothers who just gave birth to a
boy have cells with the male Y chromosome in
their bodies coming from the baby. The majority of
the cells flow in the mothers blood and are
removed by the immune system within a few
hours. But some end up in the mothers tissue,
where they grow and become a permanent part of
her. The opposite may also happen: The baby could
include some of the mothers cells and even pass
them on to his/her own kids. So, all humans involve
cells from several generations. Human studies and
rat experiments have demonstrated that the
cells can migrate through

the placenta to the
mother's damaged organs.
Cells from mother
mothers liver, kidneys, and thyroid gland may

contain cells from the baby and that the new cells
function just like the mothers own cells. According
to scientists, the stem cells have "travelled"
through the placenta to the mothers organ, which
was probably damaged. The unborn baby's stem
cells came to the rescue, developing into the very
cell type needed to repair the damage.
The exchange of cells between mother and
baby could also cause autoimmune diseases, if
the mothers immune system attacks the
foreign cells. A study of 20 women who all gave
birth to sons and developed a disease of the
thyroid gland demonstrated that 12 in 20
women featured male cells. In eight women
with healthy thyroid glands, the scientists
found no trace of male cells.
Natures own stem cell therapy

A mother-to-be can get stem cells from her baby via the
placenta. The stem cells migrate to the mothers organs such
as the liver and the kidneys, where they can repair damaged
tissue: natural stem cell therapy from baby to mother.
Cells from grandchild
Kidney
18
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
2. When the baby is born, the
3. When the girl becomes
mother's body will often take

cells from the baby and vice versa.
pregnant herself, she has cells

from three generations.
TOP5
WHICH
MATERIAL IS
THE STRONGEST
RELATIVE TO
WEIGHT?
Is 27 a risky age?
When Amy Winehouse died, she became a member
of the 27 Club. Do rock stars tend to die at 27?
1. Carbyne*
Strength: 60-75 MNm/kg*

Statistically speaking, 27 is not a risky age for rock
stars, but they suffer a 2-3 times greater risk of dying
aged between 20 and 40 than the average person,
according to a new research project from the
Queensland University of Technology. Scientists studied
the hypothesis that rock stars are more likely to die at
27. The study involved 1,046 soloists and band
members, of whom 71 died in 1956-2007. Only three of
those artists died at 27, which is not unusual. The
reason why rock musicians often die young may be that
they live harder lives than other young people.
2. Graphene
Strength: 47-55 MNm/kg
3. Carbon nanotubes
4. Diamond
5. Zylon
Strength: 3.8 MNm/kg

* Carbyne
Carbyne is a new material
consisting of carbon atom
chains linked by alternate
triple and single bonds or by
consecutive double bonds.
Carbyne is stronger and stiffer
than any other material.
Members of the 27 Club

Name:
Cause of death:
Amy Winehouse
Alcohol poisoning.
Jimi Hendrix
Aspirated vomit and choked.
Janis Joplin
Presumed overdose
Kurt Cobain
Suicide
Jim Morrison
Cardiac arrest
THINKSTOCK
In very few cases, the

mothers immune system
will attack the foreign stem
cells. If they are located in
her brain, the mother
could develop multiple
sclerosis.
Singer Amy
Winehouse, who
died at 27, lived a
hard life with
alcohol and drugs.
ARCHIVE
BABY CELLS MAKE

MOTHER SICK
A. PIERDOMENICO/REUTERS/SCANPIX
Stem cells from the

baby can repair
damage in the
mothers body.
S. GSCHMEISSNER/SPL/GETTY IMAGES GETTY, MIKKEL JUUL JENSEN
Stem cells
Carbyne
* MNm/kg
The unit for the specific
strength of materials is
meganewton metres per kg,
i.e. the force that one fibre
of the material can resist
divided by its density.
DOES A DISCHARGED
COMPUTER WEIGH LESS?
Sclerosis is caused by
nerve cell insulation being
damaged.
THINKSTOCK
ALAMY/IMAGESELECT
A charged battery weighs more than a

discharged one, and the calculation can
be made using Einsteins equation
E = mc2. As the speed of light (c) is
constant, a charged computer with a high
energy level will have a bigger mass. The
difference is a few billionths of a
gramme and cannot be felt or
measured by ordinary scales.
19
ASK US
How fast could the T. rex run?

The big predatory dinosaur had a top speed
of 40 km/h - very difficult to outrun!
SHUTTERSTOCK
T. FRAZIER M./GETTY IMAGES
THE ANSWERS
TO LIFES
LITTLE MYSTERIES
Plants can smell,

see, and feel
Plants do not feel
pain like animals,
but they react
strongly to their
surroundings.
SMELL
Parasitic plants especially
use smells to find their
preferred hosts.
LIGHT
Plant shoots grow in the
direction of light. Their
roots do the opposite.
CAN PLANTS FEEL PAIN?

GETTY IMAGES, THINKSTOCK
40%
Sundew a carnivorous plant that

captures small insects by wrapping
its leaves around the prey.
Mimosa when humans or animals
touch the leaves, they close in a few seconds and droop.
Sundew
27%
Mimosa
Squirting cucumber the ripe fruit flies

several metres through the air,
squirting seeds to all sides.
20
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
35% 34.8% 33.7%
Great Salt Lake

USA
Three plants with

strong responses
The Dead Sea

Israel and Jordan
In the 1960s, interrogation specialist Cleve

Backster used a lie detector to show that
plants react to torture.
Assal salt lake

Djibouti, Africa
The saltiest waters in the world

(salt content percentage)
Garabogazkl lagoon
Turkmenistan, Central Asia
In the 1960s, CIA agent Cleve Backster used a

lie detector to test plants, holding a match
under a leaf or cutting it off. The plant reacted
like a stressed out person, and it also reacted,
when he tortured other plants in front of it,
making Cleve Backster conclude that plants
can communicate with each other.
Today, scientists are quite convinced that
plants cannot feel pain as we know it,
because they have no central nerve system.
However, plants respond to light, sounds,
smells, and touch. They can also
communicate with other plants for instance
by releasing chemical warning substances,
when they are attacked by herbivores. Cut
grass smell is a chemical distress signal.
Why is the sea salty?

The sea is salty due to minerals, which
have been added very slowly over time
by rivers from the continents. The
minerals are released from the land via
a process named disintegration - the
chemical decomposition of rock.
Disintegration dissolves the rock into
ions such as sodium and chlorine
which combine into sea salt.
Very soon after its formation, Earth
developed water in huge lakes in
meteor craters and other crevices. The
water of the first seas fell as rain and
was fresh, but slowly grew more salty
over time. Today, the ocean has an
average salinity of 3.5%.
Don Juan salt lake

Antarctica
SOUND
Plants either grow towards
or away from sound sources,
depending on the frequency.
The water of the Dead Sea

is so salty that it is almost
impossible not to float.
Squirting cucumber
Asteroid heading for Earth?

The Apophis asteroid may strike Earth in
2036, but according to NASA, the risk of the
270-m-big asteroid hitting Earth is only
1:250,000
1. A car passes by a place
HOW THINGS WORK
with a speed limit of 60 km/h,

which is already included in
the GPS navigator map.
2.
The GPS is updated several

times per second by satellite, so
it knows the speed of the car
quite accurately.
3. The GPS signals if the

speed is too high, for instance
by indicating the current
speed in red, or the number
may begin to flash.
IN SHORT
WHY DO SOME PEOPLE

HAVE CURLY HAIR?
A child can get curly hair by inheriting one single gene from
one parent. The degree of curl
varies. Hair grows from scalp
follicles, and flat follicles produce curly hair, whereas round
follicles produce straight hair.
HOW DO GPS NAVIGATORS

KNOW SPEED LIMITS?
Based on a cars whereabouts, the GPS navigator can
calculate very accurately how fast it is moving. The GPS
map includes all speed limits, and so, the technology can
warn the driver if they are speeding. In case of roadwork,
the GPS will often not be updated on speed limits.
WHY DO WE CROSS OUR FINGERS?

The practice of crossing our fingers, hoping that
something goes well is common in Christian countries.
The crossed fingers portray a cross, which defends
against evil. The expression touch wood to
ward off misfortune after making a
favourable statement is older than
Christianity, and invokes protection
from tree-dwelling Dryads in
Germanic folklore.
THINKSTOCK
21
ASK US
THE ANSWERS
TO LIFES
LITTLE MYSTERIES
Do stones fall more slowly

from a high mountain?
Everest knocked out by Huascarn

At 8,848 m, Mount Everest is the highest mountain
in the world, but it is not the place with the most
reduced effect of gravity. That you will find on the 6,768 m
Mount Huascarn in Peru, which is closer to the Equator.
A stone will fall faster from the peak of a mountain than

in the valley, as the air is much thinner on the mountain.
If the air resistance did not exist, the stone would fall
slightly more slowly from the mountain, as it is further
away from the centre of the Earth, reducing gravity.
EARTH'S SURFACE
Gravity
At the surface, gravity is
approximately 9.81 m/s2
Air resistance
At the surface, air resistance is
substantial, and the stone falls
more slowly than on a mountain.
WHEN WAS DEODORANT INVENTED?
ARCHIVE, SCANPIX
In 1888, an American company, Mum,

introduced the worlds first deodorant.
Developed by an inventor from
Philadelphia, the wax-like cream
contained bactericidal zinc
oxide. In 1940, the very same
company thought of using a ball
to apply liquid deodorant from a
bottle and so the roll-on
deodorant was born.
The first deodorant was a cream

that could eliminate both armpit
and foot sweat.
22
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
MOUNT HUASCARN
Gravity
On Huascarn, gravity
is 9.76392 m/s, less
than at the surface.
Air resistance
The air is very thin,
so the stone will fall faster.
How sweaty smell was

concealed before Mum
Egypt: The Ancient Egyptians
invented the precursor of commercial deodorant. They applied
scented oils including for
instance cinnamon or citrus to
their armpits to prevent smell.
Middle East: Scented,
alcohol-based liquids were
widely used to mask BO.
Asia: In Asia, it was
common to rub your
armpits with bacteriostatic mineral salts.
SUIZAPERUANA
NATURE IN PRACTICE
30th
ANNIVERSARY
The first issue of Science Illustrated was published in 1984. We now look back
on 30 years of scientific discovery to see if scientists' expectations were correct.
What became of the
The Arecibo telescope from

1963 listens for signals
from space, but has not yet
made contact with aliens.
NAIC
... search for ET?

21 years ago, American astronomers
predicted that we would make contact
with intelligent life in space before
2000. What went wrong?
1. SENDS SIGNAL
The platform aerials and focus
make sure that signals of a
frequency of 430 MHz are
sent into outer space.
3. INTERPRETS SOUND
The cupola includes
two reflecting telescopes that capture any
signals from space.
1993
2. PICKS UP WAVES
A 305m-wide, bowlshaped satellite dish
reflects waves from space,
sending them to the cupola.
HUGE ANTENNA TO FIND LIFE

NASA and other space experts expect to have an
interplanetary dialogue with ET within 10 years.
The optimism spreads to Science Illustrated,
which introduces the message in No. 5/1993 that
we will soon be in direct contact with aliens. The
communication is to be facilitated by the Arecibo
radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which listens for
intelligent calls from space.
2014: Exoplanets may have conditions for life

In 1974, astronomers sent the first real radio
message into space from the Arecibo
telescope in Puerto Rico, only to encounter a
roaring silence. Apart from a few short radio
signals of an unknown origin, which were
captured in 1977 and 2008, the telescope
has not picked up any usable signals from
other life forms. However, that does not
necessarily mean that we have given up the
idea of finding intelligent life in space. Today,
we focus particularly on exoplanets - Earth-
like planets orbiting another star. For almost

five years, the Kepler space telescope has
collected data from more than 15,000 Milky
Way stars, and there is every indication that
a handful of exoplanets meet the
requirements of life, though at this early
stage we are talking about bacteria rather
than super intelligent creatures.
The plans of finding intelligent life are so
far very optimistic, but nevertheless, the
search is still going on. According to one
theory, sophisticated civilisations could

have completely shielded their local star to
harvest energy. The concept is named a
Dyson sphere after physicist Freeman
Dyson, who introduced the theory in the
1960s (albeit as a sort of joke). Utilising new,
huge telescopes, astronomers will try to
find energy discharges from the cosmic
spheres or similar energy systems. For more
on what we might do if contact is
established, check our feature on p.48!
23
The wing pulls the

kite about the ocean.
The turbine is rotated

by the ocean current.
The generator
generates electricity.
The rudder keeps

the kite on course.
Tethers keep the kite

attached to the ocean floor.
Submarine kite
harvests energy
The Deep Green submarine kite utilises the energy of ocean
currents and the currents produced by tide. The method is
being tested in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland.
The kite is attached to the ocean floor, and its 8-14-m-long
wing is shaped in a way that forces it to move in an figure-ofeight pattern at a much higher speed than the
surrounding water. 1 km2 of ocean floor fits in 50 kites.
24
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
The potential is a an overall rating

of the power that the technology
can generate, the price, and the
likelihood of it becoming a success.
Submarine kites
POTENTIAL
Low
High
The kites can operate even in weak ocean currents

and will not mar the landscape. However, one single
kite does not generate much power.
12
PAGE
SPECIAL
UNLIMITED
POWER
EARTH'S UNTAPPED
ENERGY
ACCESSING EARTH'S HIDDEN

RESERVES OF ENERGY
At a time when wind turbines and solar farms are being built in increasing
numbers, engineers are developing the next generation of energy sources,
hoping to harness the power in oceans, deserts, or even in space.
By Ib Salomon. Art: Mikkel Juul Jensen
25| 25
SOLAR POWER
ETHAN MILLER/AFP/SCANPIX
he beach is deserted. All you can hear is the

sound of the ocean and of the wind. The beach
isn't covered with machines or structures that
mar the landscape. But hidden below the waves, a
swarm of kites are ploughing through the water. The
flying motion generates power for coastal towns
nearby. The kites are being tested in Northern Ireland,
in an area known for its stable ocean currents. The
Deep Green method was recently named one of the
most promising power technologies in the world by
the reputable British Power Technology magazine. The
submarine kite is made of light materials, and its wing
span is designed to provide lift, pushing the kite
The Sun melts salt
This newly established solar power facility in Ivanpah,

California, deploys 173,500 heliostats, each featuring two
mirrors. The facility can generate 392 MW or enough power
to supply 280,000 Americans with electricity.
Tower
The 565-degree-hot salt flows through

a heat exchanger, bringing water to
the boil. The vapour spins a turbine and
a generator that generates power.
26
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Low
Sunlight falls on heliostats,

flexible mirrors. A computer controls the mirrors, ensuring that
sunlight is constantly focused at
the top of a 165 m tower.
The heat from the focused

sunlight is so intense that
it can melt salts in the tower.
Solar power facilities
POTENTIAL
1
Mirrors
forwards, when water flows across it. Under the wing,

there is a turbine which is literally powered by the
motion of the ocean. Even weak ocean currents of
1.2-2.5 metres a second are sufficient for the kite to
generate power, and such currents exist in most
waters. Some of the currents are caused by the
changing tide. Others are stable ocean currents.
The kite moves through the water at a speed 10
times faster than the ocean current. The speed has a
cubic relationship to the power that can be harvested.
Ten times higher water speed results in 1,000 times
more power. However, water power is not the only thing
that humans try to harvest, using devices located in
High
Mirror fields can generate lots of electricity also during the

night. The drawback is that they require lots of land and can
only be established in areas with sunny, clear weather.
WINDOWS
3 TYPES OF SOLAR CELLS

Solar cells can be embedded into more and more
materials and even painted onto house walls. The
following are examples of invisible solar cells that
may soon be embedded into new houses and roads.
SOLAR ROADWAYS, NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES, INC., SRS ENERGY
places where we will not

immediately see them.
SOLAR ENERGY
AT NIGHT
s prills for window

trathin solar ce
ht
lig
le
This type of ul
ib
not vis
infrared light
an
m
hu
e
marily absorb
th
to
nt
70 % transpare
to electricimaking them
in
d
te
er
nv
co
d light is
!
eye. The infrare
e sun. Win win
the glare of th
ce
du
re
so
al
d
ty an
ROOF TILES
New roof tiles feature integrated
solar panels. Some involve supercapacitors special rechargeable
super batteries which can store
the energy for days when the Sun
is not shining.
When we were children, many of us

used magnifying glasses to burn
leaves by focusing the intense heat
of sunlight. The same principle is
now applied in solar power facilities
generating power for hundreds of
thousands of households near
deserts. In 2011, Spain was the first
ROAD PAVING
nation to introduce solar power, and
globally, solar power facilities now
dy, transparent
ated with stur
ge n e ra t e m o re t h a n 2 , 5 0 0
Solar panels pl
ng. The panels
ed as road pavi
megawatts (MW) enough to meet
glass can be us
g vehicles, feabi
the weight of
the power needs of 3,630,000
can withstand
are presently be
LED light, and
Europeans. According to calculations,
ture integrated
carparks.
the method could provide 25 % of the
ing tested in US
worlds energy needs by 2050.
In California, some 60 km
southwest of Las Vegas, a huge part of the desert has
been converted into a construction site for years. The
Solar cells
POTENTIAL
worlds biggest solar power facility is being built there,
Can be incorporated into building materials and embedded into
covering 14,000 hectares of desert in mirrors. Robots
almost any surface from roof tiles to road paving. Solar cells will
placed mirrors in holders, and subsequently, builders
soon be an invisible part of our everyday lives.
Low
High
fastened them with bolts and adjusted the mirrors to
focus the sunlight at a boiler at the top of a high tower.
A solar power facility consists of thousands of big
mirrors that focus sunlight at the top of the tower,
during the night, as some of the molten, super hot salts
where a mixture of sodium and potassium salts melt in
are stored in highly insulated tanks. The heat from the
the intense heat. The molten salts are 500+ degrees
storage is enough to power the turbines for up to 16
hot and directed through a heat exchanger including
hours without sunlight. In February 2014, Ivanpah put
water that will immediately start to boil. The water
the first of three solar power towers into service.
vapour spins turbines attached to huge dynamos,
Another solar power facility in Nevada, SolarReserve,
which generate electricity, just like in traditional power
was also deployed in 2014. In can generate a total of
plants. The only difference being that the Sun
110 MW, or enough power for 75,000 households.
supplies the heat energy, not oil, gas, or coal. With
These huge solar power facilities are typically located
its 173,500 mirrors and three boilers, the solar
in desolate desert regions with many sunlight hours
power facility will be able to generate 392 MW
and little risk of causing inconvenience.
at peak performance, or enough to supply a n
SOLAR CELLS HIDDEN EVERYWHERE
entire city with power. The huge mirrors the
The potential of utilising solar energy is huge: in just 90
size of garage doors are called heliostats and are
minutes, the Earth receives just as much energy from
controlled by computers to follow the Sun across the
the Sun as we consume during an entire year. The price
sky, constantly focusing the reflected sunlight at the
of solar energy is tumbling and will soon be
central tower. The facility can also generate power
27
WIND POWER
In impassable regions,
flying wind turbines
can generate power
for research stations,
remote towns, etc.
competitive compared to coal, oil, and natural gas.

For instance, solar cells are becoming very popular and
gaining ground in the energy market. The general trend
involves integrating solar cells into materials, so they
are embedded into facades, windows, roofs, and roads.
In the new main railway station of Berlin, engineers have
integrated 1,700 m2 of solar cells into the structure.
The most recent solar cells are made of plastic,
making them cheap to manufacture, as they can be
printed almost like newspapers. Plastic solar cells can
only utilise a few percent of the sunlight. The most
efficient solar cells are gallium-arsenide, allowing them
to convert 35+ % of the sunlight into electricity. But on
average, silicon-based solar cells that can be observed
on the roofs of houses and in other places only utilise
some 16 % of the energy of the sunlight. The relatively
ALTAEROS ENERGIES
low rate of utilisation is due to the fact that the solar

cells only convert a small portion of the sunlight into
electricity. So, the aim is to develop solar cells that can
utilise the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including
infrared. Recently, scientists from the American
University of Buffalo developed a solar cell with so
many layers that it can absorb and utilise the energy
from the full visible spectrum and infrared light.
Others are trying to make solar cells tougher. US
electrical engineer Scott Brusaw and his wife
developed powerful and sturdy solar panels that can be
used as road paving. The hexagonal panels are covered
in a thick layer of glass and can resist the pressure of
heavy tractors. Moreover, the solar cells are pressuresensitive, allowing them to register and warn about
tailgating for instance. And solar panel asphalt will
improve traffic safety, as the panels generate heat,
making snow and ice melt in the winter. Traffic lights
can also be embedded into the road, as the panels can
incorporate LEDs. Solar cells could become a natural
and embedded part of the city in the future.
TURBINES FLOAT
ON THE OCEAN
Unlike solar cells, big, noisy wind turbines
are still challenging to hide, and nobody
wants a turbine in their back yard. So,
engineers intend to build floating wind
turbines far out at sea. Huge off-shore
wind turbines are traditionally solidly
anchored to the ocean floor, but that
is only possible at water depths of less
than 30 m - typically near the shore.
Since 2009, a floating wind turbine
concept, Hywind, has been tested. Five
years ago, the 65-m-high wind turbine was
tugged to a depth of 200 m near the island of
Karmy, 10 km off the coast of Norway. Big tug
boats brought a turbine tower and a 117-m-long
steel cylinder into open waters. First, the cylinder
was filled with ballast and anchored to the ocean
GW
1,000
1,000
715
WATER AND WIND IN THE LEAD
900
Today, the wind and water power capacity is

much bigger than any other green energy.
But solar power is gaining ground fast.
800
2004
2013
700
600
500
318
400
300
36
28
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
ter
Wa
r
we
po
r
we
po
o
i
B
139
88
8.9
al
ermer
h
ot w
Ge po
12
2.6
r
we
po
r
ola
48
200
100
er
ow
p
nd
Wi
floor by means of three

strong cables. A huge
floating crane placed the turbine
tower on top and finally lifted the blades in
position. So far, the floating wind turbine has resisted
several storms and swells of up to 11 m. Even in the
strongest wind, the heavy ballast keeps the wind
turbine upright, only tilting a few degrees. The turbine
is equipped with 200+ sensors that register anything.
The advantage of erecting wind turbines in open
waters is that the
wind is stronger and
more constant. The
disadvantage is that
maintenance is
more difficult and
that it is expensive
to run cables for a
of power will be
wind farm far from
needed by Earths
the
shore.
population in 2030.
Nevertheless,
Half of it could come
ex p e r i e n c e h a s
from wind turbines,
whetted experts
which create almost
appetite to build
no air pollution.
Hywind 2 a farm of
five floating turbines. They will be networked 20-30
km off the coast of Peterhead in northeastern
Scotland, where water depths are some 100 m. Each
huge wind turbine will have a capacity of six
megawatts or twice as much as a 80-100-m-high
wind turbine on the shore with 50 m blades.
So far, the weakness of renewable energy has
been the difficulty of converting it to a liquid fuel for
the transport sector. Airlines require liquid biological
or chemical fuel, as it is much more energy-dense
and so weighs much less than big batteries.
Recently, scientists from Zurich, Switzerland,
managed to make liquid fuel from sunlight, water,
and CO2 of such quality that it can be used in planes.
In a few decades, sunlight, wind, and ocean currents
will not only be able to supply our households with
power. Aircraft fuel could also have its origins in
harvested sunlight.
Engineers are working hard to invent new, clever
methods for storing all the power that we harvest as
the wind blows and the sun shines - even on cloudy
or windless days. Scientists are primarily focusing on
water, as it can easily store the energy and release
it again quickly.
11.5
terawatts
Floating wind turbines
POTENTIAL
Low
High
Huge, floating wind turbines utilise the wind where it is the

strongest without bothering people on the shore. But wind
farms at sea need expensive cable connections to land.
Wind turbine
assembled
at sea
Hywinds big floating offshore wind
turbine is shipped out to sea in
several parts and assembled on site.
SIEMENS, STATOIL
The wind turbine rises 65 m into

the air and generates 2.3 MW.
Below the surface stands a

100 m steel and concrete pylon. The pylon is filled with a
3000 tonne ballast of water
and stones enough to
steady the turbine.
The wind turbine is moored to

the ocean floor with spar
buoys, each attached to a 60 t
weight. The cables are
fixed to the centre of
the pier to ensure stability,
allowing the turbine to withstand a massive 11 m swell.
29
POWER STORAGE
Water stores energy

Water plays a central role in energy generation, as it is good at storing surplus
energy from sunlight and wind. Water can both be pumped into high-altitude lakes,
decomposed, and be used to compress air, when energy is stored.
MELT WATER USED AS A PUMP
n a region of northwestern
USA called the Columbia
Plateau Province, hydroelectric
power stations are often unable
to utilise all the water from
melting snow in the spring.
So, a major part of the water is
directed around the stations
turbines. But now, scientists
from the Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory have found
a cavity below the ground that
is very well suited for storing
compressed air. The ground is
highly porous, but at the top,
there is a thick, dense layer of

basalt, which can function as a
lid. The scientists aim to utilise
the surplus meltwater to power
huge compressors. Via the latter,
air is pumped into the natural
cavities. Later, when power is
needed, the compressed air is
released and directed through a
turbine that generates power.
Right now there are only
two established compressed
air storage facilities in the world:
one in Alabama, USA, and one
in Huntorf, Germany.
62.8 bar
Pressure to which an underground
cavity in Alabama, USA, can be
pumped. A car tyre is usually only
pumped to 2 bar.
P. KATZ/THINKSTOCK, SHUTTERSTOCK
30
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Surplus power is used

to cool water into
brash ice, allowing the
energy to be stored.
COOLS
ANDY CRIPE/CORVALLIS GAZETTETIMES
SUNLIGHT AND
WIND STORED AS ICE
FLOWS
The kinetic energy of melt
water from mountains and
slopes can be stored as
compressed air in
underground cavities.
Brash ice
hen water freezes, it absorbs energy, which can

be released once the ice melts again. The US
Portland General Electric utility utilises this by storing
surplus energy from wind turbines and solar cells in
ice. The surplus energy is used to convert water into
brash ice, which is pumped to an insulated storage
tank. When power is needed, the ice is melted again.
Heat from the surroundings power the process, and
the passing from a solid to a liquid state is utilised in
a heat pump, which uses the energy to power a
turbine. Brash ice has a large surface area
and melts more easily than a solid lump
of ice, which is an advantage.
Water reservoir
HIGH-ALTITUDE LAKES
CAN STORE POWER
urplus power from solar cells and wind turbines can be

used to pump water into high-altitude lakes. The
pumping requires energy. Later, turbines generate
electricity, as the water flows back down again. The turbine
blades can be flipped, allowing them to pump the water
up and flow back down. As the demand for power varies a
lot, it is reasonable to pump water up when few people
consume power, and send it back down when demand is
high. Belgium plans to build a 3-km-long, artificial island
off the coast with a 30-m-deep lake at the centre, aiming
to create an artificial, high-altitude water reservoir, or
energy store, in the otherwise flat country.
Turbines
Low-altitude lake
The huge pumped storage

power station in Virginia, USA,
is considered to be the worlds
biggest battery.
PUMPS
EDUCATION IMAGES/UIG/GETTY IMAGES
3,003,000,000 W
Maximum output of the worlds biggest pumped storage

power station in Virginia, USA. In comparison, an electric
kettle runs at 2,000 W.
WATER DECOMPOSITION
GENERATES CHEMICAL ENERGY
W
ater can decompose into oxygen and

hydrogen, and the latter can subsequently
be stored. When an electric current passes
through water, decomposition, or electrolysis,
will take place. Some of the power is lost as heat,
but electrolysis is an efficient process that utilises
75 % of the energy. The hydrogen gas can either
be stored in tanks under high pressure or bind to
solid materials in the shape of pills or powder fed
to cars or planes. The contents of hydrogen pills
are often metals or nanomaterials that can bind
hydrogen and hold lots of it, ensuring high ener-
Electrolysis
OXYGEN
HYDROGEN
The anode pulls

electrons out of the
water, so oxygen
from the water is
released as gas (O2).
WATER
At the cathode, the hydrogen ions of the water are provided with
electrons, turning into
hydrogen gas (H2).
CURRENT
CATHODE
ANODE
Water can be decomposed into

hydrogen and oxygen by passing an
electric current through it: electrolysis.
The process is highly efficient. Due to
the H2O formula, twice as much
hydrogen as oxygen is produced.
Hydrogen gas is chemical energy that
can be stored in cylinders for later use.
S
E
S
O
P
M
DECO
gy density. However, many hydrogenbinding materials must be exposed to high

temperatures to release the gas again, and they
are expensive.
The potential of hydrogen is huge, as it can be
used in so-called fuel cells, in which the process is
reversed, so the hydrogen and oxygen of the air
becomes water, as power for the motor is generated. The fuel cell may be placed in an electric car,
which produces water on the go.
31
SOLAR POWER FROM SPACE

WILD
VISIONS
Power generated
from space and volcanoes
From deep oceans to space no holds are barred in future energy generation.
Scientists are looking for green energy sources that can supply us with power in the future
in Earths interior, oceans, and space. Some of these wild visions are already coming true.
LUNAR RING TO BEAM

POWER TO EARTH
cientists from the Japanese

Shimizu Corporation aim
to install a small plant on the
Moon in the next 10 years,
including solar cells that
capture solar power and
transmit it to Earth. According
to Shimizu, the Moon will be a
major supplier of solar power
to Earth in the 2030s, thanks to
a wide ring of solar cells around

the Moons equator. The solar
cells are relatively simple,
and they will be made by
robots out of elements that
already exist on the Moon.
The sophisticated electronics
needed will be sent to the
Moon aboard rockets.
Laser beams
Microwaves
Sunlight is converted into power

by solar cells on the Moon.
2
32
The power is sent through

cables to the side of the
Moon facing Earth.
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
The power is converted

into either microwaves
or laser beams, depending
on the receiving station.
The waves are beamed
to Earth using antennae.
Receiving stations on
Earth convert the waves
into power, which is fed
to the electricity grid.
s they search for alternative energy sources,

many scientists are looking to space. There,
the Sun shines 24/7, and there is no
atmosphere nor clouds to block or absorb the energy
of the sunlight. So, several groups of scientists and
companies are working hard to develop technology
that can supply us with energy from space.
Japan is among the frontrunners. Since the
earthquake and resulting tsunami in 2011, which
destroyed the Fukushima nuclear power plant, the
country has initiated efforts to scale down the
reliance on nuclear power, and by 2030, Japan
hopes to collect energy from space by installing
solar cells on the Moon.
Vacuum chamber
Solar cell with

radio transmitter
ENERGY BEAMED TO EARTH

The 15,000 employee Japanese architecture,
engineering, and contracting company Shimizu
Corporation aims to establish a lunar ring of solar cells
around the Moons 11,000 km equator. From the
to harvest huge amounts of energy from space a 400outset, the ring will be a few kilometres wide, but it will
km-wide ring could generate some 13,000 terawatts.
eventually be extended. The elements for building the
That's six times more than the total power consumption
solar cells already exist on the Moon, and the job of
of the world today.
manufacturing and positioning them will be left to
MILITARY TO BUILD
robots. Only a few humans will be needed to make sure
SOLAR SATELLITE
that the robots do their job properly.
Scientists from the US Navy are also among the
The power from the solar cells will be converted into
frontrunners, when it comes to harvesting energy from
laser beams or microwaves and sent to receiving
space. They hope that in the future, energy for large
stations on Earth. The wave power cannot be too
military operations can be collected from satellites that
intense, as that would cause danger to people in the
are little more than giant solar panels.
receiving area, where large antenna facilities are needed.
One of the major logistical
In areas with cloudless weather, it
challenges faced by the military
will be most appropriate to use
today is securing power for radar
laser beams to transmit the power
units, field kitchens, and
to Earth, as they will hardly spread
communication equipment during
in clear weather. In other places,
long operations. Often, the power
the energy will arrive in the shape
that is the output of a
is generated by heavy diesel
of microwaves - electromagnetic
400-km-wide lunar solar
generators which are carried from
radiation with short wavelengths.
cell ring. In comparison,
place to place with great
Upon arrival to Earth, the wave
all electrical installations
difficulty. Consequently, the US
energy must be converted back
in the US only consume
military is also aiming to utilise
into electricity that can be fed into
some 1,051 GW.
solar power from space. So far,
the grid. In order to reduce the
American scientists have designed light solar cell
energy loss across the distance of 400,000 km,
modules that can capture and send solar power to
scientists aim to send a localiser beam from Earth to the
Earth in the form of radio waves.
Moon, so the flow of energy can be guided in the
The challenges of harvesting energy from space are
opposite direction. This will ensure that the energy finds
major: It is expensive to send equipment up there,
the large receiving stations located onshore and
maintenance is difficult, space is a hostile environment
offshore. If the wild project succeeds, we will be able
with intense radiation that will slowly break down most
materials, and the risk of colliding with
space junk is constant.
So, many scientists are more
interested in generating untapped
Solar
power
from
space
POTENTIAL
power on Earth.
The potential is high, but it is very complex and ex-
New solar cells will

send solar power
from space to Earth.
They are tested in a
vacuum to copy the
conditions in space.
J.J. HARTMAN/UR NAVAL RESEARCH LAB.
13,000,000
terawatts
Low
High
pensive to build the plants. Safely transmitting the

power to Earth is a massive engineering challenge.
VOLCANIC POWER
The AltaRock Energy company has
33
THERMAL ENERGY
video
been authorised to drill

into a 500,000-yearBrussels sprouts
old volcano in Oregon,
power Christmas tree
USA, by the name of
British scientists have
Newberry, which has
built a battery consisting
not erupted for over
of 1,000 sprouts, which
utilises the natural, power700 years. The
conducting ingredients of
company is testing a
the sprouts.
new method for
generating energy
http://youtu.be/9i79c5OFIYs
from dry, warm places
in the ground. Many
countries are already using geothermal energy, but so
far, this has only been possible in areas, in which the
ground contains water heated by the rock, such as in
Iceland. Beneath the Newberry Volcano, the rock is
solid, bone-dry, porous, and over 300 degrees hot: a
perfect combination for generating geothermal energy
using the new method. AltaRock Energy directs water
under very high pressure into the ground, producing
tiny, 1-3-mm-wide cracks. The cracks make up a finemeshed network, converting the rock into a huge
radiator. Up comes vapour that is hot enough to power
a turbine. Each drill hole can generate 10-15 MW
or enough power to supply a small town.
An OTEC plant is tested

in Hawaii, where the
warm ocean surface
and cold abyss create
perfect conditions.
LOCKHEED MARTIN
ENERGY HARVESTED
FROM MAGMA
rock exists in the ground in

many places throughout
the world.
However, the method
does involve an element
of risk. The drilling may
cause earthquakes, and
so any seismic activity is
carefully monitored. From
the AltaRock Energy
authorisation, it appears
that the method is only
allowed to cause earthquakes of 3.5 Richter or less.
Those can be felt, but cause no significant damage.
In Iceland, geologists have taken one step further,
drilling all the way down to the liquid rock or magma
which is at 900-1,000 C. The Iceland Deep Drilling
Project is the first in the world, in which the heat from
magma and water existing naturally in the ground is
used to generate energy. At this depth, the water is
under extreme pressure, passing into a so-called
supercritical state. It flows into the drill hole from the
soil and at a temperature of 450 degrees, it speeds
towards the surface, where turbines are ready to spin
and generate power.
THE OCEAN IS A GIANT

SOLAR COLLECTOR
Called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), the

method is not only tested in Oregon. In Australia,
you will also find a small EGS facility, and the
potential is huge, as extremely hot, dense, and dry
Many people shook their heads at the Icelanders when

they started to drill directly into the magma. The same
was true in connection with the OTEC technology.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion involves exploiting
POWER FROM THE WARM OCEAN

A difference of at least 20 degrees between the bottom and surface water forms the
basis of OTEC: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion. A so-called OTEC power plant can
operate 24/7, and the ocean water flowing through the plant is free.
Turbine
Ammonia
Warm ocean water
Warm surface water makes

ammonia evaporate. The
ammonia flows in a selfcontained system under high
pressure, making it boil at 20 C.
Heat
exchanger
Heat
exchanger
High
New technology revives a familiar method with a huge

potential, from which 80 countries could benefit.
Cold ocean water
34
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
The vapour from the boiling

ammonia produces the
pressure powering a turbine
that generates power.
After passing through the

turbine, the ammonia
vapour is cooled by ice-cold
water from the abyss and
pumped on in the system.
Pump
OTEC Ocean Thermal

Energy Conversion
POTENTIAL
Low
Liquid rock generates

boiling energy
A few km below Earths crust, you may find magma
or red-hot rock. Drilling down to the magma and hot
rock would provide us with the opportunity to harvest
huge amounts of energy from Earths interior.
New laser drills vaporise the

rock, allowing mechanical drills
to make their way through
without being worn down.
SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKSTOCK
ocean temperature differences. The heat from the

surface water is used to evaporate a liquid with a low
boiling point, such as ammonia. Ice-cold bottom water
is pumped up to cool the vapour back into a liquid state,
so the process can be repeated.
In order for the system to generate energy, the
temperature difference must be more than 20 C, and
in many tropical regions, the difference is big enough
throughout the year. One challenge is that the cold
water is found at a depth of some 1,000 m, and huge
amounts are needed to keep the process going. This
requires large, long pipes and high-capacity pumps,
leaving only a little surplus energy.
Nevertheless, one of the worlds leading high-tech
companies, Lockheed Martin of the US, is counting very
much on OTEC. The companys test plant in Hawaii can
generate 10 MW, but in a few years, Lockheed Martin
expects to build a plant that can generate 100 MW or
the equivalent of 25 big wind turbines. Up to 80
countries could benefit from the method, the company
estimates. The oceans are the worlds biggest solar
panels, absorbing the equivalent of 250 million barrels of
oil a day three times as much as we consume today.
The majority of the energy is absorbed by surface water.
What's clear in all of this is that in the near future,
these new technologies can supply all the energy that
the world demands from roads, roofs, oceans,
dormant volcanoes, and lakes without us having to
destroy the planet in the process of getting it.
In the US, the AltaRock

company harvests heat
from an old volcano, using
the ground as a radiator.
ALTAROCK
Volcanic EGS
POTENTIAL
Low
High
Magma contains large amounts of energy, but only exists

in areas with warm underground rock. The potential is high, if
we learn to tame the forces of Earths interior.
35
FEATURE | ARCHAEOLOGY
THE LOST
LORDS OF
ANCIENT IRON
By Antje Gerd Poulsen
Photo: Klavs Randsborg og Inga Merkyte
The long rows of fire-spitting

clay furnaces allowed Benins
forgotten people to produce
over a million tonnes of pig iron.
CLAUS LUNAU
36
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
For 15 years, Danish archaeologists

have made excavations in the
West African country of Benin,
uncovering a lost civilisation
which produced huge
quantities of pig iron.
AFRICA
Benin
ARCHAEOLOGISTS FOUND:
Evicence of one of Africas

grandest ancient cities
Bohicon covers an area of almost 6 km2 with large,
rectangular huts and long rows of smelting furnaces.
Dates back to: 800 CE
Documents: A great, so far unknown civilisation in Benin
Huge cities dating back from

an unknown and highly
sophisticated civilisation are
emerging from Benins red
soil. At the time when people
in Europe were living in the
ruins of the Roman Empire,
these Africans had mastered
iron. At first it made them very
rich, but ultimately it brought
them to a sad end.
he air is vibrating with heat and

blurred by the smoke of furnaces
and fires. A great noise of singing,
drumming, and shouting encompasses the
entire area. Row upon row of red clay
furnaces, each rising almost three metres
into the air, can be seen. There are hundreds
of them with flames shooting from the top.
Men operate the furnaces, as women and
children walk to and fro with water jars and
baskets of clay, iron ore, and charcoal
balancing on their heads. Some of the men
are sealing the furnaces with clay. Others
are pumping air into the bottom of the
furnaces, using bellows made of wood and
leather. Somewhere in the crowd, a voodoo
priest cuts the throat of a cow, directing its
blood into the red soil as a sacrifice to Ogun,
the god of iron.
This is what the city of Bohicon in what is
now Benin, West Africa, was like in its heyday
in 1000 AD. Danish archaeologists have
unexpectedly found evidence of a great,
forgotten, African civilisation, the people of
which were expert extractors and processors
of iron back in a time when many European
peoples had reverted to bronze.
The Africans extracted ore from pits in
the ground, built long rows of smelting
furnaces, and produced huge amounts of
iron which they processed into ingots,
weapons, and tools and sold. However, the
manufacturing came at a price, and the
constant search for raw materials triggered
a natural disaster that finally led to the
demise of the civilisation.
BENINS HISTORY REWRITTEN

Scientists have long known about traditional
ironmaking in Northern Benin and a number
37| 37
The archaeologists
found furnace floors
(left) and Africas oldest
voodoo temple (right).
Magnetism revealS temples and furnaces

Scientists can make great discoveries by measuring Earths magnetic field. No digging involved.
The magnetometer technology has revealed houses, roads, and hundreds of smelting furnaces.
agnetic mapping has provided archaeologists
with a tool that renders exhausting and timeconsuming test excavations superfluous. The
magnetometer measures Earths magnetic field in
the upper soil layers, converting the measurements
into a map that reveals what is concealed in the
ground. The method is based on the fact that Earths
magnetic field is evenly distributed in layers
untouched by humans. When humans build houses,
temples, and furnaces or make fires, the magnetic
field is disturbed. The archaeologists draw up a type
of index of these so-called anomalies.
Normally, the remains of a clay furnace used for
ironmaking will be relatively easy to see, as the
anomaly curve resembles a steep mountain: a large,
positive variation (black) is followed by a large,
negative variation (light). But the area includes so
many furnaces that they blot each other out,
making them harder to identify. So, the
archaeologists had to dig in several places to check
that they interpreted the map correctly.
A person or a car moves the magnetometer across the area.

The magnetometer consists of sensors that measure
variations of the magnetic field at the ground surface. In just one day, the
magnetometer can cover an area that would take months to excavate.
Magnetometer
38
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
The measurements
are sorted out using
a computer programme and
converted into digital maps
including contour curves,
colours, or 3D. The strength
of the magnetic field is
measured in nanoteslas (nT).
The natural magnetic field
of a place is 0 nT, based
on which all anomalies are
measured. Positive values
are marked by dark colours,
negative values by light ones.
of other African countries. But the new

discoveries made by archaeologists in
Southern Benin are much more extensive and
go much further back in time, says Professor
Klavs Randsborg from the University of
Copenhagen, who has headed the
excavations for 15 years.
The scale of our discoveries took us
aback. We have probably found Africas
biggest ironmaking area and evidence of the
oldest known production.
Originally, the Danish archaeologists
went to Benin to explore large caves
discovered in 1998, when a new bypass road
outside the city of Bohicon collapsed under
a trencher. The ground included almost
2,000 man-made caves from the mighty
Dahomey empire, whose kings reigned from
1600-1900 CE.
The caves served as shelter, hiding
places, and later as water tanks, explaining
accounts of entire Dahomey armies
suddenly being able to disappear and
reappear unexpectedly.
So far, the history of Benin has been
synonymous with Dahomey, but as the
archaeologists explored the Dahomey
culture, they moved still further back in time,
discovering an unknown, several-thousandyear-old civilisation.
INDUSTRIAL CITY APPEARED

Scientists found the first evidence of Benins
ancient past in a series of narrow passages
1-2 m below the ground. Along with
scorpions, snakes and other nasties, the
passages included lots of iron ore.
Africas oldest throwing spear head
Dates back to: 1000 BCE

Documents: The earliest ironmaking in Africa. Consequently, iron extraction and
processing probably took place in Africa independently of other cultures.
The underground passages were

abandoned mines dating back to 1400-1500
CE, and in the city of Bohicon, evidence of
even earlier ironmaking was found using a
so-called magnetometer. Normally, Earths
magnetic field is evenly distributed in the
ground, so if changes suddenly occur in the
soil layers, it is usually a sign of human
activity. In other words, a lumpy magnetic
field reveals if the ground includes the
remains of homes, roads, or other items.
And the magnetometer had plenty to
reveal. On the digital maps it produced, the
scientists could see a huge area full of
smelting furnaces right beneath the surface.
Without doing any digging whatsoever, they
had located an industrial city.
We love it, when we can suddenly see an
integral whole, as we could in this case. We
could see the furnaces located in rows along
the streets, and for the very first time, we
realised the extent of our discovery, Klavs
Randsborg says.
The old iron city covered an area of
almost 6 km2 in the eastern part of Bohicon.
In comparison, the area of Middle Age
Copenhagen was only 0.6 km2.
The city had been founded around 600
DIGITAL MAP
CE and consisted of rectangular, mud-built

huts and workshops. Back then, the iron ore
was extracted from pits in the ground.
Regular mining activities and large-scale
ironmaking employing around 500 furnaces
at a time did not begin until 200 years later.
3,000-YEAR-OLD SPEARHEAD
And there was more to be revealed about
Benins past. In a village in Southern Bohicon,
the remains of an even bigger and much
older city appeared: an 8 km2 area bearing
witness of big, closely packed, circular huts.
There, archaeologists made an even more
sensational find.
We were lucky enough to find a wall that
once collapsed during a fire, and under the
wall, we discovered burned pottery, palm
kernel shells, and a wonderful, thin, throwing
spear head, says Klavs Randsborg.
The collapsed wall revealed an
undisturbed pocket of time.
The discovery of palm kernel shells and a
corroded spearhead may not seem all that
important, but they had suddenly made Benin
the homeland of a sophisticated, ancient
civilisation. Carbon 14 dating of the palm
kernel shells proved, that the discoveries
AREA ENLA
RGED
Furnaces verified
by excavation.
Furnaces that have
not been verified
by excavation
and which can be
either furnace rem
ains or slag.
Heap of waste and
slag.
The circular, dark

anomalies have been
identified as iron
extraction furnaces
surrounding a heap
of iron slag and waste
from the 900s CE.
Enlarged area in Bohicon.

The furnaces are located along a road marked by yellow dots.
39
Destroyed voodoo temples
Included pottery and figurines of kings.

Date back to: 800 CE and onwards.
Document: Voodoo belief and the establishment of new
kingdoms to protect the people and control the growing trade.
Islamic merchants probably ordered the destruction of the temples.
when the people of Europe

still relied on softer, more
fragile bronze.
IRON FROM BENIN

KILLED CRUSADERS
dated back from the end of the second

millennium BCE. The palm kernel shells show
that Africans produced considerable
quantities of palm oil (used for cooking, etc.)
much earlier than previously believed.
The spearhead is Africas oldest iron
spearhead, and a small smiths shop found
only 15 m from the collapsed wall makes it
likely that the spearhead was made on site.
In other words, African ironmaking and
processing originated much earlier than
scientists used to think. As early as 1000
BCE and perhaps even earlier Africans had
developed ironmaking methods at a time,
The dating produced a new mystery. The

city in which the palm kernel shells and the
spearhead had been found showed clear
signs of being the bustling centre of a great
and powerful civilisation. But scientists had
hardly found any evidence of the civilisation
and so did not have any clue as to the
identity of the ironmaking Africans.
The archaeologists found the answer,
when they happened past a heap of soil
including traditional pottery. The soil came
from huge drainage canals that were being
built outside Bohicon, and shortly after,
the scientists were standing in the dry,
recently established canals. They could
hardly believe their luck, as they saw
potsherds protruding from unmistakable
culture layers.
Significant artefacts were just waiting to
be excavated, such as the contents of old
voodoo temples. The structures had been
destroyed, but archaeologists could still
Rainforest went
up in smoke
Benin
Nigeria
Togo
Bohicon
PLANETOBSERVER/SPL/SCANPIX
BENIN GAP
40
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
n the coastal zone between Ghana

and Nigeria, Benins savanna now
stretches all the way to the Atlantic,
only interrupted by a few palm
plantations. Named the Benin Gap,
the region is surrounded by
rainforest. Climatologists and
biologists have long discussed why
the forest is missing. Fossilised
plants now reveal that Benin used to
have a rainforest of tall trees, but the
trees were cut down for the iron
industry at such a rate that the forest
never recovered.
obtain lots of information from the ruins, and

the potsherds dated back from the same
period as the iron industry.
The soil included small pockets of time
with evidence of the civilisation that
organised the ironmaking: high-quality
pottery used in ceremonies and elaborate
figurines of kings complete with jewellery
and fine clothes. Small figurines of horses
that did not otherwise exist in the area,
copies of bronze vessels, and Persian glass
pearls bore witness of considerable trade
with other empires.
The most likely buyers of the large
amounts of iron were medieval Middle East
caliphates. The people of Benin may have
sold weapons to army commander Saladin
and others fighting against Christian
crusaders, and the voodoo temple ruins
could be the result of an encounter with
Muslims, who demanded that the pagan
shrines be destroyed.
EXPLOITATION
CAUSED DISASTER
Based on the finds, scientists can now
produce an outline of Benins history:
The ironmaking started gradually in
ancient cities, where iron ore was extracted
from the surface. Around 800 CE, new
kingdoms organised the production, and in
the big cities, furnaces were built. After
1100 CE, the ironmaking moved to the
forests, probably due to lack of wood for
charcoal, and in the 1400s, mine systems
were established to collect iron ore of a
better quality.
Eventually, the ironmaking activities
covered an area of several hundred
kilometres. Even today, it's possible to still
see thousands of big and small heaps of
slag in the landscape. Some of the biggest
slag hills measure 100 x 100 metres, are up
to 13 metres tall, and hold evidence of
ironmaking activities involving over a million
tonnes of pig iron.
The extensive activities required the
cutting down of over a hundred square
kilometres of forest, and the combined

effect of the exploitation and an extreme
drought around 1500 CE meant that there
was no longer enough fuel for the
furnaces. The ironmaking stopped, and
people moved away.
The signs of the man made natural
disaster are still unmistakable. Whereas the
forests of Nigeria and Ghana, on both sides
of Benin, stretch all the way to the ocean,
the coastal zone of Benin consists of
savanna and palm plantations.
DIFFERENT VIEW OF AFRICA

The evidence of Benins ironmaking past is
very important and not just to Benin.
According to Klavs Randsborg, the new
discoveries make it likely that the Africans
developed methods for smelting and
forging iron independently of other
civilisations. As a consequence, this shows
the ancient people of Benin possessed
much more sophisticated skills than
scientists used to believe.
Examples of clay furnaces still exist in

Northern Benin. This furnace dates back
from a period around 1820.
Bellows increased
the temperature
to 1400 degrees
Each furnace was operated by a small group of men who heated the
ore to its melting point, before recovering the red-hot pig iron. The
iron was subsequently placed on an anvil or a rock, where the last
bits of slag were knocked off using a stone. Finally, the blacksmith
processed the iron into ingots that were ready for transportation.
CLAUS LUNAU
Charcoal and ore

are placed in layers.
The furnace is lit

at the bottom.
Leather bellows
supply air in order
to increase the temperature. The melting point of
iron ore is 1,250-1,400 C,
and consequently, the
entire process lasted
two-three hours.
Clay plugs in the 4-5

thin, up to 60-cmlong clay pipes (tuyrs)
at the bottom of the
furnace are inserted
or removed to
adjust the oxygen supply.
Iron ore
Charcoal
Bloom
Hundreds of
smelting furnaces
Pit
Lined up in rows and used at the

same time - industrial efficiency!
Date back from: 800 CE and onwards.
Document: Industrial scale ironmaking.
Slag
The iron collects into a

thick, pancake-like
substance (bloom), while
impurities (slag) are directed
into a pit below the ground.
Once the furnace has
produced enough iron, it is
brought flat to the ground,
and the bloom is recovered.
FEATURE | BIOLOGY
LIVING LIFE TO the
EXTREME
Neither the ice of Antarctica nor the radioactive Chernobyl reactor scare
Earths toughest survivors. The extremophiles have shown scientists that
life can thrive anywhere on Earth and perhaps also in space.
By Lea Holtze
The city of Pripyat near

Chernobyl is still hazardous
to humans, but a fungus
thrives inside the devastated
nuclear reactor.
C. ARCE/DEMOTIX/SCANPIX, E. LUKATSKY/AP/POLFOTO
42
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
FEEDS ON RADIOAC TIVITY
Tough fungus feeds

itself with radiation
NAME: Cryptococcus neoformans
HABITAT: The sealed part of the devastated
nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
SURVIVAL TRICK: The fungus not only survives

high doses of radiation, it even utilises the energ
y of
the gamma rays to obtain better growth. According
to
scientists from the Albert Einstein College of Medic
ine
of Yeshiva University in the US, the extremophile
uses
melanin to convert radiation into nourishment. Moreo
ver,
the fungus is able to survive, as it can regenerate
damaged DNA fast.
Extremophile VS Human
The bacterium thrives on a radioactive exposure of 5,000 Gy over long periods of time
(1 Gy = 1 joule absorbed by 1 kg of matter).
A dose of just 4.5 Gy over a period

of 30 days would kill about half of
any given human population.
Radioactivity as nourishment
The fungus thrives inside the Chernobyl reactor,

as it is able to
use gamma radiation to produce nutritious mole
cules.
Fungus
1.
Gamma rays are absorbed

by melanin molecules on the
surface of the fungus and
directed towards the
centre of reaction.
Gamma rays
Melanin
Centre of reaction
CLAUS LUNAU
2.
eMolecule
At the centre of
reaction, the gamma rays
supply energy for electrons.
3.
The electrons enter into

chemical processes, which
produce nutritious molecules.
LOVE HEAT
The hot springs of Ye

llowstone are filled
with subsoil water an
d may reach
temperatures of over
100 degrees.
or years, scientists have tried to find a

place on Earth, where life does not
stand a chance. But no matter if
biologists are searching near red-hot
springs on the ocean floor or in the bonedry sand of the Atacama desert, there's
always some kind of life to be found.
The microbes capacity to endure heat,
radiation, and freezing is surprising and
impressive, and the prospects are literally
astronomical. Named extremophiles, the diehard creatures have convinced scientists
that life will probably be able to thrive in
worlds that are very different from Earth,
such as the moons of our Solar System.
Early biologists were convinced living
organisms could only survive within a narrow
range of conditions on planets with
temperatures and pressure like Earths and
with free oxygen and liquid water.
The fact that extremophiles are not
intimidated by the harsh conditions in space
has recently been documented by two
teams of scientists. In 2012, an international
group of researchers demonstrated that
bacteria can survive at least 18 months in
space (aboard the International Space
Station, ISS) without protection. And in 2013,
German scientists proved that Mars can
support simple life. In a simulator, Antarctic
lichen easily survived conditions resembling
those on the Red Planet.
Extremophile V
S Human
Most bacteria thrive at

temperatures
of around 55 degrees C,
but some
can survive boiling wa
ter.
When a human beings

body temperature rises to 42 degre
es, organ
failure has lethal conseq
uences.
ANALYSIS TO REVEAL TRICKS

In order to understand how bacteria
survive in space, scientists eagerly
study them on Earth. One of the
researchers is Ph.D. and Adjunct
Professor of biochemistry and molecular
biology Alison Murray of the University of
Nevada.
In 2010, her team of scientists
cooperated with NASA to find life in the
pitch-black, extremely salty, and ice-cold
Lake Vida, which is embedded in the
Antarctic permafrost and has been isolated
for at least 3,000 years. But in spite of the
conditions, the seven square kilometre lake
proved to contain a thriving community of
bacteria.
Alison Murray and her colleagues are
presently DNA sequencing the genetic
material of the Lake Vida extremophiles.
The analysis can tell us which organisms we
are dealing with and possibly also reveal the
survival tricks employed by the microbes.
Some of those tricks may also be used
by creatures of for instance Jupiters moon
Europa. According to scientists, the moon
has a salt water ocean beneath the ice,
where the conditions are tough, but not any
worse than those of Lake Vida. Not even the
intense radiation of space will make life
impossible for extra-terrestrial
extremophiles, according to the discovery
C AN A
LICHEN BEFORE EXPERIMENT
Mars simulator
LICHEN AFTER EXPERIMENT
Arctic lichen adapted to Mars-like

conditions by regulating its
photosynthesis.
DLR
44
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
PACE
S
O
T
T
DJUS
DAVID STRONG, PENN
Biological rubbe
holds DNA togethr band
er
NASA
STATE, D. KUNKEL/
SCANPIX, DR TIM
NAME: Thermophiles
HABITAT: Geysers and
hot
springs such as
ne national park in
the US.
SURVIVAL TRICK: The
bacteria Thermus
aquaticus produces
a special Taq polym
erase
enzyme, which ho
lds DNA together,
although
the molecules shou
ld
break down at such
Taq polymerase
high temperatures
.
The enzyme is also
able to copy DNA,
and
this very capacity ha
s
revolutionised bio
medical research. The co
DNA
pying of DNA sequen
ces is
most efficient at hig
h temperatures, an
d as Taq
polymerase can su
rvive temperatures
close
to 100 degrees, the
enzyme is now used
throughout the wo
rld in DNA research
. Taq polymerase was isolated
for the first time in
1965.
Astronaut Heidemarie
Stefanyshyn-Piper monitored
the microbes aboard the ISS.
those in Yellowsto
EVANS/SCIENCE PHO
TO LIBRA/SCANP
IX
The weightlessness
of the International Space Station
(ISS) made the
bacterium produce a
sturdy biofilm.
Life leaves
Earth
ORGANISM
ON EARTH
NAME: P. chlorophanum and
ORGANISM
IN SPACE
P. aeruginosa
EXPERIMENT: Mars-like
conditions in the lab and space.
SURVIVAL TRICK: German scientists placed P. chlorophanum, a lichen,
in a Mars simulator for 34 days. The lichen soon
adapted its photosynthesis to produce energy
based on the reduced quantity of light. At the
International Space Station, the P. aeruginosa
bacterium survived for 18 months. The organism produced a new kind of biofilm, that may
have served as protection.
The Mars simulator copied the conditions on
Mars: cold, low pressure, and a high CO2 content. The lichen did just fine, and the same is
true for a bacterium which resided at the
International Space Station for 18 months.
Astronauts who stay in space for a

long period of time typically experience impaired eyesight, sleeping
difficulties, reduced muscle mass,
and an increased risk of cancer.
45
of a fungus that does not only survive,

but even benefits from the radiation inside
the infamous reactor of the Chernobyl
nuclear power plant, which was destroyed in
an explosion in 1986.
DIE HARD CREATURES LIVE

IN REACTOR
The radiation-loving fungus of Chernobyl
has readjusted in just a few years since the
plant disaster. But otherwise, the majority
of extremophiles have populated their
habitats for millions of years, and the long
stay allowed the organisms lots of time to
evolve a series of special adaptations, which
is the secret behind their survival.
Scientists have observed that coldloving extremophiles have special antifreeze
molecules that keep the fluid in their cells
liquid. Normally, damaging ice crystals form
when the temperature falls below zero
degrees, but the molecules function in the
same way as car antifreeze solution,
lowering the freezing point of the liquid.
If the conditions become too
harsh, some extremophiles have one last

resort: They halt all biological processes,
awaiting better times. The organisms are
able to hibernate, while an armour protects
them against any external influence.
During the construction of an oil pipeline
across Alaska, scientists discovered the
Carnobacterium pleistocenium bacterium,
which had hibernated in the permafrost for
some 32,000 years. The bacterium even
proved able to reproduce, once scientists
defrosted it.
Hibernation or suspended animation can
also come in handy for any life on other
planets. For instance, scientists have found
evidence that water once flowed on Mars
and of a permafrost layer beneath the
surface of the planet. It is possible that
microbes are still hibernating there.
So perhaps the next extremophile to be
discovered by scientists will not be one
residing on Earth.
Bacterial culture
Tiny creature
pumps
itself dry
NAME: Tardigrade
the
HABITAT: Global, from
floors.
Himalaya to ocean
SURVIVAL TRICK:
s get tough,
When the condition
ernate for
tardigrades may hib
-long animal
mm
years. The up to 1t
os
alm
dy
empties its bo
cing the
pla
re
r,
te
wa
of
completely
r,
l suga
liquid with a natura
stabilises the
e
los
ha
Tre
e.
los
treha
al turns into
im
an
molecules, so the
stal. Scientists
a type of sugar cry
ades can repair
believe that tardigr
t the precise
damaged DNA, bu
in unknown.
mechanisms rema
SALT RESISTA
NT
HILARY DUGAN, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS, CHICAGO
Bacteria get
nourishment from brine
Scientists drill down

to tiny organisms,
which have been
isolated beneath
the ice for some
3,000 years.
EMA KUHN, DESERT RESEARCH
INSTITUTE, RENO, NEVADA
NAME: Halophiles
HABITAT: Lake Vida, Antarctica,
which is encapsulated in ice.
SURVIVAL TRICK: Halophiles have a special

protein layer that prevents salt from entering cells. The
bacteria may get nourishment from carbon or hydrogen
stored in the brine.
The bacterial culture thrives beneath the ice
in an environment with a salt content of some
20 % and a temperature of -13 degrees.
Salt affects the pressure of the blood

flow, and sea water including 3.5 %
salt can be lethal.
SURVIVES AN
Y THING EX TR
EME
n the
In a dried out conditio
the
ge
sta
l
rre
ba
so-called
just
in
nta
co
y
ma
e
rad
tardig
3% water.
SCIENCE PHOTO
EYE OF SCIENCE/
LIB/SCANPIX
Human
S
V
e
il
h
p
o
m
e
tr
x
E
e temperatures
Tardigrades can surviv
boiling water,
close to absolute zero,
reme pressure.
severe radiation, and ext
vely small
Exposure to even relati
, pressure or
swings in temperature
l a human.
kil
ly
radiation can quick
Microbes survive decades of drought
THRIVE ON DR
NAME: Actinobacteria
HABITAT: The Atacama desert of Chile.
SURVIVAL TRICK: These extremophiles hide in
OUGHT
rock crevices, where slight amounts of water collect.

Their metabolism is still a mystery, but
according to some scientists, the bacteria survive on
gasses and almost hibernate, until water is available.
SHUTTERSTOCK, D. KUNKEL/SCANPIX
In some plarts of the Atacama desert,

it has not rained for 100+ years.
Actinobacteria
Many years with no precipitation is not a
problem for actinobacteria. They thrive at
temperatures between -10 and +50 degrees.
If our daily fluid loss of around

1 litre is not replaced, humans can
only survive for one week.
47
AFTER ALL, IT'S

A BIG UNIVERSE
Leading experts firmly believe: there is life out there.
The question is whether it is intelligent.
The Milky Way is only one of

150 billion galaxies visible to
our telescopes. I think we will
find life within 20 years.
Life may be common in the

universe, but it is likely that
Earth is one of the few places in
which intelligent life evolved.
If we combine what we know

about physics, chemistry, and
statistics, it is highly likely that
life is common in the universe.
SETH SHOSTAK
JOHN W TRAPHAGAN
DON LINCOLN
American astronomer,
writer, and senior research
scientist of NASAs SETI
(Search for Extraterrestrial
Intelligence) Institute.
American professor of
anthropology and contributor to the book Archaeology,
Anthropology, and
Interstellar Communication.
American particle physicist

and author of several books
such as Alien Universe:
Extraterrestrial Life in Our
Minds and in the Cosmos.
SETI
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
DON LINCOLN
WHAT
IF...?
By Lone Djernis
48
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
FEATURE | SETI
he astronomers
of the SETI
Institute are
spellbound, as they
stare at their
computer displays.
The Californian
institute has been
searching - so far in
vain - for intelligent life
in space since it was
founded in 1984.
Several times, SETI
scientists have been
misled by sudden signals
caused by pollution from
Earths many radiation
sources or the background
radiation of the universe the
noise from rotating neutron stars,
quasars, and the thin gas from the
Milky Way. But this time, it is different.
The radio signal received is very weak,
but it is continuous and completely
unlike anything else ever picked up.
Not until they have excluded all other
natural explanations, astronomers
dare think it: something, or someONE,
out there is contacting us...
SHUTTERSTOCK
IN THE FOLLOWING SIX PAGES, YOU CAN

JOIN OUR THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: WHAT
WOULD HAPPEN IF EARTH ACTUALLY
CONTACTED INTELLIGENT LIFE FROM
ANOTHER WORLD?
49
THE FIRST
CONTACT
HOW DO WE MAKE CONTACT?
Remote civilisations may
be able to pick up our
radio signals, utilising
special gravitational
fields in space.
SHUTTERSTOCK
ur first contact with another

intelligent civilisation, is most
likely to be via radio signals
travelling at the speed of light - close
to 300,000 km/s. Ever since
the invention of the radio
and TV, we have been
sending signals into space
that could be picked up. In
200 years, our first
crackling transmissions
will already have passed by
one million solar systems. But the

likelihood of them being captured is
very limited. En route, they will have
lost so much strength that they are
obscured by the background radiation
of the universe. But radio waves which
are focused and amplified will be able
to travel much further and perhaps be
detected by civilisations millions of
light years from Earth, if they use
gravitational lenses. The lenses are
the gravitational fields of heavy
objects such as
galaxy clusters,
which collect and
amplify all
re-runs in space
Aliens can learn a lot about
us by studying the signals
that we have already
sent into space.
We can learn a lot from the type of signal, though

we do not understand what it says. The way in
which a signal is made tells us a lot about the
sender. The radio and TV signals we have sent
for the past 100 years reveal that we are a
lifeform that communicates with light and sound.
50
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
The first contact that we make with another

intelligent civilisation will probably be radio
signals. The laws of physics are the same
anywhere in the universe, and radio waves
remain an energy-efficient method of
sending information across vast distances.
he SETI scientists call in astronomers from other institutions, and soon they are joined
by mathematicians and quantum physicists. The scientists determine that the signal
consists of sequences that are repeated over and over again and cannot be attributed to
any natural cosmic noise sources. The sender is surely intelligent, but nobody immediately
understands the message. The signal is still weak and apparently encrypted.
SHUTTERSTOCK
electromagnetic radiation from

gamma and light waves to radio waves.
On Earth, astronomers use
gravitational lenses as cosmic
magnifying glasses, allowing them to
study remote objects. Sophisticated
civilisations may have taken one step
further, using the lenses to search for
signs of life throughout the universe.
We will never get to have anything
remotely like a conversation with aliens
via radio waves. The closest civilisations
could be hundreds or thousands of
light years away, so all questions would
take hundreds or thousands of years to
arrive, and any answers just as long.
pollution could
reveal aliens
n 2018, the huge James Webb telescope

will launch. Deep into space, far away
from the light on Earth, it is going to
observe the remotest objects of the
universe. According to scientists, the
telescope will also be able to identify
pollution, such as chloroflourocarbons,
subject to special circumstances. As
far as we know, CFC gases can only be
industrially produced, so if the
telescope spots these ozonedepleting gases somewhere in the
universe, it has to be evidence of
intelligent life.
NASA
We could also spot excessive amounts

of iron in the alien atmosphere,
indicating industrial activity. We could
even detect fusion energy by spotting
unusual neutrino output.
51
the FIRST
MEET
WHAT DO THEY LOOK LIKE?
Experience of life on
Earth could give us valuable
clues as to what the
aliens look like.
YOURPROPS/DBFX
BODY BUILD
If they exist, they look like us. At least, they are if the
theory of evolutionary convergence is correct.
According to the theory, evolution follows
predictable patterns. Highly different bird and
insect species living in the same environmental
conditions will develop similar body shapes.
Intelligent life will most likely come from a
planet similar to Earth, and be based on the same biochemical
processes. So, the aliens will be like us physically, with two
arms, two legs, and a head.
Others believe that evolution is more inventive. On Earth, we
have sophisticated life forms which are so specialised that they
almost seem alien. In cave systems, you will find colourless, blind
amphibians that never see the light of day, and at the bottom of
the Atlantic, crabs and shrimps thrive near toxic, 400-degree-hot
springs. Among microorganisms, the biodiversity is even greater.
They can thrive in frozen methane, radioactive waste, rock, salt
deposits, and toxic sulphur lakes. In other words: if life can take on
almost any shape and fill any niche in any imaginable way, so
trying to predict what aliens will look like is very difficult.
HABITAT
On Earth, dolphins and squid are proof that intelligent creatures
do not necessarily live on land. Consequently, alien life could
easily have originated in water worlds, in the air, or even in the
clouds of gas giants. But if they evolved according to the same
pattern as ours, they must have landed at some point
or something similar, according to evolutionary theorists.
They claim that the great technological
advances made by mankind have to do with the
fact that at some point, we gathered around a
fire and learned how to control it. And that is
only possible at least on our
planet on land.
52
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
stronomers can now trace the increasingly powerful signal to an object which is
moving directly towards Earth at a speed exceeding all other known astronomical
phenomena. After only three months, a huge object appears at an altitude of 1 km.
Its surface resembles a light, metallic liquid in constant motion. But apart from the
radio signal, these tourists do not communicate. They remain passive.
You could imagine alien life

that is based on for instance
silicon, but it is more likely
that the aliens are based on
carbon just like we are.
CARBON holds THE BUILDING

BLOCKS OF LIFE TOGETHER
SENSES
The animals on Earth have
evolved a wide range of sensors
which could also have
evolved in other places. If the
aliens planet is dark, they could
see the world in infrared just like
snakes, reptiles, and bees. Or perhaps they have evolved echolocation like dolphins and bats. If they
come from a water world, they
might navigate by an electric
sense like sharks. And if they live
below the ground, they may be
able to register low-frequency
sounds just like naked mole rats.
SIZE
The aliens will take shapes that
are based on their home planet.
A world with weak gravity will
be the home of tall, thin creatures, whereas strong gravity
will result in short, broadshouldered aliens. On Earth,
neurologists have determined
that animals smaller than a
small domestic cat do not have
sufficient brain area to develop
high intelligence. But small
aliens could have bypassed the
size problem, if they have
evolved collective intelligence
just like bees and ants.
n Earth, carbon is the most important

building block of life. This is because the
carbon atom makes 4 electrons available to
form covalent chemical bonds with other
atoms such as oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen
all important elements of the chemistry of
life. So, carbon is the uniting factor of all the
basic molecules that make up living tissue.
Actually, we know about more molecules that
contain carbon than molecules which do not.

But things may be different on other planets.
Silicon is the most likely alternative building
block of life for aliens. On Earth, the element,
which is used in microchips, exists in much
bigger quantities and it also has four
electrons available to form chemical bonds.
But the bonds are not nearly as stable as
those of carbon.
Water or another liquid is

probably a critical factor
for the origin of life.
SHUTTERSTOCK
LIKE US, ALIENS DEPEND ON water
ife originated in water, there is water in our

cells, and water the (literally) vital solvent
for the nutrients that our bodies need. In
short, liquid water is critical for the existence
of life, and most scientists find it difficult to
imagine other liquids that could play the
same role in other worlds. Consequently, it is
highly unlikely that there is life on red-hot and

water-free planets. On the other hand,
freezing cold worlds could be inhabited. As we
know, water has a special quality: it floats in
its frozen state. Most other substances would
sink to the bottom, when they hardened. And
under the ice sheet, life may thrive.
53
the FIRST
DIALOGUE
WILL THEY UNDERSTAND?
In the 1970s, we sent
messages into space,
but today scientists doubt
any aliens would be able
to decode them.
SHUTTERSTOCK
THE
ARE
CIBO
MES
SAG
E
NASA
UE
he Pioneer message is
THE PIONEER PLAQ
an inscription on a
metal plaque that was
launched with the Pioneer 10 probe in 1972.
But according to anthropologist John W Traphagan, the Pioneer message is difficult for
aliens to understand. The
plaque includes a sketch of
the Solar System with an arrow pointing at the third
planet: Earth. Any human being knows that
an arrow points, as we are familiar with bows and arrows. But the arrow wouldn't mean the same thing
in a society that never knew bows and arrows.
Carbon
The ch
emica
l make
-up of
DNA
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
AREC
54
IBO
he Arecibo message was sent with radio

waves from a radio telescope in Puerto Rico.
But it is doubtful that aliens could understand
it. For instance, a matchstick man will mean
nothing to aliens, if they have never seen
a human being before. And if they understand the matchstick man, they may think
that we have horns, if they misinterpret
the two blue DNA strands surrounding
the mans head. At the bottom of the
message, there is an image of a satellite
dish. But even humans on Earth find
it hard to guess what it is.
DNA st
rand
Huma
n
Satellit
e dish
s the spacecraft is circling, scientists struggle to understand the encrypted

message. And finally, they get it. The aliens have sent us a formula describing
how gravity works at the quantum level; a problem which scientists on Earth have
been unable to solve. Once the message is understood, the spacecraft lands, and a
figure emerges. Earths intelligence has been tested, and we passed.
ALIENS communicate
by NUMBERS
We could send the contents

of the Internet into space.
That would improve their
chances of understanding
just a little bit.
ccording to many scientists,

mathematics is a universal mode
of communication, as the laws of
mathematics apply throughout the
universe. So, intelligent aliens, which
are technologically sophisticated,
must know about the number pi,
which describes the
relationship between the
perimeter and diameter of
a circle and can be used
to measure the
circumference and
volume of a planet.
Prime numbers numbers
that can only be divided by one or the
number itself may also be known by
intelligent aliens, simply due to the
fact that prime numbers are universal
truths. Physicist Carl Sagan had a
number of theories involving how a
thorough knowledge of mathematics
could be used for communication
purposes. He said that 2 + 3 = 5
could express true, whereas 2 + 2 =
5 could mean false.
WE PRACTICE
ON DOLPHINS
olphins are good examples of an intelligent

species, whose members communicate in a
sophisticated manner, that is totally different
from ours. The animals primarily use
echolocation to interact with their
surroundings. Their way of communicating and
seeing the world is so different from ours that it
could give us an idea of what communicating
with aliens would be like. So, scientists are
trying to learn to communicate in Dolphinese.
SHUTTERSTOCK
Mathematics may be universal,

but the symbols of aliens are probably
quite different from ours. For instance,
our decimal system is very likely to be the
result of us having 10 fingers.
55
FEATURE | TECHNOLOGY
HOW second-generation HOLOGRAMS WILL GIVE US:
THE REAL
56
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
3D
HOLOGRAMS
ARE A MAJOR
STEP FORWARD
Holograms are about to amaze

the world again. New advances
in lasers and nanotechnology
have made major computing
companies enter a breakneck
race to be the first to introduce
holograms for TVs and phones.
1837 telegraph
The telegraph conveys text in the
form of electric signals. In 1837, the
worlds first commercial telegraph
line opened between Euston and
Camden Town, London.
1876 telephone
By Rolf Haugaard Nielsen
The telephone converts sound

into electric signals, which are
transmitted through cables and
subsequently converted back
into sound at the end of the line.
1973 mobile phone
MOONWALK IN 3D:
Mobile phones are connected

via a wireless radio link. The first
mobile phone from 1973 weighed a
kilo. Japan introduced the worlds
first mobile network in 1979.
Pop star Michael Jackson

'performed' at the 2014
Billboard Music Awards
five years after his death.
1991 Internet
The Internet connects computers
and mobile phones via fibre-optic
cables, telephone cables, radio links,
and satellites. The Internet became
accessible via phone networks in 1991.
1992 SMS (text message)

The "Short Message
Service is used to exchange simple
text messages between mobile
phones. The first SMS was sent in
England in 1992.
2003 Skype
With a computer, tablet, or
mobile phone webcam, videoenabled "phone calls" are cheap
and easy. The key is using the
internet as the carrier.
KEVIN WINTER/BILLBOARD AWARDS 2014/GETTY IMAGES
2015? hologram
An inquiry made by IBM among
the companys 3,000 scientists
identifies holographic 3D video
to be a revolutionary new
communication technology.
57| 57
4 New FORMS of hologram

Hologram technology will be incorporated into TVs, mobile phones,
or tablets, produced by anything from mirrors to water vapour.
TV hologram
Features: Nanotechnology allows
viewers to watch 3D video
without using goggles.
Pro: The method is suited for

both big and small displays.
3D display
without 3D gLASSes
LLN HJEN
Scientists from Hewlett-Packard

laboratories have developed the most
sophisticated 3D display ever. The key
technology is tiny, round pixels with a
diameter of 12 micrometres, which emit
light of the required colour when
illuminated from the side.
In each pixel, there are parallel rows of
wave crests and troughs, ensuring
that the light from the pixel is controlled
individually and focused in a certain
direction, allowing for 3D images. Nanotechnology could pave the way for 3D
video, which can be watched without
using 3D glasses. The technology is
also well suited for small displays.
his year, the king of pop, Michael

Jackson, appeared at the Billboard
Music Awards, performing his
trademark moonwalk. What made this
unusual is that the musician had been dead
for five years. In his place, a lifelike hologram
appeared, giving an energetic performance.
The same technology is used by the living,
as pioneered by Indias new PM, Narendra
Modi, who used holograms to address 100
million voters at a time during his latest
election campaign.
Hologram technology has become so
sophisticated that 3D images are about to
become a normal part of our everyday lives,
In just a few short years, what seems like
science fiction - or at best a novelty - today,
will have entered our TV sets and mobile
phones, according to scientists.
PEPPERS GHOST
HAS A NEW MOBILE PHONE
The holographic principle was invented back
in 1947 by British-Hungarian electrical
engineer Dennis Gabor. He realised that light
waves could pass through an image and
subsequently be angled, bent, and turned, so
58
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Con: The image quality does not

yet meet the HDTV standard.
On a TV set, the 3D effect can be obtained

by two image streams, one for the right and
one for the left eye. In this case, viewers must sit
at the centre to experience the effect.
Hewlett-Packards new display divides the two

image streams into 16 viewing zones. Viewers will
see images in 3D, no matter where they are sitting.
Known as Peppers Ghost, the technology

that the image appeared to hover in the air. In
is used to project a mirror image of an actor
1962, laser technology became sophisticated
hiding in the orchestra pit up onto the stage.
enough for Gabor to make his vision come
In the English company Musions modern
true, with his first laser hologram.
version, the method works like this: Narendra
The ground-breaking technology
Modis performance is recorded using an HD
immediately became a hit throughout the
camera. The speech is
world, and people
3D images are
transmitted to election
flocked to exhibitions
about to conquer
rallies and projected
involving 3D objects that
could be observed from
our everyday lives. In a few onto a mirror in the
stage floor, which
all angles. The mania
years, the technology will
reflects the video onto a
peaked again, when the
be an integral part of our
piece of foil on the
Star Wars films featured
TV sets and phones.
stage. The foil, which is
speaking holograms of
characters such as Princess Leia and Emperor only 0.1 mm thick, is invisible and suspended
at a 45 degree angle, producing depth, so the
Palpatine. These were special effects of
performer appears in 3D.
course: In the real world it was more difficult
As Modi speaks, he can observe the
to make holograms simple and user-friendly,
and so far, the technology has mainly been reactions of his audience on TV monitors in
the studio and immediately react to anything
used as a means of storing data and
from applause to booing, making his 3D alter
encrypting important information.
ego even more realistic.
But now, the hologram seems about to be
reborn in many different shapes. In the cases
THEIR GREATEST
of Michael Jackson and Narendra Mody, the
illusion is based on an old visual trick PERFORMANCE... DEAD
developed by British inventor John Henry The method works in the exact same way
when a dead musician performs. This
Pepper way back in 1860.
Holograms revive
DEAD superstars
Dancers can act behind

the foil, performing alongside
the hologram.
On several occasions, a company

called Musion has revived dead
superstars with its hologram
technology that is based on an old,
efficient method: A mirror placed at a
certain angle produces a hologram.
A projector projects
high-definition video
of Michael Jackson or another
artist onto a mirror in the
stage floor.
concert hologram
The video is reflected onto

super thin, transparent foil
suspended at an angle of 45
degrees. The angle provides
the hologram with depth.
Features: The method displays

live 3D images based on a
modern version of the Peppers
Ghost mirror method.
Pro: The method is simple.
Only one projector is needed.
Con: It cannot be used with
TV sets and mobile phones.
ALLAN HJEN
happened for the very first time in 2012,

when rapper Tupac Shakur returned from the
dead at a music festival in the US in the form
of a hologram. It can be done by using video
from an old concert, in which everything but
the key figure has been removed. As the thin
screen on which the film is reflected is
transparent, a live band can easily perform
behind the foil, accompanying the deceased.
THE INVENTOR OF HOLOGRAMS

USED MIRRORS TO BEND LASER BEAMS
Dennis Gabors theories allowed us to make the first
successful hologram in 1962, using laser light.
he principle of holography was

invented by Hungarian-British
electrical engineer, physicist, and
inventor Dennis Gabor. The laser had
to be invented before the hologram
that he described in 1947 could be
realised. That finally happened in
1962 with a relatively simple display
Musions technology is up against

technologies that resemble classic, laser
light-based holograms more. The Polish
company Leia Display System has designed a
so-called holographic room, which is 3 m long
and 2.5 m wide. Lasers are used to produce
flexible, 3D holograms in a thin cloud of water
vapour. The technology, which has been
demonstrated with a dancing ballerina, allows
viewers to walk around the hologram,
observing it from any angle or walking right
through it. The holographic room is meant to
be used in trade shows, exhibitions, and
fashion shows. But Leia Display Systems
major venture is 3D phone development.
ESVA/SPL/SCANPIX
HOLOGRAM
PRODUCED BY PHONE
of mirrors and holographic film. First,

a laser beam is split in two. On its way,
one beam passes a piece of holographic film marked by an outline of
the object. When the beam
encounters the other laser beam, the
hologram appears.
In 1971, electrical
engineer Dennis Gabor was
awarded the Nobel Prize in
physics for developing the
basis for holograms.
mobile hologram
Features: Hologram which can be
used in games and for interaction.
Pro: The technology can be used
in computer games. Hands
replace controllers.
Lasers produce a hologram

of an object such as a die
Con: It will take a couple of years
between two parabolic mirrors.
to perfect the technology.
An optical system projects a copy
of the hologram onto the display.s
The user touches the flying hologram,
and a laser-based sensor system
registers the touch. The measurements are
used to manipulate the hologram.
Hologram
Laser
ALLAN HJEN
Laser
Allows heads of state and other

speakers to appear "live on stage"
in many places at once.
ndias newly elected PM,

Narendra Modi, used Musions
hologram technology during his
election campaign. This allowed
him to appear in 1,500 places
throughout the country in the
form of a hologram, directly
addressing 100 million voters.
So, the PM holds the Guinness
World Record of addressing the
biggest crowd at a time via holographic mass communication.
Indias PM, Narendra Modi,
appears as a hologram
giving an election speech.
60
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Many companies dream of hologram

technology small enough to fit into
mobile phones. Amazon has already
introduced the Fire smartphone with
integrated hologram technology, but
the phone is still not sufficiently
sophisticated to be considered truly
ground-breaking.
The frontrunner is a relatively
unknown company, Ostendo
Technologies, that spent nine years
developing a chip the size of a raisin,
which can reportedly produce pinsharp holograms. The chip controls
colours, brightness, and the angles
applied by the projector. The
projected hologram can have a
diagonal of up to 1.2 m.
Ostendo Technologies expects to
launch its new technology in 2015, but
it should be prepared for competition.
In 2014, it was revealed that Apple had
patented a hologram system, which
reacts to touch and can be integrated
into mobile phones in the future.
I. MUKHERJEE/AFP/SCANPIX
HEADS OF STATE
BEND TIME AND SPACE
Hologram
technology shrinks
The person making a 3D call is placed in

front of a special camera including two
lenses and a microphone. The camera
records the speaker from two different
angles just like our two eyes.
Using computer graphics, the two image
streams are mixed into 3D video, which is
streamed to the receiver of the call via the
Internet. A laser projector throws the lifelike
hologram onto a thin cloud of water vapour
functioning as a display, where the receiver
can see the sender in 3D.
3D DISPLAYS GAIN GROUND

Flexible hologram calls will challenge
modern 2D video chat services such as
Skype. And many other things beyond
telephone calls could benefit. The American
information technology giant HewlettPackard has reached an advanced state in
its development of 3D displays which are
much more sophisticated than the foil that
revived Michael Jackson. Gunshots, pirate
ships, and dinosaurs will be jumping out of
3D displays and into the faces of TV viewers
without the help of clumsy 3D glasses,
which Hewlett-Packard is hoping to relegate
The 3D car can be rotated by the

users hands via sensors located
beneath the water vapour.
Hologram calls are

facilitated by a two-lense
camera. The camera records
a person in 3D and transmits
the image to the receiver.
A box uses laser light

to project the 3D video
received into a cloud of
water vapour, and a
hologram appears.
Water vapour
hologram
The Leia Display System uses

something as simple as water
vapour in its reinterpretation of
the hologram. In the
experimental system, the
hologram appears when 3D
video and images are projected
into a cloud of water vapour. So
far, a 1.8-m-tall receiver is
required, but the company aims
to design a coffee table model.
The technology allows users to
walk around the hologram,
watching it from any angle.
vapour hologram
Features: Water vapour
hologram allowing 3D telephony.
Pro: The technology can be
marketed within a few years.
360 degree view of hologram.
Con: Water vapour will drift
away if it is used outdoors.
LEIA DISPLAY SYSTEM
to the primitive past.

nanotechnology dividing the two image
The glasses will be redundant, as the
streams, increasing the number of viewing
new technology is customised for the way
zones. The company also plans to make the
in which the human eye sees the world. In
technology available for small displays such
short, we experience depth perception, as
as those of mobile phones.
our eyes are on average
A n d a p p a re n t ly,
63 mm apart. Each eye
Apple
also wants to lay
Using computer
sees a displaced image
its hands on the new
graphics, two
of the surroundings,
hologram technology.
image streams are mixed
which the brain mixes
Literally speaking. In
into 3D video, which is
into 3D vision.
2014, the company
streamed via the
In traditional 3D
p a t e n t e d a n ew,
Internet to the person
television viewing
interactive hologram
receiving the call.
involving 3D glasses,
sys t e m , w h i c h t h e
t h e T V e m i t s t wo
company claims will
images, which the glasses split to the right
allow mobile phone users to control or
and left eyes. Subsequently, the brain
interact with holograms, using their fingers.
takes care of the rest. We could benefit
APPLE POKES A
from the 3D effect without glasses,
FINGER IN THE PIE
requiring that we sit very still in the exact
Just how the technology works is still
spot where our nose is located right on the
unknown, but the basic idea is that a laserboundary between the two image streams
based hologram hovers in the air above the
and who is willing to do that?
display. If the hologram is a coffee cup, and a
Hewlett-Packards breakthrough involves
finger pushes the virtual cup, it tips over. The
the company having developed a technique
interaction between hologram and finger is
producing 3D effect, no matter the position
due to sensors, which are constantly
of the viewer. The method is based on
measuring where and when the paths of the

laser beams are interrupted. The
measurements are translated into data that
makes the hologram move.
HOLOGRAM RACE
INTENSIFIES
The number of potential applications seems
infinite. Architects and engineers could study
flexible holograms of anything from new
machines and products to buildings and new
neighbourhoods in detail. At the same time,
3D video could produce a breakthrough in
remote surgery. A local doctor in a regional
area could send live, 3D video of a severely ill
patient to highly-qualified specialists far
away, allowing them to offer advice.
A study made on behalf of the Global
e-Sustainability Initiative estimates that
companies throughout the world will invest
USD 3.73 billion in video conference
technology before 2016.
If the present flat video screens are
replaced by live 3D holograms, new
opportunities will arise. For the first time in
decades, it is fair to say that the future of
holograms seems brighter than ever.
61
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MA/SCI33
FEATURE | ECOLOGY
Land
Beyond
Time
In the far north, life lives by a different set of rules. The
cycle of Wet and Dry is endless, and nothing is as it
seems. But learning the rhythms of this strange place
can unlock an experience like no other...
Words and photography by Damon Wilder
akadu has been the Top Ends

favourite tourist attraction for
years, and why not? Its a
spectacular slice of natural beauty. But
amazing as it is, theres more to the Top
End than Kakadu. Litchfield National Park
is a prime example. Havent heard of it?
Then let us educate!
Litchfield lies 100km south west of
Darwin and covers an area of around
1500 square kilometres, much of which
was cattle country until 1986, when the
farming lease ended and the area was
64
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
declared a national park. And not a

moment too soon: the countryside is rich
in natural resources including uranium,
and the area known as Rum Jungle was
an extremely profitable uranium mine
between 1953 and 1971.
Depending on when you visit, you will
experience a two very different national
parks. Through the wet season much of
the park is lush and flooded. Even the
iconic magnetic termite mounds appear
like sailing ships in a vast swampy lake
during the wet season.
Florence Falls
These falls are one of Litchfields

most popular attractions and are
frequently inhabited by sun-struck
tourists during the scorching dry
season. The twin falls cascade into
a large crystal-clear pool that has
been known to be equally popular
with saltwater crocodiles when
the park floods in the wet season.
Dont worry park rangers check
for crocs before opening the
swimming holes each year.
65| 65
As for the dry, well, unlike

other parts of the Top End, its
not as dry as you might think.
Much of the water is stored in
the porous ground of the
sandstone plateau so that
even when the park looks
barren and many smaller
creeks are dried up during,
springs and aquifers feed the
biggest creeks and streams,
and the parks numerous
waterfalls still flow as they
feed into the unexpectedly
lush valleys below.
Before you go jumping in
though, consider this:
Saltwater crocodiles have
been known to find their way
along the waterways and
The city-nests of
Cathedral Termites
are so massive
compared to the
insect, they're
equivalent to humans
building a skyscraper
over 1000 m tall.
into the popular swimming

holes during the wet season.
In the hottest and driest
time of the year the first 20
kilometres of the road in is
characterised by sparse
scrub forest consisting
mostly of waif-like eucalypts,
fan palms, pandanus and the
odd cycad. The spaces
between the trees is
blanketed in yellow grass,
except the areas where fire
has more recently passed
through leaving the earth
bare and charred. The effect
of fire doesnt last long, as
seedlings exploit their
opportunity to stake a claim
on the cleared earth.
Agile Wallaby
Litchfield is home to a number of mammals

including northern brush tail possums, sugar
gliders, antilopine kangaroos and the agile
wallaby, seen here. Agile wallabies are found
throughout the northern regions of Australia and
are well adapted to long periods of drought. They
have often been observed digging up dried out
river beds in search of water in preference over the
potentially crocodile-inhabited waterholes nearby.
Northern Spotted Rock Gecko
Many of the local animals, like this northern spotted

rock gecko, seek refuge from the heat of the day in
burrows in the ground or crevices in the many rocky
outcrops. Likewise their subterranean hiding places
enable them to safely weather the inferno of the
summer scrub fires.
66
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Cycas calcicola
At a glance cycads may be

confused with palms or ferns but
they are more closely related to
conifers and ginko trees, and have
an equally ancient pedigree.
Cycads have changed little since
the Jurassic period, a time when
they were much more common
than they are now. Although the
fronds of these Cycas calcicola
look withered and fire damaged,
this is in fact a burst of fresh new
growth shortly after a fire has
swept through the area. As the
fronds mature they will turn a
deep emerald green.
Formed by Fire
Fire is inevitable in this part of the
world during the dry season.
Whether naturally occurring or
human induced, you cannot go
anywhere without seeing the charred
aftermath of a recent burn or finding
yourself driving through a smokey
haze as the undergrowth smoulders.
These controlled burns dont get out
of hand and much of the taller growth
goes unscathed. Life has evolved to
expect these blazes and many of the
native plants actually need fire to
release their seeds and give them a
fighting chance of taking root before
the thick carpet of grass springs back
with the onset of the wet season.
67
Insect Architects
How millions of tiny Magnetic Termites harness
planet-scale lines of force to build incredible cities
rom a distance, the magnetic termite mounds in Litchfield

National Park resemble rows of decaying tombstones in a
neatly mown field. The individual mounds may be up to 100
years old and are home to colonies of millions of termites. Each
colony has a queen and king and the remaining members are
either workers responsible for building and foraging, or soldiers
tasked with defending the colony from intruders. The grass is
kept trimmed by the worker termites, which emerge at night and
collect and store the greenery as a food source for the myriad
hungry mouths in their nests.
The mounds stand up to two metres tall and often as wide,
with a thin edge that is always aligned north-south. In the
morning the sun warms the broad east-facing wall of the mound;
by the middle of the day, when the temperatures are highest, the
sun shines on the narrowest edge of the nest preventing the
maze of tunnels and chambers within from overheating.
Magnetic termites are extremely sensitive to temperature and
their unique construction keeps the nest at a comfortable 30
degrees Celsius throughout the day.
Remarkably the suns trajectory is not the deciding factor in
the construction of their homes. The termites actually build
based on the Earths magnetic field. Experiments placing
magnets in the nests have confirmed that they follow the
direction of local magnetic force they will rebuild tunnels and
structures to follow the flux patterns of the new magnets.
Impressive as the magnetic termite mounds may be, their
architectural ability is topped by the cathedral termites, also
native to the park, which build nests reaching up to five
metres in height.
Lets not forget here that the engineers that build these
structures are less than a centimetre long. If we scale a termite
up to human size, the nest would be a skyscraper soaring a
kilometre into the sky.
Australians often refer to termites as white ants. But termites
arent related to ants, despite living in colonies and building
nests. In fact, termites are more closely related to cockroaches.
Need a sure-fire way to tell the difference? Ants usually have
elbowed antenna theres a joint in the middle of each feeler
sticking out of their heads. Termites have straight feelers. Also,
ants wont eat your kitchen cabinets.
68
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Roth's Tree Frog

(Litoria rothi) is a
common sight
in the park.
Termites don't just build:

they clear the ground
around their nests and
even mow the grass.
During the hottest time of

the day there is scarcely any
fauna to be seen, except
perhaps the odd agile wallaby in
the brush, or black kite circling
in the sky looking out for road
kill. Even the insects are few
and far between.
But as the day comes to a
close and the temperatures
drop more and more of the local
animals emerge. Near the
waterways the obligatory
chorus of frogs chimes in,
nocturnal northern quolls and
northern brown bandicoots
emerge to hunt.
Like so much of the Top End,
the familiar human rhythms of
Spring, Summer, Autumn and
Winter are meaningless here.
Time seems to hang, not frozen,
just resting. With our protection,
Litchfield National Park can
continue to be a timeless place,
and remain as it has been for
thousands of years.
Tolmer Falls
Tolmer Creek, which meanders

through the valleys of Litchfield
National Park, tumbles 40 metres into
an expansive pool below. The pool is
framed by steep cliffs, which are home
to rare Ghost Bats and Orange
Horseshoe Bats. Although much of the
park looks parched during the dry
season, the sheer volume of rain
deposited in the wet season ensures
that there is enough water to keep
some of the larger streams flowing
during even the hottest and driest
months. While much of the bush
above the falls is sparse scrub, the
shade and abundant water below
provides a safe haven for ferns, palms
and orchids to thrive.
69
FEATURE | CRIMINOLOGY
GENES: THE EYEWITNESSES OF

THE FUTURE
Soon, the police will be able to identify criminals based
on lifelike 3D models of their faces. No cameras or lineups
are required. Just a tiny sample of DNA, and a sophisticated
computer program which interprets their genes..
By Thomas Mller Larsen
HAIR STICKS TO CLOTHES

Even individual hairs can contain
enough DNA for an ID.
DNA
REVEALS CRIMINALS
Since the mid-1980s,

DNA left on the crime
scene has helped the
police find the culprit.
1986
In England, geneticist Alec Jeffreys was

one of the first to use DNA to solve
crimes. Based on DNA from a crime
scene, he found the man who had
murdered two young girls.
Alec Jeffreys
DNA CAN UNMASK AN ELUSIVE SUSPECT

Based on a humans more than 20,000 genes, scientists have identified
20 that have a huge impact on the shape of facial features. A digital copy
of the DNA can be used to make a 3D model of a person and his appearance.
SKIN COLOUR:
Is the suspects
skin light
or dark?
HAIR COLOUR:
Is the hair blond,
brown, or red?
FACE: Is the overriding

impression a round, oval,
or square shape?
EYEBROWS: How much
do the bones protrude?
CIGARETTE FILTER
ABSORBS SALIVA
And also skin cells from
the inside of the mouth.
IRIS: Does the

suspect have
blue/brown eyes?
CHEEKBONES:
Are they positioned high
or low in the face?
NOSE: Is it broad or
narrow, round or pointed?
JAW: How
pronounced is
the suspects
jaw?
A
BLOOD CARRIES
MANY CELLS
Red blood cells don't contain
DNA, but other cells carried in
the bloodstream do.
1987
perpetrator
In a case concerning rapes in Florida, a
the first
for
sis
analy
DNA
on
d
base
red
was captu
n with
time in the countrys history. Compariso
DNA on the victims became the conclusive
prison.
evidence, earning the man 22 years in
EYEBALLS: Are the

eyes located close
to or far away from
each other?
young woman is
lying on the ground,
surrounded by police
cordons. Not long ago, she was brutally
murdered by an unknown perpetrator. There
were no witnesses to the crime, so nobody
can provide a description of the murderer,
which police investigators can use in their
search for the culprit.
Nevertheless, the police have an
important clue: Under the nails of the young
woman, police technicians have found skin
cells from the assailant, which she scratched
off in her struggle to survive. Based on the
DNA from the skin cells, the police can use a
special computer programme to produce a
lifelike 3D model of the perpetrators face.
The procedure only takes a few hours. The
culprit is an approximately 45-year-old man,
who is 190 cm tall and has a distinctively
late 80s
y
The FBI establishes a national DNA librar
DNA
the
des
inclu
now
h
in the US, whic
profiles of more than 10 million people
and has helped solve over
200,000 crimes.
LIPS:
Are they
full or thin?
narrow face, including a narrow

jaw, closely set brown eyes, and a
broad nasal bridge. On the night of the
murder, the reconstruction of the
perpetrators face is broadcast by a national
TV station, and people start calling the police
with information on men who look like the 3D
model. Shortly after, the police arrest the
young womans murderer.
20 GENES AFFECT YOUR

FACIAL FEATURES
The above scenario is not real yet, but it
could be shortly. An international team of
scientists has developed a computer
programme that can produce a 3D model of
a face based on microscopic DNA.
Scientists from Penn State University in the
US and Leuven University Hospital in Belgium
have identified 24 specific places in
2004
no
Police in Louisiana capture a serial killer
because
but
,
itself
crime
the
of
sses
witne
to
thanks
black.
was
killer
a DNA analysis revealed that the
was a
or
etrat
perp
the
ses,
itnes
According to eye-w
g.
wron
were
they
case,
this
In
man.
white
71
PROGRAMME REVEALS
THE LOOKS OF BABIES
Parents to be can use a computer
programme to see the faces of
their unborn babies.
larm bells sounded when the scientists

who developed the computer
programme were contacted by a
Russian fertility clinic. The clinic was
interested in using the new technology to
test DNA samples from unborn babies and
produce 3D models that can predict the
facial features of the children. But could
knowledge about the unborn babies be
abused? Would some Russian parents-to-be
go as far as ridding themselves of an embryo,
if they didn't like what they saw in the 3D
models? According to the scientists, it will
soon be necessary to establish ethical
guidelines for the use of
this technology.
human DNA so-called genetic markers

which can reveal a great number of facial
details assisted by the computer programme.
The genes can reveal the shape of the face,
the broadness of the jaw, eye and hair colour,
and the position of the cheekbones.
The method is brand new and still needs
considerable improvement. Until recently,
computer programmes could only predict a
persons sex, hair colour, and eye colour
based on a DNA sample.
PROGRAMME LINKS
FACE AND GENES
During development of the computer
programme, the scientists 3D scanned the
faces of 592 test subjects, removing hair
and ears from the fine-meshed 3D models.
Next, they sequenced the test subjects
DNA and designed a sophisticated
computer programme, which can reveal
links between the two pools of data - the
faces and the genes.
Human DNA contains more than 20,000
genes, so the scientists chose to take a
closer look at only 76, which have been
demonstrated to cause severe facial
deformity if they mutate. For instance,
mutations of the SLC35D1 gene can cause
large cysts near the eyelids.
The scientists discovered that 24 genetic
markers distributed on 20 different genes
have a huge impact on facial features. One
single gene variation determines the fullness
of the lips, whereas another slight gene
variation greatly affects the shape of the
bones above the eyes.
3D MODELS HELP
THE POLICE
The new method can
be used to map out
the facial features of
an unborn baby.
2007
Based on DNA samples, Spanish forensic

geneticist Christopher Phillips discovers that
one of the suspects of the Madrid bombings
was of North African origin even though the
man had blown himself to pieces.
72
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
592
test subjects have

provided facial
features and DNA for
the new computer
programme
All data is available in a user-friendly
version of the computer programme, which
can be used for free by anyone wishing to
quickly produce a model of a face based on
a digital DNA record.
The new method can be used by
scientists to recreate Neanderthal facial
features. And, obviously, the police can use
it to solve crimes. According to the scientists,
police departments will have efficient
computer systems, which can correctly
reproduce a perpetrators face, body shape,
height, age, eye colour, weight, and more,
within the next decade. This will make it
much easier for investigators to solve cases
involving rape, murder, and burglary - crimes
where DNA is often left behind.
A few US police units have already used
the new method to solve a series of rapes
and murders. The method is not yet
sufficiently sophisticated for the computer
programme to produce a totally accurate
portrait, but the presently available 3D
models of suspect faces can still help the
police find the culprit. Once a suspect has
been arrested, a second DNA test can
confirm, whether it is the right person.
SEVERAL GENES INTERACT
Other scientists have also

contributed to shedding light on
the relationship between facial
features and genes, and we now
know about a total of 29 genetic
markers in human DNA affecting the
looks of the face.
For scientists, the next step is to scrutinise

the relationship between DNA and body
shape, which has not so far been possible.
One of the biggest challenges of the
development of the method involves finding
out how genes interact with one another.
The shape of a feature such as the nose is
determined by several different genes. The
scientists expect that great advances will be
2009
2011
Genetic researcher Murray Brilliant develops a

method which can determine the hair colour
(with 76 % accuracy), eye colour ( 75 % accuracy),
and skin colour (46 % accuracy)
of a person based on DNA.
Dutch genetic researcher Manfred Kayser

develops the IrisPlex system
which can determine, whether
a person has brown or blue
eyes with 94 % accuracy.
YOUR EYES ARE BLUE... I MEAN BROWN

The computer programme can produce surprisingly lifelike portraits,but sometimes it gets something wrong such as the eye
colour. The programme will improve, as the functions of more genes are discovered.
MODEL LOOKS LIKE
TEST SUBJECT
The reconstruction of the young
womans face has got her skin
colour and eye colour right.
The fullness of the lips,
the broadness of the jaw,
the setting of the eyes,
and the shapes of the nose and
the face come close to the
original photograph.
Of course, the program cannot

predict if a person has scars or has
undergone plastic surgery to change
their features. Hairstyle can also
change a person's appearance.
ORIGINAL
3D MODEL
YOU MUST JUST

HAVE A WEIRD FACE
Some people have faces that don't accurately
reflect their genes. This man's DNA suggested he
should have bright blue eyes and a prominent
bridge to his nose. In reality his nose is smaller, and
his eyes are more grey or hazel. Many environmental factors could have affected his appearance.
made in the field in just a few years will yield

a lot more data concerning peoples entire
appearance from DNA.
In the course of the next 5-10 years, it
may be possible to build a huge,
international library of genes which
determine the shapes of faces and bodies.
2012
Dutch scientists led by Manfred Kayser

identify five different genetic markers
which are all very important
for the appearance
of our facial features.
ORIGINAL
3D MODEL
Apart from the fact that genes will be able

to reveal even more information, the DNA
machines of the future will be capable of
working with much smaller quantities of
DNA. The new machines only need what's
called touch DNA. This means even if the
young woman in our hypothetical murder
ORIGINAL
3D MODEL
had not scratched her assailant and secured

his DNA under her nails, the police
investigators would still be able to obtain
sufficient DNA for a reconstruction of the
murderers face from the place on the
womans shoulder in which he touched her,
as he approached her in the street.
2014
An international team of scientists led by population

geneticist Mark Shriver identifies 24 genetic markers,
which affect facial features. The scientists also develop
a freely accessible computer programme that can
produce 3D models of faces based on DNA data.
Mark Shriver
73
300 KG CARNIVORE WITH A BEAK:
Hell
The dinosaur was most

likely plumed and
brightly coloured.
It built nests and laid eggs,

which it guarded and
hatched out much like
modern birds.
An extraordinary mix between a carnivorous

Tyrannosaurus rex and a herbivorous hen.
That is the description of a newly discovered
dinosaur species from Hell Creek, USA. The
find confirms a popular dino extinction theory.
By Rasmus Kragh Jakobsen
The shinbone is longer

than the thighbone,
which is characteristic
of dinosaurs that can
run fast.
DONALD E. HURLBERT/SMITHSONIAN INSTIITUTION
MARK KLINGLER, CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF

NATURAL HISTORY
Chicken from
74
The dinosaur did not

have any teeth, but a
30-cm-long, sharp
beak allowed it to
eat its prey.
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
FEATURE | PALAEONTOLOGY
Name:
ANZU WYLIEI
Anzu: Named after a demon

from Ancient Mesopotamia.
Wyliei: After Carnegie Museum
sponsor Lee B. Fosters grandchild Wylie J. Tuttle.
Length: Approx. 3.5 m.
Hip height: Approx.1.5 m.
Weight: 200-300 kg.
Diet: Omnivore:
consumed both plants
and small animals.
Habitat: Lived in humid
river deltas.
When: By the end of
the Cretaceous Period
66 million years ago.
Where: North America,
the Hell Creek Formation.
s far back as 1999, it existed as a

rumour among American
palaeontologists. Then bone
hunters hit the jackpot. In one of North
Americas richest fossil areas, the Hell Creek
Formation, they excavated two incomplete
skeletons, finally allowing them to see the
surprising features of a peculiar creature.
Now, more than a decade later,
palaeontologists have made other bone
discoveries enabling them to describe a new
dinosaur species, a bizarre combination of
terrifying Tyrannosaurus rex and common
farmyard hen. The dinosaur has been
nicknamed the Chicken from Hell.
The name refers to the Hell Creek
Formation, but also to the lethal animal. Its
legs were designed for speed, the arms a
metre long and equipped with vicious claws,
while the sharp beak could chew victims into
bits and pieces. The dinosaurs watermelonsized head was adorned with a spectacular
plumed crest, almost like a colourful Trojan
warrior helmet.
BONE HUNTER
SOLVES PUZZLE
The skull looks like a plumed
Trojan warrior helmet.
The head is the size of a water

melon, on top of which there is an
25-cm-high, wafer-thin bone
structure. Its exact function is
unknown, but according to scientists,
the crest is bigger and more marked
than in any other relative of the
animal. According to one theory,
the colourful crest was used to
attract mates: the same method as
the one used by modern cassowaries.
Palaeontologist and bone hunter Tyler R.

Lyson from the Smithsonian Institute in
Washington, DC helped piece together the
complex jigsaw puzzle that is all that remains
of this weird chicken dinosaur.
Lyson grew up with the Hell Creek
Formation in his back yard and has been a
dinosaur bone hunter ever since the
enterprising schoolboy realised that it paid
better pocket money to help
palaeontologists find fossils than mowing

the neighbours lawns. In 2006, he met with
the scientists who found the original set of
bones of the Chicken from Hell. Tyler Lyson
had brought the bones that he discovered
during his high school years on his uncles
farm near the small village of Marmath,
North Dakota. The bones came from the
same species as the two first skeletons, so
the job of determining the species of the
animal could begin. The process was
extremely time-consuming and laborious, as
each bone fragment needed to be cleaned
of rock and analysed, before it was included
in the puzzle. It took eight years.
In 2014, the mysterious dinosaur was
finally named Anzu wyliei. It belongs to a
group called Oviraptorosauria (egg thief
lizards), which are primarily known as small,
Tyler Lyson grew up

with the Hell Creek
Formationen in his back yard
and has been a bone hunter, ever
since the schoolboy realised that
it paid better pocket money to
help palaeontologists than to
mow lawns.
Bone hunter Tyler Lyson

found the last set of bones
needed to determine the
species of the dinosaur.
MARMARTH RESEARCH FOUNDATION, MRFDIGS.COM
The beak hinge is shaped to

allow the lower and upper parts
of the beak to slide back and
forth against each other. The design
makes the beak perfect for
cutting through leaves.
75
plumed, Asian dinosaurs. For almost 100

years, palaeontologists have suspected that
the Oviraptors had North American relatives.
But nobody knew what they looked like or
how they lived.
FAST MONSTER CHICKEN

Compared to its Asian cousins, most of which
were the size of modern turkeys, Anzu wiliei
was a giant. It measured as much as three
metres from head to toe and may have had
a fighting weight of 300 kg.
The bones were hollow and light like in
predatory dinosaurs. The Chicken from Hell
hunts running on its two hind legs and is
closely related to the worlds most famous
carnivore, Tyrannosaurus rex, which does
the same thing. But unlike the T. rex, which
relied on brute strength, the Chicken from
Hell was a lightweight, designed for fast
running. Marks from big muscle attachments
on the thighbones bear witness to two very
big chicken thighs with huge muscle power.
Moreover, it boasts another distinctive
characteristic of a fast runner: The shinbone
is longer than the thighbone. According to
scientists, it may very well have been the
fastest animal on the continent. Exactly
what it used its speed for is unknown. The
dinosaurs long arms - which were almost
wings - were equipped with sharply pointed
claws measuring 12-13 cm, which must
have been perfect for capturing prey. So
Anzu wyliei probably chased and killed prey
The discovery of Anzu

vyliei is just another
piece of evidence that dinosaur
life was diverse and colourful all
the way to the end, and so, the
discovery supports the impact
theory of the violent mass
extinction of the last dinosaurs.
the same hunting technique as the one
used by fast, modern cheetahs.
CARNIVOROUS HERBIVORE
Analyses of Anzu wylieis toothless beak
led scientists to believe that the animal not
only consumed meat, but also fed on eggs
and plants. They point out the way in which
the lower jaw is hinged to the 30-cm-long
beak. The hinge is shaped in a way that
allows the upper and lower jars to slide
back and forth against each other, and this
motion makes the beak perfect for cutting
through plants.
Scientists have also found small, pointed
bones in the palate similar to the ones
observed in some modern, egg-eating
snakes. The pointed bones may have been
used to crush egg shells, allowing Anzu wyliei
easy access to the egg contents.
DINOSAUR SUPPORTS
METEOR THEORY
The Chicken from Hell is the first big, new
dinosaur found in Hell Creek for decades, and

the discovery indicates that the world of
dinosaurs was more diverse than many
scientists used to think.
Scientists estimate that Anzu wyliei lived
in North America 66 million years ago, shortly
before the dinosaurs became extinct after a
giant meteor strike, according to the most
popular theory.
The discovery of Anzu vyliei is just
another piece of evidence that dinosaur life
was diverse and colourful all the way to the
end, and so, the discovery supports the
impact theory of the violent mass extinction
of the last dinosaurs.
Consequently, the discovery is bad news
for the group of scientists who believe that
climate change killed the dinosaurs and that
the number of prehistoric animals was
already declining long before the meteor hit.
Moreover, the discovery represents new
hope for adventurous palaeontologists and
dinosaur enthusiasts.
When the discovery of the Chicken from
Hell was first suggested in 1999, most
palaeontologists had begun to dismiss the
possibility of finding new big dinos in areas
like the Hell Creek Formation.
But as areas like Hell Creek, in which bone
hunters have cut and exploded fossils out for
more than 100 years, still reveal big, odd
dinos, it is obvious that we can still expect
much and have a lot still to learn about the
past of the dinosaurs.
THREE GIANTS FOUND IN HELL CREEK

EDMONTOSAURUS
A slow, duckbilled dinosaur that fed on marshland plants. According to scientists, the species
lived in huge herds made up of tens of thousands
of individuals that migrated thousands of km
across the continent, as the seasons
changed. It could walk on 2 or 4 legs.
First find: 1882
Length: 12 m
Height: 4 m
Weight: 4 t
Diet: Plants
NHM/SCANPIX
76
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Endless heaps of
bones in Hell Creek
USA
Hell Creek
Countless dino skeletons have been

according to palaeontologists, hardly a day
found in the Hell Creek valley including goes by without at least once piece of dino
the famous Tyrannosaurus rex.
skeleton coming out of the slopes.
Hell Creek is one of the most hostile, aptly
bone-dry, and wind-swept areas of the US
where rattlesnakes, cowboys, and peace
lovers alike thrive in the wide landscape.
In 1902, Barnum Brown found the
remains of the worlds most famous
carnivorous dinosaur: Tyrannosaurus rex.
Ever since, the area has been a
palaeontologists paradise, where researchers
have cut and dug fossils out for over a
century. The rock is so rich with fossils,
Palaeontologists still travel to Hell Creek

to find fossils, more than 100 years after
the first dinosaurs were discovered there.
The number of bone discoveries is due to

the fact that the Hell Creek Formation
consists of a 90-175-m-thick layer of grey
sandstone and schist, deposited over a period
of 2-3 million years during the late dinosaur
era 65-68 million years ago.
In the Cretaceous, Hell Creek formed part
of a shallow sea and river delta covering
major parts of western North America. The
dead animals sunk into the fine mud, which
covered their bodies relatively fast, preserving
impressions of their bones for posterity.
MARMARTH RESEARCH FOUNDATION, MRFDIGS.COM
TRICERATOPS
TYRANNOSAURUS
Triceratops was a massive

giant with three impressive
horns and a large frill on its
head, and only the big
predators dared to fight it.
The horns were also used to
attract mates. The dinosaur
was common: 47 Triceratops
skulls were found in Hell
Creek in 2000-2010.
First find: 1889
Length: 8 m
Height: 2 m
Weight: 6-12 t
Diet: Plants
Tyrannosaurus rex was the

ultimate killer. Its huge,
1.5-m-long skull with sawlike teeth was designed
to rip and tear flesh.
The dinosaur is often
portrayed in epic fights with
Triceratops, and it is not pure
imagination. T. rex toothmarks have been found
on Triceratops bones.
First find: 1902
Length: 13 m
Height: 4 m
Weight: 5-7 t
Diet: Meat
A. HOWE/GETTY IMAGES
SPC/GETTY IMAGES
77
TOP 10
Engineering
Disasters
MOST
LETHAL
CALIFORNIA, USA
Shoddy construction killed 600

Unsafe foundation In 1924-26, the famous engineer William
Mulholland was responsible for the construction of the St. Francis
Dam in California. Mulholland ignored several warnings of cracks, and
during the night of 13 March 1928, things went wrong: The dam
broke, and 46 million cubic metres of water surged into the Santa
Clara Valley, killing approximately 600 people. William Mulholland

had built the dam in a canyon with loose rock and increased its height
without making the foundation proportionally thicker. Moreover, he
had not made sure that water could not pass under the wall. The
result was inevitable, and terrible.
Before the disaster
After the disaster
RESOURCES CENTER ARCHIVES
The engineer responsible for the building

of the St. Francis Dam had not checked,
if the foundation could support the full
weight of the entire structure.
LOUISIANA, USA
MOST
STUPID
Underground cavity On 21 November 1980, 12 Texaco employees were

drilling for oil in the three metre deep Lake Peigneur in Louisiana
Approximately 400 m into the ground, the drill became stuck, and the rig
began to falter. The men managed to get themselves ashore, before the rig
disappeared in a huge sinkhole.
The workers had struck the Diamond Crystal salt mine, which was located
beneath the lake. Texaco knew about the mine, but had miscalculated the
drilling coordinates. The fresh water from the lake dissolved the salt, and the
mine collapsed. Air was forced towards the surface in a series of 120-m-high
geysers. Apart from the rig, the whirlpool swallowed trees, trucks, and 11
barges. The miscalculation caused a backflow from the ocean, converting a
shallow fresh water lake into a deep salt lake with a new flora and fauna.
78
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
CREATIVE COMMONS
Miscalculation changed ecosystem
In 1980, a huge lake

disappeared into the ground,
absorbing everything.
Even minor mistakes can have fatal consequences. We've rated the 10
worst engineering errors based on how elementary and trivial the error
is and how far-reaching the consequences were for people and structures.
pilots could
neither navigate nor
check the fuel of the planes, and the
systems for communicating with the
outside world also partly failed. The pilots
followed big tanker planes back to
Hawaii, where visibility was good,
allowing them to land the fighters
manually. Had the weather been bad
things could have become critical.
Forgetfulness On 22 July 1962, NASAs

new 80 million dollar Mariner 1 probe unexpectedly changed direction after launch.
The change of course was due to an error in
the probes computer instructions involving a
missing hyphen over an R in a maths formula.
ALAMY/ALL OVER
Date confusion Suddenly, all the

electronics of 12 American F-22 Raptor
fighters died in mid-air. The planes were
on their first international flight from
Hawaii to Okinawa, Japan, on the 24th of
February 2007. When they passed the
international date line in the Pacific, the
unexpected change of date made all
systems shut down, as programmers had
forgotten to allow for the date line. The
Design flaw The Sleipner A offshore

platform sank in 1991. Engineers had underestimated the load-bearing strength of the
concrete by 47 %, and the huge structure
crashed into the fjord floor at a depth of 220 m,
creating magnitude three earthquake.
Cancer patients killed by computer
Stress impact In 1954, two De Havilland

Comets crashed due to their square windows.
Up to 70 % of the pressure that the plane was
subjected to in the air accumulated at the
corners of the windows, making the metal
crack. All subsequent airliners have been
designed with rounded windows.
Resonance In 1940, gusting winds of

68 km/h made the Tacoma Narrows bridge
collapse. The wind hit the resonant frequency
of the bridge and stepped up the effect,
so the bridge self-oscillated and
collapsed, killing a dog.
Measuring units killed off Mars probe

the 10 month journey to Mars without
problems, but shortly after entering its
orbit around Mars, something went wrong.
The probe had probably come too close to
the planet, and it crashed or burned in the
atmosphere. The accident was due to a
communication error concerning
measuring units, and so, the probe was fed
incorrect numbers. Lockheed Martin used
pound-seconds to calculate output. NASA
sent the data to the probe, believing it was
being read in newton-seconds.
10
BOSTON, USA
Glue caused collapse
AP/POLFOTO
NASA
WASHINGTON, USA
Bridge swayed and collapsed
MARS
Conversion error On 23 September

1999, NASA lost all contact with its Mars
Climate Orbiter. The probe had completed
THE MEDITERRANEAN
Square windows caused plane crash
occasions, patients were subjected to

X-rays even though the machine was
supposed to carry out electron therapy.
AECL
NORWAY
Platform caused earthquake
CANADA AND THE US
Code glitch In 1985-1987, the

Therac-25 radiation therapy machine
killed at least six cancer patients in
Canada and the US. The radiation
machine normally produced electron
beams, but it also featured a 125 times
more powerful X-ray beam. A computer
error meant that if the operator chose the
wrong type of beam, but corrected the
mistake before therapy, the Therac-25
became confused, reversing the
operators decision without any indication
in the control panel. So, on several
FLORIDA, USA
Historys most expensive hyphen
Fighters "shot
down" by date line
THE PACIFIC OCEAN
Glue failure A car

passenger was killed when a
tunnel collapsed in Boston on
10 July 2006. The disaster took
place in the Big Dig underground road
system, where 23 tonnes of concrete and other
material fell from the ceiling. Tunnel designers
had chosen the wrong epoxy glue for the spikes
that held the ceiling in position. The glue dried
fast, but lost its strength after a few weeks.
TRIVIA
PUT YOUR KNOWLEDGE TO THE
TEST
1. Who were the three old men
awarded a lifetime shilling a day
pension by the Colonial Government
in Sydney, in 1842?
2. If the Synapsida include all mammals
and their ancestors, which animals are
grouped in Sauropsida?
3. What are the five most commonly
spoken languages on the Iberian
Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)?
4. Which famous city did the Ottoman
Sultan Mehmed II conquer on Tuesday,
29 May 1453, marking the end of the
Middle Ages?
5. Different to a battery, a power
source that makes electricity by
combining a liquid fuel with oxygen
is called a what?
6. According to recent observations,
which has more water - Earth or
Jupiters moon Europa?
q. 4
q. 8
7. Called AR 2192, this phenomenon is

the largest in 25 years and can only
be seen when the sun is up, through a
specialised telescope. What is it?
8. Which orchid, first introduced to
European diets in the 1520s by Spanish
conquistadors and now considered
a very plain flavour, has a name that
means little pod?
9. What do bee stings, peanuts,

penicillin, and natural latex rubber
gloves all have in common?
10. Which ancient species of hominid
is ironically named after a German
valley, which was named after a pastor
and hymnist, whose last name means
new man?
ANSWERS ON p82!
Trivia Countdown (use fewer clues, get a higher score!)

5 POINTS
4 POINTS
3 POINTS
2 POINTS
1 POINT
1. ANATOMY
In Ancient Delphi,
the centre of the
world was marked by
the omphalos stone,
the Greek word for
the body part.
Often considered
an erogenous zone.
For this reason, it
was strictly
covered in old
films and TV.
When a baby is
born, the body part
is very distinct, but
it shrinks over time.
Neither Adam nor

Eve could have had
this bodypart.
Saying someone is
focused on this
body part is to
suggest they are
very self-absorbed.
2. ZOOLOGY
The animal is
included in Chinese
astrology, in which it
is located between
the ox and the
rabbit.
Today, more exist in

captivity than in
the wild, where its
numbers may have
been reduced to as
few as 4,000.
In Rudyard Kipling's
Jungle Book, there is
an evil animal of
this species called
Shere Khan.
The Siberian version

of the animal is the
biggest, while the
extinct Bali variant
was the smallest.
The animal is the

biggest member of
the cat family, and
its Latin name is
Panthera tigris.
3. ASTRONOMY
It is the brightest
star in the constellation Lyra. Other civilisations interpreted
the constellation to
be an eagle.
It is the fifth
brightest after
Sirius, Canopus,
Alpha Centauri,
and Arcturus.
It plays an important
role In astronomer
Carl Sagans 1985
novel Contact.
It owes its name to

the Arabic word
waqi, which can
mean falling.
A popular American
songwriter and
singer shares the
same name.
Name this
body part
Name this
animal
Name this
star
80
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
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BIODIVERSITY
SPECIES: Red Crowned Toadlet

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Pseudophryne australis
DISTRIBUTION: Limited areas around
Sydney, and the Blue Mountains
STATUS: Vulnerable due to habitat loss
ANTHONY FORDHAM
EAT BUGS, BECOME POISONOUS
nyone with even a passing

interest in frogs knows the
Amazon Rainforest is full of
brightly-coloured little
amphibians packing enough poison to kill a
busload of Portuguese missionaries. Various
indigenous groups are famous for rubbing
their blowing darts on the frogs to make
them more lethal, which is why theyre known
as poison dart frogs. We used to call them
poison arrow frogs until somebody pointed
out that the darts arent, you know, arrows.
Australia also has a handful of
poisonous frog species, including this
distinctly Amazonian-looking species. The
scarlet stripe across the head gives it the
common name Red Crowned Toadlet.
Toadlet isnt a scientific term, but this frog
does spend a lot of time away from water,
hunting ants (an old and spurious
distinction between frogs and toads was
that toads were less aquatic). Typically,
these guys hang around temporary creeks

or soaks in areas with lots of sandstone. A
dedicated frog hunter might observe small
black tadpoles in the stream, but only find
adult individuals by looking under rocks 50
or 100 metres further uphill.
The red markings are indeed a warning.
The toxicity of the red crowned toadlet
isnt well understood yet, but this frog is
another example of a theory thats gaining
traction: frogs like this dont make their
own toxins, but rather extract (or
sequester) them from their food. In this
case, the formic acid from ants. While the
frog is less than 30 mm long, its skin is
poisonous enough that, if you ever handle
one, you shouldnt touch your eyes or
mouth. The frog has no natural predators.
Animal toxins are formed mainly from
various alkaloids, and the mix inside the red
crowned toadlet is complex. It may be that
they DO create one toxin themselves, while
making another one from formic acid.

Unfortunately, the red crowned toadlet
is a threatened species, mainly due to its
already very limited habitats being further
degraded and destroyed by humans. This
striking animal is only found in isolated
pockets throughout Sydney, including the
Blue Mountains. They lay around 50 eggs at
a time (not many, by frog standards), and
only after heavy rain. Hardly any tadpoles
survive to adulthood.
Slow breeding plus limited habitats
equals a real risk of extinction. Fortunately
there are many conservation groups
working to protect the frogs around
Sydney. The primary task: weeding.
Its amazing to think that in Australia,
just a short walk from suburban backyards,
there are communities of amazing
creatures like this, as exotic as anything
youll find in the depths of the Amazon.
Anthony Fordham
1. The last known survivors of the First Fleet. 2. Reptiles and birds. 3. Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, Basque 4. Constantinople 5. A fuel cell 6. Europa 7. A sunspot 8. Vanilla 9. They can cause
anaphylactic shock 10. The Neanderthals. Trivia Countdown: Name this Body part: Navel Name this Animal: Tiger Name this Star: Vega
82
SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
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> MacBook Sleeves
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> iPad Cases
> iPhone Cases
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UNTAPPED

Real tech that will

The amazing beauty of

Could police use your DNA...

OXFORD STREET LEEDERVILLE

Issue #33 (20th November 2014)

The truth will

mathematically-backed arguments for why the

Things we learned in this issue

SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN EDITION

PUBLISHED 20TH NOVEMBER 2014

Imagine we found a bunch of aliens.

Amazing pictures (and stories) from the

Life is tough. Really tough. Tough enough to

All the latest developments in science,

The science answers you demand!

HELL CREEK DINOSAURS

Fossil evidence that shows T.rex got

When you do some bad maths at work,

Now with more cladistic conundrums!

Australias answer to the poison arrow frog.

H & H KocH/Ina agency

Honey bees think that the distance to their food is

H & H KocH/Ina agency

At 3,767 km, the Missouri River is the longest

LATEST NEWS AND DISCOVERIES

Editors: Karen Grubbe & Rasmus Palludan

A helium balloon lifts

Mars is the final destination of a new, UFO-like craft

AEROSPACE Could the first humans travel to

FLYING SAUCER BY THE NUMBERS

During test flights, the craft lands in the ocean

craft approaches the planet, a kind of swim

Mars by flying saucer? The NASA American

E. coli bacteria, which

MUTATIONS PER CELL

BACTERIA MUTATION RATE:

CRAFT TESTED AT AN ALTITUDE OF 55 KM

NASAs new spacecraft is tested at an

The swim ring

The rocket engine

ZOOLOGY The eight arms of an

Phoenix Towers will be the tallest and greenest.

TECHNOLOGY Wuhan in Central China is

of forest was destroyed in fires

You can become addicted to

1000 metre towers

Milky Way galactic core

GLOBAL FOCAL POINT

Gas pockets in ancient rocks have

ROV films sea lily

New birth dates for the

PALAEONTOLOGY It was six metres long, weighed

D. DUFAULT & NATURWISSENSCHAFTEN

two tonnes, and had a parrot beak. Meet a newly

Fossilised tartar has revealed that

NASA FINDS OCEAN

The warmer it is, the more the

ASTRONOMY Deep below the ice cap of