A Times of India publication Volume 4 Issue 4

June 2014 `125

SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

R.N.I.MAHENG/2010/35422
 contents A Times of India publication

SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND

Volume 4 Issue 4
June 2014 `125

Cover story
24 Memory
science photo library, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, epfl, Henry Hargreaves, nasa, getty, urb-e.com

Is the memory you cherish, real or fake? Find out how

eerily close science is to manipulating your memories

features
32 Uninvited Guests R.N.I.MAHENG/2010/35422

There are parasites living in your body that you are un-
aware of. Here are 10 of them

38 All Aboard The Future Express

Inventor Elon Musk’s proposed revolutionary mode
of transport will help commuters travel faster than the
speed of sound
44 Portfolio: Food Maps
A mouth-watering approach to cartography by photogra-
pher Henry Hargreaves and food stylist Caitlin Levin will
have you reaching out for your forks rather than the atlas
52 Monument Mysteries
Using 3D laser technology, discover how history’s
greatest monuments and buildings were constructed
54 Is This What A Genius Looks Like?
On the occasion of William Shakespeare’s 450th birthday,
we answer some pertinent questions on his life
60 Forecast From The Past?
Will the rising CO2 levels turn our weather into the
inclement weather of the pre-historic era?
regulars
6 Q&A
Our panel of experts answer the questions you’ve
always wanted to ask
12 Snapshot
Outstanding photographs to inform and engage
18 Update
The latest intelligence – scientists discover a new phase
in stem cell research and how China’s pollution is causing
a change in global weather patterns
68 How Do We Know:
The Existence of Isotopes
We trace the isotopes from their discovery to their
widespread application in the 21st Century

64 Noah’s Ark – The True Story 74 Ye Olde Travel Guide: Amsterdam,1648

A scientific analysis of the biblical vessel reveals We travel to the city of Amsterdam, the confluence
the authentic facts about its existence of science, art, and commerce

2 June 2014
 32 38
12

The big
sources
of CO 2
60

44

76 Resource
Our picks offer the best of science, history, and nature on
the web

80 Inside The Pages

The master of short stories, author H. H. Munro, spins a
spine-chilling tale set in the country side.
Read the full story

82 Edu Talk
Interview with Dr Ayyappan, Director-Education of the Sree
Gokulam Public Schools, Kerala

84 Gadgets 84
The next phase of lifestyle gadgets is here
and it is in our homes and on ourselves
54
90 In Focus
Ludwig Wittgenstein, the 'anti-philosopher' who changed
the landscape of analytical philosophy
 from the editor
Did you get a chance to see the
movie Noah? Did you know the
legend of Noah’s Ark predates the
Bible, and even the Babylonians had
a version of a flood story? That an
ancient version of this story exists
in the form of a tablet according
to which the Ark was not long
but round? Read the fascinating
interview with researcher and author
Irving Finkel about the real truth
behind Noah’s Ark (on page 64).
This month’s cover feature is on memory. If you, like
me, have a let’s just say less than spectacular power of
recollection and retention, and can get hazy about bits
and pieces of your life, then this story will interest you.
According to the latest strides in genetic research in this
area, there is a good possibility that memory can not
just be drastically improved but also permanently deleted
or implanted.
If you want to lay your bets on the natural way, then
they say a Mediterranean diet is key to an active brain
and longevity. And what is a Mediterranean diet? It is a
magical combination of foods staple to that area ie, Greece,
Palestine, Spain, Portugal, and Southern Italy. And consists
of foods like olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, cheeses,
fruit and vegies along with fish and other meats. In this
issue, we bring a fascinating photo feature on countries
beautifully illustrated by the foods they are famous for.
It is a must see - on page 44.
Read about philosopher Wittgenstein’s life and Elon
Musk’s game changing Hyerloop (yeah it goes faster than
the speed of light) that is set to change how we commute.
Look over disgusting bugs that actually look quite pretty
and who would love to live in our bodies. And learn about
Shakespeare who turns 450 years old this year. Wasn’t he
the one who has written ‘hell is empty and all the devils
are here’?
Another month, another exciting issue of BBC Knowledge.
Enjoy.
Mrigank sharma (India Sutra)
edit.bbcknowledge@wwm.co.in
www.knowledgemagazine.in
4 June 2014
experts this issue
Nicola Davies is a regular contributor to
Nursing Standard, UK’s best-selling
nursing journal and also works with
Macmillan Cancer Support in designing
and evaluating self-management programmes for
cancer survivors. In this issue, she explores the
science behind how our brains store memories.
See page 24
Dickson Despommier is an ecologist, a
microbiologist, and an author. He is also
the Professor of Public Health in
Environmental Health Sciences at
Columbia University. In this issue, he introduces us to
the unwanted parasites living in our bodies.
See page 32
Stuart Nathan is the Features Editor at
The Engineer magazine, where he has
been writing on technology and
innovation since 1996. He has also
worked at Chemistry & Industry magazine as Deputy
New Editor. In this issue, he covers Elon Musk’s
revolutionary transport mode, the HyperLoop, that
could change commuting forever. See page 38
Paul Edmondson is Head of Education at
the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and an
Honorary Fellow of the Shakespeare
Institute and the director for the
Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival. In this issue, he
answers some of the most contentious questions
about The Bard. See page 54
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 &
Your Questions Answered

Do music or acting genes run in families? p8 Would birds be able to fly

on other planets? p10 Why do some people sleep with eyes open? p11

Why are some people

Expert PANEL scared of holes?
Susan Blackmore
(SB) It’s called trypophobia and it’s not a fear of
A visiting professor at the open man-holes or caves. Rather, it is the
University of Plymouth, UK, revulsion some experience when they look
Susan is an expert on
psychology and evolution.
at asymmetric clusters of small holes, or
dark spots on anything from skin to wood
Alastair Gunn or a plant. If that doesn’t sound horrifying,
Alastair is a radio try Googling trypophobia. You’ll see real or
astronomer at Jodrell Bank Photoshopped images of people with
Centre for Astrophysics
at the University of
clusters of pockmarks dotted on their face
Manchester, UK. or hands. Some are simply
dark holes, others
Robert Matthews might be eggs or
Robert is a writer and larvae. Severe
researcher. He is a Visiting
Reader in Science at Aston
trypophobes are
University, UK. also revolted by
much more
Gareth Mitchell innocuous things
As well as lecturing at like the bubbles
gary bell/oceanwideimages.com, thinkstock, getty, alamy

Imperial College London,

Gareth is a presenter of
in a Nestlé Aero.
Click on the BBC World The term
Service. trypophobia was
only coined in 2005
Luis Villazon and the reasons for it
Luis has a BSc in
computing and an MSc in
are still poorly
zoology from Oxford. His understood. One theory is that it
works include How Cows might be a behaviour that evolved to make
Reach The Ground. us avoid people with skin parasites.
Another study at the University of Essex
published last year found that the
Ask the Experts? clustered patterns that tend to trigger
Email our panel at trypophobic reactions are also found on
bbcknowledge@wwm.co.in some very dangerous animals, such as the
A fear of holes could have
We’re sorry, but we cannot
evolved to help us avoid spots on a blue-ringed octopus. LV
reply to questions individually.
deadly species such as
the blue-ringed octopus

6 June 2014
 What makes icebergs
flip over?
Icebergs are notorious for keeping around 90 per cent
of their bulk hidden beneath the surface of the sea.
While this makes them far more dangerous to
shipping than they appear, it does mean they’re
extremely stable, and unlikely to wobble about.
Yet even mountain-sized icebergs weighing
hundreds of millions of tonnes have been known to
flip over, creating tsunamis capable of swamping
nearby vessels.
The risk is highest just after the birth of an iceberg
from the edge of a glacier. As it breaks away, the
iceberg tumbles off into the ocean, its irregular shape
leading to the berg swaying or even flipping right over
as gravity seeks to bring most of its weight beneath
the sea surface. According to research published in
2011 by Prof Justin Burton and colleagues of the
University of Chicago, the resulting motion can release
as much energy as an atomic bomb. RM Is personality genetic?
Yes, in the sense that many personality
differences are highly heritable. Some of the
best evidence comes from twin studies,
especially those comparing pairs of identical
twins who have been raised together to pairs
So much easier
than writing who have been raised apart. These have the
a cheque same genetic make-up but are brought up in

How do bank different families. Among the most highly

heritable traits are leadership, traditionalism

card readers and obedience to authority. It may seem odd

that liking traditional values and wanting
work? rules to be obeyed are inherited, yet this is
what research reveals. The biological basis
Bank card readers used to work may involve different levels of neuro-
similarly to the heads in a tape transmitters, including serotonin, dopamine
machine. Information was and noradrenaline. Other traits that are more
transferred as the card’s than 50 per cent heritable include zest for
magnetic strip passed over the life, sense of alienation, responsiveness to
reader. In chip-and-pin devices, stress and risk-taking.
the readers make electrical This does not mean that these traits are
contact with an embedded chip rigidly fixed. A naturally fearful person can
on the card. Like the magnetic learn to overcome fear, an excessive risk-
taker can learn when it’s wise to hold back,
STATS
strip, the user’s PIN is encrypted
VITAL
on the chip. When the correct and knowing how our body reacts to stress
can help us understand ourselves. But we
29.=6200mg) is
number is entered, the card
authorises the payment. GM cannot change ourselves into someone we
are not. SB
carat ht of
carats (1 ordinary weig ntly
a e
the ex e diamond rec
tr
ra re b lu A fr ic a’s
a Sou th
found in an mine
Cullin
 Q&A
top ten
loudest animals

1. Sperm whale
Intensity: 236 decibels (dB)
Location: Worldwide
Clicks generated by forcing air
through a pair of phonic lips

2. Bottlenose dolphin
Intensity: 220 dB
Location: Worldwide Can emit
thousands of clicks
per second
3. Snapping shrimp
Intensity: 200 dB
Location: Worldwide
Acoustic pressures from a
snapping claw can kill fish
4. Blue whale
Intensity: 188 dB Musical genetic genius:
the Jackson 5 A nearby gamma-ray
Location: Worldwide burst would wipe out
Songs of four notes can last all life on Earth
two minutes each
5. Howler monkey
Intensity: 140 dB
Do music or
Location: South America
Howls can travel 5km
acting genes run
through dense forest
in families?
6. Lesser bulldog bat
Intensity: 137 dB There are no such things as ‘music
Location: South America genes’ or ‘acting genes’, only genes
They squeeze ear muscles
and combinations of genes that, in
science photo library x3, nasa, thinkstock x5, getty x3, alamy

shut when squealing

7. Kekapo parrot
Intensity: 132 dB
Location: New Zealand
Male inflates like a balloon
and emits a series of booms
8. Moluccan cockatoo
Intensity: 129 dB
Location: Moluccas, Indonesia
Screeching mainly happens
at dawn and dusk
9. Northern elephant seal
Intensity: 125 dB
Location: Eastern Pacific
Snouts act as echo chambers
10. Bladder cicada
Intensity: 120 dB
Location: Australia
Deep, frog-like sound is made
by males to attract females
certain circumstances, contribute to
these abilities. However, the traits of
musical or acting ability do tend to run
in families. The heritability of musical
ability is about 50 per cent, meaning
that around half the variation in ability
is attributable to genetic differences.
There are several genes known to
be involved.
There are also stories of musicians
who were adopted early in life that only
discovered later that their biological
parents were musicians. The opposite
– ‘amusia’ or ‘tone deafness’ – affects
about four per cent of the population,
It didn’t help with her night
although watching Indian Idol you’d
terrors when her parents
think it was more. This too can be insisted on the only lighting
inherited. SB in her room coming from a
Victorian oil lamp

8 June 2014
 QuicKFIRE
What’s the biggest
gamma-ray burst How will aircraft be
powered when there
recorded? is no more oil?
The historic flight of the
Solar Impulse plane
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are extremely energetic last year proved
flashes of radiation caused by the collapse of that power from the
massive stars to form neutron stars or black Sun might be able to drive aircraft in
holes. They are the most energetic events in the a post-oil world. The plane flew in
Universe, but extremely rare. several hops from San Francisco to
New York. All the power came from
The record for the most energetic is named
an array of 12,000 solar cells and
GRB 130427A, which occurred on 27 April 2013. It lithium ion batteries that charged
was detected by many telescopes, on Earth and in during the day and allowed the
space, and occurred in a galaxy in the plane to keep airborne at night. In
constellation of Leo, about 3.8 billion light-years the short term, biofuels – fuel
away. This is relatively nearby for a GRB, which derived from living organisms – are
explains why it was so bright. In fact, GRB likely to be the answer. GM
130427A was more than five times brighter than
the previous record. It’s the biggest explosion Would a radioactive
astronomers know about, after the Big Bang material at absolute zero
itself. If it had happened in our arm of the Milky emit radiation?
Way, it would have destroyed all life on Earth. AG Strictly speaking, it’s impossible to
get to exactly absolute zero, or
–273°C. Even so, the idea of
chilling radioactive waste to
incredibly low temperatures
to make it safe is appealing. Sadly,
however, it
wouldn’t work.

Are there any treatments Radioactivity is a

manifestation of

for night terrors? fundamental

Not really. There is nothing pathological about night
terrors, and the best response is sympathy and
understanding. Many young children get them,
especially boys aged five to seven, but most grow
out of it by adolescence. Night terrors can be as
frightening to those watching as to sufferers, who
typically wake up screaming and confused,
remembering nothing of what woke them. They
may hit things, wet the bed, and appear terribly
agitated, but in many cases they never fully wake
up. They happen during non-REM deep sleep and
usually occur after two or three hours of sleep.
They are quite distinct from nightmares, which are
horrible dreams that happen later in the night
during REM sleep. Although they appear terribly
distressed at the time, many children remember
nothing about the event the following day. Adults
occasionally have night terrors, but this is most
often due to stress or alcohol. SB
nuclear forces and
these are
unaffected by low
temperatures. RM
Will there ever be a
male pill?
Unlike women, men don’t have a
natural monthly cycle of fertility,
which means you can’t control it
with a simple hormone pill. Until
recently, research on the male pill
has focused on ways of deactivating
sperm, but new research in
Australia has found a way to
genetically modify mice so that
sperm are not added to the semen
during ejaculation. To turn this
discovery into a pill, you would need
drugs that can mimic the effects of
the genetic modifications. This could
take another decade to develop and
license. LV
Jupiter’s moon
Ganymede is the
largest in the Solar
System, but doesn’t
Q&A
have a moon itself
Can a moon
have a moon?
Astronomers are pretty certain there
are no moons orbiting moons in our
Solar System. Although possible, it
is likely that the gravitational tug of
the parent planet would quickly
destabilise the orbit of the moon’s
moon, eventually pulling it out of its
orbit. However if the moon’s moon is
small, the distance to the parent
planet is large and there are
negligible tidal forces, then such a
system could exist. AG
Why doesn’t fog
freeze in sub-zero
temperatures?
It does, eventually. But if the
temperature is only a few degrees
below 0°C, the water droplets remain
liquid. This is called supercooling
and it occurs because ice crystals
can’t form easily without a dust
particle to act as a nucleus. Because
fog doesn’t fall, it doesn’t pick up
dust as it moves through the air so it
science photo library x2, getty, thinkstock
doesn’t usually freeze. Supercooled
fog is often called freezing fog, but
only because it freezes when it
touches the ground. For the droplets
in the air to freeze, the temperature
has to drop below –35ºC. This is
called ice fog. LV
It’s nearly spring,
hang in there!
10 June 2014
Did you know?
What’s the oldest
human DNA
discovered?
About 400,000 years old. This was
DNA from a thigh-bone found in the
‘Pit Of Bones’ cave in the Atapuerca
Mountains of northern Spain. The leg
bone either belonged to an early
Neanderthal or possibly a member of
the human species Homo A skull of
heidelbergensis. These are both H. heidelbergensis
found in the Pit Of
sister species to our own Homo Bones in Spain
sapiens but H. heidelbergensis is the
older species and is probably the
direct ancestor of both the
Neanderthals and ourselves.
These other species of the genus
Homo are not the same as a modern
human though. Homo sapiens didn’t
appear for another 200,000 years,
and didn’t migrate from Africa to
Europe until at least another 75,000
years after that. LV
Would birds be
able to fly on
other planets?
While the birds on other
planets may not look much
like those on Earth, if they
exist at all, the laws of
physics remain the same.
They show there’s no reason
why birds should not be able
to fly – given the right
combination of not too
much weight and not too Unfortunately there’s no
thin an atmosphere. RM reason why you wouldn’t
get bird droppings on you
on another planet
 Q&A
Is it possible to harness the
power of falling rain?
A 2008 French study estimated that you under a tonne of water per square metre
could use piezoelectric devices, which per year. For a house with a 185m2 roof,
generate power when they move, to this would amount to 3kWh of energy per
extract 12 milliwatts from a raindrop. Over year. With a 60 per cent conversion
a year, this would amount to less than efficiency, it’s enough to run a 15W light
It doesn’t rain hard
enough for useful 0.001kWh per square metre – enough to bulb for 133 hours. That’s still a lot less
power, but you could power a remote sensor. A better idea than solar energy; we receive 60,000
be forgiven for would be to collect the water and use it to times more energy per square metre from
thinking otherwise drive a turbine. The UK receives just the Sun than from rain. LV

Is light pollution Strange but true

causing insect
species to decline?
The moth:
a lover of
the light
Almost certainly. Nocturnal insects,
particularly flying ones, are attracted by
artificial lights. Some species circle
around a streetlight, others settle on it
or stop moving when they wander too
close. This makes them more vulnerable
to predators and interferes with their
normal foraging and mating behaviours.
This is definitely causing the balance
of insect species to change. However,
it’s too early to say whether the overall
number is dropping or if some species
actually benefit from artificial light. LV
getty, thinkstock x2
Why do some people sleep with
their eyes open?
Children sleep with their eyes open far more often than adults and it
seems to do them little harm. ‘Nocturnal lagophthalmos’ is the
technical term for this and in adults it can be more serious. If the
eyes do not close properly then tears cannot wash across the whole
of the cornea, keeping it wet and clean to prevent damage. The
underlying reason may be a problem with the facial nerves that
close the eyes or with the shape of the eyelid. Some skin diseases
and infections can also cause lagophthalmos and it can even arise
from botched plastic surgery. For example, some older people have
their upper eyelids operated on to remove some of the excess skin
that increases with age. This may make them look younger, but if
too much skin is removed their eyelids cannot close properly and
they have to sleep with their eyes open. SB
Sleeping with at least one
eye open makes it difficult
for anyone to steal your
copy of BBC Knowledge

KNOW SPOT
The most densely populated city in the
world is Bangladesh’s Dhaka. There are
44,500 people in every square kilometre.
 nature | Snapshot

snapshot
CATERS
Horsing around
eyes wide open
Like puppets from a children’s
TV show, these bizarre-looking
creatures seem to be posing
for the camera. Though often
referred to as False Stick insects,
they are actually Horsehead
grasshoppers.
Their appearance as bulbous-
eyed twigs is an adaptation to
help them blend in with trees in
the Peruvian rainforest. “Some
grasshoppers in other parts of the
world have an elongated shape
and a slanted face, but not as
extreme as this,” says Dr George
McGavin, entomologist and BBC
presenter. “The females reach
about 16cm in length and they
can jump a fair way.”
In fact, neurobiologists from
the University of Leicester have
discovered that Horsehead
grasshoppers jump without using
muscles thanks to the unusual
properties in their limbs and
joints. It is hoped this could help
in the development of robotic and
prosthetic limbs.

June 2014 13
 Science | Snapshot
CERN
cern

14 June 2014
 Cloud control
make it rain
One hundred metres below the ground,
the CLOUD (Cosmics Leaving Outdoor
Droplets) experiment unfolds. This is
the top of the cloud chamber where
beams of ionising particles, tuned
to mimic the cosmic radiation that
rains relentlessly down on Earth, are
fired through plumes of atmospheric
gases. The experiment is investigating
the effect of cosmic radiation on
cloud formation, an important factor
in understanding the Sun’s role in
climate change.To mimic atmospheric
conditions, the chamber must be kept
as free from impurities as possible.
“We’re the only cloud chamber in the
world that can do these experiments at
the required level of cleanliness,” said
CLOUD spokesperson Jasper Kirkby.
“It’s a big subject but we’ll answer the
question definitively in about 10 years.”
So far, CLOUD has blasted high
energy particles at amines, derivatives
of ammonia. Next up will be sweet-
smelling monoterpenes. “When you
go into the forest that lovely smell is
the monoterpenes. They’re organic
compounds with a lot of carbon in them
and we will try to understand how they
interact with cosmic radiation.”
The experiment is at CERN, the
European nuclear research facility
located in France and Switzerland.
 Science | Snapshot

Rocky start, flying finish

upwards and onwards
After spectacularly crashing in 2012, the team
working on NASA’s ‘Morpheus’ most likely
wished they could have taken a blue pill and
forgotten about the whole ordeal. But now the
prototype lander has found its second wind after
successfully completing two flights in one week.
During the latest test flight the lander stayed
in the air for 64 seconds and reached a height
of 91m. On the way back down it avoided rocks,
craters and other obstacles to land within 30cm
of its target pad. Morpheus is a re-usable vehicle
propelled by a liquid oxygen-methane engine.
It’s capable of vertical take-off and landing and
can scan surfaces for potential hazards before
touching down. The hope is that it will eventually
be able to land unaided on craggy surfaces like
the Moon or asteroids.
“Morpheus itself was never intended for human
spaceflight, but these technologies have potential
for future human missions,” says Morpheus
project manager Jon Olansen.
nasa

16 June 2014
 update the latest intelligence

Game-changing
stem cell
discovery
Personalised medicine
is a step closer, thanks
to the development of a
new technique

Having been made fluorescent,

stem cells produced using
the new method completely
populate a mouse foetus,
confirming their existence

A
revolutionary method for creating
cells that can grow into any type of possibilities advantage of
haruko obokata , nasa, thinkstock, jennifer wenger/penn museum

tissue has been developed by scientists these findings being much

in Japan, potentially ushering in a new era
of personalised medicine. Researchers at the
RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology
have found that almost any mature adult
cell taken from mice can be transformed
into a pluripotent stem cell. These are
of potentially great use in medicine since
they can transform into any kind of cell
in the body.
The process, dubbed stimulus-triggered
acquisition of pluripotency (STAP),
involves shocking cells with a suitable dose
of stress. Though the exact mechanism is
not yet understood, the stress causes the
cells to lose their specific characteristics and
enter a state of pluripotency. The scientists
tried squeezing the cells, heating them and
starving them, but had the best results when
soaking them in a mildly acidic solution.
“It’s exciting to think about the new
open up, not
only in areas like
regenerative medicine,
but perhaps in the study
of cellular ageing and cancer as well,”
explained lead researcher Haruko Obokata.
Pluripotent stem cells have already been
created using several different methods.
One type, called Embryonic stem cells
(ESCs), can be harvested from embryos
that have been fertilised in vitro in a lab.
However, this has proved controversial as it
involves the destruction of human embryos.
Another type, induced Pluripotent Stem
cells (iPS), were produced in 2006 by a
team from Japan led by Shinya Yamanaka.
They were produced from adult cells
by manipulating genetic material. The
team was later awarded the Nobel Prize.
However, the new technique has the
simpler, taking only
half an hour to produce
the cells.
To confirm that the cells created
through the stressing process were
pluripotent, and so able to transform into
other cells in the body, the researchers
tagged some of them with a fluorescent dye
and injected them into a mouse embryo.
These glowing cells spread through the
animal as it grew, proving that they were
pluripotent. The mice were then bred and
produced healthy offspring.
The next step is to attempt the process
in other mammals and ultimately humans.
If successful, doctors will be able to create
stem cells specific to each patient from
a simple skin biopsy or blood sample.
Eventually, stem cells could be used for
even growing entire replacement organs.

18 June 2014
Environment
China’s pollution goes global
A satellite image
shows huge
clouds of pollution
flowing east away
from China
A commonly quoted
idea of chaos theory is that
a butterfly flapping its wings
in China can trigger a
hurricane in the US. Now,
it seems it is not colourful
insects but pollution in
China that is affecting global
weather patterns.
Using climate models and
data collected over 30 years
about aerosols, fine particles
of liquid suspended in a gas,
researchers at Texas A&M
University found air pollution
over Asia is impacting global
air circulations. Much of it is
coming from China.
“The models clearly show
that pollution originating
from Asia has an impact on
the upper atmosphere and
it appears to make storms
or cyclones even stronger,”
Professor Renyi Zhang
explains. “This pollution
affects cloud formation,
precipitation, storm intensity
and other factors, and
eventually impacts climate.
Most likely, pollution
Not just tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping:
Biochemistry the news about cod is good for blood banks
In cod blood
As well as tasting delicious when
deep-fried in batter, cod has
another impressive talent: they
are able to survive in the Arctic’s
icy waters without freezing
solid. Now, scientists have used
this ability as a starting point to
create a new way to freeze the
packs of human blood used in
medical emergencies.
Researchers at the University
of Warwick found that adding
tiny amounts of polyvinyl
alcohol, a derivative of wood
glue, to stored human blood
mimics antifreeze properties
from Asia can have important Egyptology
consequences on the weather
pattern over North America.”
The boom in China’s
Pharaoh’s tomb discovered
economy during the last 30 Archaeologists have unearthed
years has led to the building the 3600-year-old tomb of a
of countless factories and previously unknown pharaoh
power plants that pump out and the first material proof of
huge amounts of pollutants a forgotten dynasty. The tomb
into the atmosphere. Levels was discovered in January 2013
of air pollution in some cities, near a 60-tonne royal chamber
such as Beijing, are often found in South Abydos, 482km
more than 100 times higher (300 miles) south of Cairo, by
than acceptable a team led by the University of
limits set by the Pennsylvania’s Dr Josef Wegner.
World Health It had been plundered by
Organization’s ancient looters, who had torn
standards. apart the mummified remains
and stripped many of the
gilded surfaces. Nevertheless,
CHINA
8.2 billion
USA
5.4 billion
archaeologists were able
to recover the bones and
0.4 billion
The remains of Woseribre Senebkay, whose
tomb was discovered last January
UK
Total CO2 emissions in metric tonnes
Organization standards.
Data for 2010 from the World Bank
found in the blood of cold-
acclimatised fish. It works by
inhibiting the growth of ice
crystals during thawing that
would otherwise damage the
blood cells.
“Although we need to run
further tests, this new method
looks very promising in terms
of vastly extending the shelf
life of blood stored for medical
procedures and therefore
preventing dangerous dips in
blood availability at certain
times of the year,” said Dr
Matthew Gibson.
determine they belonged to
Woseribre Senebkay, a pharaoh
who ruled in the 17th Century
BC. Further analysis indicates
he was around 5ft 10 inches
(1m 77cm), and died in his
mid-to-late 40s.
“It’s exciting to find not
just the tomb of one previously
unknown pharaoh, but
the necropolis of an entire
forgotten dynasty,” said Dr
Wegner. “Work in the royal
tombs of the Abydos Dynasty
promises to shed new light on
the political history and society
of an important but poorly
understood era.”
 Keeping abreast of the top science, history and nature research
round up from around the world

Wildlife conservation

Was a Danish zoo right to

kill a male giraffe?
Copenhagen Zoo has sparked an
international controversy after
killing Marius, an otherwise
perfectly healthy 18-month-old
giraffe, because its genes were
deemed too close to those of
seven other animals kept in the
same enclosure.Vets shot the
giraffe before dissecting the carcass
in front of a crowd of onlookers
and feeding it to the zoo’s lions.
“Copenhagen Zoo’s giraffes are
part of an international breeding
programme, which aims to ensure
a healthy giraffe population in
European zoos,” said scientific
director Bengt Holst, defending
the zoo’s actions. “This is done
by constantly ensuring that only
unrelated giraffes breed, so that
inbreeding is avoided.
If an animal’s genes are well
represented in a population, then
any further breeding with that
particular animal is unwanted.”
Holst added that giving the
animal contraceptives and allowing
it to live on, as some critics
suggested, would have caused a
number of unwanted side effects
in its internal organs and reduced
its quality of life.
However,Yorkshire Wildlife
Park had offered to home the
giraffe, but the offer was refused.
Copenhagen Zoo said it could not
be passed on to another institution
due to rules set down by the
European Association of Zoos and
Aquaria (EAZA) that prohibit the
selling of animals.
EAZA itself backed the zoo. In
a statement it said: “EAZA fully
supports the decision to humanely
put the animal down. Our aim is
to safeguard for future generations
a genetically diverse, healthy
population of animals against
their extinction.”
The animal rights charity
PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals) condemned
the decision and questioned
the need for breeding in zoos.
“Breeding programmes serve
no true conservation purpose
because giraffes and other
animals born in zoos are rarely,
if ever, returned to their natural
habitats. They give the public
a false sense that something
meaningful has happened,” said
PETA’s Dan Howe. “The death
of Marius should be a wake-up
call for anyone who still harbours
the illusion that zoos serve any
purpose beyond incarcerating
intelligent animals for profit,”
he added.

News in brief
the ohio state university, getty, british antarctic survey

Tattoos reveal personality Whales from space The beauty of maths

Though traditionally the
preserve of sailors and tough
guys, tattoos are now sported
by everyone from binmen to
bank managers. But a study
has found they may still be a
useful way to spot mavericks
and risk takers. Researchers
questioned students at
Midwestern University and
discovered that students with
tattoos were significantly
more likely to use alcohol and
marijuana and engage in risky
sexual behaviour.
Whales can be tracked using
satellites, a new study carried out
in Argentina has shown
A new way to count whales
from space could revolutionise
the way populations of these
mammals are monitored and
tracked. Using high-resolution
imagery from the WorldView-2
satellite, a trial study detected
southern right whales off
the coast of Argentina with
90 per cent accuracy. It’s
hoped that the technique will
provide a safer, more flexible
and cheaper alternative to
counting whales from ships
and planes.
It’s official: maths is beautiful.
UK researchers asked 15
mathematicians to rate
equations on a scale from -5
(ugly) to +5 (beautiful) and then
have their brains scanned as
they viewed the formulae. The
more beautiful the equation (as
rated by the mathematicians),
the greater the activity in their
medial orbitofrontal cortex.
This is the region of the brain
that ‘lights up’ when we listen
to a symphony or ponder an
artistic masterpiece.

20 June 2014
 INSPIRING YOUNG MINDS THROUGH KNOWLEDGE OLYMPIADS

Last year millions of students from 27,000

schools in 1,350+ cities and 16 countries
competed in the SOF Olympiads!

14TH SOF NATIONAL 17TH SOF NATIONAL 8TH SOF INTERNATIONAL 5TH SOF INTERNATIONAL
CYBER OLYMPIAD SCIENCE OLYMPIAD MATHEMATICS OLYMPIAD ENGLISH OLYMPIAD
SEP. 18 & OCT. 14 NOV. 12 & NOV. 25 DEC. 4 & DEC. 18 JAN. 20 & JAN. 29

Important: Applications must reach us by August 31st, 2014.


SCHEDULE OF EXAMS:
Each of the four Olympiads will be conducted on
two dates with a separate question paper for each
date. Schools may choose a date convenient to
them from either of the two dates. The entire school
must conduct the Olympiad only on the given dates.
 14th National Cyber Olympiad (NCO)
 18 September 2014
& 14 October 2014
 17th National Science Olympiad (NSO)
 12 & 25 November 2014
 8th International Mathematics Olympiad
(IMO)
 4 & 18 December 2014
 5th International English Olympiad (IEO)
 20 & 29 January 2015
* A minimum of ten students must register for an
Olympiad from a school
SCHOLARSHIPS
Girl Child Scholarship Scheme (GCSS):
`5,000 each scholarship to 300 girls will be provided. Schools
may nominate one girl who is academically inclined and is from
an economically weak family.
Scholarship for Excellence in English (SEE):
`5,000 each scholarship to 120 students will be provided.
Schools may nominate one student excelling in English language.
(New) Academic Excellence Scholarship (AES):
`5,000 scholarship and trophies to 160 students from class
three to ten. The winner will be a student who gets the highest
aggregate score in any three Olympiad exams in the 2nd level
(1st level for IEO).
4th Teachers’ Training Camp (TTC):
100 teachers are invited to attend a three day residential
education camp conducted by trainers of British Council. The
boarding, lodging, and training costs are borne by SOF.
Promotional Feature
AWARDS, SCHOLARSHIPS, & RECOGNITIONS
Students attaining top ranks at school level, state level, and at international
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1 `50,000 each + Gold Medal* 47
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1 `5000 each + Gold Medal* 840
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+ Gifts Worth `1,000 + Merit Certificate
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+ Merit Certificate
(new) STATE AWARDS – FOR LEVEL ONE WINNERS
Class wise 
Top ten rank holders from each of 20 states / zones, who qualify for the
2nd level exam will be awarded a Certificate of Merit and a gold medal
each. This will be applicable for NCO, NSO, and IMO.
SCHOOL TOPPER AWARDS
Medals will be awarded to toppers from each class as under:
 If 10 or more students from one class write an exam - gold, silver, and
bronze medals will be awarded to top three rank holders.
 If between five to nine students from a class write an exam - a gold
medal will be awarded to the topper.
 Participation Certificates will be awarded to every student and Merit
Certificates to all 2nd level qualifiers.
 Performance Analysis Report for each participating student will be provided.
 neuroscience | Science

What if you could wipe out a hurtful moment from

your past, implant a completely new experience,
or remember everything for an exam with ease?
Dr Nicola Davis looks at how science will soon
be able to shape your memories

E
ver wished you had a better
memory so you were able to
recall names, dates and faces
more easily, or even get better grades
in exams? How about removing all
recollection of a failed relationship
like the characters in Michel Gondry’s
Academy award-winning movie Eternal
Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Or
virtually travelling the Solar System
via false memories implanted directly
in your mind like ArnoldSchwarzenegger’s
Douglas Quaid in the sci-fi classic
Total Recall?
Well, therapies like these may be
coming sooner than you think as
scientists have been making great strides
in how to delete, improve, and even
create memories.
“Memory is a very important aspect
of cognition,” says Dr David Vauzour, a
senior research fellow at the University
of East Anglia. “It refers to what you
can remember along with the capacity
for remembering. Some memories are
retained for a short period of time and
then discarded, but the most important
ones are stored in the brain and can be
retrieved at will.
This process of learning new
information, storage and recall involves a
complex interplay of brain functions.”
It is this incredibly complex network of
nerves and chemical processes that must
first be unravelled to help shed light on
how the human brain stores and recalls
memories, before we are eventually able
to figure out how to manipulate them.

June 2014 25
 DELETING
MEMORY
For many people, deleting memories
poses an ethical conundrum. Memories
can of course be a source of great
pleasure. They can, however, also
be a source of great pain, as is the
case for sufferers of conditions such
as post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) or drug addiction. In this case,
memory deletion may be the answer.
People with PTSD constantly relive
traumatic memories. Similarly, drug
addicts connect certain habits with a
previous sensation of being high, which
stimulates their craving. By removing
or subduing specific memories,
traumatic emotions and harmful
behaviours can be prevented.
Zapping memory
So, how exactly can memories be
deleted? “Researchers have used
a three-stage model to describe
how the brain learns and remembers,
with impairment in any of these
processes resulting in memory
failure: acquisition, consolidation and
xu liu/steve ramirez/susumu tonegawa/MIT illustration: chrisstockerdesign.co.uk
the kobal collection x2, science photo library, scripps research institute, getty,
retrieval,” says Vauzour.
One study taking advantage of the
consolidation process is a ‘within-
subjects manipulation’ study conducted
by Marijn Kroes and colleagues
at Raboud University Nijmegen in
the Netherlands. Memories are
periodically rewritten in the mind,
or reconsolidated, somewhat
like defragmenting a hard drive.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT),
however, appears to prevent memories
from being rewritten or alters them
during the reconsolidation process.
In the team’s 2013 study, published
in Nature Neuroscience, participants
undergoing ECT for depression were
shown a troubling story in words
and pictures. A week later they were
reminded about it and given ECT. This
completely wiped out their recall of the
distressing narrative.
Similar breakthroughs have also
been found taking the chemical
approach, as demonstrated in a 2013
study led by Dr Courtney Miller of
the Scripps Research Institute in San
26 June 2014
Diego, California. Miller sought to
help methamphetamine addicts by
targeting the removal of memories
linked with drug use.
“Neurones connect to each other
through small structures known
as dendritic spines; this is where
memories are thought to be physically
stored,” explains Dr Miller. “The
structure of spines is maintained by a
scaffolding made up of individual units
of actin – a protein that facilitates
memory formation by supporting
the connections the neurones make
when a memory is created. These
Dr Courtney Miller is using the science
of memory to help drug addicts
units of actin combine to form long
chains that can enlarge spines and
store memories by stabilising specific
connections between neurones.
“With your run-of-the-mill memory,”
she adds, “the individual units of actin
cycle very slowly – one comes off the
top, another is added to the bottom.
But with memories formed when
taking methamphetamine, these units
move very fast. So we took advantage
of this and gave animals drugs
(Latrunculin A) that gather up those
actin units so they aren’t available to
go back on the long actin chains. With
actin units still coming off the top, but
no longer being added to the bottom,
it seems the actin chains fall apart
and we lose the structures storing the
methamphetamine memory.
“What makes this finding so
Memories are
thought to be stored
in dendritic spines
- seen here as fine,
hair-like structures
bristling off dendrites,
which in turn branch
off the main cell body
of a neurone
Dendrite
Neurone
Dendritic spine
exciting is that the inhibitors seem
to be incredibly selective as to the
memory type. We think we’re able
to selectively target drug-associated
memories, and hopefully traumatic
memories in the future, because the
brain is using a different mechanism to
store these memories.”
More recent research, published
in Cell in January 2014, reveals that
drugs known as histone deacetylase
inhibitors (HDACIs) can enhance the
brain’s ability to permanently replace
old traumatic memories with new
memories. In the first phase of the
preclinical study, led by Dr Li-Huei
Tsai of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), mice were exposed
to a tone followed by an electrical
shock. Once the mice learned to
associate these two events, they
 neuroscience | Science

began to freeze in fear upon hearing the
tone, even when they did not receive a
shock. The researchers then repeatedly
presented the tone without the shock
to test whether the mice could unlearn
the association and stop freezing
in response to the tone. This was
successful for mice exposed to the tone-
shock pairing one day earlier, but not for
mice that formed the traumatic memory
one month earlier. These mice were
then given HDACIs before undergoing
the ‘unlearning’ exercise. The mice then
stopped freezing in response to the tone.
IMPLANTING
MEMORY
In the Leonardo DiCaprio blockbuster
Inception, professional criminals use an
experimental military technology to implant
ideas and memories into a victim’s mind
while they sleep. The concept may seem
about as far-fetched as a movie premise
can be, but in reality, false memory
implantations happen all the time –
including when people are awake. What’s
more they can have drastic consequences,
especially in the case of court trials where
juries place a disproportionate amount of
credibility on eyewitness testimony.
Every one of us is susceptible to false
highly superior autobiographical memory
– in other words the ability to remember
personal experiences as well as more
general facts and knowledge – with 38
‘control’ individuals. Despite it being likely
that the former group might be immune
to memory distortions, the opposite was
found. Over a two-week period, a series
of exercises designed to test participants’
susceptibility to forming false memories
were administered. In each case, false
memories were apparent just as often in
those with superior memory as in controls.
For example, when

“We think we’re able to target

Dr Li-Huei Tsai of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology has shown that memory can be
inhibited in mice with the help of a drug
drug-associated memories,
and hopefully traumatic
memories in the future”
Dr Courtney Miller of the Scripps Research Institute
in San Diego, California
memories, even those with otherwise
exceptional powers of recall. This was
shown in a 2013 study led by Lawrence
Patihis of the University of California in
Irvine. Patihis compared 20 individuals with
A region of a mouse hippocampus
is lit up with the protein ChR2;
the technique was used to
implant a memory
of fear
presented with a word list that included
‘thread,’ ‘pin’, and ‘knitting’, both groups
were likely to later ‘remember’ also having
seen the word ‘needle’ – which was never
actually shown.

Genetic memory
Delving deeper, researchers from MIT
have discovered a gene essential for HOW TO CREATE FEAR
‘memory extinction’, called TET1. Scientists induced false memories
Published in Neuron in 2013, findings in mice
show how boosting the activity of TET1
might benefit people with post-traumatic
stress disorder by making it easier
to replace fearful memories with
positive ones.
The researchers had two sets of mice
develop a fear of a cage by electrocuting
them in the cage. The mice were
then put into a cage without being
electrocuted. Those with an inhibited
TET1 gene no longer feared the cage
because the fear memory was
replaced with the new memory of
not being electrocuted. 1. A mouse is first put in an 2. The mouse is put in a 3. When the mouse is
environment (blue box) and different environment (red box) returned to the first
the neurones responsible and light is delivered to the environment, it shows
for memorizing the brain to activate the previously signs of fear, showing it
environment are labelled. labelled cells, so it recalls had formed a false fear of
These cells were made the first box. Electric shocks the first
June 2014box, where it was 27
responsive to light. are given. never shocked.
 Science | neuroscience
“Physical health, emotional state,
stress level and diet exert a big
influence on how well you learn
and remember”
Dr David Vauzour, a senior research fellow at the University of East Anglia
Dr Wendy Suzuki believes
memory implanting is still in its
early stages
Fear factor
rex, university of alberta, thinkstock, getty, ted orlando/flickr
Recently, Nobel Prize winner
Susumu Tonegawa was able
to successfully implant fear
memories in mice. Tonegawa
and his team genetically
engineered mice to express the
protein Channelrhodopsin-2
(ChR2) in neurones associated
with memory formation and
storage in the hippocampus. An
interesting characteristic of this
protein is that it reacts to, and
becomes activated by, light.
In the experiment, the mice
were placed in a safe container
and the group of memory
neurones, called an engram,
created a memory of this
container (see ‘How to create
fear’, p27). The mice were
then placed in a different
28 June 2014
container while light was
shone on the memory
neurones – thereby activating
the memory of the first
container. As this occurred,
the mice were given a shock.
When the mice were being
placed into the original
container, they froze in fear
– they associated the shock
with the first container, even
though it was administered
in the second container. The
researchers had managed to
implant a fear memory.
“They basically tricked
the system into making
these memories,” says Dr
Wendy Suzuki of The Suzuki
Laboratory for the Study
of Learning, Memory and
Cognition in New York.
So, can we create any type
of false memory? “At this
point we only have access to
specific kinds of memories
to create, depending on the
patterns of activation that we
can mimic,” says Suzuki. “But
in theory if we understand
the patterns of activation
associated with various kinds
of memory formation, we can
create any kind of memory. We
are certainly in the early days
with these experiments, but
the potential is there.”
IMPROVING MEMORY
Kim Peek, the ‘megasavant’ who
was the inspiration for the four-
time Oscar winning film Rain
Man, could remember almost
everything he had ever read. He
could also read both pages of a
book simultaneously and retain
the information. Given advances
in memory research, could we
all one day be like Kim Peek?
That’s likely to be a long way off,
but fortunately there are several
The ‘megasavant’ Kim Peek was able
to memorise everything he ever read
Give your neurones a boost by eating high levels of Omega-3 – muscles
are a good source
effective ways of improving
your memory.
“Physical health, emotional
state, stress level and diet
exert a big influence on
how well you learn and
remember,” explains Dr
Vauzour. One study carried out
by researchers from
the University of Alabama
at Birmingham, published
in the Journal Of Neurology in
2013, suggests that following
a Mediterranean diet based on
fish, salads, and chicken, and
rich in the fatty acid Omega-3
can improve cognition. Four
years of data collected
from 17,478 participants
revealed that those who more
strictly adhered to
the Mediterranean diet
performed better in
memory tests.
In another study, led by
Yves Sauvé of the University
of Alberta, it was shown that
high levels of Omega-3 in

a person’s diet can help to
improve the communication of
the neurones used for memory.
Evidence suggests that
Want to improve your memory? Exercise is better than black market pills
exercise is also key to a healthy
memory. Research led by Dr
Sandra Chapman of the
University of Texas at Dallas
D OL PH I N in t e llige nc e
in 2013, showed that aerobic
exercise improves memory by
helping maintain consistent and
healthy blood flow to
the hippocampus.
There are some people,
however, who baulk at the
thought of putting on their
running shoes and pounding the
pavement, and would instead
prefer to simply swallow a
memory-improving tablet.
This attitude has led some
students wishing to stay alert
and retain memory during
exams to turn to so-called
smart drugs. But since these
are prescription medications for
conditions that most students
do not suffer from, such as
narcolepsy and ADHD, the
Yves Sauvé has shown that the
fatty acid Omega-3 improves
the communication of neurones
used for memory
long-term effects are unknown
and potentially dangerous.
Moreover, they may not even
have the expected effect of
improving memory. Although
they can give the user the
impression of a temporary
memory boost, a placebo-
controlled trial led by Irena Ilieva
of the University of Pennsylvania
showed no improvement in the
performance of young adults
taking Adderrall compared to
those taking a placebo. So it
would appear that there are
no quick-and-easy shortcuts
to improving memory.
Nicola Davies is a health
psychologist and writer.
 WHAT IS MEMORY?
Your recollection of life’s events is stored in
networks of billions of neurones in different areas
of the brain

Entorhinal cortex
This is involved in consolidating memories, in particular spatial memory. It acts as a
gateway between the memory-forming hippocampus and neocortex, which deals with
sensory perception. In 1953, Henry Gustav Molaison lost his ability to store new memories
after surgeon William Scoville removed a large part of the hippocampus in an effort to
treat his epilepsy. Recently a micrometre-scale examination of the part of his brain that
was surgically removed has confirmed that those parts are involved in memory. Findings
published in Nature Communications in January 2014 by Jacopo Annese and colleagues
at the University of California, San Diego, found residue of the posterior hippocampus that
had survived the operation. However, because it was disconnected from the entorhinal
cortex, both learning and memory had been affected.
illustration: chrisstockerdesign.co.uk

Synapses
Synapses send signals to dendritic spines, small membranous branches that protrude from the
dendrites at a neurone’s end. It is in these spines that memories are thought to be stored.
Simon Rumpel and Kaja Moczulska from the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna used
a technique called ‘in vivo two-photon imaging’ to look at the architecture of synapses -
structures that allow neurones to communicate and send electrical signals to one another.
They looked at how these synapses work during learning and memorising in mice and found
that the learning process created new synaptic connections.

30 June 2014
 neuroscience | Science

Cerebral cortex
Memories are stored in complex networks, primarily in the cerebral
cortex, the outermost layer of neurones in the brain. Long-term
memory can be divided into two major categories: declarative and
implicit memory. Declarative memory requires a conscious effort to
recall, while implicit memory such as procedural memory refers to
skills and routines.

Hippocampus
This seahorse-shaped part of the brain is crucial to both spatial
awareness and memory. We have one on each side of the brain.
“Long-term memories are likely formed by a variety of different
mechanisms depending on the type of memory,” says Dr Michael
Yassa of the University of California. “There is evidence supporting
the notion that long-term memories for facts and events are stored

Amygdala initially using the hippocampus, but eventually most memories

become stored as a distributed representation throughout
the brain. The process is likely some form of strengthening of
We have two walnut-shaped amygdalae - clusters of neurones communication among neurones.”
that deal with emotion and fear. In a 2013 study led by Haohong
Li and Mario Penzo and published in Nature Neuroscience, the
specific part of the central amygdalae that encodes fear memory
has been pinpointed – it’s called the lateral subdivision.
 Science | Parasites
UNinvited
GUESTS Microbiologist Dickson Despommier counts down the top 10 most
horrifying parasites that would love to take up residence in your body
B
eing the highly successful
animal that we are, we
humans have attracted an
exotic range of ‘hangers-on’. We
harbour hundreds of species of
viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans,
and arthropods. Viruses were the
first parasites, infecting bacteria,
and once multicellular life evolved,
more complex creatures followed in
their wake. Of the 100 million or so
science photo library
species on Earth, half of them might
be parasitic.
In an attempt to become better
acquainted with these unwelcome
guests, here are 10 horrifying critters
that you certainly wouldn’t want
setting up home inside you.
32 June 2014
10 BOTFLY
Dermatobia hominis
found along the resort
beaches of Central America,
botflies are large and
cumbersome. People usually
brush them off before they
can lay eggs on their skin, the
fly’s ultimate modus operandi.
So botflies use a second,
more inconspicuous host,
laying their eggs on the
abdomen of female mosquitoes
before releasing them. When
egg-carrying mosquitoes
Say hello to a botfly
larva – it can’t wait to
get under your skin
suck blood from unsuspecting
people, the botfly larvae
detect heat from the victim’s
flesh and hatch, falling on to
their skin. Larvae penetrate
into the tissue beneath the
skin, growing two inches in
length over several weeks
before crawling out. Nice!
They then fall onto the ground
and pupate. Days later
botflies emerge from the
pupae to start the cycle anew.
JA N UA RY 2013 / FOCUS / X X
 Science | Parasites
9 Giant roundworm
Ascaris lumbricoides
This pencil-sized roundworm
takes up residence in your small
intestine. Here it secretes a
chemical known as antitrypsin,
which interrupts your gut’s
digestive process so it can have
first ‘dibs’ on our meals. Females
produce 200,000 eggs a day for
three to five years that pass out in
the faeces and develop in soil.
Eggs live there for years waiting
to be accidentally eaten.
The giant roundworm infects two
8 Whipworm
Trichuris trichiura
science photo library x4, getty
This roundworm infects the large
intestine and it’s normally found in
the tropics. Like other roundworms,
its eggs lie dormant in the soil until
some unsuspecting child picks them
up. Usually it just causes diarrhoea,
but the strain can result in the
rectum losing muscular integrity,
exposing the raw surface covered
34 June 2014
X X / FOCUS / JA N UA RY 2013
Seen magnified 120 times
in this picture, the giant
roundworm can grow up
to 50cm in length
billion people worldwide, mostly
children. In small children a heavy
infection can cause stunting and
loss of intellect. Unfortunately, the
parasites only leave in cases of
extreme fever – eg malaria – upon
which they migrate, sometimes
out of the anus or the mouth. If
the liver, pancreas or gall bladder
is invaded, a roundworm infection
can be fatal. Otherwise they are
fairly straightforward to treat with
a drug known as mebendazole.
This unpleasant
animal can reach
50mm in length
with adult worms, a truly disgusting
and psychologically upsetting event.
It’s a terrible experience for the child,
but spare a thought for the new
pediatric doctor when the distraught
mother brings her screaming child
into the emergency clinic at 3am. If
spotted early though, treatment is
simple enough.
 7 CHAGAS DISEASE
Chagas disease
is caused by the
single-celled
organism
Trypanosoma cruzi
Trypanosoma cruzi
This single-celled attacker is
transmitted by the blood-sucking
‘kissing bug’ found in South and
Central America. The insect has the
nasty habit of defecating while it
eats, which gives Trypanosoma
cruzi the opportunity it needs to
enter its victim’s bloodstream and
cause ‘Chagas disease’. The
organism travels into the body and
invades nearby cells, causing a
local swelling to develop at the site
of infection known as ‘Romana’s
Sign’. In chronic cases, it travels to
the heart and nervous system or
the small and large intestine.
Destruction of nervous tissue
causes organs to fail, and they
enlarge. So-called megacolon,
megaesophagus and an enlarged
heart are the result of a long-term
infection, which is often fatal.

6 Guinea worm
Dracunculus medinensis

Guinea worm larvae – the longest
adult recorded was 78cm in length
Another roundworm rears its ugly
head. The guinea worm’s larvae
infect aquatic crustaceans such as
water fleas, usually found in stagnant
water. When an unsuspecting human
drinks this water, the body digests
the fleas that have been sheltering
the worm larvae. Once free, males
and females mate a few months
after infection. The males die and are
absorbed by the human body while
the females make their way towards
the legs and feet. Once there a worm
creates a blister into which it lays
eggs. The blister causes a painful
burning sensation that often drives
its host to water for relief. The
submerged blister bursts, starting
the cycle again. Treatment is often
done by wrapping the head of the
worm around a narrow stick and
turning it until the worm is removed.

Human immune cells (yellow) attack a W. bancrofti roundworm
5 ROUNDWORM
Wuchereria bancrofti
This roundworm takes up residence
in vessels that carry lymph – a clear
fluid that helps rid the body of waste
products. Adults live for 10 years,
producing ‘microfilariae’ that migrate
to the bloodstream, become ingested
by mosquitoes and transform to
infectious larvae. When an infected
mosquito feeds again, larvae are
deposited onto the victim, crawl into
the bite wound, migrate to lymphatic
vessels and grow to adulthood.
When adult worms die, inflammation
slows the flow of lymph, and when
they all die, the lymph vessel
becomes completely blocked.
Swelling ensues, legs enlarge, skin
dries out and becomes folded. The
disease is called ‘elephantiasis’ for
an obvious reason.
 F LY I NG S OL O

4 ESPUNDIA
Leishmania braziliensis

This single-celled parasite enters can become so heavily infected that

your bloodstream through the bite of
sandflies. After infection, it starts by
colonising immune cells that travel
through the body. These infected cells
travel to the mouth, rectum, and
urinary tract - where the parasite
replicates in new cells, causing
ulcers. Untreated, L. braziliensis can
be fatal. In unusual cases the mouth
the roof can erode away. This
condition is known as ‘Espundia’ and
is found only in remote rural areas
where medical personnel are rarely
available. Once diagnosed it can be
successfully treated and plastic
surgery can repair the oral cavity
back to near normal.

The grey form of the

single-celled organism
Leishmania braziliensis
is seen alongside red
haemoglobin

3 Pork Tapeworm
Taenia solium 2 Dog tapeworm
Echinococcus granulosus

Although it can reach 4m long,
the adult pork tapeworm is
relatively harmless, taking up
residence in the small intestine.
It’s typically acquired by eating
science photo library x2, bbc, getty
various tissues – such as the
heart, brain and even eyes
– developing into juveniles. Unfor-
tunately for us, the only way to be
rid of the beast is to pass it in
This is a small tapeworm that
infects dogs, but can find its way
into humans too. Sheep are the
usual source of infection,
harbouring the juvenile stage.
they exit with faeces. Sheep
ingest the eggs, acquiring cysts
that may grow to the size of
grapefruit. Sheep farmers can
also acquire the cyst by coming

infected raw or undercooked
pork. A juvenile is released from
its cyst in the tissue and attaches
to the wall of the small intestine,
where it grows into an adult
within three months. It’s the eggs
that can be a little more
dangerous. If the eggs are
consumed they can release tiny
larvae that migrate into the blood-
stream and lodge themselves in
faeces, having taken medication.
The fearsome-looking head of the
pork tapeworm
When infected sheep are into contact with them.
slaughtered, cysts in liver, If a cyst ruptures, the infection
containing juveniles, are often spreads to other
fed to dogs. Once inside the organs like the
canine host, the juveniles are brain and
released from the cysts and lungs, often
attach to the dog’s small resulting
intestine, becoming adults. in death.
Infected dogs can harbour
thousands of adult tapeworms.
When adult worms pass eggs,

36 June 2014

X X / FOCUS / JA N UA RY 2013
 F LY I NG S OL O
parasites | Science

1 Eye worm
Loa loa

Although this isn’t the most
dangerous parasite the human body
can harbour, this West African
parasite earns the top spot simply
because it has the spine-tingling
habit of crawling into its host’s eyes.
Most of the time roundworm lives
beneath the skin, wandering
throughout the body causing little
harm. Females produce larvae that
enter the bloodstream and are
ingested by deer flies feeding on
blood. The larvae develop to the
infectious stage in the wing muscles
of the fly, before migrating to the
mouth parts. When infected deer flies
bite, larvae crawl out onto the skin
and into the bite wound. Sometimes,
adult Loa loa crawl over the sclera of
the eye, making it clearly visible to
infected individuals who might be
looking in the mirror at that moment.
“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid” takes on
a whole new meaning! The worms
have to be surgically removed.
Dickson Despommier is a
microbiologist, ecologist, author,
and professor of Public Health in
Environmental Health Sciences You wouldn’t want to see Loa loa staring back at you when you look
at Columbia University. in the mirror

Behind the
scenes with Michael Mosley Michael Mosley and a
tapeworm (but not his
own – that’s still MIA)
The BBC TV presenter for his show Infested, tells us
what it was like to have a tapeworm inside him

Did you feel your beef tapeworm
(taenia saginata) moving at all?
No, that was what was so
odd. It wasn’t until I saw it for
the first time – I swallowed a
camera in a pill – that I had any
awareness that this was inside
me. Doctors told me I might
experience something, but what
was surprising about the whole
experience was how little you
notice it. It was sat there really
quite innocently, while I got on
with my life.
Did you give it a name?
A personal name? No. We toyed
with Terry the Tapeworm but it
seemed a little bit coy.
Do you still have it?
The honest truth is that I just
don’t know. I took a pill that kills
it in 98 per cent of cases. But
the producer was keen to take
it out and wave it around after
it came out the other end, so I
sifted through – well, at least
had a look at – my faeces, but
nothing was ever seen. All I can
do is wait and see if segments
start to crawl out. The doctor
seems convinced that it’s
probably gone, but there’s still
a lingering fear that at some
point I may detect segments. It’ll
be several weeks till I’m fully
convinced that I’m clear.
Did you lose any weight?
They say that if you’re well
nourished, as I am, it’s not
really going to have any real
side effects. It’s only dangerous
if you’re living in sub-Saharan
Africa on a marginal diet.
How large did it grow?
I think it got to about 10
feet long.
So why did you do it?
I was just curious. Parasites are
the most extraordinary, adaptive
creatures. I hadn’t really
understood just how interesting
they are until I made this series.
And when I made a show called
Medical Mavericks we looked
into all these fascinating doctors
who had infected themselves
with different diseases. So both
things together formed a long
road towards this point.
Any regrets?
No, I was delighted when I saw
it on the camera for the first
time. It would have been a
real pain to have gone
through all that and not seen
anything. My wife, on the
other hand, wasn’t terribly
keen on the whole idea. She
made me promise to get rid
of it before segments started
coming out.

JA N UA RY 2013 / FOCUS / X X
illustrator: magictorch

38 June 2014

38 / FOCUS / NOV EMBER 2013


Meet the machine that could carry
commuters faster than the speed of sound.
Stuart Nathan explores Elon Musk’s
Hyperloop, and the trains that will change
transport forever
the future of trains | Science
m
illions of people commute to work by
Tube, whether they call it the
Underground, the Subway or the
Metro. But if US technology entrepreneur
Elon Musk has his way, tube travel will take
on a whole new meaning.
Frustrated with the shortcomings and cost
of the planned Los Angeles to San Francisco
high-speed rail line, Musk has come up with a
combination of two high-tech science-
fiction staples of train travel: the vacuum
train and the magnetic levitation (maglev)
train. Called the Hyperloop, the system
would run pods through an elevated tube,
shooting passengers along the coast of
California like bullets in a gun barrel.
These vactrains work by propelling
carriages along an evacuated tube. The lack
of air resistance means that they can reach
terrific speed, theoretically exceeding the
speed of sound – no air means no sound
barrier. But vactrains have always been a
NOV EMBER 2013 / FOCUS / 39
 History| theAsoka
Science future of trains

Inside the San Francisco

San Jose

hyperloop
Fresno

Proposed
route
Bakersfield

How do you travel nearly 600km in under 40 minutes? Elon Musk’s

‘fifth mode of transport’ could be the answer
Los Angeles
160km

Forget boats, planes, trains and cars, Elon Musk – the pioneer behind Tesla and SpaceX
– wants to create a fifth mode of transport: a vacuum tube. His vision would get The proposed route of the
Hyperloop tube would carry it
commuters from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and vice versa, in 35 minutes, at a
along the Interstate 5 Highway
fraction of the cost of a high-speed railway. While Musk won’t be building the Hyperloop that connects San Francisco
himself he’s offered up these blueprints – along with full specifications and Los Angeles. Raised on
– to anyone bold enough to make it a reality. 6m-high pylons, the tube would
limit environmental damage
and reduce costs.

Any air left inside the vacuum

tube is sucked into the nose
at the front of the carriage and
pumped out through ‘skis’ to
create an air cushion between
the train and the tube.

While the train cars would be

sculpted out of dense aluminium,
the ‘skis’ upon which the carriages
float would be made of an alloy
called Inconel, which can handle
the high pressure and heat.

conceptual technology, thought too difficult
to actually turn into reality. Musk has
adapted the ideas to remove some of the
potential drawbacks while still keeping many
of the advantages.
It’s difficult to create a perfect vacuum, so
Hyperloop instead runs at a reduced
pressure, about a thousandth of an
atmosphere. The transport pods are
spacex
skis underneath, creating a hovercraft-like
air cushion to lift the pod clear of the floor
of the tube.
Power for forward motion comes from
linear electric motors. Because of the lack of
friction or air resistance in the tube, these
wouldn’t have to be continuous – one linear
strip every 100km or so would be sufficient
to accelerate the pods up to 1,220km/h
slide on skis made from Inconel, a nickel-
chromium alloy with extraordinary
temperature resistance. Even so, each pod
would have to carry 800kg of water for
cooling. Such speeds could see a Hyperloop
pod complete the 563km (350-mile) journey
between LA and San Francisco in about 35
minutes – about half the time it currently
takes to fly.

equipped with compressors in their noses to (696mph) – only a little short of the current All of this will require energy, of course,
suck the air out of the way and divert it to world land-speed record. The pods would but sunny California will provide all the

40 June 2014

Hyperloop pods will be
equipped with emergency
brakes. Other safety
precautions include making
sure carriages travel 8km (5
miles) apart and a seating
design which prevents
passengers hitting their heads
against the seat in front in an
emergency stop.
electricity the system needs – and more,
according to Musk – through high-
efficiency photovoltaic panels built into the
top of the tube. Musk claims that the panels
would generate 57MW of power, which is
three times as much as he claims the system
would consume.
The tube itself – or rather pair of tubes, as
they could only operate in one direction –
would ride above the landscape on 6m-tall
pylons placed every 30m or so along the
Passengers inside a Hyperloop
carriage would experience 0.5g
(G-force); you’d experience
1.5g going from 0-100km/h in
a Bugatti Veryon supercar.
route. In all, there would be at least 25,000
of them. Because of the somewhat unstable
nature of California, each pylon would be
equipped with an earthquake damper, and
the route would follow the existing I-5
interstate road, which would keep the
cost down.
Musk claims that the whole system would
cost about $7 billion (£4.4bn), set against
the projected $68 billion (£43bn) for the
California High Speed Rail project. Elon
Asoka History
Musk certainly has form and finances – he
co-founded PayPal. But despite launching
Tesla Cars, commercial space enterprise
SpaceX, and the photovoltaics company
Solar City, he wants somebody else to
develop it, although he might work on a
demonstration model himself. If it works,
it could change the face of medium-range
travel completely. If it doesn’t, it’ll be the
latest in a long line of vactrain concepts
consigned to the realms of science fiction.
 Science | the future of trains

off the rails

The Hyperloop isn’t the only radical locomotive
wdesign we can expect to see in future

Clip-Air EPFL has a prior track record for delivering

on outlandish ideas. It’s a major technology
airport. Once there, it attaches to a ‘flying-
wing’ aircraft, similar to the experimental
These designers took the term ‘blue-sky centre in Switzerland, whose facilities include Boeing X-48B. The aircraft can carry three
thinking’ a little too literally. The École a nuclear reactor, Tokamak nuclear fusion ‘carriages’ side by side, carrying passengers,
Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) has reactor, and research projects including cargo or a combination. According to research
designed a form of transport which, it says, the autonomous solar-powered aircraft leader Claudio Leonardi, it would be faster to
combines the flexibility of train travel with the Solar Impluse. board than a conventional aircraft and simpler
reach of planes. Clip-Air is a train carriage, The Clip-Air train carriage is an aircraft to maintain. His team hopes to undertake
which is designed to attach to a pair of wings fuselage, designed to travel by rail to an aerodynamics research with a 6m-long flying
with engines. model soon.

Taking a journey by
CLIP-AIR means you’d
board your flight
at the railway platform

The ECO4 pulls together a Eco4

range of technologies to
make it ultra-efficient Trains have always been seen
PHOTO: epfl, getty, labis trains, bombardier

as an environmentally friendly mode of

transport, but this design takes it a step further.
Train manufacturer Bombardier’s ECO4 is a
family of technologies. It uses an ultra-efficient
magnetic engine system that draws energy from
solar cells mounted to the roof. These rotate to
track the Sun and if it’s built will make it the
world’s first solar-powered train. The carriages
will be made of carbon fibre composites, making
it strong but lightweight. Since it’ll be a commuter
train system, the ECO4 will use a hybrid engine
to keep it running through our dark winter
months. As well as being energy efficient, the
ECO4 train is designed to insulate passengers
from engine noise.

42 June 2014

Chuo
Shinkansen
The land of the Bullet Train is
now aiming to go one step further
with a fully-fledged maglev
high-speed train. The Chuo
Shinkansen is planned to connect
Labis
The Lashley Advanced Bi-Rail
System (LABIS) is designed to be
the trans-American high-speed
train that doesn’t stop. Travelling
on elevated tracks, the trains are
The Chuo Shinkansen wows the
press with its lightning pace and
15m-long aerodynamic nose
the cities of Nagoya, Tokyo
and Osaka, and is based on
technology currently being
developed on a 42.8km
(26.5-mile) test track in
Yamanashi prefecture.
Existing maglev trains use
magnetic rails to lift trains
off the ground, where they’re
wide-bodied (six passengers
abreast plus tables and aisles),
which makes them stable, with
powered carriages. This, the
designers say, avoids the need to
over-engineer carriages to cope
with the stresses of being pulled
You won’t be waiting
for the LABIS train to
arrive – it never stops
Asoka History
held and pushed towards their
destinations. Since maglev
trains simply levitate, they
don’t lose any speed to ground
friction, allowing the carriages
to accelerate to speeds of up
to 321km/h (200mph). The
Chuo Shinkansen trains use a
similar premise but with much
more efficient ‘superconducting’
rails, as well as a radically
streamlined design. They’re
lighter than the predecessors too,
using lightweight aircraft-grade
aluminium alloys and composites,
with minimal glass to shed
further kilos. Test trains running
on this line have achieved speeds
of 500km/h (310mph), and the
service is due to open to the
public later this year. The entire
line will be an extension of this test
track, and is scheduled to cost a
total of ¥9 trillion (£44bn). The line
is due to be completed in 2045,
although Shinkansen services
between Tokyo and Nagoya will
begin in 2027.
along by one end.
The train itself keeps moving
at a speed of some 320km/h
(200mph) and doesn’t stop.
Passengers embark and
disembark via shuttle vehicles,
which stop at a station located on
a parallel track. These pick
up passengers, rejoin the
mainline, catch up with the main
train and dock onto the back.
This allows passengers to board
the main train and let
disembarking passengers get on.
When everyone who wants to
leave is on board, it undocks,
goes onto another parallel line
and stops at the next station. The
entire transcontinental journey
would take about 14 hours.
Stuart Nathan is features
editor of The Engineer
Magazine.
xxx
April 2013 43
Nature | Portfolio: Food Maps

portfolio
These food maps created by food stylist Caitlin Levin and
photographer Henry Hargreaves are inspired by a passion for travel.
The series has been imagined and created around the iconic foods
of countries and continents and turned them into physical maps.
The maps are a playful representation of their interpretation of food
from around the world.
Created by Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves Typography by Sarit Melmed Text by Moshita Prajapati

50 states of corn
 Native Americans had
been growing corn in
America 5000 years before
Columbus discovered the
country. Ranked first in the
world in corn production,
the United States of
America have 80,000,000
acres of land reserved just
for corn fields. The average
American spends $267 on
corn products alone in a
year and consumes
one-third of all corn
products in the world.

44 June 2014
Lined with Lime
Citrus fruits are produced all
over the world, and Brazil is
one of the largest producers of
these – particularly oranges.
Oranges are grown in the
coastal plains and in the
highlands but most extensively
in the states of Sao Paulo and
Rio de Janeiro; their
contribution accounts for
almost 80 per cent of the total
national production.
Nature | Portfolio: Food Maps

It’s shrimp season!

 Who doesn’t know the saying
“throw another shrimp on the
barbie” and not immediately
think of Australia? Australians
consumed half a billion shrimps
during the Christmas Day in
December of last year.

Would you care

for some noodles?
 In China, noodles go back
4000 years. The earliest
records of noodles being eaten
were during the Eastern Han
Dynasty and during the Song
Dynasty, they became the
staple diet. Noodles made
from wheat are popular in
Northern China while those
made from rice are eaten in
Southern China. The country
tops the global demand for
consuming the most quantity
of instant noodles – 44 million
packets of instant noodles
according to the World Instant
Noodles Association.
Tuh-may-toh, Tuh-mah-toh
The tomato is native to South and Central America and not Italy, as some mistakenly believe.
Called pomodoro (golden apple) in Italian, the tomato was initially considered poisonous
and used only as an ornamental decoration in gardens of Italy. It was the Spaniards who
taught Italians peasants to fry tomatoes with other vegetablest. In Italy today, approximately
80,000 hectares are given over to tomato cultivation, to annually produce 6 million metric
tons, thereby making it the third largest producer of tomatoes in the world.

June 2014 47
Nature | Portfolio: Food Maps

Spice Routes
India is home to a variety of spices,
many of which are native to the country
while others were imported and
cultivated over generations. Different
climates and soil compositions in
different states have led India to
become the largest producer (2.48
million tonnes) and exporter of spices
(0.20 million tonnes). The spices from
India make their way into the kitchens
of over 134 countries.

48 June 2014
 Pain et fromage
(Bread and Cheese)
 Who goes to France and not have
bread and cheese? There are about
350 to 400 distinct types of cheeses
unique to France. Made from both
cow and goat’s milk, each French
region has its own cheeses. And
what goes best with cheese? There
are nine different kinds of French
breads, including the iconic baguette.

It's Bananas!
 Bananas and plantains are the
staple food of nearly 70 million people
in Africa. In the East African
highlands, a person may consume
upto a kilogram of bananas in a day!
Of the numerous edible varieties, the
East African Highland Banana (EAHB)
accounts for 17 per cent of the types
of Musa grown worldwide and
plantain accounts for another 19 per
cent. 120 EAHB varieties are endemic
just to the country of Uganda.

The photographer
Henry Hargreaves is a Brooklyn-based still-life
photographer. He uses food as a medium in
his photo series, including: Burning Calories,
Food of the Rainbow, Mark Rice-Ko, Jello-O
Presidents and more.

find out more

Ewww.henryhargreaves.com
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History | archaeology

MONUMENT
Riddles of the ancient
world’s most iconic
buildings are now being

MYSTERIES
solved using 3D laser
scanning technology, as
engineer Steve Burrows
told Helen Cahill

h
ow can we learn more about history’s
Dallas Campbell (left)
greatest buildings and the methods used and Steve Burrows
to construct them? That’s where 3D laser examine a computer
recreation of the
scanning comes in, capturing the ruins and Colosseum
recreating virtual replicas. Structural engineer
Steve Burrows, who worked on Beijing’s ‘Bird’s
Nest’ Olympic stadium, and presenter Dallas
Campbell visited ancient sites for the National
Geographic documentary Time Scanners. From
Egypt’s pyramids to Rome’s Colosseum, Steve
Burrows gives us the latest insights.

The Great Pyramid

is scanned
with the laser
technology

Steve Burrows at the Machu Picchu

magnificent Petra reveals its secrets

The Pyramids, Egypt

Before the Great Pyramid, the Egyptians
hadn’t cut the stones accurately enough to
make the joints really tight.
Petra, Jordan
They had problems with ‘freeze thaw’. This
is when moisture gets into the joints, and
if the weather is cold enough, the water
freezes, solidifies and expands – pushing
the joint apart. That cycle of joints being
opened and closed effectively makes
buildings fall apart. The Egyptians knew
that if they could construct joints so tight
that water couldn’t get in, the building
would last a long time. They did this in
the Great Pyramid. In addition, they used
stone like granite; a material so hard it
wouldn’t act like a sponge. So, the stone
would shed the water and the building would
last longer.

52 June 2014
The Colosseum, Italy
When we put the Colosseum back to its
original grandeur using laser-scanning
technology, the thing that stood out was that
the staircases were narrower at the top and
bigger at the bottom. It was wider at the exit,
The scale of Petra is immense – 10,000 people
lived there, in the desert. It only rains for a short period
of time, and they had to hold the water from these brief
interludes of rainfall for the rest of the year. So they
had to have pools – huge bodies of water in the desert.
These incredible buildings, carved out of sandstone,
have lasted 2000 years. We figured out how they built
it through the laser scanning. They put giant steps
into the mountain, so they could see the quality of
the rock, and so that there was no need for people to
be hanging by ropes and dangling dangerously off the
mountain. They wanted to make sure the masons were
safe, because these people were highly skilled, and
there weren’t many of them.
so that 60,000 people could get out without
there being a stampede. They wanted people to
be able to enter and leave safely. People could
also enter at different levels. Once inside the
Colosseum, you were separated by your ticket
Machu Picchu, Peru
price - by your position in society. Some people
had to get to the very top, some to the bottom.
You went up different staircases and entered
through different routes – exactly how we do in
modern stadiums.
It’s hard to breathe at Machu Picchu because the
air is so thin. Imagine moving huge pieces of stone.
They cut rock off the top of the mountain and moved
it the shortest possible distance because it was an
incredibly difficult place to work. They also captured
a stream and ran it down a series of fountains so
that 1000 people could live there. We knew that
toilets must be lower down the mountain than the
water supply. They captured their waste in what were
effectively bedpans, took them to a building and then
somebody walked down a spiral staircase and put
them in a cave. When they’d finished with water for
washing, they allowed it to run down through the
caves to wash away the waste.
 history | The life of William Shakespeare

Is this what
genius
looks like?
Did Shakespeare grow tired of his wife? Why was he so
wealthy? And which portraits of him can we trust? On the
450th anniversary of the writer’s birth, Paul Edmondson asks
some of the most pressing questions about his life

It makes up the vast majority of

the matter in the Universe, but we
have no idea what it is. Now, as
Marcus Chown reveals, a hidden
realm of dark matter could exist
right under our noses
The Cobbe portrait, which dates
getty images/alamy
hdwallpapers.in

from c 1610. This image’s

“provenance and claim to be
painted from life make a
compelling case” for it being an
accurate likeness of William
Shakespeare, says
Paul Edmondson
 ha
kespear
How do we
1

e
S
know when

The

ns
he was born?
Bi
g Q e s ti

o
u

It seems that England’s greatest poet first appeared on

the world’s stage on the feast day of England’s patron
saint: St George’s Day, Sunday 23 April 1564.
The parish register of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-
upon-Avon records Shakespeare’s baptism on 26 April.
According to the Book of Common Prayer, babies had to
be baptised either on the next saint’s day after their birth
or on the following Sunday. In baby Shakespeare’s case,
the next saint’s day was St Mark’s Day, the stolen patron
saint of Venice, just two days after his birth. However,
Elizabethan folk superstition considered this day to be
unlucky, so Shakespeare was baptised after morning or
evening prayer on the following day.
For corroborative evidence that Shakespeare was
born on 23 April we can look to his monument on the
north chancel wall of Holy Trinity Church. This tells us
that he died on 23 April 1616, aged 53 – that is at the
beginning of his 53rd year. Hence the assumption that
he was born and died on the same date.
Shakespeare’s baptismal entry tells us that he is
“Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakespeare”: William, the
son of John Shakespeare. Only one person of that name
lived in the town.
The master bedroom of the house now presented as
Shakespeare’s Birthplace was upstairs, overlooking the
street – the same room that people have been visiting in
homage to Shakespeare since the 18th century.
On John’s death in 1601, William inherited the
whole of his estate (John had left no will). William
allowed his sister, Joan Hart, and her family to live in
part of the building (as her descendants did until 1806)
and leased another part to become a pub, the Swan
and Maidenhead.
The house today is a Victorian renovation of the site
and buildings purchased by public subscription in 1847.
The Birthplace and four other houses associated with
Shakespeare’s life are cared for and conserved by the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

William Shakespeare was born on

the site of this Stratford-upon-Avon
building on St George’s Day, 1564

June 2014 55
 history | The life of William Shakespeare
Where did young
kespear
ha
2
e what Anne
S
Shakespeare learn
The
ns
to read and write?
Bi
g Q e s ti
o
u artist’s
From the ages of 8 to 15,
William Shakespeare would have
found himself at Stratford-upon-
Avon’s grammar school, which
had been established under
Edward VI to offer a free
education to all of the
town’s boys.
Founded in 1553 and based
on Humanist ideals, Tudor
grammar schools were a key
element of the government’s
stated aim of ensuring that
“good literature and discipline
might be diffused and propa-
gated throughout all parts of our
kingdom, as wherein the best
government and administration
of affairs consists”.
These were establishments
that took education very
seriously indeed. Shakespeare
topfoto, the shakespeare birthplace trust/national portrait gallery/ALAMY
would have gone to school six
days a week throughout the year,
starting at 6am in the summer
and 7am in winter, and staying
until dusk (though there were
half days on Thursdays and
Saturdays). The major Christian
festivals provided the few
annual holidays.
There was little respite, even in
the playground, where the boys
were expected to talk to each
other in Latin.
The emphasis of the whole
educational enterprise, in light of
the teachings of the 16th-Centu-
ry Dutch scholar Desiderius
Erasmus (1469–1536), was on
the development of eloquence
in speech and writing. A key
textbook was William Lily’s Short
Introduction of Grammar (1540),
through which Shakespeare
became familiar with a vast
range of rhetorical devices.
The curriculum was highly
“There was little respite, even
in the playground, where the boys
were expected to talk to each other
in Latin”
56 June 2014
demanding. The pupils studied
Terence, Virgil, Tully, Sallust,
Palingenius, Mantuanus, Cicero,
Susenbrotus, Erasmus, Quintil-
ian, Horace, Juvenal and Ovid in
their original Latin. The latter’s
Metamorphoses seems to have
been Shakespeare’s favourite
book from his school days, and
he alluded to it many times in
his work. The only writing in
Greek to feature on the syllabus
was the New Testament.
Shakespeare’s grammar-
school education is writ large
across the whole body of
his work. Above all, it taught
him eloquence. As an education
it was rigorous but limited
and it did not, for example,
include numeracy.
Shakespeare the
schoolboy would
have done his
studies using a
hornbook like this
We don’t know
Shakespeare
looked like, but
here is an
18th-century
impression
Was he trapped
kespear
ha
3
e
S
in a loveless
The
ns
marriage?
Bi
g Q e s ti
o
u
Questions about Shakespeare’s marriage and
sexuality have divided generations of scholars and
critics, and continue to do so.
When he was just 18, William married Anne or Agnes
Hathaway (those first names were interchangeable). She
was 26 and already pregnant. It has been estimated that
around a quarter of late 16th-century women were
pregnant before marriage.
Another illuminating statistic has been deduced by
local historian Jeanne Jones from records curated by
the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Between 1570 and
1630 the average age for men to marry in Stratford-
upon-Avon was 24. In that 60-year period, and out of
106 cases, there were only three men who married under
the age of 20. Of those three, Shakespeare was the
youngest and the only one whose wife was already
pregnant. They had three children: Susanna (born 1582)
and then boy-and-girl twins Hamnet and Judith (born
1585; Hamnet died in 1596).
But were William and Anne happily married? Katherine
Duncan-Jones thinks not. In her Ungentle Shakespeare:
Scenes from His Life (2001), she presents a Shakespeare
who is trapped in his marriage. In Shakespeare’s Wife
(2007), Germaine Greer describes the Shakespeares’
relationship as “a demanding and difficult way of life”.
Certainly Shakespeare spent long periods of time in
London, but that does not mean that he never saw his
wife and children. Townsmen frequently travelled
between Stratford-upon-Avon and London. The
commute took three days by horseback.
Some commentators have pounced upon Shake-
speare’s decision to leave Anne his “second best bed
with the furniture” to question the state of his marriage.
True, this bequest could have been a put-down. But it
could also have been a romantic souvenir, or even,
perhaps, a codified permit for Anne to remain resident
in the family home, New Place.
Most of the speculation on Shakespeare’s sexuality
has been based on his works – for example, the
same-sex relationships in his plays. Evidence from
his life reveals little. In fact, the only surviving contempo-
rary anecdote of Shakespeare’s personal life is to be
found in the diary of John Manningham, a trainee lawyer
at Middle Temple. The diary relates how Shakespeare
arranged to meet a woman with his fellow actor
Richard Burbage, yet got there early to have sex with her
before Burbage arrived: “Shakespeare caused return to
be made that William the Conqueror was before Richard
the Third.”
 kespear
ha
4 Of the numerous portraits of Shakespeare,
e
S
which is the most accurate?
The
ns
Bi
g Q e s ti
o
Two images are widely accepted as being
accurate depictions of Shakespeare, both
of them posthumous: the engraving (below,
right) by the artist Martin Droeshout on the
title-page of Master William Shakespeare’s
Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies of 1623,
and the memorial bust (below, left) in Holy
Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. This
was installed some time between 1616,
when Shakespeare died, and 1623, when
it is first mentioned in Leonard Digges’s
commendatory verse in a collected edition
of Shakespeare’s work.
It is possible that both the engraving and
the bust were approved by Shakespeare’s
widow, family, and friends. The playwright
Ben Jonson, in his verse printed opposite
the engraving, describes it as a good
likeness. The bust was made by Gerard
Janssen who, in 1614, had also carved the
Stratford-upon-Avon tomb effigy for
Shakespeare’s friend John Coombe.
Janssen’s workshop was in Southwark,
near the Globe, so he too probably knew
what Shakespeare looked like.
Two portraits of Shakespeare have good
provenance and may have been painted
from life. One is the Chandos portrait
“It has been suggested that the Chandos
portrait was painted by John Taylor, and was
bequeathed to William Davenant, who liked
to say he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate son”
BBC History Magazine
(below, centre); the other is the Cobbe
portrait (p54), which won the support of the
world’s leading Shakespeare scholar,
Stanley Wells, in 2009.
It has been suggested that the Chandos
portrait was painted by John Taylor (an
actor from Shakespeare’s period), and was
bequeathed to William Davenant, who liked
to say he was Shakespeare’s illegitimate
son. From here it eventually came into the
possession of the Duke of Chandos.
The Cobbe portrait passed through the
descendants of Shakespeare’s only known
literary patron, Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd
Earl of Southampton. It spawned a succes-
sion of near-contemporary copies, the
majority of which independently identify the
sitter as Shakespeare.
The Cobbe portrait has compositional
similarities to the Droeshout engraving and
may have been its source, possibly through
one of the early copies. X-ray analysis has
shown that the earliest of these copies is
the one now in the possession of the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
The Folger Shakespeare Library in
Washington DC has another early copy but
does not accept that the sitter is Shake-
speare. Shakespeare scholar Katherine
Duncan-Jones is among those who have
suggested that the portrait represents
Sir Thomas Overbury, based on a
perceived visual resemblance. Yet none
of the many versions and copies of
the Cobbe portrait has ever carried
an Overbury identification.
What’s more, research at Cambridge
University has established that the Cobbe
portrait and the undoubted Overbury
portrait are unrelated and unlikely to depict
the same sitter.
Of all the portraits that might represent
Shakespeare, the Cobbe portrait is the
most intimate and its provenance and
claim to be painted from life make a
compelling case.
Left to right: Shakespeare’s memorial bust in
Stratford-upon-Avon’s Holy Trinity Church; the
Chandos portrait may have been painted from life,
perhaps by the actor John Taylor; Martin Droeshout’s
engraving of Shakespeare, which Ben Jonson
described as a good likeness
57
 history | The life of William Shakespeare

ha
kespear
How did a
5
e
S

humble writer
The

ns

grow so rich?
Bi
g Q e s ti
o

Shakespeare’s will includes numerous bequests

that show that he died a wealthy man. But he cannot
have owed his riches simply to his plays. A theatre
company would pay a freelance writer a few pounds for
a new play, but that wasn’t enough to support and
sustain a wife and family.
A writer could boost his income by acting as well –
and Shakespeare, Ben Jonson (early in his career) and
a handful of others appear to have done just that. Yet, all
the same, none of the other playwrights of the period
were able to invest in the way Shakespeare did.
Shakespeare was wealthy because he was, from
1594, a shareholder in the theatre company, the Lord
bridgeman/pat hughes, the shakespeare birthplace trust, Alamy/getty images

Chamberlain’s Men, in which he was also the leading

dramatist. Their patron was the lord chamberlain and
they performed at court as well as at the Inns of Court,
for which they were paid handsomely.
Shakespeare was rich enough to buy a house in 1597,
which it has been estimated probably cost him around
£120. In 1599, he invested in a tripartite lease on the new
Globe Theatre. This meant he would receive a share of
the box-office takings which, partly because of the
popularity of his plays, were high.
He carried on investing heavily in Stratford-upon-
Avon. He bought a massive 107 acres of land for
£320 in 1602. Only three years later, he spent £440
on a 50 per cent share in the annual tithes payable to
the church. This brought him back around £60 a year.
In 1613 he bought a gatehouse at Blackfriars for £140.
A story from William Davenant first published in
Nicholas Rowe’s biographical account of 1709 suggests
that Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, gave
Shakespeare £1,000 “to enable him to go through with
a purchase, which he heard he had a mind to”. We’ll
probably never know whether he did or not, but it would
explain how Shakespeare could afford the shares in the
Lord Chamberlain’s Men and how he was able to buy his
grand residence, New Place. And all this at a time when
a local schoolmaster’s salary was £20 a year.

ha
kespear
Did he agonise
7
“Shakespeare’s will includes
e
S

numerous bequests that show over his plays

The

ns

that he died a wealthy man. or dash them off?

Bi
g Q e s ti
o

But he cannot have

owed his riches Defining the way in which Shakespeare went about his work is
no easy task because canons of literary work develop over time,
as do an author’s mode of writing. What complicates matters is
simply to the fact that much of Shakespeare’s writings were published after
his death. The Sonnets, a few occasional poems and about half of
his plays” his plays first appeared during his lifetime. The rest (with the
exception of Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen) appeared for
A c1600 portrait of Shakespeare’s the first time in a collected edition of his work in 1623.
benefactor Henry Wriothesley, 3rd In 1986, The Oxford Shakespeare: The Complete Works
Earl of Southampton attempted to cast some light on the issue by putting forward two

58 June 2014
 An artist’s impression of Shake-
speare’s family home, which was
the largest house in the centre of
Stratford-upon-Avon

The site that was occupied by Shakespeare’s New Place until 1759

ha
kespear
Where did
6

e
S
Shakespeare

The

ns
call home?
Bi
g Q e s ti

o
u

When he was first married, Stratford-upon-Avon. The

Shakespeare would have had
little choice but to live in the
family home on Henley Street,
Stratford-upon-Avon.
He saved money by lodging
in London at various places
including (in order of residence):
the parishes of St Giles Cripple-
gate; St Helen’s Bishopgate
(where he was fined for default-
ing on his taxes in 1597 and
1598); St Saviour’s near the
Clink, Southwark; and with the
Mountjoy family on the corner of
Monkswell and Silver Streets,
again in the Cripplegate ward.
Shakespeare’s family home
from 1597 was New Place, the
largest house in the centre of
theatres were closed during Lent
and Advent, which would have
given him plenty of time to
spend at home with his family
and to get some writing done
in relative peace and quiet.
Between 2010 and 2013, the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
commissioned an archaeologi-
cal dig of the site (New Place
was demolished in 1759),
which confirmed it to be a
grand manor house, designed
for someone of considerable
means and social status.
Shakespeare was a commuter
who lodged in London and
whose grandest living space
was in Stratford-upon-Avon.

“A dig confirmed New Place to have been

a grand manor house designed for someone
of no little means and social status”
of the most radical theories to emerge in the past 30 years. The first was that Shakespeare
regularly revised what he wrote because of practical theatrical considerations. The second
suggested that he collaborated on several plays, most significantly at the beginning and end
of his career.
Collaboration was absolutely a standard practice among playwrights of Shakespeare’s time.
In 2013 Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen published William Shakespeare and Others:
Collaborative Plays, a collection of little-known works in which Shakespeare may or may not
have had a hand. There are also some apparently lost plays including Love’s Labour’s Won
and Cardenio.
Collaboration alone should be enough to put paid to any theory that suggests the plays
were the handiwork of a lone aristocrat or an alternative single author operating undercover.
The way in which the plays are written shows that Shakespeare had a profound knowledge of
theatrical practice and knew the actors for whom he was writing.
He didn’t dash off his plays, as the film Shakespeare in Love might like us to believe.
A catalogue page
Paul Edmondson is head of research and from a 1623 listing of
knowledge, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. all the plays of
shakespeare.org.uk William Shakespeare
illustrator: andy potts Science | climate change

60 April 2014
FORECAST
THE PAST
FROM
Could rising C02 levels see Earth returned to the
kind of climate not seen since the prehistoric era?
Katharine Sanderson heads back in time
S
unday 13 May 2013 was just an
ordinary working day for the air-
sampling instruments of the Mauna Loa
observatory, sitting on the slopes of a
volcano in Hawaii. Those instruments have
been keeping an eye on the air for decades,
and nothing was different on that Sunday.
But it was a significant day for humankind.
For the first time, the instruments recorded
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere of
400 parts per million.
Humans are responsible. We got to this
point after a few short centuries of burning
fossil fuels, and in doing so could be
plunging our climate back into prehistory,
returning the Earth to conditions it was last
familiar with millions of years ago. The
figure of 400ppm isn’t particularly significant
in itself, but the number is symbolic,
highlighting just how far levels of the
greenhouse gas have risen since humans got
busy with fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide levels in the pre-industrial
era (that is, up to the late 18th Century)
stayed steady at around 280ppm. Up until
then, for the past million years levels had
gently oscillated between 180 and 280 as the
Earth steadily cooled and warmed in cycles.
By 1953, when a postdoctoral researcher at
Caltech called Charles Keeling started
making measurements of the atmospheric
concentration of carbon dioxide across
the US, that number had reached 310ppm.
Now, 60 years on, the numbers are going up
and up. “It is obvious levels will keep on
climbing rapidly until, or if, serious action is
taken,” says Paul Pearson, a climate scientist
at Cardiff University. “We could be
approaching 1000ppm by the end of
the century.”
In an attempt to figure out how the planet
will react to 400ppm carbon dioxide, climate
scientists need to explore the distant past.
There isn’t yet agreement on exactly when
levels of CO2 were last this high, but one
contender is the Pliocene: between 2.5 and
5.5 million years ago. Bang in the middle of
the Pliocene, around 3.5 million years ago,
CO2 levels could have reached 400ppm.
By unpicking what the Pliocene Earth was
like, we might get a glimpse of what the
future holds for humankind if we keep on
belching out carbon dioxide.
Warmer wilds
Back then our world was very different. It
was much warmer; temperatures were on
June 2014 61
 Science | climate change
550-1,000
is the estimated CO2 levels in ppm by
2100. Levels of 1000ppm have not been
seen since the Palaeocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum, 56 million years ago.
SOURCE: Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change
170,000
years: the length of time that the Earth
experienced global warming during
the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum after this huge outpouring
of carbon dioxide.
SOURCE: Department of Global Ecology,
Carnegie Institution for Science
70
per cent is the immediate cuts in carbon
dioxide emissions needed to keep the
amount of the gas in our atmosphere
stable at current levels.
SOURCE: realclimate.org
2
metres is the sea-level rise per
degree rise in temperature that is now
inevitable over the next 2000 years. The
prediction for 2100, if emissions remain
the same as today, is a temperature rise
of 4° or 5°.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences of the USA
average 3° higher. In places, especially the
Arctic regions, the temperature could have
been almost 10° higher. Sea levels were at least
15m higher. Dappled sunlight was peaking
through the treetops of forests that thrived on
what is now the frozen Arctic tundra.
Richard Norris, a geoscientist at Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla,
California says that this warmer world would
see more rainfall at mid-latitudes, more
monsoons and fewer deserts in Africa. “The
world was somewhat familiar, but the way
rainfall and climate worked was not the same
as now,” Norris says.
But how do we know that carbon dioxide is
implicated in this different climate and
weather? We have a pretty detailed knowledge
of carbon dioxide levels going back almost 1
million years, thanks to tiny bubbles of air
trapped in ice-cores drilled from Antarctic ice,
some 3.6km (2.2 miles) deep. But to find out
how much carbon dioxide was around during
the Pliocene and beyond takes a different
approach – second-hand information known as
proxy data.
Fossilised leaves give us some clues. Leaves
have tiny holes called stomata that let carbon
dioxide in (so they can photosynthesise) and let
water out. Being adaptable as plants are, the
leaves can alter the number and size of stomata
to cope with different atmospheric conditions.
By measuring the size and density of stomata in
fossilised leaves, scientists can work out how
much carbon dioxide that tree was dealing
with when it was alive, helped by comparing
with leaves grown in controlled conditions
in greenhouses.
The oceans provide other clues. Chemical
processes in the ocean are recorded in tiny
fossils and shells that sit in the sediment on the
sea floor. Like an ice core, a sediment sample
can tell us what pollens were around when the
sediment was laid down – which in turn offers
clues to the temperature at that time.
Put all this proxy data together, and
the warm, wet Pliocene atmosphere is revealed
to have been one with lots of carbon dioxide
– at least in the high 300ppm region, and
possibly over 400ppm at times. One reason for
this high number could be that there was more
volcanic activity, so more carbon dioxide
being emitted. Concurrently, there was
possibly less weathering – the natural processes
that remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
Another theory is that changes in ocean
circulation were responsible for releasing
more CO2.
Even if we did know, working out what it
Geoscientist Richard Norris holds the cast of a skull
of a walrus from the Pliocene epoch, which was host
to a menagerie of exotic animals now extinct
was like in the Pliocene won’t help predict
what humans are facing in the next 100 years.
If Earth suddenly became Pliocene-like, the
sea-level rise alone would wipe out many
major cities, all perched precariously on the
continents’ coastlines. But that kind of sudden
change isn’t likely – Earth’s processes move
on a slower timescale.
Back to the future
Some climate researchers think other epochs
might better mimic a time when the Earth’s
carbon dioxide levels reached 400ppm.
Pearson thinks that the last time the Earth
experienced 400ppm carbon dioxide was the
Oligocene, around 25 million years ago.
But all this could be immaterial. Soon we
will surpass 400ppm. As levels rise, we need
to look yet further back in time to see what
we’re in for. There are hints in the carbon
dioxide record that some 56 million years
ago, a time called the Palaeocene-Eocene
Thermal Maximum, large and sudden spikes
in carbon dioxide were seen, accodring to
Norris. “Although ‘sudden’ means thousands
or tens of thousands of years, this period
might have a closer relationship to the likely
future than the Pliocene or Oligocene,”
Norris says.
The worry isn’t that humanity can’t survive
in Pliocene-like conditions. The problem is
surviving the violent changes that our planet
is being forced to make before it can settle
into a new regime. Pearson thinks we’ve
already gone much too far. “We must get
CO2 down below 350ppm as soon as we
can,” he says, “and that means leaving most of
the remaining fossil fuels in the ground.”
Katharine Sanderson is a science journalist
and former features editor for Chemistry
World magazine.

Commercial and
residential buildings
8%
TRANSPORTATION
13%
AGRICULTURE
14%
LAND USE
AND FORESTRY
17%
Energy supply - The burning of coal,
natural gas, and oil for electricity and
heat is the largest single source of
global greenhouse gas emissions.
Industry - Emissions from industry
primarily involve fossil fuels burned
on-site at facilities for energy. This
sector also includes emissions from
chemical, metallurgical, and mineral
transformation processes not
WASTE WATER
3%
The big
sources
of CO 2
associated with energy consumption.
Land use and forestry - Greenhouse
gas emissions from this sector
primarily include carbon dioxide
emissions from deforestation, land
clearing for agriculture, and fires or
decay of peat soils. However,
estimates indicate that on a global
scale, ecosystems on land remove
about twice as much CO2 as is
released by deforestation.
Agriculture Emissions - from agriculture from this sector arise from on-site
mostly come from the management
of agricultural soils, livestock, rice
production, and biomass burning.
Transport - Almost all (95%) of the
world’s transportation energy comes
from petroleum-based fossil fuels,
largely gasoline and diesel.
ENERGY
SUPPLY
26%
science photo library, Scripps Institution of Oceanography x2
INDUSTRY
19%
Commercial and residential
buildings - Greenhouse gas emissions
energy generation and burning fuels
for heat in buildings or cooking in
homes.
Waste and wastewater - Landfill
methane forms the largest source of
emissions in this sector, followed by
wastewater methane and nitrous oxide.
June 2014 63
 History | Archaeology

NOAH’S ARK
The Bible’s ark has fascinated archaeologists
for centuries and now a new discovery
purports to explain the story. Jason Goodyer
spoke to the British Museum’s Irving Finkel
about his remarkable find
Hodder & Stoughton x2

Irving Finkel inspects the

ancient descriptions of an ark
The true story
E
ven those who didn’t make it to Sunday school
know what Noah’s Ark looked like. And now a
new Hollywood take, Noah, is compounding the
myth. It was a long, pointy wooden ship with a large
house built on the top, right? Well, no. At least if the
British Museum’s Middle East expert Irving Finkel is
correct in his new book The Ark Before Noah. After
painstakingly translating an ancient version of the great
flood story found on a clay cuneiform tablet, Finkel
discovered a set of instructions on how to build the
ark. This was a spectacular find in itself, but the story
gets even more intriguing: the craft described is round.

People know the flood story of Noah and

the animals, but this tablet predates the
Bible, doesn’t it?
We’ve known that the Babylonians also had a
version of the flood story since a curator here at the
British Museum found it inscribed on another clay
tablet in 1872. At the time it caused a great furore
among theologians, Christians and Jews who knew
their Bible. One of the most disturbing things for
them was that the parallels between this 1872
discovery and the Hebrew text of the Bible were so
close that it was difficult not to believe that the two
narratives were connected in a literary sense. In the
time since 1872, a sprinkling of other clay tablets of
different periods have come to light, some big
pieces, some only fragments. It culminated in this
new one, which was written in about 1750 BC,
making it one of the oldest known.

Other than its age, what’s so special about

this particular tablet?
The central point of this tablet is the realisation that
the boat the Babylonians conceived of was a round
coracle. I don’t think anybody would have expected The 1750 BC Babylonian tablet with a
cuneiform description of an ark

June 2014 65
History | Archaeology
“What is peculiar is that
the tablet gives the
quantities of rope, the
amount of bitumen, and
how it was built”
that because if you read your Bible you will
see that Noah’s Ark was a sort of oblong
wooden thing. So you have this very
different, deeply established conception
floating about in people’s minds and so
this boat comes across as a shock. It was
a bewildering thing for a decipherer
because, if you read the words on the
tablet, you think: ‘what the hell is this?’
Were coracles common during
the time the tablet was written?
In ancient times, and in fact right up to the
middle of the 19th Century AD, coracles
were used in Iraq in huge numbers, and
there are photographs from the 1920s
where you can see a whole cluster of
them by the side of the river. They
functioned a bit like taxis. So if you wanted
to cross the river, with a couple of sheep
and your two daughters, you’d hire a
coracle and the guy would get you across
to the other side. And the thing about the
coracle is that it is light, buoyant, and
thoroughly waterproof – to all intents and
purposes it is unsinkable. Those are the
qualities that Noah’s Ark required. It
A coracle being built in Iraq in the
1920s; they were used to taxi people
and goods across rivers
needed to be buoyant, but didn’t have to
go anywhere – as opposed to a boat with
a bow and a stern, which could go on a
specific voyage. All it had to do was bob
around like a cork on the surface, until
eventually the water went down. But what
is peculiar and even more unexpected is
that the tablet gives all the measurements,
the quantities of the rope, the amount of
bitumen, and how it was built. Also, the
measurements that are quoted – which are
very large indeed – are accurate.
A tablet
inscribed with
the story of the
flood and ark
from the 7th
Century BC
So is this tablet instructions for
a reader, or is it a description of
something that actually happened?
Well, that is an extremely pertinent
question. It is not obvious. As I see it, the
flood story has its inception in reality in as
much as the landscape of Iraq is fed by
the great rivers and has always been
vulnerable to flooding. There’s lots of
historical evidence for floods. I think the
basic position is that the landscape of Iraq,
or Mesopotamia, was subjected to a kind
of tsunami a very long time ago in its
remote past. Perhaps the bulk of the
villages were swept away, down to the
gulf, and knowledge of this was a deep-
seated factor in their psychology.
The story itself went through
mythological development. I think that the
presence of what you might call the
technical information, which looks as if it
was a prescription for someone to go
home and build one, was not that at all. As
far as I understand it, the narrative of the
floods – the anger of the gods, that last-
minute rescue, the flood itself and the final
revivification of the world – must have
been in the purview of itinerant storytellers
for a very long time. It’s a classic, major
strain of their mythology. We can tell from
cuneiform literature that these stories
circulated in that way before writing.
So why is the information
so detailed?
My idea is that you have this narrative, with
the divine intervention and the boat, being
a central part of a very gripping story
which is told to audiences who were
primarily boatmen, fisherman and coracle
builders. You might have a marvellous
storyteller who could hypnotise a village
with all of this ‘Bruce Willis’ drama, and
then acts the part of the god with a
thunderous voice and says: ‘You will build
this boat’. If he just said to these people
‘build the biggest boat you ever saw’, his
listeners are going to say ‘Well, what does
it look like?’ Once you had this question of
‘what does it look like?’ and ‘how big was
it?’, it became a kind of itch for the
storyteller and the audience.
I have the feeling there was a curiosity
engendered about this. And it was
probably solved in the following way: there
could have been a schoolmaster who had
half a dozen boys who were literate in the
kind of calculations that professional
scribes had to do, like how many bricks in
a wall and so forth. At one point the
schoolmaster said ‘Everybody knows the
ark is a round coracle, and let’s say its
surface area is 3,600m2 and its walls are
6m high. How much rope do you need, if
the rope is an inch thick?’ This is exactly
the sort of thing that we find on
mathematical tablets; the sort of thing that
scribes had to work out. The exact amount
of rope needed was specified. In profile, a
coracle is a bit like a doughnut, and if you
have a plan of a doughnut with the height
of the walls and the rope’s thickness, you
can work out how much rope you need.
What is interesting is that in the version
on the tablet found in 1872, which is much
longer, the actual details about the
components needed to build the ark are
boiled down to a minimum. But I can’t help
but think that there was also a time during
a build-up to the flood and the
construction of an ark, when the design

Irving Finkel believes the ark was a round coracle
was actually full of specs that would have
been very interesting to a coracle-builder.
But as the story moved into perhaps more
urban circumstances, and certainly into the
capital of the Assyrian empire, nobody
wanted to hear about all that stuff so it
was squashed out of the story.
Could this super-large coracle
have held several people and
several animals?
A coracle that I’ve found in photographs
has about 30 people on it, so you can
build quite a big one. There’s a
documentary film being made in which
specialists on ancient boats are trying to
build this thing on the basis of the ancient
inscription. They have the materials and
craftsmen to work with them, and they
used computer modelling to consider size,
strain and weight bearing. They rapidly
came to the conclusion that if you made
the boat to full size as described on the
tablet, which is about half the size of a
football pitch, it wouldn’t work. It would
simply be so huge that the structure
wouldn’t function. They reduced this size
to the maximum scale that would work by
using the tablet inscription and traditional
building methods. I think it’s somewhere
between a third and half of the size.
So it’s unlikely that any of the
Babylonians actually tried to build
this boat?
I don’t think anybody tried to build this
thing to scale in antiquity. I think you have
a mythological theme of the ark that
people normally accept without a lot of
analysis. However, in the world of those
living alongside boats, people might be a
little bit more interested in the details than
elsewhere. This led to the formalisation of
it, but I don’t think the audiences would
ever to say to themselves, ‘let’s have a
go at it’. They wanted something
satisfactory conceptually.
Is it possible that anyone like Noah,
or at least a Noah-like character
ever existed?
In the Bible, it’s clear that there was
nothing but wickedness in the world and a
single person, Noah, stood out as being
the saviour. In the Babylonian world, the
flood came because the human race was
noisy, rather than sinful, and the gods were
Hollywood is set to explore the
Noah myth with a blockbuster
starring Russell Crowe
(foreground) out this month
discomforted and irritated by the racket.
That’s a whole different framework,
psychologically and poetically.
It’s a matter of taste whether you feel
you need to retain a conception of Noah
as a guy with sandals and a beard and a
good sailor’s gait, or whether you take the
story to be a symbolic representation of
the frailty of the human race in the face
of God. It’s about how the forces of nature
and God’s will can obliterate everything,
and how sometimes a single man suffices
to avert the wrath of God. That is a
very powerful religious and philosophic
precept, the potency of which has
nothing to do with whether Noah was
once in the world. When you know there
was an equivalent to Noah a thousand
years earlier, then it becomes even less
important to establish. To me, the
crucial thing is the potency of the story,
and its unforgettable influence on the
reader, which existed in Babylonia and
was adopted into the Bible with a
different message.
Irving Finkel is an expert of the ancient
Middle East at the British Museum and
the author of The Ark Before Noah.
June 2014 67
 Science | How do we know

How Do We Know?

the existence of
isotopes By Cherry Lewis
They are used in everything from cancer treatments to smoke detectors
and atom bombs, but it wasn’t until the 20th Century that we
unravelled the mystery of chemically identical elements

E
xactly 100 years ago on 4
December 1913, a paper was
published in the journal Nature
that documented one of the most
important discoveries ever made. It
was the culmination of many years of
experiments and was to revolutionise
the way we understand our world. instant to cut off his head, but France
It was the Greek philosopher
Democritus who first put forward
an atomic theory of the Universe.
According to this, objects differed
only in the shape, position, and
arrangement of their atoms. So, for
example, atoms of a liquid were
smooth and round while atoms of a
solid were jagged so that they could
catch on to each other and hold fast.
Democritus coined the word ‘atom’
which in Greek (atomos) means
‘undivided’ because, according to his
theory, atoms could not be destroyed.
Two thousand years elapsed before the
theory developed much further.
In 1789 a French chemist, Antoine
science and society
they have in common that would
allow them to be ordered? Had
Lavoisier lived, he may have solved
this problem, but he was beheaded in
1794 during the French Revolution.
An Italian mathematician lamented
at the time, “It took them only an
may not produce another such head
in a century”. As it was, the challenge
of ordering the elements was taken up
by an Englishman, John Dalton.
Up in the air
Dalton was concerned with the
nature of gases. Around 1803, having
shown that evaporated water exists
in air as an independent gas, Dalton
wondered how water and air could
occupy the same space at the same
time. He reasoned that if each were
composed of discrete particles
(what we now think of as atoms),
evaporation might be viewed as a
mixing of water particles with air
remains unexplained, since much
of his work was lost in a bombing
raid during the Second World War.
However, a paragraph added to a
paper published in 1805, after it had
been read to the Manchester Literary
and Philosophical Society in 1803,
said the following: “An enquiry into
the relative weights of the ultimate
particles of bodies is a subject, as far
as I know, entirely new: I have lately
been prosecuting this enquiry with
remarkable success.” This was followed
by the first rudimentary table of
atomic weights.
Dalton’s atomic theory not only
identified that each element is
distinguished by the characteristic
weight of the atoms of which it is
composed, but he also showed that
all matter is composed of atoms, that
all atoms of the same element are
identical, and that different elements
have different types of atoms.
However, he also thought that atoms

Lavoisier, listed the existence of 92
different types of matter. These were
the elements, the building blocks of
which everything in the Universe is
made, but the dilemma was how to
classify them; what characteristics did
particles. It was while performing a
series of experiments on mixtures of
gases to prove this idea that he was led
to determine ‘the number and weight
of all chemical elementary particles’.
Exactly how he arrived at this idea
cannot be made or destroyed, an idea
that was not challenged for almost
another hundred years.
In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen,
a German physicist, observed a
mysterious source of energy being

68 June 2014
> IN a nutshell
They are chemically identical to other elements,
but discovering isotopes led to a revolution in
science and technology, opening up applications
in archaeology for carbon dating, cancer
therapies and nuclear weapons.

The physicist Francis

Aston used this mass
spectrograph, to
reveal two isotopes of
neon in 1919
 Science | How do we know

emitted as invisible rays from a
Crookes tube. When he placed his
wife’s hand over a photographic plate
and in the path of these rays, Röntgen
was able to develop a remarkable
photograph that showed the bones in
her hand, surrounded by the shadow
of her flesh. This extraordinary image
was the first X-ray ever seen. The
following year Henri Becquerel, a
French physicist, wondered whether
there was any connection between
the newly discovered X-rays and
the reason why uranium glowed in
the dark. He placed some uranium
in a drawer with a photographic
plate covered with black paper. On
removing it the plate was seen to be
fogged, proving that uranium also
emitted invisible rays.
Initially Becquerel’s discovery did
not arouse much attention, over- that could not be subdivided when
shadowed as it was by Röntgen’s James Joseph Thomson detected the
X-rays because of the medical electron at the Cavendish Laboratory
possibilities. But working in Paris in Cambridge. Working under
at that time was a newly married him was a young New Zealander,
couple, Pierre and Marie Curie, both Ernest Rutherford, who the
of whom were physicists. Following following year (1898), at the age of
the birth of their first child in 1897, only 27, was appointed Professor
Marie decided to make a systematic of Physics at McGill University in
investigation of Becquerel’s ‘uranium Montreal, Canada.
rays’. Progress was quick. Within a few There, Rutherford pursued his
days she had discovered that another work on radioactive materials. He
element, thorium, gave out the same established that there were several
rays as uranium. Marie concluded that kinds of radiation, each of which
the rays being emitted from uranium emitted different particles – alpha
and thorium were not the result of a particles, beta particles and gamma
chemical reaction, but came directly rays. As part of this work, the chemical
from the element itself. She called the nature of the emitters themselves
phenomenon ‘radioactivity’. came under scrutiny, so Rutherford
Later that year the atom finally lost looked for a skilled chemist to work
its status as a fundamental particle with. He found Frederick Soddy, a

the Key EXPERIMENT By studying the decay products of uranium and thorium, Frederick Soddy and his
assistant Alexander Fleck were able to identify the existence of isotopes

In 1910, unable to chemically separate several
decay products of uranium and thorium from their
parent elements, Frederick Soddy suspected that
he had discovered a new chemical phenomenon.
The next year, a young chemist, Alexander Fleck,
joined Soddy’s laboratory and was set the task of
systematically studying the chemical and
electrochemical nature of all the known decay
products – then some 40 elements. By the end of
photo: science and society x4, science photo library, corbis
1912, Fleck had shown conclusively that ‘All are
chemically indistinguishable from one or other of
the elements occupying the last 12 places of the
periodic table’. Furthermore, he demonstrated that
whenever two or more elements came to occupy
the same place in the periodic table – as a result of
the expulsion of alpha or beta rays – then they
were inseparable from one another and identical in
chemical character. This was regardless of all
other factors such as the element’s atomic weight,
its radioactive character and the nature of the
radioactive changes in which it was produced.
These remarkably consistent results led Soddy to
propose the concept of isotopes in December
1913. Isotopes were positively identified after
the First World War when Francis Aston
recognised two isotopes of neon with his
new mass spectrograph.

Frederick Soddy’s apparatus which was used to detect the production of helium from uranium and thorium The pioneer: Frederick Soddy

70 June 2014
young assistant in the chemistry labs
at McGill.
Pioneering partnership
The pair worked well together, and
in 1902 astounded the scientific
community with the announcement
that one element could change into
another. Incredibly, it appeared that
in the process of emitting ‘mysterious
rays’, completely new types of
matter were created, the chemical
and physical properties of which
were quite distinct from the parent
atom: radium became radon – a solid
became a gas.
Suddenly radioactivity was all the
rage and Rutherford and Soddy’s
‘decay’ theory of the break-up of
atoms was a topic of supreme interest
not just to scientists, but to the
world at large. Journalists besieged
Rutherford’s laboratory and doctors
wrote to him about ‘a trial of the
inhalation of radium gas as a cure
for tuberculosis’, and ‘the interesting
effects produced when radium is
brought near the eye’. Soddy later
recalled what it had been like to
work with Rutherford at that time:
“I abandoned all to follow him, and
for more than two years scientific life
became hectic to a degree rare in the
lifetime of an individual.”
Following their success, in March
1903, Soddy elected to join Sir
William Ramsay at University
College in London to examine more
fully the gaseous products of decay.
When Rutherford visited England
later that summer they together
established that in the ‘decay chain’
that started with an unstable ‘parent’
atom of uranium, a ‘daughter’ atom
of radium was produced and helium
liberated. In turn the unstable radium
atom decayed to its ‘daughter’ product
radon, also releasing helium in the
process. And so on until eventually
eight atoms of helium had been
discharged and a completely new
stable element emerged. We now
know this element to have been lead.
After a year in London, Soddy took
up the post of Lecturer in Physical
Chemistry and Radioactivity at the
University of Glasgow where, over
the following 10 years, he helped to
cast of characters The great minds that unravelled the true
nature of the elements
Democritus (ca. 460–370 BC)
lived in Ancient Greece and
was known as the ‘laughing
philosopher’ because of his
emphasis on ‘cheerfulness’. He
was a founder of the atomist
theory, which held that there
are small indivisible bodies
from which everything else
is composed, and that these
move about in an infinite void.
John Dalton (1766–1844)
is one of the most
important figures in
chemistry. In 1805
the English physicist
published the first table
of atomic weights,
recognising that each
element is distinguished
by the characteristic
Marie Curie (1867-1934) was
weight of its atoms, that
a Polish chemist inspired by
all matter is composed
Henri Becquerel’s discovery
of atoms, and that all
of ‘uranium rays’, which
atoms of the same
she termed radioactivity.
element are identical.
She separated radium in
sufficient quantities to allow
for its characterisation and
the study of its properties.
In 1903, Becquerel and the
Curies received the Nobel
Prize in Physics for their
work on radioactivity.
Ernest Rutherford
(1871-1937) was a
New Zealand physicist
who investigated
the phenomenon of
radioactivity. Working
in Canada with his
assistant Frederick Frederick Soddy (1877-1956)
Soddy, they proposed worked in his early years on
that radioactivity results the disintegration products
from the disintegration of radioactivity. In 1921
of atoms, for which he won the Nobel Prize in
Rutherford won the chemistry for his discovery
Nobel Prize in 1908. He is of isotopes, but after this
credited with splitting the became disillusioned with
atom in 1917, when he science, believing his work
also discovered on radioactivity had made
the proton. him sterile. His later writings
were on political economy and
monetary theory.
 Science | How do we know

clarify the relationship between the

The idea of atoms stretches back 2000 years, but the
timeline nature of isotopes wasn’t realised until the 20th Century
ever-growing number of radioactive
elements and the periodic table.
But during this period a number
of chemists in different laboratories
Democritus puts around Europe were reporting
forward an atomic that several elements appeared to
theory of the Universe be indistinguishable as far as their
and coins the word chemical reactions were concerned,

400 BC
‘atom’. According to even though they could be
this theory, atoms
separated physically. Radiothorium,
cannot be destroyed
for example, a decay product of
and exist in a void.
thorium, was chemically inseparable
from thorium, although it could be
distinguished physically. What was
going on?

1789
French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, lists Soddy examined the problem
the existence of 92 different types of and he too found that it was
matter. These were the elements. impossible to separate thorium X
from mesothorium and radium,
concluding that the three elements
were chemically identical. As he

1805
John Dalton determines the reported later: “From this date [1910]
atomic weight of atoms, I was convinced that this non-
demonstrating that all matter separability of the radioelements
is composed of atoms and was a totally new phenomenon,
that different elements have quite distinct from that of the most
different types of atoms. closely related pairs… and that
He still thinks atoms cannot be
the relationship was not, as usually
subdivided.
supposed, one of close similarity, but
of complete chemical identity.”

Identical elements?

1896 Henri Becquerel (left)

discovers mysterious rays
The following year, 1911, Soddy
resolved the situation when he
science photo library x2, Science & Society, alamy, thinkstock, corbis

being omitted from uranium, advanced his ‘general displacement’

which in 1898 Marie Curie
calls radioactivity. During
this work Curie went on to
discover other radioactive
elements, radium and
polonium.
Ernest Rutherford and Frederick
Soddy announce their discovery
law. In this he stated that when an
alpha particle was expelled during
radioactive decay, the element shifted
two places along the periodic table
in the direction of lower mass; the
subsequent loss of two beta particles
from the new element would then
return it to its original position.

1902
When the element was back in its
of radioactive decay in which one
element spontaneously changes
place on the periodic table, it would
into a completely different one become the same element it had
through the emission of various been originally, but its weight would
particles. Helium is liberated in be different. This explained why
the process. the daughter element could not be
chemically separated from its parent,
but could be distinguished by its
different weight. Studies over the
After two years of experiments, Alexander Fleck confirms that

1913
next year or so by Soddy’s assistant,
many radioactive decay products are chemically inseparable
Alexander Fleck, confirmed that the
from each other, but have different weights. This leads
Frederick Soddy to publish his discovery of isotopes.
same effects were found in many
other decay products.
It was while discussing this new

72 June 2014
 Francis Aston at Cambridge
need to know University; he devised a
Five key terms that will help you mass spectrograph that was
understand isotopes able to identify isotopes of
neon and other elements

1 Alpha, beta and gamma decay

Alpha decay occurs when the nucleus ejects
a helium nucleus. Beta decay happens when the
nucleus emits an electron or positron and a type
of neutrino. In gamma decay, energy of an excited
nucleus is emitted as a gamma ray.

2 Isotope number
The number of neutrons and protons in the
nucleus added together. An atom of lead derived
from the decay of uranium 238 is ‘lead-206’ because
it contains 82 protons and 124 neutrons (82+124 =
206), thus ‘206’ is the isotope number.

3 Mass spectrograph
An instrument used to determine the masses of
atoms. A beam of charged particles is passed
through an electromagnetic field, separating
particles of different mass. The resulting spectrum is
recorded on a photographic plate.

4 Radiothorium
Radiothorium and thorium X are both defunct
terms – today they’re known as thorium-228 and
radium-224. Mesothorium came in two states, I and
II, now called radium-228 and actinium-228.

concept at a dinner party given by
Soddy’s father-in-law, himself an
industrial chemist, that a family friend,
Dr Margaret Todd, suggested the name
‘isotope’ (from the Greek, isos topos,
meaning ‘same place’) for atoms that
were chemically identical but had
different weights. Soddy used the term
‘isotopes or isotopic elements’ for the
first time in his article Intra-atomic
Charge, which was published in the
journal Nature on 4 December 1913.
On reading this article, the physicist
Francis Aston began to suspect that
isotopes of other elements might exist,
but the First World War prevented
him from testing this hypothesis. On
returning to Cambridge in 1919, he
developed the instrument that became
known as the mass spectrograph, a
device that showed the chemical
constituents of a sample as distinct lines.
He showed that neon produced two
spectral lines at mass 20 and 22, proving
that neon had two isotopes.
At the time of Soddy’s discovery, the
nucleus of an element had only just
been discovered (by Rutherford
in 1911), and it was still unknown that
the nucleus itself was comprised of two
kinds of particle – protons and neutrons.
We now know an element’s position
in the periodic table is dictated not by
atomic weight but atomic number (the
number of protons).
The discovery of isotopes
revolutionised science. In medicine,
isotopes are used in bone imaging
and as tracers to detect tumours and
blood clots. Gamma rays of cobalt-60
are used in radiotherapy to kill cancer
cells; it also kills bacteria in food. In
archaeology, carbon-14 determines the
age of an object, and geologists use
isotopes of uranium and lead, amongst
others, to determine the age of rocks.
Isotopes are also used in the sensors of
smoke detectors and, most famously, it’s
the isotope uranium-235 that is found
in nuclear weapons.
In 1921, Frederick Soddy was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
A year later, the Prize was awarded
to Francis Aston for his discovery ‘of
isotopes in a large number of non-
radioactive elements’. They were
fitting awards for one of science’s
greatest discoveries.
Cherry Lewis is a geologist and
the author of The Dating Game:
One Man’s Search For The Age Of
The Earth.
 History | ye olde travel guide

Historical Holidays: guidebooks from the past

Amsterdam
1648
In the latest instalment of our historical holidays series, in
which experts imagine they’re writing a travel guide in the
past, Russell Shorto recommends a city that, with the threat
of invasion lifted, has become the emporium of the world

A
fter centuries as a pokey little place famous only as a centre of pilgrimage,
Amsterdam has morphed into the global hub of art, commerce and science. And
what better way of navigating the city than on its staggeringly efficient waterways

When to go Sights and activities – that doesn’t have an English translation.

Any time is good, though high summer is
the malaria season along the canals.The
tulips for which the city is famous – even
after the tulip mania of a decade ago,
when the price of bulbs soared and then
collapsed – still pop up in the spring. In
winter you can skate on the canals.
What to take with you
Layers! The northern winds blow strong
here. Look at the locals: they aren’t all fat,
just protecting themselves from the
elements. If you want to fit in, bring a
crisp, white lace collar.
Costs
This is the world’s greatest city right now,
but that doesn’t mean it’s the most
bridgeman art library / illustrated map: www.jontyclark.com
Leaders from other European cities come
to marvel at the new canal zone, which is
about three-quarters finished now.
Nearly four decades ago the city fathers
laid out a massive urban expansion
programme, which involved wrapping a
horseshoe ring of canals around the
medieval city centre, increasing the size of
the city fivefold.
Thousands of gable-topped brick
houses, miles of road and canal, and
dozens of humpbacked bridges later,
the result is a place unlike any other. For
the first time, a city has been crafted
around the needs and comforts of
individual residents.
The homes themselves are
a reflection of this.Think of homes in
It means something like cosy, comfortable,
warm. Go inside a canal house and you’ll
find lots of gezelligheid.There are cosy
beds tucked into closets, to keep out
drafts.The family gathers around the
fireplace.You’ll see that everyone hangs
paintings on their walls.
And the paintings will amaze you –
for they are not religious subjects.
Instead – you won’t believe this – they
depict ordinary people. A woman
pouring milk into a bowl. An old man
selling fish on the street. Imagine making
art out of such commonplace material!
Yet this is the key to Amsterdam: it’s
geared to the individual.
One stop you must make, therefore, is
at one of the city’s art dealers.Why not

expensive.The Dutch are great ones for
bargains. Haggle with merchants, and
you’ll be respected. Amsterdam is the
emporium of the world. Along its canals
you can buy live elephants, stuffed
monkeys, Delft tiles, and spices from the
East Indies. Everything is cheaper here
than elsewhere in Europe, because most
goods arrive here first before being
shipped elsewhere.
“Along its canals you can buy live
other European cities.Who lives in them?
An extended family, its servants, renters,
assorted others. An Amsterdam canal
house is smaller, and it is meant to house a
man, his wife, and their children.What a
concept! The city has brought about a
new emphasis on this family unit, and so
has redefined the meaning of ‘home’.
With that comes a new approach to
comfort.The Dutch have a word – gezellig
see the great man himself: Rembrandt
van Rijn? He’s not only one of Europe’s
most celebrated artists (his Night Watch
painting of the civic guard company on
patrol hangs in their headquarters a few
steps from his house), but a dealer in his
own right.
Dangers and annoyances
As of the Treaty of Munster, which was
signed this year, the threat of a Spanish
invasion, which has loomed over the city
for 80 years, is over.The Dutch have won
their long war of independence.

elephants, stuffed monkeys and east That doesn’t mean you don’t have to
watch yourself along the canals. But the

Indian Spices” threat will be from pickpockets, who prey

on the thousands of newcomers hoping

to make a go of it in the city where, 40-odd
years ago, the stock market and the concept
of ‘shares of stock’ were born.
Sleeping/accommodation
Most inns are clustered near the harbour.
You get off your ship and cross into the city
via the New Bridge. In front of you is a
canal called the Damrak. It’s lined with
cheap places to stay. For something finer,
go straight ahead until you come to the
Stock Exchange Building. Around it are
accommodations for the merchants and
traders who flock to Amsterdam.
Eating and drinking
In two words: herring and beer.You can’t
go wrong with either. Beyond that, the
national dish is hutspot, a stew of vegetables,
meat, ginger, and lemon juice. And in
Amsterdam
today
Canals, characterful small houses and art like
Rembrandt’s Night Watch remain a powerful
draw to the Dutch capital – just as they were in
1648. Though today two-wheeled transport has
replaced boats as the most popular way of
getting around, the water remains the best way
to appreciate the canal ring, now an ancient
treasure admired the world over.
You can enjoy art all over the city, including
the Van Gogh Museum and, most stunning of
all, Rijksmuseum, newly opened after
a decade-long restoration.
Anne Frank’s House does
more than nod at the recent history of the city.
Most of all, Amsterdam is a thoroughly modern
European metropolis which preserves its past
while advancing confidently into the future.
For all that, brown cafes offering
gezelligheid by the glass still abound. As an
added bonus, Amsterdam is brilliantly
connected with airports to all major cities.
There’s little excuse not to go and see it
for yourself.
If you like this…
If you like your canals Dutch, try Leiden, a short
train ride from Amsterdam. Another cycle-
friendly European capital with a fascinating
history is Copenhagen Denmark.
Tom Hall, travel editor, lonelyplanet.com. You
can read more of his articles at the website
winter, pea soup is the thing. For quick bites as
you stroll, you can find street stalls hawking
cinnamon cakes.
Art house:
Amsterdam’s
Getting around “stunning”
If you’re coming to Amsterdam from another Rijksmuseum
Dutch city you’ll be astounded by the public
transport boats.They are clean.They ride the
waterways that connect cities.They usually
depart hourly, and are efficient.
You can walk anywhere in the city in 15
minutes. If you’re rich and want to flaunt it, you
can hire a coach, and laugh as commoners dash
to the sides of the narrow roads to avoid being
run down.
Russell Shorto is an American author and
historian, as well as a contributing writer for
the New York Times Magazine and director
of The John Adams Institute in Amsterdam.
June 2014 75
 resource
Written In Blood
The Remarkable Casebook
Of One Of Britain’s Top
Forensic Scientists
Mike Silverman Bantam Press, ` 664
K This book is not for the faint-hearted.
Don’t expect to tiptoe into the shallow
end and ease yourself into the gory details.
From the first page, Silverman gives you
a sharp shove between the shoulder blades
and sends you face-first into the pool.
With the metallic scent of blood rising
from the pages, Silverman recounts a
personal journey through 35 years of
game-changing advances in serology (the
study of blood serum), fingerprinting
and DNA analysis. Giddy with the
implications of catching criminals using
ever-tinier samples, the police initially
thought their problems were solved.
Almost overnight, cold cases were cracked
dan dry
and swathes of suspects eliminated from
enquiries. But it wasn’t all plain sailing.
76 June 2014
the latest science books reviewed
Rapists changed their pleas from ‘never
met the woman’ to ‘she consented’,
and courts expected TV fiction-
inspired results.
Silverman describes his work with the
scientific detachment of many a forensic
scientist. There’s a faint amusement at
the fright and disgust of ‘lay people’ – his
girlfriend for example, when he brings
home a jar of decomposing flesh and
maggots from a crime scene – and much
of the book’s appeal lies in its shock factor.
Each case is almost joyously described,
sparing no intimate or gratuitous detail.
However, more alarming than the
bloodshed, is the story of the inevitable
commercialisation of forensic science
and the resulting monetisation of justice.
As fast as labs could perfect DNA
amplification techniques, they became
commodities, subject to patents, copyright
infringement, and market competition.
Suddenly, the Forensic Science Service
was under pressure like never before to
produce accurate and speedy results every
time, and turn a profit to boot.
The impact of having to pay for every
single test meant police sent fewer samples
to the labs and relied more heavily on
evidence they thought would be a ‘sure
thing’, undoubtedly compromising
investigations. In turn, labs often threw
unnecessarily advanced techniques at
samples in order to secure competitive
results and generate income, or risk being
undercut or outbid. And eventually, that’s
exactly what happened.
Silverman makes a convincing case
that prioritising profit over ‘locking up
bad guys’ was doomed from the start. His
prognosis for forensic science in the UK
is bleak, and ultimately he asks what price
we have to pay for justice. But whatever
you do, please don’t have nightmares.
Dr Anna Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Forensic
Science at the University of Huddersfield.
Neanderthal Man
In Search Of Lost Genomes
Svante Pääbo Basic Books, `945
This is the fascinating account of
Svante Pääbo’s efforts to sequence
Neanderthal nuclear DNA. Although
the details of the technical problems
faced are not an easy read, his
personal story, from graduate to
world-renowned scientist, makes this a
very enjoyable book.
As a young Swedish medical
student, Pääbo’s fascination with
ancient things led him to secretly
extract DNA from dead tissues in his
professor’s laboratory. His ultimate
ambition was to sequence the DNA of
the Neanderthals, our closest relatives.
The study of the Neanderthals has
kept palaeontologists occupied for
more than a century, but Pääbo
convinces us that decoding their DNA
will provide insights into how different
we are from them and what makes us
so unique.
You accompany him on a journey
that culminates in the publication of
the Neanderthal nuclear genome in
2010, 30 years after his illicit trials in
the lab in Sweden. Helped by
advances in genetics and the support
of his collaborators, he achieved what
no one thought possible.
Isabelle De Groote is an evolutionary
anthropologist at LJM University, Liverpool.
How Dogs Love Us
A Neuroscientist And His Dog
Decode The Canine Brain
Gregory Berns Scribe Publications `1,544
If you’ve ever wanted to know how to get
a dog into a magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) scanner, this is the book for you.
Neuroscientist and dog lover Gregory
Berns had long wanted to know what
dogs are really thinking. He’s used MRI to
study blood flow in live human brains – a
proxy for thought – and decided to try the
same trick with dogs.
Coaxing a dog into a MRI scanner,
though, was not easy. A laboratory is a
deeply unnatural, frightening place for a
dog, never mind the claustrophobic tube
of a MRI scanner. Worse, the machine
makes a noise like a jackhammer, and the
subject has to lie still for lengthy periods,
not moving a millimetre, in a machine
designed for a completely different
species, while wearing specially
designed doggy ear defenders. It’s a
tribute then to Berns and his team –
notably his dog Callie – that they
succeeded, and in so doing asked
probing questions about the rights in our
society of sensitive, intelligent and
possibly sentient creatures.
But did Berns find out what dogs really
think about? The answer is ambiguous as
well as poignant and meaningful: dogs
think about what we’re thinking.
Henry Gee is an evolutionary biologist, and
a senior editor of the journal Nature.
The Gap
The Science of What Separates
Us from Other Animals
Thomas Suddendorf Basic Books, `1,852
What separates us from the rest
of the animal kingdom? It’s tempting to
point to tool use, speech, morality and
co-operation. And yet, as this book
shows, such superficial lists are easily
contradicted by a wealth of research
on animal behaviour. To scratch the
surface - parrots can speak, chimps
form war parties, dogs understand
fairness, and crows use tools. In fact,
New Caledonian crows use one tool
to obtain a second tool to get to the
food they’re after.
So what is unique about the human
mind? Thomas Suddendorf believes
only we are capable of what he calls
nested scenario building – we think
about thoughts and imagine possible
worlds. He also argues that we have
an unrivalled urge to connect with each
others’ minds, aided by the ability to
imagine other times and perspectives.
Suddendorf is a skillful guide through
‘the gap’ between animal and human
minds. He describes clever animal
experiments and observational work
with lucidity. He ends with a plea. Our
ape cousins are dying out. It’s vital that
we use our unique powers of foresight
to prevent the gap from widening.
Christian Jarrett is a neuroscientist and the
author of The Rough Guide To Psychology.
The Galapagos
A Natural History
Henry Nicholls Profile Books, `1,728
Darwin sailed to the windswept
Galapagos Islands in 1835 to study
their geology, but came away beguiled
by the varied life forms he found. It was
this experience that shaped his ideas
about evolution and natural selection.
Countless coffee-table picture
books have been made about the
Galapagos, but Nicholls’s volume takes
a refreshingly different course: it is the
only popular account I am aware of
that ventures off the well-beaten track
of famous tortoises or the photogenic
Darwin’s finches, to document the rich
diversity of species that made these
islands a World Heritage site. Nicholls
describes the ocean life, birds, plants,
invertebrates and reptiles, augmenting
these accounts with personal and
historical anecdotes.
He writes in an informal style that
takes for granted that saving the
Galapagos as a living museum is a
good thing – you won’t find the
economic and social pros and cons of
conservation debated here. But then he
is in good company. Having left the
Galapagos, Darwin noted ‘the natural
history of these islands is eminently
curious, and well deserves attention’.
Prof Mark Pagel is an evolutionary biologist and
author of Wired For Culture.
resource
get your clicks Our pick of internet highlights to explore
H WEBSITE
Disk detective
www.diskdetective.org
Astronomers are searching high and
low in our Galaxy for stars that could be
hosting planet-forming discs, like the one
our own Solar System formed from over
four billion years ago. But they need your
help. So watch these short clips taken
from NASA’s WISE mission and
get classifying.
H WEBSITE
Vaccine-preventable outbreaks
www.cfr.org/interactives/GH_
Vaccine_Map/#/intro
It’s clear that not vaccinating against
preventable diseases is a bad idea. But this
site really proves the point. The interactive
map shows disease outbreaks across
the world that should be preventable by
vaccination, as told by news reports
(so take it as a rough guide only). This is
grim, but necessary, stuff.
If you have a favourite website, blog or podcast that you’d like to share with other readers, email bbcknowledge@wwm.co.in
78 June 2014
H WEBSITE
World of statistics
www.worldofstatistics.org/
Ever wondered how your life would really
be affected if statistics weren’t around?
Well, for starters, we wouldn’t be able
to tell who had won an election, and you
couldn’t take the lift instead of the stairs to
the office in the morning. To find out why,
read this blog that uses cartoons to explain
why statistics matter.
H WEBSITE
The Interstellar Mission
www.voyager.jpl.nasa.gov
Since 1977, NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft
have been exploring the frontiers of space.
This NASA website allows you to track them
in real time, and is a great resource to learn
more about the Voyager Mission. Voyager 1
and Voyager 2 have gone places in our galaxy
that no other spacecraft has, and you can join
them on their journey into the great unknown!
Sent in by BBC Knowledge reader Mehul Pandita
H WEBSITE
Weather spark
www.weatherspark.com
Weather nerds, this site is for you. The
amount of detail might seem overwhelming at
first, but dig in and there’s a wealth of data to
be had. Not only can you get an hour by hour
account of conditions at any of 4,000 weather
stations, but you can search through the
whole history of each one – showing average
temperatures and more right back to 1973.
H WEBSITE
The Brain Scoop
www.thebrainscoop.tumblr.com
Based out of the Field Museum in Chicago
and run by Emily Graslie, who has the
rather splendid job title of Chief Curiosity
Correspondent, The Brain Scoop gives you
the inside track on the inner workings of
a natural history museum. With only 1 per
cent of the museum’s collection able to be
displayed at any one time, there’s a lot from
behind the scenes to show off.
buzz 30 things i never knew contest

All through March, BBC Knowledge ran the contest, 30 Things

I Never Knew that became popular on social media platforms
such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. United by the hashtag
#30ThingsINeverKnew, the contest went viral as entries poured in
from participants across the country. Out of over 9000 entries, 10 were
chosen to create the #30ThingsINeverKnew photo album. The contest
was trending across India, and in the end, everyone taking part came
away as a winner with a new nugget of knowledge!
 inside the pages An excerpt from a book you should read

ThHeH MOunproe(Snaki)Window
by
lady of fifteen,
n pre sen tly, Mr . Nu ttel ," said a very self possessed young
"My aunt will be dow
and put up with me."
"In the meantime you must try corr ect something, which should duly
flatter the niece of
eav our ed to say the doubted more
Framton Nuttel end the aun t that was to come. Privately, he
und uly disc oun ting much towards
the moment without a suc cess ion of total strangers would do
se form al visi ts on
than ever whether the .
was supposed to be undergoing
helping the nerve cure, which be said wh en he wa s pre paring to migrate to this rural
l be," his sist er had your nerves will
"I know how it wil and not speak to a living soul, and
you rsel f dow n the re
retreat; "You will bur y the people I
mo pin g. I sha ll just give you letters of introduction to all
be worse than ever from te nice."
fas as I can remember were qui
know there. Some of them, as plet on, the lady to whom he was presen
ting one of the
ed wh eth er Mr s. Sap
Framton wonder
the nice division.
letters of introduction, came into nd her e?" asked the niece, when she judged
that they
ny of the peo ple rou
"Do you know ma
nication.
had had suf ficient silent commu at the rectory, you know,
"Hardly a soul,” said Fra mto n. "My sister was staying here,
e of the people here."
e me letters of introduction to som
some four years ago, and she gav
a tone of distinct regret.
He made the last statement in d the self-possessed young
hing about my aunt?," pursue
"T hen you know practically not
lady. dering whether Mrs.
admitted the caller. He was won
"Only her name and address," able something about the room
or widowed state. An undefin
Sappleton was in the married
itation.
seemed to sug gest masculine hab e yea rs ago," said the child, "T hat wou
ld be since your
hap pen ed just thre
"Her great tragedy
sister’s times." on," said the
wh y we kee p tha t win dow wide open on an October afterno
"You may wonder n.
window that opened on to a law
niece, indicating a large French n, "bu t has that window got
123rf.com x4

of the yea r," said Fra mto

"It is quite warm for the time
?"
anything to do with the tragedy band and her two young
Summar
y: The Op ut through tha t win dow , three years ago to a day, her hus moor to their
of the an
thology B en Window (part
"O
ir day ’s sho otin g. Th ey never came back. In crossing the
brothers went off for the e of bog. It had
Beasts, 1
9 1
easts and
S ing gro und the y wer e all thre e engulfed in a treacherous piec
4) is a gre uper- favourite snipe-shoot other years gave way
Saki's su at ex w, and places that were safe in
ailing ma ccinct writing sty ample of bee n tha t dreadful wet summer, you kno at wa s the dreadful part of
n travels le. In it, a nin g. Th eir bod ies wer e nev er recovered. Th
his health to a rural n suddenly without war
. ha
residents After meeting wit mlet for "Poor aunt
, he enco
un
h several it."
ce lost its self -po sses sed not e and became falteringly human.
who tells ters a Here the child’s voi niel that was
him a ho young girl y wil l com e bac k som e day , they and the little brown spa
rrible sec always thinks that the y the window
ret. k in at tha t win dow just as they used to do. That is wh
lost with them, and wal told me how they
g till it is qui te dus k. Poor dear aunt, she has often
is kept open every eve nin e, her youngest
d wit h his wh ite wat erp roof coat over his arm, and Ronni
went out, her husban ause she said
e, wh y do you bou nd? ”as he always did to tease her, bec
brother, singing, “B erti , I almost get a
. Do you kno w, som etim es on still, quiet evenings like this
it got on her nerves
80 April 2014
 History

walk in through that window."

creepy feeling that they will all en the aunt bustled into the
bro ke off wit h a littl e shu dde r. It was a relief to Framton wh
She earance.
for being late in making her app
room with a whirl of apologies “S he has bee n very interesting," said Framto
n.
hop e Ver a has bee n am usin g you?”she said. , "M y hus ban d and
"I on briskly
n window," said Mrs. Sapplet
"I hope you don’t mind the ope y alw ays com e in his way. The’ve been out
for
rs wil l be hom e dire ctly from shooting, and the So like you me n-
brothe poor carpets.
they’ll make a fine mess over my
snipe in the marshes today, so
folk, isn’t it?" birds, and the prospects for
erfu lly abo ut the shooting and the scarcity of
She ratt led on che de a desperate, but only
win ter. To Fra mto n, it was all purely horrible. He ma
duck in the he was conscious
ful effo rt to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic;
partial
that his
ly suc
hos
cess
tess wa s giv ing him onl y a fragment of her attention,
open window and the lawn bey
and her eyes were
ond. It was The child was
constan
cert ain
tly
ly
stra
an unf
yin g
ortu
pas
nat
t
e
him
coin
to
cide
the
nce that he should have paid his
visit on this tragic staring out
anniversary.
me complete rest, an absence of
mental thorough the open
"T he doctors agree in ordering
excitement, and avoidance of any
thing in the nature
who laboured under
of
the
vio len
tole rab
t phy
ly
sical
wid e-spread window with
exercise," announced Framton,
delu sion tha t tota l stra nge rs and chance acquaintance s are hun gry for the least
n the matter of
dazed horror in
rmities, their cause and cure. "O
det ail of one ’s ailm ent s and infi
eement," he continued.
her eyes
diet they are not so much in agr yawn at the
a voice, which only replaced a
"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in n-but not to what
mo me nt. Th en she sud den ly brightened into alert attentio
last
Framton was saying. ’t they look as if
d." Just in time for tea, and don
"Here they are at last!," she crie
s!"
they were muddy up to me eye a look intended to convey
and turned towards the niece with
Framton shivered slightly the open window with dazed
pre hen sion . Th e child was staring out thorough and looked in
sym pat het ic com
l sho ck of nam eles s fear Fra mton swung round in his seat
horror in her eyes. In a chil
the same direction. dow; they
t thre e figu res wer e wal kin g across the lawn towards the win t
In the deepening twiligh nally burdened with a white coa
carr ied gun s und er the ir arm s, and one of them was additio isel essly, the y nea red
all ir heels. No
d brown spaniel kept close at the
hung over his shoulders. A tire out of the dus k: "I said, Bertie, why do you
hou se, and the n a hoa rse you ng voice chanted
the
front gate
bound? "
at his stick and hat ; the hal l-door, the gravel-drive, and the
Framton grabbed wildly into the
hea dlo ng retreat. A cycl ist coming along the road had to run
were dimly noted stages in his
n.
hedge to avoid imminent collisio tosh, coming in through the
"Here we are, my dea r," said the bearer of the white mackin
o bolted out as we came up? "
mo st of its dry. "W ho was that wh
win dow ; fair ly mu ddy , but on, "Could only talk about his
Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sapplet
"A most extraordinary man, a d-b ye or apology when you arrived. On
e would thing
Hector Hugh Munro (1870-
hou t a wor d of goo
illness, and dashed off wit 1960), known by his pen
he had seen a ghost." he had a horror of dogs. He
the niece calmly, "He told me name, Saki, was a popular
123rf.com X3, wiki

"I expect it was the spaniel," said on the bac ks of the Ganges by a pack of
pariah dogs, short-story writer. His
eter y som ewh ere
was once hunted into a cem tures snarling and grinning and stories are widely known
had to spe nd the nig ht in a newly dug grave with the crea for their dark humour,
and ve."
h to make any one lose their ner
foaming just above him. Enoug idyllic settings, and their
speciality.
Romance at short notice was her The End clever endings.
edu talk
Dr Ayyappan, Director-Education of Sree Gokulam Public Schools in Kerala, talks to Moshita
Prajapati about how education today needs to prepare students for a better tomorrow
How is the spirit of the school’s motto
implemented in everyday schooling at Sree
Gokulam Public Schools (SGPS)?
The motto of Sree Gokulam Public School is Vidya
Gurunam Guruh, which means vidya is the master
of all gurus.’ Keeping this in mind, we help each
student to become self-reliant by exploring their
innate abilities and inculcating good habits in
them. We also integrate activities into classroom
learning as this allows them an opportunity to
develop their reasoning and thinking skills. The
students are also exposed to different avenues
of knowledge eradicating even the small grains
of ignorance. Thus, we give prime importance to
vidya in all aspects.
What according to you is
good education?
Good education is training and
developing the knowledge, mind,
character, skills, and habits of
children especially by formal
schooling. SGPS assures its
students of quality education by
helping students carve a niche for
themselves. We also encourage the
passions of students and believe in
the co-curricular activities that enhance their
academic capability.
What sets SGPS apart from other schools?
It has left its door open without any bias of
gender, caste or creed for people to attain the
biggest asset, which is knowledge. We inculcate
a single-minded devotion to learning and
fostering an all-round development of students.
Teaching is done in a manner, which fires the
students with enthusiasm for their subjects. Last
but not the least, discipline is very important
aspect of our school.
As the Education Director of SGPS, what
changes have you bought about?
I understood that academic achievements are
predominantly related to demographics and
socio-economic class of surrounding community,
so I tried to develop a cordial relation with local
82 June 2014
‘The present education
system lacks the ability to
eradicate social disparity
from India’
people. I encouraged teachers to use motivative
and remedial strategies to enhance the IQ of
each pupil. I gave due importance in investing
in-service teacher preparation. I have also taken
the initiative to introduce modern courses like
Geospatial Technology and Mass Media courses
at the +1 and +2 level for better career options in
various fields.
How is technology inculcated for
everyday learning?
Modern technology is very useful because it
relies on one of the most powerful bias we have
i.e. preference for visually presented information.
Hence, we have interactive white boards and
smart class facility in schools to attract and
maintain the attention of young students.
Kerala is considered to be a state with
highest literacy rate and is known for its good
education. What would you attribute this to?
First and foremost I would attribute this to the
hard working nature of people. Keralites always
aim to be the best in all fields. Hence, they are
determined to succeed.
What according to you are the most
pressing problems the Indian education
system faces today?
Though due importance is given to national
integration I feel the present education system
lacks the ability to eradicate social disparity from
India. Moreover, the education imparted at school
and college level is not as per the job market.
Fresh graduates lack the skills required in a
job market. Personality is equally important as
academic qualification, but the present
education system does not cater to
the development of the child’s overall
personality. Also, I feel the present
generation is not able to critically
analyze and think about important
issues, for example our history, culture,
and religion.
How are the students of SGPS
equipped to tackle these problems?
The students of SGPS take an active involvement
in organising religious and national festivals
in the school campus. They forget all religious
and social bias and are indirectly involved in
eradicating social disparity. The introduction
of new courses at higher secondary level
(Geospatial Technology and Mass Media) is a
giant leap to enable the students to be skilled
as per the job market requirements. In order to
inculcate a respect for our rich Indian heritage,
each programme is framed to pave the way
for the students to understand its glory. Due
attention is also given to improve the personality
of the child.
What is your vision for students who graduate
from SGPS?
We envision a global village where the students
of GPS are the torchbearers of educational,
physical, and cultural excellence.
games review
Diablo III: Reaper
of Souls
PC, Blizzard Entertainment, `2,399
In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment released the
genre-defining Role Playing Game (RPG),
Diablo. The game’s runaway success spawned
a successful franchise. The latest expansion
pack, Reaper of Souls, comes on the heels of
Diablo III, the third title in the series.
Released this March, Reaper takes players
back to realm of Sanctuary. This time, the
game’s antagonist is not the familiar Diablo
but Malthael, a fallen angel whose agenda is
to wipe out humanity as a means to end the
eternal conflict between the angels of the
High Heavens and the demons of the
Burning Hells.
Reaper of Souls released post the Loot
2.0 patch for Diablo III, an update, which
replaced the Auction House with a more
rewarding loot system. Adventure Mode
features numerous side quests, which can be
completed to earn legendary item drops.
This change brings the game closer to its
roots as a dungeon-crawling RPG. The
Diablio III : Reaper of Souls
features plenty of the hack and
slash dungeon crawling that made
franchise popular two decades ago
game’s opponents are drawn from a new
bestiary, with barely any of the old
monsters and demons from Diablo III
making a return. The game’s colour
palette is also darker, adding an ominous
tone to the landscapes you pass through.
The Crusader class makes an entry in
this expansion. The Crusaders comes into
their own during multiplayer sessions,
where their defensive and supporting
skills can be used to full effect. The five
other classes from Diablo III have been
given new passive abilities to add to their
skill-set. The level cap has also been
raised from 60 to 70, giving players
incentive to revisit their characters from
the preceding game.
The tightly woven storyline keeps
players riveted, managing to stay
interesting in spite of the absence of the
primary antagonist, Diablo. However, the
climactic sequence reveals that the
player’s actions during the game have
freed Diablo’s essence from the Soulstone
in which it was trapped, foretelling the
return of The Lord of Terror.
Blizzard Entertainment has a history
of taking their time with their releases,
with twelve years passing between the
releases of Diablo II and Diablo III. Until
then, Reaper of Souls is a great way for
fans to satiate their addictions. Let the
reaping begin!
also out
Tomb Raider: Definitive
Edition
PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Square Enix, `3,599
The long-running
franchise featuring the
archaeologist Lara Croft
received an overdue
reboot in 2013. Tomb
Raider: Definitive Edition,
released in January this
year, takes last year’s
edition to the next level. The game features
improved graphics, improved physics and all of the
downloadable content. A highly engaging storyline,
beautifully rendered settings, and a faithful but
fresh take on an iconic protagonist.
Titanfall
PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Respawn Entertainment,
`3,499
Titanfall released amid
fervent hype with fans of
the First Person Shooter
(FPS) genre looking
forward to a new take on a
largely formulaic genre.
The game allows players
to play as both human
“Pilots” and mechanical “Titans”. Titanfall broke new
territory by giving players liberty to adopt contrasting
playstyles within the same game. However, paying full
price for a game that offers no campaign mode but
expects you to pay for fresh downloadable content
feels like a cash-grab.
Smash Hit
Android, iOS, Mediocre, `119
Wanton destruction in a
harmless virtual setting is the
premise for Smash Hit. Smash
Hit’s developers, Mediocre,
realised the entertainment
value of mindless acts of
destruction when they came
up with the game. A simplified on-rails shooter, the
player’s objective is to travel down an unalterable
path, destroying glass obstacles along the way by
tossing steel spheres at them. Touch the glass and
its game over. Smash Hit is a great option for casual
gamers looking for a brief distraction.
Compiled by Dushyant Shekhawat
 Gadgets for a Better Tomorrow

URB-E
URB-E is a compact,
collapsible bike made of
lightweight aircraft
aluminium, making it easy to
carry it onto buses and
LUMO LIFT trains. The versatile design
offers riders a choice
Lumo Lift, the fitness device, doesn’t between a three-wheel and a
just count the amount of steps you’ve two-wheel system. It is also
taken and the calories you’ve burned, connected to an app, which
it also corrects your posture. The tracks the vehicles battery
clip-on device sends gentle vibrations life and aids navigation.
to remind you to sit up straight and Price: `1,07,760
stand without slouching anytime it • www.urb-e.com
detects your posture slipping. Mothers
of children hunched over a computer
screen worldwide can rejoice.
Price: `4,732
• www.lumobodytech.com

NEST THERMOSTAT
Nest’s most successful
product is a smart thermostat
that learns your home’s POPPY
heating patterns, adjusts to
your lifestyle, and saves The Poppy 3D Camera &
energy. As with all other Viewer quite literally adds a
smart devices, it boasts the whole new dimension to
ubiquitous link with the users iPhone photography. Using
smart phone and can be a system of mirrors, lenses
controlled even when you’re and old-fashioned optics,
away from home. the Poppy converts
Price: `14,915 a single photo taken from
• www.store.nest.com the iPhone into two
separate stereographic
LUMOS SOLAR images, which are then
placed one above the other
BACKPACK to produce a 3D photo.
Price: `3,590
Bangalore-based start-up • www.poppy3d.comcom
Lumos’ Solar Backpack
cleverly harnesses the
potential of India's sunny
weather. The panel of
solar fabric on the
backpack provides
energy to charge your
laptop, phone or camera
whilst on the go. As they
say, make hay while the
sun shines!
Price: `4,999
• www.lumos.co.in

GLOFASTER JACKET
The Glofaster 'Smart' Jacket uses a system of lights to
communicate with the wearer. Glofaster Jacket’s system
serves as a herald of things to come. Currently, the product’s
operating principle is if you’re meeting your target heart rate
and running speed, the lights stay on. Intermittent flashes are
the smart jacket’s way of telling you to put your legs into it!
Price: `5,930 • www.glowfaster.com
 GOJI SMART LOCK
Knock knock. Who’s there? The Goji
Smart Lock finally puts this tired
question to rest. The lock connects
to your smart phone, and is
operated through this paired device.
Amongst its many features, it also
sends a photo of anyone who tries
(with or without your permission) to
enter your home directly to your
phone. The companion app for Goji
Smart Lock also allows you to grant
access remotely via text or email to
acquaintances, and keeps a record
of all comings and goings through
your home’s door.
Price: `16,652
• www.gojiaccess.com

RING
If 'One Ring to Rule Them All' existed in our world,
this would be it. This gesture-controlled device,
Ring is compatible with Google Glass. With a flick
of your fingers, the ring plays music, captures
images, makes mobile payments and sends texts.
It connects to your home appliances directly or
iVEE through a home automation hub such as iVee.
The iVee brings us one step closer to the future envisioned Price: TBA • www.logbar.jp/ring/
in the Jetsons. This home automation hub can control the
lighting in your house, give you weather updates from
anywhere in the world, play the music of your choice as
well as a host of other activities. Users interact with iVee
through its smooth voice-recognition system that makes
relaying commands as simple as thinking aloud.
Price: `11,979 • www.helloivee.com

KOLIBREE SMART TOOTHBRUSH

Kolibree’s Smart Toothbrush does away
with pointless visits to the dentist. The
toothbrush connects to Smartphones via
Bluetooth, and the companion app then
tracks your brushing habits and dental
hygiene. The app supports upto five
brushes, effectively freeing parents from
the task of checking on your child’s (not
so) pearly whites.
Price: `5,930 to `11,920
•www.kolibree.com

SONY HMZ-T3
This futuristic headset isn’t going to get you into music duo Daft
Punk, but it will offer you a unique viewing experience. Once you
strap on this head-mounted personal 3D viewer, be prepared to
be completely enthralled by the images floating on the twin OLED
screens on your visor. Sony HMZ-T3 can be used for viewing
movies, playing video games, or anything that would normally
require a TV screen. This lightweight gadget even comes with
detachable light screens to ensure your escape from reality!
Price: `1,30,045 • www.sony.co.uk

Compiled by Dushyant Shekhawat

 in exciting
Solve & W hampers
chocolate550 from
worth `

puzzle pit
Questions and challenges guaranteed
to give your brain a workout

Crossword NO.21
Across
9 Florida city (5)
10 Mathematician and astronomer of ancient India after whom
our first satellite was named (9)
11 Inhabitants of a country? (7)
12 Compensation, remuneration, or stipend (7)
13 Set of beliefs or principles (5)
15 Blind as a ____? (3)
16 Symbolically 'Sn' for the chemist (3)
17 Son of Lord Rama and Sita (3)
19 Stress; suspense (7)
20 Careless or negligent (3)
23 I do not ___ that : I do not believe your story, in a way? (3)
24 Robert E ___ : US Confederate general in the American Civil
War? (3)
25 A Hindu religious instructor (5)
27 Chattered, gossiped or confessed (7)
29 Improves or amends (7)
32 In a restricted area (9)
33 Our national animal? (5)

Down
1 Arabian sultanate (4)
2 Cows, bulls, oxen etc. (6)
3 Capital of Ukraine (4)
4 Eccentric shafts (4) Your Details
5 Comfort; console (10)
Name:
6 Act in accordance with the order of others (4)

7 Of or from father's side of the family (8)
8 Signal structure (6) Age:
13 Calorie in short (3) Address:
14 A little song (5)
15 Country, which hosted the 2014 World T20 tournament (10)
16 Nurses or looks after, minds (5)
PinCode:
18 Resonance (8)
21 16 in Roman numerals (3) Tel:

22 ___ over : become lively, in a way? (6)

26 Exact reparation for a wrong (6)
28 Hinder, thwart or foil (4)
29 ____ adieu : says farewell? (4)
30 Adds up? (4)
31 Active and alert (4)
How to enter for the
crossword: Post your entries to BBC
Knowledge Editorial, Crossword No.21
Worldwide Media, The Times of India
Bldg, 4th floor, Dr Dadabhai Navroji Road,
Mumbai 400001 or email bbcknowledge@
wwm.co.in by 10 June 2014.
Entrants must supply their name, address
and phone number.
How it’s done: The puzzle will be
familiar to crossword enthusiasts already,
although the British style may be unusual
as crossword grids vary in appearance from
School/Institution/Occupation:
Email:
✂
country to country. Novices should note Announcing the winners of Solution of crossword NO. 20
that the idea is to fill the white squares with Crossword No. 20
letters to make words determined by the
sometimes cryptic clues to the right. The Aswath Magesh, Chennai
numbers after each clue tell you how many
letters are in the answer. All spellings are •
UK. Good luck! Shivika Marwaha, Gurgaon
•
Terms and conditions: Only Riju Khatri, Pune
residents of India are eligible to participate. •
Employees of Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd.
are not eligible to participate. The winners
D. Rohit, Coimbatore
will be selected in a lucky draw. The
decision of the judges will be final.
 e
e n s a Puzzl
Q2 M
placed in
n e ed to be
Which nu
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s in t h e bottom tw
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T
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Q4 Chain words
A
Form a continuous path of words from START to
FINISH by connecting the word parts given in the
boxes. There are two parts to each word and the
second part of one word is the first part of the next.
You won’t necessarily need to visit every box to
achieve your aim.
Tail
5 Head and er in the
form
Start HEL LO CH ART IST
Q a n s w
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clue to so
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Puzzle Pit Find your way ou
of the maze.
t

Q7 Hidato

Q8 PICTURE SEARCH

In the jumble below, the words

represented by each of the
16 pictures are hidden either
horizontally, vertically or diagonally
forward or backwards but always
in a straight line. See how many of
them you can find? Look out for
descriptive names.
Q9 Enigma Code
Each colour in our code represents a letter.
When you have cracked the code you will be
able to make up seven words. The clue to the
first word is given to help you get started.
The Clue: Fasten
 Choo se
Q 11 Pick and
n of letter
ch oo si ng th e right combinatio
Solve the six clu
es by ed only once
of th e le tt er set can be us
re .E ac h of the clues
Q10 Go Figu sets given below
de r giv en . Th e nu mber at the end
solution.
, third, fifth, and only in the or le tt er s are used in the
e fo ur nu m bers in the first specifies how ma
ny se ts of
Place th r operators
bo xe s and whateve
and se ve nt h th, and sixth
us e in the second, four
you ca re to t the answer. down (4)
s in th e co rr ect order to ge 1. Depose or bring
boxe
rs only once
Use the numbe 2. Scare (3)
X + –
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÷
3. Rule (2)
= 44
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Q13 One lett

er cr oss word
Q12 Today's Teaser Use the
pictures due
1) Once upon a time, there were 4 men to fill in the
of
different height. If the difference in puzzles.
height
among the first 3 men was 2 inches and
the
difference between the third and four
th man
was 6 inches, and the average height
was
74 inches, how tall was each?

2) I run, yet I have no legs. What am I?

3) What occurs once in a minute, twic

e in a
moment, but never in an hour?

4) The maker doesn't want it; the buye

r
doesn't use it; and the user doesn't see
it.
1. C, 2. T, 3. R, 4. J.

What is it?
Q13 One Letter Crossword:
Q7 Hidato:
59th day, then it is filled on the 60th day.
every day, and if the pond is half full on the
5) A lily pad doubles in size every day
passionately curious. - Albert Einstein

. If on the
letter M 4) A coffin 5) 59th day. It doubles
Answer: I have no special talent. I am only

60th day the pond is filled with the lily

fourth was 80 inches tall. 2) A nose. 3) The
Q6 Scramble: Words: Brood, Bliss, Future, Unlock.
pad, on
inches tall, the second 72, the third 74 and the
what day is the pond only half covered?
Running-Back-Dive-In-General-Electric-Power-Grid. Q12 Today's Teaser: 1) The first man was 70
Q5 Head & Tail:
Reign, Juvenile, Rome, Personal.
Itch, Chart, Artist, Istle, Legend, Gender, Ergo. Q11 Pick and Choose: Overthrow, Fright,
Condone, Onerous, Rouser, Errand, Random, Omit,
Tender, Dermal, Mallet, Letter, Terse, Second, Hard: 9 + 2 - 4 x 5 = 35
Q4 Chain Words: Hello, Loot, Other, Hermit, Mitten, Medium: 7 x 8 - 2 + 2 = 56
Easy: 7 x 4 + 7 + 9 = 44
Q3 Deduction: Outlive, Movie, Tan. Q10 Go Figure:
Dealing, Decimal, Leading, Medical. two.
Q9 Enigma Code: Clamped, Limping, Angelic, top two numbers and the product of the bottom
central value equals the sum of the product of the
Palette, Potato, Pyramid, Ring, Stumps, Syringe. Q2 Mensa Puzzle: 37 & 45. In each square the
Clip, Crow, Dollar, Flute, Gloves, Lion, Lobster,
Q8 Picture Search: Candle, Cellphone, China, Q1 Double Barrelled: Leg.
Solutions:
 in focus
“The limits of my
language mean the
limits of my world.”
- Wittgenstein said that language existed to communicate
real, clear, and present facts. Therefore, concepts which
cannot be communicated in a simple manner hold no
real truth-value themselves. Taken from Tractatus Logico
Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein (published in 1921)

Legacy
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889
– 1951) is considered one of the 20th
Centuries greatest philosophers. He was
an engineering student, before he moved
to Cambridge to study philosophy under
mathematician and philosopher, Bertrand
Russell. This combination of mathematics
and logic defined his approach, which also
espoused a rejection of the metaphysical
and abstract thinking that dominated the
field. He postulated a reality made up of
tangible facts, and stated that the ethereal
approach of his predecessors was largely
nonsense. His adherence to facts made Trinity College, Cambridge, England,
the metaphysical realm alien to him, and where Wittgenstein studied and
he believed that the world existed only as later taught philosophy The Wittgenstein siblings with Ludwig second from right
www.lucadelbaldo.com, nybooksDOTcom

a collection of material truths of which we

can speak of.
The Austrian-British thinker published
only two major works; Tractatus Logico
Philosophicus in 1921, and Philosophical
Investigations, which was published
posthumously in 1953. These works
represent the two stages of Wittgenstein’s
philosophy; Tractatus exploring the
limitations of language in expressing
abstract thought, and Investigations
assigning arbitrary truth-value to
statements in context of the language
games they were used in.
Did you know
• Wittgenstein was a student at the same school as Adolf Hitler during the academic year
1904-1905
• The Wittgenstein family had a storied history of depression; three of Wittgenstein’s brothers
committed suicide
• Wittgenstein’s mentor, Bertrand Russell, described him as the most perfect example of genius
as traditionally conceived; passionate, profound, intense, and dominating
• Wittgenstein received numerous distinctions for bravery for his service in the Austro-Hungarian
Army during WWI
• Wittgenstein took a sabbatical from the field of philosophy and served as a teacher in rural
Austrian villages after publishing Tractatus

90 June 2014
SCIENCE • HISTORY • NATURE • FOR THE CURIOUS MIND