Innholdsfortegnelse for Fall 2018 i Popular Science

ONCE A YEAR, THE WHOLE staff meets to brainstorm ideas for new issue themes. I recently started wearing eyeglasses, and right before our latest planning session, I decided to tighten them up (so they’d stay on my face during bouts of extreme editing). I reached for my trusty mini-stuff tool kit, figured I’d clean the hinge while I was in there, disassembled my specs, and promptly lost one of the screws that held them together. Mission not accomplished! I marveled at how such an insignificant (and basically invisible) widget could make such a big difference in my day. Later, during the free association portion of our brainstorm, I wrote the word “screws” on a sticky note, smiling to myself because the world had presented us with such a wonderful subject…

MARCHIS HAS SPENT HIS CAREER GETTING CLEAR PICTURES OF COMETS, URANUS, AND NEPTUNE. STILL, HE SAYS, “SEEING COLOR IN A NEBULA FROM A GARDEN IN SAN FRANCISCO? THAT’S PRETTY COOL.” WHEN SETI RESEARCHER FRANCK MARCHIS WAS A KID IN France, he looked at Saturn for the first time through a telescope and saw the planet magnified from a speck in the night sky to a beautifully ringed orb. There’s a whole universe out there, he thought. Which, of course, he already knew, but it’s different to feel it. Young Marchis’ studies slewed him toward Chile, where telescopes atop arid mountainscapes capture light from distant heavens. In 1996, he trained one on Io, a moon of Jupiter, and caught something no one had ever witnessed from the ground: a far-off volcano…

LAGER IS THE WONDER BREAD OF BEER. Ubiquitous (Bud, Coors, and Miller are the top sellers in the U.S.) and bland. Unlike craft-darling India pale ale (IPA), which derives much of its zing from hops, lager relies on yeast for flavor, and—for centuries and across brands—that yeast has been the same: the hybrid Saccharomyces pastorianus. No longer. Heineken’s H41 Wild Lager, now on tap in some U.S. cities, is the first in a new breed of complex-tasting brews, fermented with the burps of Saccharomyces eubayanus. It’s the newly domesticated mother of S. pastorianus. But unlike its progeny, S. eubayanus slowly digests sugars in the malty beer base (called the wort), so H41 comes out of its 28-day brew with the clove-like aroma of a Belgian beer, the heft of a…

NORMAL EARBUDS HAVE JUST ONE, SOMETIMES TWO speakers on each side. But those micromachines must handle a wide range of sounds, from Mariah Carey’s high register to Barry White’s silky bass, so they struggle to faithfully reproduce all the right acoustic details. The $2,200 Ultimate Ears Live headphones are different. Each in-ear unit contains eight speakers, and each of those is tuned to a specific part of the audio spectrum. Built for professional musicians who play massive stages, the buds produce a rich, true depiction of the tunes. This is what makes them sing. 1 VIBRATING METAL Seven of the speakers rely on a filament called a balanced armature, a type of tech common in hearing aids; metal vibrates between a pair of magnets to generate sound. Two armatures ring…

WHAT WOULD INSPIRE SOMEONE TO painstakingly craft an inch-and-a-half-long burrito using dental tools? A hamster, of course. In the viral YouTube video “Tiny Hamster Eating Tiny Burritos,” a man prepares a chicken and single black bean burrito, then serves it to the rodent waiting at a jamjar table. The diner pulls the burrito off a poker-chip plate and stuffs the entire thing into its mouth, cheeks puffed as if in satisfaction. It’s amazing. Videos like this are shared all over the internet, with miniature birthday celebrations, romantic dates, and tiki parties starring cherubic animals in unlikely situations. The clips have accumulated millions of views. So why do we find these tiny tableaus so satisfying? In part, it’s because we’re engineered to appreciate the smaller things in life. The protagonist is…

ITEM: Accelerometer INVENTED: 18th century USE: Sensing movement Developed in the 18th century by English physicist George Atwood, the first accelerometer—a device to measure acceleration—was taller than a full-grown man. Today’s micro electromechanical sensors are as small as 3 mm square by 0.9 mm thick. When movement flips an electrode forward, it completes a circuit, indicating a change in acceleration force or direction. These diminutive measurers of movement help ensure images on our phones and tablets stay upright, keep planes on course and missiles on target, and, in a lifesaving incarnation, signal airbags to inflate when cars crash. According to federal highway safety figures, this function had saved, when last counted, an estimated 44,866 lives in the U.S. alone between 1980 and 2015.…

ITEM: Eyeglasses screw INVENTED: 20th century USE: Joining hinges London optician Edward Scarlett was among the first to advertise temple arms for eyeglasses around 1730. Later appendages featured a doorlike hinge that let users fold their specs for travel. The first models used metal posts to affx frames to arms. But, as the refinement of industrial threading machines like lathes continued into the 20th century, tiny stainless-steel screws took that job. Over time, the fit has become standardized: Most frames now require fasteners with a shaft diameter of 1.4 mm, while some thin wire frames use ones as small as 1.2 mm. Consider that two-thirds of American adults—about 159 million people—wear prescription glasses. That’s a lot of screws that could go loose. Fortunately, you can find a repair kit at…

ITEM: Mesh INVENTED: 25,000 B.C. USE: Stopping bugs Weaving dates back to the Paleolithic era, some 27,000 years ago, preceding the domestication of plants and animals and farming. Hungry humans may have used nets to snare prey. Since then, mesh has played an essential part in our comfort and survival. One of its most prominent current incarnations is the mosquito net, an omnipresent protective covering in some countries. Thanks to machines that churn out cotton, polyester, polypropylene, and nylon weaves as fine as 0.6 mm, the air-permeable shields are a key tool in preventing the spread of malaria and other bug-borne illnesses. Insecticide-treated skeeter-stoppers helped prevent more than 600 million cases of malaria and saved 6.8 million lives between 2000 and 2015.…

ITEM: Ball bearings INVENTED: 1794 USE: Rolling objects The Romans, Greeks, Celts, and Chinese all independently devised uses for these friction-reducing mechanisms as far back as 900 B.C. As did Leonardo da Vinci during the Renaissance (see: helicopter drawings). The first modern incarnation of ball bearings—a 1794 patent that showed how small orbs could spin in grooves between an axle and wheel—was meant to make it easier for horses to pull a carriage. Seventy-five years later, a Parisian bike mechanic placed them in the hub of a vélocipede, helping a rider win one of the world’s first bicycle road races. Nearly every contemporary rotating machine relies on bearings to reduce rubbing and keep things rolling: They allow hard drives to spin disks, help the Mars rovers steer, and, yes, let…

¶ EMMA KELLY, editor and founder of the site Ginger Parrot: I checked and saw that redheads were just not on there. I wondered, has no one brought this up? Is there no one at Apple with red hair? Has everyone forgotten about EdSheeran? Kelly fired off a post on her blog, launched a petition on change.org, and fed quotes to The Guardian and other media outlets. But she soon discovered it would take much more than an online protest to get her way. Emoji are subject to a complex technical bureaucracy. The type and number of new pictograms released each year are strictly controlled by the Unicode Consortium, an international nonprofit organization of companies—including, most notably, representatives from Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Adobe. Unicode’s core mission is to convert…

When a bacterium gets stressed out, it stashes some of its DNA in a hardy structure called a spore, which can stay dormant for years before reactivating. Back in 2006, I started studying the spores made by Bacillus subtilis because a colleague told me they expand significantly in size when they come into contact with moisture. I wanted to harness that mechanical power. First, to see how much the subtilis grew with water in the air, I put some spores in a special microscope that can measure minuscule movements. Before I added moisture, I leaned in to look. Immediately, I saw a huge readout—the spores had gotten much bigger. My mere breath had caused them to grow! After some calculations, I knew these could power really strong motors. We built…

FEW TASKS SEND SHIVERS up more spines than a math problem. Expunge your fears by cracking these puzzles (instructions below) dubbed “Sums” by their creator, engineer Gordon Burgin. A small set of rules: The numbers in each sector of the above circle, square, and star equal the sum of the numbers in the circles that border them. Easy enough, right? A few more caveats: The numbers in the small circles can be only 0 through 9, and each digit can appear only once. (The most common solution is listed on page 124, but other solutions might exist.) THE ANSWERS…

IN 2015, SCIENTISTS CAUGHT EVIDENCE OF A cosmic throwdown that took place 1.3 billion light-years away. They spied this binary black-hole collision by capturing gravitational waves—ripples in space-time created when massive objects interact—for the first time. But now physicists want to see even farther. Doing so could help them accurately measure waves cast off by colliding neutron stars, impacts that might be the source of many Earthly elements, including gold. For that, they need the most sensitive gravitational-wave detectors ever. The devices that nab waves all rely on the same mechanism. The U.S.-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its European counterpart, Virgo, fire lasers down two mile-plus-long arms with mirrors at their ends. Passing waves wiggle the mirrors less than the width of an atom, and scientists measure the…

The Namibian savanna is dotted with 13-foot-tall towers of sandy soil. Built by termites just a fifth of an inch long, these mounds aren’t only structural feats—they’re a biological extension of the 1.5-million-bug colony inside. Though researchers are still trying to figure out how the “brain” of the swarm works (how do termites plan a mound without any blueprints?), they’ve recently uncovered a lot about the entomological monuments. “The functioning organism is really the whole colony,” explains Hunter King, a physicist at the University of Akron who studies the mechanics of insect swarms. “The mound really is the lung and the respiratory exchanger—and a protective skin for the superorganism.” Here’s how these skyscrapers work. 1/Hand to mouth Covered walkways up to 4 inches wide and 230 feet long lead out…

KEEPING ANTS ALIVE ISN’T EASY. A TYPICAL COLONY REQUIRES REGULAR FRUIT infusions, lots of water, and protein sources such as mealworms, crickets, and fruit flies. Because these pets can’t freely roam your home (that’s called an infestation), you’ll need to set up a formicarium—the technical name for an ant farm. Choose a species appropriate for your skill level, then trust these teensy-weensy towns to ensure your ant experiment is an active success. EASY Casita from Tar Heel Ants The hardy Messor barbarus is a perfect first subspecies—and this is their ideal starter home. The aerated concrete material holds in moisture, which provides your insects the humid conditions they need to thrive. And a port drilled into the back of the unit allows for a quick water injection via syringe. MEDIUM…

1 YEAR: 750–710 B.C. IMAGE: Cuneiform (2x) In 1850, archaeologists unearthed the oldest-known magnifier in what is now Iraq. The inch-and-a-half wide Nimrud lens may have helped ancient Assyrians view minuscule inscriptions. This polished rock crystal refracts light through its curved surface. Prismatic power was the best we had for thousands of years. 2 YEAR: 1625 IMAGE: Bee’s eye (30x) Seventeenth-century spectacle-seekers made the first microscopes: The compound model uses a second glass lens to boost magnification. Galileo Galilei was likely the first to add a third. With the improved view, scientists peered into bugs’ eyes and discovered the delicate hexagonal lenses covering a bee’s peepers. 3 YEAR: 1665 IMAGE: Cross section of cork (50x) Physicist Robert Hooke figured out how to block stray light rays, but he…

Entomologists put the Earth’s bug population at around 10 quintillion. That’s 19 zeros, people. But while insects, with an estimated 6 million species, account for one of the largest biomasses on our planet, we hardly ever see them—well, we look, but we don’t see. Photographer Levon Biss’ eyes are wide open. He became obsessed with bugs when he and his son trained a microscope on a ground beetle. Under magnification, the bug revealed an iridescent-green body with geometric markings. Captivated, Biss decided to use his cameras—which he usually points at celebrities and athletes for splashy magazine covers—to capture the brilliant majesty of these creepy crawlies. Focusing on tiny subjects is tricky. Zooming in blurs all but the narrowest band. Biss built a camera rig with a microscope lens. Then…

At the poles, snow doesn’t melt; it accumulates in layers of ice that stretch back in time like tree rings. I study particles trapped in these layers to see how climate has changed. First, my team gathers ice cores from the coldest climes. In Greenland, we traverse thousands of miles on snowmobiles to reach different collection sites, surrounded by nothing but flat, white beauty. Then we drill for samples that range from a couple hundred feet to more than a mile long and date back up to 50,000 years. Greenland cores preserve specks of dust from Chinese deserts and sea salt from big storms in the North Atlantic. But there are so few particles—some are one in a trillion—that it’s like trying to find a postage stamp somewhere in New…

At the La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, paleontologists used to free large fossils like sabertooth jaws and mammoth shoulders by melting the asphalt with heated kerosene. In the process, they burned microfossils: small remains such as a mouse’s toe bone, seeds, or lizard vertebrae. Scientists once viewed them as unimportant, but microfossils tell us more about ice-age Los Angeles than bigger bones do because many larger animals were migratory visitors, while smaller organisms were locals. A few decades ago, the museum started saving what we call “the matrix,” excavated tar and debris, and storing it in containers the size of paint cans. Although our lab has 36 trained volunteers to sort the microfossils, they have to process hundreds of tons of rock and dirt. So this past winter, we…

I am a pediatric surgeon, but I meet many of my patients when they’re still growing inside their mother’s womb. That’s because I specialize in fetal surgery—performing an operation on a baby before it’s born. Usually, we remove the baby from the uterus, operate, then put it back. But you can’t always do that. For example, spina bifida, a defect where bone and flesh don’t fully cover the spinal cord, requires intervention at around 22 to 25 weeks of gestation. If we make a large cut in the uterus at that time, when the fetus weighs less than a pound, the organ could tear as the baby grows, endangering mother and child. To get around that, doctors at my hospital created a technique to operate without opening the womb. We…

1900 Bird banding Scientists systematically wrapped engraved metal bands around birds’ legs but relied on others to recapture the avians to provide info on where they went. 1950s Acoustic telemetry To track fish, seals, and whales, these tags emit pulses of sound, which are picked up by microphones positioned throughout the animals’ habitat. 1960s VHF-radio transmitters Researchers using this high-frequency tech to track animals like feral horses had to stay within a few miles of them to pick up signals. 1980s Argos An early satellite-based system used to follow dolphins, albatross, and other creatures, the initial versions couldn’t be reprogrammed from afar. 1990s Isotopic analysis By scrutinizing the chemical composition of feathers, scales, or hair, scientists can determine the rough origin of the migrating animals they are studying. 1990s…

A’S, T’S, G’S, AND C’S ARE ALL IT TAKES TO MAKE YOU, ME, OR A banana. Unique strings of these molecules, matched up in units called base pairs, form doubled DNA helixes, which serve as the recipes for all living things. Because the challenges of life—such as absorbing nutrients, replicating, and moving—are fairly consistent across organisms, there’s plenty of overlap between sequences. Here’s a sampling. ALL LIVING THINGS To compare across distant species—whose codes diverge too greatly to lay side by side—scientists look for overlaps in the molecules DNA produces, such as proteins. Both fruit flies and humans, for instance, rely on the Wnt family of proteins to establish the back and belly of the embryo. PRIMATES Analyzing DNA line by line works fine within the same phylogenetic family, where…

To coroners, every cause of death is a number, a unique code that files incidents into a national database. Each year, outlandish cases confirm even our most paranoid fears: Burned by flaming water skis? Godspeed, V91.07. Bitten by an orca? Rest in pieces, W56.21. Though no one perished on flaming sticks in 2016, yeast infections and sunlight did do some folks in. These are some of America’s strangest, smallest killers. J67.2 BIRD FANCIER’S LUNG Birds make for great meat, chatty pets, and comfy bedding. But avian droppings and feathers contain antigens and other irritants that can become airborne. In large quantities, like in some pet stores or collectors’ homes, they can cause killer lung inflammation. E51.1 BERIBERI Chronically low thiamine (vitamin B1) can trigger beriberi, a disease that can damage…

WHEN YOU’RE CLIMBING A STEEP, rocky trail on the side of a mountain, a bulky pack catching on branches or scraping against boulders will slow your ascent. Lightweight, space-saving camping essentials can provide warmth, shelter, and comfort out on the trail without making you feel like a pack mule. In addition to staples like food, water, a first-aid kit, and a multi-tool, these super-squishable items—which total just 8.75 pounds—will get you through your next night in the woods. 1/Backpack The Osprey Levity 45’s main compartment holds 12 gallons of gear, which easily accommodates everything on these pages—with room for trail mix. The steel frame at the rear of the pack suspends nylon netting, a design that evenly distributes weight across your back. It also provides breathing room so your sweat…

YOUR LOCAL PUTT-PUTT SPOT IS A SILLY LAND OF SPINNING windmills and laughing clowns. But the tacky surroundings don’t mean you can’t go all Jack Nicklaus and totally freakin’ dominate those baby greens. The putting skills you refine while dodging miniature Stonehenges can help on the big-kid course too. Here’s the pro-grade gear you need to destroy your friends at the shortest short game. 1 Practice first The PuttOut is a serious training tool. A well-struck ball, with the force and trajectory to go in the hole, will roll up the plastic ramp, then back toward you. Hit too hard and the ball will launch off the back; wayward shots will fall off the side. 2 Picture success Markings on the Wellputt Pro mat help you visualize every element of…

To make a sourdough starter, or levain, start with a mixture of flour and water, then feed it regularly every day. After each feeding, the yeasts and lactic acid bacteria (LAB) will start to multiply. As they process the flour’s starch, they produce carbon dioxide and acetic and lactic acids as waste, becoming more sour over time (until the next feeding). You’ll need to start your levain five days before baking with it. Be aware that starting a levain takes time, care, and patience. LEVAIN FORMULA DAY ONE Whole-wheat flour 240g Water (at 75°F) 240g TOTAL YIELD 480g AFTER 48 HOURS, DAILY THEREAFTER Levain 120g Whole-wheat flour 180g Water (at 75°F) 180g TOTAL YIELD 480g 1. Combine whole-wheat flour and water (75 degrees Fahrenheit) in equal parts in a clean…

Shamu is a digital holographic microscope: Its obvious job is to magnify specimens, but its special talent is making 3D movies that provide compelling evidence of microorganisms alive and stirring. After researchers inject liquid into the sample chamber, the microscope splits a laser beam into two shafts, which the collimator lens makes parallel. One ray passes through the specimen; the second acts as a reference beam. Shamu’s software combines and compares the two rays, revealing microorganisms moving in the sample. Meanwhile, a 3D camera at the top of the scope records and transmits the results in real time.…

ITEM: Zipper slider INVENTED: 1851 USE: Zipping The ubiquitous fastener we all use (and some fashion designers overuse) has undergone more than a century of refinements. It began with Elias Howe’s 1851 patent for “a series of clasps united by a connecting-cord… running or sliding upon ribs.” Kind of awkward. So, 40 years later, engineer Whitcomb Judson replaced the clasps with hooks and eyes joined by a slider. Better. But in 1913, Otto Frederik Gideon Sundback added a reliable interlocking system made of oval teeth. The then-president of B.F. Goodrich, Bertram Work, bestowed the “zipper” moniker to a company-made boot that featured one. The name stuck; the footwear did not. Today, Americans buy around 4.5 billion zippers a year. They continue to secure everything from spare change to clean rooms.…

1 5-millimeter bird band MATT WILKINS, POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW AT THE CENTER FOR SCIENCE OUTREACH AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY The U.S. Geological Survey distributes these half-gram metal bands to help us track birds as they migrate south for the winter. Some of the fliers weigh just a few tens of grams themselves. 2 1-micrometer DNA injection needle TIMOTHY WARRINGTON, RESEARCH SCIENTIST AT FREDSENSE TECHNOLOGIES During my doctorate, I was breeding millimeter-long transgenic worms, barely visible to the naked eye, by sticking DNA into their gonads. We couldn’t find syringes small enough, so we had to make our own. First, we would heat a glass tube about a tenth of a millimeter thick and break it to make a needle. Then we’d snap off the sealed tip to make sure it was open…

Dust mites are microscopic creatures that live in rugs, blankets, and cushions, triggering skin rashes and asthma in millions of people worldwide. In Pakistan, physicians started diagnosing people with dust allergies, using Western kits, in the mid-1990s. But no one knew if these allergy-inducing bugs actually lived there! Knowing which species—if any—lived in Pakistani homes could help doctors make more accurate diagnoses. So in spring 2011, I collected dust from 300 homes in urban areas of Pothwar. People aren’t accustomed to strangers showing up at the door with a vacuum cleaner! I used my network of friends to reach as many subjects as possible. But I didn’t find any mites. I thought the entire project was a failure. Then I remembered the pests like humid air, and spring in Pothwar…

In the salt flats of the Tunisian desert, Cataglyphis fortis ants will travel more than 120 yards from their nests in search of food. That’s like you or me walking 4 miles, through a landmark-free environment, for dinner. For a long time, entomologists thought ants must count their steps in order to know how many were needed to return home. If they do this, I realized, then shortening or lengthening their legs would make them miscalculate the distance. In summer 2005, I traveled to Tunisia to test ants’ internal pedo meters. First, I captured them about 11 yards away from the nest. I lifted them with fine for ceps, put them belly up in a plate of soft wax normally used in dentistry, and stuck each knee down to steady…

TWELVE BLACK DOTS DANCE ABOUT this grid. They never actually move or vanish, but no matter how fast you twitch your eyes back and forth, you can’t seem to trap them all in your gaze at once. Ninio’s extinction illusion is a riff on the Hermann grid, a classic piece of visual trickery in which your eyes see illusory gray blobs at the intersections of a black-and-white lattice. We don’t know exactly why the Hermann grid happens, says Susana Martinez-Conde, a neuroscientist at the State University of New York’s Downstate Medical Center. This makes it challenging to sort out the brain science behind any modifications on the original illusion. Researchers’ prevailing theory for the flickering-dots variant above is that we have more neurons clustered at the center of our vision…

YOU’VE PROBABLY SEEN them while falling asleep—kaleidoscope patterns playing behind your eyelids. What are they? We see because photons of light bounce onto our retinas, reaching brain cells called neurons, which transform their energy into an electrical signal for the brain’s visual cortex. But sometimes the noggin’s wiring goes haywire and sends phantom cues called phosphenes. They are the tiny stars that blur your vision when you whack your head or rub your eyes. Physical force can jar our neurons, causing them to fire and send errant messages, says Jason Samaha, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. But phosphenes also occur at rest with our eyes shut. That’s because the visual cortex creates some spontaneous activity all the time, Samaha says. Where the resulting motifs originate is…

A health-monitoring toilet BILL MALCOLM VIA FACEBOOK URINE LUCK! Michael Snyder, a biosensor expert at Stanford University, says the john has tons of untapped potential. A sensor in the bowl could track hormones, viruses, and molecules that might indicate signs of pregnancy, an infectious disease, or diabetes. Tiny cameras could help monitor the shape, size, and consistency of poop, searching for irregularities indicating cancer. Smart toilets with these features are in the works, but they won’t reach Home Depot for another decade, Snyder says. Clinics will get the first look. The Japanese-made Flowsky toilet from tech company Toto, created for healthcare facilities, will measure the flow rate of a patient’s pee to monitor bladder health. A personal climate modulator ASHER ROCKAH VIA TWITTER Office climates are often calibrated for an…