Science Illustrated

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RAGWORM The ‘King Ragworm’ (Alitta virens) can grow to more than a metre in length; a Russian photographer captured this example in the Russian White Sea. Despite its name, the worm’s life is not very regal. It resides in the darkness of the deep sea

SPACE Scientists and science-fiction writers have long suggested that the safest place to build a base on Mars might be in lava tunnels created by volcanoes that are now extinct. Unlike Earth, Mars does not have a magnetic field that protects against

TECHNOLOGY Engineers across the world are searching for ways to improve the efficiency of solar panels. As new materials and designs are tested, any efficiency improvement – even a few percent – is announced as a breakthrough. Most solar panels conve

ASTRONOMY An effort to explain the path of one of the moons of Mars has led to a surprising conclusion: Mars has a past in which various moons formed and disintegrated. During some period, the Red Planet must have had rings like Saturn – and it proba

MEDICINE The idea of making astronauts hibernate on long space missions often appears in science fiction, but now it is one step closer to reality. Scientists from the University of Tsukuba in Japan have made mice and rats hibernate, even though they

GENE TECHNOLOG Yes it could: indeed DNA editing using CRISPR-Cas9 ‘gene scissors’ is already used in cancer treatment. But the most promising editing is not aimed directly at cancer cells, instead employing immune therapy to improve the body’s own de

NATURE Once a year on Christmas Island, Australia’s distant territory in the Indian Ocean, some 120 million terrestrial crabs migrate from the jungle to the water to breed. The crabs swarm during the rainy season, between October and December. When t

CHEMISTRY Scientists know of more than 500 organisms that can consume different types of hydrocarbons, including oil. The most specialised is a genus of bacteria known as Alcanivorax, which survives almost solely from breaking down crude oil. The spe

ZOOLOGY If you have silverfish in your bathroom, laundry room or basement boiler room, it is primarily a symptom of high air humidity, usually in combination with high temperatures. It’s often said that silverfish will be more likely to invade a bath

CHEMISTRY If honey is kept in a jar with a tightfitting lid so that no moisture can enter, it should last effectively forever. The lack of an expiry date is due to a combination of very high sugar content, special enzymes, and low water content. When

ASTRONOMY The shining star that heralded the birth of Jesus is mentioned only in the Gospel of Matthew, and the text is not very scientifically informative, making it difficult to identify the star as a celestial event. The uncertainty of an accurate

THRIVING DREAM FADING DREAM REVIVED DREAM Wearing a face mask, blue rubber gloves and a cap with a wide brim, the US palaeontologist Evan Saitta looks more like a man going shopping during the pandemic than a scientist doing field work. But he is in

REBOR STUDIO, LONDON, UK Scientists pulverise some of the bone and dissolve the powder into a liquid. Subsequently they can extract the DNA and read its sequence. Any holes in the sequence could be filled by computer with similar sequences from moder

Antibodies aimed at collagen proteins bind to the dinosaur bone. And as bacteria do not produce collagen, the proteins must come from the dinosaur itself. Several independent electron microscope examinations reveal that the fossils include structures

Birds trace their origins to dinosaurs, and so they still carry genetic remains of their ancestors. Palaeontologist Jack Horner had the idea of using the remains to turn back the evolution of birds. By means of the CRISPR gene tool, he has tried to a

PLANCK TYPE: Space telescope OPERATION: 2009-2013 WAVELENGTH: From micro waves to the infrared spectrum MISSION: Measuring temperature differences of cosmic background radiation You are driving in a car between two cities, trying to measure your spee

Stars, planets, and elementary particles that we can observe, are ordinary matter. All matter attracts other matter – and the attraction is recorded as gravity. Gravity contracts the universe, or counteracts its expansion. Like ordinary matter, dark

If the average quantity of matter and energy – the density – of the universe is high, it bends inwards like a ball. Scientists call such a universe ‘closed’, because two light beams that are sent off on parallel paths will eventually approach each ot

Each time you swat a bloodthirsty mosquito, you’re destroying a perfect little machine. When a female mosquito is ready to develop eggs, she needs blood. For this purpose the mosquito has developed a proboscis that consists of a sheath surrounding a

There are 17 human-biting ticks in Australia, according to research published in 2019 by an international team including scientists from the University of Sydney and Macquarie University. Ornithodoros gurneyi can cause severe local and systemic react

Horseflies are one of the most common groups of bloodsuckers; they exist throughout the world in some 3000 species, and Australia has around 200 of those. They can be one of the most painful bloodsuckers around in the summer, as like midges they cut

THE FOLLICULAR CHALLENGE FOR SCIENCE One single delicate hair stands up, surrounded by an excited team of scientists. The small hair is not very impressive in itself – it can’t be used to treat disease or feed the world. But it is, nevertheless, a hu

Hair growth begins when a group of stem cells moves from the side to the bottom of a hair follicle, where there is a hair papilla in which blood vessels supply oxygen and nutrients to the cells. The stem cells develop into hair cells and divide over

TRUE Scientists used to think that the cause of sudden grey hair growth was solely genetic, but new research from Harvard University in the US demonstrates that stress can also play an important role. In stressful situations, the nervous system liber

CREATION A computer simulates millions of years of evolution, producing a new and fine-tuned life form. AMILY TREE Biobots are neither robots nor biology, so are completely unique among life forms that have been created in the lab. LIFE In the future

The new biobots are made of cells from the African clawed frog. In nature, skin cells protect the frog’s interior, whereas heart cells pump blood about its body. A biobot behaves like a robot – its cells perform tasks that have been programmed by a c

Different types of biobots can combine into pairs and cooperate. They can then do a job more efficiently – such as pushing tiny particles towards the same place. Scientists suggest that the biobots, which are quickly broken down in nature, could coll

Back in 1872, HMS Challenger left the harbour of Portsmouth to begin a 1000-day expedition ion across the oceans. Scientists aboard the ship collected data on temperatures, ocean currents and chemical variations in the ocean water, and they took samp

The Patania II is controlled from a mining ship via a cable. The cable also carries the robot’s weight of 25 tonnes as it is lowered and raised to/from the ocean floor at a depth of 4.5km. The manganese nodules form on small shells or shark teeth, wh

You have gone to a supermarket to buy washing powder, but your usual brand has sold out. Remaining on the shelves in front of you is a selection of five different choices. One is quite a lot smaller than the others, while another comes in a bucket wi

The ocean floor includes metals that will be in short supply in a greening world where electric cars replace petrol-powered cars, with demand for car batteries set to explode over the next 10 years. As well as lithium, an electric battery typically i

You are a quality control officer in a factory that makes playing cards. All cards must meet one requirement: if the number on the card is even, it MUST be red. You do not have enough time to check all the cards, so your challenge is to turn over onl

The ‘pilot-wave theory’ is a disputed interpretation of quantum mechanics in which a particle behaves like a particle but moves like a wave. It’s difficult to visualise, but physicist Aleks Labuda’s demonstration is elegant. He placed silicone drople

Scientists have designed a virus and infected brain cells with it so that they produce a chemical that dampens anxiety. The method has proven effective in monkeys, and scientists believe that humans might also be vaccinated against many forms of anxi