SHARKS ■ 892 NITROGEN CYCLE ■ FACTS and ANSWERS ELECTRIC INSIDE SUPERCARS the High-Voltage, Next- Generation Racers Explained BRAIN

NEW THE MAGAZINE THAT FEEDS MINDS INSIDE

INTERVIEW VICKI BUTLER- HENDERSON TM SCIENCE ENVIRONMENT TECHNOLOGY TRANSPORT HISTORY SPACE ”I love oversteer!" NUCLEAR P WER The future of clean, safe & renewable energy? ASTRONAUT TRAINING What does it take to LEARN become a space-traveller? ABOUT MOUNT RUSHMORE ■ MARIANA TRENCH ■ EBOOK READERS ■ ELECTRIC KETTLES ■ SIEGE TOWERS ■ BLACK HOLES ■ SEATBELTS ■ V-22 OSPREY ■ WASP STINGS HOLOGRAMS ■ How and why do wasps SPITFIRES ■ attack humans? JET ENGINES ■ THERMAL IMAGING ■ LIVES OF SHARKS ■ 892 NITROGEN CYCLE ■ FACTS AND ANSWERS ELECTRIC INSIDE SUPERCARS The high-voltage, next- generation racers explained BRAIN

Nature’s most extreme www.howitworksdaily.comPOWER power explained EXPLAINED! HOW ISSUE THREE £3.99 CONSCIOUSNESS, SURVIVING AN © Imagine Publishing Ltd PERCEPTION AND EARTHQUAKE! No unauthorised copying or distribution MEMORY WORK

001_HIW_003_final.indd 1 8/12/09 14:25:09 © Imagine Publishing Ltd No unauthorised copying or distribution Get in touch Have YOU got a question you want answered by the How It Works team? Get in touch by… Email: [email protected] Web: www.howitworksdaily.com ISSUE THREE Snail mail: How It Works Imagine Publishing, 33 Richmond Hill WELCOMEThe magazine that feeds minds! Bournemouth, Dorset, BH2 6EZ ”FEED YOUR MIND!” Happy new year! Hello and What you’re saying about How It Works welcome to the third issue of How Fantastic. There’s so much in it that I had This mag is amazing and I am looking It Works. “Feed your mind” is the only just fi nished reading issue one when forward to plenty of enlightened chat on motto of our magazine and our issue two arrived. – D Simpson, email various subjects. – Fluff, forum main feature this issue quite Loved the pyramids feature from issue A fabulous magazine. I’ve been an avid fi ttingly deals with just that, the two. Visually stunning and a great insight reader of Focus since the early Nineties brain. It’s the most complex organ into the new theory on an ancient and more recently New Scientist, and on in the human body and controls mystery. – F Jennings, email neither of those occasions did I subscribe movement, thought, memory, as quickly as I have done with you guys. This is a great magazine. I found it for the I’m gutted I missed your fi rst edition. I love perception and, to some degree, fi rst time last week. It can help a lot of the way you cover so many different personality, so take a look at page 40 to fi nd out what people gain an interest in science with its subjects. – Lee B Thomas, email short and well-illustrated articles. Keep matters about your grey matter. up the good work. I was very interested in Really enjoying the magazine. Still getting It’s common to be thinking about the year ahead right the article about Dyson’s Airblade dryer, through the fi rst issue and have the now and I’ve been thinking about energy, both my but even more so about the ‘bladeless’ fan. second. A lot of interesting facts and personal lack of it after the extended festive revelries – Douglas Boston, email topics. – Jonathan Greer, email and the larger issue of Earth’s energy resources. I’m no green panic-monger, but the fact is clear that fossil fuels won’t last forever. The doom-mongers may predict the Editor’s pick end of the world but I’m fi rmly of the opinion that science The V-22 Osprey without a doubt. I’m a sucker for extreme and technology will rescue us. Two areas where machines and this thing looks like one of my son’s technology can offer alternatives to fossil fuels are Transformers. While it won’t convert to a killer Decepticon it does convert from a helicopter to a plane. It’s on page 58. electric cars and more controversially, nuclear power, and we have features on both this issue. Finally, I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who’s Meet the experts helped to make How It Works a massive success so far. In How It Works is created by a team of experts that’s more like family than particular all the regular readers and subscribers! work colleagues, and it’s a family that’s growing all the time… Dave Harfi eld Editor in Chief The sections explained The huge amount of info in each issue of How It Works is organised into these sections Rob Helen Luis John Tom Jones Laidlaw Villazon Brandon Harris ENVIRONMENT HISTORY V-22 Osprey Hot air balloons Sharks The brain Nuclear power The natural world Questions answered explained on how things worked New-kid Rob moved Deputy editor Helen Luis has a PhD in John exercised his Tom was one of the in the past towns to join the has been neck-deep zoology and did his grey matter to bring original writers at TRANSPORT HIW team and in knowledge, doctorate on the us an overview of just howstuffworks.com kicked off his tenure knocking out all living habits of what goes on inside where he headed up Be it road, rail, by writing about the manner of missives sharks. He was well the human skull an award-winning air or sea V-22 Osprey among on the subject of qualified then, to with an explanation content team. These you’ll find other things. He did a history. She explains write our lead of brain anatomy and days he’s a pen-for- out about pretty good job to be samurai swords, environment feature function. He also hire and contributed it here honest and we viaducts, siege this month on just explains the mystery an excellent piece on reckon we’ll towers and hot air that subject, it’s jaw- surrounding black nuclear power this probably let him stay. balloons. droppingly good! holes. very issue. TECHNOLOGY The wonders of modern gadgetry With thanks to and engineering How It Works would like to thank SCIENCE explained the following companies and Explaining the organisations for their help in applications of SPACE creating this issue science in the From exploration to the solar contemporary world system to deep space

003_HIW_003_new.indd 3 10/12/09 14:22:49 52 ISSUE THREE Electric supercars Find out how the next generation of sports CONTENTS cars are powered The magazine that feeds minds! 06Global Eye A collection of awe-inspiring images along with news from the worlds of science, nature, space, technology and transport

28 The lives of sharks Discovering the truth about one of nature’s most feared creatures Sections 20 eBook readers Technology What’s inside these cutting-edge 14 Nuclear power gadgets that let you store and read Find out how nuclear power turns thousands of books atomic energy into electricity 18 Blu-ray discs 18 Batteryless watches 18 Thermal imaging 19 Electric kettles 19 Holograms 20 eBook readers Inside the latest gadgets that let you store and read thousands of books 22 OLED displays 23 Fridges 23 Airport luggage scanners 24 GPS fi tness kit 26 Oil rigs Find out how oil is pumped from under the sea Environment 28 The lives of sharks Take an in-depth look at how these 40 ancient predators hunt, breed and die Brain power 32 Spider webs Take a guided tour of the human mind! 32 The world’s most venomous fi sh 32 Hibernation 72 33 Desert survival techniques Get tips on staying alive from an The RAF Spitfi re SAS expert A fantastic cutaway and explanation of the most famous fighter plane of all time SUBSCRIBE NOW! Go to pg 80 for some great deals 34 Acid rain © Imagine Publishing Ltd 004 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

004-005_HIW_003.indd 4 10/12/09 14:24:40 34 Whale song 34 Measuring wind 35 Wasp stings Regulars 66 35 Pollination Astronaut training 37 The Mariana Trench Discover what it takes 12 How It to take a trip into space 38 Earthquakes Works Find out how tectonic plates make the earth move interview How It Works talks to Fifth Gear’s Vicki Butler-Henderson, Science racing driver and TV presenter 40 Brain power Find how the body’s most complex organ operates 44 Steroids 44 Why are chillies hot? 44 How does sunblock work? 45 The world’s largest microscope 46 Understanding DNA 48 The nitrogen cycle How living organisms make use of the 14 most abundant gas on the planet Nuclear power Because How nuclear reactors Transport enquiring minds want turn atomic energy into to know… domestic electricity 50 Jet engines 52 Electric supercars 82 Expert How electricity powers these high- answers voltage, next generation racers Experts from the National Science Museum and the HIW 50 56 Combine harvesters team answer readers’ questions 56 Semi-automatic transmission Wasp stings Alison Boyle Understanding 57 Seat belts Curator of Astronomy the science 57 The Channel Tunnel Alison joins us this behind the sting issue to answer all 58 The V-22 Osprey our space questions Is it a helicopter, is it a plane? It’s both! Find out how it works… Rob Skitmore Assistant Curator of Technology Space Rob tackles all queries related to 60 The International Space Station technology Find out what it’s like to live in orbit on Rik Sargent the ISS Science Museum Explainer Rik takes on all the 64 Earth’s magnetic fi eld science questions 64 Solar sails this month 65 Black holes 66 Astronaut training The International Just what does it take to train for Space Station space travel? Go inside the ISS 60 68 Gamma rays For connoisseurs of kit and savants of stuff and find out what 68 Searching for hidden planets it’s like to live in orbit 69 Space trash 86 The latest 69 Phases of the moon reviews 70 Solid rocket boosters From tech to toys via DVDs, books and games and anything History that’s fun 72 The Spitfi re We go under the hood of a truly British World War Two icon 74 Viaducts 74 Sundials 74 Wigwam building 94 How to make 75 The Great Wall of China We show you how to make your How the Great Wall was built, and no it very own Can Safe can’t be seen from space! 76 The fi rst hot air balloon 96 How It Works 76 How samurai swords are made – Inbox SUBSCRIBE NOW! 76 Siege towers Go to pg 80 for some great deals Your chance to have your say on 79 Building Mount Rushmore the magazine and what it does © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 005 No unauthorised copying or distribution

004-005_HIW_003.indd 5 10/12/09 14:25:16 EYENEWS Systems BAE © A fresh look at the world SeaOrbiter to take to BAE the waves RoboCops Futuristic French design brings us ever closer to next- to patrol generation ocean exploration

n a signifi cant step for marine exploration, visionary the sky French architect Jacques Rougerie has designed a Ifuturistic fl oating laboratory capable of observing our elusive oceans 24/7. Unlike any other form of aquatic transportation, the SeaOrbiter science station will enable maritime explorers to watch the watery world day and night. The 51-metre tall ship, two thirds of which will be submerged, will circumnavigate the globe, driven by ocean currents and wind. The vessel will be used to examine the relationship between the sea and atmosphere, as well as studying climate changes and marine resources, and the underwater portion of SeaOrbiter will of course reveal a Pilotless aircraft to tackle illegal immigration new perspective on the aquatic world. The design, reminiscent of a vertical ship with multiple along British coasts and borders platforms and pressurised modules for its inhabitants, partnership between police on the south coast of England and Europe’s largest defence may represent a landmark for marine exploration, but it’s contractor could bring about the employment of remotely controlled military-style drones also piqued the interest of space organisations NASA and Ato help overcome drug smuggling and illegal immigration along the coastal region. the ESA. The enclosed conditions aboard the SeaOrbiter Known as Unmanned Autonomous Systems (UAS), these aircrafts, developed by BAE Systems, can will resemble those on board the International Space transmit images direct to control rooms on the ground, enabling police to take immediate action Station (ISS), and could prove useful for astronaut training. against criminal activity in the area. BAE is currently adapting two styles of drone – the HERTI and the Although only in the prototype stages, the SeaOrbiter GA22 – for use over British coastlines. The aeroplane-style HERTI, which has a 12.6-metre wingspan project looks increasingly likely to take to the waves. The and can travel at 90-120 knots, is ideal for the fast-paced policing of borders and coastal regions. The project has even been acknowledged by French president distinctively blimp-like GA22, meanwhile, is suitable for hovering over a single location during events Nicolas Sarkozy, and it’s gained the backing of shipbuilding such as the 2012 Olympic Games. company DCNS and electronics organisation Thales. Architect Rougerie Jacques © The perfect prosthetic? Advances made by LifeHand project see a bionic hand successfully operated using mind control European experiment to see whether an amputee could Electrodes can sense these stimuli and so control an artifi cial hand with just his thoughts has by attaching electrodes to the point of A yielded amazing results. The LifeHand experiment, amputation, the brain’s electrical activity can funded by the EU, represents the fi rst time a patient receiving a essentially be used to control the artifi cial limb. prosthesis has been able to perform complex movements, all Such electrodes were implanted into the arm of controlled by cerebral impulses. 26-year-old Pierpaolo Petruzziello, who has no hand or forearm Even after a limb has been amputated, the brain continues to following a car accident, and after days he had mastered control of send electrical signals to the body part even though it is no longer the hand. Further study is required to assess whether the implants physically there, and instead of successfully controlling the original can be made permanent, but this is a great step towards creating a limb, these signals stop short at the point of amputation. prosthesis that functions like a natural limb.

31 December: On New Year’s Eve, How It Works issue In 1923 1923 a BBC This day in history three goes on sale, what else happened on this day? engineer on the roof of the House of A 34-year-old Arthur Queen Thomas Parliament records 1759 Guinness signs a 1857 Victoria 1878 Edison 1909 New York’s iconic the chimes of Big 9,000 year lease for Dublin’s St declares that Ottawa, gives his fi rst public Manhattan suspension bridge Ben, which are James’s Gate Brewery at £45 per Ontario, should become demonstration of the fi rst opens to traffi c. then broadcast on annum and starts brewing the new capital of light bulb at his lab in BBC radio for the Guinness ale. Canada. New Jersey. fi rst time.

010-011_HIW_003.indd 10 10/12/09 14:30:56 www.howitworksdaily.com Large Hadron Collider TV The How It Works website is breaks world record regularly updated with the The biggest machine in the world will be used to most amazing videos the shed light on how the universe was created net has to offer f you enjoyed our look inside the to break the particles into ridiculously High-speed action Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in small pieces, revealing matter the n Here’s an amazing compilation Iissue one, you’ll be very likes of which we’ve never seen. of slow-motion footage taken with interested to know that on 30 Although such a breakthrough is high-speed cameras. The slo-mo November 2009 it broke a world exceptional, CERN director general popping of a water balloon is record, accelerating its twin proton Rolf Heuer remains pragmatic: “We absolutely fascinating. beams to an unprecedented 1.18 are still coming to terms with just how teraelectron volts (TeV) of energy. smoothly the LHC commissioning is The previous record, held by going. It is fantastic. However, we are America’s Tevatron Collider since continuing to take it step by step, and 2001, stood at 0.98TeV. there is still a lot to do before we start The European Organization for physics in 2010.” Nuclear Research (CERN) located near Geneva is home to the machine built inside a 27-kilometre round tunnel 50 metres below ground. The LHC accelerates streams of protons or The Cubinator ions in opposite directions around a n This robot, known as the huge ring. Any protons or ions that Cubinator, completes the world- smash into each other collide with famous Rubik’s Cube, but can he

such intensity that it has the energy CERN © beat the human world record of ten seconds? Excite-o-meter! Every issue we offer this visual guide to what’s been getting us excited in this issue of How It Works Rob Rob Staff Writer Staff Helen Helen Dep Ed Dep Startling starlings n It’s back to nature with this unbelievable display of bird flight. Watch as thousands of starlings Jon flock together without colliding or

Snr Sub Editor Sub Snr stepping out of sync. Dave Ed in Chief in Ed Dunc Art Ed Art Oilrigs Sharks Spitfire Electric Electric training The brain The supercars Astronaut Astronaut Jet engine Jet V-22 Osprey V-22 Living on ISS on Living

Nuclear power power Nuclear Chucking it about The topic getting most of the love in issue three was the sharks feature. Who’d have thought these deadly stalkers n A slightly eccentric English gent of the sea would have Team How It Works so rapt? Find out what makes sharks such amazing creatures on page 28. Next up after the big fish was the in-depth look at how the brain works on page 40. This month’s most excited reveals how he likes to amuse Both photos courtesy of Bio-Medical Campus University Campus Bio-Medical of courtesy photos Both Pisa of Sant’Anna Superiore Scuola and Rome of team member was editor Dave who you just can’t keep down – he’s the antithesis of senior sub editor Jon who is just so depressingly unexcitable. The other day we had to poke him with a stick because we thought he was dead. himself by flinging large objects – including pianos and cars – with his enormous trebuchet catapult. Manchester WWII: Hungary 1941 United 1944 declares war on 1999 2004 Football Club stalwart Sir Nazi Germany. In accordance with The Taipei 101 Alex Ferguson is born. the Torrijos-Carter skyscraper in Sir Malcolm Treaties, America Taipei, Taiwan 1948 Campbell, who officially hands is officially broke the land speed record control of the opened. At this on nine occasions between Panama Canal over time, it was the 1924 and 1935 in his Bluebird to the tallest in the cars, dies. Panamanians. world (509m).

010-011_HIW_003.indd 11 10/12/09 14:31:22 EYEINTERVIEW A fresh look at the world Vicki Butler- Henderson Born with racing already in her blood, Vicki Butler- Henderson has worked on the UK’s top motor shows, Fifth Gear and Top Gear. Putting her money where her mouth is, VBH drives a (nearly) classic 1989 VW Golf GTi Mark II and a Ducati Monster – a motorcycle that is every bit as frightening to ride as it sounds. And yes, she knows exactly how they work… HIW: Knowing what you know now, what HIW: What is the difference between one piece of advice would you give to understeer and oversteer? yourself when you were just starting your VBH: Understeer is predominant in front- career in motorsport and TV presenting? wheel-drive cars – where the engine’s power VBH: I think the only advice I would give is to is sent to the front wheels. The majority of enjoy it all! But that is exactly what I have cars on our roads are front-wheel-drive. done over the years, as well as doing the best Understeer happens when you go too job and the best driving I could every day. quickly into a corner. When you try to turn the steering wheel to go round the corner, HIW: The Bugatti Veyron is featured in the the front tyres lose grip with the tarmac and fi rst issue of How It Works, what do you end up pushing straight ahead and not think of this amazing machine? Have you making the turn. driven one for Fifth Gear? Oversteer is predominant in rear-wheel- VBH: This is the one car that I still want to drive cars which have the engine’s power drive. Tiff Needell drove it for Fifth Gear, so fed to the rear wheels – as with the majority the opportunity has yet to arise for me! of Porsches, BMWs, Mercedez-Benz, sportscars and supercars. I love oversteer! It HIW: What’s your favourite gadget that occurs when you go round a corner too you currently own? quickly – always on purpose on my account VBH: My iPod which I use to listen to music “Fax it to some destination, and – and the rear end slides out. Only talent can when I’m in the gym, and also for listening catch the slide. Or a freak amount of luck. It to audio books when I’m on long journeys in my exact handwriting appears can also happen when you brake hard once the car. you have turned the steering wheel into a on the recipient’s fax paper. It’s bend – it upsets the balance of the car HIW: What’s next on your gadget/ like magic to me” because the car’s weight goes to the front technology shopping list? under heavy braking, and so the back end VBH: An iPhone. becomes light. And as you have asked the HIW: How It Works explains how VBH: It makes sense for the company, as it car to turn already, this forces the back everything we take for granted in the makes a very good twin clutch, automatic tyres to break traction with the tarmac and world works – from the light bulb to the box with paddle-shift levers. I am sure slide outwards. Bugatti Veyron. What is the one thing you Ferrari will roll out some sort of ‘retro’ have no idea how it works, but you would manual gearbox special edition supercar at HIW: In your role as racing instructor at most like to know? some point in the future, to cash in on the many of the UK’s circuits, what is the Vicki Butler-Henderson: An old fashioned die-hard manual fans still wanting a stick. most common bad driving habit? Think you’re the next Jenson Button? Well you’re answer for you with this one, but it has VBH: Believing their talent behind the wheel probably not, sorry… always amazed me how I can write a HIW: So what would we fi nd in your is greater than it is. But that can be cured by document by hand, fax it to some dream garage? coming to the YouDrive@Porsche course destination, and my exact handwriting VBH: A Formula One car for track days! And which I help to run at the Porsche appears on the recipient’s fax paper. It’s like for going to the shops if I could get away Experience Centre at Silverstone! Non- magic to me. with it. A Lamborghini Diablo GT, BMW M5, Porsche owners are just as welcome as Porsche 911 S, and a Range Rover. Also, I’d Porsche owners and you learn how to HIW: What do you think of Ferrari’s track down the fi rst car I owned, a MG control a skid in your own car and how to announcement that it will never make Metro, though I doubt it’s still turning a avoid accidents. And have fun. another manual car? wheel now.

Born in Hertfordshire, Starts racing Becomes a racing Makes her Returns to Top Along with her The ﬁ nal series of her grandfather raced karts and on instructor at television debut for Gear as a fellow co- Fifth Gear is aired. at Brooklands racing one occasion legendary the TV show Top presenter until presenters, she Still deeply involved circuit and her brother is lapped by a motoring circuits Gear as a one-off, 2001, during moves over to in the sport, Vicki later becomes a 13-year-old such as Brands driving a Ford which ratings Five to present continues to work professional racing David Hatch and Fiesta at Brands tumble after the new show in voice-overs, TV driver. Coulthard. Silverstone. Hatch. Clarkson’s exit. Fifth Gear. and radio. 1972 1997 2002 1989 JULY 2009 PRESENT > 1984 1994 CAREER © Imagine Publishing Ltd 012 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

012_HIW_003.indd 12 10/12/09 14:34:10 © Imagine Publishing Ltd No unauthorised copying or distribution A worldwide energy It was born in It produces a lot It powers most It’s out 5 TOP source the USA of waste of France to sea Nuclear power provides 15 per The very ﬁ rst nuclear reactor, The yearly total of waste that A total of 59 reactors provide Approximately 150 ships, 1 cent of the world’s electricity. 2 built in Arco, Idaho in 1951, 3 is produced from nuclear 4 76 per cent of France’s 5 ranging from huge FACTS That power comes from 436 only powered four light bulbs. power is somewhere electricity, compared to the submarines to massive reactors that are in operation It was known as the Nuclear between 8,800 and 13,200 UK’s 24 reactors providing 19 aircraft carriers, are powered NUCLEAR worldwide. Reactor Testing Station. tons – that’s a lot of waste! per cent of our electricity. by nuclear reactors. Computing Electronics Gadgets Engineering Communication Domestic Entertainment Medical General TECHNOLOGY categories explained POWER Nuclear power

3. Concrete shield building 1. Passive cooling tank The steel liner is enclosed in a If the reactor core overheats, the reinforced concrete building, passive cooling tank designed to contain radiation leakage automatically empties water into in the event of an accident. the reactor cavity. This cools the reactor from outside the pressure vessel, preventing molten fuel from spilling out. 4. Steam generators Heat from the reactor boils water in the steam generators to 2. Steel This month in produce a steady supply of high- pressure steam. containment liner The reactor and steam Technology generators are housed in a There’s a wide-ranging massive steel liner, which spectrum of technology 6. Reactor coolant pumps shields the radiation. covered this issue. Pumps constantly circulate water to Everything from nuclear cool the reactor and transfer heat to power stations that heat the steam generators. water and generate steam while making electricty to electric kettles that heat water and generate steam while making you a cup of tea. Proving there is nothing too big or small for us to cover.

5. Pressuriser Operators control the pressure of the coolant water around the 19 Electric kettles reactor by adjusting the air level in the pressuriser.

7. Main control room Operators monitor and control reactor activity from a central control room. 20 eBook readers

8. Reactor The reactor comprises the uranium fuel rods and control rods, housed in a steel containment vessel.

26 Oil rigs TECHNOLOGY 14 Nuclear power 18 Blu-ray discs 18 Batteryless watches 18 Thermal imaging 19 How a kettle works 19 Holograms 20 eBook readers Nuclear 22 OLEDs 23 How a fridge works 23 Airport scanners 24 GPS ﬁ tness kit 26 Oil rigs © Imagine Publishing Ltd 014 | How It Works powerWWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

014-017_HIW_003.indd 14 10/12/09 14:35:08 A worldwide energy It was born in It produces a lot It powers most It’s out 5 TOP source the USA of waste of France to sea Nuclear power provides 15 per The very fi rst nuclear reactor, The yearly total of waste that A total of 59 reactors provide Approximately 150 ships, 1 cent of the world’s electricity. 2 built in Arco, Idaho in 1951, 3 is produced from nuclear 4 76 per cent of France’s 5 ranging from huge FACTS That power comes from 436 only powered four light bulbs. power is somewhere electricity, compared to the submarines to massive NUCLEAR reactors that are in operation It was known as the Nuclear between 8,800 and 13,200 UK’s 24 reactors providing 19 aircraft carriers, are powered POWER worldwide. Reactor Testing Station. tons – that’s a lot of waste! per cent of our electricity. by nuclear reactors. DID YOU KNOW? A single pound of enriched uranium can provide the same energy as 3 million pounds of coal Inside a nuclear power station From fi ssion A complex process that requires some high-tech machinery to electricity Control rods are positioned in between fuel rods to slow or The principles of nuclear power are remarkably simple. Here’s speed up the reaction how a pressurised water reactor station turns subatomic particle activity into usable power 1. Fuel rods 4. Pump 7. Steam generator Hundreds of 12-foot uranium rods A water pump keeps water The hot pipe leading from the undergo a fi ssion reaction, circulating, which transfers heat reactor heats a separate releasing substantial heat. away from the reactor core. reservoir of water to the boiling point, generating steam. 2. Reactor 5. Pressuriser A steel pressure vessel contains The pressuriser contains water, 8. Steam line the uranium rods, surrounding air, and steam. By adding or Steam travels from the steam water and other reactor releasing air in the pressuriser, generator to the turbine. components. operators can control the pressure of the coolant water 9. Turbine 3. Control rods around the reactor. Rushing steam spins the turbine. Operators can speed up or slow down the fi ssion reaction 6. Heat exchanger 10. Generator by raising and lowering neutron- A pipe carries hot water from The turbine spins a rotor that sits absorbing rods between the the reactor to a separate in a magnetic fi eld in a generator, fuel rods. reservoir of water. inducing an electric current. 11. Transformer The generator transmits electricity to a transformer connected to the power grid. 12. Condenser 5 A pipe carrying a steady supply 7 8 of cold water, typically from a cooling tower, cools the steam, 3 causing it to change back to liquid water.

9. Turbine generator 6 9 10 Steam from the steam 4 generator spins a 11 turbine, which powers 1 an electric generator. 2 12 Images © DK Images DK © Images Images © Westinghouse Nuclear Westinghouse © Images Ecological saviour or a looming catastrophe? After the Three Mile (the chief nuclear fuel) can provide the level. The sole purpose of a plant is to runs into a uranium-235 atom, the Island meltdown in same energy as 3 million pounds of harness the energy of nuclear fi ssion – atom will absorb the neutron, and the 1979 and the Chernobyl coal or 1 million gallons of gasoline. a reaction where an atom’s nucleus extra energy will make the atom disaster in 1986, But there’s quite a catch. Nuclear splits into two smaller nuclei. unstable. The atom immediately splits nuclear power shot to fuel produces radioactive waste, which Specifi cally, nuclear plants typically apart, into two smaller atoms and two- the top of the environmental villains can cause cancer, trigger birth defects, derive power from inducing nuclear to-three free neutrons. A fraction of the Nuclear list. But in the face of mounting global and spawn mutants. The technology is fi ssion in enriched uranium oxide, atom’s original mass becomes energy, warming concerns, it might be poised both fascinating and ominous and comprising 96-97 per cent uranium- in the form of heat and high-energy for a comeback. Since nuclear power we’ll be explaining just how it works 238 and three-to-four per cent photons called gamma rays. produces no greenhouse gasses, over the next few pages. uranium-235. Uranium is the heaviest With the right mix or uranium-235, proponents are touting it as a greener Nuclear power plants are complexes of all natural elements and one of the you get a chain reaction. Some of the alternative to fossil fuels. They argue that span many square miles, but the easiest to break apart. When a free neutrons generated in the fi ssion that one pound of enriched uranium real action happens on a subatomic relatively slow-moving free neutron reaction encounter other uranium-235 © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 015 No unauthorised copying or distribution

014-017_HIW_003.indd 15 10/12/09 14:35:35 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS TECHNOLOGY FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES Nuclear power Colliding 2. Split The atom immediately splits molecules apart, into two smaller atoms and two-to-three free What happens in the neutrons. A fraction of the chain reaction atom’s original mass becomes energy, heat and high energy photons called gamma rays. 3. Chain reaction With the right mix of uranium-235, you get a chain reaction. Collectively, the splitting atoms generate a substantial heat.

1. Collision When a free neutron runs into a uranium-235 atom, the atom will absorb the neutron, The concrete and steel and the extra energy will sarcophagus erected make the atom unstable. around the damaged reactor at Chernobyl

atoms, causing those atoms to split fuel slightly supercritical, without apart, producing more free neutrons. allowing a runaway fi ssion reaction. Collectively, the splitting atoms The key mechanism for controlling generate a substantial heat. All the the reaction rate are a series of control equipment in a nuclear plant has one rods, made from neutron-absorbing core function: safely harnessing this material such as cadmium. Operators heat to generate electricity. can move the control rods in and out The heart of a nuclear power plant of the bundles of uranium rods. To is the reactor, which contains the slow down the fi ssion reaction, uranium fuel and the equipment that operators lower the rods into the controls the nuclear fi ssion reaction. bundles. The rods absorb neutrons The central elements in the reactor from the fi ssion reactions, preventing When nuclear reactors fail are 150-200 bundles of 12-foot-long them from splitting additional nuclei. For 23 years, Chernobyl has been a grim fuel rods. Each bundle includes 200- Operators can stop the fi ssion reminder of nuclear power’s risks On 26 April 1986, reactor four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded, “ The heart of a nuclear power after a safety test went wrong. The reactors at Chernobyl, in what is now Ukraine, plant is the reactor” had little shielding to protect against radioactive contamination. The blasted reactor burned for ten days, spewing 400 times the radioactive fallout that fell on 300 individual rods, which are made reaction by lowering the control rods Hiroshima in the World War II bombing. The pollution spread across 80,000 from small uranium oxide pellets. all the way into the uranium rod square miles, with radioactive rain reaching as far as Ireland. Authorities The rods are immersed in a coolant bundle. To accelerate the fi ssion evacuated surrounding areas, including the nearby town of Pripyat. and housed in a steel pressure vessel. reactions, operators partially raise In all, more than 300,000 people lost their homes. They couldn’t return to an The fi ssion reaction continues the rods out of the bundle. This 800-square-mile exclusion zone around the reactor. The explosion and radiation indefi nitely when, on average, more increases the rate of free neutrons exposure killed 56 people soon after the blast. The total death toll is impossible to than one neutron from each fi ssion colliding with uranium atoms to keep calculate, because of the contamination’s far reach and long-term effects. In 2006, reaction encounters another uranium the fi ssion reaction going. the United Nations estimated that cancer cases stemming from the disaster will atom. This state is called Apart from the fi ssion reaction, a eventually claim 4,000 lives. A report commissioned by Greenpeace estimated supercriticality. In order to safely heat nuclear plant works the same basic the death toll at 200,000. the water, the reactor must keep the way as a coal-burning plant: the fuel © Imagine Publishing Ltd 016 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

014-017_HIW_003.indd 16 10/12/09 14:35:58 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES

DID YOU KNOW? Radioactive rain resulting from the Chernobyl disaster reached as far as Ireland

There several nuclear reactor Types of reactor designs in operation today Pros The most common design is the pressurised water reactor (PWR). PWRs use pressurised water both as a moderator (the material that slows down free neutrons, increasing the rate of fi ssion reactions) and as a coolant (the substance that transfers heat away from the reactor core to the steam generator). Another common design, the advanced gas-cooled reactor, uses graphite as a and moderator and carbon dioxide as a coolant. The chief advantage of this design is that it’s possible to heat carbon dioxide to higher temperatures than water (about 650°C vs 325°C). The greater heat capacity greatly improves plant effi ciency. cons The most Advanced gas-cooled Pressurised water powerful force reactor (AGR) reactor (PWR) ever harnessed Fuel element Steel pressure Heat by mankind vessel exchanger Re-entrant gas Boiler The remarkable Pressuriser advantage of nuclear power plants is they generate electricity Steam Steam without emitting any air Turbine Turbine pollution. The clouds billowing from cooling towers are nothing but harmless steam. Condenser Nuclear power does take a toll on the Condenser Feed pump environment, however. Mining uranium destroys Feed pump Circulation natural habitats, and the Gas circulator pump Fuel elements Control rods activity involved in both Graphite core Diagrid Concrete mining and processing Concrete shield pressure vessel uranium produces greenhouse gasses. generates heat, which boils water, which The bigger problem is produces steam, which turns a turbine, fuel radioactivity. As which drives an electric generator. Chernobyl demonstrated, In a pressurised water reactor, the heat accidents can cause from fi ssion doesn’t produce steam widespread disease. directly. The fi ssion reaction heats the Nuclear waste remains water inside the pressure vessel to about highly radioactive for 325 degrees Celsius, but the water is kept thousands of years, and under high pressure to keep it from there’s already more than boiling. A pumping system drives this 60,000 metric tons of it to hot water through a pipe that runs to a deal with. Nobody wants separate water reservoir, in the steam it in their backyard. generator. The pipe heats the water in the Another concern is waste steam generator to the boiling point, and falling into the wrong it produces steam. The rushing steam The water treatment systems hands, giving terrorists turns a turbine and then reaches a in a power plant material for weapons. cooling system. As the steam cools, it In recent years, dozens condenses back into a liquid. The liquid reactor and the steam generator system of nations have decided water returns to the reservoir, and boils are housed in a giant steel liner, the benefi ts are worth the again, repeating the cycle. As the turbine providing additional radioactive risks and are forging spins, it powers a generator, which shielding. The steel liner is surrounded ahead. They’re touting produces an electric current. And voilà: by an outer concrete structure, designed nuclear power as the way usable electric power. to contain the radiation, even in the event of the future – just as it Nuclear fi ssion produces high levels of of an earthquake. Modern nuclear power was 60 years ago. gamma and beta radiation, which can plants also include advanced automatic mutate cells, causing cancer and birth cooling systems, which kick into action defects, among other things. Naturally, in the event of the reactor or other Learn more the most important concern when equipment overheating. designing a nuclear power plant is The spent uranium rods are also For more information about highly radioactive, which means power the Chernobyl disaster, head containing this dangerous radiation. to www.world-nuclear.org/ A modern nuclear power plant has plants can’t just throw them away. The info/chernobyl/inf07.html many layers of protection. The pressure best solutions anyone has come up with where you can read an in- vessel that contains the uranium rods is so far is to encase the nuclear waste in Jean Paul Gaultier’s new depth analysis of the events winter line received a and impact relating to the massive concrete and steel structures or encased in a thick concrete liner, which mixed reaction atrocities in Ukraine. blocks gamma radiation. The entire bury it underground. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 017 No unauthorised copying or distribution

014-017_HIW_003.indd 17 10/12/09 14:36:14 TECHNOLOGY Blu-rays / Batteryless watches

Standard DVD Blu-ray disc Thermograms show infrared radiation based on an object’s temperature 4

1 2 Infrared thermal

3 imaging A popular tool of police forces on the big screen, how does it work in the real world? Infrared thermal imaging, or infrared thermography, is a bit of a mouthful to say, but the concept behind it is much more simplistic. Thermographic cameras take a picture of the infrared radiation emitted by the subject based on its thermal conditions, invisible to the 6. Bottom layer naked eye. The amount of radiation that is released increases with Blu-ray lasers read temperature, and this is what can be seen in a thermogram, making it and write on the possible to, for example, isolate a human in an otherwise cool bottom layer of the disc rather than the environment, even in the dark. middle, creating The cameras themselves look a lot like camcorders. Most thermograms fewer refraction that you’ll see will be in colour, where cooler objects are represented by issues than DVDs. blues and purples, and warmer objects by oranges and yellows, but 5 sometimes they are represented in greyscale, where white represents hot and black represents cool. Thermography is widely used by security and emergency services. For example, during the swine fl u pandemic, airport staff would use 1. Red 2. Blue 3. Pitch 4. Tighter 5. Precision thermographic cameras to detect possible carriers. Red lasers with a Blue lasers with The distance However, The numerical wavelength of a 405nm between tracks Blu-ray discs aperture (NA) of 650nm can wavelength can is called the have a much the lens rates its produces a ‘pit’ produce slightly pitch. A normal tighter track precision and with a minimum smaller pits at DVD has a track pitch, coming in resolution. Blue How batteryless size of 0.4 just 0.15 pitch of 0.74 at only 0.32 lasers have a microns. microns. microns. microns. higher NA. watches work Batteryless watches provide an environmentally friendly way of keeping time Relying purely on A watch with no batteries? Blu-ray discs the movement of It’s no wind-up… its wearer, the Blu-ray technology leaves DVDs in the dust batteryless watch allows Watching a Blu-ray movie on a red laser, which has a larger wavelength. time keeping without the very large, very expensive HDTV The shortened wavelength of the blue normal damaging effects is a transformative experience. laser offers greater precision, allowing to the environment of It’s the kind of experience that makes you manufacturers to write data in tightly battery disposal. want to convert your garage or basement, packed rows. This is why Blu-ray discs This remarkable feat is install stadium seating, 7.1 surround can squeeze in six times as much achieved by a movement- sound speakers, an industrial popcorn information per layer than a regular DVD. sensitive weight encased maker and then start charging the All of that data translates into more within the timepiece which, neighbours admission. pixels on the screen. A regular DVD image when forced to move back But what is it that makes Blu-ray discs maxes out at 480p, which is shorthand for and forth, causes a micro- so much sharper and richer than regular 852 horizontal pixels by 480 vertical generator to begin spinning DVDs? It all comes down to data. A regular pixels. If you play a regular 480p DVD on a and produce electrical energy. This energy is then stored in a capacitor DVD can hold 4.7GB of data, while a 1080p HDTV (1920x1080 pixels), the image for slow and gradual release over time into the watch’s integrated circuit double-sided Blu-ray disc can hold 50GB. will have to be ‘upconverted’ to the larger (which powers its other components), keeping it ticking even in periods What that means is that Blu-ray discs can screen size. The result is like blowing up of inactivity. In fact, powered by this transformation of kinetic energy, a handle very large video fi les, exactly the a low-megapixel digital picture. batteryless watch can continue keeping time without movement for up kind of barely compressed video and A Blu-ray disc, however, can hold a full to two weeks depending on the make and model. audio that looks and sounds insanely 1080p video fi le that syncs perfectly with good on the latest home theatre rigs. the 1080p native resolution of your brand- In addition to kinetic energy, certain models Blu-ray gets its name from the blue- new TV. The result is a huge, sharp image DID YOU of battery-free watches can actually be violet laser used to read and write data on that rivals – if not tramples – the big KNOW? powered by light. Blu-ray discs. Regular DVDs and CDs use a screen experience. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 018 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

018_HIW_003.indd 18 10/12/09 14:36:49 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES

DID YOU KNOW? Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian-born scientist, invented holography in 1947 Electric kettles Holograms explained How are these three-dimensional Made possible by design breakthroughs in the images produced? Twenties and Thirties the electric kettle makes tea-making a piece of cake The electric kettle works thanks to two key design breakthroughs achieved in Britain in the Twenties and Thirties. The fi rst is the immersed heating resistor, the piece of technology responsible for actually heating the water in the kettle. Resistors, which take the form of the heating element in the bottom of the kettle, work by resisting the fl ow of electric current passed through them, creating resistance and consequently heat. This heat is then passed into the water, which is then subsequently heated up. The second of these advances Mirrors allowed for an automatic cut-off point, preventing the kettle from These prevent the laser perpetually heating up the water. A bimetallic strip was introduced to beams from losing intensity on their path towards the the electric kettle by Russell Hobbs in 1955 which when heated by photographic fi lm. steam expanded, triggering a shut-off switch. Although some kettles have fancier and more complex heating and shut-off designs, it is through these two basic principles that the Photographic plate electric kettle evolved into the appliance we have in our kitchens and A fl at sheet of glass coated with workplaces today. light-sensitive silver salts onto which a photographic image can be recorded. The fi lm receives laser light from the Beam reference and object beam. spreaders These special objective lenses widen the laser beams so that they spread, illuminating a greater area. Beam splitter A half-silvered mirror, consisting of a thin plate of glass coated in a tiny amount of aluminium. Approximately half the light passes through and the rest is defl ected at a 45° angle.

A hologram is a 2D image that splitter, which allows part of the beam to seems to have real three- pass through it and defl ects the rest at a dimensional depth. Although 90 ° angle towards the photographic fi lm. Hungarian physicist Dennis As the object beam heads towards the Gabor invented holography in 1947, he object, it passes through a beam spreader could not put his theory into action until that diffuses the light, illuminating more Heating Bimetallic Power Detachable the invention of the laser in 1960. You see, of the object. En route to the photographic element strip adapter base to create a hologram you require the fi lm, the reference beam also passes This works by When the water Connecting the A feature on all monochromatic light – that being light of through a beam spreader to widen the resisting the heats up it causes heating element modern kettles, a single wavelength – produced by a beam and light up the holographic fl ow of electrical the bimetallic strip to the power the base contains laser. The process relates to how the light image. The two beams meet at the same current, which to bend which supply allowing contacts that allow creates the heat triggers the switch the fl ow of the fl ow of is refl ected onto a sheet of photographic point on the photographic fi lm, creating the heats the that cuts off the current through electricity to the fi lm. A single laser beam is split into two – an interference pattern that’s preserved water. power. the element. element. an object beam and a reference beam – in the layers of silver in the fi lm and gives by an appropriately named beam contours to the hologram. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 019 No unauthorised copying or distribution

019_HIW_003.indd 19 10/12/09 16:03:49 Storage solution Here in 60 seconds No charge Power it up Subscription services 5 TOP The Amazon Kindle 2 can The wireless Kindle uses The great thing about the A single charge will last for In the United States, where 1 store up to 1,500 books at 2 Whispernet to enable you to 3 Kindle’s wireless internet 4 four days with wireless on 5 this device launched, it’s FACTS any one time, making it a search for books and access is that it is free – and two weeks with it turned possible to subscribe to perfect holiday companion, download them on the go, Amazon pays for the off, but it is easy to recharge newspaper and magazines eBOOK especially as it weighs just with a delivery time of less connectivity as part of using the power cable or electronically so you’re TECHNOLOGY READERS 10.2 ounces. than 60 seconds. the service. via USB. always updated. eBook readers

“ eBook applications are now available for the iPhone and Windows systems”

Probably best that you don’t try this at home… Inside eBook

readersAn eBook reader is a device that can read eBooks, microcapsules fi lled with ink or an oily substance. White A whole digital versions of popular books, enabling you to particles carry a positive charge and the black ones carry a carry a number of novels with you on one device. negative charge. When integrated into a screen fi tted with However, not all eReaders were created equal microelectronics, the screen will be made of tiny cells, which library in and there are many different types. could apply a negative or positive charge to the microcapsules Many convergence products, such as smartphones and PDAs, making them visible or invisible on the screen, creating text. A the palm of are capable of being used as eReaders, but these don’t benefi t lot of the better-known eReaders use E Ink Corporation’s Vizplex from the electronic ink used in dedicated devices. Electronic ink Imaging Film, including the Barnes & Noble nook, the Cybook your hand is being developed by two key players: E Ink Corporation and Opus, the BeBook and the Amazon Kindle. Xerox. While both are being developed to work in different Another important point of note is that different eReaders will ways, they have some similarities, like the ink being made up of read different electronic formats. Not all will recognise the PDF © Imagine Publishing Ltd 020 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

020-021_HIW_003.indd 20 10/12/09 14:39:17 Storage solution Here in 60 seconds No charge Power it up Subscription services 5 TOP The Amazon Kindle 2 can The wireless Kindle uses The great thing about the A single charge will last for In the United States, where 1 store up to 1,500 books at 2 Whispernet to enable you to 3 Kindle’s wireless internet 4 four days with wireless on 5 this device launched, it’s FACTS any one time, making it a search for books and access is that it is free – and two weeks with it turned possible to subscribe to perfect holiday companion, download them on the go, Amazon pays for the off, but it is easy to recharge newspaper and magazines eBOOKeBOOK especially as it weighs just with a delivery time of less connectivity as part of using the power cable or electronically so you’re READERS 10.2 ounces. than 60 seconds. the service. via USB. always updated. DID YOU KNOW? Many eBooks have a text-to-speech feature that can read text out loud to give your eyes a break

Outer casing E Ink screen panel The back panel Head to Head eBOOK READERS

LIGHTWEIGHT

1. Cybook Opus Screen size: Five inches Storage space: 1GB Resolution: 600x800 Touch screen: No Battery life: 8,000 pages Weight: 150g

TOUCH SCREEN Keypad Wireless card Li-ion battery Logic board BUYING The Kindle’s screen AN eBOOK Electronic ink VIA 3G Unlike previous (STEP BY STEP) eReaders, which used LCD displays, the Browsing Kindle uses electronic 1 To get a new book, click Menu, ink technology so that then Shop in Kindle Store to start it looks more like ink browsing papers, magazines, on paper than a books and blogs. computer screen. 2. Sony PRS-600 Monochrome The categories Screen size: Six inches The Kindle only works as a 2 You can search for a title just Storage space: 512MB Resolution: 600x800 monochrome device, though like the usual Amazon store, by Touch screen: Yes E Ink is working on a coloured No backlight entering a keyword or simply browsing categories. Battery life: 7,500 pages version. The screen does Weight: 286g not have a Large library Energy saving backlight, so, like 3 There are over 350,000 books MOST STORAGE The device uses very little paper books, you so it’s easy to fi nd exactly what energy, only drawing from the still rely on an you’re looking for, plus battery when it is generating external lighting personalised recommendations. a page view for the fi rst time. source for viewing. Download sample 4 You can download a sample of a format natively, often relying on specially designed formats, book for free before actually Learn more buying, but when you are ready meaning that users have to stick to a particular type of eBook a press of the fi ve-way format to suit their device. There is a massive list of formats, For more information about controller purchases and from the Kindle format for Amazon’s Kindle (.azw) to the Amazon Kindle 2 head to downloads the book. http://www.ifi xit.com where TomeRaider (.tr2, .tr3) for certain mobile devices, including the you can get a much more in- Purchasing Windows Pocket PC devices. depth look at the components 5 Purchased books are backed-up Recently unveiled internationally, having been only available of the device, and how they all in the Kindle library by Amazon. com for re-downloading. in the United States previously, the Amazon Kindle 2 (which work together. 3. COOL-ER Whispers joins the original Kindle and the slightly larger-screened Kindle Screen size: Six inches Whispernet delivers books, DX) incorporates internet access via 3G, so that content can be 6 Storage space: 1GB magazines and newspapers Resolution: 600x800 downloaded using Amazon’s Whispernet service. Kindle wirelessly using 3G Touch screen: No connectively. International applications are also now available for the Apple iPhone and Battery life: 8,000 pages roaming is currently active in Windows systems, making this device a real competitor in the Weight: 178g 100 countries.

eReader market. xit.com iﬁ from © Images © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 021 No unauthorised copying or distribution

020-021_HIW_003.indd 21 10/12/09 14:40:17 “ The three key beneﬁ ts to OLED displays all stem from TECHNOLOGY that lack of a backlight” OLED displays

Sony’s XEL-1 OLED TV measures OLED structure just 3mm at its slimmest point A breakdown of the 1. Cathode components Current passes through the cathode layer to Sony © the anode.

Cathode

Emissive layer (organic molecules or polymers)

Conductive layer (organic molecules or polymers)

Anode

4. Creating light Substrate As the electrons enter the holes they produce extra energy, which is emitted as light. The amount of light produced depends on the amount of power required.

3. Emissive layer 2. Electrons Electrons are removed from the As the current passes through conductive layer, leaving holes the structure, electrons are that are fi lled by the electrons added to the emissive layer. from the emissive layer. © Sony © How OLEDs work Measuring just 3mm thick, OLED displays are changing the face of our TVs and mobile phones TVs have come a long way since the There are two kinds of OLED display, of which white screen, the light on an AMOLED display massive boxes hogging the corner of AMOLED (active matrix) is the most important. directly corresponds to the brightness of each your living room. Yet even your current Designed for larger displays (of over about three individual pixel. For devices that run on battery fl at-screen LCD TV will soon look inches), it allows for each individual pixel on the power, like mobile phones, this is a massive boon. unwieldy compared to the next generation of screen to be controlled separately. The fi nal benefi t comes in the form of a massive products. With OLED (organic light-emitting diode) The three key benefi ts to OLED displays all stem improvement in image quality, with greater contrast technology TVs, computer monitors, mobile phones from that lack of a backlight. The immediate between light and dark colours thanks to the and pretty much anything else with a screen are set consequence is that devices can be made thinner – a absence of the backlight that turns blacks into dark to become thinner than ever before. 40-inch LCD TV needs a backlight large enough to greys on a traditional LCD. OLED is a major step on from the LCD technology span and light the entire surface of the screen Of course, thinner hardware is only the fi rst step that is currently used. In simple terms, it is created evenly. Without this problem, the same sized OLED- in what OLED technology will bring us. Through from organic materials that emit light when power is based TV could be little more than a inch thick, and nanotechnology companies like Sony and Toshiba passed through it. An OLED display contains thin as miniaturisation of the other components have created screens that measure less than half a fi lms of organic materials placed between two powering devices develops further, they will only millimetre thick, making them extremely fl exible. conductors; as the current passes through, the continue to get thinner. Imagine a mobile phone with a large screen that can display lights up. This self-illuminating function The next benefi t is that without that backlight, the be folded to keep it pocketable, or even wearable removes the need for the backlight that is an screens draw far less power. While a black image on computers built into clothing – this is no longer just essential requirement of a traditional LCD screen. an LCD display is backlit to the same degree as a the stuff of science fi ction. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 022 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

022_HIW_003.indd 22 10/12/09 14:42:39 Don’t let your brain go hungry

Online: www.imaginesubs.co.uk SUBSCRIBE NOW! Phone: 0844 815 5944 to the magazine that feeds minds

DID YOU KNOW? The ﬁ rst refrigerator to see widespread use was the General Electric refrigerator introduced in 1927

X-ray detector Processor The x-ray scan is captured by a photodiode The data from the x-ray array, a fl at panel of microchips that convert detector is processed light signals into electronic signals. by security software How designed to colour-code objects by density, atomic number and fridges Lead curtain atomic weight and to In impenetrable lead fl ag particularly curtain protects suspicious items. cool passengers from low- level scatter radiation Fridges are one of the from the x-rays. most important kitchen appliances, but how do they work? To achieve a cooling effect the fridge relies on the simple notion of evaporation, absorbing © DK Images DK © heat when a liquid changes its state. This evaporation is the central principle of the refrigeration cycle, a perpetual loop in which a refrigerant is forced to change state in order to invoke heat absorption. The cycle begins with the refrigerant in a vapour state, which Conveyor belt is then pressurised in an internal Infrared lights detect when compressor. This compression baggage enters the machine and forces the refrigerant to heat up is in position for scanning. before being sent outside of the Operator fridge into a condenser and X-ray generator control panel expelled into the surrounding area, X-ray photons are generated in a glass vacuum The security offi cer can view the cooling the refrigerant vapour in tube surrounded by a lead shield. Only a narrow baggage at multiple angles and zoom in on the process and condensing it into a beam of photons is allowed to escape in the details. X-ray operators receive a minimum of direction of the baggage. 100 hours of classroom and on-the-job training. highly pressurised liquid state. This liquid is then sucked through an expansion valve and back into the low-pressure fridge compartment causing the refrigerant to boil, How do airport scanners vaporise and drop in temperature, cooling the compartment in the process. The cycle then begins check our bags? again, with the low-pressure refrigerant vapour being sucked up The technology behind the long queues at the airport into the compressor. It’s every traveller’s through low-density materials (like It’s the security offi cer’s job to nightmare – gridlock in skin and clothing) but get absorbed interpret the red, brown and blue The vast majority the airport security area. by higher-density materials with blobs on the screen and quickly of household Like a dutiful patriot, you larger atoms (like bone and metals). decide if a suspicious rectangle is fridges work through a vapour- remove your shoes, belt, wallet, In a baggage scanner, the x-rays peanut butter or plastique. That’s compression cycle mobile phone, watch and loose are captured by an internal detector why so many pieces of innocent change and shuffl e through the plate and relayed as digital data to baggage get fl agged for hand checks – endless line. Finally you make it to the security offi cer’s computer. The the cost of getting it wrong is too high. the machine. The laptop comes out of computer takes all of the information Staring at x-rays of sweaters and its case, the jacket is laid fl at on the from the x-ray scan – including the shaving kits can be mind-numbing conveyor, then – beep! – your bag is relative density, atomic number and work. To keep security offi cers on fl agged for inspection. atomic weight of every item in the their toes, the latest x-ray scanners X-ray baggage scanners are based bag – and uses software algorithms are loaded with something called TIP on the same technology as x-ray to colour-code objects as organic, (Threat Image Protection), which machines in hospitals. An x-ray inorganic, liquid, precious metals, digitally superimposes images of generator emits a beam of high- currency, drugs, weapons and even suspicious items onto random bags. energy x-ray photons that pass explosives. Newer x-ray machines The poor offi cer thinks it’s a real knife through the baggage toward a use dual scanners to produce two or detonator until his presses his detector plate. X-rays have very short simultaneous images of the bag: top- alert button, then the software lets wavelengths, so they easily pass down and from the side. him off the hook. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 023 No unauthorised copying or distribution

023_HIW_003.indd 23 10/12/09 14:44:01 Don’t let your brain go hungry “ This kind of functionality is built into Online: www.imaginesubs.co.uk SUBSCRIBE NOW! TECHNOLOGY most sports-oriented GPS devices” Phone: 0844 815 5944 to the magazine that feeds minds Get ﬁ t with GPS

GPS software and hardware can track your workouts, whether they’re high impact or just for fun

Cycling GPS devices are used right up to a professional level © Garmin © Garmin GPS ﬁ tness kit How can GPS technology make your training regime more effective?

With market penetration So intrinsic to the technology is your route. When coupled with digital Connect software will provide the of 25 per cent in the UK, fi tness that navigation specialist maps, such as Ordnance Survey maps, analysis to a minute level of detail, in-car satnav is already Garmin even sponsors its own cycling you can plot a route, taking in different reporting on your performance in every installed as a part of the squad, Garmin-Slipstream, featuring types of terrain, creating your own kind of condition. If you are in training daily routine for millions British three-time Olympic gold unique training course. for a marathon, for example, it’s like of people. But the GPS technology medallist Bradley Wiggins. The GPS signal can determine a 3D having your own personal trainer along behind these journey-planning devices Not that you have to be up to that picture of your position, enabling a for the ride: checking and comparing can be used for a whole lot more than standard to benefi t from GPS in your computer to not only know where you your endurance and stamina as your getting from A to B, and is becoming training. In its simplest terms a are, but to calculate your speed as well training progresses. increasingly popular in the fi eld of handheld GPS device can act as a as any inclination or declination along Some sports GPS devices even fi tness training, where professional powerful digital compass, showing you your path. This kind of functionality is include a heart rate monitor as part of athletes and weekend fun-runners where you are, where you are going built into most sports-oriented GPS the package, which adds its own data to alike can benefi t from the location- and, crucially, where you have come devices, providing data that you can that from the GPS, delivering a thorough based gadgetry. from, enabling you to backtrack along download to a PC for analysis. Garmin’s picture of your physical condition. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 024 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

024-025_HIW_003.indd 24 10/12/09 14:45:12 Don’t let your brain go hungry

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DID YOU KNOW? It would take approximately 345 days to continuously walk around the world at the equator

Garmin Forerunner Garmin’s Forerunner series is a range of sports watches with built-in GPS receiver. With the GPS position fi xed it will track your position, speed and distance you’ve travelled, as well as calculating your calorie consumption and measuring your heart rate through the optional heart rate monitor. Higher end models are swim-proof and have optional speed/ cadence sensors for cycling, making them ideal companions for triathletes; lower-end models are perfect for the more casual user, helping you get in Monitor shape for next year’s London Marathon. Web: www.garmin.co.uk your heart Typical price: £250 Sports-based GPS devices such Top model: Forerunner 310XT as the Forerunner 310XT come Best for: Runners with a heart rate monitor to complete your training analysis. The device is a tiny unit that straps around your chest and connects wirelessly to the Forerunner GPS watch on your wrist. As you begin running or cycling the monitor keeps a constant check on your heart rate, sending the information to the watch where it is combined with the other GPS data. Once you have fi nished your workout you can connect the Forerunner to a PC to upload the data it has stored to the online Garmin Connect service. This produces reports of your performance over a period of time. When used with the heart rate monitor you can get a view of your overall fi tness level, plus see the areas where your performance is at its best and worst, and tailor your training accordingly. Your heart rate can give you an indication of not only your fi tness but how hard you should train. Target heart rates Garmin Edge are determined by measuring Gadgets The Edge range is designed for Suunto Foot POD the maximum heart rate (MHR) cyclists looking for either training or Clip the Suunto Foot POD to your using the equation 220 minus navigation. The entry-level models shoelace and it will measure exactly your age, so for example a 30- for recreational cyclists will record how far you are walking, and at what year-old’s maximum heart rate for fi tness should be 190bpm. From this where you ride, enabling you to speed. The tiny device connects repeat routes in future, while the top wirelessly to one of Suunto’s fi tness you can set targets for different Nike Triax systems support full colour watches, such as the t3c heart rate types of training. At up to 70 Sports watches for the sportswear specialists, the topographical maps with turn-by- monitor to provide detailed data of per cent of your MHR you are in Triax range are digital watches intended for turn directions, enabling you to plot your fi tness training even when you the Energy Effi cient zone for sporting use. The stylised display might not be and share routes with ease even in don’t have a higher end GPS-enabled light, but still fat-burning the easiest to read but it comes with a few nice areas you’ve never visited before. All system to hand. The Foot POD exercise. 70-80 per cent is the touches, such as a graph mode that shows your the devices support the basics, provides more than 200 hours of use Aerobic zone for peak fi tness real-time performance. Older models in the Triax tracking your speed, distance, on battery power ensuring that training, 80-90 per cent is the range are waterproof up to, typically, 100m and calories burned and so on, while every step of your training is tracked Anaerobic zone, for developing have built-in heart rate monitors, meaning that heart rate monitors and cadence with the greatest of accuracy. your body’s lactic acid system, you can even use it when you’re in the pool. sensors can also be added. Web: www.suunto.com and up to 100 per cent is the Web: www.nike.com/timing Web: www.garmin.co.uk Typical price: £60 (plus £100 for Red Line zone, for speed Typical price: £100 Typical price: up to £400 the t3c) development, of which only Top model: Triax Vapor 300 Top model: Edge 705 Top model: Foot POD the fi ttest are able to reach. Best for: All-round use Best for: Cyclists Best for: Joggers © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 025 No unauthorised copying or distribution

024-025_HIW_003.indd 25 10/12/09 14:45:58 Cranes Derrick Offshore rigs have multiple The derrick usually towers over the www.howitworksdaily.com cranes that are continually used rest of the rig and is used to house for lifting containers, drill the drill machinery and feed in new THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS equipment and sections of pipe as the drill descends. FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES TECHNOLOGY piping to the top of the derrick. Oil rigs Drilling for oil offshore The world produces over 82 million barrels of oil every day, much of it in harsh conditions, miles from shore and safety if an How a rig emergency happens. works So how is it done? A structure unlike Oil has been around for anything else on Earth millions of years, located deep below the land or sea where it became trapped under layers of permeable rocks or slowly seeping to the surface. Although examples of oil drilling were documented in 4th Century China, the fi rst modern oil gathering structure was built in 1897 and by 1928 mobile rigs consisting of a simple barge with a drill mounted on top had set the scene for a revolution that fuelled Western industrial dominance for the next century. Legs Over 82 million barrels of oil are produced Platforms required to drill every single day, a process that usually starts thousands of feet below sea level rest on concrete with a range of surveys; from geographical or steel legs, securely and geomagnetic surveys to the deep echo anchored to the seabed sounding or seismic refl ection surveys that and particularly hard to pinpoint the likely location of a substantial remove after use. deposit. Only then, and after the necessary permits have all been obtained of course, can Mexico, to the smaller North Sea the rigs move in – multi-million pound structures that nevertheless have to structures and teams of professionals that withstand 90-knot winds and 60-foot locate, make the well safe and fi nally drill waves. Mobile rigs are usually reserved for down to its precious commodity. exploratory work, owned by private Today, there are over 40,000 oil fi elds contractors and leased to the oil companies around the world, with most offshore drilling who then have limited time to fi nd, tap and undertaken in the Continental shelf – the process their precious bounty. Larger sunken perimeter of a continent’s original manned platforms and spars can service up glacial shape. From the $100 million monsters to 30 wellheads, tapping into multiple wells that plumb the deepest waters in the Gulf of up to fi ve miles from the platform itself. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 026 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

026-027_HIW_003.indd 26 10/12/09 14:47:26 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES

DID YOU KNOW? As North Sea reserves run dry, the estimated cost of removing the structures would exceed £621 billion Life on THE RIGHT RIG an oil rig FOR THE JOB Required to work for up to six months a year, oil workers are Drill Ships well compensated for the undeniably hazardous conditions Designed for speculative they work in. Wages are typically higher than in similar or deep water mining, engineering disciplines and the larger platforms and spars these vessels are come complete with facilities more appropriate to converted to include a a cruise ship than a fl oating factory. These can drilling platform in the include private rooms for the 100+ crew, centre. Drill ships use cinemas, 24-hour restaurants and even sophisticated sensors gyms. Supplies are usually brought in by and satellite tracking to helicopter or ship, making oil platforms keep them moving while better stocked than most workplaces lined up to the well. and signifi cantly more important to the Above: Accommodation decks of local economies they reside in. It is a North Sea oil platform Semi-submersibles estimated that every offshore worker Below: A worker checks the drilling head on a tower Made up of fl oating supports up to ten more in local industries pontoons and columns such as food, transport or maintenance. able to sink in the water However, the dangers are constant and where they are anchored largely unpredictable. Offshore drilling to the sea fl oor or kept in involves not just dealing with highly fl ammable place by steerable oil and gas, with the added danger of this being thrusters. Effective at pumped out at exceptionally high pressures, but drill depths of up to 6,000 also extreme wind and sea conditions. When feet, they’re designed for danger strikes, support is often miles away by quick deployment. helicopter or ship and despite the high levels of training and increasingly safe equipment, offshore Jack-up fatality rates have been on the rise in recent years. In addition to this, workers are often prone to Mobile platforms can be alcoholism or drug abuse to overcome the isolation and raised above the sea on gruelling 12-hour shifts. extendable steel legs. Designed for depths of Deck 500 metres or less, they The working space are useful for small to aboard an offshore Oil rig teamwork mid-sized deposits and platform where The men and women who make it all possible typically only support drilling rigs, smaller crews. production working roughnecks facilities and crew Offshore installation quarters are manager responsible for the guiding of Platform located. Larger Also known as the Man in pipe into the drill as well as An immovable structure platforms may use Charge (MIC) the installation operating mud pumps and of concrete and steel that nearby ‘flotels’ for manager makes all key other such machinery. crew quarters. rests on the seabed with production decisions, both Roughneck deck space for multiple Jacket before, during and after The grunts of the oil business, rigs, crew quarters and Jackets are usually drilling. He has usually worked roughnecks work in teams of production facilities. vertical steel his way through the other drill three and are mainly Their design and sections piled into team roles. expense makes them the seabed, responsible for manual work protecting the Driller both during and after drilling. appropriate for larger central drill shaft A highly specialist discipline, They can also be called on to offshore deposits.

© DK Images against damage or drillers are the ones that operate other equipment such interference. operate the drilling equipment, as mud shakers. Spar Wells including making the initial Tool pusher Perfect for major oil fi elds With each platform hole in the seabed. He is On an offshore rig, tool pushers such as the North Sea, needing to service effectively in charge of tend to be department heads in spars are drilling up to 30 wells at everything that happens on the charge of drilling or other platforms fi xed to giant, different depths rig fl oor. and positions, flow essential functions such as hollow hulls that can lines and umbilical Derrickman engineering or operations. descend up to 250 connections are So called because of their They may also assist with metres, still above the required to connect administrative work such as ocean fl oor and secured them all to the position at the top of the derrick, by cables. main rig. derrickmen are usually payroll or benefi ts.

026-027_HIW_003.indd 27 10/12/09 14:47:53 5 TOP Huge liver No reverse gear Familiar eyes Power napping Fishy barometer The liver of a shark can Sharks can’t use their fi ns to Sharks have eyelids, although The spiny dogfi sh uses its It is possible sharks may be 1 comprise up to 30 per cent of 2 paddle, like most other fi sh. 3 they never blink, but they can 4 spinal cord to co-ordinate 5 able to use their lateral line to FACTS its body mass and performs This means that they are contract and dilate their swimming, rather than its detect approaching frontal an incredible number of tasks, unable to swim directly pupils, like humans, something brain, meaning it can swim pressure systems and swim including keeping it afl oat. backwards. no bony fi sh can do. while sleeping. deeper to avoid hurricanes. Animals Climate Geography Geology Plants General SHARKS ENVIRONMENT categories explained Sharks How sharks

This month in Environment When the movie Jaws was survive released back in 1975, it There’s more to these fascinating and endangered portrayed sharks as vicious predators and to this day, creatures than their one-dimensional portrayal as when swimming in the sea people hear that infamous mindless movie predators music. But this issue we uncover the truth about Sharks belong to the did have bones. It is possible that the these amazing and group of fi sh known as lighter, more fl exible cartilage skeleton endangered creatures. elasmobranchii. This may have evolved to make sharks faster means that their skeleton and more agile but it may also have been is made of cartilage a way to conserve the amount of instead of bone. The earliest sharks phosphorus needed by the shark appeared in the fossil record around metabolism. Sharks need phosphorus for 420 million years ago but the fi rst their teeth and because sharks modern sharks did not appear continually shed and replace teeth, they until 100 million years ago, can get through more than 30,000 in their around the time of the life. The availability of mineral 32 Most venomous fi sh dinosaurs. The phosphorus to make new teeth is one of cartilage skeleton the primary constraints for the spread of of sharks is not shark species around the world. a primitive In the 19th Century, sharks were trait; sharks generally regarded as entirely benign to evolved humans. Though reports of shipwrecked from sailors being attacked had been around fi sh since 1580, they were dismissed as that exaggerated or mistaken. In 1891, 35 Wasp stings millionaire Hermann Oelrichs offered a $500 reward for an authenticated case of a shark attack on a human off America’s east coast. This went unclaimed. Then in 1916, a spate of widely publicised shark attacks marked the start of a complete reversal in the image of the shark. After almost a century of bad 38 Earthquakes press, sharks are only just starting to be properly ENVIRONMENT understood. 28 Sharks 32 Spider silk 32 Hibernation 32 Most venomous fi sh 33 Surviving in the desert 34 Acid rain 34 Whale communication 34 Beaufort Scale 35 How wasps sting 35 Pollination 37 Mariana Trench 38 Tectonic plates © Imagine Publishing Ltd 028 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

028-031_HIW_003_NEW.indd 28 10/12/09 14:49:25 5 TOP Huge liver No reverse gear Familiar eyes Power napping Fishy barometer The liver of a shark can Sharks can’t use their fi ns to Sharks have eyelids, although The spiny dogfi sh uses its It is possible sharks may be 1 comprise up to 30 per cent of 2 paddle, like most other fi sh. 3 they never blink, but they can 4 spinal cord to co-ordinate 5 able to use their lateral line to FACTS its body mass and performs This means that they are contract and dilate their swimming, rather than its detect approaching frontal an incredible number of tasks, unable to swim directly pupils, like humans, something brain, meaning it can swim pressure systems and swim SHARKS including keeping it afl oat. backwards. no bony fi sh can do. while sleeping. deeper to avoid hurricanes.

DID YOU KNOW? There are more than 440 species of shark that live in the world’s seas and oceans Shark’s Physical teeth Gummy characteristics Shark teeth are not anchored a rope and this is covered with a layer of tiny in the jaw but instead are The hammerhead embedded in the gums. certainly won’t win scales, called dermal denticles. Each denticle any beauty contests is made from dentine, which is another Knife edge calcium-impregnated tissue. Dentine is a Narrow, dagger-shaped major component of teeth and in fact, it is teeth like these are used likely that the teeth of vertebrates evolved to grip slippery fi sh. from these denticles, so a shark is actually Serrated teeth are for covered from nose to tail in a coat of teeth! As slicing through large mammals. well as providing protection, the denticles act in a similar way to the dimples on a golf ball. Reinforcements By generating tiny vortices at their trailing Hexagonal crystalline blocks edges, they reduce drag and allow sharks to of calcium are embedded for swim more effi ciently. reinforcement of Sharks range in size from 30cm to over 12 Sharks have only average eyesight but the jaw cartilage. metres long and can weigh up to 20 tons. Their extremely acute hearing and smell. Like most skeleton doesn’t include ribs so without the other fi sh, they also have a strip of vibration- Top: tooth water to support them, the weight of their own sensitive hair cells, running the length of their from a bodies would crush their internal organs. body. This is called the lateral line and is used great Sharks don’t have a swim bladder either so to detect the movement of prey. In sharks these white and (below) a cells also run in a complex pattern around the they generate buoyancy using squalene oil jaw from a stored in the liver. Because they can’t quickly head, which makes their vibration sense much mako change the amount of squalene in their body, more directional. And sharks have yet another shark sharks can’t maintain neutral buoyancy at sense: electroreception. The Ampullae of rest. Instead they tune their buoyancy so they Lorenzini are modifi ed lateral line cells that are slightly denser than the surrounding can sense the weak electric fi elds produced by water. Many species of shark have capitalised all living things. A few other fi sh have an on this to become bottom dwellers and the electroreceptive sense but the sharks are pelagic (open sea) species make up the by far difference in buoyancy with dynamic lift the most generated by the fl ow of water over their fi ns as sensitive. they swim. Most sharks live in waters no As well as deeper than 2,000 metres. fi nding prey at Although sharks don’t have true bones, night, sharks can areas of the body subject to the largest use the electric mechanical stress are reinforced with a fi eld generated by hexagonal grid of crystalline calcium salts. ocean currents Large sharks such as the great white may have moving within Snout several layers of this reinforcement. Shark skin the Earth’s The snout, or rostrum, is made of is much tougher than that of other fi sh. The magnetic fi eld much spongier base layers are a helical mesh of as an internal cartilage than the collagen fi bres, like the sheath on compass. rest of the body, to cushion any impacts.

Mouth Prehistoric sharks had the mouth at the front but it now sits Spine slung well back, Unlike bony fi sh, the behind the sensory spinal cord extends equipment. into the top fi n of the tail. The notch breaks up turbulence. Intestines Sharks have very short intestines but Anatomy Muscles food is slowed by a corkscrew valve arrangement to allow time for digestion. Without a rigid skeleton, the swimming muscles of a shark are anchored to the Fins helical collagen fi bres of The pectoral fi ns act as hydroplanes, They might look like other fish but DK Images the inner skin layers. © generating lift in the water. sharks are startlingly different © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 029 No unauthorised copying or distribution

028-031_HIW_003_NEW.indd 29 10/12/09 14:50:36 This poor little fella is a few pounds lighter www.howitworksdaily.com after a shark encounter THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS ENVIRONMENT FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES Sharks

ON THE Shark MAP Where sharks attack attacks 1 1916, New Jersey, USA How to survive Four killed and one person Two tons and up to 3,000 teeth? injured in a spate of attacks That’s going to hurt… over 12 days in July, which a shark attack inspired the Peter Benchley When you hear that ominous Shark attacks are recorded worldwide by the International novel Jaws. Shark Attack File, which was set up in 1958 by the US Offi ce of 2 1945, Phillippine Sea cello music, here’s what to do Naval Research. It has data on over 4,000 incidents, going back USS Indianapolis is A reassuring 80 per cent of shark attack victims to the 16th Century. Shark attacks on humans peaked in 2000 torpedoed by a Japanese survive. Mostly this is because the shark loses interest submarine and 60-80 crew with 79 attacks worldwide, of which just 11 were fatal. Since but there are cases of people successfully fi ghting off a then attacks have been steadily dropping and the number of are killed by oceanic whitetip sharks. shark. Some studies have shown that just touching a fatalities is now less than fi ve per year worldwide. Most of these 3 1964, Lady Julia Percy shark on the snout can cause it to halt in mid strike, but occur in the USA, probably because of the high overlap of Island, Australia the International Shark Attack File advises hitting the surfi ng beaches with shark territories. This compares with over Diver Henri Bource nose as hard as you can. Don’t use your fi sts or feet 3,300 Americans who drown each year. manages to fi lm part of the unless you have no other weapons to hand – it’s too attack in which a shark bit Only four species of shark are responsible for fatal, easy to get them bitten off. his leg off. unprovoked attacks on humans: the great white, tiger, bull and 4 2008, New Smyrna Grabbing for the eyes is unlikely to work. They are a oceanic whitetip shark. The oceanic whitetip almost never Beach, Florida very small target and great whites will roll their eyes comes close to the shore and all of its attacks on humans have 28 attacks that year make back in their sockets for protection right before they been on shipwrecks and plane crash survivors. this the shark bite capital of strike anyway. The gill slits are a more promising Sharks do not generally attack humans to eat them. Bites are the world. target; the gills inside are both delicate and sensitive. either exploratory, where the shark isn’t sure what to make of a Don’t play dead, sharks are more likely to bite you if wetsuit-clad surfer, or they may be because the shark is you look defenceless. Equally though, too much defending a territory. Even when a shark is intending to splashing and noise will act to attract sharks. 1 kill, it will generally bite once and then retreat, while If you manage to drive the shark away, it waits for you to die from blood loss. This often don’t relax just yet. Sharks are very gives swimmers time to reach shore or a curious and this one will be back soon. boat and survive. 2 Get out of the water straight away if

4 possible. If you are diving in open water,

3 come to the surface, swimming back-to- back with your diving buddy.

Respecting the shark’s territory How sharks is essential reproduce Like many top carnivores, sharks take good care of their young Rather than producing huge numbers of eggs, each with very little chance of survival, sharks produce between two and 100 young at a time. This is much lower than most fi sh. Fertilisation is internal with the male using a pair of organs called claspers in much the same way as a penis. Some of the smaller shark species, such as the horn shark The whale shark and the cat shark, lay eggs, which are protected within a leathery egg is the largest case and often wedged into crevices. Most sharks retain the eggs in living fi sh species the female body though. This is called ovoviviparity and it is different from the live birth or viviparity found in mammals because all the nourishment for the embryo comes from the yolk of the egg. Only in a few species, including the hammerhead and tiger shark, are the embryos fed with a placenta connected to the mother. In many species, the fi rst shark to hatch will eat any remaining eggs in the oviduct as its fi rst meal and newly hatched grey nurse A newly hatched shark shark will even eat the other developing embryos. Sharks have very emerges from its egg long gestation periods – as long as 24 months for some species. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 030 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

028-031_HIW_003_NEW.indd 30 10/12/09 14:52:27 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES

DIDDID YOUYOU KNOW?KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Sharks in danger What are the threats to sharks worldwide? A hundred million sharks a year are killed by used to make alternative medicines due to the How to survive humans for food. Because sharks reproduce belief that it can cure or prevent cancer. There slowly and take a long time to reach adulthood, is no scientifi c evidence to support this idea. a shark attack most fi shing stocks are in steep decline. Sharks are also threatened to some extent Studies have shown population declines of by coastal development, marine pollution and A shark feeding frenzy, reminds us of scenes at an 70-90 per cent for the commercially fi shed over fi shing of their own prey, as well as sport all-you-can-eat buffet species in the last 30 years. fi shing. But all of these are much less A reassuring 80 per cent of shark attack victims As well as for their meat, sharks are fi shed signifi cant than the effect of commercial survive. Mostly this is because the shark loses interest for their fi ns to meet the massive demand for fi shing. Only three species – basking, whale but there are cases of people successfully fi ghting off a shark’s fi n soup in Asia. Often these are and great white sharks – are subject to removed using a hot knife and then the shark international trade restrictions. One third of What do shark. Some studies have shown that just touching a shark on the snout can cause it to halt in mid strike, but is thrown back but unable to move, or they European shark species are currently classed the International Shark Attack File advises hitting the quickly die anyway. Shark cartilage is also as threatened. nose as hard as you can. Don’t use your fi sts or feet sharks eat? unless you have no other weapons to hand – it’s too easy to get them bitten off. It’s not just surfers on the menu Grabbing for the eyes is unlikely to work. They are a Virtually all sharks are carnivorous but the 440 known species very small target and great whites will roll their eyes have diversifi ed to almost every marine niche. Angel sharks lie in back in their sockets for protection right before they wait, camoufl aged on the seabed and suck small fi sh suddenly strike anyway. The gill slits are a more promising into their mouths. Hammerheads use their widely spaced target; the gills inside are both delicate and sensitive. electroreceptors to catch fl atfi sh and crustaceans lurking under Don’t play dead, sharks are more likely to bite you if the sand. Port Jackson sharks have molar-like rear teeth for you look defenceless. Equally though, too much cracking open molluscs. splashing and noise will act to attract sharks. Some sharks are fi lter feeders, eating mainly plankton and If you manage to drive the shark away, tiny fi sh. To sieve through the vast volumes of water necessary to don’t relax just yet. Sharks are very strain out enough food, they may either take huge gulps and suck curious and this one will be back soon. the water in, like the whale shark, or just swim through patches Get out of the water straight away if of plankton with their mouths open, like the basking shark. The possible. If you are diving in open water, water is expelled through the gill slits at the side but any food is come to the surface, swimming back-to- trapped in fi brous gill rakers and when enough has been back with your diving buddy. collected, it is swallowed. The tiger shark is an indiscriminate hunter and specimens have been found with seals, birds, dolphins, turtles and even old tyres and car licence plates in their stomach. But most species will hunt only one particular type of prey. The viper dogfi sh for example has teeth that point outwards from its mouth and it uses these to skewer small squid before swallowing them whole. Thresher sharks use their elongated tails to whip schools of fi sh, herding them into ever-tighter groups until they can take a bite out of the mass as if it were a single, huge, fi sh. The stereotype of the shark as a solitary ambush predator of the open sea is really only accurate for a small number of species, including the bull shark, tiger shark and great white. These are also the species most likely to attack humans so they attract much more attention. These species are highly territorial and often patrol close to the surface. This is because their usual prey is below them and their white bellies make them hard to see against the sky. Bull sharks have specially adapted kidneys that allow them to cope with fresh water and they can swim for hundreds of miles up major rivers in search of prey.

Five myths about sharks Don’t believe everything you hear… 1. Sharks have to 2. Sharks are drawn 3. Sharks are 4. Sharks are 5. Sharks are ‘living swim or suffocate to blood mindless machines immune to cancer fossils’ Only about half the shark species need Although sharks can detect blood at Sharks have similar brain to body This is mainly pushed by some Quite the opposite, sharks are in to keep swimming in order to move concentrations of just one part per mass ratios to both mammals and medical ‘experts’ who are probably fact highly adapted to their current water across their gills. The others will million, they are much more attracted birds. Many shark species show attempting to sell shark cartilage environment and show many still sink if they stop but they can pump to the smell of guts and often linger strong problem solving skills and remedies. There is no scientiﬁ c advanced traits that their ancestors water with their mouths. near sewage outfalls. recognisable social traits. evidence to support this. simply didn’t have.

028-031_HIW_003_NEW.indd 31 10/12/09 14:53:00 A lie-in that we could only dream of… ENVIRONMENT Spider webs / Hibernation / Venomous fish Secrets of spider silk A spider’s silk is a versatile and often deadly tool The thousands of spider species we have today build and use webs in a multitude of different ways. Spiders are able to build their webs thanks to in- built spinnerets, of which they can have up to eight that move independently yet work in perfect unison. These spinnerets are the Image © DK Images DK © Image spider’s silk-spinning organ and can produce a variety of silk types to fulfil varying purposes. Silk types can range from a smooth safety line, to a sticky silk line ideal Hibernation for trapping prey, through to an incredibly fine silk line perfect for embalming. Over its lifetime a spider is capable of producing up explained to eight different types of silk and web use A spider weaving the more can include net creation, egg protection, traditional orb web Why can mammals go to victim preservation and body armour. sleep for months on end? While birds and winged creatures can fly to warmer climes to escape cold and fruitless winters, many mammals enter a deep sleep to survive. This state is called hibernation and, depending on the animal, it can last between a few days, weeks, or even months. In preparation for true hibernation, the animal must make a cosy burrow in which to sleep, and eat lots of food to store up as fat. Some animals can survive the whole winter on little or no food as the animal’s heart rate and body temperature decrease, which means they use very little energy during hibernation. Hibernating mammals also have two types of fat: regular white fat, which is used for storing energy and insulating the body, and a special brown fat that isn’t burned for energy. This brown fat is most important to hibernation because it forms around the organs that need it most – the brain, heart and lungs – and generates heat to keep the animal alive.

Some desert-dwelling animals also enter a state of hibernation in order Spiders can build, hunt DID YOU to survive droughts or hot weather. and even fly using silk This is called aestivation.

“The Stonefish’s neurotoxins The world’s most work by attacking nerve cells” venomous fish Almost invisible among the coral reefs, the Stonefish is a real-life killer The Stonefish is the world’s most spine penetration into skin, death venomous fish thanks to its within three hours. ability to inject deadly Unlike most other poisonous fish who neurotoxins from the spines on its dorsal dwell in the dark depths of the ocean - fin into its target. The Stonefish’s leaving little chance of human contact – neurotoxins work by attacking the nerve Stonefish dwell in shallow waters and cells of whatever it is injected into, are likely to be found anywhere between causing severe pain, sickness, nausea, just beneath the surface down to a depth paralysis and, depending on depth of of three metres. If it doesn’t want to be stepped on, why evolve to look like a stone! © Imagine Publishing Ltd 032 | How It Works www.howitworksDAILY.com No unauthorised copying or distribution

032_HIW_003.indd 32 10/12/09 14:53:40 LARGEST Sahara DRIEST Atacama LOWEST Death Valley At almost 3.5 million The driest and highest Part of the Mojave Head square miles across the desert in the world is Desert, Death Valley is full length of northern the Atacama Desert in the lowest and hottest to Head Africa, the Sahara is by northern Chile. Until location inchange north America. cover far the largest desert 1971 there had been no The Badwater basin is DESERTS in the world. rain here for 400 years. 282ft below sea level.

DID YOU KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXShedding clothes due to heat can actually hasten dehydration How to make Surviving in a solar still Getting drinking water from nowhere the desert Plastic bag Drinking tube Rock weights

Metre round and half-metre John ‘Lofty’ deep hole Wiseman’s SAS Green plants/scrub desert survival (help create moisture) Water container techniques

John ‘Lofty’ Wiseman, 68, served in punctured, broken or contaminated then you do the SAS for 26 years, setting a record not lose your entire water supply. Regardless if for the youngest person ever to pass water supplies are high or low, it is important if Desert kit list selection. In addition to extensive possible to complement it with other sources. service worldwide in which John saw action in These can be attained through solar stills Normal items of luggage every theatre of operations and special constructed by covering green plants under a that could save your life operations required of the British Army, he ran plastic fi lm or bag in a half metre deep and metre the Survival Training School for 22 SAS Hereford, round hole. The condensation that is formed Multiple fl asks/containers Mirror specialising in all aspects of survival training. from the respiring plants at night – due to the A fl ask gives you a secure, portable A mirror or other refl ective We asked John to give us his top techniques for drop in temperature – can then be harvested. source of water, ideal if you are forced object can be used to to take shelter far from your vehicle or refl ect the Sun, thereby survival in a desert environment. In terms of food, snakes, spiders and scorpions reach higher ground in order to be drawing attention to your Firstly, if your vehicle breaks down it is may be eaten, however with each it is important spotted. If carrying water in a large position for rescue parties important to stay with it. A vehicle provides to discern whether poisonous. Snakes offer the container, split it up into many so you by its glint. many things, including cover, a lengthy shadow best source of meat and can be ridden of stored don’t have all your eggs in one basket. for shade, a structure to attach an awning, a poisons by cutting off their head. It is important larger target for a rescue team to spot, as well as to remember, however, that the digestion the Plastic bag being a valuable source of fuel from its tanks (for body undertakes as a result of eating requires A plastic bag can be used to create a fi res) and water from its radiator (useful for water to do so and therefore will contribute to solar still, perfect soaking clothes and drinking if distilled). dehydration. Remember, it takes three weeks for for collecting water Staying with your vehicle you should then a human to die from lack of food, but only three from respiring prioritise constructing shelter, preferably an days from lack of water. plants. awning. Shelter is often discarded over water In order to attract attention of search and acquisition, as it’s wrongly believed to be more rescue parties, signals should be made by important for survival. While maintaining launching fl ares, drawing SOS on the ground in hydration is crucial, without shelter a person stones, honking the vehicle’s horn in six spaced will get heat stroke and die within hours. The blasts every fi ve seconds and at night fl ashing its best and easiest form of shelter to attain is to lights in the same way. Smoky fi res should be construct an awning, attaching it to the top of the constructed out of surrounding bush and scrub vehicle. If the construction of an awning is not plants as well as any spare tyres the vehicle is possible then utilise close rocky outcrops or the carrying. A heliograph should also be used as banks of a wadi. much as possible, or if one is not available, a Once shelter is acquired it is essential to cool piece of foil, glass or mirror in order to refl ect the down. To maintain hydration it is important to Sun’s light, causing a glint for searchers. drink two and a half pints for every three and a Other general advice would be to sleep as half lost, or a minimum of half a pint per 24 much as you can, eat only when necessary, keep hours, drunk at midday and lights down. On this your skin free of dirt and sand as this helps it point, when travelling or stranded with water sweat, treat all cuts and wounds immediately to supplies, always split it up over numerous prevent sores, when not on your feet put boots Razor A razor (ideally with an open blade) can be utilised in various ways, containers or jerry cans instead of just storing it upside down on poles to prevent venomous including killing and skinning animals, refl ecting the Sun for attention, in one big tank. This way if you have an accident creatures from crawling inside and keep the fashioning an awning or head-wrap and cutting branches and bushes in the vehicle or on foot and the tank is head covered when in direct sunlight. for fi rewood. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 033 No unauthorised copying or distribution

033_HIW_003.indd 33 10/12/09 14:55:00 ENVIRONMENT Acid rain / Whales / Beaufort Scale Acid rain Understanding this largely man-made problem Anemometers Weather vanes have been The effects on are used to used for centuries to natural and man- measure wind speed determine wind direction made objects are frighteningly obvious Measuring wind How strong is the wind? The Beaufort Scale will tell you Before more sophisticated instruments Each individual number on the scale were developed for measuring wind represents a classifi cation of wind speed with a speed and strength, sailors and other description of the effects over the land or sea. seafarers had to use observable environmental These days, wind speed can be measured more changes on the surface of the water to judge precisely, using either an anemometer or whether conditions. However, in 1805 an windsock for near-surface winds. And for Irishman called Francis Beaufort conceived a gauging upper atmospheric winds, The thought of acid rain is a stark one. Drops of system for determining different winds using meteorologists can use radar to follow and chart highly concentrated acid falling from the sky, just the effects on the environment. Still relevant weather balloon activity. However, Beaufort’s burning and eroding everything they touch, it is today, the Beaufort Scale is divided into a series system and its descriptions of wind conditions enough to scare anyone into never leaving the house of 13 values ranging from 0 to 12: 0 being calm and remain highly signifi cant to meteorological again. So why do we? Well, for one because acid rain isn’t still, and anything over 12 being hurricane force. disciplines today. pure acid but rather a diluted form of it created when Wind description Sea conditions Wind speed Inland conditions clean rain reacts with sulphur dioxide or other nitrogen oxides. This oxidisation of the sulphur and nitrogen 0. Calm Calm (glassy) 0mph/<1kn Smoke rises vertically compounds lowers the natural pH level of rain, which is 1. Light air Calm (rippled) 1-3mph/1-3kn Light air causes smoke to drift around 5.6, to a more acidic one and further from the 2. Light breeze Smooth (wavelets) 4-7mph/4-6kn Wind felt on face, leaves rustle, vane moves neutral pH level of seven shared by distilled water. 3. Gentle breeze Slight 8-12mph/7-10kn Leaves in constant motion, light fl ag extend Most notably the effects of acid rain have been closely 4. Moderate breeze Slight to moderate 13-18mph/11-16kn Small branches move associated with the dilapidation of forests worldwide and the destruction of entire ecosystems. However, the effects 5. Fresh breeze Moderate 19-24mph/17-21kn Small trees sway, crested wavelets on inland water of acid rain can be seen around us every day, from the 6. Strong breeze Rough 25-31mph/22-27kn Large branches in motion corroded statues in our town squares to the bare trees 7. Near gale Rough to very rough 32-38mph/28-33kn Whole trees in motion lining the busiest of roads. 8. Gale Very rough to high 39-46mph/34-40kn Breaks twigs off trees, walking impeded Unfortunately, the problem of acid rain is very much a 9. Severe gale High 47-54mph/41-47kn Slight structural damage to buildings man-made one, despite there being natural causes for the release of both sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, such 10. Storm Very high 55-63mph/48-55kn Large branches broken, some trees uprooted as volcanic emissions. The vast majority of emissions 11. Violent storm Very high 64-72mph/56-63kn Large trees uprooted and widespread damage though are derived from fossil fuel combustion. 12. Hurricane Phenomenal 73+mph/64+kn Widespread devastation How whales communicate Whales produce a wide range of complex sounds through differing techniques Whales communicate by creating Baleen whales differ in their sound creation, sounds through methods that differ as they do not posses a phonic lip structure, depending on their family type. doing so through manipulation of air passing Toothed whales – which include dolphins – through their larynx instead. The larynx works produce high-pitched sounds by the through the vibrations of internal vocal cords manipulation of air stored in their head when air is passed over them. However, through their phonic lips, a structure loosely mystery shrouds this method of akin to the human nasal cavity. As air is passed communication as baleen whales lack vocal through the phonic lips they contract causing cords, so presently scientists are unsure as to vibrations in the surrounding tissue before the exact manner in which their low-pitched being consciously streamed by the whale. sounds emanate from their larynx.

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DID YOU KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThe basis of a bee’s sting is acidic while a wasp’s is alkali

Pistil – the female reproductive parts Pollen sticks to the sticky stigma while the plant’s seeds develop inside the ovary. The stigma and ovary are connected by the style.

Stamen – the male reproductive parts Sacs inside the anther produce pollen, which is located at the tip of the stamen.

Wasp stings The wasp holds a potent and reusable form of attack A wasp stings by transferring venom from an internal venom sac through its egg-laying tube into its victim. The wasp’s sting differs Petals from the bee’s sting due to the smooth surface of its egg-laying Sepals tube, allowing retention of it after an attack for reuse. The bee’s jagged To attract pollinators, The green sepals fl owers have brightly protect the fl ower equivalent sting however, does not allow for such action, forcing it to coloured petals. when it is in bud. literally wrench itself in two and leaving its rear-end and stinger stuck in its victim. The wasp’s sting holds another unique ability. While the venom of a wasp contains many active ingredients, it also carries a pheromone that alarms all other wasps in the area, calling for backup in its attack on its target. This talent is an evolutionary bonus card the bee does not share. Therefore, while bees are more likely to be seen fl ying in swarms there is greater probability that a sting by a solitary wasp will end up leading to a Pollination mass attack. Plants: the facts of life Flowering plants propagate by parts in order to form seeds. Self- Inside a wasp’s way of pollination. Just as in pollination can occur when pollen sticks abdomen human reproduction, there are to the stigma of a fl ower of the same male and female sex organs. This plant. Alternatively pollen can be Venom sac process, however, is much less strenuous transferred to another plant altogether, Housing the venom, before being passed than in animal intercourse; the male and this can either be as a result of the through the egg- parts of the fl ower barely do anything. wind blowing the pollen through the air, laying tube and into The male parts of the fl ower, which or by the pollen getting stuck to the victim. produce pollen, are called stamens, and industrious insects attracted by the each one consists of a stalk, or fi lament, blooms’ colourful petals, who then roam with what’s known as an anther at the from fl ower to fl ower unknowingly tip. The anther is full of tiny sacs in which distributing pollen as they go. the pollen grains develop and eventually When a male pollen grain lands on the break free. female stigma of a plant of the same The female reproductive organs are species, the grain develops a pollen tube called pistils, and these consist of a that leads to an ovule within the ovary. sticky stigma at the tip, which the pollen The male cells then travel through the sticks to, and an ovary, which is a tube into the ovule, where it can proceed bulbous structure full of ovules where to fertilise the female egg inside. Once seeds develop at the base of the pistil. fertilisation has occurred, a seed forms The stigma and ovary are connected by a in the ovary. Meanwhile, the ovary stalk called a style. surrounding the seed becomes a fruit, Egg-laying tube Pollen itself is produced by the male which protects the seed and helps it The smooth surface allows the wasp to retain

organs and is transferred to the female develop into a plant itself. the tube after stinging. Images DK © © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 035 No unauthorised copying or distribution

035_HIW_003.indd 35 10/12/09 16:06:13 OLDEST 1. Bathyscaphe FIRST SAMPLES 2. Kaiko DEEPEST 3. Nereus Head Trieste Deepest dive: 10,898m Deepest dive: 10,902 Deepest dive: 10,900m Date of dive: Date of dive: to Head Date of dive: 23 Jan 1960 February 1996 31 May 2009 Fact: Deepest manned Fact: First to collect Fact: Fibre-optic tether Deep sea vehicle to explore sediment samples from allows Nereus to visit ice- vehicles Challenger Deep. JAMSTEC © Image Challenger Deep. WHOI © Image covered oceans.

DID YOU KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThe depth of the Mariana Trench is about the same as the cruising altitude of a commercial aeroplane

Sea level 0 Continental Shelf The Mariana Trench Exploring the deepest place on Earth Image © Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Oceanographic Hole Woods © Image The Pacifi c Ring of Fire is a inaccessible nature of deep sea (the A specialised manipulator arm of the massive area around the edge lowest layer in the ocean) and the massive remotely operated vehicle Nereus of the Pacifi c Ocean where pressure (some 16,000psi) exerted on samples sediment from the deep most of the world’s volcanic objects at these depths. In 1960, however, How deep and seismic activity occurs. Just south of intrepid oceanographers Jacques Piccard Nereus – a they go Japan, at a maximum depth of 11,034m, and Lt Don Walsh ventured to the bottom lies the deepest point on the surface of the of the Mariana Trench in a bathyscaphe new era of 475ft planet: the Challenger Deep. This called the Trieste: the only manned Scuba divers depression in the seabed is located at the submersible to reach the bottom and exploration southern end of the Mariana Trench, the return in tact. Although the men could not 1,968ft geological product of the convergence of collect photos, data, or samples from the While Trieste is the only manned 10 JIM diving suit two tectonic plates – the Pacifi c Plate seabed, their voyage provided a new vessel to scour the depths of the 4,920ft and the Mariana Plate – and a process vision of what could be achieved in deep- Challenger Deep, Woods Hole Giant squid called subduction whereby the larger sea exploration. Oceanographic Institution’s and denser of the two converging More often these days, unmanned, unmanned robot Nereus is the only 12,500ft plates (that being the Pacifi c Plate) remotely operated submarines and research submarine to do this and RMS Titanic shipwreck gets subducted under the Earth’s observation vessels are used for locating, return with valuable fi ndings. 18,500ft mantle, creating a deep mapping, collecting and photographing Nereus is a cross between a Deep-sea sponges depression in the Earth’s deep-sea geology and biology. In this tethered remotely operated vehicle crust. These trenches make pitch-black world it is extremely cold and (ROV), and a free-moving 27,460ft up the deepest parts of the the pressure of the seawater above makes autonomous underwater vehicle Deepest recorded fi sh world’s oceans – and for for a very inhospitable environment for (AUV). The issue of tethering was 35,802ft Continental slopethis reason such areas marine life let alone eager explorers. overcome with miles of fi bre-optic Bathyscaphe Trieste remain practically However, each new dive seems to cable, which relayed real-time uncharted. uncover another species of aquatic life in video and data, and enabled the Less than fi ve this unique underwater ecosystem and pilots on the surface to operate Depth (1,000s of feet) of (1,000s Depth Forming per cent of the with new developments in submersible Nereus remotely. In AUV mode, it world’s oceans vehicles we are drawing ever closer to can hover to collect rock and deep- the trench have been uncovering more of this, the sea animal samples using a How the Mariana explored due unfathomable deep. Right now, we’ve hydraulic arm. Meanwhile, it can Trench was created to the only scratched the surface. also travel great distances along the ocean fl oor to map the terrain. 20 1. Convergence 2. Trench 3. Subduction Nereus’s lightweight yet durable Due to the seismic The deepest parts The larger, denser quality is derived from the ceramic activity where two of the Earth’s Pacifi c Plate is Abyssal plain materials – instead of metals and oceanic plates meet, surface are created subducted under you will fi nd an ocean by the trench the Earth’s crust glass – used to keep it buoyant and trench and usually formed at the point beneath the protect the electronics from undersea volcanoes. of subduction. Mariana Plate. intense pressure. This remarkable Manned vehicle will enable explorers to mission venture to other inaccessible areas This is Lt Don Walsh (left) and of the planet such as polar ice caps Jacques Piccard (centre) in the – a huge step in the exploration of pressure sphere on-board the Earth’s greatest mystery. Bathyscaphe Trieste. In 1960, these oceanographers On 31 May 2009 Nereus, which rhymes embarked on the only with serious, dove 10,902 metres successful manned expedition to the Challenger Deep.

Mariana Plate Paciﬁ c Plate Trench

Image © Christopher Griner, Woods Hole 30 Oceanographic Institution © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 037 No unauthorised copying or distribution

037_HIW_003.indd 37 10/12/09 14:58:45 © Imagine Publishing Ltd No unauthorised copying or distribution “ Imagine two colossal hunks of rock ENVIRONMENT trying to scrape past each other” Plate tectonics

5. The lithosphere An average of 100km thick, the TYPES lithosphere is the brittle, rocky layer below the uppermost OF… crust and above the semi- molten upper mantle. The FAULTS lithosphere is home to the tectonic plates.

Normal fault 1 Caused by stretching the lithosphere, the hanging wall drops down in the direction of the slope of the fault.

4. Mountain ranges The world’s most dramatic mountain ranges – the Himalayas, Andes, Reverse fault Rockies and more – were all formed by 2 Caused by compression, tectonic processes. At convergent the hanging wall is pushed boundaries, one plate dives into the up against the direction of mantle while the other is thrust the slope. 1. Magma currents upward, forming cascading peaks. Convection currents deep in the mantle force magma up toward the surface where it either pierces the crust as lava or directs the motion of 2. Subduction zone the tectonic plates. When two plates converge, the plate of higher density (usually the oceanic plate) sinks below the other. As rocky material fragments and Strike-slip fault melts in the mantle, it releases seismic waves 3 Lateral scraping movement without any dips or slopes. and triggers volcanoes. © DK Images Earthquakes Our planet isn’t the solid currents that push magma upward and Earthquakes are hunk of cold rock it outward. The tectonic plates ﬂ oat atop appears to be. It is a these vast subterranean currents, not-so-subtle shifting, boiling, bumping and grinding against each thrusting, sliding, other as they jostle for position. As they reminders that sinking, churning ball of superheated collide, they forge cascading mountain magma with a thin, brittle skin. This ranges, deep oceanic gorges and strings the Earth is very skin, called the lithosphere, is fractured of volcanic islands. into 15 large and small segments called Imagine two colossal hunks of rock – An earthquake can much alive (and tectonic plates. some the size of whole continents – render a town The deep molten seas of the Earth’s trying to scrape past each other (or unrecognisable kicking) mantle are home to giant convection indeed over each other). The jagged © Imagine Publishing Ltd 038 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

038-039_HIW_003.indd 38 10/12/09 15:00:35 Seismic activity on the moon Data brought back from the 1969 and 1972 Apollo moon landings revealed that our moon undergoes ground DID YOU tremors similar to those we experience on Earth. The causes of moonquakes include tides, impact vibrations, and KNOW? the expansion of the moon’s crust when the Sun’s heat returns after a freezing lunar night.

The Head to Head Earth’s THE BIGGEST 3. Divergent AND BADDEST boundary EARTHQUAKES OF In divergent boundaries tectonic ALL TIME like the mid-Atlantic ridge, a long seam of underwater volcanoes plates LONGEST creates new lithosphere. The new plates grow Aﬂ oat on a sea perpendicular to the ridge of magma in opposite directions. Divergent boundaries These are long seams of burbling volcanoes – usually deep under the ocean – where the Earth’s crust is formed. Plates grow away from each other at a rate of 1. The Sumatra- 2.5cm per year. Andaman quake When: 2004 Subduction zones Facts: The quake that When two plates converge, triggered the catastrophic one slowly plunges under the Indian Ocean tsunamis of other, swallowing up the 2004 lasted between eight and ten minutes – an eternity for an Earth’s crust. Subduction earthquake. zones are the world’s most Tectonic active earthquake and MOST POWERFUL volcano hot spots.

plates Plate movement MINI-GUIDE KEY Convection currents from the Earth’s plate layout Earth’s molten core rise explained Subduction zones toward the surface and Divergent boundaries spread outward. The brittle Understanding how Plate movement lithosphere rides this subterranean sea of magma earthquakes happen like a conveyor belt. 2. Southern Chile When: 1960 Facts: A 9.5-magnitude quake off the coast of southern Chile wrought death and destruction as far away as the Philippines, Hawaii and Japan. DEADLIEST

3. China When: 1556 Facts: An 8.3-magnitude quake in Shaanxi, China, ripped open 20-metre crevasses, triggered landslides and levelled homes for 300 miles, killing an Earthquakes estimated 830,000 people. It edges of the plates periodically get through liquid and rock, but do little Undersea earthquakes can trigger also damaged the Little Goose Pagoda (above) built in 652BC. jammed together, storing up tremendous damage. It’s the lower-frequency surface killer tsunamis that travel across the potential energy along cracks called fault waves – which twist, roll and tear the ocean faster than a high-speed jet. They lines. When the rock fi nally gives way, crust like paper – that end up causing the cause massive avalanches and Learn more the plates slip and dip violently along the most devastation. landslides, and in some areas, loose, fault, releasing megatons of stored Using ultra-sensitive seismographs, waterlogged soils can become ‘liquefi ed’, To view a really dramatic video featuring the devastating energy as seismic waves. geologists estimate there are 500,000 causing homes and high-rises to virtually effects of earthquakes visit Originating at the focus of the fracture earthquakes every year, although only sink into their foundations. And in www.howitworksdaily.com. – tens or even hundreds of kilometres about 100 of which do enough damage to developing countries, even moderate And on page 37 this issue below the surface – seismic waves ripple make headlines. But when the big ones quakes are often enough to topple poorly you’ll fi nd further details on subduction in our feature on outward in all directions. High- strike, they are the world’s deadliest constructed buildings including schools, the Mariana Trench. frequency body waves travel quickly geological phenomena. churches and hospitals. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 039 No unauthorised copying or distribution

038-039_HIW_003.indd 39 10/12/09 15:01:17 Biology Chemistry Physics General SCIENCE categories explained The most fascinating organ of all YourEXPLAINED… This month in Science Well, as you can see this issue we are examining nature’s most impressive machine, the human brain. Even if you have made a good effort to destroy it over brain Christmas, all your synapses The human brain is the will be firing when you check out the rest of the section too as we discover what the most mysterious – and world’s biggest microscope has in store for future complex – entity in the science, why chillies are hot, how the nitrogen cycle known universe works, anabolic steroids plus It’s a computer, a thinking machine, a fatty pink loads more… organ, and a vast collection of neurons – but how does it actually work? The human brain is amazingly complex – in fact, more complex than anything in the known universe. The brain effortlessly consumes power, stores memories, processes thoughts, and reacts to danger. In some ways, the human brain is like a car engine. The Basal ganglia (unseen) fuel – which could be the sandwich you had for lunch or a Regulates involuntary sugar doughnut for breakfast – causes neurons to ﬁ re in a movements such as posture logical sequence and to bond with other neurons. This and gait when we walk, and also regulates tremors and combination of neurons occurs incredibly fast, but 44 The hottest chillies other irregularities. This is the chain reaction might help you compose a the section of the brain symphony or recall entire passages of a book, help where Parkinson’s Disease you pedal a bike or write an email to a friend. can develop. Scientists are just beginning to understand how these brain neurons work – they have not ﬁ gured Hypothalamus Controls metabolic functions such as out how they trigger a reaction when you touch a hot body temperature, digestion, stove, for example, or why you can re-generate brain cells breathing, blood pressure, thirst, when you work out at the gym. hunger, sexual drive, pain relays, and 44 How sunblock protects The connections inside a brain are very similar to the also regulates some hormones. internet – the connections are constantly exchanging information. Yet, even the internet is rather simplistic when compared to neurons. There are ten to 100 neurons, and each one makes thousands of connections. This is how the brain processes information, or determines how to move an arm and grip a surface. These calculations, perceptions, memories, and reactions occur almost Parts of 45 The ISIS microscope instantaneously, and not just a few times per minute, but millions. According to Jim Olds, research director with George Mason the brain SCIENCE University, if the internet were as complex as our solar system, then So what are the parts of the brain? According the brain would be as complex as our galaxy. In other words, we to Olds, there are almost too many to count – 40 The brain have a lot to learn. Science has not given up trying, and has made perhaps a hundred or more, depending on 44 Steroids recent discoveries about how we adapt, learn new information, who you ask. However, there are some key 44 Chillies and can actually increase brain capability. areas that control certain functions and store 44 Sunblock In the most basic sense, our brain is the centre of all input and thoughts and memories. 45 Most powerful outputs in the human body. Dr Paula Tallal, a co-director of microscope neuroscience at Rutgers University, says the brain is constantly 46 DNA processing sensory information – even from infancy. “It’s easiest to think 48 Nitrogen cycle of the brain in terms of inputs and outputs,” says Tallal. “Inputs are sensory

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040-043_HIW_003.indd 40 6/10/10 14:47:46 LARGEST Sperm whale SMALLEST Mouse lemur LARGEST ON LAND Elephant The sperm whale has The smallest primate brain At 10.5 pounds (4.78kg) it’s Head evolved the largest brain is owned by the pygmy certainly a big one. But still, ever to exist on our planet, mouse lemur of the brain of the elephant to Head weighing as Madagascar and weighs in makes up less than 0.1 per much as nine kilograms or at just 0.004 cent of its body weight.

BIG BRAINS 2008 Marshmallow © 20 pounds. pounds (2g).

DID YOU KNOW? The average human brain is 140mm wide x 167mm long x 93mm high

Cerebral cortex The ‘grey matter’ of the brain controls cognition, motor activity, sensation, and other higher level Functions of the functions. Includes the association areas which help process information. These association areas are what distinguishes the cerebral cortex human brain from other brains. Frontal lobe The cerebral cortex is the wrinkling Primarily controls senses such as taste, hearing, part of our brain that shows up when and smell. Association areas might help us you see pictures of the brain determine language and Complex the tone of someone’s movements voice. Skeletal movement Parietal lobe Where the brain senses touch and anything that Problem interacts with the surface solving of the skin, makes us aware of the feelings of our body and where we are in space.

Touch and skin sensations

Language

Receives signals from eyes

Speech Analysis of signal from eyes Hearing

Prefrontal cortex Temporal lobe Executive functions such as complex What distinguishes the planning, memorising, social and human brain – the ability to verbal skills, and anything that process and interpret what requires advanced thinking and other parts of the brain are interactions. In adults, helps us Analysis of sounds hearing, sensing, or tasting determine whether an action makes and determine a response. sense or is dangerous. “In a sense, the main function of the brain is in ordering information

Hypothalamus – interpreting the outside world Controls metabolic functions such as body temperature, digestion, Cerebellum and making sense of it” breathing, blood pressure, thirst, Consists of two cerebral hunger, sexual drive, pain relays, and hemispheres that controls also regulates some hormones. motor activity, the planning information, outputs are how our brain organises computer in determining not only movements but of movements, co-ordination, that information and controls our motor systems.” registering memories that can be quickly recalled. and other body functions. Tallal says one of the primary functions of the According to Dr Robert Melillo, a neurologist and the This section of the brain weighs about 200 grams brain is in learning to predict what comes next. In her founder of the Brain Balance Centers (www. (compared to 1,300 grams research for Scientifi c Learning, she has found that brainbalancecenters.com), says the brain actually for the main cortex). young children enjoy having the same book read to predetermines actions and calculates the results about them again and again because that is how the brain a half-second before performing them (or even faster in registers acoustic cues that form into phonemes some cases). This means, when you reach out to open a Limbic system (sounds) to become spoken words. door, your brain has already predetermined how to The part of the brain “We learn to put things together so that they become move your elbow and clasp your hand – maybe even that controls intuitive smooth sequences,” she says. These smooth sequences simulated this movement more than once, before you thinking, emotional response, sense of are observable in the brain, interpreting the outside even perform the action. smell and taste. world and making sense of it. The brain is actually a Another interesting aspect to the brain is that there series of interconnected ‘superhighways’ or pathways are some voluntary movements and some involuntary. that move ‘data’ from one part of the body to another. Some sections of the brain might control a voluntary Tallal says another way to think about the brain is movement – such as patting your knee to a beat. Another by lower and upper areas. The spinal cord moves section controls involuntary movements, such as the information up to the brain stem, then up into the gait of your walk – which is passed down from your cerebral cortex which controls thoughts and memories. parents. Refl exes, long-term memories, the pain refl ex – Interestingly, the brain really does work like a powerful they are all controlled by sections in the brain.

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040-043_HIW_003.indd 41 6/10/10 14:48:12 100,000 miles of Headache not in The brain is Your brain uses Trillions of 5 blood vessels the brain? 60% fat 20% of power connections TOP There are a staggering A headache actually occurs Your brain is 60 per cent fat – The brain is quite greedy; it The brain has trillions of 1 100,000 miles of blood vessels 2 in blood vessels around the 3 which helps carry water and 4 uses about 20 per cent of the 5 connections – much FACTS in the brain, that is enough to brain, not the brain itself. The protein through membranes power in your body that is more than the internet, wrap around Earth four times. brain cannot feel any pain to brain cells, keeping generated from food and more than can currently SCIENCE THE BRAIN whatsoever. everything ticking over. consumption. be counted. Neurons, nerves and the spinal chord

Neuron A neuron is a nerve cell in the brain that can be activated (usually by glucose) to connect with Neurons other neurons and form a bond that triggers an action in the brain. Neurotransmitter explained A neurotransmitter is the electro-chemical circuit that carries the signal Neurons fi re like electrical circuits from one neuron to Neurons are a kind of cell in the brain (humans have many cells in another along the axon. the body, including fat cells, kidney cells, and gland cells). A neuron A thin synapse is essentially like a hub that works with nearby neurons to generate A thin synapse an electrical and chemical charge. Dr Likosky of the Swedish (measuring just a few Medical Institute says another way of thinking about neurons is nanometres) between that they are like a basketball and the connections (called axons) the neurotransmitter, are like electrical wires that connect to other neurons. This creates carried along the axon in the brain, forms the a kind of circuit in the human body. Tallal explained that input electro-chemical from the fi ve senses in the body cause neurons to fi re. connection. “The more often a collection of neurons are stimulated together in time, the more likely they are to bind together and the easier and easier it becomes for that pattern of neurons to fi re in synchrony as well as sequentially,” says Tallal. Brain maps TrackVis generates unique maps of the brain TrackVis is a free program used by neurologists to see a map of the brain that shows the fi bre connections. On every brain, these neural pathways help connect one part of the brain to another so that a feeling you experience in one part of the brain can be transmitted and processed by another part of the brain (one that may decide the touch © DK Images DK © is harmful or pleasant). TrackVis uses fMRI readings on actual patients to generate the colourful and eye-catching images. To construct the maps, the program can take What is my several hours to determine exactly how the fi bres are positioning in the brain. brain like? If you could hold it in your hand… In pictures, the human brain often looks pink and spongy. According to Dr William Likosky, a neurologist at the Swedish Medical Institute (www.swedish.org), the brain is actually quite different from what most people think. Likosky described the brain as being not unlike feta cheese in appearance – a fragile organ that weighs about 1,500 grams and The computers used to sags almost like a bag fi lled generate the TrackVis with water. In the skull, maps might use up to the brain is highly 1,000 graphics processors that work in tandem to protected and has hard process the data. tissue, but most of the fatty tissue in the brain – which helps pass chemicals and other substances through membranes – is more delicate.

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040-043_HIW_003.indd 42 6/10/10 14:48:34 100,000 miles of Headache not in The brain is Your brain uses Trillions of 5 blood vessels the brain? 60% fat 20% of power connections TOP There are a staggering A headache actually occurs Your brain is 60 per cent fat – The brain is quite greedy; it The brain has trillions of 1 100,000 miles of blood vessels 2 in blood vessels around the 3 which helps carry water and 4 uses about 20 per cent of the 5 connections – much FACTS in the brain, that is enough to brain, not the brain itself. The protein through membranes power in your body that is more than the internet, wrap around Earth four times. brain cannot feel any pain to brain cells, keeping generated from food and more than can currently THE BRAIN whatsoever. everything ticking over. consumption. be counted.

DID YOU KNOW? The adult human brain weighs about 1.4kg (or three pounds)

Nerve transmissions Nerve triggers Some nerve transmissions travel great When many neurons are activated together distances through the human body, at the same time, the nerve is excited – this How do others travel short distances – both use is when we might feel the sensation of a de-polarisation to create the circuit. touch or a distinct smell. De-polarisation is like a wound-up spring that releases stored energy once nerves triggered.

work? Myelinated and un-mylinated Nerves carry signals throughout the Some nerves are myelinated (or insulated) with fatty body – a chemical superhighway tissue that appears white Nerves are the transmission cables that carry brain waves in the and forms a slower human body, says Sol Diamond, an assistant professor at the Thayer connection over a longer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. According to Diamond, nerves distance. Others are un- myelinated and are un- communicate these signals from one point to another, whether from

insulated. These nerves Images DK © your toenail up to your brain or from the side of your head. travel shorter distances.

What does the Spinal cord core In the core of the spinal cord, grey matter – like the kind in the outer layer of the brain – is for processing nerve cells such as touch, pain, and spinal chord do? movement.

The spinal cord actually Spinal nerve is part of the brain and

plays a major role Neuronal ﬁ bre tracts Scientists have known for the past 100 years or so that the spinal cord is actually part of the brain. According to Melillo, while the brain has grey matter on the outside (protected by the skull) and protected white matter on Nerve root the inside, the spinal cord is the reverse: the grey matter is inside the spinal cord and the white matter is outside. Grey matter cells Grey matter cells in the spinal cord cannot regenerate, which is why people with a serious spinal cord injury cannot recover over time. White matter cells can regenerate.

White matter cells White matter cells in the spinal cord carry the electro-chemical pulses up to the brain. For example, when you are kicked in the shin, you feel the pain in the shin and your brain then tells you to move your hand to cover that area. Neurogenesis Neuroplasticity According to Tallal, by repeating brain In the spinal cord and in the brain, cells can rejuvenate over activities such as memorisation and pattern time when you exercise and become strengthened. This recognition, you can grow new brain cells in

Image © Arrowhead Forensics Arrowhead © Image process is called neuroplasticity. the spinal cord and brain.

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040-043_HIW_003.indd 43 6/10/10 14:49:02 SCIENCE Chillies / Steroids / Sunscreen

Anabolic steroids Understanding performance-enhancing drugs Anabolic steroids make sport the body working in mysterious ways. much easier for the athlete, After ingesting anabolic steroids over a but it’s for that reason that the period of time, of which users can ‘stack’ International Olympic multiple ones by taking them together, Committee has banned the drug. they actually affect the body’s natural Training every day isn’t so appealing equilibrium, the balance of what’s too when there are performance-enhancing much or too little. Too much testosterone drugs around, but it’s the side-effects of and the consequences lead to damaging anabolic steroids that may make you major organs, such as the liver and the Head wish you had gone to the gym all along. heart muscle, and other symptoms What Absorbed in the form of tablets, include increased blood pressure. to Head powder or by injection, anabolic steroids For men and women the body’s biology CHILLIES improve the body’s ability to train is turned on its head, and men can harder. You build up a tolerance to experience infertility, baldness and even HOTTEST makes fatigue, you can increase strength in your the development of breasts. Women can muscles at an unbelievable pace, and suffer from various problems including also improve the body’s effi ciency to growth of facial hair, deepened voices chillies repair any damaged muscles. But it’s not and changes to their menstrual cycle. without its side-effects. If you don’t want to be caught out by Anabolic steroids aid the growth of the consequences of anabolic steroids, hot? various tissues in the body by we reckon a much more appropriate 1. Dorset Naga stimulating the release of the male method to become fi ghting fi t is available Heat rating: 923,000 SHU The secret behind hormone testosterone. It is this that gets right at the local gym. Facts: Related to the Scotch bonnet, this devilishly hot chilli the fi ery fruit is grown in polytunnels by a couple in Dorset. There’s a kind of machismo HOTTER attached to eating the spiciest food known to man, and there’s a reason so many Sunblock people enjoy the powerful fl avours associated with chilli peppers. The How does sunblock protect your skin? tingling sensation on the tongue when The largest organ of the combination of the two. While you try a chilli is caused by a substance body, your skin is an chemical sunscreens absorb called capsaicin, which tricks the brain amazingly durable and the UV light that tries to 2. Red Savina into thinking you’re burning. The body sophisticated substance, pass through them, habanero and yet it remains vulnerable to the physical sunscreens act Heat rating: 577,000 SHU then secretes natural painkilling Facts: According to the chemicals called endorphins, which Sun’s ultraviolet rays. Apart from like a natural mirror that Guinness Book Of World send out a rush of pleasure. covering up with clothing, the next best refl ects the rays away Records, this was the world’s hottest chilli until 2006. The heat of a chilli, also referred to as way to protect this precious layer is to from the skin, making it its piquancy, is measured in Scoville wear sunscreen. The Sun undoubtedly safer for you to enjoy the HOT heat units (SHU), after Wilbur Scoville has its benefi ts: for example, exposing sunshine, just don’t who developed a hotness test for chillies skin to sunlight enables the body to forget to reapply! in 1912. His scale measured the produce vitamin D, which is essential to concentration of capsaicin found in a healthy bones. However, you still need chilli by taking chilli extract and protection, not only from the UVB rays diluting it in water until a human taste that cause sunburn, but also from the test panel could no longer detect any UVA rays that penetrate into the skin 3. Scotch bonnet heat from the solution. The problem and damage cells, causing ageing and Heat rating: with Scoville’s scale was that it relied on leading to a higher risk of skin cancer. 100,000-325,000 SHU Sunscreens can work in two ways and Facts: Used mainly in human subjectivity, so today hotness is Caribbean cuisine, the Scotch calculated using liquid chromatography contain either organic chemical bonnet is a small chilli similar to identify the concentration of heat- compounds, physical ingredients, or a to the habanero. producing chemicals in chillies. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 044 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

044_HIW_003.indd 44 10/12/09 15:15:23 JOIN THE FORUM NOW! www.howitworksdaily.com/forum

DID YOU KNOW? The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during the average lifetime

4. Off they go… After being released from the target, 3. The billions of neutrons fly down the beam pipes. target The protons are accelerated to extremely high speed using a circular 1 synchrotron accelerator. Every proton travels around What ISIS the accelerator 10,000 times before 2 10,000 times before research it is fired at the target. This process is helping 3 takes just ten milliseconds from start to finish, by to achieve which time the Every single instrument proton has travelled at the two ISIS target 1,655km – and this 4 stations is in some way 5 happens 50 times every second. helping scientists to understand materials at 1 & 2. Beam an atomic level, and 5. Experimentation A proton beam travelling Each beam pipe leads to an instrument at 84 per cent of the speed of producing important used for experimenting on everything light is fired from a proton accelerator at a discoveries that will in from shampoo to aeroplane wings. small tungsten target to make neutrons. turn affect our everyday lives. Take the hydrogen- powered car, for instance: these zero-emission The most powerful vehicles could be the future of eco-friendly transport and yet there is currently no way to store microscope in the world hydrogen effi ciently and cost-effectively. However, How can ISIS see things 10,000 times thinner than human hair? ISIS scientists are Known as a ‘super 20,000 million million neutrons a second Three scientists currently developing microscope’, ISIS (named are then fed into the beams towards the prepare the silkworm materials that could after the River Thames’s subject, scattering in a way that enables experiment on one of make hydrogen power a alternative moniker through scientists to see how atoms are the ISIS instruments real possibility. Oxford) is based at the Rutherford organised in that material. And imagine spider- Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire in It is essentially a ‘giant microscope’ silk, this substance is fi ve the UK. Since it opened more than 20 that enables researchers to look at the times stronger than steel years ago, it has exceeded expectations way atoms are joined together and how and absorbs more energy in what it could be used to achieve. As this makeup is affected by external than the materials used well as scientifi c discoveries about forces. The second target station was in bulletproof vests. If ISIS magnetism at an atomic level, it has also built to create neutrons at a lower speed can help to work out how been used to improve the structure of and energy for working with biological this incredible natural shampoo. On top of this it has helped molecules, giving the ability to see a matter is actually spun, engineers design strong but light newborn baby’s lungs breathing or spider-silk technology materials, as used in the Airbus A380. watch spiders spin silk. could be used to develop Its popularity with scientists meant new materials of that development for a second target exceptional strength. station began in 2007, costing £145 Another amazing million but giving scientists the ability to technology that ISIS is see even further into the heart of objects pioneering includes and materials – things up to 10,000 times helping premature babies thinner than human hair. to breathe by creating a ISIS is a pulsed neutron source that synthetic lung coating to uses the beams of neutrons to penetrate replace the animal-based deep inside objects to study their substance currently used. anatomical makeup, using a system ISIS is no ordinary known as ‘neutron scattering’. The beam microscope, and the of neutrons is created by accelerating advances being made at protons at 84 per cent of the speed of the laboratory are most light, which are smashed into a block of defi nitely at the cutting tungsten the size of a packet of biscuits, A privileged glimpse of what it’s like edge of science. inside the second target station at ISIS

dislodging the neutrons from its atoms. Council Facilities Technology and All Science images © © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 045 No unauthorised copying or distribution

045_HIW_003.indd 45 10/12/09 16:07:51 “Some DNA constantly SCIENCE replicates itself” The building block of all cells Unravelling the

2. Doubling up Each cell contains 23 chromosome pairs, for a mystery of DNA total of 46 chromosomes In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick discovered that the 1. DNA DNA molecule resembles A chromosome contains a coiled mass of DNA and a double helix, one of the proteins that control science’s most how it works 3. Coiled signiﬁ cant A strand of DNA would be about revelations three metres in length if uncoiled

4. Base pairs DNA strands contain about 3 billion of these nucleotide base pairs, comprising either adenine with DNA and thymine or guanine with cytosine genetic traits When a person is 5. Sides conceived, they inherit Sugar-phosphates form the sides one copy of each of the DNA ‘spiral staircase’ chromosome from each parent for a total of 23 pairs. There are about 200 inherited traits that are determined by these genes, including physical and behavioural. We can also inherit a predisposition towards getting a particular Deoxyribonucleic acid, better known as DNA, is the To build a protein, DNA is copied to a type of RNA (ribonucleic disease or disorder. These building block of all cells. DNA not only makes the acid) called messenger RNA (mRNA). Two types of special RNA genetic variations are proteins that determine our biological traits, it also molecules, called transfer RNA (tRNA) and ribosomes (rRNA), called alleles. Some are gets copied and passed from generation to use amino acids to build the protein using the pattern dominant, while others generation. Changes in DNA over time result in the evolution of described in the mRNA. Sometimes several different proteins are recessive. traits in a species. Although scientists had learned about DNA are made from the mRNA. This is called protein synthesis. While some traits are and suspected its genetic function since the 1890s, its exact When a cell needs to reproduce, all of its genetic information determined by a single structure wasn’t known until 1953. must copy over to the new cells. This means that the DNA must gene, others come from Cambridge University scientists James Watson and Francis copy itself, or replicate. Enzymes, hormones and other multiple genes, the Crick won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine – along with chemicals in the body drive this process. Essentially the double environment or a Maurice Wilkins – for discovering that the molecule was a helix zips apart and enzymes copy the codons, check the copies combination. There are double helix – two ladder-like strands twisted together that for accuracy, and seal up the strands. The frequency with which multiple genes for resemble a spiral staircase. These long molecules are twisted, replication occurs depends on the type of cell in which the DNA determining eye colour, along with various proteins, into a single chromosome. While resides. Cells in our skin, for example, are constantly dividing, for example, but there’s no DNA structure looks complicated, it comprises just four sugars so the DNA in those cells is constantly replicating itself. known gene for being called nucleotide bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C) Sometimes there are minor changes made in the processes of extraordinarily good at and guanine (G). These four sugars are strung together to form a DNA replication and protein synthesis. Because there are some playing a speciﬁ c sport. sequence, similar to the way that letters of the alphabet form repeater codons, these variations don’t always cause a problem. The latter is likely a words, and words form sentences. Groups of three nucleotides Often they result in a positive outcome, such as increased combination of genes, form ‘words’ called codons, which form ‘sentences’ called survival of certain types of diseases. However, depending on health, nutrition and other genes. These genes contain information on how and when to the variation, mutations can occur that can ultimately result in environmental factors.

build a protein from a combination of 20 different amino acids. hereditary diseases. Images DK © Image © Imagine Publishing Ltd 046 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

046_HIW_003.indd 46 10/12/09 15:17:40 © Imagine Publishing Ltd No unauthorised copying or distribution The invisible element Liquid ice Big bangs Breathe easy Colourful effects “Nitrogen gas must be put into a 5 Nitrogen is colourless, When nitrogen is cooled to Nitrogen is even used in Nitrogen gas makes up 78.08 Nitrogen is responsible for TOP 1 odourless and tasteless, and 2 below -196°C it turns into a 3 explosives such as TNT. The 4 per cent of the Earth’s 5 the orange-red, blue-green, although practically inert at liquid that can freeze a chemicals used in this kind of atmosphere; the rest is 20.95 blue-violet, and deep violet biologically useful compound for living FACTS normal temperatures, when substance in seconds. Handy nitrogen compound break per cent oxygen, 0.93 per cent colours that are visible with

altered it can be used for in medicine for transporting apart releasing huge argon, 0.038 per cent CO2, the aurora borealis (the SCIENCE organisms like us to be able to use it” NITROGEN foods, fertilisers and poisons. blood and transplant organs. quantities of gas. plus traces of other gases. northern lights). The nitrogen cycle

Essential to organic life, nitrogen makes up most of the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a major component in the building of protein in cells, and is vital in the production of amino acids. However, we cannot obtain nitrogen, as a gas, directly from Nitrogen cycle the soil or air without it being combined with another element, and so it must go through a series of four natural chemical reactions – nitrogen fi xation, nitrifi cation, denitrifi cation and decay – known as the nitrogen cycle. Understanding the stages of the nitrogen cycle can seem complicated because nitrogen Lightning can exist in several different forms. While food-making organisms get the nitrogen they need from nitrogen fi xation and Volcano nitrifi cation, animals and humans don’t make their own food and so must eat plants or animals that eat plants to get their fi ll. First, let’s take nitrogen fi xation. Although there is a vast amount of nitrogen gas in the atmosphere, it must be fi xed – or put into a biologically useful compound – for living organisms like us to be able to use it. Only then can it start to move through the ecosystem. Fixation starts off when bacteria convert nitrogen gas into ammonia in the soil. Urine Special plants known as legumes Assimilation also have certain bacteria in their roots that make this possible. Once in the soil, the nitrogen becomes biologically accessible, 1. Nitrogen fi xation and nitrifi cation is the process This process makes atmospheric that takes nitrogen fi xation one nitrogen compounds available to 4. Decay plants by constantly converting the step further. Specialised bacteria When an animal or plant gas into ammonia. Nitrogen-fi xing dies, its waste matter (made use oxidation to convert microorganisms in the soil fi x Dead animals up of organic nitrogen ammonia into nitrite, and nitrite atmospheric nitrogen gas to and plants compounds) returns to the ammonia in a reduction reaction. into nitrate, which plants can soil. The bacteria and fungi Nitrogen fi xation can also occur as a incorporate into their tissues. that decompose the dead result of lightning: the massive animals and plants convert During what’s known as amount of energy produced by a bolt this organic nitrogen (found denitrifi cation, plants take enables nitrogen in the atmosphere in the proteins and urea) into nitrogen from waterlogged soil by to fi x to nitrates in the soil. inorganic ammonia and absorbing nitrates and ammonium compounds in ammonium ions, turning them the soil. into organic compounds. Nitrogen compounds are also returned to Decomposers the soil through animal waste and ammonifi cation and decaying plants and animals. Although the most abundant form of nitrogen is obviously the air around us, the processes through which nitrogen gets into the rest of our ecosystem are Ammonia NH3 essential for the circle of life. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 048 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

048-049_HIW_003.indd 48 10/12/09 15:18:23 The invisible element Liquid ice Big bangs Breathe easy Colourful effects 5 Nitrogen is colourless, When nitrogen is cooled to Nitrogen is even used in Nitrogen gas makes up 78.08 Nitrogen is responsible for TOP 1 odourless and tasteless, and 2 below -196°C it turns into a 3 explosives such as TNT. The 4 per cent of the Earth’s 5 the orange-red, blue-green, although practically inert at liquid that can freeze a chemicals used in this kind of atmosphere; the rest is 20.95 blue-violet, and deep violet FACTS normal temperatures, when substance in seconds. Handy nitrogen compound break per cent oxygen, 0.93 per cent colours that are visible with

altered it can be used for in medicine for transporting apart releasing huge argon, 0.038 per cent CO2, the aurora borealis (the NITROGEN foods, fertilisers and poisons. blood and transplant organs. quantities of gas. plus traces of other gases. northern lights).

DID YOU KNOW? Harvesting plants before they die means soil requires fertilisers containing nitrates or ammonium compounds

We explain how living organisms make use of the most Nitrogen cycle abundant gas on the planet Atmospheric nitrogen N2 Synthetic Emissions from industrial combustion and gasoline engines nitrogen ﬁ xation Although the nitrogen cycle is a natural phenomenon, we humans can affect things. For instance, the Haber-Bosch process, which is used in the industrial production of ammonia for fertiliser, contributes to the total ﬁ xation of atmospheric nitrogen. The Haber-Bosch process directly combines nitrogen from the atmosphere with hydrogen under high pressure and Volcano fairly high temperature, which, together with a catalyst such as iron, produces a reaction not possible at lower temperatures. The lower the temperature and the higher the pressure, the more ammonia is produced. Rain Haber-Bosch remains one of the most fundamental processes in the chemical industry today.

Assimilation Fossil fuels

Fertiliser 4. Decay When an animal or plant dies, its waste matter (made up of organic nitrogen compounds) returns to the soil. The bacteria and fungi that decompose the dead animals and plants convert this organic nitrogen (found 3. Denitrifi cation in the proteins and urea) into As you would imagine, denitrifi cation is the inorganic ammonia and opposite of the combined processes of nitrogen ammonium compounds in fi xation and nitrifi cation, and it takes place in the soil. 3- waterlogged soils. Denitrifying microorganisms Nitrates NO (bacteria) convert inorganic nitrogen (nitrates) into small quantities of nitrogen gas, which is then released back into the atmosphere.

2. Nitrifi cation Nitrifi cation, which is only possible if the soil conditions are not too waterlogged, acidic or cold, converts ammonia in the soil into nitrates. While ammonia is the primary product of nitrogen Natural activities - fi xation, the conversion of ammonia to nitrites and nitrates Ammonia NH3 Nitrites NO2 (carried out by nitrifying bacteria) is nitrifi cation. Plants absorb the Human activities nitrates and use them to make proteins. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 049 No unauthorised copying or distribution

048-049_HIW_003.indd 49 10/12/09 15:18:46 Extreme vehicles Extreme Air Rail Road Sea vehicles Future General TRANSPORT categories explained Jet engines Jet engine Despite its immense power and capabilities, in many ways This month in a jet engine is less complex than the engine in your car Transport The very fi rst aircraft used engine-driven The simplest form of jet is the fi rework rocket, which dates This amazing image of the propellers to drive them through the air and, of back to the 13th Century. An explosive is ignited and the inside of a jet engine course, many planes still use propellers today. resultant gases are propelled out of a nozzle which creates comes courtesy of the However, if you want to achieve serious speed in thrust to push the rocket forwards. Rocket engines in spacecraft folks from Rolls-Royce who the air then you’re going to need an awful lot of work in the same way; they’re simple but use a huge amount of were mightily impressed thrust, and for that you need a jet engine. fuel in a short time, and aren’t practical for everyday use. with our feature on the To demonstrate how a jet works, hold a high-pressure Most so-called jet planes actually have turbofan gas-turbine HMS Astute in issue one, hosepipe up to the palm of your hand – the pressure of the water engines. Near the front of the engine is a compressor, which is which is powered by Rolls- squirting out the end will try to push your hand back. In fact, essentially a larger number of vanes that suck air in, compress Royce technology too. the engine on a jet ski works by fi ring water out of a nozzle to it, and then force it at high-pressure into a combustion chamber. Other topics covered this drive the vessel forward. At this point the air is moving at hundreds of miles an hour. issue include the Channel Tunnel, seat belts and the V-22 Osprey.

Fan Works like a propeller to draw air into the engine, some of which is bypassed straight to the back.

52 Electric supercars

56 Combine harvesters

57 The Channel Tunnel TRANSPORT 50 Jet engines 52 Electric cars Bypass chamber Some of the air sucked in 56 Transmission by the fan bypasses the 56 Combines turbine and is led straight 57 The Channel Tunnel to the nozzle at the back of the engine. 57 Seat belts 58 V-22 Osprey © Imagine Publishing Ltd 050 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

050-051_HIW_003.indd 50 10/12/09 15:19:55 POWERFUL 1. Olympus MORE POWERFUL 2. GE90-115B MOST POWERFUL 3. Saturn V F-1 593 turbojet Facts: The GE90-115B Facts: The F-1 that Head Facts: Concorde’s was developed for the powered the Saturn V 593 turbojet engines Boeing 777 and develops launch vehicle produced to Head had afterburners that 568kN of thrust, making 7,740.5Kn of thrust. It’s developed 169.2kN it the most powerful the most powerful single- Jet engines of thrust. commercial jet engine. chamber rocket engine.

DID YOU KNOW? Jet engines react according to Newton’s third law of motion; every action has an equal and opposite reaction

Fuel is injected into the combustion chamber, where it mixes Because a turbofan relies on the rotating turbine to drive the with the fast-moving compressed air and is ignited. The hot compressor and fan, and the turbine can’t turn without air from gases then pass back where they drive a turbine which, in turn, the compressor, it needs help to get started. This is done with provides propulsion for the aforementioned compressor. The compressed air that spins the compressor and fan at such a remaining energy is expelled from a nozzle at the back of the speed that, when the fuel is ignited, there is enough airfl ow to engine to create forward thrust. ensure the hot gases are thrust backwards and don’t explode. At the very front of a turbofan engine is a large fan that also Compared to the internal combustion engines used in cars sucks air in. Some of this air is picked up by the compressor but and propeller-driven aircraft, a turbofan is reassuringly free of the rest bypasses the main turbine and is led around to the complex parts and so is extremely reliable. Which in the case of back of the engine where it supplies additional thrust. an aeroplane is reassuringly good news! Sir Frank Whittle Sir Frank Whittle is credited with inventing the modern jet engine, along with German Hans von Ohain, who independently came up with a similar idea at the same time. Combustion chamber Born in Coventry in This is where fuel is injected, Inside a 1907, Whittle trained as mixed with the fast-moving air, and ignited to create thrust. an RAF offi cer and wrote Rolls-Royce AE a thesis on future aircraft which Compressor 3007 engine considered the idea of Sucks air into the engine and How it produces thrust using a piston engine to forces it backwards at high create compressed air pressure and at high speed. for thrust. He abandoned that plan but later thought of using a turbine in place of a conventional engine. He passed his idea to the Air Ministry but was told that it would never work. Undeterred, Whittle raised fi nance to set up his own company, Power Jets Limited. He struggled to keep it going until, with the Second World War looming, the Air Ministry fi nally realised the project’s potential and began to fund it. Finally, in 1939, the Air Ministry commissioned the Gloster Whittle – the fi rst British jet plane, soon after the Germans Rolls-Royce © Rolls-Royce © trialled their Heinkel He 178 – the world’s very fi rst jet aircraft. Whittle later moved Turbine to the United States, The ignited mixture passes through where he died in 1996 the turbine and turns it, which then Nozzle rotates the fan and compressor at The hot gases are expelled but is still remembered the front of the engine. from the back of the engine at for changing the face of high speed to create thrust to aviation forever. push the aircraft forwards. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 051 No unauthorised copying or distribution

050-051_HIW_003.indd 51 10/12/09 15:20:36 Batteries not included Saving money Tax appeal Breathe easy Plug-in plan “ They’re quiet, effi cient, don’t 5 An electric vehicle (EV) may Based on an average of 10,000 EV drivers benefi t from many Electric cars produce no As part of an £11 million plan TOP 1 not require petrol, but every 2 miles a year, EV drivers could 3 cash-saving concessions, 4 exhaust fumes, minimal 5 from the Energy Technologies create exhaust fumes and are three to fi ve years it will save about £800 a year on such as reduced vehicle tax, pollution and emit just a third Institute, nine UK cities are to FACTS require a replacement battery, fuel. The cost of ‘fi lling the cheaper insurance, and of the CO2 of petrol engines. instal plug-in points for electric ELECTRIC which will set drivers back tank’ of an electric car costs exemption from London’s EVs could help keep the air in and hybrid cars, enabling TRANSPORT relatively simple” CARS about £1,500. the same as a pint of milk. Congestion Charge. our inner cities much cleaner. drivers to charge their vehicles. Electric supercars Electric supercars If the thought of driving around in an electric car depresses you, then think again. The latest electric supercars not only look stunning, they even outperform their fossil-fuelled competitors

Electric cars may be seen as the keeping the centre of gravity low to make the vehicle There is no drivetrain and, in fact, the only other future of the motoring industry, much more stable. moving parts on the Lightning are the door hinges but actually there’s nothing new Today, over 100 years later, the same principle is and wiper motor!” about them. Way back in 1900, none being described as the future by Arthur So why has it taken so long for electric cars to take other than Ferdinand Porsche Wolstenholme, the technical director of Lightning hold? They’re quiet, efﬁ cient, don’t create exhaust produced his Lohner-Porsche which had a hub- Car Company. “Our in-wheel motors are very fumes and are relatively simple, compared to mounted electric motor on each of the four wheels, powerful and each one creates 1,100Nm of torque,” internal combustion engines. Well, an electric motor therefore doing away with the need for heavy and Wolstenholme explains. “Having the motors in the needs to be powered by, er, electricity and that’s inefﬁ cient gearboxes and driveshafts, as well as wheels means the cars have far fewer moving parts. where the problem comes in. Either you need a very © Imagine Publishing Ltd 052 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

052-055_HIW_003.indd 52 10/12/09 15:24:29 Batteries not included Saving money Tax appeal Breathe easy Plug-in plan 5 An electric vehicle (EV) may Based on an average of 10,000 EV drivers beneﬁ t from many Electric cars produce no As part of an £11 million plan TOP 1 not require petrol, but every 2 miles a year, EV drivers could 3 cash-saving concessions, 4 exhaust fumes, minimal 5 from the Energy Technologies three to ﬁ ve years it will save about £800 a year on such as reduced vehicle tax, pollution and emit just a third Institute, nine UK cities are to

FACTS require a replacement battery, fuel. The cost of ‘ﬁ lling the cheaper insurance, and of the CO2 of petrol engines. instal plug-in points for electric ELECTRIC which will set drivers back tank’ of an electric car costs exemption from London’s EVs could help keep the air in and hybrid cars, enabling CARS about £1,500. the same as a pint of milk. Congestion Charge. our inner cities much cleaner. drivers to charge their vehicles. DID YOU KNOW? The Shelby Aero EV has a staggering top speed of 208mph

Got a spare £80k lying around? Why Inside an not get yourself one of these… electric car Take a look inside the high-tech Tesla Roadster, the only electric-powered Electric sports car currently available supercars

Power Electronics Module High-tech batteries Sporty interior The PEM contains high voltage The Energy Storage System (ESS) comprises The cockpit is electronics that control the motor and of 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells. The compact and also facilitate charging, which can be vehicle management system (VMS) monitors comfortable with all done from any mains socket. the batteries’ state and assesses the the mod cons you’d The motor remaining range and available performance. expect to find in a The high-tech AC induction motor is sports car. Anyone situated between the rear wheels and is who can drive a air-cooled. It weighs just 52kg and is petrol car can jump mounted low to aid the car’s stability. into a Tesla and feel right at home. Tesla Motors Tesla ©

Lightweight Lotus-developed chassis bodyshell One-speed transmission UK-based Lotus is a world-leader in The Tesla is clothed in Electric cars can manage without sports car chassis and suspension a lightweight but gearboxes because the motors can design. The Tesla uses a lightweight strong carbon fibre generate maximum power throughout extruded aluminium chassis that’s body shell, with a their rev range. There is, though, a light and strong, and has front and removable roof for fun reduction drive to the rear wheels. rear crumple zones. open-air motoring.

long extension lead or some way of storing the power Slowly, though, new technology is coming online brushless motors which not only drive the vehicle, in the car – in other words, a battery. which allows for more compact, lightweight but also act as brakes and, here’s the clever part, Traditional lead-acid batteries (as used for batteries. The Lightning, for example, uses nano- during braking the motors become generators, starting a conventional car) are used in simple titanate batteries, while some other cars use harvesting the energy from braking and using it to electric vehicles, such as milk ﬂ oats, but they are lithium-ion cells – just like in your mobile phone, recharge the batteries. very heavy and bulky by the time you get enough of only a few more of them… The upshot of these advances is that we are now them to power a car. They also contain toxic Motor technology, too, has come on in leaps and seeing electric-powered cars with performance that materials, which doesn’t help with the bounds. Instead of crude brushes and armatures will match – or often even exceed – that of environmental credentials. that wear out, the latest electric cars use AC conventional supercars. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 053 No unauthorised copying or distribution

052-055_HIW_003.indd 53 10/12/09 15:25:03 Its Lotus-esque lines are no coincidence Watch Jeremy Clarkson road test the G-Wiz automatic electric car TRANSPORT www.howitworksdaily.com Electric supercars

The Statistics Tesla Roadster Tesla Motors Tesla © Tesla Roadster Dimensions: Length: Tesla Motors Tesla © The only electric sports car on sale 3,946mm; Width: 1,851mm; The Tesla Roadster looks similar to a Lotus Elise, which is no Height: 1,126mm How do they charge? surprise because the Norfolk company was closely involved Kerb weight: 1,238kg Drive: Mid-mounted AC with the development of the electric sports car and Charging a car can be as simple as induction air-cooled motor assembles it for the American parent company. with single-speed fi xed gear charging a toothbrush Tesla Motors is currently the world’s only company selling transmission In its simplest form, charging an electric car means plugging it into production electric cars; albeit only about 25 units a week at Peak power: 288bhp the moment. Lotus’s involvement means that the car is Torque: 400Nm any mains supply, just like you would an appliance such as a mobile Safety: Anti-lock brakes, endowed with the sort of superb handing we’ve come to phone. Leave it overnight and, in the morning, you have the traction control, airbags equivalent of a full tank. expect from the legacy of Colin Chapman, while the high- Top speed: 126mph (limited) However, some modern batteries charge much quicker. For tech lithium-ion batteries ensure swift charging and lively 0-60mph: 3.7 seconds instance, the Nanosafe cells used in the Lightning will go from performance, and are said to last for up to 100,000 miles. Battery: Microprocessor- The car uses a single, mid-mounted AC induction motor controlled lithium-ion battery being fl at to fully charged in just ten minutes. What’s more, instead with 6,831 individual cells of having a charging lead, you simply park the Lightning over a that drives the rear wheels via a single-speed gearbox – it Charging time: 3.5 hours special pad set into your drive or garage fl oor and the batteries will doesn’t need a range of gear ratios, as the motor can generate Range: 244 miles charge automatically, thanks to induction technology. This is like maximum power over a range of revs. Prototype/production: your electric toothbrush; the pad creates a magnetic fi eld and this is It may not be cheap at over £80,000 but the Tesla has set In production, sold in USA and UK picked up by the car, so the power is transferred without an actual the benchmark for electric vehicles. physical link. 1. Power supply 4. Receiver pad 2. Transmitter pad 5. Controller The all-British 3. Wireless electricity 6. Battery Lightning GT electric supercar and data transfer The British have always been pioneers of motoring and the Lightning will be made in Coventry – one of the world’s The Statistics 1 5 centres for automotive technology. Lightning GT 6 The Lightning is a GT car along the lines of an Aston Martin and, as such, looks beautiful and has astonishing 4 performance. Having a motor directly linked to each wheel gives the car four-wheel drive – like any respectable supercar 3 2 – and a microprocessor controls the power to each wheel to ensure optimal traction and handling at all times. In other ways, the Lightning’s specifi cation is as you’d expect from a supercar, with an aluminium, carbon fi bre and Forget plug and play, it’s Kevlar body shell, 20-inch alloy or magnesium wheels, Dimensions: Length: plug and race! while the interior is sumptuously trimmed 4,445mm; Width: 1,940mm; in leather. Each car will be built to Height: 1,200mm order, so it can be customised to Kerb weight: 1,550kg Drive: Four permanent the client’s requirements, magnet, brushless motors – in the great British one directly linked to each coachbuilding wheel tradition. Peak power: Over 500bhp Torque: 1,100Nm Safety: Anti-lock brakes, traction control, airbags Top speed: 130mph (limited) 0-60mph: Under 5.0 seconds Battery: Nanosafe nano- titanate batteries Charging time: Ten minutes Range: 186 miles A luxury interior that wouldn’t Prototype/production: look out of place in an Aston Martin Production due to start © Lightning Car Company in 2010 © Imagine Publishing Ltd 054 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

052-055_HIW_003.indd 54 10/12/09 15:26:04 Watch Jeremy Clarkson road test the G-Wiz automatic electric car www.howitworksdaily.com

DID YOU KNOW? The ﬁ rst electric car was made in 1900 by Ferdinand Porsche

The Statistics Sound Shelby Aero EV sense Electric supercars are quiet but not Shelby Supercars Shelby © silent – the motors create their own distinctive whine. It’s not, though, the sound that sports car enthusiasts want to hear. That’s why people have been Dimensions: Length: experimenting with electronically 4,470mm; Width: 2,100mm generated engine notes for electric Height: 1,092mm cars. German tuner Brabus, for Kerb weight: 1,338kg Drive: Twin AC induction instance, has fi tted a sound motors linked to a three- module to a Tesla so that it sounds speed automatic transmission like it has a V8 engine. Or, at the Peak power: 1,000bhp Finally, an electric car to match press of a button, you can create Torque: 1,084Nm The Stig’s outfi t… the sound of a racing car. Safety: Anti-lock brakes, airbags A gimmick? Maybe, but there is Top speed: 208mph a serious aspect to this. We have The world’s fastest 0-60mph: 2.5 seconds become used to cars being noisy Shelby Aero EV electric car? Battery: Nanotechnology and a near-silent one could Shelby’s petrol-powered Ultimate Aero is the Powertrain, or AESP, and the Ultimate Aero lithium-ion cells confuse pedestrians and cyclists, Charging time: Ten minutes world’s fastest production car, and now the will serve as a showcase for the technology, Range: 150-200 miles with serious consequences. company is working on an electric version which the American company claims can be Prototype/production: Therefore, adding artifi cial engine which promises storming performance. used for more mundane cars, as well as trucks, Production due to start sounds could make them safer. The Ultimate Aero EV’s twin motors produce buses and even military vehicles. in 2010 Indeed, the Lightning has two 1,000bhp, which equates to a 0-60mph time of The car is said to have a range of 150-200 sound generators; an external one just 2.5 seconds and an astonishing top speed miles on a single charge (but not if you’re at the front of the car at speeds of of 208mph. Shelby calls the liquid-cooled travelling at 200mph) and the batteries will The Statistics under 40mph to make pedestrians powerplant an All Electric Scalable recharge from fl at in as little as ten minutes. eWolf e2 aware of its presence, and an internal one letting the driver choose from a range of sounds.

eWolf e2 Light and stylish Lohner- One of the simplest ways to improve the while top speed will be limited to 155mph, as performance of a car is to keep its weight many German cars are. The four-wheel drive Porsche down, and that’s just what German company will also aid traction and handling, too. Dimensions: Length: Pioneering engineer eWolf is planning with its forthcoming e2 The e2 promises to be a stunning looking 5,000mm; Width: 1,900mm; Ferdinand Porsche produced electric supercar. A weight of just 900kg, car, too, with a distinctive mix of curves and Height: 1,200mm the Lohner-Porsche back in Kerb weight: 900kg thanks to the use of high-tech materials, hard edges over its low, sleek two-seater 1900 – that’s the great man Drive: Four electric motors, combined with in-wheel electric motors bodywork. The images you see here are one driving each wheel sitting next to the driver. This producing a total of 536bhp, promises superb computer-generated renderings, because the Peak power: 536bhp was so far ahead of its time, performance; eWolf claims a 0-60mph time of prototype has still to be built. First Torque: 1,000Nm we’re only just catching up. under four seconds impressions, though, are certainly Safety: Airbags, four-wheel Not only was it electrically drive, traction control (similar to a encouraging! Top speed: 155mph (limited) powered, it had an individual Porsche 911 0-60mph: Four seconds motor driving each wheel. Turbo) Battery: 84 lithium-ion cells Folklore says that NASA turned Charging time: 30 minutes to this vehicle for inspiration Range: 180 miles when it designed its Lunar Prototype/production: Production planned for 2011 Buggy in the Sixties. © eWolf © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 055 No unauthorised copying or distribution

052-055_HIW_003.indd 55 10/12/09 15:26:36 TRANSPORT Combines / Semi-automatic gears How combines work More than an overgrown lawn mower, combines are mobile multitaskers 2. Knock and chop 3. Command in comfort 4. Thresh and churn 5. Dead straw walking The horizontal ‘bats’ and From the climate-controlled cabin, The chopped crop material moves over, under and through The rough, stepped surface of the vertical tines of the pickup the farmer monitors and controls a series of specialised threshing drums that loosen the straw walker is perfect for shaking reel knock down the crop every aspect of the harvest through grain and shake it off through concave metal grates. off any leftover grain. The whole and feed it into the header touch screens, video monitors and platform jostles back and forth as and cutter mechanism. GPS trackers. the straw is pushed toward the back for chopping and spreading.

1. GPS-guided John Deere’s AutoTrac system allows for ‘hands-free’ navigation. Special sensors record GPS data when the crop is planted. The combine follows the GPS co-ordinates to harvest perfectly straight rows.

7. Out you go! The unloader is a 6. Temporary storage long, turbine- The prized grain is stored in the belly powered arm of the combine until it reaches that empties the maximum capacity. Modern machines storage tank at a

© John Deere John © have cameras and sensors to detect rate of 3.3 bushels when the storage tank is full. of grain per second. Semi-automatic transmission Double-clutch transmissions give you the choice of transmission is much the same as a manual gearbox. A The latest double- fully automatic changes or manual ones via hydraulic control unit and a series of pressure valves clutch automatic steering-wheel mounted paddles. The key is a pair control the wet clutches and the shifters. The clutch on one transmissions are a of compact wet clutches, one inside the other. In a typical transmission opens or disengages, while the clutch on the system, one clutch is linked to even-numbered gears, the other closes or engages simultaneously. This means as one must-have other to odd-numbered ones and reverse. The rest of the gear’s selected, the next is pre-engaged ready to be used.

Outer clutch Inner clutch The PDK’s power ﬂ ow in ﬁ rst gear, Here, the transmission in fourth gear, with the with the outer wet clutch engaged. inner wet clutch engaged. © Porsche ©

First gear Second gear

056_HIW_003.indd 56 10/12/09 15:27:39 Eco-friendly travel Tunnel of love Good clean fun Don’t panic! Reclaimed land 5 Research by Eurotunnel’s main The south tunnel is used On 17 November 2009, The electric service tunnel 4.9 million cubic metres of TOP 1 operator, Eurostar, revealed 2 when travelling from France 3 motorsporting legend John 4 vehicles are used for 5 the Channel Tunnel’s spoil that travelling from London to to the UK, the north tunnel Surtees became the ﬁ rst maintenance and for getting (excavated waste) was FACTS Paris by Eurostar creates one takes passengers from the person to drive through the to emergencies. They can deposited at the foot of CHANNEL tenth of the CO2 that would be UK to France and the service Channel Tunnel in the electric reach 50mph but cannot turn Shakespeare’s Cliff. This area TUNNEL generated by ﬂ ying there. road goes both ways. Ginetta G50EV car. round in the tunnel. is called Samphire Hoe. DID YOU KNOW? One of the Channel Tunnel boring machines was placed on eBay and raised £39,999 for charity

The electric vehicles can’t turn round in the tunnels but they can be driven from both ends

Seat belts English channel How belting up can White and save you from serious grey chalk

injury or even death Piston relief duct

Clasp Ejector Cross-passage This releases the seat Chalk marl belt after use Latch spring To release clasp from mechanism

Gault clay All pictures © Eurotunnel © pictures All

Latch North running Fastens the South running tunnel clasp in place tunnel Service tunnel Deadlock bar Prevents mechanism from unlatching First used on cars in the Fifties, The Channel Tunnel seat belts are now taken for granted. In its simplest form, a As the Eurotunnel celebrates 15 years of service, we ask how the world’s seat belt is a strap that holds the longest undersea tunnel provides safe and fast access to continental Europe occupant in place when the car comes to Construction of the Channel Tunnel commenced used in emergencies. The air pressure in this ventilated a sudden halt. in 1987, and in 1994 Queen Elizabeth II and service area is kept higher so that smoke and fumes A modern three-point seat belt has an French President François Mitterrand opened cannot enter, and at 375m intervals there are inertia reel. This allows the belt to be the tunnel for passenger traffi c. The three tracks – each passageways leading into the service tunnel so pulled slowly out to the required length 50km long, 38km of which under the sea – link passengers can escape in the event of a fi re in either of and lets the user move freely, but in the Folkestone in Kent with Coquelles near Callais. the two rail tunnels. event of sudden deceleration the belt In 1987 a number of tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) In the last 15 years there have been just three fi res in locks tight. This works by a weight that began to excavate the fairly impermeable chalk marl the Channel Tunnel – in 1996, 2006 and 2008 – all of swings forward when the car brakes, rock from both sides of the Channel. They tunnelled which were a result of HGVs catching light on board the causing a tooth to engage in a ratchet down to around 40m below the seabed. Due to the train’s freight carriages. The passengers on board each of wheel on the seat belt spool. resistance of the French strata, 84km of the tunnels were the affected trains all took shelter in the service tunnel Alternatively, when the seat belt itself is constructed from the English side and 69km from the while the fi res were dealt with. suddenly jerked, a centrifugal clutch French side. When travelling on the Channel Tunnel’s high-speed locks up; the same clutch remains free The Channel Tunnel system comprises three trains (up to 186mph), the journey from London to Paris when the belt is pulled slowly. concrete-lined channels. The two larger outer tunnels takes two hours 15 minutes and from London to Brussels Some seat belts have a pretensioner are single-track railroads, spaced 30 metres apart. The just one hour 51 minutes. With no need to step on a boat, that pulls the belt tight in the event of an third, a smaller service tunnel located in-between, is this is the ultimate solution to seasickness. accident. Linked to the same circuit that controls the airbags, explosive gas in a cylinder is ignited, causing a piston to Inside the tunnel move rapidly, which in turn winds in the seat belt spool. Once activated, this has to be replaced by a specialist.

To prevent injury, there’s no excuse not to “clunk click every trip”

057_HIW_003.indd 57 10/12/09 15:28:38 Power mad Heavyweight A grand tourer Bang for your buck Maximum fi repower “ The V-22 easily reaches a 5 Combined, the V-22’s engines With an internal lifting With a maximum range The average cost of a single The three-barrelled 7.62mm TOP 1 produce 12,300hp, over 12- 2 capability of 20,000 pounds, 3 of over 1,000 miles, a V-22 4 V-22 Osprey is $120 million, 5 minigun that is equipped to times that of the world’s the V-22 Osprey could lift an could theoretically fl y from meaning the total cost of the the V-22 Osprey can fi re up to scorching top speed of 315mph, FACTS fastest car the Bugatti Veyron, entire African bull elephant, London to Rome in a single 458 ordered by the US 3,000 rounds per minute, which was featured in issue which average over 14,000 trip without having to stop Government will cost a that equates to 50 rounds TRANSPORT which for its size is colossal” V-22 OSPREY one of this very magazine! pounds in weight. to refuel. princely $55 billion. every second! Is it a plane? Is it a helicopter? It’s both... V-22 Osprey The class-bending military aircraft that demolishes the aviation rulebook When work began on the – allows for the vertical fl ight/take-off concept for the V-22 Osprey capabilities of helicopters with the speed, over 25 years ago, it’s unlikely range, altitude and endurance of fi xed-wing that anyone thought it would aircraft. This is good, for the V-22 Osprey is end like this. Boasting twice built for war, dirty nomadic modern warfare, the speed, three times the payload, fi ve times and as a machine borne out of confl ict, it the effective range and with an ability to knows how to defend itself. dominate the skies from over twice the When things get sticky the V-22 can sport a altitude, the V-22 doesn’t just eclipse the front/belly-mounted turret that provides 360- competition, it blows it out of the 21st Century. degree coverage of the battlefi eld for its three- Taking the hard rules once defi ned by the barrel 7.62mm minigun, as well as deploying a physical limitations of rotorcraft – that of ramp-mounted gun emplacement when range, speed and fl exibility – this fusion of grounded or airborne, perfect for raining plane and helicopter has forgotten them all death upon enemies. This is all well and good and changed the nature of war permanently. in attack you may say, but what about defence? The statistics tell the same story. Powered by Well, no problem there either. As well as what two state-of-the-art tilt rotor engines the handbook lists as an ‘inherent and developed by Rolls-Royce, each of which intentionally designed ballistic tolerance’, the delivering a bombastic 6,150hp, the V-22 Osprey can take a tremendous amount of Osprey easily reaches a scorching top speed of damage thanks to its bulletproof armour, 315mph, which for its size is colossal. With so turning it into a multi-mission juggernaut. much raw power comes the ability to reach For a piece of kit that looks like it is more at heights of up to 25,000ft, as well as having a home in a futuristic James Cameron movie range of 879nmi, more than double that of the than in the real world, the V-22 is actually in previous fi rst choice military workhorse the operation right now in both Afghanistan and CH-47 Chinook. Iraq, as well as seeing deployment in Africa as So how is this phenomenal performance part of Exercise Flintlock last year. And when achieved? The answer lies in the Osprey’s you take into account its biblical performance revolutionary tilt rotor engines, of which it is partnered with the fact that it was declared the world’s fi rst adopter in full-scale fully operational in March 2009, it is hard to production. Operating in roughly the same see how the V-22 Osprey will not become a way as the rotatable jets utilised on the RAF world-beater. The helicopter is dead. Long live Combat troops descend from Harrier, the V-22 – through its adjustable rotors the king! the cabin of a V-22 in a training exercise

When taking-off the V-22’s tilt- rotors remain in a vertical position

The V-22 is capable of high- speed low altitude ﬂ ight

058-059_HIW_003.indd 58 10/12/09 15:29:50 Power mad Heavyweight A grand tourer Bang for your buck Maximum fi repower 5 Combined, the V-22’s engines With an internal lifting With a maximum range The average cost of a single The three-barrelled 7.62mm TOP 1 produce 12,300hp, over 12- 2 capability of 20,000 pounds, 3 of over 1,000 miles, a V-22 4 V-22 Osprey is $120 million, 5 minigun that is equipped to times that of the world’s the V-22 Osprey could lift an could theoretically fl y from meaning the total cost of the the V-22 Osprey can fi re up to FACTS fastest car the Bugatti Veyron, entire African bull elephant, London to Rome in a single 458 ordered by the US 3,000 rounds per minute, which was featured in issue which average over 14,000 trip without having to stop Government will cost a that equates to 50 rounds V-22 OSPREY one of this very magazine! pounds in weight. to refuel. princely $55 billion. every second!

DID YOU KNOW? The estimated total cost of the V-22 programme upon completion is over $50 billion

A V-22 in the middle of rotor transition V-22 OSPREY VS CH-47 CHINOOK

Engine thrust: 6,150hp x 2 Engine thrust: 3,750hp x 2 Max speed: 315mph Max speed: 183mph Max altitude: 25,000ft Max altitude: 15,000ft Max range: 879nmi Max range: 400nmi Cannon: Three-barrel Cannon: M240 7.62mm 7.62mm minigun machine gun

Tilt-rotor technology Three-bladed rotors The dual tilt-rotors of the V-22 Both sets of rotors are allow for vertical take-off while constructed out of graphite also delivering high-speed cruise and fibreglass, rotating around performance when rotated to a a central spinner. horizontal position.

Engines The power for the V-22 comes Alex Pang © Alex Pang courtesy of two Cockpit Allison T406- The cockpit, avionics, Cabin AD400 tilt-rotor The cabin of the V-22 is capable fuselage and flight Illustrations engines, each controls of the V-22 of transporting 24 combat developing are all built by Boeing troops or up to 20,000 pounds 6,150hp. Helicopters. of internal cargo.

Learn more

For more information about Inside the Wing the V-22 Osprey, head over to For storage purposes militarytimes.com/ both wings on a V-22 multimedia/video/ can rotate to align fv22osprey/ where you can V-22 Osprey watch a video of the aircraft’s with the fuselage in a A vehicle with more than a sequence that takes appearance at the Farnborough Air Show. few tricks up its sleeve… only 90 seconds. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 059 No unauthorised copying or distribution

058-059_HIW_003.indd 59 10/12/09 15:30:38 See space shuttle Atlantis ﬂ y around the ISS Exploration System Solar Universe The Astronomy General SPACE categories explained www.howitworksdaily.com The International Space Station

This month in Space If you have ever wondered what it’s like to live and work in space then this issue’s Space section will definitely grab your interest. You can find out exactly what it’s like to live and work aboard the International Space Station and there’s a feature telling you just what it takes to train as an astronaut. On board the International 64 Earth’s magnetic fi eld Space Station What’s it like to live in space? Man has had a continuous began negotiating with Russia, along of water. This includes beverages, which presence in space since 1998 with several other countries, to build a the crew drinks with straws from plastic on the International Space multinational space station. bags. Exercise is a very important part of 65 Black holes Station. Eleven years ago, the Until Expedition 20 in May 2009, crews daily life for the crew of the ISS because Zarya was launched into orbit by the on the International Space Station of microgravity’s adverse effects on the Russian Federal Space Agency. This was consisted of two-to-three astronauts and body. The astronauts and cosmonauts the fi rst piece of the ISS. Now that it is cosmonauts, who stayed for six months. may experience muscle atrophy, bone more than 80 per cent complete, the ISS is Now the ISS is large enough to support a loss, a weakened immune system and a the largest satellite to ever orbit the six-man crew, the stay has been reduced slowed cardiovascular system, among Earth. When completed in 2011, it also to three months. The current ISS crew is a other problems. To help counteract this, promises to be the most expensive object crew of fi ve: ESA commander Frank De the crew exercises while strapped to ever constructed. Winne, NASA fl ight engineer Jeffrey N treadmills and exercise bicycles. 69 Phases of the moon The ISS wasn’t the fi rst space station; Williams, CSA fl ight engineer Robert Research is the main reason for the in 1971 the Soviet Union launched the Thirsk and cosmonauts Maxim Suraev station’s existence in low Earth orbit SPACE Salyut, which was the fi rst in a series of and Roman Romanenko. (about 330 kilometres above the planet’s 60 Living on the ISS space stations. Two years later, NASA The crew typically works for ten hours surface). Several scientifi c experiments 64 Earth’s magnetic fi eld launched Skylab. However, both of these a day during the week and fi ve hours on spanning fi elds including astronomy, 64 Solar sails programmes were single modules with Saturdays. During their eight scheduled physics, materials science, earth science limited life spans. In 1986, the Soviet night hours, the crew sleeps in cabins and biology take place on the station 65 Black holes Union launched the Mir, which was while attached to bunk beds, or in simultaneously. For example, US 66 Astronaut training intended to be built upon and added to sleeping bags secured to the wall. They astronauts are currently conducting 68 Gamma rays over time. The United States planned to also wear sleep masks, as it would be about ten different experiments, with an 68 Hidden planets launch its own space station, Freedom, diffi cult to sleep otherwise with a additional fi ve automated experiments. 69 Space trash just a few years later, but budgetary sunrise occurring every 90 minutes. All They are also partnering on more than 20 69 Phases of the moon restraints ended the project. After the fall food is processed so it is easy to reheat in manned and automated experiments 70 Solid rocket boosters of the Soviet Union, the United States a special oven, usually with the addition with astronauts and cosmonauts from © Imagine Publishing Ltd 060 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

060-063_HIW_003.indd 60 10/12/09 15:32:00 See space shuttle Atlantis ﬂ y around the ISS www.howitworksdaily.com

DIDDID YOUYOU KNOW?KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXThe ISS is powered by solar arrays that will generate 110 kilowatts of power once completed

Propulsion module The ESA’s ATV Control Centre plans ATV Dock and monitors every movement of The Automated Transfer Vehicle the ATV until it gets within a few (ATV) is an expendable hundred metres of the ISS. unmanned resupply vehicle developed by the ESA

Avionics module The ATV contains Pressurised computers that use Payload module tracking equipment to The ATV carries around seven Because the ATV align and

Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image Zvezda Service Module tons of payload, including cargo section is automatically dock After docking, the station’s crew water, oxygen, nitrogen and pressurised, the ISS with the ISS. They also enters the pressurised module to propellant. The latter is used crew can enter undock and send the remove the payload and then fill the for orbit control, attitude, and without spacesuits ATV to burn up in pressurised module with waste. boosting the station. to remove payload. Earth orbit. © ESA - D. Ducros D. - ESA ©

Work compartment Transfer chamber Two crew members This chamber contains live, sleep, work and computers and docking exercise in this equipment. It can be used to compartment. dock with spacecrafts. other countries. Since 1998, more than 130 experiments have been conducted on the ISS, and each month brings more Facilities The Zvezda contains a published research. toilet and hygiene facilities, One of the overarching research goals as well as a kitchen with for the station is to learn about the long- freezer and refrigerator. term effects of space on the human body. © ESA - D. Ducros D. - ESA © Many of the experiments also study the External different ways things react in a low handrails gravity, low temperature environment. The handrails are There is also an experiment involving Transfer compartment used during the use of ultrasounds so that remote The transfer compartment contains spacewalks, or three docking ports. Currently it is doctors can diagnose medical problems extra-vehicular docked with the Pirs and the Poisk. activity (EVA). (there is no doctor on the ISS), with the hopes that the technology can also be used on Earth. © NASA © The current plan shows the ISS Zvezda de-orbiting in 2016, and international funding is scheduled to run out in that year. However, a US committee named Service the Augustine Commission is exploring the possibilities of keeping the programme going until at least 2020. Module NASA is also conducting studies on The Zvezda was the third whether the station’s components could module to dock and provides life A spacewalk during the ISS’s construction be viable until 2028. support systems for the ISS © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 061 No unauthorised copying or distribution

060-063_HIW_003.indd 61 10/12/09 16:21:09 “ A series of complex treaties and Don’t let your brain go hungry agreements govern the ownership, Online: www.imaginesubs.co.uk SUBSCRIBE NOW! SPACE use and maintenance of the station” Phone: 0844 815 5944 to the magazine that feeds minds The International Space Station The Columbus Module The Columbus is a research laboratory designed by the ESA – its largest contribution to the ISS

External payload An external payload facility houses three sets of instruments and experiments, with room for three more. In the Space Station Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a crane lowers the Multi- Purpose Logistics Module Leonardo toward the payload canister

Who built the ISS? The ISS currently comprises ten different modules and an Integrated Truss Structure. The modules are contributions from the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA), NASA, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), which includes 18 member countries. A series of complex treaties and agreements govern the ownership, use and maintenance of the station.

When completed, there will be 16 different modules. Ducros D. - ESA © © Imagine Publishing Ltd 062 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

060-063_HIW_003.indd 62 10/12/09 15:33:18 “ A series of complex treaties and Don’t let your brain go hungry agreements govern the ownership, Online: www.imaginesubs.co.uk SUBSCRIBE NOW! use and maintenance of the station” Phone: 0844 815 5944 to the magazine that feeds minds

DIDDID YOUYOU KNOW?KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXOver 50 missions will be required to transport and assemble all the ISS components

Payload racks These racks hold science Anatomy of the equipment and experiments. Half of the 20 space is allotted to NASA. Space Station The ISS is a configuration of modules, trusses and solar arrays 12 21

8 3

13 11 5 14 2 1 6 4 16 7

1. Zarya 13. Mobile Servicing System The Zarya, launched in 1998 and built by the RKA, is Also known as the Canadarm2, this CSA-built now a storage component. As the ﬁ rst module it robotic system used to move supplies, service The Statistics provided storage, power and propulsion. equipment and assist astronauts on spacewalks. Harmony 2. Unity 14. Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator The ISS The Columbus is Built by NASA and launched in 1998, Unity was the The SPDM, or Dextre, is a robot built by the CSA and attached to the NASA ﬁ rst node module to connect to the Zarya. It provides is extremely dextrous. It can perform functions Harmony node module. a docking station for other modules. outside the ISS previously requiring spacewalks. 3. Zvezda 15. Tranquillity The RKA-built Zvezda launched in 2000. It made the The Tranquillity will be NASA’s third node ISS habitable by providing crew cabins and module, scheduled to launch in February 2010. It © ESA - D. Ducros D. - ESA © environmental control as well as other systems. will contain the ECLSS as well as berthing stations

4. Destiny for other modules. NASA © The Destiny is a NASA laboratory. Launched back 16. Cupola Mass: 303,663 kilograms in 2001, it also contains environmental controls This observatory module, scheduled to launch with Volume of habitable space: Creating and works as a mounting point for the Integrated the Tranquillity in February next year, will also 358 cubic metres Truss Structure. contain robotic workstations to operate the Mobile Supplies: 27,222 kilograms 5. Quest Service System. per expedition The 2001 NASA-built Quest is an airlock used to 17. Rassvet water in Orbit: 278 to 460 kilometres host spacewalks. The equipment lock is used for Scheduled to launch in May 2010, this second RKA high at an angle of 51.6 storing the spacesuits, while the crew lock allows mini-research module will also serve as storage. degrees, travelling at 27,724 exit to space. 18. Leonardo space kilometres per hour, 6. Pirs A pressurised multipurpose module, the Leonardo completing 15.7 orbits per day For the crew of the ISS it’s A mini-research module called Pirs was launched in will launch in September 2010. It will serve as a 2001 by the RKA. It can dock spacecraft and also host storage unit and free up space in the Columbus. Gravity: 88 per cent that of better not to think where spacewalks by cosmonauts. 19. Nauka (MLM) Earth sea level 7. Harmony Scheduled to be launched by the RKA in December Cost: US Government their next glass of water is Harmony, built by NASA in 2007, is a node module. It 2011, this multipurpose research module will be a Accountability Offi ce serves as a berthing point and docking station for rest area for the crew as well as doubling up as a estimates a total of $100 coming from modules and spacecraft. research laboratory. billion (£60 billion). ESA The ECLSS (Environmental Control and 8. Columbus 20. Solar Arrays estimates a total of 100 billion euros (£90 billion) Life Support System) provides water The Columbus, launched in 2008, is an ESA These arrays convert sunlight into electricity. There laboratory specifi cally designed for experiments in are four pairs on the ISS. Crew support: 100, 000 with the Water Recovery System (WRS). biology and physics. It provides power to 21. Thermal Radiators ground personal, 500 Water from crew member waste, experiments mounted to its exterior. The Active Thermal Control System (ATCS) removes contracting facilities in 37 condensation and other waste water is 9. Kibo Experiment Logistics Module excess heat from the ISS and vents it out into space states and 16 countries distilled, fi ltered and processed. This This JAXA module (also known as JEM-ELM) is part via these radiators. Spacewalks: 28 shuttle- of the Japanese Experiment Module laboratory and based, 105 ISS-based for more water is then used for drinking, was launched in 2008. It contains transportation The ISS in early than 830 hours cooking, cleaning and other functions. and storage. construction Meals: About 19,000 An Oxygen Generation System (OGS) 10. Kibo Pressurised Module while in orbit consumed aboard separates water into oxygen and Also launched in 2008, the JEM-PM is a research in 1999 Flights: 30 NASA space facility and the largest module on the ISS. It has an hydrogen. An experimental Carbon shuttle, 2 RKA Proton, 22 RKA external platform and robotic arm for experiments. Soyuz, 1 ESA Automated Dioxide Reduction Assembly (CReA) 11. Poisk Transfer Vehicle, 1 JAXA H-II uses the leftover hydrogen with carbon The RKA-built Poisk (MRM2) launched in November Transfer Vehicle dioxide fi ltered from the crew cabins to 2009. In addition to housing components for Mission control monitoring experiments, it serves as a dock for spacecraft and a centres: 2 NASA centres, 1 produce usable water and methane. In spacewalk airlock. RKA centre, 1 ESA in Germany, addition, the ECLSS fi lters the cabin air, 12. Integrated Truss Structure 1 ESA in France, 1 JAXA centre, The ISS’s solar arrays and thermal radiators are maintains cabin pressure and can 1 CSA centre detect and suppress fi res. mounted to this structure, which is more than 100 NASA © metres long and has ten separate parts. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 063 No unauthorised copying or distribution

060-063_HIW_003.indd 63 10/12/09 15:33:51 “ Every 250,000 years or so, SPACE the magnetic poles reverse” Solar sails / Magnetic fi elds Earth’s magnetic fi eld explained Without our invisible shield, the Earth would be incinerated When a child draws a picture of The Earth’s magnetic fi eld doesn’t Les Johnson, manager of the the Sun, they will scribble a follow the simplistic north-south Marshall Space Flight Center’s yellow circle emitting spiky orientation of your compass. Magnetic Interstellar Propulsion Research rays. Apparently, kids know a thing or north and magnetic south, for example, Center, holds a patch of NASA of courtesy Image experimental solar sail material This is NASA’s concept drawing of an two about astrophysics. The Sun doesn’t are 11 degrees different than Cartesian weighing less than 1/10 of an interstellar probe cruising on solar sails that just shine its benefi cent light on the north and south. And if you were to map ounce per square yard are 40 to 100 times thinner than paper Earth, it also bombards us with deadly the magnetic fi eld, you’d see complex gusts of solar wind, a plasma of charged contours of fi eld lines that vary slightly particles (electrons and protons) that with every location on the planet. Most speeds toward us at a million mph. incredibly, every 250,000 years or so, the The Earth’s magnetic fi eld is the only magnetic poles reverse. How solar thing standing between these Where does the magnetic fi eld come radioactive winds and the fragile from? The leading theory is that the planetary surface. The magnetic fi eld Earth’s core is a perpetual electric defl ects solar wind safely around the generator or dynamo. Currents of liquid sails work planet, creating a comet-shaped iron pass through a weak magnetic fi eld protective shield called the generating electromagnetic energy that A cosmic kite blown by photons is our magnetosphere. Without this protection, produces a much larger and stronger greatest hope for interstellar travel life on Earth could not exist. magnetic fi eld. When the Space Shuttle fuels up for a short commute to the International Space Station, 95 per cent of its weight is in the gas 1. Radioactive winds 2. The shield tank. The sheer weight of rocket fuel is one of the greatest The Sun emits radioactive plasma in The Earth’s magnetic fi eld exerts an obstacles to interstellar space travel. That’s why space futurists are so all directions at 400km/second. If outward force that defl ects the solar plasma reached the Earth, it would excited about solar sails, a ‘fuel-free’ craft powered by beams of sunlight. winds, creating a comet-shaped safe destroy all life on the planet. Sunlight travels in packets of energy called photons. When a photon zone called the magnetosphere. refl ects off a mirrored surface, it imparts two minuscule taps of energy: once during the initial impact and once as it’s refl ected. For decades, scientists theorised that if you could make a refl ective surface big enough and light enough, it could be nudged through space by a constant barrage of photons. In 2010, that theory will be tested when the Planetary Society, co- founded by the late Carl Sagan, will launch a 350-square-foot solar sail made of aluminised Mylar (1/5,000 of an inch thick) into space. Solar sails don’t have dramatic blast-offs, but rely on a more patient form of power: constant acceleration. A massive solar sail of 600,000 square metres would accelerate at an underwhelming one millimetre per second. After a day, however, the sail would be moving at a rate of 310kps (195mph). After 12 days, it would reach 3,700kps (2,300mph). Imagine its velocity after six months – enough, scientists hope, to sail out of our solar system into the great beyond. 3. Bow shock Inside a 100-foot Since plasma is supersonic – diameter vacuum travelling faster than the chamber, NASA speed of sound – it creates a researchers huge shockwave as it strikes successfully deploy ten- the forward edge of the metre solar sails along magnetic fi eld. delicate, but rigid extendible booms 4. Warped waves The magnetic fi eld is 5. Northern lights compressed on the day- During solar storms, plasma facing side and elongated on infi ltrates the magnetosphere, the night-facing side, one of travelling along the magnetic fi eld many fl uctuations in the toward the poles where it shape and orientation of supercharges atmospheric gases magnetic fi eld lines. creating magnifi cent light shows. Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image © Imagine Publishing Ltd 064 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

064_HIW_003.indd 64 10/12/09 15:34:38 MAINSTREAM HORROR FAMILY Andromeda Event Horizon The Black Hole Head Year: 2000-2005 Year: 1997 Year: 1979 This sci-ﬁ TV series from Star Trek creator Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neill embark V.I.N.CENT (Vital Information Necessary to Head Gene Roddenberry sees the crew of starship on a quest to rescue yet another missing CENTralized) the robot, voiced by Roddy BLACK HOLE Andromeda Ascendant suspended in time starship. However, there’s a sinister McDowall, steals the show in this sci-ﬁ FILMS/SHOWS when their ship is caught in a black hole. consequence of this mission. adventure from Disney Studios.

DID YOU KNOW? The nearest known black hole is approximately 1,600 light years away

A black hole is a star that has run out of Black fuel and collapsed holes A dying star collapses, but the gravity remains

A black hole is one of the strangest astronomers have no way of tracking an object anomalies in the known universe. or seeing what happens. Movies often suggest this region in This region is called a singularity. Varoujan space – cold, dark and mysterious – Gorjian, the Spitzer Research Scientist at is like a portal into another reality. In truth, a NASA’s Joint Propulsion Lab, says the term black hole is a dying star that has collapsed, singularity is more of a placeholder: we do not but the gravity for the star still exists. Think of know what matter looks like inside a black a black hole as a kind of engine with nowhere hole. We do know that there are two kinds of to go. A massive star produces an enormous black holes, and they vary greatly in terms of This artist’s concept shows a supermassive black hole amount of nuclear energy (enough to warm size and density. at the centre of a remote galaxy digesting the you while you lie on the beach), but eventually “There are two categories of black holes; remnants of a star. It chronicles the star being ripped

runs out of fuel. At this point, a star cannot stellar-mass and supermassive,” stated apart and swallowed by the cosmic beast over time NASA of courtesy Image oppose the forces of gravity (produced by the Gorjian, explaining that the difference gigantic size). The star simply compresses like between them is the size of the implosion. A a vacuum in space. stellar-mass black hole is below 10-15 solar Supermassive The event horizon is the According to Dr Chris De Pree, a professor of masses, while a supermassive black hole is outer edge of a black physics and astronomy and director of the above 10-15 solar masses. Interestingly, in the black hole hole, where objects can Bradley Observatory at Agnes Scott College in creation of a black hole at the supermassive (largest) safely orbit Decatur, Georgia, a black hole doesn’t exactly size there is nothing in the known universe pull objects into its centre, as the movies that can keep the black hole from forming. De depict. There are two conditions: an object is Pree explained that astronomers have even either in a safe zone – outside what is known as suggested that in the centre of our galaxy there the event horizon where there is no may exist one supermassive black hole. This gravitational pull – or the object is lost in a black hole is the mass of millions of suns black hole. Inside the event horizon, collected into one region. Inside the event horizon is the singularity – an unknown region in a Spaghettiﬁ cation black hole Spaghettiﬁ cation is the gravitational pull of a black hole, but this ‘lure’ is often Jet of high- misunderstood. Beyond the event horizon of a black hole, an object – such as a planet – speed, magnetised could safely move in its orbit for aeons without ever entering the black hole. However, particles inside the event horizon, no object can exist normally without being pulled. “A black hole has such a strong gravitational pull that nothing – not even light – can escape within a certain distance from it,” says De Pree form the Bradley Observatory. “In the same way that a rocket has to have some minimum speed before leaving the Earth’s Stellar-mass black gravity, the same is true of light around a black hole.” hole (smaller)

065_HIW_003.indd 65 10/12/09 15:35:20 “ They’re taken for a joyride in the infamous KC-135, aka ‘the weightless SPACE wonder’, aka ‘the vomit comet’” Astronaut training

Astronauts run the systems engineering Virtual reality programs let simulator in front of a full-sized astronauts practice mission- If you think you projection of interactive International speciﬁ c duties hundreds of have what it takes Space Station components times before ﬂ ight to be an astronaut, think again

Engineers test a new extra-vehicular space suit with a partial gravity simulator Astronaut training It’s been nearly half a century since Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the ﬁ rst man in space, but with the rare exception of a few billionaire civilians, space travel is still a well-guarded privilege. As NASA initiates a new long-term mission to return to the moon and push on to Mars, the space agency is looking for a few good men and women who contain the rare mix of hyper-intelligence, marathon stamina and good old-fashioned guts to board the brand-new Ares I-X rocket and blast off to the uncharted depths. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 066 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

066-067_HIW_003.indd 66 10/12/09 15:36:37 Applications at the ready! Becoming an astronaut isn’t easy. Firstly you’ll have to be selected DID YOU from thousands of applicants, and if you’re successful train for two KNOW? years, after which you may be chosen for an astronaut programme. DID YOU KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Head to Head THE YOUNGEST, OLDEST AND MOST EXPERIENCED ASTRONAUTS IN HISTORY

YOUNGEST

1. Gherman This huge centrifuge Stepanovich Titov doesn’t test the g-force Age: 25 Facts: Only the second man limits of astronauts, but in space after Yuri Gagarin, this replicates up to 3.5g for charismatic young Russian fl ight simulation exercises cosmonaut was the fi rst to make multiple orbits (17, in fact) of the Earth on 6 August 1961. He is probably most famous for his in-fl ight NASA basic training exuberance, repeatedly calling out his codename: “I am Eagle! NASA astronaut training is like cramming everything from fl ight controls to hydraulic I am Eagle!” for fi nal exams at MIT while arms, even down to how to use the toilet. OLDEST simultaneously enduring basic training for Every single astronaut candidate is trained the Green Berets. Candidates begin their in every phase of space fl ight, ranging from training in the classroom, taking advanced pre-launch diagnostics to emergency courses in astronomy, physics, landing procedures. mathematics, geology, meteorology and Candidates also train in the Johnson American and Russian introductions to the Space Shuttle Space Center’s Neutral Buoyancy astronauts train for spacewalks in the massive guidance and navigation systems. Sorry, no Laboratory, an immense pool that Hydrolab at the Gagarin poetry electives. faithfully simulates near-weightlessness. 2. John Glenn Cosmonaut Training Center Age: 77 Both pilots and non-pilots are trained to Here, they prepare for both the Facts: On 20 February 1962, fl y T-38 jets, highly acrobatic aircrafts that extraordinary and mundane aspects of John Glenn piloted NASA’s can reach 50,000ft. Pilots must log 15 hours space life. They conduct underwater ‘space very fi rst manned orbital So you want to mission of the Earth, whipping of fl ight time a month, plus extra practice walks’ in full space gear and practice around the globe three times landing the Shuttle Training Aircraft (100 making freeze-dried snacks in the tiny be an astronaut? in under fi ve hours. Fast forward 36 years to 29 October more hours). Non-pilots must log a Shuttle kitchen. In the late Fifties, when NASA 1998, when the retired US minimum of four hours a month in the T-38. Finally comes the mission-specifi c began its internal search for the senator took his second space But before astronaut candidates even training, where each member of the team fi rst seven astronauts, it drew fl ight, a nine-day mission exploring – among other things step foot in a fl ight simulator, they need to runs countless simulations within his or from the ranks of the most – the effects of space fl ight on be trained in military water survival. That her area of expertise. Scientists conduct experienced Air Force pilots. A the aging process. means scuba certifi cation and the proven their experiments over and over. Engineers lot has changed since the dawn MOST TIME IN SPACE ability to swim three lengths of an Olympic do hundreds of mock space walks to make of space fl ight, and so have the size pool in full fl ight gear and shoes. To repairs to space station components. And résumés of modern astronauts. cover all contingencies, astronaut pilots pretty much live in the fl ight There are still some military candidates are also trained in wilderness simulators. After two years of full-time pilots in the ranks, but they’re in survival, learning how to navigate by the training, the candidates receive a silver the minority. Today’s astronauts stars and to live on nuts and berries. lapel pin indicating they are offi cially are more likely to be academics, The torture isn’t over yet. To weed out astronauts. After their fi rst fl ight, it’s scientists and engineers of all the weaklings, candidates are subjected to swapped for a gold one. stripes – particularly 3. Sergei extremes of high and low pressure and Konstantinovich astronautical engineers. Krikalev trained to deal with the ‘consequences’. Astronaut candidates are Total duration: 803 days Then they’re taken for a joyride in the chosen through a rigorous Facts: Cosmonaut Krikalev infamous KC-135, aka ‘the weightless application process and there is crushes all competitors in the category of most time spent in wonder’, aka ‘the vomit comet’, to no career path that guarantees space. He fl ew six missions experience 20-second shots of admission into the programme, between 1985 and 2005, weightlessness. Some people love it, some notching up over two years in although many current space, including the fi rst joint people are violently sick. astronauts work for years within Russia/US Space Shuttle fl ight After that it’s time to brush up on a the NASA research and in 1994. The uber-experienced Krikalev now runs the Gagarin couple dozen equipment manuals in development ranks before Cosmonaut Training Center in preparation for intense training with full- This centrifuge is designed to test the effects of suiting up themselves. Star City, Russia.

size, fully functional simulators, linear acceleration on visual function in space NASA © images All © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 067 No unauthorised copying or distribution

066-067_HIW_003.indd 67 10/12/09 15:37:55 SPACE Hidden planets / Gamma ray bursts Searching for hidden planets How bending light can reveal hidden worlds It’s been over 80 years since Einstein ﬁ rst because the Sun doesn’t contain tremendous a ‘lensing star’ to bend the light of a distant source published his general theory of relativity amounts of mass. star. They chose the lensing star because of its size and he’s still making headlines. But imagine if an entire galaxy sat between the and its likelihood to have orbiting planets. Astronomers are now using a central tenet of Earth and a far-off star. The mass of the galaxy What they observed was remarkable. When the Einstein’s revolutionary theory – that massive cluster would act like a thick lens, bending and source star aligned behind the lensing star, the objects like stars and galaxies can bend the fabric of warping the light as it passed. To someone on Earth, astronomers observed a double image of the source space-time – to create celestial magnifying glasses the effect would be multiple images of the star, or in star. Then they witnessed two sudden spikes in the called gravitational lenses. some cases, a glowing halo called an ‘Einstein ring’. brightness of the double images. The spikes, they Here’s how it works. Using Einstein’s theory, To discover one of farthest ‘extrasolar’ planets – a deduced, were caused by the gravitational pull of an scientists proved that light travelling toward Earth planet 15,000 light years from our solar system – unseen planet orbiting the lensing star. Powerful from a distant star bends slightly as it passes by the astronomers have used a version of a gravitational gravitational lenses also act as magnifying glasses, Sun. The bending effect is almost imperceptible lens. In this case, astronomers used a nearby star as detecting faint light from distant sources.

3. The real path 2. Bend it like Einstein As light travels away from the quasar, it is A huge cluster of galaxies makes a deep pulled into the powerful gravitational ﬁ eld of gravitational depression in the space-time the galaxy cluster, which bends it in the fabric. When light passes by the cluster, it 1. Distant light source direction of the Hubble telescope. bends in dramatic yet predictable ways, giving Astronomers use the Hubble astronomers clues about the distance and telescope to seek out far-off mass of the light source. galaxies like this quasar on the furthest edge of the universe.

6. Doing the math By measuring the relative brightness 4. Observed light and positioning of duplicate source From the perspective of the images, astronomers can calculate Hubble telescope, the light the mass, distance and location of 5. Line of the ring from the quasar appears to be undiscovered celestial bodies. If you trace a line from the Hubble telescope directly coming from two different through the centre of the gravitational lens, it’s called directions, producing two the optical axis. If the source quasar lines up directly phantom images of the quasar along the optical axis, the result is an Einstein ring, a — far from the galaxy’s true bright orange halo surrounding the quasar image. position in space. Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image Gamma ray bursts Gamma ray bursts are millions of times brighter than the Sun Gamma ray bursts (GRBs) are short ﬂ ashes their true origin remained a mystery until 1991. That of high-frequency electromagnetic year, NASA launched the Compton Gamma Ray radiation that last anywhere from a few Observatory into orbit. Instruments on the seconds to an hour. These bursts of light are millions observatory revealed the existence of two different of times brighter than the Sun and release as much durations of gamma ray bursts, with the shorter energy as the Sun will over its entire lifetime. ones lasting less than two seconds. It also showed Gamma ray bursts likely come from supernova that the GRBs originated outside of the Milky Way events – when a star collapses into a black hole. The galaxy. longer its duration, the further away the GRB Scientists have also learned that the bursts are originated. This means that some GRBs detected followed by afterglows of lower frequency radiation, now originated when the Earth had just been such as x-ray, infrared and radio waves. Measuring formed, about 4 billion years ago. the afterglows allow them to trace the GRBs back to Gamma ray bursts were ﬁ rst detected in the late their associated galaxies and supernovae. In 1997, Sixties. The bursts were picked up by American the Italian-Dutch satellite BeppoSAX detected x-ray In 2009, Russian scientists satellites, which were equipped to detect gamma afterglows of gamma ray bursts. Ground telescopes hypothesised that some gamma-ray bursts come out of a phenomenon in ray radiation from nuclear tests. Although scientists were able to pinpoint the location of the x-rays in which phase changes during imploding concluded that the GRBs were cosmic phenomena, galaxies billions of light years away. stars result in failed black holes Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image © Imagine Publishing Ltd 068 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

068_HIW_003.indd 68 10/12/09 15:38:45 1. Wax and wane Waxing is when the moon is growing in the ﬁ rst half of a lunar month. Waning 2. Crescent moon is when it’s shrinking away again in On the equator the crescent moon looks preparation for the next full moon. It’s like a smile. In the southern hemisphere called a crescent when it’s less than First the moon appears upside-down so it half illuminated and gibbous quarter would be a reversed mirror image of otherwise. DID YOU KNOW? XXXXXXXX what we see.

Waxing Waxing gibbous crescent

Full New Image courtesy of NASA of courtesy Image Space View angle Direction of sunlight

trash Waning Waning How does NASA tackle millions gibbous crescent of pieces of space debris? When you see renderings of Earth from orbit, you don’t typically see one of the more 3. Distance 4. Revolutions The moon is on average 250,000 miles It only takes 27 days and seven hours for the unpleasant side-effects of the past 40 years’ away and it takes light 1.52 seconds to moon to make a full revolution of the Earth. worth of technology – space debris. There are refl ect from its surface to the Earth. Since the lunar month is longer at 29 days millions of pieces of debris, ranging from small fl akes of Travelling by car, however, light would take the various phases of the moon can occur paint to larger chunks of rocket boosters. More than 130 days of solid motoring. Third quarter any time in the calendar month. 100,000 of these objects are larger than a centimetre and some weigh as much as one kilogram. While that doesn’t seem very large, debris can be orbiting at more than 25,000 kilometres per hour. Despite attempts to protect them, the exteriors of The phases of the satellites, space shuttles and other objects constantly undergo erosion due to small debris. Larger pieces have caused even bigger problems, pitting windows and moon explained damaging expensive equipment. There have also been collisions between objects. Space debris is such a danger to astronauts that they must carefully manoeuvre space Understanding the constantly morphing shuttles as well as the International Space Station to avoid collisions. NASA’s Space Command tracks about 9,000 of moon is all a matter of perspective… these objects, but it’s impossible to track them all. A full moon is a majestic sight, and one moon is right between the Sun and the Earth no Although space debris has fallen to Earth, it has mostly surrounded with all manner of sunlight touches the face of the moon that faces either burned up or landed in sparsely inhabited areas. superstition and romantic us. This is called a new moon and its apparent However, there have been a few close calls. In 1997, a implications. The full moon is just one invisibility marks the beginning and the end of a woman in Oklahoma was hit on the shoulder by a piece of of eight phases during a lunar month however. lunar cycle. As the moon makes its way rocket fuel tank left over from a satellite launch the year During this cycle (lasting 29 and a half days) it backwards – it travels anticlockwise around the before. Luckily, she was not seriously hurt. changes constantly, moving from a fully lit disc to Earth – from three o’clock towards half-past one a Some satellites and rocket boosters are now designed a completely invisible planetary body and back thin, waxing crescent moon grows in size as a so that they can travel out of the way of other objects and again. But what causes this cycle and how do we small sliver of sunlight reaches a part of the moon slowly re-enter Earth’s atmosphere when they become decipher the difference between a waxing seen from Earth. Once it reaches 12 o’clock the full defunct. NASA has an Orbital Debris Program designed to gibbous moon from a waning crescent? It’s all a right side of the moon is illuminated – this is the track the objects, mitigate the damage they cause and try matter of perspective, and understanding this fi rst quarter moon. When the moon reaches the to avoid adding to the problem. geometry is helped enormously with a simple half-past ten position the lit portion of the moon clock analogy. face is growing further still – this is known as a Let’s pretend that the Earth is at the very centre waxing gibbous moon. Low Earth orbit of a massive celestial clock face. From this central At nine o’clock the moon is exactly opposite the Low Earth orbit (LEO) is about 160 to 2,000 point the moon would sit on the hour hand Earth from the Sun meaning its entire face can be kilometres above the Earth’s surface. Except for travelling on its lunar orbit around the Earth. seen, but from this point on in the lunar month lunar trips, all human space fl ights take place in Constantly shining in towards the Earth from the the moon is said to be waning from a gibbous this orbit. Current estimates show that there are three o’clock position is the Sun – it’s the Sun that moon, to a third quarter and then to a waning nearly 20,000 pieces of space debris located in LEO. lights the face of the moon so we can see it, except crescent before disappearing again at the end of when it’s in the three o’clock position. When the its lunar cycle. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 069 No unauthorised copying or distribution

069_HIW_003.indd 69 10/12/09 15:40:01 “ The reusable nature of the SRBs SPACE is one of their primary benefi ts” Solid rocket boosters Solid rocket boosters The power to send a shuttle into space An external tank is suspended What fl ies at 3,094mph, provides 5.8 million pounds of ready for fi tting thrust, but are only used for about two minutes? That’s right, the solid rocket boosters (SRB) on the Atlantis space shuttle, which fl ew into orbit in November 2009, are highly reusable rockets with a limited but important life span in the space shuttle missions. The boosters break off after about 28 miles of ascent and fall harmlessly into the ocean. NASA then refurbishes the boosters for each new space fl ight, repairs any damage, and gets them ready for another mission. The SRBs were the fi rst to use a solid propellant as a way to quickly lift space shuttles into the sky and reach an attainable orbit. The solid used in the rocket boosters is a mix of aluminium powder, which works as a fuel, and ammonium perchlorate, which works as an oxidiser (oxidising agents provide the oxygen needed to cause the rocket boost). There’s also a binding agent (to keep the materials together), a curing agent (to maintain the bound), and a catalyst that sets off the boost. A motor in each booster ignites the propellant at lift-off. During fl ight, the nose of the rocket tilts about six degrees to direct the spacecraft to orbit, which is why the space shuttle seems to tilt during take-off. The boosters are not the only means to lift the space shuttle. The space vehicle itself provides some thrust (about 30 per cent compared to 70 per cent of lift from the boosters). In fact, the SRBs are not ignited until the space shuttle thrust is verifi ed on the ground. After lifting to about 28 miles, the rocket boosters separate and continue upward to about 41 miles, and then start to descend. The reusable nature of SRBs is one of their primary benefi ts – the boosters are used in matched pairs, and for each new mission, NASA refi lls an external tank separate from the rocket motor with the propellant. According to a NASA report on the recent Ares 1-X mission, one part of the rocket boosters for that launch had been used on six previous missions for the past 30 years.

Immense thrust for take-off The solid rocket boosters provide about 5.8 million pounds of thrust for lift-off. NASA engineers can remotely adjust the thrust at take-off by controlling propellant intake, varying it from 69 per cent up to 109 per cent of the rated power level. The rocket boosters are designed to provide maximum thrust, yet the propellant is situated in the forward and aft compartments of the rockets to provide the least amount of stress on the space vehicle itself. After take-off, the ground crew can lower thrust to about 50 per cent after initial take-off to further reduce stress on the spacecraft. The rocket boosters, and the three boosters on the shuttle itself, must reach a minimum thrust level of about 90 per cent in the ﬁ rst three seconds of take-off or the ground crew can manually override the boosters. In this scenario, a total shutdown of all rockets would occur and NASA A rendering of the separation of a solid rocket booster would initiate an immediate shutdown. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 070 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

070-071_HIW_003.indd 70 10/12/09 15:41:20 THE STATS THRUST5.8 million pounds MAX ASCENT28 miles ROCKET BOOSTERS SPEED3,094mph WEIGHT1.3 million lbs each

DIDDID YOUYOU KNOW?KNOW? XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXModiﬁ cations to the rings used as a result of the Challenger accident added about 450 pounds of weight Solid rocket boosters The power to send a What makes a rocket shuttle into space booster? What it takes to get into space

1. Nose cap The nose cap for each rocket shoots off after separation and deploys two initial parachutes, and one ﬁ nal parachute that weighs about 2,100 pounds.

2. Frustum The frustum is the section just below the nose and deploys the parachutes needed to guide the rocket boosters to a safe landing in the ocean.

3. Solid rocket motor There are four solid rocket motor segments which hold the propellant. The ignition for the Tests for the solid rocket propellant is motor ignite the propellant controlled by the to make sure the mixture orbiter in the space provides enough thrust shuttle.

4. Separation motors Rocket separation The separation motors in the aft and recovery of the rocket boosters control At an altitude of about 15,000 feet, after are mounted to a The remains of the rocket boosters the rocket boosters have separated skirt and control from Space Shuttle Discovery from the shuttle, the nose of each the direction of the boosters using rocket ejects and the rockets deploy a thrust control two initial parachutes, which stabilise system. and re-orient the rocket, and then deploys and infl ates the fi nal parachute, which can hold about 5. Aft rings Aft rings connect 180,000 pounds (the rocket parachute the external tank itself weighs about 2,100 pounds). The and the solid rocket boosters both land about 140 rocket motors. miles from the launch pad and land in These are the rings which the water at a speed of about 81 feet rings which caused the per second. The boosters land with Challenger the tip facing up – pointing about 30 disaster and were feet out of the water. modifi ed for

future missions. NASA © images All © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 071 No unauthorised copying or distribution

070-071_HIW_003.indd 71 10/12/09 15:42:04 Ancient world Ancient places & Buildings Industry Inventions times Medieval places & People war & Weapons General HISTORY categories explained RAF Spitfi re Supermarine Rolls-Royce Vee-12 engine The Spitfire utilised two variant of Rolls-Royce engine during its production life span, the 27-litre This month in Merlin and the 36.7-litre Griffon. History The Supermarine Spitfire Arguably the most iconic holds a special place in the nation’s heart as the plane fi ghter aircraft of the that won the Battle of Britain, although the Hawker Second World War, the Hurricane played a significant role too. So we’re very proud RAF Spitfi re to of this double page cutaway of the famous fighter aircraft this day is and we hope you enjoy it too. championed for its prowess, grace and versatility

76 Samurai swords

76 First hot air balloon

Propeller Original Spitfires Airframe had wooden propellers, these The aircraft’s airframe was an were later replaced with amalgamation of a streamlined semi- variable-pitch propellers, and single piece of aluminium alloy with Gun-emplacement more blades were added as an enclosed cockpit, allowing increased The original armament of horsepower increased. responsiveness and ease of flight. the Spitfire comprised of 79 Mount Rushmore eight .303-inch Browning machine guns, each with 300 Video still from gun rounds of ammunition. HISTORY camera showing the tracers 72 RAF Spitﬁ re 74 Viaducts 74 Sundials 74 Wigwams 75 The Great Wall of China 76 Hot air balloons 76 Samurai swords 76 Siege towers 79 Mount Rushmore © Imagine Publishing Ltd 072 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

072-073_HIW_003.indd 72 10/12/09 16:34:28 THE STATS MAX SPEED 450mph RANGE 400 miles LENGTH32ft 11ins RAF SPITFIRE WINGSPAN 36ft 11in ARMAMENT20mm cannon x4

DID YOU KNOW? By 1939, approximately ten per cent of all Spitﬁ res had been lost as a result of training accidents

Fully enclosed cockpit The benefits of a fully enclosed cockpit were numerable, most Inside the Spitﬁ re notably though it improved the Supermarine Spitfire’s aerodynamics. What made this aircraft so spectacular?

Elliptical wing Fuselage The elliptical wing of the Spitfire The fuselage of the Spitﬁ re Spitfire was is a defining design characteristic, functional to the extreme and constructed from

Designed in the technologically Arguably, the other most defi ning and fervent and innovatory melting success-inducing element of the Spitfi re was its pot of the Second World War, the engine, which took on the form of the Rolls- Supermarine Spitfi re became Royce Merlin and Griffon engines. Planned by a the fi ghter plane of the times. board of directors at Rolls-Royce who realised With its simple lines, elegant frame and superb that their current Vee-12 engine was topping aerodynamics, the Spitfi re was to live on in the out at 700hp and that a more powerful variant minds of generations during the war and for would be needed, fi rst the Merlin and later the decades to come. Griffon engines were designed. The Merlin at The Spitfi re was the brainchild of fi rst delivered 790hp, short of the 1,000hp goal aeronautical engineer Reginald Mitchell, who set in its design brief, however this was to led a dedicated and talented team of designers. increase to 975hp in a few years. The Griffon Originally planned as a short-range air-defence then built upon the success of the Merlin, Undercarriage fi ghter, the Spitfi re was built for speed and delivering at the climax of its advancement a The Spitfire’s undercarriage was agility, traits that it was to need in the explosive whopping 2,035hp. These engines were to fully retractable, a refinement dogfi ghts it was to partake in as it met enemy prove tantamount to the airframe and wing that was not commonplace in fi ghters and bombers. Building a fi ghter plane, designs in the dominance of the Spitfi re. earlier aircraft. though, is more complex than listing desirable Despite its origins lying in short-range home traits however, and the Spitfi re’s construction is defence, the Spitfi re was to prove so versatile a balletic series of compromises between and successful that it was quickly adapted for a weight, aerodynamics and fi repower. wide variety of military purposes. Many The frame of a spitfi re with its elliptical variants were created, including designs wings is one of its most defi ning characteristics, tailored for reconnaissance, bombing runs, casting a distinctive silhouette against the sky. high-altitude interception and general fi ghter- The ellipse shaping was used to minimise drag bomber operations. The most notable while having the necessary thickness to derivative, however, was the multi-variant accommodate the retracted undercarriages Seafi re, specially designed for operation on and the guns required for self defence. A simple aircraft carriers with the added ability to compromise that had the resulting benefi t of double-fold its wings for ease of storage. having an incredibly individual shape. In Considering the place in history that the contrast, the airframe – which was infl uenced Spitfi re holds – a fi ghter-bomber aircraft that by exciting new advances in all metal, low- bridged the gap between the age of the wing plane construction – was a complex and propeller engine to that of the jet – the fact that well-balanced amalgamation of a streamlined they are still collected (with an average cost of semi-single piece of aluminium alloy and a £1.4 million) and fl own today is unsurprising. fully enclosed cockpit. This allowed unrivalled The Spitfi re is a timeless piece of engineering responsiveness and ease of fl ight, making the that shows some of the most creative and Spitfi re a favourite for pilots. advanced efforts in military history. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 073 No unauthorised copying or distribution

072-073_HIW_003.indd 73 10/12/09 15:44:07 HISTORY Viaducts / Sundials / Wigwams Viaducts How viaducts allow roads or railways to span across great distances Spanning vast expanses of impassable terrain, viaducts have been used since the early 19th Century to cross valleys, bridge rivers and avoid congestion in busy towns. Pertaining to its appearance, the viaduct is a How do bridge structure consisting of regularly spaced arches, or spans, for even weight distribution. These spans are supported by rows of pillars, or piers. Unlike aqueducts, which channel water, viaducts carry various transport along paths, roads or railways. What now must be one of the most famous viaducts in the world, the Glenfi nnan sundials work? Viaduct is found on the West Highland Line in Scotland. The picturesque structure Using the Sun to tell time is an ancient was used in the Harry Potter fi lms as part of the line that takes the Hogwarts Express from London to Hogwarts. Another impressive viaduct is the Ribblehead Viaduct science, but how does it work? located along the Settle-Carlisle Railway through the Yorkshire Dales. Although Let’s cast some light on this age-old dilemma. Astronomers have Ribblehead was built by Victorian navvies using dynamite, steam-powered cranes long used the Sun to measure time with the use of sundials. In and wooden scaffolding, modern examples, such as the Millau Viaduct in France, fact, we can discover some fundamental principles about make use of such technologies as GPS, lasers, and high-performance concrete. astronomy from understanding how sundials work. The study of sundials is called gnomonics – a gnomon being the arm in the middle of a sundial – and it is actually a very simple theory. There are, however, several conditions to which your dial must adhere. For starters, it is essential that the sundial itself is completely level and facing true north. While the Earth revolves on its axis, we see the Sun appear to move across the sky. If you put an object parallel to the rotation axis of the Earth it will cast a shadow that also appears to move around itself. The base of the average sundial has specifi cally plotted hour lines marked on it and the position of the shadow cast onto the plate will give you the time. Think of The Nairn Viaduct, the gnomon’s shadow as the hand on a regular clock and watch as it falls near Culloden Moor in Scotland among the hours marked on the sundial. Wigwam construction How did Native American Indians build their homes? Here’s where we show you your wigwam requires some how to construct your own protection, and for this the Native authentic Native American Americans used either bark or hide wigwam. Now, unlike a tepee, which layered from the ground upwards so is conical, a wigwam is a dome- that rain washes off. These coverings shaped shelter that can stand up to were either lashed on with twine or adverse weather conditions much sometimes the weight of the bark better than the less-robust tepee. itself would hold it in place. First, fi nd some fl at, fi rm ground And there you have it, a wigwam to and clear the area. Next, draw a circle be proud of – just don’t forget to leave a on the fl oor. To do this, tie a seven- hole for the door. foot-long piece of string to a stake – this marks the centre point of your Unlike the permanent domed wigwam wigwam – then pull the string taut structure, conical tepees are portable and walk around the stake marking the base of your structure on the fl oor. As with any construction, especially one in which people are going to live, a solid frame is necessary to support the structure. This comprises 16 supple wooden sticks, or saplings (12- 15 feet long), sunk into the ground and A hearth, created from a hollow surrounded by stone, was built at the centre of the shelter and used to heat bent all the way over the wigwam to the wigwam and cook food if it was raining create the dome shape. That done,

074_HIW_003.indd 74 10/12/09 15:45:10 www.howitworksdaily.com THE WEBSITE THAT FEEDS MINDS FORUM ■ VIDEOS ■ NEWS ■ INTERVIEWS ■ FEATURES

DID YOU KNOW? Contrary to urban myth, the Great Wall of China cannot be seen from space The Great Wall of China The Great Wall of China is the longest man-made structure on Earth Contrary to popular belief you cannot being expanded and rebuilt by following emperors build the Qin section, a number only to rise with the actually see the Great Wall of China from until it spanned piecemeal from Qinhuangdao in the additions of subsequent emperors. It is estimated the moon. According to scientists, trying to east to Jiayuguan in the west – the Great Wall was a that over 2 million people have died in view the Great Wall from the moon would be the massive undertaking for the soldiers and civilians its construction. equivalent of a human trying to see a single strand of who were tasked with its construction. The Great Wall of China was defended primarily hair from a distance of two miles. In fact, while we The Great Wall was built originally from whatever by archers that, due to the inability of attackers to are busting myths, neither is the Great Wall a single was local to the specifi c area, such as wood, earth bring horses over it, left potential attackers on foot continuous structure, but rather a succession of and stones, as transferring large quantities of with only the option of scaling it. This allowed for independent walls and fortifi cations built over materials from elsewhere was a very costly and the wall to remain relatively unmanned in terms successive Chinese dynasties. laborious task. Later rulers of China, however, used of military might, with small groups of soldiers Built originally by the fi rst emperor of unifi ed much stronger materials such as bricks, tiles and patrolling large sections. Despite its grand China Qin Shi Huangdi in order to keep out the stone to build the wall, allowing for tougher appearance however, the Great nomadic Xiongnu tribes inhabiting Mongolia, the fortifi cations and battlements. In order to build such Wall was never supposed to Great Wall was designed to be the fi rst line of a long and deep wall (some sections of the Great Wall keep out a fully fl edged army defence for the Chinese people against any raids and are as much as six metres wide at the base and it is who if determined could breach attacks. Stretching originally along the newly roughly 5,500 miles long), over half a million it quite easily, but rather to founded northern frontier of the country – before labourers and 300,000 soldiers were required to prevent fl ash raids. “ It is estimated that over 2 million people have died in its construction”

The route of the wall Below is a simple 19th Century map that roughly shows the trail that the Great Wall of China follows in its many parts. In reality, sections of wall overlap, fall short of others and no longer exist. Parts of wall can be found in many other places as well, from northern China to Russia and Mongolia. Spanning 5,500 miles in length, the Great Wall starts at the Hushan Great Wall in the east to Jiayuguan Pass in the west, passing through the provinces of Liaoning, Hebei, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Gansu and Qinghai on its way.

The path of the great wall through China

075_HIW_003.indd 75 10/12/09 15:45:52 HISTORY Swords / Hot air balloon / Siege towers How did the Samurai make their swords? What makes samurai swords so tough? Samurai don’t just see their swords as beautifully crafted weapons, they actually believe the sword embodies their soul. And so the process of creating such a treasured piece of kit is a measured and intricate one. The swords are made using a high-quality steel known as tamahagane, which is repeatedly heated, hammered fl at and then folded. The sword-maker will repeat this technique until he is happy with the result. There are several reasons behind this repetitive action. One is to eliminate any The very fi rst blade-weakening air bubbles that get into the steel during the heating process. Also, the process creates layers in the metal, which adds to the blade’s strength. Not only this, but it also ensures that the natural strengthening property in the carbon hot air balloon is distributed evenly throughout the blade. The blade cannot simply be thrust into cold water to harden as cooling it too French inventors make a giant quickly would make it brittle upon contact with an unfortunate combatant. leap for aeronautics Conversely, cooling it too slowly would make it soft and blunt. So samurai In 18th Century France, brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfi er swordsmiths developed a method of optimum cooling for maximum strength. A invented the hot air balloon, the basic parts of which were the thin layer of clay (made of ash, water and clay) was applied to the cutting edge of burner, the basket, and the balloon-shaped canopy, or envelope. the sword keeping it hard and sharp, while a thicker layer was painted onto The siblings discovered that using the burner to heat the air in the the back of the sword making it supple and shatterproof. With two edges envelope caused the balloon to lift off. This is because the hot air trapped cooling at different rates, the sword gets a distinctive inside the balloon is lighter than the cold air outside. Warm air rises curvature. A piece of art and a deadly weapon. because the air particles have more energy and move faster and farther away from each other. Cold air falls because it is both heavier and denser. This process of convection sees the hot air rise to the top of the envelope, displacing the cold air, which falls. If the balloon’s upthrust is less than its weight, nothing will happen, but if the upthrust is equal to, or more than the weight of the balloon, it’s up, up and away.

Bridge Top Atop the tower, a bridge Siege towers are built to the height of or gangplank was the wall or higher to enable archers to lowered to enable fi re arrows into the enemy fortifi cation. Siege towers troops to rush across the battlement on foot. Troops How to get troops over a castle wall The siege tower is built to hold and protect troops and The Middle Ages saw the advent of Ladders weapons. As many as 200 various crusades and battles, and Throughout the soldiers have been recorded throughout history many resourceful siege tower, on a single tower. inventions have been used to conquer enemy ladders enabled strongholds – the trebuchet catapult , for troops to move around the example – but none more overtly than the siege different levels. tower, a common sight in the Middle Ages until the 16th Century. Wheels Moveable siege Originally thought to have originated from towers are called the Far East, these tall wooden structures were belfries and can positioned close to the walls of castles, towns, be wheeled into or other fortifi cations so that the attacking position.

troops could climb over and assail the enemy Images DK © defence. They were usually built quickly at the scene of the ambush, but wheeled siege towers known as belfries were often pushed in from afar. Unfortunately, because they were so sizeable and cumbersome, siege towers were the main target for enemy ﬁ re. Still, these Coverings Matting or skins soaked in mud and intimidating structures nevertheless proved a vinegar protected the wooden tower hugely important weapon in any respectable from ﬁ re damage. Later varieties army’s arsenal. even used metal coverings. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 076 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

076_HIW_003.indd 76 10/12/09 15:46:50 5 TOP Time and money Valley of giants Explosive work Moving faces What a workout… Also known as the Shrine of The four presidents’ heads More than 800 million pounds Jefferson’s head started out on The 400 tireless workers had 1 Democracy, Mount Rushmore 2 on the hill tower 5,500 feet 3 of stone had to be removed 4 to the right of Washington’s, 5 to climb over 500 steps daily FACTS took a staggering 14 years to above sea level, and are scaled from the mountain using a fair but after 18 months Jefferson’s just to get to the top of Mount MOUNT complete and cost just under to men who would stand 465 bit of dynamite for the face was blown away and Rushmore, and then the work RUSHMORE $1 million. feet tall. sculpting process. carved on the other side. really began!

An aerial view of the mountain as construction of Mount Rushmore neared completion

The iconic monument as it stands today Photo: Rise Studio, Rapid City, South Dakota South City, Rapid Studio, Rise Photo: Making

Mount Rushmore D’Emery Charles Photo: How were these stony-faced presidents carved into the granite? Gutzon Borglum inspects the work The ultimate symbol of A massive 90 per cent of the rock the hard granite so that it could be on the memorial from a bosun’s chair. These were suspended from American democracy, the Mount removed from the mountain was blown fi nished off by hand and then the above with steel cables, while Rushmore National Memorial away using dynamite. The powdermen presidents’ faces were smoothed off workers drilled into the granite has presided over the Black Hills of South in charge of the explosives set different- using ‘bumping’ tools. with jackhammers. Dakota since its completion in 1941. The sized charges in specifi c locations in sculpture, depicting 60-foot effi gies of order to remove exact amounts of rock. presidents George Washington, Thomas So that’s the main structural sculpting Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and taken care of, now for the less explosive Abraham Lincoln, was designed by techniques. Men were lowered down in American sculptor Gutzon Borglum, who front of the 500-foot rock face in bosun’s sadly passed away before the memorial chairs, using thick steel cable. At the top was actually fi nished. of the mountain men in winch houses On a happier note, of the 400 workers controlled and lowered the cables by involved in carving these iconic hand. If they winched too quickly, the fi gureheads, none died during the workers in the bosun’s chairs would be mammoth undertaking – unusual for injured, and so call boys were employed any construction of the time, let alone to sit on the mountain edge and shout one involving dynamite and at such instructions to the winch men. dangerous heights. In fact these workers To sculpt the last six inches of stone, even had to climb a mountain to get to drillers and carving assistants used work, but then this was during America’s jackhammers and a technique called The winch houses on top of Great Depression, a time when a lot of honeycombing, whereby they bored Mount Rushmore were built during the construction people were just thankful to have jobs. holes very close together. This weakened Dakota South City, Rapid Studio, Bell Photo: © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 079 No unauthorised copying or distribution

079_HIW_003.indd 79 10/12/09 15:48:33 Proudly Send us your associated with questions! The How it Works experts are ready and waiting to answer your questions www.sciencemuseum.org.uk so ﬁ re them off to… imagine-publishing.co.uk howitworks@

Because enquiring minds want to know…

How It Works is proud to welcome the curators and explainers from the National Science Museum to the Braindump panel Alison Boyle Curator of Astronomy Alison Boyle graduated in Experimental Physics from the National University of Ireland, Galway, in 1998. She completed a European Master’s Degree in Astronomy at the Universidade do Porto, Portugal, and the University of Oxford. Alison joined the Science Museum in 2001 as part of the Antenna Why don’t mobile phones get Science News team.

Rob Skitmore viruses? How are they protected? Assistant Curator of Technology Tim Sivers, email ■ A computer virus is a little program written especially to computers, running a variant of UNIX, they benefi t from the Rob Skitmore is do a certain task on a computer with a known operating robust security that the OS is famed for. There are viruses Assistant Curator system and known weaknesses. If you tried to run the virus especially for mobile phones, but these do not spread of Technology at program on a mobile phone, it probably will not work, as rapidly because we do not all have the same software on the Science most viruses are written for just one OS. Computer viruses our phones. Soon enough crackers will try and write more Museum. With a don’t evolve by themselves so it’s unlikely that viruses will viruses for mobile phones and the manufacturers will have background in IT, be able to infect operating systems other than that which to ensure they create software to protect the users. Rob has worked they are written for. As many newer phones are actually tiny Rob Skitmore on exhibitions spanning diverse topics in the history of technology including time Jeff Goldblum was always measurement, genetic modification How do Venus one to stare death in the face… and post-war British technology. Rob’s interests lie in gadgets, Flytraps work? robotics and computer technology. James Herron ■ Venus fl ytraps, like the rat-eating carnivorous plant featured in Rik Sargent issue two, tend to grow in boggy soil that’s low in nutrients, Science Museum Explainer hence they need to fi nd another source of food to sustain them, Rik is an namely insects that happen to land on their leaves. These leaves Explainer in the are about eight to 15cm long and are ‘hinged’ along the midline Science with spiny teeth around the edges. The folding and trapping Museum’s action is triggered by pressure on six sensitive hairs which, when interactive stimulated will snap the leaf shut in about half a second, Launchpad although the actual nature of the action is still debated. As well gallery. When Rik as these sensitive hairs, the leaf also has glands on its surface isn’t blowing up that secrete a sap which digests the insect’s body. This process stuff or putting people in bubbles takes about ten days, after which the leaf reopens. he trains the Explainer team in the HIW principles of science. © Imagine Publishing Ltd 082 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

082-085_HIW_003.indd 82 10/12/09 15:51:01 Why not try a chicken vind-achoo? What’s on at the Science Museum? Prove It! All the evidence you need to believe in climate change ■ On now ■ FREE Prove It! – a compelling new project at the Science Museum – encourages visitors to explore the scientiﬁ c evidence that human activity is behind climate change, and to decide if they supported a strong, effective and fair deal at the United Nations conference in Copenhagen in December.

Force Field – the ultimate multi-sensory experience ■ On now ■ Charges apply Why does hot food See, hear, feel and even smell What is what it would be like to venture into space with a ride in the distributed make my nose run? Science Museum’s extraordinary April, forum user new multi-sensory experience. computing? ■ Most spicy foods contain a chemical called capsaicin, which is the active Markie, forum user component found in chilli peppers. Capsaicin is an irritant for humans and most Fast Forward: ■ Distributed computing is a term other mammals, and produces a burning sensation in any tissue which it comes 20 ways F1™ used to describe any process into contact with. It triggers a response in goblet cells whose function is to ■ Until spring 2010 ■ FREE conducted by many separate secrete mucus. This is why you get a runny nose, some people are more A new free exhibition at the computers connected by a susceptible to this and it sounds like you may be one. I love spicy food too and the Science Museum showing how network, all working towards the same happens to me. However, there is evidence to suggest that it is possible to Formula 1™ technology can be same goal but not necessarily build up a tolerance to the irritating effects of capsaicin. This could be the perfect applied to different ﬁ elds of doing the same job. A famous excuse to visit the curry house more often! research and innovation. Find out example was SETI@home which There is a widely held belief that water will help but capsaicin is not soluble in how sophisticated composite used idle time on home computers water, therefore the burning sensation and runny nose will continue. Cold milk materials, telemetry systems and to process large amounts of radio has been found to provide the most effective relief as it contains a protein called rigorous pit-stop strategies telescope information one chunk casein, which has been found to detach the capsaicin from the nerve receptors. devised by British teams are at a time. Whether they serve cold milk at your curry house or not I recommend taking lots currently applied to improve Rob Skitmore of handkerchiefs, the staff are probably used to it! safety and efﬁ ciency in our Rik Sargent hospitals, homes and work places.

Dan Dare and the Birth If I was travelling at the speed How much electricity of Hi-Tech Britain of light and I turned on a torch, does the average brain ■ Until March 2010 ■ FREE Parents and grandparents can would I be able to see the light produce, and is it enjoy a nostalgic hour looking enough to power a back at an era when Britain was at coming out of it? the forefront of technological Markie, forum user light bulb? innovation after World War II. ■ If you were travelling at the speed of light, the light would still appear to you Markie, forum user to be going at the speed of light, therefore ‘theoretically’ it would look ■ The brain requires a relatively low power Listening Post completely normal. This is an effect that is described by Einstein’s special to operate, around 20 watts which would ■ Until 2010 ■ FREE theory of relativity. be enough to power a weak light bulb. 20 A critically acclaimed electronic Putting it into perspective, we are orbiting our Sun at an immense speed, watts corresponds to 20 joules of energy artwork, the result of a our Sun is orbiting the galaxy at an immense speed, while all the time our per second. The generation of electricity collaboration between US artist galaxy is accelerating at an even more immense speed! Yet when we turn a in the brain results from the movement and composer Ben Rubin and light on it still travels at the speed of light regardless of all this motion. of ions (charged atoms) through the brain, statistician and artist Mark Rik Sargent as opposed to electrons moving through Hansen. A hanging lattice of over a wire. 200 small screens carry a series Rik Sargent of carefully orchestrated live data feeds from various online trafﬁ c of public chat rooms and message boards.

For further information visit the What’s On section at www.sciencemuseum.org. uk/centenary. © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 083 No unauthorised copying or distribution

082-085_HIW_003.indd 83 10/12/09 15:51:13 From the Because enquiring minds want to know… forum Every month we’ll feature a reader’s question and a reader’s answer from our forum at www. howitworksdaily.com/forum

How are ball How do fibre optics bearings made? They are in so many applications and despite transfer data? being loosely involved in engineering myself, I Ben Martins, email would love to know how they are made. The n Fibre optics represents an evolutionary leap in the speed and bandwidth capacity of surfaces are polished and yet perfectly spherical, telecommunications systems. Copper cable, once the standard for phone lines, can transmit a few million so how do they do it? electrical signals per second, while fibre can handle 20 billion light pulses per second. To understand how SHB, forum user fibre optic cables work, think of them as long tubes with mirrored walls. If you were to shine a laser There are quite a few different parts that make pointer into the tube at a slight angle, the laser beam would bounce its way down the tube, reflecting off up a ball bearing, including races, a cage, and the mirrored walls until it reached the end. then the covering to protect the bearing. I think Instead of using mirrors, the walls of fibre optic cable are made of two concentric layers of silica glass you mean the actual ball though. called the core and cladding. Cladding has a lower refractive index than the core, causing a phenomenon The first stage in the process is a cold or hot called total internal reflection. When light strikes the cladding at a low enough angle, it is reflected back forming operation; a thick piece of wire is fed into into the core without losing any energy. a machine where it is cut down by slicing There are two major types of fibre optic cables: single-mode and multi-mode. Single mode fibre has the sections off each side until it is quite small. The narrowest core – a tenth of the diameter of a human hair – and uses a powerful laser to send data long machine then slams two hemisphere cavities (a distances. Multi-mode fibre has a wider core with room to bounce around many simultaneous signals. bit like a mould) into the piece of wire to make a Multi-mode fibre uses weaker (and much less expensive) LED lights and is better suited for short runs like ball shape. As a result of this process, the ball will local computer networks. have a ring of excess metal around it, called a HIW flash, which needs to be removed. The ball also needs further polishing to make it perfectly round and smooth. The ball with the flash is then fed into another machine which rolls the ball around How do boomerangs work? between two rill plates. Rill plates are two hard Adam Joseph, email plates of steel which wear away the flash and n The two arms of the boomerang are a lot like the wings of an smooths the surface of the ball. The ball is then aeroplane in that the faster they move through the air the more heated to harden it after which it undergoes a lift they generate. Unlike aeroplane wings they spin as they grinding process similar to that of the rill plates move through the air and this combination of spin and forward until it is ground down to its final, very accurate movement means that some parts of the boomerang are measurements which often require tolerances as moving quicker than others. Because the boomerang is spinning small as a millionth of an inch. The last process is the aerodynamic lift occurs at different rates on different parts called lapping, which requires a similar machine of the boomerang, as the wings of the boomerang are thrown at that exerts less pressure combined with a an angle the net lift is towards the centre of the circle that the polishing paste to give the balls their perfect boomerang moves on. A spinning boomerang is very similar to a shiny finish without further reducing their size. spinning gyroscope and the gyroscopic effect makes the errol_slymm boomerang circle around at just the right rate. Boomerangs… a great toy if you have no friends HIW © Imagine Publishing Ltd 084 | How It Works www.howitworksDAILY.com No unauthorised copying or distribution

082-085_HIW_003.indd 84 10/12/09 15:51:35 How are mushroom What’s on at clouds formed? the Science Alec Rose, email n Any large explosion can create a Museum? mushroom cloud. They’re formed when low- density gases of great heat near the Earth’s 1001 Inventions surface collide. This ball of gas shoots n 21 Jan - 25 Apr n FREE upwards to form a column. It then cools and Traces the forgotten story of a spreads further afield forming the top part thousand years of science from of the mushroom, and is fuelled by the stem the Muslim world, from the 7th constantly sucking up debris and fire in its Century onwards. Featuring centre from the explosion. many interactive exhibits, HIW displays and dramatisations, the exhibition explores the No matter how hard she shared scientific heritage of looks, she’ll never find a diverse cultures and looks at planet where those shoes how many modern inventions match that outfit… can trace their roots back to Muslim civilisation. The exhibition is a British-based project, produced in association with the Jameel Foundation. Where do bird (Please note: the exhibition will be closed between 25 February – feathers get their “Light travels 12 March.) colours from? at a fixed Cosmos and Culture Dennis Collins, email n Until 2010 n FREE n The majority of the colours found speed of Traces 400 years of telescope in birds’ feathers come from technologies and examines the pigments obtained from the food 299,792,458 role astronomy has played in our they eat. These pigments are metres per everyday lives. responsible for which colours of the visible light spectrum are absorbed second” Science Museum or reflected. There are different IMAX 3D cinema: groups of pigments associated with Now showing certain colours. The nano structure n Entry charges apply of the feathers can also produce an optical illusion. Fly Me To The Moon 3D (U) Rik Sargent Get ready to launch into this animated space spectacular and join three curious houseflies that sneak on board the Apollo 11. Space Station 3D (U) Feel the force of a rocket launch and accompany astronauts on If you look at an object in space a space walk. Also showing… through a telescope, are you Dinosaurs Alive! 3D (PG) actually seeing it in the past? Sea Monsters 3D (PG) Deep Sea (PG) Tanner, forum user reach us, while the travel time from n When you look at an object in the Sun is around about eight n IMAX Booking Line: space, say for example Jupiter, you minutes. Our next nearest star, Alpha 0870 870 4771 What are brain see it as it was in the recent past – Centauri, is over four light years away, More info: approximately 43 minutes ago. That’s with distant galaxies being millions of www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ tumours and the average time it takes light to light years away. imax how do they travel from Jupiter to your telescope Even if there were an alien Prices: £8.00 adults (it varies depending on what time of spaceship travelling past Jupiter, you £6.25 children/concessions affect our brain? year you are looking, as the distance wouldn’t be able to see it from an Cody Morris, email between Earth and Jupiter changes Earth-based telescope, as it would be n A brain tumour is an abnormal during their journeys around the Sun). too small. The Juno spacecraft, due Visit the Museum growth of cells within the brain which Light travels at a fixed speed of to launch in 2011, will reach Jupiter in Exhibition Road, South is created from abnormal, 299,792,458 metres per second. 2016. In the highly unlikely event that Kensington, London SW7 2DD. uncontrolled cell division. These So, on all but the largest scales, we it had a close encounter with an Open 10am – 6pm every day. dividing cells can be of many different can detect it almost instantaneously. extraterrestrial spacecraft, we would Entry is free, but charges apply types and can arise from random But over the vast distances of space have to wait for Juno’s radio signal, for the IMAX 3D Cinema, mutation or from cancerous cells the delay becomes apparent. Light travelling at light speed, to reach simulators and some special spreading to the brain from other from our nearest neighbour, the Earth before we knew about it. exhibitions. parts of the body. Moon, takes a bit over a second to Alison Boyle Rik Sargent © Imagine Publishing Ltd www.howitworksDAILY.com How It Works | 085 No unauthorised copying or distribution

082-085_HIW_003.indd 85 10/12/09 15:51:45 For connoisseurs of kitDVDs/Blu-ray and savants • Books of stuff • Gadgets • Videogames • Toys

How To Make A Tornado Price: £7.99 ISBN: 978-1846682872 This is a quirky book for anyone with an interest in science. Split into eight chapters, dealing with everything from mad inventions to the mysteries Take a big screen with you of death, each chapter delivers a wherever you go decent quota of interesting content. If you ever wanted to ﬁ nd out who designed a ladder to allow spiders to climb out of a bath, look no further. Verdict:

All wrapped up? Vuzix Wrap 280 Price: £179.99 mobile devices such as the Apple the outside world to sit in the Get it from: www.fi rebox.com iPhone) on a simulated 51-inch screen periphery of vision. When trying to be IT’S A FACT THAT watching the latest as seen from three metres away. This immersed in a fi lm, especially those blockbuster movie on a small screen distance and size in an actual living with darker colour pallets, this broke isn’t quite as enjoyable as say, room would create a rather immersion due to poor visibility and watching it on your brand new 50-inch spectacular cinema-like experience, so outside distraction. HDTV. Somehow the robotic carnage without doubt the Wrap 280 is an The biggest problem we found of Transformers 2 loses its exciting prospect. though with the Wrap 280s was The Noticeably awesomeness when Optimus Prime So is it all it’s cracked up to be? Well, simply how uncomfortable they were appears the size of your thumb. The the short answer is no, not really. The to wear, especially for long periods of Stouter QI Book Of good news then is that Vuzix offers to screen resolution on the mid-range time. While providing an adjustable General Ignorance solve this issue through its new range 280s, which is 384x240, left anything nose bridge and screen focus, perfect Price: £7.99 of Wrap video eyewear, designed to but TV shows looking fuzzier than they for those who wear glasses, the ISBN: 978-0571246922 make big-screen viewing capable on should and distinctly last-gen. chunky build of the 280s felt heavy This book improves on the original the move as well as at home. Suddenly the small but crisp display of and cumbersome unlike a pair of with even more facts, illustrations Appearing at fi rst glance like a pair the iPhone looked a lot more regular glasses, constantly reminding and cartoons about the world in of sunglasses, the lenses on the Wrap appealing. Further, thanks to a raised you of their presence. which we live. The only downside is 280 actually hide two video screens position on the head due to the large There’s defi nitely promise with the that the new material doesn’t quite which fl oat in front of each eye, forehead bridge (where the video and video eyewear concept, but for a penny warrant a purchase if you owned the displaying the media of any compatible audio tech is stored) a large gap is left shy of £180, there are just too many original book. device (anything with a composite at the bottom and sides of the lenses, issues to recommend the Wrap 280. Verdict: video-out as well as many portable causing the screen to washout and Verdict: © Imagine Publishing Ltd 086 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

086-090_HIW_003.indd 86 10/12/09 15:53:08 SAVE 30% NOW! Flip to pg 80 now for full details

The Saboteur Building ■ Format: 360 ■ Price: £37.95 / $49.99 rampaging The last title to be shipped out of the doors of robo-beasts recently demised developer Pandemic, The Saboteur throws you into the boots of Irish ex-racing driver has never come revolutionary Sean Devlin, out for revenge in been simpler World War II-era France. Providing a focused, if quirky, romp through a colourful and melodramatic tail of intrigue, clichés and leather-clad Nazis, The Lego Saboteur is an enjoyable if patchy experience. The engine, physics and AI aren’t what they should be, but then again, the comedy blunders of yourself and your enemies are almost in sync with the Mindstorms ‘Allo ‘Allo! atmosphere. NXT 2.0 Verdict: Price: £199.95 Get it from: www.fi rebox.com James Cameron’s BUILDING ON THE FIRST generation of Lego Mindstorm products, this Avatar: The Game ■ Format: 360 second offering provides a few more ■ Price: £37.85 / $56.99 tricks to add spice to your creations. This Seriously, this whole movie tie-ins are sub-standard variant now comes with a colour recognising light sensor, a shooting ball trend has to stop sometime, surely? As expected, cannon and an instant control mechanism allowing for fast, stompy robot this tie-in to one of the greatest and most gratifi cation. In addition, thanks to the included PC/Mac compatible spectacular fi lms of the year provides a whole software and the NXT control box, making the robot move, shoot, snap cavalcade of mediocrity. Gameplay-wise, James and see is simple. Cameron’s Avatar: The Game provides standard Coming with a decent set of graphical instructions and four pre- third-person shooter fare, with generic run-‘n’-gun designed builds, including a robotic alligator and a cannon-fi ring action broken up by more exploration-oriented pieces. A shooterbot, there is plenty of scope for fun right out of the box, as well as dual-path story, competent EXP system and decent visuals help, but unless enough pieces to allow for numerous custom builds which can be then you are the most dedicated fan of the fi lm then this will disappoint. shared online. Indeed, the Mindstorms website is a real boon for this Verdict: product, with a thriving community designing, building and sharing all sorts of weird and wonderful machines, animals and vehicles. Verdict: Tekken 6 ■ Format: PSP ■ Price: £24.99 / $36.99 Tekken 6 blew us away when released on 360 and PS3 a couple of months ago, offering one of the WildCharger Pad best beat-’em-up experiences on the market. The PSP version, however, we did not expect as much Wireless power for from. We all make mistakes though. Tekken 6 on EDITOR’S phones, peripherals the PSP is fantastic, offering all the same fun, CHOICE characters, animations and combos of its bigger AWARD and handheld brother. It looks great too, with a clean, simple and consoles fl uid look that, while obviously not as glitzy as the consoles or arcade machines, offers a great reminder of the power Sony’s portable Price: £49.99 console can deliver. Top draw. Get it from: www.fi rebox.com Verdict: MEASURING EIGHT BY SIX inches and appearing very much like a funky mouse mat, the WildCharger Pad joins the rapidly expanding market of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 wireless power tech. Allowing you to ■ Format: PC charge multiple phones or peripherals ■ Price: £24.99 / $36.99 by just placing them on the mat, no the device is placed on it and power Building on the much-loved original, Colin McRae: longer will you need that ageing six- is transferred. DiRT 2 arrives on PC later than its console gang power adapter. While the ability to charge up to six equivalents, but with all its large roster of Charging is made possible by fi tting devices at one time is a neat feature, achievements fully in tack. A large, brash and the device, such as an iPhone or cutting down on cabling considerably, exhilarating non-sim racing title comes to PC then, BlackBerry Curve, into a separately sold the cost involved is not, with the price with the added visual bells and whistles that DirectX adapter (although bundles are available) of a WildCharger Pad and six adapters 11 provides. Offering a truly massive single-player with conductive metal pins on its coming to almost £200. This device is campaign, variable diffi culty levels to cater for all abilities, impressive underside. These pins then make therefore a good product for feng shui damage modelling and a giant roster of cars and tracks, DiRT 2 is a must buy contact with the metal strips on the but not for your wallet. if you have any interest in off-road racing. surface of the WildCharger Pad as Verdict: Verdict: © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 087 No unauthorised copying or distribution

086-090_HIW_003.indd 87 10/12/09 15:53:55 For connoisseurs of kitDVDs/Blu-ray and savants • Books of stuff • Gadgets • Videogames • Toys Apple’s latest MacBook is MacBook unsurprisingly its best yet Price: £799.00 that is reafﬁ rmed in this latest and a 250GB hard drive. All of which Get it from: incarnation. Aesthetics aside – it’s adds up to greater performance www.store.apple.com/uk Apple after all and it is typically top- across the board than previous FOLLOWING THE CONTINUOUS draw – the main talking points here models, so expect a quicker boot and success of the MacBook it seems that are an upgraded 2.26GHz dual-core shutdown, eased multitasking, faster Apple can do no wrong, something processor, 2GB of 800MHz rated RAM application loading and better multimedia capabilities. The crisp 13- inch 1,280x800 screen is also now LED backlit, improving power consumption and mitigating any environmental concerns. There are a few minor niggles Professor Stewart’s though. Thanks to the unibody design the battery is now non-removable and Hoard Of there is also an absence of both a Mathematical FireWire port and SD card reader. Treasures However, with a battery life of seven Price: £12.99 hours, only the most long-haul ISBN: 978-1846682926 journeys would prove problematic in Providing a multitude of facts, terms of maintaining power and while games, puzzles, paradoxes and a FireWire port and SD card reader are brainteasers, this book explores the desirable, their absence is certainly lighter and more whimsical side of not a deal breaker. mathematics. Even if you only have a Verdict: passing interest in math, this holds something to interest or entertain. Verdict:

Rovio Mobile Webcam 24/7 robotic home surveillance Price: £199.99 called into question, however there is no Can’t get you a beer, but Get it from: www.fi rebox.com denying that keeping tabs on your prize good for alerting the help EDITOR’S CHOICE WE ALL KNOW THE real stars of Red Dwarf possessions from afar could be useful when AWARD were the Scutters and now you too can have on holiday or out and about. your own robotic helper to guard your house Verdict: – although it probably won’t help you paint. SAS Survival The Rovio Mobile Webcam provides audio Handbook and video surveillance, a tri-wheel design Price: £20.00 with omni-directional movement giving a ISBN: 978-0-00-731285-6 wide range of visibility and the ability to be Forgetting the plush but gimmicky controlled from anywhere through your camoufl aged fabric cover, this is the phone or internet connection. Coming with a defi nitive guide to survival docking/charge station, which the Rovio techniques. Written by ex-SAS returns to of its own volition thanks to a built- survival expert John ‘Lofty’ in GPS system, as well as software for on- Wiseman, this book contains the-go control and feedback, the Rovio is everything you need to survive in the surprisingly usable with feedback and control outside world, from the base simply an internet log-in away. essentials such as hunting and The build quality of the unit is sound as constructing shelter, to techniques well and when charging a cool blue glow for traversing some of the most emanates from lights on its body. The actual extreme climates. year-round usefulness of Rovio could be Verdict: © Imagine Publishing Ltd 088 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

086-090_HIW_003.indd 88 10/12/09 15:54:35 SAVE 30% NOW! Flip to pg 80 now for full details Fujifi lm FinePix Real 3D W1 Adding an extra dimension to camera design Price: from £430.0O Get it from: www.amazon.co.uk THE FUJIFILM FINEPIX Real 3D W1 is The 3D images produced by the Despite these fl aws, the real deal- Patrick Moore’s one of the fi rst cameras available to W1 were, depending upon the nature breaking factor came when wanting tap into the latest generation of 3D- of the shot, quite successful though. to print or view our 3D images. The 2010 Yearbook Of ing everything and, as a result, offers If restricted to a single subject then digital screen required to view your the ability to capture images and decent shots were easier to achieve 3D pictures or watch your 3D movies Astronomy Price: £16.99 videos in 3D while heavily and suited the camera’s optics. is a further £400, and each and every ISBN: 978-0-230-73605-4 compromising 2D performance. However, lens distortion was a real shot sent to print will cost you a Legendary astronomer Patrick Moore’s Spec-wise the camera sports two issue as well as picture sharpness. whopping £20. 2010 Yearbook is the ultimate guide to ten megapixel sensors, a 3x optical 2D shots were subject to the same Not for all then, but the 3D tech the night sky over the coming year. zoom and a 3D-capable 2.8-inch LCD fl aws, although were not as demonstrated is impressive and Crammed with star charts, the phases screen, while the build quality of the exaggerated. The resolution of future generations will no doubt of the Sun, moon and planets, dates of camera is bulky as it is housing two videos taken by the W1 was a improve on the concept. eclipses, comets and meteors, as well lenses instead of one. modest 640x480. Verdict: as a collection of articles on various aspects of astronomy, the detail and authority is unparalleled. However, it can be rather inaccessible at times to the uninitiated or casual reader. Verdict:

Orbitsound T3 EDITOR’S CHOICE A sound piece of kit AWARD Price: £49.99 Get it from: www.orbitsound.com Bose WHEN TRAVELLING, LISTENING to good-quality music from your MP3 player, laptop or games console often QuietComfort 3 involves plugging in headphones to avoid less than spectacular native sound. This is annoying, especially Top-end noise-cancelling Physics Of The when exercising or undertaking activities where wearing headphones headphones is restrictive, such as in the bath. Impossible The Orbitsound T3 attempts to rectify these issues by Price: £299.00 Price: £20.00 providing a portable, compact camera-sized battery- Get it from: www.bose.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-141-03090-6 powered stereo system, perfect for slipping in your IF YOU ARE IN the market for a pair of premium noise- Ever wondered if the force ﬁ elds you luggage or carrying around with you for day-to-day usage. cancelling headphones, then the QuietComfort 3 set see in Star Trek could be possible? The real selling point of the T3 though is its airSOUND from Bose is a real contender. A compact, battery- Well, this book is for you. Written by technology, a nifty single-point stereo system that centres powered set of phones which block out virtually all the theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, sound output, instead of restricting it to the more outside noise, listening to music is easy. The headphones it provides a tour through the traditional left and right channels. This works best when are comfy, with soft, padded cups, making even the theoretical possibilities of physics, the T3 is worn around the neck with the supplied lanyard, longest of journeys ﬂ y by. with chapters covering robots, time- creating a personal stereo aura around the head. Verdict: travel and phasers among others. Verdict: Verdict: © Imagine Publishing Ltd WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 089 No unauthorised copying or distribution

086-090_HIW_003.indd 89 10/12/09 15:55:16 Because music is better when you share it… For connoisseurs of kit and savants of stuff DVDs/Blu-ray • Books • Gadgets • Videogames • Toys iPod and iPhone docks

2 4

1 3

1 2 3 4 ALFiE Home Domino D3 Griffi n AirCurve Orbitsound T12 Price: £169.95 Price: £17.95 Price: £249.99 Entertainment Get it from: Get it from: Get it from: System www.revo.co.uk/store www.fi rebox.com www.orbitsound.com Price: £305.00 The Domino D3 is great example of The AirCurve from Griffi n comes in at The recent proliferation of soundbars Get it from: the latest generation of high-end DAB the cheaper end of the docking – single strip speaker bars with www.rothaudio.co.uk/store digital radios, providing multiformat station spectrum, with a compact, accompanying subwoofer – is As entertainment systems go, the radio reception, iPod and iPhone stylish and very solid build. Amplifying unsurprising considering the expense Roth-made ALFiE at fi rst glance is a bit connectivity, audio streaming and music by a modest ten decibels and wiring hassle involved in setting of a knockout. Taking a look at the access to a wide variety of online without any power input, the Griffi n up a surround sound audio system. specs seems to back this up too. music services. AirCurve works by channelling sound Minimalism it seems is key to their Housing two ten-watt stereo speakers Its simple design was easy to use, from the handset through its internal success and, judging by the T12, so is and a single downward-fi ring 20-watt with clear and concise menus allowing ear-shaped funnel, amplifying it before dynamite sound quality. subwoofer, as well a slot-fed DVD/CD/ for easy setup. The Domino D3 also throwing it out at its front-end for all Providing both a soundbar audio MP3 player, an FM/AM radio, digital allows you to stream music from your to hear. system as well as being an iPod dock, clock and a iPod/iPhone docking computer over a music server. It Overall this is a good alternative the T12 impressed mightily when on station, the ALFiE seems to fi t the bill provided good sound when tested, choice then if you have either test, delivering vivid sound with plenty perfectly. Scratch the surface though delivering sharp, clear vocals and environmental or budgetary of oomph and also clear and and a few cracks begin to appear. It decent base. restrictions, and the unit is sleek and responsive controls via the remote. seemed heavy on the base tones and All of these things considered, the small enough to sit on your bedside In addition, as with the T3 reviewed both the remote control and touch- Domino D3 is an excellent choice if table – just don’t expect it to provide over the page, Orbitsound has sensitive controls were a let down, you are in the market for either a new enough sound volume to blast out included the same airSOUND feeling rather cheap. radio or iPod/iPhone docking station. music at your next shindig. technology in the T12. Verdict: Verdict: Verdict: Verdict: © Imagine Publishing Ltd 090 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM No unauthorised copying or distribution

086-090_HIW_003.indd 90 10/12/09 15:55:56 © Imagine Publishing Ltd No unauthorised copying or distribution HOW…hide your stash TO away with…MAKE The Can Safe!

Construction materials: 1 x Can 1 x Side-cutting can opener 1 x Tube of superglue 1 x Threaded lid jar 1 x Pack of plasticine 1 x Wodge of cash

Ever thought through the actual chances of your piggy bank protecting your hard- earned cash being spotted and stolen? Large, bright pink and made of Step 01 porcelain, little piggy-wig ain’t gonna stop Firstly, pick up your sister, let alone a determined thief with a your side-cutting lump-hammer from ruining your day. Fortunately here at can opener and How It Works we have plenty of time to think through such carefully open things and have decided that a far more inconspicuous form of the top of the monetary storage is required. can, taking as Introducing then the Can Safe, the latest and much care as greatest solution for protecting your pennies. possible to Disguised ingeniously as an everyday can maintain an of soup or preserves, the Can Safe even cut. actually contains a waterproof anti- chamber, perfect for cash storage. By following these simple seven steps, you too can make your very own Can Safe.

094-095_HIW_003.indd 94 10/12/09 15:58:14 GET INVOLVED! Made a Can Safe that you want to share with the world? Or maybe you’ve got an idea for something we could make?howitworks@ Why not tell us via imagine-publishing. co.uk

Step 02 Step 03 Now empty the Now get your can and jar of glass jar and their tasty remove the lid. contents, either Take the can into your mouth lid and squirt or into a storage some superglue container, and onto its bottom then clean the before carefully inside of the can, aligning the jar jar and lid lid with it and thoroughly, attaching. It is making sure not very important to wet the label that the two in the process. lids align.

Step 04 Step 05 When jar lid and By now you can lid are should have a tin successfully can lined with stuck together, plasticine, with take large strips an open jar of plasticine and wedged into the line the innards can open-end of the empty can facing up. Now with them until push the jar the glass jar ﬁ ts ﬁ rmly down into snugly inside. the plasticine until its rim lies just beneath that of the tin.

Step 06 COMPLETE! After making sure the jar is held by enough plasticine, screw on the combined Step 07 lids. You should Stuff wodges of now have what your hard- looks and feels earned cash into like a can of food. the jar before If the lid does not screwing on the meet the can/jar lid and placing it then readjust the amid other cans amount of in a kitchen plasticine in the cupboard. Take a can’s bottom. break – your cash is now protected.

094-095_HIW_003.indd 95 10/12/09 16:00:11

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