Table of contents for November 2023 in BBC Science Focus Magazine

PHYSICS DISCOVERIES A new method of producing an ultra-bright light that breaks traditional laws of particle A physics, could potentially spark a technological revolution. The ultra-bright light, a form of 'coherent light', is created by particles moving in synchrony rather than independently. This synchrony creates incredibly fast, intense pulses that operate on a scale of atto-seconds – or one thousandth of a millionth of a billionth of a second. While machines that are currently capable of creating ultra-bright light are miles long, scientists have now produced plans for just such a light source that can fit into a single room. It could lead to a “mini-societal, technological and scientific revolution”, the researchers behind the development told BBC Science Focus. In a move set to radically improve global healthcare and future technology,…

Scientists have long puzzled over the vast complexity of the human brain. Now, researchers from around the world have mapped its cellular makeup and discovered that there are over 3,000 cell types in the human brain, including hundreds they didn't know existed. Speaking to BBC Science Focus, Dr Ed Lein, senior investigator and neuroscientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, said: “The brain is an astonishingly complex cellular organ… and we can now really define and map these cell types across it.” Previous studies had only mapped the brain cell types of particular regions in the cortex (the outermost part of the brain). These studies found over 100 different brain cell types. The new research has expanded that mapping to almost 100 regions across the entire human…

The so-called 'personality disorders' are among the most controversial and complicated of psychiatric diagnoses. Critics say that stigma is baked into the concept itself – the label implies that there is something pathological about a person's personality. The term 'personality disorder' is meant to reflect how a person's psychological problems are long-lasting and permeate many aspects of their lives, from their daily emotional experiences to their relationships. For some, receiving a formal diagnosis of a personality disorder can help them understand why they find life so difficult and, in positive cases, it can help them obtain the professional support they need. Of the 10 specific personality disorders recognised by psychiatry, among the most widely misunderstood is borderline personality disorder (BPD), which is estimated to affect one to two per cent…

FEATURE | OCTOPUS GARDEN Find out more about the Octopus Garden by watching Planet Earth III Amauve arm, covered in suckers, gently unfurls and tends to a clutch of eggs shaped like elongated ping pong balls. Puffs of water from the siphon on the side of the octopus's head ensure her unhatched young get plenty of oxygen. She's surrounded by hundreds of other females which, when viewed from a distance, live up to their nickname. Pearl octopuses (Muusoctopus robustus) resemble spherical gems sitting on the seabed. This is the largest known aggregation of eight-armed molluscs on the planet – around 20,000 – and it's being witnessed by people all around the world in stunning high definition in the 'Oceans' episode of the BBC series Planet Earth III. This view would have…

Though the Apollo missions brought back an impressive 382kg (842lbs) of Moon rock, this isn't nearly close to the 20 tonnes needed to fill a regolith bin. Instead, lunar analogue facilities use a specially made simulant regolith. When making it, the first step is to find rocks on Earth that are the closest match to those found on the Moon. “Fifteen years ago, lunar simulant was typically something called JSC-1A,” says Greg Schmidt, director of the Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute (SSERVI) at Ames Research Center. This simulant is made from glass-rich volcanic rock known as basalt, gathered from the Merriam Crater near Flagstaff, Arizona as its mineralogy closely matches the rocks brought back by Apollo 14. “It's dark grey in colour and a really good simulant for the…

For habitual caffeine drinkers, mornings often begin with a lethargic, fuzzy and blunt feeling, as well as – on the worst days – a dull headache. The one thing that will sharpen you up, get you thinking clearly and shift that thump in your head is a steaming-hot cup of tea or coffee. But does that overriding need for a caffeine hit first thing in the morning mean you're addicted to it? The answer to that question depends on how you define addiction. “There are a lot of criteria surrounding a diagnosis of addiction or substance use disorder that are to do with the illicit nature of it,” says Prof Jennifer Temple, at the University at Buffalo, New York. “Are you using this substance at the expense of work or…

Q&A NATURE'S WEIRDEST CREATURES With a face that wouldn't look out of place among the Notre Dame gargoyles, the hammerhead bat is what the French would call 'jolie laide'. The phrase, which literally translates as 'pretty ugly', refers to a beauty that defies conventional standards. With the ears of Yoda, the face of the racehorse Desert Orchid and nostrils that resemble some kind of sea creature, the hammerhead bat's face is one messed-up mash-up. Until you realise that this oddly proportioned animal is an evolutionary triumph. It lives in the lowland rainforests of West and Central Africa, where it feasts on fruit and flies at night. It is unusual because it's the only bat species known to operate a lek mating system, a kind of competition where males show off to…

SOURCES Wikipedia, US National Park Service, The Woodland Trust, Discover Magazine, Scientific American, European Space Agency, Bumblebee Conservation trust, Australian Academy of Science, The Independent and the North American Bear Centre. An overarching rule of the natural world is the old adage 'survival of the fittest'. Only those best adapted to their environments stand a chance of enjoying any kind of longevity. These adaptations come in many forms, be it camouflage to blend in more effectively, longer legs to run faster or sharper teeth to hunt better. Evolution provides the means for a species to improve itself over time, so that genetic quirks can become essential traits for survival. One of the most intriguing evolutionary adaptations is hibernation, which provides an extreme, but effective way to avoid challenging situations. With…

The 'ashen light', or AL, is a faint, mysterious glow, or colouration, seen in the night-side hemisphere of the planet Venus. It's often compared to the reflected 'Earthshine' that sometimes illuminates the dark-side of the Moon. First reported in 1643 by Italian astronomer Giovanni Riccioli, AL has been observed many times since, but its faint, transitory and elusive nature has prevented serious study. More problematically, AL has only ever been detected by the human eye and no scientific instrument, either Earth-based or space-based, has ever recorded the phenomenon. Some authorities have declared the phenomenon illusory, perhaps a contrast effect for the eye, or even 'expectation bias'. Others suggest that instrumental defects may explain the phenomenon; light scattering, optical aberrations, the brightness of the background sky, weather and so on. There…

It's that time again. The clocks have gone back and many of us are reaching for the SAD lamps, v itamin D supplements and carb-heavy one-pots to get us through the long, dark nights of winter. But maybe there's another way to approach the change of season. What if we embrace the darkness? At the right times and in the right quantities, darkness helps our bodies rest and heal, optimises our cognition and mental health, and lowers our risks of various illnesses. That's because our circadian rhythms, or body clocks, are triggered not just by light, but also the lack of it. “To optimise your sleep you want to keep it as dark as possible with as few distractions as possible,” says Prof Victoria Revell, who researches circadian physiology at…

Uncanny This TV show, based on a BBC Sounds podcast, investigates people's real-life paranormal encounters. The show's presenter Danny Robins (below) talks to professional sceptics and believers alike, and asks the viewer to make up their own mind. It's a great watch if you love a ghost story or if you just want to argue with your partner's cognitive biases. BBC Two, 9pm Fridays Also available on BBC iPlayer Planet Earth III If you aren't watching this already, what are you doing? Yes, baby seals get eaten, but this series also looks at the impact humans are having on the planet and the incredible creatures we share it with. BBC One, Sundays Also available on BBC iPlayer The Best Medicine Comedy and science rarely work in combination. But this is…

EYE OPENER After four attempts over three years, NASA's Curiosity rover has finally made it to the Gediz Vallis Ridge on Mars, seen here on the right of the image. Although a ridge doesn't sound all that exciting, this one contains information from a remarkable period in the Red Planet's history. Up until around three billion years ago, Mars was wet: vast oceans, rivers and lakes covered its surface, much like Earth today. During this time, torrents of water carried rocks and debris down Mount Sharp (Aeolis Mons), seen here on the far left. This huge muddy landslide solidified, before being chiselled away by Martian winds to form the Gediz Valley Ridge we see today. In other words, it's a record of one of the last wet periods seen on…

You can stop feeling guilty for snoozing your alarm: a new study by scientists in Sweden suggests that hitting snooze may actually help you become more alert after finally waking. The research, published in the Journal of Sleep Research, involved two studies. The first established the general profile of the 1,732 adults who participated: 69 per cent of whom confirmed they used the snooze function on their alarms. The snoozers tended to be younger than non-snoozers; they also had later chronotypes, meaning their natural sleep/wake pattern made them 'night owls', rather than 'morning larks'. Snoozers were also more likely to sleep for a shorter amount of time and to experience morning drowsiness. Only regular snoozers were examined in the second study, which took place over two nights in a sleep…

A peculiar blaze of light, which has stumped A researchers for over four years, was likely produced by the collision of two ice giant exoplanets, according to a new study. These planets could have been similar in size to Neptune and Uranus – the ice giants in our Solar System – according to the study published in Nature. An initial observation by an astronomy enthusiast saw the brightness double around a Sun-like star approximately 1,800 light-years from Earth. The brightness began to fade three years later. “To be honest, this observation was a complete surprise to me,” said co-lead author Dr Matthew Kenworthy, an associate professor at Leiden University in The Netherlands. “An astronomer on social media pointed out that the star brightened up in the infrared over 1,000 days…

REALITY CHECK THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES REVIEW Sick days | Antigravity | Personality disorder “The average employee took just under eight days of sick leave in the past year – two more than in pre-pandemic 2019 and more than in any year since 2008” For more fact-checking news, visit the BBC's Verify website at bit.ly/BBCVerify New figures suggest the number of sick leave days taken by UK workers is at its highest level in 15 years. Does this mean we're in poorer health and, if so, what's keeping us away from the workplace? A couple of years ago, COVID would have been the obvious culprit, but is it still to blame? And what can we do to keep people working? Well, the devil's in the data – if you know…

DORADO OUTCROP COSTA RICA FOUND: DECEMBER 2013 Researchers from University of Akron in Ohio, the Field Museum in Illinois, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks observed more than 100 octopuses, 160km (100 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and 3km (1.8 miles) underwater. The octopuses appeared to be an undescribed species of Muusoctopus. None of the eggs seemed to be growing. OCTOPUS GARDEN NEAR DAVIDSON SEAMOUNT FOUND: OCTOBER 2018 While exploring a hillock 3.2km (2 miles) down and 12km (7.5 miles) southeast of Davison Seamount, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, in California, and collaborators including the Ocean Exploration Trust, found thousands of brooding pearl octopuses (Muusoctopus robustus). Their eggs were viable and in various stages of development. OCTOCONE 17KM…

The Earth of Doctor Who has suffered multiple alien invasions. The earliest (in the show's history), as depicted in the serial 'City of Death' in 1979, was by a warrior race called the Jagaroth 400,000,000 years ago. A survivor called Scaroth left fragments that deflected the history of Earth and humanity from then on. So, in the Who universe, an engagement with the alien has been woven into our evolution. A clumsier, but just as devastating, intervention occurred 65 million years ago when, according to the serial 'Earthshock' in 1982, a massive interstellar freighter travelled back in time and crashed to Earth – an impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, as opposed to a rogue asteroid strike as scientists would have it. We can even guess at the dimensions of…

Recycling is not a silver bullet that will halt climate breakdown. Not even close. Its potential impact – a saving of around 11 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) over 30 years if the whole world recycles more than 80 per cent of its municipal waste – is dwarfed by the amount of greenhouse gases currently released by fossil fuels and industry: 36.8 gigatonnes in 2022 alone. Today, recycling in the UK saves an estimated 18 million tonnes of CO2 emissions each year – the equivalent of pulling 5 million cars off the road. That may sound promising, but it's only a 2,000th of the CO2 emissions currently generated each year by fossil fuels and industry, and roughly a 200th of that generated by agriculture or the global fashion industry. These…

Say you're waiting for school exam results, or you have a dental appointment coming up. A lot of people believe that they can prepare themselves for these sorts of uncertain outcomes by assuming the worst will happen. That way, if you get poor exam results or the dentist trip turns into a drilling ordeal, it won't come as such as shock. Hence the expression, 'hope for the best, plan for the worst'. But is this strategy really beneficial? Based on psychology research findings, the short answer is no. The first drawback is that bracing for the worst will make you feel sad and anxious before the event. This makes sense. After all, you've convinced yourself something bad is going to happen. For obvious reasons, you'll feel better in the lead…

COMMENT The 'Stoptober' push to quit smoking is useful, but we need to look at why people start… especially when it's harder drugs The modern world is awash with information about the dangers of so-called recreational drugs, yet drug-taking remains a problem. Why do so many people choose to put unfamiliar chemicals into their bodies, despite being told repeatedly that it's a bad idea? What compels us to take drugs at all? There are many factors to consider when answering this question, the first of which can be categorised as biological. Staunchly anti-drug types may insist that taking drugs is unnatural. Evidence suggests otherwise, however, because it seems that taking drugs is something our brains evolved to do. Think about it: why would chemicals completely foreign to our biology interact…

According to first Newton, then Einstein, and now an experiment at CERN, gravity is an attractive force that exists between all objects in the Universe. That includes objects that have no mass, because gravity acts on energy, and mass is just one form of energy (as Einstein's most famous equation states, energy is equal to mass multiplied by the square of the speed of light). This is why even massless photons of light, travelling from distant stars, have their paths bent as they pass massive galaxies on the way. Antigravity is a hypothetical repulsive gravitational force. In some ways, it sounds obvious that it should exist. There are both attractive and repulsive electric forces, so why not the same for gravity? The difference is that electric charge comes in two…

The earbud market is crowded… really crowded. There are more options than ever, and while some brands are happy to charge into the hundreds or, in some cases, thousands, you can just as easily score earphones for a few quid. Sure, the performance isn't great at that price, but at what point does your money stop securing better quality? You can ask this question about Sony's new WF-1000XM5 wireless earbuds, which will set you back £259. As the latest in the brand's legendary in-ear series, there's a lot of hype to live up to. Can they improve on what was already an almost flawless pair of earbuds? Or is this simply a pricey cosmetic upgrade more than anything else? I spent time with the WF-1000XM5 to find out. DESIGN Sound…

LUNAR ANALOGUES FEATURE Nighttime in the Mojave Desert. The stars of the Milky Way turn slowly above a landscape so dark you can barely make it out. Suddenly, spotlights switch on. They're angled low to the horizon and off to one side, but spill light across a pale grey, undulating terrain that's pockmarked by craters. You know you're standing among the sands of California, but lit like this, it looks like you're on the Moon. This 'Moon in the Mojave' is the work of spaceflight company Astrobotic, which has been building the Lunar Surface Proving Ground (LSPG). The 100m2 (approx 1,000ft2) site has been made to look exactly like the lunar south pole. The region was ignored by early Moon explorers, but has witnessed a surge in interest over the last…

FEATURE Doctor Who is entertainment, but it has scored some predictive hits concerning the advance of scientific knowledge over the decades. For example, it has long been a peculiarity of the show to feature rogue planets in our Solar System. When the show first aired in 1963, it was believed that there were nine planets in the Solar System, with the furthest out, Pluto, discovered only a few decades before. And it was believed that these planets had emerged from a reasonably logical and orderly formation process. You had the rocky worlds closest to the Sun: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Further out, where temperatures were lower and the planets could retain huge volumes of gases and ices, you had the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and the ice giants…

Peanut plants are unusual because they flower above ground, but fruit below it. That's why peanuts, which are native to South America, are often referred to as 'ground nuts'. About 40 days after planting, delicate yellow blossoms appear around the lower third of the plant. After a few days, these self-pollinating blooms crumple and die, revealing budding ovaries known as 'pegs'. Here's where things get weird. As their petals shrivel, the pegs' stems curve downward, plunging the pegs into the soil. Underground, they slowly develop into pods, each containing a pair of seeds – or peanuts. The whole process, from planting to harvest-ready, takes about five months. CP…

Mosquitoes are infamously the world's most deadly animal, killing up to a million people every year via the diseases they spread, such as malaria and dengue fever. In the UK, however, our 36 native mosquito species pose little in the way of threat, so they don't feature in the three-way tie for the title of UK's deadliest creature. One of the three that does, is dogs. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, recently added American XL bully dogs to the list of banned breeds after a rise in dog-related deaths. Numbers were around three per year, but in 2022, 10 people in England and Wales died from dog bite injuries, the tragic result of irresponsible ownership and a trend for breeding bigger, more muscular dogs. Small can be deadly too, though.…

ASTRONOMY FOR BEGINNERS WHEN: MID TO LATE-NOVEMBER The Leonid meteor shower is active between 3 November and 2 December. Peak rates occur mid-November, with this year's peak predicted for 6am UST on 18 November. The shower is named because its radiant (the area of sky from which the meteor trails appear to originate) is within Leo the Lion. The radiant is within the Sickle, a backward question mark pattern (called an asterism) of stars. The night of 17/18 November should give the best rates, but if the weather is poor, the nights before and after should be fine. Leonid meteors are associated with comet 55P/Temple-Tuttle, Earth's passage through this comet's orbital debris typically bringing a peak zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of 15-20 meteors an hour. That assumes perfect viewing conditions…

NASA communicates with all its space probes, including Voyager 2, with the Deep Space Network (DSN), a set of radio dishes at three sites around the world; Goldstone in California, Robledo near Madrid and Tidbinbilla near Canberra. Since Voyager 2 is only visible from the southern hemisphere, an antenna called DSS-43, at the Australian site, is the only antenna on Earth that can send and receive signals to/from the probe. The transmitter on Voyager 2 – currently more than 20 billion km from Earth – has a power of about 23 Watts (about eight times that of a typical mobile phone). By the time the radio signal reaches Earth it has about one-tenth of a billion-trillionth of this power. In order to detect this extremely faint signal, DSS-43 and the…

ACROSS 1 Jacket loses tail in conflagration (5) 4 People first to rally for competitor (5) 8 Notice party has to improvise (2-3) 9 Tons about time for performing (2-5) 10 Feature of alarming weapon (3) 11 Instrument is returning to sailor (5) 12 Change Greek character at gallery (6) 14 Nocturnal bear turned out to be eco-friendly (6,7) 17 Item of crockery has a taste (6) 19 Hoard money, we hear (5) 22 Enthusiast from Brazil, say (3) 23 City cat relaxes outside (7) 24 Stupid tavern has a point (5) 25 Saying Frenchman joined German (5) 26 Observes stone being thrown (5) DOWN 1 Swede, say, forced CIA to follow money (8) 2 Distribute a great deal, by the sound of it (5) 3 Stop me returning to pub and leave (7) 4 Tries desperately to take exam again (5) 5 Idle talk about milliner (7) 6…