Armed and dangerous
The yacht was anchored 200 meters off the Qeensland coast when Chris Slough dived into the water. That’s when it got him. “I felt a couple of little stings on my chest,” he says, “but I thought nothing of it and carried on”. But as soon as he got back on the boat he realized he was in a big trouble. “I suddenly came over very nauseous”, he says. Within minutes he was in agonizing pain, vomiting and struggling to breathe. “It felt like my organs were popping out”.
Chris had been stung by an irukandji, a vicious creature named after an aboriginal tribe whose folklore tells of a terrible illness that struck people who went swimming in the sea. Irukandjis, a species of box jellyfish, grow no bigger than a peanut, yet relative to their size are probably the most toxic creatures on earth, putting many people in hospital each year with “irukandji syndrome”. All but invisible in the water, their transparent bodies are covered from head to tentacle tip in stinger cells that discharge at the slightest touch, harpooning your skin with venomous barbs. The sting itself is often so mild that you barely notice it – until the powerful venom kicks in.
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A home from home: Five planets that could host life
It's one of the big questions: Are we alone on this blue marble or is there life elsewhere in the cosmos? To shed some light, astronomers are searching for habitable worlds circling far-off stars. A team has now published updated evidence for a planet that could be the most Earth-like yet. According to the US Planetary Habitability Laboratory, it would be the fifth potentially habitable world known outside our Solar System. So what do we know about these five Earth-like planets, and how likely is it that they could support life?
Gliese 581g
Similarity to Earth (ESI): 0.92
Minimum mass: 2.2 times that of Earth
Distance: 20.3 light-years
The discovery of Gliese 581g was announced in September 2010 by a US-led team. But as soon as they made the announcement, doubts began to surface. The team at the Geneva observatory which had discovered all four other planets around the star Gliese 581 failed to detect it in their own data. However, the original discoverers of 581g have now published an analysis using a greater amount of data to provide more promising evidence for its existence.This would be significant because the Earth Similarity Index (ESI), devised by a team including Dirk Schulze-Makuch from Washington State University and Abel Mendez from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) in Arecibo, shows that Gliese 581g is the most Earth-like planet discovered to date. The ESI measures characteristics of exoplanets on a scale from zero to one, with one being identical to Earth. Accordingly, the online Habitable Exoplanets Catalog, based at UPR, has decided to include it in their list of the most promising worlds to support life.
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Gliese 667Cc
Similarity to Earth (ESI): 0.85
Minimum mass: 4.5 times that of Earth
Distance: 22 light-years
Announced in February 2012 by a team from the US Carnegie Insitution and Germany's Goettingen University, Gliese 667Cc belongs to a class of planets known as Super Earths - a class of planet with a size in between that of rocky worlds like Earth and Mars and the gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Roughly 4.5 times the mass of Earth, Gliese 667Cc takes 28 days to complete a single orbit of its star, which is located just 22 light-years away. The exoplanet absorbs about as much energy from its star as Earth does from the Sun, which means surface temperatures could be similar to Earth's. This would allow for the presence on the planet's surface of liquid water - one of the pre-requisites for life. However, astronomers say this cannot be confirmed without further information on the planet's atmosphere. Nevertheless, co-discoverer Guillem Anglada-Escude has said of 667Cc: "This planet is the new best candidate to support liquid water and, perhaps, life as we know it."
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Couch potatoes.
Centuries ago,people did not have much free time, because everybody was working too hard. In Britain in the nineteenth century, people had more spare time, but because the Victorians hated relaxing and doing nothing, they invented football, rugby and cricket. People took up more gentle activities too, like gardening, bird-watching and train spotting, and it was even possible simply to watch a sport and give the impression that you were actually doing something. Gradually, leisure activities have become less and less energetic interests and hobbies. But now there is a new type of person who thinks that lying on the sofa watching television on Sunday afternoon or reading the newspaper from cover to cover is the most exciting activity they can
manage. This twentieth century couch potato who has a sedentary lifestyle with no or irregular physical activity. It is commonly found in both the developed and developing world. Sedentary activities include sittingreading, watching television, playing video games, and computer use for much of the day with little or no vigorous physical exercise. A sedentary lifestyle can contribute to many preventable causes of death. Screen time is the amount of time a person spends watching a screen such as a television, computer monitor, or mobile device. Excessive screen time is linked to negative health consequences. For them, every activity is too much trouble, and laziness is an art form! So how do you spend your free time?Are you a coach potato?
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CO2 'drove end to last ice age'
A new, detailed record of past climate change provides compelling evidence that the last ice age was ended by a rise in temperature driven by an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The finding is based on a very broad range of data, including even the shells of ancient tiny ocean animals. A paper describing the research appears in this week's edition of Nature. The team behind the study says its work further strengthens ideas about global warming. "At the end of the last ice age, CO2 rose from about 180 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere to about 260; and today we're at 392," explained lead author Dr Jeremy Shakun. "So, in the last 100 years we've gone up about 100 ppm - about the same as at the end of the last ice age, which I think puts it into perspective because it's not a small amount. Rising CO2 at the end of the ice age had a huge effect on global climate." The study covers the period in Earth history from roughly 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. This was the time when the planet was emerging from its last deep chill, when the great ice sheets known to cover parts of the Northern Hemisphere were in retreat. The key result from the new study is that it shows the carbon dioxide rise during this major transition ran slightly ahead of increases in global temperature. This runs contrary to the record obtained solely from the analysis of Antarctic ice cores which had indicated the opposite - that temperature elevation in the southern polar region actually preceded (or at least ran concurrent to) the climb in CO2.
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I confess I am obsessed with the future – and I am not the only one. Over the centuries, people have used the stars, cards, crystal balls and even tea-levels to look into the future. I still read my horoscope every day: ‘When you get home on Friday, you will have a pleasant surprise.’ I never do have a pleasant surprise in the supermarket car park, but who knows? One day I might!
This weekend, however, we will get a surprise because hundred of futurologists are meeting at Newcastle University. The conference starts on Thursday and the experts will be discussed the impact of technology on the future. The future is now big business. I logged on to the websites of some professional futurologists and found these predictions:
The technology already exists, so very soon all of us are going use our voices to give instructions to computers.
In the next few years, we will be communicating with our friends around the world using life-sizes video images on large screens in our living rooms.
By the year 2020, computers will already have became more efficient and powerful than the human brain, both in terms of intelligence and amount the information they can store.
By the year 2030, genetic engineering nanotechnology will enable us to live for at least 150 years. Using nanotechnology, tiny, insect-like robots may be send around our bodies to carry out repairs and keep us healthy.
By the middle of the century, computers, millions of times smarter than us will have been developed. By this time we will be linking our brains with ‘ultra smart’ computers. A new specie might have developed - ‘Homo Cyberneticus’.
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