QFIRE HYDRANTS QCARGO PLANES QPETER HIGGS QCT SCANNERS QSTEM CELLS QOSTRICHES QCOMAS QEUROPA LEARN ABOUT QMORAY EELS QDOG NOSES QCAR BATTERIES QDEFORESTATION SPACE TELESCOPES How do these giant instruments enable us to look back in time? THE MAGAZINE THAT FEEDS MINDS TM SCIENCE Q ENVIRONMENT Q TECHNOLOGY Q TRANSPORT HISTORY Q SPACE INSIDE INSIDE WHAT SEPARATES US FROM THE APES? CHIMPS MAGNESIUM FLARES THERMITE REACTIONS ROCKET CANDY & MORE THE VIKINGS Discover how these Norse warriors changed the world PREHISTORIC REPTILES THE MARINE PREDATORS THAT ONCE RULED THE SEAS AMAZING CHEMISTRY THE COOL SCIENCE BEHIND CHEMICAL REACTIONS ISSUE 45 [...]... www.britishsciencefestival.org The British Science Festival is working in partnership with Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council and Northumbria University Registered charity : 212479 and SC039236 HEROES OF… SCIENCE Peter Higgs on a visit to the CMS experiment at CERN in 2008 HISTORY’S MOST INFLUENTIAL SCIENTISTS Peter Higgs Well known in the scientific community for decades, it s only with the... 024 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM RECORD BREAKERS FASTEST DROPOUT 1,357.6km/h TOP TERMINAL VELOCITY This is the current world record during a human skydive, achieved by Felix Baumgartner on his epic 39-kilometre (24-mile)-high jump in 2012 DID YOU KNOW? The average terminal velocity that a skydiver will obtain is around 55.5 metres per second What is terminal velocity? Get up to speed with this... websites with 1&1 Windows Web Hosting Linux professionals benefit from NEW: PHP 5.4 and PHPDev, plus unlimited access to 1&1 Click & Build Applications and more with 1&1 Linux Web Hosting 1&1 Unlimited Windows MAXIMUM RELIABILITY Your website data is stored simultaneously in two geographically separate high-performance 1&1 Data Centres, with automatic daily back-ups included 1&1 Unlimited Linux Unlimited... down missiles and ballistic shells It sports a 30mm (1.2in), seven-barrelled cannon with a muzzle velocity of 1,109m/s (3,638ft/s) The Italian-made DARDO (which translates as ‘dart’) is a close-in weapon system equipped with two massive Bofors 40mm (1.6in) highexplosive shell firing autocannons 032 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM © Alex Pang; John Bradley AK-630 Scream if you want to go Who decided... trials of iPSCs in humans by US biotech firm Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) Initially experimenting with healthy volunteers, they hope to eventually provide blood platelets for patients with cancer and other blood disorders 022 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM 5 TOP FACTS STEM CELLS All new 1 Pearly whites Thanks to stem cells, you get a whole new skin approximately every four weeks, a new gut lining... enough to read a number plate or identify a face Spy satellites also use low orbits, which means that they aren’t overhead for more than about 20 minutes at a time For this reason drone aircraft are far better for spying on individuals BUSTED Switching off a PC or removing a USB stick incorrectly can damage the device 028 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM General Medical Entertainment Domestic Communication... cameras But these items have to be scanned on the conveyor belt anyway BUSTED 10 If you touch a light switch with wet hands you will be electrocuted This one’s a bit of a grey area because while it might be theoretically possible this could happen, it s very unlikely Your hands would have to be wet enough for water to drip past the rocker to the live wires behind it and complete a circuit with your finger... fuel and increases emissions BUSTED TRUSTED 030 | How It Works WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM STRANGE BUT TRUE What was buried in the New Mexico desert in 1983? ALIEN CONSPIRACY A Alien photos B A crashed UFO C E.T Answer: After the Eighties videogame console market crash, Atari was stuck with 5 million unsold cartridges for its game based on Spielberg’s 1982 hit film E.T As a result, 14 truckloads of cartridges... material is altering its structure rather than its makeup Suspending a nylon wire in the solution creates a surface for the crystals to latch on to, encouraging growth Eventually the water evaporates, but copper sulphate can’t so it s forced into an ever-smaller space The molecules of copper sulphate continue crystallising until no water is left WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM How It Works | 015 “The light... shots only show individual vertebra but an orthogonal slice through can reveal the vertebrae and their discs in their entirety 3D images can also be rendered if needed Surface rendering can colour different tissue types but can’t show internal structures, volume rendering is used to show tissue density, and image segmentation is utilised to remove any unwanted components from the shot WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM . team… How It Works | 003 Get in touch Have YOU got a question you want answered by the How It Works team? Get in touch via: HowItWorksMagazine howitworks@imagine-publishing.co.uk www.howitworksdaily.com @HowItWorksmag . magazine that feeds minds! CONTENTS WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM 004 | How It Works MEET THE EXPERTS Find out more about the writers in this month’s edition of How It Works Alexandra Cheung Stem cells They’re. off your chest or regale us with your scientifi c wonderings WWW.HOWITWORKSDAILY.COM SUBSCRIBE NOW! Go to page 92 for great deals How It Works | 005 Terminal velocity What physics come into