Science Illustrated Australia - August 06, 2022

84 Pages·2022·81.1 MB·English

SUBSCRIBE TO FOR YOUR
Win
A SILENO MINIMO
250 ROBOTIC
LAWNMOWER
FROM
10
TO BE
WON
VALUED AT
$999
EACH
Discover fully automated lawn care and enjoy more time to do what you love - in or out of the garden! Packed with
premium features and Bluetooth® connectivity, SILENO mows the lawn reliably, evenly and quietly in rain or shine!
Gardena are giving our subscribers the chance to win one of these amazing robotic lawnmowers. To be in the running,
all you need to do is subscribe to any of our participating magazines for a minimum of 1 year – it’s that easy.
So don’t miss out on your chance to WIN, subscribe today!
3 easy ways 1300 361 146
mymagazines.com.au
to order
Toll free in Australia
CHANCE TO WIN!
HUGE SAVINGS ON THE COVER PRICE
●
FREE DELIVERY TO YOUR DOOR
●
NEVER MISS AN ISSUE
●
Simply pick up your
smartphone and easily
set up your GARDENA
Australia-wide
1300 361 146
SILENO Minimo
with the Bluetooth® OR CALL
Sydney metro
App at close range. [phone]
Benefi ts include
EasyApp Control,
OR MAIL GREAT
Auto Schedule and
Locked Bag 3355 FATHER'S
EasyConfi g for easy
St Leonards, DAY GIFT
installation and simple
on-going use. NSW 1590 IDEA!
Please send me a subscription to
Relax in your garden
whilst the GARDENA
SILENO Minimo quietly 16 ISSUES (2 years) ONLY $119 SAVE OVER 25%!
gets to work. The best
in its class for low noise 8 ISSUES(1 year) ONLY $65 SAVE OVER 18%!
level (57db A), it won’t
New Subscription Renewal Gift Subscription
disturb you and your
neighbours at all. Keep MY DETAILS
your lawn looking great
Mrs/Ms/Miss/Mr/Other
whilst maintaining an
oasis of peace and Address
tranquility. Postcode Telephone ( )
___________
Email
PLEASE PROVIDE PHONE OR EMAIL IN CASE OF DELIVERY ISSUES
The GARDENA GIFT RECIPIENT DETAILS
SILENO Minimo has
Mrs/Ms/Miss/Mr/Other
been constructed so
Address
that a simple spray
down with a garden Postcode Telephone ( )
___________
hose thoroughly Email
cleans the housing,
PAYMENT DETAILS
blades and wheels
of dirt, dust, and Cheque/money order for $ is enclosed payable to
grass clippings.
Nextmedia Pty Ltd or charge my Visa Mastercard Amex
Maintenance has
Card number
never been so easy.
Cardholder’s name (please print)
Cardholder’s signature

HOW TO ENTER
Expiry date /
Simply subscribe, extend or renew your
subscription to any of the participating magazines Price offer available to Aust and NZ residents only, ending 5/10/22. Savings based on cover
price, including GST. Overseas: 1yr/8 issues A$109. Subscriptions commence with the next
for a minimum of 1 year. For more information,
issue to be mailed. Please allow 6–8 weeks for delivery of your fi rst magazine. This form may
visit mymagazines.com.au/gardena be used as a Tax Invoice; nextmedia P/L (ABN 84 128 805 970). Gardena competition open to
Australian residents 18+ who fulfi l the entry/eligibility requirements. Competition opens 4/8/22
at 00:01 and closes 23/10/22 at 23:59. Ten (10) subscribers will each win a Sileno Minimo 250
Robotic Lawnmower valued at $999. Total prize pool valued at $9,990. One entry per eligible
product purchase defi ned in full terms. Prize draw will take place at 11:00 AEDT 27/10/22 at
Promoter’s address. Winners will be notifi ed via email and published at mymagazines.com.
au/gardena. Promoter is nextmedia, 205 Pacifi c Highway, St Leonards NSW 2065, ACT Permit
No. TP 22/00889, NSW Authority No. TP/01427, SA Licence No T22/688. Full competition terms
Subscriptions, Locked Bag 3355, are at www.mymagazines.com.au/gardena. Please tick if you do not wish to receive special
offers or information from nextmedia or its partners via [ ] mail [ ] email or [ ] phone. Our
Privacy Notice can be found at nextmedia.com.au. If you prefer to receive communication
St Leonards, NSW 1590
electronically, please ensure we have your current email address.
MA/SCI
s
t
n
e
t
n
34
o
EARTH’S
SMALLEST ASTRONAUTS SCTOORVYER
C Plans to send tiny spacecraft
to the stars require creatures
small enough and tough enough
to survive the journey. Here
are the leading candidates.
3D2
E2
9T0
A2
#RT
TS
SU
U
G
ELU
L
A
I
UE 8
C1
SND 26 40
EE
SCIH
SS
IN LI SUPERVOLCANOES AROUND THE WORLD SAVING WHALES COULD HELP SAVE THE PLANET
AB
U
I
LP The discovery of a probable supervolcano off Alaska brings The effect of whales on the carbon ecosystem seems to have
A
R the count of Earth’s supervolcanoes to 25, with research been enormously underestimated. More whales would
T
showing we’re overdue an eruption. Could we survive one? mean more krill, more algae, and more carbon capture.
S
U
A
46 REGULARS
AND OTHER
MORAL ROBOTS
FEATURES
EDITORIAL
The problems of Editor: Jez Ford
[email protected]
having artificial 6MEGAPIXELS
intelligences make James Webb delivers big-time, DESIGN
Art Director: Malcolm Campbell
moral decisions is while a leopard seal makes a killing.
ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES
highlighted when a
National Account Manager: Amanda Patrick
driverless car has to 10SCIENCE UPDATE [email protected]
ph: 0432 918 235
decide between life- New discoveries and updates from
Production Manager: Peter Ryman
and-death scenarios. the ever-fascinating world of science.
Associate Publisher: Daniel Findlay
GM Consumer Publishing: Carole Jones
Managing Director: Arek Widawski
20ASK US
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Our experts answer your questions
Editor-in-Chief: Sebastian Relster
52 about the world and its ways.
BONNIER PUBLICATIONS A/S
Art Director: Malene Vinther
Picture Editor & Licensing Manager:
PSYCHE Lisbeth Brünnich
ASTEROID PROBE
SUBSCRIBE: 1300 361 146 or
9901 6111 or mymagazines.com.au
NASA has delayed its
mission to asteroid
Psyche, so scientists
Science Illustrated is published
will have to wait a 8 times a year by nextmedia Pty Ltd,
a Forum Media Group Company.
good few extra years ACN: 128 805 970
70SCIENCE ARCHIVE:
for their close-up look Level 8, 205 Pacific Highway,
HISTORY OF INSULIN St Leonards NSW 2065
at this rock which
The story of how a failing Canadian
closely resembles
doctor isolated the life-saving hormone.
the Earth’s core.
Under license from Bonnier
International Magazines. © 2022
Bonnier Corporation and nextmedia Pty
Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in
60 whole or part without written permission is
prohibited. Science Illustrated is a trademark
of Bonnier Corporation and is used under
limited license. The Australian edition
AUTISM contains material originally published in the
Danish edition reprinted with permission
of Bonnier Corporation. Articles express
Diagnoses numbers the opinions of the authors and are not
necessarily those of the Publisher, Editor or
keep on rising, but
nextmedia Pty Ltd. ISSN 1836-5175.
the myths around 76MYTHS ABOUT WASTE Printed in Australia by IVE, distributed
in Australia and NZ by Are Direct.
autism still persist.
We’re very good at recycling some
Privacy Notice
things, but very bad at others... We value the integrity of your personal
information. If you provide personal
information through your participation in
any competitions, surveys or offers featured
80INSTANT EXPERT: in this issue of Science Illustrated, this will

TARANTULAS be used to provide the products or services
that you have requested and to improve the
The hairy spiders content of our magazines. Your details may
be provided to third parties who assist us in
are alarming to
this purpose. In the event of organisations
some, but providing prizes or offers to our readers, we
64
may pass your details on to them. From time
pets to others.
to time, we may use the information you
provide us to inform you of other products,
services and events our company has to
FLYING CARS
offer. We may also give your information
82TEST YOURSELF!
to other organisations which may use it to
inform you about their products, services
Always on the horizon Mind bombs of assorted flavours to
and events, unless you tell us not to do so.
but still not yet in test your talents and bend your brain. You are welcome to access the information
that we hold about you by getting in
our skies, flying cars touch with our privacy officer, who can be
contacted at nextmedia, Locked Bag 5555,
are getting a boost SUBSCRIBE
St Leonards, NSW 1590
from drone tech. www.scienceillustrated.com.au
NOW! p2
Yet they still face
THE SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED CREDO
significant hurdles Subscribe to save $$$, We share with our readers a fascination
with science, technology, nature,
before we can rise
and get the latest issue culture and archaeology, and believe
above the traffic jams. straight to your door! that through education about our past,
present and future, we can make the
world a better place.
MEGAPIXEL JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE
6 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
Sharpening space: Webb’s
first images are revealed
The first images from NASA’s James Webb
Space Telescope made the headlines last
month, including its first ‘deep field’ scan, revealing
the faintest objects ever observed. The second
batch included this extraordinary image of the
‘Cosmic Cliffs’ bordering a nearby young star-forming
region roughly 7600 light-years away: NGC 3324
in the Carina Nebula, which is visible from our
Southern Hemisphere. The image shows previously
invisible areas of star birth in the gigantic gaseous
cavity above the Cliffs, the highest ‘peaks’ of
which reach some seven light-years in height.
Photo // NASA /STScI

scienceillustrated.com.au | 7
MEGAPIXEL LEOPARD SEAL
Gotcha! No escape possible
for this Gentoo penguin
Photographer Amos Nachoum
gave this amazing image the title
‘End of Game’, documenting the moment
when a leopard seal cornered a Gentoo
penguin in the cold waters off Plano Island,
part of the archipelago between South
America and the Antarctic continent.
The image appears in a new publication
by teNeues entitled ‘BIG: A Photographic
Album of the World’s Largest Animals’.
Photo // © 2022 Amos Nachoum

8 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED
scienceillustrated.com.au | 9
S C I E N C E U P D AT E THE LATEST FINDINGS
AND DISCOVERIES
MEGAQUAKE:
Scientists find the biggest
earthquake in human history
Deep down in the dry sand of the Atacama desert,
scientists believe they have found evidence of an earthquake
so severe that people fled the region for 1000 years.
GEOLOGY A megaquake is the most believe to be evidence of the biggest coast of Northern Chile, all were
powerful type of earthquake on Earth. earthquake in human history, some shown to have washed up on the
Also called a megathrust quake, this 3800 years ago in what is now shore almost 4000 years ago.
type of severe tremor originates at the northern Chile. The earthquake Archaeological excavations show
meeting places of Earth’s tectonic occurred when the Nazca plate in that the coastline of the Atacama
plates. When one plate is forced under the Pacific collided with the South- desert was then inhabited by hunter-
another, intense forces can be American plates, an event scoring 9.5 gatherers. The scientists found several
released, often powerful enough to on the moment magnitude scale. This stone houses that seem to have been
trigger a tsunami wave. A megaquake caused a failure zone in Earth’s crust of destroyed by the monster tsunami and
is defined as higher than 9 on the at least 1000km, displacing the ocean its backwash. The evidence seems to
‘moment magnitude’ scale (which floor and triggering a tsunami with show that people avoided the region
replaced the Richter scale). The biggest waves some 20 metres high that for at least 1000 years after the event.
megaquake in the last 20 years scored flooded the Atacama desert. The scientists investigated the
a 9.1 – the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, The scientists pieced together the possibility that several close events
the tsunami from which led to the evidence of this major natural disaster were responsible, but the power of the
nuclear accident at Fukushima, Japan. by scrutinising pebbles and marine wave – which includes deposits of
Now scientists have identified a animals that had ended up deep in debris as far away as Australia and
massive megaquake that caused a the Atacama desert’s bone-dry and New Zealand – indicates that a single
tsunami thousands of miles long and impassable sandy desert – so deep massive quakewas responsible.
may have driven people from the inside the country that a storm could One conclusion of the report is that
region for 1000 years. In a new study not possibly have been the culprit. the northern Chile superseismic gap
published in the journal Science, a When they used radiocarbon dating needs to be urgently re-considered as
team led by archaeologists from the to determine the age of 17 of their part of future Pacific basin seismic
K University of Chile identify what they finds from a 600km stretch on the and tsunami hazard assessments.
C
O
ST
R
UTTE
H
S
10 | SCIENCE ILLUSTRATED