Science Illustrated

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HUMANS The purpose of flushing the toilet is to make the contents of the bowl disappear into the sewer. But the toilet also does the opposite. When you flush, the toilet stirs up an ocean of bacteria that become airborne to settle in the bathroom. Th

1 In order to be ‘amplified’, DNA or RNA samples must be prepared, typically by fragmenting DNA and adding special ‘adapters’ to both ends. 2 The clusters of DNA fragments are amplified in a process called cluster generation, resulting in millions of

GEO SCIENCE Scientists have many field tools to establish Earth’s past climate, from ice-core studies to paleo-botany. The geological history of the Earth can also be partially established by what we know of the world today, but combining that inform

PSYCHOLOGY You know the moment – the conversation slows, then there’s a pause. It’s awkward, and so awkward that some people will panic and say anything. Do we all find such silences so stressful? Researchers from Dartmouth College in the US recently

704 degrees is the difference between the coldest and warmest temperatures that can be measured on Solar System planets. Uranus and Venus offer the extremes. ASTRONOMY As a general rule, planet temperatures do indeed fall the further the planet is fr

1 With approximately 18% of the world’s known oil reserves, Venezuela is no. 1 at 304 billion barrels (2021 figures, US EIA). But Venezuela’s exports are limited by oil quality issues. 2 The kingdom on the Arabian Peninsula controls 17% of the world’

1: 41. The factory owner simply wanted to use all the numbers from 0-9, and in each case he put the larger number first. Since the only numbers left are 1 and 4, the final factorymust be 41. 2: 3. The numbers represent the number of vowels inthe word

PSYCHOLOGY It’s a phenomenon: videos of pimples being popped garner millions of views on social-networking sites and apps. Why are so many people drawn to seemingly repulsive content? According to scientists, the answer lies in a complex interplay of

CONSERVATION There are many projects aiming to replenish or broaden the gene pool of wild animal populations that are under threat. Few are more vital to survival than efforts to save the Tasmanian devil. Since the mid-1990s, devils have been facing

273 times worse than CO2 per molecule. That is the effect of laughing gas, N2 O, when scientists calculate its warming potential over a 100-year period. CLIMATE Laughing gas or N2 O – which we know from the dentist – is indeed the third most pollutin

1 Even though fish cannot close their eyes like mammals and birds, they regularly sleep, typically in a fixed daily rhythm. The sleep of the bluehead wrasse is so deep that it does not react to being picked up and held. 2 Fruit flies have very simple

■ Sensitive narcissists, who have low self-esteem and difficulties with criticism, or ■ Grandiose narcissists, who have high self-esteem and are highly absorbed in personal power/gain. There is a big difference between the two. An American study of 2