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Podcast TranscriptThe Naked Scientists: Science Radio & Science Podcasts |
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Dinosaurs Had Back Problems Too, By the Look of It...
Fossil experts have unearthed some very strange facts about Sue - the most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever discovered, according to New Scientist this week. A post mortem examination tells us that Sue survived a whole host of injuries and illnesses during her lifetime - so she was either very tough or had help from another dinosaur ! Sue was absolutely enormous - she was 40 foot long and weighed 6 tonnes. You might think a monster that size would have quite an easy life - but not in Sue's case! Several of her ribs showed signs of healed up fractures, so she must have survived some massive blows to her body. She also had bony lumps, called osteophytes, on her vertebrae (the bones that make up the spine), which show that she had back problems not unalike arthritis seen in humans - so it's not just people that get back problems! Her jawbones were also riddled with holes - like swiss cheese - so she must have had some nasty infections, although she survived them. It sounds rather grim - you could almost feel sorry for her! But don't feel too bad, because she may have been looked after - one expert is sure that she couldn't have survived so many injuries and illnesses without help from another dinosaur, probably its mate.
Experts still don't know exactly why Sue died and its possible that she simply died of old age.
Fossilised dinosaur footprints show that large dinosaurs could run.
13th Oct 2001
Green Buses Powered By Hydrogen Engines Are Coming to Cambridge
Traffic fumes make city centres very unpleasant places for pedestrians and cyclists alike, but Cambridge is well on the way to tackling this problem - buses that give off water vapour instead of poisonous fumes are to be introduced to the streets of Cambridge over the next couple of years. The secret behind these new environmentally friendly buses is the hydrogen engine. The way it works is that hydrogen in fuel cells reacts with oxygen in the air to produce water. This chemical reaction releases energy that powers the bus. The hydrogen engine is much cleaner than the standard diesel engine which gives off carbon dioxide (a known cause of global warming) as well as nasty fumes. What makes this project greener still is that the hydrogen in the fuel cells comes from water in the first place - Solar power is used to split water up into hydrogen and oxygen. So you could say that the buses run on sunlight! The buses will run from West Cambridge to the city centre and should be in operation by 2003. This is the biggest project of its kind in the world. It's being organised by Cambridge University in partnership with several engineering firms and so far they've been awarded over 1.5 million pounds from the European Commission
13th Oct 2001
Ozone Update
Now some news from the other side of the world. It's getting wintry over here, but it's spring time in the Southern hemisphere, and this means it's the start of the ozone hole season. People from the South will be slapping on the sunblock, because this year's ozone hole looks as if it could be as big as last years, and that was the biggest ever. It was also the first time the hole covered a city: Punta Arenas at the Southern tip of Chile. If the hole gets bigger it could affect Australia, New Zealand and even the tip of Africa. You can log on the NASA website and see it happening before your very eyes. But wasn't the hole supposed to peak in 1998? Experts did predict that the ozone layer would recover after a ban on CFCs, the chorine-containing chemicals that caused the hole. But the system is more complicated than they first thought, and they now think that global warming is prolonging the life of the ozone hole. But we should be grateful that industry chose CFCs, not BFCs, the same chemical but containing bromine instead of chlorine. Experts say that if they did, the ozone layer covering the entire world would have been lost. Then we'd all be slapping on the sunblock.
13th Oct 2001
Conversations with Computers
Would you chat with your computer? Probably not. But this is exactly what a group of people will be doing at the Science Museum in London this weekend. And $100,00 is up for grabs for the best conversation. This may sound like a mad way to spend a weekend, but this event is not as trivial as it sounds. It is, in fact, the acid test for whether computers can be called "intelligent". If you couldn't tell if you were having a conversation with a computer, or with a person operating a computer, then you'd have to say that the computer could think. This competition has been going on for 10 years now, and no-one has come close to winning the prize. But "Alice", the computer that won the consolation prize last year, is raring to go again, with new, improved software. It is quite easy to fool even the most sophisticated computer. Ask it "How is the father of Andy's mother related to Andy" - and it can get fooled and reply "Fine thank you". This shows just how complicated it is to understand human speech. But the computer programmers have a few tricks up their sleeves to make their creations appear human. One is to rephrase a statement given to it into a question. So if you say to the computer: "I'm exhausted" it replies "So you're feeling tired are you?" Another trick is to appear quirky by going off in a random direction. The day when you can have a meaningful conversation with your laptop may be closer than you think.
13th Oct 2001
European Drive to Warn Off Smokers
European cigarette manufacturers are to face stiffer regulations on cigarette marketing following a new EU directive this week. From January 2004 misleading slogans such as 'light' and 'low tar' will have to be dropped, and at least 30% of the packet front and 40% of the back will have to be devoted to an approved health warning, including impotence. New limits will also be imposed on the maximum nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide content that can be inhaled from a cigarette. The Action on Smoking and Health campaign group welcomed the news but said that the changes were too slow in coming and were still insufficient.
13th Oct 2001
Global Warming in your Garden
Mention the word "global warming" and images of rising sea levels and Polar ice melting spring to mind…….but did you know that global warming is acting closer to home, and has already affected your garden? Last year a massive survey run by the Woodland Trust over in Huntingdon showed that spring is arriving earlier each year. From records sent in by the public, they showed that Snowdrops were appearing 3 weeks earlier than 50 years ago, and birds were returning from their winter migrations sooner than they used to. Now scientists want to find out what is happening to Autumn. Experts think it is getting shorter and later, but they need your help. When are the leaves falling of the trees in your garden? Is your lawn still growing? If you want to be involved with this survey (and the more information they have the better) then get in touch with the Woodland Trust.
13th Oct 2001
Basmati Wars
With the military build up in the East, we bring news of a war in that region which has just been won - the Basmati war. For many years India has been fighting the US over patents for the distinctive Basmati rice, which grows at the foothills of the Himalayas. RiceTec, a US company, has genetically engineered new strains of the rice which have different grain sizes and starch content, and they wanted to patent their discovery. But Indian scientists claimed that only rice grown in India and Pakistan could be called "basmati" and the US Patent Office agreed with them. A spokesman for the Indian government said "We waged a focussed battle and our evidence was sufficient to knock out RiceTec's claims on Basmati". This is good news for developing countries, who will now have better protection against multinational corporations profiting from their traditional crops and medicines
13th Oct 2001
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