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The Industrial Revolution was largely powered by coal . Wood and charcoal were used as fuel, and to smelt iron. But even before then, in the 16th Century, wood was already becoming scarce in Britain when the population was still under 10 million. Trees are slow to replace and take up a lot of land area. Wood also has only half the energy density of coal, so you need to burn more of it. Political power probably would have shifted towards Russia, Canada and South America with their huge areas of forested land. Without coal and oil, early chemists would have faced the much more challenging proposition of synthesising long-chain hydrocarbons from ethanol or vegetable oil. Plastics and synthetic rubber would not be developed until much later and would probably have been too expensive to use for toys and disposable packaging. Worse, natural gas is an essential ingredient for the production of ammonia fertilisers . Without them, the world would need four times as much agricultural land to...

Gone are the days of crawling behind a TV with a HMDI cable, trying to read the tiny writing that tells you which channel you need to switch over to. Entertainment has come a long way, and as of the last few years, it’s going almost entirely wireless. Streaming sticks are designed to make browsing as simple as possible. They turn your TV into a smart device, placing all your favourite entertainment at your fingertips (or at the tip of your tongue, for those voice-activated set-ups). They just need to be plugged into a port on your TV, and you’re good to go. From budget to premium options, we’ve listed our picks below. Google Chromecast 4K Google’s Chromecast features seamless compatibility with Google devices and accounts, allowing users to cast content from their phones to their TVs. It offers access to Google Assistant, meaning you only need to do a voice search to find your favourite films and TV programmes. You don’t even have to ask for titles; you can browse by genre...

What is a Dyson sphere? A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical, large mechanical structure – a megastructure – designed to harness the energy of stellar nuclear furnaces. The basic idea is that a structure is constructed around a star which converts, stores or otherwise utilises the star’s radiant energy. These facilities are postulated as the most likely, necessary and economical way of addressing the colossal energy needs of both future human civilisation and, possibly, advanced alien civilisations elsewhere in the cosmos. Who theorised them? And when? The Dyson sphere concept is named after physicist Freeman Dyson (1923-2020) who, in 1960, discussed the idea in a short scientific paper concerning methods of detecting alien civilisations. However, Dyson admitted that he was inspired by the highly-acclaimed science fiction novel Star Maker (1937) by British author Olaf Stapledon. In Star Maker , Stapledon described “a gauze of light traps” surrounding every star in the Universe, wh...

Explosive eruptions can cause substantial cooling of global surface temperatures, lasting for anywhere between 1 to 10 years. We have known about this cooling for centuries, with our temperature records often showing distinct dips following major eruptions. One of the clearest examples of this was the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora , an explosive event that caused a 1°C drop in global land temperatures. The eruption was so energetic that volcanic gases were injected into the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere 10 to 50km above the surface. This caused incoming sunlight to be blocked, meaning that not as much reached the Earth’s surface. While more explosive volcanoes tend to cause more global cooling, it’s not always the case. It depends on the ejected gases reaching the stratosphere, and on wind systems. Mount St Helens , one of the most violent eruptions of modern time, hardly made a dent in global temperatures due to...

Other animals display insomnia-like behaviour. For example, in a seminal study it was found that when male rats were rehomed from their individual cages into those of other male rats, they displayed what resembled stress-induced insomnia. Furthermore, ‘ insomnia-like flies ’ take longer than others to fall asleep and maintain sleep to a lesser extent. Despite this, the authors of an excellent review of animal models of sleep disorders noted that insomnia involves an inability to sleep – however, it is not clear whether these animals are attempting and failing to sleep. Additionally, insomnia involves a subjective component (best assessed by asking someone about their sleep) which creates obvious challenges when it is considered in non-human animals. Read more: Do any other animals get male pattern baldness? Do any other animals have religion? Do animals give each other names? Do any other animals play music? Asked by: Jenny Edwards, via email To submit your questions emai...

The presents are unwrapped, the King has delivered his first Christmas Message, and you’ve finally found a few moments to sit down and press pause on the frenetic pace of Christmas festivities (and maybe digest those extra helping of roast parsnips, that you absolutely 100 per cent needed). If, like us, you’re eagerly anticipating this year’s Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, why not put your own noggin to the test and see how much of 2022 in science news you can remember? From rewilding efforts to discovering lost ships , here’s part two of our Big Christmas Quiz. Test your knowledge with more science quizzes: 2022 science quiz of the year: part 1 2021 science quiz of the year 2020 science quiz of the year from BBC Science Focus Magazine https://ift.tt/2efGASV