21 April 2021
Ron Dippold
San Diego, California, US
The short answer is that only charged particles like electrons or protons are bent when travelling through magnetic fields. Electromagnetic radiation is made up of uncharged photons, so is unaffected. There are two caveats, however.
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The first is if you had a ridiculously strong magnetic field, like those near neutron stars called magnetars. This would warp space itself and the light would follow that curved space. But in this case, you wouldn’t be directly bending the light – and you would be dead anyway. The ultra-strong magnetic field or the astounding output of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation from a magnetar would kill you.
Environment | Leader 21 April 2021
Marcos del Mazo/LightRocket via Getty Images
CHILLING might be the wrong word, but it is certainly a stark message that appears towards the end of our special report on the latest climate change science: if we do too little, too late, and Earth’s climate feedbacks work against us, many children today could live to see 5°C of global warming or more.
As this week’s equally stark cover image of global temperature anomalies last month shows, in some parts of the world at some times, we are already there. Global warming is the greatest existential challenge of our age – perhaps of any age, measured by …
The difficulties of getting hold of a powerful monopolar dog collar newscientist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newscientist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
14 April 2021
Tim Hill/Alamy Stock Photo
San Francisco sourdough bread tastes completely different to sourdough from the UK. Are UK yeasts different from Californian ones or is this due to the bread-making process?
Andrew Farrer London, UK
Sourdough is made using a starter culture created by exposing flour and water to the air to “infect” the mixture with natural yeasts.
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I noticed that when I moved just 5 kilometres north from central London, it led to changes in my existing starter within a week or so: it became more sour and vigorous, meaning the dough rose more quickly. The place I now live is about 60 metres higher, so maybe that makes a difference. The starter also became more vigorous when I took it to France.
14 April 2021
Stephan Schramm/Alamy
How do animals recognise their progeny? Are they conscious that they reproduce? Male lions kill the cubs of other males, but not their own, yet cuckoos get away with it. How?
Garry Trethewey Cherryville, South Australia
Some animals, like many fish and reptiles, don’t recognise their offspring at all, eating them or later mating with them. But even among those that appear to recognise their offspring, I suspect that what they recognise is recent proximity – an infant that they were caring for lately, for example.
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Then there is the issue of the mechanism of recognition. Does this happen by smell, sound, sight or in some other way? Exceptions to the rule are illustrative. If a lamb dies, and the mother of another lamb dies, a farmer can get the ewe to adopt the orphan by skinning the dead lamb and tying the skin around the live one. It appears that the mother then smells her own lamb and allows