Digital. And going underground exploring a subterranean city. But first the human brain and the mind is one of the most compelling topics in Scientific Research one of the Big Questions is where do our feelings and emotions come from. Our emotions lend our lives beauty color and texture. Yet negative emotions can also make our lives more difficult. But science may be able to help with that. One to happening maybe in germanys four Football Division but practicing penalties is part of training just as it is for top sides but what might be easy in training can be a nerve wracking ordeal during a real game. Everyone knows how the fear of failure can affect performance youre an asshole murs knows that pressure too he used to play professionally just like his brother germany and by and munich star maps homers have the hundreds is that so intense it was the i want to get one youre on your own as you walk all the way up to the spot on the human across the outcome is open. Then. Youre going back man is a sports psychologist and unix Technical University hes working with that one to hacking team to find out whether a little trick can help dispel the fear of failure on your voice and. Were going to conduct an experiment here today. And. It involves simply squeezing a ball. Brought some tennis or loss along because. The more you have to squeeze them with your hand using the motion the psychologist believes the exercise could help the players avoid failure in key moments. Form two teams picked at random the two chains will compete against each other in a penalty shoot out. You know lets get down to business. Will what the players do with the tennis ball have any effect on their performance one team are to squeeze it with their left hand the other with their right psychologist believes the former group will have an advantage. The pressure is on as the hits misses a tally no one wants to make a mistake can squeezing a ball before taking a penalty interrupt those counterproductive thoughts and will hand they used to squeeze the full effect the result. Of the left hand group or up a goal again. Are they really ahead because theyre more relaxed and this more successful. The didnt indeed the ones who squeeze the ball with their left hand return to pretest stress levels they didnt crumble under pressure the performance was significantly better than the team in their right hand. You can bet man and his fellow researchers are trying to find out why they suspect that the secret lies in what are known as alpha waves. Our brains go into an alpha state when we are relaxed could squeezing a ball actually create alpha waves and help alleviate fears of failure. A test person is about to be given another lecture and suffer. By measuring the electrical activity in the brain the researchers hope to detect exactly what is going on during the tennis ball exercise ok if you think about. Me please make up the ball with your left hand and start squeezing you know. If we do this with our left hand we use the right hemisphere of our brain this is where complex movements such as shooting a goal up processed us now start squeezing the ball with your right hand our right hand is governed by the left hemisphere this is where the brain worries producing nervous reactions that can prevent players from scoring goals stop. The results show that when the study participants squeezes the ball with his left hand coming out the waves are emitted. Its likely that this activates the motion sensors in the right hemisphere while coming down the Anxiety Center in the left hemisphere the same effect can be achieved with the right. Lets look at what happens with the right hand. Theres no effect only a minimal one thats of no significance so using your right hand has no positive effect with right handers. His hunch was right when a ball is squeezed with the left hand positive alpha waves are released at least for right handers due to the distribution of functions in their brains. The action is automaton and usually takes place in the right hemisphere when in anxious situations the other side of the brain suddenly comes into play were just chiefly responsible for things like language or verbal commands. For example if the coach says dont lean back in the penalty shoot out what happens to work players whove been given that instruction do precisely that they lean back. And revise. It can happen during exams to the more we agonize the more mistakes we make. One student i knew was plagued by thoughts like im not really that good i cant do this then in a multiple choice test she finished very quickly and checked all the right boxes. But she started to have her doubts and wondered whether her answers were right after all. She ended up crossing out the right answers and replacing them with wrong ones when fears are that over powering all exercises alone wont help. But physical exercise can help nip such anxieties in the bud students at sports schools appear to be able to cope with performance pressure better. We discovered that students in schools that specialize in sports develop fewer problems when it comes to fear of failure thats because dealing with aliar isnt martin parcel of doing sports regularly sadly an ordinary School Anxiety is related to failure in greece with. Us homers now retired still benefits from the experiences of his playing days. Gets by the you tend to approach things a bit differently because you know that something can have negative consequences but you know that its not a life or death matter mistakes happen and you know they can be corrected. About them. So the best remedy is to be less afraid of failure and for that you need an environment that allows you to relax and learn from your mistakes. And old proverb says fear makes the wolf look bigger but of course fear is very human we asked our friends on facebook what are you afraid of. Kelvin one yet he says that hes afraid of riding on an elevator in a tall building. Barrens aki told us that hes afraid of confined spaces of being lonely and of places where he cant see anything. Eric says that he is afraid of failure and of losing friends due to failure. Thanks for sharing with us none of us are immune to fear. Or just study engined ruins. For them cancels temples and out settlements reveal the mysteries of the past. But ruins. And always well preserved. Sometimes only a handful of fragments remain thats where Digital Technology can help. Thanks. Martin technology deployed in the service of the past. Their special journey camera set up was devised by the i. T. Department of the university of justin. These multi copters and cameras and able us to document Cultural Assets relatively quickly and easily so the. Instead of human experts in the field and machinery costing thousands of euros we have no frills tools. Or they make it easier to train other people to have a lot less bytes of. The team have caught their project akio copter theyve also developed custom my software for evaluating the footage creating precise three d. Models from the video so the digital models will survive even if the originals to disappear. Its buildings in palmyra have been destroyed forever of course we could go there our selves and document everything but it makes more sense for people from the area to document their Cultural Heritage themselves before you know most of it i guess i think we took it as a sort of community and. So the akio copter team are happy to pass on their Technical Expertise sorry tech our way is studying surveying and justin that will soon be off to algeria to deploy the system man. Theres a muslim there for the daughter of cleopatra i mean contact with unesco and apparently the site is at risk. So they want the muslim to be conserved even if only in digital form not first off im hot. In most cases the research is train archaeologists themselves on site here in austria for example theyll be helping to create a digital archive of the submerged ruins of an ancient settlement. But this time the camera will be born not by a drone but by a submarine. This is a Community Today is a first for us its unesco World Heritage site and with so we cant afford to make any mistakes with was where the sub has to work perfectly which is why ill be in there with it with the by. The submarine is a modified diving robot. Its build from a kid and you get the individual components and then assemble the robot yourself what it didnt initially have are the extra camera systems we need so we added go pros and lights on the sides with in portsmouth and. That is the point that you control the cameras and the robots direction from above ground fire cable since remote radio control doesnt work underwater the professor takes the plunge in the cold water to to ensure the cables dont get tangled up. So you are ok lying with me. That. Isnt forced into the sea the most here the multi we have to imagine the lake back then smaller and with the lake shore further in this spot here would have been further inland for the with the unesco site where analyzing it was located on that and. This is a stone age settlement that was found sometime between three thousand five hundred and three thousand eight hundred years you see it wasnt so almost six thousand years ago six thousand gathered. All thats left of the stakes marking the settlement but time has taken its toll on the millennia old timber the austrian archaeologists may not be able to stop that decay but at least they want to document it they plan to take regular footage themselves in future in cooperation with their colleagues from just. About made this bit of a country as models because we help well end up with a nice model and then well start placing our maps over italy to give us a far better basis for conducting our work out of it and its a conflict because could also film to come in. Yes were looking forward to getting a coherent three d. Model but well see whether it really works i cant wait to spend. A few weeks later the justin team present their results to the archaeologists in austria the software has generated a three d. Model from the underwater fitted. Eyes and can see basically its the same principle as with human vision we also have two camera positions so were equipped to see things in three d. Its called structure from motion to structure from motion to it as i observe with my eyes or with the camera and shift my position the position of the points also move relative to each other and the points that are closer to move faster than points further away so from this set of points i can work out where they stand in relation to each other coming from. Fifty two and honestly. The completed three d. Model comprises several million of those points and conveniently it can even be discussed by a video conference. So here he is east of here you can see a dense cloud of these points six my full covering an area of around six meters by five and the stakes are clearly visible. I still have. It looks great. If you continue using this method the models you generate should be extremely valuable for our project. Nice work. And once the austrian archaeologists are able to make their own recordings that us them team will be happy to stay at home and let someone else accompany the rowboat into those chilly waters. From ancient settlements to modern day cities they will all designed with the aim of protecting humans from the elements. For the last fifty years an increasing number of cities have been going underground in a bid to escape the effects of Climate Change or just avoiding inclement weather. Lets visit one of them. Winters are harsh in montreal the city sees snow fall of over two meters a year with temperatures dropping as low as minus twenty degrees celsius. But our area largely is comfortable Walking Around all day without a scarf or heavy coat because she doesnt even need to go outside the high rise she lives in has a direct elevator connection to a hive of Residential Commercial and cultural complexes called underground city. Her commute to work takes just a quarter of an hour through a maze of malls stairwells and an ending cart is deep below the streets of montreal. Often times living in montreal the weather pretty cold slippery snowy icy so in times like that its nice to have the option of walking on the ground to get where you want to go because from my home i think i have to work directly from the underground i can go shopping i think go to the Grocery Store if i wanted to i think even go to the theater. Has her own physiotherapy practice which is also in a building connected to the underground city. Its very easy for them to. Office you dont have to worry about putting on a coat and boots and they can leave their office they can walk underground inside get to my office park. The underground city your. Includes thirty two kilometers of tunnels under downtown montreal linking more than sixty buildings. Architect prisoner was one of the cocreators of underground city he worked in montreals Planning Department for thirty years and is considered a pioneer of underground urban development. With the very words fall for the developer and. Santa happy people walking inside. And so its quite amazing that its a win win projects and win win everywhere the developers and their pedestrians the city because we have less car in downtown but less pollution so everybodys when i went to. The beginnings of the sprawling underground network date back to the early one nine hundred sixty s. The first few links were funded by private investors the opening of the metro accelerated its expansion gradually it became the largest underground complex in the world. Montreal has meanwhile become a model for many other cities thats also due to Climate Change with extreme weather conditions becoming the norm business is convinced that subterranean complexes will be key to preserving the economic stability of big cities climates. Use impact on many many countries in the way the city will resist the most i think will be those who want it will have to tackle the problems its amazing. Right now to plan the on the ground space the best way we can the underground space is a resource like the water the fresh water the other wants space is a resource and we have to take care that we saw it because its not only a space to put so its a line to put tubes now its a space also to live. And that means more than just working and sleeping the underground city hosts regular displays of art and links a host of Cultural Amenities museums theaters and the Olympic Stadium the elderly wants to buy some tickets for a concert doesnt she miss the outside world after spending the entire day underground. Well i do like to get some fresh air so even if it is a day were not particularly nice outside i will go outside for a short walk walk. Just to get some fresh air fresh air is a nice thing but she doesnt have to brave the freezing weather everything she needs is here in this city within a city underground. And now for this weeks viewer question this time it comes from liberia and west africa. And its very down to. Earth. Moon the door lay from monrovia wants to know. Why does the earth soil look brown. Green trees as far as the eye can see. A garden of brightly colored flowers. Golden fields of wheat extending into the distance. But the needs that all everything looks pretty much like this. Is the similarity just a coincidence not at all soil is made up of rocks organic material water and air rocks are subjected to the wind and weather they are road and break apart and are carried away ending up as mineral containing deposits in the soil. Depending on its mineral content soil can be light brown or much darker rusty particles of iron can turn it red. But minerals arent the only thing that determine a soils color. Another important factor is the humus which is what helps garden vegetables grow and flourish humus is an organic material that forms when microorganisms break down plant and animal matter. Worms also play an Important Role in that process and they help ensure that microorganisms in the soil get enough air and water. A soil thats a deep brown mike this is usually very fertile because its rich in nutrients. And then its deep brown is hidden beneath lush and colorful plant life. If you have a science question go to our website and send it in if we answer it on the show your get our fun and informative d. V. D. Featuring albert einsteins most famous there is. The most important thing is to never stop asking questions. Trying to replicate the movements of the human body is far from easy we are amazing pieces of engineering. Todays high tech prosthetics can work wonders in restoring lost function to people with amputations. But these devices still cant replicate an accurate sense of touch. Now european researchers have made a major breakthrough. Soft. Hot. Its something most of us take for granted but not Dennis Sorenson who lost his left hand in a fireworks accident hes now become the first amputee to regain his sense of touch they told me to grasp and i could tell that it was around tom thing and it was a baseball and the scientists were just jumping all over him and yeah it was really. Historic moment in not just my life but in the in the name of science and history is being made in the laboratories of e. F. P. L. The Swiss Federal Institute of technology and lozano. In another experiment dennis was able to detect finer textural details the human and is so complex that its almost. Impossible to to make a copy of that but this here is so close to me and you feel like a real normal. Scientists in other countries have also developed artificial hands in austria or the United States for example where the military has created a prosthesis that will soon be available on the market still the competition have their eyes on so best from each era the italian is the father of the bio on a can develop here at the swiss institute. All the people are working on by only can they try to address the restoration of the part from the brain back to the activation of the muscles and then for the control of the what we do is to. Either way it out and from deformation coming from the sensors to the brain you know order to be able to provide sensory feedback to the u. S. Demand for prosthetics is huge in the u. S. Alone there are more than two million amputees the low sun researchers hope their bio nick hand will be ready for sale in five years time. Youll find more from the world of science