Lab notes: ancient maths secrets and amazing heavenly bodies

The Babylonians weren ’t just eye-catching gardeners, they were also ace mathematicians, it seems. Dating from 1,000 years before Pythagoras expounded his theorem,a Babylonian clay tablet is a trigonometric table more accurate than any today, say researchers. This was my favourite story of the week, as although it contains my personal downfall, maths, it also includes some interesting inside gen on Indiana Jones. Less directly useful to pyramid building, but nevertheless interesting, a new bone analysis has unpickedthe life cycle of the long-extinct dodo. Scientists also think they can explain how thehorse became the only living animal with a single toe. What they ’re still arguing about, however, iswhether or not sugar is as addictive as cocaine. It ’s a pretty heated debate, which is why it might be a good plan to step back and wonder at the universe instead.You can start with this new view of Antares. The red supergiant is 550 light years from Earth and remarkably, astronomers have managed to capture images of it - the best images, in fact, ever taken of any star ’s surface and atmosphere apart from the sun. If that isn’t exciting enough, how about some space sparkle? In a bling-tastic move, scientists haverecreated the diamond rain of Neptune and Uranus using, er, polystyrene. And lasers. All veryBlue Peter, I ’m sure but it doesn’t quite beat this recycling excitement: astronauturine, faeces and breath could be used to produce food supplements and plastics ...

Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - August 25, 2017 Category: Science Authors: Tash Reith-Banks Tags: Science Source Type: news