Science

What's been going on this month

SILK AS STRONG AS A SPIDER’S WEB: Scientists in the US have recently created an ultra-strong form of silk using genetically-…

AARON MEREDITH
Wed Jan 11 2012 - 00:00

SILK AS STRONG AS A SPIDER'S WEB:Scientists in the US have recently created an ultra-strong form of silk using genetically-modified silkworms.

This new silk is as strong as a spider’s web. Because spiders can’t be commercially farmed, this new discovery gives manufacturers a chance to produce vast amounts of “spider” silk, which is stronger than steel in weight-for-weight terms. Who knows, maybe it will be used to help fight crime in the future?

A PIRATE CRYSIS

The video game Crysis 2topped the list of most illegally downloaded games and films of 2011, having been illegally downloaded an estimated 3.9 million times. The list has been published by TorrentFreak, a site that uses BitTorrent (a computer program that many use to download pirate music, films and games). Crysis 2was followed closely by the popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which received 3.6 million downloads. Recently released movies such as The Hangover: Part 2, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2and The King's Speechall clocked up millions of pirate downloads but it was Fast Fivethat took the title of Most Pirated Film, with a whopping 9 million illegal downloads.

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BRAND NEW PARTICLE

For the first time since its launch in 2009, the Large Hadron Collider at cern in Geneva has reported the discovery of a new particle in its Atlas Detector (used to detect rare particles), a vital step on the road to discovering the mysterious Higgs boson particle, believed to have been present during the Big Bang. It’s hoped the new particle, labelled Chi_b (3P), will provide insight into the functions of sub-atomic particles, both extending our knowledge of how they work and also discovering physics previously unknown. Scientists at cern have predicted its existence for years, however until now they had never seen it “in the wild”.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAWKING

Stephen Hawking, one of the most prominent physicists the world has known, had his 70th birthday on Sunday, January 8th. This was not only a milestone for him but also gives scientists yet another mystery to probe as Hawking is believed to be the longest living survivor of Motor Neurone disease. He has lived with the condition for almost 50 years, since being diagnosed at 21, despite the fact that he was only expected to live a few years from when the results came through. To mark the date, the University of Cambridge held a large symposium featuring talks from 27 of the world’s leading scientists. Unfortunately the great man himself was unable to attend due to illness.