BBC_Science_Focus_-_08.2019

Q&A

DEAR DOCTOR...

DELICATE ISSUES DEALT WITH

BYSCIENCE FOCUS EXPERTS

WASPS SEEM TO ADORE ME.

WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET

THEM TO GO AWAY?

Wasps are aracted to white, bright blue and yellow,
but can’t see red, so plan your wardrobe accordingly.
Their vision is also optimised to look for the sudden,
sharp movements of insects, so wildly ailing as you
try to swat a wasp will just make it more determined.
Killing a wasp also releases pheromones that will
aract other wasps nearby. Instead, calmly trap the
wasp under a glass, so it can’t return to the nest and
tell the others where to find your food. A 2012 study
tested the wasp-repelling properties of dierent
essential oils and found that a mix of clove, geranium
and lemon rass oil was the most eective, so tr a

In the 1990s, researchers

proposed the ‘heat

hypothesis’ to explain the

fact that violent crimes go

up in the summer (the US

murder rate, for example,

rises by about 2.7 per

cent), and that aggressive

acts are oen more

common in hoer

countries – the basic idea

being that warmer

temperatures make us

more prone to losing our

temper and lashing out.

Of course, there are

many alternative

explanations for these

heat-crime links, such as

more people being out

and about in hot weather

(thus increasing the risk

of random altercations).

But multiple studies have

confirmed that you’re not

alone in finding that hot

weather makes you liable

to tantrums. In 2016, for

example, psychologists at

Texas Tech University

found that American

football players were

more likely to commit

aggressive fouls during

hoer weather.

The main psychological

explanation is that

because heat makes us

feel physically

uncomfortable, we’re

more inclined to

aggressive thoughts and

to interpret things in a

negative way. There are

tentative biological

explanations, too, with

recent Scandinavian

research identifying a link

between higher

temperatures and raised

serotonin levels – a brain

chemical that’s related

to impulsivity, among

other things.

So just like Bruce

Banner, it’s probably

worth making the extra

eort to keep cool in hot

weather, both literally

and emotionally. CJ

WHY DOES HOT WEATHER MAKE

ME TURN INTO THE HULK?

I’VE GOT A CRACKING SUNTAN

AT THE MOMENT. WILL IT

PROTECT ME FROM THE SUN?

Afraid not. A suntan is a sign that the damage is
already being done. When your skin is exposed to the
Sun’s ultraviolet (UV) radiation, the body responds by
producing the dark pigment melanin. This helps to
protect your skin by absorbing UV energy, but it gives
only a limited amount of protection, especially in
fair-skinned people. UV radiation will still be able to
penetrate skin cells and damage the DNA, increasing
your chances of developing skin cancer. So if you’re
going out, make sure you slather on the sunscreen
(dermatologists recommend at least SPF 30). If you
love having that post-holiday glow, fake tan might be
the way to go in future. HG

LEON DAVIES, LONDON

HOW DID

QWERTY END

UP ON OUR

KEYBOARDS

The arrangement that

we’re so familiar with

today evolved over

many iterations.

When newspaper

editor Christopher

Latham Sholes first

patented a design for

a typewriter in 1867,

he arranged the keys

alphabetically. Over

the next few years, he

experimented with

dierent layouts, such

as moving most of the

vowels to the top row,

and consonants lower.

The idea that Sholes’s

layouts were designed

to slow down typists,

and hence avoid

jammed keys, is now

thought to be an

urban myth. In fact,

there’s evidence that

Sholes was actually

trying to speed up

typing, following

feedback from

telegraph operators.

Either way, when the

rights to manufacture

the device were sold

to E. Remington and

Sons in 1873, his upper

row was QWE.TYIUOP,

and it took only a

couple of tweaks to

give the QWERTY

layout that’s now

widespread. If you

look at a keyboard,

you can still see the

remnants of Sholes’s

first alphabetical

layout in the middle

row keys: DFGHJKL. PB