&
PHOTOS: REINHARD DIRSCHERL/FLPA, GETTY LLUSTRATION: SAM FALCONERHow long is the largest
animal
intestine?
It’s a fairly close
contest between the
sperm whale and the
blue whale. For most whale
and dolphin species, the length of their
intestines works out as: (body length 0.762)
x 17.02. That comes to more than 150m of
intestine in the case of a large sperm whale
and possibly as much as 220m for a blue
whale. While this sounds enormous, it’s
actually only seven or eight times theHow often do large meteorites
hit the Moon?
The Moon is constantly being bombarded with meteorites,
but most of them are no bigger than specks of dust. Larger
impacts have been observed regularly over the years. In
February 2014, Spanish astronomers recorded the impact of
a meteorite weighing about 400kg. It was travelling at about
64,374km/h (40,000mph) and probably resulted in a crater
40m wide. Just six months earlier a NASA telescope spotted
the impact of a 40kg object. However, the actual yearly rate
of these impacts is unclear because astronomers have not
yet observed enough of them. AGThe idea of ‘X-ray goggles’ that allow us to see through solid walls
has been around for decades, but they’re a non-starter – not least
because X-rays are surprisingly easily absorbed by brick and
concrete. A cheaper, safer and more effective approach has now
been developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology using wireless signals.
We’ve all experienced the annoyance of radio reception
changing as we move around a room. But Prof Dina Katabi and
colleagues at MIT have found a way of exploiting this effect using
software that converts the changing strength of wireless signals
into images.
Because the wavelength of the signals is relatively large, the
resolution is poor, so it’s not possible to create realistic images of
people. But the team claim the technique is good enough to
distinguish individuals based on their physical shape. RMWill we ever be able to see
through walls?
towhale’s body length. In contrast, a cow has
intestines that are 20 times as long as its
body – that’s 40m for a 2m-long cow! LV