大象传媒

The latest observations beamed back from the New Horizons mission to Pluto show possible volcanic-type structures made from ice. The mountains have what appear to be caldera-like depressions in the top. Unlike volcanoes on Earth, that erupt molten rock, the suspected volcanoes on Pluto, would likely erupt an icy slush of substances such as water, nitrogen, ammonia or methane.

Venus Twin
Even further afield, but not too far, scientists have discovered a rocky exoplanet orbiting a star just 39 light-years away, meaning that our best telescopes may be able to probe the composition of its atmosphere. Likely more similar to Venus than to Earth, it has nevertheless been called the most important exoplanet yet discovered.

Arsonist Psychology
Every week in the UK 65 people are killed or injured in arson attacks and worldwide there are hundreds of millions of dollars of damage caused every week. So a psychologist at the University of Kent is trying to understand more about the psychology of arsonists and why some people are drawn to the idea of setting fire to things. Based on interviews with large numbers of convicted arsonists, Theresa Gannon has been developing a treatment that she hopes will stop people offending again.

Early Apiarists
Humans have been exploiting honeybees for almost 9,000 years, according to archaeological evidence. Traces of beeswax found on ancient pottery from Europe, the Near East and North Africa suggest the first farmers kept bees. The research, published in Nature, shows our links with the honeybee date back to the dawn of agriculture.

The Genetics of Intelligence
Professor Robert Plomin talks to Jim al-Khalili about what makes some people smarter than others and why he is fed up with the genetics of intelligence being ignored. Born and raised in Chicago, Robert sat countless intelligence tests at his inner city Catholic school. College was an attractive option mainly because it seemed to pay well. Now he is one of the most cited psychologists in the world. He specialized in behavioural genetics in the mid '70s when the focus in mainstream psychology was very much on our nurture rather than our nature, and genetics was virtually taboo. But he persisted conducting several large adoption studies and later twin studies. In 1995 he launched the biggest longitudinal twin study in the UK, the TED study of 10,000 pairs of twins which continues to this day. In this study and in his other work, he has shown consistently that genetic influences on intelligence are highly significant, much more so than what school you go to, your teachers or home environment. If only the genetic differences between children were fully acknowledged, he believes education could be transformed and parents might stop giving themselves such a hard time.

Ant Superorganism
Ants behave as a superorganism when under predation threat - complex chemical communication in rock ants are key to how they behave as a unit to different threats. And fire ants take this further and are of interest even to materials scientists for the way they can hold onto each other and form structures.

History of the Future
大象传媒 News journalist Melissa Hogenboom continues her exploration of the history of the future at the Science Museum in London. This week, she looks at the development of the disposable plastic hypodermic syringe.

(Image caption: Wright Mons is located south of Sputnik Planum on Pluto 漏 NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute)

The Science Hour was presented by Jack Stewart with comments from 大象传媒 Science reporter Helen Briggs

Producer: Alex Mansfield

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