What's been going on this month

A round-up of today's other stories in brief...

FAST FOOD AFFECTS YOUR BRAIN

Children who eat to much fat, sugars and processed foods are likely to have lower IQs, according to a major British study.

A diet mainly consisting of processed foods at three years old is associated with a lower IQ at the age of eight-and-a-half.

The study of 14,000 children found that a diet rich in vitamins and nutrients when young made them smarter as they got older.

ARE YOU LIVING INSIDE A COMPUTER?

Of all the strange ideas to emerge from science in recent years – and there have been many – one of the most intriguing has been the idea that we might all be living inside a computer simulation.

So far, so The Matrix. But it has been given serious thought by some very serious scientists.

It all stems from the idea that there are a great many different universes. An advanced civilisation in one might create computer versions of their universe, and that computer version may create more and so on until the odds that we are living in a computer simulation are greater than those of living in the real world.

Here's one of the world's best known physicists, Brian Greene, talking recently to New Scientist.

“I catch myself thinking about simulations when I’m looking at my kids. When I see them doing things that are so unexpected, it’s hard for me to imagine that some computer simulation came up with that behaviour. I know that doesn’t hold much water, because a good enough computer simulation might do so.

“Would it matter? In a way it wouldn’t. If I have been simulated for all the years I’ve been on this Earth, it’s been a fun ride. If The Simulator is listening to me right now: keep it going! You know, it’s been good. And the fact that we can use our minds, even if they are simulated minds, to apparently gain insight into the world, even if it’s simulated insight, is exciting.”

Watch more: The Matrixis based on the idea that humans are living in a virtual world, with a body back in the real world where robots use them for food.

ANIMAL OF THE MONTH

Hedgehog-like mammals called tenrecs have been filmed using their quills to communicate. The creatures, who are based only in Madagascar, they rub their quills together to produce a high-pitched ultra-sound sound – the only animals in the world to communicate this way.

Watch this amazing little animal, and David Attenborough’s explanation, at url.ie/941l

DISAPPEAR IN AN INVISIBILITY CLOAK

The search for invisibility (if you can find something invisible. . .) got a boost when scientists unveiled an invisibility cloak that can hide small objects.

It works by using crystals to bend light. If you want to see it work, check out url.ie/941g

THE FLEA’S KNEES

Scientists have finally figured out why a flea can jump so high – after a 44-year row about whether the energy needed was stored in the flea’s knee or its toes. It turns out to be thanks to the toes.

The insects achieve a significant speed, as high as or 6.84km per hour. That might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but it is worth remembering that the flea weighs less than a thousandth of a gram and is little bigger than a grain of sugar.

NEXT ISSUE: MARCH:Can you give yourself a photographic memory?