Page 82 - BBC Focus - August 2017

IN NUMBERS
Can the placebo effect
harm you?
25
AMMAR EL-BEIK, BY EMAIL

The percentage of the
world’s population who eat
chillies every day.

How long could 100

you survive on
The number of tiny needles
beer alone? embedded into a painless
skin patch vaccine that
COLIN GRAY, CASTLE CARY
could be used instead of
Just as the placebo effect causes traditional syringes.
positive results if you believe you are Beer typically has around 40 calories per 100ml
taking beneficial medicine, there is (one pint = 568ml). To get your daily 2,000 calories
a negative version, called the nocebo just from beer, you’d need to drink 11 pints every
effect. This creates harmful effects day, which is hardly healthy. But the alcohol is the 6,000
such as pain, high blood pressure, least of your problems. Beer, even real ale or
dizziness and rashes if you believe that Guinness, contains no fat, almost no protein and
these are possible side effects of the – crucially – no vitamin C. Without any source of The number of wildebeest
medication you have been given, even vitamin C, you’ll experience symptoms of scurvy that drown during the
though it’s a placebo. LV in two or three months and be dead in six. LV migration every year.

How hot could Earth get before
it’s uninhabitable for humans?
JACOB HIPKISS, SOUTHWELL
What is being done to preserve Pompeii?
SARAH FOX, AUSTRALIA
Humans need to sweat to survive in warm
conditions, and that’s only possible if the PHOTOS: GETTY X4, WIKIPEDIA ILLUSTRATIONS: RAJA LOCKEY
combination of temperature and humidity – known The main threat to the already excavated buildings and mosaics is
as the wet-bulb temperature – stays below around moisture, which attacks the plaster and mortar. But Pompeii has
35°C. According to a 2012 study by scientists at attracted the best archaeological conservationists from around
MIT, this limit could be reached globally if our the world. In 2012, a 10-year project began installing protective
planet warms by around 12°C. Fortunately, few roofs, removing existing moisture and researching the chemical
scientists think global warming will do this in the structure of ancient plasters. There is also a moratorium on new
foreseeable future. RM archaeological excavations. LV

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