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Volume 233 No 3110
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Leaders
News 5
8
News
Animal orga Animal organ n donors We’re re onestep one stepclos closer er togr to grow owingour ingour own own organs organs in other other anim animals als
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On the cover
30 The meaning of life There’s a purpose to existence, if you know where to find it
Food Food safetyoverrule safetyoverruless free free trade. trade. Asteroid risk deserves a closer look
34 Buttoned Buttoned up Does Does your your phone phone have have the right right to remain remain silent? silent? 39 In the classwom classwomb b Babies Babies learnbefore learnbefore birth 42 Giftof Giftof thegab Theman whospeaks whospeaks 50 languages languages 14 HumanBSE The second second wave? wave? 9 Asteroid interceptor How to chase space rocks
Coverimage Emiliano Ponzi
UPFR UPFRON ONT T What What Trump rump didin hisfirstweekin office office.. No-strikelist No-strikelist forYemen’s forYemen’s archaeolo archaeology gy.. Why Samsung Samsung phones phones exploded exploded 8 NEWS& NEWS& TECH TECHNO NOL LOGY OGY Earth’s water came early. early. How to deflect an asteroid asteroid.. Birdevolves Birdevolves in response response to climate climate change change.. Superf Superflui luid d black black holes. holes. Hum Humans ans warmcities on weekdays weekdays.. Dried up bacter bacteria ia may survive in Mars brine. Buildings predict their own faults. Psychopaths Psychopaths aren’t that cleve cleverr. Next Next waveof waveof madcow diseas disease. e. Brainwa Brainwave ve passwor passwords ds and whisky whisky don’tmix. Robot skin detects heat like like a snake. snake. Seals huntby sensing sensing fish breath breath 19 INBRIEF INBRIEF Fox Fox wearspuma wearspuma scent scent.. Illusi Illusion on eases eases fear fear of death. death. Archerfis Archerfish h shoot shoot things things underwat underwater er.. Fairy circles explained. Eggshell data store
Analysis How clos close e are are weto a cure cure?? 22 Alzheimer’s How 24 COMMENT Why Chelsea Manning deserves freedom. Moral Moral maze maze ofcostly ofcostly drugs drugs for for rare rare diseas disease e 25 INSIGHT INSIGHT Lessons Lessons fromfailed hunt for flight MH370
Aperture 26 A grain’s eye view of lucky cranes
Features
Features
34
above left) left) 30 Themeaningof life (see above left) 34 Buttoned Buttoned up (see left) before 39 In the classwom classwomb b How babies learn before they’re they’re born 42 PEOPLE PEOPLE Alexander Arguelles speaks speaks 50 languages
Buttoned up Does your phone have the right to remain silent?
Culture S E D A R P N O M I S
Comin Co ming g ne next xt we week… ek… Essenc Ess ence e of rea realit lity y The hunt for the universe’s most basic thing
single predicti prediction on 44 Power Power of Moore Moore Howa single aboutmicrochips aboutmicrochips changed changed the world world 46 Smarter secrets Probing primate intelligence intelligence takes imagination
Regulars 52 55 56 57
Could owningan owningan AI be slaver slavery? y? LETTERS LETTERS Could each your your oldphonenew tricks tricks MAKE MAKE Teach sorting g hatforthe bank bank FEEDBACK FEEDBACK A sortin THELASTWORD THELASTWORD Lunar landscape
Anti-memories Manipulating minds to erase the past
28 January 2017 | NewScientist | 3
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No bee beef with ith burea reauc ucrracy Free trad trade e is on the the agen agenda da,, but but food ood saf safety ety mu must st come come firs firstt LOCALS LOCALS were were startled startled last week week when when thousand thousandss of Skittleswere Skittleswere foun found d ona road road in Wisco Wisconsi nsin. n. Butthey were were even even morestartled morestartled when when thefruity sweets sweets turned turned out tohave tohave fallenoffa fallenoffa truckcarry truckcarrying ing them them as cattle cattle feed. feed. It matte matters rs whatwe whatwe feed feed our our livesto livestock.A ck.A smallchange smallchange in UK cattle-feedingpractices cattle-feedingpractices in the 1980s 1980s led to“mad cowdisease” cowdisease”, andthen to horrend horrendous ous illness illness and and killedsomepeop killedsomepeople le who who ate ate affecte affected d meat. meat. Nowwe know know that that many many morepeoplemay have have been been infecte infected d than than original originally ly though thoughtt – andanewwaveofvCJDmaybeon itsway(seepage14). Thatthe Thatthe numb number er ofcases ofcases is likelyto likelyto remain remain fairly fairly smallis dumbluck dumbluck.. But But it was was not not luck luck
that that contain contained ed the epidemicin epidemicin the the first first place place,, it was was strictfood strictfood safety safety rules rules – which which protecte protected d beef-eaters beef-eaters worldwide. worldwide. Between 1980 1980 and1996,the and1996,the UK expor exporte ted d anima animall feed feed tomorethan 80 countri countries, es, much much of it likely likely to havebeen havebeen infecte infected d withBSE. Regulat Regulationsstoppin ionsstopping g this, this, and changin changing g thehandling thehandling of cattle, cattle, eventuall eventually y stopped the disease spreadingamong spreading amonganimals. animals. Now,withBrex Now,withBrexit it likel likely y tobe triggeredimminen triggered imminently tly,, those control controlss – along along withothers careful carefully ly enacte enacted d over over decades decades – arebackup for for deba debate.Thisis te.Thisis especiall especially y notable notable as theUK looks looks for newtrade agreeme agreementswith ntswith theUS, withagricultur withagriculturee firstin linefor negotia negotiation tion..
Keep an eye on space DURING last year’s year’s interminable interminable US presiden presidentialcampaig tialcampaign, n, some enterpr enterprisin ising g cynic cynic madebumper madebumper sticker stickerss that that read, read, “Giant “Giant Meteor Meteor 2016:Just endit already already””. That mightnow mightnow bea bitmorelikely bitmorelikely.. The The odds odds ofan astero asteroid id strik strikee arelow, arelow, but but theeffec theeffects ts woul would d be catastro catastrophic phic.. So effortsto effortsto detect detect Earth-crossing Earth-crossing objects have have been rampe ramped d up– but but wedon’t wedon’t know know whatwe’ whatwe’d d do ifwe foun found d one. one.
Oneideaistonudgeitontoa harmlesstraject harmlesstrajectory ory.. Tohelp us do that, that, we’d need need to know know what what such bodiesare bodiesare made made of(seepage9). Twomissions Twomissions are plannedto plannedto work work onthe proble problem: m: in2022, in2022, theEuropean theEuropean Space Space Agency’ Agency’ss AIM craft craft should should arriveat arriveat theasteroid Didymos, Didymos, whileNASA’ while NASA’ss DART DART probe probe would would crashinto its companion, “Didymoon”. “Didymoon”. But But both both arenowin doubt doubt::
Inthis new new worldorde worldorder,the r,the temptat temptationwill ionwill be to wave wave aside aside rules rules that that safeguar safeguard d thefood chain chain if theypresent theypresent barriers barriers to strikingdeals. strikingdeals. Butsuch regulat regulationsare ionsare notjust needles needlesss bureaucracy bureaucracy,, despite political caricat caricatures ures.. TheBSE epidemic epidemic demonst demonstrate ratess that that they they offer offer real protection: protection: they cannotsimply cannot simply becastoff,no matte matterr how how vehementl vehemently y industry industry claims they they stifle stifle salesand profitab profitability ility.. Whenever Whenever regulatory regulatory regimes meet, meet, gapsappear throughwhich throughwhich new new risks risks emerge.We emerge.We know know there there are other other food-bor food-borne ne illnesse illnessess outthere.Skittles-f outthere.Skittles-fed ed beef beef may(or may may not) not) beinnocu beinnocuousin ousin termsof termsof huma human n healt health.But h.But weneed weneed tobe surewhatelse we’re we’re eating eating.. ■
ESA’s ESA’s membershav members haven’t en’t funded AIM, AIM, and and DART ART is inlimbowhile inlimbowhile the the WhiteHou WhiteHouse se – whichonl whichonly y recent recently ly releaseda releaseda documen documentt outlini outlining ng the asteroidthreat– asteroidthreat– decid decideswha eswhatt todo with with NASA NASA.. Given Given theground-base theground-based d risks risks weface (and (and axeing axeing NASA’ NASA’ss earth earth scienceprogramme is definitely definitely on theTrump agenda),asteroi agenda),asteroids ds mightnot might not seem high-priority. high-priority. But it would be prudent prudent to keep an eye on threats from space as well as on Earth. If Trump won’t back DART, DART, ESA should go it alone. ■ 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 5
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Texas abortion abortion law
A P / A S U A P I S P N C
A LAWthat LAWthat was was laterrule laterruled d unconstitutional has been linked to a drop in clinic-performed abortions across Texas. The 2013 Texas House Bill 2 required facilities that perform abortions to meet hospital-like building standards. Before the US Supreme Court overturned it in 2016, 2016, many many clinics clinics were were forced forced to close. close. In 2012, 2012, 41 faciliti facilities es offered offered abortionsin abortions in Texas Texas – by 2014, there were just 21. The distance a woman need needed ed totravel totravel toget anabortion anabortion increase increased d by an averag averagee of 80 kilometr kilometres es across across thestate. Where Where thisdistance thisdistance went went up by 160 kilometres or more, Texas Texas Department of State Health Service Servicess datareveals datareveals that that the
“The law was purportedly intended to protect women’s health, but forced many clinics to close”
Trump’s rump’s anti-science era begins THE writing is on the wall for Barack Obama’s climate legacy. Hours after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, his administration administration removed the page on climate change from the White House website and published a new page, An America First Energy Plan. This plan says Trump will roll back two key elements of Obama’s environment policy: the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the US rule, which expanded the freshwater freshwater areas protected by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers. It outlines plans to exploit untapped shale, oil and natural gas reserves on federal land and revive the US coal industry. It also says Trump will “refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air
6 | NewScientist | 28 January 2017
and water”, suggesting it will abandon regulating greenhouse gas emissions. That may not prove simple. A US Supreme Court ruling established that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and the EPA must therefore address it under the Clean Air Act. “The Trump administration administration is legally obligated to do something and if they don’t there will be litigation and lawsuits,” lawsuits,” says Henrik Selin at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Although Trump has called global warming “a hoax”, his nominees for relevant cabinet positions have struck a more conciliatory note. For example, Scott Pruitt, his pick to lead the EPA, said: “Science tells us that the climate is changing and that human activity, in some manner, impacts that change.” Such statements make it difficult for their opponents to label them as
climate change deniers, while giving them room to manoeuvre on policy. Other decisions in Trump’s first days in office have also dismayed observers. He has reinstated a federal ban on US funding for international health organisations that counsel women on abortion. And he selected Ajit Pai as chairman of the US Federal Communications Communications Commission. Pai opposed net neutrality regulations that were passed in 2015 to ensure an open internet and prevent broadband providers from blocking or throttling throttling access to content. Meanwhile, there were rumours that the EPA this week has frozen all of its grants and that the US Department of Agriculture has banned its scientists from talking openly about their work. Quite the first 100 hours in office.
number number of clinic clinic abortion abortionss halve halved. d. Overall,the Overall,the number number of abortion abortionss inTexas inTexas droppe dropped d bymorethan 12,000 12,000 in a two-y two-year ear period. period. “The “The law was purporte purportedly dly intended intended to protectwomen protect women’s ’s health health,”says ,”says LizaFuentes LizaFuentes at healthorganisation the Guttmacher Guttmacher Institute. Institute. But because someclinics someclinics were were forced forced to stop offerin offering g abortion abortions, s, somewomen could could not getthe servicesthey servicesthey were were seeking,she seeking,she says. says.
Potato warning THE UK Food Food Standard Standardss Agency Agency (FSA) (FSA) haslaunched haslaunched a campaig campaign n warningof warningof thecancerrisk associatedwith cooking cooking potatoes and other other starchyfoods starchyfoods at high high temperatures. During During cooking cooking,, sugars sugars and amino amino acidsreact togethe togetherr to formthousands formthousands of chemic chemicals. als. Oneof these these is acrylami acrylamide,which de,which canbe foundin foundin foodslikebrea foodslikebread d and potatoeswhen potatoeswhen they they have have been been cookedabove120 cookedabove120 °C. In thebody, thebody, acrylami acrylamide de is
Fornew stori stories es ev every eryday day,, visitnewscien visitnewscientist.c tist.com/ne om/news ws
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converted to another compound that can trigger DNA mutations, and animal studies suggest this can cause cancer. But it has been difficult to establish the risk to humans. “Although evidence from animal studies has shown that acrylamide in food could be linked to cancer, this link isn’t clear and consistent in i n humans,” says Emma Shields at charity Cancer Research UK. Nevertheless, the FSA is encouraging people to “go for gold” – aim for a golden yellow colour or lighter when frying, baking, toasting or roasting starchy foods.
Phone Phonefi fire re fault faults s
2016 2016:: Hottes Hottestt year year
concentrationssurged concentrationssurged to new records records.. Bothcontribut Bothcontributee to climate climate change change,” ,” saidWMO secretary secretary general general PetteriTaalas. Petteri Taalas. The The analy analysi siss isbased isbased ondata from from theUK’s Met OfficeHadley OfficeHadley
LAST LAST yearwas thehottest thehottest year on record record globally,beatin globally,beating g 2015’s 2015’s exceptionally exceptionally high temperatures, temperatures, the World Meteorological Meteorological Organisation Organisation has said. Theglobal averagetemper averagetemperatur aturee “Carbon dioxide and in2016was 1.1°Chigherthanpre1.1°Chigherthanpre- methane levels surged industr industrial ial levels levels and about about 0.07°C to new records. Both higherthan higherthan theprevious theprevious record record add to climate change” setin2015.TheWMOsaidthat 2016 2016 alsosaw recordlevel recordlevelss of Centre,the Centre,the Univers University ity of East greenhouse greenhousegases gasesand and melting meltingice. ice. Anglia’sClimatic Research Research Unit, “Long-ter “Long-term m indicatorsof indicatorsof theUS NationalOceani NationalOceanicc and human-causedclimate human-causedclimate change Atmospheric Atmospheric Administration Administration reache reached d newheights newheights in 2016. 2016. and NASA’sGoddardInstit NASA’sGoddardInstitute ute Carbon Carbon dioxide dioxide andmethane andmethane forSpace Studies Studies..
No-strike list for Yemen’s history
SAMSUNGhas SAMSUNGhas identifi identified ed the TENS of thousands of archaeological batteryfaultsthat batteryfaultsthat caused caused its sites are being discovered in Yemen Galaxy Galaxy Note7 cellphon cellphones es to catch catch by researchers who are shortlisting fire,leadi fire,leadingto ngto a globalreca globalrecall ll of candidates to go on a “no-strike list” 2.5 million million devicesin devicesin 2016. 2016. for combatants in the latest attempt After After testingmore testingmore than than to protect treasures from the war. 20,000 20,000 Galaxy Galaxy Note Note 7 phones phones and Since 2015, the Yemen 300,000 batteries, batteries, the company company government, backed by a Saudi found found twodifferentissue twodifferentissuess with Arabian-led Arabian-led coalition, has been the phones’lithium-ionbatteries fighting Houthi rebels. The death toll that that could could cause cause themto short short reached at least 10,000 last week, circuitand circuit and overheat. overheat. Independent Independent and damage is widespread, including invest investiga igation tionss alsofound that that the to the old cities of Sana’a and batterie batteriess were were to blame. blame. Zabid – both World Heritage Sites. “It’s almost a joke the rate at which Inthe initia initiall batc batch h ofNote7s, the battery’s battery’s layers layers of negative negative we are discovering sites – it’s hard and positive positive electrodes electrodes could to convey just how much we are recovering,” says Michael Fradley sometim sometimes es get squish squished ed in one corner corner,, causin causing g themto bend bend and at the University of Oxford’s get get closeenou closeenoughto ghto eachothe eachotherr to Endangered Endangered Archaeology in the producea producea short short circuit. circuit. S E Afterpeople After people reported reported incidents incidents G A M I of their their phones phones catchin catching g fire, fire, Y T T E Samsung Samsung changed changed battery G / Y C supplie supplier. r. Butthe newbatteries newbatteries N E G hada differe different nt flaw flaw. A thinlayer A U L O D that that separat separates es thepositive thepositive and A N A / negative negative electrodes electrodes contained contained A H D I punctures, punctures, whichcould again W O I L lead lead toa shor shortt circu circuit. it. A Samsung Samsung stoppedprodu stopped producing cing GalaxyNote7s GalaxyNote7s inOctobe inOctober,but r,but will will be launchi launching ng theGalaxy S8 phone phone this this year year.. The The firm firm saysit saysit will will introduce introduce protocolsincluding a new new batterysafetycheckto batterysafetycheckto –Will anyone heed the cultural list?– list?– preven preventt problemsin problemsin thefuture. thefuture.
Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA), which is documenting ancient sites using Google Earth. Spectacular discoveries include ancient walled cities, historic mountaintop villages, prehistoric burial sites and long rows of standing stones, or trilithons, linked with the incense trade. EAMENA is producing a cultural heritage list that it says the US Committee of the Blue Shield will put to the Saudi-led coalition to use as a no-strike list. Whether the combatants will pay heed is another matter. The list may increase the legal pressure on the coalition, because there is criminal liability for some cultural offences under a 1954 Hague Convention.
Mars cracks up NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover has examined slabs of rock that seem to be cracked, dry mud. Found in a region nicknamed “Old Soaker”, the rocks are scored with thin, shallow ridges that break the surface into four and five-sided shapes, unlike anything else seen on Mars so far. The cracks might be from long-lived Martian lakes periodically drying up.
Early menopause link Women are 31 per cent more likely to have an early menopause if they started menstruating before age 12. The largest study of its kind found that 8.8 per cent of women who got their first period aged 11 or younger experienced the menopause early, between the ages of 40 and 44. Just over 3.1 per cent began before the age of 40 (HumanReproduction, DOI: 10.1093/humrep/dew350).
Hack-proof The world’s first quantum communication satellite is performing “much better” than expected. China’s Quantum Experiment at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite, launched in August 2016, will use quantum mechanics to enable ultra-secure communications.
10 metres of sea rise Global sea levels could rise by up to 2.5 metres by 2100 and up to 9.7 metres by 2200. So says the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The agency revised its worst-case scenarios now several recent studies suggest Antarctic ice is melting faster than expected.
Sexual feeling In the mood? Injections of a hormone named kisspeptin increase the brain’s response to arousing images Journal of of Clinic Clinical al Inv Investig estigatio ation n, ( Journal doi.org/bxqh). The study involved 29 young men, but the team plans to look at the effects in women too. They hope the research may help devise treatments for psychosexual disorders.
28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 7
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Can pigs grow human organs? Mouse ouse pa panc ncre rea ases ses ha have be ve been en gr gro own in in rats, rats, live livers rs could ould be ne be nex xt, finds finds Clare Wilso Wilson n TRANSPLANT waiting lists could become a thing of the past if we could find a way to grow human organs inside other animals. Now mouse pancreases have been grown inside rats – a first step towards a ready supply of organs for transplant. When small parts of these organs were transplanted into mice with diabetes, it reversed their disease. This finding raises the prospect that someone needing a new liver, for instance, could have what is essentially their own organ grown to order inside a specially conceived conceived piglet, within a year of providing a small skin sample. Pigs or sheep make the best candidates, because their organs are a similar size to ours. Donor organs are in short supply. Only around 3 in 1000 people die in a way that makes them suitable as organ donors. In the UK, nearly a third of people who need an organ wait more than
Y T T E G / S I E W D E R F N A M
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two two yearsin yearsin poor poor heal health,andone th,andone Once Once therats reached reached in10 diewhileon diewhileon the the waiti waitinglist. nglist. adulthood, adulthood, the team removed removed Theshortage Theshortage has prompted prompted thepancreases thepancreases and implante implanted d researchinto researchinto creatin creating g organs organs in cluster clusterss of these these pancreat pancreatic ic cells cells thelab. Many Many of these these methods methods into into micewith diabete diabetes. s. These These involv involvee stemcells,whichcan be cluster clusters, s, or islets, islets, restoredthe restoredthe encoura encouragedto gedto formmost types types blood blood glucoseleve glucoselevels ls of themice of tissueusing differentmixtures differentmixtures to normal for over over a year ( Nature, of chemica chemicall cues cues and signallin signalling g DOI: 10.1038/nature21070). molecules. molecules. However,growing However,growing This is the first time this kind large large organs organs withcomplex withcomplex threethree- of inter-species organ generation dimensio dimensional nal structu structures res andtheir hassuccessfull hassuccessfully y treated treated a medical medical ownblood supply supply hasprovedfar “This is the first time this from easy. easy. kind of inter-species organ Instead,Hiromitsu Nakauchi Nakauchi generation has treated a at theUniversit theUniversity y of Tokyo Tokyo,, Japan, Japan, medical condition” andhis team team used used rat rat embry embryos os as living living incubat incubators.They ors.They began began by genetic geneticallymodify allymodifying ing conditi condition.“It on.“It proved proved those those parent parent ratsso their their offsprin offspring g pancreatic islets must be very would would be unable unable to make make their their functional,” says Nakauchi. ownpancreas. ownpancreas. A fewdays after after That doesn’t mean doing the conceptio conception, n, theyinjected theyinjected mouse mouse same with whole organs in pigs stemcells into into thetiny rat and people is imminent, though. embryos, which developed as The team used clusters of cells, normal, except their pancreases instead of transplanting whole mostly comprised mouse cells. pancreases, partly because the
procedure is relatively easy. As humans and pigs are less genetically similar than rats and mice, the growing organ might be attacked by the piglet’s immune system. The team found that the islet clusters contained some rat cells from other tissues, but that the mouse immune system seemed to kill these without harming the pancreas cells. However, this may be more dangerous if a whole, large organ is transplanted. While the approach was used to cure mice with diabetes, people can already be treated with insulin. So the technique may prove more important for treating other diseases. New organs are more urgently needed for people with failing hearts, livers, lungs and kidneys, says Nakauchi. So far, his team has managed to modify rats so they don’t grow a liver, so it should be possible to grow mouse liver cells for transplant in a similar way to the islet cells. But getting rid of the heart is likely to be more difficult, he says. There are also ethical issues. Because the technique would involve inserting human cells into pig embryos, the adult animals could have some human brain cells. Does that mean we should give those pigs greater moral consideration? Ethicists will need to tackle such issues as research into such human-pig chimeras continues, says Bernhard Hering at the University of Minnesota. “We are crossing a crucial line here. But exciting papers always come with new questions.” quest ions.” Researchers may be able to avoid creating pig-human brains by using human stem cells that have been genetically altered so they are incapable of forming –Organs made to order? order?–– brain tissue. ■
Inthis sec sectio tion n Bird d ev evolv olves es in res respons ponse e to cli climat mate e cha change,page nge,page 10 ■ Bir ■ Dried-up bacteria may survive in Mars brine, page 11 ■ How close are we to an Alzheimer’s cure?, page 22
Late arrival of Earth’s water ruled out THEarrivalof THEarrivalof wateron wateron ourplanet ourplanet is shrouded shrouded in mystery mystery.. Our leading leading theorysays icymeteoritesbrought it here here after after most most ofthe planetand planetand itscorehad formed formed,, about4.5 about4.5 billio billion n years years ago. ago. Butnow ananalysisof ananalysisof isotopes isotopes frommeteorites frommeteorites seems to implythat implythat thewet stuffgot stuffgot here here muchsooner. MarioFisher-Gö Mario Fisher-Gödde dde andThorsten and Thorsten Kleine Kleine at the Universityof Universityof Münster, Münster, Germany,looked Germany,looked the TagishLake TagishLake meteoritesthat meteoritesthat fellin British British Columbia,Canada, Columbia,Canada, in January January 2000. Theycomparedthe abundanc abundance e of ruthenium ruthenium isotopes isotopes in these meteoriteswith meteoriteswith the abundance abundance in Earth’s mantle. mantle. “Meteorite “Meteorites s impacted impacted Earth duringits duringits forma formationandtheycan tionandtheycan leave leave signatures, signatures,”” saysKatherine saysKatherine Berminghamat Berminghamat the Universityof Universityof Maryla Maryland.If nd.If this this kind kind oficy meteori meteorite te brough broughtt waterto waterto Earth Earth late late inthe planet’s formation, formation, then the isotopes insidethemshoul insidethemshould d matchthe matchthe isotopes isotopes in Earth’s mantle. mantle. “Rutheniumisotopesare “Rutheniumisotopesare stable. stable. That That means means they they canactas fingerprints,” fingerprints,” says Bermingham. Butthe team team foundthat foundthat the ruthenium ruthenium isotopes isotopes in the meteorites meteorites didnot matchthosefoun matchthosefound d inEarth’s inEarth’s mantle mantle (Nature , DOI: DOI: 10.103 10.1038/ 8/
“We can now rule out water arriving on icy comets after the planet was mostly formed” nature21045 nature21045). ). “Wecan exclude exclude a late water delivery,” delivery,” Fisher Gödde says. “The ruthenium data suggest comets could not have played a large part in the late addition of material to Earth,” says Lydia Hallis at the University of Glasgow, UK. Hallis previously used hydrogen isotope ratios in volcanic basalt rocks to conclude that Earth’s water may in fact have been part of the very dust cloud from which the planet first condensed. Chelsea Whyte ■
Y R A R B I L O T O H P E C N E I C S / K I N T U P S
–Chelyabinsk was a close shave– shave–
Apocalyptic asteroids have chink in armour WHEN WHEN you you need need tosaveEarth tosaveEarth froman incomin incoming g asteroid asteroid,, try shootin shooting g at its bright bright spots. spots. A newanalysis newanalysis of fragmen fragments ts of the Chelyabinsk Chelyabinsk meteor, meteor, which explodedover explodedover Russia Russia in 2013, 2013, suggeststhat suggeststhat firing firing somethin something g at an asteroid asteroid’’s lighter lighter areas areas maybethebestwaytodeflectit. TheChel The Chelyabi yabinsk nskobjec objectt arrived arrived withoutwarning, injuring injuring around around 1500people.If would-b would-bee planetar planetary y protecto protectors rs do spot somethin something g similar similar en route, route, they couldusea couldusea projec projectil tilee toshift toshift it offcourse.But figuringout figuringout how is tricky tricky,, andnot somethin something g to betrying betrying for for the the first first time time with with an asteroidhurtlin asteroidhurtling g toward toward us. Theperfectshot transfer transferss maximu maximum m moment momentum um to the target target withoutbreakin withoutbreaking g it apart apart completely completely.. Toachie To achieve ve that,we that, we need need to know know its composi compositionand tionand intern internal al structu structure, re, and then then take take aim accordingly accordingly.. “Beforefiring “Before firing theprojectile,we theprojectile,we would would need need to study study carefull carefully y thesurfaceof the body body andselect thebest location location,” ,” says says Josep Josep Trigo-R Trigo-Rodríg odríguezat uezat theInstitute theInstitute of Space Space Science Sciencess in Barcelon Barcelona, a, Spain. Spain.
One One issueis issueis thatthe thatthe three three materia materials ls were were mingledin mingledin the sample,whichwas sample,whichwas only only about about a square square centime centimetre tre in cross cross section.“It’s not currently currently obvious Work led by Carles Carles Moyano Moyano-howwell we canextrapolatefrom canextrapolatefrom Cambero,Trigo-Rodríguez’ss Cambero,Trigo-Rodríguez’ small small scales scales to asteroidscale, asteroidscale,”” says says graduat graduatee student student,, lookedat lookedat Andy Andy Rivkin Rivkin at theJohns Hopkins Hopkins the the threerock threerockss makin making g upthe Applied Applied Physic Physicss Lab in Laurel, Laurel, Chelyab Chelyabinskobject:a inskobject:a paleand Maryland Maryland.. Forexample, Forexample, we don’t don’t relativ relativelypristin elypristinee materia materiall witha know know of asteroid asteroidss where where the grainy grainy texture,a texture,a darker darker substan substance ce differen differentt rocks rocks forma patchw patchwork ork withopaqueveins,and anothe anotherr of metre-s metre-sizedor izedor larger larger pieces pieces darkmaterial darkmaterial filled filled withdropletwithdropletthat that could could be targeted targeted.. At best, best, shape shaped d bits bits of metal metal.. The The team team wecould wecould look look for for anarea with with a madetiny indenta indentation tionss in each high high proporti proportion on of thepaler rock. rock. witha diamond diamond-tip -tipped ped probe, probe, to Right Right now, now, our analyse analysess are measurehardne measurehardness ss and stiffne stiffness ss “literally “literally skin-deep” skin-deep”,, says Vishnu (arxiv.org/abs/1612.07131). Reddy Reddy at theUniversity theUniversity of Arizona Arizona Those propertiesinflu properties influence ence inTucson.“Whatweneedtoknow the the choic choicee oftarget oftarget andhow intheendiswhatisinsidean much much theasteroid’ theasteroid’s pathcould asteroid asteroid..” Tohelp us find find out, out, a be shifted.“The shifted.“There re are pieces pieces that that missioncalled missioncalled DARTis supposed supposed fly fly offa littlebit littlebit like like the the drople droplets ts tocrashintoa smallaste smallasteroi roid d in offluidifyouthrowarockinto the2020s, and anothercalled anothercalled a pond, pond,”” saysPaulMille saysPaulMillerr of AIMwill study study that that impact.But impact.But LawrenceLivermore National National thestatusofbothisindoubt(see Laboratoryin California.“[Aiming “Keepwatchon “Keepwatchon space” space”,, page5). at] that that materialactuall materialactually y gives gives you “Soon “Sooneror eror later later wewill bonuspush, bonus push, bonus momentum. momentum.”” convince convince our politicians that As a targe target, t, the the pale pale mater material ial these these pioneer pioneer missionsto missionsto test won won out: out: it was was softe softer,so r,so can impact impact deflecti deflection on in asteroid asteroidss “splash “splash up”as Miller Miller describe describess are needed right now,” now,” Trigomoreeasily. moreeasily. That That samerock is Rodríguez says. “The next asteroid commonin commonin near-Ear near-Earth th asteroid asteroids, s, to hit the Earth is probably not andcanbe detec detectedfromafar tedfromafar known yet. We should shoul d be ready.” ready.” Joshua Sokol ■ using spectral analysis. analysis. 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 9
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changing changing conditions, conditions, or whether whether the the popul populati ationas onas a wholewas wholewas evolving. So Evans Evans combed combed through through 34 years’worthof years’worthof records.He records.He population population of collared flycatcher flycatcherss found found that that early early on,birds with on theBaltic island island of Gotland. Gotland. largerforehead patches patches were Every Every year, year, he and his colleag colleagues ues more more likely likely to contrib contribute ute genes genes have have marked marked every every newbird with to future future genera generation tionss thantheir numbered numbered leg-bands, leg-bands, allowingthe allowing the small-patche small-patched d neighbours,as neighbours,as they parentage, parentage, reproductiv reproductivee success could could secure secure better better territor territories ies and and surviv survival al of many many generat generations ions raisemore offsprin offspring. g. Butthis edge edge to be tracked tracked.. reve reverse rsed d inthe secon second d half half ofthe Gustafsson’ Gustafsson’ss team had noticed period. Furtheranaly Further analysis sis showed that that themales’forehead themales’forehead patches patches that that thischangewas associate associated d have have been been shrinkin shrinking g in recent recent with higherspring higher spring temperatures, temperatures, years. yea rs. Team member member Simon Simon Evans Evans a result result of changi changing ng climate climate wondere wondered d whethe whetherr thiswas just ( NatureEcology NatureEcology and Evolution Evolution, theresponse theresponse of individ individualsto ualsto doi.org/bxp6).
Bird evolves less flashy look as the world warms SEXandbeauty SEXandbeauty may may not not be the the first first thin things gs thatcometo thatcometo mindwhenyouthinkofclimate change change.. But for thecollared thecollared flycatcher flycatcher,, the three seem linked linked in somemysterious somemysterious way. way. As tempera temperature turess haverisen, haverisen, male flycatcher flycatchers’ s’ brilliantwhite brilliant white forehead forehead patches patches have have flipped frombeinga valuabl valuablee sexual sexual signal signal into into a liability liability.. Since Since 1980, 1980, ecologis ecologistt Lars Gustafsson Gustafsson at Uppsala University University in Swedenhas Swedenhas been been monitor monitoringa inga
M O C . L P E R U T A N / L L I N R A M T E I D
Exotic black hole shows its superfluid side THEblack THEblack holesin holesin ourunivers ouruniverse e may may seemlike bizarrebeasts bizarrebeasts – but even even strangerones strangerones arepossible. Simulatio Simulations ns ofblack holes holes have have now revealed revealedthe the firstsuperfluidspecimen. first superfluidspecimen. Superflui Superfluids ds area formof matter matter thattakemere melting melting a stepfurther. stepfurther. When When a solidturnsto solidturnsto a liquid liquid,, what what wasoncesturdy was oncesturdy and inflexiblebegins inflexiblebegins toflow.Superfluids toflow.Superfluids have have zero zero January2017 10 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
stickiness or viscosity: they can even flow uphill. They also have completely uniform temperature. But superfluids are extremely difficult to create. Only liquid helium has been coaxed into going superfluid, and then only at temperatures close to absolute zero. The stuff is even harder to study or model: many of the important calculations calculations are ones that nobody knows how to do yet. Now, Robert Mann at the University of Waterloo in Canada and his colleagues have modelled a theoretical black hole, one that can
Oddly,birds Oddly,birds withlarge forehead forehead patchesfared patchesfared worse worse in warm years, years, notbecause notbecause they they hadfewer offsprin offspring g butbecause butbecause theywere lesslikelyto surviv survivee theensuing theensuing winter.Evans winter.Evans,, nowat the University University of Zurich,Switzerla Zurich, Switzerland, nd, does does not not yet yet knowwhy knowwhy.. But But he speculat speculates es that that males males withlarge foreheadpatch foreheadpatches es must must incur incur somecost for thedisplay, thedisplay, perhaps perhaps intheformofmoreaggressive competi competitionwith tionwith other other males. males. Warmer Warmer springs somehow somehow increasethis increasethis cost. cost. “Thesetraits “Thesetraits are evolv evolvingdue ingdue to climate climate change,”says change,”says Evans. This This sudden sudden changein changein the valu valuee ofa matin mating g signa signall migh mightt be a warningthat warningthat theflycatche theflycatcher’ r’ss role in theecosystem theecosystem is also changin changing, g, says says Cody Cody Dey Dey,, a conserv conservatio ation n biologis biologistt at theUniversit theUniversity y of Windsor,Canada.Similar Windsor,Canada.Similar changes changes to sexual sexual ornamen ornaments ts and signals signals maywell be happen happeningin ingin other other species,Dey species,Dey thinks.Some thinks.Some ornament ornamentss maydisappearwhile newones evolv evolve, e, andclimate changemay changemay leadto winners winners and and losersin losersin theglobal theglobal beaut beauty y pageant,write pageant,write Dey andhis colleag colleague ue James James Dalefrom New Zealand’s Zealand’s Massey University University in a commen commentaryon taryon thestudy. thestudy. Evanswas Evanswas onlyable onlyable to spot spot the reversal reversal in collared flycatchers flycatchers becauseof Gustafsson’ Gustafsson’ss remark remarkabl ablee data data set set – proofof proofof thevalueof long-te long-term rm ecologi ecological cal –That That styleis styleis less less cool cool now now– research research,, Dey says. says. BobHolmes ■
alter in a way that mathematically mirrors what liquid helium does when it turns superfluid (Physical Review Letters , doi.org/bxnb). This simulated object is exotic: it exists in a higher-dimensional space-time space-time with properties very different from our own cosmos. If gravity’s interaction with matter meets certain conditions, the switch to superfluidity could potentially be
“By us usin ing g on one e en enig igma ma to model another another,, we’ we’re re inchin inc hing g clo closer ser to an underst und erstand anding ingof of both both””
seen in a wider set of black holes – but probably not ones in the universe. “It’s thinkable that these conditions could be satisfied in our universe, but they’re probably not,” says Mann. Even so, simulating them could be illuminating. “This could tell us something about superfluids which we can’t calculate by other methods, so that’s part of the excitement,” says Jennie Jennie Trasc Traschen hen at the the Unive University rsity of Massachusetts Amherst. By using one enigma to model another, researchers are inching closer to an understanding of both. Leah Crane ■
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Workers warm up big cities on weekdays IT’Sgoing IT’Sgoing tobe hot hot inthe city city – until until theweekend. theweekend. The crowdsof crowdsof commute commuters rs thatpour in during during the weekcan raiselocal air temperatur temperatures es andalter andalter wind,rainand wind,rainand clouds clouds.. Heatgeneratedby Heatgeneratedby humanbodies, cars,public transportand transportand office office buildingscauses buildingscauses cities cities to graduall gradually y warm warm upfromMonday upfromMonday throug through h to Friday.The Friday.The temperat temperaturethen urethen drops drops over over theweekend. theweekend. A recen recentt study study ledbyNickEarl at theUniversity theUniversity ofMelbourne, ofMelbourne, Australia Australia,, shows shows thatthe average average morning morning temperat temperaturein urein Melbourne Melbourne is 0.3°Chotteron 0.3°Chotteron Thursd Thursdaysand aysand Fridays Fridays thanon Sundays. Sundays. “Some “Some days days willheatup more,if more,if for for example example there there isn’tmuch wind,” wind,” he says. The differen difference ce is caused caused by heavy heavy trafficand trafficand the250,000 extra extra people people in Melbourneon Melbourneon weekdayscompar weekdayscompared ed withweekends,says withweekends,says Earl.“Nothing Earl.“Nothing innature innature occur occurs s ona weekl weekly y cycle cycle,, soit must must bedue tohumanactivit tohumanactivity y.” Earland his colleag colleagues ues have have shownthat threeother bigAustra big Australian lian cities cities – Sydney Sydney,, Brisbane Brisbane and Adelaide Adelaide – have have similarweekly cycles. cycles. But lesspopulated lesspopulated cities cities suchas Hobart Hobart do not, not, probablybecause probablybecause theyhavesmaller they havesmaller workforces. workforces. The findingswere findingswere basedon more more than than 50years 50years ofrecordsfrom ofrecordsfrom Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. Meteorology. Theywill be present presented ed atthe annual annual conference conferenceof of the country’s Meteorological Meteorological and Oceanographic Oceanographic Societyin Societyin Canberra Canberra nextmonth. Previou Previous s researchhas researchhas found found that centralTok centralTokyo yo and Moscoware Moscoware hotter hotter on weekda weekdays ys thanat weekends,and weekends,and thatwind speed, speed, rainfal rainfalll and cloud cloud cove coverr canalsobe great greaterin erin urban urban centres on weekdays. Understanding the impact of humans on such cycles is useful for dealing with extreme weather events. This is important in Australia, where heatwaves kill more people than all other natural disasters combined, says Stephanie Jacobs at Monash University in Melbourne. Alice Klein ■
Any biofilms that made it from Earth to Mars would probably be desiccated from the trip. It turns out that this arduous ride could prepare them to thrive on Mars. After a momentary shock in the most intense brines – which were about 70 times saltier than the weakest – dessicated biofilms started to grow. This may have been a consequence of communication throughout the biofilm: a cell on the outside edge of the film, exposed to Mars’s Mar s’s brutally salty brines, could send a warning signal signal to the insulated cells deeper down. Those cells could either form more goo or reproduce more quickly to build their barrier. After 5 hours in the harshest brines, all the microbes in the dried-out biofilms were dead. But the hydrated biofilms fared far worse: their cells died within –Life Life ofbrine– ofbrine– an hour and some were done for in less than half an hour (bioRxiv, (bioRxiv, doi.org/bxnc). On Mars, areas with water (even salty, briny water) are designated as “special regions” by the international Committee on Space Research. They are the most contaminatingother contaminatingother worlds. likely spots to find Martian life, Leah Leah Crane Crane Althou Although gh Mars is mostly mostly dry, dry, but also the best places for EarthSLIME SLIME could could help help microbe microbe weknowits icecapscontainwate icecapscontainwater, r, based contaminants to thrive. stowawa stowaways ys survivea survivea tripto trip to Mars– and theplanet mayevenhave Biofilms could help Martian andthrivein theplanet’s theplanet’s salty salty seasonalstreams seasonalstreams.. Toexamine Toexamine microbes survive, so they might waters waters once once they they arrive arrive.. Biofilms Biofilms,, howbiofilms howbiofilms might might react react to these these be something to look for in Mars’s Mar s’s colonie coloniess of cells cells embedde embedded d in a Martian Martian waters,Adam waters,Adam Steve Stevens ns at briny recurring slope lineae or in gooey protective protective coating, coating, live theUniversityof theUniversityof Edinburg Edinburgh, h, UK, the salty seas of icy moons further longer longer thansinglecells when when and his colleag colleagues ues dunke dunked d them out in our solar system. But the expose exposed d to Mars-l Mars-likebrin ikebrines es – and in seven seven Mars-lik Mars-likee brines brines that that danger is that they could also even even longer longer when when they they are dried help microbes from Earth thrive, out out first first,, as theywoul theywould d beafter beafter “Martian waters are the overtaking any previous life and travelling travelling throughspace. most likely spots to find polluting the science. life but also the best places Biofilmsare Biofilmsare everyw everywhereon hereon “This research gives us some Earth, Earth, fromdentalplaque and for contaminants to thrive” information about what we could pond pond scumto scumto the the syste systems ms used used possibly look for if we do go and tocleanup oilspills. oilspills. Theyalso Theyalso hada range range of differen differentt dissolv dissolved ed investigate these brines – which, protect microbes from antibiotics, salts and strengths. on the flip side, we’re saying radiation, temperature changes In the weakest brines, all of maybe we shouldn’t,” says Stevens. and other extreme conditions the biofilms thrived, lasting well “To me, this is a kind of a call that would otherwise kill them past the 5-hour observation time. to pick up the baton of this area immediately. As the brines became harsher, that we really need to understand But we are only just beginning though, a divide started to appear: as we launch into an era of space to figure out how biofilms react biofilms that were dried out prior travel,” says Jennifer Macalady to alien environments – which is to dunking did better than those at Penn State University in crucial if we are to avoid that remained hydrated. University Park. ■
A N O Z I R A F O Y T I S R E V I N U / A S A N
Slimy bacteria may thrive in Mars brine
28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 11
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Buildings Buildings predict their own faults Chris Baraniuk
IMAGINE IMAGINE a buildingthat buildingthat tells tells you you thatthe thatthe heat heatin ing g is aboutto aboutto fail fail – a week week before before it happen happens. s. Some compani companies es are using using machin machinee learnin learning g to do justthat. It’s It’s called called predictive predictive maintenance. maintenance. Softwarefirm Softwarefirm CGnal, CGnal, based based in Milan, Milan, Italy Italy, recentl recently y analyse analysed da year’ year’ss worth worth of datafrom the heatingand heatingand ventil ventilatio ation n units units in an Italian Italian hospital hospital.. Sensors Sensors are nowcommonly nowcommonly built built intoheating, intoheating, ventilation ventilationand and air-conditioning air-conditioning units units,, andtheteamhad record recordss of information information such as temperature, temperature, humidit humidity y and electric electricity ity use relatingto relatingto appliance appliancess in operatin operating g thea theatre tress and and first first aidrooms aidrooms as well well as corridor corridors. s. They They traineda traineda machin machinee learnin learning g algorith algorithm m on datafrom the the first first halfof halfof 2015,looki 2015,lookingfor ngfor differen differencesin cesin thereadings thereadings of similar similar applianc appliances. es. They They then teste tested d it ondatafromthe secon second d halfof the year year – could could it predict predict faults before they happened? The system predicted 76 out of 124 real real faul faults,incl ts,includ uding41 ing41 out out of44 wherean appliance’s appliance’s temperature temperature roseabovetolerable roseabovetolerable levels,with levels,with a
Psychopaths aren’t so clever after all MANIPULATIVE, MANIPULATIVE, dishonest and lacking empathy– empathy– thetraits thatdescribe thatdescribe a psychopath psychopath aren’t particularly pleasant pleasant.. But theidea that that they they are alsofiendishly alsofiendishly cleverisn’t cleverisn’t accurat accurate. e. Because Because manypsychopath manypsychopaths s are charming charming and manipula manipulativ tive, e, people people have have assumed assumed they they often often alsohave above-averag above-average e intelligence, intelligence, says BrianBoutwell BrianBoutwell atSt Louis Louis Universit University y in Missouri.Psycho Missouri.Psychologi logists sts termthis January2017 12 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
false positive rate of 5 per cent (arxiv.org/abs/1701.03633). “We started with the hospital because the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system is critical,” says Carlo Annis of building management firm
Y T T E G / I H S O T I H L E A H C I M
the “Hannibal Lecter myth”, referring to the fictional serial killer from The Silence of the Lambs . Lambs . But Boutwell wasn’t convinced. “Psychopaths are impulsive, have run-ins with the law and often get themselves hurt,” he says. “That led me to think they’re not overly intelligent.” To investigate, Boutwell and his colleagues analysed 187 studies on intelligence and psychopathy. These papers included research on psychopaths psychopaths in prison as well as those enjoying high-flying careers. They also included a range of measures of intelligence. Overall, the team found no
eFM, eFM, which which workedwith workedwith CGnal CGnal on theexperiment theexperiment.. Theidea is that that these these predicti predictive ve algorith algorithms ms could could help help fixfaults before before facilitie facilitiess crash– and also avoid unnecessary work. “It’s a nice technique that can be applied to existing telemetry [remote sensing] data sets,” says David Shipworth at University College London. But, he says, the differences in function may become less distinct as the units age. “The barrier between normal
and faulty operation will become more and more blurred.” Others are crunching this kind of data for different purposes. Finnish start-up Leanheat puts a wireless temperature, humidity and pressure sensor into apartments to remotely control heating and monitor appliance health. Its system is now installed in nearly 400 apartment blocks, says chief executive Jukka Aho. “Once we had these sensors in place, very quickly there was evidence that buildings were not controlled optimally,” opti mally,” he says. Instead of adjusting heating simply based on the outside temperature, Leanheat’s models take take intoaccount intoaccount howthe weathe weatherr has change changed. d. Has thetemperatu thetemperature re fallento fallento zero zero from from 10degrees– 10degrees– or risen from 10 below? It’s not just for heating. USbased start-up Augury is installing acoustic sensors in machines to listen for audible changes in function and spot potentially imminent failures. CEO Saar Yoskovitz says Augury has “diagnosed” machines in hospitals, power plants, data centres and a university campus. As the cost of sensors continues to fall, Shipworth says there will be more systems like these on the market. “We’ll see a whole bunch of different different machine learning approaches thrown at this over –Heating is about to fail in... that one– one– the next few years,” he says. ■
evidence that psychopaths were more intelligent than people who don’t have psychopathic traits. In fact, psychopaths, on average, scored significantly lower on intelligence tests (bioRxiv (bioRxiv , doi.org/10/bxj4). “I think the results will surprise a lot of people,” says Boutwell. Matt DeLisi at Iowa State University hopes that the findings will help put the Hannibal Lecter myth to rest. “The character promulgated the notion that
“Psychopaths are impul “Psychopaths impulsive sive and get them themsel selves ves hurt. That Th at le led d me tothi tothink nk they’re the y’re not ov overly erlysmart” smart”
psychopaths were highly intelligent, and there were real offenders that embodied this, like Ted Bundy,” says DeLisi. “But I have interviewed thousands of offenders, some of whom are very psychopathic, psychopathic, and I have found that the opposite is true.” In his experience, DeLisi says psychopaths tend to do poorly at school. “They are very sensationseeking,” he says. “They don’t like to sit and read books – they end up engaging in substance abuse.” He has found psychopaths to be rather inarticulate, and to swear a lot. “They talk over you in a brusque, aggressive style,” he says. Jessica Jessica Hamze Hamzelou lou ■
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the the M type type protei protein.But n.But the the 36-y 36-yea ear-o r-old ld man man had had a mixof both–thefirstMVcase,apart froman unconf unconfirme irmed d casein 2008( New New EnglandJourna England Journall of doi.org/bxk3). Medicine, doi.org/bxk3). One One reasonwe’ reasonwe’venot venot seenan seenan withthe normal normal versionof versionof MVcaseuntil MVcaseuntil now now couldbe couldbe that that the the protei protein,and n,and pass pass onthe MVpeople MVpeople makelessM makelessM protei protein. n. deformation. deformation. Theseprions These prions The The BSEpriononly BSEpriononly defo deformsthe rmsthe build build up in thebrain, event eventuall ually y Mtype,soittakeslongerforthe causingneural disorders prionto prionto build build upin the the body body and and and death. death. cause cause symptomsin symptomsin these these people. people. Butthe normal normal proteincomes proteincomes Since Since 2000, 2000, cases cases of vCJDhave intwo forms forms.. Eithe Eitherr it has has the the beendecl beendeclin inin ing g in the the UK.Butit amino amino acid methion methionine(M) ine(M) at is highlylikel highlylikely y there there will now positi position129 on129 inthe aminoacid aminoacid beanothe beanotherr waveof waveof casesin casesin MV chain chain that that makes makes up theprotein, theprotein, people,says people,says Graham Graham Jackso Jackson, n, or it has has valin valinee (V). (V). Becau Becausewe sewe at University University CollegeLondon. inheri inheritt a genefor genefor this this prote protein in IntheUK,38percentofpeople fromeach of our parents,there parents,there makeonl makeonly y the the M type type ofprotein ofprotein,, while51 while51 per per centof centof peopl peoplee areMV. areMV. “We hav have e been beencon concer cerned ned Moreove Moreover, r, morepeoplemay abou ab outt th the e ri rise se inthe ra rate te be infecte infected d withprions than than of CJD CJDdia diagno gnoses ses sin since ce the previously previously predicted. predicted. Researchers Researchers mid-90 mid -90s s for som some e time time”” in2013lookedat in2013lookedat how how many many removed removed appendixes appendixes contained contained are three three possibilit possibilities ies – people people theBSE prion, prion, andestimated andestimated from whose whose bodies bodies only only make make the this this thatone thatone in2000people in2000people in M form, form, people people whoonly have have the the UKcarryit. But But the the recen recentt case case theVform,orMVpeoplewho hadno detectab detectable le prions prions in his make make some some ofboth. ofboth. appen appendix dix.. Ifthatis true true ofmore All 223people previou previously sly MV people, people, then then thefigurecould diagnose diagnosed d withvCJD worldw worldwide, ide, be an underestimate. underestimate. inclu includin ding g 177 177 inthe UK,madeonly UK,madeonly Thesecondwavemight alreadyhavestarted alreadyhavestarted.. Thenumber Thenumber of ordinaryhumanCJD ordinaryhumanCJD cases cases diagnose diagnosed d has doubledsince doubledsince themid-1990s.“Wehav themid-1990s.“Wehavee been concer concerned ned about about thisfor some time,”says time,”says John John Colling Collinge, e, of the Nationa Nationall Prion Prion Clinic Clinic in London, London, where where theman was treated.This treated.This could could be due due to better better diagnosi diagnosiss ofCJD,butsomecases ofCJD,butsomecases may may also also be misdiagn misdiagnosedvCJD osedvCJD in MV people. people. Exposu Exposureto reto the the BSEprion BSEprion wasatahighlevelintheUKuntil 1989 1989,, whensomeof whensomeof the the meat meat most most likel likely y to cont containit ainit was was taken taken out out ofthe food food chain chain.. So far, far, no one one born born after1989has after1989has been been diagnosed diagnosed with vCJD. vCJD. These These prions prions seemto develop develop intodisea intodiseasein sein only only a few few cases cases.. Evenifjust1in2000peoplecarry theprion, we should should have have already already seen6000casesof seen6000casesof vCJD vCJD inpeople inpeople –Prion build-up damages brains– brains– making making only only theM protein protein.. ■
More mad cow disea sease to come DeboraMacKe Debora MacKenzie nzie
IT’Shappened.Until IT’Shappened.Until now, now, vCJD– thediseasecausedby infecti infection on with with BSE – has has struc struck k onlypeop onlypeople le of a certaingeneti certaingeneticc makeup makeup.. Now,for Now,for the the firsttime firsttime,, a case case has has been been confirm confirmed ed in someonewith someonewith differen differentt genes genes – which which maymean we havebeen havebeen misdiagn misdiagnosin osing ga new new wave wave of cases. cases. In 2014, 2014, a 36-yea 36-year-ol r-old d man in theUK started started develop developing ing aggressive aggressive personality personality changes, changes, memory memory lossand problems problems walking.The walking.The symptom symptomss and brain brain scans scans were were typical typical of ordinaryCJD, ordinaryCJD, a rarediseasethat usuallyaffects elderlypeople, not not linke linked d to BSE. BSE. Butcheck Butcheckss after after he diedin February2016 February2016 showed showed that that,, infact, infact, hehad vCJD,thekind vCJD,thekind caused caused by“mad cowdisease”. cowdisease”. This This was particul particularl arly y surprisin surprising g given given his DNA. DNA. BSEis causedby causedby a missh misshape apen n protein protein,, called called a prion. prion. It spreads spreads when when prions prions in theblood interac interactt
Y R A R B I L O T O H P E C N E I C S / E N Y T N O P U E L T S A C W E N , Y R A M R I F N I A I R O T C I V L A Y O R / R E S A R F N O M I S
January2017 14 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
Brainwave login fails if you’re tipsy… hick GETTIN GETTING G drunk drunk canmakeit harder harder to enteryourpassw enteryourpassword– ord– even even if yourbrainwavesare yourbrainwavesare yourlogin. Brainwave Brainwave authentication using electroencephalogram(EEG) electroencephalogram (EEG) readings isone ofmanybiometri ofmanybiometricc measur measures es touted touted as an alternati alternative ve to passwords. passwords. Howwould Howwould itwork?A comput computer er could could displa display y a seriesof seriesof wordson wordson a screen screen and measure measure the user’s response response via anEEG headse headset. t. Butwhileresearch Butwhileresearch suggests suggests thatEEG readings readings can authenticate someone’s identity witharound 94 per centaccuracy centaccuracy,, therecould be confoundi confounding ng factors factors – includingwhether includingwhether you’ve you’ve had a few too manydrinks. TommyChin at cybersecuri cybersecurity ty firm firm Grimmand Grimmand PeterMull PeterMuller er atthe Rochester Rochester Institute Institute of Technology echnology,, New York, testedthis by analysing analysing people’sbrainw people’sbrainwav aves es before before and after after drinking drinking shotsof Fireball Fireball whisky. whisky. Theypresented Theypresented theirfindingsat security security conferenc conference e ShmooCon ShmooCon in Washingt Washington on DC thismonth. Initial Initial result results s from from a smallnumbe smallnumberr oftests indicatedthat indicatedthat accuracycould accuracycould fallto 33 percentin inebri inebriate ated d users. users. “Brainwa “Brainwavescan vescan be easily easily manipulat manipulated ed byexternalinfluences byexternalinfluences suchas drugs[like] opioids, opioids, caffeine, caffeine, and alcohol, alcohol,”” Chinsays. “This manipulati manipulation on makes makes it a significa significant nt challengeto challengeto verify verify the authenticit authenticity y of the user.” user.” Theproblemis Theproblemis notconfine notconfined d to drinkand drinkand drugs.John drugs.John Chu Chuangat angat the Universityof Universityof California California,, Berkeley Berkeley,, has previousl previously y found found thatthe accuracy accuracy of EEG authentica authenticationdegrades tiondegrades immediate immediately ly after after exercise(though exercise(though it quickly quickly recovers) recovers).. He suggests suggests that otherfactorssuch as hunger, hunger, stress or fatigue fatigue could could also reduce reduce reliabili reliability. ty. Onesolutionmigh Onesolutionmightt beto collec collectt multiple multiple brainwav brainwave e “template “templates” s” by mapping mapping a user’s EEG signaturewhen signaturewhen drunk,tiredandso drunk,tiredandso on.Chinand Muller Muller also also found found tweaki tweaking ng theEEG data data analysis analysis viamachine learning learning improvedresultsfor improvedresultsfor participan participants ts who were inebriated. Nicole Nicole Kobie Kobie ■
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AN AP APPO POIN INTM TMEN ENT T WIT WI TH AP APO OLL LLO O 11 Gaze at th Gaze thee Ap Apol ollo lo 11 ca caps psul ulee as yo you u en ente terr the Smi Smiths thsoni onian an Air and Sp Space ace Mu Museu seum m before bef ore st study udying ing the Vik Viking ing lan lander der and the Geminii and Merc Gemin Mercury ury cap capsules sules.. Ve Ventur nturee intoo the Spa int Spacep cepor ortt Ope Opera ratio tions ns Cen Center ter at Virgin Virg in Spac Spacepor eportt Amer America ica and inte interact ract with wi th cr crewm ewmemb embers ers.. Exp Explor loree the US Space Sp ace and Roc Rocket ket Cen Center ter wh wher eree th thee Saturn Sat urn V Moo Moon n Ro Rock cket et is dis displa played yed..
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Robot ‘skin ‘skin dip’ senses body heat who led the research. That could help machines navigate crowded A HEAT-SEN HEAT-SENSINGfilm SINGfilm could could let areas without hitting people, robots robots detect detect when when humans humans are or help search and rescue robots around,like around,like pit vipers vipers hunting hunting locate locate humans humans in rubble rubble or out warm-blooded warm-blooded prey. smokesmoke-fill filled ed rooms. rooms. It could could Theflex The flexible,transparen ible,transparentt coating coating alsohelp them them to avoid avoid damage damage is made made ofpectin ofpectin,, a low-c low-costplan ostplantt and and bemorehelpfu bemorehelpfull topeople. topeople. materia materiall used used to set jam.Unlike A robotassis robotassistan tantt migh mightt needto needto convention conventional al electronics, electronics, it relies know know if a cup of of tea is too too hot to on current currentss of ions rather rather than hand over, for example. electrons to detect temperature ForDi Giacomo Giacomo,, helpingrobots helpingrobots variati variations– ons– justlike natural natural learn about their environment environment membran membranes es usedby thesnakes. thesnakes. is key. key. “The “The mostimportant mostimportant Thefilm cansense tempera temperature ture thing thing about about combini combining ng AI and change changess as small small as 10 millikel millikelvin vin,, humanoi humanoid d robots robots is that that thisAI which which is twice twice as sensiti sensitiveas veas need needss to beshapedby beshapedby itssenses itssenses huma human n skin.It skin.It candetec candetectt a warm warm likewe are,” are,” he says.“Yo says.“You u need need bodythe bodythe size size ofa rabbitfroma rabbitfroma metre metre away away, somethin something g theteam “The film could be dipcoated, like the process tested tested by microwa microwavin ving g a teddy teddy bearand settingit settingit at differen differentt used to coat robots in the distance distancess fromthe film. film. Change Changess TV series Westworld ” in tempera temperaturecause turecause thefilm’s thefilm’s resistan resistance ce to vary, vary, which which is picked picked to provide provide fullsensoryfeedback fullsensoryfeedback up by electrod electrodes es along along theedges sotheAIcanbuildupapicture andtransmitted andtransmitted to a compute computer. r. of theworld.” theworld.” Applyingit Applyingit over over a robot’ robot’ss entire entire The temperature-sen temperature-sensitive sitive body body could could provide provide all-roun all-round d film film couldalsobe couldalsobe used used in thermalsensing thermalsensing,, says says RaffaeleDi RaffaeleDi prosthese prosthesess to help help give give the Giacomoat Giacomoat the Swiss Swiss Federal Federal wearersensory wearer sensory feedback. feedback. Institut Institutee of Technolo echnology gy in Zurich, Zurich, Unlikeprevious flexibleheat Edd Gent Gent
Seals detect breathing breathing of hidden fish prey IT’Sa slasher slasher filmscenarioplaying outin natur nature. e. Harbou Harbourr sealsuse sealsuse theirwhiskersto follow follow underwat underwater er currentsripplingaway currentsripplingaway fromthe gills offishso they they cantrack cantrack down down andkill theirnext victims. victims. Untilnow Untilnow itwasn’t itwasn’t clearhow clearhow seals seals locate locate and catch catch bottom-dw bottom-dwellin elling g flatfishthat flatfishthat hidebeneath the sand. “Wehave solved solved a long-standi long-standing ng riddle, riddle,”” saysWolf Hanke, Hanke, the biologist biologist at the Universityof Universityof Rostock, Rostock, Germany, Germany, January2017 16 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
who led the study. “These flatfish are very cryptic. They burrow in the ground and they’re covered with sand or silt, but the seals still grab them.” The only way for the fish to avoid being eaten would be to hold their breath until the seal swims on – although it’s unclear if flatfish do this when they spot the threat. “When partially immersed in sand on the ocean bottom, many flatfish leave their eyes sticking out, and with 360 degrees of vision they would very likely see a seal swimming towards them,” says Alex Schreiber, who studies flatfish at St Lawrence University in Canton, New York. Flatfish constitute up to 70 per cent
O B H
–Getting ready to feel the heat?– heat?–
sensors,the sensors,the membran membranee is sensiti sensitiveacross veacross a broad broad tempera temperaturerange turerange and is very very simple simple to make. make. Theresearcher Theresearcherss cast cast pectinin pectinin a mould mould and and then then dipped dipped it in calciumchlorid calciumchloride, e, as thecalcium thecalcium ionsmake thepectin sensiti sensitiveto veto heat heat change changes. s. Signals Signals fromthe electrod electrodes es along along thefilm’s thefilm’s edges edges can pinpoin pinpointt heat heat sources,and sources,and theteam is nowdevelopin nowdeveloping g algorith algorithms ms to map tempera temperature ture across across complexsurface complexsurfacess like like body body parts (arxiv.org/abs/15 (arxiv.org/abs/1512.0116 12.01161). 1). Di Giacom Giacomo o saysthe saysthe film film could could
alsobe sprayedor sprayedor dip-coa dip-coated ted – like the“skin dip”used to coat coat robot robotss inthe TVseries TVseries Westworld – to give give almost almost any any object object temperature-sen temperature-sensing sing capabilities. capabilities. “The “The sensiti sensitivityof vityof thesensor is remarkab remarkable, le,”” says says Zhenan Zhenan Bao at Stanfor Stanford d Univer Universityin sityin California,who has developed developed herown versionof versionof electron electronic ic skin. skin. Theskin dip approach approach looks looks feasible feasible,, she says, says, but incorpo incorporati rating ng thefilm intoa multipurpose multipurpose synthetic synthetic skin with flexibleand flexibleand rigidcomponen rigidcomponents ts may be challenging. challenging. ■
of the diet of harbour seals, so being able to detect the fish is key to the predator’s success. After attaching a camera to a seal and watching it pinpoint flatfish despite having no visual clues to their position, Hanke and his colleagues set out to figure out how the seals do it. They monitored three male seals in the Baltic Sea in a netted enclosure, one fitted with eight nozzles that could release water at an angle and rate designed to mimic the breathing patterns of flatfish. Each nozzle could be individually activated. The seals were blindfolded for half the trials. When they could see, all the seals found the activated nozzle at
least 90 per cent of the time. Even blindfolded, they still identified the correct nozzle with at least a al of of 75 per cent success rate ( Journ ( Journal ExperimentalBiology , doi.org/bxkw). “To see a seal following an underwater wake is amazing,” says Colleen Reichmuth, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It’s as if the animal is pulled by an invisible thread.” The researchers also covered the seals’ faces and whiskers with a mask. In those trials, the animals failed to find any of the active water nozzles, and instead mostly spent their time drifting on the surface. Chelsea Whyte ■
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Eggshells make cracking cracking data chip
Archerfish shoot their deadly jets jets to hu hunt nt un unde derw rwat ater er,, too too SPIT and kill. Archerfish are famous for shooting mouthfuls of water at insects to dislodge them from vegetation above the water. Now they have been shown to use the jets to hunt underwater, disturbing sediment where prey is lurking and snapping up the spoils. This suggests archerfish use their jets as tools, adapting them to serve both in aerial and underwater hunting, says Stefan Schuster at the University of Bayreuth in Germany. Schuster’s team decided to investigate after observing the behaviour of wild fish on arrival in the lab. “We often see them ‘shooting’ at things
on the ground of their tanks, such as leaves or small fragments of wood,” he says. The team filmed five fish in a lab after presenting them with prey hidden in bowls of various types of sediment. They found that the fish used the same mouth manoeuvres underwater as they do at the surface to produce jets. The archerfish were able to alter the length and type of water blast to suit the type of sediment. Their shots were shortest if the sediment was coarse-grained and increased in length as the sand became finer ( Journ ( Journal al of Experimental Biology , doi.org/bxks). Which came first – aerial or underwater shooting – remains to be established. “Perhaps some tendency to produce underwater jets might have been there first, because this is widespread among fish,” says Schuster.
Laser’s ‘sonic boom’ caught on camera SHOOTINGa light-speed light-speed event event requires an even faster camera. A set-up capable of 100 billion frames a second has captured the first footage of a photonic Mach cone – a sonic boom with light. Einstein’s theory of relativity forbids anything from travelling faster than the speed of light. So Jinyang Liang at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, and his colleagues mimicked light
requiresmulti requiresmultiple ple takes takes – meanin meaning g that that theevent theevent being being recorde recorded d breakingits breakingits ownspeed limit. limit. must must be precisel precisely y repeata repeatable.This ble.This They They shot shot a laser laser pulsethrou pulsethrough gh system eliminates that need and a tunnel tunnel filled filled withdry-icefog lets us to analyse light scattering and flanked flanked by two silicone rubber that would distort images of panels. Light travels more slowly tissues (Science Advances, doi.org/ through the silicone than in the bxnj). It could be integrated into fog, resulting in a conical shock standard cameras, microscopes wave trailing behind the head and even even telescopes. telescopes. of the pulse. “It’s “It’s gota very very high‘wow, high‘wow, this The video system Liang’s team is amazing’ factor,” says Bruce used solves a problem in ultrafast Tromberg at the University of medical imaging, which usually California, Irvine.
IF YOU want to make a computer, you’ve got to break a few eggs. A new data storage device made from crushed-up eggshells could pave the way for faster, greener computers. The new device has resistive random access memory (ReRAM), which could be faster, provide a higher storage density and use less power than existing methods. A team at the Guizhou Institute of Technology in China ground eggshells to produce a fine, nanoscale powder, which formed the electrolyte part of the chip. Resistive memory relies on materials that remember change in electrical resistance when a current is applied to them. The device wrote a 1 or a 0 into its memory 100 times before breaking down (Current Applied Physics, doi.org/bxk2). Other materials can handle billions of cycles, but it’s still impressive, says Kees de Groot at Southampton University, UK.
Out-of-body illusion eases fear of death THE illusion that you’re disconnected from your body can lessen your fear of dying. Mel Slater at the University of Barcelona, Spain, and his team used a virtual reality headset to make 32 volunteers feel as if a virtual body that mimicked their every move was their own. The headset then showed them floating away from the body, observing it above – an experience that many people who have come close to death say they’ve had. The volunteers then answered a questionnaire, which found that the feeling of disconnection significantly lowers fear of dying ( PLoS PLoS One, doi.org/10/bxkv). “It gives a sense that it’s possible to survive sur vive beyond death,” says Slater. 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 19
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Foxe Foxes s apply apply puma puma scen scentt for for safe safety ty OUTFOX OUTFOXED ED?? Gray Gray foxe foxes s in the mountainsof California California have been filmeddelibera filmed deliberately telyrubbing rubbing themsel themselvesin vesin thescentmarks leftby leftby pumas– pumas– possib possiblyas lyas odour odour camoufla camouflage ge againstotherlarge againstotherlarge predators predators such as coyotes. coyotes. Over Over fouryears, fouryears, MaxAllen at the Univers Universityof ityof Wisconsi Wisconsin n atMadison filmed filmed 26puma visitingsitesknown visitingsitesknown as communi community ty scrapes scrapes,, where where malesleavescent males leavescent “signposts” “signposts” to communicate communicatewith with others. others. He wassurprisedwhen wassurprisedwhen cameras cameras revealed revealed that foxes foxes regularlyvisited these these sites sites andrepeatedlyrubbed andrepeatedlyrubbed their their cheeks cheeks on ground ground thathad beenfreshly beenfreshly marked marked bythe mountainlions.“The mountainlions.“The foxesrub foxesrub very very specific specificallyon allyon theareas where where the pumas pumas mark, mark,”” says says Allen. Allen. Coyotesoften Coyotesoften kill grayfoxes, which which arehalf their their size, size, to reduce reduce competition. competition. “Coyotesare “Coyotesare very reliantupon reliantupon smell smell whenhunting andaremuchbiggerthanthe andaremuchbiggerthanthe foxes, foxes,”” says says Allen, Allen, whothinksthe foxes foxes usethis scentcamoufl scentcamouflage age to give give themselv themselves es a chance chance to Journal ofEthology , escape escape ( Journal doi.org/bxj9). “Gray “Gray foxe foxes s climb climb trees trees toavoid predato predators, rs,”” says says Allen. Allen. “Inmany cases, cases, they they probablyonly probablyonly need a few few seconds seconds’’ hesitat hesitation ion from from a coyo coyoteforthemto teforthemto get get upa tree. tree. Smellinglike Smellinglike a pumamightgive themthat time.” time.” E V I T A E R C C I
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January2017 20 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
Mystery Mystery fairy fairy circle circles s in Namib Namibia ia’s ’sgra grass sslan land d explai explained nedat at last? last? THE Namib Namib desert desert in southe southern rn Africa Africa has striking strikingly ly regular regular bare circles circles in its grasslan grassland d whose whose origin origin is fiercel fiercely y debated debated – but it now now seemsthatbothlead seemsthatbothleadin ing g explana explanation tionss maybe right. right. Onecamp claims claims theempty patches patches,, known known as fairy fairy circles, circles, are createdby createdby termitesunder termitesunder the soil clearingvegetation around their their nests. nests. An alterna alternativ tivee ideais thatthe thatthe circle circless arecausedby arecausedby plants plants competi competing ng for water. water. Corina Corina Tarnit Tarnitaa at Princeto Princeton n University University and colleagues colleagues thoughtboth thoughtboth ideas ideas had merit. merit.
“Each “Each onewas bringing bringing convincing convincing arguments,”she arguments,”she says. So the research researchers ers modelledwhat modelledwhat woul would d happe happen n ifbothhad a role. role. Their computer computer models predictedthe large-scalepattern ofbarecircles ofbarecircles weknowabout, weknowabout, but but also also a smalle smallerr patte pattern rn inthe vegetation vegetation between between the circles. Whenthey went went to Namibia Namibia,, they they discove discovered red these these smaller smaller circles,about circles,about 20 centime centimetresin tresin diameterand diameterand 20 centime centimetres tres apart, apart, which which hadnever hadnever been been reportedbefore reportedbefore.. “The “The fairy fairy circles circles havedrawn havedrawn so much much attenti attention, on,
people people haven haven’t ’t paidattention paidattention to howthe vegeta vegetationlooks tionlooks between between the circles,”says Tarnita. Tarnita. Neither Neither mechanism mechanism can explain explain bothpatterns bothpatterns on its own. own. Andbecause Andbecause thenew observations observations matchthe models’ predicti prediction,it on,it appears appears that that thetwo mechanisms mechanisms act simultaneousl simultaneously y to makebothtype makebothtypess ofcircle ofcircle ( Nature, doi.org/bxkb). doi.org/bxkb). Butnot every everyoneis oneis convin convinced ced and and thereare thereare claimstha claimsthatt some some circles circles aren’t aren’t associat associated ed with termit termitesat esat all. all. Itseems Itseems the the turf turf war isn’t isn’t over over yet. yet. B A L N G I S E D O I B D R A V R A H
Galactic Galactic collisi collision on birthe birthed d youn young g stars stars AN INTERGA INTERGALACT LACTIC IC scuffle scuffle seems seems to haveresult haveresulted ed in thebirthof new new stars. stars. Astronom Astronomers ers have have spotted spotted a largeringof largeringof youn young g stars stars aroun around d our galacticneigh galacticneighbour bour,, theLarge MagellanicCloud, that probably formed formed when when theSmall Magellan Magellanic ic Cloud Cloud smashedpast smashedpast its sibling. sibling. Located Located just160,000and 200,000 200,000 light light yea years rs away away, respecti respectivel vely,the y,the Large Large andSmall Magellan Magellanic ic Clouds Clouds are themost lumin luminou ouss ofthe more more than50 than50 galaxiesthat galaxiesthat orbit orbit theMilky Way. ay. As theclouds revolv revolvee around around us, they they havealso havealso orbited orbited each each other. other. Right Right now, now, they they are 75,000 75,000 light light years yea rs apart. apart. Butthey were were farclos far closer er when when theypassed eachother 200 million million years years ago. ago. TheSmall Magellan Magellanic ic Cloud Cloud mayevenhave smashedright smashedright throughits throughits sibling. sibling. NowChristian NowChristian Moni Moni Bidinat theCatholic theCatholic Univer University sity of the North North in Antofag Antofagasta,Chile,and asta,Chile,and colleagu colleagues es have have spotted spotted what what they they believ believee are theglowingremains theglowingremains of thisskirmish: thisskirmish: six youngstars youngstars on thefringe of thelarger cloud, cloud, each each part part ofa vast vast ring ring some some 80,000 80,000 light light years years in diameter diameter (arxiv.org/abs/1612.03072).“It was surprising,” surprising,” says Moni Bidin. “There was no indication of recent star formation in this thi s region.”
This Th issu suit it was was made madefo forr walk walkin ing g WALKa mile mile ina robo robot’ t’s shoesandit shoesandit won’t won’t feel feel so far. far. A robotic“ex robotic“exosui osuit” t” cuts cuts theenerg theenergy y used used towalkby 23percentandcouldbe usedby usedby soldiersor soldiersor people people whostruggle whostruggle to getaroundbecauseof health health issues. issues. The flexibleexoskeleton flexibleexoskeleton consists consists oftwo stretc stretchyfabricwrapsaround hyfabricwrapsaround thecalvesconnectedto thecalvesconnectedto a waist waist belt byvertic byverticalstra alstrapsand psand theankle theankle bya cable. cable. A motor motor tethere tethered d to thesuit deliver delivers s force force tothe ankle ankle so the weareruses weareruses less less of their their ownenergy tomovetheir foot. foot. Thestraps transmi transmitt thepowerto thehip joint joint Science Robotics , doi.org/bxkz). (ScienceRobotics doi.org/bxkz).
Ittakes Ittakes a whileto whileto get get used used to the assistance, assistance, sayslead researcher researcher Conor Conor Walsh Walsh atthe HarvardBiodes HarvardBiodesign ign Lab. Lab. “Whenyourea “Whenyoureallynot llynotic ice e itis if youturn it offveryquickly,”he offveryquickly,”he says. says. “Yourlegs “Yourlegs feel feel a little little bitsluggish becauseyour becauseyour musclesweredoing musclesweredoing lessworkthan youwereused to.” to.” A soft soft exosui exosuitt addsless forcethan forcethan a rigid rigid exosk exoskele eletonbut tonbut is lighterand lighterand easier easier toput on.The soft soft structur structure e makes makes themostof the mostof someone’ someone’s existing existing musculoskeletal musculoskeletalstructur structure, e, saysJeff Kollerat Kollerat theUniversityof theUniversityof Michiganin Michiganin Ann Arbor Arbor, “andthat’s beendesigned beendesigned over over millionsof millionsof years years ofevolution” ofevolution”..
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Institutes of Health has spent more than half a billion dollars a year in pursuit of treatments. Despite the money and effort, thelast Alzheim Alzheimer’ er’ss druglicensed druglicensed intheUKcanonlytreatthe condition’ condition’ss symptoms– it doesn’t halt the underlying deterioration. At best, it can buy someone a bit moretime.
“There is no question that we have to look at Alzheimer’s in a different way” So wherehas wherehas allthat allthat mone money y gone? Into experimental drugs that garner much press coverage as they clear various early clinical stages (see diagram, below right). However, none of the 123 drugs developed between 1998 and 2014 have cleared all the hurdles. Most have focused on disrupting the sticky plaques that Alois Alzheimer found more than a century ago in the brains of people who had died with the dementia to which he gave his name. As these plaques clog up the brain and destroy brain cells, it is thought –Plaques aren’t the whole story story–– they take with them the vital memories and mental functions that the cells underpin. Get rid of the plaque, the thinking goes, and you get rid of the disease. The plaques are a build-up of a protein called beta-amyloid, Touted breakthroughs keep coming to nothing. Are we close to a so it is that substance that most of cure, or have we got the disease all wrong, asks Andy Coghlan the drugs have targeted. Eli Lilly’s Lil ly’s drug solanezumab was an NEW drugwill finallycure finallycure LastNovember LastNovember,, after after thefailure International Internationalestimate estimatess that especially promising example. It Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’s! s! Sound familiar? of a particul particularl arly y high-pro high-profile file in 2015, 2015, 46.8 46.8 million million people people attacked the precursors that form Seeming Seemingly ly every every other other week, week, the trial,for trial,for some some the the jigwas up. up. worldwi worldwide de haddementia, haddementia, a new beta-amyloid, and was billed results results of onepreliminary onepreliminary trial “There “There are no treatmen treatments ts that that can numberthatissettodouble as the best hope yet. The company or anotherpromisethat anotherpromisethat a gamegameslowor reversethis reversethis devasta devastating ting every every 20 yea years, rs, mostly mostly because because sent out several press releases changing changing drug for Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’ss conditi condition, on,”” says says Bryce Bryce Vissel Vissel at of an increasi increasing ng number number of older older about exciting preliminary disease disease is justaround thecorner. thecorner. theUniversityof theUniversityof Technolo echnology gy in people in developing developingcountrie countriess results before the end of the trial. Check Check back back a fewmonths fewmonths later, later, Sydne Sydney y, Australia Australia.. “There “There is no like like India India and China, China, leading leading to Then it failed. The results of the though though,, and all mentionof mentionof the questi questionthatwe onthatwe haveto haveto look look at a global global health healthcarecrisis. carecrisis. early trial, they concluded, were drughas vanishe vanished, d, save save perhaps perhaps Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’ss in a different different way. way.” Thelack of meaning meaningful ful simply not significant enough to for for a terse terse story story abouta abouta failed failed So arewe headi headingin ngin the the right right treat treatme ment ntss is not not forlackof warrant putting a drug on the trial. trial. Almost Almost all clinicaltrials clinicaltrials of direction, direction, or do we need need to rip up up trying.The trying. The pharmaceutical pharmaceutical market. For many, the failure of new new drugs drugs to combat combat Alzheime Alzheimer’ r’ss all the textbooks and start over? industryhas industryhas poured poured billions billions this trial was the straw that broke fail.No fail.No drug drug has has bucke bucked d the the trend trend Alzheimer’s is the most into research – Eli Lilly alone alone has the camel’s back. “Is this the end in 20 years, but but you wouldn’t wouldn’t common cause of dementia, and spent £3 billion over three decades of the amyloid hypothesis?” asked know it from the constant by some metrics its prevalence is trying to develop a successful a panel of experts convened after promises of a breakthrough. rising. Alzheimer’s Disease drug, and the US National the failure. “We must urgently get
The Alzheimer’s problem
January2017 22 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
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back back to the the biolog biology y ofthis disease, disease,”” says says Vissel. Vissel. That That doesn’t doesn’t meanthrowing meanthrowing outthe enormous enormous body body of work work on beta-am beta-amylo yloid id withthe bathw bathwate ater, r, he says: says: “Anyholistic Anyholistic view view of the data data will have have to accountfor accountfor it.” it.” Howev However,there er,there has been been growingrecogn growingrecognitio ition n that that betabetaamyl amyloidmaynot oidmaynot bethe whole whole story. story. Lostamid thealmost singlesingleminded minded focus focus on the“church the“church of theholy amyloid amyloid”” are cases cases in which which people people have have diedof what what is supposedly supposedly Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’s, s, but postmortemexaminations reveale revealed d no plaque plaque in their their brains. brains. Equallybafflingpostmortems Equally bafflingpostmortems revealed revealed enormous enormous plaque build-u build-up p in the brains brains of people people with extraordinary extraordinary memories. memories. Thestrongest Thestrongest eviden evidence ce for a relationship relationship between between removing these deposits and improvements improvements in brain brain functio function n comes comes from mice mice thathav thathavee been been bred bred to mimic symptomsof symptoms of Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’s. s. Part Part ofthe reasonhum reasonhumantrial antrialss have have been been unsucc unsuccessf essful ul is that that plaque eradication eradication doesn’t translateinto translate into similar cognitive cognitive improvements improvementsin in people. Couldtheplaqu Couldtheplaques es bea symptom symptom rather rather than than a cause? cause? Accordin According g to onehypothesis onehypothesis,,
Church of the holy amyloid Researchers continue to trial Alzheimer’s drugs that target beta-amyloid, despite their history of failure Phase Phase 1 Phase 3
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Y T T E G / I K S U A M S A K N E R A K
modest, modest, theywere consiste consistent nt acrossall acrossall trials– trials– and and acrossall acrossall thecognitivetests thecognitivetests applied applied to the patient patients. s. “That “That means means theymust collectivelybe collectivelybe showingmild efficac efficacy y of thedrug.” thedrug.” Now, Now, the compan company y and others others are looking looking to boost boost that that efficac efficacy y withother agents agents that that tackle tackle differen differentt aspec aspects ts ofplaque.Sims ofplaque.Sims is orche orchestr strati atinga nga trial trial ofa drug drug that that switchesoff switchesoff producti production on of plaque plaque in thebrain. RudolphTanz RudolphTanzii of –Alzheimer’s attacks the brain brain–– Massachusetts Massachusetts GeneralHospital General Hospital in Boston, Boston, who who isolated isolated thegene plaques plaques mayactually mayactually be a defenc defencee that makesamylo makes amyloid, id, doesn’t against against bacteria bacteriall invasio invasion. n. In fact, fact, count count thehypothesis thehypothesis outyet. theymay theymay play play a numb number er ofroles “To “To get so close close to statisti statistical cal ina diseas diseasee thatcoul thatcould d haveman havemany y signific significanc ancee witha drugthat contributing contributing factors (see“Beyond doesn’tevendissol doesn’tevendissolve ve theamyloid theamyloid the usual suspects”, suspects”, right). that’ that’ss already already in thebrain is highly highly Butplaque Butplaquess may may also also play play encoura encouragin ging,”he g,”he says. says. Tanziis Tanziis a part in health healthy y brains. brains. There There excitedabout excitedabout the prospectof prospectof is growingeviden growingevidence ce that that the mixing mixing a solanez solanezuma umab-ty b-type pe drug brain brain mayneed someamyloid someamyloid withanother withanother drugbeing trialled, trialled, protein– protein– in onetrial, removing removing aducanumab,which aducanumab,which attacks attacks it entirel entirely y resulte resulted d in sideeffects sideeffects existingplaques. existing plaques. such as brain swelling. swelling. “Amyloid Amyloid is inthe brainfor brainfor a reason reason,”say ,”sayss No caus cause e for for alar alarm m Vissel.“Westill Vissel.“Westill know know so little little about about its normal normal role. role.” If all these these drugs drugs individ individuall ually y Against Against thisbackdrop,Eli thisbackdrop,Eli Lilly Lilly have have moderateeffec moderateeffects, ts, it will redeemthe redeem the beta-amyloid beta-amyloid executivesremain executivesremain optimistic about beta-amyloid.“We beta-amyloid.“We are hypothesis, hypothesis, and Tanzi Tanzi thinks, on the cusp,”JohnSims, cusp,”JohnSims, senior senior pointthe pointthe way way toa mult multi-d i-drug rug approachto approach to treatment. treatment. medicaldirecto medicaldirectorr at Eli Lilly Lilly, told New Scientist last December December Onedrug might might remove remove at theannualClinical theannualClinical Trials Trials on existingplaque existingplaque,, while while another another keeps keeps new new plaques plaques from Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’ss Disease meetingin San Diego, Diego, Californ California, ia, where where the forming.“I forming.“I cansee aducan aducanumab umab firmannounce firmannounced d the failure failure beingusedasakindof liposu liposucti ctionfor onfor the the brainfor brainfor a of solanez solanezuma umab.“With b.“With each each little little trial, trial, we’re we’re taking taking onestep mont month h or so,”hesays so,”hesays,, andthen closer closer to underst understandi anding ng the a differen differentt regimen– regimen– which,like which,like solanuzemab, solanuzemab, disrupts amyloid amyloid pathology pathology better.” What What canexplainthe formation formation – prevents prevents further unchanged unchanged enthusiasm enthusiasm after accumulation accumulationthereafte thereafter. r. Thisapproach Thisapproach would would be similar similar all thefailures? thefailures? Somewonder Somewonder ifit’s ifit’s beca becauseof useof the the amoun amountt of to howcholestero howcholesteroll blocker blockerss are money money that that hasalreadybeen given given preventiv preventively ely to people with high cholesterol. cholesterol. sunkintothis.“Th sunkintothis.“Thereis ereis an elementof elementof that,”saysDavid that,”saysDavid Severalsuch Sev eralsuch drugs drugs are in Reynolds, Reynolds, chief scientific scientific officer late-sta late-stage ge clinicaltrials clinicaltrials that that will conclu con clude de over ove r thenext three thre e at Alzheimer’ Alzheimer’ss ResearchUK. ResearchU K. “Ifyou’ve “Ifyou’ve investe invested d a lot,you must must years,beginni years, beginning ng this summer. getto thefinishing thefinishing line,”he line,”he says. says. Their Their results results should should establis establish h once once and for all whethe whetherr hitting hitting But Simsinsists that that even even thoughthe thoughthe effect effectss seenwere amyloid amyloid benefits benefits humans. humans.
BEYOND THE USUAL SUSPECTS Beta-amyl Beta-amyloid oid is widely widely thought thought to be the main player in the mental decline that characterises Alzheimer’s disease. But its significance is coming into question (see main story), and researchers are investigating alternatives.
TAU TANGLES Tanglesof anglesof tauproteinformin tauproteinformin brain brain cells cells,, kill kill themandspread themandspread from from cell cell tocell.Amyloidand tocell.Amyloidand taumaywork togeth together er todestroy todestroy areasof areasof the brain brain vitalfor memory, memory, learning learning and cognit cognition ion.. A trialof trialof thefirstdrugto remove remove tau failed, failed, but researchers researchers sawhints of improve improved d cognition. cognition. INFLAMMATION Inflamma Inflammatory tory diseases diseases suchas diabetes,heart diabetes,heart disease disease andmetabolic syndrome syndrome are often often preludes preludes to Alzheimer’s.Anti-inflammatory drugs have have shownearly signsthey could could reverse reverse the disease’ disease’s s psychia psychiatric tric symptoms. HERPES VIRUS In experimentswith experimentswith cultured cultured brain brain cells cells,, herpes herpes simple simplex x virus1 virus1 seems seems to speedthe accretionof accretionof beta-amyl beta-amyloid oid andtau.If so,Alzheim so,Alzheimer’ er’s couldbe couldbe treated treated by antivira antivirall drugs. CALCIUMOPATHY Couldfaultycalciumsignalling Couldfaultycalciumsignalli ng play play a part? part? It’sbeen a long-held long-held hypothesis hypothesis,, but freshevidence freshevidence implicate implicates s calcium calcium in neural neural dysfunction dysfunction..
If drugs don’t make a difference, there are other methods waiting in the wings, including using light therapy to boost a kind of brain wave that disrupts plaques. While we wait for the verdict, we can take solace in the finding that we can do things to prevent dementia. There is growing evidence that certain behaviour reduces the chances of developing it, especially frequent exercise, sensible eating and avoidance of smoking and excessive alcohol. What’s What’s good for your heart, it turns out, is good for your brain. ■ 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 23
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States of detention Chelsea Manning’s jail term and treatment were unremittingly punitive. Commuting her sentence sentence is right, says Rebecca Dallison IT’S IT’S beena beena long long time time comin coming, g, butBarack Obama’ Obama’ss decisionto decisionto commute commute ChelseaManning Chelsea Manning’s ’s unduly unduly severe severe prison sentence sentence in his final days as US president president was hugely welcome. When Manning, as a US Army intelligence analyst in Kuwait, copied thousands of files onto a CD and smuggled them out of her military base, she set in train a series of events that helped define a new era in internet activism. Within weeks, documents she said showed “the true nature of 21st-century asymmetric warfare” were put online by WikiLeaks. Many files that the US military wanted to remain secret showed in disturbing, unspun detail what was happening on the battlefield as well as behind the scenes as the military attempted to keep a grip on events in Iraq and elsewhere. On the one hand, the “Iraq War Logs” lifted the lid on the mayhem
there during some of the fiercest periods of sectarian violence and resistance to US occupation. One day alone, 17 October 2006, saw 146 killings. On the other hand, the files showed that US military tactics could be as brutal as the militias terrorising the country. One incident in 2007, caught on video and seen by millions due to Manning’s intervention, involved two US helicopters strafing people on the ground with gunfire in what appeared to be a reckless fashion. Children were wounded and two Reuters journalists killed. Such incidents were potential war crimes, often sanitised in the retelling by US military officials. The main US response was to punish the messenger rather than listen to the message. Once identified as the leak’s source, the US military treatment of Manning was unremittingly punitive. She was kept in pre-trial solitary
A price on health Amid Amid NH NHS S pres pressu sure res, s, shoul should d costl costly y drugs drugs for Zara a Aziz rare rare diseases diseasesbe be sideline sidelined, d, wonders wonders Zar THEvastmajori THEvastmajorityof tyof peopl peoplee in theUK supportNation supportNational al Health Health Servicetreatme Servicetreatmentsfor ntsfor rare diseases diseases.. Butwould that that stillhold trueif treatmen treatments ts for cancer cancer or hip hip and and kneesurge kneesurgery ry were were tobe rationedon rationedon a regular regular basis? basis? As theNHS winte winterr crisis crisis deepen deepens, s, it would would appear appear that that withincreasinglonge withincreasinglongevityand vityand January2017 24 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
treatme treatment nt of a small small number number of patie patient ntss if it mean meanss that that a large largerr population population faces adverse adverse health outcom outcomes es fromfunding fromfunding cuts cuts elsewhe elsewhere re in theNHS? Thisis thedebateswirling around around a proposalfrom proposalfrom the Nation National al Institut Institutee for health health and CareExcellenc CareExcellencee (NICE), (NICE), a body body that that decides decides which which treatme treatmentsthe ntsthe NHSfunds.It NHSfunds.It want wantss tochangethe tochangethe threshol thresholds ds for financi financing ng drugs drugs to treat rare conditions. conditions. In broad broad terms, terms, it recomme recommends nds
complexity complexity of medicalconditio medical conditions ns theeconomic theeconomic burden burden on health health and and socialcarehas socialcarehas nolimit. nolimit. So suchquestions suchquestions arise. arise. It remainsa remainsa challen challenge,even ge,even moreso in thecurrent thecurrent climate climate,, to balancefinanc balancefinances es withhealth “It is a reflection of us as a benefit benefitss for thepopulation.Can thepopulation.Can society that we continue to weas a societ society y affor afford d to devo devote te recognise the suffering of signific significantsums antsums of money money to the those with rare conditions”
automatically funding them up to £100,000 per Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY), (QALY), a way of judging jud ging the cost-effectiveness of a treatment. Although those above £100,000 may still be considered, critics say they would be much less likely to get through. The Bio-industry Association opposes the proposals, and says many treatments for rare diseases already in use have a QALY QALY cost of £500,000 or more. It fears the threshold will simply stop the flow of such medicines. As general care improves and populations age or grow, people with rare conditions are likely to be more numerous and live
For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion
confinement for months (a UN expert called it tantamount to torture). At trial, Manning was not allowed to present evidence of acting in the public interest and the US military later repeatedly denied the treatment she needed to assist in her gender transition. Amid Edward Snowden’ S nowden’ss startling disclosures about US mass surveillance, Manning’s crushing 35-year jail term was clearly meant as a deterrent to others who might want to blow the whistle on state human rights abuse and other hidden crimes. So the long-overdue decision to commute the sentence was a relief. I’m pleased Amnesty played a part in this, mobilising thousands of people to send online appeals to the White House via our urgent action network. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that the perpetrators of US war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere have been pursued with a fraction of the vigour with which the US military went after Manning. Most remain free and unworried about prosecution. Meanwhile, until 17 May, Chelsea Manning will remain behind bars in Kansas. ■ Rebecca Dallison is Dallison is Amnesty International UK’s urgent action coordinator
longer. The number of drugs available to treat such diseases is also likely to rise with advances in life sciences and related research focusing on new therapies. It is a reflection of us as a society that we recognise the suffering of those with rare and debilitating conditions and continue to invest in lifeimproving treatments for them. This must hold true t rue even when we are faced with difficult choices and finite resources. The price that we place on ourselves and our loved ones must be the one we place on others too. ■ Zara Aziz is a family doctor in Bristol
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S E G A M I
Y T T E G / P F A / Y R R E P K C I N
–We must learn from failure– failure–
A darkd rk day for avia viation can can have a silve lver lining Paul Paul Marks Marks
IT BEGAN BEGAN with with confu confusio sion n andended with with a shrug shrug.. After After nearlythre nearlythree e years, years, the joint joint Chinese, Chinese, Australi Australian an and Malaysiandeep Malaysiandeep ocean ocean search search forthe missing missing Malaysianairliner Malaysianairliner,, flight flight MH370,was MH3 70,was calledoff calledoff last last week. week. Despite Despite harnessin harnessing g the best drone drone submarinesavaila submarinesavailable ble and searchin searching g 120,000 120, 000squa square re kilometr kilometres es of ocean, ocean, thefuselageof thefuselageof theBoeing theBoeing 777 777 with with 239on boardhas boardhas not not turnedup. turnedup. Itis a crus crushi hingblo ngblow w tohopesof tohopesof closur closure e for for thefamilie thefamiliess andfriends andfriends of passenger passengerss and crew. crew. But the failure failure ofthe searc search h will will be norealsurprise norealsurprise toanyone toanyone whohas follo followedthe wedthe case. case. Thetragedybeganin Thetragedybeganin theearly theearly hoursof hoursof 8 March March 20 2014 14.. Theairliner Theairliner tookoff from from Kuala Kuala Lumpur Lumpur shortly shortly befor before e 1amand headednorthfor headednorthfor Beijing. Beijing. But afterthe plane’s plane’s transponder ceased broadcasting its position and the crew failed to make contact as expected, a massive air and sea search began in the South China Sea. That was rendered pointless after a few days, when Malaysian Malaysian military radar data showed that the plane had inexplicably turned west.
As a lateranal lateranalysi ysiss ofsatellit ofsatellite e pings pings would would show,it show,it then then headedsouth headedsouth over over the remoteIndian remoteIndian Ocean. Ocean. The assump assumptio tion n is that that it crash crashed ed into into the water water around around 2500kilometreswest 2500kilometreswest ofAustrali ofAustralia a when when thefuel ran ran out. out. Themysterydeepe Themysterydeepenedwhen nedwhen the Malaysianauthori Malaysianauthorities ties said the aircraf aircraftt had nottransmitted nottransmitted any routine routine in-fligh in-flightt maintena maintenancedata, ncedata, known known as ACARS ACARS signals. signals. However However,, New Scientist discover discovered ed thatthe engineenginemaker maker Rolls-Ro Rolls-Royce yce,, which which can monitor monitor thehealth thehealth ofall itsengines itsengines wirele wirelessl ssly y from from itsbase in theUK, hadreceiv hadreceived ed atleasttwo ACARSmessa ACARSmessagesfrom gesfrom
“Air safety improves because we glean knowledge as a result of incidents and accidents” the plane plane beforeit beforeit disappear disappeared. ed. Getting accurate information from the airline remains an issue. Even so, hopes of finding MH370 were high at first because a similar search for Air France flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic in 2009, was eventually eventually successful in 2011 thanks to autonomous submarines.
Aviationwatcher Aviationwatchers, s, myself myself included, included, confidently confidently predicted that this would probably be repeated in the case of MH370 – but we were wrong. With only sparse satellite data, it wasn’t possible to get a precise fix on the aircraft’s position. Some external parts of the plane have been found washed up by ocean currents, currents, along with a sliver of an internal fuselage partition. That hints that the plane’s body disintegrated, disintegrated, making the deep ocean search even harder. Aviation safety improves because we glean knowledge as a result of incidents and accidents. While the exact cause of this disaster is still not known – the leading theory remains that cabin depressurisation depressurisation rendered all on board unconscious – many lessons have been and must continue to be learned. These include the need for constant aircraft-tracking over remote ocean areas and for underwater underwater acoustic pingers that are louder and longer-lasting, to help in the event of a post-crash search. Action is under way already on the first of those: on 14 January, US rocket launch company SpaceX put 10 satellites into orbit that will make that constant constant tracking possible via a global service called Aireon. If there is a silver lining to this dark tale, it is this. Of course, none of this will be of any real comfort to relatives and friends of those missing in one of modern aviation’s biggest mysteries. ■ 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 25
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Bird banquet WELCOME to “crane central”. At a tiny village in north-west India, 20,000 demoiselle cranes stop to feast on gifts of grain each year. Khichan, which lies in Rajasthan 100 kilometres from the Pakistani border, only became a major attraction for the cranes in the 1980s when local Jain priests began leaving them grain as they rested after gruelling annual migrations to India from Eurasia. Within years, the practice caught on with other village residents and now swarms of birds arrive to gorge on as much grain as they can eat. The cranes can stay in Khichan from August right through to March the following year before making their return migration. To get this shot, photographer Yashpal Singh Rathore buried his camera and operated it remotely. remotel y. “I dug a small hole in the ground and placed my camera inside it with a fisheye lens,” he says. “The cranes came in droves, exploring the lens and pecking at it.” It was a challenge getting getting pictures from this “grain’s point of view” because it didn’t take long for the lens to become covered in dust, feathers and footmarks that made further shots unusable. In all, it took week-long trips over three successive months for Rathore to get this and other stunning images of the majestic birds. Andy Coghlan
Photographer Yashpal Singh Rathore naturepl.com
2017 Aperture calendar Available now – featuring 12 of ourfavouriteApertureimages newscienti.st/2hjOSiM 28 Januar January y 2017| NewSc NewScienti ientist st | 27
THE S ECRET SCIENC E IN YOUR HOME
Diaper tech: Diaper tech: inspired inspired by by babies All you you need need to aim to creat create e the dries driest, t, most comfortable diapers is a lab full of playing babies and some bright minds
NOT many research facilities have walls decorated with giant bumble bees and paddling ducklings. Nor do they tend to distract their study subjects with colourful slides and miniature shopping carts. Pampers - the first brand to widely introduce disposable diaper technology - has been understanding the needs of parents and babies to create new innovation for over 50 years. At the P&G Diaper Research and Development Centers in the US and Germany, German y, around 250 researchers, part of a global team of over 800 scientists, ranging from dermatologists and chemists to material engineers, are designing the diapers of the future. The creative power of this team has enabled P&G to file more than 5000 diaper-improving patents.
Babies in motion: 3D scanning Disposable diapers have changed beyond measure since their beginnings in the late 1940s. Their chief purpose, howev er, er, remains the same: to minimize leaks and keep skin dry and healthy and babies comfortable.
ADVERTISING FEATURE FEATURE
To help achieve this, babie s and toddlers are regularly invited to the child-friendly research suite in Germany. The shape, fit and movement of their diapers are observed as they play. Detailed measurements are made in a large 3D scanner, consisting of 20 synchronized synch ronized cameras arranged around a platform. Down the corridor is a specialized l ab where dermatologists measure skin pH and loss of water from the skin as part of their efforts to minimize skin irritation. Researchers also give packets of diapers to 1,200 families a week. These may be experimental designs or existing products. Parents are asked to keep a diary of how each performs, detailing such things as leaks, shape changes and dryness and condition of the skin. This feedback is combined with the properties of materials in diapers, such as elasticity and absorbency, to create computer models of new designs. Thes e are used to calculate the chances of a leak or excessive sagging, for example. “We can assess 20 virtual diaper prototypes and eliminate all but two or three,” says Dr Frank Wiesemann, P&G Principle Baby Care Scientist. Scientist . “We then test those fully, rather than testing all 20.”
Channelling innovation
Nonwoven acquisition layer acquisition
Super absorb absorbent ent polymercore
Dis cros
er of lulose
Top sheet Channels
From waste to worth: towards a circular ci rcular economy FOR over 25 years, Pampers has been integrating sustainable thinking into its R&D and manufacturing programs. The result is thinner, lighter diapers that give babies greater manoeuvrability and have have less environmental impact. Nevertheless, 170 billion diapers are thrown away annually and Pampers is
committed to diverting diapers away from landfill. Which is why P&G has joined forces with its Italian partner, Fater, Fater, to develop a plant that recycles disposable diapers with other absorbent hygiene products (AHPs).The plant, in Treviso, Italy, Italy, can process 10,000 tonnes of waste a year. That’s That’s 65 million diapers. AHP waste is fed
Germany plays a key role in delivering majo r innovations in diaper design. Below the permeable sheet next to the baby’s skin, for example, most diapers have a polymeric “acquisition layer” that draws urine away from the skin. P&G’s scientists have added a second “distribution layer” to Pampers diapers, which disperses liquid around the diaper so it can be absorbed more efficiently. This is mostly made of cellulose, long thin fibers extracted from it is impossible to dry out the cellulose wood pulp. P&G treats them to create short completely, so urine can be released back to “cross links” that strengthen the fibers (see the skin under pressure. graphic). This helps the diaper absorb quickly, To deal with this, this , P&G developed a new even when a child sits on it when it’s full. super absorbent polymer that absorbs urine Liquid flows along gaps between the closely more quickly, letting them eliminate cellulose bound cellulose strands which act like capillary from the core. This has cut the weight of a tubes. “You need active distribution of the single Pampers by around 5 grams, or 16 per urine, whichever position the baby is in,” says cent, which is good for children. In a study senior P&G scientist Dr Ute Fröhlich. “Capillary funded by P&G, psychologists psycholog ists at New York York forces between the cellulose fibers are high, University showed that, compared with cloth so urine can move rapidly even against g ravity.” diapers, thin disposables help toddlers to keep Most of the liquid then passes to the their feet, reducing stumbles and falls. Some super absorbent polymers can take absorbent core layer of the diaper. Until recently, the core of a Pampers diaper up hundreds of times their own weight in liquid, resembled those of some other brands: but P&G has constrained the new version to absorb between 20 and 30 times its weigh t. As a mixture of cellulose and particles of super absorbent polymer capable of soaking up a result, the particles do not merge into a single huge amounts of liquid relative to its own jelly-like blob. They stay as individual individual sphere spheres s weight. The idea was that the cellulose initially even when saturated, so that any extra urine soaks up the urine and the super absorbent can flow past them to be absorbed elsewh ere. polymer dries out the cellulose. cell ulose. However, Innovation doesn’t end there. Some diapers
into a chamber where pressurized steam sterilizes it and neutralizes odors. Cellulose and super absorbing polymers are then separated for reuse in other industries. “It is the only such recycling site in Europe and the most advanced worldwide,” says Dr Ioannis Hatzopoulos, P&G Sustainability Communications.
leak as a result of losing their shape when worn by active infants. To minimize this, P&G recently shaped the core into three channels to help the diaper keep its shape. Finally, feces are trickier to deal with than urine. Clinical studies have shown that the enzymes in feces can be aggressive on baby skin, especially when activated by high pH urines. So quick removal of feces from the skin reduces the risk of diaper dermatiti s. To To improve performance, a Pampers Premium Protection diaper has a top sheet that has little conical apertures, allowing feces to get into the core instead of spreading on top. This reduces feces contact with the skin. “When I chose to study chemistry I didn ’t set out to become a poo and pee expert,” says Fröhlich. “What I didn’t realize then was quite how much amazing science there is in the modern diaper diape r.” ■ More at: www.us.pg.com
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Why am I here? Having a purp Hav urpose to wha hatt you do coul ould help you liv live long longer er – an and d better tter,, �nds �nds Teal Burrell
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OMETHINGtolivefor.Thissimpleidea is at theheartof ourgreatest ourgreatest stories, stories, drivingourheroeson.Itisthethread from from which which more more complexphilo complexphilosoph sophiesare iesare woven.AsNietzscheoncewrote,“Hewhohas awhytoliveforcanbearalmostanyhow”. As humanbei humanbeing ngs, s, it is hardfor hardfor us to shake shake theidea that that our existen existence ce must must have have signific significancebeyon ancebeyond d thehere and now. now. Life begin beginss andends, andends, yes, yes, but but surel surely y thereis thereis a greater greater meanin meaning. g. Thetroubleis, these these stories stories we tellourselve tellourselvess do nothin nothing g to soften soften the harshreal harshreality ity:: as faras the the univ univer erse se is concern concerned, ed, we are nothingbut nothingbut fleetingand fleetingand randoml randomly y assemble assembled d collecti collections ons of energy energy and and matte matter.One r.One day day, wewill allbe dust. dust. One One day day, but but notyet. notyet. Just Just beca becauselifeis uselifeis ultima ultimatel tely y meaning meaninglessdoesn’ lessdoesn’tt stopus searchi searching ng for meaning meaning while while we are alive. alive. Some Some seek seek it inreligion inreligion,, othersin othersin a caree career, r, money money,, family family or pureescapism. pureescapism. Butall who who findit findit seem seem tostumbleacro tostumbleacross ss the the same same thing thing – a thing thing psycho psychologi logists sts call“purpose” call“purpose”.. The The notio notion n ofpurposein ofpurposein life life may may seem seem illilldefinedand definedand even even unscien unscientifi tific. c. But a growing growing heap heap ofresearchis ofresearchis pinni pinningdownwha ngdownwhatt it is, and and how how it affe affectsour ctsour live lives. s. Peopl Peoplee with with a greater greater sense sense of purpose purpose live live longer,sleep longer,sleep better better and havebetter havebetter sex.Purposecuts therisk of stroke stroke and depressi depression.It on.It helps helps people people recove recoverr fromaddiction fromaddiction or manage manage their their glucoseleve glucoselevels ls if they they are diabetic diabetic.. If a pharmac pharmaceut euticalcompan icalcompany y could could bottle bottle such such a treatmen treatment, t, it would would make make billions billions.. But But you you can can find find your your own,and own,and it’s it’s free. free. Thestudy of howpurposeinfluenc howpurposeinfluences es our healthlargel healthlargely y began began withViktor Frankl, Frankl, an Austrianpsychi Austrianpsychiatri atrist st whosurvived whosurvived four four Nazi Nazi January2017 30 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
concen concentrat tration ion camps. camps. He noticedthat noticedthat some ofhis fellowpris fellowprison onerswerefar erswerefar more more likel likely y to survi survivethanothe vethanothers.“W rs.“Woeto oeto him him who who sawno more more sense sense inhis life,no life,no aim, aim, nopurpose nopurpose,, and therefo therefore,no re,no point point in carryingon. carryingon. He was was soon soon lost, lost,”he ”he laterwrot laterwrote.Afte e.Afterr the second second world world war, war, Frankl Frankl dedicat dedicated ed his work work to underst understandi anding ng therole of purpose purpose and develop developed ed a therapybased therapybased on his finding findings. s.
Beyond Beyond happiness happiness Today Today,, research researchers ers define define purpose purpose as a sense sense of direc directio tion n in life life – a longlong-ter term m goal goal setaround setaround one’ one’s corevalues, corevalues, that that makes makes lifeworth living, living, and shapes shapes daily daily behavi behaviour our.. It is a compone component nt of broader broader measure measuress of subjecti subjective ve well-be well-being ing or happine happiness ss (see“Howdo you you measure measure purpose? purpose?”” page32), in which which there there hasbeen a surgeof surgeof inter interes estt inthe past past two two decad decades es.. That’ That’ss why why, in 2012, 2012, then then United United Nation Nationss secretary-general secretary-general Ban Ki-mooncommissioned World HappinessReport HappinessReport , thefirst ever ever World which which has been been updatedannua updatedannuallysince. llysince. Measuresof Measuresof happine happiness ss canreflectbroader social social issues issues such such as inequali inequality ty,, butwhen research researchers ers look look at theindividu theindividual al element elementss that that make make up well-be well-being ing,, theyfind purpose purpose onits own own has has a uniqu uniquee infl influe uenc ncee onhealth onhealth.. Of course,teasingout course,teasingout whethe whetherr it is actually actually purpose purpose itself, itself, and notthe factthat purposef purposeful ul people people mayexercise mayexercise moreor eatbetter, canbe diffi difficu cult.Butoverthe lt.Butoverthe past past 10years, 10years, the the findingsabout findingsabout thehealthbenefits thehealthbenefits of purpose purpose have have been remarkably remarkably consistent consistent – revealing revealing that,among that, among other advantages, advantages, alcoholics alcoholics whose whose sense sense of purpose purpose increase increased d during during treatmen treatmentt were were less likelyto likelyto resume resume heavy heavy >
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28 January 2017 | NewScientist | 31
drinking six months months later, later, that people with higher purpose were less less likelyto develop develop sleep disturbances disturbances with age, age, and that women with more more purpose purpose ratedtheir sex lives lives as more enjoyable. enjoyable. These findings persist“even after statistically statistically controllin controlling g for age, race, gender, gender, education, income,health status and health behaviours”, behaviours”, says Victor Strecher, Strecher, a public health researcher researcher at the University University of Michigan Michigan in Ann Arbor Arbor andauthorof the book, Life on Purpose Purpose. In an analysis of 7000 middle-aged middle-aged people in the US, even even small increases increases in sense of purpose purpose were were associate associated d withbig drops drops in the chances chances of dying during a period of 14 years. A study of more more than 9000 9000 Englishpeople English people over 50 years old found that – even after
HOW DO YOU MEASURE PURPOSE? To determine whether purpose affects health and longevity, you first have to measure it. To do this, many researchers turn to a set of scales developed in the 1980s by the psychologist Carol Ryff at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Ryff’s scales measure six different aspects of well-being: autonomy; environmental mastery (the feeling of being in control in your everyday environment); personal growth; positive relations with others; purpose in life and self-acceptance. For each item, people read a series of statements, and select one of six responses ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”. These types of scales are often used to assess national levels of well-being. For purpose, the statements include things like, “My aims in life have been more a source of satisfaction than frustration to me”, or, “In the final analysis, I’m not sure that my life adds up to much”. Higher scores are based on stronger agreement with purposeful statements such as: “Some people wander aimlessly through life, but I am not one of them”, and disagreement with remarks such as: “I live life one day at a time and don’t really think about the future”. People who score in the bottom 25 per cent are considered to have low levels of purpose. A person with a high degree of purpose – someone who falls into the top 25 per cent – is characterised as someone who “has goals in life and a sense of directedness, feels there is meaning to present and past life, holds beliefs that give life purpose and has aims and objectives for living”. January2017 32 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
adjusting for things like education, depression, smoking and exercise – those in the highest quartile of purpose had a 30 per cent lower risk of death over nearly a decade decad e compared with those in the lowest quartile. Other studies show higher purpose cuts risk of heart disease by 27 per cent, stroke by 22 per cent and Alzheimer’s disease by half. The only reason purpose isn’t a top public health priority, says Strecher, is because it somehow feels too vague or ephemeral. ephemera l. “It’s not a construct that feels scientific s cientific enough,” he says. “If this were a physical issue or a new drug or a gene, you would see lots of funding going into it.” i t.” Some of the scepticism has to do with concerns that purpose is merely a stand-in for opportunity in life, or wealth. Indeed, in recent research, Patrick Hill, now at Washington University in St Louis, did find that people with a stronger sense of purpose tended to have more money to begin with, and earn more over the period studied.
Health benefits But But a 2007 2007 Gallu Gallup p poll poll of141,000peop of141,000peoplein lein 132 countries found that, even even though people from wealthier countries rate themselves higher on measures of happiness, people from poorer nations tend to view their lives as more meaningful. Shigehiro Oishi at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, who analysed the poll data, suspects this is in part because people in developing countries have more concrete things to focus on. “Their goals are clearer perhaps: to survive and believe. In rich countries, there are so many potential choices that it could be hard to see clearly,” cl early,” he he says. Could it be that purpose is just another term for religious faith? Oishi’s study did find that nations with the highest ratings of meaning in life were also the most religious. And religious people do tend to report having more purpose. But efforts to disentangle dis entangle the two have revealed differences. Religiosity doesn’t predict a lower risk of heart attack or stroke, for example. And certainly certai nly many nonreligious people have high levels of purpose. In fact, few of us rank on the very low end of the scale. “We tend to focus on the utter meaninglessness of the world,” worl d,” says Samantha Heintzelman at the University of Virginia. But, “for the most part, people feel like their lives are pretty meaningful” meaningful ”. So how does that meaning, that sense of purpose, actually improve your health? In part, it may be because greater purpose makes people more conscientious about maintaining
their health. But Steven Cole at the University of California, Los Angeles, thinks there’s more to it. “If people are living longer, there’s ther e’s got to be some biology underpinning underpi nning that,” he says. Cole has spent years studying how negative experiences such as loneliness and stress can increase the expression of genes promoting inflammation, which can cause cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s or cancer. In 2013, Cole examined the influence of well-being instead. He focused on two types: hedonic, from pleasure and rewards, and eudaemonic, from having a purpose beyond self-gratification. These two aspects were measured by having participants note down their well-being over the previous week, how often they felt happy (hedonic) or that their life had a sense of direction (eudaemonic), for example. Although scoring highly in one often meant scoring highly in the other and both bot h correlated with lower levels of depression, they had opposite effects on gene expression. People with higher measures of hedonic wellbeing had higher expression of inflammatory
Full circle: having goals that benefit others may provide particularly strong benefits for you
genes genes andlowerexpressionof andlowerexpressionof genes genes for disease-fightin disease-fighting g antibodies, antibodies, a patternalso seen seen in loneline loneliness ss and stress stress.. Forpeople scoringhighe scoringhighest st on eudaemo eudaemonia,it nia,it wasthe opposite.“There weresurprises all around,” around,” Colesays. Colesays. “The “The biggestsurpri biggestsurprise se being being that that you canfeel similarl similarly y happy happy but thebiologylooks so notablydifferent.” notablydifferent.” Colesuspectseudaem Colesuspectseudaemoni oniaa – with with itsfocus on purpose– purpose– decrease decreasess thenervous thenervous system’ system’ss
“If people with purpose live longer,, there must be some longer biology underpinning that” reactionto reactionto sudden sudden danger danger that that increase increasess heart heart rate and breathing and surges of adrenaline. Over-activation of this stress-response system, as you see with chronic stress, causes harmful inflammation. “There may be something saying ‘be less frightened, or less worried, anxious or uncertain’,” uncertain’,” says Cole. That something could be a brain region
called call ed theventral theventral striatu striatum, m, an areaactivate areaactivated d whenpeop whenpeopleare leare told told to focu focuss onthingsof onthingsof value. value. Cole has foundin found in as-yet-unpu as-yet-unpublished blished researc research h that that people people withmore activityin activityin this this area area show show similar similar pattern patternss of gene gene express expression ion to those those with with high high levelsof levelsof eudaemon eudaemonic ic wellwellbeing. being. Focusi Focusing ng on someth somethingpositi ingpositive ve and bigger bigger than than yours yourself elf mayactivatethe mayactivatethe ventr ventral al striatu striatum, m, whichcan whichcan inhibitareas inhibitareas likethe amygdala, whichusually promotesthe stress Mamygdala, U N G respon response.Anothe se.Anotherr indicat indication ion of thiscomes A M / N from from resear research ch showin showing g that that higherscoreson higherscoreson N I L G a scale scal e of purposecorrel purp osecorrelate ated d withless T R U B amygdala amygdala activation. activation. Andone study study indicat indicates es that that people people with highereudaemonic well-being well-being have have both increas increased ed activityin activityin theventral theventral striatu striatum m and lower lower levelsof levelsof the stresshormo stresshormone ne cortiso cortisol. l. “Thingsthat “Thingsthat youvaluecan overri override de things things that that you you fear,”saysCole. fear,”saysCole. An alterna alternativ tivee theoryfor theoryfor howpurpose howpurpose could could affect affect biology biology is by preser preserving ving telomer telomeres,caps es,caps on the ends ends of chromos chromosome omess that that protectDNA protectDNA from from damage,but damage,but that that shorte shorten n with with ageand stress stress.. A study study on stress stress reduct reduction ion throug through h meditat meditationhas ionhas found found that that it could cou ld defendtelomer def endtelomeres.But es.But close clos e analys ana lysis is M U N G showe sho wed d that tha t thebenefit thebenefi t wasdown to a change cha nge A M / sense of purpose purpose,, not themeditation themeditation B in sense B E Wdirectl dire ctly: y: thegreater thegreate r a person per son’’s purpose purpose X E L A became,the became,the more more of theproteintelomerase theproteintelomerase they they had to protecttheir protecttheir telomer telomeres. es. Becaus Becausee of findingslike findingslike these,some these,some resear researche chers rs think think purposeshouldbe purposeshouldbe more more of a public public policy policy priority priority,, shiftin shifting g away away from traditional traditional measures measures of economy economy like GDP, GDP, and narrow narrowingthe ingthe focus focus of happine happiness ss campaig campaigns.Doing ns.Doing thiswould thiswould reduceearly reduceearly mortalit mortality,giveus y,giveus better better overallhealthand overallhealthand cut theneed formedicalhelp, says says Michael Michael Steger Steger at ColoradoStateUnive ColoradoStateUniversi rsity ty in Fort Fort Collins Collins.. Itmay also also help help usall get get along along.. Hill Hill has has found found that that people people who who report report higherleve higherlevels ls of purposeare purposeare lessdistresse lessdistressed d in situatio situations ns wherethey wherethey arein theminority.It theminority.It makes makes sense: sense: people people on a missionmust missionmust accept accept that that achieving their aims requires getting along with others. “Whether goals are focused on helping others or not, it’s i t’s very rare that our life goals don’t involve others at all,” he says. This is all well and good if you’re already brimming with direction, but how can people boost their sense of purpose if it is lacking? There are several different strategies. As the study on telomeres indicates, meditation can have an effect. And other research has shown
that eudaemonic well-being is strengthened by carrying out random acts of kindness. Cole has found that having a purpose that benefits others may be particularly helpful. But striving for something that isn’t necessarily constructive, like climbing a mountain, may be enough to create the health-boosting biology he sees in his studies. To identify or strengthen your sense of purpose, Steger suggests starting small, by focusing first on making work more meaningful or becoming more invested in relationships. relationships.Strech Strecher er recommends recommends settinga setting a differe different nt purposefor purposefor each each of four four domainsin domainsin life– family family,, work,commu work,communityand nityand person personal al – and acknowledging that your focus will shift between them over time, and the goals themselves can shift too.
Purpose pills Strecher says to consider what you would like to be said about you at your memorial, or to identify people you would like to emulate. He is also developing an app called Jool that he hopes can ca n eventually serve as a kind of “purpose pi ll”. Users begin with an assessment, and then get encouragement and guidance as they go on. It is currently being tested by companies to help employees empl oyees hone their sense of purpose – and boost productivity. His team has been following an initial group of users for over a year, and they will begin randomised studies in the coming months. There are also more formal therapies that foster purpose and meaning in life for people with conditions such as depression. For example,Dolores Gallagher-Thom Gallagher-Thompson pson at Stanfo Stanford rd Unive Universit rsity y in Califor California,has nia,has found found that that cogniti cognitive ve behavi behaviour oural al therapy therapy can promote meaningfulness. She encourages patients to consider their legacy and how they might might providea providea goodexample goodexample forchildren forchildren and grandchildren. grandchildren. Purposeisn’ta Purposeisn’ta fixed fixed entity entity – it waxes waxes and wanes with changes in life. Many people experience a drop in purpose following retirement, for instance, but can regain it by engaging in the community, helping others and remaining sociable. And, as Hill found, the health effects of purpose are apparent whether someone is 20 or 70. “To me, that’s evidence suggesting that whenever one finds a purpose it can still i mbue benefits,” he says. In other words, it’s never too late to start seeking the meaning of life. ■ Teal Burrell is a writer based in Richmond, Virginia 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 33
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CODE THROUGH THE AGES
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THE ORIGINS OF CURRENT ENCRYPTION METHODS LIE CENTURIES BACK
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Does making our personal data private really undermine public security? Chris Baraniuk investigates Baraniuk investigates
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ABRIEL YEW was walking along a quiet residential street in north London when the police swiped his iPhone. He could only watch as an officer frantically tapped at the screen to unlock the secrets within. It wasn’t the device the authorities were after – it was data. Yew was sentenced last November to five-and-a-half years in jail for his part in a huge fraud involving fake credit cards, in large part thanks to messages contained on his phone. The case illustrates a problem exercising law enforcement and security agencies across the world. Increasingly, our personal devices store and exchange data in an encrypted form, so that only the user can make it readable, b y tapping in a passcode or through fingerprint identification or some other ot her means. That’s great for keeping personal information safe, say if our phone is lost or stolen. But it can also be a boon to criminals and terrorists. And so we have entered the latest round in a long-running spat about how best to balance personal privacy and public security. This time, the focus is on the booming business of personal data encryption. While techies praise secure data for all, many politicians take a dimmer view. Legislation that would limit or perhaps even fatally undermine encryption has been discussed in many places, including
S E D A R P N O M I S
the US. In the UK it might already exist, depending on how you interpret new laws. The techniques people have used to keep private messages private p rivate have evolved evolved over time (see “Code through the ages”, over the next few pages), but the core idea of encryption remains the same. You convert convert plain text into gobbledygook gobbl edygook so that only you, and anyone else you care to share your secrets with, can unscramble it. Back-door bombshell Digital encryption has long been part of the internet’s furniture. Take the “s” in the “https://” that you might see prefacing a web address in your browser. This indicates that any data shared with that website should be transmitted in a secure form, using an encryption system originally developed for e-commerce. Nowadays, nearly half the world’s web traffic is encrypted, thanks to moves such as that by the streaming service Netflix, which announced in 2015 that it intended to move to the https standard. Just recently, there has also been an explosion in the encryption of personal data. That’s largely down to a bombshell in documents leaked by Edward Snowden in 2013, which exposed that the US National
Security Agency and its UK equivalent, GCHQ, had back doors to access data stored on iPhone devices and BlackBerry and Android phones, including notes, location information, text messages and emails. The security services appeared to be reserving the right to silently access the personal conversations of millions, and without any oversight. Tech companies quickly responded. Apple’s iOS 8 operating system, introduced in 2014, extended passcode protection to all personal data on a phone – hence the police officer’s frantic tapping tappi ng on Yew’s Yew’s iPhone to keep it it unlocked. Google’s Android operating system, the most popular in the world, offers device encryption as standard, too. Beyond that, end-to-end encryption – a system that ensures no one besides the participants particip ants in a conversation, not even the provider of the service, can read it – has been enabled by default since 2016 in the world’s most popular messaging system, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp. End-to-end encryption is also available on an opt-in basis for users of Facebook Messenger, the next most popular messaging app. The ins and outs of encryption may still be a recondite subject for geeks, but many of us are now using it unknowingly all the time. Both WhatsApp and Messenger rely on > 28 January 2017 | NewScientist | 35
0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0
FIRST CENTUR CENTURY Y BC
16TH CENTURY
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Roman Roman dictato dictatorr Julius Julius Caesar Caesar encoded military orders by simply shifting individual letters in a message up or down a certain number of characters.
Shift ciphers likeCaesar’s like Caesar’s can can be cracked cracked by trial and error. Letters also appear at a consistent frequency in longer messages, making them easy to break by analysing character frequency. French French mathema mathematici tician an Blaise Blaise de Vigenère Vigenère increasedcode increasedcode complex complexity ity by introdu introducinga cinga “key”word (“LEMON” below) below) that produces a variable shift on each letter. Only those holding the key key can easily decryptsuch decryptsuch a message. message.
During During thesecondworld war, war, theNazis’ Enigma machines provided a complex variableshift variableshift and theabilityto change change thekey every every day. day. Withsome 160billion billion billion settings settings,, crackingthe crackingthe Enigma Enigma code, as Alan Turing and his his colleagues colleagues eventually did, was a heroic computing achievement.
SHIFT CIPHERS
VIGENÈRE CIPHER
Message:
ATTACK TTACK AT DAWN DAWN Code:
ENIGMA
XQQXZH XQQXZH XQ AXTK B
C
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G H
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ATTACK TTACK AT DAWN Key:
LEMONL EM X
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technology originally developed for an app called Signal, which was created in 2014 by Open Whisper Systems, a non-profit group based in San Francisco. As the company revealed last year in response to a subpoena demanding information on two of the app’s users, all it had on o n them was the date one had installed the app and the last time both had used it. “It’s the only government request t hat we’ve ever received,” says Moxie Marlinspike, Marl inspike, Signal’s lead developer. “I don’t anticipate that we would receive many ma ny more.” That That sounds sounds a little little likewishful likewishful thinking thinking.. Encryptio Encryption n becameheadlin becameheadlinee news news early early in 2016, 2016, when the the US Federal Federal Bureau Bureau of Investigatio Investigation n (FBI) announced announced that it had failed failed to unlock unlock an iPhoneused iPhoneused by Syed Syed Rizwan Farook, a jihadist who together with his wife had killed 14 peop people le in a centre for people with disabilities in San Bernardino, California, where they both worked. Investigators called on Apple to create a special version of the phone’s operating system that would make it easier to crack a user’s user’s passcode by trial and error. The company repeatedly declined, arguing it would compromise the security of all iPhones. Quite right too – or was it? The fact is, we have never had cast-iron guarantees of privacy before. Even open democracies have laws allowing the authorities, with the
O T O H P K C O T S Y M A L A / K C O T S C I S S A L C : E N I H C A M H S A C ; O T O H P K C O T S Y M A L A / O T O F R E T N I : A M G I N E
January2017 36 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
Code:
LXFOPV LXFOPV EF
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Key
Message: A
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A B C ONLE D E F RNHR RNHR G H I J K L eM gN a s O s e P M Q R S T U
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V
C D E F G H I J K L M N D E F G H I J K L M N O E F G H I J K L M N O P F G H I J K L M N O P Q G H J K L M N O P Q R H I K L MN O P Q R S I J K L M N O P Q R S T J K L M N O P Q R S T U K L MN O P Q R S T U V L MN O P Q R S T U VW MN O P Q R S T U VWX N O P Q R S T U VWX Y O P Q R S T U VWX Y Z P Q R S T U VWX Y Z A Q R S T U VWX Y Z A B R S U VWX Y Z A B C S T U VWX Y Z A B C D T U VWX Y Z A B C D E U VWX Y Z A B C D E F VWX Y Z A B C D E F G WX Y Z A B C D E F G H
appropriate warrants,to search private private premises for evidence evidence wherecriminalityor where criminalityor a threat to public public safety safety is suspected. suspected. Wiretaps and bugging can be authorised under certain circumstances. Our expectation has been that invasions of our privacy will be proportionate to any threat. But the authorities’ authorities ’ overreach revealed in the Snowden files has led to us being granted total privacy by default. default. Not everyone is happy. WhatsApp has been blocked blocked – and and unblocked unblocked – three times in Brazil by judicial fiat. The German Federal Intelligence Intelligence Service,the BND, reportedly reportedly
“We expect that any invasions of privacy should be proportionate to threat” wants to spend €150 million in an effort to crack WhatsApp’s encryption. In the US, a draft bill, the Burr-Feinstein law, would force tech companies to assist the government when it wants access to encrypted data. That bill is now considered largely dead in the water, and last month the US House Hous e of Representatives Judiciary Committee issued a report highly critical of government attempts to weaken encryption, arguing they were against the national interest. But Donald
Trump’ Trump’ss criticismof criticismof Apple’ Apple’s positionin positionin the FBI stand-of stand-offf means means many many are expectin expecting g his administration administration to renew scrutiny scrutiny of encryption. Ironically, Marlinspike thinks fears of Trump’s supposed authoritarian tendencies were behind Signal’s daily downloads increasing fivefold after he was elected president. president. “If you’re a journalist,you might be worried about the privacy of your communications,” says Marlinspike. Inthe UK,thedie may may alrea alreadyhav dyhavee been been cast. cast. Lastyear,the thenprime ministerDavid ministerDavid Cameron Cameron asked,“In asked,“In our countr country,do y,do we want want to allow allow a means means of commun communica icationbetwe tionbetween en people people that that even even in extremi extremis, s, witha signed signed warrantfrom warrantfrom thehome secretar secretary y persona personally lly,, wecannot wecannot read? read?”” Secti Section onss 253to 256of the the UK Inves Investiga tigatoryPowersAct, toryPowersAct, which which came into force last November, seem to give the answer “no”: it requires operators to remove “electronic protection” applied to data when asked by the home secretary. There are also provisions for intercepting communications. Such Such an ability ability is needed needed if we want want securit security, y, argues argues Dav David id Omand, Omand, a former former directorof directorof GCHQ. GCHQ. “There “There will be somecircumstan somecircumstancesin cesin which which someform of equipme equipment nt interfer interferenc encee or placin placing g ofmalwarewillbe ofmalwarewillbe justi justifie fied d ona case-bycase-by-casebasis, casebasis,”” he says.“Youhav says.“Youhavee to allow allow the intelligence agencies to think about how, in a targeted way, they can overcome the
1 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
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1970
1971
1976
PUBLIC KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY
BLOCK CIPHER
RSA ALGORITHM
Traditional “symmetric” cryptography cryptography depends on two people sharing one encryption key. If this key is intercepted, the code can be cracked. In public key, or asymmetric, cryptography cryptography each user has two linked keys, a “public” key for encryption and a “private” key for decryption, but only the public keys are ever exchanged (see diagram, below).
Developed by German-born cryptographer Horst Feistel, the block cipher is a powerful way to encrypt blocks of text as a whole, rather than character by character. It became the basis of the US National Security Agency-approved Agency-approved Data Encryption Standard, which was used well into the 2000s.
This method for generating public and private keys, widely used on the internet and in banking security, was developed by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman at the Massachusetts Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It multiplies together two large prime numbers to make a shared public key, while using the same two primes to calculate a private key for decryption. Finding the prime factors of a large number is notoriously difficult even even for a computer, so even if the public key is intercepted, it cannot be exploited on its own to decrypt messages.
Public key cryptog cryptograph raphy y In methods such as RSA cryptography, messages are encoded using a public encryption key. Decrypting them requires a related private key, which only the intended recipient has
Alice and Bob create mathematically related public and private keys. They exchange public keys, but keep the private keys
Alice uses Bob’s public key to encrypt a message and send it to him
ALICE
PRIVATE KEY
BOB
PUBLIC KEY
PUBLIC PUBLIC KEY
PRIVATE KEY
MESSAGE
Bob uses his private key to decrypt Alice’s message. He then uses her public key to encrypt his reply which she can decrypt
Messages can be decoded by both parties without the decryption (private) keys ever being exchanged
difficulty difficulty of end-to-end end-to-end encryption. encryption.” But some argue that the wording of the act mandates the creation of back doors, and that these could be misused by the authorities or exploited by criminals or other nefarious third parties. Alan Woodward, a security expert at the University of Surrey, UK, and a government consultant, thinks criticism that
theact threate threatens ns encrypti encryption on is overblo overblown. wn. “Iam awareof awareof noone in any any busin businessbein essbeing g approach approached ed and told, told, ‘You ‘You have have to weaken weaken yourencryptionproduct’ your encryptionproduct’,”he ,”he says. Othe Others rs arenot so sure.RossAnde sure.RossAnderso rson,a n,a cryptogr cryptographe apherr at theUniversityof theUniversityof Cambridg Cambridge, e, UK, thinks thinks that that the new new law is “disastro “disastrous” us”.. “If you are providing some cryptographic cryptographic
product or service out of the UK, U K, you can be secretly ordered to betray your customers and not tell them about it,” he says. In 2015, Anderson co-authored a report on encryption, Keys Keys Under Doormats Doormats, that looked at how the authorities might get access on demand demand to secure secure commun communica ication tions, s, and what what consequ consequenc ences es that that might might have. have. There There might might be a master set of decryption “keys” “keys” held by the authorities that could unlock private messages – a system known as a s key escrow. Or technology companies might hold such master keys for their services and provide themon request. request. The The reportraise reportraisess a long long list list ofsecurit ofsecurity y and ethicalissues ethicalissues withboth strategi strategies es that, that, in the authors’ view, view, make them currently unworkable. The argument that terrorists or criminals could be using encryption to hide from the law fails to move Anderson. “Sorry, that’s just tough. Freedom isn’t free, right?” he says. “Freedom costs. That should be clear to anybody with any brains and if we’re going to restrain some state power, there will be costs in terms of civilian casualties.” Another co-author of the report was Phil Zimmermann, the inventor of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), a program that helped to popularise popularis e encryption in the 1990s. Today, he develops security products used by US Navy SEALs, and says that schemes to t o weaken > 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 37
1991
1990S
PGP
https://
Generating secure, random public keys when constantly sending messages back and forth is computationally intensive. The PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) protocol developed by Phil Zimmermann uses block ciphers and a user’s private key to make a “session” key for a batch of messages. The session key is changed frequently, frequently, keeping the conversation private. Available Available for free, PGP is widely used by the security conscious to encrypt emails and texts.
Using symmetric cryptography to encrypt data and public key cryptography to establish users are who they say they are, this secure protocol, originally developed for e-commerce, now covers almost half of all connections made on the web.
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01 10 0 1 1 1 1 0
2010S END�TO�END ENCRYPTION
End-to-end encryption methods developed for messaging services combine complex algorithms for distributing public and private keys with “forward secrecy”, a property ensuring that even if a private key is compromised, messages previously encrypted with it cannot be read by a third party. party.
CRACKED BY QUANTUM? One inno innovati vation on couldblow curre current nt notio notions ns of cryptographic security out of the water: quantum computers. Modern-day encryption techniques rely on mathematical operations that are relatively easy to do one way but take an unfeasible unfeasible amount of time the other way – multiplying two large prime numbers together versus factoring the result, for example. Quantum computers promise to harness the fuzzy logic of quantum theory to make such calculations much easier. They already exist in basic forms, with one successfully factoring the number 56,153 in 2014. That’s nowhere near big enough to render cryptography cryptograph y redundant – but it might only be a matter of time. “There is a threat that people will be able to build large-scale quantum computers soon,” says information security expert Kenny Paterson from Royal Holloway,, University of London. “If the Holloway technology exists, everybody can use it to break other people’s crypto.” Some propose fighting fire with fire, by developing quantum cryptographic algorithms immune to quantum cracking. Such algorithms have already been used to secure information on small-scale networks, but there are currently severe limits on how much data can be transmitted securely and over what distance. Many researchers are trying instead to develop classical cryptographic systems immune to quantum hacking – although it remains to be seen whether that approach can succeed, says Paterson. “What computation is possible on a quantum computer is still an evolving story, so this is not an easy endeavour.” January2017 38 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
cryptography put everyone at risk. “If you’re going to make body armour, a rmour, well, you want it to stop bullets,” he says. Cryptography should be similarly bulletproof. “Making it more difficult for the bad guys to get in also makes it more difficult for the good guys to get in. And there’s no way to avoid that.”
Hacked off But perhaps there is a third way. Rather than weakening encryption for everyone, some think law-enforcement agencies should hone their skills by breaking device encryption on a case-by-case basis. That’s apparently the route the FBI eventually took with Syed Farook’s iPhone: in April 2016, FBI director James Comey admitted paying a private p rivate company $1.3 million to hack into the t he device for them. This approach might be expensive and time-consuming, but you’ll usually find a way in, says Robert Graham of Errata Security, a company based in Atlanta, Georgia, that legally hacks devices to test their security. “Almost always, you find bugs in how they t hey do encryption that allow al low us to break through. t hrough.”” Many devices, for example, have “back-door passwords” that can be reset even if you are otherwise locked out. But Graham certainly isn’t advocating that FBI hacking become commonplace. “It doesn’t
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change the argument that having our devices spy on us is a bad ba d idea,” he says. Having reached fever pitch following the Apple versus FBI spat last year, official rhetoric against encryption seems to have calmed a little. But few expect things to stay that way. “The FBI director has already said he wants us to restart this debate d ebate this year,” says Matthew Green, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. “I’m sure we’re going to see a renewed push on thi this. s.”” Graham, for one, is prepared to fight back. “If my government mandates crypto back doors, I’m leaving the country and hacking back against the government,” he says. says. People who sign up to what he calls call s a “cyber revolution” might might target the FBI or politicians, politi cians, “getting all their secret emails”, emails”, he suggests. It’s not clear whether that would be in anyone’s interest. But with an unprecedented wealth of potential evidence just a cryptographic key away, away, the debate will continue to raise hackles on both sides. On the one hand, encryption is crucial crucial forthe securi security ty of websit websites,financ es,financial ial transactions transactions and corporate corporate enterprises.On enterprises.On theother,weshareadesiretobekeptsafe. For now, it seems tolerating the occasional officially sanctioned “mugging” on the street is about the only option opt ion we have. ■ Chris Baraniuk is Baraniuk is a journalist based in London
Early learners Fetuses of all species take in an incredible array of things before they are born, discovers Guy Lewy
N
I spy with my fetal eye: a cuttlefish embryo, watching
EWLY hatched turtles head straight for the sea and tadpoles recognise a predatory salamander the very first time they see one. But what may, on the surface, appear to be a primordial instinct can sometimes hide a deeper, stranger truth: that our first lessons in life come before birth itself. Over the years, studies of young animals belonging to a range of species sp ecies have pushed back the known onset of learning. “We tried earlier and earlier,” says Ludovic Dickel, who studies cuttlefish at the University of Caen Normandy in France. “In the end, we questioned embryos.” From this research, a trend is emerging. Birds in the egg are listening to their mothers; lambs, like human babies, can be taught about food before birth; and some embryos watch the world through their still-developing eyes. And because these are all examples of acquired knowledge, not instinct, they can also be manipulated. Take taste. Stories of human babies developing a preference for certain foods while while stillin their their mother’ mother’ss womb womb aren’t aren’t unco uncomm mmon(see“Is on(see“Is mybump mybump wise wise tothe world?”, world?”, page 40). Perhaps the best illustration of this is that we tend to be more tolerant tolerant of spicy food if our pregnant mothers ate a diet full of such cuisine. Likewise, Konstantinos Fegeros’s team at the Agricultural Agricultural University of Athens in Greece has shown that if a pregnant sheep i s >
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28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 39
E U O L F E C N A D N E T / R E I N U E M D N A R T R E B
IS MY BU BUMP MP WI WISE SE TO TH THE E WOR ORLD LD?? Humanfetu Humanfetusesgleaninf sesgleaninform ormati ation on from from theworldon theothersideof their their mum’stum.By mum’stum.By lookin looking g athow newbor newbornsmovetheirheadsandspeedup nsmovetheirheadsandspeedup or slow slow down down their their suckin sucking g on a rubbersensorwhenprese rubbersensorwhenpresent nted ed with with stimul stimuli, i, youcantellwhat grabs grabs theiratten theirattentio tion n and deduce deduce fromthis whatthey’vealreadybecome familiarwith familiarwith before before birth.
LANGUAGE
MUSIC
TASTE
Babies start responding to different sounds from 20 weeks. Our mother’s voice is the one that’s loudest inside the womb, and we are born preferring it to others, and our mother’s tongue to other languages. The melodyof melodyof ourfirstcries ourfirstcries are even even character characteristicof isticof the locallanguage. locallanguage. Andstudies reveal that children born to bilingual mothers seek out both languages equally.
Your musical musical tastesmay havebegunto havebegunto develo develop p in thewomb.In onestudy, onestudy, thirdtrimesterbabies were repeatedly played Twinkle They Twinkl Twinkle e Little Little Star . They were were playedthe playedthe tune tune again again atbirthand four four months months later later,, butthistime with with some wrongnotes introduced.Babies introduced. Babies who had had been trained in the womb responded much more than others who hadn’t.
Strong flavours from spicy or garlicky food diffuse into the amniotic fluid, which fetuses start swallowing at nine weeks, sampling sampling it withtheir developin developing g tastebuds. And they remember these tastes: newborns offered garlicky food for the first time will accept it with gusto if their mothers ate garlic during pregnancy, but will balk otherwise.
fed fed oregan oregano,afte o,afterr birthits birthits lamb lamb is more more likely likely to choosefood choosefood flavou flavoured red withthe herb thanif thanif itsmother itsmother is fed fed a regula regularr diet. diet. Even Even chicke chicken n fetuses fetuses locked locked away away inside inside eggshel eggshells ls geta doseof their their mothers’diet. mothers’diet. Aline Aline Bertin Bertin of theFrenchNational theFrenchNational Institut Institutee of Agricul Agricultura turall Researchin Researchin Nouzill Nouzilly y fedchickens fedchickens a diet diet thatwas thatwas enric enriche hed d with with eithe eitherr a fish fish oil or soybeanoil. soybeanoil. Shefound that that chicksborn chicksborn from from the the first first grou group p weremorelike weremorelikelyto lyto eat eat unfamili unfamiliar ar foods foods after after hatchi hatching ng if theywere January2017 40 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
lacedwiththe lacedwiththe now now famili familiar ar fish fish oil. oil. This This kind kind ofhabitua ofhabituatio tion n is a very very basic basic form of learning– an example of how animals change their behaviour based on information they gather from their environment. Studies in rats show a more complex form of learning happening in the uterus. Unlike humans, many other animals can walk, run or swim almost from the moment they are born. That makes sense. Being able to flee a predator right from the get-go is an
obvious advantage in the wild. But it looks as if we can no longer put this down to inst inct. Ultrasound images show that rat fetuses move their limbs in a coordinated manner, which suggests that they may be practising for the day they enter the world. Scott Robinson at the University of Iowa in in Iowa City took the demonstration one step further. He performed delicate surgeries on pregnant rats to tie two legs together on each fetus, and then monitored them using ultrasou ultrasound. nd. Regardl Regardless ess of which which limbs limbs Robinsonpaired,the Robinsonpaired,the fetuseslearnednew, fetuseslearnednew, coordinated coordinated movements movements within 30 minutes. minutes. Other experiments have accomplished a more fundamental kind of reprogramming in birds. Christopher Harshaw at Indiana University in Bloomington and Robert Lickliter at Florida International University in Miami played recordings of Japanese quail song to the eggs of American quail (pictured right).When right).When thechickshatched,they thechickshatched,they hada choice.From choice.From onedirection,a onedirection,a loudspea loudspeaker ker played played thesong of America American n quail quail – the the calls calls their mothers would have made had she been present; from the other came the warblings of a Japanese quail. The chicks’ prenatal experience trumped whatever instincts they might have had: they preferred to spend time near the calls of the wrong species.
Life or death Experiments such as these underline how critical prenatal information-gathering is. In Australia, superb fairy wrens must either learn something while stashed away inside the egg or face certain death. Their nests are plagued by parasitic cuckoos that lay their own eggs inside a wren clutch a few days before it hatches. Diane Colombelli-Negrel at Flinders University in Adelaide showed that to thwart the invaders, mother wrens sing a unique password song to their eggs. Her own eggs have weeks to learn the song, but the cuckoo chicks don’t, and that’s their downfall: the mother wren will lleave eave to die most chicks that don’t integrate the password into their own song once they hatch. You might think that none of this is as impressive as the learning demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov’s Pavlov’s dogs, who famously learned to associate the sound of a bell with food. “After “After a few sessions, the dogs started salivating as soon as they heard it, even though no food was presented,” says Maud Ferrari at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Ferrari and her colleagues recently
demonstrated this classic form of associative associ ative learning in unhatched frogspawn. “Many species get scared when they smell that one of their own was attacked,” atta cked,” says Ferrari. “They can smell chemicals leaching out of the injured body. So to teach a prey about a predator, we can pair the alarm cues with the cue of a specific predator. The next time it detects the predator cues, it knows k nows to be scared scared of it.” it.” Ferrari Ferrari’’s teamwanted teamwanted to seeif wood wood frog embryos embryos,, safe safe inside inside their their gelatino gelatinous us eggs, eggs, could could dothe same same asadultsand asadultsand associ associat atee a smell smell with with danger.Ever danger.Every y afterno afternoon on forfive days,they exposedfrogspawn simultaneous simultaneously ly to the the smellof smellof crush crushed ed tadpol tadpolesand esand the the odour odour of a tiger tiger salamand salamander.Later er.Later,, when when thetadpoles thetadpoles were were a couple couple of weeksold, weeksold, they they exposedthem exposedthem again again to thesalamander thesalamander smell. smell. Despiteneve Despiteneverr havingmet havingmet a salamand salamander,the er,the tadpole tadpoless that that had had been been expos exposed ed tothe cueswhi cueswhile le inthe egg egg froz frozee – a typica typicall resp respon onseseenin seseenin frogsto frogsto avoid avoid being being noticed noticed by predator predators. s. Theothersdid not. not. Butthis wasn’tthe wasn’tthe limit limit of their their abilitie abilities. s. “Thefact that that they they learnedper learnedper se wasn’tthat wasn’tthat surpris surprising ing,”saysFerrar ,”saysFerrari.“Cool,but i.“Cool,but notreally unexpec unexpected.Lots ted.Lots of embryo embryoss learn learn things. things. What What wasmore surpris surprisingwas ingwas how sophisticated sophisticated theirlearningcan their learningcan get.” get.” Salamanders Salamanders usually usually huntduring the afterno afternoon,when on,when air temper temperatu aturesand resand their their bodiesarewarm bodiesarewarmer er,, soto makethe makethe Quail chicks learn their mother’s song in the egg
SEEDS SEED S OF CLEV CLEVERN ERNES ESS S Learning has been spotted throughout the tree of life – and not just in animal animals. s. A recent recent study seems seems to show that pea seedlings can match Pavlov’s dogs for learning to associate two things with each other. Seedlingswere Seedlingswere plantedin plantedin Y-shaped -shaped pots pots withtwo possibleopeningsto possibleopeningsto grow out of. of. For a few hours hours on three consecutive days, the seedlings were trained with a light source and a fan. Insome pots,the pots,the fan fan andlight andlight were were aimed aimed at thesame opening,in opening,in others, others, at different different openings. Control plants were grown with just a light source. Thenthe lights lights were were switchedoff switchedoff and a fan fan wasaimed wasaimed atone openin opening. g. Control plants ignored it and grew towards the light’s last position. But most trained plants grew according to their previous experience of the fan: plants that were used to wind coming from the same direction as the light grew towards the fan; those used to opposite cues grew away from it. The authors say this shows that plants are capable of associative learning. “We have a lot to learn about learning,” says Monica Gagliano at the University of Western Australia.
experiment experiment realistic, realistic, the researchers researchers exposed the embryos to the predator cues at that time of day. Later, these tadpoles tadpol es froze only if they were faced with salamander cues in the afternoon. But if i f eggs were “trained” in the morning instead, the tadpoles would only respond to the cues in the morning. “To learn that something only shows up at a certain time of o f day, you need need repetit repetition,time ion,time to finda pattern pattern..
“Rat fetuses learned new movements within 30 minutes” So to learn learn after after just just twoor three three exposur exposures, es, that’s that’s pretty amazing,” amazing,”saysFerrari. saysFerrari. Some Some embryo embryoss even even watch watch theworldgo by from from the safety safety of their their eggs. eggs. That’ That’ss thecase with late-stage late-stage cuttlefish cuttlefish embryos, embryos, whose whose eggs are transparent.“The transparent.“The embryo embryo is veryreacti very reactive, ve,”” says says Dickel Dickel.. “When “When youmoveyour hand hand in front front of it, it change changess its colour. colour.” Dickel Dickel andhis teamleft eggs eggs to develop develop alongsi alongside de live live crabs, crabs, with with thetwo species species separa separated ted only only by a transpar transparentpane entpane of glass. glass. Theteam hadpreviousl hadpreviously y shown shown that that newly newly hatche hatched d cuttlef cuttlefishprefershrim ishprefershrimp p to all other other foods,but when when Dickel’shatched Dickel’shatched subjects were were given given a choice choice of prey,they prey,they lunged lunged at thecrabs instead instead.. Theteam believ believes es that that the cuttlef cuttlefishspy ishspy on thecrabs throug through h their their embry embryoniceyes oniceyes.. Toconfirm Toconfirm this, this, thegroup plans plans to repeatthe repeatthe experime experiment nt withvideos of crabs, crabs, insteadof insteadof live live ones. ones. “In thelast week week of develop developmen ment, t, they’r they’ree changi changing ng thecolourof their their skin skin into into different different camouflage camouflage patterns,”says patterns,”says Dickel. “It’ “It’ss probab probablya lya kind kind ofpractic ofpractice:in e:in the the egg egg they’r they’ree protecte protected d from from predator predators, s, so they they canmake mistake mistakes. s. They They canlearn to detect, detect, to feel, feel, to smell. smell.”” Experime Experimentslike ntslike these these show show that that unborn unborn creatu creaturesare resare taking taking stock stock of theenvironm theenvironment ent they they willsoon inhabit inhabit.. As their their sensescome sensescome online,they online,they processand processand rememb remember er the cues cues that that filter filter throug through h thewalls of their their embry embryonicnurs onicnurseryto eryto give give them them vital vital prepara preparation tion.. So be carefu carefull what what youdo aroundfrogspawn – it’s taking note. ■ Guy Lewy is a freelance writer based in London
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To read the studies mentioned in this article, see the online version at newscientist.com/issue/3110
28 January 2017 | NewScientist | 41
��O�L�
You had me at hallå Proficient Proficient in about 50 languages, Alexander Arguelles is among the most multilingual individuals of all time. He reveals what it’s like to live with a headful of disparate tongues
Can Can you you giveme giveme a pott pottedhist edhistor ory y ofyour ofyour language language journey? journey?
I’d I’d learned learned French, French, German,Spanish, Latin Latin,, Gree Greek k and and Sans Sanskr krit it bythe end end of college college.. In gradu graduateschool ateschool,, I added added mediev medieval al literar literary y languag languages es such such as Old Norse,Old Norse,Old Frenchand Frenchand Middle Middle High High German.Then, German.Then, livingin livingin Berlin,I Berlin,I added added more more mediev medieval al German Germanic ic dialects dialects,, Dutch Dutch anda bit of Frisian, Frisian, Swedish Swedish and other Scandinavian Scandinavianlanguage languages, s, as well well as Italian,Portug Italian,Portugues uese, e, Occitanand Occitanand Catalan.After Catalan.After that, that, duringan duringan intens intensiv ivee 10-yea 10-yearr “monasti “monastic”periodin c”periodin Korea Korea,, I learned learned Korean, Korean, Japanese, Japanese, Mandarinand Classical Chinese Chinese,, butalso Russian Russian,, Arabic, Arabic, Persian Persian,, Hindi,Turki Hindi, Turkish, sh, Swahili, Swahili, Irish Gaelic,Modern Gaelic, Modern Greek Greek and most most of theRomance, theRomance, German Germanic ic and Slaviclanguage Slavic languages. s. I know know youdon’tlike being being asked asked howmany langua languagesyou gesyou speak,but speak,but I’m I’m afraidI afraidI have have to…
I don’t don’t count;it’svery count;it’svery hard hard to say. say. Some Some langu language agess areso closeto closeto eachothe eachotherr it feels feels likecheating likecheating to count count them them separat separately ely.. And what what about about my deadlanguages deadlanguages?? Altoget Altogether her I’ve I’ve studiedmaybe60 studiedmaybe60 or 70. Where Where didyour love love of langua languagescome gescome from? from?
I was was raise raised d a monog monoglotbut lotbut myfatheris myfatheris a polyg polyglotand lotand I trav travell elledarou edaround nd a lotas a child child.. Then Then there there wasmy matern maternal al grandmo grandmother ther.. Shewas a Germanimmigra Germanimmigrant’ nt’ss daughte daughterr in theMidwester theMidwestern n US,so shegrewup bilingual bilingual in Englishand Englishand German German,, and someho somehow w shefell in love love with with Spanish Spanish.. So shetaught shetaught herself herself Spanishas Spanishas a young young girl, girl, then then Portug Portugues uese. e. Shebecamea profess professiona ionall transla translator tor and interpr interprete eterr of four four language languages. s. I alwaysknew alwaysknew I was destined destined to be a polyglot. polyglot. How do you motivate yourself to keep learning?
I approach polyglottery as a sport, as athleticism, mental exercise. Playing games January2017 42 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
is fun, fun, right? right? There There are many many things things out therethatcanmakeyouhapp therethatcanmakeyouhappy y but, but, take take it fromme, fromme, the the most most fun fun thingin thingin the the worldis worldis autodidactic autodidactic learning. learning. Do youfind at all that that langua languagesinter gesinterfe fere re with with oneanother oneanother when when you you arelearning arelearning them? them?
Absolut Absolutelynot. elynot. When When I am speakin speaking g oneof my weake weakerr language languages, s, a strong stronger er relativ relativee maysometimesjump maysometimesjump in withvocabular withvocabulary y or structu structure,but re,but that that is more more assista assistancethan ncethan interference. However, when I was in my intensive learning phase and studying dozens of languages simultaneously, they never interfered interfered with each other. So your your brain brain doesn’ doesn’tt feel feel full? full?
I don’ don’tt thinkthe thinkthe humanbra humanbrain in can can get get full full like like we’d say“thisbox is full” full”. Theproblemis there there areonly areonly somanyhoursin somanyhoursin a day day. Giveme Giveme total total freedomof freedomof timelike I hadduring hadduring myintensiv myintensivee learningyear learningyears, s, and I could could concei conceivab vably ly do 100 language languages. s. Butthese day dayss that that wouldn wouldn’t ’t fulfilmeasmuchasgettingtoreadthe literat literatureof ureof thesemany thesemany cultur cultures.I es.I want want to take take languages languages that have have richercultural literatures literatures and really really developmy developmy knowle knowledge dge of those. those. The The brainis brainis not not full full but but theclock theclock is full. full. What What drivesyou drivesyou to learn learn newlanguage newlanguages? s?
��O��L� Alexander Arguelles teaches history at American University in the Emirates, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. His research focus is on foreign language study skills
earphones and speaking along with it as simultaneously as I possibly can. I’ve found the the bestway bestway todo thisis thisis whilewal whilewalkin king g outdoor outdoorss as swiftl swiftly y as possible possible,, maintain maintaining ing a perfect perfectly ly uprigh uprightt postureand postureand speaking speaking loudly loudly.. My studen students ts find find it a challen challenging ging formto formto learn learn,, but but I havefou havefoundit ndit to bevery effect effectiv ive. e. It helps helps me to intern internalis alise, e, and in the end memorise, a representative representative chunk of the language. That’s a firm start. Of course, much study follows. It’s said that people adopt cultural stereotypes when speaking a foreign language. Do you feel more romantic when speaking Portuguese?
I think think when when most most people people hearan unknown unknown languag language, e, their their reactio reaction n is“oh, it’s it’s foreig foreign, n, No, I don’t. I don’t don’t unders understandit” tandit”,, and then then they they shut shut it off.It becomesbackgr becomesbackgroun ound d noise.I noise.I hearit and But do thought patterns change with language? think– think– what what’’s that,I that,I wantto wantto ident identifyit ifyit atleast. atleast. While I don’t agree that you have a different It’s It’s irrit irritat atingto ingto meif I can’ can’tt figu figureout reout what what personality when using different languages, languag languagee thesound – or shape shape if you’retalking you’retalking it’s true that the structure of your thought about about script script – belongsto. belongsto. It’s It’s basic basic curiosi curiosity ty.. sometimes has to be different. Because in Korean, for example, you don’t conjugate Tell me about about your your key key techni techniquefor quefor learnin learning g verbs according to person at all, but rather according to a wide variety of different a new new lang languag uage,and e,and how how it work works s I call call it shado shadowi wing ng.. I shado shadow w the the audioof audioof “respect” levels that have to do with age, the the target language by listening to it through nature of your relationship to the person
Photographed for New Scientist by Celia Peterson
you’respeaki you’respeaking ng with, with, and so on.Behindit all is a Conf Confuci ucianconc anconcepttha eptthatt if some someon onee issix monthsolder monthsolder or younge youngerr thanyou,they have have to be address addressed ed differe differentl ntly y thanif they they are thesameageasyou. Do you cherry-pick cherry-pick favourite favourite expressions? expressions?
Not conscio consciousl usly.Maybeit’ y.Maybeit’ss becaus becausee I spent spent lastsummerin St Peters Petersbur burg, g, Russia,but Russia,but these these days days,, if I like like some someth thin ing,I g,I say say “eto khorosho khorosho” – that’s good, that’s nice. When I lived in in Germany I made a conscious effort to block English, to switch my whole mental operating system over to German. After that, in Korea, I still automatically thought in German and I still often do. I curse in German. Scheisse. People say German language structure is more precise. Does that make you less likely to blather on, like we do in English?
I do believe there is a mentalese. Sometimes I prohibit my mind from accessing other languages, languages, to force it to stay in one, and under those circumstances circumstances my thoughtprocess will not not stop stop whenI whenI don’ don’tt knowa knowa word word,, the the way way it would would if I were were conve conversin rsing, g, but ratherwill ratherwill onlypause only pause and and then registerthe registerthe concept namelessly namelessly in mentalese befor beforee movingon. Do you have any language ambitions left?
I’ve I’ve put a morator moratoriumon iumon new new language languages, s, becaus becausee I’ve I’ve studiedtoo studiedtoo many many to take take them them allto a highlev highlevel.So el.So atthisstage atthisstage I’mtrying I’mtrying
“I don’t think the human brain brain can get get full like like we’ we’d say ‘this box is full’”
toget toa high higherlev erlevel el withArab withArabic ic and and You can blather on in German! Your brain just Russ Russian ian,, andin myreadingof myreadingof a few few other others. s. functions in a different di fferent fashion: the verb’s I consciously aborted Chinese, Japanese, going to come at the end and that’s that. Turkish and Swahili, all of which I studied to a very high degree. I have a peek every now t here’s something Has being a hyperpolyglot given you any insight and then to make sure there’s still there, and there always is. Then there’s into there being an overarching language of thought, a mentalese? another set of languages that I didn’t
conscio consciousl usly y abort, abort, but which which I’mnot getting getting to spen spend d any any time time with.So with.So ifI had had anambitio anambition n it’s it’s not not to learnTibe learnTibetanor tanor Quec Quechu hua, a, but but to get get my Persianor Persianor Hindi Hindi back. back. Are there there subsetsof subsetsof polyglo polyglots ts who want want to become obscurists?
Yes.As thepolyglot thepolyglot commun community ity grows grows,, peoplewan peoplewantt to stan stand d out, out, sotheytakeon novel novel challen challenges ges.. Theultimate Theultimate would would be to learn learn a non-sc non-script ripted ed languagethat languagethat no anthrop anthropolog ologist ist hasstudied. hasstudied. On onehand, youwouldhaveno grammar grammar,, but on the other other handif handif you you havea havea knac knack k for for it,if the the nati native ve speaker speakerss accept accept you, you, youcould go and live live withthemanditwouldbesinkorswim. Are your your kidsfollowingin kidsfollowingin yourfootstep yourfootsteps? s?
Yes, they’rehaving a different different experience experience tome.IspeakFrenchallthetimewithmy sons, and I’m teaching them Latin, German, Spanish and Russian. I love my father very much, and he never encouraged me nor forced me to learn languages. I’m not that kind of father. ■ Interview by Rowan Hooper 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 43
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The power of Moore A lone prediction can change the world, says Regina Peldszus TheLongArm ofMoore’sLaw: ofMoore’sLaw: Microelect Microelectronic ronicss and American American Mody, MITPress MITPress science byCyrusC. M. Mody
SOMEof humanity’s finest finest actsof collaboration collaboration are carried carried outby people people in special special suits suits – the the fullfullbody body kind, kind, which which protectthem protectthem fromradiation, fromradiation, lethal pathogens, pathogens, extreme temperatures temperatures and aggressive aggressive substanc substances.But es.But then then there’ there’ss the reverse reverse,, where where thesuit helps helps to protectdelicat protectdelicatee objects objects from humancontamination. humancontamination. Thecleanroomisthepar excellence excellenceexample.Decked example.Decked out withpowerful withpowerful fans fans and filtersto filtersto removeairborne contaminants, contaminants, cleanroom cleanroomss aresomeof the the most most controlled controlled environment environmentss we have.For have.For thepast half-ce half-centu ntury ry,, collabor collaboratio ation n in these these spaces spaces has fuelledprogress, fuelled progress,facilitatin facilitating g the bestof semicon semicondu ductorresearc ctorresearch h and and deve develop lopme ment– nt– and and as a resul result, t, profoundly profoundly influencing influencing US sciencepolicy sciencepolicy and practice practice.. Theselabswerenotonlya
E N I V E Y E / O T O H P Z U L / I B R E N I M O L O C I N
44 | NewScientist | 28 January 2017
locale of experimentation, experimentation, but also the products products of“instituti of “institutional onal experiments”, as science and technology technology historian historian Cyrus Mody explores in The LongArm of Moore’s Moore’s Law. Law. The institutions institutions are “social technologies” technologies”,, distinct from but co-evolving with“physical technologies” technologies”.. Based on archives archives and interv interview iews, s, as well well as his time spent researchingalongside nanotechnologi nanotechnologists sts at Rice University University in Texas, Texas, Mody charts thehighs and lows lows of develop developing ing
“Interpretations of Moore’s law range from a law of nature to an intentional coordinating mechanism” integrated integrated circuits,or circuits, or microchips. microchips. In meticulous meticulous case studies, Mody traces the unprecedented interdisciplinary interdisciplinary collaboration collaboration between between universities, universities, manufacturers manufacturers and government government fundingagenci fundingagencies es during during and after after the the cold cold war.The war.The spaceand spaceand arms arms race, race, which which hadspawnedcivilian hadspawnedcivilian microele microelectro ctronic nicss in the1960s, was deceler deceleratin ating g and,in its place, place, global global competi competitionto tionto build build better better chipswas chipswas pickin picking g up– fast. fast.
Research groups formerly financed by the military looked to civilian agencies such as the National Science Foundation or the Environmental Protection Agency. In turn, the agencies began developing their own applied research programmes. Giants like Intel and IBM increasingly shared the huge financial burden of research with universities and national laboratories. As the development of innovative microchips became ever more complex and costly, cost ly, other kinds of large-scale hybrid partnerships were forged. These brought together industrial, government and academic players in consortia, shared R&D centres and eventually metanetworks of organisations. Attheheartofallthiswas Moore’s Moore’s law,the law, the observationobservationcum-dic cum-dictumthat tumthat thedensityof microchips microchips doubled at intervals: intervals: initiall initially y 12 months,then months,then 18, now close close to 24 months.The months.The “law” “law” tookits tookits namefroma namefroma 1965paper 1965paper by Gordon Gordon E. Moore, Moore, a co-fou co-founder nder of themightyIntel. Hislaw came came topredictthe topredictthe exponential exponential miniaturisation miniaturisation of integra integratedcircuits tedcircuits,, and hence hence the increasein increasein comput computing ing power power that that could could econom economical ically ly fit on a single single chip. chip. Since Since then, then, there there have have been been manyinterpre many interpretations tations of Moore’s Moore’s law. law. These These range range fromseeingit asasortofnaturallaw(duetothe physical physical behaviour behaviour of materials such such as silicon)to silicon)to a consciou consciously sly coordinated coordinated mechanism mechanism – an enginefor enginefor innova innovationthat tionthat guides guides rather rather than than predicts predicts humanactivity. Mody fully acknowledges acknowledges thetechnologi thetechnological cal aspect, aspect, but approach approaches es thelaw as a “social “social
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Dual potential: integrated circuits are as easy to embed in a medical device as a reconnaissance satellite
fact” fact”.. Hethinksof Hethinksof itas a huma human n construct continually “enacted” by the likes of grant grant officers and programme managers applying it in journals and conferences, conferences, or through labs, national national working groups and industry roadmaps. Fuelled by the needs of big science and government for ever greater computing power, and the desire for ever ever smaller consumer goods, this rule of thumb becomes a self-
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fulfilling prophecy we maintain and are subject to. Mody’s book concentrates on the mesoscale of organisations involved in developing microelectronics because he argues it helps us get a sense of how the semiconductor sector influenced scientific knowledgemaking. He shifts fluidly between detail and contextual currents, capturing the coalescence of individuals and institutions into configurations. These groupings splinter, disband and regroup after massive or minute changes,
like IBM’s foray into circuits involving superconducting materials, the drying up of funding sources or the exit of a key team leader. From that vantage point, Mody zooms into the nanoscale of materials and zooms out to the macro-scale of global economics and national security. While the two scales were increasingly linked by policy-makers, in fact the civilianisation of computing gained traction. Chip technology always had dual-use potential: microchips could be embedded
just as easily in a reconnaissance Semiconductor technology today continues to depend satellite as in a medical device. Mody’s book offers a wide heavily on R&D. If Moore’s law range range of importan importantt issues issues helps drive technological foresight, it may also help us to providin providing g food food for though thoughtt on the R&D behind our modern modern develop responsible innovation systems. Amid the different and to figure out what we should do, rather than just what we may models of innovation, and approaches approaches to technology technology soon be capable of doing. We need management, management,civilianisa civilianisation tion toknowifwecancopewiththe implica implication tionss of the potenti potential al was as pertinen pertinentt to theadvent theadvent of semiconductors semiconductors as it is today. techno technologi logies es the law churns churns out– To illustrate this, Mody evokes not not just just inour dailyliv dailylives,butalso es,butalso student and faculty disquiet at “Increasing computing the relationship between the military, industry and academia power is one thing, at Stanford University, California, deciding in which devices in the late 1960s. Administrators to embed it is another” there had to communicate the with with the the impac impactt this this has has on dual potential of microchips, science and engineering sectors. emphasising military or civilian advantages depending on who The Long Arm invites us to reflect on the technology we they talked to. This reassured conceive, discover, develop, security customers while diffusing criticism against the manufacture, consume and discard. We have to ask ourselves military’s role, and winning over which technologies we regard researchers who would not otherwise have considered a as critical critical to nation national al or global global career in defence systems. security. security. Who should develop develop thesesystems these systems–– corporate corporate labs? It is a compelling thought, highlighting not only the Government? A partnership of application of a technology after both? How do we want to set up processes that devise our future its conception, or a debate that may occur while it is being technology? Are we looking at conceived, but also its appeal to the right problems? The journey doesn’t end at the researchers and designers before they engage in its development. next milestone of doubled chip Although the emphasis for capacity. Increasing computing power is one thing, the small microchip applications shifted significantly to civilian markets, matter of what to do with all defence and security players such the extra capability is another. as the Defense Advanced Research We must decide in which devices Projects Agency (DARPA) (DARPA) played to embed it or what systems to a crucial crucial partin addressin addressing g build around it. Last year there was a lot of “netwo “network rk failures failures”” in thegrowing thegrowing semiconductor semiconductor sector : the lack publicity about around Moore’s of trust, transparency and knowLaw being “dead”. Mody sees such claims as not being strictly true or how exchange between different kinds of organisations. false, but as conditional prophecies The trick was to link that bring about changes to stakeholders across time, distance prevent the prophecy from and institution, to help them get coming true. Moore’s law may be to know each other and team up. pervasive, but it is also plastic. And since we enact it, the law is The transparency and capability built by the networking efforts of literally in human hands. ■ government agencies (security, Regina Peldszus is a research defence or civilian) was to prove vital in advancing microelectronics associate with the German Aerospace Centre Space Administration in the US. 28 January2017 January2017 | NewScientist | 45
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Smarter secrets Probing primate intelligence takes imagination,says Alun Anderson preconc preconcepti eptionsand onsand to come come up different different family, family, suggesting suggesting with imaginativeexperiments. imaginativeexperiments. that she was being attacked. This Fischer Fischer’’s book book is a wonder wonderful, ful, shocking shocking breachof inter-family inter-family short short guide guide to theingeniousand theingeniousand etiquette etiquette excited excited the listeners listeners JULIA FISCHER patientworkthat patientworkthat is givingus givingus and showed how well well they knew isa leadi leading ng deeper deeper insigh insights ts intoprimate intoprimate individuals and their place in primatologist psychology. society. bestknow bestknown n tothe I particu particularl larly y loved loved thestudies In another, a bachelor male public public forher work work that that revea reveall the secret secretss of monkey monkey heard the voice of a male grunting witha witha dog dog called called social life throughbroadcasting in the undergrowth and then his Ricothat she “audio dramas”, dramas”, createdby created by consor consort’ t’ss mating mating callsome way way spott spottedon edon a cuttingand cuttingand pasting pasting therecorded therecorded GermanTV show. show. “Monkeys react strongly voicesof voicesof member memberss of a monkey monkey Rico, Rico, it wasclaimed, wasclaimed, could could to fake ‘audio dramas’ of group.Using group.Using some some hidden hidden rememb remember er thenamesof some70 loudspeakers, loudspeakers, researcherscreated researcherscreated other monkeys’ shocking toys toys and fetch fetch them them on comman command. d. apparently apparently scandalous scandalous goings-on goings-on breaches of etiquette” Despite Fischer’s Fischer’s initial scepticism, and sawhow their their monkey monkey herexperimen herexperiments ts showedthat showedthat the audience audience reacted. off. off. Thebachelor’ Thebachelor’ss head head spun: spun: Border Border collie’s collie’s talentswere even even Inone,a threa threatt call call froma froma lowlowifthe male male andhisconsor andhisconsortt were were greate greaterr than than claimed claimed.. Thestory rankingfemalechacm rankingfemalechacmaa baboon baboon apartit apartit mightmeana mightmeana brea break-u k-up p– ofRicoand thepressfren thepressfrenzythat zythat wasfollowed wasfollowed by thescreams thescreams of and an opportunity. Moments follow followed ed itspublicationin itspublicationin Science a higher-rankin higher-ranking g female from a later he “ambles nonchalantly is retold retold in Fischer Fischer’’s newbook Monkeytalk. Monkeytalk. Itisadelight, especia especiallywhen llywhen welearn that that anotherBorde anotherBorderr collie collie haslearned haslearned thenamesof 1022 1022 toys. toys. But But to Fisch Fischer er,, head head ofthe cognitive cognitive ethologydepartment at the University University of Göttingen, Germany, the story has a deeper significance. A dog’s range of barks, growls and whines is restricted, as are the vocalisations of monkeys: the vocal organs of these animals are simply not wired up to the bits of the brain that could provide the fine motor control needed. That means the range of things an animal can communicate about vocally may tell us little about what it can think about and act upon. To get “inside the worlds and minds of primates” primate s”,, as the book’s sub-title claims, requires us to putaside language language-bia -biased sed
towards‘her’”, Fischer writes. These These and many many other other experiments experiments showthat show that monkeys monkeys possess possess profound profound social social intellig intelligenc encee and can solve solve problem problemss in their their own enviro environme nment.But nt.But as we movetowar move towards ds more abstract intelligence and language, a gap opens up between them and us. Fischer adroitly explores the big questions now being asked about primate minds. Can they understand the intentions of others? Are they able to “time travel” and plan for the future? How much can they learn by watching others? Are they capable of metacognition, of knowing what it is that they know? faults:: it Monkeytalk Monkeytalk hasits faults start startss like like a textb textboo ook k andit takes takes a little little timebefore timebefore youdiscover youdiscover its unusual unusual mix of science and insight, interspersed with funny anecdot anecdotes es fromAfrican fromAfrican field field work,includ work,includinghow inghow to dress dress for“survival in the bureaucratic jungle” jungle”.. Pink Pink pumps,a pumps,a plastic plastic handbag handbag,, lotsof rhines rhineston tones es and glittery appliqué appliqué were all needed needed forFischer forFischer to meet meet local local expecta expectation tionss of what what a lady lady looked looked like – and obtain a vehicle permit. The book ends on a serious note, though. The only way we willreallyunderstandour willreallyunderstandour own originsis originsis to explorethe explorethe minds minds of other primate species species along with the bewildering bewildering differences differences in thesocieties thesocieties they they live live in, their ecology, ecology, neurobiology and genetics. But primate populations are being destroyed so fast that our close relatives may vanish from the wild before we can find out what made us human. ■
To understand our origins we must explore our close relatives
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Monkeyt Monkeytalk:Inside alk:Inside the worlds worlds and JuliaFischer, minds minds of primates primates by JuliaFischer, Universit University y of Chicago Chicago Press Press
January2017 46 | NewScientist | 28 January2017
Alun Anderson is Anderson is a consultant for
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tonnes tonnes are lost fromeach hectare hectare every every year.Worldwide,30 per cent Could owning an AI amount to slavery? of arable land is now so degraded it is unusable. From CharlieJanney, Prairie soils sequester huge it in a novellif novellife e form form when when we can’t can’t Longmont, Colorado, Colorado, US Michael Michael Le Page, Page, arguingthat arguingthat we amounts of organic matter. agree on recognising it in life forms should should ditch ditch organic organic food, food, ignores ignores Organic farmers foster soil health. we know: whales, ants, crows? andbenefits of organic organic Increasing organic content is the Assuming that we manage to create thecosts andbenefits agriculture agriculture and conventiona conventionall best way to increase soil health, a qualified AI, for it to vote we would agriculture, agriculture, whichuses pesticides, and doing so thus ameliorates need to have the will to grant it herbicides herbicides and artificial fertilisers global warming through carbon sociopolitical status equivalent to (3 Decembe Decemberr 2016, 2016, p 21). 21). sequestra sequestration tion.. Almost Almost halfthe humans. That hasn’t worked out well Healthysoil Healthysoil is a miniatu miniature re increasein increasein atmosph atmosphericcarbon ericcarbon for those sentient species we have ecosystem ecosystem with microorganisms microorganisms dioxidehas dioxide has been caused by identified and experimented on. and invertebrates invertebrates,, fungi and deforestation and release of If such an AI were truly conscious organicmatter organicmatter.. Andfungi are carbon from sinks, including and self-aware we must grant it importa important nt symbiont symbiontss for crops. crops. agricultural soils. citizenship to avoid a human citizen Convention Conventional al agriculture agriculture Soils managed using organic controlling more than one vote by From Robert Robert Willis,Nanaimo, Willis, Nanaimo, degradess soil, soil, promotessoil promotessoil methods can also produce higher buying voting AIs, or corporations from degrade British Columbia, Canada lossand decrease decreasess fertilit fertility y. Zoltan Istvan discusses whether yields. Combined with the lower voting by AI proxy. It would also help Forexample, Forexample, when when European European overheads of organic methods, as artificial intelligences intelligences should have determine whether a vote counts for immigra immigrants nts began began farmingthe farmingthe chemicals aren’t needed, farmers theright theright tovote, tovote, butglosses butglosses over over the location of the server or the AI if US prairie,soils prairie,soils were were fertile,up fertile,up severalissues severalissues thatthis would would raise raise can make profit from fewer acres. they are different. to 45 centime centimetresdeep, tresdeep, and Finally, pesticides and (17/24/31December2016, (17/24/31December2016, p 18). 18). He The biggest issue, though, is that ecosystems ecosystems were diverse. diverse. herbicides have potentially fails fails to addre address ss the issueof defining defining if an AI met the above requirements, Now those soils are depleted, depleted, and dangerous effects as oestrogen “intelli “intelligenc gence” e”.. How would would we recogni recognise se owning it would constitute slavery.
EDITOR’S EDITOR’S PICK
In defe defence nceof of orga organic nic foodand food andcar carbon bon coun counts ts
d e m r o o f n i % 0 0 1 d e l l c y y c e % r 66 %
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“You might find this interesting… And by interesti inter esting ng I mean… mean…TERRI TERRIFYING FYING”” to thespread of infection Emma Smyth alerts a friend to resistant to all available antibiotics(21 January January,, p 20)
Why might mothers which include electrons and protons. Could the gravitational cradle babies on the left? mass of all bosons be zero? It is difficult enough to measure From Valerie Valerie Moyses, the gravitational mass of an From Darran Darran Messem, Messem, Bloxham, Bloxham, Oxfordshir Oxfordshire, e, UK antiproton; the thought of trying Never Never mind the“contrasting Carbon Trust, London, UK Le Page mentions the opportunity to measure it for an inertially talen talents ts ofeachhalfof the the brain brain”” of labelling the climate change as an explana explanationfor tionfor mothers mothers Antigravity would cause massive and unstable boson is impact of consumer products. mind-boggling. cradlingbabies crad lingbabies on theleft more problems than that At the Carbon Trust we now have (14January (14January,, p 10).There’ 10).There’s a a decade of experience in working From David muchsimpler explanation. explanation. David Holdswo Holdsworth, rth, Pushy males and brainy with global businesses to do Having borne and brought up Settle, North Yorkshire, UK females’ survival exactly this, and have experienced Joshua Howgego describes work three babies, I have no doubt that the practical challenges in to checkwheth check whether er antimatter antimatter this is the babies’ own preference. From Warner Warner Haldane, Haldane, particlesmay particles may have have negative negative communicating the relative They settle more quickly on the Whakatane, New Zealand carbon emissions of different gravitational gravitational mass (7 January, January, Female mosquito fish grow bigger left side, I believe, because there consumer products. p 28). If any do, this this would raise an brains brains to help help avoid avoid therough they can easily sense their interesting question for particles attentions attentions of over-endowe over-endowed d males mother’s heartbeat. This reminds The ability to compare carbon footprint claims is already that are their own antiparticle. (17/24/31Decem (17/24/31December ber 2016, 2016, p 12). A them of the womb, and reassures proving influential in private and For the massless photon there few pages later you report brainy them that their lifeline (their female female wild red deer deer livinglonger livinglonger mother) is still functioning. public sector procurement, where is no problem, but the π 0 boson sustainability is becoming one of has has inerti inertial al mass mass and and is itsown and producin producing g moreoffspring moreoffspring the key criteria for competition. antipart antiparticle icle.. This This canonly be the (p 15).Could there there be a connec connection tion From Jill Jill Gigg, Gigg, Influencing the average shopper casefor bosons bosons – particles particles with here? Time for the cervidologists Bathford, Bathford, Somerset, Somerset, UK is undoubtedly more difficult. integer “spin”. It cannot for to get out their measuring tapes, There is perhaps a simpler reason Research shows that price fermions, with half-integer spin, but not during the rut, I think. for mothers to cradle their baby > mimics.Reprodu mimics. Reproductiv ctivee cancers may may be foste fostere red d bytheir bytheir actio action n as endocrine disrupters. disrupters.
and and qualit quality y remainby remainby far the biggest influencers influencers on purchasing decisions, but where allother allother thing thingss areequal areequal then then environment environmental al concerns concerns can tip the balance. balance.
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L�TT��� on the left. The majority of women are right-handed and holding the baby with the left arm leaves the right hand free. It would be interesting to know if a lefthanded mother prefers to cradle her baby on the right. The editor writes: ■ Many readers offered thoughts about the introductory mention of humanmothers’ left-sidedness left-sidedness in our story story about about infant infants’ s’ preferen preference ce in 11 mammal mammal species. species. Researchers Researchers who have have looked into this specific question find find evidence in support of the hypoth hypothesisthat esisthat it’s it’s all about about mothersmonitorin mothers monitoring g infants, infants, and vice versa: see for example doi.org/bxhw.
Theory is broken, so the impossible is undefined From Sam Sam Edge, Edge, Ringwood, Ringwood, Hampshire, Hampshire, UK UK Certainly by our current understanding there is very little chance of circumventing the enormous problems of energy, distance and time involved in interstellar travel, as Geraint TOM GAULD
Lewis Lewis writes writes (26November (26November 2016, 2016, p 20). 20). But But sincewe sincewe knowthat knowthat our currentunders currentunderstand tandingis ingis based based upon upon twoincomplet twoincompletee and conflic conflictingdescrip tingdescription tionss – generalrelativ generalrelativity ity and quantum quantum mechanics mechanics – there is an unquantifiable amount of doubt about this supposition.
Racism has roots in society and reporting From Merlin Merlin Reader Reader,, London, UK CarolineWilliam CarolineWilliamss mention mentionss the idea idea weare all“a littlebit littlebit racist racist”” (10 Decemb December er 2016, 2016, p 26). This This misses the point that we are brought up in a society where racism is entrenched in the media. media. Many Many of those those convict convicted ed under anti-terror anti-terror legislation in the UK are white racists, but but they they getlittle media media coverag coveragee compare compared d withthe merearrest of Muslims, which which often doesn’t leadto convict convictions ions.. Nooneisbornracist,or “tribal”– “tribal” – we all learn that from the behaviour of those around us from an early age. a ge. You see who your parents socialise with, and
learn from their behaviour and that of others around you. Sadly, that also includes the media.
A sense of horses’ endurance and stamina
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any other animal. But she only briefly mentioned walking, although humans are also very efficie efficient nt at walking,a walking,a “mysteryof “mysteryof evolution”that evolution”that KateDouglas Kate Douglashas has previou previouslydiscusse slydiscussed d (24March 2012,p 2012,p 36). 36). Running is fine when you have your prey in sight, but the ability to walk for hours is more useful when tracking your prey before you can see it. Humans Humans canalso carry carry loads loads while while walkinglong walkinglong distance distancess and it was our ability to to carry all our household needs, day after day over great distances, that allowed us to spread throughout the world.
From Gabriel Gabriel Stecher, Stecher, Carboor, Victoria, Australia Catheri Catherine ne de Lange Lange describe describess humansbeing humansbeing ableto outrun outrun horses horses (10December (10December 2016, 2016, p 33). Myhorse Myhorse and and I won won the1966 the1966 QuiltyCup Quilty Cup 160-kilometre 160-kilometre enduran endurance ce ridein 11 hours hours and 24 minute minutes. s. Thecourseclimbs 2200metres. 2200metres. Therecordtime is now now abou aboutt 9 hours hours.. The The horse horse’’s task task in this this race race is roughly roughly equivalent equivalent to an 80-kilog 80-kilogram ram runner runner doing doing four four On the internet, nobody hilly hilly marathon marathonss in a halfday, halfday, knows anything of you witha20kgchildstrappedto their their back. back. Horses’superio Horses’superiorr From a reader reader Sally Sall y Adee Adee suggeststhat suggeststhat online online abilitiesare abilities are supported by the the same cooling system we are wejustneedto relax relax and and be endowed with: the ability to sweat. ourselv ourselves, es, as faking faking it causes causes us stress stress (17September (17September 2016, 2016, p 22). The researchers perhaps made a From Brian Brian Horton, Horton, West West poor choice in studying Facebook, Launceston, Launceston, Tasmania, Tasmania, Australia Australia as this particular social medium is De Lange says that humans can run faster and further, under a usually used to keep in touch with wide range of conditions, than people people oneknows in“real life” life”. Itis oftensaidtha oftensaidthatt you you canbe who who you you wantto wantto beonline– beonline– but but the the impor importan tanceof ceof this this is felt felt primaril primarily y by those those who who cannot cannot be who they truly are offline. offline. Other venues, such as web forums, are online homes for those those of us whocannot whocannot express express our realselves realselves offline offline.. In reallife, I try to pass as far as possible as cisgendered and neurotypical. This is exhausting and isolating. Online, I find communities where real-world norms are discarded and I can be my true agendered autistic self. Lettersshouldbe Lettersshouldbe sent sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, Scientist, 110 High Holborn, London WC1V 6EU Email:
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54 | NewScientist | 28 January 2017
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Y T T E G / F F O N A V O L O G I A L O K I N
Oldphone,newtricks An unlovedsmartp unlovedsmartphonemakes honemakes a great great remot remote e eye PERHAPS PERHAPS you’veboughta you’veboughta newphonein newphonein theJanuar theJanuary y sales. sales. Maybe Maybe youwerejust due an upgrade.Eitherway upgrade.Eitherway,, I bet plenty plenty of youhavea retired retired handsetlying handsetlying inert inert in a drawer drawer somewhe somewhere.Youcould re.Youcould sellit, but tech tech trendsshift trendsshift so quickly quickly thatit’sprobably thatit’sprobably notworththe effo effort.Whynotgiveit rt.Whynotgiveit a new new career career as a remoteeye remoteeye?? First, First, grabyourold device, device, be it Apple, Apple, Android Android or other other.. Theninstalla securitycamer securitycamera a app.Thereare plenty plenty to choose choose from. from. Somelet youwatch youwatch your your valuable valuables, s, or justyourfish tank, tank, from from anywhe anywhere re in the world world viaa livevideostream. livevideostream. Somedo thewatching thewatching foryou: they they sendyou a notifica notificationif tionif the camerasees movement. movement. A not-so-Big-Brother use for that function could be to help correspondence chess players who like to play with physical pieces keep in touch. If each has a phone camera trained on their board, a notification would let them know not only that their opponent has made a move, but what it was. But I prefer to customise with IFTTT (short for “If This Then That”).This easy-to-use
online service lets you automate actions with an ever-growing list of devices and apps. The principle is simple. You have a trigger and an action: once the first thing happens, IFTTT takes care of the second. You need a security camera app that notifies you of motion in a way that can act as the trigger – sending an email, say, or saving pictures to a Dropbox folder. Then you can make IFTTT respond any way you like. For example, if you want to know how much time your dog spends in your bedroom while you’re out, you just point your camera at the door and have IFTTT mark the time on a Google calendar whenever there’s movement. That would give you a daily chart of Fido’s comings and goings. Or, surreptitiously point it at the cookie jar and have it send your partner an email to say you know they’ve been stealing the custard creams (you could even include the photographic proof). Don’t blame us if it’s the end of a beautiful relationship, though. Hannah Joshua ■
More Makes coming soon at newscientist.com 28 January 2017 | NewScientist | 55
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hills hills andgullies, Gordon Gordon writes, writes, “we “we marve marvelle lled d atthe name name ofthe localconta localcontact ct for for thetour compan company y– Cliff Walker”. Walker”.
NORTHER NORTHERN N Ireland Ireland is reeling reeling from a catastrophically catastrophically mismanaged mismanaged greenenergy green energy scheme, scheme, whichpaid businesses businesses overl overly y generou generouss subsidie subsidiess for switchin switching g to wood wood burners burners and is expected expected to run £490 million over budget. Deputy first minister Martin McGuinness has resigned, a move that has led to the collapse of the power-sharing power-sharinggovern government ment andtriggered andtriggered an election election.. Rachel Rachel Cave Cave notes notes that that theUK’s secretar secretary y of state state for Northern Northern Ireland,James Ireland, JamesBroken Brokenshire, shire, has perhaps perhaps found found his calling. calling.
NEW year, no you? Anne Barnfield reports reports an alarmingweigh alarmingweightt loss regime regime adverti advertised sed in thewindow of her local local “natura “naturall health” health” shop.The shop.The ad reads:“Lo reads:“Loseall seall your your weightfor weightfor only only $20.17 $20.17 withour programme!” programme!” Feedback Feedback thinks that that NASA NASA develop developed ed a similar similar ANDlawmakers ANDlawmakers in SouthDakota programm programmee in the 196 1960s, 0s, have have recently recently voted voted against against a proposal proposal althoug although h it was marginal marginally ly thatwould have have forbiddensexual forbiddensexual more expensive. expensive.
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PERHAP PERHAPS S hopingto hopingto attrac attractt a generationraised generationraised on HarryPotter, HarryPotter, the Royal Royal Bankof Scotlandhas Scotlandhas unveiled unveiled the latest latest advancein advancein recruitmen recruitment: t: a sortin sorting g hat. hat. Or, Or, asThe as The Huffingt Huffington on Post describedit, describedit, the MindWav MindWave e Mobile, Mobile, a “portablebrain “portablebrain scanner” scanner” thatcan reveal reveal whatrole attendees attendees to graduaterecruitme graduaterecruitment nt fairs fairs willfind most most appeal appealingat ingat thebank. The headset headset measures measures prospectiv prospective e candidat candidates’ es’ neural neural responses responses to 10 imagesflas imagesflashedup hedup on a screen screen,, and makes makes its assessmentaccordi assessmentaccordingly ngly.. It’s only only a matterof matterof time time before before banks banks usethiskit torevealwhat torevealwhat custom customersreal ersreally ly plan plan todo with with theirloans. Youngwizards now have have good good reasonto reasonto brushup brushup on their their Occlumenc Occlumency; y; Muggles Muggles amongus will haveto haveto make make do with with tinfo tinfoilhats. ilhats.
REGULARreaders REGULARreaders will recall recall Mike Mike Lavan’ Lav an’ss challen challenge ge to distil distil the essenceof essenceof celebrit celebrities ies by spelling spelling their their names names using using only only chemica chemicall symbols symbols (7 January January). ).
Keith Keith Perring,who Perring,who literally literally wrotethebookonit( An An Elemental Elemental excellentl ntly y placed placed to Philavery Philavery), is excelle respon respond.“I d.“I canadd BONOand BONOand NICOto thelist,”he says, says, though though headds,“thes headds,“thesee aremorelike brands than names.” If we allow allow two-let two-letter ter element elements, s, theprocessbecomes theprocessbecomes much much easier, easier, says says Keith,“forexample Keith,“forexample,, FRaNK FRaNK SINAtRa SINAtRa and LaUR LaUReNCeOLiVIEr eNCeOLiVIEr,, and and thereare thereare also also quitea quitea few few sciencecelebs sciencecelebs such such as FRaNCIS FRaNCIS CrICK and NIKOLa NIKOLa TeSLa. TeSLa.”” FEEDBACKhas FEEDBACKhas already already reneged reneged on its newyear’sreso newyear’sresolut lutionto ionto do awaywith awaywith nominativedeterminism nominative determinism (perhaps wewouldfare wewouldfare betterif betterif wepledged wepledged to give give upmaking upmaking rash rash promis promises) es).. Happily Happily,, though, though, our negligence negligence allowsus allowsus to bringnews bringnews from from Gordon Gordon Rossof Oakville,Californi Oakville,California, a, who writesaboutthe writesaboutthe manhe andhis wife wife once once metduring metduring a hikingtour hikingtour of the Dordogne. Dordogne. While While traips traipsingup ingup anddownthe
Karyn Houssenloge reports that one of the sponsors of Australia’s Hopman Cup tennis tournament is “Solid Gold Diamonds”. They must have a very low carbon footprint, then 56 | NewScientist | 28 January2017 January2017
And when one sock gets a hole, he create lower-quality pairs labelled alphabetically. Despite the sophistication of this longitudinal study, Michael says it is “impossible to explain to my wife and friends who don’t understand the issue, and treat this marking as a type of obsessive compulsive disorder”. Michael, where would we be if Darwin or Lister had given up in the face of the initial derision they encountered? Remember, first they laugh at you…
contact contact between between politician politicians s andtheir interns.Among interns.Among thosebatting away away the proposed proposed rulewas the Republica Republican n David David Lust.
WHAT WHAT dophysic dophysicist istss get get upto in their their sparetime? Mike Mike Lawrenc Lawrencee sendsus sendsus a reportfromthe reportfromthe relatingthat Cambridge Cambridge News, relatingthat “four “four menwearing menwearing darkclothes andbalaclavas andbalaclavas used used a teleporte teleporterr to break break throu throughthe ghthe wall wall ofa bank bank in Kimbolton, Kimbolton, near Huntingdon” Huntingdon”.. Feedbackencourages scientists everyw everywhereto hereto stick stick withmore FINALL FINALLY, readers readers willno doubtrecall traditio traditional nal sourcesof sourcesof research research that that when when AndreaLead AndreaLeadsomwas somwas made made funding. LIKEradioactive LIKEradioactive isotopes, isotopes, the universe universe has deemedthat paired paired socks socks exist exist inan unstab unstableunion,and leunion,and willspontaneouslydecay willspontaneouslydecay intoa single single sock sock (whathappe (whathappens ns tothe other other sock sock is stillhotly contested) contested).. Readers Readers have have been been hard hard atwork,it seems, seems, developin developing g strategiesto strategiesto cope. LikeRon Petch Petch before before him,Michael Streli Strelitz tz tellsus tellsus that that thenumber thenumber of matchingpairs matchingpairs in 12 identicalwhite identicalwhite gym socksquickly approache approaches s zero once once inuse. “About About 15yearsago I took tomarking tomarking allnewsockswith a number number underneathso underneathso thateach pair would would have have the same history history,,” he says.
theUK’s theUK’s energymini energyministe ster,she r,she hadto ask her departmenta departmentall staffwhether climate climate change change wasreal. Leadsom’ Leadsom’s grip grip on hernew portfo portfolio– lio– that that of environmen environmentt secretary secretary – seemsno tighter tighter.. Speaking Speaking at the annual annual Oxford Oxford Farming Farming Conferenc Conference e earlier earlier this this month,the month,the minist minister er beganby beganby praising“an praising“an industry industry that’s been around around as longas mankind mankind itself”. itself”.
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As water-based pastels and conventional oil-based paints vwill boil off very, very quickly, your intrepid exoartist must work with vacuum-tolerant materials and boards. They should go retro with charcoal sticks and coloured chalks, or use vacuum-grade silicone grease, designed to operate in low-pressure environments, to carry their mineral pigments. Nik Kelly Kelly Liverpool Liverpool,, UK
Ocean’s lull
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What is it about the sea lapping gently against the shore we find so calming? Is there an evolutionary explanation behind this pleasing phenomenon? (Continued) ■ The Greeks actually have a word for this: flisvos flisvos. John Hallett Hallett Poole, Poole, Dorset, Dorset, UK
Lunar landscape I’m an astronaut and I’ve landed on the moon. I’d like to do a painting of the magnificent desolation I see before me, but in the interests of getting close to my subject, I’d like to paint while standing on the lunar surface, not looking through a window. How should I go about it?
If you were a trained artist, artis t, you would make sketches, as pencil and paper would be fine in a vacuum for a short while, and you could also take written notes about the colours in the scene. Then you would use these as the basis for the artwork you would paint while back in the studio, either on Earth or on MoonBase 1. John Davies Lancaster, Lancaster, UK ■
by putting the canvas and the paints inside a glass-fronted, pressurised box with sleeves and ■ Two main challenges will face gloves mounted in it. However, you in trying to paint the lunar now you would have a window landscape without looking between your eyes and the canvas, through a window. The first is that rather than between your eyes if you have no window between and the landscape. This Th is we week’s ek’sque questi stion on your face and the landscape, then Alternatively, you would need ROCK ANDHOLE you and your eyes will be exposed to use paints that remain liquid in ROCK to a near-vacuum low pressure “Astronauts always have a vacuum. These would have to be While holidaying on the Greek and all the moisture will rapidly an impermeable barrier based on oil-like compounds with island of Paxos, I came upon a boil off, leading to major organ low volatility and very high pebble beach where many of the between their skin and damage and, eventually, death. stones had apparently been the vacuum of space” molecular weight, but given their The second problem is that the “engraved” by some type of high viscosity it would be hard to same moisture loss will happen turbulen turbulentt windflow. windflow. You would would paint fine detail with them. Or, of creature. This example (see photo) to the paint, causing it to become also have to make the air humid to course, you could do a sketch with is roughly 50 by 60 millimetres, a dry, crumbly solid. prevent your eyes drying out, but pencils. Ultimately, though, if you but the same sort of pattern was Astronauts always have an then this moisture would form a want an accurate recreation of the also present on much larger impermeable barrier between fine mist of ice crystals, further stones. What type of creature scene, stick to taking photos. their skin and the vacuum of made these, and how and why? compromising your attempts to Simon Iveson space and normally look out get a pristine view. Mick Groves Groves University of Newcastle, through a face shield in their For the paint, you could cheat Oxhill, Warwickshire, UK New South Wales, Wales, Australia Australia
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spacesu spacesuit. it. Other Other thanresorting thanresorting to another kind of impermeable impermeable transparent barrier, the only option would be to release a very large flow of air in i n front of your face at a rate fast enough to keep the pressure on your face close to normal. But then you would be lookingthroug lookingthrough h a very very noisy noisy and
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