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Recruitment advertising Tel +1 617 283 3213 On the cover Leader Features Email [email protected] Recruitment sales manager Mike Black 40 Stupid economics 5 People are more clued-up about 28 The mystery of the universe Key account managers Why we’re hardwired to science than we might think in 10 objects Understand them, Reiss Higgins, Viren Vadgama US sales manager Jeanne Shapiro misunderstand finance and we’ll understand everything 37 The weirdest dinosaur ever Marketing News Head of marketing Lucy Dunwell 22 Pea milk, anyone? What was Spinosaurus really like? David Hunt, Chloe Thompson The non-dairy dairy explosion 6 NEW SCIENTIST ASKS THE 40 Stupid economics Why we’re Web development PUBLIC Our exclusive survey hardwired to misunderstand Maria Moreno Garrido, Tom McQuillan, Amardeep Sian 9 Ditching DNA shows hope for the scientific finance A brand new molecule for life future. A third of the UK would go New Scientist Live one-way to Mars. Only a fifth of Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1206 Culture Email [email protected] 28 The mystery of the universe people want eternal life Creative director Valerie Jamieson in 10 objects 44 A lunar renaissance All eyes on Sales director Jacqui McCarron Exhibition sales manager Charles Mostyn Understand them, and we’ll 9 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY Ghost the moon as we near the 50th Event manager Henry Gomm understand everything bonds. DNA isn’t as special as we anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing Conference producer Natalie Gorohova Head of marketing Sonia Morjaria-Shann thought. Moonrakers dug a hole PLUS: This week’s cultural picks Marketing executive Sasha Marks 37 The weirdest dinosaur for life theory. What to do about 46 Art of video games Take a peek US Newsstand Almost a bird, almost a whale – crying babies. The Arctic under the hood of game creation Tel +1 212 237 7987 meet Spinosaurus permafrost is bleeding acid. Distributed by Time/Warner Retail, Sales and Marketing, 260 Cherry Hill Road, Possible problems with the new Parsippany, NJ 07054 6 New Scientist asks the public Apple Watch. Gluten linked to Regulars Syndication Our exclusive survey of attitudes tiredness. Slow pulsar shouldn’t 26 APERTURE Tribune Content Agency to science exist. We should set aside half of Storm damage Tel 1 800 637 4082 Email [email protected] Earth for wildlife. Turing test takes 52 LETTERS to the stage Smoking reduction Subscriptions newscientist.com/subscribe 55 CROSSWORD Tel 1 888 822 3242 or +1 636 736 4901 18 IN BRIEF Jumping basking sharks. 56 FEEDBACK Email [email protected] Post New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Plastic kills turtles. Antioxidant Elves and road safety Chesterfield MO 63006-9953 may treat osteoarthritis. Robotic 57 THE LAST WORD fruit fly. Close a wound with lasers Taking a bow

Analysis 22 INSIGHT Are milk alternatives any good for you or the planet? 24 COMMENT Crowdfunded cancer campaigns are harmful. Turkey ditching Darwin is an outrage 25 ANALYSIS Can cutting carbs help reverse diabetes?

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 3 CIVILISATION Discover how our species built a global civilisation, how we gained and lost by doing so, and what might happen next.

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Culture and Community Editors Liz Else, Mike Holderness, Simon Ings, Frank Swain General ignorance? Subeditors Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons People are more clued up about science than you might think Tom Campbell, Hannah Joshua, Chris Simms, Jon White

Design EVERY now and again, some have ushered in an age of artificial intelligence, genetic Kathryn Brazier, Joe Hetzel, newspaper or other runs a story “alternative facts”. People have engineering, cancer and climate Dave Johnston, Ryan Wills lamenting the pig ignorance of been given permission to believe change. A poll conducted among Picture desk the general public. In the run-up whatever they want, and a cesspit experts would probably pick at Chief picture editor Adam Goff to the 2015 general election in the of fake news to float their false least three of those. On climate Kirstin Kidd, David Stock UK, for example, the Independent beliefs upon. We thus live in a change especially, the public Production reported that 59 per cent of people world where the US president are way ahead of their elected Mick O’Hare, Melanie Green , Alan Blagrove, Anne Marie Conlon in the country could not name the can claim that authoritative representatives, regarding it as Contact us current prime minister. The Daily reports of the death toll from a both very real and very dangerous. newscientist.com/contact Mirror later reported a “shock” hurricane were fabricated by his Another surprise is that people General & media enquiries geography poll that found opponents – and get away with it. have serious misgivings about the [email protected] “ignorant Brits couldn’t find Against this background you technology that has done much to US 210 Broadway #201 France or the USA on a map”. might expect public knowledge create the post-truth world. Social Cambridge, MA 02139 The credibility of these surveys of science to be woeful. When we media inspires more concern than Tel +1 617 283 3213 has to be questioned – is it really decided to conduct a survey of optimism, with the number one UK 25 Bedford Street, London, WC2E 9ES plausible that six out of 10 British attitudes to science, technology, worry being fake news. Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1200 people do not know who the Our survey thus suggests that AUSTRALIA PM is? But they chime with a “Our survey reveals that misinformation and its sources PO Box 2315, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012 widespread belief that the great the public has a surprising are less influential than is widely unwashed are really, horribly level of knowledge and believed. People are, on the whole, unwashed – obsessed with trivia appreciation of the issues” better informed and more and celebrities and wilfully discerning than they are given ignorant of almost anything that medicine and the environment, credit for, capable of sorting fact matters. The thinking is that more we feared finding that to be the from fiction and sensitive to the people can probably name the case. But the results are a breath credibility of information sources. © 2018 New Scientist Ltd, England. cast of Made in Chelsea: Croatia or of fresh air. It would be an overstatement New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is published weekly except for the last week in December the stars of the Croatian football Our 2018 New Scientist Asks to say that this survey reveals by New Scientist Ltd, England. team than know anything about The Public survey – carried out the post-truth age to be yet New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 New Scientist Limited, 387 Park Avenue Croatian history or politics. with a representative sample of more fake news, or that the tide South, New York, NY 10016 In recent years this belief in the UK population – reveals a is turning against it. But it is food Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and other mailing offices mass ignorance has morphed high level of knowledge and for thought for those who believe Postmaster: Send address changes to into something more insidious. appreciation of the debates (see the public can be endlessly duped, New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA. People are no longer ill-informed, page 6). The four issues that the and a comfort to people who Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper they are well-misinformed. Echo and printed in USA by Fry Communications British public think are most likely care about such quaint values Inc, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 chambers and lying politicians to have an impact on our lives are as evidence and fact. ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 5 NEW SCIENTIST ASKS THE PUBLIC

Hope for the future Our exclusive survey reveals just how clued-up the UK public is when it comes to science and tech. Graham Lawton explores the results

THE UK public is well-informed Of the top four issues, the only “I have found the same myself,” and positive about science and source of pessimism was climate says Helen O’Neill, a molecular technology, but its hopes and change (see diagram, below). biologist at University College fears are largely being ignored Half of people chose it as the London (UCL) who is speaking by politicians. That is the key environmental problem with the about gene editing at New Scientist finding of an exclusive New greatest impact; two-thirds of Live this week. “People have come Scientist survey of public attitudes these say it is a threat to human up to me after talks saying ‘when to science, technology, medicine civilisation and the natural world. can we do this?’, presuming it is and the environment. The survey questioned a already in the clinic.” The 2018 New Scientist Asks representative sample of the UK On climate change, the public the Public survey reveals that the population, not just New Scientist also appears to be in tune with issues uppermost in people’s scientific opinion rather than minds are genetic engineering, “ The general public’s voices in the media. Researchers artificial intelligence, cancer and knowledge aligns more are deeply worried about whether climate change. They believe these to scientific opinion than we can avoid dangerous climate things are “most likely to have an the mainstream media” change and fear the consequences impact on society and human life”. for humans and nature. But people are not expecting a readers. It shows that the general “It seems that, despite some sci-fi apocalypse – public opinion public’s knowledge aligns more politicians and climate sceptics is surprisingly upbeat. A majority closely to scientific opinion than to denying climate change is real, of respondents expect the benefits coverage in mainstream media. AI the UK general public recognise of genetic engineering and AI to researchers and genetic engineers it as a major threat and already GIDEON MENDEL/IN PICTURES/CORBIS VIA GETTY VIA PICTURES/CORBIS MENDEL/IN IMAGES GIDEON outweigh the downsides and repeatedly warn that scare stories know how it should be dealt with – think cancer can be cured. The about their work in the press using renewable energy,” says CAN WE SAVE poll also reveals broad support are overblown, while cancer geographer Mark Maslin of UCL, THE PLANET? for genetically modified foods, researchers are more optimistic who is also speaking at New with 69 per cent of people in than ever about survival rates and Scientist Live. “This shows that Environmental issues are a source of favour of such crops saying cures. It seems scientists’ messages the public are deeply aware of the great pessimism. Close behind climate they could help feed the world. are getting through to the public. issues and do put threats and change as areas of concern are air pollution, plastic waste, extinctions The 2018 New Scientist Asks the Public survey was carried out by Sapio Research on a representative and overpopulation. Only renewable sample of 2026 UK adults. All interviews were conducted online in August 2018. The answers below energy is seen as cause for optimism, reveal people's hopes and concerns on a range of topics with just 7 per cent of people rating it Genetic engineering Cancer as the environmental issue they worry about most. It could cure or New treatment means that cancer eradicate diseases 80% is on its way to always being cured 75 The public is more divided when it comes to reversing our impact on the It could help us to produce Survival rates are increasing planet. Roughly a third of respondents better crops and livestock 47 all the time 70 think resurrecting extinct species It could be used to improve human We understand how lifestyle is a good idea, and about the same 45 41 capacities, such as intelligence changes can prevent cancer number don’t like the prospect. They say it could be dangerous and Artiicial intelligence Climate change make us less inclined to conserve It could advance science Climate change is a threat other endangered species. and medicine more rapidly 64 to human civilisation 67 First on the list people would like to be brought back is the western It could help us to understand and Climate change will destroy natural enhance human intelligence 44 habitats and drive species extinct 67 black rhino, followed by dodos and Tasmanian tigers. Forget Jurassic Park It will free people up from Extreme weather is a sign that though – just a third would like to see mundane chores 35 climate change has become a reality 62 a return of the dinosaurs.

6 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 Want to learn more? All of the issues raised in this piece and many others will be discussed at New Scientist Live 20-23 September. g More information newscientistlive.com/mag

HURRAH FOR GENETIC ENGINEERING solutions together – it is just a shame that the politicians do One unexpected finding of the survey is ethics of “playing god” also loom large, not see what the public does.” that 53 per cent of people support genetic along with fears that the technology might You might think that politicians engineering. This was driven mostly by its only be used to benefit the rich. would want to follow the views potential to cure or eradicate disease – seen as GM crops enjoy more support than of the public, yet none of these a positive by 80 per cent of the people who opposition, with 31 per cent of people saying issues are currently high on the support the tech. Almost half of them also say that this environmental issue is one they political agenda. Climate change they are optimistic about using it to improve worry least about, and only 16 per cent rating especially seems to have slipped human capabilities such as intelligence. it as one of their biggest environmental political minds, even though the The main reason people worry about worries. Popular reasons to support GM crops UK is not on target to meet its genetic engineering is that “it is too are that they could help feed the world and long-term commitments and has dangerous, we don’t know the real save the environment. Opponents are most just experienced a long bout of consequences”. Designer babies and the concerned about possible impacts on health. freak weather almost certainly caused by climate change.

Public optimism When it comes to AI, the government recently set up an Office for Artificial Intelligence to support this growing industry, but there has been little political debate about the possible impacts on society and human life. Genetic engineering of humans is similarly low on the agenda despite a recent call from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics for a widespread debate on its implications. The UK will reportedly continue its strict policies on GM crops after leaving the European Union, but there has been little public discussion. PLAINPICTURE/BLEND LEE IMAGES/JOHN The survey reveals other ways FEARS THAT TECH politicians are out of step with WILL TAKE OVER public opinion. It found strong support for legalised assisted Our survey reveals a variety of dying, a complete ban on animal anxieties about current or near-future experiments, and compulsory technology. Social media is seen in childhood vaccination. Neither of a negative light, largely because of the two main UK political parties fake news, trolls and peer pressure advocates any of these policies – on young people. perhaps because they are also out Drones also stir up worries, with of step with mainstream scientific fears they can be used for surveillance and medical opinion. or to deliver drugs and weapons into Marcus du Sautoy, Professor prisons. Brain implants are seen as for the Public Understanding highly dangerous, while virtual reality of Science at the University of is seen as a positive, but only just. Oxford, told New Scientist: And even though 30 per cent of “The most optimistic part of the people say they are positive about report is to see how engaged the artificial intelligence, 24 per cent public is with science. I think it are concerned about its possible shows an encouraging level of downsides, such as its capacity to public understanding of science put millions out of work or outsmart and the issues around it.” ■ us and take over the world. Robots

NAYPONG/GETTY inspire similar concerns. Turn over for more survey results

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 7 NEW SCIENTIST ASKS THE PUBLIC

shrinking of a brain area called may have been caused by social the hippocampus, made up of isolation and the stress of being A third of UK adults sausage-shaped structures that watched 24 hours a day. The are essential for forming new participants exercised six days a memories. week, so the effect is unlikely to would go to Mars The study found that one end of have been caused by inactivity. the volunteers’ left hippocampus – What effect it might have on Clare Wilson with just a handful of crewmates known as the head end – shrank a person’s mental abilities is could damage the brain. by about 3 per cent on average. unclear. The hippocampus help MANY people would consider The study involved 16 volunteers Team-member Anika Werner us find our way around, but the going on a one-way mission to doing 30-day stints in a simulated of Charité – Berlin University of navigation skills of the would-be Mars, according to the 2018 New Mars base with only three other Medicine suggests this shrinking astronauts were unaffected in Scientist Asks the Public survey. people for company in their computer tests during the study. But new evidence suggests that pod. By the end of the study, Researchers practise Mars Hugo Spiers of University the lengthy trip may be bad for the participants showed slight experiments in the Utah desert College London says the head end the part of your brain involved of the hippocampus may be less in forming memories. important for navigation and The survey (see page 6) found more involved in using memories that 50 per cent of men and 30 per to guide other kinds of behaviour. cent of women would be happy to However, a longer study by the go on a return trip to Mars. As for same team, looking at nine people a one-way trip, 40 per cent of men who spent a winter at an Antarctic said they would definitely or base, found hippocampus probably want to go, compared shrinkage that was linked to worse with 20 per cent of women. scores on spatial ability tests. This is despite the known We don’t know how the physical risks that the six-month volunteers’ hippocampus shrank. journey to Mars would involve. It might have been brain cells Aside from space-flight accidents, dying, a lack of new cells being high exposure to radiation from generated, loss of connections cosmic rays could lead to DNA between cells or just a damage and cancer. reorganisation of this brain area. And there may be other Werner predicts, though, that unanticipated dangers. A NASA any astronauts would recover study presented at the recent after returning to Earth. “If you Federation of European have these changes, they are very Neuroscience Societies reversible. The brain is very conference in Berlin, Germany, plastic. But it is something that

suggests that a two-year mission BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN/GETTY REPORTAGE IMAGES has to be taken into account.” ■

The question posed in the survey life extension than are optimistic The two are not necessarily Only one in five was “if you were offered the chance about it. The main concerns people incompatible. Over the past 200 would like to to live forever, how likely are you to have are overpopulation and a years, average human life expectancy take it?”. While this is a hypothetical “nursing home world” full of geriatrics. has doubled in most developed be immortal question, some gerontologists believe Of those who expressed concern countries due to better diets, public that radical life extension – if not about radical life extension, 44 per health and education. WHO wants to live forever? actual immortality – may be available cent agreed with the statement These gains are projected to Only around 1 in 5 people, according to people who are alive today. “I think we should just accept our continue, according to Linda Partridge to the 2018 New Scientist Asks Even people who are already natural lifespan”. of the Max Planck Institute for Biology the Public survey. old may soon benefit from a range Nonetheless, in a separate of Ageing in Cologne, Germany, In the survey (see page 6), of interventions, from drugs to question, 58 per cent of people lead author of the Nature review. 21 per cent of people said they would manipulation of their gut microbiota, agreed with the statement “longer However, “healthspan” – the be very likely to accept an offer of that can extend their lifespan or at life expectancies are a good thing”. number of years lived in relatively immortality. A further 30 per cent least improve their health in old good health – has not increased said they would be somewhat likely age, according to a major review “ People worry about as much as lifespan, meaning to take up such an offer, but around published this month in Nature. overpopulation and concerns about radical life extension half of people appear to be reconciled However, the survey found that a ‘nursing home world’ are probably well-founded. to their own demise. more people are worried about radical full of geriatrics” Graham Lawton ■

8 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Life with a twist: genetic code can ‘Ghost bonds’ be made with different molecules let hydrogen original. Philipp Holliger at the link to nothing MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, has CHEMISTS have a plan to make ghosts created “XNA”, in which the bases in the lab, by bonding an atom to a remain the same but the chains patch of empty space. are altered. Genes can be copied Normal chemical bonds anchor from DNA to XNA and back. two atoms together, usually through Meanwhile, Floyd Romesberg sharing their electrons. Now, theorists at the Scripps Research Institute have worked out how to trick a single in La Jolla, California, has built hydrogen atom into forming a bond DNA with six bases: the originals with nothing, by luring the atom’s lone plus two artificial ones. In 2014, electron into the same position and he got all six working in bacteria. state it would be in for a real bond. However, the new DNA breaks Matt Eiles of Purdue University what was thought to be a cardinal in Indiana and his colleagues are rule, established by Watson and building on work from two years ago Crick, which these previous that saw the creation of strange, modifications obeyed.

super-sized bonds in other molecules, BEE/ZUMAPRESS.COM/ALAMY FUNEZ/MODESTO ELIAS In normal DNA, when two bases such as diatomic caesium. pair up, one is large and the other In that case, one caesium atom is small. For example, adenine is in a rare condition called a Rydberg Artificial genes show large and its partner thymine is state, which allows its bonding small. Even when researchers electron to stretch up to a thousand life does not need DNA have created unusually large times further than normal from the bases, they have stuck to this rule. other caesium atom, essentially LIFE need not be based on DNA. is what encodes the information But in the skinny DNA, small forming a very large bond. So say researchers who have in our genes. pairs with small. Similarly, in the Eiles says that by imitating this created two new versions of the Benner and his colleagues fat DNA, large pairs with large. Rydberg state with a single hydrogen iconic molecule, which retain its made several alternative DNAs Both work. atom, it is possible to make it bond to double helix shape but are thinner in which they swapped out some “There’s no reason you had to nothing. The trick involves exposing or chunkier than the original. of the standard bases for various develop a system where you have the hydrogen atom and its electron to “This is changing the rules of combinations of eight similar the pairing of the small with the a series of delicate magnetic and the game that every schoolchild molecules. Doing so made some large bases,” says team member electric fields (Physical Review learns,” says Steven Benner of the of the resulting DNA-like Millie Georgiadis of Indiana Letters, doi.org/gd58tv). Foundation for Applied Molecular University in Indianapolis. It “We predict it would live for Evolution in Florida. It implies “We currently have no seems there are many ways to several hundred microseconds, or that extraterrestrial life might good reason to assume build a gene (Journal of the even longer in a cold environment,” be based on alternative genetic that aliens will have American Chemical Society, says Eiles. But his team won’t be molecules. genomes based on DNA” doi.org/ctwh). trying to make any ghostly bonds. DNA carries our genes, which “It clearly raises the question of “As simple theorists, we’ll leave this tell our bodies how to grow and molecules physically “skinnier” why we ended up with DNA,” says challenge to the experts, the are passed from parent to child. than standard DNA, while others Holliger. He suspects it is simply experimentalists.” The structure of DNA was were “fatter”. an accident of chemistry: “we are Some are up for it. “I think it could described in 1953 by James Watson Nevertheless, they all built from what we are built from actually be done,” says Johannes and Francis Crick – with crucial performed DNA’s crucial because that’s what was available.” Wilhelm Deiglmayr at the Swiss help from Rosalind Franklin. function: if two bases paired In 2008, researchers made a Federal Institute of Technology in Watson and Crick realised that incorrectly, the misplaced one double helix out of unrelated Zurich, co-leader of the team that DNA is made up of two long chain- was swiftly ejected and replaced chemicals – and its bases still made the unusual caesium molecules. like molecules twisted around with the correct one. This is how paired up. Combined, the findings “This would be really fun to see.” each other. The two chains are DNA ensures our genes don’t mean the search for alien life If such ghostly bonds are ever attached via pairs of bases, one become garbled, and the modified needs to look for more than just created, Eiles says it would be base on each chain. There are four DNA did it just as well. “I was DNA. “We currently have no good interesting to figure out if they types of base, and they only pair quite surprised,” says Benner. chemical reason to assume that, react with other molecules, or up in specific ways: adenine It is not the first time if we ever meet aliens, their alter the rate of chemical reactions. with thymine, and guanine with modified DNAs have been genomes will be based on DNA,” Andy Coghlan ■ cytosine. The order of the bases found to work as well as the says Holliger. Michael Marshall ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 9 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Moonrakers dug a hole for life theory

Leah Crane detailed computer model ever of how these spherules get made and APOLLO astronauts didn’t dig used it to check this conclusion. deep enough to get a true picture They used it to simulate the of the moon’s history – a finding distribution of the beads on sites that may spell trouble for theories of the kind visited by the Apollo about the rise of life on Earth. astronauts. When they kept the When a rock crashes into the impact rate at these sites the same moon or a planet, it vaporises for the past 3 billion years, they parts of the surface and sends found that soil samples taken up a spray of debris. As bits of from the top 10 centimetres of melted dust and rock fly through these sites would tend to contain the air, some of them cool into more younger beads, while deeper tiny beads called impact glass samples would have a more equal spherules, which get deposited number of old and young beads. again. When they are dug up, That means that the rate of their composition can reveal impacts on the moon may not

when the impact happened. have changed much in the past NASA Researchers analysing these 3 billion years – it is just that our glass beads in samples from samples are shallow and that Astronauts collected moon samples appeared the moon experienced NASA’s Apollo missions found means they are biased towards with a rake during Apollo 17 more impacts, was a particularly there were as many from the past evidence of more recent impacts important time for life on Earth. 500 million years as from the (Geophysical Research Letters, moon offers clues to meteorite There was a dramatic increase in entire 4 billion years before that – doi.org/gdqdpv). activity that might have affected complex life called the Cambrian far more of the younger glass In other words, the Apollo Earth. That is because impacts explosion, and we aren’t entirely spherules than they expected. astronauts weren’t digging deep on Earth tend to be erased by sure what caused it. From this, they concluded that enough to get a full picture of the geological activity, which the Some researchers think that there were far more objects moon’s history. “They had this moon lacks. “The moon preserves the apparent increase in meteorite smashing into the moon in little rake tool, and they would its record far better than the impacts may have somehow the past 500 million years than rake up a few centimetres,” says Earth does,” says Paul Renne at stimulated the increase in complex the rest of its history. Minton. “We’d have to sample the Berkeley Geochronology life. But if this supposed increase Now, David Minton at Purdue a column of a metre or more to Center in California. in impacts turns out to be wrong, University in Indiana and his see the true impact rate.” The geological period around we will have to look for other colleagues have built the most The history of impacts on the 500 million years ago, when it explanations, says Renne. ■

process, Sabrina Voltaire at to their night wakings before they Many parenting books recommend Sleep training is Pennsylvania State University and turned 3 months old experienced this method because there is an faster if waking her colleagues spent nine months a faster decline in their tendency to assumption that prompt intervention following 107 families living in the wake at night. But after the first three when a baby cries at night might babies soothed US who had newborns. months, babies showed a similar pace encourage infants to keep waking up. Each family recorded the baby’s of sleep development whether or not “Almost all experts agree that COMFORTING an infant under waking frequency every night for one parents intervened when they woke sleep training, including ‘cry it out’, 3 months of age who wakes at night week before the child was 3 months, (Sleep Medicine, doi.org/cttk). is typically inappropriate for babies can help speed the path to a more 6 months and 9 months old. The The findings contradict the popular less than 3 months of age,” says Jodi restful existence. Beyond the researchers also installed cameras “cry it out” approach: letting babies Mindell at the Children’s Hospital of 3-month mark, though, interventions in families’ bedrooms for one night cry until they fall back to sleep. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. by parents may have little impact on during the reporting weeks to observe “Parents need to be aware of the a baby’s sleeping habits at night. parents’ interventions when their “ Almost all experts agree appropriateness of their responses It takes time for babies to learn to babies woke up. that the ‘cry it out’ to their babies by considering a baby’s sleep through the night. To better Voltaire found that the babies approach is inappropriate age as well as their developmentally understand the role of parents in the whose parents responded promptly for very young babies” based skills,” she says. Yvaine Ye ■

10 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 Humanity will need the equivalent of 2 Earths to People lying down support itself by 2030. solve anagrams in 10% less time than people standing up.

About 6 in 100 babies (mostly boys) are born with an extra nipple.

60% of us experience ‘inner speech’ where everyday thoughts take a back-and-forth conversational style.

We spend 50% of our lives daydreaming.

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The new Apple Watch is billed as a Melting Arctic leap in home healthcare, but is it? permafrost some people who need home bleeds acid monitoring, namely those who have a condition called atrial SOME patches of Arctic permafrost fibrillation, where the heart beats are leaking acid as they melt. The irregularly. This causes symptoms dribble of acid is destroying rocks and such as breathlessness, tiredness releasing more carbon dioxide into and chest pain, and puts people the air – but it isn’t clear how much. at risk of a stroke. Permafrost is soil and sand But many people can have that normally remains frozen. an irregular heart rhythm Climatologists have warned for years without symptoms. They will that Arctic permafrost is thawing be told by their watch to take because of climate change. This will the ECG result to a doctor. They transform the landscape, and release could then go on medications carbon that is locked away in the such as blood thinners, which permafrost in the form of CO2 and can trigger bleeding as a side methane – adding to the greenhouse effect. It is unclear whether effect. Now it seems that some there is any benefit from treating regions of the Arctic might release symptomless atrial fibrillation. more CO2 than expected. Even if doctors advise no Scott Zolkos at the University of treatment, people will be Alberta in Canada and his colleagues falsely alarmed, says Murthy. studied permafrost in the western Several trials have investigated Canadian Arctic, which is distinct from whether it is helpful to give ECGs

that in other areas. “The permafrost DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA/THE MERCURY NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES to people without symptoms. The is more ice-rich and more sediment- US Preventive Services Task Force rich,” says Zolkos. “So when that has concluded that the evidence permafrost thaws, the material it fails to show this approach does exposes is different.” New Apple Watch’s more good than harm. The team analysed samples of New Scientist has asked Apple water from sites upstream and potential risks if the company has any specific downstream of thawing permafrost measures to avoid misdiagnosis, patches. The run-off water contained but has yet to receive a response. significant amounts of sulphuric acid, Clare Wilson spiky lines on a monitor. Another function, the which formed when sulphide minerals Now Apple Watch users will be intermittent heart rate monitor – were exposed by permafrost melt. THE latest Apple Watch will give able to get an ECG at the touch of a which works through sensors The sulphuric acid then began people warnings if their heart rate button, by putting a finger on the built into the back of the watch reacting with limestone rocks, goes too high or low and let them watch’s side. After 30 seconds, you face – may also have potential for releasing CO2 (Geophysical Research take a read-out of their heart’s get told if the result is normal or false alarms. For example, people Letters, doi.org/gd58xx). electrical activity. suggests a problem. The recording who are very fit could be wrongly This doesn’t happen in other It is being billed as a giant leap can be shared with a doctor. sent a notification saying that regions, says Zolkos, because other in home healthcare – but critics Having the function built into their heart rate is too low. permafrost doesn’t contain enough say it will lead to huge numbers the watch will mean many people “Your heart rate naturally falls sulphide minerals. Instead, carbonic of people getting told they have when you are relaxed or sleeping. acid forms when CO2 dissolves in the heart problems when they don’t. “ Many more people will Is that going to set off an alarm? meltwater. This acid also destroys The Series 4 watch will go on start regularly taking their They haven’t released the data,” limestone, but the reaction consumes sale in the US later this month ECG – and that is where says Murthy. rather than releases CO2. costing $399, Apple announced problems may start” And there is a third new medical What will happen next depends at the product launch last week, feature. This will call emergency on which parts of the Arctic melt first. calling the device “an intelligent will start regularly taking their services if the wearer is detected “If there is carbonate weathering guardian for your health”. ECG, especially if they worry to have taken a hard fall and stays where sulphides are present, that An electrocardiogram (ECG) is about their health – and that is immobile for 60 seconds. can create CO2,” says Zolkos. “But if usually just available in hospital. where the problems may start, All such functions will no doubt it’s carbonate weathering where Pads put onto your body detect says Venkatesh Murthy at the be appreciated by people with sulphides are absent, that will likely your heart’s electrical activity, University of Michigan. health concerns – not to mention ■ ■ consume CO2.” Michael Marshall which is shown as the well-known The feature will be useful for the worried well.

12 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 WHAT IF TIME STARTED FLOWING BACKWARDS?

WHAT IF THE RUSSIANS GOT TO THE MOON FIRST?

WHAT IF DINOSAURS STILL RULED THE EARTH?

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Introduction by Professor Stephen Hawking NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

one didn’t, and the volunteers fewer positive emotions after didn’t know which was which. consuming the gluten-containing Gluten’s subtle The volunteers reported similar muffins than after they ate the levels of bloating and cramps gluten-free foods. The effects were effect on the mind regardless of whether they ate the small but statistically significant, gluten-containing or gluten-free and may explain why some people foods, reinforcing previous say they feel better after going Alice Klein eat a yogurt on separate days findings that gluten isn’t gluten-free, says Biesiekierski, who two weeks apart. On one of the responsible for gut upsets in presented the results at the annual SOME people say they don’t feel days, the yogurt contained gluten, people without coeliac disease. meeting of the Gastroenterological good after eating gluten – but on the other day it was gluten- That wasn’t the only discovery. Society of Australia in Brisbane perhaps that is because of its free. The participants didn’t know Participants reported feeling earlier this month. effects on mental health rather which yogurt was which. more tired after eating gluten- The findings chime with than on the gut. In another experiment, people containing yogurt and reported previous work by Biesiekierski Gluten is a protein found in were given two batches of muffins showing that gluten seemed to foods including wheat and rye to eat a few weeks apart. Again, Gluten is found in the flour used cause more symptoms of that causes the negative reaction one batch contained gluten and to make most breads and cakes depression than an inactive in coeliac disease, an autoimmune substance in 22 people with condition affecting about 1 per gluten sensitivity. Similarly, cent of us. Another 12 per cent a 2015 study led by Antonio of people say they get bloating, Di Sabatino at the University tiredness and other symptoms of Pavia in Italy found that gluten after they eat gluten-rich foods. caused more symptoms of But there is no agreement on depression and “brain fogginess” whether this “non-coeliac gluten than an inactive substance in sensitivity” is a real condition, 59 gluten-sensitive individuals. particularly because several Michael Potter at the University studies have shown that people of Newcastle in Australia says the who have it report the same evidence is building. “These symptoms if they eat an inactive studies suggest there are substance they think is gluten. definitely people who have However, even if gluten doesn’t reproducible mental health cause gut troubles, it may trigger responses to gluten when they other symptoms in some people, undergo blinded challenges.” says Jessica Biesiekierski at Even if gluten can directly La Trobe University in Australia. affect mental health, it is likely Biesiekierski and her colleagues to occur in only a few sensitive investigated with the help of people, says Biesiekierski. 14 people with self-reported gluten “We’re certainly not saying that sensitivity. In one experiment, everyone will get depression

the participants were asked to MONKEY_IMAGES/PLAINPICTURE after eating gluten,” she says. ■

Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), signal if the radio beam points Alice Harding at NASA’s Goddard A star spinning a set of radio telescopes based towards you,” says Tan. “For a longer Space Flight Center in Maryland says so slowly it mostly in the Netherlands (arxiv.org/ period pulsar, we expect the beam this may point to the magnetic field abs/1809.00965). to be much narrower compared with being unusually complicated. “You shouldn’t exist It takes 23.5 seconds for this pulsar, a faster pulsar, so we expect these to definitely would not be able to create called PSR J0250+5854, to complete be harder to detect.” this pulsar without some significant A DISTANT pulsar is taking it slow – a rotation. That might sound fast, The way pulsars create radio waves additional distortion of the magnetic so slow that it shouldn’t exist. Radio but it is the slowest radio pulsar ever is thought to depend on charged field,” she says. pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron spotted – most others have rotation particles being accelerated by the This pulsar may help us figure out stars that emit a beam of powerful periods in the single digits. neutron star’s spinning magnetic field, exactly how others like it generate radio waves. But we have just found As we have now seen a slow pulsar, but this one seems to spin too slowly. their beams, and why they might stop, one rotating so slowly that its beam that probably means there are many says Jim Cordes at Cornell University should have been snuffed out. more out there, says Tan, but they “This pulsar takes 23.5 in New York. “We’d need a few Chia Min Tan at the University of are difficult to find. “The radio that seconds to complete a hundred of them, but this may be the Manchester, UK, and his colleagues comes from a pulsar is sort of like a rotation. That might sound harbinger of that population of very found this sluggish star using the lighthouse; you can only see the pretty swift, but it isn’t” slow-moving objects.” Leah Crane ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 15 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Whose line of code is it anyway?

ARTIFICIAL intelligence has joined a group of actors improvising in a live stage performance, providing a novel twist on the Turing test – used to assess machine intelligence. AI has written scripts, poetry and jokes before, but Kory Mathewson at the University of Alberta, Canada, and Piotr Mirowski, a computer scientist and drama school graduate, have gone a step further and used a robot in comedy theatre. They based their work on

JASON LANGLEY/ROBERT HARDING LANGLEY/ROBERT JASON The Actor’s Nightmare, a play featuring improvised performance Forests are havens for wildlife where actors are forced to make Vast parts of Earth and crucial carbon stores incongruous lines fit believably into a constantly evolving scene. One actor 25 and 75 per cent of high- might be reading War and Peace while should be left wild biodiversity regions or major a second has to ask for a divorce. “War ecosystems must be protected. and Peace and an acrimonious divorce And we should err on the side don’t really make sense together,” Michael Le Page and 17 per cent of land by 2020. of caution when setting targets. says Mirowski, and this is where the But this isn’t nearly enough, “There is no doubt we need potential for comedy lies. TO AVOID mass extinctions of says Baillie. In the editorial, he far more land and sea secured In Mirowski and Mathewson’s plants and animals, governments and his coauthor, Ya-Ping Zhang for conserving and retaining version, Improbotics, three actors should protect a third of the of the Chinese Academy of nature,” says James Watson at appear on stage – as a “human with oceans and land by 2030 and half Sciences, want governments to set the University of Queensland free will”, a “puppet” and a “cyborg”. by 2050, with a focus on areas of much bigger targets at the next in Australia. “Targets like 50 per Only the first can devise their own high biodiversity. So say leading major conference on biodiversity cent are in the right ball park lines; the puppet gets fed from a biologists in an editorial in the in 2020 (Science, doi.org/cttj). when it comes to the minimal human off-stage, and the cyborg gets journal Science. “We have to drastically increase amount of area needed to lines generated by an AI called A.L.Ex. This isn’t just about saving our ambition if we want to avoid conserve biodiversity.” The Turing test, devised by biodiverse areas, says Jonathan an extinction crisis and if we But Watson and others stress computer pioneer Alan Turing, Baillie of the National Geographic want to maintain the ecosystem that which areas get protected is requires a machine to convince an Society, one of the authors. It is services that we currently benefit even more important than the interrogator it is human. At the end also about saving ourselves by overall percentage. “The key thing of Improbotics the audience had to protecting wider natural systems, “We have to drastically is to protect the right areas,” says guess who was playing each role or ecosystems, and their benefits increase our ambition Jose Montoya of the Station for (arxiv.org/abs/1809.01807). to us, known as ecosystem if we want to avoid Theoretical and Experimental AI still has some work to do. The services. “We are learning that an extinction crisis” Ecology in Moulis, France. “If we audience always guessed the identity the large areas that remain are merely protect a proportion of the of the AI-controlled improviser, but in important for providing services from,” says Baillie. “The trends territory, governments will likely two out of six shows some thought for all life. The forests, for are in a positive direction, it’s just protect what’s easy, and that’s there was a second AI performer. example, are critical for absorbing we have to move much faster.” usually areas of low biodiversity For the cast, dealing with the and storing carbon,” says Baillie. It is hard to work out how and ecosystem service provision.” lines from the AI was tricky. “It was At present, just 3.6 per cent of much space is needed to preserve What’s more, a third of the like performing with a very new the planet’s oceans and 14.7 per biodiversity and ecosystem 3.6 per cent of land that is already improvisor with strange impulses,” cent of land is protected by law. benefits, the pair say, because meant to be protected is actually reported one actor. “Nervous and At the 2010 Nagoya Conference there is so much we don’t know being exploited, Watson’s team unpredictable”, remarked another. of the Convention on Biological about life on Earth – like how reported last month. So merely Mirowski describes the cyborg actor Diversity, governments agreed to many species there are. However, declaring areas to be protected as being “the most adversarial stage protect 10 per cent of the oceans most estimates suggest between isn’t enough. ■ partner possible”. Frank Swain ■

16 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 NEW SCIENTIST DSCOVERYg

Cutting-edge Japan: from Tokyo to Okinawa Explore the diverse faces of Japan. Journey from buzzing Tokyo to snow-capped mountains; from hot springs to subtropical coral reefs

DEPARTURE: 4 NOVEMBER 2018 TOKYO g HAKONE g KYOTO g OKINAWA 11 days from £4995 per person

TECHNOLOGY OUTSTANDING TAKE PART ggAND INNOVATION g NATURAL BEAUTY IN RESEARCH Begin your adventure in futuristic In the shadow of Mount Fuji, Round off your trip with three Tokyo. Visit the University of Tokyo visit the volcanic Owakudani valley days on the subtropical island and enjoy a talk from a robotics and walk between steam vents of Okinawa. Get stuck in at the designer on campus. Experience and hot springs. Then catch the Okinawa Institute of Science the awe-inspiring Miraikan, Japan’s bullet train to Kyoto and explore and Technology where you’ll take Museum of Emerging Science and its peaceful temples and lavish part in environmental research, Innovation, before heading for the gardens where bamboo thickets learn about sustainable living and stunning scenery around Hakone. crowd the skyline. how coral is being restored.

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Basking sharks leap like great whites DENNISVDW/GETTY LANGUID basking sharks that eat tiny zooplankton jump out of the water, or breach – a behaviour more normally seen in smaller great white sharks to capture seals. Now we know more about how they do it despite their size. Jonathan Houghton at Queen’s University Belfast and his colleagues monitored breaching basking sharks. They estimate the sharks reach 18 kilometres per hour to breach, the same as great whites. This means an 8-metre- long basking shark would use 45 to 51 kilocalories to breach, more than a great white. But because basking sharks are almost twice as big as great whites, the energy used per kilogram of body weight is similar (Biology Letters, doi.org/ctrj). The analysis may reveal more details about how basking sharks breach, but why they do it is still Paradise may have been elephant birds — once the world’s largest bird — the unknown. “It’s a mystery,” says researchers identified cut marks left by human butchers. David Sims at the Marine Biology found 10,000 years ago The bones were found nearly a decade ago near the Association in Plymouth, UK. Christmas river in southern Madagascar. Carbon dating HUMANS sailed to Madagascar more than 10,000 years indicated that they were more than 10,000 years old. ago – 6000 years earlier than we thought – according to Although no tools or other human-made products Close a wound – no new work. were found at the site, Hansford and his colleagues have The question of when humans settled the island off now realised that the bones have scratch marks that look stitches required Africa’s east coast has been puzzling us for years because like impacts from stone blades. They compared them there is so little to go on. Previous findings of tools and with previously identified tool marks on animal bones WOUNDS are usually fixed with animal bones suggested that humans were present by and modern butchery marks, and concluded they were stitches and staples that damage 4000 years ago, although the evidence is disputed. made by humans (Science Advances, doi.org/ctsf). surrounding tissue. This could be James Hansford at the Zoological Society of London Madagascar was once a paradise for elephant birds, giant avoided with a new bandage that and his colleagues have now found signs of an earlier lemurs and dwarf hippos, but all three have gone extinct seals wounds without stitches. human presence. On 10,000-year-old bones of extinct in the past 1000 years as human settlements have spread. Kaushal Rege at Arizona State University and his colleagues made the bandage by combining Winged bot probes mysteries of fly flight to use similar wing movements silk and gold nanorods in a thin and body rotation patterns as material. When a laser is shone A ROBOT with insect-like wings and motor controls that aren’t fruit flies to perform a banked on the bandage, the gold converts can dodge a swatting hand with fully understood. What has turn. Initially DelFly drifted the light into heat. This leads to the agility of the fruit fly that puzzled researchers is that the sideways too. However, the team structural changes in the silk inspired it. While it is 55 times flies continue to drift sideways was able to remove this drift by and the collagen of the tissue it bigger than an actual fruit fly, after this manoeuvre, which was adjusting the orientation of is applied to, causing them to DelFly is helping us understand thought to be undesirable to the DelFly’s head to align with its intertwine and bond together. some of these avoidance tactics. flies as they seem to lose control body right after a turn. The team found that incisions Of particular interest is a move over their trajectory. Surprisingly, this tweak didn’t in pig intestines closed with the called a banked turn, in which To examine this, Matej Karásek improve DelFly’s turning speed bandage withstood higher fluid flies tilt their bodies to perform a at Delft University of Technology or agility, suggesting that drifting pressure than those closed with sharp change in direction. This in the Netherlands and his isn’t really a downside for flies stitches (Advanced Functional requires sophisticated sensory colleagues programmed DelFly (Science, doi.org/cts6). Materials, doi.org/cts7).

18 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

Turn a drop into a Mice may be harmed by chemicals that replaced BPA in plastic

bubble with sound PLASTIC bottles are often sold as helped draw attention to BPA. after birth, when they start to “BPA-free”, meaning they don’t As with her earlier findings, she develop sperm. BURST a soap bubble and it splits contain bisphenol A, a chemical noticed that mice in cages made Compared with control into droplets. Now we can do the used in plastic production that of certain plastics began to show groups, exposed mice later had reverse, turning a droplet into a disrupts reproduction in mice. reproductive problems, such as chromosomal abnormalities in bubble using only a blast of sound. Now it seems the chemicals that abnormal eggs and low sperm cells destined to become sperm or People have already managed replaced it may harm mice too. counts. She found cage surfaces eggs, suggesting they will produce to suspend small particles in the As with BPA, this could spark to which mice were exposed were less sperm or a greater number of air with ultrasound waves, which fears that they might leach out of contaminated, this time with the abnormal eggs (Current Biology, have frequencies beyond those food or drink packaging and affect BPA substitute bisphenol S. doi.org/ctsr). the human ear can detect. people, but there is no evidence Hunt and her colleagues then Oliver Jones at RMIT University Duyang Zang at Northwestern yet to support such worries. exposed female mouse fetuses to in Australia says it is too soon to Polytechnical University in China Patricia Hunt of Washington tiny amounts of a range of BPA worry about the findings. His and his colleagues have now State University in Pullman replacements while their eggs reasons include the fact that discovered that by controlling the discovered problems with BPA’s were developing. She also exposed chemicals that affect mice don’t sound pressure – the force the replacements 20 years after she male mice to the chemicals just always do the same to us. sound wave exerts – they can create a bubble from a levitating droplet. The team placed a droplet Supplement stems of soap solution in an acoustic levitator. They increased the sound damage to joints pressure on the droplet by gradually turning up the volume of the device, AN ANTIOXIDANT supplement JORDI CHIAS/NATUREPL.COM JORDI which allowed them to flatten it into has shown promise in helping a film and then curve it into a bowl mice with osteoarthritis, the that filled with air. most common joint disorder. Once the bowl reached a The only existing treatments certain volume, the air molecules for people with osteoarthritis are trapped inside began to resonate painkillers and drugs that reduce with the sound waves and vibrate inflammation, but nothing halts violently. This increased the or reverses the condition. pressure on the bowl-like To look for alternatives, Rik structure, inflating it and Lories at the Catholic University of eventually creating a bubble. Leuven (KUL) in Belgium and his The work is more than just a colleagues screened gene activity new way to blow bubbles, says in cartilage samples from people Zang. The technique could be used and mice with osteoarthritis. to create ultralight materials or tiny They found depleted levels of capsules to carry medicine (Nature a protein called ANP32A, which Plastic hits young turtles hardest Communications, doi.org/gd57s8). drives production of an enzyme that counters oxidative stress. YOUNG turtles off Australia’s plastic-rich currents. “It may be that When the researchers bred mice Queensland coast are more at risk of they are less selective than adults unable to make ANP32A, the swallowing plastic than their elders. and encounter higher concentrations animals developed osteoarthritis. Autopsies on 246 sea turtles that of debris,” says Britta Denise CAIA IMAGE/ALAMY CAIA The team turned to N-acetyl washed up dead on beaches across Hardesty of the Australian federal cysteine (NAC), a supplement that Queensland showed that 58 had agency CSIRO, who led the survey. neutralises oxidative stress. When each ingested between one and The team calculated how the risk mice with osteoarthritis were 329 fragments of plastic. The rest of death rose as plastic in the gut given NAC, it cut joint damage died of other causes, such as boat increased, based on animal size to the level seen in healthy mice collisions. Of the plastic fatalities, and age. For young turtles about (Science Translational Medicine, four were adults or near adults, 45 centimetres long, swallowing doi.org/ctsm). 41 were juveniles and 13 were 17 fragments raised the risk by 50 Lories says that, in people very young “post-hatchlings”. per cent. Swallowing one fragment with osteoarthritis, insufficient One explanation is that young carried a 22 per cent risk. Plastic can NAC may reach cartilage to heal turtles swim nearer the surface, kill by blocking or perforating the gut damage. His team plans to focus where plastic floats, and drift with (Scientific Reports, doi.org/ctsb). instead on ways to boost ANP32A.

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 19 Advertising feature | Meet the Low Carbon Pioneers Towards a low carbon future The world needs more energy but delivered with fewer carbon emissions. Embracing that dual challenge is the way BP thinks about every aspect of its business, says Kathrina Mannion

“The world is facing a huge challenge,” will be using fuels and lubricants for many Kathrina Mannion, says Kathrina Mannion. The global population decades to come. So we are looking at ways BP’s Advancing Low is rising and expected to reach 9 billion by to make those the most efficient or low Carbon programme 2040. The standard of living is rising for carbon fuels and lubricants we can,” she says. director many people, who want access to transport, One example is Biojet, a lower carbon jet to nutritious and plentiful food supplies, fuel made partly from recycled cooking oil that to development and so on. To achieve all BP sells in Sweden and Norway. This reduces this, they need energy. greenhouse gas emissions by more than “But how are we collectively going to meet 60 per cent compared to standard jet fuel. this massive demand while also reducing This low carbon thinking can be seen in emissions?” she asks. The issue is that BP’s lubrication business too. Its Castrol greenhouse gases are emitted through use business has developed an innovative new of fossil fuels in activities such as transport, way to change and recycle used engine oil, Right: Biojet is power, heating and agriculture. But these set to hit the market after 2020 (see “All a lower carbon gases play a role in global warming. Change”, opposite) and a range of carbon aviation fuel Mannion’s question may sound unusual neutral lubricants. given that she works for BP, one of the world’s Applying this kind of innovative thinking Below: BP is one biggest oil and gas companies. But that’s the to its shipping fleet means that BP tankers of the top wind point. BP believes it has a key role to play. operate more energy efficiently too. energy producers And Mannion is heading a unit inside the BP has also invested in external in the US company that is helping drive action across companies that have potential to reduce the business. carbon emissions . A good example is Solidia “No one company or sector alone can Technologies, which has developed a form deliver a low carbon future. Everyone, from of cement that captures and stores carbon consumers to corporations to governments, dioxide as it dries. needs to take responsibility. At BP we’re The ability to quantify the impact of these asking what we can do to help to play a role efforts is a crucial part of the Advancing Low in addressing this challenge,” she says. Carbon programme. Mannion is adamant that “As part of that we launched the Advancing these figures must be supported by evidence Low Carbon programme,” for which she is and clear and provable data. So the figures the programme director. and the approach are all checked by Earlier this year, BP announced a number independent observer Deloitte to ensure that “ BP is of new low carbon targets. “We’re trying to it is thorough. “We’ve brought in an external reduce emissions in our own operations, to partner who looks at these activities to check focusing improve our products to help our customers our figures and make sure they are robust and on carbon reduce their emissions, and also to create verifiable,” she says. new low carbon businesses. The Advancing The Advancing Low Carbon programme is emissions Low Carbon programme is looking to beginning to change BP from the inside by in every encourage more action in all of these areas,” energising low carbon thinking. “We need to says Mannion, who has a degree in ecology. think right across the company how we can aspect of its For example, BP is one of the top wind encourage and drive low carbon action,” business” energy producers in the US, generating says Mannion. “To deliver significantly lower 2259 MW of renewable power. That’s emissions, every kind of energy needs to be enough to power every home in Philadelphia. cleaner and better.” Q But it’s not just renewable energy sources she is focusing on. “We know that the world More at: newscientist.com/BP All change

Nexcel is a reusable and easily replaceable cell, like a cartridge, that contains all the oil for an engine along with the oil filter. It’s being developed to be engineered into cars of the future. So an oil change will be as simple as lifting out the cell and replacing it with another, which takes about 90 seconds. Because the used oil is contained, all of it can be recycled. That has significant benefits. The world produces about 6 billion litres of used engine oil every year but only about a quarter is recycled. In fact, about 2 billion litres is not recovered by licensed waste companies and so ends up in local waste streams, where it can be hugely damaging. Nexcel will allow engine oil to be efficiently recycled and reused. It also does away with the need for oil to be stored and sold in single use plastic containers. The system can also improve engine efficiency. One factor that determines this is the temperature of the engine oil. The oil becomes less viscous, reducing friction within the engine, as it heats up. That’s one reason why hot engines are more efficient. In contrast, an engine running on cold oil uses up more fuel and is therefore more wasteful. When a conventional engine starts from cold, it has to heat all the oil in the sump – usually around 5 litres. “That’s a large volume of oil to be heated before you reach the optimum temperature,” says Rachel Fort, a chemist who is a senior formulation technologist at Nexcel. But the Nexcel system feeds oil into the engine in small, precisely controlled amounts that quickly heat up. So the engine can operate more efficiently from the start. In-house testing indicates that this, along with other lubricant technologies enabled Above centre: by Nexcel, could translate to a reduction in Rachel Fort, Nexcel carbon dioxide emissions of 2 grams for every kilometre driven. “That may not sound like Above: The Aston much, but every gram is important, “says Martin Vulcan uses Fort. “Over the lifetime of a vehicle, that the Nexcel system equates to about a third of the vehicle mass.” INSIGHT MILK ALTERNATIVES

The white stuff Milks made from peas, nuts and more are taking supermarket shelves by storm. Chelsea Whyte explores which you should be drinking

MOVE over cows, there’s a new milk in town. There are many, actually. The old alternatives – soy, rice and coconut milk – are now joined on grocery shelves by alt-milks made from almonds, cashews, macadamia nuts, oats, peas, flax, hemp – the list goes on and on. You can even buy milk made from potatoes or bananas. Since 2012, non-dairy milk sales in the US have risen 61 per cent, according to market research by Mintel. There is a similar trend in the UK, with plant-milk sales up a third since 2015. More than half of that is almond milk, with soy and coconut milks making up another quarter of the market. As you might expect for the latest food trend, these milks are mostly bought by millennials, or adults younger than 35. Manufacturers appeal to that generation’s values by positioning the products as a healthy alternative, both for the body and the planet. But is that really true? Nutritionally, it depends on which milk replacement you consider. In general, they are

made by grinding up plants and PHOTO STOCK LEVINE/ALAMY RICHARD soaking them in water, then adding emulsifiers and stabilisers amount of dietary fibre not found of them can be considered healthy Sales of alternative milks are to thicken the liquid and keep it in cow’s milk. Oat and rice milks only when combined with a rapidly growing in the UK and US from separating, but they have are higher in carbohydrates rounded diet, though the same a lot of variety (see “What’s in a than both cow’s milk and other can be said for dairy milk. levels in seven types of plant-based name?”, above right). plant-based alternatives. “Almost all of these products milks available in the UK found In terms of protein, soy milk Milks made from legumes, such are fortified,” says P. K. Newby, average iodine concentrations is quite like cow’s milk, and it as peas, soya beans and peanuts, a nutrition and sustainability of just 1.7 per cent that seen in contains similar omega-3 fatty also offer amino acids not found scientist at Harvard University. cow’s milk. The authors found acids that are important for in cereal crops. Each type of Many non-dairy milks have that only three of 47 alt-milks on heart health. Almond and cashew alternative milk has its nutritional vitamin D, vitamin B12 and the market were fortified with milks have less than half the benefits and limitations. Any one calcium added to make them iodine, and the concentration in calories found in cow’s milk, but more similar to cow’s milk. those was just a bit over half that are lower in protein. Coconut and “Milk alternatives are only Few of them have added iodine, seen in cow’s milk. hemp milk have a rich texture healthy if combined with a though, which helps make thyroid Still, Newby says people who owing to their high fat content rounded diet, though the hormones that regulate our use milk in their coffee or just and they also include a small same is true of dairy milk” metabolism. A 2017 study of iodine for cereal could easily switch to

22 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

a non-dairy alternative without feed crops. Fertilisers used to WHAT’S IN A NAME? much dietary impact (see “Where grow feed further add to the to start with alt-milk”, below). greenhouse gas emissions. Until recently, manufacturers have One aim of the DAIRY PRIDE Act – “It’s not like most people are “You need to produce a lot of labelled pretty much any opaque which stands for Defending Against drinking this for the nutrients, feed for the animals,” says Röös. whitish liquid made from plants as Imitations and Replacements of as such,” she says. “They tend to “Most of the energy in that feed “milk”, but there is pushback. Yogurt, Milk, and Cheese to Promote meet their nutrient needs with is lost in the process of feeding France has now banned plant- Regular Intake of Dairy Everyday – other foods.” animals, so in general, all the based milks from being marketed is to enforce regulation against resource use is much bigger for using dairy-related words. Jean- “misbranded milk alternatives”. animal products than for plant- Baptiste Moreau, a cattle farmer Scott Gottlieb, head of the US Glass half-full based milks.” and member of parliament who Food and Drug Administration, has There are some alt-milks it makes Land management plays a role suggested the ban, has said the indicated that the agency may soon little sense to produce in bulk. in the environmental impact of aim is to “combat false claims”. enforce a standard that defines milk Rice milk is an option for those every kind of milk. Some cattle In the US, dairy farmers are gearing as coming from the “milking of one with dairy, nut, gluten and soy graze on grassland, which stores up for their own fight in this arena. or more healthy cows”. allergies, but it has far less protein more carbon than land that has than cow’s milk and often has crops turned over each year. 297 litres of water. That includes usage. And there are places like significant amounts of sweeteners But a 2017 study by the Food water that ends up in the milk Sweden, she says, that rely more added to improve the flavour. Climate Research Network at the itself, water that evaporates on rain stored in the soil – but It is also one of the most University of Oxford found that during production and water that also adds to a water footprint. environmentally costly alt-milks the carbon sequestered in the soil polluted by those processes. It On the whole, it is clear that to produce. When rice paddies are would only offset up to 11 per cent also accounts for the water used to alt-milks are friendlier to the flooded to stimulate plant growth, of the animals’ emissions. make the sugars and starches that environment than traditional submerged biomass decomposes Carbon isn’t the only flavour and stabilise the milk. dairy, but their growing without oxygen, producing the environmental concern to In a 2010 report, the UNESCO popularity may cause problems. potent greenhouse gas methane. consider. Nuts are notorious Institute for Water Education “Rice has a much greater carbon water sinks, with some requiring assessed the water footprint of “Alt-milks are better for the footprint than other cereals,” nearly as much water to produce global food crops. It found that environment than dairy, says Elin Röös, who studies the as cow’s milk. “We made a of the plants used for alt-milks, but their growing appeal environmental impacts of food calculation that came to a water water usage was highest for nuts, may cause problems” production at the Swedish footprint of 917 litres per litre of flax and soy, and lowest for University of Agricultural almond milk, the same order of coconut, oats, rice and hemp. As more people jump on the Sciences. “It’s very low in magnitude as cow milk, 1000 “You also have to take into bandwagon, manufacturers are nutrition. I don’t see why you litres per litre,” says Arjen account the water scarcity starting to compete to introduce should use it.” Hoekstra at the University of situation in a region,” says Röös. new flavours and new types of Of course, cows are notoriously Twente in the Netherlands. There are places where you need plant-based milks. Röös warns bad for the environment as well. He also found that producing to irrigate to produce any crops, that this trend may cause The carbon footprint of producing 1 litre of soy milk requires so they will have higher water unintended environmental harm. cow’s milk varies from place to If demand for coconut milk place, but in Western countries, skyrockets, for example, it will it is typically around twice as big WHERE TO START WITH ALTMILK become more profitable to grow as that of making plant-based Each non-dairy milk option has its is nutty, as you might expect, and coconut trees, which could lead to alternatives, says Röös. pros and cons. Decide what is most stronger than some other non-dairy deforestation as farms expand. To A 2010 report by the Food and important to you – nutrition, milks. Try these if you want avoid that, it is best to have several Agriculture Organization of the sustainability, allergies – and then get something with a bit more taste. non-dairy options to choose from. United Nations found that the tasting. Here are a few brief reviews Coconut: The flavour here is one So maybe the proliferation of production, packaging and of some of the most popular alt-milks. of the strongest of the alt-milks, alt-milks is a saving grace. transportation of cow’s milk so you will really have to be a fan All that said, sometimes the emits 4 per cent of all human- Soy: It is the closest in nutritional of the tropical taste. impacts on the food system may caused greenhouse gas emissions. value to cow’s milk and the flavour Pea: Nutritionally strong and very not be worth the end product, In fact, lactating cattle are the is mild but distinct. close to cow’s milk in texture, pea says Röös, as with rice milk. Or main source of greenhouse gases Rice: For those with allergies to nuts, milk is a nice alternative if you aren’t take banana milk, which involves among all livestock and poultry. soy, dairy and gluten, rice milk is the looking for a strong flavour and you blending bananas, usually adding These emissions include methane way to go. It is a bit thin on flavour want to avoid products with a large some sugar and spice for flavour, that builds up in a cow’s digestive and texture. water footprint. and straining the mixture. Then tract and is then burped out or Banana: Another allergy-free option, Oat: This is relatively easy on the it must be packaged, stored and emitted from its manure. Carbon with a bit more substance than rice environment. It has an earthy transported. “Is it worth it? Or is dioxide and nitrous oxide are also milk, but it can be difficult to find. flavour and enough body to use it best to just eat the banana?” released from any land cleared for Almond (or other nuts): The flavour with coffee or cereal. asks Röös. ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 23 COMMENT

Good intent, bad science

Blinkered coverage of crowdfunded cancer treatments is fuelling unproven and potentially harmful therapies, says Michael Marshall

CROWDFUNDING campaigns to testimonials. For those who see help people with cancer pay for such stories in the media, and ineffective alternative treatments who care about following good are becoming more common. scientific evidence, the natural They often come with six-figure reaction is to try to protect people targets to meet the cost of from possible physical, emotional controversial therapies. Headlines and financial harm. are almost guaranteed. Questioning these appeals isn’t The BMJ reports concerns easy. People with cancer often over this, based on information view these therapies as beacons of I gathered working for the charity hope, and their supporters don’t Good Thinking. By sifting want to consider that their efforts fundraising sites like JustGiving to help may cause harm. and GoFundMe, I identified Instead, journalists must appeals from people in the UK review the role they play in who sought money for unproven promoting and proliferating the or disproven treatments, finding appeals. Their influence is potent. 400 in the past three years. Those As I sifted through appeals and have raised £7 million, the bulk the heartbreaking stories of destined for clinics abroad. desperately ill people, I was Although the treatments, alarmed by just how many cited such as extreme diets and success stories they had read in alkaline therapy, aren’t backed newspapers as their reason for by scientific evidence, people who trusting questionable treatments. are desperate and vulnerable are Most concerning of all were the often tempted by remarkable frequent cases where someone

preachers led by controversial Cumhuriyet lamented “the end of Islamic creationist Adnan Oktar. secular education” in the country. Hands off evolution Pressure to change the Meanwhile in Hungary, the curriculum seems to have ramped government of prime minister It is an outrage that Turkey is ditching Darwin up after a failed coup in 2016. Viktor Orbán is putting pressure According to figures from the on the independence of scientific from biology textbooks, says Rachael Jolley Ministry of National Education, research and attempting to censor religious schools have also teaching. Members of the increased tenfold in Turkey Hungarian Academy of Sciences AS TURKISH children returned research independence in danger. in the past 10 years. Many are seeing a gradual restriction to school, they will have faced In Turkey, information about children have no other option of their independence as the significant changes to biology natural selection and Darwin’s but to attend one. government sets up parallel lessons that risk limiting their theory of evolution is being Amid all this upheaval, last institutions and cuts funding. understanding of the world. removed from school biology week Turkish daily newspaper The academy, founded in 1825, In Hungary, academic freedoms texts for 15-year-olds. is due to see about half its budget are also under attack. Announced last year, the “ Information about natural of 25 billion forints ($90 million) Both changes are down to the changes are taking effect now. selection and the theory of taken away in 2019. The rise of authoritarian politics and They follow criticism of the evolution is being removed government is also aiming to they put science education and teaching of evolution by Turkish from school texts” shape its decision-making board.

24 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

had died – sometimes just Low-carb diets months after glowing coverage ANALYSIS of their treatment. While the uplifting story of a community helping fund someone’s “cure” is attractive, the subsequent reality when that hope proves fruitless seems far less newsworthy. This leaves the public with a skewed view of the efficacy of such treatments, and serves as an advertising tool for clinics which, under UK law, wouldn’t be able to directly promote their therapies. If journalists wish to avoid promoting ineffective treatments, they would do well to view such stories not just as human-interest

ones, but as science and health PHOTO STOCK LIMITED/ALAMY IMAGES MINT stories. This means examining the evidence behind treatments, Fat-rich foods like meat can form seeking expert opinion on their part of a low-carbohydrate diet efficacy, and choosing not to run Can cutting carbs help stories that fail such scrutiny. at least as good as low-fat diets at I’m certain no journalist would helping people lose weight – in fact want their work to be used as a reverse diabetes? some trials suggest it is better. All recruitment tool for therapists that saturated fat doesn’t even raise whose treatments offer nothing people’s cholesterol. but heartbreak and false hope, yet Clare Wilson If people have a low-fat and low- The explanation is unclear. Some until reports of miraculous cancer calorie diet they do lose weight – and if advocates say it is because the body no cures in questionable clinics are UK POLITICIAN Tom Watson left a lot they had type 2 diabetes to start with, longer needs to make as much insulin, approached with an appropriate of people scratching their heads last their blood sugar levels may well the hormone the body uses to cope level of scepticism, I fear such week when he revealed he has lost return to normal. But medicine’s dirty with an influx of sugar. Certainly the places will continue to flourish. ■ 45 kilograms and “reversed” his type 2 secret is that this is not the only way. low-carb approach is popular among diabetes on a low-carb diet. Although Watson’s alternative approach is people with type 2 diabetes – a Michael Marshall is project director at it was coupled with an exercise not a new one: it has been in and out disease of high blood sugar. Good Thinking, a charity dedicated to regime, this is not supposed to be a of fashion, known variously as the Another theory is that low-carbing challenging pseudoscience healthy way to eat. What’s going on? Banting, Atkins or keto diet. It involves forces your body to get calories by Watson’s achievement cuts to the minimising all carbs, whether sugar or burning fat instead of sugar, which heart of the biggest controversy in starch – including wholegrain sources affects your metabolism. These changes are directly nutrition science today. Mainstream Sceptics say low-carbing only works related to a leadership that medicine says diets should be low in “ Mainstream medicine says because the monotony makes people doesn’t like critics or an fat and high in starchy carbohydrates diets should be low in fat eat fewer calories overall, even though independent media. It is typical such as bread, potatoes and pasta. and high in starchy carbs they aren’t counting them. But when of the censorship that invariably People should especially shun such as bread and pasta” people go short of calories they occurs as countries move away saturated fat, from red meat and generally get hungry, and one thing from democratic values and dairy, because this is said to raise like brown rice. Instead, people fill up low-carbers like to shout about is that slip towards intolerance. Their cholesterol and so the risk of heart on protein and fat-rich foods like meat, they aren’t hungry. governments take aim at those disease. This is the advice from the fish, cream and butter. For now, the explanation for the who inform the public – typically UK National Health Service and in Even fruits are shunned because success of low-carb dieting is unclear. academics, journalists and most Western countries. of their sugar, although vegetables But it certainly seems time for activists – and try to silence them. According to this orthodoxy, weight help to bulk out meals. This is why mainstream medicine to acknowledge Worldwide attention is needed. ■ depends on the balance between supermarket shelves these days that there is more than one way to calories in and calories out. If you proffer carb substitutes like lose weight. Watson has said he will Rachael Jolley is editor of the quarterly want to lose weight, you have no cauliflower rice and courgette set up an expert panel to look into global magazine Index on Censorship. option but to double down on avoiding spaghetti. One bonus is that people ways to respond to the UK’s She will introduce a debate on science fat because it has more than twice the don’t need to calorie count. burgeoning diabetes epidemic. censorship on 2 October at the Royal calories per gram as the other two It really shouldn’t work, and yet it If so, there could be interesting Institution in London main food groups, carbs and protein. does. Randomised trials show that it is times ahead for nutrition science. ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 25 APERTURE

26 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 Storm damage

EXTREME storms have caused destruction and taken lives across the globe this week, with Hurricane Florence forcing millions to evacuate in the US, and Typhoon Mangkhut wreaking havoc in the Philippines and southern China. Florence brought torrential rain to the south-eastern coastline of the US, forcing this resident of Marion, South Carolina, to wade through high floodwaters (bottom right). In New Bern, North Carolina, two residents can just be seen paddling in a canoe through a flooded street (centre, top). Winds unleashed by Florence ripped the steeple clean off the Elah Baptist Church in Leland, North Carolina, on 15 September (top right). On the same day on the other side of the world, Typhoon Mangkhut began tearing through the Philippines. Marines can be seen here repairing their makeshift barracks in Cagayan, towards the northernmost tip of the country (bottom, far left). Guandong province in southern China was also hit over the weekend – the pedestrians shown here are struggling against the wind and rain in the city of Shenzhen (top left). In Hong Kong, the windows were blown out from One Harbourfront, a major commercial building (centre bottom). As New Scientist went to press, Florence had caused 31 fatalities and it is thought that about 100 people have died as a result of Mangkhut. Florence has now been downgraded to a tropical depression, but the US National Hurricane Center forecast at least two further days of excessive rainfall this week in parts of southern New York state and New England, and there are fears this could cause flash flooding. Mangkhut is continuing across southern China, but weakening. Andy Coghlan

Photographs Clockwise from top left: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock; Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock; Mark Wilson/Getty Images; Gerald Herbert/AP/REX/ Shutterstock; Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images; George Calvelo/NurPhoto via Getty Images

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 27 THE MYSTERY OF THE UNIVERSE IN 10 OBJECTS

28 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 OBJECT COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND 1 WHAT IS IT? Afterglow of the big bang WHERE IS IT? Everywhere

MYSTERY HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN?

HEN the curtain came up on the universe, the lights stayed down for a moment. For about the first 380,000 years, Wa mere instant on the cosmic stage, charged particles buffeted light around the early universe as if in an opaque fog, and not a glimmer escaped. Then things cooled enough for atoms to form, scattering ceased – and light was liberated. Remarkably, we can still see that light. We know from observations of galactic motions that space has been expanding since the cosmic beginning, and that this light has expanded and cooled with it. Now it suffuses all of space, a bath of low-frequency microwaves with a temperature of 2.7 kelvin. Since its discovery in 1964, we have made incredibly precise maps of this cosmic microwave background all across the sky. The best, the Planck satellite’s four-year scan completed in 2014, caused some head-scratching. The big bang afterglow seemed to cast doubt on whether the bang was so big at all. The problem has to do with inflation, a theory devised by cosmologist Alan Guth and others in the 1980s to explain why stuff in the universe seems so uniformly distributed in all directions. In a plain-vanilla big bang, quantum fluctuations should have produced differences in the density of matter that grew as the universe expanded. Guth explained cosmic sameyness by proposing the existence of an “inflaton” field that filled space-time at the big bang, forcing it apart at faster than light speed. This would mean everything we see originated from a tiny, uniform region of original space. Inflation quickly became gospel. But the more energy

LEFT: MATTHEW CUSTAR TOP: NASA/WMAP SCIENCE TEAM SCIENCE NASA/WMAP TOP: CUSTAR MATTHEW LEFT: the inflaton field had, the more space-time would >

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 29 OBJECT THE LORIMER BURST have been shaken by tiny gravitational waves at the beginning of time. And yet we see no WHAT IS IT? A fleeting, intense radio signal traces of gravitational wave effects in the Planck map. WHERE IS IT? It is not impossible to square this with Origin somewhere outside our galaxy inflation, but it is difficult, says Anna Ijjas, a cosmologist at Columbia University in MYSTERY New York. “What we learned from the Planck is that the simplest models are out,” she says. WHAT CAME BEFORE THE BIG BANG? That leaves inflationary theory out of sorts. “We can try to fix it, or we can find something better,” says Ijjas. The Planck map is prodding her and others, including one of inflation’s T WAS gone almost as soon as it came, key architects, Paul Steinhardt at Princeton so it is hardly surprising that we University, towards a different view of the didn’t even notice it. Only in 2007, start. It wasn’t a bang, they say, but a bounce. Isix years after the event, did Duncan Models describing “cyclic” universes that Lorimer at West Virginia University and expand, contract and then expand again have his student David Narkevic spot it. They been around for a while, and recently other were scouring archived data circumstantial evidence has built up in from the Parkes radio telescope in support of them (see “The Lorimer burst”, New South Wales, Australia, when they right). Their attraction is that although noticed a burst of radio waves of almost they squeeze the universe down very small, unimaginable ferocity. Lasting less than it would never have been at the tiny sizes 5 milliseconds, it hit Earth on 24 July where the most poorly understood quantum 2001, releasing roughly as much energy effects come into play. The uniformity arises as the sun spits out over five days. naturally from the squeeze. Since then, we have picked up over The right answer is still anyone’s guess, 30 more such fast radio bursts (FRBs) – but Ijjas says she expects to be able to make and there is precisely zero consensus predictions based on bouncing models within on what generates them. Suggestions a couple of years, and compare them with range from colliding neutron stars to observations of the cosmic microwave alien spacecraft. The explanation that background. The start of the cosmos may sits most neatly in the sweet spot have been dark, but we may soon see it in between jaw-dropping and not entirely THE LORIMER BURST a new light. Joshua Howgego implausible, however, is one that credits bouncing black holes as the bursts’

source. As if that weren’t enough to PHOTO STOCK CUMING/ALAMY IAN swallow, that could also mean the “EVIDENCE IS cosmos did not begin in a big bang. At the heart of this radical idea lie Basque Country in Spain, realised that BUILDING UP singularities, phenomena that arise there is a limit to how much these out of Einstein’s general relativity. chunks can be warped and compressed. TO SUPPORT This theory explains how gravity arises When a black hole reaches a certain through the warping of space-time, and density, gravity would be overcome thus how the entire universe evolves. by outward pressure from space-time THE IDEA Singularities occur where Einstein’s itself. The result is a quantum bounce, equations cease to make any sense, an explosion that transforms the black THAT THE BIG because mass is so concentrated that hole into a “white hole” that spews out space-time becomes infinitely warped – everything its predecessor consumed. BANG MIGHT places like the interiors of black holes. Within the framework of one particular By general consensus, what we need to quantum gravity theory, loop quantum NOT HAVE wipe out these annoying singularities gravity, Rovelli, Vidotto and Aurélien is a quantum theory of gravity, Barrau at the University of Grenoble- BEEN THE in which space-time is not a smooth Alpes, France, showed that the bouncing and infinitely malleable fabric, but of primordial black holes – gravitational instead comes in discrete chunks. mini-monsters thought to have formed BEGINNING” In 2014, Carlo Rovelli at the University in the aftermath of the big bang – could of Aix-Marseille in France and Francesca produce high-frequency radio signals in Vidotto, now at the University of the the same ballpark as FRBs. OBJECT SUPERNOVA SN 2017CBV 3 WHAT IS IT? Stellar explosion WHERE IS IT? Galaxy NGC 5643, 55 million light years away

MYSTERY HOW WILL IT ALL END?

ALFWAY across the universe, That assumption lay behind one of the a star lies dead. You write it off most perplexing recent results in cosmology: as routine, the sort of thing that the discovery in 1998 of a bunch of far-off Hhappens a million times in this type Ia supernovae that were consistently crummy neighbourhood. Only slowly do you dimmer than expected. The conclusion was realise how this case could shake cosmology that these were further away than we had to its core. thought, pulled away from us by a shadowy Something like this unfolded in March force that is causing the universe to expand 2017 when, on a routine patrol of the night at an ever-increasing rate. sky, David Sand at the University of Arizona No one knows what the “dark energy” came across something new. At first glance, responsible might be. “I hate to use the word it was just another type Ia supernova, the antigravity, but it’s a good way of thinking fiery end of an over-bloated white dwarf star. about it,” says Sullivan. Dark energy’s pull White dwarfs pack the sun’s mass into just determines the universe’s size, its longevity, the volume of Earth. They often come in pairs, and even the manner of its eventual demise. with one star feeding off the other, sucking If it were to grow sufficiently strong, it could material from it. Eat too much, and this eventually overcome the gravitational vampire star can exceed the critical density attraction holding matter together, resulting at which carbon atoms in its core fuse into in a “big rip” that would spell the end for heavier elements. “It’s basically a runaway anything interesting in the universe. thermonuclear bomb,” says Mark Sullivan at A universe without enough dark energy to the University of Southampton, UK. Within keep it stretched apart, meanwhile, could seconds, the star becomes billions of tonnes collapse back in on itself in a “big crunch”. of radioactive shrapnel. As this decays over Anomalous supernovae such as SN weeks and months, it gives off heat and 2017cbv have caused raised eyebrows. “There radiation visible halfway across the universe. are a lot of things about type Ia supernovae Extensive observations of SN 2017cbv, that are still mysterious,” says Peter Garnavich It’s not possible to confirm the however, suggested that the exploding star’s at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana – existence of a white hole based on a mysterious companion was not another for example, that they have at least two single burst. But if their idea is right, white dwarf, but a larger star. This matters possible triggers. “If you got those mixed up, the researchers have identified a because we assumed type Ia supernovae you could be misled,” says Sullivan. pattern that should emerge given all had the same trigger, and therefore a Could that, in turn, mean we have been led enough FRB sightings. uniform brightness, meaning how they down a dark alley with dark energy? Perhaps. And here’s the thing, says Barrau: look to us depends only on their distance. “If there are two populations, and they’re the big bang is a singularity, too. What’s mixed, we can get a systematic error,” says more, “the structure of the singularity Garnavich. “There’s a chance that we’re not inside black holes is not very different understanding the physics well enough.” from the one at the big bang. If black Others are less concerned, saying the holes do bounce, it is highly probable dominant uncertainty is not in our theoretical that the universe did too.” Rather than understanding of the explosions, but in our emerging from nothing, perhaps the inability to measure them accurately enough. cosmos we know formed when a The best way to clear up the case would be to previous one contracted until it could witness more stellar deaths as they happen, shrink no more, and then… BOING! The rather than a few days later, as is generally lesson of fast radio bursts could be that the case. “It would be fantastic if we found a the beginning was anything but the SN 2017CBV smoking gun,” says Sullivan. That would blow

beginning. Daniel Cossins TEXAS NASA/CXC/U. things wide open. Gilead Amit

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 31 OBJECT OBJECT THE THE BOSS THE TARANTULA GREAT WALL NEBULA WHAT IS IT? 5 WHAT IS IT? Galaxy supercluster Star-forming cloud WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT? On average, 6.8 billion light years away Large Magellanic Cloud, 163,000 light years away

MYSTERY MYSTERY ARE WE IN A SPECIAL PLACE? WHAT MAKES MONSTER STARS?

UR entire cosmology is built on the idea HE first signs a storm was brewing of our own unremarkableness: that came in 2010. That was when a team we’re nothing special and neither is of astronomers found four OEarth. stretching 2 billion light years across. Tgargantuan stars in the Tarantula The idea dates back to the Renaissance, and All in all, we might be occupying a rather nebula, a star-forming area in our Copernicus’s discovery unusual spot in the universe, between a large neighbouring galaxy, the Large Magellanic that Earth revolves around the sun. Suddenly supercluster on one side and a super-void on Cloud. The largest tipped the scales at we were no longer at the centre of Creation. the other. “Such a scenario might be a rare 265 times the mass of the sun. “We were It has since become clear that Earth is just configuration in the cosmic web,” says Kovács. absolutely surprised by the discovery,” another planet orbiting just another star in That need not spell the end for the says team member Fabian Schneider at a galaxy like many others, and Copernicus’s Copernican principle, says Brent Tully of the the University of Oxford. It has potential discovery has morphed into the Copernican Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii: perhaps consequences for everything from black principle: that, on average, nowhere in the our odd positioning just makes it harder for us hole abundance to the likelihood of alien life. universe is particularly special. Everything to see a universe that is homogeneous overall. Traditional stellar theory suggests that looks the same, and there are no remarkable Tully is working to stretch our maps further stars above 150 solar masses shouldn’t exist. places. The assumption is absolutely baked out into the universe, doubling the distance Their light, in trying to escape, would exert into our current models of the universe, built over which homogeneity is measured. so much pressure that “the star’s surface on Einstein’s general theory of relativity. But at some point we reach a limit. layers would be peeled off and ripped apart”, Central to the Copernican principle is the “If inhomogeneous patches are larger than says Schneider. idea of scale. Imagine the universe as a crowd this scale then that would challenge our But the monster stars were not one-offs. of people. Up close you can see individual current standard paradigm,” he says. If we This year, Schneider and his colleagues found quirks. Zoom out enough, though, and all identify anything much bigger than the BOSS a whole host of overweight stars in the you see is a uniform lump of person. Great Wall, the disturbance to the fabric of nebula. Stars of up to 200 solar masses seem So while on smaller scales the universe is space-time caused by its huge mass could to be commonplace, with some even larger. very distinctive, made up of individual solar even change our calculations of how fast A local quirk? A statistical fluke? Probably systems, galaxies and clusters of galaxies, the universe is expanding, and hence its not, if a result from the other end of the at some scale, generally taken to be about a current age. At the moment, two competing cosmos stands up. A team using the ALMA billion light years, those differences disappear. measurements of the universe’s expansion radio telescope array in Chile recently found Averaged out, the web of stuff that makes up rate don’t agree. Extra lumpiness could be the a way of weighing stars in galaxies so far the universe looks homogeneous. key to solving that – and unlocking the door away that we see them as they were in the Various challenges to this idea have to more specialness. Colin Stuart universe’s infancy. By analysing the light the emerged recently. Perhaps the biggest is the BOSS Great Wall, discovered in 2016. Named THE BOSS GREAT WALL after the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey that discovered it, the “wall” is really a huge filament of nearly a thousand galaxies, strung out over a billion light years. The Virgo supercluster, a dense patch of galaxies including our Milky Way, seems to be part of something much bigger, too. “We are living in the outskirts of a large supercluster named Laniakea,” says András Kovács at the Institute for High Energy Physics in Barcelona, Spain. Demarcated in 2014, it is 500 million light years across. That same year, we also discovered a vast empty patch known as a super-void right by us, VOLKER SPRINGEL – MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR ASTROPHYSICS 32 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 4 TARANTULA NEBULA 6 “THE UNIVERSE IS A BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN TWO NGC 1052-DF2 FACTIONS OF COSMOLOGISTS”

stars emit, the researchers can determine the ratio of different chemical isotopes the stars must contain, giving them a handle on their masses. It seems there are theory- OBJECT smashing stars in these galaxies as well. If so, the consequences are far-reaching. GALAXY NGC A few hundred million years after the big bang, the universe had cooled to a cold, unexciting soup of hydrogen atoms, floating 1052-DF2 around in Stygian darkness. At some point, the first stars formed, lifting the cosmos out WHAT IS IT? of its dark ages. Astronomers who recently Ultra-diffuse galaxy

caught the signal of this event were stumped WHERE IS IT? OPTICAL: SDS NASA, F because it was much stronger than they were Around 60 million light years away in the constellation Cetus expecting – something that might be explained if these first stars were supersized, too. MYSTERY More massive stars also means more supernova explosions at the end of stellar DOES DARK MATTER REALLY EXIST? lives. “We’re talking about 70 per cent more,” says Schneider. Again, we may have evidence for that. Supernova SN 2007bi, which OR two factions of cosmologists, the universe is a exploded over a billion light years away, battleground. They are bogged down in a squabble seems to have erupted from a star of over what stops galaxies flying apart. more than 200 solar masses. When such F The conflict has been brewing since the 1970s, supernova remnants collapse back in on when measurements of rotating galaxies showed that they themselves, they might also create up to four were consistently spinning too fast to retain the matter times as many black holes as we thought, they contain. In most galaxies, 10 to 100 times more matter increasing the chance of spotting black hole is needed to hold them together than we can detect. NRAO/AUI/NS AL.; ET GENDRON-MARSOLAIS RADIO: AL.; ET NASA/CXO/FABIAN mergers using gravitational wave detectors. By far the bigger faction thinks the discrepancy is down Most importantly, perhaps, having more to the influence of a mysterious gravitating “dark matter” supernovae could roughly double the that we have yet to observe directly. But a rebellious quantity of heavy elements produced when minority believes that dark matter is an illusion, and that massive stars die. This is how elements such galaxies maintain their shapes because of a new facet of as oxygen, carbon and iron get spewed out gravity we have yet to properly understand. into the universe, creating a richer supply of The ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, discovered ingredients important for life. All very hot – earlier this year, seemed to be a game changer: it needs no but as for how these massive stars come to invisible matter to keep it spinning at the measured rate. exist, well, we still have no clue. Colin Stuart But perversely, this object with apparently no dark >

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 33 matter “could be evidence for the existence of dark matter”, says the galaxy’s co-discoverer Pieter van Dokkum at Yale University. That’s because it is quite possible to imagine that a single galaxy could somehow be stripped of dark matter, but much less easy to imagine one galaxy where modified gravity doesn’t apply. “At face value, this is a huge problem for alternative gravity theories,” says van Dokkum. Not so fast, says Andrew Pontzen at University College 20 per cent of Jupiter’s mass. Combine that London: the result “is very far from clear cut”. Van figure with its size, and the average density Dokkum’s team could not directly measure the speed of of the planet is little more than that of stars within NGC 1052-DF2, so instead identified 10 of its star polystyrene packaging. clusters and used their rotation speed instead. That may not We now have a growing roster of these be a representative sample, says Pontzen. “You can get very puffy planets: just this year we found WASP- misleading answers just by the luck of the draw.” 127b, which has very similar vital statistics to And modified-gravity adherents soon got their riposte in. KELT-11b. The problem is that they fly in the Stacy McGaugh of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio face of everything we thought we knew about and his colleagues showed that the original analysis failed planet formation, based on our solar system. to consider that NGC 1052-DF2 is embedded in the “We don’t really understand how they get so gravitational field of a larger elliptical galaxy. Take that and inflated,” says Joshua Pepper of Lehigh other uncertainties into account, and the measurements University in Pennsylvania, who led the are consistent with something being up with gravity. KELT-11b team. “If I were to play a spin game, I’d describe this object as Our solar system makes sense to us. There a great success of modified gravity,” says McGaugh. are the small rocky planets including Earth Later this year, van Dokkum will be using the Keck close in, and gas giants such as Jupiter further 10-metre telescope on Hawaii to try to measure the rotation out. When the planets were forming, the heat of this wispy misfit from the combined mass of its stars, as near the sun chased off most gas, but greater well as find other faint galaxies with similar behaviour that quantities of volatile substances condensed in might break modified gravity once and for all. “The hunt is the cooler, outlying regions, providing bigger now on,” he says. “If we could rule out this whole class of solid cores around which vast balls of gas theories, that would be a major advance.” Stuart Clark accumulated. However, the puffballs and various other oddballs we have found show this is far from always the case. The only lead we have to go on is that the oddities are always very close in to their star. “It certainly seems to be related to the level OBJECT of radiation they are getting,” says Don Pollaco at the University of Warwick, UK, who helped discover WASP-127b. But PLANET calculations show that is still not enough to account for their inflation. KELT-11B Hot Jupiters and puffy planets are all thought to form further out and migrate 7 WHAT IS IT? inwards. All planets are hot early on, as the “Hot Jupiter” exoplanet clumping together of the debris that forms WHERE IS IT? them releases gravitational and kinetic The Kelt-11 star system, 320 light years away energy. If they migrate before they can cool off, perhaps the environment by the star is so toasty that they can never shed excess heat. Or MYSTERY perhaps the planets get reinflated, possibly by IS OUR SOLAR SYSTEM NORMAL? particle winds or magnetic fields from the stars. No one truly knows. “When you think about it, it is incredible,” says Pollaco. “Something is working incredibly efficiently N THE face of it, it’s a biggie: fully to inflate those planets.” 1.4 times the diameter of Jupiter, the The more planetary oddities we see, the largest planet in our solar system. But it more we must confront a wider question: Ois nothing unusual in itself. Discovered are they the rule, and our solar system the in 2016, KELT-11b at first seemed to be just one exception? Again, the jury is out. “We don’t of many large “hot Jupiters” orbiting close to know if our solar system configuration is their star, causing a large drop in light common or rare,” says Pepper. “We just whenever they cross its face. simply haven’t been able to probe enough But when astronomers calculated KELT-11b’s systems in enough different ways to know mass, they found it was a minnow, with just that.” Stuart Clark

34 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 OBJECT OBJECT SAGITTARIUS A* EARTH 8 WHAT IS IT? 9 WHAT IS IT? Supermassive black hole Largely silicate world orbiting G-type star WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT? Centre of the Milky Way, 25,640 light years away Down there

MYSTERY MYSTERY HOW ARE SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES MADE? IS THERE LIFE OUT THERE?

F YOU can get a good view of the Scorpius baby compared with the heftiest black hole N THE night of 8 December 1990, constellation, look for its tail. Follow its yet found. This freak, which is 3.5 billion light a spaceship buzzed by 960 kilometres curve into the dark sky nearby and you years away at the heart of a quasar called OJ above Earth. As it skimmed past, Iwill find yourself looking right at it: the 287, has the mass of a billion suns. To get that Oit scanned the surface for light, centre of the Milky Way. There resides the big, it would have to have eaten about nine heat and radio waves, looking for signs of life. sinkhole of our galaxy, a supermassive black sun-sized stars every year for 10 billion years. This was no close alien encounter. The hole known as Sagittarius A*. Staggeringly Even more confounding is the earliest known ship, Galileo, was one of our own, en route to extreme, it weighs in at 4 million solar supermassive black hole, which had grown to Jupiter. But one of NASA’s mission scientists, masses and yet stretches just 44 million 800 million times the sun’s mass when the Carl Sagan, had the idea of using a slingshot kilometres across. All that matter is universe was just 700 million years old. past Earth for a dry run of life-detection squeezed into a space about the size of Perhaps these truly gargantuan monsters technology. Sure enough, Galileo detected Mercury’s orbit around the sun. form when everyday supermassive black abundant water, oxygen, methane and a Bamboozling though black holes are, we holes merge, giving them a kick-start – pigment that soaked up red light. Taken think they are a natural consequence of how although the violence of that process seems together, these observations were “strongly matter makes a galaxy. It condenses to form equally likely to scatter any nearby material suggestive” that Earth was teeming with life. stars, and some of those eventually become that would help them keep growing, so big that they collapse under their own says Kenyon. Or they could be devouring gravity to form a stellar-mass black hole. incredibly massive stars. WATER, WATER! Such an object can become supermassive Or perhaps we have got things precisely It remains the only such place we know of. over time. Its immense gravity slurps up dust, the wrong way round: galaxies didn’t give Yet given the number of planets in our own gas and light from its surrounding galaxy into birth to all supermassive black holes, but galaxy, let alone the whole universe, it seems a disc around itself, eventually pulling this black holes may have come first, says Avi staggeringly unlikely to be the only place. To material over its “event horizon”, never to be Loeb, also at Harvard. “It all depends on how scratch this itch, we need to find life elsewhere. seen again. The more a black hole eats, the you define a galaxy,” he says. The default assumption is that it will resemble more massive it gets and the stronger its pull If the early universe contained precursor Earth life. That means it will need liquid water. becomes. The biggest can capture a tenth of galaxies that were just clouds of warm gas, Within our solar system, the prime the mass of the sun into their discs each year. these might directly collapse into a black hole candidates are Mars, which almost certainly But calculations suggest there is a hard if they got dense enough, says Loeb. “You had a surface ocean in the past and may retain limit to black-hole voracity. “The disc radiates can imagine some black holes being made remnants of it underground, and some icy and it can push the matter away, and that will shortly after the big bang and being around moons of Saturn and Jupiter, especially shut off accretion,” says Scott Kenyon at the for a while, attracting matter and then Enceladus and Europa. “Even though they Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics making a galaxy,” he says. That would give have an icy surface, they have an ocean of in Massachusetts. them time to hoover up stars to grow into liquid water beneath,” says Zita Martins, an In reality, however, black holes seem to the supermassive creatures we see today. astrobiologist at the University of Lisbon in regularly flout that rule. Sagittarius A* is a Chelsea Whyte Portugal. “They also have minerals that could be used to build organic molecules and a source of energy, so they are a perfect target.” Outside the solar system, the prime targets are medium-sized rocky planets orbiting sun-like stars, or possibly in the liquid-water-friendly “habitable zone” around dimmer red dwarfs. But is this Earth-centrism blinding us to other possibilities? “What is relevant for life to emerge and persist is mostly unknown,” says astronomer Amaury Triaud at the University of Birmingham, UK. “We only SAGITTARIUS A* know that our conditions are propitious, which tells us what is sufficient, but not > NASA/CXC/COLUMBIA UNIV./C. HAILEY NASA/CXC/COLUMBIA ET AL. UNIV./C. 22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 35 what is necessary for life to start and thrive.” Triaud says the search should be extended to other types of exoplanet: those orbiting OBJECT brown dwarfs, white dwarfs and red giants; circumbinary planets orbiting two stars at THE UNIVERSE once; planets with no atmosphere; and even exomoons orbiting gas giants. These may 10 WHAT IS IT? seem unlikely crucibles for life, but that is the Everything point. “Most people think that getting a yes/ WHERE IS IT? no answer to whether there is life out there is Everywhere sufficient,” says Triaud. “I want to find out how frequently and under which conditions life emerges and persists.” MYSTERY Our own solar system offers similarly left- WHY DOES ANYTHING EXIST AT ALL? field targets. Titan, another of Saturn’s moons, makes up for a lack of liquid water with lakes of hydrocarbons that may be home to life HERE is plenty to recommend So for now, we have to think something based on different chemistry. Even further- the standard model, our best must have tipped the balance in the early fetched possibilities include the clouds of description of particles and their universe. We know that there are subtle Venus and even Pluto. “The icy moons are Tinteractions. But it has the odd differences in the outcomes of interactions our best bet, but I wouldn’t close the door on awkward lapse. “It is a somewhat involving certain matter and antimatter anything,” says Martins. With missions to embarrassing fact that it fails to explain particles. This so-called CP violation is where Enceladus, Titan and possibly Europa on the our existence,” says Werner Rodejohann Shears and her colleagues are seeking an drawing board and new techniques for at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear answer. But so far, any differences we have detecting life on exoplanets in the works, Physics in Germany. found are roughly a billion times too small to perhaps our lonely pale blue dot may soon Actually, it’s worse than that: the standard explain the cosmic imbalance. have some companions. Graham Lawton model positively insists we don’t exist. It says that in the big bang, matter and antimatter SHAPESHIFTERS should have been created in equal measure. Some researchers hope to find the answers These two famously don’t get along, among neutrinos. What little we know of annihilating one another in a flash of light these elusive, shape-shifting particles that whenever they come within touching distance. come in three flavours – electron, muon They should have snuffed each other out in and tau – is already gesturing towards new a hot orgy of mutual destruction during the physics, says Rodejohann. We have hints of first second of the universe’s existence, significant CP violation in measurements leaving a cosmos filled with nothing but light. of how often they and their antimatter “It would look very different, not least counterparts switch between flavours while because planets and stars and life could not travelling through our planet. We also know evolve in such an environment,” says Tara they have tiny masses, which goes against Shears at the University of Liverpool, UK. the standard model prediction that they And yet here we are. Somehow, matter won. should be massless. One possibility is that the antimatter is The least implausible way to explain this just hiding: some of it, somehow, escaped is to invoke the existence of a heavier cousin the death match, taking refuge in little safe called the sterile neutrino. In a mathematical spots that eventually became distant regions trick called the “seesaw mechanism”, these as the cosmos cooled and expanded. In that heftier relatives would weigh down one end EARTH case, there should be stars and galaxies of the seesaw, lifting the lighter ones to made exclusively of antimatter. But we are ensure they have a small mass.

NASA yet to spot any hint that they exist. The catch is that for this trick to work, neutrinos must be their own antiparticle. If so, then the asymmetry seen today might be explained by these heavy neutrinos having decayed to lighter particles in the maelstrom of the early universe, with more of them “ EMBARRASSINGLY, choosing to become matter than antimatter. It could take a decade to firm up hints that OUR THEORIES neutrinos violate CP and can be their own antiparticles. Even then, we would need to track down their heavy cousins. “But the SUGGEST NOTHING neutrino story is appealing because the same guys that suppress neutrino mass SHOULD EXIST” also explain why matter dominates,” says

THE UNIVERSE Rodejohann. “It happens naturally, and it kills two birds with one stone.” Daniel Cossins ■

36 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 H was and feet of abird. Butwhat crocodile, claws of abear It hadthejaws of a Colin Barras the biggestmysteries ofdinosaur evolution. dinosaur yet found(seediagram,page38). long, makingitthelargestcarnivorous but estimates suggestitwas about 15 metres giant. We don’thave a complete skeleton, because of thisfantastic beastwould pay dividends, wespecimens have found.Makingsense the bonesofonemostcomplete Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who isexcavating Carnegie Museum ofNatural Historyin extraterrestrial,” says NizarIbrahimat the conflicting features have beenlike? the lifeofacreature withsuchapparently are like thoseofawading bird. What could and itislike abear. Itsbroad,flat toebones was like Examineitsgigantic claws acrocodile. of animals ever at theheartofit.Look at thejaws the parable,withoneofmostfearsome have beenworking ontheirown version of the spinosaurids that appeared roughly PATCHWORK if youcan’tseetheliving,breathingbeast. PREDATOR with strangefeaturesarehardtounderstand scientist shouldignore:unfamiliaranimals But thereisamoreliteralmessagethatno assume toomuchfrompersonalexperience. of thisancientparableisthatweshouldn’t elephant islikeaspear,andsoon.Themoral rope. Anothertouchesitstuskandsays,no,an Everyone agreesthat It belongedtoadinosaur family called “It’s almostlike working onan Over thepastfew years, palaeontologists Spinosaurus tail and thinks the animal is like a sturdy tail andthinkstheanimalislikeasturdy men andtheelephant?Onemanfeelsits AVE youheardtheoneaboutblind Spinosaurus Spinosaurus andyou might conclude it might explainoneof investigates Spinosaurus really like? was a > 22 September 2018 | NewScientist |

37 “Even if Spinosaurus was a terrible swimmer, it seems to have spent a lot of time in the water”

5m

Based on Spinosaurus or other spinosaurid fossils missing

38 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 150 million years ago. These animals had A JUMBLE OF PARTS and Sereno’s team had reconstructed them crocodile-like jaws and teeth, but lacked using other spinosaurid fossils. Spinosaurus had a set of bizarre the sail that Spinosaurus itself had. And like There is also debate about how comfortable many crocodiles, they probably ate fish. features that could almost have Spinosaurus was in water. The most dramatic A spinosaurid fossil discovered 35 years ago belonged to diferent animals of the animal’s features are 1.7-metre-tall in the UK even had partially digested scales bony spines projecting vertically up from its in the space where its stomach had been. Fish JAWS OF A CROCODILE backbone. They look a lot like the spines inside was on the menu for many of the creatures They were just right for eating fish. That in itself a bison’s fatty hump, and 20 years ago some that shared the world with dinosaurs, was odd because no other large dinosaur did so researchers argued that Spinosaurus, too, including the reptilian ichthyosaurs and had a fatty hump. Today the consensus is plesiosaurs that patrolled the seas. But CLAWS LIKE A BEAR that the bones supported a sail, probably spinosaurids are the only large dinosaurs The animal had fearsome claws. But it couldn’t used for social or sexual display. known to have eaten fish. see them, making them an unlikely hunting tool Either way, the bony spines put a limit on Huge jaws are the only tool a crocodile Spinosaurus’s swimming ambitions. “That’s needs to catch prey, but spinosaurids also DENSE LEG BONES a considerable amount of weight when you had formidable claws that were at least These are the sort of legs that look designed to cover it with even a small amount of flesh,” 30 centimetres long. They have been help an animal move around more easily in water says Sereno. One consequence is that the compared to the huge claws grizzly bears animal would have been prone to overturning use to hook fish out of streams. But last year FEET LIKE A SHOREBIRD when swimming. David Hone at Queen Mary University of The feet seem designed not for swimming or Even if Spinosaurus was a terrible swimmer, London and Thomas Holtz at the University running, but straddling mud its dense leg bones and shorebird-like feet of Maryland pointed out that the animals suggest it spent a large chunk of its life wading couldn’t see their claws, which makes them TROUBLESOME SAIL and feeding in shallow water. “That’s arguably an unlikely precision hunting tool. Maybe the If Spinosaurus did spend lots of time in water, the most interesting thing about this animal,” claws were actually used to dig up burrowing its sail would have made it liable to capsize says Hone. Dinosaurs dominated Earth for prey, says Hone. No one knows. 135 million years, but Spinosaurus is almost Spinosaurus arrived into this dinosaur the only one known to have evolved family about 100 million years ago. The and Sereno’s team reported that the animal’s adaptations for aquatic life. That means we most complete skeleton of the animal was torso was long, its hips were weak, and its hind have the debate back-to-front: the oddity isn’t discovered in Morocco in 2008 by local fossil legs were short. What is more, it had feet like a Spinosaurus’s features, but that water-loving hunters who sold their find to rich collectors. modern web-footed shorebird, with long toe dinosaurs were so rare. It ended up at the Milan Natural History bones that had flat undersides. No other A further question is why Spinosaurus’s Museum in Italy. spinosaurid we know of had feet like that. descendants didn’t evolve into a fully aquatic Ibrahim realised how important the These aren’t the features of a dinosaur that dinosaur. “I’ve often wondered about this,” specimen was and tracked down the site chases down prey on land. Ibrahim and Sereno says Sereno. where it had been unearthed. He and others, argued that they indicate an animal in the Recently, he’s concocted a hypothesis. including Paul Sereno at the University of early stages of an evolutionary transition Dinosaurs walked with their legs vertically Chicago, are still searching it. “We’ve not from land to water. The team points to similar beneath the body. Other animals with that actually excavated all the bones of the features in the ancient four-legged ancestors set-up, like horses, must undulate their bodies skeleton yet,” says Ibrahim. “Our ideas about of whales, which independently evolved up and down when they swim to increase Spinosaurus are changing right now as we 50 million years ago when they were still propulsive efficiency. Sereno suspects add new bones.” living by rivers. Like those early “walking dinosaurs would have had to swim this way A description of the specimen published in whales”, Spinosaurus had unusually thick- too. But dinosaurs’ tails were anatomically set 2014 caused a stir by suggesting Spinosaurus walled and dense leg bones, a feature believed up to thrash from side to side. Combining that was weird, even for a spinosaurid. Ibrahim to reduce buoyancy and allow animals to with a vertically undulating torso makes for a move around more easily in water. very inefficient swimmer, says Sereno. Worse, “The authors make a reasonable case for this Spinosaurus couldn’t evolve to lose the long animal being aquatic,” says Hans Thewissen tail because it acted as an anchor point for at Northeast Ohio Medical University, who major leg muscles. studies the early evolution of whales. It is a speculative idea that Sereno hasn’t The study had its critics, however. Ibrahim published yet, and Hone suspects it isn’t a and Sereno’s team also concluded that complete explanation for the lack of aquatic Spinosaurus might have walked on all fours, dinosaurs. Whatever was going on, bearing some of its weight on the knuckles of Spinosaurus was evolution’s best attempt to its forelimbs. But only a handful of living turn a dinosaur into a sea monster – but for animals knuckle-walk, and several one reason or other, it was a doomed. ■ palaeontologists thought it was a premature conclusion, especially given that the Moroccan Colin Barras is a science writer based in Ann Arbor, skeleton was missing its forelimbs. Ibrahim Michigan

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 39 Why are our intuitive beliefs about economic issues often so misguided, asks psychologist Pascal Boyer It’s the economy, stupid!

URING the last US presidential election can capitalise on our mistaken intuitions to from psychology and anthropology does shed campaign, Donald Trump and Hilary gain support. Fortunately, knowing where some light on the phenomenon. It reveals that DClinton both promised to “protect” these beliefs come from, and the forms they people have an intuitive mental template for America against foreign imports. In Europe, take, can help us make more savvy economic how exchange, the action that lies at the root right-wing populist politicians are gaining and political judgements. of economic activity, should occur. This ground by claiming they will reduce For centuries, economists have bemoaned “exchange psychology” is not simply shaped immigration to create more jobs for local the economic ignorance of ordinary people. by self-interest, the media or the political people. Left-wingers, meanwhile, promise to It wasn’t until 1996 that the chasm in thinking arguments we are exposed to. It is seen in tackle growing wealth inequality by taking was revealed when the Survey of Americans people from early childhood and has been from the rich and giving to the poor. All these and Economists on the Economy became the documented in a diverse range of cultures. ideas reflect a shaky grasp of economics. first to ask both groups the same questions. This suggests that our naive economic beliefs, Nevertheless, they are often attractive to Although the views of experts varied like many of our social and political voters. That is no accident. somewhat – economics is complex and not preferences, are an outcome of evolution. Most of us have little or no education in In a paper published last year, Michael Bang economics, but that doesn’t stop us holding “ It’s as if the human mind is Petersen of Aarhus University in Denmark and beliefs about all sorts of things from the designed to misunderstand I argued that the human mind evolved to benefits of international trade, the effects of think about economics in specific ways. Our immigration and the origins of inequality, mass-market economies” intuitions about production and exchange are to the power of big business, the consequences adaptations to the particular context in which of regulation and whether the state should an exact science, after all – they were in stark our species developed. As a result, they are provide education, transport and healthcare. contrast to those of the public. For example, unsuited to the economy of the modern These “folk-economic” beliefs are often vague, 50 per cent of economists thought trade world, which appeared very recently in incoherent or just plain wrong. But they are agreements had helped to create jobs and evolutionary terms. not random – people everywhere seem to have just 5 per cent believed they led to job losses, The key factor is that humans, in contrast similar intuitions. It is as if the human mind is whereas ordinary people took a far more to most other animals, evolved to be highly designed to misunderstand the mass-market negative view – 17 per cent and 54 per cent, cooperative. Hunting, foraging, community economies we have created. respectively. Likewise, while 69 per cent of the defence and even parenting were done in As a psychologist, this intrigues me. In my public saw excessive executive pay as a reason groups. There was some division of labour, latest book, Minds Make Societies, I argue that the economy wasn’t doing better, just 12 per because of individual differences in talent, but folk economics has its roots in human cent of economists did. not much specialisation. And our ancestors evolution – and has profound consequences Despite these findings, there are surprisingly shared resources, especially when it came to for today’s world. In modern democracies, few systematic studies of folk economics. goods with highly variable availability, such as political parties differ mostly in terms of their Economists tend not to be interested in why game. Trade mostly took place between people economic policies, meaning that politicians people’s perceptions are so awry. But evidence who knew each other, or between groups >

40 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018  GÖR SELMAN HOS

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 41 that shared repeated exchanges. Technology towards large retailers like Walmart, Carrefour, was simple enough that they could track how Tesco and Aldi. Everyone knows they make big much effort was involved in making most profits. However, they also generally sell goods things. And verbal communication provided cheaper than their smaller competitors. We can rich information on the behaviour of others, all see that we gain a little – by buying an apple which was used to select the most cooperative for 40 cents instead of 50 cents, for example – partners with whom to do business. but we cannot detect the aggregate amount of The way we think about exchange is the these small savings, the impact on society as a result of millennia living in these conditions. whole. Most people don’t realise that this In recent years, numerous experiments using aggregate consumer benefit can be hundreds economic games have highlighted these or thousands of times larger than the profits psychological effects. For instance, we have a made by large retailers. Of course, that doesn’t strong sense of fairness, and intuitively expect necessarily mean we shouldn’t tax their profits. and prefer that the proceeds of a joint effort be Similarly, we mistakenly believe that big shared in proportion to each participant’s corporations are all-powerful. Because we contribution. Indeed, free-riding – reaping the intuitively think of exchange as taking place benefits of trade or joint effort without paying a between two individuals, with the stronger, cost or contributing – triggers anger and strong more formidable partner able to dictate terms, we tend to believe that corporate giants like “What we fail to see is Apple or Samsung “control” the market. We reason that they do not care whether an the power of consumers individual consumer buys their product, so

as a whole” they can fix prices to ensure they make vast IMAGES WILSON/GETTY MARK profits. What we fail to see is the power of aversion. We also prefer to trade with known consumers as a whole. No matter how big a Our intuition tells us that regulation will work partners and tend to avoid purely anonymous company, whether it thrives or dies depends because it seems to redress the balance of transactions. Not only that, but we intuitively on the aggregate of millions of individuals power between the producer and the consider it beneficial to extend small favours to choosing to buy its products, or not. As a consumer. But this kind of thinking again trading partners rather than exploiting their result, many businesses that once appeared misses the bigger picture. A landlord, for weak positions, because our psychology is built to control a market – Nokia, Kodak, Sears and example, cannot usually simply dictate prices, on expectations of long-term interactions. others – are no longer dominant. because renters generally have a choice of Evolved dispositions such as these enabled This same exchange psychology makes where to rent and thus influence the trade to eventually expand from small, local it tempting to believe that government behaviour of landlords. Price regulations exchanges between known partners, all the intervention in markets can control prices. disrupt these incentives, often with perverse way to global commerce networks. At each effects. Attempts to control food prices, for point in this process, people widened the The benefits to consumers from low prices are example, generally result in black markets. circle of trade by using the mental tool-kit often far larger than the profits of big retailers Similarly, rent control usually makes housing they already had. For instance, modern global rarer and unaffordable for newcomers because communication enhances our ability to get landlords will almost always demand the information about possible partners and highest possible price. In addition, it gives select the trustworthy ones. This leads to a landlords no incentive to maintain housing paradox. Our evolved exchange psychology stock, so renters end up getting poorer value made mass-market economies possible while for money. simultaneously making it very difficult for us to understand them. The scale of modern economies is one major Greedy exploiters stumbling block. In the small communities of Our moral intuitions also shape our folk- our past, everyone could monitor the effort economic beliefs. As 18th-century economist each participant put in and how much they Adam Smith pointed out, prudent self-interest received in return – who stalked the prey and motivates people to produce and offer the who killed it, how long people foraged, how goods and services we need. Yet, in most much they ate and so on. But that is not the cultures, the merchant who buys cheap and case with complex trade networks and sells dear is widely seen as a greedy exploiter. modern technology. What happens in a mass- Such moral condemnation stems largely from market economy depends on the actions of a lack of information. Modern market thousands or millions of people. As our transactions tend to be one-offs between psychology focuses on individual agents, partners we know little about. This clashes we fail to see these aggregate effects. with our intuitive preference for repeated

This helps explain our negative attitudes PANOS / TRAYLER-SMITH ABBIE trade between familiar partners – a form of

42 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 Protectionist policies importing from other nations makes your intuitively appeal, nation poorer. The obvious solution is but tariffs mean protectionist policies: impose tariffs on the consumer pays foreign imports if they are cheaper than home in the end products and aim for independence in commodities such as energy and food. But in fact, international trade is not zero-sum – the more of it that happens, the more resources there are for everyone. What economists call “comparative advantage” means that all countries are better off concentrating their efforts on goods they are most efficient at producing, and trading for others.

Scrounger or just unlucky? Admittedly, while international trade increases the overall wealth of nations, some individuals may not benefit. Carmakers in the US, for example, might welcome President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on cheaper Chinese vehicles in the hopes that it can save their jobs. But American consumers will pay as car prices increase. It is also worth noting exchange in which we can better understand more, others had less – it was a classic zero- that a lack of independence in certain sectors their motives and constraints. sum situation. This helps explain both why has not held back some of the world’s richest Another reflection of the impersonal nature we tend to see wealth as a pie of fixed size and nations. Singapore has few energy resources, of modern economies is what Paul Rubin from the appeal of political arguments for taking yet is a leading manufacturer, and energy-rich Emory University in Georgia calls from the rich to improve the lot of the poor. Norway gets by very well importing “emporiophobia” – a fear of markets and Yet, in modern economies, wealth is not a commodities such as coffee and wine. suspicion that free competition will have fixed resource. The world as a whole is much Economists may show little interest in folk negative social effects. Our mistrust is richer now than it was two centuries, or even economics but successful politicians, both left particularly intense when considering 50 years, ago. and right, instinctively grasp that they can “markets” in sensitive goods, such as organs A major contributor to increasing global gain influence by speaking in ways that chime for transplant or babies for adoption. But it wealth is trade, yet here again zero-sum with these intuitions. That’s why some extends much further, to healthcare, housing, thinking undermines our understanding. describe the recipients of welfare benefits as education and transport – where we often fear The classic mistake is in believing that lazy scroungers, while others portray them as that market processes will lead to inefficiency victims of bad luck. One type of discourse or tragic inequality. activates our aversion to free-riding, the other Sometimes such fears may be justified. SEVEN FLAWED IDEAS our intuitive preference for insurance against Nevertheless, our psychology explains why Evolution has left us with “folk uncertainty. Our exchange psychology makes emporiophobia is so common and so easily economics” beliefs that underpin both very plausible, and we respond to invoked for political ends. In the past, as some major misconceptions about whichever echoes the political beliefs we hold. cooperators within small communities, mass-market economies, in particular: This means that folk economic intuitions it was to everyone’s benefit (and evolutionary are not just misleading, they are also powerful, advantage) to provide each other with Wealth is a fixed-size pie – the poor because they can be used to justify conflicting assurance against the vicissitudes of fate. Our get poorer when the rich get richer conclusions about the world and then direct ancestors would share food with those unable Big corporations can impose prices policies for change. But we are not entirely at to acquire their own whether through bad luck on consumers the mercy of these evolved ideas. A better or because of illness or old age. By contrast, Importing from other nations makes understanding of economics will help us see modern markets seem to exclude such our own one poorer beyond them. So too will the realisation that motivations, leaving people fearful that there Prices can be controlled with the human mind is instinctively attracted to will be no resources for the weak or the unlucky. government regulation certain economic beliefs. Forewarned, we Our instincts around sharing can be seen in Free market competition will have should be less vulnerable to manipulation popular notions about wealth and poverty, too. negative social effects when politicians try to seduce us with Throughout most of human history, resources It is better to trade with known attention-grabbing lines. ■ were shared largely in an egalitarian manner, parties based on need and a person’s contribution to We should be suspicious of the Pascal Boyer is at Washington University. Minds Make the joint effort. Crucially, if someone had profit motive Societies, is published by Yale University Press

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 43 CULTURE

A lunar renaissance

All eyes are on the moon as we near the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic landing. Simon Ings rounds up the best ways to celebrate

NEXT July sees the 50th Actually, the film is a triumph, for the Discovery channel, Above anniversary of the first moon from its heart-in-mouth sound and Beyond: NASA’s journey to landing, an occasion that is design, which sets all the hardware tomorrow. Taking inspiration inspiring dramas, documentaries, rattling and screaming, to Corey from her uncle John F. Kennedy’s art shows and festivals. Stoll’s razor-sharp portrayal of original vision for Apollo, it We need to make the most Buzz Aldrin, to a script (by The celebrates NASA’s culture of of it. The most garrulous of the West Wing writer Josh Singer) that continuity. The agency has moon’s visitors, Buzz Aldrin, is 88. gives Armstrong a compelling always looked back at Earth The first man on the moon, Neil and entirely credible reason why as avidly as it has stared past it. Armstrong, died in 2012, while he would want to keep his moon Your morning weather bulletin Eugene Cernan, the last man to experiences to himself. Those who is NASA’s gift to the world – walk on the moon, died last year. along with a mature and ever- The threads that connect NASA “ Watching Armstrong in improving understanding of to its lunar heyday are stretching interviews you wondered our changing climate. and snapping, one by one. what it would take for him Likewise NASA’s willingness The culture is changing, too. to express an emotion” to work with others. Born out You only have to say the rocket of the cold war, the agency has names out loud. Saturn 5, still the are calling it “unpatriotic” must nevertheless always been open biggest rocket ever used, drips have seen a different movie – we to international collaboration. high-octane adventure. Today’s might not see the actual planting Armstrong and Aldrin set a Swiss launch vehicles – Dream Chaser of the US flag on the moon, but science experiment going on the

and the like – sound more like it is very prominently there. lunar surface a whole 6.5 minutes UNIVERSAL PICTURES smartphone apps. Many more on-screen before planting their nation’s First Man, in UK cinemas celebrations are planned for the flag in lunar soil, for example. months before the landing. from 12 October, sends us boldly coming months. Todd Douglas Artefacts survive to remind Apollo 11’s hardware, which into the past with a biopic of Miller’s documentary Apollo 11 is us of Apollo’s glory days. sustained Armstrong, Aldrin Armstrong. It is directed, unlikely due for release next year, featuring London’s Science Museum and command module pilot as this sounds, by Damien never-before-seen, large-format houses the command module Michael Collins on their roughly Chazelle, who wrote the musical film footage of the mission. of Apollo 10, which took part in 1.5-million-kilometre journey, La La Land and the screenplay for Sneaking in ahead of the film is a dress-rehearsal flight around is enjoying a modest second horror flick 10 Cloverfield Lane. Rory Kennedy’s new documentary the moon in May 1969, just two odyssey of its own. The Columbia Ryan Gosling plays Armstrong, command module forms the and his patented 1000-yard stare centrepiece of Destination serves him well here. Watching Moon: The Apollo 11 mission, an Armstrong in interviews – and he exhibition that has been touring gave precious few of them over the US since 2017. It lands at the years – you had to wonder Seattle’s Museum of Flight in what it would take for him to March in time for the anniversary. express an emotion. Gosling Its usual home, at the National provides inner life by the spadeful Air and Space Museum in and he does it, true to the man Washington, is undergoing he is playing, almost entirely a major refit ready for its through intensity and silence. homecoming in 2021. Without this, First Man would be Apollo’s Mission Control the longest 138 minutes in history. Center in Houston, meanwhile, is being restored. By July next Foster & Partners’s bid for year, it will look exactly as it did

a 3D-printed lunar future ESA/FOSTER PARTNERS + when Armstrong took that first

44 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture DON’T MISS

Sadly we can’t all celebrate the moon landing with Ryan Gosling Read While Donald Goldsmith reveals are racing to launch their probes. the secrets of Exoplanets: Who will make moonfall first? Hidden worlds and the quest for My money is on Israel’s SpaceIL. extraterrestrial life (Harvard While everyone else was crashing University Press), Adam Morton through the X Prize’s deadlines, wonders, Should We Colonize trying to design wheeled vehicles Other Planets? (Polity). for their rovers, SpaceIL was racing ahead with a vehicle that Play bounces about the lunar surface The first episode of adventure like a steel bunny. game Life is Strange 2 (pictured) The car manufacturer Audi, is released on 27 September for meanwhile, hopes Germany’s Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 PTScientists, will help land two of and Xbox One. The character you its wheeled rovers at the Apollo 17 are protecting behaves with landing site. Both of these projects incredible realism, thanks to some need a decent delivery system, clever machine learning. so there is a lot riding on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launches from Cape Watch Canaveral next year. SpaceX itself At what point do we stop being has announced it plans to send a human – and does it matter? paying customer to the moon, The play Future Bodies explores although no date has been given. the future of body enhancement. Perhaps the most telling It’s at Manchester‘s HOME in the anniversary-year project, though, UK, from 28 September. will be the announcement of the results from the European Space Visit Agency’s lunar 3D-printing Contemporary crystalline art challenge. The moon’s next rubs shoulders with pieces from visitors may well have a home John Ruskin’s mineral collection designed by Foster & Partners in Liquid Crystal Display, at waiting for them, extruded by Sheffield’s newly reopened Site step on 20 July 1969. The flight moon planned for 2019. Although robots out of sintered regolith. Gallery from 29 September. control consoles are being these uncrewed adventures can’t Alongside planned launches refurbished, and wallpaper possibly upstage Apollo 11’s and public celebrations, certain Listen and carpet samples are being achievement, they do promise private rites will be performed, Smuggled eggs, mysterious herbs compared with recently a new era of lunar exploration. too. I am planning to complete and bits of bear (don’t ask) have all discovered original samples. China is gearing up to land Project Arthur’s 3D paper model featured recently on ABC Radio Trash cans, book cases, ashtrays two robots: Chang’e 4 is due to of the iconic Arthur satellite dish National’s science-culture podcast and orange polyester seat launch this December, with the in time for the anniversary. Science Friction, hosted by cushions will all be present. goal of being the first lander on Part of the Goonhilly Earth Natasha Mitchell. Elsewhere in the world, there the moon’s far side. Chang’e 5, Satellite Station in Cornwall, is lots more to see. The Louisiana scheduled for 2019, aims to bring Arthur brought the UK into the Museum of Modern Art in about 2 kilograms of lunar space age, carrying broadcasts Denmark has stolen a march on regolith back to Earth. of the moon landing from the US. the competition with The Moon: India is planning to send an My paper model is hardly less From inner worlds to outer space. orbiter, lander and six-wheeled extraordinary – at least, that Open until 20 January, this is a rover to the moon in January is what I am telling myself. celebration of the moon as it is 2019. It is all part of India’s It will track the location of the seen in paintings, explored in Chandrayaan-2 mission, which International Space Station using virtual reality, and conjured in follows up on the successful an embedded Raspberry Pi. fantasy. In the UK there is a Chandrayaan-1 lunar orbiter Each time the ISS passes little longer to wait: Woolwich mission of 2008-2009. overhead, a little red light will in London will be the centre of There are more modest blink, reminding me of the night a major moon festival over the missions, too. The punchier my mother carried me out of my anniversary weekend. contestants who entered the bed and into the living room to There are also missions to the never-awarded Lunar X Prize see a man step onto the moon. ■

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 45 CULTURE

The art of video games

London’s V&A lifts the hood on game creation – and Lydia Nicholas likes what she sees

Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, to 24 February 2019 IN A gallery, it is not only the quality of a piece that comes under scrutiny, but also its meaning. Gaming culture’s demand to be seen as “real art” sometimes runs alongside a resistance from many fans and creators to being subjected to the kind of analysis that art faces. Can video games be art? Yes. Obviously yes. Video games are a medium as diverse as films or novels. Some are enormously profitable mainstream hits. Some are familiar rehashings of old tropes. Some are beautiful. Some are violent. Some are nuanced,

self-aware, and explore and reflect BAUMGARTENROBIN human experience in ways that surprise and move the player. and family who still tease you for impossible geometry. This is an The Arcade Backpack is designed This isn’t a radical stance and gaming and see them converted. homage, or a theft, depending to infiltrate public spaces video games are no strangers to The first part deals with the on your mood, but we can all prestigious galleries. Several of craft of making games. There are agree such borrowings say little. that no one from conception to Porpentine Charity Heartscape’s pinboards covered in plot points, In contrast, I thoroughly enjoyed marketing to quality assurance exquisite text-based creations screens full of programming the discussion of the extreme thought the language worth were exhibited in 2017 alongside languages and sections on difficulty of gothic role-playing checking, even as this player’s oil paintings and sculpture in influences from film and fashion. game Bloodborne: how the home country is used again and New York at the Whitney Biennial, The developer, whether a giant challenging, brutal fights were again as a bloody backdrop for one of the longest-running designed to produce cycles of an outsider’s heroism. exhibitions in the contemporary “Bring the friends and struggle, satisfaction and pride In the final section, visitors art world. Somerset House in family who still tease in its players. There is a beauty, finally get to play. The exhibition’s London has hosted game design you for gaming and see unique to gaming, in a perfectly enormous scope is contained in festival Now Play This three them converted” shaped learning curve. a wonderful selection of tiny times in the past four years, In the show’s politics room, creations: a one-dimensional always with the support of Arts studio or an individual author, is titles like “Let’s talk about sex” dungeon; a bear on a joyride; Council England. brought under the spotlight, and and “Why are videogames so the 10-second heartbreak of Where Videogames: Design/ their skill lauded. Some efforts to white?” sound glib, but the Queers in Love at the End of the Play/Disrupt differs is in focusing place the work within hallowed content itself is forthright and World. Even when they force us not on the games themselves, traditions are a little obvious: thoughtful. Of course, race, into difficult choices, even if we but on the work of creating them. René Magritte’s Le Blanc Seing gender, sexuality, class and other fail spectacularly at them, games It should delight gamers and (The Blank Signature), featuring social factors affect the creation are revealed for what they are: developers to see their world a surreal scene of a woman on a and experience of video games. a medium of delight. ■ celebrated on huge screens. It will horse simultaneously behind and Consider how it feels to an also fascinate those unfamiliar in front of trees, is placed directly Arabic speaker when Arabic Lydia Nicholas is a researcher in with the form and give everyone below a clip from Kentucky Route text is written backwards in a ethics and culture at University a chance to play. Bring the friends Zero, which uses the exact same blockbuster war game, proving College London

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Financial and in-kind resources are available to pursue activities that help accelerate our efforts to achieve our equity and inclusion goals. All applicants should submit a recently updated curriculum vitae, a statement of research plans, a statement of teaching, and a 2-3-page statement on your contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including information about your understanding of Position Title: Assistant Professor of Chemistry WKHVHLVVXHV\RXUUHFRUGRIDFWLYLWLHVWRGDWHDQG\RXUVSHFL¿F Req # 03779 plans and goals for advancing equity and inclusion if hired as a Berkeley faculty member (for additional information, go to https:// The Department of Chemistry at The University of Chicago ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity). In invites applications for the position of Assistant Professor of addition, applicants should provide at least three but no more Chemistry in all areas of chemistry. 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22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 51 LETTERS [email protected] @newscientist newscientist

EDITOR’S PICK How green can nuclear and, unlike conventional nuclear power really be? power, their fuel cycle could not Smoking reduction and a room with a fume be weaponised. True, there are From Mike Follows, Sutton practical problems to overcome. to test the effect of passive vaping. Coldfield, West Midlands, UK But a concerted effort to develop It will not seek informed consent Chris Baraniuk reports on nuclear LFTRs could avert the impending and it won’t even tell people they power innovations such as energy crisis without threatening are taking part in a trial. floating reactors and shortening the environment – and might It will not bother with a control the half-life of nuclear waste reduce international conflict too. group and it won’t record exposure (1 September, p 32). Perhaps levels. Indeed it won’t be applying tackling the energy crisis needs From Larry Stoter, measured doses, just random amounts something more ambitious. The Narth, Monmouth, UK at random times and places. It won’t Just after the second world war, You say that about 1 gram of bother measuring lung function, liquid fluoride thorium reactors carbon dioxide is emitted as a blood or urine levels, inflammatory (LFTRs) and other molten salt result of mining the uranium to markers, or collect any data at all. reactors were developed as an generate 1 kilowatt-hour of energy Would you grant ethical approval? alternative to those based on in a nuclear power station. What From Miriam Ashwell, I didn’t think so. If politicians and the uranium-plutonium cycle. about emissions during its London, UK policy-makers want to support the Sadly, the prototypes were construction, including making Lara Williams supports the UK ban on switch to safer nicotine habits, then mothballed before they could the concrete and steel, and from e-cigarettes on public transport and hospitals and businesses could have deliver on their promise. the large number of vehicle in workplaces (1 September, p 22). vaping rooms. That would encourage Meltdown of these reactors movements? I would expect

But how do we know what the health smoking reduction but not force the would be impossible. What little another peak in CO2 emissions effects of keeping or ending the ban unaddicted to participate in the office, waste they produced would have during the decommissioning would be? on the bus or when fighting through a much shorter half-life than that phase. The really useful figure to

I would like to propose a clinical trial the toxic fog at building entrances. generated by existing reactors know would be annualised CO2

52 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 “ Oh please… I’m tired and depressed even without gluten” Colin (@diabloamp47) has nothing to fear from news that eating gluten could make you tired and depressed (22 September, p 15) emissions, from ground-breaking and dozens of publications in awareness only back to Rachel by an extra 2°C and that it is to final decommissioning, of peer-reviewed journals by groups Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring – expensive to install and run each of the various options for in Canada, the UK, Norway, and so ignore the writers, (4 August, p 18). Do not overlook electricity production. Ireland and Australia on triploid including Karl Marx and William absorption and adsorption Atlantic salmon. I reviewed this Morris, who earlier raised cooling systems. In these, energy The editor writes: work in 2015 in Reviews in warning flags – then for the past is required only to circulate the Q Estimates vary: one study Aquaculture (doi.org/f84pm4). half century we have ploughed fluid being cooled through the suggests total emissions of 3.5 to 12 There is a long history of on to global disaster in the face evaporator. Such systems can be grams of CO2 per kWh for nuclear, triploid salmon being used in of massive, mounting piles of driven by solar hot water or other wind and solar power alike aquaculture in Australia evidence that the path we have heat sources. Perhaps they will (Nature Energy, doi.org/gcqbxv). specifically because they are chosen is the wrong one. not suit some situations, but known to be sterile. Perhaps we would be better off using energy from the sun The long history of work handing global political decisions directly avoids the need to use on sterile salmon Stupidity hasn’t worked to some sort of United Nations energy stored in coal, oil or gas. in the past, so why now? Artificial Intelligence and commit From Tillmann Benfey, Fredericton, ourselves to obeying its decisions, Data protection rules New Brunswick, Canada From Bryn Glover, Kirkby whatever and however could be backfiring As someone who has conducted Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK uncomfortable they may be. and published research into Chris Baraniuk asks whether From Chris Lewis-Cooper, farmed salmon for more than stupidity could save us from an Further alternative air Usk, Monmouthshire, UK 30 years, I take exception to the AI apocalypse (1 September, p 13). conditioning technology You observed that our inboxes statement that it has just now Stupidity has not saved us from were full of pleading emails been confirmed that triploid an environmental apocalypse – From Peter Horan, because of the European Union’s Atlantic salmon are effectively and most likely will not do so. Highton, Victoria, Australia new data rules (26 May, p 22). sterile (18 August, p 7). This Why should AI be any different? Michael Le Page reports that air Now, every website asks for our brushes aside decades of research Even if we date environmental conditioning could warm Paris consent to set cookies and so on. >

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22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 53 LETTERS [email protected] @newscientist newscientist

Has anyone estimated how Where cash comes from important needs, provided the The positive side of many hundreds of millions of and keeping track of it system is regulated correctly. negative colleagues extra mouse clicks have been Our own dysfunctional system, caused by the General Data From Gabriel Carlyle, St Leonards- long dominated by the interests From Neil Doherty, Protection Regulation? And is on-Sea, East Sussex, UK of finance capital, is a very Wilthorpe, South Yorkshire, UK there a danger that requiring Joshua Howgego writes that the different matter. You report that people paired with everyone to click through endless money in commercial bank mean, negative robots performed distracting GDPR agreements accounts, which makes up From Daelyn Nicholls, a task faster and better than those could condition people to roughly 97 per cent of the money Finley, New South Wales, Australia working alongside kind, positive automatically consent to more used in the economy, is either Howgego discusses the risks of ones (25 August, p 16). There is sinister things, without thinking? created by interest on loans a cashless society. Another very at least one other interpretation. made by that institution, or by significant aspect is a possible I used to get tasks done more Consciousness pure you when you make a deposit discriminatory effect. There efficiently when around negative and simple – perhaps? (25 August, p 36). Perhaps seems to be a convenient colleagues because I would be in surprisingly, this is wrong. assumption by both governments their presence for less time, have From Ed Subitzky, As the Bank of England itself and commercial players that to listen to their negativity for less New York, US explained in a 2014 article, “Money everyone is capable of using time and could sooner interact I much enjoy the ongoing creation in the modern economy”, electronic devices and can with someone more positive. discussion of consciousness in its Quarterly Bulletin: “Rather understand what assets they in your pages (for example, than banks receiving deposits have in remote ledgers. The size of this glacier Letters, 21 July). It seems to me when households save and then This ignores ageing, intellectual really is astounding that one cannot just be conscious: lending them out, bank lending or physical disabilities or simply you have to be conscious of [itself] creates deposits.” living in certain places. I have From Hillary J. Shaw, something, whether it is the The article notes that this is why a tiny dyslexic issue that Newport, Shropshire, UK scent of a rose, the internal “some economists have referred predisposes me to transposing John Sherlock doubts the capacity feeling of being happy or sad, or to bank deposits as ‘fountain pen digits and makes online banking of the Totten glacier in Antarctica the words you are reading now. money’, created at the stroke of a dreadful anxiety inducer. to raise sea levels by more than Consciousness, whatever it is, bankers’ pens when they approve If anything is likely to reduce 3 metres and you respond that must have content in order to loans”. The consequences are a person’s ability and confidence its catchment area is more than exist. Substituting the phrase profound. Some economists to live independently, it would 500,000 square kilometres “consciousness” with the phrase have argued that, as a result, be having to rely on a carer to (Letters, 1 September). But the “consciousness of” makes the there should never be a shortage assist with, let alone manage, world’s oceans cover 350 million entire issue seem more tractable. of money for society’s most their financial affairs. square kilometres. I calculate that unless the average thickness of this glacier is over 2.5 kilometres TOM GAULD and all of it is above sea level, the figures don’t stack up.

The editor writes: Q The ice in East Antarctica really is that thick, and it is almost all sitting on rock.

For the record

Q Land of the rolling wheel, still: Japan’s bullet trains do not levitate (Feedback, 8 September).

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54 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 CROSSWORD Compiled by Richard Smyth

Crossword No23

ACROSS 8 NASA research satellite launched experiments with fruit flies (6) in 2004 (4) 17 To enlarge the appearance of 9 Enzyme that catalyses the joining something (7) of molecules by a double bond (5) 19 Muscle of the upper arm (7)

10 H2SO4 , HNO3 or C6H8O7 , for 22 Plastic explosive developed in example (4) Czechoslovakia in the 1960s (6) 11 Subspecies of zebra, extinct since 24 Theoretical substance composed 1883 (6) of randomly moving particles (5,3) 12 In medicine, relating to arterial 26 Meme complex (8) pressure during contraction of 28 Glacial period (3,3) the left ventricle of the heart (8) 30 In measurement, standard 13 The UK’s first road-legal, quantity or magnitude (4) solar-powered car (8) 31 Electronic visual medium (5) 15 Thomas Hunt ___ (1866–1945), 32 Ninth letter of the Greek “If you want to understand AI, you need to biologist known for his alphabet (4) read The Deep Learning Revolution.” DOWN —Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor at MIT Sloan 1 Hikaru ___ , character in 16 First letter of the Greek Star Trek (4) alphabet (5) School of Management 2 Nerve-cell cluster (8) 18 Wildflower of the genus

3 NH3 , Ca(OH)2 or NaOH, for Digitalis (8) example (6) 20 Telephone identification mitpress.mit.edu/revolution 4 Road safety device invented by service (6,2)

Percy Shaw (4,3) 21 Sulphur ___ , SO2 (7) 5 ___ process, technique for the 23 In maths, the smallest primitive mass production of steel (8) abundant number (6) 6 Steam-like substance (6) 25 Thomas ___ (1847–1931), 7 Informative, collaborative, “The Wizard of Menlo Park” (6) user-modified website (4) 27 Active volcano on Sicily (4) 14 Visible part of an exothermic 29 Logic ___ , device in electronics, reaction (5) typically AND, OR or NOT (4)

Answers to Crossword No22

ACROSS: 8 ZERO, 9 AKIRA, 10 CERN, 11 RESNIK, 12 ZOO QUEST, 13 RESISTOR, 15 SISKIN, 17 PANGAEA, 19 F NUMBER, 22 ALIENS, 24 CHORDATA, 26 RETROFIT, 28 ROCKET, 30 CHIP, 31 ROTOR, 32 NEON. DOWN: 1 GENE, 2 BOUNCING, 3 GASKET, 4 GIZZARD, 5 JACOBSON, 6 SCRUBS, 7 IRIS, 14 EMAIL, 16 INERT, 18 ENSIFORM, 20 MEDICINE, 21 ACETATE, 23 EUROPA, 25 ORRERY, 27 ECHO, 29 ENOL.

22 September 2018 | NewScientist | 55 FEEDBACK For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

superwater AQUAhydrate. SOME of Russia’s aquatic life may be The beverage is purified of any feeling green around the gills, after trace minerals, minerals are then two lakes near the city of Samara added back and the drink is turned a lurid shade of pink. subjected to “a rigorous ionization While Russia is no stranger to toxic process that changes the DNA of liquids turning up in unexpected the water increasing the pH to a places, the cause of the sudden burst 9+ level… for a 2-year shelf life”. of colour is unknown. An algal bloom, The capacity of water to absorb pollution or a chemical reaction with such esoteric processes seems to the underlying bedrock are all be matched only by its ability to speculated. Suspicion has also fallen turn them into money. That’s on local businesses, which include a what we call a liquid asset! concrete factory, a pig farm and a brewery. The last of which, at least, THE world’s first champagne for will ensure residents have something astronauts has been launched by to drink until the water clears. French winery Mumm. The Grand Cordon Stellar project addresses a gap THE US Air Force is hunting for in the market: low Earth orbit will soon a kraken. Specifically, the 628th feature lots of wealthy space tourists, Force Support Squadron would but few bars. To celebrate, Mumm like somebody to build them a chartered a parabolic flight so that kraken costume, as revealed in a journalists and Usain Bolt could tender posted to FedBizOpps.com. sample the zero-g fizz (Feedback’s The costume needs to be navy HIGHWAY officials in Germany, effective, and is calling for the invitation was presumably lost in the who pride themselves on being government to establish an official post). But without the pull of gravity, open-minded and supporting all elf commissioner, someone whose wine cannot be poured from a bottle, citizens, have really outdone job it is to be away with the fairies in and carbonated drinks effervesce into themselves. Their latest idea is to a professional capacity. German news foam. Mumm crafted a bottle that hire “elf commissioners” to improve site The Local notes that soon after allows space sommeliers to squirt safety on a notorious stretch of road. the blessing, a nearby collision globules of alcoholic foam into the air, The A2 autobahn outside Hannover between two lorries left one driver which thirsty travellers can catch with sees five accidents a day, on average, with life-threatening injuries. glass scoops. Marvellous! something concerned citizen Mumm may have to wait some time Melanie Rüter suggested was the RARELY a week goes by when to see a return on their investment. result of trolls and elves disturbed Feedback isn’t confronted by the Despite the hype, space tour by traffic noise. discovery of new, increasingly companies have yet to get off the The Hannoversche Allgemeine exotic, forms of water. Previously ground. At least the champagne blue, water-repellent, have newspaper reports that Rüter and we have noted the existence of served to the first group of high between eight and 10 tentacles “animal communicator” Marion sacred geometry water, radio- fliers will be well aged. (arms optional), and ideally be Lindhof accompanied an official from wave infused water, “sexy water”, machine washable. the highway authority for a routine iceberg water, alkaline water and GLOWING stones have been Although we would like to check of perimeter fences. They noted even raw water, for those who feel discovered on the Michigan believe that the outfit is part of “very sad energies” emanating from other waters don’t provide them shores of Lake Superior – but fear an elaborate prank to spook navy several points of the motorway – with enough dysentery. not, they are totally safe. Local divers during their next night- drivers will know the feeling. This time we must thank rock collector Erik Rintamaki time exercise, the kraken will be Rüter asked the elves to look muscle-bound actor and former made the surprise discovery deployed as a mascot at sporting kindly on travellers, while Lindhof New Kid on the Block Mark after buying a UV light for a events and parades. apologised to local boars. They then Wahlberg. When reports of his night-time beach-combing Dressmakers should note that declared that the psychic wounds awe-inspiring workout schedule trip. To his surprise, he found a the costume must be delivered in had been “energetically sealed”. made the news (“2:30am - wake previously unrecorded deposit 12 weeks. As the 628th should say

PAUL MCDEVITT Rüter says her methods will prove up”) there he was promoting of fluorescent sodalite. from now on: “Let’s get kraken”. Exciting news for residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP), We reported on the discovery of a 73,000-year- affectionately known as Yoopers. You can send stories to Feedback by old drawing in red crayon, resembling a hashtag. Once geologists had confirmed email at [email protected]. Rintamaki’s discovery, they also Please include your home address. Sadly the rest is missing, so the trending topic accepted his suggested name for This week’s and past Feedbacks can of the Middle Stone Age remains a mystery the mineral: Yooperlite. be seen on our website.

56 | NewScientist | 22 September 2018 THE LAST WORD Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword

Taking a bow the interference patterns overlap. ■ Sharks and turtles weren’t ectotherms will retreat to If you photograph a rainbow and really freezing to death in burrows, deep rock crevices or Recent strange weather conditions turn up the contrast, you might January 2018 when an “Arctic caves where temperatures never have led to a number of extraordinarily see many supernumerary bows. outbreak” of frigid air produced fall below freezing. bright local rainbows. They contain Stephen Jorgenson-Murray very low but not record-setting Endothermic animals such extra colours inside the usual violet. Frankfurt, Germany temperatures in the north-eastern as birds and mammals, whose There are as many as three additional US. For sharks to freeze, the metabolic rate supports their bands: a narrow one of orange-yellow, ■ This type of rainbow is known coastal waters would have had relatively constant body a wider one the vivid green of as a supernumerary rainbow. to freeze too, and they didn’t. temperature, have a different nocellara olives and a narrow one of They are rare, so your questioner However, a few sharks and problem. They usually require purple. These extra bands occupy was lucky to see one. I saw one on sea turtles were “cold-stunned” a constant food supply to drive about a third of the width of the 27 May 2016 at Great Shoddesden because they apparently their metabolism. If food becomes rainbow itself. What am I seeing? in Hampshire, UK. It is the only scarce in the winter habitats of one I have noticed in 62 years “For sharks and turtles to large grazing mammals, their of knowing what a rainbow is. actually freeze, the coastal body temperature drops and I have enhanced the photo (left) waters would have to mass freezing of entire herds to show the colours clearly. freeze too” may occur. The effect results from Sam McGinnis raindrops of a uniform size remained too long in quickly Professor Emeritus of 1 millimetre or less. It was cooling near-shore waters that Department of Biology recognised in the 19th century had no layer of warmer water California State University, US that this effect can’t be explained below them to buffer the rapid by optics alone (as ordinary temperature drop. rainbows can), and is evidence They, along with most other This week’s of the wave nature of light. fish, reptiles and amphibians, ■ It sounds as if your questioner is Brian Pollard are ectotherms, animals whose questions seeing a supernumerary rainbow. Launceston, Cornwall, UK body temperature closely follows TIME DIFFERENCE This occurs when raindrops are the normal seasonal range of the If we ever colonised a planet relatively small and evenly sized. water or air temperatures in with a greater diurnal period, say Light reflected inside the droplet Out cold which they live. Their metabolism 30 hours, how long would it take can interfere with that reflecting is programmed to operate within the circadian systems of humans off the outside, producing light I read recently that turtles were this range, but if body temperature and other species to adapt? and dark bands – just like the being “cold-stunned” and sharks falls below it, some of the Richard Hind classic double slit experiment were freezing to death in the ocean enzymes that control metabolic York, UK showing that light can behave off the north-eastern US coast. rate become inactive, partially as waves or particles. This was due to a cold spell with air stunning the animals. BEATS ME Because different wavelengths temperatures of -12°C, rather than However, if a shark or sea When I was standing on the of light are refracted by different the average 1°C. Is this particularly turtle can still breath and avoid scales in my surgery today (I am degrees, the exact interference cold or within the normal winter predation or beaching during a doctor), I noticed that the needle patterns vary according to colour. range, and how is it possible for such an activity slump, normal moved very slightly, exactly If the droplets are of even size, animals to be affected in these ways? metabolism and behaviour in time with my heartbeat. they all line up and produce more Also, why do we not see mass freezing will soon return as the water What could account for this rainbows inside the main bow. of land animals before sea animals temperature rises. fluctuation? The strange colours are probably are affected, given the relative Mass freezing of land animals Paul Jepson caused by colours mixing where stability of ocean temperatures? rarely occurs because any Manchester, UK

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