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1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 3 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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it claims–created theworld’s news that ateaminChina has – change isheritable. edited insuchaway that the the genomeofanindividual is humans –theprocessbywhich germline genomeeditingin clear: itisfartoosoontoattempt from allthistalkingiscrystal as getting underway inHongKong subject. Indeed,thelatest was summits anddiscussionsonthe clear, have scientists heldmany of CRISPRgeneeditingbecame theamazingpotential SINCE Safety must come first come must Safety first genetically editedhumans, is despoiling theplanet. the rampant consumerismthat is indicative ofa larger problem: with anend-of-year push,but it shops tryingtopropup sales is mostly driven bystruggling old elf.Christmasearly-sliding humbug” fromeven thejolliest a earlier isenoughtoelicit “Bah season into November oreven gradualTHE driftofthefestive Gene-editing humanshashugepotential, butcautionisneeded Make itagreen Xmas But onMonday camethe The messagethat has emerged New Scientist went topress. in ahair shirt,but rather of your Christmas(seepage22). the environmental footprint ultimate guideforshrinking an antidote intheformof in thebin.Thankfully, we have then throwing toomuch ofit stuff, eating toomuch foodand the West arebuyingtoomuch could beanextremely powerful in thefuture, editingourgermline of CRISPRgeneeditingissafe. we don’teven know iftheprocess is effective andsafe.What’s more, don’t know ifdeletingthisprotein other ways toprevent HIV, andwe unethical. Therearealready many against it.)Andmany thinkitis (In China, thereareonly guidelines in Europe,AustraliaorCanada. so far, wouldn’t have beenlegal by deletingasingleprotein. individuals immune toHIV to reports,tryingmake The researcherswere, according a pair of twin girls (see page 7). a pairoftwingirls(seepage7). This doesn’tmeancelebrating Put simply, mostpeoplein However, thereisnodoubtthat The experiment, asreported of theworst festive excesses. minimising theimpact ofsome the Christmas content. until Decembertobreakout of theyear (page44). see ourguidetothebest books at leastletitfeedyour mind– you awarm holiday glow inside. there areloadsofways togive even just reusingwrapping paper, gifts, cutting down onmeat or Whether itismakingyour own won’t getthereat all if countries long way fromthispoint, but we and healthier lives. We arestilla generations tolive much longer help change thisandallow future thousands ofharmful mutations. healthy peopleharbour many around 100new mutations. Even evolution. Each ofusisbornwith unethical experiment called inthewildlyparticipants andinviolable,as sacred either. we shouldn’tregard ourgenome to prevent rogueexperiments, So, while moreneedstobedone tool forimproving health. go toofarandbanallresearch. And hey, at leastwe waited Or ifyou must buysomething, Germline genome editing could Germline genomeeditingcould We areallinvoluntary 1 December 2018 |NewScientist | ■ ■ 5

PLAINPICTURE/AURORA PHOTOS/ROBERT BENSON THIS WEEK

Police plan to use AI to predict crime

Serious concerns have been raised over ambitious UK policing project. Chris Baraniuk reports

POLICE in the UK want to predict the police lead on the project. violent crime using artificial As for exactly what will intelligence, New Scientist can happen when such individuals reveal. The idea is that individuals are identified, that is still a matter flagged by the system will be of discussion, says Donnelly. offered interventions, such as He says the intention isn’t to counselling, to avert potential pre-emptively arrest anyone, but criminal behaviour. rather to provide support from However, one of the world’s local health or social workers. leading data science institutes For example, they could offer

has expressed serious concerns counselling to any individual with EYEVINE/ STANDARD NING EVE/ LUCY YOUNG about the project after seeing a a history of mental health issues redacted version of the proposals. that had been flagged by NDAS as Police could contact people AI violence similar to that observed The system, called the National being likely to commit a violent predicts will be future lawbreakers in past cases, but who haven’t Data Analytics Solution (NDAS), crime. Potential victims could yet escalated their activity. uses a combination of AI and be contacted by social services. Looking at this data, the Such people will be assigned a statistics to try to assess the risk This is the first project of its software found nearly 1400 score indicating the likelihood of someone committing or kind in the world, pooling indicators that could help predict of future offending. multiple data sets from a number crime, including around 30 that “ Tools trained on past of police forces for crime were particularly powerful. These cases could limit police prediction, says Donnelly. In the included the number of crimes an Will it work? enquiries to well-trodden early phases, the team gathered individual had committed with West Midlands Police hopes to areas and reinforce bias” more than a terabyte of data from the help of others and the number generate its first predictions using local and national police databases, of crimes committed by people NDAS early next year. It will work becoming a victim of gun or knife including records of people being in that individual’s social group. with the UK’s data watchdog, crime, as well as the likelihood of stopped and searched and logs The AI component of NDAS the Information Commissioner’s someone falling victim to modern of crimes committed. Around will use these indicators to predict Office, to ensure the system slavery (see “The rise of predictive 5 million individuals were which individuals known to the meets privacy regulations. policing”, right). identifiable from the data. police may be on a trajectory of However, aspects of the project West Midlands Police is have already drawn criticism. leading the project and has until A team at the Alan Turing Institute the end of March 2019 to produce THE RISE OF PREDICTIVE POLICING in London saw a redacted version a prototype. Eight other police Around the world, police are The Netherlands uses another of the NDAS proposal last year and forces, including London’s increasingly using data to predict software tool that analyses crime as published their verdict this week. Metropolitan Police and Greater crime. PredPol, developed at Santa well as social data, such as someone’s In the report, the team says Manchester Police, are also Clara University in California, tries age, income and whether they claim there are “serious ethical issues” involved. NDAS is being designed to identify future crime hotspots, benefits. This is used to predict with NDAS and questions so that every police force in the for example. The system has been where in a city specific types of whether it is in the public good UK could eventually use it. used both in the US and the UK. crimes are more likely to occur. to intervene pre-emptively Police funding has been cut The Los Angeles police has a Some applications have come in when someone may not have significantly over recent years, program that assigns a risk score for condemnation, however. Earlier committed a crime or be likely so forces need a system that based on traits such as whether this year, Human Rights Watch to do so in the future. It says that can look at all individuals already someone has previous convictions criticised the Chinese authorities for the proposal is ethically well- known to officers, with the or is a known member of a gang. allegedly using predictive policing intentioned, but fails to recognise aim of prioritising those Patrols are adjusted to keep a to pre-emptively detain people in important issues in full, and that who need interventions most closer eye on the “riskiest” people. the province of Xinjiang. inaccurate prediction is a concern. urgently, says Iain Donnelly, By basing predictions on past

6 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

apparently well-controlled. World’s first gene-edited Simple measures should be enough to prevent the father from babies announced passing the virus to his child, with no need for gene editing. “There Alice Klein and Michael Le Page safe to delete both copies of is no pressing need for this – it’s the CCR5 gene in every cell of totally inappropriate,” says Neely. A WOMAN in China has given the body. “We don’t know what According to the Associated birth to two genetically edited the full effects will be,” says Press, the embryo for the second girls, according to the Associated Greg Neely at the University twin only had one copy of CCR5 Press news agency. The aim of of Sydney, Australia. disabled. This child will still be the experiment was to create Seven pairs of men and women vulnerable to all strains of HIV. children who are immune to reportedly took part in the The vast majority of biologists HIV, but it hasn’t yet been experiment. All of the men were who use CRISPR gene editing independently verified. HIV-positive, and their sperm was think it is too early to attempt to The experiment has been treated to rid it of any HIV before use it for editing human embryos widely criticised as unethical, it was injected into eggs extracted because it is still far from clear if even by those who are in favour from their partners. The CRISPR it is safe. of using gene editing in eggs, gene-editing machinery was then In several studies, human sperm or embryos to prevent injected into these embryos. embryos have been genetically diseases in children if it can be In total, 22 embryos were made edited to see if CRISPR works in done safely. The critics include this way. To check that the gene people, and then destroyed rather more than 100 prominent editing had worked, a single cell Chinese scientists around the was removed from each embryo “ If true, this experiment arrests, analytical tools run the world, who have signed a letter and analysed. He says that exposes healthy children risk of limiting police enquiries condemning the experiment. 16 embryos had been edited, to the risks of gene editing to well-trodden locations and One way HIV infects cells is 11 of which were implanted. Only for no necessary benefit” can reinforce bias, says Andrew by binding to a protein on their one pregnancy was successfully Ferguson at the University of the surface called CCR5. The team achieved, and it produced twins. than being implanted. The largest District of Columbia. Arrests in China, led by He Jiankui of the Of these twins, one is said to of these studies, done in the US, correlate with where police are Southern University of Science have had both her copies of CCR5 was widely reported as being deployed and not where crime is, and Technology of China in disabled. That means that her successful, but in fact the findings which tends to disproportionately Shenzhen, says it has used the body won’t make the CCR5 have been questioned by many affect people of colour and CRISPR gene-editing technique protein, and her cells should in the field and remain highly residents of poor areas, he says. to try to disable the gene for CCR5. be able to resist infection with controversial. Martin Innes, director of the But we don’t yet know if it is strains of HIV that exploit CCR5 – He is understood to have Crime and Security Research although not all do. What’s more, conducted the work at a private Institute at Cardiff University, He Jiankui says he has altered the baby’s mother doesn’t have hospital while on unpaid leave UK, says he is “sceptical” that genes in a pair of twins HIV and her father’s HIV is from the Southern University the system will reliably predict of Science and Technology of offences at an individual level. China. The Shenzhen City Medical The tool will probably be more Ethics Expert Board has said it useful for generally locating will launch an investigation, communities at risk, he says. as has China’s National Health West Midlands Police has Commission. asked Innes and his colleagues “If true, this experiment to independently evaluate the exposes healthy children to the effectiveness of NDAS at a risks of gene editing for no real later date. necessary benefit,” ethicist Julian An inherent difficulty with Savulescu at the University of such systems is knowing whether Oxford told the UK’s Science the predictions would have Media Centre. turned out to be valid had police Savulescu says that, if the or other services not intervened, science improves, it might be says Sandra Wachter at the Oxford reasonable to try using CRISPR Internet Institute. “How would I in embryos with lethal genetic know that this actually makes the mutations. “Gene editing for this right decision? That’s something group might be life-saving; for the ■ ■ that is very hard to measure.” MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK [twins], it is only life risking.”

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 7 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

on average to set the social it earlier, and wanting the robot to robot free than the asocial one return the favour when they get Rats are sociable (Animal Behavior and Cognition, trapped, she says. doi.org/cxds). “Rats have been shown to even with robots This suggests that the rats engage in multiple forms of perceived the social robot as a reciprocal help and cooperation, genuine social being, says Quinn. including what is referred to as Alice Klein the asocial robot simply moved The rats may have bonded direct reciprocity – where a rat forwards and backwards and more with the social robot will help another rat that has WOULD you help a trapped robot? side to side. because it displayed behaviours previously helped them,” Some rats would. The rodents can Next, the researchers trapped like communal exploring and says Quinn. form social bonds with robots and the robots in cages and gave the playing. This could lead to the rats The readiness of the rats to will even rescue a robotic rat that rats the opportunity to release better remembering having freed befriend the social robot was is trapped in a cage. them by pressing a lever. surprising given its minimal Rats and other animals need to Across 18 trials each, the living Rats will help other rats that design, says Janet Wiles at the be highly attuned to social signals rats were 52 per cent more likely have helped them in the past University of Queensland in from others so they can identify Australia, who helped with friends to cooperate with and the research. enemies to avoid. The robot was the same size To find out if this extends to as a regular rat but resembled non-living beings, Laleh Quinn at a simple plastic box on wheels. the University of California, San “We’d assumed we’d have to give Diego, and her colleagues tested it a moving head and tail, facial whether rats can detect social features, and put a scent on it to signals from robotic rats. make it smell like a real rat, but They housed eight adult rats that wasn’t necessary,” says Wiles. with two types of robotic rat – one The finding shows how social and one asocial – for four sensitive rats are to social cues, days. The robot rats were quite even when they come from basic minimalist, resembling a robots, says Wiles. Similarly, chunkier version of a computer children tend to treat robots as if mouse with wheels to move they are fellow beings, even when around and colourful markings. they display only simple social During the experiment, the signals, she says. social robot rat followed the living “We humans seem to be rats around, played with the same fascinated by robots, and it turns toys, and opened cage doors to let out other animals are too,”

trapped rats escape. Meanwhile, SCUFFINS/GETTY CHRIS says Wiles. ■

Anecdotal evidence suggests that result of people misusing the drug self-harm or suicidal thoughts. Misuse of nerve doctors are turning to pregabalin for have increased from 0.28 to 3.32 Similar misuse patterns have been pain drug spikes other types of pain, due to growing cases per 100,000 people – a trend noted in other parts of the world. concerns about the harms of opioid which mirrors misuse in other parts In England and Wales, for example, in Australia painkillers like oxycodone and of the country (Medical Journal of the number of deaths involving codeine, says Shalini Arunogiri at Australia, DOI: 10.5694/mja2.12036). pregabalin or a related nerve-pain AUSTRALIA is the latest country to Monash University in Melbourne. Some recreational drug users drug called gabapentin rose from report an alarming rise in the misuse This is reflected in an increase in have reported taking large doses of fewer than one per year before 2009 of the nerve pain drug pregabalin. rates of pregabalin prescription, she pregabalin to experience euphoric to 137 in 2015. A recent study in four Pregabalin is a non-opioid drug says. Pregabalin is now the thirteenth and sedative effects, says Arunogiri. US states found that gabapentin was that reduces pain by acting on calcium bestselling drug in the US, and Her study found that half the people present in 22 per cent of people who channels in the brain. It was originally dispensing rates have more than who were treated by paramedics for had died of drug overdoses. developed to treat epilepsy but is now doubled in Australia and more than pregabalin misuse had a history of In response, the UK recently approved for treating nerve pain – the tripled in the UK in recent years. drug or alcohol misuse, depression, announced that it will make it illegal prickling, tingling sensation that can However, pregabalin is shaping up to possess pregabalin without a accompany conditions like diabetes to be just as problematic as opioids, “ Pregabalin dispensing prescription from April 2019. The US and multiple sclerosis. In some says Arunogiri. Her research shows rates have more than Food and Drug Administration is also countries, it is also approved for that, since 2012, ambulance call-outs doubled in Australia in considering introducing tighter treating anxiety and muscle pain. in the Australian state of Victoria as a recent years” controls on pregabalin. Alice Klein ■

8 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

Cyclists in smoggy areas may don Mini placentas face masks as a matter of routine grown in the lab intake valves and didn’t fit well for first time (Science of The Total Environment, doi.org/cxdt). TINY human placentas grown in a If a mask doesn’t fit properly it dish are so close to the real thing that becomes ineffective, says Gary they can fool a pregnancy test into Fuller at King’s College London, giving a positive result. The aim isn’t who wore a professionally fitted to develop a full-sized placenta, but mask to protect against asbestos to study why some pregnancies in a previous job. “Anyone who go wrong. works in a hazardous Most cells used in lab studies form environment knows you have a flat layer when grown in a dish. This to get the seal right,” he says. unnatural environment means they Even opening your mouth to don’t behave as they would when breathe can affect the seal. “Any surrounded by other cells in the body. leaks and it doesn’t work,” says In the past few years, we have found Fuller. “And if you have a beard, the right cues to coax cells of several just forget it.” tissue types into forming complex 3D Cycling masks don’t protect

structures, creating miniature organs BEAWIHARTA/REUTERS BEAWIHARTA against harmful gases, such as known as organoids. nitrogen dioxide. “Chemical Ashley Moffett at the University filters exist but they are much of Cambridge and her team looked at Design matters most for more expensive,” says Amato. the hormones and other signalling Wearing a mask won’t do you molecules released by the placenta anti-pollution masks any harm. But Amato and uterus, and worked out by trial recommends simply avoiding and error which ones are needed to CITY air is a killer. Governments fumes, or tiny fragments of car rush-hour traffic and busy roads. grow placental organoids in the lab. are trying to cut urban pollution tyres, brake pads or road surfaces If there is a cycle path by the side The group took samples of human by encouraging the use of bikes, that are shed through wear and of the road, it makes sense to use placentas from early abortions and but this exposes people who cycle tear. Particles less than 2.5 it. “Distance from the road edge broke the tissue apart. When they to emissions from the cars of micrometres in diameter, known makes a great difference,” he says. added the cells to clumps of a gel-like those who don’t. Are anti- as PM2.5, can damage the lungs “Even a few metres significantly substance to help support a 3D pollution face masks the answer? and even enter the bloodstream. decreases exposure.” structure, they could grow mini Fulvio Amato at the Institute Amato’s study is the first to test Fuller agrees. His team has placentas just half a millimetre wide. of Environmental Research and face masks designed for cyclists helped to identify less polluted The lack of a blood supply limited Water Assessment in Barcelona, in an urban environment rather paths around London. The data further growth. Spain, and his colleagues have went into developing an online The organoids produced various tested nine commercially “Despite the pollution, tool called the Clean Air Route placental proteins and formed into available masks aimed at cyclists cycling around a city is Finder, which suggests low- finger-like projections characteristic for filtering out air pollution. The still far better for your pollution routes between of the placenta’s microstructure. The best screened out nearly half of health than driving” locations based on air quality team also did tests to confirm that the the most harmful tiny particles readings for the day. Other apps cells were fetal in origin – as happens that cyclists breathe in. than the lab. The team fitted the exist for other parts of the world. in pregnancy – not maternal (Nature, Air pollution has been linked masks to dummies and exposed Despite the pollution, cycling DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0753-3). to respiratory and cardiovascular them to inner-city traffic in around a city is still far better for After several days, the organoids disease, diabetes and cancer. It Barcelona. To simulate the your health than driving – were making a range of hormones, may also harm fetuses and impair increased respiratory rate of a whatever the route. You are including one detected by cognitive function in children and cyclist, the dummies sucked in probably exposed to less air pregnancy tests, human chorionic adults. In 2014, the World Health air at three different speeds. pollution on a bike than in a car gonadotrophin. A test kit placed in Organization estimated that air The best mask reduced the because car passengers sit directly their dish showed a “pregnant” result. pollution was a factor in 7 million intake of PM2.5 by 48 per cent. behind other cars’ exhausts, says Moffett says further work will help premature deaths worldwide It had a filter with three different Fuller. Several studies have also us understand why some pregnancies each year. layers that covered its entire found that the benefits of lead to stillbirths, small babies and One of the nastiest things inside surface. The mask was also physical activity more than pre-eclampsia – a dangerous rise in swirling around in city air is a better fit to the dummy’s face compensate for the negative blood pressure in a pregnant woman. particulate matter – small than the others. The worst mask effects of pollution, he says. Clare Wilson ■ particles spat out in exhaust only had filters over two air Douglas Heaven ■

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 9 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Martian probe set to hunt ‘marsquakes’

Mika McKinnon within the molten Martian core. InSight mission control, California Each is geared to explore the planet’s structure. Some will THE newest robotic resident help determine the thickness and of Mars has begun its two-year composition of the crust, mantle mission to investigate the deep and core, and others will tell us unknown. Unlike every other how much heat the planet has spacecraft that has visited Mars, now, allowing scientists to

NASA’s InSight probe won’t untangle its history of eruptions. NASA/JPL-CALTECH/LOCKHEED MARTIN explore the surface. Instead, it is By studying the inside of set to reveal the secrets within the Mars, we will have a better seismometer was mounted on the InSight spreads its solar panels Red Planet and make the first ever understanding of how rocky spacecraft’s deck, which caused before a long voyage measurement of a “marsquake”. planets form, and the differences unforeseen problems. “Mars has so many missions and similarities in how Earth “Unfortunately, the deck of the Laboratory in California, the that have been able to explore the and Mars came to exist. spacecraft is cushioned by springs room was full of delighted relief, InSight may even be able to that are dampening the landing, a celebratory feeling with a hint “InSight carries instruments measure the pitter-patter of and it’s rocked by the wind as of shock that it had all happened that will unmask even the meteorites as they strike the it blows past,” says Barrett. so quickly. With each new report tiniest slosh within the surface of Mars, by picking up “The seismometer was very good of incoming data and its beeps, molten Martian core” seismic waves from impacting at measuring the wind rather than cheers and clapping spread again. space rocks. any actual seismicity of Mars!” It was the perfect landing to start exterior by orbiting or by roving This isn’t the first seismometer One of the scientists on the InSight’s adventure on Mars. around on the surface,” says to go to Mars. Both the Viking InSight mission saw it as his Barrett says this is just the Elizabeth Barrett, science system missions in the 1970s carried duty to ensure its seismometer beginning. In the next few engineer with the mission. seismometers, although only could be placed correctly on the months, the lander will begin “InSight is going to be that first one of them was functional ground, she says. to deploy its instruments and mission that will look further after landing. But the Viking The successful landing this start gathering data in earnest. into the interior.” week was cause for major She is excited for big mission The spacecraft touched down The view of Elysium Planitia on celebration. At mission control milestones, like hammering the on 26 November in a region called Mars shortly after touchdown in NASA’s Jet Propulsion heat flow probe into the ground Elysium Planitia, following a six- or recording the first marsquake month journey from Earth and on the seismometer. 6.5 minutes of terror – the descent InSight also broke new involved burning heat shields scientific ground with the use of a and a supersonic parachute. pair of cubesats – lunchbox-sized This landing site was chosen probes collectively known as Mars in the hope it would be a big, flat Cube One – to accompany the plain of sand. The team wanted spacecraft and relay signals back to land somewhere with as few to Earth. This means that, for the rocks as possible, because InSight first time, we received real-time will use its robotic arm to gently reports of a Mars landing limited pluck instruments from the only by the speed of light. spacecraft and nestle them The small probes lack fuel or onto the surface. engines, so were unable to enter InSight is equipped with an orbit and have already hurtled array of geophysics tools: a past Mars, but their successful seismometer to detect movements deployment means future space as small as the diameter of an missions could be similarly atom, a heat flow probe that accompanied. InSight will now will burrow like a mole into the rely on existing Mars satellites, depths, a radio experiment that like NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter, ■ will unmask even the tiniest slosh NASA/JPL-CALTECH to send data back to Earth.

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Parkinson’s linked to brain’s autopilot

Clare Wilson in Parkinson’s are those that give automatic control. According to PEOPLE with Parkinson’s disease Redgrave, this could explain why are less likely to make mistakes people with the condition start that happen when we are “on walking in a shuffling way – autopilot”. The surprising finding because they are having to think helps support a new idea about about every step. His colleague the root causes of the condition, Tom Stafford, also at Sheffield, and might lead to a test for early came up with a way to test this. signs of illness. Redgrave’s premise means that Parkinson’s is a progressive people with Parkinson’s are less disease with core symptoms able to function in autopilot, such as slowness, movement so should be less prone to errors difficulties and tremors. We know that arise from this brain mode. that it involves the death of brain We call these kinds of errors cells, especially those that make “action slips”. An example is when dopamine, which is involved in we drive a certain route to work

sending nerve signals. every weekday and then wrongly PHOTO STOCK PUNNA/ALAMY NUTTAPONG In 2010, Peter Redgrave at the take that route on a Saturday trip University of Sheffield, UK, and to the gym. Keyboard slips are shining a light on At the moment, people tend his colleagues went a step further, Mistakes like those can’t easily the causes of Parkinson’s disease to be diagnosed only once they and came up with the idea that be measured, but action slips also have physical symptoms, but the many of its core symptoms are happen when we type. People about half of whom had sooner treatment starts the better. caused by the loss of automatic often automatically type “thing” Parkinson’s, to type sentences, “There are quite a lot of drugs in movements. Whenever we first instead of “think” because “ing” which the software analysed. development,” says Dexter. “We carry out a movement, it requires is a common group of letters in Those with the condition made need to be ready to use them by conscious effort. After many English, for instance. So the team more clumsy mistakes but fewer being able to spot people who repetitions, we do it unthinkingly. designed a typing test that can action slips than other volunteers have early Parkinson’s.” Many everyday actions, from distinguish between these kinds (PsyArXiv, doi.org/cxch). However, the study involved walking to grasping objects, are of keyboard slips and those David Dexter of Parkinson’s UK people who had already been at least partly automatic. caused by clumsiness. At its core says this not only sheds light on diagnosed with the condition, Redgrave’s idea is bolstered by is software that knows the most the condition’s causes, but might so further work is needed to see if more recent work showing that common letter combinations. be the basis of a new test for those the typing test can identify people some of the first brain cells to die The researchers got 61 people, in the earliest stages of the illness. before this point, says Dexter. ■

expert body advising the government costs of hybrid systems should be report states. It compares such a push UK homes must on how to meet its climate targets. similar to those of a gas boiler, upfront to that requiring use of more efficient switch to green “We are talking about a large-scale costs are higher. Joffe says his system condensing gas boilers in the past. roll-out,” says David Joffe of the will cost around £7000, with grants It is clear that the world urgently heating system committee, who is currently installing available to cover £4000 of that. needs to switch to clean, green ways such a set-up in his own home. “Depending on the development of of heating buildings. Three things TEN million homes in the UK must Installing these hybrid systems in hydrogen-ready appliances and the need to be done to achieve this, says consider overhauling their heating a house should cut its natural gas use cost premium over natural gas boilers, Richard Lowes at the University of systems by 2035 to help tackle by 70 per cent or more. In the longer the government should consider Exeter in the UK, who studies energy global warming. term, the gas supply system could be mandating hydrogen-ready heating policy. “Reduce demand with energy They will need to install hybrid switched to carry hydrogen to fuel appliances by the mid-2020s,” the efficiency delivery, electrify heat with heating systems, consisting of an boilers and cut emissions further still. heat pumps and grow heat networks electrical heat pump that works And by 2050, electrical heat pumps “Fitting a hybrid heating in dense urban areas.” alongside their gas boiler. That is might entirely replace gas. system should cut natural Sweden has reduced emissions the finding of a report from the UK’s But greening heating systems gas use in a home by at from heating buildings by 90 per cent Committee on Climate Change, the won’t be cheap. While the running least 70 per cent” this way. Michael Le Page ■

12 | NewScientist | 1 December 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.

AVAILABLE NOW newscientist.com/howtobehuman

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Ocean meadow loss is adding to climate change

HUMAN activity has devastated a quarter of the seagrass beds along the coast of Kenya, resulting in the destruction of key habitats and contributing to climate change. These aquatic plants grow along the shoreline in shallow ocean. They provide a home for marine animals such as turtles and fish, but also absorb carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Mark Huxham at Edinburgh Napier University, UK, and his colleagues

XINHUA/EYEVINE have used satellite images of Kenya to look in detail at seagrass coverage The switch to agricultural life may in East Africa, a region that has First farmers kept have been smoother than assumed previously been poorly studied. After comparing the current team discovered that some of the images of four sites with those wild fare on menu last hunter-gatherer communities from 15 and 30 years ago, the team in the Fertile Crescent baked concluded that Kenya’s seagrass bread, a foodstuff once assumed meadows are shrinking by Colin Barras ancient diets, the team found to have been invented by farmers. 1.6 per cent every year – equivalent that hunter-gatherers who lived Together, these findings to losing an area the size of 756 IT IS a familiar tale: when humans in the area before farming may suggest the switch from hunter- football fields annually. The decline started farming, their lifestyles have eaten a narrower diet than gatherer to farmer wasn’t as shows no sign of slowing (Biology changed radically and forever. we assumed. drastic as we thought. Letters, 10.1098/rsbl.2018.0227). People stopped foraging, and had At sites occupied by these This might alter our current Huxham says human activities are a narrower, nutritionally poorer pre-farmers, only 13 plant types – explanations for why everyone the main drivers of the loss, especially diet. But new evidence suggests including winter wild oats, in the area ultimately became fishing nets, boats and anchors we may need to rethink this story. sea clubrush and plants from the farmers, says Jones. It was thought ripping through the meadows. Farming arose in many places, cabbage family – were present in that a changing environment What is more, carbon that would but the “Fertile Crescent”, an area high enough amounts to suggest made wild foods less abundant, have been locked up by the seagrass that today includes parts of Egypt, that they were definitely collected forcing hunter-gatherers to begin at those four sites will end up in the Iraq and other countries, was one for food. What’s more, five of growing crops developed by the atmosphere instead. The researchers of the first. Many archaeologists first farmers. But it now looks like estimated that this amounts to over assume that there was a big shift “ Abundant wild food farmers continued to forage wild 2 million tonnes of carbon, equivalent in what people there ate when may have enabled plants, suggesting these were to 7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, they became farmers 12,000 years hunter-gatherers to still readily available. in the region over the past 30 years. ago. For thousands of years, they experiment with farming” Instead, wild resources may Globally, seagrass meadows have had gathered and eaten a wide have been so plentiful that most been vanishing at a rate of more than range of plants, whereas the early these 13 – and dozens of other wild hunter-gatherers across the 7 per cent a year since 1990, which is farmers mostly grew and ate flax, plants – still appear to have been region could afford to stop comparable to the loss of coral reefs barley, chickpeas and einkorn. eaten by farmers 8000 years ago, wandering, settle down and and tropical rainforests. However, This assumption hadn’t been long after the farming revolution experiment with farming while the impact could be felt particularly rigorously tested, say Michael (Vegetation History and still enjoying ample access to their hard in Kenya, because seagrass has Wallace and Glynis Jones at the Archaeobotany, doi.org/cxdp). pre-agricultural larder. Once the strong links to the health of fisheries. University of Sheffield, UK. This study shows that process began, says Jones, there “Although rates of loss in Kenya So they examined archaeological agricultural communities might have been a region-wide are less than those in some other evidence from 75 sites across continued to eat wild plants, coevolution of plants and people: countries, given the high reliance the Fertile Crescent, all between says Amaia Arranz Otaegui at several of the plants became of coastal people there on fisheries, about 7000 and 14,000 years old. the University of Copenhagen, crops, and all of the people we think this is a serious situation,” Sifting through this for clues to Denmark. Earlier this year, her became farmers. ■ says Huxham. Yvaine Ye ■

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 15 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

commonly include problems with being more productive at work. vision and muscle control. Khanna’s team recently tested Hit glandular fever In 2013, the researchers tested the same approach in 10 people this idea in a man with MS. They with progressive MS, a form of the virus to treat MS extracted a subset of his immune disease in which symptoms are cells called T-cells, and by constant and get steadily worse. exposing them to Epstein-Barr Unlike with relapsing MS, which Alice Klein leading to the hallmark damage virus antigens, trained them to has symptom-free periods, there seen in MS. attack the virus. They then are few treatments available for TRAINING the immune system to Khanna and his colleagues reinjected the cells into his body. the progressive type. fight the Epstein-Barr virus, which wondered if they could help Afterwards, the man reported Seven of the people reported causes glandular fever, leads to people with MS by encouraging feeling less tired, having improvements, including improvements in multiple their immune systems to control fewer painful leg spasms and increased energy and the ability sclerosis (MS) symptoms, a small the Epstein-Barr virus. The hope to do everyday activities, as well as clinical trial has concluded. was that doing so would improve Epstein-Barr viruses are found better concentration and mental The Epstein-Barr virus has their symptoms, which in almost everyone with MS clarity. In four people, levels of been suspected as a possible cause an MS-associated protein called of MS because people who have immunoglobulin G also went had glandular fever – also known down. None of the people in the as infectious mononucleosis or study reported serious side effects mono – are more likely to develop (JCI Insight, doi.org/cxcj). the neurodegenerative condition. The findings strengthen the Multiple studies have now idea that the Epstein-Barr virus confirmed that almost every plays a role in MS, says Hamish person with MS carries the virus Campbell at MS Research and that non-carriers almost Australia. However, it remains never develop the condition. a mystery why only a small After most glandular fever percentage of virus carriers go on episodes, the virus lies dormant to develop the condition, he says. in immune cells called B-cells There may be genetic reasons why without causing any further some people’s immune systems problems, says Rajiv Khanna at are better at managing the virus QIMR Berghofer Medical Research than others, he says. Institute in Australia. But The clinical results are exciting evidence suggests that problems so far, says Khanna, but the with some people’s immune treatment still needs to be systems allow the virus-infected compared against a placebo in B-cells to invade their brain and larger groups of people. His team spine, he says. The cells may then is currently planning a bigger trial go rogue, attacking the protective in Australia and the US that is due

coating around the nerves, LIBRARY PHOTO MURTI/SCIENCE GOPAL DR to start in the first half of 2019. ■

caused a tsunami in the Pacific Ocean. To work out why it had such staying kilometres offshore. A tsunami here Shallow seabed This reached a maximum height of power, Diego Melgar at the University becomes trapped and “just knocks can act as a 3 metres when it hit land, which of Oregon and Angel Ruiz-Angulo of about for a long time”, says Melgar. is modest by tsunami standards. the National Autonomous University It reflects off the shore and bounces tsunami trap However, it was unusually long-lived, of Mexico modelled it on a computer. out to sea. Then when it hits the large lashing the coast for three days after The key factor seems to be that body of deep water at the edge of TSUNAMIS can keep pummelling the the initial wave. the tsunami originated not far the continental shelf, it reflects back same patch of coast for days at a time Long-lasting tsunamis have been offshore and within the Tehuantepec towards the coast (Geophysical if conditions are right. The finding seen before. Waves from the 2011 continental shelf. This region of the Research Letters, doi.org/gfj2q9). means the initial big wave may not Tohoku tsunami that devastated parts ocean has a very flat and shallow sea If the region experienced a big be the only source of danger and of Japan were detectable across the floor that stretches more than 100 tsunami, it might remain dangerous authorities might need to rethink Pacific for five days. But that tsunami long after it first struck the coast, their tsunami evacuation responses. was caused by a bigger earthquake “ If the region experienced says Melgar. Civil authorities should On 8 September 2017, a deadly and the first wave was 30 metres tall. a big tsunami, it might be bear this in mind when planning magnitude-8.2 earthquake struck off The persistence of the smaller dangerous long after it tsunami evacuation responses, the south coast of Mexico. The quake Mexican tsunami is surprising. first struck the coast” he says. Michael Marshall ■

16 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 SECOND EDITION OF THE HUMAN STORY

BECOMING HUMAN Discover how a mysterious ape evolved into a species able to walk on the moon

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Contact us on 617-283-3213 or [email protected] IN BRIEF

Shine a light on skin to test for diabetes ANTHONY LEE/GETTYANTHONY THE way your skin reflects light can reveal your risk of getting diabetes and heart disease. Glucose in blood can stick to proteins in skin, forming “glycated” proteins known as AGEs, which stiffen tissues. This happens with age, but can also indicate a risk of diabetes and heart disease. AGE levels can be measured in skin, because of the way they reflect fluorescent light. Bruce Wolffenbuttel at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and his colleagues tried AGE testing with 70,000 people who were free of diabetes and heart disease. Four years later, those with high AGE readings at the start were more likely to have developed diabetes or heart disease (Diabetologia, doi.org/cxb4). The test could be used for widespread screening, but trials Hens get ‘Fitbits’ to help University of California, Riverside, one of the team that would have to show it does more developed the wearable tech. good than harm, for example them stay healthy The mite mainly affects egg-laying hens, which are misdiagnosing healthy people. kept alive much longer than those bred for meat. At the CHICKENS are getting backpacks to keep them in good moment, farmers have to check chickens manually and shape. The tiny wearable electronic packs analyse the individually for signs of mites. The technology could Fathers can pass on birds’ behaviour, which could reveal if something is up. make monitoring the birds far less labour-intensive. The devices contain accelerometers that record To train the system to analyse chicken movements, mitochondria too movement. An algorithm uses data from the sensors Murillo and her colleagues filmed hens wearing the to identify when and for how long the chickens backpacks, which they dubbed “Fitbits for chickens”. THE energy-making structures perform various activities, such as preening, which They then labelled the birds’ behaviour accordingly, in our cells are usually inherited give clues about health. so that the system could associate various activities with just from our mother. But US This could help show whether farm birds are being movement data. Their algorithm can now automatically doctors have now found more disturbed by parasites, such as the northern fowl mite, classify pecking, preening and dust-bathing with over than a dozen people in three which feeds on chicken’s blood, says Amy Murillo at the 85 per cent accuracy (arxiv.org/abs/1811.03149). families who inherited these mitochondria from both parents. They seem to be very rare Brain cells rearrange DNA in Alzheimer’s The finding may explain why exceptions, probably because Alzheimer’s drugs that specifically these families harbour mutations BRAIN cells are reshuffling their Burnham Prebys Medical target beta-amyloid have had little that disrupt the mechanism that DNA. This may explain how Discovery Institute in California success, says Chun. “They may be normally prevents a father’s Alzheimer’s disease develops and his colleagues found it seemed missing thousands of other toxic mitochondria being passed on. and inspire new treatments for it. to be able to reshuffle its DNA, products that are a bit different or In 2002, a man was found with Most drugs to combat this type enabling it to take thousands of maybe very different,” he says. mitochondria from his father and of dementia are designed to clear forms (Nature, doi.org/gfkbbh). His team’s research suggests mother. But with no other cases the build-up of clumps of beta- There were about 10 times more that the reshuffling is linked to since, some doubted the finding. amyloid protein from the brain. variants of APP in brain cells of the activity of enzymes called A team at Cincinnati Children’s But drug trials have disappointed. people with Alzheimer’s than in reverse transcriptases. Existing Hospital Medical Center now says While studying the gene those without it. These forms can HIV drugs that block these it has identified 17 people with that makes beta-amyloid – called produce various toxic proteins in enzymes may also work on paternal inheritance (PNAS, DOI: APP – Jerold Chun at Sanford addition to beta-amyloid. Alzheimer’s, says Chun. 10.1073/pnas.1810946115).

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 19 IN BRIEF For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

Sickly ants keep Revive a dying phone battery with the kiss of life

their distance DON’T you hate it when your that this energy can be harvested be rolled, stretched and folded phone battery runs out? In the by structures made of graphene, into structures, including tubes, WISH your coughing colleagues future, you might be able to give a two-dimensional form of pyramids and balls. would stay away from the office? it mouth-to-mouth, thanks to a carbon. As tiny holes in these To make flexible hygroelectric Unlike some humans, ants seem technique that harvests electricity structures absorb water generators, the team used a laser to understand the importance of from moisture in air. molecules, they become ionised, to etch patterns on graphene avoiding others when infected. Water droplets might seem generating an electric current. oxide set on the surface of flexible When foraging ants are exposed an unlikely source of energy, However, the structures used films, which were then shaped. to a fungal pathogen, they reduce but they can hold a form of static for this were bulky and rigid, Spraying a mist of water contact with those in the nest. electricity called hygroelectricity, making them impractical for droplets onto the surface of a Nathalie Stroeymeyt at which is thought to be the small-scale electronics. To fix this, generator, or even breathing the University of Lausanne, source of the charge that causes Huhu Cheng and colleagues at through one rolled into a tube, Switzerland, and her colleagues lightning. This charge can be Tsinghua University and the produced voltages up to 1.5 volts, have studied common black ants transferred from droplets to Beijing Institute of Technology in which is comparable to household (Lasius niger) using a tracking other tiny particles, such as dust. China have made them out of thin AA or AAA batteries (Advanced system. Workers in these colonies It has previously been shown films of graphene oxide that can Materials, doi.org/cxb6). are split into nurses, which work in the nest caring for the brood, and foragers, which collect food outside. Elephantine beast Foragers are most likely to pick up infections, but they interact less walked with dinos with other ants, and come into contact with those inside the nest DINOSAURS weren’t the only infrequently. Stroeymeyt’s team giants on Earth in the Triassic. exposed some of the foragers to Fossils of a bizarre, elephant-sized spores of Metarhizium brunneum reptile more closely related to fungus. The spores attach to an ant mammals have been found. ARIZONA OF NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIVERSITY and, after a day or two, get into the The creature was 5 metres insect and kill it. long, 3 metres tall and weighed Within a day of exposure — before 9 tonnes. It looked like a bent- becoming sick — foragers exposed legged hippo with a beak and two to the spores changed behaviour, tusks, according to fossil analysis spending more time outside the by Grzegorz Niedzwiedzki at nest and cutting contact with other Uppsala University in Sweden and workers. Foragers that weren’t his team (Science, doi.org/cxb5). exposed to the pathogen also took During the Permian period, steps to isolate themselves, and between about 300 and nurse ants moved eggs, larvae 250 million years ago, the largest and pupae deeper into the nest herbivores were mammal-like Rolling stones got moon in the groove (Science, doi.org/cxb2). reptiles called synapsids, some up to 3 metres long and weighing THE huge grooves that cover Phobos, formed when a rock about 2 tonnes. But their reign was ended the biggest moon of Mars, may have 1 kilometre across smashed into in the mass extinction known as been caused by boulders rolling Phobos about 150 million years ago. the Great Dying, after which across it after an asteroid impact. The gravity of Mars would have dinosaurs came to dominate. Other planets and moons have caused some of the boulders to A few synapsids survived into similar scratches, says Kenneth swiftly roll all the way around the the Triassic, but most were less Ramsley at Brown University in moon, creating the lines that we than half a metre long. It was Rhode Island, but Phobos is covered see on its surface. BUITEN-BEELD/MINDEN PICTURES/FLPA thought dinosaurs were the only in the marks, up to 30 kilometres What about the lack of boulders animals to evolve into giants long and 200 metres wide. on the surface now? Ramsley thinks during the Triassic. Ramsley and his colleagues debris from the impact got trapped But about 208 million years ago simulated the Phobos-Mars system in orbit around Mars and hit Phobos at least one synapsid evolved into to examine whether these grooves again, smashing up the boulders and this new-found giant. It has been could come from rolling stones. hiding the smallest of the grooves named Lisowicia bojani after the The pair says these would have under a layer of dust (Planetary village of Lisowice in Poland near been ejected from Stickney crater, and Space Science, doi.org/cxbz). where it was found.

20 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 Where did we come from? How did it all begin?

And where does belly-button fluff come from? Find the answers in our latest book. On sale now.

Introduction by Professor Stephen Hawking INSIGHT ETHICAL XMAS

Have a green Christmas

Yuletide doesn’t have to be a feast of rampant consumerism and devastating gluttony, say Alice Klein and Chelsea Whyte

IT’S the most wonderful time of usually shipped long distances. Get stuffed the year, but it could still use some To work out which is better for the improvement. Christmas often environment, Canadian consulting One of the best parts of Christmas brings a mix of joy, excitement firm Ellipsos calculated the is the food. Celebrations often and last-minute shopping panic, environmental footprints of real call for tables overflowing with but it is also a time of reflection and fake Christmas trees over glistening pies, a succulent ham for many people, an opportunity their entire life cycles from and a turkey fresh out of the oven. to stand back and dwell on what production to disposal. But the ghost at the feast is the really matters. The firm concluded that you huge environmental impact of The past year has been a would have to reuse an artificial such gluttony. Thankfully, making wake-up call about the state of tree 20 times for it to become your holiday meal a little more

the planet, with record-breaking more eco-friendly than freshly Earth-friendly isn’t too difficult. PHOTOTRAVEL/GETTY BORCHI/ATLANTIDE MASSIMO heatwaves and wildfires cut trees, mainly because of “Reducing the amount of red highlighting the perils of climate the chemicals used during meat and dairy you serve will go Giving experiences change, and China’s restrictions manufacturing and shipping a long way to improving your like ice skating as gifts on rubbish imports spurring a environmental footprint,” says and cutting down on global waste crisis. “Artificial trees must be Raychel Santo at Johns Hopkins food waste will both Many of these problems are reused 20 times to become University in Maryland. keep your Christmas driven by rampant consumerism, more eco-friendly than “A lot of times when people green – but a few fairy which is on full display at freshly cut trees” remove meats, they add a lot lights are OK Christmas time: shop shelves of dairy and that has a high heaving with plastic trinkets, emissions. And even the fanciest greenhouse gas footprint as houses bedazzled with energy- fake tree is going to be pretty well. Keep dairy as a garnish sapping lights and bins clogged sorry-looking by Christmas 2038. instead of a main component with piles of uneaten food. Cutting down natural of the dish, and shift towards If you celebrate Christmas, Christmas trees isn’t actually so root vegetables or dishes with these woes don’t mean you bad, says Peter Kanowski at the lentils or beans,” she says. should give up and become the Australian National University, Of course, a vegan meal is family Grinch. But there are ways because they are purposely the ultimate ethical Christmas of approaching festive traditions farmed and grown each year. dinner, if you think you can pull in a more environmentally They also help to mitigate it off. Santo says that as a society friendly and socially responsible climate change by sucking carbon we need to shift towards eating manner. We take a look at some dioxide out of the air, he says. less meat to lower our impact the second resort,” says Santo. of the most common ones so To make your real tree even on climate change, but says that Make room in your freezer before that you can have a guilt-free greener, Kanowski recommends if you are going to eat meat in the holiday, work out creative Christmas and bore your relatives sourcing it from the closest farm general, the times to do it are ways to eat up leftovers, and plan with your new-found virtuosity. possible to reduce transport special occasions. So, if you can’t just how many cocktail sausages emissions, or even growing stand the idea of Christmas you really need for a festive party. your own and keeping it in a dinner without the turkey – or All this stuff adds up, but it Oh, Christmas tree… pot in your garden year-round. even just less of it – consider is nothing compared with the Once the festive season making up for it by cutting out greenhouse gas emissions we There’s nothing like the smell of draws to a close, it is best not to meat from your dinners one night create as we travel to our holiday a real Christmas tree permeating chuck your tree in landfill where a week in the months following parties. “I’d be worrying less about your home, but every year brings it will release methane – a potent the holidays. serving meat and dairy at this one a pang of guilt about chopping greenhouse gas – as it rots. Another way to ease your meal versus did we fly or carpool down forests for temporary Most councils offer to collect greenhouse gas contributions with a lot of family members, or decorations. Are artificial trees your tree and turn it into mulch, from food is to prevent waste. find a way to take a train or bus,” the greener option? which is then returned to the “It’s much more important to says Santo. Again, make your Perhaps not. Fake trees are made soil to nourish new life. It is a prevent food waste than to ethical holiday efforts part of from non-renewable plastics and Christmas miracle. compost it afterwards. That’s your larger life, and think about

22 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

BE A CHRISTMAS NUMBER ONE

Are you a Christmas angel, or will you be getting a lump of carbon-belching coal in your stocking? See how your holiday plans rank on New Scientist’s list of what’s naughty and nice

NICE

Charity donations

Homemade jam

Reusable coffee cups Lentils

TETRA IMAGES/PLAINPICTURE Fairy lights “There are far worse sins than festive CCTV – Steeves likens it lying to a child about Santa Claus. to a panopticon. But when this is one puzzle This doesn’t mean that the Father piece in a culture that regularly myth of Santa Claus has to be Christmas oppresses children, we need to set aside to enjoy an ethical worry about that one piece,” says Christmas. The magic and H. Peter Steeves, an ethicist at mystery is a great thing, but the DePaul University in Chicago. ways we use this story may need

PLAINPICTURE/WESTEND61/ROBIJN PAGE The modern vision of Santa to reflect more of the joy and Synthetic Tinsel as surveillance is all around us wonder of the holiday. Christmas during Christmas. It’s right there jumpers offsetting any Christmas travel in the song: “You’d better watch by biking to work at other times out, you’d better not cry… Santa Festive knitwear of the year, if that’s feasible. Claus is coming to town”. Turning Turkey Father Christmas into a threat to Donning the most garish monitor your child’s behaviour is Christmas jumper you can find Santa’s surveillance troubling, says Steeves. It turns a has become a somewhat ironic Artificial wondrous story of make-believe holiday tradition. You can even Christmas For children, some of the magic of into an almost-all-powerful kind use the fad as an excuse to raise trees Christmas comes from believing of babysitter to get children to money for charity, for example, in Santa Claus. The flying stop whining or go to bed on time. by participating in Save reindeer, the toy factory at the “That’s horrible. St Nick deserves the Children UK’s Christmas North Pole, the wish-fulfilment. better,” he says. Jumper Day. But is it ethical to lie to kids An extension of the ever- However, when selecting your about the existence of a large, watchful threat is the Elf on tacky knitwear – complete with Flying jolly man who brings presents, the Shelf, a figurine that some googly reindeer eyes and flashing home or could the lie at the heart of parents place in their house lights – it is worth thinking about for Christmas the Father Christmas myth be that is said to be reporting to the where it came from and where it

ILLUSTRATION BY JOSIE FORDILLUSTRATION JOSIE BY psychologically damaging? North Pole like some kind of will end up, says Sandra Capponi, NAUGHTY

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 23 INSIGHT ETHICAL XMAS

co-founder of ethical fashion switch them on for 5 hours every because they can be made with make while snuggled up watching guide Good On You. Many stores night in December, you will only plastics and glitter. a Christmas movie. For your doors sell super-cheap, mass-produced chew through about 3000 watt- “Most wrapping paper is or mantle, take a cue from the old jumpers shipped from overseas hours – less than half the power coated or has foil which would classic and deck them out with factories with poor working it takes to oven-roast a turkey. be detrimental for recycling. And boughs of holly. conditions, she says. They also To be as energy-efficient as all the sparkles on cards would possible, you can buy LED be bad for recycling,” says Nina “People in the UK throw Christmas lights that operate on Goodrich, the director of the Thoughts that count away 108 million rolls a timer, or if you live in a sunny Sustainable Packaging Coalition of wrapping paper climate like Australia, use in Charlottesville, Virginia. If you want to ooze self- each year” solar-powered lights. Switching “I would suggest saving good righteousness and make your them to static rather than flashing paper to use again and using relatives feel guilty about buying tend to be made from synthetic mode also uses less power. bags that can be used multiple you yet another piece of plastic fabrics that don’t break down in Finally, once your LED lights times,” she says. Instead of using junk, why not declare yourself an landfill and can leach harmful finally conk out, several lighting plastic-coated ribbons, consider ethical gift-giver this Christmas? microfibres into waterways. manufacturers and waste reusing fabric ribbons each year Ethical presents are those that If you want to feel warm management companies now or simply adorning your boxes don’t harm the environment and fuzzy about your jumper offer to recycle them. with a fresh-cut spring of holly during their production, don’t selection, you could opt for a or hearty herbs like rosemary. require energy-intensive hand-knitted woollen version As with foiled wrapping papers, transport and don’t generate lots instead, says Capponi. Wool is What’s inside? tinsel is not recyclable. And of waste or rely on sweatshop biodegradable and you can find neither are plastic-coated labour, says Arunima Malik at the suppliers that have good animal Wrapping paper is festive and garlands. But that doesn’t mean University of Sydney in Australia. welfare practices and make makes a gift feel special, and a your tree needn’t look festive. You Examples include antiques, minimal use of pesticides, she Christmas card is a lovely way can dress its branches with fabric plants, homemade jams in says. Plus, it doesn’t count as to let someone know you are or paper decorations, or even recycled jars, hand-knitted sweatshop labour if you make thinking of them – at least until make some with your family scarves from your local markets, a family member knit it for you. they get chucked into the bin. around the holidays. And there non-material experiences like For vegans who are against A 2017 survey estimated that is always the classic string-of- cooking classes or tickets to wearing sheep’s wool, Capponi people in the UK throw away popcorn garland, which is fun to shows, or charity donations made recommends buying synthetic 108 million rolls of wrapping on the gift recipient’s behalf, says Christmas jumpers from paper each year. But these paper Think of the polar bears when you Malik. The obvious no-nos are second-hand stores, re-wearing products are often not recyclable are decorating your tree this year flimsy, throwaway plastic goods them on consecutive Christmases shipped from overseas, she says. rather than discarding them after Not only does ethical one wear, and washing them as gift-giving make you feel like little as possible to minimise a superior human being, it microfibre leaching. can also be easy on the wallet. Whip up a dozen homemade jams on the cheap, and if anyone Bright Christmas complains about your stinginess, you can tell them you’re just Twinkly fairy lights can give even trying to save the planet. the dingiest apartment a festive Another option is to buy feel, but can you really justify the presents that foster green habits, carbon emissions? says Malik. Home compost bins Fortunately, yes – most modern or reusable coffee cups or water fairy lights use LED light bulbs, bottles, for example, may which consume 90 per cent less encourage your relatives to reduce electricity than incandescents. their waste over the long term, They also last for 100,000 hours, she says. which beats the 3000-hour life Of course, if you can’t bring expectancy of incandescent bulbs. yourself to buy everyone bins A standard string of fairy lights for Christmas, you may want with 100 LED bulbs uses just to consider a New Scientist 2 watts, which is one-fiftieth the subscription to get your loved ones energy consumption rate of a thinking green all year round. standard fridge. Even if you drape Visit newscientist.com/gift for ■ your house in 1000 LED lights and ALISA NIKULINA/MILLENNIUM UK IMAGES, more information.

24 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018

COMMENT

Robots without borders

The US is mulling controls on its AI technology, but this restrictive approach may do more harm than good, says Mark Riedl

LAST week, regulators in the US corrodes the competitive announced plans to review export advantage of these companies. controls across a wide range of Export controls would make it emerging technologies. The list harder for foreign agents to obtain includes artificial intelligence and reverse engineer US AI and and machine learning, as well as machine-learning products. In technologies that would make addition, these technologies have substantial use of AI and machine military applications, such as the learning, such as robotics and design of autonomous weapons brain-computer interfaces, and and cybersecurity tools. supporting technologies. This Preventing the spread of the may result in the US becoming the mathematics underlying AI is first nation to explicitly control impossible. There are broad the spread of AI technologies. categories of well-known Law-makers are responsible for AI algorithms, including balancing economic prosperity reinforcement learning and and growth against public recurrent neural networks. safety threats. Companies such The maths is taught in as Google, Apple, Uber and universities and discussed by Salesforce have invested heavily researchers in scientific literature. in products and services that use It is extremely unlikely that AI and machine learning, granting there is a broad class of the US a competitive advantage. algorithms that we do not yet But there is a growing concern know about, kept under wraps about intellectual property theft by a company or government.

by foreign countries, which FORDJOSIE While there might not be any

people killed, the homes and acceptable level is achieved by neighbourhoods destroyed. two main ruses. First, the effect Costing the Earth Added to this is a guess of the on poor people is underplayed by cost to our children of living with valuing such impacts against the The flexible cost of carbon emissions reveals exacerbated floods and droughts, low economic “worth” of those human migration, the loss of enduring them. Second, the an economic charade, says Kevin Anderson pollinating insects, dieback of effects on future generations are forests, sea level rise and so on. “discounted”, that is, considered Yet an important property of less damaging than if those IN 2016, the administration of Few people would agree that a the social cost of carbon is that impacts occurred today. US president Barack Obama price could be put on our planet, it can never be so high as to raise Such cost-optimising models estimated that each tonne of but that is the idea behind this fundamental questions of today’s have dominated the agenda on carbon dioxide released into the “social cost of carbon”. Such dominant economic model. how we can mitigate climate atmosphere caused about $50 of hubris is the preserve of a select The massaging of costs to an change for more than two damage. In August, the Trump group in industrialised countries, decades, during which emissions administration revised that to $1, who put a dollar value on the “ What we lack is not have risen rapidly. revealing the charade that has devastation that a strengthened spurious financialisation, The 1.5 to 2°C commitments supported decades of inaction hurricane wreaks on distant but the courage to deliver enshrined in the Paris Agreement on climate change. communities, pricing the on our commitments” provide a guide on how much

26 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

secret algorithms, there are Brexit depression engineering secrets. The process ANALYSIS of creating a product or service from an algorithm requires a multitude of design choices that don’t change the algorithm itself, such as programming language, how data checks are applied and how data is moved from computer memory to processor. There are also secret data sets that don’t change the algorithm, but affect the accuracy of its outputs. These software and hardware details can be critical to the commercial success of a product or service. There is a valid argument that these engineering

details should be protected, and GETTY PICTURES VIA KRISTIAN BUUS/IN IMAGES they already are by national and international rules on intellectual as much as they “should have”, property and trade secrets. according to this premise, so the most If implemented poorly, No proof Brexit vote likely explanation is Brexit, they said. export control of AI and machine- For a start, this means that learning technologies could headlines about Brexit triggering a result in government control of was a major downer rise in antidepressant use – a “spike” AI research, which would have a according to the Huffington Post – are chilling effect on the work done, plain wrong. They can’t solely be and a detrimental impact on US Clare Wilson (Journal of Epidemiology and blamed on journalists overhyping economic competitiveness. To Community Health, doi.org/cw98). the findings, though. The title of the protect this industry, we must THE UK’s decision to leave the But in the five years before then, journal’s own press release stated that have clarity about what is to be European Union has caused a fair use of these medicines had also been the referendum is “linked to [a] rise in controlled, and why existing rules few headaches, not least for prime rising, in fact at a higher rate. So if antidepressant prescribing”. Vandoros and laws are insufficient. ■ minister Theresa May. But did the anything, the number of people says he had no control over the title. referendum make the country more seeking antidepressants the month Press release aside, the whole Mark Riedl is professor of computing depressed? The number of people after the referendum was lower than premise of deducing a cause of science at the Georgia Institute of taking antidepressants rose after the expected, given those trends. antidepressant use from prescribing Technology in Atlanta UK’s vote for Brexit in 2016, according So how did study authors Sotiris trends in two other drugs is to numerous headlines last week. Vandoros of King’s College London questionable. It seems unlikely that Supposedly, economic uncertainty and his colleagues reach the opposite the collection of factors that affect the carbon we can emit. This has been around Brexit sent people to their conclusion? They compared the use of anaemia and gout medicines informed by science. doctors to cope with the stress. This monthly antidepressant figures are the same as those influencing What we lack is not spurious appealing narrative was covered by with prescribing rates for two other antidepressant use. financialisation of deeply human newspapers in the UK and elsewhere, common medicines, a treatment for The conclusion that the referendum and ecological values, but the from India to the US; the world is gout and iron tablets for anaemia. made people depressed also seems to courage and integrity to put in fascinated by Britain’s political turmoil. contradict recent figures from the UK’s place the measures necessary Which makes it all the more disturbing “ Supposedly, uncertainty Office for National Statistics that show to deliver on our commitments. that the neat story is probably wrong. around Brexit sent a rise in national happiness in England A price on carbon may be one It stems from a study that looked people to their doctors in the months following Brexit, as the tool for bringing about rapid at prescribing data for England in July to cope with the stress” authors acknowledge in their paper. decarbonisation in our society, but 2016 – the month after the Brexit Perhaps Brexit did cause more such a figure can never reflect the vote – and for all months before back Use of these medicines had also people to visit a doctor the next month true cost of the escalating damage to 2011. But the figures are not clear- been increasing over the previous five with stress. Perhaps something else to ecosystems, or the misery cut. Antidepressant prescribing has years, but in July 2016, they both had a was responsible. Or perhaps it is all just caused by our emissions. ■ been steadily rising in most Western downturn. The authors reasoned that statistical noise with no real effect countries for many years now, and the whatever factors made the other two that needs explaining. But this study Kevin Anderson is professor of UK is no exception. Sure enough, in medicines fall should also have made is overhyped, questionable and proves energy and climate at the University July 2016, antidepressant doses were antidepressants fall by the same nothing, and the headlines mangled of Manchester, UK slightly up on July the previous year amount. But antidepressants didn’t fall the science. Now that is depressing. ■

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 27 APERTURE

28 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 Sit and wait

THESE giant baby birds aren’t potty-training, but waiting to grow strong enough to travel. They bide their time on towering nests meant to keep them safe. The Chatham albatross (Thalassarche eremita) is one of the rarest and least known albatross species, with only around 5000 breeding pairs left in the world. The birds spend most of the year living on the ocean, but as the breeding season begins each August, juveniles and adults return to Te Tara Koi Koia, a small, steep and rocky islet in the Chatham Islands, 800 kilometres east of New Zealand. The albatrosses use soil, bird faeces and plants to build these stool-like nests, some a metre high, to protect offspring from the weather and sea. Once the eggs are laid, they take more than two months to hatch. The grey, fluffy chicks that emerge then need another four to five months to become strong enough to fly with their parents. With such a small population and a single breeding site, conservationists fear these birds will go extinct soon. Rising sea levels caused by climate change are making it harder to find a nesting site that won’t get washed away. To try to address this, a new breeding site has been established for these albatrosses. By moving chicks at an early age to a different island that is at less risk of flooding, conservation workers hope they will choose to return to this safer breeding location. Yvaine Ye

Photographer Thomas Peschak National Geographic Creative

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 29 MAARTEN WOUTERS/GETTY MAARTEN

30 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 COVER STORY

The truth about supplements

Popping a pill to boost your diet feels like a no-brainer, but supplements often don’t work - and could even do you harm. Linda Geddes investigates

OR some people, they are an insurance the nutrients they contain. It turns out it’s not formulation of dietary strategies that policy against a less-than-perfect diet. what we eat, it’s how we eat it. cured ailments such as scurvy, rickets and FOthers take them because they can’t – So are supplements just a waste of money? pernicious anaemia, caused by deficiencies or won’t – eat certain foods. Whatever the And if not, which are the ones we should be in vitamin C, D and B12, respectively. The reasons, popping vitamin and mineral taking – and how? onset of the second world war prompted the supplements can feel like a virtuous It is only in the past century that we publication of recommended daily allowances shortcut to a healthy life. have begun to identify and recognise the for various food groups, vitamins and But in recent months, serious doubts have importance of the various health-sustaining minerals in many countries. Some nations been raised over whether they are actually nutrients found in our food. also began fortifying certain foods with any good for us. Take omega-3. For many The word vitamin, derived from “vital nutrients, such as adding iron to flour and people, these golden capsules are a way to get amine”, was coined by the Polish chemist vitamin D to margarine. the essential fatty acids we are told our bodies Casimir Funk in 1913, following observations However, as well as making populations need without having to consume oily fish. that compounds called amines in rice husks healthier, this reductionist approach to Yet recent studies indicate that – unlike eating could protect chickens from beriberi. This nutrients has fuelled the growth of what fish – taking omega-3 or fish oil supplements serious condition, which also affects humans, is now a multibillion-dollar supplements does nothing to reduce your risk of heart can result in nerve damage or heart failure. industry. This not only focuses on correcting disease, stroke or early death. We now know that beriberi is caused by a nutritional deficiencies, but also seeks to sell It is a similar story for other nutritional deficiency in vitamin B1, also known as vitamins and minerals to the worried well. In supplements, including multivitamins: the thiamine. Nutritional deficiencies like this the UK alone, consumers spend £420 million results from a slew of studies on their impact were common at the time, but their causes on supplements each year, with multivitamin on our health has been underwhelming. were poorly understood. It wasn’t until 1926 tablets the most popular, followed by fish oil. In some cases, taking high doses of certain that vitamin B1, for example, was identified. On a superficial level, the evidence seems to nutrients may even be harmful. The following two decades saw many suggest all this is a good idea. Epidemiological We are also waking up to the importance of more vitamins discovered and a growing studies, which look at the incidence of disease the interactions between the different foods understanding of how their deficiencies in specific groups or populations, show we eat and how these influence the uptake of caused common illnesses. This led to the that people who eat a lot of fish, or plenty of >

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 31 Omega-3, or fish oil, With a supplement like omega-3 fatty acids, supplements were you are pooling together widely disparate thought to help studies. They may involve different doses, protect our heart formulations or even types of the nutrient. health, but a recent Finding an appropriate placebo is also fraught study found they with difficulty. “If I do a study with a vitamin E have little effect supplement, I have been exposed to vitamin E in utero, throughout my entire life and for the duration of the study – so there is no such thing as a placebo control,” says Jeffrey Blumberg, who studies antioxidants at Tufts University in Boston. Nor do RCTs of supplements often record what else participants are eating, or measure background levels of the nutrient in their bodies. This is important, because supplementing someone who already has adequate levels of a vitamin or mineral is very different to giving it to someone who is deficient in it. And whereas drug companies will invest

MIRAGEC/GETTY large sums of money in high-quality studies because of the regulatory hurdles they must vegetables, whole grains and olive oil, have have little or no effect on our risk of heart jump to get their drugs approved, there is less lower rates of illnesses such as heart disease disease, stroke or early death. Other recent incentive for supplement companies to do so. and dementia. Many of us have swallowed the meta-analyses support this finding, and have Supplements are generally regulated in the notion that a handful of the super-nutrients reached similarly disappointing conclusions same way as food, rather than medicines. They found in these foods, packaged up into neat for the effects of vitamins A, B, C, D and E on must be safe for consumption and correctly once-a-day capsules, can provide the same various aspects of our health. labelled, but they don’t have to prove that benefits without the perceived hassle and Yet some researchers question the they improve health. “The studies tend to be expense of preparing healthy meals. relevance of meta-analyses to nutrition smaller. They tend to be of a shorter duration,” The problem is that these benefits aren’t research. Unlike drug or surgery trials, where says Simon Dyall at the University of necessarily found when the supplements you have a standard intervention and a fairly Roehampton in London. “But nutritional themselves are tested. Randomised controlled homogeneous group in which it is being supplements are not drugs, so you’re unlikely trials (RCTs) are used to examine whether and tested, nutrition research is much messier. to see an effect on people’s health after taking how a type of food or a supplement works. In them for 10 weeks, or even four or five months. these studies, people are randomly assigned You’re looking at a minimum of a year, and to take either a component of that diet, such KNOW YOUR VITAMINS supplement companies are less likely to fund as omega-3 fatty acids, or a placebo. And here those kinds of studies.” the results have been mixed. Some RCTs Vitamins can be separated into Meta-analyses often try to account for uncover a benefit; others find none at all. water-soluble and fat-soluble some of this variability, but the basic problem “Industry has been attracted to the silver varieties. The water-soluble kind, remains, says Dyall. Still, randomised bullets of micronutrients because they are such as vitamin C, are absorbed controlled trials are the best approach we very cheap and easy to formulate into tablets,” from what you eat until you reach have tried so far. Where does that leave us? says Andrew Prentice, head of the MRC a saturation point, after which any Most nutrition researchers agree that for international nutrition group at the London excess is urinated out. However, you people who find it harder to eat a balanced School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. can’t store them, so if you stopped diet, either because of allergies or lifestyle “If it had all worked that would have been fine, consuming these vitamins your choices such as being vegetarian or vegan, but the trouble is that it hasn’t. We need to levels would quickly fall. taking supplements may be a good insurance understand why – and what to do about it.” Fat-soluble vitamins, however, policy. There are also other groups in the Perhaps the biggest recent blow was a can be stored in the body, particularly population who should consider them large study published in June by the highly the liver. But you can have too much (see “Who should be taking what?”, right). regarded Cochrane Collaboration. The meta- of a good thing, with the risk of However, on the issue of whether healthy analysis – a statistical approach that combines certain stores reaching toxic levels. and well-nourished individuals should take the data from multiple RCTs to try to get a While most multivitamins limit the food supplements, expert opinion is divided. more precise estimate of an effect – looked at amounts of fat-soluble vitamins “I think we have to be aware that, especially at 79 studies to assess the long-term impact of they contain, if people take multiple high doses, dietary supplements may not be omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil supplements on supplements at once they might entirely free of risk,” says JoAnn Manson, an cardiovascular health. It concluded that they unknowingly be having too much. epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan

32 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 WHO SHOULD BE TAKING WHAT? School of Public Health in Boston. Too much beta-carotene, for instance, seems to increase Although there is no substitute for healthy eating, some groups the risk of lung cancer in smokers, while of people are more likely to be decient in certain nutrients. excessive vitamin E has been linked to a Here, supplements may play a useful role greater risk of haemorrhagic stroke, and possibly prostate cancer. Manson recently published guidance for clinicians on what to tell their patients about nutritional supplements. Her conclusion: “Routine micronutrient supplementation of PREGNANT WOMEN the general population is not recommended.” Pregnant women, or those Prentice agrees. “My view is very strongly considering becoming pregnant, that people shouldn’t take supplements should consider taking folic acid. unless there is a specific indication – and in This has been estimated to more a country like Britain, most people don’t than halve the risk of neural tube need supplements.” defects like spina bifida, caused when the spine and spinal cord don’t develop properly in the uterus. Hidden hunger Some foods, such as certain cereals Yet Blumberg at Tufts University argues that a and possibly soon bread flour in the country’s wealth is a poor indicator of people’s

UK, are fortified with folic acid. BRADBURY/GETTY CAIAIMAGE/PAUL nutritional status: you can have plenty to eat, but still be malnourished. “Sixty-six per cent of Americans are overweight or obese – and the reason is because they are eating energy- dense, nutrient-poor foods,” says Blumberg. INFANTS This “hidden hunger” doesn’t only affect The American Academy of Pediatrics School of Public Health in Boston, people who are overweight or obese. In a recommends that exclusively or who recently reviewed the evidence joint publication, the US departments of partially breastfed infants receive for nutritional supplements in various agriculture, and health and human services supplemental vitamin D, which is population groups. identified vitamins A, C, D and E, together with only present at very low levels in Healthy children with a well- choline, calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium breast milk. balanced diet don’t need multivitamin and fibre, as “under-consumed” by many “We don’t know how much vitamin or multimineral supplements, she people in the US. Those taking a daily D was present in the breast milk of says. However, there is some evidence multivitamin have intakes that are much our ancestors, but we do know now that omega-3 fatty acids can reduce closer to the recommended daily allowances, that it is limited, at least in general, in the symptoms of attention deficit according to work by Blumberg. high-latitude countries,” says JoAnn hyperactivity disorder in children with “We know that people in the UK, the US and Manson at the Harvard T.H. Chan behavioural and learning difficulties. around the globe are not eating the way they should,” says Blumberg, who led the study. “We should try to change that, but I think it is also a prudent and reasonable thing to tell you to take a multivitamin.” ADULTS OVER 50 Blumberg, who acts as a consultant for As we age, we begin to produce less made in the skin from sunlight, but several supplement companies, points to the stomach acid, which can impede our during the winter at high latitudes, Physicians’ Health Study II – one of the largest ability to absorb certain nutrients supplements may help – although it randomised trials of supplements conducted from our diet. is uncertain whether they reduce the so far, led by researchers at Brigham and One of these is vitamin B12, used rate of fractures. Women’s Hospital in Boston. It tracked the to make red blood cells, nerves and A recent meta-analysis concluded health of more than 14,000 men in the US DNA. People over the age of 50 are that calcium supplements do reduce aged over 50 for more than a decade and therefore often deficient in this the risk of fractures and loss of bone concluded that those taking a daily nutrient, and should either consider mass density among postmenopausal multivitamin had a modest but significant getting more of it from supplements women and men aged 65 years and 8 per cent fall in the incidence of all cancers. or fortified foods, including some over. But they also increase the risk Further studies are ongoing to see if its breakfast cereals. of kidney stones (see main story). results can be replicated, and if the findings Bones also weaken as we age, If you have a health problem, you also apply to women. “As an ageing, older man, and vitamin D and calcium are needed should speak to your doctor before I am happy to take modest benefits in any of to strengthen them. Vitamin D is taking supplements. my physiological systems,” says Blumberg. >

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 33 Eating a mixture of foods brings a host of benefits that supplements won’t provide OKSANAKIIAN/GETTY

For those with a poor diet, then, topping up But it isn’t only important to eat an overall into the blood. A similar principle applies to with supplements can bring them closer to the balanced diet – eating a mixture of foods at the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. recommended daily dose. But that doesn’t each meal also matters. “How much food Such findings are important for always translate into the health benefits you you eat, when you eat it and the combination supplement-takers, says Blumberg. “If you might expect. For one thing, foods contain of foods you eat it with can have a huge don’t take a supplement with food then much more than the nutrients you would impact,” says Julian McClements at the many of those nutrients are going to be less find in a typical supplement. This may be University of Massachusetts. than optimally absorbed,” he says. another reason why the results from trials In an as-yet-unpublished study, In some situations, these effects could even of supplements don’t match observational McClements and his colleagues gave people undermine your health. For instance, calcium studies of populations who eat large quantities fresh fruit and vegetables to eat either on supplements have been linked to an increased of foods containing those nutrients. their own or in combination with emulsions risk of kidney stones, whereas dietary calcium containing various fats or spices, or both. seems to reduce people’s risk. Far more of the nutrients entered the Clearly, we still have a lot to learn about how Not in a pill bloodstream when the fruit and vegetables different foods interact. As we discover more, “One of the main things that is deficient in were consumed with an emulsion. When it may be possible to boost the nutritional the UK diet is fibre, and you don’t get fibre emulsions were combined, the impact was value of the foods we eat, as well as design from a pill,” says Richard Hoffman at the higher still. “It suggests that we can design better supplements. University of Hertfordshire, UK. foods to increase the amount of beneficial Food, then, is the best source for the Then there are phytochemicals, nutrients absorbed by the body,” says nutrients we need. But for those who aren’t compounds found in plants, such as McClements. But it also has implications for able to get all their nutrition from what they carotenoids and flavonoids, that are thought the design of clinical trials to test nutritional eat, there are some simple things you can do to to work in the body to minimise damage to supplements. “If you don’t control for this ensure you get the most out of a supplement: cells caused by free radicals, unstable and ‘food-matrix’ effect, then people could eat the always take it with food, including a little fat, highly reactive molecules released by normal same amount of, say, carotenoids, and one and follow the instructions on the container body processes. “These would certainly be person might absorb a lot, while another to avoid overdosing on certain nutrients. And missing if you are eating a diet of processed would absorb very little,” he says. ask your doctor about any supplements you foods supplemented with a multivitamin Outside of the lab, a good example of this are taking, as some vitamins have been shown pill,” says Hoffman. effect is olive oil. It increases the amount of to interfere with drugs, such as the blood- The balance of these nutrients also seems to a carotenoid called lycopene that we absorb thinning medication warfarin, and lab tests. matter. For instance, the body uses omega-3 when we eat tomatoes, because carotenoids Most of all, don’t assume that taking oils from oily fish to make substances that must be dissolved in fat to be transported nutritional supplements can compensate for dampen inflammation. But closely related eating an otherwise unhealthy diet. There omega-6 fatty acids, found in meat, make are thousands of active ingredients in foods – molecules that promote inflammation. This “ The combination of food some of which we are only starting to become may be one reason why eating too much red you eat and when you eat it aware of. They taste a lot better, too. ■ meat is bad for us, and why populations that consume a lot of fish seem to be healthier. can have a huge impact” Linda Geddes is a freelance writer based in Bristol, UK

34 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018

Into the dark

Dark matter particles secretly crossing to the regular world could open portals to the universe’s hidden realm, nds Daniel Cossins

E KNOW it is out there. It makes up the galaxies we see should have long since This makes them capable of interacting with the bulk of matter in the universe and been torn apart. For some physicists, this is regular matter in experiments, and sparked Wsculpts its grandest features with a reason enough to believe that Einstein’s a worldwide race to find them. hidden gravitational hand. And yet, despite laws of gravity are wrong. Others insist And yet there is no sign of them. Nor are a long campaign to expose it, the mysterious that some invisible form of matter must there indications of any of the heavy partners cosmic architect known as dark matter be lurking behind the scenes, holding the of known particles that supersymmetry continues to evade detection. universe together. predicts. They might yet show up, of course, Myriad dark-matter hunters have spent but our most promising candidate is running decades trying to trap their prime suspect. out of places to hide just as its theoretical They may yet prevail. But their struggle has Pitiful WIMPs underpinnings are looking shaky – and that led a new wave of hunters to try a different For decades, the prime suspect has been the scenario has pushed scores of younger dark- approach. Rather than tailoring their search weakly interacting massive particle, or WIMP. matter hunters in an intriguing new direction. for a single candidate, they are embracing This hypothetical heavy particle is attractive What Feng and others propose is that dark the possibility that dark matter consists of a thanks to a remarkable coincidence dubbed matter might consist not of any one particle panoply of particles and forces – an entire the WIMP miracle: when physicists calculate but of an entire catalogue, all interacting with dark sector operating in parallel to our own. how many of them would have survived from each other through a dark force that nothing This hidden realm would be accessible by the early universe to the present day, they get in the regular universe can feel. The only the faintest lines of communication: exactly the amount of dark matter we need to components of this dark sector might even particles capable of carrying messages from explain our observations. The other thing in form their own atoms and molecules, opening the dark side to the world of familiar matter. their favour is that WIMP-like particles a whole new world of dark chemistry. Now the plan is to track those go-betweens emerged naturally from supersymmetry – That might seems outlandish, but there are as they pass messages through these dark a mathematically elegant theory designed to good reasons to consider the possibility. After portals, wiretapping them to learn about the smooth over wrinkles in the standard model, all, the stuff we consider ordinary comprises a universe on the other side. “This is a shift in our best picture of particles and their veritable selection box of particles, so no great the way we think about the problem,” says interactions. leap of logic is needed to assume that the same Jonathan Feng, a theorist at the University All told, WIMPs looked to be such hot holds true for dark matter. What’s more, of California, Irvine. “It has reinvigorated suspects that it was merely a matter of strange observations in recent years have the search.” smoking them out. In a boon to hinted at the existence of dark forces – an All we know about dark matter comes from experimentalists, theory predicted that indication that dark matter may be more the way stars in the outer reaches of galaxies WIMPs would, in addition to the pull of complex than the WIMP-hunters believe. move faster than expected, given the amount gravity, feel the weak nuclear force, which is The first observation is that dark matter of visible mass present. So fast, in fact, that beefier but only works across tiny distances. appears to be spread more evenly within >

36 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 TISHK BARZANJI BARZANJI TISHK

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 37 “ The portals are mathematical – you can’t drive a spacecraft through them” JNAF

galaxies than the WIMP models predict – for particles capable of feeling the dark force The hunt is on at the Jefferson National something that can be explained if dark to interact with particles of regular matter. Accelerator Facility matter particles exert a repulsive force on one The most promising type of portal would be a another, pushing themselves apart. Particle direct metamorphosis – a dark sector particle photon, their shadowy alter ego. Like a regular experiments on Earth have thrown up transforming into one in the standard model. photon, such a particle would be extremely similarly suggestive anomalies, most recently Fortunately, the invisibility of the dark sector gregarious: it would interact with anything in 2016 when researchers at a nuclear physics allows us to dramatically narrow down where that has electrical charge. The strength of lab in Hungary noticed a beryllium atom such portals can arise. The dark constituents those interactions would also be reasonably decaying in a way that could be explained must be chargeless, and as such particles large, meaning there are lots of places to look only by invoking a new force of nature. cannot transform into charged ones, any go- for it and that we stand a good chance of Claiming a dark sector exists is all well betweens must be neutral particles. seeing it if it is there. and good, but deciding how to populate it is Moreover, the “dark photon” doesn’t a different story altogether. “We could guess necessarily have to be perfectly analogous a potentially infinite range of dark sectors,” Dark messengers to the regular photon. It is just a proxy for says Brian Shuve at Harvey Mudd College in The three standard model particles that stand all manner of vector bosons – the class of California. Fortunately, we don’t have to. What the best chance of interacting with such a dark particles to which photons belong – that Feng, Shuve and others have realised is that mediator are photons, via the so-called vector could form part of the dark sector. “It is one the search can be guided by hard data rather portal; Higgs bosons, via the scalar portal; and of a long list of possibilities,” says Natalia Toro than theoretical guesswork. If the dark sector neutrinos, via the neutrino portal. “If new at Stanford University in California. is capable of exchanging messages with the particles exist, these portals are our best Toro performs experiments at the Jefferson regular universe, then those rare points of chance of creating and detecting them,” says National Accelerator Facility in Virginia that contact turn into portals that can shed light David Curtin, a theorist at the University of has been attempting to flush out dark photons on the world on the other side. Toronto. All we have to do now is watch their for a few years. They fire a high-intensity To be clear, we aren’t talking about every move. beam of electrons at fixed targets to generate something you could drive a spacecraft It could take a while, but the stake-out has photons in the hope that, very occasionally, through. “What we call portals are already begun. The most promising of the they will produce a dark photon too – mathematical doorways,” says Gordan Krnjaic three is perhaps the vector portal, in which identifiable by its telltale decay. Others, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory processes designed to produce ordinary including Shuve, have looked for evidence of (Fermilab) near Chicago. These doorways allow photons would occasionally spit out a dark dark photons by revisiting decade-old data

38 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 from the BaBar experiment at the SLAC how long they can last – roughly 0.1 seconds – To explain these mysteries, physicists accelerator in California, which smashed so the trick is to cover a sufficiently large area have invented a heavier fourth “sterile” electrons and their antimatter counterparts around the LHC to catch them, regardless of neutrino that would be even harder to spot together until 2008. the direction they travel from the point of than the other three. Such a particle has all Although both efforts have come up empty- collision. That is precisely why Curtin and his the hallmarks of a dark matter mediator, one handed so far, the search has stepped up a colleagues have proposed a new detector at capable of travelling through the neutrino gear. The more intense your beam, the more the LHC to catch them. They call it MATHUSLA, portal to transform into regular matter. photons you produce, and the greater your after Methuselah, the biblical character who The trouble is that, unlike the photon chances of making a dark one. Those are the lived to the ripe old age of 969. and the Higgs, neutrinos can only feel forces, odds that several new higher-intensity It would essentially amount to a huge not carry them. That means yet another experiments are hoping to exploit, including barn above the beam line, with detectors particle would be needed to allow particles the Heavy Photon Search at the Jefferson hanging from the ceiling to track any particles of dark matter to interact with the sterile Lab and Dark Light at the SLAC accelerator. that make it this far. With a cost of about neutrino. “That makes things more As of last month, there is also the PADME $50 million, MATHUSLA wouldn’t be cheap. complicated,” says Miguel Escudero at the experiment outside Rome. “It’s a very lively But Curtin says it could be ready by 2026, University of Valencia, Spain, and probably area,” says Toro. “But the truth is that we’re when the LHC will be producing at least explains why the neutrino portal has largely really just getting started.” 10 times more Higgs bosons than it does gone under the radar. That much was clear in March 2017, when now. “This is our best chance to see long- the entire field came together at the behest of lived particles, including the dark Higgs,” the US Department of Energy, which is eager says Curtin. Keeping watch to find out how to get the biggest bang for its MATHUSLA might also shed light on the Only in the past couple of years have people buck in pursuit of dark matter. There was no third dark portal, provided by the neutrinos. like Escudero begun to explore scenarios in shortage of proposals for experiments aimed As the smallest, lightest and least sociable which the dark sector talks to us through at rooting out dark photons. Among the most of the known particles, neutrinos may seem sterile neutrinos. The models they have ambitious pitches, however, was one touting uninteresting. In reality, though, they are come up with are promising, but depend on a new detector at the Large Hadron Collider bursting with mysteries. Not only are the the confirmed discovery of a sterile neutrino. near Geneva, Switzerland. Instead of using the three types of neutrinos somehow capable Several experiments are currently on the photon as a bridge between the two worlds, of transforming into one another at will, hunt, and hints of one coming from an Curtin and his team wanted to use a different a process that is still not completely experiment called miniBooNE at Fermilab portal, and spy on the Higgs. understood, but their masses are incredibly grabbed headlines earlier this year. But for The Higgs boson and its associated energy light for no good reason. Escudero, it is premature to even suspect field are famous for giving other fundamental it could be the emissary to the shadow particles their masses. In a dark sector world we seek. populated by massive particles, it makes sense If we ever do start reliably producing such to think of them getting their mass from a things, however, they will bring exciting dark equivalent. Curtin says the best way to “It’s possible the new leads in our long quest to identify dark properly explore the Higgs portal is to produce LHC has been matter. “If the dark photon we identify decays lots of Higgs bosons – and the only place we invisibly, for example, meaning it decays to can do that is at our most powerful atom producing dark dark matter, that would tell us that the dark smasher. Indeed, Curtin reckons the LHC Higgs bosons all matter is lighter than the dark photon,” says might have been producing dark Higgses all Feng. “Suddenly, we would know that dark along. But whereas the regular Higgs falls along” matter is lighter than something. That would apart before it can escape our detectors, the rule out 99.9 per cent of our theories.” dark Higgs’ tendency to avoid interactions It is impossible to say which, if any, of the means it might be long-lived enough to get portals will reveal the dark sector. In fact, away scot-free. to ask the question is to miss the point, says We already know such long-lived particles Flip Tanedo at the University of California, exist, so there is no reason to think new Riverside: “The reason we’re squeamish to particles from the dark sector won’t also travel say ‘here are the best candidates’ is because a great distance before they decay. The long- we no longer think that way.” lived particles we find might be the dark Higgs His generation is not driven by the same or another kind of particle from the dark sense of certainty as previous generations, sector that interacts with the dark Higgs, says gripped as they were by supersymmetry Curtin. “The only way to know is to find the fever and the rush to find WIMPs. “We’re a bit long-lived particles and study their humbler,” says Tanedo. “We focus more on properties.” the experiments we can do to find something That might seem a quixotic task. After all, in that will guide us.” ■ theory, these particles could decay anywhere. But cosmological observations place a limit on Daniel Cossins is a feature writer at New Scientist

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 39 The missing city on the plains

Following in the footsteps of an ill-fated conquistador, archaeologists may have unearthed one of America’s biggest pre-Columbian settlements. Daniel Cossins reports

N JUNE 1601, Juan de Oñate, conquistador of people they called the Rayados so large that that the remains of large and socially complex and governor of the fledgling colony of New it would have taken two days to walk across it. settlements can hide in plain sight. IMexico, marched eastwards in search of They called it Etzanoa and reckoned it was Modern attempts to find Etzanoa have Quivira, a fabled land of gold thought to lie home to some 20,000 people. relied on an enigmatic map drawn by a man near an undiscovered coast. He found no Scholars have long been sceptical about called Miguel. He is thought to have been from treasure and no ocean. But according to Etzanoa. Conquistadors were notorious for Quivira, but captured by the Escanxaques as a Spanish records, Oñate’s expedition did turn embroidering their tales to impress the boy. He was taken prisoner by Oñate’s men as up an intriguing discovery – one whose true Spanish authorities, and many believe they returned from Etzanoa in 1601, during a significance is only just coming to light. that the people of the Great Plains lived in day-long skirmish with the Escanxaques, who In testimonies given on their return, Oñate’s small, scattered settlements – not sprawling had turned on them. He was later taken to soldiers described their journey across what proto-cities. Mexico City, where he gave testimony and are now the US states of Texas, Oklahoma and Now, fresh translations of the soldiers’ sketched the landscape. Kansas. They spoke of “grasses so high that in testimonies have led one archaeologist to The first attempt to find the place depicted many places they hid a horse”, Apache horse claim he has found Etzanoa. If true, and if it in the “Miguel map” came in 1982, but it led riders hunting vast herds of “monstrous” really was as extensive as Oñate reported, it nowhere. Four years later, Susan Vehik, an bison, and friendly encounters with a tribe wouldn’t only shake up our picture of how anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma, they called the Escanxaques. Then the Spanish the people of the Great Plains lived before published a breakthrough. She realised that recounted how they were led to a settlement Europeans arrived. It would also remind us the portion of the map that dealt with the

40 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 JIM RICHARDSON / GETTY/ RICHARDSON JIM

Great Plains depicts north to the left, rather in Mexico City in 1602. They also posted a pitfalls of using historical accounts to find than the top, and from that figured out that full-colour scan of the original Miguel map, archaeological sites. “You have to tread the settlement that Oñate’s expedition including corrections to the names of some carefully,” he says. But the new translations reached was either along the Walnut river in of the settlements. convinced him to follow in the footsteps of southern Kansas or possibly at Beaver creek That was enough to pique the interest of Oñate. “I was so impressed,” says Blakeslee. near the border between Oklahoma and Donald Blakeslee, an archaeologist at Wichita “Earlier versions were a bit murky, but this Kansas. “With the information available to State University in Kansas. Blakeslee had was all so vivid. I thought, ‘wow, I can almost this point, it is not really possible to separate previously been involved with an attempt picture these places’.” [them] as possible points of destination,” to retrace the route of Francisco Vázquez Before long, Blakeslee was out in the fields Vehik wrote. de Coronado, who led the first Spanish and woods around the confluence of the Since then, fresh leads have come to light. expedition to the Great Plains in the 1540s. Arkansas and Walnut rivers, not far from In 2013, a group of historians and linguists As such, he has a keen appreciation for the Arkansas City in southern Kansas, comparing led by Jerry Craddock at the University of the map and landmarks described in the California, Berkeley, published new documents with the lie of the land as it translations of documents associated with “Modern attempts to is today. Oñate’s expedition: the official account, find Etzanoa have relied His explorations brought him to one of the written by one of the friars who travelled, two swathes of land that Vehik had identified and testimonies from five soldiers questioned on an enigmatic map” 20 years earlier. Scattered archaeological >

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 41 A Wichita group building a lodge in 1904 The Mississippian metropolis

In southern Illinois, just beyond the urban sprawl of East St Louis, the flat plains give rise to a big grassy knoll that marks the centre of North America’s first city. Cahokia, as it is known, began in the 9th century as a small collection of villages inhabited by the Mississippian people. At its peak, 200 years later, it was home to as many as 20,000 people – and it was quite a sight. A 30-metre-high terraced structure hewn from the clay-heavy soil overlooked a grand plaza, outside which people lived in thatched huts scattered across the landscape. Analysis of bones and teeth from the site suggest that people came to Cahokia from far afield. What brought

them there? Some archaeologists PHOTO STOCK ALAMY / COLLECTION HISTORIC think it was down to politics and economics: a powerful leader created a new form of governance and people evidence of habitation, such as pottery and made of poles stuck into the ground, covered flocked in to take advantage of the arrowheads, had been found here as early as with straw, and closed on top like tents” urban life it made possible. Others the 1950s – only now he was walking in the separated by a series of small “fields of corn, argue that the city’s emergence was footsteps of Oñate, matching descriptions of beans, and squash”. the result of a religious revival, his journey with landmarks on the ground. The archaeologists could also see the large perhaps inspired by a star that went “If you go out there and spend time in the storage pits described by Oñate and his men, supernova in 1054 and lit up the night landscape, things fall into place,” says not to mention pottery and stone shards sky for almost a month. Either way, Blakeslee. Sure enough, he found the spot thought to be debris from the manufacturing it didn’t last long. Cahokia seems to where he thinks the Spanish had to swing of tools to butcher game and scrape hides. have been abandoned by the middle away to the east so that their ox carts wouldn’t “It was clearly a well-populated area,” says of the 14th century. get stuck on rough ground, and the hill from Vehik. “There is no doubt about that.” What The fact that it existed at all shows which the they first saw the Rayados across the isn’t clear, she says, is whether the artefacts that Native Americans didn’t always river. He even located what he suspects is the that archaeologists and amateurs have live nomadic lives, scattered across rocky ravine from which the Escanxaques uncovered in the area over the decades are the plains in small groups. But it was attacked Oñate’s party as they sought to begin from people who were living there all at the an outlier – the only known example their journey home. “Nobody had even looked same time, or a result of small groups moving of urban living in North America for it before,” says Blakeslee. “But the accounts around over time. before the Europeans arrived. Hence are very specific, and once you scour the For Blakeslee, the clincher came in the why people are excited by the recent landscape you see that there is only one ravine shape of an iron shot. He had taken a group of discovery of what seems to be a that could have hidden thousands of people.” volunteers armed with metal detectors down similarly sized settlement in southern In spring 2015, having secured permission to the rock-lined ravine he had identified as Kansas (see main story). from the landowner, Blakeslee drafted in the spot where the battle took place. Just as archaeologists from the National Park everyone was thinking about packing up, the Service and the Kansas Historical Society. landowner’s son dug up an iron ball roughly They used remote sensing to search below the size of a marble. It was pockmarked in a ground for evidence of habitation, and they way that has convinced Blakeslee it had been struck gold. Well, not quite. What they found fired from a Spanish gun. He has also found a was evidence of clusters of houses surrounded Spanish horseshoe nail. “We have definitively by gardens, which fits nicely with the eye- found the site of the battle,” he says. witness testimonies described by Oñate and Blakeslee is similarly bullish about having his men. As Diego de Ayardia, a soldier on the found Etzanoa. “I think it’s obvious at this expedition, reported, the houses “were all point,” he says – and he isn’t alone. Scott

42 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 Ortman, an anthropologist at the University North America’s lost cities of Colorado, Boulder, who spent a couple of weeks at the sites around Arkansas City, is The Great Plains were home to the large Native American settlement of Cahokia in modern-day Illinois. Now archaeologists think they have found a second, Etzanoa in modern-day Kansas, based on records satisfied that the details in the accounts of from a Spanish expedition in 1601 Oñate’s expedition checks out with what they are finding on the ground. “Everything I’ve seen of the landscape and archaeology is WALNUT RIVER consistent with Oñate’s descriptions,” he says. “I’m convinced.” Robert Hoard, an archaeologist at the Route of Spanish army Kansas Historical Society, is more cautious. “I think it is plausible that the Walnut river valley sites are Etzanoa. It also is plausible that they are not, that they are the result of long occupation by smaller groups of people,” he ARKANSAS APPROXIMATE CITY EXTENT OF says. “I would need firm evidence of Spanish ETZANOA 1601 Cahokia contact with the indigenous people.” Ideally, Etzanoa St Louis, that would be some sort of quantitative Battle Arkansas City, Missouri location Kansas metallurgical evaluation to unambiguously determine that the iron shot and the horseshoe nail really are Spanish. ARKANSAS If Blakeslee is right, though, the RIVER implications are profound. It would make

Etzanoa the second-largest prehistoric SOURCE: WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY ALUMI MAGAZINE settlement ever found in North America after Cahokia, a city of at least 20,000 people in modern-day Illinois (see “The Mississippian metropolis”, left ), further reshaping our as the floodplains on which Cahokia rose and excavations. Current residents of Arkansas understanding of how the people of the fell. “It was famously referred to as the ‘great City have also embraced the discovery by Great Plains lived in the period before the American desert’ by Europeans,” says Hoard. setting up the Etzanoa Conservancy, a non- Spanish arrived. “That was overstatement, but to find a large profit organisation that aims to preserve and The conventional picture is that of a vast, indigenous community in this difficult study the sites, many of which lie in their own empty space populated by nomadic people environment is testimony to the people backyards. It is early days, but plans are afoot following bison herds. Etzanoa tells a different living there.” to create a visitor’s centre and, ultimately, story – that at least some tribes settled in large Just as intriguing is that, as far as we to apply for UNESCO world heritage status. know, the Etzanoans built their society That would put Etzanoa on a par with some without any monumental architecture. of the world’s most spectacular archaeological “They used remote sensing Cahokia had a collection of giant mounds sites, from the Roman city of Leptis Magna to search below ground, at its centre, sculpted from earth and used for in Libya to the ancient temples of Angkor Wat ceremonies cementing the hierarchy through in Cambodia. This might seem like a stretch and they struck gold” which society was governed. But Etzanoa to some, given how few traces the thatched, doesn’t appear to have had anything of the bee-hive-shaped houses of the Etzanoans towns, raised crops, made pottery and sort. “How did these people accomplish left behind. But for Ortman, therein lies an processed bison on a huge scale. “I’m not sure this level of social organisation without important lesson. “Etzanoa is not visually if I’d call it an urban lifestyle,” says Ortman. monuments and the inequality they compelling in the same way as some of the “But I do think the scale of the place and typically indicate?” says Ortman. world’s most famous archaeological sites, the extent to which that requires political Blakeslee and his colleagues will seek but the human story it conveys is just as organisation is greater than we might answers to such questions next year, interesting,” he says. have imagined.” when they plan to carry out more extensive There is a tendency to equate the degree Hoard agrees. If we can show that there excavations. The dream scenario, he says, to which sites are preserved with the social were “thousands of people living and working is to find some sort of communal structure. development of the people who lived there, together, growing huge amounts of food for “If the community was as large as Oñate he says, but “big and well-organised which they carefully planned planting, described, it is going to have some sort of communities don’t always leave behind an harvest, storage and redistribution”, he says, public architecture,” says Blakeslee. obvious archaeological record. To me, that then we have to consider that the people of In the meantime, the Wichita people, raises the question of how many other cases the Great Plains created “a more complex many of whom live nearby in Oklahoma, like this are out there.” ■ social organisation” than anyone knew. are watching with interest. Thought to be He also points out that they did so in a the descendants of the Etzanoans, they have Daniel Cossins is a staff features writer at region that was nowhere near as promising been involved from the beginning of the New Scientist

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 43 CULTURE

The gift of reading

From the true nature of time to the world’s oddest brains to why you should ditch social media, our Culture team picks the best books to give this Christmas

The Order of Time The Beautiful Cure: Harnessing The Mind Is Flat: The illusion of mental Beyond Weird: Why everything you Carlo Rovelli your body’s natural defences depth and the improvised mind thought you knew about quantum Allen Lane Daniel M. Davis Nick Chater physics is different Bodley Head Allen Lane Philip Ball, Bodley Head CARLO ROVELLI is IT MAY not be a THE feeling that QUANTUM the man who can classic Christmas we have an inner mechanics is less spin hard physics whodunnit, but life, that our a theory about into pure gold. The The Beautiful Cure minds have, well, particles and Order of Time is his is a page-turner. depth is pretty waves, uncertainty third book. Like the Author Daniel ubiquitous. Brace and fuzziness, first (Seven Brief Davis explains yourselves then: than one about Lessons on Physics), who did what in Nick Chater says what can be it has been an instant bestseller. the immune system story (poor this is just plain wrong. There is known and how. In this, his 23rd In this state-of-the-art survey of Ralph Steinman’s co-discovery of nothing under the hood, he writes book, human whirlwind Philip what physicists thought and now dendritic cells won him a Nobel, in The Mind Is Flat: “Our flow of Ball tracks quantum mechanics think about the nature of time, but he died before he found out). momentary conscious experience from its roots as a rather Rovelli is both unsettling (time As an immunology professor, is not the sparkling surface of a desperate piece of hand-waving does not exist) and philosophical Davis has the right cred to claim vast sea of thought – it is all there about objects too small to behave (the study of time “does nothing that we now know enough to start is.” Find out why this isn’t the end to a disturbing, fully worked-out but return us to ourselves”). curing diseases such as cancer. of your world. theory about the world.

BEST FOR: precocious kids; lovers BEST FOR: detective story nuts; BEST FOR: Buddhists; fans of BEST FOR: quantum mechanics of lit-science; time fanatics medics; hypochondriacs neuroscience or neurophysiology phobics; lovers of history of ideas

The Feather Thief: Beauty, Life On Earth (2nd edition) She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Hello World: How to be human in obsession, and the natural history David Attenborough powers, perversions, and potential the age of the machine heist of the century Harper Collins of heredity Hannah Fry Kirk Wallace Johnson, Viking Carl Zimmer, Pan Macmillan Doubleday IN JUNE 2009, FIRST published WHO knew that MACHINES rule, Edwin Rist, an in 1978, this cells from the making important American flautist natural history fetus can also decisions in studying at masterpiece was pass to the mother, transport, finance, London’s Royal written by David and even on to security and Academy of Music, Attenborough to subsequent healthcare, even smashed a window accompany his siblings? Carl deciding who goes at an outpost of iconic TV series. Zimmer did. He to jail. This is the the Natural History Museum to It has received a timely makeover, explains all in a deeply researched world we live in right now, a place steal the skins of 299 tropical with new pictures and updated book about the complex and of wonders ravaged by multiple birds, including some collected text, much of it by zoologist rarely less than controversial field data-driven disasters. Hannah Fry by Alfred Russel Wallace. This tale Matthew Cobb. Life On Earth of heredity that will arm you with tours the algorithms surrounding of greed, deception, sabotage and offers a spectacular snapshot of more than enough high-quality us and wonders what happened trade in rare feathers ranks among a once-wild planet, where new information to hold your own at to the human values supposedly the most bizarre crimes ever. species are still being discovered. dinner parties or pub quizzes. encoded in this runaway maths.

BEST FOR: birdwatchers; true- BEST FOR: all kids from 1978; all BEST FOR: gene watchers; students BEST FOR: Luddites; technophiles; crime fans; fly-fishing enthusiasts kids in 2018; Attenborough fans of ethics; most of us everyone in between

44 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture

Superhuman: Life at the extremes Eye of the Shoal: A fishwatcher’s of mental and physical ability guide to life, the ocean and Rowan Hooper everything Little, Brown Helen Scales, Bloomsbury Sigma NEW SCIENTIST ’S THE marvellously Rowan Hooper monikered Helen sought out some Scales is out to of the world’s convince us highest achievers that the most in fields as diverse interesting life is as novel writing, in the sea. Her cast running and opera list includes giants singing to get an unusually that live for centuries and thumb- accurate idea of whether genius sized tiddlers that survive weeks. is born or made. No one likes the Some shout with colour, others idea their genes control destiny. hide in plain sight. Along with Then again, no one ever did badly citing surprising examples of fish by playing to their strengths. ecology and physiology, Scales “Accept the evidence,” says asks such complex questions as Hooper, “and be empowered.” whether fish feel pain.

BEST FOR: high achievers; the rest BEST FOR: beachcombers; vegans

of us to see where we went wrong LUCAPIERRO/GETTY looking for offbeat ammunition

The Strange Order of Things: Life, Mars: From 4.5 billion years ago to the Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Unthinkable: An extraordinary feeling, and the making of cultures present – Owners’ workshop manual Social Media Accounts Right Now journey through the world’s Antonio Damasio David M. Harland Jaron Lanier strangest brains Penguin Random House Haynes Publishing Bodley Head Helen Thomson, John Murray THE toughest AFTER the news of SOCIAL media’s THINKING you intellectual a massive lake of fall from grace are a tiger, being question is how do water beneath continues to sell, perpetually lost in our brains not only Mars’s south pole er, books. The your own house, produce images of and now NASA’s great thing about remembering the sights, sounds InSight lander, the Jaron Lanier’s every day of your and smells around planet is definitely offering is that life, or literally us, but also in the spotlight this year. Sealing he has a plan to feeling someone accompany them with private the deal, Haynes Publishing has outfox the companies selling else’s pain. We knew other feelings and a sense of us “being added Mars to its Earth and moon your life back to you. Delete all people’s brains were strange, there”. Pioneering neuroscientist manuals. The guides are a must- your accounts, reconnect to but how strange is the subject of Antonio Damasio has spent years have for all who lust after deep others in person, seek out nuance Helen Thomson’s Unthinkable. on the so-called “hard problem” of details of how, for example, the and real context. This is strong She meets the real people consciousness. Find out what he Viking lander’s biology lab self-help from a Silicon Valley whose brains create these odd thinks in his brilliantly clear book. actually worked. insider and VR guru. experiences. Gripping stuff.

BEST FOR: consciousness freaks; BEST FOR: space geeks; Mars BEST FOR: everyone on the planet; BEST FOR: fans of neuroscience; anyone who likes thinking hard Society members; makers Lanier’s cult following lovers of human oddness

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 45 CULTURE

Strange stories

Rowan Hooper and Jacob Aron offer their pick of the year’s best fiction and sci-fi

Red Moon Letter 44 The Overstory Dogs of War Kim Stanley Robinson Charles Soule Richard Powers Adrian Tchaikovsky Orbit Oni Press William Heinemann Head of Zeus A STORY of PRESIDENT THIS eco-epic REX, a 2-metre-tall espionage set Stephen Blades affected me as no bioengineered both on the (think Barack novel has for many dog, is one of the moon and in Obama) finds a years. It’s not just most achingly China in 2047, Red letter from his a matter of its human characters Moon describes predecessor about ambition, (it is I have ever burgeoning lunar a secret NASA a hefty 512 pages encountered in settlements, mission. Aliens long), the book a science-fiction mostly built by the Chinese. The have been spotted in the asteroid also brings to life the greatest novel. He and his companions – protagonists are a US quantum belt and a crew of astronauts sent problems of our time – climate Dragon, a lizard with a sniper engineer, a famous Chinese poet to investigate. Over the course change and biodiversity collapse – rifle; Honey, a superintelligent and the daughter of a top Chinese of the comic series, a conspiracy and gets under the skin in a way hacker bear; and Bees, a literal politician. Robinson is famous unfolds against a backdrop of that just reading about the science swarm of bees – are designed for the scientific detail and political machinations. Letter 44 doesn’t always manage. There and programmed to be an elite plausibility of his novels, and began in 2014 as a criticism of are nine major characters and strike force. But when Rex this one is no different. He has Obama’s continuation of wars in you will get to know them all well. starts questioning his masters, created a deeply realised world Iraq and Afghanistan, while the This important novel manages his world unravels as he fears that feels more like a peep into final collected volume, out earlier to celebrate the natural world and becoming a Bad Dog. A gripping our future than a work of fiction. this year, contends with Trump’s warn about our impact on it in a dive into bioethics and artificial Rowan Hooper presidency. Jacob Aron compelling and affecting way. RH intelligence. JA

Our Homesick Songs Paper Girls Murmur The 2020 Commission Report On Emma Hooper Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang Will Eaves the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Fig Tree Image Comics CB Editions Against the United States HERE is another THIS ongoing THE narrator Jeffrey Lewis, WH Allen story set around comic series starts of Murmur is a TRUMP rears his biodiversity out a bit like mathematician head again in collapse, but this Stranger Things, and computer this worryingly time focused on with four friends pioneer in pre- realistic techno- one family. The encountering 1960s Britain. thriller, which entire economy mysterious Sentenced to imagines the of the island of goings-on in the hormone therapy aftermath of a Big Running in Newfoundland, 1980s, but quickly ramps up for the “crime” of being gay, Alec nuclear war Canada, is based on cod fishing. into something much weirder. Pryor is very obviously standing kicked off by a presidential When the fishery collapses A war between time travellers in for the computer genius and tweet. You won’t be able to stop through overexploitation, as it sees our female protagonists codebreaker Alan Turing. The reading: the book is both ripped did in the early 1990s, almost shunted between the past and book is a disorientating and from the day’s headlines and everyone has to move to the future. If you want to see a battle hallucinatory exploration of a meticulously researched (Lewis is, mainland to find work. The between giant tardigrades, the mind warped by the oestrogen after all, an arms control expert). Connor family attempts to make future of the iPhone or even medication stilboestrol, the Lewis says he hopes his detailed ends meet, but it falls to the just Doctor Who levels of timey- treatment forced on Turing. An fictional destruction of central children, Finn and Cora, to hold wimeyness, this is the comic extraordinary exploration of Manhattan will bring home the everything together. A touching for you. Volume 5 is out next dreams, consciousness, science true horror of nuclear weapons – and poetic novel. RH week. JA and the future. RH and it does. JA

46 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture DON’T MISS

Listen Living the hive life Experimental psychologist Daniel Freeman presents A History of Delusions on BBC Radio 4 (from 3 December, 1.45 pm). The first We’re unlocking the secrets of bees, finds Sandrine Ceurstemont episode features some spectacular cases of delusions of grandeur.

that explores hive life, from the they are seeking to guide them. Play The Honey Factory: Inside the roles of honeycomb cells to bee Fortunately, our understanding Coming to all major VR platforms on ingenious world of bees by Jürgen communication. They show how of bee behaviour is good enough 4 December, Arca’s Path VR (pictured Tautz and Diedrich Steen, Black Inc 300 years of hive use has helped for keepers to tweak it. In the wild, below) is a game without controllers: IF IT wasn’t for keepers hone the craft. Artificial honeybees start a new colony by just use your gaze to navigate. the honey and the chambers now allow us to extract swarming when their home gets Instinct, awareness and skill will fragrant, versatile bee products but leave the colony overcrowded. To prevent this, help you steer through its world of wax, we would relatively intact, for example. keepers realised all they had to do crumbling beauty. probably have There are misconceptions to was increase the size of a hive by steered well clear correct, say Tautz and Steen. For adding a special box. New colonies Visit of bees. Early example, the saying “busy as a can also be formed by removing Architects Mamou-Mani offer a humans are bee” is far from the truth. The the queen, thereby tricking bees glimpse of the exciting future of thought to have discovered the authors say honeybees are quite into rearing a new queen, which construction when they set their delights of wild honey some lazy and achieve great feats only can then be given its own hive. prototype robot builder loose in Sir 2 million years ago, with bee by teamwork; some experiments Over the past 40 years, though, John Soane’s Museum in London. domestication dating to 9000 show foraging bees make three or domestication has faced a new Code Builder: A Robotic years ago in what is now Turkey four flights per day. But if 25,000 challenge – varroa mites, parasites Choreography opens 5 December. and North Africa. foragers bring 50 milligrams of that feast on bee “blood”and bee Initially, the result was a lot nectar per trip, that still makes larvae. As the unwelcome guests Watch of stings and destroyed nests. an impressive 5 kilograms daily. reproduce and cripple more bees, A Polish builder, injured while But the keeping of bees evolved, Their famous waggle dance is the colony eventually collapses. working on a towering statue of with advantages for both parties. misunderstood, too. It has long The insects don’t seem to have Christ, gets a face transplant in So claim the authors of The been seen as a sophisticated form a way to tackle the mites. But Malgorzata Szumowska’s award- Honey Factory, Jürgen Tautz, a of communication used to convey beekeepers now know the power winning black comedy Mug, in UK bee researcher at the University the exact location of food to their of formic acid, produced by ants. cinemas from 7 December. of Würzburg in Germany, and hivemates. But recent work by Birds get ants to squirt it at them, Diedrich Steen, a beekeeper for Tautz and others shows that, while since it keeps parasites at bay. The Read over 20 years. They have joined the dance may tell the bees where same trick seems to work against Animal behaviourist Fred Provenza forces to write a fascinating book to head, it isn’t that precise. In mites when formic acid vapour is reckons animals are much pickier and fact, when a food source is remote, spread through a hive. healthier eaters than we give them Domesticating bees may make bees rely on experienced foragers If they weren’t domesticated, credit for. His book Nourishment: them less able to fight parasites carrying the scent of the flowers honeybees might have evolved What animals can teach us about ways to protect themselves, Tautz rediscovering our nutritional wisdom and Steen tell us. They advise is published by Chelsea Green. studying them in the forests where they originated, as we know little about their lives in the wild and how they coexist – and perhaps even cooperate – with fungi, bacteria, arthropods and animals that share their hives. “The rediscovery of wild bees may reveal a way to construct honey factories of the future that at the moment we can’t imagine,” they write. Good news for us, but better for bee survival strategies. ■

Sandrine Ceurstemont is a writer RICHARD BECKER / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK ALAMY / BECKER RICHARD based in Morocco REBELLION 2018

1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 47 The Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize was established under the will of the late S. Gross Horwitz through a bequest to Columbia University and is named to honor the donor’s mother. Louisa Gross Horwitz was the daughter of Dr. Samuel David Gross (1805-1889), a prominent surgeon of Philadelphia and author of the outstanding Systems of Surgery who Louisa Gross Horwitz served as President of the American Medical Association. Each year since its inception in 1967, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize has been awarded by &ROXPELD8QLYHUVLW\IRURXWVWDQGLQJEDVLFUHVHDUFKLQWKH¿HOGVRIELRORJ\RUELRFKHPLVWU\ Prize for Biology 7KHSXUSRVHRIWKLVDZDUGLVWRKRQRUDVFLHQWL¿FLQYHVWLJDWRURUJURXSRILQYHVWLJDWRUVZKRVH or Biochemistry FRQWULEXWLRQVWRNQRZOHGJHLQHLWKHURIWKHVH¿HOGVDUHGHHPHGZRUWK\RIVSHFLDOUHFRJQLWLRQ The Prize consists of an honorarium and a citation which are awarded at a special presentation event. Unless otherwise recommended by the Prize Committee, the Prize is awarded annually. Bert W. O’Malley, MD, Baylor College of Medicine; Ronald M. Evans, PhD, Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Pierre Chambon, MD, Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Strasbourg, Institut de NOMINATIONS Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire are the 2018 awardees. All materials must be written in the English language and submitted electronically at: 4XDOL¿FDWLRQVIRUWKHDZDUG The Prize Committee recognizes no geographical limitations. The Prize may be awarded http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/research/horwitz-prize to an individual or a group. When the Prize is awarded to a group, the honorarium will be divided among the recipients, but each member will receive a citation. Preference will be Deadline date: January 22,22, 20162019 given to work done in the recent past.

1RPLQDWLRQVVKRXOGLQFOXGH Renominations are by invitation only. 1) A summary of the research on which this nomination is based (no more than 500 words). Self-nominations are not permitted.  $VXPPDU\RIWKHVLJQL¿FDQFHRIWKLVUHVHDUFKLQWKH¿HOGVRIELRORJ\RUELRFKHPLVWU\ (no more than 500 words). 3) A brief biographical sketch of the nominee, including positions held and awards received by the nominee.  $NH\SXEOLFDWLRQOLVWRIXSWRWHQRIWKHQRPLQHH¶VPRVWVLJQL¿FDQWSXEOLFDWLRQVUHODWLQJ to the research noted under item 1. 5) A copy of the nominee’s curriculum vitae.

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ABOUT THE EMPLOYER The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Fellowships Office has conducted the NRC Research Associateship Programs in cooperation with sponsoring federal laboratories and other research organizations approved for participation since 1954. Through national competitions, the Fellowships Office recommends and makes NRC Research Associateship awards to outstanding postdoctoral and senior scientists and engineers for tenure as guest researchers at participating laboratories. A limited number of opportunities are available for support of graduate students in select fields.

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EDITOR’S PICK Gravity wave critics significant 80 per cent correlation respond in turn irrelevant for the interpretation of It is the world that has failed the rainforest the observed signal? From Andrew D. Jackson, Despite LIGO’s claims of out that if carbon dioxide emissions spokesperson for “The Danish openness, we have been unable are priced at $20 per tonne, a hectare Team”, Copenhagen, Denmark to identify members of the of rainforest should be worth up to Michael Brooks’s recent article on collaboration who can speak $15,000. Yet it may be chopped down reports of gravity wave detection authoritatively and officially on to grow soya beans or graze cattle (3 November, p 28) and a response LIGO’s behalf on matters of data with a market value of $300 per from the LIGO and Virgo teams analysis. We believe it would be hectare. The Prince of Wales has (Letters, 24 November) raise a useful for LIGO to identify some quoted Lord Stern calling this “the number of interesting questions. individual or a group of scientists greatest market failure in history”. If, as Brooks reports, the to represent it with the aim of If we had a carbon tax on emissions “residuals” for the event labelled resolving these differences of and used it to pay just 5 per cent GW150914 were published for the interpretation in an appropriately interest on the “capital” of stored sole purpose of illustration, what professional manner. carbon in the “bank” of the rainforest, are the correct data sets and why From Craig Sams, then a hectare of undisturbed has LIGO not made them public? From Bryn Glover, Kirkby Hastings, East Sussex, UK rainforest would be worth $750 a year If LIGO believes that our analysis Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK As Mary Menton and Felipe Milanez and nobody would dream of cutting of correlations between residual I remember marvelling at the say, the policies of President Bolsonaro it down for beef or beans. Instead, noise at different detectors is ability of the gravity wave of Brazil may threaten the Amazon we ask Bolsonaro to hold back from incorrect, why have they not analysts to tell us not only that a rainforest (10 November, p 24). But it exploiting an asset that is garnering stated clearly where we have made squiggle represented the collision is global policy on carbon pricing that no reward, while other nations benefit a mistake? And if our calculations of two black holes, but also their fails to protect the forest. The Human from the free contribution to climate are correct, why does LIGO respective solar masses, from half Development Report 2007/8 points stability represented by Brazil’s trees. consider this statistically a dozen wobbly peaks standing

| | “ I have the coordination of Mr Bean going forwards – don’t make me do that as well” Katya von der Goltz King is alarmed by a finding that walking backwards can boost short-term memory (24 November, p 20) out from a mushy background. the latter do such marvellously Sadly, this promising work was share the Nobel prize, simply I thought that was wonderful. conscientious and thorough work brought to an abrupt end by the because of her early death. This Now Michael Brooks informs after the spark has been struck”. second world war: she served in is an opportunity to give her the us that the experimenters first When Bell gave a presentation the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, recognition she deserves – not to calculated what they might expect about her work at an Institute of then emigrated to the US and mention acting as a role model for to see, then subtracted that from Physics conference in Leeds in gave up science to raise her family. female would-be scientists. what they actually saw, and made 1939, the local press reported Her thesis has just been made profound assumptions from that. under the stunned headline available online by the University Elon Musk’s satellite plan I remain very confused and not a “Woman scientist explains”. of Leeds at bit.ly/2A63RVs. is a great deal of garbage little disillusioned. She would have wanted to be remembered, though, for helping I nominate Rosalind From Karen Hinchley, Newark-on- Florence Bell, an unsung to lay the foundations for one of Franklin for the £50 note Trent, Nottinghamshire, UK physics and DNA pioneer the biggest scientific discoveries The plan to put 4425 satellites of the 20th century. Her PhD From Anthony Burton, in orbit for Elon Musk’s “space From Kersten Hall, research included taking the very Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK internet” seems impressive at first Leeds, UK first successful X-ray diffraction Alice Bell suggests that Dorothy (10 November, p 5). But it is not Valerie Jamieson reports real-life images of DNA – which helped to Hodgkin should be on the Bank just the financial cost that will be experiences of women in physics pave the way for later X-ray work of England’s new £50 note as a high. Does SpaceX plan to retrieve in her article on why there are on its structure by Rosalind pioneer in the field of X-ray and recycle obsolete satellites? so few women in that field Franklin and Raymond Gosling. crystallography (10 November, There is too much debris in (10 November, p 32). The physicist While most scientists at the p 24). I suggest that the most orbit as it is. Simply shunting old Florence Bell would have agreed. time thought DNA to be a boring appropriate scientist to feature satellites to a different orbit is Her PhD supervisor, William molecule of little interest, Bell would be Rosalind Franklin. surely not a long-term solution. Astbury, declared that “there is a recognised that, in conjunction She was a vital member of Besides, if Musk litters orbit with creative spark in the male that is with proteins, it might play an the team that worked out DNA’s debris, he will make his own absent from women, even though important role in biology. structure, but the only one not to Mars plans more challenging: >

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1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 53 LETTERS [email protected] @newscientist newscientist

space vehicles will find it trips in recreated voyaging shops when they are cheaper but there is no theory capable of harder to plot a safe path canoes. It seems the Polynesians than online deliveries. I joined a predicting where those responses through all the junk. reached Central America and voluntary group that offers rides will take us. As far as economics As for all manufacturing, plans brought back sweet potatoes. to the elderly. When disposing of goes, we are the butterflies whose should be made at the design These were ubiquitous when my belongings online, I offer free flapping triggers the storm. stage to retrieve and recycle Europeans entered the Pacific delivery within the Leaf’s range. an object at the end of its useful and the Maori of Aotearoa/New These are all local journeys. My Things that make life. Sports cars are included. Zealand had developed semi- Leaf is one of the oldest in the UK your brain tingle temperate cultivars. and needs to be charged every From Robert Hill, So it seems entirely possible 80 kilometres. From Luce Gilmore, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK that the Polynesians picked up Further, I am concerned at the Cambridge, UK Musk’s plans require keeping the idea for knots from the Incas. prospect of 100-per-cent-electric Michael Marshall discusses the 4425 working satellites in orbit. As we know how to read knotted vehicles, with accelerations faster “brain tingles” of autonomous If each lasts an average of five sailing instructions, can these be than a racing car, on the roads. sensory meridian response or years, the replacement rate would used to get an idea of khipu? Let’s pray that safer self-driving ASMR (3 November, p 35). It seems be 17 satellites a week. This would vehicles form the majority. these were what Vita Sackville- be several times the current total Yes, electric car owners West, lover of her fellow-writer world launch rate for all purposes. may feel entitled to drive More problems with Virginia Woolf, had in mind in her economics as science 1950 radio talk “Walking through The Polynesians could From Steve Swift, leaves”. As well as the sensation of help us read Inca writing Medstead, Hampshire, UK From John Davnall, the title, she mentioned the silky Rosemary Sharples asks whether Radcliffe, Greater Manchester, UK glide of a filing-cabinet drawer From Peter Ashby, the lack of pollution at the point Features of economics that lead with roller bearings and putting Dundee, Angus, UK of use of electric cars makes their Sam Edge to state that it is not a on a freshly ironed skirt. Daniel Cossins discusses the drivers feel entitled to make science (Letters, 10 November) She also mentioned sensations possibility that Inca khipu might more and longer trips (Letters, are found in much of the social that have the opposite effect, such encode stories as well as numbers 27 October). It is true with me. sciences. Particles, planets, as the nasty feel of treading on (29 September, p 33). Apparently My mileage in my Nissan Leaf is animals, chemical reactions and granulated sugar on a tiled floor. those master navigators and greater than it was in my previous tectonic plates do not change peerless blue water sailors the fossil-fuelled behemoth. their behaviour in response to Closer contact with Polynesians used knotted cords to I now make more trips to the new theories. Humans do change brainwaves encode sailing instructions and recycling centre, but carrying the in response to economic theories. these have been used for modern same volume. I drive to local This is not necessarily a bad thing, From Jim Skeels, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Chelsea Whyte reports people collaborating to play the game Tetris via electroencephalography (EEG) caps to record brain signals and a transcranial magnetic stimulation cap to transmit them (13 October, p 5). These seem rather cumbersome. Why not try receivers closer to the brain? People wear dentures right against the roof of the mouth. One day, miniaturisation and signal transmission advances in sensors could make it possible to use a tooth implant.

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54 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 FROM THE ARCHIVES Sixty years ago, New Scientist considered exploding bombs in the Arctic Ocean

Ri Membership is the perfect gift for anyone interested in and excited by science. Membership includes a year of free and better than half-price tickets for our events and GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES BILDERWELT/GETTY GALERIE exclusive access to the CHRISTMAS LECTURES ticket ballot. Who knows, your loved one might be in the audience next Sixty years ago, meteorologists year! were beginning to think about climate change. On 4 December Order by 13 December for guaranteed Christmas delivery. 1958, New Scientist ran a short story on “a way in which man might drastically alter the weather”. rigb.org/membership Harry Wexler was director of meteorological research at the US Weather Bureau and one of first to write about what we now call geoengineering. We reported on an article he wrote for Science (vol 128, p 1059), which considered “what would happen if ten ‘clean’ 10-megaton bombs were detonated in the Arctic Ocean in winter”. The bombs would “produce steam, which would then condense … and form a cloud of ice covering the entire region”. This would have a warming effect, Wexler thought: “Such a cloud might reduce by half the loss of heat by radiation from the Earth’s surface around the Pole.” Another possible consequence of the giant ice cloud would be “to accelerate greatly the disappearance of the Arctic pack ice, and so open up the Arctic to shipping”. Sub-Arctic regions would see an increase in snowfall, and so “glaciers would grow in size and a new Ice Age might begin”. Wexler was not advocating Arctic explosions, although New Scientist’s story was too short to make this point. And while he did think that climate control was becoming “respectable to talk about”, Wexler revealed one major motivation for his article in The New York Times. Nuclear weapons testing was at its height in 1958. There were 116 nuclear explosions that year, mainly carried out by the US and USSR, more than twice as many as the year before. Wexler worried that too many might lead to a nuclear winter and thus a new ice age. And he understood even then that geoengineering would be suggested as a way of tackling climate change. His advice is worth repeating: “The full resources of knowledge … must be brought to bear in predicting the results so as to avoid the unhappy situation of the cure being worse than the ailment.” Julia Brown ■

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1 December 2018 | NewScientist | 55 FEEDBACK For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

me?” “Only this,” the dread voices replied sounding at a residential property. as one, “half of your profits for peddling Arriving at the scene, however, that celery stuff.” the homeowner assured them that there was no fire. HOLD on to your patriarchs, After checking the smoke folks, there is a liberal wind detectors, the source of the siren was blowing through the corridors traced to the man’s pet parrot, Jazz, of the Church of England. which had learned to perfectly imitate In a recent speech, the the shrill alert. It’s one way to save on Archbishop of Canterbury said it batteries, we suppose. was nonsensical to speak about God as a man. Forget that he never IN TETBURY, Gloucestershire, shows up, gets all the credit, and Cedric Lynch has taken possession expects everyone to do exactly of a powerful new leaf blower. what he says (that’s God, of course, According to the rating plate, rather than the Archbishop). the 1.0 horsepower motor runs Instead, he said, we should on 240 volts at 2.8 amps, meaning consider the Almighty to be above it seems to deliver more power such petty notions of gender, a (746 watts) than it draws from bit like David Bowie or the moon. the electrical supply (672 watts). The problem, quoth the most Cedric says he could point it at reverend Justin Welby, lies in the a wind turbine for infinite clean intrinsic limitations of language. energy, but those leaves aren’t How are mere mortal words going to tidy themselves. THE work of Anthony William, better pipework urging me to keep myself supposed to contain the ineffable known online as the Medical Medium, hydrated throughout the day. oneness? {shrug emoji} has returned to Feedback’s attention Having locked the door, I suddenly this week. It appears that William grew cold, as though plunged into an DOUBLE entry: on Twitter, Ali Lister possesses a miracle cure for all life’s icy bath of the sort that, the ghost reports that her mother lost the ills, a feat rendered all the more shrieked, provided a good way to reduce password to her account with remarkable when one considers his unwanted swelling after physical genomics firm 23andMe. “Instead of total lack of medical qualifications. exercise. Some unseen presence getting a new one, she ordered The cure in question is celery juice, was tapping on my shoulder. another spit kit, gave another sample, best consumed early on an empty I turned around slowly. There I and had another DNA test,” writes Ali. stomach, he says. The likely source of beheld a severed hand, which offered “Today, she rings me: baffled, but this unusual remedy? A spirit guide me what I took to be five portions of fruit excited and happy, that they’ve found with whom William has regular and vegetables before starting to scrawl a twin she didn’t know about!” psychic communication on matters upon the mirror glass in its own blood. A COURT in the US has ruled that medical. The saga reminds us of an And oh, what it wrote there fills me with PREVIOUSLY Feedback discussed Facebook friends don’t count as real excerpt from our favourite Victorian terror even now: try to get 75 minutes the ill portent of the Titanic II friends. Florida’s Supreme Court ghost story: of moderate exercise every week. cruise liner – a replica of the justices convened to decide whether It was on my second night at Screaming, I fled the room, colliding original – having one Clive a judge and attorney who were Wyldehealth Hall that the visitations with a pair of floating candlesticks Mensink as its project director friends on Facebook could be trusted commenced. I was roused from deepest carrying aloft a metric tonne of (10 November). But that is just, to work on the same trial without bias. sleep by a ghastly apparition, the vitamin B12. as they say, the tip of the iceberg. The court ruled that “a ‘friend’ on spectre of a decapitated woman in “Begone, foul apparitions,” I cried, Kevin Lee reports that Mensink a social networking website is not Tudor dress who shook her gory locks at attempting to light a pipe to keep my previously headed his uncle’s necessarily a friend in the traditional me and asked: why aren’t you drinking nerves together, only to have it seized firm, Queensland Nickel, before sense of the word… attached to more celery juice? from my lips by an enormous purple it collapsed, sparking legal another person by feelings of With a wild cry, I flung myself into the tentacle. proceedings. His uncle then affection or personal regard”. Soon, adjoining bathroom, little heeding the “By all that is holy,” I declared, “what placed him at the helm of the they’ll be telling us that people didn’t

PAUL MCDEVITTreverberations in the ancestral do you shades of darkness want from project to build a second Titanic. really “like” our last selfie after all. Well, who better than someone experienced in an enterprise built “I have never used a computer in my life,” on tonnes of metal that went on You can send stories to Feedback by confessed Yoshitaka Sakurada, Japan’s to sink? email at [email protected]. Please include your home address. cybersecurity minister. Well, it’s one FIREFIGHTERS in Daventry, UK, This week’s and past Feedbacks can way to ensure you never get hacked responded to reports of a smoke alarm be seen on our website.

56 | NewScientist | 1 December 2018 THE LAST WORD Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword

Ski slope catwalk acceleration does. Imagine a Q T-shirt fabric is often Tipple tummy rectangular piece of paper and a manufactured as a tube in which During the Winter Olympics, TV book with an equal area. Drop bands of interlooped yarn run The beer belly is a particular form of commentators said it is advantageous them both and the paper will float through the fabric in spiral rows (usually male) weight gain. Is there for ski jumpers to be light because to the ground well behind the of stitches. When the tube is slit credible evidence that beer is capable they will travel further. But being book. Similarly, for comparable open to make a flat piece of of producing this localised fat light is seen as a disadvantage for cross-sectional areas, the lighter material, the rows of stitches may deposition? If not, what causes it? slopestyle snowboarders. What’s the skier’s downwards acceleration lie at a slight diagonal across the difference? And what effect do the will be less than a heavier skier’s. fabric. When this fabric is cut and QBeer is high in calories and is snowboarders’ baggy clothes have Having a large mass is great for often consumed with high-calorie on performance? Would they do overcoming drag, but having a “ We’re all familiar with the foods. Because beer is lower in better in body-hugging ski suits? small mass is great for allowing almost-horizontal position alcohol than other alcoholic lift to keep you in the air. ski jumpers assume – this drinks and because there is more Q On a downward slope, a heavier John Eric Goff helps keep them in the air” of a cultural norm to drink large skier or snowboarder will go Professor of physics, University amounts in one sitting than, say, faster than a lighter one because of Lynchburg, Virginia, US sewn into a T-shirt, then washed, wine, beer is usually the alcoholic gravitational energy and kinetic the stitch rows tend to straighten, drink from which the most calories energy are both proportional to resulting in the seam twist. are taken, leading to accumulation mass. But in the air, a ski jumper Unseemly seams Martin Bide, of fat. So drinking beer (and not also enjoys lift. For the lighter ski Department of textiles, fashion vodka, for example) is associated jumper, this may overcome the When I buy a new cotton vest or T-shirt, merchandising and design, with large bellies. It is not so much disadvantage they experienced the side seams are always straight University of Rhode Island, US beer itself, as how much of it is on the slope. and parallel. After a few washes, one drunk. More men have beer Derek Bolton piece of material seems to move Q T-shirt material is knitted from bellies as fat tends to gather there Sydney, New South Wales, relative to the other, and the seams a continuous thread, forming more in men than women. In Australia are never again parallel. Why is this? loops that interlink with rows women, fat is deposited more above and below. The loops allow evenly around the body. Q Lighter ski jumpers do tend Q If you look closely at the fabric it to widen in any direction, while Eleanor Horton to fly further than heavier ones. of a T-shirt, you will see that it is narrowing in the direction at right Canterbury, UK During the descent to the ramp, made up of thin, vertical rows of angles, giving you a nice, stretchy a heavier skier has the advantage ribbing. For the front and back to T-shirt with a stable shape. of air drag holding them back less be aligned, these rows must be It will stay like that until you This week’s question than it does a lighter skier. parallel. This is difficult to achieve. wet the material and the threads But the lighter skier has an In a factory, multiple layers of relax. It is the drying that is crucial FIRST TRANSMISSION advantage during flight. We are fabric will be laid on top of each to maintaining shape. If you lay The Europeans who arrived in all familiar with the almost- other before cutting out the out your T-shirt flat and pat and Sydney Cove in Australia from the horizontal position skiers assume T-shirt pattern, so there is a high pull it into the right shape before 1780s onwards weren’t decimated after launch. They do this because possibility that the cuts will not leaving it to dry, it will be fine. If by disease after contact with the the lift force on a skier travelling fall exactly along vertical rows. you just chuck it over a line and local Aboriginal people, whereas through the air has a large upward As a home sewer, I often choose hope for the best, it will probably the reverse was all too true. Were component. Even the air drag has T-shirt fabric for its softness and end up a different shape. It can the local population free of a slight upward element. ease of wear, but it does require still be rescued by reshaping while contagious diseases? These aerodynamic forces more care at the cutting-out stage. gently steaming with an iron. Bonita Ely don’t depend on the skier’s mass. Claire Gregson Adrian Foulds Sydney, New South Wales, But the amount of downward Portadown, Co. Armagh, UK Glasgow, UK Australia

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