THE ALLERGY EXPLOSION Why They’Re on the Rise — and How to Protect Yourself

FAMILY GUILT Distant relatives’ DNA can get you jailed LISTEN UP Sound waves are made of antigravity URINE FOR A SURPRISE Smaller dogs pee higher

WEEKLY 11 August 2018 THE ALLERGY EXPLOSION Why they’re on the rise — and how to protect yourself

No3190 £4.50 US/CAN$6.99 ANTARCTIC SHOCK 32 Now its other half is melting too PLUS THE MAN WHO LOST TIME/WHAT KILLED THE MAYANS? 9 770262 407282

CONTENTS newscientist.com/issue/3190

Management Executive chairman Bernard Gray Finance director Jenni Prince Chief technology officer Chris Corderoy Marketing director Jo Adams Human resources Shirley Spencer Non-executive director Louise Rogers

Publishing and commercial Customer services manager Gavin Power HR co-ordinator Serena Robinson Facilities manager Ricci Welch Executive assistant Sarah Gauld Receptionist Alice Catling

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Email [email protected] PEET SAM PAUL KITAGAKI JR./SACRAMENTO BEE/TNS VIA GETTY IMAGES Commercial director Chris Martin Richard Holliman, Justin Viljoen, Volume 239 No 3190 Insight Tracking killers through their families 20 Henry Vowden, Helen Williams

Recruitment advertising Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1204 On the cover Leaders Features Email [email protected] Recruitment sales manager Mike Black 20 Family guilt 3 Our networked world needs better 28 The allergy explosion What’s Key account managers Distant relatives’ DNA approaches to cybersecurity. causing it, and how to survive it Martin Cheng, Reiss Higgins, Viren Vadgama US sales manager Jeanne Shapiro can get you jailed Allergies aren’t imaginary maladies 34 Into the deep Jon Copley reveals the secrets of diving Marketing Blue Planet II Head of marketing Lucy Dunwell 7 Listen up for David Hunt, Chloe Thompson, Andrew Wilkinson Sound waves are News 36 Can’t hack it We can end

Web development made of antigravity 4 THIS WEEK Now the other cyberattacks – if we radically Maria Moreno Garrido, Tuhin Sheikh, half of Antarctica is melting too. redesign the computer chip Amardeep Sian 13 Urine for a surprise Drone jammer saves president. 40 The man who lost time Michel New Scientist Live Smaller dogs pee higher Fentanyl deaths. Lombok quake Siffre conducted an incredible Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1206 Email [email protected] experiment on his own body clock Creative director Valerie Jamieson 28 The allergy explosion 6 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY AI Sales director Jacqui McCarron Exhibition Sales Manager Charles Mostyn Why they’re on the rise – spots football injuries before they Event manager Henry Gomm and how to protect yourself happen. Boy’s brain works fine Culture Conference producer Natalie Gorohova Head of marketing Sonia Morjaria-Shann after piece removed. Hibernating 42 Unleash your virtual hero Marketing executive Sasha Marks 4 Antarctic shock animals can’t develop big brains. We try out Marvel’s new VR game UK Newsstand Now its other half is melting too Sound waves have negative mass. 43 How Ötzi came to life A delicate Tel +44 (0)20 3787 9001 Robots that find oil spills. Emoji film portrait of an ancient iceman. Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, Plus The man who lost time (40). headset helps autistic kids spot PLUS: This week’s cultural picks London E14 5HU What killed the Mayans? (14) facial expressions. Modified 44 Amazing apians Bees are Syndication mosquitoes stop dengue problem. beautiful and diverse, even if Tribune Content Agency Small dogs urinate higher. they’re just hippy wasps Tel +44 (0)20 7588 7588 Email [email protected] Lab-grown lungs work in pigs. Did drought bring down the Mayans? Subscriptions Dark matter from another galaxy Regulars newscientist.com/subscribe Tel +44 (0)330 333 9470 26 APERTURE Email [email protected] 17 IN BRIEF AI spots bad grapes. Master of disguise Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, First Stonehenge burials. Lemurs 52 LETTERS West Sussex RH16 3DH use millipedes to self-medicate A theory of mind solution 55 CROSSWORD 56 FEEDBACK Analysis Blueberry Earth 20 INSIGHT Tracking killers with 57 THE LAST WORD their family’s DNA Flower underpower 22 COMMENT We don’t need to worry about fake videos. Why lab beef is riling farmers 23 ANALYSIS 3D-printed weapons distract from the real gun issue

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 1 DIAL UP THE DENIM

Friday 21 September is Jeans for Genes Day! Join Michael Dapaah and organise a Jeans for Genes Day in your workplace to help raise vital funds to support children with life-altering genetic disorders. Encourage everyone to wear jeans and donate, and you will be doing something amazing for children with genetic disorders. Sign up for your free fundraising pack jeansforgenes.org

Editorial Editor Emily Wilson Managing editor Rowan Hooper Art editor Craig Mackie Editor at large Jeremy Webb

News Chief news editor Niall Firth Editors Penny Sarchet, Jacob Aron, Timothy Revell, Jon White Reporters (UK) Andy Coghlan, Alison George, Jessica Hamzelou, Michael Le Page, Clare Wilson, Sam Wong (US) Leah Crane, Chelsea Whyte (Aus) Alice Klein

Features Chief features editor Richard Webb Editors Catherine de Lange, Gilead Amit, Catherine Brahic, Julia Brown, Daniel Cossins, Kate Douglas, Joshua Howgego, IMAGES STRATENSCHULTE/DPA/PA JULIAN Tiffany O’Callaghan, Sean O’Neill Feature writer Graham Lawton

Culture and Community Editors Liz Else, Mike Holderness, Simon Ings, Programmed to fail Frank Swain

Subeditors Our networked world needs better approaches to cybersecurity Chief subeditor Eleanor Parsons Tom Campbell, Hannah Joshua, Chris Simms

Design IT WAS an innocent mistake, approach to computer security. more interconnected – potentially Kathryn Brazier, Joe Hetzel, with huge consequences. Robin It took two years before anyone even to your kettle and toaster Dave Johnston, Ryan Wills Seggelmann was a programmer noticed the bug, dubbed if the “internet of things” ever Picture desk working on OpenSSL, a software Heartbleed. By then, it was truly becomes reality – we create Chief picture editor Adam Goff library used to make secure affecting pretty much every more points of vulnerability Kirstin Kidd, David Stock connections over the internet. In server in the world. The only that can be exploited. Production 2014, it emerged that a tiny error solution was to patch the It is time to call time on the Mick O’Hare, Melanie Green , Alan Blagrove, Anne Marie Conlon of his – likened to misspelling software, and hope for the best. era of the digital sticking plaster “Mississippi”, and all but invisible That’s not good enough. This that is the software patch. More Contact us newscientist.com/contact in 400,000-odd lines of code – year, the World Economic Forum effective ways of protecting a General & media enquiries had allowed the world’s hackers listed cyberattacks and data fraud networked society exist at the Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1202 into the servers of Google, in its top five most likely global level of computer hardware [email protected] Amazon, Facebook, Tumblr risks, alongside extreme weather, (see page 36). They would require UK 25 Bedford Street, London, WC2E 9ES and more, exposing sensitive natural disasters and the failure an overhaul of the way we do Tel +44 (0)20 7611 1200 personal data including credit to tackle climate change. It computing, and are unlikely to AUSTRALIA PO Box 2315, Strawberry Hills, NSW 2012 card numbers and passwords. estimated that cyberattacks will be a panacea. But the price of the US It’s not Seggelmann’s cause $8 trillion of losses in the innocent mistakes allowed by our 210 Broadway #201 fault; more just one of many coming five years. As critical current software-based way of Cambridge, MA 02139 ■ Tel +1 617 283 3213 indictments of our slapdash infrastructure becomes more and security is simply too high.

that hay fever, allergic asthma Allergies aren’t nuts and food allergies have all risen since the mid-20th century in LOVERS of nuts – and freedom – peanut bans by airlines, schools the developed world. suffered a blow on 1 August, when and workplaces can feel like a Rapidly developing nations the US budget carrier Southwest gross overreaction. Allergies such as China are now beginning Airlines went peanut-free. While may seem like modern maladies, to see an increase in allergies many parents of children with but that does not make them too. The challenge is to work

© 2018 New Scientist Ltd, England allergies expressed thanks, other any less real or life-threatening. out why, and dispel some of the New Scientist is published weekly people took to the internet to This isn’t simply a case of many other myths surrounding by New Scientist Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. announce they would be bringing hypochondria or increased allergies (see page 28). In the New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 their own supply from now on. vigilance – cohort studies that meantime, whether afflicted Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England If you were born before the have closely followed different or non-afflicted, we must all by William Gibbons (Wolverhampton) 1990s, or don’t have children, generations for decades confirm learn to live with them. ■

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 3 THIS WEEK

Antarctica’s shock new loss Two huge glaciers are rapidly melting, says Michael Marshall

TWO vast glaciers in East glacier was floating than thought, Antarctica have been losing mass meaning it was more exposed to rapidly since 2002. The finding warm currents. means that our forecasts for sea ANTARCTIC “We used multiple lines of level rise this century will have to PENINSULA evidence to confirm significant be revised upward – and we don’t mass loss from Totten and know by how much. Moscow University glaciers,” So far, most of the ice lost from says Mohajerani. In particular, Antarctica has come from West EAST the team used data from the Antarctica – in particular the SOUTH POLE ANTARCTICA Antarctic Peninsula, which juts WEST “ The two glaciers hold out to sea and is exposed to ANTARCTICA enough ice to raise warmer water. The Larsen C ice sea levels around the sheet, which infamously cracked planet by 5 metres” in 2017, is in West Antarctica. Totten glacier outlet East Antarctica, which makes up Moscow two GRACE satellites, which two-thirds of the continent, was University measure local changes in the glacier thought to be more stable because strength of Earth’s gravity. the strong winds spinning around Less ice in the glaciers means

Antarctica prevent hotter air from NASA they have less mass and thus a entering. So although Antarctica, weaker gravity field. like every continent, is warming, over the place. In 2015, one team Two glaciers show global warming Between 2002 and 2016, the it is unclear how much global even claimed it was gaining ice. is already affecting East Antarctica two glaciers lost an average of warming is needed to melt East Adding to the confusion, the 18.5 gigatonnes of ice every year, Antarctica. sea ice around Antarctica had To learn about the true the team estimates. The glaciers One challenge in attempting grown in recent years. But the situation, Yara Mohajerani at the hold enough ice to raise sea levels to find out is East Antarctica’s amount of this ice is minuscule University of California, Irvine, by 5 metres. Totten alone could remoteness. Glaciologists compared with that in the and his colleagues focused on two cause a 3-metre rise. have tried to estimate what is continent’s ice sheet, and the vast East Antarctic glaciers called “It’s extremely unlikely that happening there, but for decades sea ice has shrunk again over Totten and Moscow University that amount of ice will emerge their measurements have been all the past two years. (Geophysical Research Letters, in this century,” says Sridhar DOI: 10.1029/2018GL078173). Anandakrishnan at Penn State As recently as 2015, a major University. That is because it ARCTIC DANGER survey of Antarctica’s glaciers takes time for warm seawater The Arctic is already warming at dictated by Pacific sea surface hedged its bets on whether to eat its way back through twice the rate of the rest of the temperatures. The warm phase sees Totten was shrinking. But the glacier. planet. Now a little-known natural higher temperatures in the tropical evidence has accumulated since But while we probably won’t cycle in the Pacific is entering a Pacific and along the western then. Calculations based on see a 5-metre rise by 2100, phase that could make it heat up coastline of America, with colder estimated snowfall and the we could get a lot and we don’t even faster. temperatures in the north. The glacier’s observed speed know how much. The rapid warming of the Arctic pattern reverses in the cold phase. suggested it was losing mass. What is clear is that previous is causing seasonal sea-ice cover The upshot is that, as the warm A study published in November uncertainty about the state of East around the Arctic Circle to retreat phase kicks in, it could amplify 2017 examined the Totten ice Antarctica has largely vanished, by a record amount. The warming warming in the Arctic. “It’s possible shelf, the region where the glacier says Anandakrishnan. It is losing is also disrupting weather patterns it will warm the Arctic even more,” meets the ocean and goes afloat. mass and has been for some years. and could be a key factor behind says Lea Svendsen at the University This found that it flowed into “I think the consensus the current heatwave. of Bergen in Norway, who is head of the sea faster between 2001 and was overly conservative and A bit like El Niño, the Pacific the team investigating the effect 2006, when the water was a little cautious,” he says. At this Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is cyclical, of the PDO. “But we need to wait at warmer than usual, suggesting point, “the consensus is switching from warm to cold phases least another 10 years or so to find it was vulnerable. Then in shifting quite strongly that every 20 years or so. Its phases are out.” Andy Coghlan March this year, researchers East Antarctica is indeed losing announced that more of the mass, end of story”. ■

4 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

Hothouse Earth fears

EVEN if we stop pumping carbon the present interglacial state and into dioxide into the atmosphere and the hothouse Earth state (PNAS, limit global warming to 2°C, a cascade doi.org/gdxtms). This means that of tipping points may result in even if all our greenhouse gas warming of 4 or 5°C, warns a group emissions ceased and we managed to of 16 climate scientists. With that limit warming to 2°C by 2100 – we are would come additional sea level rise currently on course for 3 or 4°C by of between 10 and 60 metres. then – warming would continue over For most of the past half billion the next few centuries. The group years, Earth has been much hotter also argues that existing models than today, with no permanent ice at underestimate warming by at least the poles: the hothouse Earth state. 0.5°C, because they don’t include all

Three million years ago, as CO2 levels feedbacks, such as less carbon being fell, it began oscillating between two stored in oceans or forest dieback. As cooler states: ice ages with great ice Earth warms, more will be triggered. sheets covering much land in the The team stresses it is pointing northern hemisphere and interglacial out a risk that needs studying, not periods like the present. something that is certain to happen. If Will Steffen at Stockholm Some climate scientists that University in Sweden and his New Scientist spoke to expressed colleagues are right, we might be on scepticism at the claim, although

DAVE WALSH /EYEVINE WALSH DAVE the brink of pushing the planet out of others thought it was reasonable.

Assassin drones Another quake neighbour Bali, where the tremors Use of powerful caused panic and damaged buildings. fail to kill president rocks Lombok A quake on 29 July killed opioid rising in UK 16 people and damaged hundreds RADIO jamming systems apparently AT LEAST 98 people have died and of houses on Lombok, some of which THE drug fentanyl was behind thwarted an attempted presidential thousands have been left homeless collapsed in Sunday evening’s quake, 75 deaths in England and Wales last assassination with improvised drone by a powerful earthquake on the measured at magnitude 6.9 by the year, up 29 per cent from 58 in 2016. bombs in Venezuela. Indonesian island of Lombok. US Geological Survey. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that On Saturday 4 August, President Thousands of people are now In the mountainous north of the can be up to 100 times more powerful Nicolás Maduro’s speech at an sheltering in makeshift tents. island, more than half the homes than morphine. And the new figures, outdoor rally was interrupted by two Authorities say rescuers haven’t were destroyed or severely damaged. released by the UK Office for National explosions. People scattered and yet reached all affected areas and Collapsed bridges, blocked and Statistics on Monday, also reveal that bodyguards rushed to protect the expect the death toll to climb. ruptured roads and the loss of power carfentanyl – which is even stronger president with bulletproof shields. It was the second deadly quake in a and communications have so far than fentanyl – was mentioned on Witnesses reported seeing two week to hit Lombok, a less-developed prevented rescuers from reaching death certificates for the first time in drones, which crashed into a nearby island compared with its more famous some affected areas. 2017, accounting for 27 deaths. apartment building and exploded. However, deaths from most other Seven people were injured, said opiates seem to be in decline. In 2017 Nestor Reverol, Venezuela’s interior there was a 4 per cent decrease in and justice minister. He announced on heroin and morphine deaths, down to television that the attack was carried 1164 people. This is the first drop in out with two DJI Matrice 600 drones, deaths from these drugs since 2012. a type widely used for filming, which Deaths from the stimulant are larger professional versions of cocaine have risen for the sixth year the firm’s popular consumer drones. in a row. In 2017, 432 people died Reverol said each drone had been from powdered or crack cocaine use, carrying a kilogram of C-4 explosive, up from 371 the previous year. and that “signal-inhibiting equipment” Overall, the level of drug poisoning caused one to fall short of its target, deaths in England and Wales has and the other had crashed. In other remained stable from the previous words, that equipment was probably year, says Ellie Osborn of the Office

a jammer of some kind. WEDA/EPA-EFE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKADI for National Statistics.

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 5 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

replaced him sooner, says Rossi also been hampered by high false (PLOS One, doi.org/gdwzrp). alarm rates, says Rossi. “Stopping Secret AI predicts Sports injury forecasters have players unnecessarily is a been used in the past, but their condition clubs want to avoid, football injuries precision has typically been less especially for key players,” he than 5 per cent, says Rossi. This is says. The new forecaster halves because they have usually relied the rate of false alarms, he says. Alice Klein about 60 per cent of injuries. on a single variable – like the The Italian team that trialled Coaches could use the number of balls a cricket bowler the AI can’t be named because FOOTBALL may be unpredictable, algorithm to work out when they bowls – to predict injury risk, he it doesn’t want to give away a but its injuries often aren’t. should rest a player or lighten says. “They miss the power of competitive advantage, says Rossi. Artificial intelligence can work their training load, says Rossi. For combining different training The same goes for three other out when players are likely to get example, if Uruguay’s manager workload measures,” he says. top-level European football teams hurt, so coaches can let them rest. had known that Edinson Cavani Existing forecasting tools have that have started using it, he says. A machine-learning algorithm was at risk of injuring his calf Rossi and his colleagues are developed by data scientists at in the recent World Cup match Predictable? Manchester United’s now investigating whether they the University of Pisa, Italy, and against Portugal, he could have Romelu Lukaku massages his calf can increase the accuracy of Barcelona football club recently predictions by including variables predicted nine out of the 14 like heart rate and degree of injuries sustained by an elite sweating. They want to see Italian football team during a whether they can predict the single season. type of injury, although some Alessio Rossi at the University will always be unpredictable, of Pisa and his colleagues fitted following a bad tackle, for instance. the football team’s 26 players with Microsoft launched its own GPS sensors during their training machine-learning injury sessions. These measured how far forecaster in June last year, which and fast they ran, how often they uses GPS and heart rate data, as accelerated and decelerated, and well as players’ self-reported the impact they had with the sleep, mood and muscle soreness. ground and other players. They It is being used by US football also recorded information about team Seattle Reign, Spanish their age, height, weight, role football team Real Sociedad, the on the field, injury history and Seattle Seahawks NFL team and minutes played in the last game. the Australian cricket team. As the season progressed, the Their results are mostly researchers’ algorithm learned confidential, but Seattle Reign to detect patterns between these says only one player got injured in variables and players getting hurt. the season after the team adopted ■ By the end, it was able to predict WEST/BPI/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK MATT the technology.

out visual processing, and most of all normal for his age (Cell Reports, as face and object recognition. This Boy’s brain his temporal lobe, which deals with doi.org/cssk). But he can’t see the hemisphere is normally more involved works despite sights and sounds. whole visual field. “He is essentially in tasks like recognising words. “We But no one knew how the boy’s blind to information on the left side of saw a kind of jostling in the left missing a chunk brain would recover after losing one the world,” says Behrmann. It seems hemisphere between regions of its visual centres – we usually have we need two hemispheres to have full engaged in word and face recognition, A BOY who had a large portion of his two, one in each brain hemisphere. 180 degree vision, she says. which resolved and settled into a brain removed is still able to function “Higher order” visual capabilities, Although the boy’s ability to “see” new organisation,” says Behrmann. normally, showing how adaptable such as recognising faces and with the right-hand side of his brain It may have been possible to our brains can be. objects, are mainly the job of the never recovered, the team found that recover these abilities because they The boy started having seizures right hemisphere. his left hemisphere reorganised itself were still developing at the time at the age of 4, as a result of a Three years after the surgery, to take over sophisticated tasks such of the lobectomy, says Behrmann. tumour, leading surgeons to Marlene Behrmann of Carnegie Mellon Older people who lose a visual centre remove a third of his brain’s right University in Pennsylvania and her “ Three years after the major may not fare as well, she says. hemisphere just before his 7th colleagues found that the boy’s surgery, the boy’s intellect The boy says he wants to be birthday. This “lobectomy” excised intellect, visual perception and and visual perception were a neurologist when he grows up. his right occipital lobe, which carries recognition of faces and objects were normal for his age” Alison George ■

6 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

Goldberger at Yale University. Don’t hibernate “But it is mass in the sense that if you want this thing gravitates.” The sound wave’s negative mass a big brain is not absolute, but rather relative to the density of the medium. MAMMALS that hibernate for part That means that this negative of the year tend to have smaller mass can’t exist in a vacuum, brains than those that can feed where sound has no medium all year round. to travel in, which is fortunate The finding may help explain why because such a thing would break big-brained primates like us mostly a number of laws of physics. “A evolved near the equator, where negative potential in a vacuum the seasons are much weaker and would be rather insane since it there is less reason to hibernate. would require truly negative Sandra Heldstab at the University masses,” says Esposito. of Zurich, Switzerland, and her Performing an experiment to colleagues compiled data on 1104 measure this predicted effect will mammalian species. They looked at be difficult, because observing the size of each species’ brain relative it requires extremely strong to its body, and whether or not that gravitational fields or an mammal hibernated. extremely dense medium for the Those mammals that did had sound wave to travel through. significantly smaller brains relative It could be done using clouds of to their bodies, even when the team molecules cooled to near absolute controlled for other factors like the zero, or an extremely strong animals’ diets (Journal of Evolutionary sound wave like that created by a

Biology, doi.org/cssv). “Hibernation GETTY particularly powerful earthquake, really is a constraint for brain size,” says Esposito. says Heldstab. It could also be seen in exotic The team argues that this is Listen up: sound waves materials like superfluid helium, because it takes a lot of energy to which has zero viscosity when grow and run a large brain, an idea have negative mass chilled to near absolute zero. called the expensive brain hypothesis. A sound wave travelling through Seasonality in food availability – a HEAVY metal music isn’t heavy wave moves, its path will bend this weird liquid in normal gravity reason for hibernation – would after all – it is actually the opposite. upwards, away from the pull of would have a negative mass prevent animals having the constant Sound waves have mass and can gravity. “Heavy metal music, equivalent to the positive mass high energy supply needed to grow interact via gravity, but that mass given a long enough time, is of a single helium atom. After such a brain. is negative. In other words, sound probably going to start floating travelling 100 metres, it would Primates, the group that includes floats upwards. in air, so it is probably not that have floated upwards by about monkeys, apes and humans, mostly Angelo Esposito at Columbia heavy,” says Riccardo Penco at 1 metre. live in places near the equator. University in New York and his the University of Pennsylvania. There are other strange The lack of seasons there, which colleagues calculated the consequences of sound having means no need to hibernate, is relationship between sound and “Heavy metal music, given negative mass. Just as two probably one of the reasons why so gravity, taking into account a long enough time, is objects with positive masses many primates have evolved large complicated particle interactions probably going to start will attract one another, two brains, says Heldstab. that had previously been ignored. floating in air” waves with negative masses will Even today, only a handful of They found that, although the do the same. So if two people primates hibernate. “There’s just effect is small, sound waves Of course, the same is true no were screaming while facing the three orders of lemurs which should have negative gravitational matter the genre of music. same direction, given enough hibernate, and these three have the mass (arxiv.org/abs/1807.08771). In some sense this is a trick of time the two screams would smallest brains in primates,” says “It’s almost like antigravity,” mathematics because a sound bend towards one another and Heldstab. However, once a species says Ira Rothstein at Carnegie wave is simply an excitation of a merge, says Esposito. has evolved a big brain, the additional Mellon University in Pennsylvania. medium and not a particle with “But they would have to be intelligence it gains may then allow “The atoms that are moved by the a true mass, but the sound really screams with really large energies it to colonise more seasonal places. wave are still being pulled down is being affected by gravity. or in an extremely dense area In line with this, there is evidence that by Earth, but the sound wave itself “If you were to weigh a sound like the centre of a neutron star,” successful invasive species tend to is being repelled.” wave using a scale, it wouldn’t be he says. “Don’t try it at home.” have larger brains. Michael Marshall ■ This means that as a sound mass in that sense,” says Walter Leah Crane ■

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 7 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

FIELD NOTES Celtic Sea Robots hunt for oil spills underwater

Joshua Howgego oil. But we have no good way of tracking oil underwater, and it is A SMALL dinghy bobs on the tough to make those calls without ocean a few miles off the Irish knowing if there is a lot of oil coast. Two men in dark clothes sloshing around out of sight. lower a pipe into the water, Gilabert’s idea was to switch on a pump and chemicals deploy a team of autonomous start to flow. To the untrained underwater vehicles (AUVs) with eye, it looks distinctly dodgy. instruments that can detect But these men are from the Irish the way oil fluoresces when you navy and the chemicals they are shine a light on it. They can then dumping are creating a simulated provide responders with an oil spill, to be sniffed out by a evolving 3D map of the plume. To simulate the spill, the “Oil can behave strangely naval officers in the dinghy are in water, spreading out releasing a dye called rhodamine, then popping up in which has chemical bonds that unexpected places” fluoresce in a similar way to oil. The five AUVs then begin to criss- team of robots lurking in the cross the patch of dye. acoustic signal. Soon things are This navy boat dumped chemicals depths below. The difficult part is getting the working and researchers with in the ocean for good reason I’m aboard LÉ Róisín, an Irish communications to work, both so laptops on plastic tables have a Naval Service patrol ship, with the AUVs know their position and 3D model of the spill. Gilabert. And to get around the a team of scientists who think so they can relay information This isn’t the first exercise of problems of retrieving the AUVs, they have a uniquely effective back. Radio signals don’t travel its kind. Gilabert and his team you could program them to head way of dealing with oil spills. well underwater but sound does. also tested things out in the to shore on their own. “We have The project leader is Javier So the team send signals via Wi-Fi Mediterranean in 2015 and 2017. learned many things and we’re Gilabert of the Technical to floating stations, which then But there they worked from a close to making this a reality,” University of Cartagena, Spain. relay them to the AUVs using an special ship that could use its Gilabert told the team below Inspiration came to him following thrusters to remain still in the decks at a wrap-up meeting. the huge Deepwater Horizon spill Careful – underwater robots water. This time things were Plenty of people are interested in 2010. The accident drove home don’t come cheap more challenging and realistic. in the project, which is known as how strangely oil can behave in The navy ship is built primarily Enhanced Underwater Robotics the water. Much of it didn’t rise for speed, not stability, and the Ready for Oil Spill (eURready4OS), straight from the ruptured well to rocking of the antennas meant including professional response the surface but remained trapped that the team twice lost contact firms funded by the oil industry in the water column, where it with the AUVs, some of which to help clean up big spills. spread out and then “popped are worth more than £100,000 Then again, you can only learn up in unexpected places”, says because of the sophisticated so much without working with Gilabert. sensors on board. On the second real oil, which is why – just Emergency responders can day, tests had to be called off; the occasionally – training exercises use satellites to spot the rough black waters of the Atlantic were like this release the real stuff location of oil on the surface, then so rough that the AUVs could into the ocean. Industry-funded track it closely using radar on easily have smashed against the cooperative Oil Spill Response planes or by eye from boats. This ship while being retrieved using Limited is planning one such helps them decide on their tactics: mechanical winches. exercise in the next few years. whether to use floating booms There are ways of fixing those It may sound like a terrible to hem in the oil and vacuum problems. You might use a static idea, but when the next big spill it up, or add chemicals called balloon as a communications happens we need to be ready ■ dispersants to help dissolve the TECHNICAL PHOTOS: BOTH UNIVERSITY CARTAEGENA OF base station, for example, says for it.

8 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018

NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Modified mozzies wipe out dengue

DENGUE virus has effectively been expunged from an Australian city following the release of anti-dengue mosquitoes in 2014. Townsville in Queensland has recorded zero cases of locally transmitted dengue in the four years since the modified mosquitoes were released, compared with 54 cases in the previous four years. The trial represents the first successful use

JEFF CHIU/AP/REX/SHUTTERSTOCKJEFF of modified mosquitoes to eliminate a mosquito-borne virus across a city Julian Brown was one of the (Gates Open Research, doi.org/csr6). Emoji glasses participants in the trial Scott O’Neill at Monash University in Australia and his colleagues The results should be infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes give autism boost interpreted with caution since with naturally occurring Wolbachia the study lacked a control group, bacteria, which hamper the says Wall, but the findings are mosquitoes from transmitting the Poppy-Jayne Morgan It detects expressions in real promising. His team is now dengue virus. They released 4 million time and then displays matching completing a larger, randomised of the infected mosquitoes across MANY children diagnosed with emojis in the corner of the glasses, trial of the therapy. Townsville over a two-year period. autism find it hard to decipher as well as describing the emotion Cullenbine and her son Alex Once released, the infected other people’s facial expressions. via the headphones. The idea is had previously used regular mosquitoes bred with wild An interactive system that uses that the children find it easier to sessions of applied behavioural mosquitoes and passed on the Google Glass may help them out. spot the emotion when it is therapy with a therapist over Wolbachia bacteria to their offspring, “I can see the difference this displayed this way. many years, but Alex’s gaze so that these became worse at will have in people’s lives in a To find out if the set-up had avoidance remained a significant transmitting dengue too, says O’Neill. significant, immediate and any effect, the team asked parents issue for him. This was associated The Wolbachia bacteria pose meaningful way,” says Donji to assess their children before, with anxiety, especially with no risk to humans, animals or the Cullenbine, whose son took part during and after wearing the other children, who can be environment. A total of 11 countries, in the study. She said enrolling glasses. They did this using the unpredictable. including Indonesia, Brazil and on it was “one of the best choices Cullenbine noticed a difference Vietnam, are now trialling Wolbachia- that I have ever made for him”. “ The glasses can provide a in Alex’s eye contact patterns infected mosquitoes. These nations Using technology such as game-like environment to within just two weeks of using have higher rates of dengue than Google Glass to support practise life skills without Superpower Glass. “Previously, Australia, meaning modified individuals with autism has being overwhelming” it would be two or three times mosquitoes may work less well. been a promising area of research. a day,” she says. “Then I noticed However, O’Neill says the preliminary The aim is to provide a game-like Social Responsiveness Scale, I wasn’t counting the times he results look positive. environment to practise life skills which is commonly used in looked at me anymore.” She says Although the exact mechanisms without being overwhelming. autism research. this increase still holds true are still being unravelled, research But the idea has never been used The children’s scores on this almost two years after the trial. suggests that Wolbachia prevents outside the lab before. questionnaire fell by an average Access to early interventions dengue transmission in two ways: Dennis Wall at Stanford of 7.38 points during the study, is crucial, says Deborah Riby at it makes the mosquito immune University and his colleagues indicating a drop in the number Durham University, UK. “I would system more resistant to the virus, have now shown that the effects of autistic traits. None of the also hope to see this intervention and it makes it harder for the virus to work outside the lab. They gave participants’ scores rose. Six of compared to other types of social extract nutrients from mosquito cells. 14 children with autism a system the 14 participants had large skill and emotion recognition Lab studies suggest that Wolbachia called Superpower Glass to try at enough declines in their scores to training packages so that we can also blocks mosquito transmission of home for 10 weeks on average. move down one step in the rating see whether the benefits are Zika and chikungunya viruses, but The system comprises a Google of their autism classification (npj specific to this intervention,” field studies are needed to confirm Glass headset and an Android app. Digital Medicine, doi.org/cstc). she says. ■ this. Alice Klein ■

10 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 Because keeping the lights on shouldn’t cost the earth

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Small dogs like to aim high

Jake Buehler high – some small males would almost topple over”, says CALL it small-dog syndrome. McGuire. “So, we wondered When small dogs urinate on whether small males try to objects on their walks, they seem exaggerate their body size by to be using this opportunity to leaving high urine marks.” deceive, by aiming high to give Her team filmed adult male the impression that their mark dogs urinating on short walks to was left by a bigger animal. calculate the angle of their legs When male dogs spray urine, when raised. This was compared they are “scent marking”: laying with the dogs’ height and mass. down an odour-based message The team also measured the to other dogs that communicates height of the urine marks on health, sex and age. In this way, the chosen targets (Journal of

scent marking is considered an Zoology, doi.org/cssz). LINDSAY MAIKO PFLUM/GETTY “honest signal”, relaying accurate Unsurprisingly, when information to potential the dogs raised their legs at Urine for a surprise when The science of animal urination competitors and mates. a greater angle, the urine left you find out how big I am is a fast-moving field. In 2014, But when Betty McGuire at higher traces on nearby surfaces. an Ig Nobel prize was awarded to Cornell University in New York The team found that small dogs risky for small dogs,” says researchers who discovered that looked at how body size angled their legs proportionately McGuire, because they can’t mammals seem to prefer to influenced scent marking, she higher when urinating than measure up physically in one-on- urinate aligned north-south to and her team noticed a curious bigger dogs did, thereby one competition with bigger dogs. Earth’s magnetic field. And in pattern. Small dogs urinated marking higher than expected This risk may be why small dogs 2015, one was awarded for the more frequently than larger dogs, for their size. The point is seem to prefer scent marking, discovery of the “universal law and they were more likely to probably to deceive competing doing so more often than large of urination” – the fact that all urinate towards vertical targets. males, says the team. dogs; it allows them to establish mammals that weigh more than “Small males seemed to make “Direct social interactions with a presence without interacting 3 kilograms take about 21 seconds an extra effort to raise their leg other dogs may be particularly with competitors directly. to empty their bladders. ■

to encourage pig lung cells to grow volumes, although one pig developed Although the team implanted Lab-made lungs into tissue, populating the protein a partial airway blockage that reduced the lungs, which became supported allow pigs to skeleton of a pig lung with all its lung expansion. Gene expression was by the pigs’ blood vessels and enabled cells removed. also similar between the artificial and the animals to breathe, they didn’t breathe easy The repopulated lungs were kept in natural lungs (Science Translational connect the organs to the pulmonary a sealed chamber for 30 days, where Medicine, doi.org/csr7). artery. This blood vessel takes IN A bioengineering breakthrough, they grew new blood vessels. Four of As the animals grew, the number non-oxygenated blood from the lungs made in a lab have been the organs were implanted into young of cells in the bioengineered lungs heart to the lungs, where it is implanted into pigs for the first time, pigs, which had each had one lung increased and they spread to fill in infused with oxygen, and then enabling them to breathe normally. removed. The animals didn’t need carried around the body. “I would argue this is the first time drugs to suppress their immune “This is the first time an Until bioengineered lungs that a tissue-engineered organ has systems, since the lungs were grown engineered organ has have been hooked up to the been implanted in a large animal and from their own cells, and their bodies functioned as a transplant pulmonary artery, we can’t know shown to survive and have any degree gave no sign of rejecting the organs. in a large animal” how well they work. of function whatsoever,” says Laura By two weeks after surgery, Nichols now wants to test the Niklason at Yale University, Nichols’s team detected blood any gaps created in the lung tissue, ability of the bioengineered lungs to who was not involved in the work. circulation in the engineered letting them fully support blood flow. oxygenate blood from the pulmonary To make the lungs, Joan Nichols lungs, and measured similar Nichols’s team chose to do the test artery. If successful, the hope is that at the University of Texas Medical tissue density as in a natural lung. with pigs because the animals grow we will one day be able to grow new Branch at Galveston and her The measurements showed that the quickly and it would reveal whether human lungs from our own cells. colleagues used growth hormones lungs also had normal pressures and the lungs could grow with the body. Chelsea Whyte ■

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 13 NEWS & TECHNOLOGY

Dark matter might be from another galaxy

IT WAS recently revealed that our galaxy, the Milky Way, ate a so-called sausage galaxy about 10 billion years ago. Now it seems this meal might make finding dark matter ever harder. We can’t see dark matter directly because it is invisible, but we can track its gravitational pull by following the paths of nearby stars. Lina Necib at the California Institute of Technology and her colleagues used the biggest-ever map of stars and their velocities to do just that. The velocity map showed a population of stars in our galaxy with weird, elongated orbits. Data on their

IR STONE/GETTYIR composition revealed they have an intermediate iron content compared Chichén Itzá is among the with the Milky Way’s two main star How the Maya best preserved Mayan sites populations. A star’s metal content is dictated humidity levels (Science, by its age, so these stars are younger met their end DOI: 10.1126/science.aas9871). than the halo stars, which come from “We get the full climate early in the Milky Way’s history, but Michael Le Page To find out how significant they picture,” says Evans, who is older than the ones in the galaxy’s were, geochemist Nicholas Evans using the technique to study disc, which were born later on. UP TO around AD 750, the Mayan at the University of Cambridge past climate in many other This indicates that these stars, civilisation was thriving. Dozens and his colleagues extracted places and says it could even and their dark matter, weren’t born in of monuments were being built ancient water trapped in the reveal what Mars used to be like. our galaxy, but were slurped up in a every year in what is now Mexico gypsum and analysed its isotopic While this work cannot galactic merger. They are what is left of and Central America. By AD 900, ratios. Water molecules that prove cause and effect, there is the sausage galaxy, so named because however, such building ceased contain, say, an oxygen-17 atom growing evidence from around of the stretched-out orbits of its stars. altogether and some cities in instead of the more common the world that many periods of “This one particular merger is the southern lowlands were oxygen-16 are heavier and less upheaval and war coincided dominating quite a bit of the structure abandoned. What happened? like to evaporate. Heavier water with climate change. The drought and quite a bit of the mass,” says One idea is that a prolonged molecules therefore accumulate could have had a domino effect, Necib. About 65 per cent of the stars drought was to blame, and now says Evans, with food shortages in the immediate area around the sun we have the best evidence yet “It doesn’t take a dramatic leading to unrest, warfare and that weren’t born here are from the that this was the case. Analysis change in climate to cause political disintegration, and the sausage galaxy. Her team is working of “fossil water” shows that there enormous problems. This eventual downfall of the Maya’s to confirm what proportion of the was half as much rain as usual is a lesson for humanity” ruling elite. dark matter came from the merger, between AD 800 and 1000, and “The changes [in rainfall] but she says it is probably also that at times during this period in the lake during times of low were considerable, but not overly about two-thirds (arxiv. org/ there was 70 per cent less rainfall. rainfall and high evaporation. dramatic,” says Eelco Rohling abs/1807.02519). During prolonged dry periods, Although isotopic analysis of the Australian National These stars are moving slower than gypsum may precipitate out of has been around for decades, University, who has also studied everything else, which could make lake waters and be deposited in Evans’s team has developed a how rainfall changed at this time. their dark matter harder to detect. sediments. The presence of such method that allows simultaneous “In other words, they are a good “Higher-velocity dark matter tends deposits in Lake Chichancanab in measurement of the levels of all illustration that no dramatic to be easier to see,” says Matthew Mexico provided the first evidence the different isotopes of oxygen changes in climate are needed to Buckley at Rutgers University in New of prolonged droughts around and hydrogen. This reveals a cause enormous problems. This Jersey. “It’s got more kinetic energy, the time of the Mayan decline. wealth of information: rainfall, truly is the lesson humanity so it makes a bigger bang when it But their severity was unknown. water temperature and even should learn for our future.” ■ enters your detector.” Leah Crane ■

14 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 Until 4 November 2018 V&A South Kensington V&A Members go free The Telegraph #thefuturestartshere “stimulating, inspiring, exciting and challenging” The Times

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Toxic millipedes are medicine to lemurs

LEMURS have been spotted chewing on toxic millipedes then

SAMO PAUSER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO STOCK PAUSER/ALAMY SAMO rubbing them over their genitals and anuses. The bizarre behaviour may be a way to combat parasites that would otherwise set up home in the lemurs’ guts (Primates, doi.org/csp5). Louise Peckre of the German Primate Center in Göttingen was observing red-fronted lemurs in a forest in central Madagascar, which are exposed to a range of gastrointestinal parasites. She watched as an adult female rubbed her tail, genitals and anal region with a toxic millipede she was holding. The lemur then gave the millipede a quick chew before rubbing it on herself again. Over the day, five other lemurs did the same. Peckre thinks they were self-medicating. Smothering their anal regions with millipede toxins AI spots vines that stop Steinhage and his colleagues at the University of Bonn might kill parasites, helping and the Julius Kühn Institute in Germany created a mobile lemurs either treat an infection the rot ruining the wine lab to automate the process. or avoid contracting one. They place grapes under a light and take a series of ARTIFICIAL intelligence and photography are together high-resolution photos to pick up patterns of scattered helping winemakers keep their grapes free of disease. light – including the diffuse reflections given off by the Star has facelift to The fungus Botrytis cinerea affects grapes around the roughness of the wax. The pictures are analysed by world. While it can shrivel and sweeten grapes, which is two AI algorithms: one singles out the grape; the other look much younger welcomed in sweet wines like Sauternes, it also causes determines the distribution of waxiness over its surface. widespread losses of harvest in many wine regions. The researchers trained the AIs on 90 images with A DISTANT star has just Pesticides are the most common defence, but an more than 6.5 million labelled pixels. They then took undergone an explosive facelift. environmentally friendly alternative is to cultivate grapes 180 images of six grape varieties to train and test Martín Guerrero at the Institute with a natural resilience – those with a waxier surface. the system. In just a few seconds, it could detect the of Astrophysics of Andalusia in However, manually checking the wax coverage of wax distribution on a grape with an accuracy of about Spain and his colleagues observed grapes is laborious and subject to human error. So Volker 95 per cent (arxiv.org/abs/1807.07343). a planetary nebula: a cloud of dust and gas around an ageing star. Strangely, the cloud’s centre was Clue to cystic fibrosis found in new cell gene involved in cystic fibrosis cooler than the edge that was acts (Nature, doi.org/gdwsj7). furthest from the star (Nature A COMPLETELY new type of They found a specialised kind This CFTR gene makes a protein Astronomy, doi.org/csrx). cell has been discovered in the of epithelial cell, which they that lets certain ions move in or The researchers realised they human airway, and it may have named a pulmonary ionocyte. out of cells. were witnessing the aftermath a central role in the common Its gene activity is similar to A variety of mutations can of a “born-again event”, in which genetic condition cystic fibrosis. ionocytes in frog skin and disable this gene or its protein, a star gets hot enough to fuse Aron Jaffe at pharmaceutical fish gills, which move ions to causing thick mucus and bacteria helium into carbon and expel it in company Novartis and his regulate the pH of the liquid to accumulate in the lungs of a high-speed wave. This makes the colleagues discovered the cell layer next to them. people with cystic fibrosis. star look cooler and dimmer, and by analysing gene activity in These new cells make up less Knowing where CFTR is active thus younger. They had glimpsed epithelial cells – which line than 2 per cent of all those in the is an important step on the the nebula just after a hot wave membranes – taken from human airway epithelium, but they seem road towards new cystic fibrosis had passed through it, which is lungs and the tracheas of mice. to be the main cell type where the therapies, says Jaffe. why the outer part was hotter.

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 17 IN BRIEF For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news

Resistant bacteria A venomous snake that is doubly deadly

take the subway THE fangs of the Amazon venom gives them a different kind which works the other way round puffing snake are a double-edged of advantage. Mackessy and his and is lethal to mammals but not EACH line of the Hong Kong subway sword. This South American tree team extracted the venom from birds or lizards (Proceedings of system has its own bacterial snake has developed a venom three of the snakes – no easy feat the Royal Society B, doi.org/css9). community, but commuters mix with toxins that target different when they can grow to 2.7 metres While other snakes have species across the network every prey – one for killing small in length and their venom flows developed prey-specific day, according to a new study. mammals, and another that slowly. The researchers analysed neurotoxins in their venom, Gianni Panagiotou at the targets birds and lizards. the toxins present and tested the this is the first time such a two- University of Hong Kong and his “These Amazon puffing snakes dose that house geckos and mice fanged tactic has been shown, team asked volunteers to enter are not very good constrictors, could withstand. says Bryan Fry at the University the city’s subway with clean so they’re at a disadvantage,” They found sulditoxin, which is of Queensland in Australia. hands and ride for 30 minutes says Stephen Mackessy at the highly toxic to lizards and birds, Over time, this snake’s while holding the handrails, then University of Northern Colorado, but not to mammals even when prey may have been evolving swabbed their palms. who studied the venom produced the dose is 22 times higher than resistance to its venom. In turn, Analysing the swabs, they found by Spilotes sulphureus. what would be delivered by a bite. the snake is evolving new toxins, that the majority of microbes the He has found that the snakes’ They also found sulmotoxin 1, says Mackessy. volunteers picked up were common skin bacteria. In the morning rush hour, 140 species were detected, Stonehenge was a but by evening, many of those were no longer detectable and just 48 Welsh burial site

species covered the entire system. CRAFT/GETTY STEVE The mix of microbes seen on each SOME of the bodies buried at line at the start of the day seems to Stonehenge in southern England be determined by where it begins. may have come from hundreds The highest number of soil species of kilometres away in Wales. and antibiotic-resistant bacteria It had been assumed that the were found on an uptown line and individuals whose cremated the line linked to mainland China. remains were found at the site The resistance genes carried by were locals. Now a new technique these bacteria were mostly against for analysing such remains has antibiotic drugs used to treat found that some came from the people, but the team also detected same area as the first standing resistance to tetracycline, which stones at the site – west Wales. is commonly added to pig feed. Strontium isotopic analysis These genes were mostly on the can tell what foods someone was northern train lines at the start mainly eating in the last decade of the day, but had dispersed before they died. Plants have throughout the city by evening different levels of strontium Lasers used to bring up the bodies (Cell Reports, doi.org/csrt). depending on the bedrock where they grow, and this can be read in FINDING bodies buried in unmarked elevated by a few centimetres the bones of those who eat them. graves can be extremely difficult, shortly after burial. It then shrank It had been thought that but lasers might be able to help. back down again between the cremation destroyed isotope To find out, Katie Corcoran at second and third scans (Forensic structures. But Christophe Snoeck Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Science International, doi.org/csp6). and his team from the Free Tennessee and her colleagues dug The decrease in elevation was University of Brussels (VUB) shallow pits and buried corpses of probably caused by the bodies in Belgium found that intense individuals who had donated their decomposing in the first few heating effectively “seals in” bodies for research. They used months, creating more room for the ALAN GRAF/CULTURA RM EXCLUSIVE/GETTY RM GRAF/CULTURA ALAN some isotopic signatures quick pulses of laser light, or lidar, soil to settle, say the researchers. (Scientific Reports, doi.org/csr2). to make a 3D scan of the area before The results show that Using their new technique on the bodies were buried, and then investigators could narrow down 25 of the cremated individuals, the scanned again one day later and then possible locations in the months team found at least 10 of them had after four months and 21 months. after a grave is dug by taking two or strontium levels consistent with The first of these scans revealed more lidar scans, which can be done an area of western Britain that that the grave surface became from the ground or even an aircraft. includes Wales.

18 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 SUBSCRIPTION OFFER

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Family-tree forensics Police are using consumer DNA services to trace criminals via their relatives. Is this a genetic step too far, asks Chelsea Whyte

Joseph DeAngelo is awaiting trial on murder charges

All these groups use units called centimorgans to measure the similarity between two strings of DNA. One centimorgan is on average 1 million base pairs – the linked As and Ts, and Cs and Gs of our genetic code. The more closely related two people are, the more centimorgans of DNA match up (see graphic, right). Genetics firm 23andMe has found that most people have about 190 third cousins. “You take a random person and this person becomes a beacon that illuminates, say, 300 people – their third, second and first cousins,” says Erlich. “In a population of 250 million Caucasians, it doesn’t take so much to illuminate everyone.” In other words, genetic information relating to the majority of the US population is on these databases,

PAUL KITAGAKI JR./SACRAMENTO BEE/TNS VIA GETTY IMAGES even though few have signed up. The legal ramifications of this are THE Golden State Killer terrorised of the killer. All were third The team hunting the Golden only now becoming clear. California with a spree of murders, cousins, so shared at least one set State Killer is one of a number Neither privacy law nor rapes and burglaries between of great-great-grandparents with of groups turning to genetic property law is well-adapted to 1974 and 1986. Then the killer the Golden State Killer. Building ancestry to solve mysteries. dealing with genetic data, which went quiet, and the case went out the family tree, they used the Colleen Fitzpatrick at the non- is unavoidably shared among cold. But on 24 April 2018, the killer’s location and approximate profit DNA Doe Project has been many people, says Natalie Ram Sacramento Police Department age to narrow the suspect list. using GEDmatch to find relatives at the University of Baltimore, arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, Although 1 million sets of DNA of unidentified victims. “We Maryland. You could treat it like an ex-police officer, in connection might seem too small a sample to didn’t know they were doing property held by married couples, with the killings. His DNA led find one person – considering the she says – one partner can’t give them to him – and sparked a US population is 325 million – the “Every year has been a away shared property without the growing ethical debate. investigators only needed a little record year for people other person’s permission. But The detectives identified luck. Yaniv Erlich of genetic uploading genetic data genetic information is so widely DeAngelo after uploading DNA ancestry company MyHeritage to consumer sites” spread that it would be impossible evidence from a 1980 Golden and his colleagues calculate that a to coordinate consent from State Killer rape case to database with genetic info on just the same thing we were until we everyone who shares your DNA. GEDmatch, a website that lets 5 million people would be large saw the news,” she says. “It was The situation is evolving, but people trace lost relatives by enough to find a third cousin an idea whose time had come.” law enforcement won’t want to adding genetic information to a match for almost any white person Parabon NanoLabs, a give up this powerful tool. Police genealogy database. Among the in the US, because most people on biotechnology firm in Virginia, databases built with DNA analysis 1 million users of the service, the consumer genetic databases fall also joined the fray after DeAngelo hold only about 20 genetic detectives found several relatives into this ethnic group. was arrested. markers. With genotyping for

20 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

genealogy, hundreds of thousands Ripper sound like a choir boy?” The closer a relative is to you, the more closely your DNA will match of markers are put to use, says In the end, he says, GEDmatch up with theirs CeCe Moore, a genetic genealogist doesn’t have the legal resources Parent at Parabon Nanolabs, who has to prevent the site being used this helped solve seven cases since way. “We could have published a Full siblings Min Max DeAngelo was arrested. And statement that says we require a not just historical cases (see court order for police to use our Half-sibling, grandparent, aunt/uncle “The genetic case files”, below). site, but it’s only words,” he says. “After the Golden State Killer “They could go ahead and do it, First cousin, great-grandparent, half aunt/uncle, great aunt/uncle case, every law enforcement and they probably would.” agency sat up and took notice,” Since the use of GEDmatch in First cousin once removed, half irst cousin, half great aunt/uncle she says. “I still have a long list of the Golden State Killer case came cases waiting for my attention.” to light, the website has updated Second cousin, irst cousin twice removed, half irst cousin once removed its terms of service to inform users that their data could be Second cousin once removed, half second cousin, irst cousin thrice removed, Ethical issues used in a similar fashion. And last half irst cousin twice removed Consumer genetics services have week, firms including 23andMe Third cousin, second cousin twice removed been available for some time, so and Ancestry.com released new why are police just starting to guidelines on how they will Third cousin once removed, second cousin thrice removed exploit them? Before this year, respond to law enforcement GEDmatch wasn’t large enough to requests for data. 0 1000 2000 3000 find distant relatives, Moore says, “Some of my colleagues in Length of matching sequences, measured in centimorgans of DNA and it is the only database that genetic genealogy don’t approve allows access for this kind of work. of my choice to work with law sources, given the success with databases stretch beyond criminal Firms like 23andMe and Ancestry. enforcement,” Moore says. She GEDmatch. Some US states allow investigations. Undercover com – others big enough to run says she had been approached to DNA samples to be taken from operatives could be revealed, such a search – don’t allow police do such work before, but waited anyone who is arrested, even if and egg and sperm donors could to upload forensic profiles. until GEDmatch updated its rules. they are not charged with a crime. be unmasked without their Curtis Rogers, co-founder of “I don’t want to use the DNA of Taking part in a research trial knowledge or consent. GEDmatch, says that the use of anyone who doesn’t want it used could also mean signing away Of course, there are upsides. his database in the Golden State in these cases,” she says. your genetic data. And even if you Holocaust survivors and adopted Killer case came as a surprise. Despite uniquely identifying don’t do these things, someone people have tracked down long- “I spent two weeks not sleeping, you, DNA records are considered you are related to might. “Every lost relatives, and families have trying to figure out the ethics of in US law to be de-identified year has been a record year for been given answers about this situation. Do we ensure that information that can be given to people uploading genetic data to deceased loved ones. We now need the privacy of all our users is the police without a court order. these consumer sites. It goes up to decide where to draw the line. protected? Or do we go after And law enforcers are likely to exponentially,” says Erlich. “If the person arrested is the murderers who make Jack the want to gather DNA from other The consequences of familial Golden State Killer, bringing him to justice is a significant victory,” THE GENETIC CASE FILES says Ram, but a wish to solve crime cannot override privacy, SUSPECTED BROTHERS EXECUTED KILLER NOTSOCOLD CASE she adds. If police push the use In 1986, 12-year-old Michella Welch Virginia Freeman, a Texas real estate Most cases solved in the wake of of genetic data too far, there may went missing in Tacoma, Washington. agent, was found dead in 1981 the Golden State Killer arrest are be a backlash against genetic Police found her body in a ravine near behind a home she was selling. She decades old (see main story), but research and testing. a local park. She had been sexually had been hit with a blunt object, Utah police have now used genetic “I come down on the side of the assaulted and murdered. stabbed and strangled. Detectives genealogy to track down a suspect families of the victims,” Moore The police took evidence, but found DNA under her fingernails, in a recent crime. says. “This could also work as a couldn’t solve the case. In May 2018, but the case went unsolved. In April 2018, a 79-year-old woman deterrent. If we stop one crime, a profile from the unknown suspect’s This year, a DNA profile generated named Carla Brooks reported that a that would be worth it.” She says DNA led to a relative of the suspect. from the sample pointed to the man broke into her home while she people can still choose to use a He was the half cousin of two brothers. unknown suspect’s second cousins was asleep and sexually assaulted her. consumer genetics company that Police followed one of them, and great grandparents, which led Police used a DNA sample and doesn’t share data with police. Gary Hartman, into a diner and picked to the identification of James Otto genetic genealogy to find Spencer But none of us can avoid it for up a napkin he had used. His DNA Earhart as the killer. Glen Monnett, a 31-year-old Utah long. If a distant relative puts their matched the sample from the body, Earhart was executed in 1999 man, who was charged with burglary, DNA online, yours is out there too, and police charged Hartman with for the kidnapping and murder of a rape, sexual battery and assault. whether you like it or not. Trying murder and rape in the first degree. 9-year-old girl. His body has been He was arrested on 28 July, just 14 to go back and change that now is He has pleaded not guilty. exhumed to confirm the match. weeks after the crime was committed. futile, Fitzpatrick says. ■

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 21 COMMENT

A vote against deepfakes

AI-generated hoax videos won’t wreck democracy this year as some are predicting, says Tim Hwang

THERE is no doubt that recent that this is a year in which US demonstrations of believable voters go to the polls again for fakes generated by machine their mid-term elections – when learning are striking. From we might expect disinformation uncanny simulated voices to campaigns to be likely – why do I fabricated videos of political think I’m backing the right horse? leaders, it is natural to worry The economics are important: that these techniques will make state and non-state actors using it easier to manipulate political online propaganda want to discourse and public opinion. achieve the most influence at the But it is worth taking a step lowest cost. We need to recognise back. Just because a capability that rudimentary techniques can exists does not mean that it will already have a big influence on be widely used, or make a serious public discourse. Numerous impact. There are good reasons to incidents attest to the fact that believe that – for the near future – simply reusing an old video and “deepfakes” enabled by artificial asserting that it is something that intelligence will see limited use, it is not can be sufficient to fool and have limited impact. many people. A crude Photoshop To that end, I’m taking part in a job can spread disinformation. friendly public wager and betting At the same time, AI remains that by the end of 2018, we will a relatively costly tool for not have seen a political hoax generating hoaxes. The current generated by machine learning breakthroughs in AI rely on two get more than 2 million views major inputs – large datasets and before being discovered. Given computational power – both of

what this will mean for them. lab-grown meat is “fake”. The US While Post was trumpeting his Cattlemen’s Association wants the What’s the beef? plans, meat industry lobbyists US Department of Agriculture to were in Washington DC to prepare define meat as “tissue or flesh of The term “lab grown meat” is already riling for battle over the labelling and animals that have been harvested regulation of lab-grown meat, in the traditional manner” – as cattle farmers, says Sasha Chapman particularly what it calls itself. if an animal must die to make a While the term “lab-grown burger authentic. meat” has taken hold, some Those who insist on limiting A DUTCH start-up announces cheaper than the world’s first advocates prefer “clean meat” the definition of meat are hoping it has raised $8.8 million to cultured beef patty, which cost because they see it as a way of to continue a trend. Historian commercialise its lab-grown $300,000 when Post unveiled dispensing with slaughter and the Benjamin Wurgaft, writing a book burger. Meanwhile, the US meat it in 2013. This bodes well for degradation of our environment about cultured meat, points out industry gears up for a scuffle the economic viability and to produce meat. Detractors say the definition has narrowed over with the new kids on the block. rapid development of cellular time. When people first used the Mark Post, CEO of Mosa Meat, agriculture: the culturing of meat, “ When people first used word meat, they simply meant predicts he can get the company’s fish and dairy products in vats. the word meat, they food (as opposed to drink). It burger into restaurants at $10 a Which is why conventional simply meant food as wasn’t until the 1300s that it pop by 2021. This is substantially farmers are now worrying about opposed to drink” began to refer to animal flesh.

22 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 For more opinion articles, visit newscientist.com/opinion

which can be expensive to 3D-printed firearm acquire. Moreover, the techniques ANALYSIS behind the more impressive demonstrations of AI-driven fabrication, known as generative adversarial networks, are famously temperamental. This all suggests that, in the near term, AI-constructed fakes will be inferior to the existing arsenal of propaganda tools. As a result, researchers have more time to create effective methods for detecting this type of fakery. It also enables society to adjust to the knowledge that everyday video can be faked in this way, and to be on guard

before widespread deployment. CLARK/NATIONALROBERT GEOGRAPHIC/GETTY Ultimately, it is possible that deepfakes are a diversion from a searchable, computerised database more crucial questions. Or we of gun store sales. Instead, the records may eventually see AI-driven The real US gun crisis are kept on paper and microfilm, which hoaxes become an attractive must be painstakingly searched by option for technology-minded hand. In many states, private sales propagandists. But it will be the is being overlooked are unmonitored. draw of the underlying narratives Behind the hysterics over new pushed by these fakes that technology, the crux of the debate determine their influence. A better Frank Swain and quietly gave permission for the lies in whether the government understanding of the behavioural files to go online again from 1 August. should control access to firearms. factors driving belief in hoaxes LAW-MAKERS in the US are fighting Eight US states in turn sued the As a risk to citizens, the Liberator will be the only way to avoid to keep blueprints for 3D-printed guns Department of State and got a is underwhelming; it poses a much playing an unwinnable game of off the internet – but how worried temporary restraining order issued greater threat to the authority of technological whack-a-mole. ■ should we be about untraceable to block the release of the files. the US government. plastic firearms? A hearing next week will decide An age of easily shareable digital Tim Hwang is a writer and researcher, In 2013, law student Cody Wilson what happens next. files and reliable fabrication offers and director of the Harvard-MIT Ethics unveiled the Liberator, a plastic Amid all this legal wrangling, a key resistance to what Wilson called and Governance of AI Initiative handgun produced on a 3D printer that question has gone unanswered: are “the collectivisation of manufacture”, could fire conventional ammunition. these weapons actually a threat? The putting it outside the control of He posted the files online so that prospect of roving gangs armed with authorities. And the definition has arguably anybody could download them and, 3D-printed guns is slim. The Liberator Ultimately, the fate of 3D-printed narrowed again – today for a lot in theory, print their own pistol. is a clunky and ineffective weapon firearms is a distraction from the US’s of people it equates to the animal He later added a second design that can only be fired a few times much larger gun problem: the public proteins that dominate the food that helps people to mill a rifle part before the plastic barrel splits. Equally, health crisis of the tens of thousands system: poultry, beef and pork. called a lower receiver from a block of of people who die each year as a result Maybe the debate over what to aluminium. These parts are controlled “ The fate of 3D-printed of gun violence. call flesh grown in a vat will upend under US gun regulations and carry firearms is a distraction Since 2013, when Wilson first that trend. Maybe it will narrow identifying serial numbers. from the US’s much larger released his plans for the Liberator, it further. What is certain is that a By releasing plans for untraceable gun public health crisis” no one has been killed by a 3D-printed war of words lies ahead. Let’s hope weapons that could be produced at gun. According to the Gun Violence that conversation also allows a home, Wilson was making effective building your own gun is not illegal in Archive, an organisation that launched broader discussion of a growing gun regulation impossible. The US the US, and anyone with the required in the same year to collate statistics reliance on meat – and whether Department of State told Wilson to skills is free to create their own lower on gun violence, 65,310 people in any technology can sustain that remove the files from the internet. receiver on a milling machine. the US have been killed by guns since on a planet of limited resources. ■ They had already been downloaded Although untraceable firearms 2014. What’s more, that doesn’t include more than 100,000 times. sound particularly scary, the US is the roughly 22,000 gun suicides Sasha Chapman is a Canadian writer Wilson sued the Department of already full of them. And regulations that take place in the US each year. focused on environmental and health State in response. It relented last designed to enforce US gun rights The US has a gun problem – 3D printing implications of the global food industry month, following a lengthy legal battle, prevent the government from creating is a distraction. ■

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26 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 What Katy did

YOU never know what you will find in the rainforests of Panama’s Cocobolo Nature Reserve. Nestled in a thin forest corridor that connects habitats in North and South America, it is a crucial pit stop for migratory species and holds a huge array of wildlife, including jaguars, snakes and hummingbirds. It also hosts this master of disguise: a leaf-mimic katydid (Cycloptera sp.). This insect is just 5 centimetres from its head to the tip of its abdomen, but a bit over double that if you include the long antennae, says photographer Clay Bolt. Katydids don’t stop at mimicking healthy leaves – they have perfected realistically tattered foliage, complete with speckles of discolouration, holes and sections at the fringes that look as though they are dying or diseased. This helps them avoid predators like monkeys, which comb through the vegetation in search of snacks. Katydids are hard to spot during the day, when they stand stock still. It is only at night, when they slowly munch on leaves, that the gentle wave of those antennae might give them away. To get the natural look of this shot, Bolt had to compensate for the deep shadows of the rainforest. First, he took an exposure of the background. Then he used a soft diffuser to highlight the insect. “I don’t want the viewer to think about flash or any ‘hand of man’,” he says. “I want them to mentally step into the scene and feel awe about this amazing creature.” Chris Simms

Photographer Clay Bolt claybolt.photoshelter.com

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 27 SAM PEET SAM

28 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 COVER STORY

THE ALLERGY EPIDEMIC

MYTHS about allergies WHAT ARE ALLERGIES ANYWAY? abound. Allergies are psychosomatic. Being too If your summer months are blighted by of the immune system take days to respond clean is causing allergies. congestion, sneezing and a runny nose, you to a cold virus, for example. “It really is a Honey can cure hay fever… might think your immune system has gone remarkable system,” says Brian Sutton of into overdrive, or that it is especially good at King’s College London. its job. But unfortunately it’s not that simple. One explanation for the sensitivity of None of these statements Allergies are caused by the immune system the IgE arm of our immune system is that is true. What is true is that mistakenly reacting to certain innocuous it evolved to detect and eject what was once possibly a quarter of us are molecules from the outside world. These can a common, highly aggressive threat: large, be part of anything from cat skin to certain invading organisms burrowing into our alicted by some form of foods (see “The most common allergies”, skin, airways or guts. In the absence of such allergy – and that number is overleaf). Any molecule capable of doing this parasites in modern, Western lifestyles, on the rise. You might even is called an allergen. Although allergens pose the IgE system seems to have begun no real danger to our bodies, their structures misfiring, targeting harmless chemical be aected by one without are recognised as a threat by some people’s structures instead. realising. So how can we antibodies – immune proteins on the lookout The system is more amped up in some best deal with the allergy for harmful invaders. people than others. “I’m not aware that I’m Allergies involve a special class of antibodies allergic to anything,” says Sutton, so the explosion? Penny Sarchet called immunoglobulin E (IgE). Different understanding is that he has low levels of IgE. brings you the advice that’s IgE antibodies detect different allergens. “But some people will have 10 times, even 1000 not to be sneezed at. When this happens, the antibodies trigger times the level of IgE that I have,” he says. How immune cells to release histamine and other much you have is partly down to genetics. inflammatory chemicals, leading to those It is possible that people who are more nasty symptoms, which under normal prone to allergies would have been better at circumstances would be a useful defence detecting and ejecting parasites back in our against invading organisms. evolutionary past. This is a highly primed defence mechanism. But being particularly prone to allergies IgE antibodies bind to immune cells about doesn’t mean your immune system is 1000 times more tightly than any other class powerful or overly active in general. You are of antibody. This means they are usually just as likely to succumb to infections as already attached to an immune cell, and the others and there is no strong evidence that whole system is ready to respond as soon allergies make you more likely to develop as an allergen is detected. This happens in autoimmune disorders, in which the immune seconds to minutes, while other branches system starts attacking the body.

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 29 THE MOST COMMON ARE ALLERGIES BECOMING MORE COMMON? ALLERGIES

Food With some schools and airlines banning allergies, particularly China. Between 1990 There are many kinds of food allergies, nuts, it might feel like we are entering an age and 2011, asthma rates in Shanghai among but milk and egg allergies are the most of allergy hysteria. But it’s not just a symptom 3 to 7-year-olds rose from 2 to 10 per cent. prevalent type among young children of helicopter parenting or heightened We still don’t know what has caused this in the US. People can also be allergic to vigilance – allergies really are on the up. rise in allergies, but there are clues (see right). peanuts, tree nuts, soy, fish or shellfish. Hay fever, which is pollen allergy, was Most obvious is how much Western lifestyles Some are allergic to wheat, but there first described in 1870, but allergies were changed in the 20th century. is no such thing as a gluten allergy. rare until the mid-20th century. The first Coeliac disease, an autoimmune disorder rise was seen in childhood asthma, in which triggered by the gluten found in cereal allergens or irritants cause the airways to grains, is not an allergy. tighten and become inflamed. From 1960 FACT to 1990, childhood asthma rose to epidemic PARASITES CAN GIVE Insects proportions in developed nations, followed by YOU A MEAT ALLERGY Stinging insects such as bees, wasps an increase in hay fever. By 1991, the number and hornets inject venom that most of family doctor consultations for asthma in A sugar carried by the Lone Star people quickly recover from, but it the UK had quadrupled in only 20 years, and tick, found in North America, can can provoke life-threatening allergic appointments for conditions such as pollen sensitise people to mammal reactions in some. and dust allergy more than doubled. meat containing the same sugar, This rise in respiratory allergies was causing an allergy to red meat. Pollen followed by a second tide. As asthma and Hay fever, or seasonal allergic rhinitis, hay fever began to stabilise in the 1990s and is one of the most widespread allergies. 2000s, food allergies in children shot up, It is usually caused by plants that don’t increasing by 50 per cent in the US in just 12 use animal pollinators to reproduce, years. “We believe asthma and allergies now instead releasing large amounts of affect about 25 per cent of the population,” pollen into the air. says Syed Hasan Arshad at the University of Southampton, UK. Pets Prior to 1970, around 10 per cent of people Allergies to furry animals are especially were thought to experience hay fever in rich common among people who have other nations. Studies now suggest it affects as many allergies or asthma. Pet hair itself is not as 30 per cent of adults and 40 per cent of an allergen, but it can carry urine, saliva children. Around 7 per cent of children in the and dander (flakes of dead skin), all of UK and similarly developed countries now which can provoke allergic reactions. have food allergies. No cat or dog is truly hypoallergenic. It is tempting to think that these rises might be down to increased awareness and Household pests people going to see their doctor about these House dust mites and cockroaches problems. But studies comparing different produce waste that can trigger asthma generations show this is not the case. And and allergies. These pests are thought peanut allergies, for example, can be so severe to be two of the most common causes it seems unlikely that doctors simply failed to of year-round allergic symptoms. notice them in the past. In fact, many more people may be living Latex with allergies without realising. One study of a Around 1 per cent of people in the US group of teenagers and adults in Copenhagen, experience an allergic response to the Denmark, found that half the asthmatics in latex protein. Healthcare workers and the group were undiagnosed and not receiving people who had a lot of medical care treatment. Rhinitis – hay fever-like symptoms as children are particularly susceptible. that can also be triggered by dust mites, pets and mould – had not been diagnosed in a third Mould of those who had it. There are many types of fungal Rapidly developing countries are now moulds, but only a handful cause allergic beginning to show similar increases in reactions. When mould spores get into the nose and lungs, they can cause Yet another warning? It’s not just paranoia – hay fever-like symptoms and asthma. allergies, especially to food, are on the rise

30 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 WHAT’S BEHIND THE RISE IN ALLERGIES?

Cleanliness is next to godliness, as they say, idea was put forward. Water chlorination and urbanised environments, as is now happening so for those who are a little less fastidious, separate sewage systems made cholera and in nations like China, they may have lost the idea that dirt could protect from allergies typhoid infections rare. And if clean living is contact with particular microbes that have might have a certain appeal. to blame for allergies, it doesn’t make sense helped hone the human immune system for First proposed in 1989 by epidemiologist that it took 40 years for asthma to begin to millennia. This is known as the “old friends” David Strachan, the thinking behind this rise. Since 1960, developed countries have hypothesis. “hygiene hypothesis” was that modern life seen only minor changes in hygiene, so what How such friendly microbes may help has become more hygienic, leading children prompted the sudden and recent surge in prevent our IgE system from misfiring is to catch fewer infections. This somehow food allergies? still largely unclear. But we are beginning predisposes them to develop allergies, What we do know is that older siblings are to understand that the different bugs living perhaps because their immune systems more likely to get some allergies than younger in our bodies can affect many aspects of our have been incorrectly trained. If so, allergies siblings, and that children who grow up in big health. It is possible that some of them help are the price people in developed nations pay families or on farms are less likely to develop quieten down elements of the immune for massively reduced infant mortality. them. Rather than cleanliness in the home or system, preventing any overreaction. You are It is an idea that caught hold with the public, catching infections, the key factors seem to be unlikely to restore these missing microbes but it doesn’t fully add up. We now know that spending time with other children and being simply by neglecting your personal hygiene, childhood infections don’t seem to make you outdoors in early life – probably because this however. And by the time you are an adult, any less likely to develop allergies. And major maximises the range of microbes we meet as there may be little you can do to shift your cities like London and New York had largely infants. As people in the West moved towards microbiome – it is probably too late to up cleaned up their acts by 1920 – long before the spending more of life indoors and in sticks and move to a farm.

CAN EXPOSURE CURE MY ALLERGY?

If you have ever heard someone claim they in children, providing lasting effects, but have cured their hay fever by spending time patients need to keep eating peanuts to outdoors or that a daily serving of honey – maintain the protection, says Roberts. which contains pollen grains – has built up Immunotherapy seems to work well for their immunity, don’t fall for it. “There’s not cat allergies too, but is less effective for much evidence for that,” says Arshad. dog allergies. Similarly, forcing yourself to eat peanuts However, this isn’t something you can if you are allergic to them is a bad idea, as is mimic yourself by frolicking in the grass living with a pet in the hope that one day you or buying a cat – in fact, doing so is likely to will get along fine. make the problem worse. The idea is grounded in sensible science, though. Clinical injections of small, increasing doses of an allergen can desensitise the immune system to some allergies. When it is administered over several years, there is good evidence that this treatment can work for FACT allergies such as bee and wasp stings, as well ALCOHOL CAN WORSEN as nasal inflammation caused by grass pollen, YOUR ALLERGIES tree pollen or house dust mites, says Graham Roberts of the University of Southampton, UK. Alcoholic drinks can contain The treatment, often known as allergen histamine, a chemical released immunotherapy or “allergy shots”, seems as part of the body’s immune to gradually build up the amount of response. This can amplify exposure the immune system can handle. allergic reactions and boost hay But as the technique can prompt swelling fever symptoms, particularly in or itching near the injection site, and in women. some cases anaphylaxis, breathing problems and collapse, it should be administered by a clinician at a hospital. Some experimental peanut

PAT CANOVA / ALAMY / CANOVA PAT immunotherapies have had good results

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 31 ARE WOMEN MORE CAN YOU GROW INTO AND ALLERGY-PRONE? OUT OF ALLERGIES?

In adult life, women are certainly more likely Adult-onset hay fever often comes as a surprise some level. “It often doesn’t go away, than men to report having allergies and to those newly affected – but it is true, you it improves,” says Arshad. intolerances to food. Intolerances differ from really can develop fresh allergies throughout The reason for this progression is still a allergies (see “Not an allergy”, below), but they your life. Just because you have never been mystery. “I wish I knew why it changes,” he are often grouped together in studies. Last allergic to pollen or peanuts, doesn’t mean says. “If I did, I could find a cure for allergies.” year, a paper examining 2.7 million health you never will be. The flip side is that allergies Drugs, hormones, other medical conditions records found that 4.2 per cent of women can sometimes fade away, although this is and exposure to smoke and other air pollution have food allergies or intolerances, compared rarer once you have entered adulthood. may all play a role in changing allergies, with 2.9 per cent of men. And this isn’t just You are most likely to grow out of an allergy says Neil Kao, of the Allergic Disease and a reflection of the apparent rise in gluten as a child. One study of more than 40,000 Asthma Center, in South Carolina. After the intolerance: the most common problem children in the US found that around 26 per menopause, women no longer experience food for both men and women was shellfish, cent outgrew their food allergies, usually by allergies at a higher rate than men, he says. followed by certain fruits and vegetables. the age of 6. Egg, milk and soy allergies are But if you think you have recently beaten It is possible that women simply pay more those most often left behind. About 20 per an allergy, the chances are you have just been attention to what they eat and their health, cent of children lost their peanut allergies. exposed to less of the allergen responsible. so are more likely to notice if they have a When young children have eczema – a skin “Geographically moving is the single most reaction, but biological factors seem to be condition linked to allergies – this often common reason why people think they’ve involved too. For example, men have higher improves in late childhood only for it to be outgrown their allergies,” says Kao. levels of a certain type of antibody thought to replaced by asthma. The same children are What of the oft-cited idea that allergies help block allergic reactions. then likely to get hay fever as teenagers, change every seven years? It is really a lot And hormones almost certainly play a role which tends to subside around their mid-20s. less predictable than that. “Every person’s because the gender difference in allergies This procession of changing allergies is immune tolerance levels fluctuate throughout switches at adolescence. Before puberty, boys known as allergic march. Some symptoms his or her life, spontaneously and naturally. are affected by allergies twice as much as girls. from the old allergies tend to continue at This is dictated by their genes,” says Kao.

NOT AN ALLERGY Allergies are caused by the immune system unnecessarily responding to harmless molecules (see main story). But not all rashes, swellings or breathing difﬁculties are a sign of one.

Food intolerance sensitivities most commonly with the drug. Another study, in Food intolerances can involve experience asthma when exposed which researchers gave allergenic bloating, wind, diarrhoea, itching, to certain chemicals, although or placebo foods to children with FACT skin rashes and abdominal pain. others report migraines, skin reported food allergies, found These symptoms come on more complaints or shortness of breath. that placebo foods elicited allergy YOU CAN BE ALLERGIC slowly than those of food allergies, symptoms, including rashes, TO SEMEN usually a few hours after eating Nocebo effect hives, diarrhoea and vomiting, An estimated 20,000 to 40,000 certain things. For instance, some Contrary to what some believe, nearly 13 per cent of the time. women in the US have seminal people report such symptoms allergies are not psychosomatic. plasma allergy: an allergy to after eating gluten, despite However, another psychological Rhinitis proteins in seminal fluid. In not having coeliac disease, an phenomenon can make people Rhinitis is inflammation of the some women, this can cause autoimmune disorder triggered experience allergy-like symptoms. inside of the nose, causing hives, wheezing, diarrhoea and by this protein component of The nocebo effect is a negative symptoms such as sneezing and “post-coital anaphylaxis”, cereal grains. twist on the placebo effect, a blocked or runny nose. This can although this can be prevented resulting in some people be a response to allergens such by using a condom. Chemical sensitivity experiencing nasty symptoms as pollen or dust mites, but it As many as a quarter of people even if a substance has no can also occur in the absence of in the US say they are sensitive adverse effect on their body. allergies. Causes include humidity, to fragranced products such as One study found that 97 per cent extreme temperatures, viruses deodorants and air fresheners. of people who think they have a and exposure to air pollution People with these chemical penicillin allergy are actually fine such as smoke.

32 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 DO ALLERGIES COME IN GROUPS?

If you know someone who can’t eat shellfish and also complains about dust, they aren’t (necessarily) just being picky. Allergies can come in a gang, and some combinations are more common than others. This is because allergies are caused by IgE antibodies recognising harmless molecules as a threat, and allergens with a similar structure can trigger responses in the same person. This often occurs in two phases. Typically, someone who developed an allergy to a common allergen such as pollen as a child will begin reacting to similar chemical structures in food later in life. This is called cross-reactivity and can lead to oral allergy syndrome: the rapid onset of local symptoms such as itching, tingling and swelling after eating certain foods. As many as 19 per cent of people may have it. “It’s a fairly common type of allergy that isn’t dangerous, but it can be quite annoying,” says Arshad. Tree pollen can cause allergies to a range of fruits, nuts and vegetables, such as apples, almonds and carrots. Ragweed allergies are associated with problems with melons, bananas, tomatoes and cucumbers, while mugwort pollen can trigger allergies to herbs and spices such as coriander, parsley, cumin and fennel seed. Many other groupings occur, including latex-related allergies to bananas, apples, potatoes and tomatoes.

CAN I PREVENT MY CHILD FROM DEVELOPING ALLERGIES?

It was gospel medical advice for years. Evidence is growing that, instead of avoiding The key appears to be exposing a baby’s Women were urged to avoid commonly allergenic foods, it may be important for immune system to potential allergens before allergenic foods such as peanuts during high-risk children – those with moderate or they have a chance to develop allergies – a pregnancy and breastfeeding, and were told severe eczema, or those whose parents or narrow window of opportunity. that their children shouldn’t eat these foods siblings have allergies – to encounter them But how this works is still unclear and in during their first few years of life. The advice early on. Those that are introduced to peanuts many cases the evidence is contradictory. was designed to prevent kids from getting between the ages of 4 months and 11 months Eating peanuts early in life may be beneficial, allergies. But in the past few years, we have are 81 per cent less likely to develop a peanut but growing up in a home where a lot of discovered that, in most cases, this was wrong. allergy by the time they are 5. Similarly, peanuts are eaten seems to make peanut Whether women eat allergenic foods during children who begin eating eggs at the age allergies more likely. pregnancy turns out to make no difference, of 4 to 6 months are less likely to develop The idea that a lack of “good” microbes in and they are no longer advised to avoid them. egg allergies. the gut may be to blame for rising allergies But certain things do seem to have an effect. Some guidelines in the US and Australia has prompted interest in using prebiotics A study of nearly 6000 infants last year found now recommend slowly and carefully to change the gut flora of a mother or her that being exclusively breastfed during the introducing infants to potentially allergenic infant in order to protect against allergies. first four months of life seems to be linked ingredients from the age of 4 to 6 months, However, there is no good evidence yet that to a reduced chance of developing hay fever although the World Health Organization these work. ■ in low-risk children. still recommends giving babies nothing but But breastfeeding isn’t the whole story. breast milk until they are 6 months old. Penny Sarchet is deputy news editor at New Scientist

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 33 INTERVIEW

Blue planet? It’s a dark, deep-ocean world Jon Copley dived deep for Blue Planet II. He tells Sam Wong about life in this extreme environment, the perils of plastic and, inevitably, the one that got away

34 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 HE BBC documentary series Blue Planet II that atmosphere will turn toxic fast, which upside down. We call it the blue planet yet brought the startling and diverse is why we carry backup breathing gear and actually the blue bit is only the surface layer. Tcreatures of the deep sea to our screens eye protection. By area, it is a dark, deep-ocean planet. And more intimately than ever before. It featured the deep ocean is certainly not pristine: our the first ever dive to 1000 metres in the Why send humans down into the depths rather everyday lives have been affecting it for a long Antarctic, and ended with a warning about than just using remotely operated subs? time. When our great-great-grandparents our impact on the oceans – particularly from The remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) are travelled on steamships, the remains of the plastic pollution. Marine biologist Jon Copley superb now. Several ships are able to live- burnt coal from the engines were shovelled at the University of Southampton, UK, was a stream high-definition video from one. I can over the side. On well-travelled routes, that has scientific adviser on the series and was on sit at home in the middle of the night with shifted the seabed from a soft mud to cobbles, board the Antarctic sub for filming. my laptop, watching live images from the which in turn has changed the marine life in bottom of the Pacific Ocean and interacting those areas. Back then, people had no notion When was your first dive in a submersible? with the team on the ship. That’s amazing. this was happening. It was an expedition with the US Navy’s Yet there is something special about deep submergence unit in the north-east immersing yourself in the environment you Now everyone is worried about plastics. What Pacific 23 years ago. As it was a military unit, are trying to understand. It might sound effect are they having in the deep ocean? they inevitably liked to freak out scientists. anachronistic, but NASA hasn’t given up on We simply don’t know enough. Imagine life When we reached the bottom, the pilot that ambition either. as a sea cucumber deep in the ocean, on a stood up and undid the hatch. But of course, fine-mud abyssal plain. These animals the water pressure was holding it in place. plough their way through the mud’s surface, It was an astonishing experience because swallowing it, extracting whatever nutrients the landscape is so different down there. they can from the organic material that has I didn’t want to leave. fallen from above. Today, a proportion of that material is microplastics, which have no What is it like to be in a tiny submersible nutritional content. Even if this plastic weren’t for hours? toxic, ingesting it means the sea cucumbers It’s cramped and cold. If you are looking for have less energy for reproduction. What does hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, they that mean for their population in the long are typically 2000 to 5000 metres deep, so term? The knock-on effects are uncertain, and it is an 8 to 12-hour dive. If you need to wee, that’s just one impact of many we have started

you do it in a bottle. I’ve been on several trips GIFFORDS TED LEFT: PL.COM; RINALDI/NATURE ROBERTO to appreciate. where submersible pilots have had issues with kidney stones. I think this is because Why is it so important to explore the deep ocean? they avoid drinking. “It’s special to be immersed To enable us to make informed choices. One in the environment you are choice we face relates to deep-sea mining. What did you see when making Blue Planet II Some mineral resources are in increasingly that didn’t end up in the final show? trying to understand” short supply on land. For example, wind My favourite was the Antarctic sun starfish turbines require excellent magnets, which (pictured, right), which we nicknamed the What else did you learn on the Antarctic need neodymium. Manganese nodules on death star. Unlike starfish on UK shores expedition? the abyssal plains of the eastern Pacific are a that have five arms, this has got about 50. I became aware of the importance of “drop particularly rich source. Then there’s cobalt, What’s unusual is how it feeds. Rather than stones”. When the front of a glacier breaks off which we need for electric-car batteries. smothering its prey, it waves its arms up and forms an iceberg, it often has rocks stuck Proponents of deep-sea mining argue that the into the water to catch krill. The upper in its underside, which vary from the size of a direct impacts on human populations from surface of the arms is covered in tiny pincers fist to as big as a house. Eventually those rocks this kind of mining are fewer, so in many ways that snap shut when something brushes past. drop off. There was an exciting moment when this is a less deleterious form of mining. My It was a challenge to film because the krill our camera sub was filming something on the view is that the deep oceans should be off followed our submersible’s lights. If we seabed and a fist-sized piece of rock dropped limits until we understand more about them. stopped the sub, the krill swarmed around through the frame. If something bigger had We tend to rush in to exploit resources, realise us. By the time we were ready to film the hit the ROV, that could have been an issue! we are having a bad impact, then bring in death star, its arms were already full of krill Most of the Antarctic seabed is rich, soft mud regulation. Here we have an opportunity to because we had inadvertently brought it this because it is mostly krill poo. Then a drop do it the other way around. amazing dinner. stone arrives and it is a rocky island in that landscape. A lot of marine life requires a What’s your outlook on the mining situation? Blue Planet II showed a moment when hard surface to live on. In the Antarctic, that I’d call myself an optimistic futurist. If we your sub started leaking. Everyone seemed is mainly supplied by drop stones. are smart enough to get down there in the surprisingly calm about it. deep ocean to explore it, then we are smart The metal-hulled subs have portholes with Blue Planet II brought the deep sea to people’s enough to come up with alternatives to taking a seal around them. Many of them require attention a bit more. Do you think people’s those resources. ■ high pressure to work properly, so they attitudes to the oceans have changed recently? leak a bit on the way down. What scares To a lot of people, the deep sea embodies a Sam Wong is a reporter at New Scientist. me most in a sub is fire. You are in a tiny, pristine wilderness. There’s also this sense Jon Copley will be speaking at New Scientist Live enclosed atmosphere. It could just be smoke that it is alien. That’s what first captivated me. 20-23 September

DAVID DOUBILET/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICfrom CREATIVE something electrical overheating, but But now I think we look at the planet a little bit g More information newscientistlive.com/mag

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 35 SUPERTOTTO

36 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 Can’t hack it

We can end cyberattacks if we radically redesign the computer chip, says Sally Adee

VEN if you’re not a hacker or a coder, whether they be laptops, tablets, smartphones chances are you will have heard names or smartwatches, and we are used to software Elike Stuxnet, NotPetya or WannaCry. After like web browsers and spreadsheets doing all, these malicious programs have made big our bidding. When you strike a key or click waves in the past few years. First it was Iran’s an icon, that instruction must ultimately nuclear centrifuges that were the target, then be carried out by the computer’s hardware, Ukraine’s banks, then last year, hospitals in specifically the processor, which is usually the UK. These cyberattacks keep coming. a single microchip. The building blocks of The standard response is to release software the processor are transistors – minuscule patches, the updates that pop up on our electronic switches – organised into functional computers and smartphones. They are components like memory and logic units. designed to seal up the holes that hackers But software can’t communicate directly exploit to smuggle their malicious code with transistors. Software is based on words through. The trouble is, there are more than and symbols, whereas transistors understand 100,000 holes out there – and that’s just the only two commands: switch on or switch off. ones we know about. Plenty more are surely To help the software and hardware waiting to be found. “To successfully defend, communicate, there are go-betweens, such you must find all weaknesses and plug them,” as programs called compilers that translate says Linton Salmon, who runs a computer software instructions into machine code, a security programme at the US Department binary language of 1s and 0s, or ons and offs. of Defense. “To successfully attack, you only need to find one.” It’s a losing battle, and one we can no longer Big, dumb retriever afford to fight. As we build the internet of things, How that translation works is determined by putting simple processors into garage doors, the chip’s architecture. This is the set of rules, fridges, light bulbs and windscreen wipers, embodied in the physical design of the that truth is only going to become plainer. If processor, that governs how the software gets we are going to put computers in everything, access to the hardware. It determines how it is time we souped up their defences. much memory a program has access to, for That is what Salmon and a few others example. “Think of it like a contract that tells have been quietly working on. We can protect the software people what to expect from the ourselves from cyberattacks, they say, not hardware,” says Richard Grisenthwaite of with ever more patches, but with changes to Arm, the firm that makes processors for most computers’ underlying electronics. It means smartphones. overhauling the way we build microprocessors, The rules vary slightly with the processor, but the world’s biggest chip-makers are already but all architectures are similar, particularly in getting in on the action. With a layer of one respect. “A chip is fundamentally gullible,” protection at the heart of every chip, the hope says Salmon. “Give it any instruction you like, is that we will stem the tide of cyberattacks. and it says: ‘Okay, let me do that as fast as I can! Most of us use at least two computers a day, Does it make any sense? I don’t care, you >

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 37 asked me to do it. You’re the boss!’ It’s like a The biggest problem the project identified big, dumb golden retriever.” was how interconnected computers are, giving There’s a good reason for this. In the 1970s, hackers easy access to a lot of information. chips had only about 5000 transistors. To But that horse has long since bolted, so CRASH make processors as fast as possible, none homed in on one way forward: redesigning could be wasted. Architectures were designed the hardware. so that whenever software made a demand Salmon picked up where CRASH left off. the chip would comply, no questions asked. He trawled the world’s most authoritative Some 50 years later, the chips in your list of known computer vulnerabilities, laptop and smartphone have about 5 billion kept by the Mitre Corporation, a non-profit transistors. But the golden retriever organisation based in Massachusetts, architecture has remained, largely because and identified the most common hardware changing it significantly would make it ones. There turned out to be seven main incompatible with existing software. classes of hardware vulnerability, which The unpleasant consequence is that when together account for almost half of known a hacker finds a sneaky way into a processor, hacks (see “Deep hacks”, below left).

it is only too happy to oblige any requests. GAISLER STMICROELECTRONICS/COBHAM In 2017, Salmon launched a programme That means it is possible to harvest sensitive called System Security Integrated Through data like usernames and passwords or get the Processors can contain 5 billion transistors but Hardware and Firmware (SSITH). It is giving processor to do nefarious deeds. few are devoted to security nine competing research teams a share of The idea of making chips less gullible is $60 million to develop processors impregnable not new. More than a decade ago, computer It’s not just Lee who has long seen the need to all those seven classes of attack by March scientist Ruby Lee at Princeton University for better security. In 2010, Howie Shrobe, 2020. No one has tried anything this published designs for processors that would a computer scientist at the Massachusetts ambitious before. wipe parts of their memory automatically Institute of Technology (MIT), went to the US The gold standard of hardware defence after a period of time. Back then, the big chip government’s Defense Advanced Research is formal verification, a way of using manufacturers weren’t interested, but that’s Projects Agency, where he launched a fiendishly complicated maths to prove starting to change for a few reasons. For one programme known as CRASH. It posed a that the hardware does only what it should thing, 5 billion is a lot of transistors. Processors simple question: given everything we know do. It requires rigorous checks to be made, are now so fast that we can afford the drop in about security today, how would we design which takes time. So far, it has only been used speed when we devote a few to security checks. computing infrastructure – hardware, in custom-made chips for applications where For another, we are increasingly spooked by software, servers, networks, the lot – if we human life is at stake, for example in flight hacks, and security is becoming a selling point. started from scratch? control systems. That’s changing.“I looked into formal methods a few years ago and was pretty DEEP HACKS disappointed,” says Ben Laurie, head of security at the Google-owned artificial Some hacks depend on is there, the processor will instance. But for the sake of intelligence firm DeepMind. “But then I software loopholes that carry out its instructions. speed, chips have long been looked into it again more recently and was can simply be patched by This is how the WannaCry designed to skip the checks surprised by the amount of progress.” Salmon updating computer code. attack of 2017 locked up under certain circumstances, is similarly confident. He says improvements But 43 per cent of hacks go computers belonging to the and instead carry out to algorithms should make formal verification deeper, exploiting inherent UK National Health Service. “speculative executions”. of hardware practicable by 2020. weaknesses in a machine’s There are another six classes Hacks exploiting Spectre Adam Chlipala at MIT is working on a hardware. of hardware vulnerability and Meltdown use this processor design that uses formal verification One of the classic that work in similar ways. vulnerability to trick chips as part of SSITH. “We’re building a compiler hardware vulnerabilities is In January 2018, two into doing what they ask. that automatically implements that idea,” he to do with slices of a chip’s related bugs called Spectre The bugs have existed says. At the moment, however, his method memory called buffers. and Meltdown came to since about 1995. Nearly only works for parts of chips, and it is uncertain Buffers are designed to fit light. These appear to be every computer with an how quickly it can be scaled up. only a certain amount of an eighth class of hardware Intel chip is vulnerable, and A good backstop option might not be too data. The trouble is, some vulnerability. attacks would be tough distant, however, thanks to another line of have a flaw: if someone These bugs arise from the to detect. But the most research for SSITH: instead of radically forces too much data into fact that chips often perform disturbing fact about Spectre redesigning processors, you can give them one, the original information certain checks before they and Meltdown is that they a partner to help them out. is overwritten. This gives carry out operations, to took more than 20 years to This idea is being taken forward by Draper, attackers a way to smuggle confirm they will work. They find. There are surely plenty an engineering non-profit company malicious code into the might check there’s enough more bugs like them lurking headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. processor. Once their code memory available, for out there. Inside the main processor, every kind of data is

38 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 secure chips: nuclear plants for example. The people who run them “are even more paranoid than I am”, says Salmon. But those chips are expensive and slow, optimised for one job. You couldn’t use them in a smartphone or a laptop. Switching the processors in those everyday computers for something more secure would mean a huge upheaval. “It’s really not that simple to replace the systems that are out there,” says Katie Moussouris, an information security researcher who started Microsoft’s bug bounty programme, which pays hackers to report software vulnerabilities. So will it ever happen?

Armageddon chips There are reasons to be optimistic. Sarah Leeper, an engineer at Draper, works with a spin-off company called Dover Microsystems that is already marketing a commercial version of the inherently secure processor. Leeper says the firm is in touch with electricity grid operators who want to use it. The major microchip manufacturers have also begun to take less radical steps towards making hardware that helps constrain the software that runs on it. “We are already

KOREA HYDRO AND NUCLEAR POWER CO. VIA GETTYworking on our own hardware security projects,” says Ronak Singhal, an engineer Some nuclear power plants already use Cambridge and at SRI International, a research and senior fellow at Intel. “unhackable” chips institute in California. Even the cheapest chips, those in devices His architecture, called CHERI, traps that might be connected to the internet of given a tag that specifies what security policies malicious software, partitioning it off so it can things, could be switched. Arm’s primary it must adhere to. Those policies are held on an do little damage. Think of what happens when interest beyond phones is in such devices, adjacent coprocessor, which vets every action everyday software like Microsoft Word freezes and Grisenthwaite says the firm has long the main processor takes. If anything breaks on your computer. You can force it to quit with been watching Watson’s CHERI architecture. the rules, the flinty-eyed coprocessor stops it. a few clicks, and this won’t affect other “We are really interested in what he’s doing.” If it tries to find another way to execute, the applications. CHERI works in a similar way, at But hardware security is unlikely to end coprocessor shuts down the program. Draper the hardware level. cyberattacks completely. “The ground is calls this an inherently secure processor. littered with the bodies of all the people who This set-up allows chip manufacturers the “Hackers can get into chips – have ‘solved’ cybersecurity,” says Salmon. best of both worlds. Should someone identify That’s partly because there will always be a new hardware vulnerability, the policies in but then they’re trapped old systems in our computing infrastructure, the co-processor can be updated without not to mention attacks that rely on human messing around with the main chip. “A new with nowhere to go” gullibility: phishing, for example, or someone policy can be deployed almost immediately,” putting a sticky note bearing their password says Draper scientist Curtis Walker. It is as fast Let’s say a hacker emails you a corrupted on their monitor. as a software update, and as strong as image that, if clicked on, will trick your email Sooner or later, something very important changing the hardware. software into sending malicious code to the will be attacked, perhaps a power grid, bank or Still, even if this prevents people from processor. A processor using the CHERI hospital, with major consequences. That’s why stealing passwords, continual attacks could architecture will construct a perimeter wall it is good to think about a hardware overhaul, force programs to shut down. That’s far from that isolates the compromised part of the says Lee. “We need a chip that we can use the ideal – especially if the program is controlling processor. This wall is reconfigurable, so it day after the catastrophe,” she says. “If the something crucial, like an electricity grid or can trap the enemy code in one mailbox, one change doesn’t happen before that day, it will a nuclear power plant. email or even just the corrupted image itself. happen after – and it will happen fast.” ■ Robert Watson, who studies secure computer Attackers can get in, but then find themselves architectures at the University of Cambridge, with nowhere to go. Sally Adee is a freelance science writer based is working on a third way with colleagues at Some infrastructure already uses incredibly in London

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 39 CLASSIC EXPERIMENT Adventurer in time

An extraordinary experiment on himself showed Michel Sire that the body does have its own clock. Laura Spinney went to meet him

N JULY 1962, Michel Siffre took off his watch Michel Siffre lived and descended into the abyss of Scarasson in underground three Ithe French Alps. There, in a cave 130 metres times: first in France below the surface, he set up camp next to a in 1962, then Texas in glacier. With a torch as his only light source, 1972 (right) and finally and deprived of all reminders of the passage of back in France in 2000 time, he lived underground, alone, for 63 days. (left) When he emerged, wearing goggles to protect his eyes from the sun, the world’s press was waiting. Siffre was a geologist, but what he had originally planned as an expedition to study the glacier had become famous as something completely different: the first study of the human response to living with no information about time. Siffre was the first to show that our body might have its own clock. Since then, chronobiology has become a hugely important field of research. Now nearly 80, Siffre lives alone in a small

apartment in Nice. It is so crammed with DESMAZES/GETTYPHILIPPE souvenirs, including giant fossil ammonites, that it resembles a cave itself. A ball of energy the funds myself, picked the two months though I missed my girlfriend,” he says. despite his age, he apologises for the disorder, arbitrarily and invented the experimental “But I was 100 per cent motivated. I was a although everything here, from the framed protocol,” he says. human dynamo.” photos of his exploits to climbing equipment In the cave, Siffre’s only connection to the The experience was physically harrowing, hung on the wall, demonstrates how this world was a phone line to a camp on the nevertheless. It was 3°C in the cave, and energy has been a defining feature of his life. surface, and someone was always there to condensation pooled on the floor of his As he shows me a tube of the electrode paste answer it. He called on waking and before going tent so his feet were permanently wet and used on Apollo missions, he describes how the to sleep, passing on information such as his cold. Worse, lumps of ice and rock would space race was his inspiration. Yuri Gagarin pulse rate and temperature. His collaborators periodically fall from the glacier and crash had just become the first man in space and the were instructed not to give him the slightest nearby, terrifying him. After one particularly US and USSR wanted to know what effect long temporal clue. hair-raising rock fall, he stayed on the missions would have on astronauts. Without phone for more than 10 hours, though it seeing day and night, it was assumed, a human didn’t seem that long to him. His perception would continue to function according to a Human dynamo of time had changed: “Two seconds passed, 24-hour cycle, but that assumption had never His camp was on a small area of flat rock I perceived one.” been tested. Siffre decided to test it himself, at the foot of the glacier. There was barely He kept a diary. The experiment was due although for the 23-year-old it was as much space to walk around. He passed the time to finish on 14 September, but on what he an adventure in timelessness as a scientific thinking and reading the memoirs of estimated to be 20 August he learned his time trial. “I was a geologist, not a biologist. I raised Charles de Gaulle. Was he lonely? “Not really, was up. He was 25 days out.

40 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 by lightning that travelled down the cable connected to the electrodes on his body, giving him a violent jolt. Psychologically, however, Midnight cave took a terrible toll. Three months in, he cracked. Overwhelmed by a feeling that he was wasting his time and betraying his vocation, he ripped the sensors off his body. But he didn’t ask to leave the cave, and he carried on doing the cognitive tests. After 10 days, a sense of duty made him connect himself back up again. “But from then on the cave became my prison,” he says. If it hadn’t been for an iron will – his philosophy of marche ou crève (which translates as walk or die) – and a small female rat he befriended, he is convinced he wouldn’t have completed the experiment. In Midnight cave, Siffre’s sleep-wake cycle “His perception of time had changed: ‘Two seconds passed, I perceived one’ ”

stretched more slowly than it had in Scarasson, but it stretched further, and he twice achieved a 48-hour cycle. But he also got depression, which lasted for many months after leaving the cave. It wasn’t helped by his financial situation: he had been obliged to foot the bill when funding ran out. “I was broke,” he says. He went off to explore cave formations in Guatemala, and it was only in 2000, after learning that the 77-year-old astronaut John Glenn had returned to space, that he decided to undertake one last adventure in chronobiology. Now 60, his aim was to explore the effects of ageing on the body clock. After two months in

PAUL SLADE/PARIS MATCH/GETTYa stalactite-encrusted cave near Montpellier, France, he found that his sleep-wake cycle He emerged exhausted, but with his spirit Over the next decade, he oversaw a series evolved as it had in his 23-year-old self. intact, although there were some temporary of experiments in which other volunteers Siffre’s investigations launched a line of after-effects. He would play the same record went without time cues for up to four months. study that culminated in a Nobel prize in 2017 over and over again, forgetting that he had just These demonstrated that the body’s clock for the three researchers who identified the heard it. Not much is known about the effects could be extended into a 48-hour cycle, genes governing what we now know to be of timelessness on memory, but Siffre has his something Siffre hadn’t achieved in Scarasson. multiple body clocks. It contributed to the own explanation: “You’re a point of light in That was one reason why, in 1972, he decided invention of light therapy for mood disorders a permanent darkness,” he says. “The brain to test himself again. He had another motive: and drugs for jet lag. grasps no time because there is no time. “People were whispering that I was happy to Revisiting those experiments, however, it Unless you write down what has happened, send others down, but not myself; that after is difficult not to be struck by how biomedical you forget it immediately.” Scarasson, I was afraid.” ethics has moved on. None of the many It wasn’t only his perception of time that This time he spent six months underground organisations that supported Siffre’s research had changed. In the cave, his sleep-wake cycle in Midnight cave in Texas – the longest questioned the ethics of it, or offered him had increased to 24 hours and 30 minutes. He period of timelessness anyone had attempted psychological support. But then, Siffre had gone to sleep and woken a little later each to date. Technology had moved on since 1962. expected nothing more. Surrounded by day, until he had become nocturnal. It showed, Electrodes stuck to his scalp and body memories of a life richly lived, he says, “Je ne Siffre said, that the body had its own clock. monitored his physiological activity, and he regrette rien.” ■ But scientists didn’t accept that idea easily. performed daily cognitive tests. There were “They thought I was mad,” he says. no physical threats, though he was once struck Laura Spinney is a writer based in Paris

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 41 CULTURE

Unleash your virtual hero

Niall Firth, Hannah Joshua and Sam Wong try out Marvel’s new Oculus Rift game

WANT to be Black Panther from get on your knees and grope about Wakanda? Or maybe Captain on the floor for your weapon America, Black Widow or than to make a mistake in an Spider-Man? Now virtual reality ordinary video game. Playing in is finally coming to domestic VR highlighted the skill involved gaming PCs, you have the chance. in wielding a weapon, and the Oculus Rift has teamed up with stakes felt higher when you could Marvel to produce Marvel Powers literally turn your head and be United VR. But how does total face-to-face with an enemy. immersion in a game like this NF: The game seemed pretty feel? Three New Scientist staff linear. You’d follow blue arrows members popped on headsets, to move to the next part of the slugged it out, and chewed it street and await your foes. over afterwards. Yet the deep immersion – and the graphics that eclipsed anything Niall Firth: I tried a prototype of I’d seen in VR before – made it

Oculus in 2013, when it was still STUDIOSOCULUS engaging enough. I just wonder if, big and clunky and didn’t have beyond that first level, the novelty controllers. I was amazed then – waving your arms like a loon. Marvel Powers United VR lets you would begin to wear off given the but it’s so much better now. NF: I felt deeply immersed and I step inside the country of Wakanda path is so explicitly signposted. Hannah Joshua: Unlike both of you, was quickly unaware of what the To be honest, I found I stayed as the same character real me was doing on the outside. match, which made me feel myself spending a bit too much the whole time: Black Widow. My sense of balance was thrown surprisingly connected to the time gazing around at my The basic controls were simple and it made me feel a little random strangers I was playing surroundings, or experimenting enough. But it is easy to lose track dizzy – especially when I glanced with. It was weirdly intimate. of which button does what and down and whoa! I could see SW: I’m not sure how long we “It made me dizzy. you risk hitting the wrong one in Captain America’s massive thighs played for – I lost track of time Especially when I looked the heat of the moment. But this pounding the streets beneath me. until I heard a voice near me down and saw Captain can work to your advantage. HJ: I was in a different team and suggesting it was time to return America’s massive thighs” I made myself invisible by managed to shake hands with one to reality. It was a bit of a workout accident through button-mashing of my teammates – I think it was to play so when I took off the with my Spider-Man leaps, and sneaked up on some enemies. Storm – before we started our headset I was sweaty and dizzy, rather than helping my fellow Sam Wong: As Captain America, but I would have happily stayed superheroes. the key skill I had to learn was in the Marvel world for longer. SW: I had children’s voices in grabbing the shield from behind Did you want to keep going? my ear telling me what to do, my back, launching it like a NF: No! I was first to remove my which was a bit unsettling! discus, then catching it as it flew headset when I suddenly realised I was Spider-Man for this part too, back to me. It was difficult to aim I felt very queasy, like being car so I did my best to shoot strands at first but, after a while, I honed sick. As I took it off I could hear of web at the enemies, but I was my throwing action to make sure one of my team mates inside struggling a bit with the controls it went off in roughly the right the game calling for help. and I was a bit worried I was letting direction. I’m sure I looked like a Sorry, I thought, I’m through. the side down. Still, we succeeded prat though – I don’t know how HJ: When it was time to leave, in fighting off the attack. long you have to spend in VR I almost found myself glancing at HJ: You succeeded? I think we did before you forget that your real the door and flexing my thumb to too. Sometimes the info display body is in a room with a jump over there, like I did in the was a bit overwhelming to read, contraption strapped to your face, game. I’d be a terrible superhero but if this catches on, a lot of – I kept dropping my energy- gamers are going to get a lot more Out of this world: Sam Wong shooting batons! Somehow it is exercise. I was pleased I didn’t ■ puts the virtual in reality AMIT GILEAD more embarrassing to physically come last in my team.

42 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 For more books and arts coverage, visit newscientist.com/culture DON’T MISS

Read How Ötzi came to life Michael Lannoo, whose own adventures have carried him to both polar and tropical regions, turns historian to celebrate the Catherine Brahic on a delicate film portrait of an ancient iceman muckier side of biology in This Land Is Your Land: The story of field biology in America fictional aspect that was meant through inhospitable landscapes. (University of Chicago Press). Iceman, directed by Felix Randau, to merge logically and organically Both sides incur losses; both sides UK cinemas and on demand with the historical facts”. are flawed. But we mostly root for Visit LIKE many modern lives, the film In their imagined version, Kelab the lone hunter even though we TechHub London is the venue for Iceman starts with sex, a birth sets off over the Alps with the can see he is also prepared, even a discussion titled Power in the and a religious ritual. When the newborn in a fur sling, fuelled yearns, to kill. Digital Age on 14 August. Kicking mother dies in labour, her child by the desire for revenge. Ötzi’s The friend I watched it with was around today’s biggest issues will is adopted. Surrounded by rugged body was found in 1991 by hikers unimpressed. The Revenant, he be Areeq Chowdhury of digital mountain peaks, the newborn is 3000 metres above sea level in said, had rendered the same plot politics think tank WebRoots wrapped in furs and lifted high the Ötzal-Alps. He turned out to to greater effect. It’s true. But for Democracy and Carl Miller, author above the clan’s heads as they have died 5300 years ago, and those who are interested in human of the forthcoming book The chant in an ancient tongue. is among the best preserved origins, I think there is more Death of the Gods: The new global Later, there is an attack on their human remains from that time. depth and delicacy to this film. power grab. settlement. Men, women and Along with many of his clothes, As Kelab leaves his village, we children are killed, their wooden shoes, a hand axe, a bow and see him pack. He crouches beside Listen huts set alight. Something is unfinished arrows, he has yielded a fire, pulls out a smouldering Annie Minoff, co-host of Science stolen. Two people escape: the unprecedented insights into life ember, wraps it carefully in Friday’s fantastic Undiscovered baby – miraculously spared – and during the Copper Age. something and pops it into a podcast, will join two authors to a clan member off on a solitary We know that his home was container. Clearly, this is a nod to discuss great science writing at hunt. He sees the flames and 20 kilometres south of where he the birchbark containers found the American Writers Museum in races down but is too late. was found, and at a much lower with Ötzi that are believed to have Chicago on 16 August. The second Thus begins the epic journey of altitude. And his end was violent: been used to carry embers. series of Undiscovered will be Ötzi in Iceman, a film by German scans showed a flint arrowhead in Then there are more intangible released any day now. writer-director Felix Randau. He his left shoulder. He was clearly in details. Copper Age people most took research on the real iceman trouble, with dulled tools and no likely had some mystical beliefs. Last chance Ötzi – renamed Kelab for the film – way to sharpen them. Some In the film, these (and a reveal) The exhibition My Monster: as his starting point, saying that it suggest he was fleeing a disaster. involve a mysterious wooden box The human animal hybrid at “left me enough freedom for the This possibility gives the called Tineka – a shrine of sorts – Melbourne’s RMIT Gallery narrative its direction. It is a stolen by the attackers. has proved one of the more In Iceman, Ötzi becomes lone pretty standard revenge story: The dialogue is delivered in a adventurous celebrations of hunter Kelab, out for vengeance violent attack, robbery, a chase fictional language, developed by Frankenstein’s bicentenary. linguist Chasper Pult. His words Catch works like Julia deVille’s and phrases could pass for Peter, shown below, before the ancestral Rhaetian, once spoken show closes on 18 August. in the Alps. But there are few words, really. A loneliness and deep sorrow accompany our solitary hunter. He happens upon a few other people on the way but they don’t share his language. It is these complex relationships I was most struck by. They give a better sense of our ancestors’ mental landscape than any mummified remains ever could. Don’t watch Iceman if you want Hollywood-style narrative thrills: it is a portrait, not a drama. After ■ JULIA DEVILLE/SOPHIE GANNON GALLERY GANNON DEVILLE/SOPHIE JULIA MARTIN RATTINI FOR PORT-AU-PRINCE FILMS MARTIN RATTINI PORT-AU-PRINCE FOR all, we know how the story ends.

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 43 CULTURE

Amazing apians

Bees are beautiful and diverse, even though they’re just hippy wasps, finds Matthew Cobb USGS BEE INVENTORY AND MONITORING LAB MONITORING AND INVENTORY BEE USGS

Around 100 million years ago, one modern bee genomes suggests Centris decolorata and Diphaglossa Buzz: The nature and necessity of group began to eat pollen, feeding many species went with them, gayi, bees from South America bees by Thor Hanson, Icon Books it to their larvae. This evolutionary shaping modern bee diversity. THINK of a bee and innovation led to the 20,000 Hanson is particularly and why workers in social species you will probably species of bee we have today. Bees, interested in the role of bees in give up their ability to mate. imagine either it turns out, are just hippy wasps. human society and evolution, But there are beautiful a honey bee or The basic deal with bees and exploring our sweet tooth and colour plates of 16 bees (two are a bumblebee. plants is that the plant gives the the significance of honey in pre- shown above), as well as simple But in Buzz, Thor bee some sugary nectar, and the industrial societies, including in descriptions of the seven families Hanson reminds bee gets covered in pollen, some Africa, where honey bees originate. of bees. These provide an us that the apian of which it feeds to its young, and He also describes how US alfalfa excellent graphic complement community is incredibly diverse, some of which pollinates another to the text so we can all marvel at with most species solitary, flower. Despite this apparently “ Some bees steal nectar the tiny, wonderful pollinators. without hives, queens and stings. fair arrangement, Hanson shows hidden too deep for them The final chapters deal with Hanson, a US conservationist, that both sides repeatedly try to to reach by biting a hole contemporary threats to bees, expertly explores the history and gain the upper hand. at the base of the flower” describing the complex reality ecology of bees around the world, Some orchids produce no of the “colony collapse disorder” concentrating on North American nectar but fool male bees into farmers encourage his beloved that affected honey bee nests, species. He regularly returns rummaging around on the pollen- alkali bees, which are efficient and taking a balanced view of the to his favourite, the alkali bee, a producing stamens by smelling of pollinators, by creating salty mud factors that led to a decline in both solitary insect with shimmering female bee pheromone. And some fields where the bees can burrow, wild bees and farmed honey bees. stripes that nests in salt-saturated bees will steal nectar hidden too laying an egg next to a ball of Hanson’s son, Noah, appears at ground in the western US. deep for them to reach by biting a pollen that will feed the larva. various points, getting involved Almost all bees are vegetarian, hole at the base of the flower and The pages of Buzz are full of in experiments and observations. their fate tightly linked to bypassing the stamens. quotes from bee experts and A perceptive quote from him flowering plants. They feed One aspect of this link between farmers. This makes for easy closes the book, summing up the on nectar and pollen (honey is plants and bees that Hanson reading, and the book can feel significance of these insects: “The produced only by social bees, doesn’t explore is what happened like an extended magazine article. world could do without us, but it which eat it when there are few when an asteroid hit Earth I would have liked more science, couldn’t do without bees.” ■ flowers or it is too cold to fly). 66 million years ago, shattering covering how social bees organise The bees’ ancestors, the wasps, its ecology. Many flowering plants their hives, for example, and the Matthew Cobb is a zoologist at the however, are mostly carnivorous. went extinct, and a comparison of fundamental question of how University of Manchester, UK

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50 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018

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EDITOR’S PICK Cataloguing climate Neural correlates of consciousness and a theory of mind solution change contributions From Robert Anker, Currumbin reaches a certain kind of complexity. people who are blind may process Valley, Queensland, Australia In artificial intelligence research, touch data within their optical cortex. Roger Taylor suggests compiling neural networks try to mimic the So the physical seat of consciousness a list of all the things that might way the brain works by making huge may be moveable, diverse and of no be contributing to climate change numbers of connections between real value to cognitive science. Unless (Letters, 25 June). There is already nodes. Machine learning distributes its we are brain surgeons, we would do such a list, and it also shows how discoveries across this network in an better to focus on the information. to reduce emissions already in the impenetrable manner, analogous to atmosphere, with rankings, costs the way a hologram distributes every From David Newton, and benefits, in great detail. Paul part of an image across the whole Chelmondiston, Suffolk, UK Hawken’s book Drawdown has a recording. Neither can be understood De Lange’s summary of consciousness website at drawdown.org. by analysing what each node or pixel is studies could have been subtitled: “how doing. This suggests that the physical to be conscious about thinking”. Having Autism, acceptance From Guy Inchbald, Upton-upon- “seat” of any particular information a theory of mind –”I think that you and altering attention Severn, Worcestershire, UK in the brain may be widely diffuse. think…” – is a well-understood concept Catherine de Lange discusses the Two identical neural networks applied to many social primates, From Ametrine Lavender, hunt to understand consciousness presented with the same learning including humans. Doesn’t it also apply Heptonstall, West Yorkshire, UK (30 June, p 30). It may not be material and procedure will develop to our sense of self? If we hypothesise Your interview with Anna particularly tangible. Consciousness different connection patterns. We also our thoughts and feelings in the same Remington mostly does a good is associated with the information know that people can differ widely in way as we do others’, the “mystery” of job of describing the strengths as patterns carried by nerve signals. It the way their brains develop and learn consciousness disappears – it’s simply well as the difficulties associated is what information feels like when it to respond to stimuli: for example how we think we are thinking. with autism, and helps counteract

52 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 “ It’s sad how secret miscarriages are, or how much they are viewed as a taboo” Gachiru responds to the news that women have more miscarriages than live births over their lifetimes (4 August, p 8) the negativity of much writing that of others suggests autistic sexism, arguing that the cultural where individual welfare is largely about autism and autistic people people can process more amplification of small biological determined by having a job, the (14 July, p 32). But I am bewildered information at any one time, differences results in a huge gap displacement of human jobs is by the idea that it is the result of rather than having unoccupied between how men and women an important issue. too much unoccupied attention. attention. This extra attentional think of themselves (21 April, p 37). But the increased spending that Most autistic people would tell capacity can result in useful skills, I argue that genetic differences is supposed to follow might not be you the opposite, and years of but, as your experience shows, in intelligence are amplified by a cause for celebration. Will it have research backs up the idea may also lead to distraction. the environment, through a large ecological footprint and be that we have very focused, uni- Many autistic people have told interactions such as praise, for the monetary benefit of a few? directional attention capacity, so us that this concept of increased motivation and opportunity. Or will it fit within the safe space asking anything extra of us tends capacity – with its positive and This seems entirely consistent for planetary ecology, and be for to show that we can’t divide our negative consequences – fits with with the observations. the benefit of entire communities, attention between stimuli. their sensory experiences. In particular, it immediately even if that means what some call I am very absorbed, focused explains why the correlation “degrowth”? Jobs are not always a and “in the zone” when writing Intelligence scores, between genes and IQ becomes measure of collective progress and an academic essay, to the point correlation and cause stronger with age, which is well-being. They can be a measure that it is painful to emerge. Yet if otherwise difficult to understand. of destruction and misery. someone parks their car outside From Chris Cox, Cambridge, UK with the radio on, I cannot Linda Geddes writes that around It matters what kind of The last thing the world process that stimulus and keep 50 per cent of the difference in jobs robots aren’t taking needs is aircon in Canada up concentration. That asks too intelligence between people is due much of me, not too little. to genetics (21 July, p 33). There is From Veljko Armano Linta, From Tom Smith, certainly a correlation, but Zagreb, Croatia Basel, Switzerland Anna Remington writes: correlation does not necessarily You report a study finding that Discussing heat-related mortality, ■ We still don’t fully understand imply cause. Indeed, you took a robots won’t be taking our jobs Michael Le Page says that more attention, but our research and different approach in an article on (21 July, p 5). In our societies, than a dozen deaths have been >

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11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 53 LETTERS [email protected] @newscientist newscientist

blamed on a heatwave in Canada can separate completely in brine. to clean up for us or to live with People picking plastic (14 July, p 25). He concludes that Consider clay that’s part of a soil the consequences. Truly, may God pollution could get paid without air-conditioners, large intermittently wetted by rain and forgive us. numbers of people will die in tides. Its charged sheets could act From Hillary Shaw, future heatwaves. like membranes, allowing organic More stupidity of smart Newport, Shropshire, UK Over 50 million people die in species to assemble, compressing electricity meters What to do about plastic (19 May, the world each year. It’s estimated and stabilising them, and then p 25)? On most roads in England that around a million of these releasing them. From Sam Edge, I see miles of verge littered with deaths are related to temperature. Ringwood, Hampshire, UK thousands of pieces of plastic, But at high latitudes, far more Our Christian duty to Colin Foan suggests that smart much of which will end up in the people die from cold than from our neighbours in time electricity meters can reduce rivers and sea. If governments are heat. Milder winters may actually the problem of peak demand serious about plastic pollution, reduce overall mortality rates here. From Fred White, exceeding supply (Letters, 7 July). why not declare a month in which Heatwaves kill increasing Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, UK This would be more directly true people bring bags of plastic waste numbers, predominantly in the Katharine Hayhoe’s perspective if the meters could communicate to recycling centres and are paid, tropics. The last thing the world is a welcome Christian insight with smart appliances – for say, £1 per kilogram? This could needs is for Canadians to install on approaches to climate change example, to ask your fridge to redistribute income too. air-conditioners. (7 July, p 40). It may be a surprise turn itself down for a while. to some, but Christianity’s prime The “smart” meters currently Space is the place but Did life get started directive is to love your neighbour being rolled out in the UK have no Sutherland isn’t between sheets of clay? as yourself. such capability. No protocol for Looking at the current state of such interactions has yet been From Don Trower, From Chris Eve, play, we have a big problem with agreed in the UK or EU. Braintree, Essex, UK Lynton, Devon, UK this. In terms of the environment, Not only are we wasting money Does anyone else question the Penny Sarchet discusses whether it must be acknowledged that we installing the current generation wisdom of the UK’s first spaceport life may have originated in an also have “neighbours in time”, of “smart” meters and throwing being in the remote Sutherland ocean vent, a hot spring or a some of whom may, we hope, be away the existing ones, we are area of Scotland (21 July, p 5)? geothermal field (16 June, p 30). our descendants. We are robbing going to have to do it all over again Consider the distance that What about clay that consists these neighbours blind when in five or 10 years once such a payloads, fuel and staff will have of stacked, charged sheets? The we extract resources and fossil standard is agreed. It would make to be transported, and uncertainty distance between these varies energy from the earth. far more sense to stop the roll-out over any future relationship with with the amount of water and Then we pass the resulting immediately and resume it only Scotland, given that it may not dissolved ions present, and they mess on to them, expecting them once that’s in place. remain a member of the UK. Sutherland launches will be called off if more than an inch of snow TOM GAULD falls or there is wind.

For the record

Q The planet 55 Cancri e is nine times as massive as Earth (21 July, p 38). Q The crucifix ground beetle is extinct in many localities but not in the UK as a whole (28 July, p 28). Q Odds off: in the long run, a 50:50 chance of a £6 pay-out should return more than a guaranteed £2.70 per round (21 July, p 10).

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54 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 CROSSWORD Compiled by Richard Smyth

Crossword No21

ACROSS 1 Part of the female reproductive 19 Human-like automaton (7) mechanism of a flower (6) 20 In electronics, a valve composed 4 Rumen, reticulum, omasum and of three electrodes (6) abomasum, for instance (8) 23 Traits developed by evolution 10 Grass fibre from the in response to environmental Mediterranean region (7) factors (11) 11 1985 sci-fi novel by Carl Sagan (7) 25 Extinct bird of New Zealand (3) 12 The only even prime number (3) 26 Oceanographical feature also 13 Irene ___ (1897–1956), joint called a shoal (4,3) winner of the 1935 Nobel Prize for 27 New World woodpecker (7) Chemistry (6-5) 28 Portable mechanical cutting 14 Three-part brain structure first tool first developed for use in proposed by Paul D. Maclean (6) surgery (8) 15 Condition that may be congenital, 29 Theoretical means by which a chronic or idiopathic (7) memory is stored in the brain (6)

DOWN 1 In geology, another name for 9 ___’s Law, principle relating to gas soapstone (8) pressure (5) 2 Mechanical process by which an 16 Carolyn ___ (b.1929), US object collapses in on itself (9) astronomer who discovered 377 3 Smithsonian zoologist minor planets (9) (1860–1943) who described more 17 Genus of bacteria that can cause than 1000 new species (4,4,7) serious illness in humans (8) 5 Relating to the structure of Earth’s 18 Six-pointed star shape (from the crust (8) Greek) (8) 6 Obsolete name for bipolar 21 pc (6) disorder (5,10) 22 Heinz ___ (1928–2017), 7 Electric ___, execution device German-born scientist known for conceived by US dentist Alfred P. presenting The Great Egg Race on Southwick (5) the BBC (5) 8 Joe ___ (1921–2016), “father of 24 Suspension of breathing (US the 747” jumbo jet (6) spelling) (5)

Answers to crossword No20

ACROSS: 1 RHEBOK, 5 STINGRAY, 9 INFRARED, 10 TREMOR, 11 PSILOCYBIN, 12 SITE, 13 INFERIOR, 16 ECOBOT, 17 PRIONS, 19 FRANKLIN, 21 CHIP, 22 MASS NUMBER, 25 AT REST, 26 ECLIPTIC, 27 FREEWARE, 28 STEREO. DOWN: 2 HANDS, 4 KARACHI, 5 SIDEBAR, 6 INTENSE, 7 GUESSWORK, 8 A FORTIORI, 14 NORTH STAR, 15 EXOSPHERE, 18 SUMATRA, 19 FISHEYE, 20 ANNULUS, 23 MAPLE, 24/3 EMILE BOREL.

11 August 2018 | NewScientist | 55 FEEDBACK For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback

A SHARK that was smuggled out of an Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, aquarium in a baby stroller has been from user StarChild2015 found alive after a two-day search. “This was my first time walking Staff at the San Antonio Aquarium the Serengeti and I believe it’s a in Texas spotted a man lifting the MUST for everyone. Yes it’s hot, 40-centimetre-long horn shark out dry and dusty, but it’s all about of an open tank on 28 July. He then the atmosphere and the vibe wrapped it in a wet blanket and placed and being around like-minded it in a bucket inside the stroller. individuals. On the trail, you can After being confronted by the be free, truly free, to be who you aquarium’s general manager, the man are. Especially if what you are is and two accomplices fled, but their a wildebeest.” vehicle was soon tracked down. The shark was returned to the Roach Motel, under the fridge aquarium in “very good condition”. in the kitchen, from user GregorSamsa SPEAKING of excursions, many “I recently discovered this small of us are off on our travels at this boutique motel during one of my time of year, and the animal nightly walks. I must say it looks kingdom is no exception. Yet the very inviting. I think it will be swift and the swallow have no way good, as it was so full I couldn’t get of checking on the desirability of in. Nobody looked like they were IT IS a question that has troubled MORE galactic weirdness: Jeff their destination. If they could log about to leave any time soon.” thinkers throughout history: “What if Dickens is still a little puzzled by into TripAdvisor, we imagine it the entire Earth was instantaneously our item on cosmological unit might go something like this: Ria Formosa Nature Reserve, replaced with an equal volume of pedantry over parsecs (28 July). Portugal, from user Little_Bittern closely packed, but uncompressed, He writes: “I am surprised you Yalu Jiang estuary, China, from “This year we headed to the blueberries?” Now we have an made no mention of the recent user A. Godwit Algarve for sun, sea and sand. answer, thanks to Anders Sandberg Han Solo film, seemingly written “A large group of us had a two at the University of Oxford, who has to ensure that the apparently week layover en route to Alaska. published a fruitful analysis on the annoying use of parsec in the Despite concerns about the preprint server arXiv. original movie acquired a rational political situation just over the A person standing on the surface explanation.” border in North Korea, we felt very of Earth when it turns to blueberries In a neat piece of retconning safe. Sadly the selection of shellfish would first feel a drastic reduction (the literary practice of rewriting in the breakfast buffet was very of gravity, reports Sandberg. The the past to explain away plot poor, and I left starving. Two stars.” blueberries would compress rapidly, holes), the “Kessel Run” is resulting in “basically the worst declared to be measured in Sefton Park, Liverpool, from user earthquake ever, and it keeps on units of distance, not time. Goosie_G going until everything has fallen “I strongly suspect there exists “We’re not really ones for going 715 kilometres”. a Venn diagram of readers who away at the holidays, but we At the same time, the blueberries are pedantic about cosmological decided to visit the pond here would heat up rapidly. “The end units, those who are pedantic during our “staycation”, as it’s just What a blast! Loads of ex-pats result is a world that has a steam about Star Wars, and those, like a short flight from Prince’s Park. there, no need to learn the lingo. atmosphere covering an ocean of jam me, who can be pedantic about We were having a lovely day until Friendly locals, plenty of eating on top of warm blueberry granita.” both,” he says. “But what are the someone told me to ‘go home’. spots. Had a dance with another According to Sandberg, the physics relative numbers? Is the overlap I was born here pal! Just because long-legged bird, and next thing I of blueberry Earth is actually “fairly large or small?” we’re called Canada Geese know, I’ve got six mouths to feed.” normal” compared to some exotic Large or small, Jeff, our inbox doesn’t mean we’re not British.” exoplanets. Maybe a blueberry planet suffers equally: the Venn diagram Next week, we review the Tinder is out there – somewhere in our of Feedback readers and pedants Spitsbergen island, Norway, profiles of parasites and hosts seeking

PAUL MCDEVITT pancake-shaped galaxy. is clearly a perfect circle. from user White_Bear compatibility online. “I decided to venture further south this summer, as all my Toby Bateson has weeded out another case of usual haunts have gone into You can send stories to Feedback by nominative determinism in the pages of New liquidation. Was utterly famished email at [email protected]. Scientist, where he learns that one David Potter the whole time. Ran into some Please include your home address. locals, very unfriendly. Not This week’s and past Feedbacks can works at the UK’s only legal cannabis farm pleased to see me at all. One star.” be seen on our website.

56 | NewScientist | 11 August 2018 THE LAST WORD Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword

Flower underpower A tad late much throughout the UK. It of rainwater and pondweeds in seems that the tadpole gains our yard in Bolton, Lancashire. Why does a bee only visit one type I was cleaning my garden pond in an advantage by deliberately In spring I used it to follow the of flower at a time? It seems such a Staffordshire, UK, at the end of delaying metamorphosis and progress of collected frogspawn, waste of energy. October and came across a live overwintering, because it then via tadpoles, into frogs. tadpole. I had previously suspected emerges as a larger frog than One year, after our summer Q Bees usually visit flowers for that some tadpoles are late usual. They may be able to do holidays, the crock was swarming food in the form of nectar and undergoing metamorphosis, but this this because of warmer winters with four-legged tadpoles at a pollen. At face value, bees’ fidelity one really missed the boat. Is this a brought about by climate change. time when they should long to one type of flower at a time, recognised phenomenon, and what Terence Hollingworth since have departed as frogs. or flower constancy, seems is the explanation? Blagnac, France I recalled a book by Enid Blyton unintuitive. After all, a huge about wildlife, which suggested variety of different flower Q One has to assume that this Q Frogs and toads lay eggs, called tadpoles needed iodine to species exists in nature, so why is a tadpole of a frog or a toad, spawn, in early spring. These hatch mature, presumably because would bees bother seeking out although it could have been the after a couple of weeks and the it is used to produce thyroid a particular species when a larvae of a newt, which is not tadpoles grow and metamorphose hormones. Those were the days different one much closer might dissimilar to a tadpole, except to form miniature versions of when medicine cabinets stocked be just as good? In addition, that it has feathery external gills. the adult form. Transformations iodine for cuts and grazes, so I bees might be expected to That said, there are only two also occur inside the animal as its visit multiple flower species species of toad, the natterjack and internal organs alter to cope with “I put iodine into the to maintain a healthy balance the common, and three species of a changing diet. tadpoles’ rainwater crock. of nutrients in their diet. frog, the American bullfrog, the Sometimes metamorphosis Days later the yard was However, flower constancy marsh frog and the common frog, can be delayed if environmental teeming with small frogs” is thought to evolve because it recorded for Staffordshire. We conditions are not conducive for actually improves the bees’ can discount the toads, because maturation. Overcrowding, with put a few drops of iodine in the foraging efficiency. By learning both breed early in the year and resultant food shortages, and low crock. Days later, the yard was to identify the scent and a garden pond is unsuitable for water temperature may slow teeming with small frogs. appearance of one flower a natterjack. For the frogs, the growth. Such tadpoles have to It might be interesting to especially well, it is easier for American Bullfrog has only overwinter in their pond and, discover the iodine content bees to locate that flower. been seen once in Staffordshire, if they survive the cold, will of Staffordshire’s ponds. There are some species of bee which leaves us with the marsh complete their development Elizabeth Poskitt that visit many flowers, such as and the common frog as the the next spring. Woodstock, Oxfordshire, UK leaf-cutter bees. It is possible likely culprits. Overwintering could bestow a that such species have more of a There are frogs that overwinter survival advantage over tadpoles struggle identifying and locating as tadpoles in ponds, and one of that hatch and mature in the This week’s question flowers, giving them a lower these is the marsh frog, but once same year. They may also get a foraging rate overall. again we have the wrong habitat. ready source of food from the FLYING DOWN THE TRACK Nonetheless, bees that visit a That makes the common frog pond, as tadpoles are known World-class athletes of both range of flowers have an extended the most likely candidate. This cannibals (19 April 2014, p 16). sexes cover 100 metres in about flight season compared with more normally breeds early in the year David Muir 10 seconds. What percentage of specialist bees, as they can exploit and has usually metamorphosed Edinburgh, UK this is spent not touching the flowers that emerge at different before late August. ground? And what’s the figure times of the year. However, overwintering is not Q This reminded me of a for a 2-hour marathon? Sam Buckton an uncommon phenomenon and childhood episode. Nearly Larry Curley Cambridge, UK has been documented pretty 70 years ago, I kept a large crock Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, UK

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