New scientist papers

http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist LIFESAVERS ANONYMOUS Would you donate a kidney to a stranger? PLANET X Hints of another Mars in the outer solar system DUMB LUCK Genes that make you sick make you stupider too WEEKLY June 24 - 30, 2017 BIRD FLU WARNING Just two mutations from a global pandemic SPECIAL REPORT HOW TO LIVE WITH CLIMATE CHANGE and how to beat it No3131 US$6.99 CAN$6.99 72440 30690 Science and technology news www.newscientist.com US jobs in science VANISHING ACT The man who can make you disappear http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist Intellectual indulgence Subscribe and save up to 76% Visit newscientist.com/9942 or call 1-888-822-3242 and quote 9942 FEEDING MINDS FOR 60 YEARS http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist NEW SCIENTIST D S CO VE RY The life and work of Alan Turing Alan Turing is arguably one of the greatest scientists of the modern age Join us as we explore his life, work and greatest achievements and learn more about this fascinating figure in 20th century science 20 – 22 OC TOBER 2017 From £465 per person STUDENT DAYS CODE BREAKERS WHAT’S INCLUDED Visit King’s College where Turing studied mathematics and went on to lay the theoretical foundations for modern computers Marvel at the chapel’s famous Gothic architecture and medieval stained glass Our guided tour of the city includes the American Cambridge cemetery and the Eagle pub, where Francis Crick first announced that he and James Watson had discovered the structure of DNA After dinner, enjoy a talk by intelligence expert Mark Baldwin and a demonstration of a rare fourwheel Enigma machine Soak up the atmosphere of the huts where Enigma messages sent by the Germany military were decrypted Visit Turing’s office to see how it would have looked during the second world war Discover the ingenious mathematical techniques and devices that Turing and his colleagues designed to crack the Enigma code At the nearby National Museum of Computing, see a rebuild of Colossus the world’s first electronic computer Reminisce over the museum’s collection of home computers from the 1970s and 1980s ❭ Two nights’ bed and breakfast DAVIDE CIOFFI/ FINE ART IMAGES /GETTY IMAGES Cambridge Bletchley Park ❭ Welcome reception, dinner and lecture ❭ Second night dinner with wine and talk ❭ Private coach ❭ Local expert guides ❭ All talks, admissions and guided tours FIND OUT MORE Call +44 (0)20 7251 0045 or visit newscientist.com/travel/turing http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist CONTENTS Volume 234 No 3131 This issue online newscientist.com/issue/3131 Leaders News News Have we found Planet Ten? ESO/M KORNMESSER Hints of another Mars in the outer solar system Death of King Coal must be a turning point We’re still scandalously unready for bird flu On the cover 28 36 Lifesavers anonymous Giving organs to strangers Planet X Hints of a second Mars Dumb luck Genes that make you sick make you stupider too 22 Bird flu warning Two mutations from a global pandemic 40 Vanishing act How to disappear How to live with climate change And how to beat it UPFRONT Call for regulation of antibacterial products Bounty of exoplanets US voter data exposed NEWS & TECHNOLOGY Ice lolly clouds seen Gene mutations that make you sick may also make you stupider Footballers move like a chaotic fluid Website makes rent-splitting fairer Parkinson’s linked to immune attack AI doll recognises emotions China’s quantum internet record Teach your own AI On the trail of Myanmar’s rare tortoises Phone data identifies migrants Dams worsen water shortages 19 IN BRIEF Broccoli extract slashes blood sugar Brown dwarf is really two planets Yoga soothes inflammation genes Elk outsmart hunters Analysis 22 Bird flu Just two mutations could launch a pandemic, but research to help us is banned 24 COMMENT If Brexit talks get tough, try a power pose Life in a gigantic void wouldn’t be so bad 25 INSIGHT It’s time to install Martian broadband Cover image Alex Espinosa/Millennium Images Aperture 26 A rainbow of rare frogs Features Features 36 28 How to live with climate change (see above left) 36 Lifesavers anonymous (see left) 40 PEOPLE Frank Ahearn, the man who can make you disappear Lifesavers anonymous Would you donate a kidney to a stranger? HARRIET LEE-MERRION Culture 42 My new best friend A boy with a ”love” disorder sheds light on what it is to be human 43 Just add feeling Are emojis really the world’s first global form of communication? 44 Object lessons Science fiction can’t help but be political, reveals a new exhibition Coming next week… How old are you really? Discovering your true biological age Smooth moves The physical laws of living motion Regulars 52 LETTERS Politicians have plenty of time to make decisions 55 MAKE A box to stop snooping siblings 56 FEEDBACK Bullshit-detection class 57 THE LAST WORD Plant departure 24 June 2017 | NewScientist | http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist KEVIN HORAN/AURORA PHOTOS/ALAMY LEADERS LOCATIONS USA 45 Prospect St Cambridge, MA 02139 Tel +1 781 734 8773 UK 110 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6EU Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Australia Level 11, Suite 3, 100 Walker Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060 Tel +61 9422 8559 SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone 1-888-822-3242 Email subscribe@newscientist.com Web newscientist.com/subscribe Mail New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953 USA One year subscription (51 issues) $154 CONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries enquiries@newscientist.com Editorial Tel +1 781 734 8773 news@newscientist.com features@newscientist.com opinion@newscientist.com Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display advertising Tel +1 781 734 8773 displaysales@newscientist.com Recruitment advertising Tel +1 781 734 8773 nssales@newscientist.com Newsstand Tel 212 237 7987 Distributed by Time/Warner Retail Sales and Marketing, 260 Cherry Hill Road, Parsippany, NJ 07054 Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel 800 637 4082 tca-articlesales@tribpub.com New Scientist Live Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1273 live@newscientist.com The king is dead, long live… Coal is doomed; renewables boom Is this the turning point? TWO hundred years ago, the British economy stood on the brink of a transformation that changed the world Powered by a new and increasingly cheap energy source – King Coal – the industrial revolution swept away the agrarian society of old and ushered in a new world order We now stand on the brink of a similar transformation Last year, UK coal consumption was down at levels not seen since the early 1800s; in April, the power sector achieved a first by going a whole day without burning any coal Around the world, coal is on its way out With every passing year, we’re digging less out of the ground and retiring more coalfired power stations There is a growing consensus that the filthiest fossil fuel has had its day Last week, BP’s chief economist declared a “decisive break from the past” At the same time, renewables, particularly wind and solar, are booming In 2016, the proportion of the world’s electricity coming from these sources rose to 11.3 per cent The cost of installing solar and wind capacity is plummeting Even in countries where coal enjoys political support, the numbers are pointing in the same direction Coal employs 160,000 people in the US; solar and wind employ 476,000 and counting These are all signs that the world is changing around you in ways you may not have realised, A disaster foretold © 2017 New Scientist Ltd, England New Scientist ISSN 0262 4079 is published weekly except for the last week in December by New Scientist Ltd, England New Scientist (Online) ISSN 2059 5387 New Scientist at Reed Business Information 360 Park Avenue South, 12th floor, New York, NY 10010 Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and other mailing offices Postmaster: Send address changes to New Scientist, PO Box 3806, Chesterfield, MO 63006-9953, USA Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in USA by Fry Communications Inc, Mechanicsburg, PA 17055 THE spectre of bird flu still haunts the world Virologists have discovered that a widespread Chinese poultry virus, H7N9, could be a few mutations away from becoming a human pandemic Like H5N1 before it, the virus could kill millions Yes, we know H5N1 hasn’t done so – but it might still Similarly, H7N9 may fade away But we’re riding our luck It does not help that the Trump administration is dragging its feet on flu research, hindering the production of lifesaving science (see page 22) Worse, no matter what we discover, we cannot defend ourselves We have vaccines against these viruses But as New Scientist has reported for over a decade, the world cannot make enough in time And work on the permanent solution – a vaccine and that even the most backwardlooking politicians are powerless to stop (see page 28) They are also the best reason to believe that the number one downside of the industrial revolution, climate change, can still be kept in check It’s important not to get carried away Demand for oil and gas is growing and most electricity still comes from fossil fuels Aviation and shipping have no viable alternative to hydrocarbons But the green shoots of an energy revolution aren’t just sprouting, they are growing vigorously The tides of history are hard to discern as they flow around you, but what we are witnessing may be as world-changing as the coal revolution of 200 years ago ■ against all strains of flu – is barely ticking over amid funding apathy We know for certain that a flu pandemic will come When a bird flu last caused one, in 1918, tens of millions died, in every country That would happen again The parallel with the Grenfell Tower disaster in London is unavoidable We understand the danger We know the answer But people in power are not listening If they disregard the warnings, they will condemn many people to perish needlessly ■ 24 June 2017 | NewScientist | http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist MONTGOMERY MARTIN/ALAMY UPFRONT Baby deaths avoidable THREE-QUARTERS of the babies who die or are brain damaged during childbirth in the UK might have been saved by better medical care, an inquiry has concluded The report blames staff for failing to recognise when a baby is in danger, for instance, by not continuously monitoring the baby’s heart rate during labour Other problems include staff being overworked Called Each Baby Counts, the report is a result of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists investigating 1136 cases of babies born in the UK in 2015 who either suffered brain damage during birth, or died during delivery or in the next week The report comes after a string of scandals over substandard care at UK hospitals For instance, between 2003 and 2014, 11 babies and one mother died at a hospital run by the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust as a result of poor care Failure to monitor babies’ heart rates has also been blamed for baby deaths at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust Maureen Treadwell from the Birth Trauma Association charity says the report looked at the right cases, but should have tried to identify which hospitals have higher rates of poor care “These cases are catastrophic for people’s lives,” says Treadwell “There’s almost nothing worse for a parent than to know their child is permanently disabled and it could have been avoided.” –Continuous monitoring saves lives– Off to see ice giants WHAT really makes an icy giant world tick? A NASA team is proposing missions to Uranus or Neptune to find out “The preferred mission is an orbiter with an atmospheric probe to either Uranus or Neptune This provides the highest science value, and allows in-depth study of all aspects of “Learning how Uranus and Neptune formed could reveal how ice giants differ from gas giants” either planet’s system: rings, satellites, atmosphere, magnetosphere,” says Amy Simon, co-chair of the Ice Giants Pre-Decadal Study group The two biggest scientific priorities are determining the composition and the internal structure of the world the probe visits Other goals would include studying weather and climate; in-depth studies of moons; and finding out more about the composition and formation of the ring systems that orbit both Neptune and Uranus A Neptune mission would also focus on its largest moon Triton – probably captured from the Kuiper belt further out, and sporting geysers and a tenuous atmosphere Such a mission could also teach us about planets elsewhere Of the exoplanets discovered to date, Neptune-sized ones are the most plentiful (see “New planet crop”, right) Simon says understanding how Uranus and Neptune formed could reveal how ice giants differ from gas giants, and why the former are more abundant Any mission would face more than a few hurdles The journey would take at least 14 years and would need to rely on nuclear power, because solar would be largely ineffective so far from the sun But the plutonium-238 atomic batteries used by NASA are in short supply, because international treaties prevented plutonium enrichment for many years until recently A Neptune mission needs to launch by 2030 and a Uranus jaunt by 2034 If NASA misses those dates, the opportunity could be gone for a while Stubbing out SMOKING is rapidly dying out in the UK and US among young people – the first generation to come of age surrounded by laws that discourage smoking Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics reveal that the proportion of smokers in the country fell to 15.5 per cent in 2016, down from about half in 2010 Although 19.3 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds smoke, this group has shown the biggest decline, by 6.5 percentage points And the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of smokers aged between about 12 and 18 dropped to 3.9 million in 2016, down from 4.7 million in 2015 These figures include cigarettes and e-cigarettes, both of which have seen large declines in use “Young people are growing up in a different world to the older generation,” says Hazel Cheeseman of UK charity Action on Smoking and Health “The notion that smoking is the norm is much less true than before.” Bizarre animals of the deep FACELESS fish, giant sea spiders and blobby sea pigs These are just some of the weird creatures uncovered by the first deep-sea expedition along the east coast of Australia An international team of scientists, led by Museums Victoria, set sail in the research ship Investigator from Launceston in Tasmania on 15 May The ship reached its final destination in Brisbane, Queensland, on 16 June During the one-month voyage, the ship followed the eastern edge of the Australian continental plate, where the ocean suddenly drops to 4-kilometres-deep Fishing nets and trawling sleds were used to collect creatures at the bottom of this abyss The animals will now be analysed in the lab to determine if they are new species and what families they belong to It is estimated that more than one-third of the invertebrates and some of the fish are new to science | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news Voter data exposed A HUGE database containing personal details of 198 million US voters was left publicly available online for almost two weeks The data haul, collected on behalf of the Republican National “The data contained phone numbers and addresses as well as assumptions about religion and ethnicity” ANDREW HARRER/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES 60 SECONDS Carbon-neutral Sweden Sweden has committed to cutting its net carbon emissions to zero by 2045, becoming the first country to significantly upgrade its green ambitions since the Paris accord in 2015 With renewables already providing most of its electricity, it will focus on transport by pushing the use of biofuels and electric vehicles Balkan lynx snapped ROB ZUGARO Committee, contained people’s phone numbers and addresses as well as assumptions about their religion and ethnicity The files, discovered by a risk analyst at cybersecurity firm Antibacterial alarm UpGuard, were accidentally left GOVERNMENTS and regulatory unsecured on a web server agencies should be wary of The data set, compiled by Deep the long-term effects of two Root Analytics, includes details on almost all of the country’s 200 antibacterial chemicals commonly added to everything million registered voters, which from soaps to toys That’s equates to about 60 per cent of according to more than the entire population The bulk 200 medical professionals and of the data is split into two huge researchers around the world, spreadsheets, one containing information collected around the who have signed a statement calling for their regulation 2008 presidential election and The chemicals singled out the other from the 2012 election The files include voters’ registered by the Florence Statement on party and racial demographic “These chemicals don’t A further data set, updated obey borders They’re around the time of Trump’s an environmental issue inauguration, rates how likely around the globe” individual voters are to support certain areas of policy Deep Root Triclosan and Triclocarban has said it is hiring an external have been in use since the 1960s firm to conduct an investigation But with some evidence – largely from animal studies – that these chemicals can disrupt hormone systems and perhaps affect physiological development, sexual maturation and fertility, the US Food and Drug Administration banned them from a number of hand and body washes in 2016 The European Union has a partial ban on triclosan The signatories to the Florence Statement would like regulatory agencies around the world to take similar action, and extend bans to –A jellyfish or a spooky mask?– other kinds of products Triclosan –In the spotlight again– can also be found in clothing, kitchenware and furniture “These chemicals don’t really obey borders,” says Rolf Halden, of the Biodesign Center for Environmental Security at Arizona State University and an author of the statement “They’re an environmental issue that essentially reaches around the globe.” New planet crop NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has announced 219 new planet candidates, bringing Kepler’s tally to 4034 About 50 of these, including 10 of those just added, are both Earth-sized and within their star’s habitable zone Benjamin Fulton at the University of Hawaii in Manoa and his colleagues used the Keck Observatory to observe the stars hosting 2000 of the planets found by Kepler Since the dip in light when an exoplanet passes in front of its star is related to the relative sizes of the two objects, they measured the stars’ sizes more precisely in order to pin down the radii of the planets The team found that small planets in the Milky Way are split nearly evenly into two groups: rocky worlds up to 1.75 times the size of Earth, and gas-enveloped worlds about to 3.5 times Earth’s size – just smaller than Neptune The first photo in over a decade of Europe’s largest and rarest wild cat, the Balkan lynx, has raised hopes for this critically endangered animal – down to fewer than 50 individuals in the western Balkans The image of the fluffy cub in the Mavrovo National Park in Macedonia suggests a breeding population there A carbon sceptic speaks US energy secretary Rick Perry has told cable news channel CNBC that he does not believe carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of climate change “No, most likely the primary control knob is the ocean waters and this environment that we live in,” Perry replied when asked Maths En Marche! Mathematician Cédric Villani was elected to the French national assembly last Sunday, representing President Emmanuel Macron’s new En Marche! party Villani won a Fields medal – the most prestigious award in mathematics – in 2010, and is also known for wearing ornate velvet cravats and spider brooches Older dad, geekier sons Being born to an older dad has been linked to autism and schizophrenia, but there are other associations too. A study of 15,000 twins has concluded that sons born to older fathers are “geekier” – they are more likely to have a high IQ, be less concerned about fitting in, and able to focus deeply on subjects of interest (Translational Psychiatry, DOI: 10.1038/tp.2017.125) 24 June 2017 | NewScientist | http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist NEWS & TECHNOLOGY A new planet just round the corner? Planet Ten could be hiding in our outer solar system, says James Romero ESO/M KORNMESSER THE dark outer reaches of our Earth and the other familiar solar system could be hiding a planets all orbit the sun in roughly new planet – the ninth or tenth, the same plane But the smaller depending on who’s counting Kuiper belt objects are far enough The as-yet-unconfirmed world, from the gravitational influence thought to be around the mass of the giant planets that they can of Mars, would explain the wonky orbit the sun at angles to this orbits of a group of icy objects in plane, nudged by their own a region known as the Kuiper belt gravitational interactions and This region starts beyond past collisions Neptune and ends at a distance It is possible to predict this 55 times further from the sun angle, known as the inclination, than Earth is, or 55 AU We have for any object we observe If those spotted an increasing number of calculations don’t match the real its residents, with the discovery path of the objects, it hints there of numerous Pluto-sized objects is something lurking out of sight, leading to the former ninth tugging on the bodies we can see planet’s downgraded status Last year, Mike Brown and But could something larger Konstantin Batygin at the lie out past Neptune? Kathryn California Institute of Technology Volk and Renu Malhotra at the “It’s not what we expect University of Arizona believe so if the only planets in our They have uncovered signs of solar system are those weird warps in the orbits of we already know” distant Kuiper belt objects used this idea to predict the existence of a ninth planet, thought to be 10 times the mass of Earth, orbiting around 700 AU from the sun Now Volk and Malhotra have looked closer to home In a study due to be published in The Astronomical Journal, they report that beyond 50 AU, the inclination of objects in the Kuiper belt differed from predictions by degrees, on average “It’s not what we expect if the only planets in our solar system are those we know of,” says Volk That means throwing a new planet into the mix – Planet Ten, assuming Planet Nine exists To cause this orbital warping, it must have a similar mass to Mars It may have arrived there after being ejected in an ancient game of gravitational billiards “If it’s the size of Mars, that is a pretty big object, which would suggest it would be most likely scattered out there by planetary movements further in,” says Volk An out there idea “This fits really nicely with how we expect planets formed in the early solar system,” says Michele Bannister of Queen’s University Belfast Various models show a family of small planets thrown outwards early in their development, probably by the migration of Neptune “It’s an interesting idea One that deserves attention,” says Batygin But given its mass and distance, it should be bright enough to have been seen by now, he says, although it could be obscured by the bright galactic centre Others are wary of introducing new worlds to the solar system “I am dubious that a planet so close and so bright would have remained unnoticed,” says Alessandro Morbidelli at the Côte d’Azur Observatory in Nice, France, who suggests that Planet Nine could account for at least some of the deviation Volk and Malhotra say finding more Kuiper belt objects will firm up their data More information could come from the Outer Solar System Origins Survey, which is hunting and tracking thousands of objects Bannister, who works on the survey, has used its data to search for Planet Nine, though the results were inconclusive (arxiv org/abs/1706.05348) Just how many new planets are out there remains to be seen, but Volk is confident in her finding “It would have to be quite a fluke for this to not be a real effect,” she says “We think there is a real signal there and this implies an –Any planets out there?– additional planet.” ■ | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist CULTURE Object lessons Science fiction can’t help but be political, says Lydia Nicholas A new exhibition and season of events at the Barbican Centre in London offers a fun, frantic sprint through the scenery of classic science fiction The itinerary is a little baffling, but undeniably enjoyable The exhibition’s heart is the Curve gallery, filled to bursting with spacecraft, alien warriors, dinosaurs, and props and film clips from Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Alien, Stargate, Interstellar and Metropolis Elsewhere, there are talks, book clubs and a rich offering of films, from old favourites like Soylent Green and the original Tron to 2013’s Gravity A selection of commissioned and contemporary works, including one from Black Mirror, serve up more critical, dystopian fare There are texts and meditations on the power and purpose of science fiction, both as art form and intellectual tool, but visitors are left to piece together their own ideas – difficult while being accosted by a real Darth Vader mask, Star Trek spacesuits and an enormous, loud, interactive NASA console There’s overt propaganda here too: images of the future that explicitly try to shape the present “Tomorrow”, one panel explains, is a concept used to sell products and ideologies, but again, there is no further discussion Adverts for Shell or for jobs in the aeronautics industry are arranged next to covers of the Soviet magazine Technology for Steel yourself for a whirlwind tour through a science-fictional century Youth All of them use strikingly assistants all hover on the edge of similar rockets and airships as the real Some of the most highly they urge readers to buy into valued companies in history – their respective belief systems Uber, Google and Tesla – literally Convincingly seizing control of survive on the capacity of tomorrow gives extraordinary investors to imagine and have power to steer the choices we faith that these still-fictional make today sciences will become fully real The exhibition’s dramatically lit The future is an active opening text informs visitors that battleground It shapes our after a long time on the fringe, expectations and investments: “Science fiction is now all around “Convincingly seizing us.” The exhibition may repeat control of tomorrow this trope, but it refuses to fully allows people to steer the confront its literal truth Many of the richest people, companies and choices we make today” governments in today’s world are pouring investment into putting not just what products we desire, still more of the imaginary but also who we conceive of as products of Victorian collectible heroes and agents of change cigarette cards onto our shelves Hollywood knows this Its alland our streets Self-driving cars, female Ghostbusters prompted private space travel and AI death threats Rogue One’s TRISTAN FEWINGS/GETTY IMAGES FOR BARBICAN CENTRE Into the Unknown: A journey through science fiction, Barbican Centre, London, to September introduction of women and people of colour into lead roles in the Star Wars universe led to (rather unsuccessful) boycotts When the largest Hollywood studios take firm stances on inclusion and invest in a broader range of stars, it is frustrating that an exhibition filled with such wonder and thought does not engage more directly in these concerns There are nods towards dystopias, and towards fictions that explore new ways of thinking In one area, entitled Brave New Worlds, we find Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood novels behind glass, while in Final Frontiers, thoughtful artworks prompt speculation on ways of seeing and being But these are scattered rather confusingly among Blade Runner – Autoencoded (in which Terence Broad has taught a neural net to “watch” Blade Runner and show us what it sees or, less romantically, to understand the raw video data and re-encode it) and clips from Donnie Darko And then there’s Soda_Jerk’s Afrofuturist Astro Black: Race for space, which mixes clips from The Matrix, Star Wars, Apollo 13 and a dozen more films, plus extra footage, to explore the story of musician, poet and philosopher Sun Ra’s abduction by aliens In the end, Into the Unknown’s confusion is its delight Perhaps pinning down science fiction’s form and purpose is a hopeless task, and instead this bright cacophony of familiar faces and radical visions is the best expression of its value ■ Lydia Nicholas is a researcher in data and culture 44 | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist letters@newscientist.com LETTERS EDITOR’S PICK Politicians usually have time to it right From Ken May, Poole, Dorset, UK It is nonsense to claim politicians are meant to get on with things with limited information and time, as David Willetts does (3 June, p 24) Politicians usually have plenty of time to make decisions, often spending years in opposition, honing policies Saving the banks in 2008 might possibly have been one of the few exceptions Willetts cites two examples: genetic engineering challenging our identity and society coping with a new wave of automation Plenty of time can be taken to research both these He is also wrong to claim that knowledge of political history has much relevance to understanding the decisions politicians make They usually make these based on ideology It isn’t necessary to know that the Lords tried to overturn Lloyd George’s tax rises designed to improve the lot of working people in 1909 – though it might have helped if George Osborne, when he was UK finance minister, had understood that Margaret Thatcher, as prime minister, destroyed UK manufacturing by raising interest rates to curb inflation at the same time as North Sea oil was starting to flow Pharmaceutical research must be a public good From Sam Edge, Ringwood, Hampshire, UK Clare Wilson notes that most of the cost of drug development comes from the public purse, not from the large pharmaceutical companies (3 June, p 22) Independent research has repeatedly shown that these companies spend only around 15 per cent of their revenue on research and development Tellingly, most spend at least twice as much on marketing From Bryn Glover, Kirkby Malzeard, North Yorkshire, UK It is commonplace these days to encounter companies set up with notional dual objectives: to meet social needs at the same time as making profits for shareholders I can think of no example where @newscientist newscientist the two motivations haven’t sooner or later come into conflict as, for example, when economic forces place pressures on profits and the social need is pushed into second place and suffers A company may be supplying multimillion dollar drug regimes, as Clare Wilson describes, or social carers for pennies, storing up the crisis that James Bloodworth predicts (3 June, p 24) Whatever their initial ambitions, the profit maximisation imperative eventually takes over The obvious long-term solution in both cases is clear All aspects of health and social care must be brought under social ownership and control That way, the efforts of the universities – alluded to by Wilson – will be recognised; investment can be directed purely towards need, rather than towards areas of maximum potential profit; and any profits can be fed BECOME AN EVEN BETTER YOU How to… boost your brain, eat better, hack your senses, tune your life skills and get the best rest Buy your copy from all good magazine retailers or digitally Find out more at newscientist.com/thecollection 52 | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist “I will resign from my job as a chemistry teacher rather than teach creationism” ManMar responds to the DUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly who called for schools to teach creationism (17 June, p 4) back into the system itself rather than into the pockets of remote and uninterested investors Buying only climatefriendly goods and fuel From Christopher Honeyands, Street, Somerset, UK Fred Pearce speculates on the effects of not implementing the Paris climate agreement (20 May, p 10) Now US president Donald Trump has confirmed that the US will pull out of it (10 June, p 22) We may feel frustrated that we are unable to fight such poor decisions, but I would suggest that we all can, and we should try to influence this situation without the need for trade wars Individuals, companies and governments should buy goods and services only from countries that adhere to the Paris deal When you book that holiday or buy that car, piece of technology or software – try to purchase it from a compliant country The sooner we all start, the sooner the effects will be felt From Harry Butterworth, Landkey, Devon, UK Perhaps one way to trump the Trump would be for the peoples, not the governments, of the countries prepared to sign the Paris Agreement to stop buying fuel that is sourced or handled by any company based in the US Were the monkey mafia of Bali tutored in crime? From Paul Cahill, Aroona, Queensland, Australia Brian Owens describes macaque monkeys in Bali robbing tourists and bartering the goods (3 June, p 14) When I visited in the late 1980s, I found that non-Hindus weren’t allowed into Balinese temples without a sash of a particular kind and colour – luckily someone was on hand to sell me one And monkeys were taking possessions and moving over a line that non-Hindus couldn’t cross Again luckily, a local was available to get your items back, for a small fee It seems the monkeys have learned to cut out the middle man Nuclear submarines are not the only targets From Peter Ashby, Dundee, UK David Hambling mentions the possibility that the UK’s Trident nuclear missile submarines may be targeted at sea (27 May, p 37) But since the number of missiles carried on each Trident sub was reduced, many of the warheads are in bunkers on the hill above Coulport in Scotland, one loch west from the Trident base at Faslane They are maintained at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire – and moved by road between there and Coulport Those warheads make tempting targets too Getting rid of Trident would thus make Scotland less of a target If, after Scottish independence, the rest of the UK wishes to evict people from a pair of West Country fishing villages to replicate Faslane and Coulport, that is its call It might decide, though, that the political cost was too high and ditch the nukes Sortition, participation and representation From Dimitri Courant, Lausanne, Switzerland Campbell Wallace, suggesting “sortition” as a democratic solution, says that “the Greeks > GALAXY ON GLASS Spectacular wall art from astro photographer Chris Baker Available as frameless acrylic mix or framed backlit up to 1.2 metres wide A big impact in any room All limited editions INVITING SCIENTISTS, ENGINEERS & INDUSTRY EXPERTS TO JOIN FORCES AND SOLVE TRULY BIG PROBLEMS FROM SCRATCH challenges £10k cash prize £50k investment* dsv.io/thefrontier www.cosmologychris.co.uk z www.facebook.com/galaxyonglass or call Chris now on +44 (0)7814 181647 *Visit the website for futher details Register before June 30th 24 June 2017 | NewScientist | 53 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist letters@newscientist.com LETTERS of Aristotle’s day knew that elections could lead to oligarchy, not democracy” (Letters, 20 May) Centuries before Aristotle, the Greeks thought of election not as potentially leading to oligarchy, but as the defining mode of selecting an oligarchy The idea of a “statistically representative sample” originated in the 19th century The Greeks preferred sortition because it guaranteed equality and impartiality Athens was a direct democracy, not a representative one The Ecclesia was a popular assembly where any citizen (so no women or slaves) could speak and vote by being present, without having to be selected The Council of the 500 was selected by lot, but couldn’t take final decisions without approval by the Ecclesia Sortition is an interesting procedure that helps us to look at political history with new eyes and to open paths to deepen democracy through participatory innovations Getting rid of the myth that elections equal democracy is vital But we must so in a scientific, critical and empirically informed approach TOM GAULD When everything looks like a hallucination… From Adam Savage, San Francisco, California, US You report artificial intelligence that can make videos of you saying anything (27 May, p 16) This barely hints at the potential for this technology: fake news at a level we can hardly imagine Software will probably be developed to detect when a video has been doctored, but who will believe whom when everything starts to look like a hallucination? Thinking in three languages, or in none From Clive Sherlock, Oxford, UK Andrew Fogg writes of thinking in no language at all (Letters, 20 May) Some years ago, I asked my 7-year-old daughter which language she preferred to speak She said: “English with you, papa, Dutch with mama and French with my friends.” I then asked which language she preferred to think in After a long pause, she said: “I don’t think in any language.” It is the same for her today I had always thought in English – my only language – but after Zen training, thoughts are no longer associated with words unless they need to be conveyed to others @newscientist newscientist time commitment – or less if I account for the time taken to earn the money for commuting costs Are people trained to be passive in disasters? From Gary Golding, Be careful what you wish Robertson, Queensland, Australia Your interesting and useful article for with working hours From Malcolm Shute, Les Prés Neufs, France Timothy Revell discusses the mixed benefits of a reduced working week (13 May, p 22) There is at least one further complication: the reductions seen by the employer and employee are not symmetrical, especially if there is no possibility for the employee to work remotely If I work an 8-hour day with an hour’s commute at each end, my employer considers me to be working a 40-hour week, but I am away from my family for 50 hours per week With a 6-hour working day, my employer sees my productivity reduced to 75 per cent, but I benefit only from a reduction to 80 per cent of my on strategies to survive disaster recognises that many people freeze and nothing in a crisis, reducing their chance of survival (13 May, p 32) With training, people can react appropriately and survive I wonder whether people have been trained to freeze by sitting passively at a movie or in front of a television, watching thousands of disasters unfold without a need for them to react Let us count the Geneva Conventions’ laws of war From Ken McAllister, Auckland, New Zealand Calling for a “digital Geneva Convention”, you say: “since the second world war, the Geneva Convention has outlined rules of traditional war” (27 May, p 20) Four Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1949: three updated earlier conventions concerning combatants and the fourth mandated protection of civilians For the record ■ In Rebecca Boyle’s article on how an impact could have reshaped the early Earth as a doughnut-like “synestia”, we should have said that its outer edges reach orbital velocity and cannot spin any faster (3 June, p 10) Letters should be sent to: Letters to the Editor, New Scientist, 110 High Holborn, London WC1V 6EU Email: letters@newscientist.com Include your full postal address and telephone number, and a reference (issue, page number, title) to articles We reserve the right to edit letters New Scientist Ltd reserves the right to use any submissions sent to the letters column of New Scientist magazine, in any other format 54 | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist MAKE Do try this at home Keep your stuff under lock and RFID No one has to know about your embarrassing celebrity crush – stash the evidence in a box where the key can be anything from an orange to an umbrella “My sister keeps snooping around my room,” writes Anonymous “Even when I keep my stuff in a locked box, she still manages to find the key What can I to keep her from finding out I listen to U2?” As a closet Toploader fan, I understand your frustration What you need is a chameleon key – one so inconspicuous that your sister won’t even realise she’s found it I started with a sturdy box big enough to hold all my secrets Next, I got a near-field communication (NFC) reader It’s built to detect small microchips, similar to the ones in contactless bank cards You can buy NFC tags as rolls of coin-sized stickers Wave one at the reader and it will transmit its unique ID number This will eventually be your key An electromagnetic lock would be sleek and sophisticated, but there’s nothing slick about my copy of Dancing In The Moonlight being revealed because the battery ran flat To avoid that, I had a servomotor turn a hook inside the box to seize a pin in the lid It means the box will stay locked even when the power runs out Just don’t put the batteries on the inside I had to break into my own secret safe to fix that one Next I programmed the Arduino brains of my box with the ID numbers of the approved tags This gave me the option of using as many keys as I wanted They could be in, or attached to anything, a piece of fruit, an item of jewellery or, my personal favourite, a taxidermied stoat If your little sister has nothing better to than experimentally rub objects from against the box, plant some decoy tags A digital counter added to my safe clocks attempts to open it with a decoy That felt too subtle, so I connected the box wirelessly to my smart lights, bathing culprits (and the house) in red light Even if they succeed, it won’t matter, because the treasure in my lockbox is – you guessed it – the key to another lockbox In the time it takes any sneak to find that, I can ask what they’re doing snooping in my room Hannah Joshua ■ For more Makes visit bit.ly/ns-make 24 June 2017 | NewScientist | 55 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback FEEDBACK PAUL MCDEVITT own retronyms “A = ack, so anti-aircraft guns became AA, and then became ack-ack,” he says, “a term which lasted much longer than that alphabet.” And the international Christian social service movement Toc-H takes its name from the abbreviation for Talbot House, a first world war respite centre The second world war phonetic alphabet also gave us retronyms, says Simon, such as Willie Pete, the deceptively friendly call sign for white phosphorous chemical munitions And Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, as someone on the receiving end might exclaim IN THIS post-truth world, the power of facts is much diminished Whether it is the conspiracy theories of US president Trump, fake news, mendacious political campaigns in the UK or the filter bubbles we find ourselves trapped inside, it seems factual information is in retreat from public discourse It is with much relief, therefore, that we find educators riding to the rescue The University of Washington in Seattle is now offering students course credits for a new class titled Calling Bullshit in the Age of Big Data Evolutionary biologist Carl Bergstrom and data scientist Jevin West describe their syllabus by way of a succinct mission statement: “Our world is saturated with bullshit Learn to detect and defuse it.” A non-partisan effort, the pair explain that the course is neither a veiled critique of certain individuals nor a satirical offering “Adequate bullshit detection strikes us as essential to the survival of liberal democracy,” they write on the course homepage If you’re a long way from being a Seattle student (either in kilometres or years), don’t despair The syllabus and most materials are online and available to anyone who wishes to enrol (bit.ly/ns-callbull) To refresh a Henry Adams maxim: They know enough who know how to learn about bullshit We only hope someone sets up a scholarship system for the rest JUST when we think we’ve seen them all, a new retronym bowls us over Glenn Pure writes to say: “I note a number of examples have been published recently, but I’m surprised you haven’t yet included ‘em dash’ and ‘en dash’.” These typographical terms, he says, are so named because they “approximate to the width of a capital M and capital N respectively It seems likely that’s how these words were originally coined.” When not demarcating written clauses or delighting New Scientist readers, Glenn says that as words in their own right, “en” and “em” are also very handy in tight games of Scrabble MEANWHILE, Simon Cains writes in to say that the early phonetic alphabet introduced by the RAF gave rise to its Richard Williams sends in a photo of a filling station pump in Donegal, Ireland, offering “digital air” He wonders, does it work for analogue tyres? PREVIOUSLY John Culver shared his mobile phone bill calculated to a highly precise 16 decimal places (13 May) “This reminds me of a perfect illustration of the difference between precision and accuracy that happened to me a few years ago,” says Ian Gordon Having booked a short break to a cottage in north Wales, the booking company sent GPS coordinates for the property “The figures given had sufficient decimal places to identify our destination to within onethousandth of the thickness of a human hair,” says Ian “Imagine our amusement when we arrived at the designated coordinates, only to discover that we were in the wrong place by about five miles.” DESPERATELY seeking a Susan, or any other woman who has been immortalised as an eponym, Nina Baker asked Feedback readers for help (10 June) “I suggest the Ada programming language,” says Barry Cash, “named after Ada Lovelace, credited with being the first computer programmer.” AND a bright spark appears above Graham Legg’s head “The most obvious example of such an eponym is Tabby’s star, after Tabetha Boyajian,” he says (14 January, p 10) “Does that count, or we need to wait until a unit of stellar variability ‘the tabby’ is derived?” HAVING let the idea percolate in his mind for a bit, Mats Andersson also writes in with a suggestion “I have a female eponym which might not properly be called ‘engineering’,” he says, “but it’s nevertheless one that is indispensable in contemporary engineering: the Melitta coffee filter, named for its inventor, Melitta Bentz of Germany.” FURTHER to earlier letters about the true origin of the shorthand term Nazi, Bob Ladd writes that the phenomenon of reducing long words into bite-sized pieces (like burger or mic) is known among etymologists as clipping “What’s unusual about the German version of clipping is that it starts with a long compound word, clips both main parts of the compound, and then sticks the clipped parts back together,” says Bob Something rather similar happens in both Chinese and Japanese, he says, “but their character-based writing system makes this a very natural strategy I don’t know how the German convention got started.” Nonetheless, for the sake of German typesetters and scribes, we’re glad it did Perhaps the key to emulating German efficiency is to start by truncating all your Mammutwörter You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com Please include your home address This week’s and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website 56 | NewScientist | 24 June 2017 http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist Last words past and present at newscientist.com/lastword THE LAST WORD Plant departure If all the oxygen-producing plants disappeared suddenly, how long would it take for us to die? There’s some variation between our correspondents’ views on how fast we’d all die out, but the mechanisms that lead to death are pretty much agreed on – Ed each other By my calculations, the time for the population to die out would be 5023.3 days, or 13.75 years So we would run out of food long before we ran out of breathable air, and life on Earth would rapidly collapse within our lifetimes Nick Canning Coleraine, County Londonderry, UK ■ We would all die of starvation ■ As we breathe in oxygen, way before Earth ran out of we exhale carbon dioxide oxygen – there is enough of this in Air contains 21 per cent oxygen, the atmosphere to support us for while carbon dioxide is present more than a lifetime Based on at just 0.04 per cent, and NASA’s calculation that a human becomes poisonous at about needs 840 grams of oxygen per cent concentration per day, and the fact that Earth’s Plant photosynthesis generates oxygen and carbohydrates in strict “Humans would all die proportion, so we would run out of of starvation a long oxygen at the same time as we ran time before Earth ran out of oxygen” out of food But we would reach lethal concentrations of carbon dioxide long before either of those atmosphere contains about 1000 things happened Even if there billion tonnes of oxygen and the were enough food stored globally global population is 7.5 billion, for us to last two years, we would it would last around 370 years be poisoned after about 70 days But all life (except in a few Luce Gilmore weird places such as deep-sea Cambridge, UK vents) depends on green plants Herbivores would starve to death ■ The population of all animals in a few weeks If fruit and seeds would face two threats: running remained, birds and animals out of breathable air and running that eat them would last longer out of food With no prey, carnivores would go Using estimates of the biomass next Carrion eaters such as crows, of all animals and the oxygen vultures and blowflies would feast content of the atmosphere, for a while, but then succumb oxygen would be exhausted after After a few months, the only 52,535 years, assuming a constant edible food would be fungi animal population These live on dead vegetation, However, because there are no so it would be boom time for them plants, animals would have to eat for a while They could provide us The writers of answers that are published in the magazine will receive a cheque for £25 (or US$ equivalent) Answers should be concise We reserve the right to edit items for clarity and style Please include a daytime telephone number and an email address if you have one New Scientist retains total editorial control over the published content New Scientist Ltd reserves all rights to reuse all question and answer material that has been with food for years, but although they are rich in some vitamins we need, they lack others, particularly vitamin C, and eventually even they would go By this stage, humans would probably be the only mammals remaining, because of our substantial food stores (though rats and mice could maybe also access ours) Coldblooded animals have lower food requirements, but with supplies dwindling, their days would also be numbered We would be long gone before the oxygen ran out Guy Cox University of Sydney New South Wales, Australia ■ Assuming only green plants disappeared, we would still have phytoplankton, microscopic algae and bacteria that live in the oceans and photosynthesise the same way land plants They are at the bottom of the food chain, so life in the oceans would continue But even if phytoplankton survived, the oceans would only be able to support a small fraction of the global population, even if we harvested food more sustainably However, our species might survive at these much-reduced numbers Even if oxygen was used up at the current rate, it would last about 5000 years And if there were few humans and no other life on Earth, oxygen may take half a million years to fall to a level that would make breathing difficult, suggests James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis Energy could be harnessed for the electrolysis of water to split its molecules into oxygen and hydrogen, with the oxygen discharged into the atmosphere for us to breathe and the hydrogen used for the chemosynthesis of food But we would need to look to space programmes to ensure long-term human survival These are researching how to feed astronauts on long space flights, for which conventional food crops will probably be replaced with chemosynthetic farms where autotrophic bacteria can feed on chemicals to produce carbohydrates Something like this already happens naturally Microbes in hydrothermal vents at mid-ocean ridges kilometres below the sea surface can make food in the absence of both light and oxygen But our research programmes would need to be accelerated and scaled up to save a viable number of people Mike Follows Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, UK This week’s question AUGER AWE How can a tube as flimsy as a mosquito’s proboscis be stiff enough to act as a hollow boring tool? What is it made of and what is the typical wall thickness of this amazing auger? Also, what is the minimum capillary diameter through which blood could be sucked? John O’Hara Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia submitted by readers in any medium or in any format and at any time in the future Send questions and answers to The Last Word, New Scientist, 110 High Holborn, London WC1V 6EU, UK, by email to lastword@newscientist.com or visit www.newscientist.com/topic/lastword (please include a postal address in order to receive payment for answers) Unanswered questions can also be found at this URL http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/economist Professor Dame Carol Robinson 2015 Laureate for United Kingdom By Brigitte Lacombe Science needs women L’ORÉAL UNESCO AWARDS Dame Carol Robinson, Professor of Chemistry at Oxford University, invented a ground-breaking method for studying how membrane proteins function, which play a critical role in the human body hroughout the world, exceptional women are at the heart of major scientiic advances For 17 years, L’Oréal has been running the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women In Science programme, honouring exceptional women from around the world Over 2000 women from over 100 countries have received our support to continue to move science forward and inspire future generations JOIN US ON FACEBOOK.COM/FORWOMENINSCIENCE http://banquyensoftware.com/tag/new-scientist ... 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