Beruflich Dokumente
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54
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for the next 1,000 years
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VO LU M E 3 1 7, N U M B E R 2
36
C H E M I S T RY A STROPHYSIC S
28 Life Springs 54 The Great Solar
Deep oceans were thought to hold Eclipse of2017
lifes origins. New evidence points The first total eclipse to cross the
instead to volcanic hot springs on U.S. from coast to coast in 99 years
land. ByMartinJ. Van Kranendonk, is not only a must-see spectacle
DavidW. Deamer and TaraDjokic but also a valuable scientific
C O N S E R VAT I O N opportunity. ByJayM. Pasachoff
36 Requiem for the Vaquita 62 1,000 Years of Solar Eclipses
THE SCIENCE OF BIOLOGY, 1 0TH EDITION. COPYRIGHT 2014 BY SINAUER ASSOCIATES, INC. (l eft)
What the demise of a small The moon hides the sun at least
Mexican porpoise tells us about twice a yearsomewhere.
COVER: CLADOGRAM DESIGNED BY DAVID HILLIS, ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN L IFE:
Scientific American (ISSN 0036-8733), Volume 317, Number 2, August 2017, published monthly by Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc., 1 New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, N.Y. 10004-1562. Periodicals postage
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In the Beginning sounds so harsh have been beneficial, you ask? To find out,
please turn to page 28.
The suns rays provided vitality for this world. Seeing them
There was light. B ut then what happened? dim temporarily, as they do during a solar eclipse, is awe-inspir
How did life arise on the third rocky planet orbiting the un ing. Its been nearly a century since a total solar eclipse has
remarkable star at the center of our solar system? Humans crossed the U.S. from coast to coast. Starting on page 54, youll
have been wondering about the answer to that question prob find that The Great Solar Eclipse of 2017, by JayM. Pasachoff,
ably almost as long as weve been able to wonder. In recent tells you everything you need to know about this rare event. And
decades scientists have made some a companion piece, 1,000 Years of
gains in understanding the conceiv Solar Eclipses, by senior editor Mark
able mechanisms, gradually settling Fischetti, with illustrations by senior
on a possible picture of our origins graphics editor Jen Christiansen and
in the oceans. The idea was that designer Jan Willem Tulp, tells you
hydrothermal vents at the bottom of what you will need to know as well. I
the seas, protected from cataclysms like to think that the readers of S
cien-
rending the surface four billion tific American, w hich turns 172 this
years ago, delivered the necessary month, will be enjoying the solar
energy and could have sustained the shows well into the future.
molecules needed. If they do enjoy them, itll be be
Perhaps not. Water was a neces cause weve fostered a love of learn
sary ingredient, surely, but that LIFE on Earth could have arisen in places similar to the ing about the world around us. How
doesnt mean we sprang from oceans, Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. we teach and create the right learn
according to researchers Martin J. ing environments are critical to our
Van Kranendonk, David W. Deamer and Tara Djokic in our students success. For that reason, weve taken an evidence-
cover story, Life Springs. Oceans, they write, might have based look at the concept of vouchers in education in A Matter
spread the needed molecules too quickly for cell membranes of Choice, by journalist Peg Tyre, starting on page 48. The con
and functions to occur. Instead they argue, land pools in an ac cept is a keystone of the current administrations plan to re
tive volcanic landscape that repeatedly dried and got wet again vamp education, but research finds it wanting. Fortunately,
could have cradled the seeds of life. How could something that there is still time to make a choice.
BOARD OF ADVISERS
Leslie C. Aiello Kaigham J. Gabriel Christof Koch Martin A. Nowak Terry Sejnowski
President, Wenner-Gren Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer, President and CSO, Director, Program for Evolutionary Professor and Laboratory Head
for Anthropological Research Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Allen Institute for Brain Science Dynamics, and Professor of Biology and of Computational Neurobiology
Roger Bingham Lawrence M. Krauss of Mathematics, Harvard University Laboratory, Salk Institute for
Harold Skip Garner
Co-Founder and Director, Biological Studies
Executive Director and Professor, Director, Origins Initiative, Robert E. Palazzo
The Science Network
Primary Care Research Network Arizona State University
Dean, University of Alabama at Michael Shermer
Arthur Caplan
and Center for Bioinformatics and Morten L. Kringelbach Publisher, Skeptic magazine
Director, Division of Medical Ethics, Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Population Health, Genetics, Edward Via College Associate Professor and Senior Michael Snyder
Carolyn Porco
NYU Langone Medical Center of Osteopathic Medicine Research Fellow, The Queens College, Professor of Genetics, Stanford
University of Oxford Leader, Cassini Imaging Science
Vinton Cerf Michael S. Gazzaniga University School of Medicine
Chief Internet Evangelist, Google Team, and Director, CICLOPS,
Director, Sage Center for the Study Steven Kyle Michael E. Webber
George M. Church Professor of Applied Economics and Space Science Institute
of Mind, University of California, Co-director, Clean Energy Incubator,
Director, Center for Computational Management, Cornell University Vilayanur S. Ramachandran and Associate Professor,
Genetics, Harvard Medical School Santa Barbara
Robert S. Langer Director, Center for Brain and Cognition, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Rita Colwell David J. Gross
David H. Koch Institute Professor, University of California, San Diego University of Texas at Austin
Distinguished University Professor, Professor of Physics and Permanent
Department of Chemical Lisa Randall Steven Weinberg
University of Maryland College Park Member, Kavli Institute for Theoretical
and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Engineering, M.I.T. Professor of Physics, Director, Theory Research Group,
Physics,University of California, Santa
of Public Health Lawrence Lessig Harvard University Department of Physics,
Barbara (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2004)
Richard Dawkins Professor, Harvard Law School University of Texas at Austin
Lene Vestergaard Hau Martin Rees
Founder and Board Chairman, John P. Moore (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979)
Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Astronomer Royal and Professor
Richard Dawkins Foundation Professor of Microbiology and George M. Whitesides
of Applied Physics, Harvard University of Cosmology and Astrophysics,
Drew Endy Immunology, Weill Medical Professor of Chemistry and
Institute of Astronomy, University
Professor of Bioengineering, Danny Hillis College of Cornell University Chemical Biology, Harvard University
Stanford University Co-chairman, Applied Minds, LLC of Cambridge
M. Granger Morgan Anton Zeilinger
Edward W. Felten Daniel M. Kammen Jeffrey D. Sachs Professor of Quantum Optics,
Hamerschlag University Professor
Director, Center for Information Director, The Earth Institute,
Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor Engineering and Public Policy, Quantum Nanophysics, Quantum
Technology Policy, Princeton University Columbia University
of Energy, Energy and Resources Carnegie Mellon University Information, University of Vienna
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Jonathan Foley
Executive Director and Group, and Director, Renewable and Miguel Nicolelis Eugenie C. Scott Jonathan Zittrain
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California Academy of Sciences University of California, Berkeley Neuroengineering, Duke University National Center for Science Education Science, Harvard University
EDITORIAL
of the terrible burden on caretakers.
CHIEF FEATURES EDITOR SethFletcher CHIEF NEWS EDITOR Dean Visser CHIEF OPINION EDITOR MichaelD.Lemonick
Nathan S. Caplan Emeritus professor FEATURES
of psychology and emeritus research SENIOR EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY MarkFischetti SENIOR EDITOR, BIOLOGY / MEDICINE ChristineGorman
SENIOR EDITOR, CHEMISTRY / POLICY / BIOLOGY JoshFischman SENIOR EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS ClaraMoskowitz
scientist, University of Michigan SENIOR EDITOR, EVOLUTION / ECOLOGY KateWong
NEWS
SENIOR EDITOR, MIND / BRAIN GaryStix ASSOCIATE EDITOR, BIOLOGY / MEDICINE DinaFineMaron
ON THE RECORD ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SPACE / PHYSICS LeeBillings ASSOCIATE EDITOR, SUSTAINABILITY AnnieSneed
ASSOCIATE EDITOR, TECHNOLOGY LarryGreenemeier ASSISTANT EDITOR, NEWS TanyaLewis
As a physician, I find that A Better Reck
DIGITAL CONTENT
oning [Science Agenda]the editors MANAGING MULTIMEDIA EDITOR ElieneAugenbraun ENGAGEMENT EDITOR SunyaBhutta
SENIOR EDITOR, MULTIMEDIA SteveMirsky COLLECTIONS EDITOR AndreaGawrylewski
opinion piece on improving death certifi
ART
cates in the U.S.fails to address two im ART DIRECTOR JasonMischka SENIOR GRAPHICS EDITOR JenChristiansen PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR MonicaBradley ART DIRECTOR, ONLINE RyanReid
portant issues. First, what is the actual ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR LizTormes ASSISTANT GRAPHICS EDITOR AmandaMontaez
cause of death? The editors note inaccura COPY AND PRODUC TION
SENIOR COPY EDITORS MichaelBattaglia, DanielC.Schlenoff COPY EDITOR AaronShattuck
cies such as recording lung cancer when a MANAGING PRODUCTION EDITOR RichardHunt PREPRESS AND QUALITY MANAGER SilviaDeSantis
Nuclear War ing the Reagan administration, the late Jeremy Stone, then pres-
ident of the Federation of American Scientists, proposed that the
Should Require
president should not be able to order a first nuclear strike with-
out consulting with high-ranking members of Congress. Such a
buffer would ensure that actions that could escalate into world-
The Right
tional ones because they can bypass the level of conscious reason-
ing, leaving us without protections from having our mind read
involuntarily. This risk applies not only to predatory marketing
Liberty
gory is growing. Recently Facebook unveiled a plan to create a
speech-to-text interface to translate thoughts directly from brain
to computer. Similar attempts are being made by companies such
as Samsung and Netflix. In the future, brain control could replace
A new type of brain-imaging the keyboard and speech recognition as the primary way to inter-
technology could exposeeven act with computers.
If brain-scanning tools become ubiquitous, novel possibilities
changeour private thoughts for misuse will arisecybersecurity breaches included. Medical
By Marcello Ienca devices connected to the brain are vulnerable to sabotage, and
neuroscientists at the University of Oxford suggest that the same
The idea of the human mind a s the domain of absolute protection vulnerability applies to brain implants, leading to the possibility
from external intrusion has persisted for centuries. Today, howev- of a phenomenon called brainjacking. Such potential for misuse
er, this presumption might no longer hold. Sophisticated neuro- might prompt us to reconceptualize the right to mental integrity,
imaging machines and brain-computer interfaces detect the elec- already recognized as a fundamental human right to mental
trical activity of neurons, enabling us to decode and even alter the health. This new understanding would not only protect people
nervous system signals that accompany mental processes. Where- from being denied access to treatment for mental illness but
as these advances have a great potential for research and medi- would also protect all of us from harmful manipulations of our
cine, they pose a fundamental ethical, legal and social challenge: neural activity through the misuse of technology.
determining whether or under what conditions it is legitimate to Finally, a right to psychological continuity might preserve peo-
gain access to or interfere with another persons neural activity. ples mental life from external alteration by third parties. The
This question has special social relevance because many neu- same kind of brain interventions being explored to reduce the
rotechnologies have moved away from a medical setting and into need for sleep in the military could be adapted to make soldiers
the commercial domain. Attempts to decode mental information more belligerent or fearless. Neurotechnology brings benefits, but
via imaging are also occurring in court cases, sometimes in a sci- to minimize unintended risks, we need an open debate involving
entifically questionable way. For example, in 2008 a woman in neuroscientists, legal experts, ethicists and general citizens.
India was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprison-
ment on the basis of a brain scan showing, according to the judge,
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
experiential knowledge about the crime. The potential use of Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
neural technology as a lie detector for interrogation purposes has or send a letter to the editor: editors@sciam.com
NEUROSC IENC E
Saving Face
Scientists are closing in on the
neural code for facial recognition
Mosquito body parts. Other experiments indicated their algorithm for how various neurons
that neurons in these regions could also dis- would respond, the re research
searchers
ers were able
Dunks tinguish among individual faces, even if
they were cartoons.
to digitally re-create the visage that a mon-
key had viewed (2). The re-creations were
In a famous set of experiments in human stunningly accurate, Tsao says. In fact, they
subjects in 2005, neuroscientist Rodrigo were nearly indistinguishable from the
Quian Quiroga found that pictures of actor actual pictures the monkeys saw.
Jennifer Aniston activated a single brain cell Even more surprisingly, the researchers
in the hippocampus regionthe so-called needed readings from only a relatively
Jennifer Aniston neuron. A similar process small set of neurons for the algorithm to
was thought to occur elsewhere in the tem- accurately re-create the faces monkeys
poral lobe, where the prevailing theory held were seeing, Tsao says. Recordings from
that each neuron in the face patches was just 205 cells106 in one patch and 99 in
sensitive to a few particular people, says anotherwere enough. It really speaks to
Quian Quiroga, who is now at the University how compact and efficient this feature-
of Leicester in England and was not involved based neural code is, she says. It may also
with the current work. But Tsaos recent explain why primates are so good at facial
study suggests that theory may be mistaken. recognition and how we can potentially
She has shown that neurons in face patches distinguish among billions of different peo-
dont encode particular people at all; they ple without needing an equally massive
just encode certain features, Quian Quiroga number of face cells.
says. That completely changes our under- The findings, which were published
standing of how we recognize faces. C
ell, provide
recently in Cell, rovide scientists with
p
To decipher how cells perform this rec- a comprehensive, systematic model for
ognition task, Tsao and postdoc Steven how the brain perceives faces. This human
LeChang
Le Chang generated 2,000 human mug cerebral machinery is very similar to that
shots with variations in 50 features, includ- of monkeys, and we have face patches
ing facial roundness, distance between the that respond like theirs to images in
eyes, and skin tone and texture. They functional MRI studies, according to
showed these images to two monkeys researchers. Yet the number of ofhuman
human
while recording electrical activity from indi- face patches might differ.
MosquitoBits
vidual neurons in three separate face patch-
es in both animals.
Understanding the brains facial code
could help scientists study how face cells
C alifornia Institute of Technology
patch neurons were dividing images into face patches in human subjects and did not
smaller regions and encoding specific fea- participate in the research. It may even pro-
tures such as hairline width, Chang says. vide a framework for decoding how the brain
Moreover, the neurons in separate face processes nonfacial shapes. Ultimately, this
patches processed complementary informa- puzzle is not just about faces, he explains.
tion. Like factory workers, the various face The hope is that this neural code extends to
patches had distinct jobs, cooperating, com- object recognition as a whole. Knvul K
nvul Sheikh
Untitled-3 1 14
14 Scientific American, August 2017 4/19/17 3:17 PM
ECOLO GY
Aussie Invaders
The land down under launches
its latest effort to eradicate
unwelcomespecies
an unwelcome species
Find My
Elephant
Cutting-edge tech may
give conservationists
the upper hand
over poachers
however. So Save the Elephants partnered able to visualize all this information in one
with Vulcana company created by place and in real time makes a massive dif-
MIKE HILL Getty
Emission
Permission
Mexicos stock market
pilots a program to buy
and sell the right to pollute
topollute
systems, the cap gets lower over time,
I dont
giving businesses a choice: slash emis-
sions further or buy permits on the
market from another company.
believe in
anothercompany.
More than 80 Mexican companies
are signed up to simulate permit trad-
ing. Using software developed by an God because
organization within the MexiMexican
can Stock
ExchangeMXICO2companies are
familiarizing themselves with the every-
I dont believe
in Mother
day logistics of carbon trading, says
MXICO2 research analyst Andrs
Clarence Darrow Goose.
truck))
urning truck
Untitled-4 1
August 2017, ScientificAmerican.com
ScientificAmerican.com1717
6/22/17 12:11 PM
Quick
CERNs Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, the worlds biggest gathered in Hong Kong to insist that the region
effort
particle accelerator, into music. The joint e ort by Plymouth confiscate
ban all ivory sales and con scate stockpiled
Hits
University in England, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and supplies without reimbursing vendors. Local
CERN aims to organize the resulting tunes into a composition to be officials
o cials said they welcomed the rangers input
played by a pianist from the Juilliard School in the spring of 2018. effort
as part of their ongoing e ort to eliminate
Hong Kongs ivory trade by 2021.
U.S.
U.S. AUSTRALIA
AUSTRALIA
The National Academies of In the past three decades
Sciences, Engineering, and water bird population
identified
Medicine identi ed elk as the numbers have dropped by
primary source of a bacterial 70percent
70 percent around Australias
infection that has been plaguing most heavily developed river
cattle in the Greater Yellowstone basin, the Murray-Darling,
Area. The disease, caused by a study finds.
nds. The researchers,
Brucella bacteria, has been from the University of New
raging there for two decadesso South Wales, pin the decline
targeting
ta geting elk transmission might on dam construction and
squash the outbreak for good. wetland drainage.
BRAZIL
BRAZIL
The worlds oldest mushroom fossil was discovered in
northeastern Brazil, pushing back gilled mushrooms
For more details, visit
origin to between 120 million and 113 million years ago.
www.ScientificAmerican.com/aug2017/advances The next oldest
specimen is 99 million years old. Leslie
Leslie Nemo
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Mending clinicsworldwide.
unproved therapies in many clinics
Another company, Belgium-based
worldwide.
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a Broken TiGenix, hopes to attack scar tissue before
it forms by treating patients with a mixture
Line length shows the frequency with which each item was found
as a percentage of the total number of items found in the study 48,121 plastic fragments
Plastic fragments
SOURCE: EXCEPTIONAL AND RAPID ACCUMULATION OF ANTHROPOGENIC DEBRIS ON ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST REMOTE AND PRISTINE ISLANDS,
BY JENNIFERL. LAVERS AND ALEXANDERL. BOND, IN PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES USA, VOL.114, NO.23; JUNE6,2017
0 5 10 15
Resin pellets
6,774
Cord/rope
Plastic strapping
Garbage Island
Caps and lids Jennifer Lavers and her colleague tallied the items of
debris found on Henderson Island. The team compared
14
Crates these values with quantities found on the neighboring
Oeno and Ducie atolls in 1991 in a separate study. Because
Fishing line these three islands experience comparable oceanic
conditions, the density of debris on each is likely to be
similar. Thus, the comparatively enormous quantities
Plastic netting of waste found recently on Henderson Island signal a
signicant increase in the amount washing up every year.
Plastic fencing In the new study, unidentiable plastic fragments made
up the majority of the items counted, whereas all other
objects made up less than 25 percent of the total.
Plastic bottles
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scienticamerican.com/
Worms
down, signaling true biodegradation. Their
findings were published earlier this year in all-access
C urrentBiology.
Current Biology.
Larvae that consume and Study co-author Federica Bertocchini,
degrade polyethylene could a biologist at Spains Institute of Biomedi-
12 new print
inspire new industrialtools
industrial tools cine & Biotechnology of Cantabria, says the and digital
larvaes ability to break down their dietary issues a year
Humans produce m more
ore than 300 million staplebeeswaxalso allows them to
metric tons of plastic every year. Almost degrade plastic. Wax is a complex mixture
half of that winds up in landfills, and up to of molecules, but the basic bond in polyeth-
12million
12 million metric tons pollute the oceans. ylene, the carbon-carbon bond, is there as
So far there is no sustainable way to get well, she explains. The wax worm evolved
rid of it, but a new study suggests an a mechanism to break thisbond.
this bond.
answer may lie in the stomachs of some Jennifer DeBruyn, a microbiologist at
hungryworms.
hungry worms. the University of Tennessee, who was not
Researchers in Spain and England involved in the study, says it is not surpris-
recently found that the larvae of the greater ing that an organism evolved the capacity
wax moth can efficiently degrade polyeth- to degrade polyethylene. But compared
ylene, which accounts for 40 40percent
percent of with previous studies, she finds the speed
plastics. The team left 100 wax worms on a of biodegradation in this one exciting. The
commercial polyethylene shopping bag for next step, DeBruyn says, will be to pinpoint
12 hours, and the worms consumed and the cause of the breakdown. Is it an enzyme
FEDERICA BERTOCCHINI, PAOLO BOMBELLI AND CHRIS HOWE
degraded about 92 milligrams, or roughly produced by the worm itself or by its gut
3percent,
3 percent, of it. To confirm that the larvaes microbes? Bertocchini agrees and hopes
chewing alone was not responsible for the her teams findings might one day help har- Digital access
using any
polyethylene breakdown, the researchers ness the enzyme to break down plastics computer or
ground some grubs into a paste and in landfills, as well as those scattered mobile device
applied it to plastic films. Fourteen hours throughout the ocean. But she envisions
13percent
later the films had lost 13 percent of their using the chemical in some kind of industri-
masspresumably broken down by al processnot simply millions of worms
wormsstomachs.
enzymes from the worms stomachs. thrown on top of theplastic.
the plastic.
When inspecting the degraded plastic M atthewSedacca
Matthew Sedacca
GEO LO GY
into the air in luminous walls that reached volcanic eruptions. volved in the study. If they find it, he asserts,
up to 500 meters. Although the ground Lead study author David Jones, a geolo- they will look to see whether there are
eventually grew still, the damage had just gist at Amherst College, did not expect this gunpowder marks on it.
begun. Once the lava hardened, rainwater to be the case for the first mass extinction. He Jones has already begun the detective
dissolved carbon dioxide that the volca- initially set out to further disprove the volca- work. Although he and his colleagues sus-
noes had pumped into the atmosphere, nic explanation. But when he cooked Late pect the volcanoes sparked a global ice age,
washing it back into the ground. Removing Ordovician rocks from Nevada and south- Burgess and others think the story is a little
the greenhouse gas caused glaciers to ern China in the laboratory, they released more complicated because volcanoes often
creep forward and sea levels to drop, large amounts of mercurya telltale sign have the effect of toasting the atmosphere
plunging the planet into an ice age that that volcanoes had rocked our world. instead of cooling it. Still, with all five mass
wiped out 85percent of all marine species. Now the researchers hope to locate a extinctions linked to volcanic eruptions,
Researchers laid out this fire-and-ice sce- large igneous provincea vast swath of geologists can start to tease out the details
nario in a paper recently published in G eolo- hardened lavathat would date back to of each murder mystery. Shannon Hall
The Computer medical errors in 1999 and 2015. Some of these errors can arise
from poor record keeping or miscommunication. But often mis-
solutions will substantially enhance the practice of medicine reducing the need for doctors to reenter the same information.
or simply add another unnecessary complication to doctors Just how much decision-support programs would slash
already pressed schedules. errors, however, remains hard to estimate. But preliminary data
look promising. A 2011 study of VisualDx compared how well
P ROCESSING POWER emergency room doctors at two different institutions were able
The idea of enlisting computers t o help inform medical diagnoses to diagnose a particular skin infection with and without comput-
is not new. The first computing efforts that targeted clinicians er assistance. Clinicians who used VisualDx made the correct
errors began in the 1970s. Then, in the mid-1980s, Massachusetts diagnosis 64 percent of the time. Those who did not made the
General Hospital began working on DXplain with the goal of help- correct diagnosis only 14 percent of the time. A preliminary
ing to improve diagnoses. The approach seemed promising, but it study of Isabel presented at a conference in 2014 concluded that
did not actually take off at the time, partly because patient records the service improved the ability of 40 medical students to make
were still being written by hand, and turning to a computer-based accurate diagnoses by as much as a third. A study of DXplain,
program added another cumbersome step. published in 2010, found that when residents at the Mayo Clinic
A lot has happened since then. Computers are now integral used it with diagnostically complex cases, the program dramat-
to standard medicine. They have taken over record keeping in ically decreased medical costs because it led to shorter, more
most clinics, hospitals and private practices, with encourage- effective hospital stays.
ment from federal incentives. Such shifts have boosted quality,
safety and efficiency in the health care system. H URDLES TO CLEAR
The clinical decision-support systems have changed, too. Nevertheless, beneficial changes a re often slow in coming. In July
They have become much faster and often link directly to the the National Academies held a one-day meeting to check on prog-
studies from which they draw, allowing clinicians to quickly ress in reducing diagnostic errors. John Ball, the physician who
assess evidence and learn more about the potential diagnosis. chaired the academies 2015 report, said ahead of the meeting that
VisualDx, for that matter, highlights its visual aspectit in he expected disappointing results because many of the recom-
cludes diagrams of what body parts may be affected and pictures mendations to reduce errorincluding greater use of computer-
of maladies for easier comparison. ized decision-making toolshave not yet been adopted on a large
Crucially, scientists have also learned more about why people scale. Ball says his own seven-hospital system in North Carolina has
make certain kinds of mistakes and how to counteract them. not yet made much progress integrating these systems into its care.
Researchers have identified a number of cognitive traps into Part of the problem in North Carolina, Ball notes, is that the
which physicians sometimes fall when making a diagnosis. One various hospitals and doctors in his network work with different
that seems particularly amenable to correction by computers is electronic record-keeping systems and protocols, which makes
the so-called anchoring error. Studies suggest that doctors often it impossible to standardize such changes. The other issue, he
get stuck on the first diagnosis that occurs to themthe anchor says, is that doctors may be reluctant to spend time learning the
even if it is wrong. Then they may subconsciously give greater system until they are certain that it will be worth it.
weight to any information that reinforces that diagnosis and dis- Institutional inertia is an issue across the U.S., observes Mark
missor not even bother to look forother data. Graber, president and co-founder of the Society to Improve Diag-
nosis in Medicine. Health care organizations dont really own
H UMAN ERROR the problem of diagnostic error and dont recognize it as some-
In a busy hospital ward o r medical practice, anchoring errors can thing they need to focus on, he says. Physicians, in general,
happen for myriad reasons. A harried clinician may forget to ask think they are doing a good job and think they dont really need
if a patient recently traveled even when that answer could sub- to worry about [it].
stantially change the likely diagnosisresulting in situations In addition, some experts, such as Sandra Fryhofer, a past
where, for example, an Ebola patient might be sent home from a president of the American College of Physicians and a practicing
hospital with instructions to take Tylenol for a high fever and internist in Atlanta, fear that widespread adoption of these pro-
pain rather than being quarantined and provided immediate grams might have unintended consequences. If such software
care. Still other problems may stem from the way doctors are edu- becomes more accessible to patients, she worries that they may
cated. Often students are given case studies that reflect prototyp- forgo a doctors visit because they think they already know what
ical symptoms rather than real-world complexities. Textbook cas- is wrong or, alternatively, needlessly fret because the program
es are not as common as one might think. suggests a scary resultsomething that doctors say happens
That kind of discrepancy is where these systems hope to find now when people search for their symptoms on the Internet.
their sweet spot. Each program employs proprietary algorithms Doctors such as Payne say they are not concerned about being
to link symptoms with diagnoses and flag which conditions may replaced, however. What they envision is a safer, smarter ap
be most likely or most dangerous and so need to be ruled out proachlike the complex backup systems in a planes cockpit.
quickly. Some are even capable of automatically pulling infor They hope that with such built-in redundancies and cues, per-
mation from a patients current electronic records, thereby haps they can chart a more reliable, smoother course for us all.
Technology
black-and-white only, on a 512- by 342-pixel screenbut it took
my breath away.
Apple has often been late to the party. Long before Apple
as Magic
introduced the iPad, other companies sold tablets. Well before
the iPod debuted, pocket music players were available from
rivals. And before the iPhone was even a twinkle in Steve Jobss
eye, you could buy touch-screen phones.
The products that really wow us Why didnt those products set the world on fire? You know
seem like pure wizardry what Im going to say: because they werent magical.
By David Pogue The early tablets were thick and clunky and covered with
buttons; the technology wasnt hidden enough. The early MP3
We the people h ave always been helplessly drawn to the con players were glitchy; nothing says not magic louder than the
cept of magic: the notion that you can will something to hap need to troubleshoot. And touch-screen phones werent truly
pen by wiggling your nose, speaking special words or waving magical until they hadmultitouch s creens like the iPhones. The
your hands a certain way. Weve spent billions of dollars for the first time you tried zooming in on a photograph by spreading
opportunity to see what real magic might look like, in the form two fingers on the glass, you were sold. Youwanted that prod
of Harry Pottermovies, superhero films and TV shows, from uct. It was magic that you could buy.
Bewitched o n down. Fortunately, these days magic is everywhere, appealing both
It should follow, then, that any time you can offerreal mag to our laziness and to our sense of wonder. Its in wireless charg
ical powers for sale, the public will buy it. Thats exactly whats ing and augmented reality. Its in voice control of our smart
been going on in consumer technology. Remember Arthur C. homes and in Fitbits that somehow know what sport youve just
Clarkes most famous line? Any sufficiently advanced technolo played for an hour. Its in summoning a car and driver with one
gy is indistinguishable from magic. Well, Ive got a corollary: tap on your phone. Its in software that recognizes the faces of
Any sufficiently magicalproduct will be a ginormous hit. your friends in your pictures.
Anything invisible and wireless, anything that we control Thank you, engineers and designers of the world, for taking
with our hands or our voices, anything we can operate over im on the role of creating magic. Right now we the people can use
possible distancesthose are the hits because they most resem all of it we can get.
ble magic. You can now change your thermostat from thousands
of miles away, ride in a car that drives itself, call up a show on
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE
your TV screen by speaking its name or type on your phone by READ MORE ABOUT MAGICAL TECHNOLOGIES ON THE HORIZON:
speaking to it. Magic. scientificamerican.com/aug2017/pogue
Deep oceans
were thought to
hold lifes origins.
New evidence
points instead
toan active
volcanic landscape
By Martin J. Van
Kranendonk,
David W. Deamer
28 Scientific American, August 2017 and Tara Djokic
2017 Scientific American
BIRTHING POOL: L ife on Earth
could have started in places similar
to the Grand Prismatic Spring
in Yellowstone National Park.
I
Tara Djokic is a Ph.D. candidate at the Australian Center
for Astrobiology at the University of New South Wales.
Her project combines geologic observations of early evidence
of life in Western Australia with virtual-reality technology.
thin layer of bacterialike microorganisms. The surface ly dry out and then get wet again could be much better
rocks and indications of biofilms support a new idea places. The pools have heat to catalyze reactions, dry
IN BRIEF
To get started, life on Earth needed energy to cre- A system of volcanic pools and hot springs on land A land-based v olcanic origins theory, in contrast to
ate complex molecules and ways to bring these has the needed ingredients for life and wet-dry cy- an ocean-focused one, guides us to different places
molecules together. cles for interaction and natural selection. in the solar system to search for life there.
old geyserite
chemical bases that compose naturally occurring nu- der the acidic conditions and high temperatures found
were formed in
cleic acids, as well as phosphate, glycerol and a lipid. in the Kamchatka pool. The result: longer polymers
sticky biofilms,
He poured this mixture into the center of a small, boil- ranging from 10 to more than 100 nucleotides in length.
the products
ing spring. Within minutes a white, frothy foam Later studies using x-ray diffraction demonstrated the
of biological
emerged around the springs edges. The foam was com- polymers resembled ribonucleic acid, or RNA. Further-
organisms (3).
posed of countless tiny vesicles, each containing com- more, these polymers were encapsulated by the lipids
pounds that were present in the originalsoup. to form vast numbers of microscopic compartments
POOLS OF INNOVATION
The bubbles and mineral composition that Djokic
found in the Dresser Formation made it a likely spot for
the three-part cycle to occur, and we published the ev-
idence this past May in N ature Communications. After
we realized that the Dresser had been filled with sur-
face hot springs in a geothermal system, it became
clear that it also had contained many of the key ingre-
dients and organizational structures required for the
origin of life. It had a source of energy in the form of
xity
When the pool
omple
refills, the films e The cycle repeats, again and
rehydrate and again. Every time it does,
sing c
bud off trillions protocells interact, compete
se
of protocells, for resources and evolve
Increa
ha
lp
membranes more complex functional
Ge
that encapsulate Gels polymers until a proge
collections of note community
random polymers. emerges that is able
to exchange adaptive
Protocells
c
Protocells
d molecules, develop
ing ever more sophis
Protocells that survive ticated functions.
the changing conditions
a
then group together in a moist
gel as the pool level drops.
Organic com
pounds, some
forming mem
branes, collect Films
in pools.
b
Films
Membranes dry
to form films.
Wet Between these
3 Concentration
The compounds are
Dry layers, simple
organic building
concentrated within tiny blocks bond
vesicles made of simple together to
molecules called lipids. form polymers.
The close proximity, plus
heat and chemical energy
4 Cycling
Pools go through
from the spring system, repeated cycles of three
links them together phases: dry, wet and
to form more complex moist gels. Dry times
molecular chains. help to synthesize poly-
mers used to carry infor-
5 Distribution
The best-adapted proto
mation, such as chains cells spread to other
of nucleic acids. In a wet pools or streams, moving
period, protocells can by wind and water, and
form, encapsulating
these polymers and pro-
some develop the ability
to use carbon dioxide for
6 Adaptation
Some of these early
tecting them. Then, in photosynthesis. After microbes are pushed
the gel phase, protocells much trial and error, one into saltwater estuaries,
pack together in a system protocell assembles the beyond their native
called a progenote and complicated molecular
exchange sets of poly- machinery that enables it
freshwater ponds. The
microbes that survive
7 Colonization
Sea storms and tugging
mers, selecting those to divide into daughter pass along useful traits tides select for mats of
that enhance survival cells. This paves the way that help descendants rugged microbes able
during many cycles. for the first living micro expand their range to cement themselves
bial community. to oceans. together using grains
of minerals. These layers
pile up into stacks called
stromatolites. Life con
tinues to expand into
other niches, setting the
stage for free-living cells.
After billions of years,
these organisms evolve
into complex multicellular
plants and animals.
Illustration by Jos Miguel Mayo (landscape) and Jen Christiansen (cycling detail) August 2017, ScientificAmerican.com33
circulating hydrothermal fluids, rich in hydrogen, heat- ecules because of the electrically charged layers of min-
ed by magma from below. The rocks contained abun- eral surfaces theycontain.
dant amounts of the element boron, a crucial ingredi- Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Dresser
ent in the synthesis of ribose necessary for nucleic ac- as an origin analogue site is its amazing variety be-
ids such as RNA. The Dresser also has phosphate cause in this field of science, variety is very much the
minerals that dissolve out of the underlying rocks and spice of life. The Dresser is dry and rocky now, but in
join circulating acidic geothermal fluids. Phosphate is their youth, geothermal hot spring fields such as this
an important component of nucleic acids, but it is also one contain many hundreds of pools, each with a
used by all life in the form of ATP (adenosine triphos- slightly different pH, temperature, dissolved ions and
phate, the molecule that supplies energy within cells). other chemical variations. Chemical complexity is rich
In addition, there were high concentrations of zinc and in such fields because they contain three highly reac-
manganese, components of many enzymes in the cyto- tive interfacesbetween water and rock, water and air,
THEO ALLOFS Getty Images
plasm of cells from all known branches of life, found in and rock and air. The fields also have different temper-
hydrothermal vents and in evaporative volcanic lake atures at different spots. Multiply all of this together:
deposits. Finally, the Dresser also had clays, which can the wetting-drying cycles happening multiple times
function as catalysts for creating complex organic mol- each day (think Old Faithful in Yellowstone), variable
R aqui
R VAT
CO NSE
V
for the
at the
d e m i s e o
a b o u
a l l M
f a sm xtinctio
te
e
n
n
i n
p
P
o
xica the 21st
h o
r
t
p
ogra
oise
phs
by C
h
t
c
r
e
e
i
l
k
n
ls us
tury
By Eristian Rodri g
e
Vancuez
Wh
IN BRIEF
FLIP NICKLIN Getty Images
Only 30 Gulf porpoises, o r vaquitas, intended for animals called totoabas. swim bladders on the black market and leopards to elephants, also face compli-
remain, all in the Sea of Cortez. For Failed government oversight o f fishing Mexicos inability to work with fishing cated threats. Biologists cannot save
years they have died after being rules, a battle among scientific camps, communities doomed the vaquita. them. Government leaders who can im-
caught up in fishing nets, many illegal, organized criminals who sell totoaba Dozens of other species, from snow prove local economies must do the job.
River o
d
U.S.
Colora
down in the past few years. Once peaceful Unlike the Siberian tiger or white rhino, it
fishermen now go to sea heavily armed and has no commercial value. What killed the
share trade routes and profits with drug El Golfo de Santa Clara vaquita was a lethal mix of greed and cor-
Dry riverbed
kingpins. With stories rampant of meth- Marine ruption, meager government oversight, an
amphetamine laboratories near fishing reserves entrenched battle between scientific camps
MEXICO
camps and of drug lords in trucks by the over why the species declined in the first
shore firing on police to defend poaching Guaymas place and the inability of Mexico to harness
Baj
Sea
a
boats, tourism has slowed to a crawl. the goodwill of fishermen. Although these
Ca
of C
lifo
Fishing should be banned in the Sea lessons may come too late for the vaquita,
ort
rni
PACIFIC
ez
a
SOURCES: NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION (marine reserves);
of Cortez, says Oona Layolle, architect of they could save countless other species on
OCEAN
the Sea Shepherd campaign. Seas like the brink of extinction worldwide.
this that are so fragile, with such a huge La Paz
ecosystemwith the number of people on 200 kilometers THE VAQUITA, discovered relatively re-
earth nowthey should be protected. cently, was not always a flash point. In
Meanwhile the official number of va- 1950 legendary marine biologist Ken Nor-
quitas has dropped to just 30. In a last-ditch effort to save the ris was wandering the upper Gulf beaches when he stumbled on
animals, a joint U.S.-Mexico team plans to catch as many of a porpoise skull lying in the sun. It was oddly shaped and very
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (Colorado River)
them as it can find and keep them in captivity. small. Eight years later he published a paper introducing the
The vaquita, close to joining the ranks of the passenger pi- Gulf of California harbor porpoise, although he had never seen a
geon, represents one of the most dramatic failures in wildlife live specimen.
management today, and its story has crucial lessons to teach us For the next couple of decades the animal was almost a ghost,
about the nature of extinction in the modern world. The creature seen only a few times when scientists would find one washed up
was not destroyed by settlers, like the hapless dodo bird was, or by next to a fishing village. Researchers wondered whether the local
rampant human development, like the Chinese river dolphin was. totoaba fishery might be threatening the vaquitas survival. The
environment on a dessert cart during a fancy breakfast meeting looked at 75 vaquitas provided by fishermen and determined that
just to prove the animal was real. So CONAPESCA pivoted to the the animals were not in danger from inbreeding. Because the
empty Colorado River, blaming the vaquitas decline on greedy population had always been small and isolated, the species had
Americans and their dams. But necropsies revealed no signs of already purged any lethal genes, it seemed. If the animals could
disease or starvation. As it turned out, the vaquita adjusted well be spared the fishermans net, they could theoretically recover.
to changing food supplies. Since then, Rojas Bracho has become one of the most pugna-
Galindo Bect, the Autonomous University of Baja California cious advocates for the vaquita, making it his mission to battle
oceanographer who had become the primary spokesperson for what he sees as a deluge of misinformation from groups such as
the Colorado River camp, now acknowledges he has no direct ev- CONAPESCA. I havent been in a meeting in 20 years where
idence that the vaquita is being affected by the rivers condition, theres not fisheries guys who say [the problem] is lack of flow
but he says that is only because the correct tests have not been from the Colorado River, he says. Often these meetings turn into
done. Fishermen are quick to cite him. I know Dr. Galindo, says yelling matches.
25-year veteran Mario Alberto. The vaquita problem is not a Rojas Bracho does not trust Galindo Bect and his ties to fishing
fisherman oneits an environmental one. interests. Galindo Bect does not trust Rojas Brachos science. The
By 1999 vaquita numbers were still decreasing. As new re only thing that everyone has agreed on is that illegal totoaba fish-
serves were proposed, acrimony increased. After Mexicos cen- ing had gotten out of control. By the early 2000s the fishermen,
tral government put a temporary hold on upper Gulf finfish, as- once the key link to specimens, had become the enemy.
suming the finfish nets were catching vaquitas, Santa Clara fish-
ermen burned several government trucks and staged a symbolic NOT THAT THE GOVERNMENT w as always against the fisher-
kidnapping of local officials, who then had to be airlifted out. men. In 2007 it offered money to individuals who turned in their
Amid the chaos, a third theory arose to explain the animals fishing permits so that they could have capital to invest in eco-
decline: inbreeding. Proponents claimed that certain lethal ge- tourism. Build hotels, they were told, and visitors would flock to
netic combinations will pop up in a small population and cause the upper Gulf. But no one ever asked if tourists wanted to come.
widespread mortality. It had happened in Scandinavia, where iso- Mario Mora Rodrguez, a fisherman of 20-plus years, was among
lated populations of snakes and wolves were vulnerable to genet- those who took the deal. He says he honestly believed he was
ic diseases. National government officials used this argument to working to save the vaquita while providing a future for his fam-
say the vaquita was doomed to extinction, says Lorenzo Rojas ily. He built a series of bungalows called the Tourist Cabins. No
Bracho, a scientist who worked on vaquita genetics in the late one came. Today the place sits empty, next to four other vacant
1990s and now helps to run a multinational vaquita group called hotels. Most of his kids have moved away in search of work.
CIRVA that advises the Mexican government. But Rojas Bracho Eventually the government, through CONAPESCA, awarded
IN 2015 LEE BERGER of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and his
colleagues caused a sensation when they unveiled more than 1,500 human fossils repre-
senting some 15 individuals, male and female, young and old, discovered in South Africa.
It was one of the richest assemblages of human fossils ever found, recovered from a
chamber deep inside an underground cave system near Johannesburg called Rising Star.
The team deduced that the bones belonged to a new species, H omo naledi, which had
a curious mix of primitive traits, such as a tiny brain, and modern features, including long
legs. The scientists determined it was a capable climber and long-distance walker and
surmised that it had disposed of its dead in the pitch-dark, hard-to-reach chamber.
Yet for all that the researchers were able to glean from the bones, the discovery was
perhaps best known for what they could not ascertain: its age.
That eagerly awaited piece of the puzzle has finally fallen into place.
In papers published online May 9 in eLife, the team reports it has dated
the remains of H .naledi t o between 236,000 and 335,000 years old
surprisingly young for a species with such a small brain. The researchers
also announced the discovery of yet more fossils of H .naledi in a second
chamber in Rising Star, including a skeleton of an adult male they nick-
Kate Wong
named Neo, gift in the local Sesotho language.
is a senior editor
The findings raise intriguing questions about the origin and evolu- for evolution and
tion of our genus, H omo. D espite the young age of the bones, the sci- ecology at
entists maintain that H.naledis primitive features link it to much earli- Scientific American.
er members of the human family, and they argue that this species
might even be a direct ancestor of H omo sapiens.
niversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Berger and his collaborators also note that the new dates for H.naledi indicate it lived
at a time when human ancestors were making sophisticated stone tools in the Middle
Stone Age tradition. Many of the sites where archaeologists have discovered these tools
do not contain any human fossils. Experts have typically assumed that large-brained
humans made the implements. But if H.naledi w as around at that time, as the authors sug-
gest, it cannot be excluded as the toolmaker. In that case, scientists will need to reconsider
the enduring notion that brain size drives complexity ofbehavior. Paleoanthropologist
Mark Collard of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, who was not involved in the
JOHN HAWKS U
new work, thinks there is good reason to do so: The history of paleoanthropology is lit-
tered with deeply rooted assumptions that have been overturned by new discoveries.
A
MATTER
OF Studies show that
school vouchers lead
CHOICE
to lower math and
reading scores. So
why has the Trump
administration
embraced them?
By Peg Tyre
IN BRIEF
The concept of vouchers o riginated with econ- Vouchers are the centerpiece of the Department A handful of other cities a nd states have exper-
omist Milton Friedman. In 1955 he argued that of Educations school reform plan. Until now, imented with small programs. Studies have
the government should not run schools but in- Washington, D.C., has been home to the only found mixed to negative results in reading and
stead offer parents educational stipends. federally funded voucher program in the U.S. math but higher high school graduation rates.
schools in the 1990s under a voucher plan saw an uptick in Afri- left with mostly subpar options. A lot of the reason that parents
can-American students who graduated and enrolled in college are interested in sending kids to private schools is that there is too
but no such increases among Hispanic students. much testing in public, he says.
In 2004 researchers began studying students in a larger, more Better-performing students were the ones who used the vouch-
SOURCE: EVALUATION OF THE DC OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM:
sustained voucher plan that had just been launched in Washing- er program, the study found. Interestingly, students who were left
ton, D.C. This is the countrys first and so far only federally spon- in Ohio public schools actually did better on standardized tests
sored voucher program. There 2,300 students were offered schol- once the voucher program got under way, suggesting that public
arships, and 1,700 students used those scholarships mostly to at- schools might have responded to the increased competition by
tend area Catholic schools. The analysts compared academic data teaching a curriculum aligned to the standards to be testedor by
on those who did and did not opt for parochial school and found doubling down on test preparation.
that voucher users showed no significant reading or math gains Ty Vinson, a mother of three from Columbus, Ohio, enrolled
over those who remained in public school. But graduation rates her children in a local Christian school using the EdChoice pro-
for voucher students were higher82 percent compared with gram. But after their test scores dropped, she switched them
70 percent for the control group, as reported by parents. A new out. Vinson says she worried that her third, sixth and eighth
one-year study of the Washington, D.C., program published in graders, who earned straight As at their new school, were not
April showed that voucher students actually did worse in math challenged enough.
and reading than students who applied for vouchers through a Still, she appreciated the experience. They got to be involved
VOUCHER SYSTEM IN CHILE A carefully sequenced curriculum that provides broad content knowledge in
Other countries, n amely Sweden, the English, math, science, history, art and music. For many years researchers did not
Netherlands, New Zealand and Colombia, understand the power of content knowledge to improve skills such as reading
have experimented with voucher pro comprehension and critical thinking. Lately neuroscientistsand some high-
grams, also with mixed results. But no performing district and charter schoolshave begun focusing on the importance
country embraced the scheme as whole- of building factual knowledge in children, especially those from low-income
heartedly as Chile, which implemented a families. Yet it is important that content be taught in an engaging way and not
universal voucher program in the 1980s through rote memorization.
under dictator Augusto Pinochet. Before
the reform, three types of schools existed Math introduced in the earliest grades and taught by a content expert. I f a content
in Chile: public (accounting for 80percent expert is not available, then the teacher should at least take real joy in math
of the enrollment), subsidized private instruction. Math phobia is highly contagious and difficult to cure.
(14 percent)largely Catholic schools
Daily physical activity. A s the focus on testing grew more intense, PE dropped out
and fee-paying private for the elite (6per-
of school schedules. But science suggests that all kids should get 60 minutes of
cent). In 1981 the system was decentral-
moderate aerobic exercise every day to be at their cognitive best.
ized, and parents could enroll their chil-
dren in public municipal schools, sub- Safety. I n 1908 Arthur C. Perry, principal of a Brooklyn high school, published The
sidized private schools that accepted Management of a City School, describing how school climate affects learning. Since
vouchers, and nonsubsidized private then, researchers who study cognition have mostly agreed with his theoriesmore
schools, which charged about five times learning takes place in classrooms with fewer disruptions.
the amount of the government subsidy
and were thus available only to the elite. Experienced teachers. R ecent studies suggest that teachers continue to gain
Middle-class families stampeded out of mastery in instruction (as measured by student test scores) and student engagement
public schools. By 2002 private voucher (as measured by absenteeism) throughout their first 10 years in the classroom.
schools reached 38 percent of enroll- P.T.
ments, at the expense of the public sector,
which dropped to 53 percent. By 2004
private voucher enrollment had reached
41 percent. Poor families, many of whom
were unable to gain admission to private schools or lived in This pattern suggests that while the private-voucher sector
rural areas without private schools, stayed in the public system. serves an economically diverse population, each voucher s chool
By 2006, 42 percent of students in the lowest income quintile of focuses on a socioeconomically homogeneous community.
the population, 28 percent of students from the second-lowest In other words, economic stratification in Chile increased
quintile and 4percent from the wealthiest quintile attended under vouchers by the type of school and by actual school com-
public schools. munity. Although there are no good studies that track socioeco-
In the early 2000s Alejandra Mizala, an economist at the nomic stratification through vouchers in the U.S., research con-
University of Chile, and Florencia Torche, a sociologist now ducted by Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the progressive Cen-
at Stanford University, launched a comprehensive study of tury Foundation, has shown that voucher programs tend to
fourth and eighth grade students in public and private voucher exacerbate racial segregation in both public and private schools.
schools in Chile using census data and information about pa- Further, she found that more highly educated parents, often a
rental education and income. In a paper published in 2012 in proxy for families with a higher income, are more likely to use
the International Journal of Educational Development, the vouchers to transfer their children to private schools.
researchers found that enrollment in private voucher schools
created a hierarchy, with private school students segregating SAFETY VS. ACHIEVEMENT
themselves by income. A much larger proportion of the vari- In the face o f such mixed results, what is motoring voucher pro-
ance in socioeconomic status is between schools in the private- grams forward? A few studies, including an early look at the fed-
voucher sector than in the public one, the study authors wrote. erally funded Washington, D.C., program, have shown that vouch-
The Chilean educational system displays profound ... with the greatest income and test-score disparities occurring among schools that accept vouchers.
stratication in socioeconomic status (SES) ... Within voucher schools, student SES and academic achievement are relatively homogeneous.
School sector enrollment by family SES decile SES variance Total variance in test scores by school sector (4th grade, 2002)
by school sector
1 Public Voucher Public Voucher
Lowest Income
Public 800
2 2,400
Private Voucher
3 Private Fee-Paying
24% 700 2,300
4 Public
In Chile, private fee-paying
5 schools serve the upper class, 600 2,200
private voucher schools serve Math
6
the middle and upper-middle Math
7 class, and public schools serve 500 2,100
mostly the lower and lower- Language
8
Highest Income
ers can boost high school graduation and college matriculation erns Figlio suggests creating a team of inspectors to conduct
rates. Advocates say those measures are more important than top-to-bottom reviews of schools that take vouchers. There are
achievement on state tests. We should care about education at- truly terrible schools in terms of literacy and numeracy, he says.
tainment: how long they stay in the system and degrees they ob- We cant just let the market run and assume people will be in
tain. That is more predictive of life outcomes, says Patrick Wolf, good schools. There should be some allowance for accountabili-
co-author of The School Choice Journey and education professor at ty. That takes us back to the question of who should decide
the University of Arkansas. But such sentiments are at odds with which schools are good and how.
how we have long demanded our public schools operate. For two Voucher proponents say parents, even those using tax dollars
decades policy makers have harshly criticized public schools for so- to pay tuition, should be able to use whatever criteria for school
cial promotionthe practice of moving a child to the next grade choice they see fit. A provocative idea, but if past evidence can
SOURCE: BRINGING THE SCHOOLS BACK IN: THE STRATIFICATION OF EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
level regardless of academic achievement. The merit of public predict future outcomes, expanding voucher programs seems
IN I NTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OFEDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, VOL.32, NO.1; JANUARY2012
schools was determined solely on the number of students achiev- unlikely to help U.S. schoolchildren keep pace with a technolog-
IN THE CHILEAN VOUCHER SYSTEM, BY ALEJANDRA MIZALA AND FLORENCIA TORCHE,
vouchers were more likely to rate their childs school as very Evaluation of Ohios EdChoice Scholarship Program: Selection, Competition,
safe, for example. Some religiously affiliated parents may also and Performance Effects. D avid Figlio and Krzysztof Karbownik. ThomasB.
perceive more value in a schools culture than in standardized Fordham Institute, July 2016. https://edex.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/
publication/pdfs/FORDHAM%20Ed%20Choice%20Evaluation%20Report_
test results. If Im a deeply religious person, I might choose an online%20edition.pdf
education where my children are raised according to my reli- State-by-state comparisons of school voucher laws by the National Conference
gious values and culture, says Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow ofState Legislatures: w ww.ncsl.org/research/education/voucher-law-
at Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning think tank in comparison.aspx
Washington, D.C. I have a view of my childs education that is FROM OUR ARCHIVES
more than test scores. Other factors may weigh more heavily.
Brain Science in the Classroom. D
aniel T. Willingham; Forum, September 2012.
But other experts worry that vouchers too often shuffle stu-
dents from one failing system of schools to another. Northwest- s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
ASTROPHYSIC S
The first total solar eclipse to cross the U.S. from coast to coast in
THE
GREAT
SOLAR
ECLIPSE
of 2017
ly come up to me after eclipses to say that they know how I had things cool down as you retreat from a hot object, such as a camp-
tried to convey the excitement but that I had nonetheless fallen fire or a steam radiator. Within the sun, the temperature starts at
IN BRIEF
On August 21, A mericans in a narrow path from The eclipse offers a rare and precious opportunity Scientists will be seeking answers to lingering mys-
Oregon to South Carolina will be treated to a total to study the sun under conditions impossible at teries such as how the suns magnetic field shapes
eclipse of the sun. any other time. the solar corona, why the corona is so hot, and more.
Polar plumes
Sunspot
15 million
degrees Celsius Prominence
Coronal streamers
Millions of degrees
Core
Chromosphere
Coronal loop Photosphere
Convective zone
Polar plumes
C or C or
C hr ona ona
C hr
om om
osp osp
Pho her Pho her
to s e to s e
phe phe
re re
Millions of small explosions ble them. Using such composite images from
past total eclipsesseen most recently in
going off in the corona every Indonesia, Svalbard, Gabon, Australia, and
elsewheremy team has measured velocities
to follow the eclipse from an NCAR Gulfstream V aircraft. From ized gas scattering ordinary sunlight toward us. This scattering
their perch above the bulk of the infrared-absorbing atmosphere, polarizes the light, and the motion of electrons caused by this
they will be able to measure the strength of infrared spectral process smears out the dark lines that otherwise intrude in the
lines, hoping to find ones that are magnetically sensitive. suns rainbow spectrum. Farther out in the corona, nearer the
If successful, they plan to fly again during a later eclipse with orbit of Mercury, dust in interplanetary space bounces light
polarization filters added to measure the coronal magnetic field. toward us but does not polarize it or wipe out the ordinary solar
By separating out light waves with different orientations, polar- spectrum. Others preparing to study polarization at this years
ization measurements help us to identify the different compo- eclipse include Nat Gopalswamy of nasas Goddard Center, Judge
nents of the corona. The inner middle part of the corona that we and Steven Tomczyk, both at the High Altitude Observatory, and
see with our eyes during a total eclipse comes from highly ion- Padma Yanamandra-Fisher of the Space Science Institute. After
at an eclipse in 1919. He looked for signs that the suns mass was Structure and Dynamics of the 2012 November 13/14 Eclipse White-Light
bending the light of distant stars behind it, an effect that is actu- Corona. J .M. Pasachoff etal. in A strophysical Journal, V
ol.800, No.2, Article No. 90;
ally caused by the relativistic warping of spacetime. I have spent February20,2015.
Key Aspects of Coronal Heating. J amesA. Klimchuk in P hilosophical Transactions
decades telling people that we have better things to do at a total
of the Royal Society A, V
ol.373, No.2042, Article No. 20140256; May28,2015.
eclipse than repeat this experiment. After all, physicists have The Sun. L eon Golub and JayM. Pasachoff. Reaktion Books and University of Chicago
more precise ways to test relativity theory nowadays. But it turns Press,2017.
out that new observing capabilities may make the investigation
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
at this years eclipse a useful oneor at least interesting.
Retired California physicist Don Bruns will carry out such The Solar Corona. J ayM. Pasachoff; October1973.
observations. He has intricate plans for calibrating his telescope The Paradox of the Suns Hot Corona. B holaN. Dwivedi and Kenneth J.H. Phillips;
June2001.
by measuring many nighttime star images. An earlier attempt to
use observations taken with digital single-lens-reflex (DSLR) s c i e n t i f i c a m e r i c a n . c o m /m a g a z i n e /s a
April 9, 2043 *
June 1, 2030
Aug
ust 2034
2, h 20, June 2
202 Marc 1, 202
7 0
July 2,
2038 038
y 5, 2
uar
Jan
20 19
031 26,
21, 2 ber
May em
Dec
30, 2041
April
August 2, 2
046
2 2, 2028
July
3
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0,2
2
ril
Ap
037
13, 2
Novem July
ber 25,
2030
32 26
9, 20 7, 20
May ry1
a
u
Febr
E
NASA GSFC EMERITUS; CONSULTATION BY MICHAEL ZEILER
xcitement about the August 21, 2017, eclipse is as hot as a star, but solar
eclipses happen at least twice a year, when the orbits of the moon and
ECLIPSE PREDICTIONS BY FRED ESPENAK,
Earth align with the sun. What is unusual this time is that the moon will
totally block the sun, instead of doing so partially, and that the strip of
darkness cast on Earth will fall on millions of people rather than plankton out at
sea or polar bears or penguins at the poles. Forty-six solar eclipses of various types
will occur over the next 30 years. Grab a friend and go. Mark Fischetti
62 Scientific American, August 2017 *The centerline of these odd eclipses just misses Earth, so only a small area sees darkness.
, 20
39 044
e 21 23, 2
Jun gust
Au
42
20, 20 August 21, 2017
April
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pril 8,
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November 14, 20 Janu Octob
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ECLIPSES r 15, 20
39
December 4, 2021
Decembe
Eclipse Tracks, 20172046
Central Eclipses
Extent Sun Moon Earth
Several Ways to Hide the Sun
Total Centerline Sun is blocked, and
corona is visible Central eclipses (shown on map) occur when the moon, as seen from
Earth, passes fully in front of the sun. They come in three varieties.
Suns perimeter The eclipse is total when the moon is close enough to Earth to entirely
Annular
is not blocked block the sun. It is annular when the moon is farther from Earth and
blocks only the middle of the sun. And it is hybrid when the distance
Moons path to the moon varies during the event. A total eclipse creates a narrow
Hybrid
band of complete darkness on Earths surface; the closer the moon,
the wider the band. (Flat maps exaggerate the width at the poles.)
Partial Eclipses Sun is only
partially blocked Observers on either side of the band will see dimmed sunlight, but
(not shown on map)
that effect fades to nothing a few hundred miles away.
Graphic by Jan Willem Tulp (map) and Jen Christiansen (schematic) August 2017, ScientificAmerican.com63
r
be
progress, will transition
vem
Creating an Eclipse
from central eclipses to
No
Solar eclipses occur when Earth, the moon and the sun line up on an axis.
Because Earth and the moon both have elliptical orbits, and because the partial eclipses over time.
moons orbit is inclined 5.1 degrees to Earths, the alignment can take place August 21, 2017
only within a window of 34.5 daysthe eclipse season. Successive seasons
occur every 173.3 days, meaning an eclipse happens every five to six months.
Moon Earth
Earths orbit Moons orbit
No alignment
Sun for eclipse
Successive eclipse seasons
occur every 173.3 days on average
October
Orbital planes oset Eclipse season
5.1 degrees
or northward. After that, the next eclipse path drifts beyond the south or north pole,
ber
*The interval is sometimes 18 years and 10 and a third days, depending on leap years.
S ep
July 9, 1
945 July 20, 1963
18 July 31, 1981 19
August 11, 1999 20
September 2, 2 August 21, 2017
Septem 21 035 Septembe 22
Outer Bounds:
ber Octo r 23,
12, ber 23 207 Each band between
20 53 4, 2 1
24 089 25 the outer rings is 10
26 years, from the decades
20172026 to 29872996.
Eclipses from 29973000 st
gu
lie outside the final ring. Au
Saros 145 (Full cycle is comprised of 77 eclipses; numbers 18 through 26 are shown here)
64 Scientific American, August 2017 Graphic by Jan Willem Tulp (radial chart and map) and Jen Christiansen (orbital diagram)
Ma
rch
r January
embe
Dec
Feb
r ru
be a
ry
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No
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Bullseye:
rch
April
April
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20
gu
Au Jun
e
July
Ma
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29872996
29973000
Jun
e
July
August 2017, ScientificAmerican.com65
BU ILDING
A
BET TER
HA RVEST
IN BRIEF
To meet the global need for food, s cientists are find- Among the most promising innovations are seeds Phytobiome-based interventions are likely to be
ing new ways to exploit the phytobiomethe complex coated with bacteria or fungi that can deter pests or less controversial than genetically modified seeds,
web that links crops with microbial communities, soil, otherwise promote growth. The first such products but they do pose some potential risks. In any case,
weather, animals and other environmental factors. are already on the market. biotechnology alone cannot resolve world hunger.
e
c
1
Soil samples
5
Seeds coated in microbe
solution, then planted
brought at harvest time
to lab
tion to half a million yield points, the team collects 50 different before introducing them into the field. It sequences each genome
measurements on each of its soil samples. Add in other phytobi- to make sure the microbe bears no resemblance to known hu
ome data, and you end up with terabytes of information, what man pathogens and runs other tests to assess if it might be toxic
Schaecher calls either a statisticians carnival or nightmare. to the environment or spread to another crop. He and his team
On his office computer, Schaecher pulls up a U.S. map decorat- consult regularly with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which
ed in red and green dots like a Christmas tree: green for the decides whether a permit is required before a particular micro-
microbes that boosted yield, red for those that lowered it. They bial species can undergo field-testing. Organisms with benign
represent 2016 results from five corn fields. He and his team can duties such as fixing nitrogen or solubilizing phosphate typically
break down the data according to soil and environmental charac- get a pass. Those with more dangerous jobs such as killing off
teristics, weather, and insect and disease pressure. They can zoom other bacteria or fungi require more paperwork.
in on the locations with high levels of Diazs SDS to see if they can Among agricultural researchers, the bigger concern is not
identify any microbes that excelled under those conditions. that newly introduced species will take over or spread to other
The team uses a field first strategy, which means it skips the crops but rather that they will not stick around long enough to do
typical greenhouse experiments and tests its candidates directly much of anything, says Gwyn Beattie, a plant pathologist at Iowa
in the field. As a result, the researchers have no idea which, if State University and one of the authors of the P hytobiomes Road-
any, microbes will give an advantage. In 2014, the first year of the map. A spoonful of soil contains about 50billion microbes, a mix
field trial, they planted seeds coated with 500 different strains. of up to 10,000 different species. Researchers can add millions of
Ninety percent of the microbes failed. In 2015 they put 2,000 one strain to the soil and not make a dent. If you throw one per-
microbes into the race, including the winners from the first year. son [at a time] into New York City, the vast majority of people you
After that trial, only a handful of the original contenders re throw in there do not change New York City, Beattie says. It is
mained, along with a couple hundred of the newbies. In 2016 the like that in a microbial community. Introducing organisms rare-
scientists planted another 2,000 strains, made up of the top per- ly has an impact at all, and thats actually the biggest frustration.
formers and a batch of new recruits. Three years into the exper- (A similar challenge has mired the human probiotics industry,
iment, only a single microbe from the initial roundplus hun- which aims to enhance the multitrillion-member microbial com-
dreds from later roundsremains in contention. The team is not munity in the human gut. Its powders, pills and potables have
looking for one-hit wondersit wants Triple Crown winners that been promoted for treating ailments ranging from diarrhea to
perform consistently, year after year, on multiple fields. depression, but few studies show any measurable effect.)
Still, Monsantos activities have worried large segments of the
RISKY BUSINESS? public, which have accused the company of endangering human
Working with all-natural microbestaken from farmland, health, trampling the rights of farmers and monopolizing the food
grown in the lab and then returned to the farmmight seem supply. Most of this ire arose in the mid-1990s, when the agricul-
like a harmless proposition, free of the kind of controversies tural giant launched a line of GMO crops. Since then, two oppos-
associated with genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Never- ing narratives have emerged: one in which the company develops
theless, it raises a number of concerns. Messing with the micro- seeds that double yields and heroically overcome food shortages;
bial milieu could affect the flavor of a crop, much as soil compo- the other in which its products defile farmlands and cause cancer.
sition influences the taste of wine. A yield-boosting bacterium Last year the National Academy of Sciences completed what may
might possess pathogenic properties that prove harmful to be the most thorough examination of GMOs to date and found
human health. Long-term applications of plant probiotics could neither to be true. Its report concluded that genetically modified
change the natural dynamics of soil, fueling the proliferation of crops were just as safe to eat as conventional crops but that there
some microorganisms while driving others to extinction. There is no evidence that GMOs have boosted progress on yields.
is also a risk that seed coatings, like many agents applied to The primary benefit from genetically modified soybean, cot-
afield, could slough off one crop and contaminate another. ton and maize, the report suggested, was favorable economic
Schaecher says the BioAg Alliance works hard to avoid such outcomes for producers who have adopted these crops. When I
problems. It puts its microbial strains through a battery of tests asked about the academys lackluster findings, a Monsanto rep-
TO
OURSELVES Studies of the conversations people have
with themselves open a window on the
hidden workings of the mind
By Charles Fernyhough
M
y alarm woke me early. I was in a hotel room in London, near the
headquarters of the BBC. I hadnt slept well. When I looked in the bath-
room mirror, I saw someone pale and slightly terrified. I had reason to
feel nervous. In just over an hour I would be speaking live to an audi-
ence of millions on the BBCs flagship radio discussion program, Start
the Week. A s I gazed into the mirror, I was aware that I was talking,
silently, in my head. My words were a reassurance. They were aimed at
me. Relax, I said. Youve been on S tart the Week before. I had the impression that I was
speaking to myself but was also hearing something internally, the familiar shadow of a voice.
This is a story about everyday experience: the thoughts, im- imental techniques for studying inner speech and partly be-
ages and sensations that go through your head as you are soak- cause we now have a richer notion of how it functions, what
ing in the tub, chopping onions in the kitchen or waiting for the forms it takes, and how it can benefit and hinder a thinker. In
door to open on an important meeting. When asked, people of- fact, we are starting to realize that inner speech elucidates some
ten say that their inner lives contain a lot of words. Psycholo- big questions about the mind and brain.
gists use the term inner speech for this phenomenon, in which
people talk to themselves silently in their head. It has a cousin, A CHAT WITH ONESELF
private speech, in which people talk to themselves audibly. If Henry is lying on a play mat with a toy train in each hand, rhap-
you say words to yourself, such as Remember to get some cof- sodizing about the make-believe city he is about to create. First
fee or Stick to the plan, without making a sound, then you the cars. Then a big train, he says to himself. Henry is three
are using inner speech. If you say something similar to yourself years old. Walk into any nursery or preschool, anywhere in the
out loud, it is private speech. world, and you will see (and hear) something similar. It can get
Both forms of language seem to have varied purposes, in- noisy, with a classroom of kids thinking to themselves out loud.
cluding planning and monitoring our behavior, regulating our But this natural phenomenon of childrens private speech pro-
emotions and fostering creativity. Among adults, inner speech vides some important clues about where the words in our head
seems to be more common than the private variety and, of par- come from.
ticular interest to psychologists, is thus the form that probably Scholars have long pondered the private speech of young
plays the biggest part in our thinking. It is also quite a bit more children. In the 1920s Swiss developmental psychologist Jean
difficult to study. When I was starting out in research in the Piaget proposed that this type of self-talk reflected the inability
1990s, there was hardly any scientific literature on the topic. of youngsters to take other peoples perspectives and adapt
That situation has changed dramatically over the past couple of their speech to their listeners. In this view, private speech was
decades, partly because researchers have developed new exper- the result of a failure to communicate with others. That was why
IN BRIEF
Most people talk to themselves in our emotions and be creative, among made significant inroads into analyzing Their findings reveal s ome of the neu-
their head, a phenomenon psycholo- other important functions. But it has inner speech, partly because of studies ral bases of these private conversa-
gists call inner speech. eluded study. that use medical-imaging technologies tions and cast light on some long-
This self-talk helps us plan, regulate In recent years p sychologists have to observe the brain at work. standing mysteries of the mind.
tobut I latched onto its potential to reframe some deep mys- You often do not know in advance what the other person is think-
teries of human cognition. One such mystery is about control: ing, but once you figure it out, you need to be able to keep it in
How it is that an intelligent system can come up with, and im- mind and update that representation of his or her point of view as
plement, new ideas about how to act? A robot can get very the conversation unfolds. Scientists now know a fair bit about the
smart at responding to what happens in the environment, but neural basis for such perspective taking, thanks in part to studies
what makes it come up with the idea of doing anything for it- carried out using functional MRI and other medical imaging tech-
self ? If the system has to be told what to do, then it is lacking niques that can reveal which brain regions carry out a given task.
one of the essences of intelligence. Armed with these insights, my collaborators and I have been
What excited me about dialogue is that it is, by its very na- testing a new idea about how mental dialogues happen, based on
ture, self-regulating. When you are in conversation with another the suspicion that they recruit the same parts of the brain used in
person, there is no third party standing there waving a conduc- perspective taking. In an fMRI experiment led by my colleague
tors baton to show you where the conversation should go next. Ben Alderson-Day of Durham University in England, partici-
You and your conversational partner regulate each other pants produced two forms of inner speech while lying in a brain
NEUROSCIENCE, V
through the normal processes of questioning, challenging, re- scanner. We asked our volunteers to generate some inner speech
sponding, agreeing, and so on. Understanding self-talk in these that had a monologic structure; in other words, it did not involve
terms seemed to hold out the prospect of explaining how human a conversational exchange between different points of view. We
Woolly:
The True Story
of the Quest to
Revive One of
Historys Most Iconic
Extinct Creatures
by Ben Mezrich.
Atria, 2017 ($26)
TOOTH of an
extinct woolly
mammoth, from
the Natural History
Museum in London.
What if extinction w erent permanent after all? Several years ago pioneering Harvard University geneticist George M. Church (who serves on
Scientific Americans advisory board) and his colleagues launched a project to resurrect the famous woolly mammoth by splicing its preserved genetic
code with that of an elephant. Animals like the mammoths, which adapted to live in steppe habitats, prevent tree growth and turn and stomp topsoil,
exposing the earth underneath to the cold winds ofthe region, thereby lowering the ground temperature and preserving the underlying permafrost
(and the potent greenhouse gas methane locked within it). Thus, a reestablished population of woolly mammoths might be a heavyweight stopgap
to methane-driven climate change. Asmuch a profile of Church and his rise to renowned scientist as it is a tour of the latest research on climate
change, species extinction and conservation biology, author Mezrichs telling is riveting and almost too like fiction to be believed.
Through the Shadowlands: Quakeland: On the Road to Americas Improbable Destinies: F ate,
Science Writers Odyssey into an
A Next Devastating Earthquake Chance, and the Future of Evolution
Illness Science Doesnt Understand by Kathryn Miles. Dutton, 2017($28) by Jonathan B. Losos. Riverhead, 2017($28)
by Julie Rehmeyer. Rodale, 2017($25.99)
In 1959 an earthquake near When evolutionary biologists
At the height o f her illness, Yellowstone National Park killed observe that some traits in
Rehmeyer would wake up un 28 people, most of whom were nature evolve independently
able to move her arms or legs or camping along Hebgen Lake over and over again (hydro
sometimes even to speak. The when a collapsing canyon wall dynamic body shape in large
many doctors she saw offered buried the area in a landslide ocean animals like dolphins and sharks or spiny pro
no treatment but diagnosed her with chronic fatigue of 80 million tons of boulders and trees. The force trusions in unrelated porcupinelike mammals from
syndrome (CFS)a poorly understood and hard of the falling rock created a hurricane-strength Africa or North America), they wonder whether
ly studied affliction. Desperate, the science writer wind that overturned cars and ripped survivors such traits are inevitable. Is evolution predictable,
reluctantly turned to other CFS patients on the from their campsites. Science journalist Miles uses always yielding the same traits, or is it contingent
Internet who touted a theory she initially dismissed the Hebgen Lake earthquake as an example of the on infinite variables, delivering infinite outcomes?
as crazythat toxic mold was making her sick. damage these events can wreak. She spent a year Evolutionary biologist Losos profiles the latest
Their recommendation: trash most of her belong exploring the U.S.sometimes climbing far below probes into this question, including his own work
ings and spend two weeks in the desert to escape the earths surfacewith scientists who study in the Bahamas monitoring lizard body measure
the mold. She tried it and was shocked to find her seismic activity. She discusses the mechanics of ments in various habitats. He concludes that evo
MARY EVANS age Fotostock
self on a path to rapid recovery. In this engrossing quakes, the increase in human-induced tremors, lution is somewhat predictable, though only to
memoir, Rehmeyer describes her frustration at the ways cities are safeguarding infrastructures a certain extent. Plenty of random chance led the
a medical system that has failed CFS patients and (or not) against damage, and advances in tech planets evolution down one path and not another.
her conflicting emotions around the improbable nology that make these fleeting but powerful Have the earths species been lucky in this regard?
but effective remedy she found. Clara Moskowitz phenomena easier to predict. Andrea Marks Yes, he answers. Destined?No.
Are We All face would go into the second category. This sorting becomes
noticeably slower. Finally, you are tasked with sorting the words
Racists?
and faces into the categories W hite people/Good o rB
lack people/
Bad. Distressingly, I was much quicker to associate words like
joy, love and pleasure with White people/Good than I was with
Black people/Good.
Private thoughts and public acts The tests assessment of me was not heartening: Your data
By Michael Shermer suggest a strong automatic preference for White people over
Black people. Your result is described as automatic preference for
Novelists often offer deep insights into the human psyche that Black people over White people if you were faster responding
take psychologists years to test. In his 1864 N otes from Under- when Black peopleand Goodare assigned to the same response
ground, for example, Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky ob key than when W hite peopleand Goodwere classified with the
served: Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell same key. Your score is described as an automatic preference for
to everyone, but only to his friends. He has other matters in his White people over Black people if the opposite occurred.
mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to Does this mean Im a closeted racist? And because most peo
himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a ple, including African-Americans, score similarly to me on the IAT,
man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a does this mean we are all racists? The Project Implicit Web site
number of such things stored away in his mind. suggests it does: Implicit biases can predict behavior. If we want
Intuitively, the observation rings true, but is it true exper to treat people in a way that reflects our values, then it is critical
imentally? Twenty years ago social psychologists Anthony Green to be mindful of hidden biases that may influence our actions.
wald, Mahzarin Banaji and Brian Nosek developed an instru Im skeptical. First, unconscious states of mind are notorious
ment called the Implicit Association Test (IAT) that, they claimed, ly difficult to discern and require subtle experimental protocols
can read the innermost thoughts that you are afraid to tell even to elicit. Second, associations between words and categories may
yourself. And those thoughts appear to be dark and prejudiced: simply be measuring familiar cultural or linguistic affiliations
we favor white over black, young over old, thin over fat, straight associating blue and sky faster than blue and doughnuts
over gay, able over disabled, and more. does not mean I unconsciously harbor a pastry prejudice. Third,
negative words have more emotional salience than pos
itive words, so the IAT may be tapping into the negativ
ity bias instead of prejudice. Fourth, IAT researchers
have been unable to produce any interventions that can
reduce the alleged prejudicial associations. A preprint
of a 2016 meta-analysis by psychologist Patrick Forscher
and his colleagues, made available on the Open Science
Framework, examined 426 studies of 72,063 subjects
and found little evidence that changes in implicit bias
mediate changes in explicit bias or behavior. Fifth,
the IAT does not predict prejudicial behavior. A 2013
meta-analysis by psychologist Frederick Oswald and
his associates in the J ournal of Personality and Social
Psychology concluded that the IAT provides little
insight into who will discriminate against whom.
For centuries the arc of the moral universe has been
bending toward justice as a result of changing peoples
explicit behaviors and beliefs, not on the basis of fer
reting out implicit prejudicial witches through the
I took the test myself, as can you (Google Project Implicit). spectral evidence of unconscious associations. Although bias
The race task first asks you to separate black and white faces into and prejudice still exist, they are not remotely as bad as a mere
one of two categories: White people and Black people. Simple. half a century ago, much less half a millennium ago. We ought to
Next you are asked to sort a list of words (joy, terrible, love, ago acknowledge such progress and put our energies into figuring
ny, peace, horrible, wonderful, nasty, and so on) into either Good out what we have been doing rightand do more of it.
or Bad buckets. Easy. Then the words and the black and white
faces appear on the screen one at a time for you to sort into
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
either B lack people/Good o rWhite people/Bad. T he word joy, Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
for example, would go into the first category, whereas a white or send a letter to the editor: editors@sciam.com
Whats the Deal? Healthy young child goes to doctor, gets pumped with mas-
sive shot of many vaccines, doesnt feel good and changes
AUTISM. Many such cases! and I am being proven right about
Man with bizarre views being massive vaccinationsthe doctors lied. Save our children& their
future. Subject furthermore claimed to have been the sole au-
investigated by authorities thority invited to discuss autism on an episode of Fox& Friends,
By Steve Mirsky despite his complete lack of medical or scientific training or any
expertise on the topic.
Person of interest is an overweight man o f approximately 70 In what appears to be a related delusion that expertise is actu-
years of age with orange hair who was reported to be repeatedly ally a liability when it comes to assessments of scientific validity,
riding up and down the escalators in a gaudy midtown Manhat- subject claimed that, as president of the United States, he submit-
tan skyscraper. When approached by local authorities, subject ted a budget to Congress that would cut funding to the National
claimed to be a prominent billionaire, the host of a wildly suc- Institutes of Health by 18percent; the Food and Drug Administra-
cessful television game show and the president of the United tion by 31percent; the National Science Foundation by 11percent;
States. Given the grandiose nature of these claims, subject was the Environmental Protection Agency by 31percent; and the Cen-
detained for observation. ters for Disease Control and Prevention by 17percent.
During a rambling interview, subject decried the presence of When asked why he was riding the escalator, subject ex-
haters and losers who were out to get him, contrasting this pressed his personal theory about exercise: All my friends who
with his own perceived status as a winner, which he credited work out all the time, theyre going for knee replacements, hip
to a possibly unique genetic makeup. To wit: I have great genes replacementstheyre a disaster and reportedly compared the
and all that stuff, which Im a believer in; God helped me by human body to a battery with a finite amount of energy, which
giving me a certain brain; I have like a very, very high apti- would be depleted by exercise.
tude; Maybe its just something you have. You know, you have Subject requested a steak (well done) and a cola drink. He
the winning gene. awaits further special counsel from Dr. Mueller.
When questioned about his unusual hair configuration, sub-
ject replied in a somewhat long-winded fashion with various
J O I N T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N O N L I N E
statements, such as You know youre not allowed to use hair Visit Scientific American on Facebook and Twitter
spray anymore because it affects the ozone . . . cause you know or send a letter to the editor: editors@sciam.com
AUG US T
1967 Efficient
Agriculture
The fact that the production of
paign on behalf of the preserva-
tion of our native wildflowers
and other wild plants. According
particularly in handling iron ore
at the docks. A new type of car
pusher for the purpose of speed
food and fiber engages only 5per- toa review of these efforts pub- ing up the unloading of cargoes
cent of the U.S. labor force is pri- lished by Mrs. ElizabethBritton and cars and eliminating the
marily due to the mechanization in the A merican Museum Journal, necessity of a switch engine is
offarming. Other technological some of the plants that stand in shown in the illustration. The
developmentschemical fertiliz- most urgent need of protection 1967 pusher is propelled by asingle
ers, pesticides, plant breeding are now nearly extinct in many cable, which runs between the
and so onmake essential contri- parts of the country where they rails the full length of the dock.
butions, but mechanization is still were once common. The preserva- The cable is securely anchored
the outstanding factor. The pick- tion movement began in 1901 to concrete foundations at both
ing and winnowing of a crop usu- with a fund of $3,000 to be used ends through a spring tension
ally accounts for at least half of for investigation and preservation device, which keeps it taut.
the total cost of production. It is of our native plants. The Wild
also by far the most difficult part
of the agricultural process to
mechanize. Nevertheless, the
Flower Preservation Society of
America now has chapters in
several cities. The fund secures
1917 1867 Teaching
Dentistry
Forty years ago surgeons and
mechanization of harvesting in essays, leaflets, posters and lan- doctors generally officiated as
the U.S. has made such strides tern-slides for illustrated lectures teeth-pullers whenever occasion
that, in spite ofthe costliness of in schools and colleges. demanded. In 1820 there were
the machines and other technical Britton had also helped establish the but 30 practicing dentists in the
aids, the cost of food to American New York Botanical Garden in 1891. United States. In 1850 the number
families, in terms of its percentage had increased to 2,923, and at
(18percent) of their income, is Cable Car for Freight present there are about 5,000.
the lowest in the world. The expeditious handling and 1867 Acollege for the education of those
Department of Agriculture figures from quick-unloading of freight cars desiring to enter this profession
2015 show the proportion of family food today is a most important factor has been established over a year
spending in the U.S. was still the lowest. in industrial war mobilization, inthis city [now the N.Y.U. College
of Dentistry], and the faculty
Does the Ocean ofHarvard College, at their last
Floor Spread? Commencement, provided for
The hypothesis that the floor adepartment of dentistry.
ofthe oceans has been spreading
seeks to explain some character A Disgrace to Civic Pride
istics of ocean basins and the con- Without an exception, the New
tinents by supposing that material York markets are a disgrace to the
welling up from the interior of city and discreditable to the enter
the earth forms mid-ocean ridges prise of our people. It is surprising
and then, as new material rises, that such dirty, inconvenient, and
moves outward, away from the disgraceful shams as our markets,
ridges. The hypothesis has been are not supplanted by structures
strengthened recently by the dis- which would be creditable to
covery that bands of alternating American enterprise. Buildings
normal and reversed magnetism might be erected in place of the
parallel the mid-ocean ridges, tumble-down shanties now digni
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, VOL. CXVII, NO. 7; AUGUST18,1917
1917 Protecting
Wildflowers
For the past fifteen years a few
enue. Few public improvements
are more needed inNew York City
than market-houses, which are
Nature-lovers have been carrying Industrial freight handling, 1917: atthe present, literally a stench
on in this country an earnest cam using cable cars at the docks. inthe nostrils ofthe people.
Reactors Reshuffled
*For comparison, a very large coal
power plant is 800 megawatts.
Fangchenggang 3 1,000
Fangchenggang 4 1,000
Asia aggressively builds nuclear power plants Fuqing 4 1,000
as the West withdraws Fuqing 5
Fuqing 6
1,000
1,000
Haiyang 1 1,000
Nuclear power is hot in China. The country is building 19 commercial reac- Haiyang 2 1,000
tors, including two of the largest ever assembled. Russias state-owned engi- Hongyanhe 5 1,000
neering firm, Rosatom, is erecting 13 reactors in five countries. India is devel- Hongyanhe 6 1,000
Sanmen 1 1,000
oping its own domestic supply chain. Meanwhile the U.S. is canceling reac-
Sanmen 2 1,000
tors, leaving only four under construction. American maker Westinghouse, Taishan 1 1,660
long the global front-runner, filed for bankruptcy in March. France, which Taishan 2 1,660
for decades happily relied on atomic power, will turn to renewables to meet Tianwan 3 990
new electricity demand. Germany will shutter all its reactors by 2022. Tianwan 4 990
If Chinas progress holds, it will have more nuclear capacity than the U.S., Tianwan 5 1,000
Tianwan 6 1,000
todays leader, within a decade. The government helps companies get permits
Yangjiang 5 1,000
and obtain financing, two big hurdles in the West. Changing markets could Yangjiang 6 1,000
shift alliances as well, as countries such as the United Arab Emirates sign
Kakrapar 3 630
deals with surging Russian and South Korean suppliers rather than fading
Kakrapar 4 630
American and European firms. Japan may be Asias anomaly: because of the PFBR 470
infamous Fukushima accident, it has scaled back plans. Mark Fischetti Rajasthan 7 630
Rajasthan 8 630
Baltic 1 1,109
Nuclear Reactors Worldwide
Leningrad II-1 1,085
56 448 162 Leningrad II-2 1,085
Novovoronezh II-2 1,114
Operating Retired Rostov 4 1,011
water (Japan/U.S.)
Lungmen 2 1,300
Ukraine
Khmelnitski 3 950
Pressurized Nuclear Power
heavy water Corporation of India Brazil Khmelnitski 4 950
Angra 3 1,245
Finland
Fast BHAVINI Olkiluoto 3 1,600
breeder (India) France
Flamanville 3 1,600