ALIEN HUNTERS CLOSE IN

Rewriting the equation for life in the universe

WEEKLY 25 May 2013

Old dog
new tricks
You never lose the ability
to learn like a child

MULTIVERSAL MINDS
String theory versus the space brains
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Contents Volume 218 No 2918

This issue online

newscientist.com/issue/2918

News News
4 UPFRONT

6 Tornado rips through Oklahoma. Reprieve

for pollinators. Google’s quantum adventure.
One in five US kids has mental health disorder
Alien hunters 6 THIS WEEK
close in A second chance to save the climate.
Fish memories filmed in action. Vitamin B
Rewriting the may slow Alzheimer’s onset. Banishing
equation for life disembodied consciousness in space.
in the universe Suicidal behaviour: a treatable disease?
16 IN BRIEF
Jon Hicks/Corbis

Time-lapse spots faulty embryos before IVF.

Zap the brain to improve mental arithmetic.
Malaria parasite gives mozzies super-sense.
Tides shoving the moon away

On the cover Technology

19 Apps show promise of Google Glass. Drones

32 6 Alien hunters close in

Rewriting ET’s equation
12 Multiversal minds
give flood warning. Games take the pain out
of the train. A clean break for wave power?

Old dog, String theory versus the

Aperture
space brains
new tricks 8 The heat is off 24 The tiger’s cry for help

You never lose A second chance to

the ability to tackle climate change Opinion
40 Point and click
learn like a child 26 Drowning in numbers Add a pinch of salt
Talking to computers
to sea level predictions, says Michael Le Page
10 Filming memories
27 One minute with… Ralph Keeling Why
Are fish really forgetful?
latest CO2 measurements are so significant
Cover image
Adam Nickel
28 Moon miner Internet entrepreneur Naveen
Jain explains his lofty ambitions
30 LETTERS Pet detectives. Reality check

Features Features

44 32 Old dog, new tricks (see above left)

36 Pole position Going to the ends of the
Earth to witness the birth of the universe
Just add 40 Point and click Why computers must
seawater learn sign language
44 Just add seawater (see left)
Deserts really can
become fertile CultureLab
oases, if you don’t 48 Call of the wild How far do tales of the
MICHAEL POLIZA/NGS

mind the cost natural world inspire us to engage with it?

Regulars
3 Editorial The challenges wearable
computing faces are social, not technological
Coming next week… 30 ENIGMA
60 Feedback Drinking liquid oxygen
Your inner voice 61 The Last Word Hot in the hay
Deciphering the language of human thought 50 Jobs & careers

Urban mining
There’s treasure under them thar streets

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 1

British industry
Powered by natural gas
Gas production from the Norwegian Continental Shelf can supply British industry with
reliable, cost-efficient energy for decades to come – and resources are available today.
There’s never been a better time for good ideas.

Explore for yourself at neversatisfied.statoil.com

EDITORIAL

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my East and West… I thought commemorated in verse – even a to poetry before – not least the
Kepler would last forever: I was telescope whose legacy promises human Johannes Kepler. The
wrong.” So lamented astronomer huge advances in answering one Rudolphine Tables, a ground-
Geoff Marcy on discovering that of the most important questions breaking astronomical catalogue
the space telescope might have of our time (see page 6). prepared by Kepler from data
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25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 3

UPFRONT

Anatomy of tornado’s toll
THE tornado that ripped through
Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City, on
Monday was not a record-breaker in
terms of its size, strength or duration.
So why was it so devastating?
Despite not topping the charts, the
tornado scored highly on all three
factors. It was roughly 3 kilometres
across. The largest tornado ever
recorded hit Hallam, Nebraska, in
2004, and was about 4 kilometres in
diameter. In terms of strength, the
US National Weather Service says the
tornado measured at least 4 on the
Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale, with winds
of 270 to 320 kilometres an hour, just
short of the top rating of EF-5. And
the twister stayed on the ground for
40 minutes. Most last just a few
minutes; the longest on record was
the Tri-State Tornado in 1925, which
Paul Hellstern/AP/PA
remained grounded for 3.5 hours.
In addition, many houses in
Oklahoma lack storm shelters. “It’s
significantly cheaper to lay a slab of
concrete and build a house than it is to
dig a basement,” says David Schultz of
the University of Manchester, UK.
That’s risky but understandable, he
says. Although Oklahoma sits smack
in the middle of tornado alley,
historical records show that any given
patch of land will be struck by a
tornado of EF-2 or greater only about
once every 1000 years.
As New Scientist went to press, the
death toll from the Moore twister
stood at 24. Jeff Masters of Weather
Underground estimates that the
damage could rival the most costly
tornado ever, the $2.8 billion tornado
that hit Joplin, Missouri, in 2011.
–Home wrecker–

Quantum Google Machine learning involves

WHERE Google goes, others
follow. So now that the search
giant has bought a quantum
computer, are these devices about
to transform our lives? Maybe, but
questions remain over whether
the new computer would beat
ordinary ones in like-on-like tests.
The quantum computer is made
by D-Wave of Burnaby, Canada –
the only company that sells them.
In 2011, D-Wave made its first sale,
to aerospace giant Lockheed
Martin, which bought the early
D-Wave One model. Last week’s
sale of the newer D-Wave Two to
Google is the first to a firm that
provides computing services
directly to the public.
“Google is a very wealthy
company, and they do have
money to throw around on
things that might be fun”
“We believe quantum
computing may help solve some
of the most challenging computer
science problems, particularly in
machine learning,” wrote Google’s
Hartmut Neven in a blog post.
training a computer to recognise
patterns in data, and is central to
many algorithms that drive
Google’s services.
NASA will house Google’s
D-Wave Two and will also be able
to access it. But is the unit really a
quantum computer? It’s still not
clear whether the technique it
uses, adiabatic quantum
computing, is the real deal.
In one set of recent tests, the
D-Wave One was slower than a
conventional computer. In
another, the D-Wave Two solved
some problems 3600 times faster,
but this might have been because
the ordinary computer was using
algorithms that had not been
optimised for the task, says Scott
Aaronson of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. He is a
long-standing D-Wave critic, and
Google’s move has not changed
his view. “Google is a very wealthy
company, and they do have money
to throw around on things that
just might be fun to play with.”
The D-Wave Two’s price tag isn’t
public, but Lockheed Martin is
thought to have paid about
$10 million for D-Wave One.
Kids aren’t all right
WHAT a shocking figure. As many
as one in five children aged 3 to 17
in the US experiences a mental
health disorder each year, says a
new report from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.
Using data from 11 ongoing
federal epidemiological surveys,
the agency found that in recent
years, between 13 and 20 per cent
of US children have been
diagnosed with a mental health
disorder each year. Attention
Is MERS on the loose?
“LET’S hope this bug doesn’t make
it to Mecca.” The bug in question is
MERS, the coronavirus that emerged
last year in the Arabian Peninsula.
Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical
Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands,
has good reason to be concerned.
The virus has so far infected more
than 40 people, some of whom
haven’t apparently been in contact
with an infected person or animal.
In an epidemiological analysis, the
World Health Organization concludes
deficit hyperactivity disorder
(ADHD) accounted for the biggest
share (6.8 per cent), followed by
behavioural problems, anxiety
and depression.
Over-diagnosing in the US
could be at work, but William Graf
of the Yale University School of
Medicine cites another reason for
the numbers appearing high: the
report’s broad definition of mental
health disorders. It includes tics,
for example, alongside standard
conditions. “If you add it all up,
one in five is not unreasonable,”
says Graf.
that this means there could be many
mild, unrecognised cases spreading
the virus in the general population.
This week Tunisia’s health ministry
announced that a 66-year-old man
had died and his two sons were ill
with MERS after returning from Saudi
Arabia and Qatar. They’d had no
contact with known cases.
There are fears that pilgrimages
to Saudi Arabia, scheduled for July
and October, could spread any virus
carried in the population.

4 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
60 Seconds

trackingpoint
Hot in the city Causing a stink
Doctors hoping to perform a faecal
THE Big Apple is cooking: climate
transplant – replenishing a gut with
change will increase the number
healthy bacteria to treat infection
of temperature-related deaths
and even Parkinson’s – must apply to
within decades.
the US Food and Drug Administration
for an “investigational new drug
“New York is taking action application”. This will improve
to protect its citizens from “Quote to go in here over safety, but some are grumbling over
extreme heat by planting four lines range left like the 30-day lag this imposes on
trees and painting roofs” this Quote to go in her treatment.
like this xxxxx”
A warmer climate means more
extremely hot days in summer,
Second sight
and fewer extremely cold days in A man blinded by the degeneration
winter, leaving people more of his retinal cells has had his sight
vulnerable in summer. restored in one eye after receiving
Radley Horton of Columbia –Too lethal for comfort?– a stem cell treatment. Human
University in New York has now embryonic stem cells were turned
into retinal pigment epithelial cells
calculated the net effect. He Sniping made easy University in Cincinnati, Ohio.
and then transplanted into his
matched daily temperature data But Trevor Burrus, a specialist
for Manhattan with death rates BULLSEYE, again. A new “self- in gun regulation at the Cato retina, as part of a trial by Advanced
between 1982 and 1999, then used aiming” rifle can help even a Institute, a think tank in Cell Technology in Marlborough,
temperature forecasts to estimate novice shooter hit targets up to Washington DC, says it would be Massachusetts.
future death rates. In all his 16 900 metres away. But critics are odd to stop people buying a rifle
models, temperature-related already warning of the potential because of its accuracy. “There is Critternaut casualties
deaths increased almost consequences of allowing anyone no reason to believe that this The space zoo has landed but many
immediately (Nature Climate to become a deadly sharpshooter. technology will be used less of the critternauts are dead. Russia’s
Change, doi.org/mkc). The $22,000 weapon, a responsibly, especially with the Bion-M1 spacecraft took a range of
New York is already taking precision guided firearm, is made exorbitant price tag,” he says. animals into orbit to probe the
action to protect its citizens from by TrackingPoint, based in Austin, biological effects of space travel.
extreme heat, as part of a broader Texas. It includes a computer that
initiative called PlaNYC that aims decides the best moment to fire,
Bees buzz back But when it returned to Earth after a
month in orbit, most of the mice and
to protect the city from climate compensating for factors like IT’S a rare piece of good news all of the gerbils had perished. The
change. The city is planting extra for pollinators. In Europe, wild geckos and snails survived but will
trees, painting roofs white and “The rifle’s computer insects and plants are bouncing be euthanised for study purposes.
creating “cooling centres” where compensates for factors back after decades of decline.
people can escape the worst of the like wind speed, arm shake The years between 1950 and Fukushima floods
heat. Many other mid-latitude and the bullet’s slight dip” 1989 saw drastic decreases in the
It’s the biggest remaining problem
cities will need to adapt, says range of species in Belgium, the
at Fukushima: each day, 400 tonnes
Horton. “Efforts under way in New wind speed, arm shake and the UK and the Netherlands. But since
of groundwater flood Japan’s
York City are a valuable example.” bullet’s slight dip due to gravity. 1990, lost or new species have
stricken nuclear plant. Juan Carlos
When the beam from the gun’s appeared, indicating that for
Lentijo of the International Atomic
ALAA BADARNEH/epa/Corbis

laser illuminates the intended many, the decline has halted.

target, the user presses a button
to make the rifle lock on to it. An
algorithm then tracks the target
as it moves, keeping the laser
beam “painted” on the same
point. It also increases the
pressure required to pull the
trigger, reducing it only when a
perfect shot is expected – so the
user fires at the right instant.
With such weapons in
circulation, “there will be a lot of
time and money spent figuring
out how to secure any public
-Hotbed for viruses– area”, says Matthew Lang at Xavier
The diversity of bumble bee
species had tumbled by 30 per
cent, but it has now stabilised in
Belgium and the Netherlands, and
slowed to a 10 per cent decline in
the UK between 1990 and 2009.
The range of solitary bee species
rose over the same period, and
hoverfly and wild plant species
stopped declining (Ecology
Letters, DOI: 10.1111/ele.1 2121).
It could be a sign that farming
is becoming less intensive, says
co-author Bill Kunin of the
University of Leeds, UK.
Energy Agency, who recently
inspected the site, suggests
pumping the groundwater out to
sea before it leaks into the plant.
Shot in space
Commercial spaceflight could be a
boon to Hollywood. Upcoming sci-fi
flick Newcomers will be shot aboard
XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx spacecraft,
according to The Hollywood
Reporter. Though XCOR plans to
offer tourist trips to sub-orbital
space, it has yet to launch the Lynx.

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 5

 THIS WEEK
Jon Hicks/Corbis
Alien hunting for
the 21st century
The planet-seeking Kepler telescope may be
doomed, but the hunt for ET just got a lot sharper
Lisa Grossman
AN ICONIC tool in the search for
extraterrestrial life is getting a
21st-century reboot – just as our
best planet-hunting telescope
seems to have died. Though the
loss of NASA’s Kepler telescope is
a blow, the reboot could mean we
find signs of life on extrasolar
planets within a decade.
6 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
The new tool takes the form of
an equation. In 1961 astronomer
Frank Drake scribbled his now-
famous equation for calculating
the number of detectable
civilisations in the Milky Way.
The Drake equation includes a
number of terms that at the time
seemed unknowable – including
the very existence of planets
beyond our solar system.
–Anyone out there?–
But the past two decades have Drake equation was a hatchet, the
seen exoplanets pop up like weeds, new Seager equation is a scalpel.
particularly in the last few years Seager presented her work this
thanks in large part to the Kepler week at a conference in Cambridge,
space telescope. Launched in Massachusetts, entitled
2009, Kepler has found more than “Exoplanets in the Post-Kepler
130 worlds and detected 3000 or Era”. The timing could not be
so more possibles. The bounty has more prescient. Last week Kepler
given astronomers the first suffered a surprise hardware
proper census of planets in one
region of our galaxy, allowing us “The Kepler mission was
to make estimates of the total revolutionary. It broke
population of life-friendly worlds open the piggybank and
across the Milky Way. rocky planets poured out”
With that kind of data in hand,
Sara Seager at the Massachusetts failure that knocked out its ability
Institute of Technology reckons to see planetary signals clearly. If it
the Drake equation is ripe for a can’t be fixed, the mission is over.
revamp. Her version narrows “When we talked about the
a few of the original terms to post-Kepler era, we thought
account for our new best bets of that would be three to four years
finding life, based in part on what from now,” co-organiser David
Kepler has revealed. If the original Charbonneau of the Harvard-
In this section
n A second chance to save the climate, page 8
n Banishing disembodied consciousness in space, page 12
n Apps show promise of Google Glass, page 19

Smithsonian Center for

Astrophysics said last week.
“We now know the post-Kepler era
probably started two days ago.”
But Kepler has collected data
for four years, slightly longer than
the mission’s original goal, and so
far only the first 18 months’ worth
have been analysed. That means
it may have already gathered
enough information to give alien-
hunters a fighting chance.
The original Drake equation
includes seven terms, which
multiplied together give the
number of intelligent alien
civilisations we could hope to
detect (see diagram, below).
Kepler was supposed to pin down
two terms: the fraction of stars
that have planets, and the number
of those planets that are habitable.
To do that, Kepler had been
staring unflinchingly at some
150,000 stars near the
constellation Cygnus, looking for
periodic changes in brightness
caused by a planet crossing, or
transiting, a star’s face as seen
from Earth. This method tells
us a planet’s size and its rough
distance from its host star.
Size gives a clue to a planet’s
composition, which tells us
whether it is rocky like Earth or
gassy like Neptune. Before Kepler,
only a few exoplanets had been
identified as small enough to
be rocky, because other search
methods were better suited to
spotting larger, gas giant worlds.
“Kepler is the single most
Kepler’s emergency surgery
The Kepler space telescope might The first line of attack is rather team turned it off as a precaution.
be down, but it’s not out – yet. Its low-tech: run the recently stopped After nine months idle, the wheel
engineering team has a few ideas wheel backwards. “Like with any may now be re-lubricated and
that could revive the mission. stuck wheel you might be familiar functional once again.
To see the tiny dips in starlight with on the ground, we could try Another option is to put Kepler’s
that signal a planet crossing in jiggling it back and forth in both sails to the wind. While at work,
front of its star, Kepler must keep directions, forcing it through the it had to constantly fight the solar
an unwavering view of its targets. resistance that’s holding it up,” says wind, the stream of charged
It maintained its orientation in Kepler team member Charlie Sobek. particles from the sun that push
space using three reaction wheels. They could also try restarting the against its solar panels. It may be
A spare fourth wheel stopped spare that failed in July. That wheel possible to use that pressure in
turning last July. One of the was showing unsafe friction levels, place of a lost wheel, allowing
remaining three failed last week. scraping metal against metal, so the Kepler to soldier on.
should have been enough to Kepler’s principal investigator close as 6.5 light years away.
pinpoint Earth-sized planets William Borucki is optimistic that Even better, it will be easier to
with years of a similar length. a few Earth twins around sun-like probe these planets for gases
After the telescope came online, stars lurk in the existing data. associated with life, because
the mission team realised that Sun-like stars are not the only tighter orbits mean that more of
other sun-like stars are more ones that can host habitable the star’s light will filter through
active than ours, and they planets, though. The Seager
bounce around too much in the equation focuses in on red dwarf “Of course I think it’s
telescope’s field of view. To find stars, which are smaller and cooler possible to find signs
enough Earths, they would need than the sun. That makes it easier of life. Why else would
seven or eight years of data. to detect rocky planets around I be working so hard?”
It was a relief when the mission them at the right distance for life,
was extended until 2016, and that because the planets have tighter, a planet’s atmosphere on the
much more of a blow when the briefer orbits. What’s more, red way to us, picking up telltale
telescope abruptly failed last week. dwarfs are the most common clues to its composition. Seager’s
NASA has a few last-ditch ideas for stars in our galaxy: projections goal is to find the fraction of
reviving the mission (see “Kepler’s based on Kepler data suggest that habitable Earth-sized worlds in
emergency surgery”, above), but the nearest habitable Earth-sized our galactic neighbourhood with
chances are the telescope is dead. world could orbit a red dwarf as detectable atmospheric
biosignatures – in other words,
Rebooting
Rebooting Drake Drake to to find
find alien
alien life
life inhabited worlds. She has already
With insights from telescopes such as Kepler, astronomer Sara Seager has
With
put the number of inhabited
With insights
insights from
from telescopes
telescopes such
such as
as Kepler,
Kepler, astronomer
astronomer Sara
Sara Seager
Seager has
has
rebooted the famous 1961 Drake equation for estimating the number of planets that the James Webb space
rebooted the famous
rebooted the 1961 Drake
famous 1961 Drake equation
equation for
for estimating
estimating the
the number
number of
of
inhabited worlds in our galaxy that can be detected
inhabited
inhabited worlds in our
worlds in our galaxy
galaxy that
that can
can be
be detected
detected telescope might see at less than 10.
DRAKE EQUATION “Just like with the Drake
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detected biosignatures, we would
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woes, hopes of finding enough says Jill Tarter of the SETI Institute.
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25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 7

 THIS WEEK
LOOK Die Bildagentur der Fotografen GmbH/Alamy
A second chance to
save the climate
Michael Marshall
HUMANITY has another shot
at stopping dangerous climate
change. A fresh look at
temperature data from the last
decade offers an unexpected
opportunity to stay below the
agreed international target of
2 °C of global warming.
The study took data on the rise
in temperatures over the most
recent decades, and worked out
what this means for the coming
decades. It turns out Earth will
warm more slowly over this
century than we thought it would,
buying us a little more time to
cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate scientists caution that
this in no way means climate
change is not real. Temperatures
are rising faster than they have
for 11,000 years. “It should not
take the pressure off at all,” says
8 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Brian Hoskins of the Grantham
Institute for Climate Change at
Imperial College London. “Global
emissions have to peak and start
to come down.” But if we act
soon the worst effects of climate
change could yet be avoided –
Axis wobbles and wandering poles
Some of the consequences of climate
change are just plain strange. Days
should get a teensy bit shorter as the
Earth spins faster, for instance. And
now we have evidence that melting
ice is tilting the planet.
Earth’s rotational axis wobbles
because the planet is not a perfect
immutable sphere. Erosion, plate
tectonics and the weather move
mass around the surface, causing
the poles to wander. From 1982 to
2005, this drift averaged about
6 centimetres per year, pulling the
North Pole south towards Labrador.
–Cool it now for a bright future– recent data. From this, they
something many climate
scientists had all but given up
hope on.
Governments have pledged
to limit the world to 2 °C of
warming – the agreed threshold
for dangerous climate change.
With emissions shooting up,
this target seemed hopelessly
unrealistic. “If previous estimates concentrations reach double their
[of how the climate will warm]
were true, keeping the world
below 2 °C would have been
almost impossible, however
That motion is largely attributed
to the long-term effects of plate
tectonics and the fact that areas
covered in ice during the last ice
age are popping up like corks.
In 2005, the drift abruptly
shifted in an easterly direction and
accelerated. This happened about
the same time as melting sped up in
Greenland and Antarctica, so Jianli
Chen of the University of Texas in
Austin, began looking for a link. He
used data from the pair of Gravity
Recovery And Climate Experiment
(GRACE) satellites to measure how
big our emission cuts,” says Piers
Forster of the University of Leeds
in the UK, who contributed to
the new study. “Now it looks like
we have a chance, so we should
take it.”
“Prior to this, a lot of us were
feeling quite gloomy that
whatever we did, we would go
over 2 °C,” says Forster’s colleague
Myles Allen of the University
of Oxford. “It’s not a foregone
conclusion any more.”
After heating rapidly in the
late 20th century, Earth warmed
slowly in the last decade, partly
as a result of natural cycles in the
climate system.
Alexander Otto, also of the
University of Oxford, and
colleagues took data on human
greenhouse gas emissions since
the Industrial Revolution and
temperature rises in the last
40 years – including the most
calculated how much greenhouse
gases have warmed the Earth
so far.
They then looked at what that
meant for the temperature rise
over the coming few decades, and
found that it will be slower than
expected. The team focused on
how much hotter the planet will
be in the year that carbon dioxide
pre-industrial value. On current
trends, that will happen between
2050 and 2070. Previous studies
had found that temperatures
much mass glaciers were losing. He
then calculated how the poles would
be affected by redistribution of that
mass – around 600 gigatonnes a
year from Greenland, Antarctica and
mountain glaciers.
He and his team found that
shifting that amount of water from
glaciers to the sea can account for
90 per cent of the average polar
drift since 2005, and that climate
change was largely responsible for
the sudden change in our planet’s
tilt (Geophysical Research Letters,
doi.org/mj8). Jeff Hecht
For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
A view to a cut
Even if the world is warming
more slowly, urgent action
is more pressing than ever
“The worst case scenarios
are looking less likely.
We still have to reduce
emissions drastically. If we
don’t, we are talking about
crossing 2 °C for sure”
Myles Allen, University of Oxford
“I think this is overdue. I’ve
been arguing it for a few
years, and some powerful
people have been very
resistant ... The most
noteworthy thing about
this is not what is being said,
but who is saying it”
James Annan, JAMSTEC Yokohama
Institute for Earth Sciences, Japan
“If anything it’s given me
greater resolve. If [previous
estimates] were true,
keeping the world below
2 °C would have been
almost impossible, however
big our emission cuts. Now it
looks like we have a chance”
Piers Forster, University of Leeds, UK
“It’s still collectively possible
to stay within the 2 °C
boundary, and we should
try to do so. It’s giving some
hope that we can lower the
risk of long-term threats to
big ice sheets”
Tim Lenton, University of Exeter, UK
“If it does mean a little
breathing space, great.
It should not take the
pressure off at all. The
major thing is that global
emissions have to peak
and start to come down”
Brian Hoskins, Grantham Institute
for Climate Change, London
would rise by 1.6 °C, but Otto
found an increase of 1.3 °C
(Nature Geoscience, doi.org/mj7).
“It might buy us five or
10 years,” says Chris Forest of
Penn State University, although
he cautions that the problem
hasn’t gone away.
Not everyone is convinced that
Otto’s results change the picture. international climate talks. For
“Short-term trends are just not
that useful,” says Gavin Schmidt “A lot of us were gloomy
of the NASA Goddard Institute for that we would go over 2°C.
Space Studies in New York. Susan
Solomon of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology adds
that recent volcanic eruptions
temporarily cooled the climate,
masking some of the warming.
But others say that Otto’s
calculations take account of
these problems, so are probably
about right. “The authors have
done a very careful job,” says
Hoskins.
So it looks as if temperatures
will rise slightly more slowly
than expected in the short term.
But does it change where the
climate ends up the long run?
That depends on how sensitive
the climate is to CO2 accumulating
in the atmosphere.
The 2007 report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) estimated
that a doubling of CO2 in the
atmosphere would mean
temperatures eventually stabilise
between 2 °C and 4.5 °C above
pre-industrial temperatures, with
a best estimate of about 3 °C. This
long-term stabilisation is known
as climate sensitivity.
A growing number of climate
scientists thinks that the
climate is less sensitive to CO2
than the IPCC’s best estimate,
so temperatures will not rise as
much as feared, even in the long
run. “I’ve been arguing this for a
few years,” says James Annan of
the JAMSTEC Yokohama Institute
for Earth Sciences in Japan.
When Otto calculated the
climate sensitivity from his
data, he found that it was about
2 °C – well below the IPCC’s best
estimate of 3 °C.
“The observations are telling sensitivity is at the low end, and
us one thing and the climate we have a strong agreement in
models are telling us another,” 2015, I think we stand a chance to
says Forest. He thinks the most limit climate change to 2 °C,” says
likely range is between 2.5 and Corinne Le Quéré of the Tyndall
3 °C, slightly below the IPCC’s Centre for Climate Change
estimate. Research in Norwich, UK. “But
If the new figures are right, there are a lot of ifs.”
it’s a rare piece of good news for We can improve our chances by
cutting emissions of short-lived
warming agents like soot, says
Tim Lenton of the University
of Exeter, UK. Otto’s research
It’s not a foregone suggests that they have a bigger
conclusion any more” effect than previously thought,
so getting rid of them will buy
the last few years, governments even more time.
have been planning to sign a deal Regardless, emissions must
in 2015 that will come into force still peak very soon to give us even
in 2020. That seemed far too late. a 50:50 chance of staying below
Based on previous estimates of 2 °C, says Jason Lowe of the Met
the climate sensitivity, global Office in Reading, UK. “It was
emissions needed to peak by 2020 looking like the best we could
and then fall to have a 50 per cent attain was a 40:60 chance,” says
chance of avoiding 2 °C. Hoskins. “If the negotiations are
“If we are lucky and the climate done seriously, 2 °C is still on.” n
What is cancer
and how can we
control it?
Physicist and best-selling author Paul Davies takes
a fresh look at cancer and describes a bold new
theory that suggests a radical approach to therapy
Wednesday 5 June 2013 6.30 - 8.00 pm
Conway Hall,
25 Red Lion Square,
London WC1R 4RL
Three minutes from Holborn tube station
Tickets £5 online, £7 on the door*
To find out more and to buy your ticket go to:
cancertalk.eventbrite.co.uk
*Subject to availability
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 9
 THIS WEEK
Dr. Dominik Paquet
New memories
filmed in action
Douglas Heaven
GOT a memory like a fish? The
first study to visualise memories
being retrieved live in the whole
brain has not only debunked the
“three-second memory” myth
about fish, but also sheds light on telencephalon, a part of their
the brain processes involved in
forming long-term memories.
By working with zebrafish,
which are partially transparent,
Hitoshi Okamoto at the RIKEN
Brain Science Institute in Wako,
Japan, and colleagues were able
to observe the roles played by
different parts of the brain during parts of the brain during
memory processing.
The team used fish with a
genetically engineered
fluorescent protein in the brain
that glows less brightly when
calcium levels increase – which
occurs when neurons fire.
First, the team trained the fish
to respond to a red light by
moving tanks to avoid an electric
shock. When the team showed
immobilised fish a red light
30 minutes after the initial
training, they only saw activity in everything they had been taught.
10 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
the optic tectum – a brain region
responsible for processing vision.
But when they repeated the
process 24 hours after training,
they found that half a second
after neurons fired in the tectum,
a group of neurons fired in the
brain thought to correspond to
the neocortex in mammals.
In humans, the neocortex is
involved in higher level cognition,
including memory and language.
“The team observed the
roles played by different
memory processing”
Fish that had been exposed to
unpaired lights and shocks in the
training tank had no activity in
the telencephalon when later
shown the red light.
Okamoto thinks telencephalon
activity occurs when the fish
retrieves a long-term memory –
in this case, of how to avoid a
shock. Stopping this area from
functioning led to fish forgetting
–What can you remember?–
The team also updated the
fish’s memory by retraining them
to stay close to the light instead of
swimming away to avoid a shock.
Thirty minutes later, there was a
different pattern of activity in the
telencephalon. The speed of this
pattern’s appearance suggests
that the previous avoidance-task
memory was being altered, rather
than a new memory formed.
Intriguingly, for reasons not
yet known, 24 hours later the
retrained fish had forgotten how
to perform the second task and
their behaviour and activity
pattern reverted to that for the
original avoidance task.
When the fish were trained to
respond differently to a red or
blue light, they displayed different
patterns of brain activity when
retrieving the memory for each
task, suggesting that separate
groups of neurons are involved
in different long-term memories.
Rodrigo Quian Quiroga at the
University of Leicester, UK, was
impressed with the whole brain
analysis since “memory doesn’t
work in isolated regions”. He
suggests the inability to observe
activity associated with short-
term memory could be because
we do not yet have a good model
to test this in zebrafish. “You
cannot ask a fish to remember
a list of numbers,” he says. n
B vitamins may
slow onset
of Alzheimer’s
THOSE at risk of developing
Alzheimer’s may be able to slow its
onset, through daily B vitamins.
We already know that a high level
of the amino acid homocysteine
in the blood is a risk factor for
Alzheimer’s, and that B vitamin
supplements help reduce
homocysteine levels. But it was
unclear whether or not these
supplements could slow the
progression of mild cognitive
impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer’s.
David Smith and Gwenaëlle
Douaud at the University of Oxford
led a research effort to find out. They
used MRI to track changes in the
brains of 200 elderly volunteers with
MCI over two years. Half were given
high doses of vitamin B12, B6 and
folic acid – the rest took a placebo.
The team found that areas of
the brain most seriously affected
by Alzheimer’s, including the
hippocampus and cerebellum, were
protected in volunteers given the
vitamins. For instance, in those with
high homocysteine, the atrophy rate
in these brain regions was seven
times greater in the placebo group
than in the vitamin group.
The reduction of atrophy seemed
to translate into better brain function
too: those given B vitamins performed
better on cognitive tests (PNAS, DOI:
10.1073/pnas.1301816110).
“It demonstrates for the very first
time that it is possible to modify
the disease process in Alzheimer’s,”
says Smith.
Simon Ridley at Alzheimer’s
Research UK warns that more work is
needed to explore the link, but Smith
points out that vitamin supplements
are safe for most people and could
perhaps be offered to people at high
risk of Alzheimer’s as a precaution.
“I think we need to bite the
bullet and ask, is there any reason
that elderly people with memory
problems shouldn’t be offered
them in the meantime?” he says.
Caroline Williams n
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THIS WEEK
String theory limits
space brain threat
Adam Becker
LEGIONS of disembodied brains
floating in deep space threaten to
undermine our understanding of
the universe. New mathematical
modelling suggests string theory
and its multiple universes may
just provide our salvation – and
that could win the controversial
theory a few more backers.
Physicists have dreamed up
some bizarre ideas over the years,
but a decade or so ago they outdid
themselves with the concept of
Boltzmann brains – fully formed,
conscious entities that form
spontaneously in outer space.
It may seem impossible for a
brain to blink into existence, but
the laws of physics don’t rule it
out entirely. All it requires is
a vast amount of time. Eventually,
a random chunk of matter and
energy will happen to come
together in the form of a working
mind. It’s the same logic that
says a million monkeys working
on a million typewriters will
replicate the complete works of
Shakespeare, if you leave them
long enough.
Most models of the future
predict that the universe will
expand exponentially forever.
That will eventually spawn
inconceivable numbers of
Boltzmann brains, far
outnumbering every human
who has ever, or will ever, live.
This means that, over the entire
history of the universe, it is the
Boltzmann brains’ experience
of the universe and not ours
that is typical. That’s a problem,
because the starting point for our
understanding of the universe
and its behaviour is that humans
are typical observers. If we are not,
our theories begin to look iffy.
“It has to be more likely to be
an ordinary observer than a
12 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Boltzmann brain,” says Claire
Zukowski at the University of
California, Berkeley.
A particular problem is that
most Boltzmann brains will
exist in the far future when the
universe is no more than an inky
void, with a past indistinguishable
from the future. This would make
our experience of time’s arrow
highly unusual.
However, if we can demonstrate
that the universe has a finite
lifespan, that would deny
Boltzmann brains the infinite
time they need to outnumber us.
String theory might be able to But if these universes eventually
help, says Zukowski, who has been become featureless and continue
studying the problem as part of to linger, they will all accrue
her PhD research with Raphael
Bousso, also at Berkeley.
According to string theory,
Boltzmann brains, tipping the
balance away from us again.
Zukowski and Bousso’s latest
there may be a large number of work suggests this won’t happen.
universes. All of these universes Universes are constantly budding
are believed to come into off a parent universe in the
existence through a process called multiverse, so the parental
eternal inflation, in which at least characteristics can determine
one universe continually expands
at an incredible rate, while others “If the universe has a finite
form and grow within it like lifespan, that will deny
bubbles. This pool of universes Boltzman brains the time
has been dubbed the multiverse. they need to outnumber us”
Many of these other universes
could be chock-full of conscious what kinds of “baby” universes
creatures early in their histories form within it – and whether
when, like the universe we see those universes will stick around
today, the past is distinct from the long enough to be filled with
future. That could help make our Boltzmann brains or decay first.
point of view the standard one. Bousso and Zukowski
performed a mathematical
analysis of multiverses that start
LYNETTE COOK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
out in one of two different initial
states: an older model first
suggested by Stephen Hawking
and his colleague James Hartle,
and a newer model that has come
out of mathematical treatments
of the string multiverse. While
the Hartle-Hawking model ended
up overrun with Boltzmann
brains, ordinary human-like
consciousnesses prevailed in the
newer model. That makes our
view of the universe reassuringly
normal in such a multiverse
(Physical Review D, doi.org/mkj).
The very idea of string theory
and the multiverse is still
controversial. It is often attacked
for being overly complicated
and difficult to prove. If Bousso
and Zukowski are correct, though,
and it can help resolve the
problem of Boltzmann brains,
the theory may just win a few
more backers.
“This is potentially an added
experimental success for string
theory and eternal inflation,”
says Daniel Harlow, a physicist at
Princeton University. “We need to
understand it better – [but] the
fact that it potentially explains
something is motivation to
–No brainer if the multiverse rules– understand it better.” n
Great scientific minds
think Down Under
Australian expertise in the field of science is seeing a growth in associated events.
When The Australian Academy of Science was
founded on 16 February 1954, few could have
envisioned that its location in Canberra, the
nation’s capital, would become a hotbed of
research, development and education half a
century later.
Modelled on the Royal Society in London,
the Australian Academy of Science now has
more than 450 pre-eminent Fellows, employed
by universities, the CSIRO, government and
private research organisations. In 2013 four
Canberra-based Australian National University
academics were elected as Australian Academy
of Science Fellows.
Despite its size, Canberra is regarded as an
intellectual hub with institutions including the
Australian National University, Canberra Deep
Space Communication Complex, Condensed
Matter and Materials Physics, CSIRO, Research
School of Physics and Engineering, Department
of Nuclear Physics, University of NSW, Canberra,
and University of Canberra.
Indeed, the city’s academic expertise in the field of
science, and particularly in physics and chemistry,
is proving a boon for the business events sector,
with the city hosting an increasing number of
high-level international scientific meetings.
In 2014 Associate Professor Heiko Timmers
from the School of Physical, Environmental and
Mathematical Sciences at the UNSW Canberra
and Professor Andrew Stuchbery from the
Department of Nuclear Physics at ANU, are
hosting the 5th Joint International Conference
on Hyperfine Interactions and Symposium on
Nuclear Quadrupole Interaction.
This meeting will fittingly be held in The
Australian Academy of Science’s Shine Dome
Visit
businesseVents.australia.com
for eVerything you need to plan your australian eVent.
– often described as “the spiritual home of
Australian science”.
The HFI/NQI meetings bring together experts
and students from a variety of scientific
disciplines including theoretical, nuclear, atomic
and condensed matter physics, materials science,
synchrotron research, as well as chemistry,
biology, medicine and engineering. The HFI/NQI
event in Canberra will be the 17th International
Conference on Hyperfine Interactions and
the 21st International Symposium on Nuclear
Quadrupole Interactions.
It is expected that 80 per cent of delegates
attend visit from international markets.
Later this year, Professor Timmers’ associate at
the UNSW Canberra, Dr Anthony Day, a Senior
Lecturer in Molecular Design and Reaction
Mechanisms and Organic Chemistry, is hosting
the 3rd International Conference on Cucurbituril.
The bi-annual meeting, which focuses on
molecular interaction, was held in Korea in 2009
and the United Kingdom in 2011.
Dr Day expects 80 per cent of delegates will
attend from international markets, predominantly
from Asia including China and India.
Another Canberra-based Professor, Dr Rod
Boswell from the Research School of Physical
Sciences and Engineering at ANU, is chairing
another science-based international meeting
in 2013 – the 21st Symposium on Plasma
Chemistry – with this one to be held in Cairns in
Tropical North Queensland.
Organised on behalf of the International Plasma
Chemistry Society, around 400 scientists,
researchers and academics from around the world
will hold meetings at the purpose-built Cairns
Convention Centre with a day mid-conference
dedicated to excursions to the Great Barrier Reef,
Green Island and the Kuranda Scenic Railway.
Dr Boswell said that while plasma chemistry
is a relatively small section of the scientific
community Australia “is on the cutting edge” of
the specialisation.
Like their expertise in chemistry, Australian
scientists are also leading the world in physics –
a point not lost on the scientific community or
the general public during the 36th International
Conference on High Energy Physics held in
Melbourne in 2012.
It was announced at this conference that a
discovery of a new (Higgs boson) particle had
been made that confirms what scientists believe
about how the universe was created.
Chair of the conference and one of the leading
scientific researchers in the search for the so-
called Higgs boson particle, the University of
Melbourne’s Professor Geoff Taylor, said there
were 820 delegates in Melbourne present for the
historic meeting.
As the meeting Chair and an Ambassador for
Melbourne he said he could not have been
happier with the conference and the outcomes.
“The majority thought it was a fabulous
conference. They thought Melbourne was a great
city; they liked the lifestyle, the cafes and the
dining options; and the Melbourne Convention
and Exhibition Centre is a great centre,” he said.
Events like this provide delegates the
opportunity to meet with Australian and
international leaders in their field.
He said following this meeting’s success it was
likely Australia would be hosting another high-
profile physics-related international conference
in 2015.
 THIS WEEK
Suicidal behaviour:
a treatable disease?
Sara Reardon
COULD suicidal behaviour be a
disease in its own right, rather
than a behaviour resulting from
a mood disorder?
Mounting evidence shows
striking similarities in the brains
of people who are suicidal. These
are distinct from what is seen in
the brains of people who have
mood disorders but who died of
natural causes.
Such studies have led to “suicide
behaviour disorder” being
accepted for the first time, albeit
in the appendix, in the newest
version of psychiatry’s “bible” –
the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM-5) – released this week. The
appendix contains topics deemed
to have enough weight to require
further research for possible full
inclusion in future editions.
Justin Sullivan/Getty
14 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Until the 1980s, people who
committed suicide were
considered, by definition, to be
depressed. That didn’t explain
why 10 per cent of suicides have
no history of mental illness. The
view began to change when
autopsies revealed distinctive
features in the brains of people
who had committed suicide, such
as structural changes in areas
involved in decision-making –
regardless of what disorder they
had, and even when they had no
mental disorder at all (Brain
Research, doi.org/cvrpjk).
Although research is
complicated by a lack of brain
samples or an animal model for
suicide, the idea that suicidal
behaviour has a distinct biology
is gaining ground. An increasing
number of studies are yielding
insights into some of the changes
that may underlie such behaviour.
For example, when people
with bipolar disorder who have
attempted suicide begin taking
lithium, they tend to stop such
attempts even if the drug has no
effect on their other symptoms.
This suggests that the drug may
be acting on neural pathways that suggestion that your genes
specifically influence suicidal
tendencies (Annual Review of
Pharmacology and Toxicology,
doi.org/dfjv57).
Gustavo Turecki of McGill
University in Montreal, Canada,
says that there are likely to be
many environmental factors that
trigger changes in the brains of
people who are already genetically have striking similarities,
prone to suicide, ultimately
increasing risk of the behaviour.
This month, in a study of
suicidal brains, his group found
366 genes that had a different set
of epigenetic markers – chemical
switches that are triggered by
environmental stressors and turn predict which patients are most at
genes on and off – to those found
in the brains of people who had
died of natural causes (American
Journal of Psychiatry, doi.org/
mf7). The results are complicated
by the fact that many of the
–A matter of life or death– suicidal behaviour.” n
people who committed suicide
had a mental disorder, but
Turecki says that suicide rather
than mental illness was the only
significant predictor for the
epigenetic changes.
Other studies back up the
influence suicide risk. For
example, a study of adopted
people who had committed
suicide found that their biological
relatives were six times more
likely to commit suicide than
members of their adopted family
“Suicidal people’s brains
distinct from those with
mood disorders”
(American Journal of Medical
Genetics, doi.org/fmsncv).
Ultimately, biological markers
might allow psychiatrists to better
risk of suicide. This could have
implications for how a doctor
chooses to treat that person, says
Jan Fawcett of the University of
New Mexico in Albuquerque. For
instance, they may not prescribe
certain antidepressants, as there
is evidence that some initially
increase suicide risk.
David Shaffer of Columbia
University in New York says that
suicide behaviour disorder is
“very much in the spirit” of the
Research Domain Criteria system
that the US National Institute
of Mental Health has proposed as
an alternative diagnosis standard
to DSM-5. Rather than diagnosing
people with a specific disorder,
such as depression, the NIMH
wants mental illness to be
diagnosed and treated based on
an individual’s symptoms, and
their underlying genetics and
neurobiology.
Ultimately, says Nader Perroud
of the University of Geneva in
Switzerland, if suicidal behaviour
is considered a disease, it will
become possible to conduct more
focused research. “We might be
able to find a proper treatment for
 Arc 1.4 /
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180 pages of exciting new work from a fantastic selection
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Every three months, Arc explores the possibilities of Robert Reed
tomorrow’s technologies and societies with unique Bruce Sterling
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make you see the future in a whole new light. New essays & ideas about
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B u y y o u r c o p y n o w a t a r c f i n i t y. o r g
 IN BRIEF
Steven Kazlowski / naturepl.com

These wings were

made for diving
A CANADIAN seabird may help
explain why penguins cannot fly.
The thick-billed murre (Uria
lomvia) is a diving bird that flies –
just not very well. In fact, when
Robert Ricklefs at the University
of Missouri at St Louis and his
colleagues studied murres in
flight, they found the bird used
almost three times as much
energy as the bar-headed goose,
previously considered the least
efficient flying bird. Underwater,
though, the murre can swim with
an efficiency only 30 per cent
below the level expected of a
penguin of similar size (PNAS,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1304838110).
“You can’t have a wing that’s
both good for propulsion in water
and in air,” says Ricklef.
The murre may ultimately
reach a point where using wings
as flippers would trump using
Arctic thaw makes polar their MHC genes, so their immune system may lack this
versatility (Animal Conservation, doi.org/mht).
them for flying, though Ricklef
says it would take millennia for
bears vulnerable to disease This could be an adaptation to life in the Arctic, which this to happen.
is relatively free of diseases and parasites compared with
MORE grim news for polar bears: they may be particularly lower latitudes. But it could leave the polar bear at risk
vulnerable to pathogens spreading northwards as the from an influx of infections as global temperatures rise.
Neanderthals quick
climate warms. “There are a number of diseases now observed in Arctic
Diana Weber at the New College of Florida, Sarasota, animals [that were] not previously seen,” Weber says. to leave the breast?
and her colleagues sequenced DNA from 98 polar bears Polar bears are likely to have survived periods of
in Canada. They looked specifically for genes encoding warming before, but Axel Janke at the Biodiversity and NEANDERTHALS may have begun
the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) – a crucial Climate Research Centre in Frankfurt, Germany, points weaning their babies at 7 months,
component of the immune systems of most vertebrates. out that this time the warming is more rapid and is and ceased breastfeeding
In many species, the genes that code for the MHC’s happening in tandem with human-driven habitat altogether 7 months later.
molecules are variable, allowing them to detect and bind destruction, illegal hunting and pollution. “All this adds Manish Arora from the
to many pathogens. The polar bears had low diversity in up to a very real threat to polar bear survival,” he says. University of Sydney in Australia
and colleagues discovered that
levels of barium in tooth enamel
Tides are pushing the moon away faster years ago, and fed that into a rise while a child is breastfed but
model to simulate ancient tides. drop off when they are weaned.
EARTH is shoving the moon away spin on its axis and causing the Energy dissipation back then was So they tested barium levels in
faster now than it has done for moon’s orbit to expand at a rate of only half what it is today, so the a 100,000-year-old molar from a
most of the past 50 million years, about 3.8 centimetres per year. If moon was pushed away at a Neanderthal child and concluded
says a new model for the way tides that rate has always been the same, slower rate (Geophysical Research it was weaned at 14 months
influence the lunar orbit. The the moon should be 1.5 billion Letters, doi.org/mjz). (Nature, DOI:10.1038/nature12169).
result helps solve a mystery years old, yet some lunar rocks are The key is the North Atlantic This is “intriguingly early”, says
concerning the moon’s age that 4.5 billion years old. Ocean, which is now wide enough Louise Humphrey at the Natural
has long vexed astronomers. Enter Matthew Huber of Purdue for water to slosh across once per History Museum in London. It
The moon’s gravity creates a University in West Lafayette, 12-hour cycle, says Huber. Like a suggests they matured faster than
daily cycle of low and high tides. Indiana. His team gathered data child sliding in a bathtub, that modern humans, who tend to be
This dissipates energy between on ocean depths and continental creates larger waves and very high weaned at 30 months in hunter-
the two bodies, slowing Earth’s contours that existed 50 million tides, shoving the moon faster. gatherer and agrarian societies.

16 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

 For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
No camera needed Malaria bug gives mosquitoes a super-sharp sense of smell
for ghostly 3D pics MALARIA parasites help of malaria parasite – they become landed on and attempted to bite
SNAPPING a picture with a camera
that doesn’t exist is pretty spooky,
but doing it in stereo is even more
so. A strange kind of photography
known as ghost imaging has been
made to work in three dimensions.
Matthew Edgar of the University
of Glasgow, UK, and colleagues used
a projector to shine hundreds of
random black-and-white patterns
onto an object. Four single-pixel
detectors – simple devices that can
only record the intensity of light at
their location – picked up some of
the reflected photons.
Light patterns that happen to
approximate the shape of the object
reflect more light than mismatched
ones. The computer weights each
pattern accordingly and overlays
the results, so that a picture of the
object – in this case a polystyrene
dummy head (pictured below) –
gradually emerges.
Real-world applications are a bit
limited for now, because it takes
about half an hour to build a picture.
But digital camera sensors for
non-visible wavelengths are
expensive or non-existent, while
single-pixel detectors are cheap. So
if such ghost imaging can be sped
up, infrared detectors could be used
to identify potential natural-gas
fields from warm gas leaking from
the ground, while detectors of
terahertz wavelengths might be
used in airport security scanners.
University of Glasgow
mosquitoes sniff us out, it seems.
Mosquitoes infected by the
parasite are three times as likely
as uninfected mosquitoes to
respond to human smells – a
finding that could lead to new
ways to combat a disease that
causes 770,000 deaths a year.
Female Anopheles mosquitoes
are attracted to chemicals in
human odours, which help them
find the source of blood they need
to grow their eggs. When these
mosquitoes carry Plasmodium
falciparum – the most lethal form
IVF boosted by
time-lapse video
TIME-LAPSE imaging could triple
a couple’s chance of successful IVF.
Simon Fishel at the CARE
Fertility clinic in Nottingham, UK,
and colleagues have devised a way
to analyse the development of
embryos to pinpoint those most
likely to have chromosomal
abnormalities – the main
contributor to IVF failure.
Fishel’s team filmed 88 newly
fertilised eggs from 69 couples in
their incubator until they become
blastocysts – the small ball of cells
that is implanted into the womb.
Analysis of the footage
indicated that embryos with
chromosomal abnormalities take
about 6 hours longer to form a
blastocyst. The team then devised
an algorithm that identifies such
embryos and flags them as high
risk. The algorithm also monitors
other aspects of growth that
indicate good health.
Currently, about 25 per cent of
IVF treatments in the UK lead to
live births. The team estimates
that the new technique could
raise the success rate to 78 per
cent (Reproductive BioMedicine,
doi.org/mjt). Fertility experts
were impressed but called for
further comparison with existing
methods for selecting embryos.
more likely to target humans.
To quantify the effect and try
to work out its cause, James Logan
from the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
and colleagues infected some lab-
grown Anopheles gambiae
mosquitoes with Plasmodium
parasites.
Logan’s team presented the
mosquitoes with nylon stockings
containing the volatile chemicals
produced by our feet. Over a
period of three minutes,
Plasmodium-infected mosquitoes
For speedier sums, electrify the brain
BAD at times tables? Just zap your
brain with electricity.
Roi Cohen Kadosh at the
University of Oxford and colleagues
have shown that you can boost
mental arithmetic by delivering an
electrical signal to the brain, exciting
the neurons. Using such transcranial
random noise stimulation (TRNS),
electrodes were placed on the scalp
over areas including the prefrontal
cortex – used for mental maths.
The team gave 25 people TRNS and
26 a sham treatment. Both groups
were initially equally fast at their
sums. After five 40-minute sessions,
the stockings around 15 times on
average. By contrast, uninfected
mosquitoes attempted to bite
only around five times on average
(PLoS One, doi.org/mjx).
Logan suspects that the parasite
boosts its chances of being spread
by manipulating its host’s sense
of smell, and he plans to use
microelectrodes to study how the
parasite affects olfactory cells in
the mosquitoes’ antennae. The
results might make it possible to
create a lure targeting malaria-
infected mosquitoes, he says.
superstock
the people given TRNS were twice as
fast at mental calculations and their
rate of improvement was twice that
of the other group. Their ability to
recall arithmetic facts such as times
tables improved five-fold in both
measures. Six months later, half the
group returned for retesting. The
TRNS group still performed the
calculations 28 per cent faster than
people given the sham treatment
(Current Biology, doi.org/mj2).
Cohen Kadosh says TRNS could
be useful for children with learning
difficulties, or help to rehabilitate
people after a stroke.
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 17
 TECHNOLOGY
Jeff Chiu/AP/PA
Time to raise a Glass
Not sure if the Google Glass headset is quite your
thing? A load of new apps might convince you
MacGregor Campbell
READY to wear a computer on
your face? Google thinks you are.
The company’s Glass headset
seeks to bring wearable
computing into the mainstream –
but what will the average person
do with it? There are privacy fears,
but a sneak peek at some of the
first Glass apps gives a glimpse of
how useful the device might be.
Glass debuted in May last year
at Google’s annual developer
conference, Google I/O, but it was
only last month that designers
and developers finally got their
hands on the device. At the latest
I/O, held in San Francisco last
week, Google showed developers
how to play around with Glass to
come up with exciting new uses.
Glass consists of a fingertip-
sized transparent prism display
that sits at the top right corner of
a user’s field of vision. This prism
is attached to a body housing a
camera, eye movement sensors,
a touch-sensitive sidebar and
a number of other sensors,
including an accelerometer,
gyroscope and compass. It has
Wi-Fi and can be paired with
a smartphone via Bluetooth to
access things like GPS or data
over a 3G or 4G connection.
So far, the apps that come with
Glass simply adapt familiar online
activities, like emailing or taking
An eye for gaming
Virtually everyone plays games
on their smartphones these days.
They might soon be doing the same
wearing Google’s Glass headset. One
of the first games for the device is an
augmented reality (AR) game called
StarFinder, developed by dSky9 of
San Francisco. Players compete to
identify constellations in the night
sky. Another game, called Icebreaker,
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
information about birds that have
been sighted near a Glass-wearer’s
location. It draws on Cornell
University’s eBird birdwatching
database, which collects sightings
from all over the US. “If you had
to use a birdwatching book, you’d
have to go through all the species
that may not be in the area at the
time,” says Blaha. “But something
“Think your phone is always
with you? Try putting on
a pair of glasses that are
connected to the internet”
like this uses your location to keep
track of what birds are likely to be
around you at that moment.”
Users are also able to look up a
bird’s entry without taking their
–Online and on your face– eyes off the bird itself – impossible
with a book or smartphone.
Other Glass apps adapt and
enhance familiar smartphone
tasks. For example, a program
called Glassnost, created by
Boston-based developer Erik
pictures with a voice command. Johnson, lets users share images
Other official apps come from online, then receive feedback
third parties, like news headlines from their friends directly in
from The New York Times. the Glass display. This kind of
But as developers who have interaction is more cumbersome
tried the device are discovering, on a phone, says Johnson. With
Glass is about more than just Glass, the camera is always out
adapting familiar activities to a and ready, and the Glassnost app
new interface. Nelson Blaha, a web shows comments as they come in.
developer in Dallas, Texas, has had Johnson thinks this might
Glass for about three weeks now. change the way we use photo-
He says it is perfect for subtly sharing services. “Say you’re at
adding context to the background a store and you want friends to
of one’s normal activities. help you decide whether or not
Blaha’s BirdsForGlass app to buy something, you can push
displays pictures of and photos to the web and get
feedback very quickly,” he says.
Another app, called
ThroughGlass, developed by
Los Angeles-based engineers
matches two Glass wearers near each Andrew Skotzko and Drew
other who must follow directions to Baumann brings this kind of
meet and snap a picture. Players earn “always on” social networking
points based on the people they meet. to Facebook users. It allows users
Glass would also work with Google’s to take photos and videos with
AR game Ingress, in which players Glass, upload them to Facebook
compete to “take control” of real-life and update their status using
landmarks. Glass has been built to voice recognition, as well as “like”
support multiplayer gaming, although their friends’ posts.
no such games exist for it yet. “You think your phone is always
with you? Try putting on a pair >
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 19
TECHNOLOGY
< of glasses that are connected to
the internet,” says Skotzko.
Glass also makes activities that
you would not want to do with a
smartphone more desirable, such
as facial recognition. It would be
embarrassing to hold up your
smartphone camera to try to
identify someone who you’re not
sure whether you’ve met before.
But an app for doctors called
MedRefGlass, developed by Lance
Nanek in New York is more subtle.
It takes a photo, then uploads it to
an online analysis and recognition
service called BetaFace. This
matches the picture against the
“An app called Winky
allows Google Glass
wearers to take pictures
just by winking”
faces of previous patients and, if it
recognises it, serves up medical
information about the person.
Until last week, Google gave app
developers no option but to use
a programming interface called
Mirror, which did not give access
to the camera or other sensors.
Some found a way around this by
putting Glass in a special mode
that allows it to be programmed
just like any device that runs
Google’s Android operating
system. Now Google has told all
developers how to do this hack,
which opens up the possibilities.
In this way, developer Mike
DiGiovanni created an app called
Winky that allows Glass wearers
to take pictures with a wink rather
than a voice command.
Investors are taking an interest.
A start-up incubator called
Stained Glass Labs and a venture-
capital fund called Glass Collective
were recently founded to support
companies developing Glass apps.
With greater control over the
device, developers are more
likely to hit on a killer app.
DiGiovanni thinks there will be
many. “Everyone doing a job
probably has something that
would benefit from them having
a lightweight hands-free device
always on them,” he says. n
20 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Danger! Flash
flood on its way
Disposable paper sensors dropped by drones could
buy time to escape a storm surge
Hal Hodson
FLASH floods are quick and
deadly. At least 13 people died
when a surge hit parts of Saudi
Arabia earlier this month. Two
years earlier, 123 were killed when
thunderstorms dumped rain over
arid land to the east of the Red Sea
port of Jeddah, hitting the city
with no warning. A drone
monitoring system that tracks
floods in real time would sound
the alarm before the water hits.
Existing forecasting models are
good at predicting roughly when
an area might experience the
right mix of conditions to create
a flash flood, but they can’t say
precisely when or where a flood
will strike. Christian Claudel at
the King Abdullah University of
Science and Technology outside
Jeddah is working on a drone
system that could give such cities
between 30 minutes and 2 hours
Take the pain out
of the train, play an
interactive game
CROWDED, hot, boring: commuting is
rarely enjoyable. Interactive games
might help make your journey pass
more quickly and pleasantly.
Chad Toprak of the Exertion Games
Lab at RMIT University in Melbourne,
Australia, and colleagues have
developed a game called Cart-Load-
o-Fun that can be installed on buses,
trains or trams.
“Back in the 70s we had games
arcades,” he says. “People would
reuters
of warning, as well as predicting
the flood’s path.
The goal is to launch a swarm of
about 10 drones to automatically
monitor a potential flash flood.
The drones will drop disposable
wireless sensors across the region
at risk. If the sensors meet
floodwater they will be carried
away on the current, sending out
a simple signal which the drones
can track. The drones relay the
sensors’ changing positions back
to a central database, which builds
up a model of floodwater flow. He will describe the system at
“The sensors are made of the International Conference
printed circuits on paper, which on Unmanned Aircraft Systems
reduces the cost of the device,” in Atlanta, Georgia, at the end
says Claudel. The printed sensors of May. Claudel has meetings
act as location tags, pinging set up for June with the city
a unique ID number to the authorities in the Saudi capital
drones over a short range. This Riyadh about starting a trial
is much cheaper than using of the scheme.
dedicated sensors with their Kristen Rasmussen, who
own communications systems, studies flash flooding at the
which may never be recovered. University of Washington in
gather and a community would build
up.” But today people play games
either at home or in a private bubble
on their phones. Toprak wants to put
games back into public space.
Cart-Load-o-Fun is similar to Pac-
Man and involves two players who
must work together to move a dot
around on a screen, picking up gems
and avoiding enemies. The players
control the dot by squeezing special
pads fixed to the overhead handholds
on a tram. One player moves the dot
left and right, the other up and down.
The movement of the tram is
part of the fun because players
have to steady themselves with
rex
the handholds while playing. –Play your way to work–

For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
Seattle, says it would be really
useful to combine the drone
system with existing models that
take account of terrain and how
the water moves. “That could be
very powerful,” she says, adding
that such floods are a problem all
over the world, from Venezuela to
the US Southwest. A flash flood in
Colorado in 1976 killed 176 people.
But she warns that the social
aspect of prediction is equally
“Passengers found it amusing,” says
Toprak’s colleague Floyd Mueller, also
at RMIT University. “Even the driver
was involved.” They discussed the
work at the Foundations of Digital
Games conference in Chania, Greece,
last week.
It’s not all fun and games, though.
The tram company likes the game
because it encourages people to hold
on to the bars. “Games also make
people perceive that their journey
goes faster,” says Mueller. This
element has attracted the attention
of a Melbourne ferry company that
has spent a lot of money trying to
cut down its journey times. Simply
changing people’s commute with a
–High and dry but safe–
important: getting the message
out and persuading people to pay
attention to it.
“Unless the information is used
to get the word out to people, even
the most advanced technology is
not much use,” she says.
“These are fast-moving, violent
events that are hard to predict,”
says Burrell Montz of East Carolina
University in Grenville. “This
would be awesome if it works.” n
game may be enough to keep them
using the service.
Commuter games could also
reduce congestion on overcrowded
transport networks. Chromaroma,
for example, turns the data collected
every time you check in or out of a
station on the London Underground
into game stats. Players win points
for passing through certain stations
or they can compete for the fastest
time between stops. Transport for
London is interested in the game’s
potential for crowd control. Players
could be rewarded for avoiding
congested stations, for example, or
for getting off one stop before their
destination. Douglas Heaven n
One Per Cent
Yuriko Nakao/Reuters
Keep the customer satisfied
If you enjoy an advert, you are more likely to buy the product.
A new system will help advertisers work out how their latest
offering is going down, just by watching your face. The
software, developed at the MIT Media Lab, looks at how
muscles in the face move in response to watching a video.
It can then decide what counts as positive facial responses
and gauge which adverts the viewer will enjoy the most.
“The future of technology will be
largely determined by citizens who
design, build, and hack their own”
NASA’s Nicholas Skytland talks ahead of a National Day of Civic
Hacking in the US on 1 June in which volunteers will take on
challenges to build new software and apps (Source: BoingBoing)
Lifelogger knows all about your day
How was your day? Stressful, fun, boring? It might soon be
easier to review the highs and lows. Developed by MIT’s
Media Lab, the Inside-Out system uses a biosensor worn on
the wrist to log how the electrical properties of the skin
change, indicating heightened emotions. A smartphone
around the neck takes pictures several times a minute to log
what you were doing at the time. At the end of the day, the
user views their experiences on a screen and can scroll
through their day using gestures, picked up by a Kinect camera.
4G? Samsung is already on to 5G
Many of us don’t even have 4G-enabled smartphones. But
last week Samsung was touting a new generation of mobile
connectivity with an antenna system that can transfer data
at 1 gigabit per second. That’s about 40 times faster than
today’s fastest data connection. But don’t hold your breath.
The demo needed 64 antennas to work – unfeasible in a
battery-powered smartphone.
For breaking tech news go to:
newscientist.com/onepercent
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 21
TECHNOLOGY
Insight Renewable energy
Wave power reborn
The world’s first commercial wave farm is opening – is it a fresh start for the technology?
WAVE energy hasn’t had a great time
of it in recent years. Despite advances
in research, getting wave power up
and running in any meaningful
commercial sense has not been very
successful – and that’s putting it mildly.
In 2008, for example, the world’s
first commercial plant, based on a
system by Pelamis of Edinburgh, UK,
opened to great fanfare off the coast
of Portugal. But the project was
cancelled two months later amid
technical and financial problems.
Wave power is to get another bite
of the cherry when a commercial wave try to endure extreme
farm opens off the coast of Italy next
month. The farm, the first of its kind,
Ideas spread by the
printing press helped
to drive the scientific
revolution
Are you ready for
the next chapter?
newscientist.com/cloudup
In association with
22 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
will use an approach that eschews the platforms which can survive powerful
heavy swells favoured by previous storms. In contrast, 40South’s machine
systems and aims to make it possible – does not try to endure extreme
and cheap – to harness the surf along conditions – it hides beneath them.
previously unviable coasts. On 19 June, 40South will install a
Wave energy companies have 150-kilowatt module outside Livorno
typically focused on the most Port in Tuscany. The machine uses two
energetic seas – off the wild coasts of connected buoyant sections that sit
Scotland, for example. But Michele one above the other at different
Grassi, founder of London-based wave depths, with the lower one moored
energy company 40South Energy, says to the seabed. The arms that connect
this means building expensive, bulky them move inside each other like
pistons, generating power using
“The machine does not electric dynamos as they move. The
whole structure sits below the surface,
wave conditions – where wave energy can still be
it hides beneath them” captured but at lower amounts.
Crucially, it automatically adjusts its
vertical position in the water depending
on the conditions, sinking out of
harm’s way during large, potentially
damaging storms. This also helps it
produce consistent levels of power.
The steady output is a big
advantage, says Hugo Chandler of
London-based energy consultancy
New Resource Partners, whose work
focuses on integrating renewable
power into the grid. “Something more
stable is much less frightening for the
grid operator,” he says. “They’re going
Philippe Lesprit/Plainpicture
to get a cheaper grid connection.”
Wave energy researcher Ted
Brekken at Oregon State University in
Corvallis says it was natural for wave
energy companies to initially try to
harness the most powerful waves
possible, but pursuing the most
energetic waves at any cost doesn’t
necessarily make sense. “How much
it costs to make, maintain and deploy
the device is very significant for wave
energy,” says Brekken. This seems to
be the way forward. Indeed, Pelamis
claims its latest design, called the P2,
costs less than its predecessor and is
simpler to build.
Italy’s largest power company,
Enel, bought the Livorno Port unit
from 40South last year, and has an
agreement to buy more if all goes to
plan, as part of a five-year partnership.
Carlo Papa, chief innovation officer of
Enel subsidiary, Enel Green Power, says
the firm spent months on the lookout
for marine energy technologies that
were safe and easy to manage, and
which had no impact on the existing
marine environment. “We’ve seen a lot
of the machines that are out there,”
Papa says. “40South weren’t lucky,
they were good.” Hal Hodson n
–Awash with energy–
 The Everyday Gourmet:
Rediscovering the Lost Art of Cooking
Taught by Bill Briwa, Chef-Instructor
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1. Cooking—Ingredients, Technique, and Flavour
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ED T E OF
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4. Sauté—Dry-Heat Cooking with Fat

55%

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5. Roasting—Dry-Heat Cooking without Fat
6. Frying—Dry-Heat Cooking with Fat
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24 | NewScientist | 25
00 May
Month
2013
2013
Cry for help
“LIFE. That’s what’s in this picture that’s missing
in pictures of ivory, or poached animals,” says
photographer James Morgan.
This blue-eyed tiger cub changed the focus of
Morgan’s photography when he stumbled across
a tiger rescue in Bangkok, Thailand. This cub
and 15 others were found hidden in a fruit crate
behind the cab of a truck bound for Laos. Morgan
had a flash of inspiration: rather than continue
to bombard the world with pictures of tusks and
animal carcasses, essentially information about
what is already lost, he decided to remind us of
what we still have, in the hope that we’ll feel more
compelled to protect it.
Here, veterinary practitioners are sampling the
cub’s DNA in order to find out where the batch of
16 came from. This should help authorities better
trace and crack down on the criminal network.
Though it’s still unclear who put them in the
back of the truck, it’s almost certain that they
were being traded for their supposed medicinal
qualities. Traditional Chinese medicine views
tiger parts as providing good luck and protective
powers, but cubs are also often traded for their
fur or as pets for the elite.
For this cub, and others like it, the story
doesn’t end happily. According to Morgan, it faces
a lifetime in captivity at wildlife breeding centres
because it is too risky to release these sought-
after animals back into the wild. Morgan’s hope
is that images like this one – taken on behalf of
a WWF campaign – will appeal to the conscience
of those who buy animal products. Julia Sklar

Photographer
James Morgan
WWF-CANON

0025 May 2013 | NewScientist | 25

Month
OPINION
Drowning in numbers
We know that sea level will rise, but how far and how fast? The latest attempt
to put figures on it is dangerously misleading, says Michael Le Page
IMAGINE your job is to protect
London from surging seas. In one
way it is easy: unlike most coastal
cities, London has a formidable
flood defence system in the form
of the Thames Barrier, capable
of protecting it from all but the
highest storm surges.
But as the seas rise, the risk of
the barrier being breached will
increase steadily. With a 1-metre
rise in local sea level, London will
get flooded every 10 years. So
when do you start building new
flood defences, and how high do
you make them?
The stakes are enormous.
Building new defences will cost
tens of billions and involve
decades of planning and
controversy before construction
even begins. Get it wrong, and
storm surges could kill thousands
and displace millions. So all
around the world, planners are
clamouring to know how fast the
seas will rise as the planet warms.
Until recently, scientists could
not give them any reliable
numbers. There were no
computer models capable of
simulating the melting of the
world’s ice sheets and glaciers.
The 2007 report of the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) handled
this uncertainty really badly. It
acknowledged that we don’t know
how fast all the ice will melt, but
then gave some numbers anyway
– between 18 and 59 centimetres
of sea level rise by 2100 – based on
highly dubious assumptions such
as glaciers continuing to flow at
the same rate and the Antarctic ice
sheet growing larger. The numbers
also assumed a maximum
26 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
warming of 5.4 °C, even though
the report’s highest projection
was 6.4 °C. Unsurprisingly, many
people wrongly took 59 cm of sea
level rise to be the worst case.
Now we have some more
numbers. A European-funded
project called ice2sea has
developed computer models of
glaciers and ice sheets. Earlier
this month it announced that
melting ice would contribute
between 4 and 37 cm to global
sea level by 2100. Adding this
to the other causes of sea level
rise – the main one being the
expansion of the oceans as they
warm – gives figures of between
16 and 69 cm by 2100.
Some media reports focused
on the fact that this is less than
some other recent estimates of
at least a metre. “Seas will rise
no more than 69 centimetres by
2100,” proclaimed this magazine.
Others focused on the fact that
even this relatively small rise could
have devastating consequences.
“Floods could overwhelm Thames
Barrier by end of century,”
declared The Guardian in London.
How much trust can we put in
these numbers, though? The whole
point of the ice2sea programme
was to “reduce the uncertainty”,
“The projections for how
much sea level will rise
imply a level of certainty
that simply doesn’t exist”
but its numbers come with some
rather large caveats.
For starters, the modellers
didn’t have the computing power
to look at a range of scenarios for
how much carbon dioxide we
will pump into the atmosphere.
Instead, they looked at just one –
a “mid-range” scenario predicted
by the 2007 report to lead to
warming of around 3 °C.
Yet actual emissions today are
much closer to the worst-case
scenario, which some recent
studies predict could lead to
warming of 6 °C or more. And
far from falling, annual global
emissions are rising ever faster.
With hundreds more coal-fired
power stations being built and
new sources of fossil fuels like tar
sands being exploited, there is
good reason to think emissions
will continue to soar for many
decades to come.
What’s more, to account for
the fact that warming will not be
uniform across the globe, the
modellers had to produce regional
projections of warming, snowfall
and so on to feed into the ice
models. But regional projections
are highly unreliable, with
different models often producing
wildly varying results. The prime
example is the Arctic, where the
sea ice is disappearing much
faster than anyone expected.
To understand why regional
climate predictions are so much
less reliable than global ones,
think of the heat entering the
atmosphere and oceans as water
pouring into a bath. Predicting the
average level of the bath is much
easier that predicting the height
of the waves sloshing around.
Comment on these stories at newscientist.com/opinion
So the climate information
being fed into these latest ice
models could be way off the mark.
And even if it isn’t, how do
we know the models are right?
Well, say the researchers, they
can reproduce some of the
observed responses to the actual
0.5 °C warming of the past few
decades, such as the retreat of
glaciers. But that doesn’t prove
they can predict the response to
future warming of 3 or 6 °C. There
are similar issues with global
climate models.
This kind of research is vital.
But when such a limited study is
presented as the “best estimate”
available, the danger is that it will
be misinterpreted in the same
way as the 2007 IPCC report. Its
numbers do not encompass the
worst-case scenario – far from it.
They don’t even represent the
most likely scenario. The narrow
range implies a degree of
certainty that simply doesn’t
exist. Nobody should be basing
life-and-death decisions such
as how to protect Londoners on
these numbers.
The ice2sea organisers must
have been aware of this because
they also asked a bunch of experts
how bad they thought it could get.
This exercise produced yet
another set of numbers – there is
less than a 1 in 20 chance that sea
level rise will exceed 84 cm by
2100. But isn’t the whole point of
modelling this stuff to reduce our
reliance on guesstimates?
The big picture is that there is
no doubt that the planet will get
hotter and that sea level will
eventually rise many metres. We
know this because the last time
atmospheric CO2 levels were
higher than 400 parts per million,
sea level was between 5 and
40 metres higher. Even if
emissions stopped tomorrow,
there would still be huge sea level
rises. The only question is how fast
it will happen. The frightening
truth is that we still don’t know. ■
Michael Le Page is a features editor at
New Scientist
One minute with...
Ralph Keeling
For the atmospheric scientist, monitoring carbon dioxide is a
family tradition. He says we've reached a worrying milestone
The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has
reportedly recorded a carbon dioxide
concentration there of 400 parts per million
for the first time. How significant is that?
It’s a psychological milestone. Every year in the
last few decades, CO2 concentrations have been
going up by about 2 ppm per year. Those changes
go unnoticed but people pay attention to round
numbers. It gives you a bit of perspective on how
far we’ve come – a bit like turning 40, or 50.
So how far have we come?
Before the industrial revolution, we started at
about 280 ppm. 100 years ago, levels had risen to
around 300, and they crossed 350 in the late
1980s. We think the last time concentrations were Profile
as high as 400 ppm was between 3 and 5 million Ralph Keeling directs the CO₂ programme at
years ago, when the world was much warmer. the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La
Jolla, California. He is pictured here with his
What did Earth look like 3-5 million years ago? pioneering father, the late Charles David Keeling
It had much higher sea levels, forests extended all
the way to the Arctic Ocean, and there was almost
certainly a lot less sea ice. Today, sea ice is melting difficult. The realisation that there was a stable
rapidly, and in the last decades we have seen the background level meant the challenge of
tree line moving north into the Arctic tundra. measuring the increase might not be so great.
You simply had to go to a place far enough from
Are we in a climate danger zone? contamination and track it over time. The Mauna
In my view, yes. At 400 ppm, we’ve perturbed Loa measurements came later, beginning in 1958.
Earth enough already that things could unfold
that will be catastrophic. When did he first see a steady rise in CO₂ –
what is now known as the Keeling curve?
We passed 400 ppm for the first time last The early days at Mauna Loa were fraught. Power
year, above the Arctic. What is special about outages meant the measuring instrument had to
the Mauna Loa record? be shut down for weeks. It would come back on
It’s the one record that has high resolution going reading a different level. He thought there should
back to the late 1950s – when my father set it up. be a stable background, but concentrations were
fluctuating. It was only when he’d gathered a year
Why did he start tracking CO₂ at Mauna Loa? of data that he realised there was a seasonal cycle.
In the early 1950s, he was at the California
Institute of Technology studying carbon in rivers. So levels may drop below 400 ppm again?
As part of that, he developed a way to measure Crossing from below to above 400 will play out
CO₂ in the air. He discovered that if you measured over years, partly because there is a natural up and
concentrations in a sufficiently remote place, you down with the seasons. But this time next year it
almost always got the same number. That was will be higher still. In a couple of years we’ll never
Scripps Institute
unexpected. Previous work suggested CO₂ levels get below 400 again.
were more variable, making measurement very Interview by Catherine Brahic
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 27
OPINION INTERVIEW
Lofty ambitions
Lunar mining start-up Moon Express is testing robotic moon landers in
advance of a 2015 trial mission. Internet entrepreneur Naveen Jain tells
Paul Marks why he founded the firm, and why he’s leaving the pursuit
of asteroids to rival space miners
How did you go from internet businesses to
moon mining?
I’d been looking at how to solve big problems
in alternative energy. A lot of the time,
innovative ideas don’t get very far because
we just don’t have the affordable material
resources here on Earth. Take platinum, for
example, which could possibly be used as a
catalyst for fuel cells in hydrogen-fuelled cars.
It is so expensive here on Earth. Or helium-3,
which you could potentially use in future
fusion reactors to create a non-radioactive
energy source. We got to wondering if we
could harvest such materials from space, and
specifically from the moon. There are so many
riches in space: why not go and get them?
You mentioned platinum and helium-3, what
other resources can you mine on the moon?
All the gold, cobalt, iron, palladium, tungsten
and so on mined from Earth’s crust came from
asteroids that hit Earth after its crust cooled.
These same types of asteroids bombarded the
moon throughout its history, so we can expect
the same resources to be available on or near
the lunar surface.
Others believe asteroids are the best source
for such materials. Why shoot for the moon?
My thinking has always been: why go to an
individual asteroid when the moon has been
an aggregator of asteroids for billions of years?
Look up at the moon on a clear night and all
you see are craters where asteroids have struck.
And because the moon has no atmosphere,
and there is no tectonic activity, all of the
asteroid material is still sitting there on the
surface. It has already been crushed, so it
is all ready to be processed. Moon mining
will be mostly open-skimming of surface
materials. Additionally, the lunar gravity
is of tremendous benefit because it means
equipment used on Earth for gold or platinum
mining can be modified to work there.
28 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Before you can start mining, you have to get Profile
to the moon. Post Apollo, hasn’t the ability to Naveen Jain is a former
land on the moon been temporarily lost? veteran of Microsoft
All the technology to get to and land on the and founder of internet
moon exists already – whether it is simply businesses Intelius and
an autonomous lander or a more complex Inome. With Barney Pell
robotic exploration mission. Our spacecraft and Bob Richards, he
and its autonomous control and landing founded Moon Express
software is working already in tests at a NASA in 2010. The company,
facility. Our lander is an entrant in the Google based in Mountain View,
Lunar X Prize. The minute a private company California, aims to mine
is able to land on the moon, that’ll be a precious resources on
significant event that changes everything – the moon
because that has never been done before.
How much is NASA involved with your venture?
NASA is providing us with the underlying
technology. Its Ames Research Center is
developing a lunar orbiter called the Lunar
Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer.
We are taking almost the same spacecraft
design, miniaturising it, and using that
technology for our lander mission in 2015.
What are the milestones after you land?
Once we prove we can land safely we’ll show
we can hover over the lunar surface. We may
leave a small commemorative payload on
the moon and then lift off to lunar orbit.
Bringing anything we later mine back from
the moon will have three separate, technically
challenging elements: getting mined
resources into lunar orbit, from there to Earth
orbit, and then to Earth’s surface. The great
thing here is that we don’t have to invent
anything new to do all this.
Your lander is set to take off in 2015. If that all
goes to plan, when do you expect to deploy
your first mining equipment?
We intend to send prospecting sensors on our
first mission. Our second mission will involve
further prospecting and proof-of-concept for
our mining techniques. Then, in our third
For more interviews and to add your comments, visit newscientist.com/opinion

mission, we will bring back a sample. We

expect the first decade to be mostly data
gathering and prospecting, and the second
decade to begin deployment of industrial-scale
resource extraction and processing systems.

What kind of mining equipment will you use?

Early moon-mining robots can be surprisingly
small – we do not need to start with the
gargantuan machines we see on Earth. Robots
the size of a desk can process an impressive
amount of volatile and mineral materials,
which will provide the proofs of concept
needed for larger investments. NASA’s
RESOLVE robot, designed to retrieve water on
the moon, and its RASSOR robot, made to dig
soil, are typical examples of scalable systems.

Can you legally ship away chunks of the moon?

The United Nations’ Outer Space Treaty says
no nation can lay claim to it.
The moon is like international waters on Earth.
No one owns international waters but private
companies can use their own resources to
find, say, oil or fish. They get to exploit the
ocean’s resources without owning the land
around it. We won’t own the moon but will,
similarly, mine some of its resources.

“Why go to an asteroid when

the moon has aggregated
them for billions of years?”
Ten years ago, several companies planned lunar
missions that ultimately never happened. What
makes these plans more likely to be realised?
SpaceX has blazed a trail into commercial
space access. Our investors are excited about
the Moon Express business model, reducing
the cost of lunar access and enabling a new era
of lunar economies. And on the technology
side, there have been significant advances in
four areas: propulsion, avionics, commercially
available launchers and spacecraft design.
Today we can create small spacecraft that
were not even possible 10 years ago.

Some entrepreneurs are talking about mining

the seabed on Earth. Have you considered that?
We are focused on the unlimited resources of
space – to promote a space-faring civilisation,
and also to address needs here on Earth. The
prudent utilisation of Earth’s resources should
continue, but not at the expense of our fragile
biosphere or of the quality of terrestrial life.
Earth’s resources cannot support a multi-
brian Smale

world civilisation – we need to learn to “live

off the land” as we move off-planet. n

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 29

OPINION LETTERS
Seeds of variety
From Dennis Nicholls
Well done on highlighting the
importance of the many varieties
of banana as a food crop. You
stated that the fruit is the fourth
most important food crop
internationally, following wheat,
rice and maize (20 April, p 38).
This got me thinking about the
importance of diversity in our
edible plants.
The Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United
Nations suggests there are
50,000 such species. There are
those who suggest the world
will need to look beyond the 15
or so species grown in industrial
agriculture to ensure diversity
and hence stable food supply in
the face of threats like disease
and climate change.
Having worked among
subsistence farmers, I am aware of
the hundreds and even thousands
of cultivars of each subsistence
food crop that may have been
Enigma Number 1750
Navigating the grid
ian kay
Using the number grid shown (A)
it is possible to generate nine-digit
numbers in the following way:
Start on any square and then
move horizontally, vertically or
diagonally to an adjacent square
that hasn’t already been visited.
Repeat until all nine squares have
been visited. For example, the path
shown in diagram B generates the
number 235968741.
I have listed all the numbers
that can be generated in this way,
and that end in a certain digit.
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct
answer opened on Wednesday 19 June. The Editor’s decision is final.
Please send entries to Enigma 1750, New Scientist, Lacon House,
84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to enigma@newscientist.com
(please include your postal address).
Answer to 1744 Clive’s number: CLIVE is 37125
The winner Simon Armstrong of Guisborough, Redcar and Cleveland, UK
30 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
bred by such groups. So if there
are 50,000 species, there are
millions of cultivars, many of
which are now rapidly being lost
to the world. We need to ensure
their survival.
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Just add salt
From Steve Phillips
Your feature on uneven global
distribution of sea level rise as ice
sheets melt highlights a double
whammy for northern Europe:
greater sea level rise coupled with
cooling from a slowing of the Gulf
Stream (4 May, p 36).
The cause, an influx of fresh
water from Greenland, suggests
that an abundant benign material
could avert the Gulf Stream
problem – salt. NASA estimates an
annual influx of about 200 cubic
kilometres of fresh water, which,
based on the salinity of sea water,
would equate to a deficit of
7 gigatonnes of salt per year .
1 2 3 transfer to the Antarctic?
4 5 6
7 8 9 Let’s see what is really behind
DIAGRAM A DIAGRAM B
Some of these are divisible by
four (and only four) of the numbers
1 to 9. The rest are divisible by
five (and only five) of the numbers
1 to 9.
How many numbers are there in
my list?
Adding salt to the water would
increase the local albedo, or
reflectivity, of the water and also
reduce acidification due to carbon
dioxide. Moreover, widespread
dumping of salt should have
less impact on the ocean
environment than other proposed
geoengineering solutions.
Admittedly, current global salt
production is only about 3 per
cent of the amount required, but
our wider mineral extraction
industries already transport
considerably more than that per
year. I would also be interested
to know if larger amounts of salt
dumping would increase the
transfer of warm water from the
tropics to northerly regions.
I wonder if there would be a
similar way of influencing ocean
currents to reduce warm water
Kraainem, Belgium
Psychiatry today
From David Kupfer,
chair of the DSM-5 Task Force
You recently discussed the future
of mental health research (11 May,
p 8). We have been telling patients
for several decades that we are
waiting for biomarkers for mental
disorders. We’re still waiting.
In the absence of such major
discoveries, it is clinical experience
and evidence, as well as growing
empirical research, that have
advanced our understanding
of conditions such as autism
spectrum disorder, bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia.
This progress is recognised in
the fifth edition of the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (DSM-5). It represents
the strongest system available
for classifying disorders.
Efforts like the US National
Institute of Mental Health’s
Research Domain Criteria (RDoC)
project, with its emphasis on
neurobiology, are vital to the
continued progress of our
collective understanding of
mental disorders. But such an
approach cannot serve us in
the here and now, and cannot
supplant DSM-5.
RDoC is a complementary
endeavour to move us forward,
which may one day see
breakthroughs that will
revolutionise our field.
However, every day we are
dealing with impairment or
tangible suffering, and must
respond now. Our patients
deserve no less.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US
From Jonathan Packer
The move away from unscientific
Freudian-type psychology to
unscientific behaviourism-type
psychology has been equally
disastrous. The US National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
has taken the first step to remedy
the situation, and to properly
investigate these serious
neurological problems.
them. That must be the way
forward. Thank you, NIMH.
Osaka, Japan
Pain and rain
From Jamie Russell
I have been ambivalent about
the pain ray since reading about
its potential use as a non-lethal
weapon (11 May, p 44). Initially
I thought that the ability to
incapacitate in a conflict without
maiming or killing was a step in
the right direction.
However, I recalled that
waterboarding was described
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
by some, probably incorrectly, as
having no lasting physical effects.
I wonder how long it will be
before portable “pain rays”
enter the interrogation room.
West Malling, Kent, UK
From Alain Williams
The pain ray’s millimetre-
wavelength microwaves are
stopped by the water in
0.4 millimetres of skin, but they
can penetrate clothing. However,
wet clothing might act like skin,
and so an easy defence could be
to soak your clothes.
High Wycombe,
Buckinghamshire, UK
Pet detectives
From Steve Dalton
Feedback highlighted that a gated
housing development in Texas
was taking swabs from residents’
dogs so that any faeces left on
sidewalks could be traced back to
their pets (13 April).
Perhaps we should applaud
them for realising that a simple
pack of swabs makes a cheap
deterrent for those who don’t
clear up after their dog, given the
fear of naming and shaming, with
no actual DNA analysis required.
Chipstead, Kent, UK
So much hot air
From Frank Fahy, emeritus
professor of engineering acoustics,
University of Southampton
Benjamin Clayton ponders the
idea of recovering useful energy
from waste sound (4 May, p 34).
So he will be disappointed to
learn that the energy generated
by the noise from a crowd of
about 80,000 people at an
international football match at
Wembley stadium in London is
sufficient to cook only a couple
of eggs.
King’s Somborne, Hampshire, UK
Bee careful
From Nigel Raine,
bee researcher, Royal Holloway,
University of London
The weight of peer-reviewed
scientific evidence does indeed
suggest that field-relevant
exposure to neonicotinoid
pesticides can have adverse effects
on bees (4 May, p 6). But whether
the EU moratorium on the use of
these chemicals will benefit bees
depends on what alternative pest
control is used.
Bees are exposed to multiple
pesticides when foraging, so the
risk assessment for pesticides
should take account of this,
as well as potential sub-lethal
behavioural effects and longer-
term impacts.
Each year, insects provide
essential pollination worth at
least £440 million to UK
agriculture. Pesticides are a
crucial tool for achieving high
levels of crop production. Both
have clear benefits. We need to
ensure that pesticides are used
in ways that minimise harm to
pollinating insects.
Egham, Surrey, UK
Reality check
From Philip Duffy
I must question David Hobday’s
explanation of the illusion of self
(27 April, p 35), with his example
of Alice, who “knows enough to
live a healthy, happy life, and
expects to die and be reduced to
ash. She has no beliefs.”
Alice may think that she exists
without beliefs, but this is in itself
a symptom of cognitive bias. She
has simply elevated her beliefs to
the point where she sees them as
facts. For example, Alice believes
that the world she perceives via
her senses is real.
Ashford, Kent, UK
All art
From Tony Chabot
In response to Nick Craddock’s
article hoping that psychiatry
gets its Higgs boson moment
(27 April, p 30), Jeremy Holmes
suggested that the discipline
“is inherently a marriage of art
and science” (11 May, p 31). I half
agree: it is art.
Kings Norton, West Midlands, UK
Strange thoughts
From Trevor Jones
Douglas Hofstadter and
Emmanuel Sander speculate on
the pervading nature of analogy
in our thought processes, “from
throwaway remarks to deep
scientific and artistic insights”
(4 May, p 30).
I’d point them to a statement
sometimes attributed to the
German artist Paul Klee: “Art is
making the strange familiar and
the familiar strange”.
In their emphasis on the
importance of analogical thinking
in making the strange familiar,
of bringing order out of chaos,
Hofstadter and Sander underplay
its importance in making the
familiar strange – which is an
important part of discovering,
inventing and finding new and
surprising solutions.
Cheveley, Cambridgeshire, UK
400 and rising
From Iain Climie
The news that atmospheric
carbon dioxide levels have
reached 400 parts per million
is depressing, but no surprise
(18 May, p 5). There has been
precious little serious effort to
address the problem.
Even if net greenhouse gas
emissions from human activity
somehow became neutral –
through carbon capture and
storage, say – the genie may still
be out of the bottle with regard to
climate change. There is a time lag
of decades between changes in gas
levels and temperature changes.
Whitchurch, Hampshire, UK
For the record
n Ei! The look at a common origin for
seven families of Eurasian languages
(11 May, p 10) included a map showing
Estonia in the Indo-European family.
In fact it is part of the Uralic family.
n In our review of Frank Zelko’s book
on the rise of Greenpeace (27 April,
p 50), Fred Pearce said the group
“began in the US”. In fact, Greenpeace
was founded in Vancouver, Canada.
n A bleak future was reported
for the painted turtle amid rising
temperatures (11 May, p 16).
Researcher Rory Telemeco has
asked us to clarify that the model
used in his research predicted the
extinction of one local population
on the Mississippi river, rather than
the species as a whole.
Letters should be sent to:
Letters to the Editor, New Scientist,
84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS
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Email: letters@newscientist.com
Include your full postal address and telephone
number, and a reference (issue, page number, title)
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Reed Business Information reserves the right to
use any submissions sent to the letters column of
New Scientist magazine, in any other format.
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 31
Jonathan Burton

32 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013


Old schooled
Learning like a child is a cinch if you know how, says David Robson
S
ome 36-year-olds choose to collect
vintage wine, vinyl records or sports
memorabilia. For Richard Simcott, it
is languages. His itch to learn has led him to
study more than 30 foreign tongues – and
he’s not ready to give up.
During our conversation in a London
restaurant, he reels off sentences in Spanish,
Turkish and Icelandic as easily as I can name
the pizza and pasta on our menu. He has
learned Dutch on the streets of Rotterdam,
Czech in Prague and Polish during a house
share with some architects. At home, he
talks to his wife in fluent Macedonian.
What’s remarkable about Simcott isn’t just
the number and diversity of languages he has
mastered. It’s his age. Long before grey hairs
”The idea that the mind
appear and waistlines expand, the mind’s cogs
are meant to seize up, making it difficult to
pick up any new skill, be it a language, the
flute, or archery. Even if Simcott had primed
his mind for new languages while at school,
he should have faced a steep decline in his
abilities as the years went by – yet he still
devours unfamiliar grammars and strange
vocabularies to a high level. “My linguistic
landscape is always changing,” he says. “If
you’re school-aged, or middle-aged – I don’t
think there’s a big difference.”
A decade ago, few neuroscientists would
have agreed that adults can rival the learning
talents of children. But we needn’t be so
defeatist. The mature brain, it turns out, is
more supple than anyone thought. “The idea
that there’s a critical period for learning in
childhood is overrated,” says Gary Marcus,
a psychologist at New York University.
What’s more, we now understand the best
techniques to accelerate knowledge and skill
acquisition in adults, so can perhaps unveil
a few tricks of the trade of super-learners
like Simcott. Whatever you want to learn,
it’s never too late to charge those grey cells.
The idea that the mind fossilises as it
ages is culturally entrenched. The phrase
“an old dog will learn no tricks” is recorded
in an 18th century book of proverbs and
is probably hundreds of years older.
When researchers finally began to
fossilises is entrenched,
but old dogs are better
learners than we thought”
investigate the adult brain’s malleability in
the 1960s, their results appeared to agree with
the saying. Most insights came indirectly from
studies of perception, which suggested that
an individual’s visual abilities were capped at
a young age. For example, restricting young
animals’ vision for a few weeks after birth
means they will never manage to see
normally. The same is true for people born
with cataracts or a lazy eye – repair too late,
and the brain fails to use the eye properly
for life. “For a very long time, it seemed that
those constraints were set in stone after that
COVER STORY
critical period,” says Daphne Bavelier at the
University of Rochester, New York.
These are extreme circumstances, of course,
but the evidence suggested that the same
neural fossilisation would stifle other kinds
of learning. Many of the studies looked at
language development – particularly in
families of immigrants. While the children
picked up new tongues with ease, their
parents were still stuttering broken sentences.
But if there is a critical period for foreign
language learning, everyone should be
affected equally; Simcott’s ability to master
a host of languages should be as impossible
as a dog playing the piano.
Bearing this in mind, Ellen Bialystok at York
University in Toronto, Canada, recently turned
to the US census records, which detailed the
linguistic skills of more than 2 million Hispanic
and Chinese immigrants. A “critical period” for
learning a second language in infancy should
have created a sharp difference between those
who had moved country in early childhood
and those who were uprooted in adolescence.
In reality? “There was absolutely no
discontinuity,” Bialystok says. Instead, she
saw a very gradual decline with age among
immigrants – which could reflect differences in
environment as much as the adults’ rusty brain
circuits. “People talk more slowly and clearly to
children in short, simple sentences,” she says.
“And the child’s entire social and educational
network is organised around that language.”
Yet while Bialystok’s study suggested that
adult brains are more pliable than had once >
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 33

Lucas Jackson/reuters
been imagined, there was still the suspicion
that children might have the edge in certain
skills. Adult learners sometimes find it harder
to learn to sing in tune, hit a home run or
mimic an accent convincingly. At first glance,
the problem might seem to lie in adults’
perception and motor skills. Learning
involving these abilities differs from the
acquisition of factual knowledge, because it
needs us to rewire the eyes, ears and muscles.
It’s something that Marcus can identify
with. At the age of 38, he devoted himself to
learning the guitar, an experience he detailed
in his book Guitar Zero. “My family’s initial
response was laughter – but they soon saw
I was making progress,” he says. Still, during
his research, he attended a musical summer
camp for 8 to 15-year-olds. He says he was
quicker to catch on to the structure of songs,
but his younger bandmates had better
coordination and sense of pitch.
Yet the available evidence hints that
children may not always be inherently better
at such tasks. One study by Yang Zhang at the
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis that
focused on the acquisition of foreign accents
in adults suggests we may simply be suffering
from poor tuition. When the researchers
gave them recordings that mimicked the
exaggerated baby talk of cooing mothers,
the adult learners progressed rapidly.
Nor do adults necessarily fumble over the
intricate movements that are crucial for
music or sport. When volunteers visiting
Virginia Penhune’s lab at Concordia
University in Montreal, Canada, learned to
press keys in a certain sequence, at certain
times – essentially a boiled-down version
of keyboard practice – the adults tended to
outshine the younger volunteers.
During a more challenging test of hand-eye
coordination, nearly 1000 volunteers of all age
groups learned to juggle over a series of six
training sessions. As you might expect, the
34 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Adults often agonise
over how to do a task
rather than throwing
themselves into it
Faster body, faster mind
The key to a spry mind in old age may be
as simple as a walk in the park.
Over the past few years, it has become
clear that poor physical fitness – including
factors such as obesity and cardiovascular
health – can be as damaging to our brains
as they are to our sex appeal, reducing
the long-distance connections between
neurons and shrinking the hippocampus,
which is involved in learning and memory.
For this reason, the general decline in
health as we age may also contribute
to the gradual decrease in mental skills –
including our capacity to learn new skills,
fuelling the idea that you can’t teach an
old dog new tricks (see main story).
Thankfully, the changes are reversible,
according to Arthur Kramer, who has
worked with senior citizens in his lab
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. Typically, the studies
demanded a mild exercise regime, asking
volunteers to walk for 40-minute periods,
3 days a week for a year, for example.
“I wouldn’t say these old folks would win
any races, but they could certainly go
”An adult’s lifestyle may
further and faster by the end,” he says.
Imaging their brains before and after
training, he found that hippocampi
had expanded, perhaps through the
growth of new brain cells or an increase in
synaptic connections between neurons.
Just as importantly, much of the
long-distance communication across the
brain was restored to its former glory.
“The senior citizens’ connectivity was
equivalent to a 30-year-old’s,” says
Kramer. The result is a general cognitive
boost, including improved attention,
which should aid learning of any new skill.
senior citizens aged 60 to 80 began with some
hesitation, but they soon caught up with the
30-year-olds and by the end of the trials all the
adults were juggling more confidently than
the 5 to 10-year-olds.
Old dogs, then, are much more adaptable
than folklore would have it – and if we do
have deficits, they aren’t insurmountable.
The reason that children appear to be better
learners may have more to do with their
environment, and factors such as physical
fitness (see “Faster body, faster mind”, left).
Indeed, many researchers believe that an
adult’s lifestyle may be the biggest obstacle.
“A child’s sole occupation is learning to speak
and move around,” says Ed Cooke, a cognitive
scientist who has won many memory contests.
“If an adult had that kind of time to spend on
attentive learning, I’d be very disappointed if
they didn’t do a good job.”
A glut of free time and a carefree existence
are out of reach for most of us, but there
are other behaviours that boost children’s
learning, and these habits can be easily
integrated into even an adult’s schedule.
For example, children are continually quizzed
on what they know – and for good reason:
countless studies have shown that testing
doubles long-term recall, outperforming
all other memory tactics. Yet most adults
attempting to learn new skills will rely
more on self-testing which, let’s be honest,
happens less often.
That’s why Cooke developed a website,
called Memrise, which helps take some of the
pain out of testing and, crucially, can integrate
learning into the adult day. It is designed to
track your learning curve with cunningly
timed tests that force you to retrieve the
information just as you are about to forget it.
“Memrise engages your brain to the greatest
be the biggest obstacle,
but it needn’t be if we use
the right techniques”
possible extent,” says Cooke, who has himself
used the site to learn thousands of words of
foreign vocabulary. Users can create their own
courses – the topics range from art to zoology –
and importantly, it is easy to load the site in
the few spare minutes of your lunch break or
while you are waiting for a train. Cooke also
plans to launch a smartphone app.
What about tasks that involve perceptual
learning or motor skills – like battling against
a lifetime of tone deafness, or perfecting
that golf swing? Here too, there are guiding
principles that can help you rediscover the
seemingly effortless learning of youth.
Adults can hamper progress with their
own perfectionism: whereas children throw
themselves into tasks, adults often agonise
over the mechanics of the movements, trying
to conceptualise exactly what is required.
This could be one of our biggest downfalls.
“Adults think so much more about what
they are doing,” says Gabriele Wulf at the
University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “Children
just copy what they see.”
Wulf’s work over the past decade shows
that you should focus on the outcome of
your actions rather than the intricacies of the
movements. She applies this finding in her
own life: as a keen golfer, she has found it is
better to think about the swing of the club, for
instance, rather than the position of her hands.
“I’m always trying to find where best to focus
my attention,” she says. Similarly, if you are
learning to sing, then you should concentrate
on the tone of the voice, rather than on the
larynx or the placement of the tongue. Study
after study shows that simply shifting your
mindset in this way accelerates your learning –
perhaps by encouraging the subconscious,
automatic movements that mark proficiency.
Misplaced conscientiousness may also
lead adults to rely on overly rigid practice
regimes that stifle long-term learning. The
”Study after study shows
that simply shifting your
mindset a certain way
can accelerate learning”
adult talent for perseverance, it seems, is not
always a virtue. Left to their own devices, most
people segment their sessions into separate
blocks – when learning basketball, for
instance, they may work on each shot in turn,
perhaps because they feel a desire to master it.
The approach may bring rapid improvements
at first, but a host of studies have found that
the refined technique is soon forgotten.
Instead, you do better to take a carousel
approach, quickly rotating through the
different skills to be practised without
lingering too long on each one. Although the
reason is still unclear, it seems that jumping
between skills makes your mind work a little
harder when applying what you’ve learned,
helping you to retain the knowledge in the
long term – a finding that has helped people
improve in activities ranging from tennis
and kayaking to pistol shooting.
Such an approach might not be to
everyone’s taste – with intricate skills, it
might feel like you are making no progress.
But even if you do revert to stints of lengthy
practice, you can still reap some of the same
benefits by occasionally trying out your skills
in an unfamiliar situation. In tennis, you
might move to a different part of the court
for a couple of serves before returning to
the regular position; while playing scales
on a musical instrument, you might switch
hands temporarily. According to work by
Arnaud Boutin at the Leibniz Research
Centre for Working Environment and
Human Factors in Dortmund, Germany,
venturing out of your comfort zone in this
way helps to ensure that you improve your
overall performance rather than confining
your progress to the single task at hand.
“Otherwise, the longer you practise, the
harder it becomes to transfer the skills that
you’ve learned to new situations,” says Boutin.
If none of that helps you learn like a child,
simply adopting the arrogance of youth may
do no harm. “As we get older, we lose our
confidence, and I’m convinced that has a big
impact on performance,” says Wulf. To test the
assumption, she recently trained a small group
of people to pitch a ball. While half were given
no encouragement, she offered the others a
sham test, rigged to demonstrate that their
abilities were above average. They learned to
pitch on target with much greater accuracy
than those who didn’t get an ego boost.
Whether your itch to learn will ever match
Simcott’s appetite for foreign languages
is another matter. “What I do – it’s like an
extreme sport. There’s no need to learn that
many languages,” he says. He has recently
turned to Chinese, and has no plans to stop
after that. “I’m like a linguistic butterfly.
There’s always another, really far away, that
suddenly feels appealing.”
Still, embrace the idea that your mind is as
capable as Simcott’s, and the lure of extreme
learning might take hold of you too. n
David Robson is a features editor at New Scientist
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 35
Daniel Luong-Van/National Science Foundation

Pole position The most inhospitable places on Earth are

the best spots to witness the birth of the
universe, finds Govert Schilling

36 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

 Braving the extremes is
all in a day’s work at the
South Pole Telescope
I
T IS one of the biggest telescopes on the
planet, yet it looks remarkably small
against the vast Antarctic landscape.
In this blindingly white icy world where the
December sun never sets, it is hard to judge
distances. The true size of the South Pole
Telescope’s 10-metre-wide dish only becomes
apparent when our small tracked vehicle
pulls up next to the building that houses it.
No one considers walking here from the
US Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station just
a few hundred metres away. While a wind
chill of almost -40 ˚C is considered balmy
by residents at the station, my fingers grow
numb soon after I take off my gloves to snap
some pictures. And although I’m wearing
goggles that cover half my face, wind-drawn
tears freeze onto my eyelids.
Senior scientist Brad Benson of the
University of Chicago doesn’t seem to mind
the extreme cold and remoteness of this
barren place at the bottom of the world. After
all, the station has its own music room, bar,
even sauna – probably the hottest place on the
continent. Still, Benson’s enthusiasm mainly
stems from his work. He and his colleagues
are hot on the trail of a revolutionary
breakthrough in cosmology. Using a sensitive
camera installed at the telescope just over a
year ago, they hope to shed light on the first
trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a
second after the birth of the universe. If that
requires some sacrifices, so be it. “The South
Pole is one of the best places on Earth to do this
kind of research,” Benson says, as he wipes ice
crystals from his beard.
The newborn universe was incredibly
dense, insanely hot and filled with energetic
radiation. As the universe expanded and
cooled, the radiation’s energy became diluted
and its wavelength was stretched until, almost
14 billion years later, nothing is left but an all-
pervading glow of microwaves. Studying this
cosmic microwave background (CMB), often
dubbed the “afterglow of creation”, is the best
way for cosmologists to decipher the infancy
and subsequent evolution of the cosmos. For
instance, minute temperature variations in
the CMB, which were first discovered by space
missions in the 1990s, revealed the existence
of over-dense and under-dense patches of
primordial matter that grew into the galaxy
clusters and voids we see in the universe today.
The South Pole Telescope was built six years
ago to study the CMB in detail. However,
while CMB observations from the South Pole
Telescope and others can give us an excellent
picture of the universe a mere 380,000 years
after the big bang, they can’t go any further
back. At earlier times, space was filled with
a seething plasma of charged particles that
constantly absorbed and re-emitted photons,
meaning that light couldn’t escape. Only when
temperatures eventually dropped low enough
for these particles to combine into neutral
atoms could radiation, and therefore light,
propagate freely through the universe. So we
may have a baby photo of the universe from
the moment the cosmos became transparent,
but we haven’t captured the instant of birth.
It’s a pity, says Benson, for theory tells us
that exciting things happened in these very
first fleeting moments. According to the
hypothesis of cosmic inflation, the universe
started to expand exponentially when it
was only about 10-36 seconds old, driven by
a mysterious vacuum energy with negative
pressure. In a tiny fraction of a second, the
observable universe expanded from a size
smaller than an atom to roughly the size of
a grapefruit. Luckily for us, inflation came
to a halt when the cosmic clock marked
10-33 seconds or so, and a more sedate form of
expansion took over, allowing the subsequent
formation of galaxies, stars and planets.
Inflation is a popular idea, supported by
quantum physics and, to some extent, by
evidence from missions such as ESA’s Planck
explorer and NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave
Anisotropy Probe. It solves a number of
nagging problems in cosmology. For example,
it explains density variations in the early
universe as “blow-ups” of tiny quantum
fluctuations. It may even be related to the
strange dark energy that appears to be
accelerating cosmic expansion today.
Penetrating the darkness
Even so, frustratingly little is known about the
physics of inflation. Many different models
have been proposed, and astronomers aren’t
even entirely sure that it really happened.
Without being able to look back all the way
to an inflationary epoch, it seems impossible
to tell which model, if any, is right.
But there might be a way. Over the past
decade, cosmologists started to realise that
the sudden ending of inflation must have
sent shudders through space-time known
as gravitational waves, whose existence was
predicted by Einstein’s general theory of
relativity. Unlike radiation, these primordial
gravitational waves could travel through the
hot early universe, so their frequency and
power tells us about the state of the universe
at the time inflation ceased.
Primordial gravitational waves are too
faint to be picked up by some experiments,
such as the twin Laser Interferometer
Gravitational Observatories in Hanford,
Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, which
were built to spot the ripples through space-
time sent out by colliding black holes or
neutron stars. Yet such waves should still leave
a telltale pattern in the cosmic microwave
background. Detecting and characterising that
pattern might allow us to distinguish between
various models of inflation.
That’s why Benson is so excited about his
team’s new camera, the South Pole Telescope
Polarimeter (SPTpol). It is designed to make
detailed measurements of the polarisation
of the CMB radiation. In the same way that
sunlight is polarised when it reflects from a
lake or a road, the CMB radiation is polarised
as it scatters off electrons on its journey
through the universe. Gravitational waves are
predicted to subtly change the polarisation >
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 37

Amiba/ASIAA
Asad Aboobaker
pattern. As they ripple through space-time,
they shift the electrons in a distinctive way
and so leave their hallmark in the CMB (see
diagram, far right).
Spotting that pattern is going to be tough –
a bit like listening for the sound of a cricket
during a rock concert. The weak polarisation
signal from primordial gravitational waves is
overwhelmed by a much stronger one from
density fluctuations in the early universe.
This strong signal was first detected in 2002
by a telescope called the Degree Angular Scale
Interferometer, also at the South Pole. No
one knows how hard it will be to detect the
gravitational-wave polarisation pattern, says
Benson. “It’s a subtle effect,” says the South
Pole Telescope’s principal investigator John
Carlstrom. So far, the best upper limits of
gravitational-wave polarisation were
obtained in 2006 and 2007 by yet another
South Pole instrument, the Background
Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization
(BICEP) experiment.
High and dry
How come so many CMB telescopes are
located at one of the most remote and
inhospitable places on the planet? To observe
cosmic microwave radiation, you need to
be high and dry. Atmospheric water vapour
absorbs microwaves – the same principle that
makes a cup of water in your microwave oven
hot. As a result, you can’t observe the CMB at
sea level: there’s just too much water-laden
atmosphere above your telescope. And even on
a high mountaintop, you need really dry air.
The South Pole is at an altitude of 2830 metres
and the air is extremely dry, a fact evident to
every visitor. At times I find it hard to breathe,
and climbing a flight of stairs is a difficulty. By
the end of the day, my lips feel like parchment.
38 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
AMiBA in Hawaii (left),
EBEX detector (bottom
left) and the Atacama
Cosmology Telescope
(right)
govert schilling
In fact that’s nothing. The Array for Space Research and Technology Centre in
Microwave Background Anisotropy, AMiBA, is Noordwijk, the Netherlands. He hopes Planck
some 3400 metres up on the slopes of Mauna will be first to detect the polarisation signal
Loa on Hawaii. Conditions are particularly from inflationary gravitational waves.
good – for telescopes, at least – in the Atacama But Planck’s detectors are not as sensitive as
desert in Chile. Since 2012 the Polarbear some of the ground-based instruments, and
experiment to measure the CMB polarisation they are unable to observe the smallest-scale
has been housed at an altitude of 5200 metres patterns. That gives other CMB polarisation
near the summit of Cerro Toco. Later this year, experiments an opportunity to take the lead.
it will be joined by the ACTPol camera at the And there are plenty of them.
nearby Atacama Cosmology Telescope. This Several are running at high-altitude
will provide the most sensitive measurement locations. Others dangling under balloons
ever of the CMB polarisation, says Mike have recently flown high above Antarctica,
Niemack of Cornell University in Ithaca, New Australia and New Mexico. The BICEP-2 device
York, who helped develop the detectors for has been running since 2009 on a small
both the South Pole and Atacama telescopes telescope at the South Pole, while the EBEX
and who now works on the Atacama team. detector completed a 25-day balloon flight
Competition between the two teams is over Antarctica in January.
fierce, but friendly, says Niemack. And it won’t Yet more experiments are being planned.
stop at the current generation of polarimeters. “What I can say for sure is that there will be
The SPTPol team is already building a new, a lot of progress in the next few years,” says
upgraded instrument that will be ten times Spergel. He believes that confirming cosmic
as sensitive as its predecessor. Meanwhile,
Niemack and his collaborators are designing
an advanced version of ACTPol. Sensitivity,
angular resolution, frequency coverage and
sky coverage all have a role in the hunt for the
elusive polarisation fingerprint of inflation.
“We don’t know the strength of the signal yet.
This is exploratory science,” says David
Spergel of Princeton University.
With so much at stake, many teams are on
the same treasure hunt. The Planck mission,
for instance, has been mapping the CMB in
unprecedented detail since its launch in 2009.
In March this year, the team published the
most detailed maps ever made of the CMB
across the entire sky. They are still analysing
measurements from the satellite’s
polarimeters. “We plan to publish our first The Polarbear
polarimetry data about a year from now,” says experiment in Chile is
project scientist Jan Tauber of the European almost 5200 metres up
 Fingerprint of inflation
The cosmic microwave background radiation is predicted to carry a distinct polarisation pattern
created by primordial gravitational waves that will tell us about the state of the universe at the time
inflation ceased. Many telescopes are racing to make the first detection
Gravitational waves stretch and
INFLATION
compress space-time, leaving
END OF Normal their mark as a polarising pattern
INFLATION polarisation pattern
Polarisation pattern
BIG caused by
BANG gravitational waves
GR
AV
ITA
TIO
NAL
WA
VE
SP
RO
PA
GA
TE

10-40

UNIVERSE OPAQUE PR LIGH

OP T
10 Light is effectively trapped AG
-30
AT
because it scatters from ES
electrons and protons

10-20
UNIVERSE
TRANSPARENT
Electrons and protons
10-10 combine to create
hydrogen, allowing
light to propagate
Time since big bang 1
(seconds)

1010

COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND

380,000 years after big bang TODAY
13.82 billion years (1017 seconds)

“While a wind chill of -40 °C inflation through CMB polarisation will be
deserving of a physics Nobel prize.
is considered balmy by And who knows, the measurements may
residents of the South Pole already have been collected – if not by SPTPol
or Planck, then by BICEP-2 or EBEX. “We plan
station, my tears freeze” to publish preliminary results this year,”
says Jamie Bock, who is on the BICEP-2 team,
“but we’re still analysing three years of more
powerful data.” Analysis involves calibration,
understanding exactly how the instrument
processes signals and noise, and investigating
systematic errors. “It’s not easy,” says Bock,
“you have to worry about everything.”
Bock claims that the sensitivity of BICEP-2
has got to “interesting levels”. But he won’t be
drawn on whether the team has found any
imprint of inflation yet: “I can’t say, and if I
could, I couldn’t tell you.”
At the moment, the field is wide open.
“We don’t know the level at which primordial
gravitational waves produce CMB polarisation,”
says Shaul Hanany who leads the EBEX team,
polarbear telescope
to point the 1.5-metre telescope during its
flight, but the effect on the final results is yet
to be determined.
Witnessing how scientists like Benson leave
their comfortable homes for months on end
to live a spartan life at the bottom of the world
makes you realise how serious they are about
the quest for a firm proof of inflation. There’s
no guarantee of success. If the primordial
waves are not strong enough, the telltale
polarisation pattern “may never be discovered”,
says Carlstrom. Which is not to say that
inflation did not occur, he adds. “Based on
polarisation measurements, you will never
be able to refute inflation.”
Cosmologists aren’t disheartened by such
a prospect. Even seeing nothing at a certain
level will enable them to rule out a broad
class of different inflationary models. “That’s
progress,” says Spergel. n
Govert Schilling is an astronomy writer based in

“so we also don’t know who will be the first Amersfoort, the Netherlands. He spent a week in
to detect the signal. But a detection might Antarctica and the South Pole in December 2012 as
come within the next two years or so.” EBEX a selected media visitor of the US National Science
suffered a glitch in one of the motors used Foundation’s Antarctic Program

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 39

 OK computer

40 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

Adam Mitchinson/getty
Imagine controlling a machine with a simple hand wave or
“thumbs-up”. A new way of interacting with the digital world
will soon be a reality, says MacGregor Campbell
F
AMILY lore has it that my wife’s
grandmother Cleo once had a problem
with a mouse. When she first sat down to
learn how to use a computer, her four sons
crowded around, peppering her with advice.
“Move the pointer to the left,” one said. She
moved the mouse to the left. “Now move it to
the right.” No problem. “Now move the
pointer up.” Cleo lifted the mouse off the table,
surprised that the cursor refused to follow.
It sounds silly, but her instinct was natural.
To make our computers understand us, we’ve
had to squish our intuitive body movements
into the two-dimensional plane of the mouse
or touchscreen. That’s about to change.
From public kiosks to your living room,
this year everyday computers will begin to
understand our gestural vocabulary with
unprecedented precision, right down to ultra-
fine finger movements. How will this change
the way we interact with the digital world?
Some advocates claim the mouse and
keyboard will become obsolete. That’s just
hype. Gestural computing’s more interesting
impact will be how it changes us – from the
new language of fist bumps, finger shapes and
hand signals we may be asked to learn, to an
affliction called “gorilla arm”. In turn, our
behaviour will shape the technology’s
evolution. It’s time to wave goodbye to our
old notions of how we navigate digital space.
The first computers able to recognise
human gestures emerged in the 1970s, when
researchers equipped people with batons or
wearable accelerometers. The crude resolution
of these technologies stopped them taking
off. Still, limited bodily gestures in two
dimensions were incorporated into personal
computers: using a mouse to drag a scroll bar
or double-click on a desktop icon required a
physical motion with the hand and arm,
rather than typing code. Multi-touch screens
added extra moves to our gestural lexicon: we
learned that spreading apart a pinched finger
and thumb on a screen, for example, zoomed
into a photo or a map.
Until very recently, however, most hand
and body language was invisible to computers.
While arm, leg, and torso positions can be used
to control video games – thanks to depth-
sensing technology like Microsoft’s Kinect –
our computers, televisions and other devices
have largely stuck to more traditional means.
Yet this July, many are anticipating big
things from a device made by Leap Motion, a
company based in San Francisco. It will launch
a $70 box that can be plugged into most
computers, with the ability to track ultra-fine
hand and finger movements. The company
has not disclosed exactly how it works, but by
using a combination of infrared and optical
cameras with clever software, the Leap can
detect gestures to a resolution of less than a
millimetre, inside a half-metre-cubed region
of air. Leap Motion’s app store called Airspace
will launch at the same time, with a host of
gesture-controlled software ranging from
music to painting programs.
Read the signals
Many think that it won’t be long before high-
precision gesture detection can span entire
rooms. For example, Jan Zizka and Alex Olwal
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s
Media Lab have developed SpeckleSense,
a device that uses laser-speckle – subtle
patterns caused by light waves of the same
frequency interfering with one another – to
track motion with far greater precision and
range than the likes of Kinect.
All of a sudden, then, the fidelity of gestural
language that computers can understand is
poised to expand significantly. “The hands
The old Star Trek
greeting could soon
take on an entirely
different meaning
have become free of instruments, so the
gestures that were always there now emerge
into the daylight,” says Jacob Wobbrock,
a human-computer interaction researcher
at the University of Washington in Seattle.
“There is no question that a gesture
vocabulary of sorts will enter further into the
psyche of today’s and future computer users.”
So what kinds of 3D gestures might we pick
up in the next few years? After all, the reverse-
pinch gesture for touchscreens had to be
learned – Apple even patented the move (see
“Patently absurd?”, page 43) – and if you
demonstrated the movement to somebody
only a decade ago, they would have had no
idea what it meant. Might there be similar
hand movements that we will use to trigger
specific commands?
The Leap comes equipped with the ability to
recognise a few basic gestures like “key tap”, a
single-finger tapping movement which might
be used to bring up a keyboard on screen, for
instance. And independent app developers are
training it to recognise their own gestures,
such as “thumbs-up”, which some have used
as a command to “like” a Facebook post.
More clues about our future body language
can be found from looking at gesture-
recognition prototypes developed in the
lab over the past few years. Designers have
come up with a range of hand and arm >
WS photography/flickr/getty
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 41
All in hand commands (see diagram, left).
All in hand These efforts suggest that the best gestural
Designers of gesture-recognition devices have
Designers
dreamed upofcountless
gesture-recognition
commands.devices have
Might the commands are novel moves that the user
dreamed
followingup countless
moves catch commands.
on? Might the must do quite deliberately – otherwise they

all photos: ws photography/flickr/getty

following moves catch on? risk accidentally triggering something on
screen. “We look for gestures that are easy to
do, but that aren’t used in normal
communication,” says Hrvoje Benko at
Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington.
One of these gestures is to pinch all four
fingers together with the thumb to grab the
air, for example. This motion might allow you
to drag an object, like a file, across a screen.
Other researchers have experimented with
Switch on gesture recognition
gestures for resizing or rotating. Spreading
Switch on gesture recognition two raised fists apart can be used to zoom into
the screen using some versions of Kinect, for
example, or turning a flat hand clockwise or
anticlockwise will rotate an image.
Memory games
Which of these myriad gestures will catch on
is unclear, but we can be confident that there
is a limit to how many we’ll be able to usefully
Point and click remember. Gesture sets of 10 or more might
Point and click place a prohibitive strain on memory. “Once
you go past a few basic gestures, it gets really
confusing,” says Chris Harrison of the Human-
Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie
Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Finding a way to design a gesture
vocabulary that is useful for complex
interaction, but simple enough to remember,
is an open challenge, says Jamie Zigelbaum, a
designer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 2009, Zigelbaum and colleagues at the MIT
Media Lab designed a catalogue of gestures for
Undo a hand-recognition device called g-speak,
Undo
which is built by Oblong Industries in Los
Angeles. Their gesture set allowed users to
browse, view, and organise video clips using
20 commands. Some moves were fairly
straightforward, such as holding the hand in
the shape of a gun to point and select, but
many involved positioning the arms in
strange arrangements, and led to criticism
that the commands were too difficult to learn.
One way around this memory issue is to
train people as they go, rather than ask them
to learn gestures from diagrams or videos.
One of Benko’s projects, called LightGuide,
helps with this problem by using a ceiling-
mounted projector to beam visual
instructions onto a person’s body. The system
displays arrows directly onto the hands,
say, guiding them to the correct positions.
Or you could let people customise their
own gestures – be it for switching off a
computer or turning down the volume on a
television. In a recent experiment, Miguel
Nacenta and colleagues at the University of
St Andrews, UK, taught one group to use 16
predefined gestures, while another group got
the opportunity to invent 16 hand movements
themselves. The following day, participants
who had designed their own gestures were
able to recall up to 44 per cent more of them.

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

In the lobby of Microsoft Research in just walking by.

Grab and move Redmond, Washington, there’s an
Grab and move
elevator that reads you like a book.
It is equipped with a camera
that peers at people in front of its
doors. When someone approaches,
it will open – but only when it senses
that the person is looking to use it.
The system has processed many
Zoom hours of video footage of people
Zoom mingling in the lobby and has learned
to distinguish between someone
intending to use it and someone
As computers come to recognise
ever-more-detailed gestures (see
main story), they will be able to infer
more about us. Other researchers
have programmed computers to use
body language to infer a person’s
mood, be it happy, angry or sad. Such
“emotionally intelligent” machines
would better respond to our needs.
So if you are slouching in front of a
screen, bear in mind that a computer
may soon be watching.

42 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

 Patently absurd?

It’s hard to believe that waving our
arms, hands or fingers could spark
heated patent litigation, but if the
history of the two-dimensional
gestures on touchscreens is any
precedent, such a fate awaits 3D
gesture interfaces, too.
A battle over 2D gestures began
after a Silicon Valley party in the
early 2000s, when Apple’s CEO Steve
Jobs got riled by a Microsoft engineer
boasting about its stylus-controlled
touchscreen Tablet PC. Jobs ordered
his engineers to build their own
touch interface, but he was adamant
that it would use only hand gestures.
They came up with specific moves
like pinch-to-zoom, tap-to-zoom
and swipe-to-unlock – which Apple
quickly filed patents to protect.
This sparked a gestural-patent
landgrab. For instance, Google
applied for a patent on a text-
recognition gesture involving
underlining words in a picture with a
swipe, while Nokia’s gesture patent
applications included circular or oval
swipes, with the size of the circle or
oval dictating the degree to which
the screen zooms in on an image.
Attempts to patent 2D gestures
ultimately failed. Apple recently
took Samsung to court over the
latter’s use of the pinch-to-zoom and
swipe-to-unlock movements. In the
end, the US Patent and Trademark
Office ruled Apple’s patents invalid
on the grounds that earlier
inventions used the ideas.
An optimist might think that this
would discourage a similar landgrab
over 3D gestures. Alas, it hasn’t.
Microsoft holds patents for Kinect
that cover flicks of the hand to scroll
on screen, or gestures that call up a
search box. And Intellectual Ventures
of Bellevue, Washington, has filed
a patent on a way to control a
television that includes a raised
“flat-hand” gesture to get its
attention. The company is notorious
for aggressively protecting its
intellectual property too.
Litigation that tied the tech
industry in knots for the past few
years looks set to be repeated and,
as usual, the only winners will be
the lawyers. Paul Marks

Another human constraint that will shape
the development of our gestural vocabularies
is the physicality required. The movements
will have to be something that people can do
repeatedly, over long chunks of time.
In the early days of human-computer
interaction using touchscreens, researchers
identified an affliction that they dubbed
“gorilla arm” – in which one’s arm feels heavy
after waving it about for too long. It is no
problem for phones or tablets sitting on your
lap, but the ache soon strikes for any device
that requires you to reach out the arms
continually – a wall-mounted screen, for
instance. Gestural systems that require
expressive hand movements in the air, then,
are likely to cause a lot more gorilla arms, so
more subtle moves may well come to rule.
”Some gestures are not only
The same physicality that can make
gestures tiring can also make them
inappropriate in certain settings. For example,
in a 2010 experiment conducted by Adam
Fourney at the University of Waterloo, in
Ontario, Canada, presenters used a gesture-
based slide-show system in a classroom for
two weeks. They could use gestures both to
navigate back and forth through the slides,
and interact with slide content by, for
example, zooming into figures, and
highlighting and expanding bullet points.
Yet students said they preferred the presenters would be exhausting to the spirit.”
to use a remote control to change slides, not
gestures, because it was distracting. They did,
however, approve of gestures to interact with
the slide content itself – pointing at a diagram,
for example – possibly because these gestures
aren’t too removed from movements that
presenters already make, Fourney suggests.
Another factor shaping our nascent gestural
vocabulary will be that we tend to look silly
waving our hands around in the air. One
sociological study of how families use Kinect
games in the home, by Richard Harper and
Helena Mentis of Microsoft Research in
Cambridge, UK, suggests that the fun comes
from participants laughing at one another as
tiring but inappropriate.
We tend to look silly waving
our hands around in the air”
they contort their bodies. While technology
has changed social norms before, having to
perform a similar dance routine might not
be so desirable in settings like the workplace.
“It would force us to use our bodies like a
ballerina uses hers. With exceptional control,
strength and discipline,” says Harper. “That
So rather than killing off the keyboard or
mouse – which remain hard to beat for some
tasks – the gestures that catch on will become
incorporated into the multifaceted language
we use to communicate with computers.
Writing an essay? Use a keyboard. Moulding
an object for your 3D printer, or sorting
through files? Fingers and hands may be
better. Human-computer interaction
researchers nowadays call this “multi-modal”
interaction. “When a new mode of interaction
comes to life, it doesn’t kill off the other ones.
It extends the possibilities, makes new
interactions possible,” says Benko.
The true impact of gestural computing,
then, will be that it adds a channel of
communication we’ve never been able to use
before. We have always had myriad ways to
convey meaning to fellow human beings – be
it voice, text or body language – but until now,
our computers have been blind to many of
these cues. When Grandma Cleo lifted her
mouse off the desk, it made perfect sense.
If she had lived to see it, she may well have
appreciated this moment in time in which
machines are finally coming to understand
our language, instead of us struggling to
understand theirs. n
MacGregor Campbell is a New Scientist consultant
based in Portland, Oregon

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 43


Can desert be turned
into fertile oases using
nothing but seawater
and sunshine? Yes,
discovers Fred Pearce,
but at a price...
Just add
seawater
MICHAEL POLIZA/NGS
44 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
T
HE smell of ammonia wafts past me as
I stand next to the world’s largest urea
and ammonia factory, clutching the gas
mask I’ve been issued as a precaution. Gas
flares glint through the desert haze. This is
Mesaieed, a closed industrial city ringed by
security cordons in the Gulf state of Qatar – and
the unlikely setting for a remarkable oasis.
The heart of this oasis is a greenhouse
full of cucumbers. But this is no ordinary
greenhouse: it is delightfully cool inside,
despite the desert heat. Surrounding it are a
series of small garden plots growing desert
plants, each walled in by what look like
cardboard hedges. Their effect is startling.
When I step downwind of a hedge, the air
temperature instantly drops, as if I have set
foot in front of a powerful air conditioner.
And next to the plots is an array of mirrors for
concentrating the power of the desert sun.
The most remarkable thing about this little
island of glass and greenery (pictured on page
47) is that there is no external supply of either
water or electricity – the plants are kept cool
and watered using only sunlight and seawater.
Some see this pilot project as the first
step towards turning hundreds of square
kilometres of parched coastal desert into
fertile farms. The head of the project,
Norwegian biologist Joakim Hauge, has an
even bigger dream. He wants to do nothing
less than revegetate the desert. And the claim
isn’t as crazy as it might sound.
The heart of this prototype is the
greenhouse. Worldwide, greenhouses are an
ever more popular way to grow high-value
vegetables and flowers. In their controlled
environment, it is possible to get much
higher yields than outdoors, making up for
the higher costs. But with their insatiable
thirst for water and need for heating in winter,
most greenhouses are not very green.
 This greenhouse is different. For starters,
whereas greenhouses in temperate lands
are mostly for keeping crops warm, here in
Qatar the main task is keeping them cool.
This, says Hauge as we tour the site, is done
by evaporative cooling.
At the front of the greenhouse, facing into
the prevailing northwesterly wind, is a wall of
honeycombed cardboard. It is kept constantly
wet, cooling and moistening the air that enters
the greenhouse. The clever part is that no
precious fresh water is wasted on this task;
instead, it is done with seawater. The owner
of this industrial complex and one of the
project’s funders, the Qatar Fertiliser Company
(QAFCO), has built a network of pipes to deliver
seawater for cooling, and the greenhouse taps
into that supply.
Inside, in the cool created by the wet
cardboard, I met Stephen Clarkson, who grew
cucumbers in the UK for 40 years before
heading to Qatar. “We plan to grow 1200
cucumbers per square metre per year in here,”
he says. So far it’s going well – Clarkson was
about to harvest his second crop of baby
cucumbers.
The ultimate test has yet to come. During my
visit, in March, temperatures outside were in
the 30s, but in the low 20s in the greenhouse.
In August, it can reach 50 °C outside, but the
greenhouse needs to stay below 30 °C for
crops to thrive. Hauge is confident that it will.
As head of the rather grandly named Sahara
Forest Project, the private Norwegian
company that built and runs the prototype,
he has a lot riding on its success.
Keeping the greenhouse cool and humid
reduces the plants’ need for fresh water, but it
still has to come from somewhere. The answer
again is seawater. A concentrated solar power
system provides the heat and electricity
needed to desalinate seawater for irrigation,
Adding water – here
from natural rainfall –
transforms deserts
When desert meets sea
In a large-scale seawater greenhouse facility,
the vision is that nearly half the land area would
be devoted to greening the desert
Native plants and trees for Outside Salt-tolerant
revegetating desert crops plants grown
in seawater
Greenhouse for
high-value crops
Farming algae
Solar mirrors to
power desalinator Buildings and
and other machinery equipment
production
Salt
as well as power all the pumps, fans and
other machinery. This is the purpose of the
300 square metres of parabolic mirrors,
which track the sun and focus its rays onto
a pipe containing oil.
But the prototype is more than just a
souped-up greenhouse. The aim is to use
seawater to maximum effect, Virginia Corless,
an astrophysicist recruited as the project’s
science manager, told me as we headed
outside. “What we have is a cascade of uses
for the seawater.”
Some goes straight into ponds for growing
marine algae. Algae farms are in their infancy,
says Patrick Brading, a marine biologist fresh
from the University of Essex in the UK, who
was preparing a batch of algae for release into
a pond. “A lot of basic things are still unknown.
I am trying to answer those questions, and it is
brilliant to work here with a constant supply
of brine to do open-air experiments.”
In theory, the algal ponds could provide
anything from feedstock for pharmaceuticals
and food supplements to food for livestock
and farmed fish, Brading says. There are also
plans to use seawater to grow a range of native
salt-tolerant plants, which could be used for a
similar range of purposes.
The leftover brine from all these processes –
with a salt content of 10 to 15 per cent – is used
to wet the cardboard honeycombs around the
small garden plots. “We call them evaporative
hedges,” Corless says. Their cooling effect
allows desert plants and a few tough herbs and
crops to grow where none would grow before.
The plots are planted with a variety of grasses,
as well as barley, rocket and medicinal plants
such as aloe vera. The aim is ecosystem
rehabilitation, not just desert farming.
The long-term plan, she says, is to grow
trees as well, which should eventually take
over the cooling role of the cardboard hedges.
Brine from the hedges, now with a >
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 45
”The effect is startling: the
air temperature instantly
drops when I step behind
the cardboard hedge”
salinity of around 30 per cent, is pumped to
evaporation ponds to produce salt. This can
be sold, and also avoids the need to dump
extremely salty waste water back in the sea,
which can harm marine life.
None of these technologies is new, says
Corless, but they have never been put together
before. Well, not quite like this. The seawater
greenhouse was actually devised two decades
ago by British inventor Charlie Paton, who
set aside a successful career devising special
lighting effects for films and theatres to
pursue a vision of growing crops in deserts.
I have written about his work before, and
before I left for Qatar I visited him at his
lab-cum-home in east London.
Paton has built several pilot greenhouses
to test his ideas. They have won architectural
and environmental prizes, but so far they have
failed to catch on. Two – including the first
ever seawater greenhouse, built on Tenerife in
1992 – have since been abandoned. Only one,
A briny business
A coastal greenhouse would make maximum use of seawater – for cooling, for growing algae and salt-tolerant plants,
as well as to provide fresh water for irrigation
Salt water
Fresh water
SOLAR
DESALINATOR
Fresh water
for irrigation
GREENHOUSE
For growing
cash crops
OUTDOOR PLOTS
Revive desert
ecosystems
EVAPORATORS
Cooling for outdoor plots
46 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
built in Oman in 2004 on land vacated by
farmers for want of fresh water, still produces
crops – and occasional research papers.
Most recently, Paton’s company helped
design the Qatar project and was also involved
in building a separate project, a trial seawater
greenhouse in South Australia that is now
selling tomatoes to supermarkets in Adelaide.
But he disagreed with some of the changes
made by his partners and severed his links
with both projects last year.
One change in particular concerned him.
Paton came up with his idea during a holiday
in the Moroccan desert, when the windows
inside his bus steamed up during a rainstorm
and left a towel he was using as a pillow soaking
wet. His greenhouse design exploits this effect
for desalination: cool seawater is pumped
through a maze of pipes in a roof cavity, and
fresh water condenses out of the air – made
humid by the seawater evaporators – onto the
outside of the pipes. The system can produce
up to 20 litres of water a day per square metre
of greenhouse – more, says Paton proudly,
than falls in a rainforest.
But this elegant scheme failed to impress
his partners. The Australians say that the
condenser pipes were a nightmare because
they sprang leaks. Both projects ditched them
SEAWATER
Salinity
~3.5%
EVAPORATORS
Cooling for
greenhouse
Salinity
~10%
in favour of desalination using concentrated
solar power, though the Qatar greenhouse
does also collect moisture that condenses
on the inside of the roof at night. Solar
desalination is simply more efficient, Hauge
told me as we watched the sun beat down on
the mirrors.
Costly cucumbers
But this high-tech approach does add to the
considerable price tag. Back in Doha after our
day in the desert, I went through some back-
of-the-envelope sums with Hauge. The Qatari
greenhouse cost $6 million to build, with
the money coming from QAFCO and the
Norwegian agrochemicals company Yara.
Given the anticipated annual harvest of
720,000 cucumbers for 10 years, that would
work out at a capital cost of almost a dollar per
cucumber, even without overheads. That is
spectacularly expensive: cucumbers were on
sale in the Doha souks for a fifth of the price.
Together with the fact that the pilot project
was hurriedly constructed to showcase at the
UN climate conference in Qatar last December,
some might wonder if the project is just an
expensive publicity exercise, I suggested to
Hauge. No, he insisted. His partners were
ALGAL SALT-
PONDS TOLERANT
PLANTS
Biomass
harvested for
biofuel
or fodder
Evaporation
Salinity Salinity of brine to
~10% ~10% produce salt
SALT
PONDS
Salinity
~30%
 serious. Of course the cucumbers from the
prototype are expensive, but it was built to
carry out research, not to make money.
“Economically, this kind of farming is only
feasible at a large scale.”
And there are plans to go large in Jordan,
which is one of the most water-stressed
countries in the world and increasingly reliant
on food imports. Later this year, the Sahara
Forest Project hopes to start building a facility
near the Red Sea 20 times larger than the Qatar
pilot. If all goes well, the idea is to expand to
200 hectares, and eventually to 3000.
In such a billion-dollar megaproject, the
vision is that up to half of the area would
be devoted to vegetating the desert with
everything from dune grasses to native trees,
such as the nitrogen-fixing thorn acacia
(Acacia tortilis). Over time, as trees grow
and the soil improves, these plots will need
less assistance, allowing resources to be
switched to other areas. “This is not just
about sustainable agriculture. It is about
restorative ecology,” says Hauge.
There is no doubt that it is possible to green
desert plots that are actively cooled and
irrigated, and that planting trees can have all
kinds of benefits for the immediate vicinity,
from preventing erosion to providing shelter
Elsa Naumann/Sahara Forest Project
Unlikely oasis: the Qatar
prototype is built in
the shadow of a giant
industrial complex
from the sun and wind. What isn’t clear is
what will happen to the untouched land a
little further away. Simple modelling done
for the Sahara Forest Project in 2009 suggests
such greening will not produce significantly
more clouds or rainfall in the vicinity.
However, downwind areas will be cooler and
more humid, and the hope is that this altered
microclimate will encourage more vegetation
to grow naturally, with the effect spreading as
positive feedbacks kick in.
This is plausible, says Paul Valdes of the
University of Bristol in the UK, a climate
modeller who has studied why the Sahara
abruptly flipped from a green state into desert
around 8000 years ago. “But there is probably
a threshold before the effect really starts
having an impact,” he says, and this threshold
will vary from place to place. “This would
not happen in all deserts.” In other words, in
some places greening a relatively small area
might greatly boost natural vegetation in
the surroundings, but in other places even
greening a very large area would make
no difference.
Finding out what the threshold might
be will require both fieldwork and detailed
modelling. Complicating matters further is
global warming, which is expected to make
dry areas even drier.
There are cheaper ways to revive desert
ecosystems and turn back advancing deserts.
In Niger, on the edge of the Sahara, simple
measures such as protecting trees and digging
ditches to catch rainwater have had a dramatic
effect. Then again, these approaches won’t
work in drier regions, or deliver cash crops.
In 20 years, Hauge thinks, seawater
greenhouses could be sprouting everywhere
from the Atacama desert of northern Chile
to California and North Africa, where some
coastal aquifers have already been pumped
dry. In the Egyptian desert, the 19,000-square-
kilometre Qattara depression could be
exploited. It is around 100 kilometres from
the coast, but could receive seawater by
gravity as it is below sea level.
Paton has a similar vision. He says the
technology could save 20,000 hectares of
greenhouses in Almeria in southern Spain,
which supply fruit and vegetables to much
of Europe but are now running out of
underground fresh water. (Another possible
solution is setting up closed greenhouses
which recycle most of their water.)
And seawater greenhouses could link up
with Desertec, the European plan to harvest
solar energy in the Sahara desert. A small
fraction of that energy could be kept in Africa
to desalinate seawater for growing crops.
Placing solar plants near greenhouses could
have several advantages, such as helping
protect them from wind and dust – this is one
of the aspects being investigated in Qatar.
But will investors stump up the vast
amounts needed to realise these dreams?
Perhaps. The financial crisis has dented
enthusiasm for grand projects, yet the bottom
line has changed since Paton first came up
with his idea. Food prices are soaring, world
demand for greenhouse-grown fruit and
vegetables is rising by 10 per cent a year, and
more and more countries are running short
of fresh water. The owner of the trial project
in Australia, Sundrop Farms, this year got
approval to build a 16-hectare, commercial-
scale seawater greenhouse, with construction
due to start in August. If it can turn a profit,
heads will turn.
Sundrop, though, is focusing on growing
cash crops – its facility has no desert plots or
algae ponds. And perhaps that’s telling. My
trip left me unconvinced that I will ever see
vast areas of the Sahara turn green as massed
ranks of cardboard hedges advance across the
sands. On the other hand, people have talked
for decades about how desalination could be
the solution to producing more crops at a time
of growing water shortages. With the seawater
greenhouse, there might at last be a practical
way to do so. n
Fred Pearce is a consultant for New Scientist based
in London
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 47
CULTURELAB

Call of the wild

Tales of the natural world enthral and entertain. But do they translate into
personal engagement with nature, wonders Stephanie Pain

conjured up for us wild places and singular species – a tree with no By contrast, city pigeons, it is
Ginkgo: The tree that time forgot by
astonishing creatures, but for relatives, unique leaves, and probably safe to say, are more
Peter Crane, Yale University Press, £25
every reader inspired to get closer extraordinary charisma – is a hated than loved. When Ken
The Global Pigeon by Colin Jerolmack,
to nature in some way, there are survivor from a prehistoric world. Livingstone became Mayor of
University of Chicago Press, $27.50
thousands who simply enjoy the Once ginkgo and its kin grew all London in 2000, one of his first
Looking for the Goshawk by Conor
read. Nature, as publishers and over the world. But as the climate moves was to try to rid Trafalgar
Mark Jameson, Bloomsbury, £18.99
TV executives know, makes great cooled 100 million years ago, they Square of what he called “rats
NATURE writing is being touted entertainment. retreated until eventually a single with wings”. The mayor of Venice
as a new literary genre for new So if we do want to inspire species hung on in China, clinging followed suit, taking on the
times. Most of us live in towns a deeper, more constructive to stream-side slopes. It is fitting, pigeons – and sellers of pigeon
and cities but we are all keen relationship with nature, do we then, that a fossil expert tells the food – of Piazza San Marco,
naturalists now – at least by proxy. know how? For me, the key is to story of how this tenacious tree a place as famous for its birds
The more remote our physical instil a sense of wonder. escaped the fate of its relatives, as its historic buildings and
relationship with the natural exorbitantly priced cafes. Yet look
world, the greater our appetite to up to the rooftops in many of the
experience it through other eyes: world’s great cities and you will
fed properly, even the most city- find a league of pigeon lovers –
bound will reconnect with nature. men (almost without exception)
That, at least, is the theory. who tend and fly pigeons from
And there is a growing number rooftop coops.
of publications to meet this Colin Jerolmack almost
“demand”: wilderness journals, certainly does not consider The
species “biographies”, and year- Global Pigeon a study of nature.
Bernhard Schmerl/FLPA

in-the-life-of accounts of familiar He is an ethnographer, more

animals – many of which prove interested in the nature of culture.
more fascinating than we knew. In this fascinating examination
In this “new” nature writing, of people and their relationships
everything is close up and with pigeons, he reveals much
personal – and not just the about our attitudes to animals,
wildlife. The beguiling lives of Ginkgo survived because people all known only from fossils. to each other and to the society
birds, butterflies and backyard discovered its delights 1000 years ago Much is mysterious about we live in.
bugs come with an obligatory ginkgo, but there’s no doubt why Like a good field biologist,
foray into the life and thoughts Fascination is a better spur than it survives today: humans saved Jerolmack spent years staking out
of the author. An engaging bit of guilt, and hard-won knowledge it. Around 1000 years ago, people his subjects and gathering
storytelling, some confidences more compelling than the discovered the tree’s many observations. The difference is that
shared, and we will be more confessions of a nature lover. delights. They ate its vile-smelling his study sites are pigeon-infested
inclined to nurture what is left Among a clutch of new books, nuts. They used it as a medicine. city squares where lonely old folk
of nature. Maybe. Ginkgo has all the right And they revered it for its beauty feed the birds, pet shops that sell
Nature writing has always been ingredients. It is one of those rare and longevity – its quality of nothing but pigeons, and pigeon
popular. Gilbert White’s detailed works written by a scholar whose “otherness” probably helped. houses high above the streets.
observations of his surroundings passion for his subject makes you Soon the tree became a fixture in Jerolmack kills time with old-
in The Natural History of want to go out and hug a ginkgo – temple gardens throughout Asia. time “fliers” in New York as they
Selbourne have captivated readers or at least seek one out to examine Today, ginkgo is resurgent, wait for their birds to come home.
for more than 200 years. Even it more closely. grown in gardens as an eye- He sips coffee in Berlin with
sedate Victorians snapped up By rights, that should be catching specimen with an air homesick Turks who see their
Alfred Russel Wallace’s brilliant impossible, says Peter Crane, of ancient mystery. Millions birds as a link with home and the
evocation of a more exotic world an eminent palaeobotanist and of ginkgos line city streets, the culture of their fathers. All the
in The Malay Archipelago. former head of the UK’s Royal ultimate symbol of survival while, Jerolmack learns about the
Generations of fine writers have Botanic Gardens in Kew. This in the face of global change. shifting shape of communities,

48 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

 For more books and arts coverage and to add your comments, visit newscientist.com/culturelab
Peter Cairns/Northshots
Secretive predator: wild goshawks
are a very rare sight in the UK
the cultures that grow up around
pigeon-keeping and about pigeon
politics. Like ginkgo, pigeons
survive because they thrive
among people, but here it is the
stories of the people who care for
them that enthral.
Of the three new books, Conor
Mark Jameson’s Looking for the
Goshawk is perhaps the most in
line with the new breed of nature
writing, in that Jameson is as
much a part of the story as the
bird he is obsessed with. The
goshawk is frustratingly elusive,
so as Jameson travels hopefully
from wood to forest and farther
afield to New York and Berlin, he
has plenty of time to examine our
role in shaping the fortunes of
this fearsome predator and to
reflect on what that says about us.
Few people in the UK would
recognise a goshawk because they
are unlikely to have seen one.
More than a century ago, they
were trapped, shot and poisoned
to extinction. Since the 1960s,
goshawks have been quietly
returning, thanks mainly to the
escape of captive birds. Goshawks
are spectacular predators with
terrible talons, able to despatch
crows, pigeons, buzzards and
hares with a single slash. Despite
their size and impressive
weaponry, they keep out of sight.
Often the only sign of their
presence is a mound of feathers
or pile of clean-picked bones.
Jameson works for the UK’s
Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds, and although he knows
“Goshawks are being
killed and the killers
are taking care to get
rid of the evidence”
ornithologists who are acquainted
with all the places goshawks are
likely to inhabit, he rarely gets
more than the odd glimpse.
The birds are far less secretive
beyond the UK. In Berlin,
goshawks breed in the city, and
people seem happy to have them.
But in the UK, the birds have
reared many hundreds, even
thousands, of young, and yet
the population has not grown.
Some chicks have been shot
in the nest. But most young
simply disappear without trace –
along with their leg rings. When
other large birds die, some are
usually found and their rings
returned. In the case of the
goshawk – zilch. The implication
is clear: goshawks are being killed
and the killers are taking care to
get rid of the evidence.
Forty years ago, shooting and
poisoning birds of prey was
widespread, and the killing
invariably blamed on old-time
gamekeepers, men born and bred
to view birds of prey as the enemy.
Attitudes have changed, and some
of the rarest species are making a
comeback. But not the goshawk.
I assumed the urge to protect
non-indigenous pheasants at the
expense of this spectacular native
bird had disappeared along with
the old-time keepers. It seems
I was wrong. Perhaps Jerolmack
should apply his ethnographer’s
eye to that. n
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 49
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3URMHFW0DQDJHU
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$W7HVVHOODZHSURYLGHFRQVXOWDQF\VHUYLFHVDQGFUHDWHVRIWZDUH
VROXWLRQVIRUVFLHQWLVWVDQGHQJLQHHUVWRVROYHUHDOZRUOGSUREOHPV
IURPGHYHORSLQJVPDUWHUGUXJWULDOVWRPLQLPL]LQJULVNLQRLODQGJDV
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:HKDYHYDFDQFLHVLQRXURI¿FHVLQWKH8.DQG1/IRU3URMHFW
0DQDJHUVZKRKDYHSURYHQH[SHULHQFHRIGHOLYHULQJVRIWZDUH
VHUYLFHVSURMHFWVWRFOLHQWVRQWLPHDQGZLWKLQEXGJHW3URMHFW
WHDPVDQGVL]HVYDU\VR\RXVKRXOGEHÀH[LEOHHQRXJKWR
XQGHUWDNHDGGLWLRQDOUROHVDFFRUGLQJWRLQGLYLGXDOSURMHFWQHHGV
VXFKDVEXVLQHVVDQDO\VWRUWHFKQLFDOOHDG
<RXVKRXOGKDYHDVFLHQWL¿FRUQXPHUDWHGHJUHH0DVWHUV
RU3K'DQGLGHDOO\KDYHFRPHWKURXJKDVRIWZDUH
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9LVLWZZZWHVVHOODFRP
www.NewScientistJobs.com
Radiation Protection Scientist
CRCE Chilton
Starting range £28,242 to £29,832
37.5 hours per week
Public Health England will provide strategic leadership
and vision for protecting and improving the nation’s
health. Its ambition is to lead nationally and enable
locally a transformation in the health expectations of all
people in England regardless of where they live and the
circumstance of their birth. It will achieve this through
the application of research, knowledge and skills.
Public Health England became an executive agency of
the Department of Health on 1 April 2013. It is a distinct
delivery organisation with operational autonomy to
advise and support Government, local authorities and
the NHS in a professionally independent manner.
The Radon Group is part of the Dosimetry Services
Department in CRCE. We provide a range of services
to support house holders, landlords and employers
to assess the radon risk in their premises and to
support them in their decisions to reduce high radon
levels. Research is focused on improving the
understanding and communication of: the distribution
of radon affected properties across the UK; improving
the effectiveness of radon ‘find and fix’ campaigns
aimed at house holder, landlords and employers; the
effectiveness and durability of radon remediation and
prevention measures that can be installed in buildings
either when elevated levels are found in existing
buildings or at the time of construction.
You should have a science degree or equivalent with a
high level of analytical (statistical) and IT skills and the
ability to work in a close knit team with firm deadlines.
You will require excellent oral and written communication
skills as communicating information to members of the
public through to professionals in Local Authorities
and industry is an essential part of the role.
This post is at PHE’s Centre for Radiation, Chemical
and Environmental Hazards in Oxfordshire OX11 0RQ.
For additional information please contact Sue Hodgson,
on 01235 825372 or sue.hodgson@phe.gov.uk
To find out more and apply visit: https://www.jobs.
nhs.uk/cgi-bin/vacdetails.cgi?selection=913105749
Post reference: J84-CRCE-MW-10437046
Closing date: 2 June 2013.
Public Health England promotes diversity in the workplace and
is an equal opportunities employer
25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 51
www.NewScientistJobs.com
Trainee Healthcare Scientists in Clinical
Bioinformatics – Genomics
Exciting opportunities to use your science degree for patient and public benefit
Salary c.£25,500 plus location allowance
The interface between computing, biology and medicine is
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areas to work within the NHS.
Join a unique team who are inspired to apply their exceptional
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The golden age of vaccines
52 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Excellent training opportunities are offered within this
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hospitals and health services in England and Wales.
This is a three year postgraduate programme and
successful candidates will be employed by an NHS Trust
for the duration of their training. Trainees are also enrolled
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Posts are available across England with one in Cardiff,
Wales. They are due to start in September 2013.
To apply and for full information about the opportunities
available and details of the qualifications and experience
you need follow the link
www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/hcstp
 www.NewScientistJobs.com

... Scientific Excellence in Northern Ireland ...

Senior Scientific Officer – Animal Welfare

SALARY: £34,847 - £39,282 REF: IRC183130

DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer – Sustainable Sheep Systems

(Fixed Term 3 Years)

SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183127

DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer – Sustainable Pig Systems

(Fixed Term 3 Years)

SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183128

DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer – Sustainable Dairy Systems

(Fixed Term 3 Years)

SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183496

DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer - Ruminant Nutritionist

(Fixed Term 3 years)
SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183160
LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer – Sustainable Beef Systems

SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183119
DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Higher Scientific Officer – Farm Mechanisation

SALARY: £27,835 - £30,825 REF: IRC183125
DEPARTMENT: AFBI, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (NI) LOCATION: AFBI Hillsborough, Large Park, Hillsborough, BT26 6DR

Completed application forms for all posts must be returned to arrive not
later than 12:00 noon (UK time) on Friday 31st May 2013.
For more detailed information and to apply, please go to
www.nicsrecruitment.gov.uk
Alternatively, an application pack can be requested by contacting: HRConnect, PO
Box 1089, The Metro Building, 6-9 Donegall Square South, Belfast, BT1 9EW.
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Further appointments may be made from these competitions should AFBI
positions become vacant which have similar duties and responsibilities.
As Roman Catholics are currently known to be under represented in this grade,
applications from the Roman Catholic section of the community would be
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W W W . N I C S R E C R U I T M E N T . G O V . U K
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25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 53

www.NewScientistJobs.com

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54 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013


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A world of opportunities
www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/

Senior Bioinformatics Analyst

£33,230 - £44,607 pa
We are seeking a highly motivated bioinformatics analyst to play a key role in supporting groundbreaking research
carried out at Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Institute. The Institute emphasises a multi-disciplinary approach with the
aim of linking the laboratory to the clinic and has state-of-the-art research facilities for over 300 scientists supported by
outstanding on-site core services.
The Bioinformatics Core works closely with Institute research teams, developing techniques and providing support for
analysis of data from high-throughput genomics and proteomics technologies, including next generation sequencing,
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Characteristic duties of Core bioinformatics analysts include the following:
• Collaborate with research scientists, consulting on experimental design, data QC and statistical analysis, and integration
and visualization of data from multiple platforms;
• Develop data analysis strategies and contribute to design and implementation of analysis pipelines using best-of-breed
bioinformatics software packages/tools;
• Prepare training materials and deliver training courses primarily to laboratory-based researchers.
You will have a degree in a scientific or computational discipline and preferably a postgraduate degree (MSc or PhD)
and/or significant experience in Bioinformatics or Computational Biology. You should have good programming/scripting skills
(e.g. R, Java, Perl, Python) and a working knowledge of a range of bioinformatics software tools and database resources.
The ideal candidate will be experienced in the use of statistical methods and/or software packages for analysing high-throughput
sequencing data or microarray data, especially using R and associated Bioconductor packages. Experience in consulting with
researchers on experimental design and bioinformatics analysis, and providing training, would be a distinct advantage.
The role requires excellent communication skills, involving regular interaction with research scientists and other bioinformaticians
as well as contributing to training materials and courses. You will need to be highly organized with good time management
skills to support multiple projects concurrently, with the ability to work well in a team.
This appointment is subject to a health assessment. Whether an outcome is satisfactory will be determined by the University.
For questions about this post, please contact Rory Stark at rory.stark@cruk.cam.ac.uk
Email your completed CHRIS 6 application form in MS WORD (including details of three referees), covering letter
and CV to csrecruitment@medschl.cam.ac.uk by 5pm on Wednesday 12 June 2013.
A CHRIS 6 application is available here http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/hr/forms/chris6/
For more information on the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, please visit http://www.cruk.cam.ac.uk/
Further information on the University is available at the following address: www.cam.ac.uk/
Please quote reference SW01237 on your application and in any correspondence about this vacancy.
The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK
The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity.

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 55

www.NewScientistJobs.com

brighton & sussex medical school

Clinical Research Fellow in Psychiatry and

Mental Health
Ref: 133
Fixed term for 2 years, Part Time (0.5 fte)
Salary range: FTE £31,838 - £35,952 per annum pro rata
Applications are invited from a highly motivated Clinical Research Fellow to work with Professor Hugo Critchley on
a programme funded by the European Research Council that examines the role of bodily states of arousal on the
processing of fear and threat stimuli in the human brain, with relevance to anxiety. This ERC Advanced Grant is
titled ‘Cardiac control of fear in the brain’.
The successful applicant will be a clinician with appropriate level of qualification and established eligibility with
interest and ambition to pursue with high quality research in clinical neuroscience, particularly in the area of
psychiatry and mental health. Applicants must have a medical qualification and be registered to practice in the UK.
The post will combine clinical research in patients, with the opportunity to gain experience in human neuroimaging,
and psychophysiological techniques for examining brain body interaction in clinical and non-clinical populations.
Previous experience in conducting clinical research, particularly if relevant to people accessing mental health
services, is highly desirable. Applicants with technical skills applicable to human neuroscience and experience in
the analysis and presentation of experimental research will also be very useful to this post. Informal enquiries about
the project should be directed to Professor Hugo Critchley (h.critchley@bsms.ac.uk), Tel: +441273678336.
Candidates are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the range of research activity undertaken from the
laboratory and collaborators within BSMS and the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Sciences.

Research Fellow in Neuroimaging and

Psychophysiology
Ref: 134
Fixed term for 4 years, Full Time
Salary range: Grade 7 £30,424 to £36,298 per annum. It is normal to appoint at the first point of the salary scale.
Applications are invited from highly motivated post-doctoral research scientists for positions to work with Professor
Hugo Critchley on a programme funded by the European Research Council that examines the role of bodily states
of arousal on the processing of fear and threat stimuli in the human brain, with relevance to anxiety. This ERC
Advanced Grant is titled ‘Cardiac control of fear in the brain’.
The successful applicant will have an established record of high quality research publications, technical skills
applicable to human neuroscience and experience in the analysis and presentation of experimental research.
Applicants must have a PhD in a relevant neuroscientific discipline and experience in human neuroimaging, and/or
psychophysiological techniques and established competence in use of Matlab and specific neuroimaging analytic
platforms (e.g. SPM, FSL, AFNI).
Previous experience in conducting clinical investigations, particularly if relevant to people accessing mental health
services, is highly desirable. Informal enquiries about the project should be directed to Professor Hugo Critchley
(h.critchley@bsms.ac.uk), Tel: +441273678336. Candidates are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the
range of research activity undertaken from the laboratory and collaborators within BSMS and the Sackler Centre
for Consciousness Science.

For full details and how to apply visit

www.sussex.ac.uk/jobs www.brighton.ac.uk/jobs www.bsms.ac.uk

Closing date for applications: 13 June 2013

We are committed to equality of opportunity

56 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013

 www.NewScientistJobs.com

University of East London

Biosciences Alumni
Are you a 70s, 80s or 90s HND, BSc, MSc or
MSc Taxonomy and Biodiversity PhD UEL biology/bioscience graduate?
A one year full-time interdisciplinary postgraduate course, based at
the Natural History Museum, providing a diversified curriculum in If so, join us at our alumni event:
systematics, comparative biology, biodiversity and conservation 7.00pm, Tuesday 25th June
biology. Institute of Directors
116 Pall Mall
The course is comprised of two terms of taught modules, a one week
London SW1Y 5ED
field course at Imperial College Silwood Park campus, and a 16 week
research project of the student’s design. The course can also be
taken part-time over two or three years. Minimum 2ii (Hons) required. The evening will include a networking
reception with drinks and canapés,
giving you the chance to catch up with
MRes Biosystematics other UEL bioscience graduates and find
A one year Masters by Research postgraduate course providing out where their degrees have taken them.
hands-on laboratory-based training in modern phylogenetics and
taxonomy. Students work within research groups at the NHM and If you have stayed in contact with other
Imperial College, undertaking three 16-week projects in UEL biology/bioscience graduates, please let
morphological techniques, molecular systematics and them know about the event!
bioinformatics. In addition they attend key MSc lectures, research
seminars and transferable skills courses.
The course is aimed at students planning on a PhD in systematics
and evolutionary biology. Minimum 2i (Hons) required.
To find out more and book a place,
Both courses taught jointly by Imperial College London & NHM
email: alumni@uel.ac.uk
Department bursaries may be available
See www.nhm.ac.uk for details and www.imperial.ac.uk to apply
Or contact:
Ms Amoret Whitaker, Department of Entomology,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5998 Email: a.whitaker@nhm.ac.uk

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25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 57

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 www.NewScientistJobs.com

NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
Newcastle Biomedicine
Research Student Opportunities
Recognised for its international standing, Newcastle Biomedicine research is focussed on three of the world’s biggest health challenges – ageing, age-related chronic diseases
and cancer - underpinned by strong basic research in genetics, mitochondrial biology and bacterial and stem cell biology.
Newcastle Biomedicine is currently recruiting to over 40 fully funded 4-year integrated MRes/PhD studentships available to start in September 2013 (candidates with a Masters
may be considered for a 3-year award). Further opportunities are advertised as available on the Web. Research studies are carried out in modern state-of-the art facilities.
Applications are taken until the studentship is filled: early application advised. Please quote the reference number(s) in the application form.
Project details are available: www.ncl.ac.uk/biomedstudentships
International students may apply for projects in related and other research. Competitive ORS awards are available for outstanding international students.

AGEING AND HEALTH
Understanding Critical Factors and Pathogenic Defects
Underlying Mitochondrial Gene Expression: Ref. IA056
Developing Pioneering Methods To Prevent The
Transmission Of Mitochondrial DNA Disease: Ref. IA057
Identifying The Role Of Mitochondrial DNA Genotype
In Common Complex Human Diseases: Ref. IA059
Cell senescence in postmitotic cells: its possible
contribution to the ageing process: Ref. IA060
Redox-Dependent Molecular Mechanisms Of
Mitophagy: Ref. IA061
Identifying new genes in adult-onset mitochondrial
disorders: Ref. IA063
The impact of cellular senescence on skin ageing:
Ref. IA064
Treating mitochondrial dysfunction – mechanisms
underlying response to specific compounds: Ref. IA065
BIOLOGY
Exploring Novel Anti-Cancer Natural Products, a
Synthetic Biology/Chemistry Approach: Ref. CB095
Understanding stomatal regulation in plants with
Crassulacean acid metabolism: Ref. CB096
Functional Genomic Approaches to Elucidate Farming
Practices on Differential Gene Expression in Wheat:
Implications for Stress Tolerance: Ref. CB097
CANCER RESEARCH
Translating novel therapeutic approaches into treatments
for patients with hepatocellular cancer: Ref. CR060
Dose-optimisation in paediatric oncology using
physiologically-based pharmacokinetic models:
Ref. CR061
Investigating the Clinical Pharmacology of
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CELL AND MOLECULAR BIOSCIENCES
Understanding carbohydrate uptake by members of
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Telomeres and the DNA damage response: Ref. CB087
Transport, translation and telomeres: Ref. CB088
The influence of sirtuin-controlled circadian rhythmicity
and diet on lifespan in honeybees: Ref. CB089
Resistance to copper toxicity in Staphylococcus aureus:
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The role of superoxide in DNA damage signalling:
Ref. CB091
Developing new biomaterials for diagnostics and cell
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CELLULAR MEDICINE
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Identifying key changes in early Rheumatoid arthritis
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Can macrophage polarization modulate fibroblast
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Investigating the co-existence of cancer-associated
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Targeting islet inflammation ex vivo and following
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The role of Histone Deacetylase 3 in chondrogenesis
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Life Course Investigation of Maternal Ethnic Group and
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Email: medpg-enquiries@ncl.ac.uk

Committed to Equal Opportunities www.ncl.ac.uk/biomedstudentships

25 May 2013 | NewScientist | 59
 FEEDBACK
WOODLAND Park, Colorado, is at
an elevation of 2580 metres. Gary
Branum told us this a while ago
in a message that promptly got
lost in our piling system but has
now resurfaced. “So it’s not
surprising,” he added, “that some
flatlanders have a bit of trouble
adjusting to the lower oxygen
availability. It is, however,
somewhat astounding that I can
solve that problem by buying
‘liquid oxygen’ and adding it to
my drinking water.”
By way of an explanation, Gary
sent us an advert from the Ute
Pass Trader, a Woodland Park
shopping guide. Under the
headline, “Tourist says: ‘I can
breathe again’ ”, the advert
quotes the tourist, called Ned, as
complaining that the altitude had
literally taken his breath away.
“My heart was pounding, my head
hurt, and I was SO tired. But all
Paul Mcdevitt
that’s gone since I purchased the
liquid oxygen supplement from
the knowledgeable people at
The screenshot Hugh Lawton sent us shows
that his download of the 39.5 megabyte
MacKeeper program got to “4,100% complete”
before he stopped watching it and did
something else
60 | NewScientist | 25 May 2013
Whole in the Wall Herb Shoppe.
I started to feel better in just
10 minutes, after putting 15 drops
of Aquagen in a glass of water.”
Feedback never ceases to be
impressed by all the wonderful
things “liquid oxygen” can
apparently do – especially since
it is typically stored at -170 °C
and would burn out your insides
if you ever drank it.
FEEDBACK knows some readers
are allergic to Excel spreadsheets.
If so, you have been warned… We,
however, were as tickled as reader
Tony Swash by last month’s headlines
that economics PhD student Thomas
Herndon had discredited a paper
governments use to justify their
current austerity measures (see bit.
ly/ExcelError).
Herndon struggled for months to
replicate the findings of Harvard
professors Carmen Reinhart and Ken
Rogoff, published in their seminal
paper “Growth in a Time of Debt”.
For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback
Finally, he asked them for a copy
of the crucial spreadsheet – only
to discover several errors.
Unbelievably, the most
embarrassing was alphabetical.
Reinhart and Rogoff had omitted
the first 5 of the 20 countries their
paper is based on, thereby ignoring
figures for Australia, Austria,
Belgium, Canada and Denmark.
Any spreadsheet-savvy reader will
recognise this as an error that occurs
if you take your finger off the mouse
too soon when highlighting cells.
Feedback’s colleagues admit
to similar mistakes but they do
remember things being easier back in
the days when a laptop was the size
of a coffee table and Windows was
new-fangled. Some even remember
a program that allowed you to
easily name a rectangular range
of spreadsheet cells so everything
updated automatically – thus
avoiding the Harvard stars’ error.
Breaking the habit of a lifetime,
one colleague consulted Microsoft’s
Excel manual, and found you can
make a self-updating “named range”.
But there are 11 steps in the
instructions. Why so laborious? Could
it have something to do with a live
patent owned by IBM and a recently
expired one owned by Lotus, each
concerning systems that make this
mistake less likely to happen?
In the interests of sound
economics, Feedback wonders if we
should club together to buy Microsoft
the necessary patent licence.
HOW is this for a must-have
gadget? Rob Milne introduces
us to an unusual camping stove.
“Thanks to its unique design, the
BioLite Camping Stove can cook,
heat and charge your electronic
devices using only renewable
biomass such as twigs, pine cones,
wood pellets and other easily
obtainable flammable materials,”
according to the website selling
the stove (bit.ly/gadgetcook).
Rob is disappointed that the
product description doesn’t
include any recipes. He would
particularly like to know how to
knock up a tasty SatNav soup.
READER Richard Sturch forwards
an email from his cousin Peter Dyer,
who bought a remarkable bottle of
water with his breakfast in Bacalod
airport on the island of Negros in the
Philippines.
“I didn’t realise what a find it was
until reading the label later,” he says.
His email quotes the label on the
bottle in full – and exactly the same
claims are on the company’s website
at people-water-station.com:
“People’s Purified Water undergoes
a state-of-the-art multi stage
water treatment process that
includes carbon, micro, ultra and
hyper filtration via a double
reverse osmosis, sterilised through
ultra violet and oxygenated and
stimulated by vortexing process and
vitalised through a bio-resonance
and quantum science process.”
Can anyone tell us what on earth
they are talking about?
FINALLY, here is another message
that got lost in our piling system.
It’s a response sent in a couple
of months ago to the question
reader Michael Kolmet posed
following our report on
magnetic socks at the end of last
year (22/29 December 2012).
He asked: “What do you mend
them with?”
Louis Altman replies: “With a
compass needle.”
You can send stories to Feedback by
email at feedback@newscientist.com.
Please include your home address.
This week’s and past Feedbacks can
be seen on our website.
THE LAST WORD
Hot in the hay
I have always assumed that the
belief that haystacks can burst
into flames spontaneously was a
convenient myth to cover for careless
farm workers having a crafty
cigarette break while forgetting
their surroundings, but a friend
insists that it can happen. Surely
the only way hay can warm up
significantly is if it is wet and
bacteria begin to heat the stack as
part of the process of biodegradation.
But I’d be amazed if this could
generate temperatures hotter than
about 40 ºC. So how else could
ignition take place? (Continued)
n Insurance companies in the
18th century insured farmers’
haystacks in England, Scotland and
Wales, so they clearly believed fire
was possible. A standard phrase
in the policies reads: “Free from
loss on such hay or corn as shall
be destroyed or damaged by its
natural heat.” This clause appears
hundreds of times in the policies
of Sun Fire Office in London.
Derek Morris
By email, no address supplied
Train brain drain
If I don’t know the time of the next
half-hourly train to depart from my
local station, is there any point in
running to the station? My wife tells
me it won’t make any difference to
whether I catch the next train or
not, but I insist it will. I must admit,
my journey time door-to-door does
not seem to be affected by the
speed of my approach to the station.
Questions and answers should be concise.
We reserve the right to edit items for clarity
and style. Include a daytime telephone
number and email address if you have
one. Restrict questions to scientific
enquiries about everyday phenomena.
The writers of answers published in the
magazine will receive a cheque for £25 (or
US$ equivalent).
Reed Business Information Ltd reserves all
rights to reuse question and answer
material that has been submitted by
n If you arrive at the railway
station at some random time,
regardless of how fast you
travelled to the station, you
will have to wait an average of
15 minutes and a maximum of
30 minutes for the next train.
“If you don’t know the time
of the next train, running
to the station won’t change
your average waiting time”
So running will not make any
difference to your average waiting
time at the station.
However, if you arrive 1 minute
earlier by running than by
walking then on one trip in 30 you
will catch a train that you would
have missed if you had walked,
therefore arriving at your
destination 30 minutes earlier.
On the other 29 out of 30 times
that you don’t catch an earlier
train, you will have to wait
1 minute longer on the platform
than if you had just walked there.
On these occasions the trip will
probably seem longer, although
the actual door-to-door time
remains unchanged.
You save 30 minutes once in
30 trips, so on average the 1 minute
saved by running saves 1 minute
door-to-door. If you save more
than 1 minute by running, you’ve
got a better chance of catching the
train and saving 30 minutes more
often. The average time saved
always matches the time saved
by running.
Brian Horton
West Launceston, Tasmania,
Australia
readers in any medium or in any format.
New Scientist retains total editorial control
over the content of The Last Word.
Send questions and answers to The Last
Word, New Scientist, Lacon House, 84
Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, UK, by
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(please include a postal address in order
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www.newscientist.com/topic/lastword.
Last words past and present at newscientist.com/topic/lastword
n If your run gets you to the
station 3 minutes earlier, then one
day in 10 you will get to work half
an hour earlier. So your wife is
wrong. But perhaps she meant
that the average waiting time at
the station will be unaffected.
This is true: nine days out of 10
you will wait 3 minutes longer,
exactly balancing the one day in
10 that you save 27 minutes.
None of this explains the
fundamental question underlying
this paradox: why not look at the
train timetable? If you are
uncomfortable with smartphone
apps, timetables still exist in
old-fashioned paper form.
Ian Gent and Judith Underwood
Cupar, Fife, UK
Not so plain thinking
The editor writes… An aircraft
must keep up a certain airspeed
to stop it stalling. But when flying
into a headwind, it can reduce its
ground speed without fear of
falling. These facts were stressed
by Clive Teale in a correction to
our question Plane Thinking on
23 March. The correspondent he
was correcting, Len Winokur, had
actually made the same point, but
his answer was sent off course by
the word-traffic controller at the
Last Word. Apologies to Len for
the error.
This week’s
questions
Hard question
Recently our lovely soft water,
which came from a loch high in
Will we
ever speak
dolphin?
The new book out now: packed
full of wit, knowledge and
extraordinary discovery
Available from booksellers and at newscientist.com/dolphins
the Cairngorm mountains, has
been replaced by slightly hard
water which comes from an
underground borehole. Our kettle
and our hot water tanks now pop
and crackle loudly when the water
is heating, rather than offering
just a gentle hiss as before. Can
anybody explain the reason for
this odd effect when we are
heating water with a higher
mineral content?
John Poyner
Nethybridge, Highlands, UK
Inside out
Mammals are supposed to have
testes outside the abdomen
because their fertility would be
impaired if they were kept inside
at body temperature. But birds
have internal testes, despite
having a higher body temperature.
Why and how did birds evolve in
this way when mammals did not?
And why doesn’t this affect the
birds’ fertility?
Malcolm Halford
Melton Mowbray,
Leicestershire, UK
Colour that stings
I recently made nettle wine using
an old recipe. Nettles (genus
Urtica) are green, yet when
they were boiled, as the recipe
suggested, the resulting liquid
was red. Why? Was this a property
of the plants or of the aluminium
pan, or some residue in the
apparently clean pan? Nothing
else, such as wine-making yeast,
had been added at that stage.
Frances Cottingham
Isle of Wight, UK