Humanity’s oldest cousin

Earliest known primate evolved in hothouse world

WEEKLY 8 June 2013

I think he knows
my secret
Where is my phone?

M I N D
How we get inside other people’s heads. And why some of us are better at it than others

R E A D E R S
She won’t know If I laugh she’ll think
where her keys are he’s funny

Do you think I’m right? He wants me to leave

He thinks she loves him

He wants us to think
that she likes you

Do you love me as much

as I love you?

They don’t know about us

News, ideas and innovation

goldilocks planet
www.newscientist.com
The best jobs in science
Earth’s just right for life – but for how much longer? £3.70  IUS/CAN$5.95
S S N 0 2 6 2 - No2920
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exoskeleton rising water eater pyramid schemers

Man with severed spinal The bacteria that Egypt’s lost city of
cord walks with his thoughts changed the world bean counters 9 770262 407237
Contents Volume 218 No 2920

This issue online

newscientist.com/issue/2920

News News
6 UPFRONT

8 Paul Tafforeau (ESRF) and Xijun Ni (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

First crowdsourced space scope. Turtle
conservationist murdered. Modified wheat
on the loose. Central Europe drowning
Our oldest 8 THIS WEEK
cousin Hungry alga is relic of first photosynthesis.
Egypt’s lost city of bean counters. Deadly
Earliest primate skin cancer reversed by immune therapy.
evolved in a Could CO2 emissions hold back the deserts?
hothouse world Time cloak deletes chunks of history. Genes
for intelligence evade largest ever study
10 Insight
Testing a provocative theory of everything
16 IN BRIEF
Mars radiation risks. Universal flu antibody.
Avatars help banish voices of schizophrenia.
French wine has Italian origins
On the cover

32 8 Our oldest cousin Technology

Earliest primate evolved 19 Mind-controlled
 exoskeleton. Phones listen in
in a hothouse world on illegal loggers. Predict weight from a face.
Mind readers 40 Goldilocks planet Object recognition. Maps that know you
How long will Earth be
How we get just right for life?
Aperture
inside other 19 Exoskeleton rising
Walking by thought 24 Sunflower-like reflectors that follow the sun
people’s heads
44 Water eater
World-changing bacteria Opinion
11 Pyramid schemers 26 Work worries Michael Blastland and David
Egypt’s lost city Spiegelhalter on the fear of losing your job
Cover image 27 One minute with… Didier Queloz
Darren Hopes
The continuing hunt for other worlds
28 Firing line Free will is real, says Peter Ulric
Tse, if we look at neurons another way
Features 30 LETTERS Martian holiday. Nuclear free

40 Features
32 Mind readers (see above left)
Goldilocks 36 Code red Computer software is plagued
by bugs – but fixes are on the way
planet 40 Goldilocks planet (see left)
Earth’s just right for 44 Water eater The bacteria that changed
the world
life – but for how
much longer?
CultureLab
48 Unholy alliance Much modern thinking on
sam chivers

the environment originated in the cold war

49 Being human What makes us unique? Take
your pick of some wild and wonderful ideas

Coming next week… Regulars

5 Editorial It’s time we all learned how
Space vs time to program our world
One of them must go – but which? 30 ENIGMA
60 Feedback The weight of money
Out of thin air
61 The Last Word Hot youth
Medical lessons from the world’s highest places 50 Jobs & careers

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 3

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11. Treating High Blood Pressure Naturally
12. Treating Diabetes Naturally
13. Stress and the Mind-Body Connection
14 Turning Stress into Strength
15. Meditation, Yoga, and Guided Imagery
16. Natural Approaches to Mental Health
17. Biofield Therapies
18. The Power of Love
19. Spirituality in Health
20. Components of Spiritual Wellness
21. Applying the Lessons of Natural Healing
22. Ecology and Health
23. Healthy People, Healthy Planet
24. You Are Your Own Best Medicine

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8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 5

UPFRONT

Lennart Preiss/Getty Images

Wet, wet, wet future
THE floods causing havoc across
much of central Europe are a portent
of things to come as the continent’s
climate gets stormier.
In the German town of Passau
on Monday the waters rose to their
highest level since 1501. As New
Scientist went to press, the floods in
Czech capital Prague were beginning
to recede but Dresden, Germany, was
bracing itself for the river Elbe to rise
5 metres higher than normal.
Several factors are responsible,
says Stéphane Isoard of the
European Environment Agency in
Copenhagen, Denmark. “It’s spring so
snow is melting from the mountains.”
When two months of rain fell in two
days, the water had nowhere to go
because the ground was saturated.
Climate change also causes
heavier rainfall, and might be partly
to blame. But Isoard says bad land
management is just as important.
“Urban sprawl [means] there is less
opportunity for water to infiltrate
the soil.” With more floods inevitable,
Isoard says Europe needs to adapt.
Some work is already under way.
Wetlands are being restored around
stretches of the Danube away from
the current devastation. Green spaces
like this can absorb extra water,
making floods less severe.
“Over the last 20 years, events like
this have become more common,”
says Iain White of the University of
Manchester in the UK. Central Europe
has improved its flood responses since
severe floods struck in 2002, he adds,
“but there comes a point where you
can’t defend”.
–Passau: a 500-year high-

Turtle worker killed Sandoval believe his outspoken

BY THE brutal standards of the
criminals who smuggle drugs
through Central America to the
US, it was nothing special. But the
murder of conservationist Jairo
Mora Sandoval highlights the
risks biologists face when their
passion for nature puts them on
the front line of the narco-wars.
He was bound, shot through the
head and dumped on the Costa
Rican beach he regularly patrolled
in his bid to protect leatherback
turtle nests from poachers.
Drug trafficking is a serious
impediment to conservation
work in Latin America, with
drug addiction and corruption
hampering efforts to protect
endangered turtles. For the most
“Trading turtle eggs can
be a lucrative sideline for
criminals moving drugs
along the coast”
part, Costa Rica is a fairly safe
country but the area around the
Caribbean port of Limón has long
struggled with high crime levels.
Friends and colleagues of Mora
comments about the links
between drug trafficking and
poaching on nearby Moín beach
may have made him a marked
man. In articles published in April
in Costa Rica’s leading newspaper,
La Nación, Mora Sandoval and
others highlighted the trend for
paying crack-addicted, turtle egg
poachers with drugs.
Local people believe that turtle
eggs are an aphrodisiac, and they
sell for about $1 each, says Didiher
Chacón of WIDECAST, the turtle
conservation network for which
Mora Sandoval worked. Given that
a single nest can contain 80 or
more eggs, trading in turtle eggs
can be a lucrative sideline for
criminals employed by drugs
gangs to move their products
along the coast. WIDECAST is
one of 10 conservation groups
offering a $10,000 reward for
any information on the killing.
For now, turtle conservationists
in Moín have been promised
police protection. But Chacón
warns that in the past, requests
for help have fallen on deaf
ears once the media’s spotlight
has moved on.
Hello, moonsteroid
IN CASE you missed it, an asteroid
and its surprise companion just
missed you. Last week, asteroid
1998 QE2 sailed past Earth, getting
as close as 5.8 million kilometres.
The fly-by offered astronomers
a chance to take detailed images
of the space rock, and the first
radar glimpse revealed that
1998 QE2 has its own small moon.
Initial images taken with the
70-metre Deep Space Network
antenna in Goldstone, California,
showed a bright blip moving
Modified wheat mystery deepens
TALK about absent without leave.
Unauthorised genetically modified
wheat has been discovered growing
on a farm in Oregon nine years after a
research programme was abandoned.
How it got there is a mystery.
GM wheat has not been cleared
for commercial use anywhere in the
world and the discovery last week
triggered an international reaction.
South Korea and Japan temporarily
suspended imports of US wheat and
South Korea began testing existing
around the larger craggy body.
Radar data also showed that the
asteroid is larger than thought –
between 3 and 3.5-kilometres
rather than 2.7-kilometres wide,
says Marina Brozovic of NASA’s
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena, California.
Measuring the moon’s orbit
can tell us the larger asteroid’s
mass. Combine that with its
size, and we’ll know 1998 QE2’s
density, giving an idea of what it
is made from. Such details may
be important for astronauts
planning to visit similar asteroids.
wheat imports from the US for
signs of modified material, with no
positive results so far.
The wheat was developed by
agricultural biotech giant Monsanto,
which says that the farm in question
was not part of its original testing
programme and that all GM material
was destroyed in 2004. The company
adds that wheat seed seldom
survives more than two years in soil,
and that 99 per cent of wheat pollen
gets deposited within 10 metres.

6 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news
No radiation effect
WHAT a relief. It looks as if the
local population and most of the
workers exposed to radiation
from the Fukushima-Daiichi
nuclear accident in March 2011
“The actions taken to
protect the public
significantly reduced
radiation exposure”
will not have ill health as a result.
That’s the conclusion of the most
comprehensive investigation
yet into the likely health effects of
the world’s worst nuclear accident
since Chernobyl in 1986.
“The actions taken by the
authorities to protect the
public, such as evacuation and
sheltering, significantly reduced
the radiation exposures,” says
Wolfgang Weiss, chairman of
the panel of 80 scientists that
produced a report on the incident intense in Pennsylvania, New York
for the UN Scientific Committee
on the Effects of Atomic Radiation. where natural gas is trapped in
So far none of the 25,000
workers at the site has become
ill with radiation-related
conditions. But about 170 workers and southern California, is
with exposures exceeding
100 millisieverts – the equivalent
of receiving the maximum
safe annual industry dose over
five years all at once – will be
monitored to quickly detect
any radiation-related effects
on their thyroid, stomach, lungs
and colon.
Bill Stormont/CORBIS
–Cereal offender– presented a petition with
center for biological diversity
“Quote to go in here over
California fracking
IT’S not quite Battle: Los Angeles,
but Californians are preparing
for a fight over fracking.
So far, the US controversy
over fracking has been most
and other north-eastern states,
shale formations in mostly rural
areas. But the vast Monterey
Shale, which lies beneath central
estimated to contain almost
“California’s Monteray
Shale is estimated to
contain 1900 million
tonnes of recoverable oil”
1900 million tonnes of
recoverable oil. It is more than
2.5 times as large as the deposits
in North Dakota. Many more
people will be affected by its
development, because oil fields
lie near heavily populated areas
of Los Angeles county, including
Culver City, formerly the home
of MGM Studios and still the
base for Sony Pictures. Fracking
involves injecting water, sand
and chemical additives into rock
formations to release oil and gas,
and has raised concerns about
pollution and earthquakes.
Last week, a coalition called
Californians Against Fracking
four lines range left like
this Quote to go in her
like this xxxxx”
–No fracking in our backyard–
100,000 signatures to governor
Jerry Brown, asking him to ban
fracking in the state because of
air pollution fears. Meanwhile,
a bill that would have imposed
a moratorium was defeated in
the state legislature.
“These areas already have
some of the worst air quality in
the country,” says Kassie Siegel
of Californians Against Fracking.
Public space scope
SPACE sells. Within a week of
announcing it would build the
world’s first crowdfunded space
telescope, the company behind
the scheme had raised more than
$700,000 of its $1 million target.
On 29 May, Planetary Resources,
a space-mining firm in Bellevue,
Washington, began an online
fundraising campaign for its Arkyd
observatory, to launch in 2015.
Backers who give $200 will get a
half-hour slot to snap an object of
their choice, with 5-minute slots
donated to students or scientists
for $99. There’s also the option
to beam a photo of someone to
Arkyd and use it to take a photo
of them “in space”.
Arkyd is small and will
frequently switch what it looks
at, so it may not make discoveries,
says Franck Marchis of the SETI
Institute in California. It could,
however, be a model for funding
future research telescopes.
60 Seconds
Intimate details
Actor Michael Douglas has said that
his throat cancer is linked to human
papillomavirus – transmitted by oral
sex. Such cancer is uncommon and
typically occurs after initial infection
with HPV. A study presented last
week at a clinical oncology meeting
in Chicago found no increased risk
of infection for sexual partners of
people with HPV-related oral cancer.
Shrinking prime
Mathematicians have closed the
gap on the twin prime conjecture,
which posits an infinite amount of
prime numbers two numbers apart.
Last month, Yitang Zhang of the
University of New Hampshire in
Durham proved there is an infinite
number of primes separated by at
most 70 million. Now maths wizards
online have shrunk that to 5 million.
Twister tragedy
Eighteen people have been
confirmed dead after tornadoes
struck Oklahoma last week,
including Tim Samaras of TWISTEX,
who regularly featured on the
Discovery channel’s Storm Chasers.
He was killed after a tornado
changed course unexpectedly.
Rash with cash
The British public face a quadrupled
risk of nickel allergy following the
Treasury’s switch from copper-nickel
coins to cheaper nickel-plated steel.
Researchers report that four times
as much nickel is deposited on the
skin from the new 10 and 5-pence
pieces. Higher exposure has been
linked to increased risk of allergy
(Contact Dermatitis, doi.org/mq9).
Chemical Syria
There are “reasonable grounds to
believe” that chemical weapons
have been used in four attacks
during the Syrian civil war, say a
panel of United Nations
investigators reporting to the UN
Human Rights Council. They are
unsure whether the government
or the rebels are to blame.
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 7
 THIS WEEK

Humanity’s
Colin Barras

OUR distant ancestors evolved not

in Africa but Asia, in a hothouse

earliest cousin world newly free of dinosaurs.

Over 55 million years ago, in the
lush rainforests of what is now
east Asia, a new voice was heard in
At 55 million years old, this primate the animal chorus: the cry of the
skeleton is the closest we’ve come to first primate.
A fossil unveiled this week
discovering our origins might give us an idea of what this
crucial ancestor looked like. It is
the earliest primate skeleton ever
found. It also strongly suggests
that our lineage evolved in Asia,
several million years earlier

“Archicebus is undoubtedly
one of the most important
discoveries in the history
of palaeoprimatology”

than we thought, and links the

evolution of primates to the most
extreme episode of climate
change of the last 65 million years.
“For the first time we can shine
a light on this critical part of the
[evolutionary] tree and say what
did these animals look like?” says
Christopher Beard at the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The
find, says Erik Seiffert of Stony
Brook University in New York,
who was not involved in the study,
is “undoubtedly one of the most
important discoveries in the
history of palaeoprimatology”.
Beard and his colleagues found
Archicebus achilles in eastern
China, just south of the Yangtze
river (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/
nature12200). It is 55 million years
old, has the relatively small eyes
Paul Tafforeau (ESRF) and Xijun Ni (Chinese Academy of Sciences)

of an animal active during the day

and the sharp molar teeth of an
insect-eater. Significantly, it also
has the hindlimbs and flexible
foot of a primate that had already
taken to leaping between branches
and gripping onto them with its
feet – characteristics that we only
lost when our ancestors left the
trees just a few million years ago.
In fact, a recent study revealed
that at least 1 in 13 of us still has a
–”Archie” suggests primates evolved in Asia– flexible foot (New Scientist, 1 June,

8 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

In this section
n Deadly skin cancer reversed by immune therapy, page 12
n Time cloak deletes chunks of history, page 14
n Mind-controlled exoskeleton, page 19

p 11): the trait, it seems, may trace
all the way back to an animal very
like Archicebus.
At the moment, analysis of
Archicebus places it not on our
direct line, but with our next-door
neighbours, the tarsiers of south-
east Asia (see chart, right). “But it
is incredibly close to the junction,
and it wouldn’t take much to flip
it over to our side of the tree,”
says Beard. “I wouldn’t be totally
shocked if in future we were to
find out that Archicebus is a basal
Finding Archie environments to expand into.
“You get more insects and fruit
The fossil of Archicebus achilles is the oldest primate skeleton ever found. Analysis in an equatorial climate. They
so far places it in the tarsier lineage but it may yet turn out to be a human ancestor
benefited from that.”
“Ida” Darwinius masillae How, then, did Africa end up
Lemurs
being the cradle of humanity?
and lorises If the out-of-Asia hypothesis is
correct, early monkey-like
Archicebus achilles primates must have moved from
Tarsiers Asia over to Africa, sometime
Monkeys around 40 million years ago,
? Gibbons
Beard says. The hypothesis must
Orang-Utan
Gorilla still explain how they made the
Chimpanzee move, crossing the vast Tethys Sea
Palaeocene-Eocene
Dinosaur extinction

Thermal Maximum

anthropoid [the group comprising Australopithecus which separated Asia and Africa.
Homo habilis
monkeys, apes and humans].” Homo erectus
As Jaeger puts it: “It is difficult
He has one main reason for to imagine small mammals
Homo
believing Archicebus is closer sapiens surviving on a raft for two weeks

to home than he can prove at
present. Parts of its body are eerily
similar to what we would expect
to find in our oldest ancestor. Its
ankle bone, in particular, looks
just like a monkey’s – a feature
that led the team to name the
remarkable fossil after the Greek
hero Achilles.
Jean-Jacques Jaeger of the
University of Poitiers in France
agrees that Archicebus’s mix of
tarsier and anthropoid traits
make it hard to say which group it
belongs to. It could also turn out
to have belonged to a third group
that didn’t survive, he adds.
There are no other good primate
the elusive ‘missing link’
Since Archicebus is so old, many will
wonder if it is a “missing link” – the
species that gave rise to all primates
alive today. The answer is a confusing
mix of “yes”, “no” and “maybe”.
No Archicebus is probably not the
ultimate link in our primate family
tree. Finding that animal is remarkably
difficult, because the earliest
chapters of the primate story have
left hardly any good fossils. While
Archicebus is an exciting find, it is not
an ancestor of lemurs and lorises, as
the evolutionary tree above shows.
There may be an older, more
primitive primate out there waiting
to be discovered.
Some readers may remember a
47-million-year-old fossil unveiled
70 60
Millions of years ago
fossils from this far back in time.
Until we can compare it with its
peers, says Beard, Archicebus’s
exact place in the tree is going
to be unclear. “We’re almost
operating in a vacuum here.”
Perhaps most significantly, the
new fossil supports the idea that
primates originally evolved in
south-east Asia, and suggests the
ancestors of all monkeys and apes
had already split off from other
primates 55 million years ago –
in May 2009. Nicknamed Ida, it was
touted as this missing link. Most
biologists now think it is no more
than an early member of the lemur
and loris family.
Yes Archicebus lies very close to
the junction between tarsiers and
monkeys, apes and humans. It could
be as close as we are ever likely to get
to the missing link between these
two important groups of primates.
Maybe For now, Archicebus lies on
the tarsier side of the tree. If and
when more good fossils from this
period are found, it is possible it
might flip onto our side (see main
story). Until we can fill in more of the
picture, though, it’s a bit of a stretch
to call it one of our missing links.
“Lucy”
50 40 30 20 10 0 the PETM, and the lingering
millions of years earlier than
textbooks suggest. “Many of us
suspected that was the case,” says
Beard. “Archicebus solidifies that
this important branching event
goes right back to the beginning
of the Eocene.”
This links the birth of our
primate line to a major spike in
global temperatures known as
the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal
Maximum (PETM). It also puts
our point of origin squarely in
the heart of the PETM furnace:
equatorial Asia. “Primates are
probably the most tropically
adapted mammals alive today,”
says Beard. It therefore makes
sense that they originated in a
warm climate.
What’s more, south-east Asia
would have offered a refuge for
tropical species to weather the
storm of cooler times: while
Earth’s drifting tectonic plates
dragged all major continents
across the latitudes, this region
remained where it was, right on
the equator.
“There were so many ecological our primate ancestors hadn’t got
niches available in those forests
[after the extinction of the
dinosaurs 65 million years ago],”
says Jaeger. Hot temperatures, he
adds, may have provided primates Additional reporting by Michael
and other mammals with rich
in the sun.”
However, the extreme heat of
warmth over the next few million
years, could have helped, says
Thierry Smith of the Royal Belgian
Institute of Natural Sciences in
Brussels. The high temperatures
would have created lush tropical
forests that spanned continents.
Early tree-dwelling primates
could only have spread through
such forests. “A tarsier on the
ground is prey, because it cannot
walk. It’s like a crab, it’s terrible.”
However it happened, the
move would prove to be a pivotal
moment in our history.
“Humanity’s spread out
of Africa wouldn’t have
happened if primates
hadn’t got into Africa first”
“[Primates] underwent a real
starburst of evolution in Africa,
which eventually led to apes and
humans,” says Beard.
We can expect to hear much
more about that first colonisation
of Africa in the near future.
“Humanity’s spread out of Africa
was undoubtedly very important,
but it wouldn’t have happened if
into Africa in the first place,” says
Beard. “The ‘Into Africa’ story is
very big right now – and it’s only
going to get bigger.” n
Marshall

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 9

THIS WEEK

INSIGHT

New unified theory

dimensions arise by extending the Joseph Conlon. Some should be linked
mathematics of the original four. to the strong force, one of the four
The mathematical symmetries of fundamental forces in the standard

needs a check-up
the resulting equations predict three model. The Large Hadron Collider at
families of particles, as described by CERN near Geneva, Switzerland, has
the standard model of physics, though been smashing particles together at
the third family would behave a bit high enough energies to overcome the
Jacob Aron the basic geometric tools of general differently. His theory also predicts strong force, creating showers of more
relativity and extend the equations in new, as-yet-undiscovered particles elusive particles, including the Higgs
PHYSICISTS have a problem, and mathematically beautiful ways. Then along with their mirror particles, boson. Weinstein’s particles should
they will be first to admit it. The two you can try to match the equations which could account for dark matter. have been in such showers.
mathematical frameworks that govern with reality. But we should already have seen Also, any update to the central
modern physics, quantum mechanics At the heart of Weinstein’s theory some of Weinstein’s new particles, equations of physics should give results
and general relativity, just don’t play is the “observerse”, a 14-dimensional if they exist, says Oxford physicist that are only slight corrections, says
nicely together. Eric Weinstein, a space that contains our familiar John March-Russell, also at Oxford.
consultant at a New York City hedge four-dimensional world, with its three One theory to unify them all, Right now, equations and experiments
fund, says the way to unify them is of space and one of time. The extra and in the darkness bind them agree to 1 part in 10 billion, so the new
to find beauty before seeking truth. theory would have to be a very small
Weinstein hit the headlines last tweak. The size is yet to be revealed.
Chandra X-ray Observatory Center

month after mathematician Marcus What’s more, it should be possible to

du Sautoy at the University of Oxford perform a calculation called anomaly
invited him to give a lecture detailing his cancellation on Weinstein’s equations,
new theory of the universe, dubbed says Conlon. This checks whether a list
Geometric Unity. Du Sautoy also of particles is a consistent extension of
provided an overview of Weinstein’s the standard model. If his particles fail
theory on the The Guardian newspaper the test, the theory is wrong.
website on 23 May (bit.ly/11RKPff). Weinstein admitted that he did not
Few physicists attended Weinstein’s yet have answers to these and other
initial lecture, and with no published questions raised by his talk, and he
equations to review, the public airing has remained vague about when and
of his theory has generated heated where his equations will appear in
controversy. When Weinstein repeated print. In some sense, though, it is a
his lecture at Oxford last week, a happy resolution to the media storm:
number of physicists were in the Weinstein has found physicists who
hall. Most remain doubtful. are willing to listen to and guide him,
Physicists working on unification and his theory will face needed scrutiny.
are usually trying to create a quantum Geometric Unity could still turn out
version of general relativity. Weinstein to be a theory of everything – or just a
believes we should instead start with nice bit of mathematics. n

Hungry Pac-Man to live inside algae and their more

complex plant descendants ever since.
alga hints at However, nobody knows how this
symbiotic relationship blossomed,
origin of plants because we know of no plant or alga
that can swallow bacteria like this.
A TINY alga with a mouth could help Now Shinichiro Maruyama of the
explain how plants became green. National Institute for Basic Biology in
Plants get their pigment from Okazaki, Japan, and colleagues think
cellular components called plastids, they have found one. The pair studied
which are also essential for Cymbomonas, a single-celled alga
photosynthesis. Plastids are thought which belongs to one of the oldest
to have started out as free-living, algal groups. Cymbomonas ordinarily
photosynthesising bacteria that were survives by photosynthesising, but
engulfed by the earliest algae over a when they grew it under low light
billion years ago. They have continued levels it took to eating bacteria
(Current Biology, doi.org/mm2).
However, rather than extending
a blobby “arm” to engulf its prey like
other single-celled organisms,
Cymbomonas sucked the bacteria
up into a feeding tube. The tube
led to a bubble-like chamber called
a vacuole, a sort of microscopic
stomach where the bacteria were
digested. Maruyama says that the
first green algae may have taken up
“Cymbomonas kept the
ability to eat bacteria
while other algae took
to lying in the sun”
their bacterial companions in the
same way as Cymbomonas, except
they didn’t digest them.
The engulfed bacteria could
have survived in their new hosts by
breaking through the walls of the
feeding duct or escaping from the
vacuole, says Maruyama.
Laura Katz of Smith College in
Northampton, Massachusetts,
says Cymbomonas could have
kept this ancient mode of feeding
as a backup, while other algae
abandoned it. “Most algae got
lazy and took to lying in the sun,”
she says. Michael Marshall n

10 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

Uncovered: Egypt’s lost

Eloy Rodriguez/getty
city of bean counters
IT’S the admin centre of the flooding continued. Another
ancient world. The workers who flood struck soon after Menkaure’s
built the pyramids of Giza and death. In total, Heit el-Ghurab
the accountants and managers flooded 10 times within about
who organised them achieved 45 years. Further flooding may
architectural immortality – but have occurred later, but no
you wouldn’t know it from sediments have survived to record
where they lived. Built in a flood them (Journal of Archaeological
zone, their town was repeatedly Science, doi.org/mpk).
destroyed by flash floods. It’s not clear why the ancient
Bizarrely, the Egyptians kept Egyptians kept rebuilding the
rebuilding in the same place city in the same dangerous place.
despite the continual devastation. “It doesn’t make any sense,” says
During the reign of the pharaoh Butzer. People do build houses
Menkaure, thought to be between on floodplains, but not if they
2532 and 2503 BC, Egypt was run get swamped every four years.
from a city on low ground near It’s doubly strange because
the Giza plateau. Known as Heit ancient Egyptians paid close
el-Ghurab, this was a large attention to the weather, says
administrative centre surrounded Stefan Kröpelin of the University
by houses, workshops and bread of Cologne in Germany. –Only Giza’s pyramids remain-
ovens. After decades of occupation, “Generally they were much
it was abandoned and buried more sensitive – they knew the
under tens of metres of sand. weather was changing and they
Karl Butzer of the University reacted.” Even the foundation of
of Texas at Austin and colleagues
have been excavating Heit el- “In total the city outside
Ghurab since 2001. They Giza flooded 10 times in
discovered layers of muds and about 45 years, being
sands, which they dated by rebuilt each time”
identifying the relics in them,
as well as radiocarbon dating. the Egyptian kingdoms may
The team found that the site have been driven by climate, as
was hit by three floods in 26 years the drying Sahara forced people
during the reign of the previous towards the Nile, Kröpelin says.
pharaoh, Khafre. The first Menkaure might be to blame,
destroyed the town, while the says Butzer. “He had a problem
others caused widespread with his sense of importance.
damage. But under Menkaure He was the divine offspring of
the devastation multiplied. the gods, and he thought if he
Menkaure built the big admin prayed hard enough things
complex, only to see it demolished. would be OK. They weren’t.”
“A huge flood came barrelling The floods may explain why
through,” says Butzer. It carried there are only three pyramids at
a torrent of rocks and mud, Giza. Menkaure built the last, and
smashing buildings to pieces. smallest, of them. Later pyramids
Above that, Butzer found “layer were built elsewhere, despite the
after layer of foundations and
then rubble”, attesting to frantic
Giza plateau’s prime position,
which meant its pyramids are
I’M HOMELESS. 
rebuilding following a further visible from great distances.
four or five flash floods. Menkaure “Menkaure was the last one,” says WILL YOU HELP ME?
ordered the construction of a Butzer. “Maybe there was a reason
70-metre-long defensive barrier his son wanted to go someplace
called the Wall of the Crow, yet else.” Michael Marshall n

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 11

 THIS WEEK
Skin cancer ‘cured’
by waking up T-cells
Andy Coghlan
TUMOURS in several people with
an advanced form of skin cancer
have completely disappeared after
treatment with one of three drugs
that force tumour cells out of
hiding. The patient’s own immune
system can then recognise the
cancer and destroy it.
These immunotherapies
highlight a promising new
strategy in the war against
cancer – rebooting the immune
system so that it can keep cancers
in check whatever tricks they
spring on us.
Despite evolving throughout
a person’s life to control and
destroy life-threatening intruders,
the immune system is regularly
outfoxed by cancer. This is often
because tumour cells find ways
to camouflage themselves from
the immune system.
Results presented this week
at the annual meeting of the
American Society of Clinical
Oncology in Chicago show how
STEVE GSCHMEISSNER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
12 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
three antibodies can blow
cancer’s cover.
Cancer cells should normally
be spotted by T-cells – immune
cells that recognise and destroy
foreign material in the body.
But tumour cells evolve a way of
hiding themselves from T-cells
by sprouting a surface molecule
called a ligand. The ligand binds
to and activates a receptor on
the T-cell called PD-1. When
PD-1 is activated the T-cell fails
to recognise the cancer cell as
foreign, fooling the immune
system into mistaking tumours
for normal tissue.
All three of the antibodies
can unmask the cancer cell by
blocking the ligand’s interaction
with PD-1, allowing the immune
system to get to work on the
cancer cells.
In 54 of 135 people with
advanced melanoma – the most
deadly form of skin cancer –
tumours more than halved in
volume after treatment with the
first of the antibody therapies,
called Lambrolizumab. Tumours
disappeared altogether in six
of the 57 people who were given
the highest dose of this drug,
developed by Antoni Ribas of
the University of California at
Los Angeles and colleagues
(New England Journal of Medicine, receptor, produced equally
doi.org/mqm).
Results were equally impressive number of people who had other
with Nivolumab, a second
antibody drug. Tumours
more than halved in size and
significantly decreased in number involving people with skin,
in 21 of 53 people with advanced
melanoma who took the drug
alongside another drug. Cancer
vanished completely within
12 weeks in three of the 17 people “In several people given
who received the highest dose
(New England Journal of Medicine, tumours disappeared
doi.org/mqk).
“Many effects happened
very quickly, sometimes within
three weeks,” says Jedd Wolchok
of the Memorial-Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center in New York, who
led the trial.
Wolchok says that what
makes the antibody therapies
so exciting is that unlike
conventional cancer treatments,
such as radio and chemotherapy,
they work by reviving the power
of the patient’s own immune
system – something that has
–Double up: T-cells target tumour– immune system.” n
evolved to efficiently dispose of
infectious, foreign or abnormal
tissue. “They treat the patient,
not the tumour,” he says.
A third antibody, which unlike
the previous two blocks the cancer
cell ligand rather than the PD-1
impressive results in a small
types of cancer, including lung
and kidney. All three drugs are
now entering larger trials
kidney, lung and brain cancers.
Wolchok says the antibody
therapies, alongside other
the antibody therapies
altogether”
emerging strategies for reviving
the immune system, are opening
up a fresh chapter in cancer
treatment, one that could rapidly
expand the number of people
being cured of the disease. “The
immune system can sculpt itself
around the spectrum of changes
that is part of the genetic
instability of cancers,” he says.
Other promising immune
therapies include genetically
engineering a patient’s own
T-cells to recognise and destroy
cancer cells. Earlier this year, one
person with acute lymphoblastic
leukaemia was cured in just eight
days after their T-cells were
engineered to attack any cell
with a surface molecule called
CD19, which is unique to the
cancerous cells.
A company called Kite Pharma
in Los Angeles was recently
formed to develop this technique
for many other cancers.
“All you need is an identifier for
tumour cells and it doesn’t make
any difference how the tumour
evolves after that,” says Aya
Jakobovits, co-founder of Kite
Pharma. “With our approach,
you overcome all challenges of
tumour biology because you
go back to a fully functioning
DID YOU SEE MARK?
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 THIS WEEK
earth observatory/nasa

lends “strong support” to the

idea that CO2 fertilisation drove
the greening.
Climate change studies have
predicted that many dry areas will
get drier and that some deserts
will expand. Donohue’s findings
make this less certain.
However, the greening effect
may not apply to the world’s
driest regions. Beth Newingham
of the University of Idaho, Moscow,
recently published the result of
a 10-year experiment involving a
greenhouse set up in the Mojave
desert of Nevada. She found “no
sustained increase in biomass”
–More verdant at the margins– when extra CO2 was pumped into
the greenhouse. “You cannot

The green flip side

national research institute, the assume that all these deserts
CSIRO in Canberra, monitored respond the same,” she says.
vegetation at the edges of deserts “Enough water needs to be present

of carbon emissions in Australia, southern Africa, the

Fred Pearce
THE planet is getting lusher, and
we are responsible. Carbon dioxide
generated by human activity is
stimulating photosynthesis and
causing a beneficial greening of
the Earth’s surface.
For the first time, researchers
claim to have shown that the
increase in plant cover is due
to this “CO2 fertilisation effect”
rather than other causes.
However, it remains unclear
whether the effect can counter
any negative consequences of
global warming, such as the
spread of deserts.
Recent satellite studies have
shown that the planet is
harbouring more vegetation
overall, but pinning down the
cause has been difficult. Factors
such as higher temperatures,
extra rainfall, and an increase in
atmospheric CO2 – which helps
plants use water more efficiently –
could all be boosting vegetation.
To home in on the effect of CO2,
Randall Donohue of Australia’s
US Southwest, North Africa, the
Middle East and central Asia.
for the plants to respond at all.”
The extra plant growth could
have knock-on effects on climate,
These are regions where there Donohue says, by increasing
is ample warmth and sunlight, rainfall, affecting river flows
but only just enough rainfall for and changing the likelihood of
vegetation to grow, so any change wildfires. It will also absorb more
in plant cover must be the result CO2 from the air, potentially
of a change in rainfall patterns or damping down global warming
CO2 levels, or both. but also limiting the CO2
If CO2 levels were constant, then fertilisation effect itself.
the amount of vegetation per unit Donohue cannot yet say to
of rainfall ought to be constant, what extent CO2 fertilisation
too. However, the team found will affect vegetation in the
that this figure rose by 11 per cent coming decades. But if it proves
in these areas between 1982 and to be significant, the future
2010, mirroring the rise in CO2 may be much greener and more
(Geophysical Research Letters, benevolent than many climate
doi.org/mqx). Donohue says this modellers predict. n

Time cloak Purdue University in Lafayette,

deletes chunks
of history
ERASING the past is now easier thanks
to the latest “time cloak”, which
conceals events instead of objects.
The device can’t cloak large-scale
events such as a bank robbery but
it can hide data flowing through an
optical fibre, which could allow secret
messages to be sent without a trace.
“In a sense we’re erasing this data
from history,” says Joseph Lukens at
Indiana. Time cloaks work by slowing
down light in an optical fibre, creating
a gap in the beam. Any outside light
that enters the hole becomes cloaked
when the original beam is sped up.
It’s as if the original beam has been
stitched back together like a spliced
movie, hiding any record that the
extra scene ever happened.
Last year researchers at Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York,
demonstrated the first working time
cloak via a gap lasting 40 trillionths
of a second. But that could only hide a
small blip of information. Now Lukens
and colleagues have created a series
of time cloaks in quick succession,
allowing much more information to
be cloaked. A diffraction grating
stretches out a laser beam, producing
a series of gaps. Pulses of light sent
along the fibre at the same time slot
into these. A second grating then
closes the holes, hiding the pulses
from the intended receiver. There is
now no record that the pulses ever
“The ‘time cloak’ can hide
up to 1.5 gigabytes per
second, enough to cloak
real-world data”
traversed the fibre (Nature, DOI:
10.1038/nature12224). This string
of cloaks can hide up to 1.5 gigabytes
per second. “We’re able to actually
cloak real-world data,” says Lukens.
That might be useful for securing
communications, but only once the
data can be uncloaked at the other
end to read the message. Until then,
the cloaks could be used to block
nefarious messages. Paul Kinsler of
Imperial College London, who helped
dream up the idea of a time cloak in
2010, says a stream of cloaks is an
interesting twist on the notion of
concealing one event. Jacob Aron n

14 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

For daily news stories, visit newscientist.com/news

Patrick Gaillardin/Picturetank
Finding the players in the
symphony of IQ genes
YOUR eye colour is a product of 100,000 of the people and found
your DNA, but what about your three SNPs that correlated
IQ? The biggest-ever search for significantly with educational
genes that affect intelligence, attainment. They then used data
and the first to give reproducible from the other 26,000 people to
results, has found 10 variations test whether the same correlations
in DNA that seem to influence held. They did, replicating the
intelligence – but not by much. first analysis.
Studies of families show But when the team did a
intelligence is 40 to 50 per cent statistical analysis for the strength
inherited, and otherwise depends of the correlations for each SNP,
on environment. Since mass- they found that even the strongest
analysis of DNA variations became accounted for just 0.02 per cent of
possible, a number of studies have the total variation in educational
sought the genes involved in this attainment (Science, doi.org/mqw).
inheritance, and some papers The three SNPs – and a further
have claimed strong associations seven that correlated weakly –
between particular genes and IQ. accounted for only 2 to 3 per cent
Yet results have varied widely and of all the educational variation.
none have been replicated. Yet the 2.5 million SNPs account
“Many of the published findings for half of the heritability of other –Myriad genes in concert–
of the last decade are wrong,” says complex traits such as height. If
John Hewitt of the University of intelligence is 40 to 50 per cent

NeuroNavigation:
Colorado in Boulder, who was not heritable, the SNPs should have
involved in the new study. accounted for at least 20 per cent
So if intelligence is inherited,
where are the genes hiding? The “Research has hit problems how the brain represents the space
research may have hit problems because each gene linked
because each gene linked with IQ with IQ has a tiny effect we live in and finds our way around
has only a tiny effect on overall on overall intelligence”
intelligence. This means you need Royal Society Ferrier Lecture by
data on a large number of people of the variation in educational Professor John O’Keefe FRS, University College London
to reliably distinguish such effects attainment. Why the discrepancy?
from measurement error. Most “Probably thousands of SNPs Tuesday 18 June 2013, 6.30pm – 7.30pm
studies have involved between are involved, each with an effect The Royal Society, 6 – 9 Carlton House Terrace,
100 and 2000 subjects. so small we need a much bigger London, SW1Y 5AG
Now, some 200 researchers sample to see it,” says Koellinger.
have assembled 54 sets of data on Either that, or intelligence is Admission free – doors open at 6pm
more than 126,000 people who affected to a greater degree than
have had their genomes analysed other heritable traits by genetic Learn how the brain performs the fundamental task
for 2.5 million common, small variations beyond these SNPs – of locating ourselves in our environment. Professor
mutations called SNPs. perhaps rarer gene mutations
Information was also available for or interactions between genes. O’Keefe will describe how the hippocampal formation,
how long they spent in education Amassing data from many neuronal activities and ‘space cells’ underpin a sense of
and the level they reached. studies to detect the small effects place, direction and distance to create a cognitive map.
Educational achievement is of SNPs makes sense for now, says
only a rough proxy for intelligence, Robert Plomin of King’s College For more information visit
says Philipp Koellinger of London, who was not involved in royalsociety.org/events/2013/Ferrier-Lecture
Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the study. “When whole genome
the Netherlands, an organiser of sequencing is cheap enough, we
the study. But this information is can look for sequence variations
available for the requisite large of every kind.” Then, the missing
Registered Charity No 207043
number of people. genes for intelligence may finally
The team began by studying be found. Debora MacKenzie n

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 15

 IN BRIEF
Brandon D. Cole/CORBIS

Is flu salvation right

under our nose?
A BETTER defence against
pandemic flu may be on the way.
It takes months to make a flu
vaccine but, as each vaccine works
against only one particular flu
virus, we can’t stockpile any.
In 2011, researchers looking
for a universal vaccine found
an antibody that attacks all flu
viruses. Normally flu tricks us into
making too little of the antibody
to make a difference, but James
Wilson at the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and his
team have created a workaround.
They put the DNA that codes for
the antibody into an innocuous
virus and squirted it into the
noses of mice and ferrets. There
it made the antibody, which
protected the animals against flu
viruses including the lethal H5N1
bird flu (Science Translational
Medicine, doi.org/mpp).
When the heat is on, starfish died. Its arms, however, could withstand those
temperatures – although if they remained at 35 °C
Such a stockpiled remedy could
buy time in a pandemic while a
lose an arm to survive for more than a few days, one or more arms typically vaccine is made, the team say.
fell off (Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/mpr).
YOU can tell when a starfish is too hot – it loses an arm. Temperature regulation is a trait not normally
The remarkable behaviour is part of a strategy that associated with cold-blooded animals and it is not
Early galaxies were
may allow the animals to survive in warmer waters. clear how the starfish influence the temperature in the
Sylvain Pincebourde at the Institute of Research different parts of their bodies. It is possible that they lit by fat black holes
on Insect Biology in Tours, France, and his colleagues actively divert heat into their arms, which can release
collected 70 ochre starfish (Pisaster ochraceus) from the heat into the water relatively efficiently because of OBESE black holes, not stars, may
the coast of California and housed them at temperatures their large surface area. This could explain why animals have lit up the first galaxies – and
ranging between 26 °C and 42 °C. By monitoring body that are warm for an extended period lose some arms: could have grown into the earliest
temperature, they found that each animal’s central by using them as heat sinks, the starfish may thermally supermassive black holes.
disc was always 3 °C to 5 °C cooler than its five arms. damage their arms beyond repair in a bid to preserve Black holes usually form from
If its core temperature rose above 35 °C, the starfish their vital organs. a collapsed star, and then grow by
gobbling up material. But how did
supermassive ones arise a mere
Standing up to the voices in your head be more forceful and stand up billion years after the big bang?
for themselves. Perhaps they were born “obese”,
PUTTING digital faces to the Leff sat in a separate room and Three months later, 15 of the forming when vast clouds of
abusive voices in their head could took on a dual role both as participants showed significant atomic hydrogen collapsed. Now
help people with schizophrenia. therapist and as each person’s improvement in their symptoms, Bhaskar Agarwal at the Max Planck
Sixteen people with the avatar. When speaking as the and three of them had stopped Institute for Extraterrestrial
condition created an on-screen avatar, software altered his voice hearing voices altogether. Physics in Garching, Germany, and
avatar that best matched what to match the chosen avatar voice. “I found it good to visualise colleagues say we could detect the
they imagined the voice in their As the avatar, Leff would start by what was going on in my head,” result: galaxies with few stars, each
head to look like. They then chose role-playing an abusive character. says one of the 16 participants. “I dominated by a black hole that
a voice to go with the avatar. Over six sessions, he gradually learned how to handle the voices.” shone as matter accreting around
Julian Leff at University College made the avatar’s responses more Leff discussed the study last it was compressed (Monthly
London, who led the trial, then supportive. He used his therapist week at the Wellcome Trust in Notices of the Royal Astronomical
took sessions with each person. voice to encourage the people to London. Society, doi.org/mqg).

16 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 For new stories every day, visit newscientist.com/news
Mon dieu! French
wine is from Italy
FRENCH wine is renowned. But
Parisians would be shocked by the
wine their ancestors started out
making around 500 BC: it was an
Italian white.
Patrick McGovern of the
University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia analysed 2500-year-
old amphoras from the south coast
of France at Lattes, formerly Lattara.
This is where Etruscans from what
is now Italy traded with Celtic Gauls.
Amphoras are thought to have
carried wine, but surprisingly, says
McGovern, no one had verified this.
It matters, because Etruscan
amphoras streamed into southern
France from about 600 BC, then a
century later, distinctive local ones
started leaving. If they held wine,
that could reveal a great moment in
European history: the start of French
winemaking, copied from an Italian
model. Archaeologists suspect the
Gauls adopted the Etruscan tipple in
place of their own fermented fruit
and honey drinks, and brought vines
from the eastern Mediterranean so
they could export their own.
Chemicals in the clay show both
Etruscan and local amphoras at
Lattes did hold wine, confirming the
hypothesis for the first time (PNAS,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1216126110). It
was no Beaujolais: made of grapes,
yes, but with rosemary and possibly
thyme or basil added, plus pine resin
like modern Greek retsina.
michel spingler/AP/pa
Elderly stars like to shred their closest planets
OLD stars make rude hosts. A
survey of ageing stars offers some
of the first direct evidence that
the cantankerous elders often rip
their nearest planets to shreds.
Planet-hunting surveys have
found many sun-like stars with
hot Jupiters, giant worlds in close
orbits. However, hot Jupiters are
rarely found around older stars
called subgiants, which have
burned through their fuel and
puffed up to several times their
original size. This is widely
thought to be because the puffy
stars were up to twice the mass of
Radiation too high
for Mars round trip
BAD news for wannabe Mars
explorers. The round trip alone
would blast you with doses of
radiation that come close to the
acceptable limits set by NASA.
Charged, energetic particles like
cosmic rays can wreak havoc on
biological tissue. Earth’s magnetic
field and atmosphere serve to
block or deflect most cosmic rays.
Astronauts on trips to Mars would
be exposed to much higher doses,
but exact figures were unknown.
Now measurements from a
radiation detector on NASA’s
Curiosity rover have been
converted into sieverts, a measure
of how a given dose of radiation
affects the body. A crew on a 180-
day journey to Mars would receive
0.331 sieverts, and the return trip
would bring that up to 0.662
(Science, doi.org/mpq). That’s
close to NASA’s lower limit for
risk of exposure-induced death
from cancer over a lifetime – and
doesn’t include any trial runs to
space or time on the Red Planet.
Adding more shielding to the
spacecraft would reduce the dose,
but the best option may be to try
to get there faster, says Curiosity
scientist Cary Zeitlin of the
Southwest Research Institute
in Boulder, Colorado.
the sun when they were younger,
and that might have influenced
where their planets formed.
To help test this notion, Kevin
Schlaufman and Joshua Winn of
the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology tracked the positions
of 142 planet-hosting stars in our
galaxy. Stars are born in clusters
which disperse as they age. More
massive stars burn out faster,
so their elderly populations are
usually found closer together.
But the team found that
subgiants with planets are more
spread out, so are older than
I’m picking up good vibrations
WITH their brutish looks and bulk,
Florida manatees don’t look like
highly sensitive creatures. But in one
way they are: they have a talent for
sensing tiny, nanoscale vibrations.
Sometimes called sea cows, the
manatees live in the shallow waters
of mangroves and seagrass meadows.
Despite their size, they are adept at
navigating muddy waters cluttered
with obstacles like fallen trees. “They
can get up to 30 kilometres an hour
in short bursts, and still navigate
without any trouble,” says Joe Gaspard
of the Mote Marine Laboratory and
Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida.
expected, meaning that the stars
were probably about the mass
of our sun in their youth. That
means more of them should have
hot Jupiters. So where did they go?
The best conclusion, they say,
is that the stars exerted extreme
gravitational forces as they
swelled up, stretching out their
inner planets until they fell apart.
The finding hints that the same
fate may lie in store for Earth
when the sun puffs up into a
red giant in 6 billion years’ time.
The work has been accepted
by The Astrophysical Journal.
brian skerry/ngs/getty
Their secret is their hair. Gaspard
trained two manatees, Buffett and
Hugh, to approach a vibrating sphere
in the water. If they sensed the
vibration, they nuzzled a paddle and
were rewarded with treats – apples,
carrots, beets and monkey biscuits.
By restricting their hairs with
meshes, Gaspard found that the
hairs on their face and body were
picking up the minuscule vibrations.
Hugh was slightly more sensitive
than Buffett, detecting movements
of just 0.9 nanometres (Journal
of Comparative Physiology A, doi.
org/mnx).
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 17
TECHNOLOGY
Get your move on
An exoskeleton is helping people without the use of their legs
to walk again – using thought alone
Helen Thomson, Rome
TWO years ago, Antonio Melillo
was in a car crash that completely
severed his spinal cord. He has not
been able to move or feel his legs
since. And yet here I am, in a lab
at the Santa Lucia Foundation
hospital in Rome, Italy, watching
him walk.
Melillo is one of the first people
with lower limb paralysis to try
out MindWalker – the world’s first
exoskeleton that aims to enable
Helen Thomson
paralysed and locked-in people
to walk using only their mind.
Five people have been involved
in the clinical trial of MindWalker
over the past eight weeks. The trial
culminates this week with a review
by the European Commission,
which funded the work.
It’s the end of a three-year
development period for the
project, which has three main
elements. There is the exoskeleton
itself, a contraption that holds a
person’s body weight and moves
their legs when instructed. People
learn how to use it in the second
element: a virtual-reality
environment. And then there’s
the mind-reading component.
Over in the corner of the lab,
Thomas Hoellinger of the Free
University of Brussels (ULB) in
Belgium is wearing an EEG cap,
which measures electrical activity
at various points across his scalp.
There are several ways he can
use it to control the exoskeleton
through thought alone – at the
moment, the most promising
involves wearing a pair of glasses
with flickering diodes attached to
each lens.
Each set of diodes flashes at
a different frequency in the
wearer’s peripheral vision. The
light is processed by an area of
the brain called the occipital
cortex. Measurements from
this part of the brain can
detect whether Hoellinger is
concentrating on the left diode
or the right. He shows me how
concentrating on the left starts
the exoskeleton walking, while
concentrating on the right
stops it. All this happens in
under a second.
Melillo isn’t wearing the cap
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology
right now, because the team has
hit a snag. When the exoskeleton
moves, its motors induce
electrical noise in the EEG signal,
making the readings unreliable.
So instead of mind control,
Melillo is walking by moving his
upper body. As he leans left, a
pressure sensor just above his
buttock registers the movement
and moves the opposite leg of
the exoskeleton. He repeats
–Step by step– people in the eye,” he says. n
the process on the other side to
begin walking. “It’s great, such an
amazing sensation,” he says. “Not
just walking but even being able
to stand upright.”
Two days after my visit, the
team identified flickering
frequencies that are less affected
by the mechanical noise and
filmed a researcher controlling
the exoskeleton with his mind
alone (see video at bit.ly/exowalk).
The team plans to spend
another five years refining
MindWalker with an eye towards
building a commercial product.
“We’re going to make it more
lightweight and smooth out the
movements,” says Jeremi Gancet
of Space Application Services in
Zaventem, Belgium, a deputy
coordinator on the project, “and
possibly even incorporate it all
into a pair of pants to make it a
little less ‘Robocop’.”
They also want to ditch the
glasses with the flashing diodes.
A team led by Guy Chéron at ULB
has identified the brain activity
that corresponds with the
intention of walking. This activity
“We’re hoping to incorporate
the exoskeleton into a
pair of pants to make it
a little less ‘Robocop’ ”
occurs about a second before
you actually move and can be
identified by EEG signals from the
motor cortex. The team can even
distinguish between the intention
to walk quickly or slowly.
The creation of an algorithm
that can recognise these signals
reliably opens up the tantalising
possibility that much more
intuitive walking control could
be given both to people who are
paralysed and to those who are
completely locked-in, unable to
move even their eyes.
After some tentative first steps,
Melillo is looking more confident.
He won’t be swapping his
wheelchair for a MindWalker just
yet, but hopefully one day. “It’s
great finally being able to look
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 19
TECHNOLOGY

Trunk call to save forest

In the Indonesian rainforest, has-been cellphones could help stop illegal logging International. Conservation
Cat Ferguson
A CHAINSAW revs in a remote
swathe of the Indonesian
rainforest. Within minutes,
rangers appear as if from
nowhere, stopping illegal
loggers in their tracks and saving receive real-time alerts with the
countless trees. How did they
know? A tip off from a recycled
cellphone hanging hundreds
but we find out after, so we
cannot trace when it happens,”
says Dwiati Novita Rini, who
works on reforestation of cleared
land in Sumatra with Birdlife
groups can also pay police to
perform aerial surveys of areas
forest floor. Their microphones the location. “We want to make vulnerable to logging, but they are
stay on at all times, and software people feel like they are taking too expensive to do frequently.
listens for the telltale growl of a part in the dramatic events on For its initial trial, Rainforest
chainsaw, which triggers an alert. the front lines of environmental Connection will work with the
Initially, only rangers will be protection,” he says. conservation group Kalaweit to
notified, but White hopes to Current efforts to stop loggers place and test 15 phone rigs in the
release a free app that lets anyone in Indonesia are limited. “We can 25,000-hectare Air Tarusan reserve
find out how much forest has in western Sumatra. White hopes
audio that the phones pick up and been cut using satellite images, each phone will have a listening
radius of 0.5 kilometres, providing
a low-cost way to monitor remote
Yusuf Ahmad/reuters

of metres away in the forest. stretches of jungle.

That’s the vision of Topher Indonesia loses more than a
White, founder of Rainforest million hectares of forest a year,
Connection, based in San according to an estimate by
Francisco. The non-profit Rainforest Action Network. The
organisation is launching a pilot country’s rainforest is the third
project this month in the forests largest in the world, and home
of Indonesia that uses modified to many unique native species
Android smartphones to record of plants and animals. But more
and identify the sound-signatures than half of it has been cleared
of chainsaws. since the 1960s.
At first, Rainforest Connection Eventually, White hopes to
will use new phones donated for simplify the technology so that
the trial, though White ultimately locals can plug a phone into a
plans to use recycled handsets box, nail it to a tree, and begin
that supporters contribute when tracking loggers right away.
they upgrade to the latest model. “We’ll ultimately rely upon locals
The phones are outfitted with to intervene when an ‘event’
solar panels specifically designed is detected. Making it simple,
to take advantage of the brief effective and accessible for them
periods when light reaches the –Not hard to hear– is our first priority.” n

Photo of your face with a BMI over 30 is acknowledged as

obese and below 18.5 as underweight.
average distance between eyebrow
and eye. They then ran the program
“This could be used in smart health
applications, relating face images to

is all it takes to How we perceive someone’s weight

predict your BMI
THERE’S a lot you can tell from a face –
and now there’s one more thing: body
mass index. Software that can predict
your BMI from a snapshot of your face
could turn a simple headshot into a
revealing portrait of your build, and
even your risk of certain diseases.
BMI is a standard health metric
that’s equal to a person’s weight (in
kilograms) divided by the square of
their height (in metres). Someone
based on images of their face is
strongly correlated with actual body
weight and associated health risks
(Perception, doi.org/c67jd5). Building
on that knowledge, Guodong Guo and
colleagues at West Virginia University
in Morgantown have now produced an
algorithm that can analyse a mugshot
and predict that person’s BMI.
The software assesses seven
weight-related components in a
face image, including the ratios of
cheekbone width to jaw width, face
length to cheekbone width and the
across images of 14,500 faces of
people with known BMIs. The
predicted BMIs were mostly within
two or three points of the person’s
actual BMI (Image and Vision
Computing, doi.org/mnz).
That’s just a first attempt, Guo
says. He says that tweaking the
software to analyse more facial
features should improve the results.
“The system could help you
assess the BMI and state of
health of people you might
find on online dating sites”
BMI and associated health risks,” Guo
says. “Or on online dating sites, for
instance, it could help you assess the
BMI and state of health of people you
might date.”
Ioanna Tzoulaki, an epidemiologist
at Imperial College London, says such
analyses could be useful if fat in the
face can be correlated with patterns
of disease, but she worries about
discrimination. “What can this be
used for except dating sites? People
often have facial images in their CVs.
Is it right to assign people into obesity
groups from these?” Paul Marks n

20 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 One Per Cent
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology

Let me guess… it’s a chair,

right? Talk about déjà vu

ROBERY STOLARIK/New York Times/Redux/eyevine

ALWAYS seeing the world with but the next version will allow the
fresh eyes can make it hard to system to add new objects itself
find your way around. Giving as it encounters them. “It’s similar
computers the ability to recognise to how a child learns about the
objects as they scan a new world,” says Salas-Moreno.
environment will let them The database also lists the
navigate much more quickly and properties of the stored objects.
understand what they are seeing. So when the computer recognises
Renato Salas-Moreno at a chair, it will know what they are
Imperial College London and used for, how much they typically
colleagues have added object weigh, and which way up they go. Bump! There’s a pothole…
recognition to a computer vision This knowledge will help digital Cars and trucks could one day be used to help scout for
technique called simultaneous avatars interact with the real potholes, say engineers at the M. S. Ramaiah Institute of
location and mapping (SLAM). world in augmented reality Technology in Bangalore, India. Their design calls for vehicle
A SLAM-enabled computer has applications, for example. The shock absorbers to be fitted with wireless pressure sensors
a camera to orient itself in new that can beam data on pothole size to a central server and to
surroundings as it maps them. “Computers that recognise other vehicles nearby. Councils will then be able to prioritise
SLAM builds up a picture of the and add new objects to repairs and satnavs could plot routes to avoid potholes.
world out of points and lines and their database learn in
contours. In an office, say, chairs a similar way to a child”
and desks would emerge from “It’s a cross between a Concorde,
the room like hills and valleys work will be presented at the a railgun and an air hockey table”
in a landscape. “The world is Computer Vision and Pattern
meaningless since every point in Recognition conference in Elon Musk's enigmatic answer at the All Things Digital
the map is the same,” says Salas- Portland, Oregon, this month. conference in California last week when asked about his
Moreno. “It doesn’t know if it is Stefan Hinterstoisser at the high-speed Hyperloop transport system, which might one
looking at a television or the wall.” Technical University in Munich, day ferry people between Los Angeles and San Francisco
But in the new system, called Germany, is impressed. “It’s a very
SLAM++, the computer constantly significant improvement over
tries to match the points and lines the state of the art,” he says. He Ancient Protestant network unearthed
it sees to objects in its database. thinks it could have a big impact The same analysis used to understand digital social
As soon as it finds a shape it can not only on robotics, but also on networks has unearthed a secret from the 16th century.
identify – often after seeing only games and films – CGI characters Ruth Ahnert of Queen Mary, University of London, analysed
a part of it – that area of the map would be able to interact with the letters written by Protestant martyrs in England persecuted
can be filled in. Currently, the world more naturally, for example. under the Catholic reign of Mary I – aka “Bloody Mary”. By
database is prepared by hand, Douglas Heaven n connecting senders and recipients, as well as places, people
and events mentioned in the letters, Ahnert found a hidden
network of Protestants who “provided monetary, moral and
logistical support to the martyrs”, but never made it into the
pages of history. She will present the work next week at a
network science conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Apple’s cool battery patent

Graphene could soon be helping Apple’s iPhones and iPads
pack more power. The company has filed a US patent
application (2013/0136966) to use the one-atom thick
sheets of carbon to disperse heat from the lithium batteries
in its mobile devices. Replacing existing 30-micrometre-
thick graphite heat sinks with graphene could open up space
for a bigger, longer-lasting battery, says inventor Ramesh
Bhardwaj of Fremont, California.
–Work the room one step at a time–

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 21

 TECHNOLOGY

Insight Social media Graffiti codes

let you surf with
a simple wave
EVERYWHERE you look nowadays
there seems to be a QR code.
Those are the complicated square
patterns that contain links to
websites, for example, in a format
smartphone cameras can read.
Problem is, they need to be printed
in advance. What if they could be
created on the spot, like graffiti?
Sean Gallup/Getty

That’s the aim of a project from

Jeremy Rubin, working in the Viral
Spaces group under Andrew
–To each their own– Lippman at the MIT Media Lab.
Instead of taking a photo of the

Maps that know you code, people move their phone

over the pattern and Graffiti Codes
uses the phone’s accelerometers
to pick it up. The phone’s software
Google is using social media to transform our relationship with maps recognises the pattern and
converts it to code that digitally
YOU fancy going for pizza but you’re Reducing the differing views to  maps of OpenStreetMap. This method links to a web page. A pattern can be
new in town. Wouldn’t it be nice if you which we are exposed may risk a would allow people to plot the most drawn on any surface with a marker.
knew where your friends who live ghettoisation of the web. But others comfortable walking path through a big Anyone can scan the graffiti with
there liked to eat? That is one of the believe creating a bespoke map for city, for instance, or show the safest their own phone and be pointed to
ideas behind Google’s latest move to each user has its benefits. route home, as judged by strangers. the same information.
automatically tailor maps for individuals. A family driving through New York Pete Warden, founder of travel- Rubin says the hybrid digital-
At its annual developer conference City as part of a road trip needs a mapping company Jetpac, based in San physical tags could eventually be
last month, Google announced that slightly different map than a lone Francisco, says personalised maps will used to offer coupons to shoppers
it would be using data from users’ tourist on the way to the Statue of work best on a large scale. “Up-and- on the move, or even to recognise
social-media friends to alter their Liberty, for example. Such context coming restaurants would be really movement patterns like walking up
personal maps. A preview version plays a central role in defining what interesting,” he says. By tracking stairs, triggering a message.
of the new-style maps is rolling out information we need from a map, which restaurants Google Maps users “Graffiti Codes are part of a larger
around the world right now. At first says Georg Gartner, president of the search for and navigate to in real time, effort to make the world accessible
it will result in nothing more than International Cartographic Association. Google would be able to identify hot and understandable,” Lippman says.
restaurant recommendations. But new restaurants far faster than any “The idea is that it is easily created
it will eventually lead to a highly “Google conquered ideas traditional media. “You can imagine a by anyone and as easily detected.
augmented way to navigate, based on and culture with search – billboard chart of which restaurants Most other codes are harder to
a hidden world of data representing now it’s trying to organise are becoming fashionable for every compose and imprint.” Hal Hodson n
the emotions, movements and actions the physical world” city,” says Warden.
of other people. Maps built on Google’s wider range
The restaurant recommendations “Experiences and emotions – and of data would allow for the popularity
will be based on ratings given by your those of my friends – are all part of of different routes, areas and
friends on Google’s social network, that context,” he says. destinations to be tracked over time.
Google+. The firm unified its privacy Gartner’s research group is working Warden ultimately sees map
policies last year to allow the sharing on a system that embeds emotional personalisation as Google’s way to put
of user data between its cloud-based information into maps. Called EmoMap, its massive caches of geographical
applications in order to build new kinds it uses smartphones to gather data to use, ultimately through future
PKrzysztof Dydynski/getty

of services, and ultimately sell more ads. people’s emotional responses to versions of Google Glass. “Google
Besides the privacy issue, some their immediate environment, with conquered ideas and culture with
worry that personalised maps will only individuals ranking places on comfort, search, now it’s trying to organise and
enhance the so-called filter bubble safety, diversity, attractiveness and index the physical world,” he says.
effect, whereby our own views or relaxation. The results are compiled “Glass and Maps are different lenses to
prejudices are reflected back at us. into a “heat map” and overlaid on the view the world with.” Hal Hodson n

22 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 Arc 1.4 /
Forever alone drone
How remote can you go?

Out now, the latest issue of Arc, Forever alone drone,

explores the technological wilderness over more than
180 pages of exciting new work from a fantastic selection
of notable writers.

New science fiction from:

Liz Jensen
Nancy Kress
Every three months, Arc explores the possibilities of Robert Reed
tomorrow’s technologies and societies with unique Bruce Sterling
intelligence, wit and charm, publishing work by the Romie Stott
world’s most visionary writers and thinkers. It will Jack Womack
make you see the future in a whole new light. New essays & ideas about
the future from:
Madeline Ashby
Simon Ings

“Consistently brilliant” Smári McCarthy

Sumit Paul-Choudhury
– guardian.co.uk Kim Stanley Robinson
Frank Swain
Jon Turney

Arc is designed to be read on digital devices – tablets, smartphones, Kindles, Nooks, PCs and Macs.

B uy yo u r co p y no w a t ar cf ini ty.o rg
Aperture

24 | NewScientist | 8
00June
Month
2013
2012
Reflect on this
IT TAKES a couple of seconds to work out what’s
going on in this photo. You’re looking at a pair of
heliostat mirrors – sunflower-like reflectors that
turn to track the sun during the day. These are
just two of hundreds of thousands such mirrors
arranged in the Mojave Desert in California,
all part of the Ivanpah solar power project .
Their job is to concentrate the sun’s rays onto
boilers located on three central towers, turning
water into steam that drives turbines. The site
(inset) covers 14 square kilometres and will
produce at least 377 megawatts of electricity,
not much below the summer output of a typical
nuclear power station in the US and enough to
power 140,000 homes in California.
“It is like watching the creation of a huge piece
of land art, a contemporary Nazca Lines of sorts,”
says photographer Jamey Stillings.
The project has been controversial. Native
American groups have objected, claiming it
will impact burial grounds. The project was also
held up while desert tortoises – a threatened
species – were relocated away from the Ivanpah
site. It highlights the fact that even renewable
energy projects can have some adverse
environmental impacts.
“How do we balance the protection of select
species of animals and plants at a specific site
with the potential benefits of reducing our fossil
fuel use through renewable energy production?”
asks Stillings. Rowan Hooper

Photographer
Jamey Stillings
jameystillings.com

00 Month 2012 | NewScientist | 25

8 June 2013
OPINION
Worrying times
Fear of unemployment is a big drag on economies. Is it a rational
reaction, ask Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter
IT’S bad, yes, but not that bad.
At least, not in the UK. Headline
unemployment, the great
plughole in economic fortunes,
is less gaping than predicted. Yet,
contrary to the figures, surveys
still suggest a deep fear of job loss,
which is eroding consumer
confidence and stifling recovery.
The country’s unemployment
levels have certainly set no records
despite the 2008 financial crash
sparking a calamitous decline in
gross domestic product. In fact,
UK unemployment rates are so
out of line with other economic
indicators and what happened in
previous recessions – improving
even as the economy idles – that
economists have been scratching
their heads for an explanation.
The unemployment rate in the
UK is now only 2.5 points higher
than the 30-year low that was
seen just before the recession
began in 2008. So are the British
irrationally afraid of a problem
which by this measure seems to
leave 97.5 per cent of the labour
force as it was?
Possibly. But risk is a
psychological phenomenon,
not just a question of odds, and
2.5 per cent more of the workforce
unemployed doesn’t necessarily
equal 2.5 per cent more fear –
whatever that might mean. Not
least because plenty of people
might legitimately fear that they
could be next.
What’s more, the headline rate
of 7.8 per cent may be far from
the whole picture, and not for the
usual arguments about whether it
hides underemployment. Here’s a
telling fact: that 2.5 per cent rise in
unemployment is equal to about
26 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
1 million people in a working
population of about 38 million.
But the number of jobs that have
been lost to unemployment or
inactivity since the start of the if you aren't out for long that
recession is probably closer to
16 million.
How so? Simply because the
headline figures measure the
stock of jobless people. The
16 million jobs lost are not the
stock, but the flow. Think of the flow is vastly greater than stock,
job market as a revolving door,
into and out of work. The stock
of unemployment is the number
outside at any one time. The flow,
on the other hand, is the number “2.5 per cent more of the
who pass through to find
themselves outside long enough
to be counted as unemployed or
inactive, before some get back
in (note that the same person
can go round more than once).
It can be cold outside, so even
experience matters. To
understand the fear of job loss,
we should pay more attention to
the flow figure. “It could be me”
makes more sense in that context.
In both the UK and the US,
meaning that experience of
unemployment is more common
than it appears from the headline
workforce unemployed
doesn't necessarily equal
2.5 per cent more fear”
figures. In European countries
that share the euro common
currency, unemployment varies
widely but on average it is 12.2 per
cent – worse than in the UK – and
above a quarter in Greece and
Spain. Imagine the still greater
proportions who have felt the
chill of being on the wrong side
of the door.
In the US, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics surveys what it
calls, appropriately, JOLTs (job
openings and labour turnover),
of which “layoffs and discharges”
are about 1.6 million every month,
even as headline unemployment
figures fall.
This hints at another striking
phenomenon: experience of
unemployment is common in
good times as well as bad. Labour
market churn can be vast at all
points of the economic cycle. To
change the metaphor, worsening
unemployment is a rise in the
waves on top of an always
turbulent ocean.
Indeed, the difference in job-
loss churn between good times
and bad is surprisingly small.
Before the recession, the average
risk of becoming unemployed
in the UK – what the UK’s Office
for National Statistics calls the
“hazard of unemployment” –
was about 1.2 per cent every three
months. It briefly spiked in late
2008 and early 2009 at 1.9 per
cent then fell back. It’s now about
1.4 per cent. So the difference pre-
crash to today equals 0.2 per cent,
or 1 extra person in every 500
becoming unemployed every
three months. Enough to explain
the difference between irrational
exuberance and gloom? Hardly.
Comment on these stories at newscientist.com/opinion
Except that this leads us to one
last piece of the combination of
job-risk psychology with the data:
the difference that it makes to be
outside that door.
One measure of this is the
chance of getting back inside.
Before the recession, about 1 in
3 unemployed people found a job
every quarter, but this dropped
to about 1 in 4 after the recession
began. In early 2008, about
400,000 people had been
unemployed for more than
12 months in the UK. By early
2013, this was up to 900,000.
Another measure of life on the
outside is to say that the risk is
misery. For the young, especially,
it can leave a permanent scar on
job prospects and wages.
Unemployed people are also
more likely to be sick, stressed
and depressed, to divorce, commit
crime and die early – and research
suggests that unemployment
makes the difference. Suicide is
often said to be one factor in this
rising mortality rate; others are
heart disease and alcohol.
Estimates of the extra annual
risk of death vary. One study found
no effect, others put it at around
20 per cent, while one said around
60 per cent. If true, the latter is
huge, similar to the average extra
risk from smoking 12 cigarettes
a day. It's as if every 24 hours out
of work left you 27 hours older.
Look hard at many risks
about which people worry and
you often find less to fear in the
numbers than headlines suggest.
Is unemployment an exception?
The odds of becoming jobless
are both worse than they might
appear and subject to potentially
huge consequential multipliers.
To be sensitive to this seems
perfectly rational. n
Michael Blastland devised BBC Radio
4’s programme dedicated to numbers,
More or Less. Statistician David
Spiegelhalter is the Winton Professor
for the Public Understanding of Risk
at the University of Cambridge. Their
new book is The Norm Chronicles
(Profile Books)
One minute with…
Didier Queloz
NASA’s exoplanet hunt may be on hold but the search for other
worlds won’t stop, says the pioneering Swiss astronomer
In 1995, you discovered the first exoplanet
orbiting a sunlike star. Did you foresee
just how far the field would have come
since then?
At first looking for exoplanets was seen as weird.
A lot of people were negative about it. Then the
field began to grow, and the establishment of the
Kepler mission in 2009 showed the field was fully
mature. In parallel, exoplanet meetings also grew.
Many other disciplines are also interested now; it
is much wider than just astronomy.
But isn't NASA’s Kepler space telescope all
but shut down now?
Yes. They wanted to push the mission as long as
they could to increase exoplanet detections, and Profile
they found many super-Earth and Neptune-size Didier Queloz is professor of physics at the
planets. But unfortunately attempts to detect an University of Cambridge and the University of
Earth-sized planet orbiting its star with an Earth- Geneva in Switzerland. He is a key collaborator
like year seem to have failed. on the Next-Generation Transit Survey
Does that mean the search is off until 2017,
when NASA launches its Transiting Exoplanet What kinds of planets will NGTS detect?
Survey Satellite? We plan to be able to detect almost anything that
No. Ground-based photometric technology has takes up to two weeks to orbit its star. If we are
been pushed to a point that the bulk of detection lucky, we may get a couple of objects very close
can now be done from the ground by targeting to the size of Earth.
smaller stars. That’s where the Next-Generation
Transit Survey (NGTS) comes in. Beyond identifying them, is characterising
exoplanets the next big thing?
What is the NGTS? The field is definitely moving more towards the
It is an array of 12 small telescopes being installed astrophysics: climate, weather, atmosphere. I think
this year at Paranal in Chile’s Atacama desert – an we will be amazed by the diversity of these worlds.
ideal location because it is extremely dry and has
clear sky about 80 per cent of the time. The Will exoplanets reveal life beyond Earth?
reason we don’t need bigger telescopes is that It is in the mind of everyone involved that what we
we want to focus on small, bright stars. are doing should lead towards an understanding
of life in the universe. On the practicality of life
Why limit your planet-hunting to these stars? existing elsewhere, I have no idea. In theory,
We don’t want to repeat Kepler's observations of finding a planet is a way to tackle that question.
faint stars. Also, if you find a planet transiting in Once we find such a planet, there is no way we will
front of a faint star, it’s very hard to get other be able to fly there in a reasonable time frame, but
information about it because the signal is too we can probe the atmosphere from here. Will that
weak. Bright stars offer the possibility of learning be enough to answer the question of whether life
more about the planet, by making it possible to exists there? That part is still highly debatable.
do work such as atmospheric analysis. Interview by Jon White
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 27
OPINION THE BIG IDEA
Free will unleashed
For decades science has told us that free will is an illusion.
But now neuroscientist Peter Ulric Tse thinks he has identified
the brain mechanism that lets us act of our own volition
FREE will. Philosophers tell us it is logically
impossible. Neuroscientists argue that it is an
illusion because they can predict which finger
you will move before you are aware of willing
to move. But I am convinced that a new
understanding of how neurons “realise”
information can reveal how free will works
in the brain.
We have been thinking in the wrong way
about how neurons encode and transmit
information. The conventional view is that
this neural code is based on neural firings
called spikes. According to this view, the
ability to turn thoughts into subsequent
thinking and actions is the result of spikes
cascading through neural circuits. This is
not wrong. It just neglects half the story.
The missing piece is that neurons can
rewire each other. Spikes don’t just trigger
subsequent spikes in other neurons. Within
milliseconds, they can temporarily change
the degree to which synapses – the nerve
structures that pass signals to other neurons –
trigger future spikes. This reweighting of a
synapse is like changing the combination
on a padlock without opening it, and can
happen without necessarily triggering
spikes immediately. I base this claim on
research from the past decade showing that
rapid bursts of spikes trigger the opening
of specialised synaptic receptors, altering
the responsiveness of neurons to
subsequent spikes.
This means that a neuron could now be
driven by an input that, moments before,
might have contributed nothing to its
firing. For example, a nerve cell that has just
responded to a touch to your forehead could
now respond to someone stroking your hand.
This rapid synaptic reweighting could
potentially alter the connectivity of an entire
28 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
circuit, defining new neuronal paths that Profile
signals can traverse. Just as railway switches Peter Ulric Tse is a
must be flipped to allow trains to pass, cognitive neuroscientist
synaptic weights must be reset before brain at Dartmouth College
signals can follow one path through a neural in Hanover, New
circuit instead other possible paths. And if Hampshire. His new
information is realised in the brain at the level book, on which this
of circuits, not just neurons, it is no wonder article is based,
that listening to spikes in single neurons has isThe Neural Basis
not allowed us to crack the neural code. of Free Will: Criterial
What does this have to do with free will? causation (MIT Press)
Determinists argue that because all particles
follow predetermined trajectories, all
events, including our lives, unfold as
inevitably as a movie. Indeterminists,
supported by quantum mechanics, argue
the opposite – that all events are random.
In either case, whether predetermined or
random, there is no room for free will to
make events turn out otherwise.
Future firing
There is, however, a middle path to freedom
between these unfree extremes. If the brain
sets up criteria for future firing, and if spike
timing is made random by the amplification
of quantum-level events in the synapse,
it is down to chance how these criteria are
met. The inputs that meet criteria cannot be process is not utterly random, because the
predicted – the outcome depends on which answer had to be a politician. However, it is
spikes coincidentally arrive first. also not deterministic, because it could have
How does chance interplay with these turned out otherwise.
internal criteria in real life? If I ask you to Similarly, think about why you dated your
think of a politician, your brain sets the partner rather than many possible other
appropriate criterion in neurons involved in people. Because they met your criteria for a
retrieval of information held in your memory. good mate first. Had you by chance turned left
Perhaps Margaret Thatcher comes to mind. rather than right that day, you might now be
If it were possible to rewind the universe, with someone else who also met your criteria.
you might think of Barack Obama this time, Factoring in rapid synaptic reweighting also
because he also meets the criterion. This gets around the argument that free will can’t
For more opinion articles and to add your comments, visit newscientist.com/opinion
exist because of the impossibility of self-
causation. The argument goes as follows: we
act as we do at each moment because of how
our brain is physically organised at that time.
So because we are not ultimately responsible
for the way we are organised then, we are not
responsible for the consequences of that
action. It had to happen as it did, otherwise
a thought could change its own neuronal
basis, which is impossible. But with synaptic
reweighting, mental events don’t change
their present physical basis. They change the
If consciousness plays no part in the synaptic
reweighting process, there is hardly a free
will worth having. (There are many definitions
for consciousness, but I define it as all the
information that presently is, or could be,
voluntarily attended to.)
Fortunately, the neural activity associated
with consciousness does play a necessary
role. One way to demonstrate this is using
a thought experiment. Let’s say you are
planning a dinner party and play out various
possibilities in your mind’s eye. You imagine
serving a steak, then realise that one guest is
vegetarian, so set criteria “delicious; not meat”
among synapses associated with memory
“We are not mere automata
or unfree characters in a
deterministic movie”
retrieval. As described before, whatever comes
to mind will meet these criteria yet could have
turned out otherwise.
Let’s say spinach lasagne is the first
appropriate solution that comes to mind.
This solution could only have been reached
through intentional manipulation of
conscious thoughts, so the neural activity that
gives rise to consciousness is necessary for the
subsequent act of shopping for spinach. Your
brain freely willed the outcome of spinach by
setting up specific criteria in advance, then
playing things out. Such internal deliberation
is where the action is in free will, not in
repetitive or automated motor acts.
This way of understanding the neural code
has deep implications. It means that our
thoughts and actions are neither utterly
random nor predetermined. This counters
Gilles Coulon/ tendance floue
arguments that free will is an illusion. It shows
that the conclusion derived from the dogma of
determinism – that mental events, including
volitional ones, cannot cause subsequent
events – is wrong.
We are not mere automata or unfree
characters in a deterministic movie. We can
Has your choice of path already been change the physical universe with our minds.
determined by previous events? For example, it was not predetermined at the
big bang when and where aeroplanes would be
neuronal basis of possible future events. invented. They were brought into existence by
But this alone is not enough for free brains that could harness chance to creatively
will. The brain of a zombie who lacked envision a different future.
consciousness could use this mechanism This does not mean that we require a soul
too, but we would not say it had free will. for free will. We don’t. My account is entirely
To have free will requires that our self – that physicalist. But our brains can set criteria, play
which we feel directs our attention around events out internally, choose the best option,
our conscious experience – has some say then make things happen. And it could always
in the matter of what we do or think. have turned out otherwise. n
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 29
OPINION LETTERS
Martian holiday
From Brian Horton
In your look at how to build a
colony on Mars (18 May, p 8), it
was suggested that finding a
resource to trade with Earth
would be essential for its survival.
Yet Mars is unlikely to supply
unique goods, so any colony
should concentrate on tourism
instead. Some people would
pay any amount for six-star
accommodation, while
backpackers could work as cabin
crew en route, and then in the
proposed greenhouses picking
lettuces.
Of course, Mars would be in
competition with the moon,
which could offer much shorter –
and cheaper – holidays, but Mars
would have more interesting
weather.
West Launceston,
Tasmania, Australia
From Alwyne Kennedy
To my knowledge, all this talk
of colonising Mars has never
touched on one very possible
downside: war. Here on Earth,
even neighbouring countries with
the same ethnic and religious
mix will take up arms against one
another. How much more likely
Enigma Number 1752
Pentagon of squares
SUSAN DENHAM
I have drawn a circle, marked five
points around its circumference,
and joined each to the next by a
straight line in order to make a
pentagon. It turns out that the
centre of the circle is outside this
pentagon. I have then measured,
WIN £15 will be awarded to the sender of the first correct
answer opened on Wednesday 3 July. The Editor’s decision is final.
Please send entries to Enigma 1752, New Scientist, Lacon House,
84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS, or to enigma@newscientist.com
(please include your postal address).
Answer to 1746 Square in common: They both chose 3721
The winner Siu Loong Leong, New York, US
30 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
would it be for populations
separated by millions of
kilometres to come to look upon
each other as foreign devils?
Very likely, especially if the
colony became self-sustaining,
with its population swelled
by Mars-born generations
wanting independence from
their imperial masters. Any
emerging independent Martian
government would seek military
superiority over its only known
neighbour: Earth.
London, UK
Crime network
From Chris James
A system that uses random
strangers sourced from the
in degrees, the five interior angles
of the pentagon. The five numbers
are all different and all but the
smallest are perfect squares.
What is the smallest angle and
what are the angles on either side
of the smallest one?
twittersphere to deliver parcels
in relays (18 May, p 17) sounds like
a dream for terrorists and drug
smugglers. It won’t catch on.
Winchester, Hampshire, UK
Nuclear needs
From Bernard Ingham, secretary,
Supporters of Nuclear Energy
Jochen Flasbarth’s article
outlining a future free of nuclear
power (18 May, p 24) was as
hubristic about Germany’s energy
future as environmentalists are
hysterical about global warming.
Germany has far from proved it
can do without nuclear power.
We shall only know if it can when
(and if) its government kills the
industry stone dead, as is slated
to occur in 2022, and we see how
much nuclear energy Germany
then imports from its neighbours.
My understanding is that
German industry is, to say the
least, worried about the security
of its electricity supply as the
nation increasingly relies on wind
and solar power. The cost of power
is also a concern, and companies
are reportedly planning to
relocate to the US. German energy
policy, like that of other European
nations, could serve only to
de-industrialise the continent.
Purley, Surrey, UK
Red alert
From Keith Hiscock, associate
fellow at the Marine Biological
Association of the UK
Your editorial suggests it would
be better to rebuild damaged
ecosystems to incorporate human
activity, rather than rewind them
to how they were before we
started meddling (18 May, p 3).
But we shouldn’t yet throw in the
towel for most seabed ecosystems.
Many are close to their natural
state and those that are exploited
are not manipulated by humans
to the same degree as terrestrial
ecosystems. Many will rebound if
damaging pressures are removed.
For those that are damaged
or threatened, I fear we will end
up with a few well-studied ones
in the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature’s
proposed Red List of Ecosystems,
while most will fall into the
“data deficient” dustbin. As with
the Red List for species, policy
advisors and politicians will only
pay attention to ecosystems on
the list and not to those without
the requisite quantitative
information on rarity or decline.
Plymouth, Devon, UK
Cosmic compendium
From Alexander Middleton
Your recent look at string theory
addressed its potential to
overcome the problem of
Boltzmann brains – spontaneous
conscious entities that physicists
predict could form by chance in
our universe given a vast amount
of time (25 May, p 12). But if the
universe is destined to fill up
with something that the laws of
physics don’t rule out, it could be
anything, not just space brains.
I expect to see much less
complex (and so more probable)
things sooner, such as Penny
Black postage stamps or rubber
chickens. Or trillions of monkeys
with typewriters who will produce
not only the complete works of
Shakespeare, but a much fuller
version, featuring all the plays
and sonnets that Shakespeare
didn’t have time to write.
Moorooka, Queensland, Australia
Dark thoughts
From Maarten van Burgt
Sometimes I wonder what’s in a
name. Doesn’t the fact that there
is so much talk about dark energy
and dark matter (11 May, p 32)
imply that we have no idea what
is going on in the universe?
Maybe one answer will come
from gravitational tests with
antihydrogen atoms at CERN near
Geneva in Switzerland (Nature
To join the debate, visit newscientist.com/letters
Communications, doi.org/mpm).
If they prove that matter and
antimatter repulse each other,
then we may finally have a
plausible explanation for the
accelerated expansion of our
universe that doesn’t actually
require dark energy.
Akersloot, The Netherlands
From Paul Baron
Stephen Battersby said that one
thing we know about dark energy
is that it “pushes” (11 May, p 32).
But couldn’t it simply be that
dark energy is the result of an
attractive force acting on our
observable universe?
Auckland, New Zealand
Smart money
From Roger Taylor
In his letter on corporate
responsibility, Ian Hill asks: “what
qualifications… do the people at
the top have?” (18 May, p 29).
The main one is cleverness. In the
financial sector, unfortunately, it
is the kind of cleverness that gives
it a bad name, having been used
to con the rest of us into believing
that moving our money about
is both profoundly important
and worthy of absurd rewards.
Like astrologers, they think
the future is foreseeable, and
like alchemists, they search for
a philosopher’s stone – ever more
complex software – that will turn
the leaden present into a golden
future. Clever indeed to finagle
us all with two dead “sciences”.
Wirral, Merseyside, UK
Paranoid android?
From John Hobson
One thing I felt was missing from
your look at consciousness was
the role of emotion and empathy
(18 May, p 30). A “zombie” eats
when it is hungry and puts on
extra clothes when it is cold, but
it is not aware. A human is happy
after eating and knows that when
hungry in the future, eating is
likely to bring happiness. This
leads to planning, one of the
functions of consciousness.
What’s more, a human also
knows that others are likely
to do what makes them feel
happy. Empathy is an extremely
important part of consciousness,
and there can be no empathy
without emotion.
Consciousness is unlikely to
develop in isolation – why would
it? It has developed to enable
us to interact with others. So it
is unlikely we will ever make a
conscious machine without
including emotion.
Devizes, Wiltshire, UK
Torture ray
From Les Hearn
The point about the Active Denial
“pain ray” weapon, which, when
fired causes pain in the victim
without leaving a mark, is that
it is not designed to subdue, as
claimed in your article (11 May,
p 44). In this it differs from tasers,
water cannon and projectiles.
Potential victims would do
anything to avoid the pain, which
in crowded situations could lead
to injury in others fighting to
get away, or even a stampede.
Similarly, if fired at close quarters,
the wielder of the weapon
would be at risk from defensive
violence, rendering its use in
prison disturbances unwise.
If, however, one was going to
design the perfect method of
torture, this would come close.
The psychological damage
would be greatly compounded
by the complete lack of physical
evidence. Survivors would be
unable to successfully seek
asylum in countries where even
gross physical signs are often
discounted as self-inflicted.
If these weapons become
available they will inevitably
be used to torture, which is why
they must not be made.
London, UK
Sign this way
From Clive Neal-Sturgess,
professor of clinical biomechanics,
University of Birmingham
Your article on gestural control of
computers talks about a number
of possible systems (25 May, p 40),
but sign language is not
mentioned. Surely this is well
recognised and, if adopted, could
be a useful extra communication
tool for deaf people.
Alcester, Warwickshire, UK
I’ll think about it
From Leslie Want
We have been told that when a
person imagines they are playing
tennis, the parts of the brain
associated with actually playing
the game “light up”. We are also
told that when a person makes
a decision, the part of the brain
associated with the decision
“lights up” before the person is
conscious of making the decision
(18 May, p 37).
Surely this is to be expected?
An important part of the decision-
making process is to mentally
rehearse the consequences. Thus
the part of the brain involved is
active before the decision is made.
Are we not observing the decision-
making process rather than the
actual decision?
Swansea, UK
Cosmic verse
From Tim Boardman
I was interested in your editorial
extolling the poetic lament for
NASA’s Kepler satellite (25 May,
p 3). Another scientist who turned
to poetry is the 18th-century
polymath Erasmus Darwin,
member of the Birmingham
Lunar Society and Charles’s
grandfather, after whom my
place of work – Erasmus Darwin
Academy – is named.
Among other topics, his
verses feature a proto-theory of
evolution, which doubtless would
have influenced his grandson.
Even more prescient was his
suggestion of something not
unlike the big bang theory (albeit
preceded by a big crunch) in his
short poem To the Stars.
Stafford, UK
For the record
n Our look at attempts to put a figure
on potential sea level rise due to
climate change (25 May, p 26) should
have said there is less than a 1 in 20
chance that the melting of ice sheets
will contribute more than 84
centimetres to sea level rise by 2100.
n Leap Motion’s box that can
track ultra-fine hand and finger
movements will cost $80, not $70
as we reported (25 May, p 40).
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8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 31
 COVER STORY
Inside job
Humans have an impressive ability to get into
other people’s heads, discovers Kirsten Weir.
So why are some of us better at it than others?
keith negley
32 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
P
ICTURE two friends, Sally and Anne,
having a drink in a bar. While Sally is
in the bathroom, Anne decides to buy
another round, but she notices that Sally has
left her phone on the table. So no one can steal
it, Anne puts the phone into her friend’s bag
before heading to the bar. When Sally returns,
where will she expect to see her phone?
If you said she would look at the table where
she left it, congratulations! You have a theory
of mind – the ability to understand that
another person may have knowledge, ideas
and beliefs that differ from your own, or
from reality.
If that sounds like nothing out of the
ordinary, perhaps it’s because we usually take
it for granted. Yet it involves doing something
no other animal can do to the same extent:
temporarily setting aside our own ideas and
beliefs about the world – that the phone is in
the bag, in this case – in order to take on an
alternative world view.
This process, also known as “mentalising”,
not only lets us see that someone else can
believe something that isn’t true, but also lets
us predict other people’s behaviour, tell lies,
and spot deceit by others. Theory of mind is a
necessary ingredient in the arts and religion –
after all, a belief in the spirit world requires us
to conceive of minds that aren’t present – and
it may even determine the number of friends
we have.
Yet our understanding of this crucial
aspect of our social intelligence is in flux.
New ways of investigating and analysing it
are challenging some long-held beliefs. As
the dust settles, we are getting glimpses of
how this ability develops, and why some of
us are better at it than others. Theory of mind
has “enormous cultural implications”, says
Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary anthropologist
at the University of Oxford. “It allows you to
look beyond the world as we physically see it,
and imagine how it might be different.”
The first ideas about theory of mind
emerged in the 1970s, when it was discovered
that at around the age of 4, children make a
dramatic cognitive leap. The standard way to
test a child’s theory of mind is called the Sally-
Anne test, and it involves acting out the chain
of events described earlier, only with puppets
and a missing ball (see diagram, page 34).
When asked, “When Sally returns, where
will she look for the ball?”, most 3-year-olds
say with confidence that she’ll look in the
new spot, where Anne has placed it. The
child knows the ball’s location, so they
cannot conceive that Sally would think it
was anywhere else.
Baby change
But around the age of 4, that changes. Most
4 and 5-year olds realise that Sally will expect
the ball to be just where she left it.
For over two decades that was the dogma,
but more recently those ideas have been
shaken. The first challenge came in 2005,
when it was reported in Science (vol 308, p 255)
that theory of mind seemed to be present in
babies just 15 months old.
Such young children cannot answer
questions about where they expect Sally to
look for the ball, but you can tell what they’re
thinking by having Sally look in different
places and noting how long they stare: babies
look for longer at things they find surprising.
When Sally searched for a toy in a place she
should not have expected to find it, the babies
did stare for longer. In other words, babies
barely past their first birthdays seemed to
understand that people can have false beliefs.
More remarkable still, similar findings were
reported in 2010 for 7-month-old infants
(Science, vol 330, p 1830).
Some say that since theory of mind seems
to be present in infants, it must be present in
young children as well. Something about the
design of the classic Sally-Anne test, these
critics argue, must be confusing 3-year-olds.
Yet there’s another possibility: perhaps we
gain theory of mind twice. From a very young
age we possess a basic, or implicit, form of
mentalising, so this theory goes, and then
around age 4, we develop a more sophisticated
version. The implicit system is automatic but
limited in its scope; the explicit system, which
allows for a more refined understanding of
other people’s mental states, is what you need
to pass the Sally-Anne test. >
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 33
 If you think that explanation sounds
complicated, you’re not alone. “The key
problem is explaining why you would bother
acquiring the same concept twice,” says
Rebecca Saxe, a cognitive scientist at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Yet there are other mental skills that
develop twice. Take number theory. Long
before they can count, infants have an
ability to gauge rough quantities; they
can distinguish, for instance, between a
general sense of “threeness” and “fourness”.
Eventually, though, they do learn to count
and multiply and so on, although the innate
system still hums beneath the surface. Our
decision-making ability, too, may develop
twice. We seem to have an automatic and
intuitive system for making gut decisions,
and a second system that is slower and
more explicit.
Double-think
So perhaps we also have a dual system for
thinking about thoughts, says Ian Apperly,
a cognitive scientist at the University of
Birmingham, UK. “There might be two kinds
of processes, on the one hand for speed
and efficiency, and on the other hand for
flexibility,” he argues (Psychological Review,
vol 116, p 953).
Apperly has found evidence that we still
possess the fast implicit system as adults.
People were asked to study pictures showing
a man looking at dots on a wall; sometimes
the man could see all the dots, sometimes not.
When asked how many dots there were,
volunteers were slower and less accurate if
the man could see fewer dots than they could.
Even when trying not to take the man’s
perspective into account, they couldn’t help
but do so, says Apperly. “That’s a strong
indication of an automatic process,” he says –
in other words, an implicit system working at
an unconscious level.
If this theory is true, it suggests we should
pay attention to our gut feelings about
people’s state of mind, says Apperly. Imagine
surprising an intruder in your home. The
implicit system might help you make fast
decisions about what they see and know,
while the explicit system could help you to
make more calculated judgments about their
motives. “Which system is better depends
on whether you have time to make the more
sophisticated judgement,” says Apperly.
The idea that we have a two-tier theory
of mind is gaining ground. Further support
comes from a study of people with autism,
a group known to have difficulty with social
skills, who are often said to lack theory of
mind. In fact, tests on a group of high-
functioning people with Asperger’s syndrome,
a form of autism, showed they had the explicit
system, yet they failed at non-verbal tests of
34 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
Mind reading
Understanding that other people can have knowledge
or beliefs that differ from our own is a crucial part of
our social intelligence
The standard way to see if young children have
acquired this ability is the Sally-Anne test
Sally puts her ball in her basket,
covers it and walks away
Anne takes the ball from the basket
and puts it in her box
When Sally comes back, where will
she look for her ball?
”We may have a two-tier
Most 3-year-olds think that Sally will look in the box.
Around the age of 4 or 5, children understand that
although they know the ball has been moved, Sally
does not
We need more difficult tests for
adults Some objects are screened from
Sally’s view, so you must take this into
account when following her instructions
Move the small ball
down one level
Depending on how the test is presented
20-50% of adults would incorrectly move
the topmost ball
the kind that reveal implicit theory of mind in
babies (Science, vol 325, p 883). So people with
autism can learn explicit mentalising skills,
even without the implicit system, although
the process remains “a little bit cumbersome”
says Uta Frith, a cognitive scientist at
University College London, who led the work.
The finding suggests that the capacity to
understand others should not be so easily
written off in those with autism. “They can
handle it when they have time to think about
it,” says Frith.
If theory of mind is not an all-or-nothing
quality, does that help explain why some of
us seem to be better than others at putting
ourselves into other people’s shoes? “Clearly
people vary,” points out Apperly. “If you think
of all your colleagues and friends, some are
socially more or less capable.”
Unfortunately, that is not reflected in the
Sally-Anne test, the mainstay of theory of
mind research for the past four decades.
Nearly everyone over the age of 5 can pass
it standing on their head.
To get the measure of the variation in
people’s abilities, different approaches are
needed. One is called the director task; based
on a similar idea to Apperly’s dot pictures, this
involves people moving objects around on a
grid while taking into account the viewpoint
of an observer. This test reveals how children
and adolescents improve progressively as they
mature, only reaching a plateau in their 20s.
How does that timing square with the fact
that the implicit system – which the director
test hinges on – is supposed to emerge in early
theory of mind – one
process for speed, the
other for flexibility”
infancy? Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive
neuroscientist at University College London
who works with Apperly, has an answer. What
improves, she reckons, is not theory of mind
per se but how we apply it in social situations
using cognitive skills such as planning,
attention and problem-solving, which keep
developing during adolescence. “It’s the
way we use that information when we make
decisions,” she says.
So teenagers can blame their reputation
for being self-centred on the fact they are still
developing their theory of mind. The good
news for parents is that most adolescents
will learn how to put themselves in others’
shoes eventually. “You improve your skills
by experiencing social scenarios,” says Frith.
It is also possible to test people’s explicit
mentalising abilities by asking them
convoluted “who-thought-what-about-whom”
questions. After all, we can do better than
realising that our friend mistakenly thinks her

keith negley
phone will be on the table. If such a construct
represents “second-order” theory of mind,
most of us can understand a fourth-order
sentence like: “John said that Michael thinks
that Anne knows that Sally thinks her phone
will be on the table.”
In fact Dunbar’s team has shown that such
a concept would be the limit of about 20 per
cent of the general population (British Journal
of Psychology, vol 89, p 191). Sixty per cent of
us can manage fifth-order theory of mind and
the top 20 per cent can reach the heights of
sixth order.
As well as letting us keep track of our
complex social lives, this kind of mentalising
is crucial for our appreciation of works of
fiction. Shakespeare’s genius, according to
Dunbar, was to make his audience work at the
edge of their ability, tracking multiple mind
states. In Othello, for instance, the audience
has to understand that Iago wants jealous
Othello to mistakenly think that his wife
Desdemona loves Cassio. “He’s able to lift
the audience to his limits,” says Dunbar.
So why do some of us operate at the
Bard’s level while others are less socially
capable? Dunbar argues it’s all down to the
size of our brains.
According to one theory, during human
evolution the prime driver of our expanding
brains was the growing size of our social
groups, with the resulting need to keep track
of all those relatives, rivals and allies. Dunbar’s
team has shown that among monkeys and
apes, those living in bigger groups have a
larger prefrontal cortex. This is the outermost
section of the brain covering roughly the
front third of our heads, where a lot of higher
thought processes go on.
Last year, Dunbar applied that theory to
a single primate species: us. His team got
40 people to fill in a questionnaire about the
number of friends they had, and then imaged
their brains in an MRI scanner. Those with the
biggest social networks had a larger region of
the prefrontal cortex tucked behind the eye
sockets. They also scored better on theory of
mind tests (Proceedings of the Royal Society B,
vol 279, p 2157). “The size of the bits of
prefrontal cortex involved in mentalising
determine your mentalising competencies,”
says Dunbar. “And your mentalising
competencies then determine the number of
friends you have.” It’s a bold claim, and one
that has not convinced everyone in the field.
After all, correlation does not prove causation.
Perhaps having lots of friends makes this part
of the brain grow bigger, rather than the other
way round, or perhaps a large social network is
a sign of more general intelligence.
Lying robots
What’s more, there seem to be several parts of
the brain involved in mentalising – perhaps
unsurprisingly for such a complex ability. In
fact, so many brain areas have been implicated
that scientists now talk about the theory of
mind “network” rather than a single region.
A type of imaging called fMRI scanning,
which can reveal which parts of the brain
“light up” for specific mental functions,
strongly implicates a region called the right
temporoparietal junction, located towards the
rear of the brain, as being crucial for theory
of mind. In addition, people with damage to
this region tend to fail the Sally-Anne test.
Other evidence has emerged for the
involvement of the right temporoparietal
junction. When Rebecca Saxe temporarily
disabled that part of the brain in healthy
volunteers, by holding a magnet above the
skull, they did worse at tests that involved
considering others’ beliefs while making
moral judgments (PNAS, vol 107, p 6753).
Despite the explosion of research in this
area in recent years, there is still lots to learn
about this nifty piece of mental machinery.
As our understanding grows, it is not just our
own skills that stand to improve. If we can
figure out how to give mentalising powers to
computers and robots, they could become a
lot more sophisticated. “Part of the process
of socialising robots might draw upon things
we’re learning from how people think about
people,” Apperly says.
For instance, programmers at the Georgia
Institute of Technology in Atlanta have
developed robots that can deceive each other
and leave behind false clues in a high-tech
game of hide-and-seek. Such projects may
ultimately lead to robots that can figure out
the thoughts and intentions of people.
For now, though, the remarkable ability to
thoroughly worm our way into someone else’s
head exists only in the greatest computer of
all – the human brain. n
Kirsten Weir is a science writer based in Minneapolis
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 35
 Fortran lisp

cobol a lgol rust C++

simula bcpl B

Code
red
c

pascal go

modula python

ada
36 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
Modern software is a
I
’VE been using computers for decades
now. It’s probably time I taught myself
bug infested swamp, how to program one, but first I have to find
says Michael Brooks. the answer to a simple question. There are
thousands of programming languages out
Luckily there are paths there – which one should I learn?
Fortunately, the internet has lots of
to a better world answers: programming blogs and forums are
filled with people asking that very question.
Unfortunately, those answers are often less
C# than helpful. The Java language “sucks”,
apparently, and “all Java programmers are
morons”. C++ is “baroque and ugly”. Critics
of Ruby are more plain-spoken; to them, this
language is simply “a piece of shit”. To the
uninitiated the bile is a little bit frightening.
C-- internet c++
java javascript
j script
ruby
“It’s just amazing how tribal people get
with their programming languages,” says
Crista Lopes, a professor in the informatics
department at the University of California,
Irvine. But beneath all this bilious tribalism
lurks a home truth: most of the languages
are poorly designed, making programming
incredibly abstract and difficult. And they
require extensive patching every time a
new web application appears. Though
computer code runs the modern world,
it’s actually a shambles.
You might argue that as long as your
machine runs Angry Birds and Facebook, why
bother about the online ramblings of angry
herds. But that would be naive. The writhing
mess that is computer programming in the
21st century is everyone’s business. It goes
beyond losing all your work when Windows
shows you the Blue Screen of Death. As more
and more of the world is digitised, software
bugs carry ever bigger consequences, from the
highly inconvenient to the undeniably tragic.
They ground planes and trigger financial
meltdowns. They have even been known to kill
when they pop up in healthcare equipment.
Fortunately, things may be about to change.
Let’s start with the obvious question:
why are there so many languages? Ask this
question on the internet and your first answer
will be as snarky as it is rhetorical: “Why are
there so many kinds of bicycle? Why are there
so many different wrenches?” The reason,
you will learn, is that different machines
speak different languages. Your printer and
an F-22 fighter jet don’t respond to the same
commands, probably for good reason.
However, in reality it’s much more
complicated than that, even though all of
these languages do basically the same thing:
move strings of binary digits – bits – between
the circuits of a microprocessor. Until the
1950s, computer programmers did this by
operating levers and switches, sometimes
with punch cards. Before they could do that,
however, they would first need to carefully
translate what they wanted the machine to
do – in other words, the program – into the
correct string of 0s and 1s that a computer
could understand. This so-called “machine
code” would tell the computer how to
correctly assemble the logic in its bowels.
If this sounds complicated, abstract and
difficult, that’s because it was. Computing
was time-consuming and expensive, and the
programs unsophisticated. It’s not surprising
that only a tiny number of people knew how
to speak this machine code.
Then along came Fortran. Invented by
researchers at IBM’s Watson Laboratory, this
“high-level” language made programming >
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 37
more intuitive, helping more people program
and do so with fewer mistakes. According to
the original launch report, Fortran would
“virtually eliminate coding and debugging”
by replacing the opaque 0s and 1s with simple
text commands such as “READ”, “WRITE”
and “GO TO”. A “compiler” specific to each
machine would take care of the translation,
converting the programmer’s textual
statements into something a computer could
understand. This allowed the programmers
to think in their own language rather than
tailoring their thoughts to a particular set
of microchips.

Language explosion
Nearly 60 years later, there has been a kind
of Cambrian explosion in languages – to the
detriment of comprehension. READ and
WRITE have evolved into ever less intuitive
and more opaque commands reflecting more
Brendan McDermid/Reuters

complex logic. Move from 0s and 1s to words,

and people quickly become dissatisfied with
the limitations those words place on their
ability to express themselves. Mark Pagel, who
studies linguistic evolution at the University
of Reading, UK, says humans – and the way
they translate their thoughts into instructions
for computers – are so varied that no one
language is sufficient.
As a consequence, there are probably
3000 or 4000 high-level languages around
today, says Alex Payne, a former Twitter
engineer and curator of the annual Emerging
Languages Conference, and many of them
work in tandem. Facebook alone uses C++, Java,
PHP, Perl, Python and Erlang among others.
The expansion shows no signs of slowing.
A year ago, for example, Google released its
Dart language as a replacement for JavaScript.
According to a leaked 2010 Google email,
“Javascript has fundamental flaws that cannot
be fixed merely by evolving the language”.
And yet, the variety is misleading.
Despite the linguistic divergence, from a
functional point of view most languages
are still just thinly veiled versions of Fortran.
“There’s not a big difference from where
programming was in the 1960s,” Lopes says.
Bret Victor, who used to design interfaces
for Apple and now works freelance, agrees.
“Python, Ruby, Javascript, Java, C++ – they’re
all the same language,” he says. “They’re
different dialects of fundamentally the same
way of speaking.”
Jonathan Edwards at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology goes further. “We
never actually throw anything away, we
never raze to the ground, we simply build a
new storey on top of it,” he says. “We have
these enormously tall towers reaching down
to ancient technology.”
And being stuck with so many pidgin
versions of the early programming languages
is a big headache.
The first problem is that they are hard to
write – “inhumanly hard,” as Edwards puts
it. They are largely composed of patches and
layers that provide cheap, quick fixes to bugs
or jerry-rigged functionality. As the languages
have grown more complicated, the programs
have grown longer. The on-board systems of a
Boeing 787 Dreamliner chew through about
6.5 million lines of code; in a 2010 Mercedes S
Class, that number jumps to 20 million. Even a
program as comparatively simple as Microsoft
Word is estimated to run several million lines.
And that’s where the real trouble sets in.
Most programs are full of tiny grammatical
mistakes – unintended indentations, a stray
bracket, a comma in the wrong place and
so on. According to a widely cited estimate
there are 15 to 50 errors per 1000 lines of
delivered code. These minuscule errors can
render entire programs useless.
Did you introduce one? You won’t know for
”This stuff is so complicated
that we’re constantly
making mistakes – often
disastrous mistakes”
sure until you allow the computer to compile
and run the code. But the compiler can’t tell
you if your code works until after you have
written the entire program.
Manual debugging would be a fool’s errand.
Just counting all 20 million lines of code in
that Mercedes would take you the better part
of a year – and that’s if you forgo meals, sleep
and bathroom breaks.
“This stuff is so complicated that we’re
constantly making mistakes – often disastrous
mistakes,” Edwards says. “We go back and
fix them but the results are often very
unsatisfactory.”
Unsatisfactory barely covers it – the
consequences can be fatal: a 2010 investigation
by The New York Times uncovered software
and programming errors caused death and
serious injury in a slew of radiation therapy
programmes.
Programming errors have wrecked
multimillion-dollar transnational projects –
remember the 1996 test launch of the
European Space Agency’s Ariane 5 rocket?
A bug in the control software, written in the
language Ada, caused the rocket to self-
destruct 37 seconds after blast-off. In 2010,
a computer glitch cost investment firm Knight
Capital half a billion dollars in half an hour.
Thankfully, most of us won’t experience
such catastrophes, but the simple truth is that,
as more of our lives become digitised, software

38 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 A small bug in a financial
algorithm nearly took
down a global company
bugs will worm their way into every corner of
our lives. “Every major industry is grappling
with the enormous and unsolved challenges
of software dependability, design and
productivity,” says Kevin Sullivan at the
University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Software crisis
In April, a software error meant that American
Airlines had to ground their entire US fleet.
Banking software has already failed many
people in the UK, leaving them without access
to their money for days on end, derailing
house purchases and other major life events.
Tomorrow’s driverless cars will run on code,
but will they be any more bulletproof than the
cars that had to be recalled by General Motors
and Toyota due to software errors?
“It’s sometimes called the software crisis,”
Edwards says, “but that term was coined in
the early 60s and it’s not clear we’ve made
any progress since then.”
But what can be done? One seemingly
obvious solution might be to build a single
universal master language from scratch. In the
1960s and 70s there was a concerted effort to
do just that. Academics, industry experts and
scientists from all over the world converged on
a venue, then tried to thrash out the best way
to standardise programming. “The transcripts
of those meetings are hilarious – people got
into really big fights,” Payne says. They also
got nowhere, as the panoply of languages
today attests. Pagel draws parallels with
Esperanto, the prototype universal human
language. The reason it has never caught
on, he says, is that it simply isn’t needed.
A universal programming language is not only
unnecessary, it might even be an impediment.
“I like lots of languages,” Lopes says. “I find it
hard to think about being stuck with just one.”
Whether a universal programming
language is desirable or even workable is still
up for grabs. However, salvation may be at
hand in a nascent endeavour in computer
science: user-friendly languages that rethink
the compiler.
Yes, these are yet more languages teetering
atop a 60-year-old tower of Binary Babel.
But what makes them different is that their
designers are building them to allow
programmers to see, in real time, exactly what
they are constructing as they write their code.
Bizarrely, the outcome might look rather
familiar. Edwards is aiming to reproduce
something like Microsoft Excel. “It’s a
programming language,” he says. In fact,
according to Payne, it is the most widely used
programming language of all. You plug in
some numbers and tell the computer what
to do with those numbers, depending on
the row and column they are in. “You can
do sophisticated computation without
even realising that the formulas you enter
are a form of programming,” says Timothy
Lethbridge at the University of Ottowa.
This realisation led Edwards to a simple
question: why shouldn’t building web
applications be as easy as using a spreadsheet?
He is now building a new language called
Subtext, written by copying and pasting
existing routines and making small
alterations that change the outcome. The
different routines are nested together in ways
that allow you to see their relative position
within the program. The result is a visual
representation of what the program does.
While Subtext is still a “thought experiment
in language design” and “just a vignette of
what such a language would look like”,
Edwards thinks it is a good first step.
Like Edwards, Victor is also pioneering
a new way to “let people see what they’re
doing”. In his scheme, a programmer can see
intermediate steps in a program and check
what happens in real time as they tinker
with the code.
These approaches have inspired
programmer Chris Granger to come up with
another innovation, called Light Table. This
allows a coder to work as if everything they
need is in front of them on a desk, all easy
to grab and move around. Assembling the
elements of a program creates instantaneous
results, and the results of any changes to the
code – good or bad – are immediately obvious.
But the most radical option might be to
let the program write itself, based on what
you want it to do – entirely bypassing your
linguistic peccadilloes.
In some ways, that’s already happening.
These days, choosing a language for a task
involves considering what pre-written
modules and libraries you can pull off the web.
“The first thing people do is a Google search
to see if anyone’s done it before,” Lopes says.
“Even experts like me do it: professional
software developers use Google liberally.”
Then, when they get stuck, they turn once
more to Google: over the past five years, rich
bases of accumulated knowledge have sprung
up all over the web. “In the 60s it was really
hard to get unstuck,” she says. “You had to
”The best option might
be to let the program write
itself, bypassing your
linguistic peccadilloes”
read through manuals or call the experts.
What took a week now takes 2 minutes.”
So why not take advantage of that,
and build a language composed entirely out
of questions? Let computers develop their
own languages and programs in response to
the objectives you give them. Lopes’s dream
is to create exactly that system to build a
program from a sequence of internet search
queries. “It is a dream, but lots of it is already
here,” she says.
Granted, a better compiler alone won’t be
the end of software glitches. You would also
need to address manufacturers’ never-ending
quest to entice consumers to upgrade by
bloating their products with unnecessary
extra features, or maybe reduce the pressure
to rush products to market at the expense
of quality.
That’s why none of the reformers are under
any illusions that the industry will push aside
C++ and Java and switch to a language based
on Excel or a Google search. “What we have
right now works – if you’re willing to put effort
into it,” Edwards admits. But that doesn’t
mean developing these new languages is a
pointless exercise. “Wouldn’t it be great if we
could open this up to normal, average people,
not just the savants?”
There’s hope for me yet. n
Michael Brooks is a writer and New Scientist
consultant based in Sussex, UK
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 39
 Goodbye
Goldilocks?
From life’s point of view, Earth sits in the solar
system’s sweet spot. But will things be “just right”
for much longer, asks Lee Billings
W
E LIVE in the best of all possible
worlds. This much-lampooned idea
originated in the early 18th century,
when the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz
was pondering what sort of world a benevolent
God would make. In the past couple of decades,
however, it has acquired a new resonance as
we have spied out worlds orbiting other stars.
The question is whether any of these, too,
might support life. Underpinning each
assessment is a surprisingly simple process
that measures each of our potential planetary
twins – or, more likely, near cousins – against
a presumed earthly idyll. To host life, a world
must, like Earth, be rocky, watery and orbiting
in a star’s “Goldilocks zone”, where things are
not too hot, not too cold, but just right.
But do we actually inhabit the best of all
possible worlds? As we come to understand
better how the properties of stars, planets and
their atmospheres combine to produce life-
friendly worlds, it seems Earth’s own
habitability is more precarious than we had
assumed. That has far-reaching consequences
for the likelihood of life on other planets –
and for the fate of life on Earth.
Our assumption of Earth’s perfection has
largely rested on one fact: our planet is full
of life. Life here is invariably constructed
from carbon and reliant on liquid water, and
there are good reasons beyond egotism to
believe that, as it is on Earth, so it is in the
heavens. Carbon and water are two of the
most common substances in the universe.
In tandem, they provide an extravagance of
durable chemical products unmatched by
any other obvious combination of elements.
The requirement for liquid water means any
life-bearing planet must occupy a slim sliver
of the space surrounding a star. Too close to
sam chivers
the thermonuclear furnace, and water will boil
off as steam. Too far away, and it will freeze to
40 | NewScientist | 00 Month 2013
ice, consigning life to a frigid fate. Where
exactly these boundaries are in a given
planetary system depends on a star’s
mass and age, which in turn determine
how much heat and light it radiates.
Earth seems to be snugly sandwiched in
the sun’s sweet zone: the best of all
possible worlds, at least in our solar
system. The laws of physics as we
understand them are the same throughout
the universe, so presumably any other
small, rocky planet in a similarly temperate
orbit could also be a Goldilocks world.
If only it were that simple. Estimating
where the Goldilocks zone lies depends
on other assumptions about a potentially
habitable planet’s nature besides the
presence of liquid water. Based on its position
in the solar system alone, Earth’s average
surface temperature should be well below
freezing. Its saviour is a heat-trapping
atmosphere laced with the greenhouse gases
carbon dioxide and water vapour. Such an
atmosphere is thought to be a typical result of
the way rocky planets form. If Earth’s comfort
blanket were much thicker or thinner, however,
or had a different chemical make-up, the planet
could rapidly cease to be so amenable to life.
Our neighbour Venus illustrates the point.
Venus seems to have started out habitable,
with a relatively Earth-like ocean and
atmosphere. Its proximity to the sun rapidly
turned those blessings into a curse. Water began
to boil off from the oceans into the atmosphere,
where its heat-retaining qualities caused
temperatures to rise still further. The result was
a runaway greenhouse effect that sterilised the
planet as all the CO2 was baked out of its crust
and into its atmosphere. Under its stifling sky of
almost pure CO2 today, Venus’s surface temperature
is some 460 °C – above the melting points of tin,
lead and zinc. >
00 Month 2013 | NewScientist | 41
”The result was unambiguous: the habitable
zones are all further out than we assumed”
In 1993, geoscientist James Kasting of
Pennsylvania State University in State College
set out to pin down a lot more precisely where
the Goldilocks boundaries lie. He and his
colleagues examined how varying the
intensities and wavelengths of sunlight falling
on an idealised Earth affected its atmosphere
and surface temperature. Increasing the
incident sunlight by some 10 per cent –
equivalent to moving Earth inwards from
its present position of 1 astronomical unit
(AU) from the sun to 0.95 AU – produced a
temperature rise that sent water vapour
soaring high up into the atmosphere, where
it dissipated into outer space. Over tens of
millions to hundreds of millions of years,
such a “moist greenhouse” would entirely
desiccate the Earth and eradicate all surface
life (Icarus, vol 101, p 108).
When Kasting tried to place the habitable
zone’s outer limit – the point where the fall in
temperature is enough to cause irrecoverable
global glaciations  – he found it to be about
1.67 AU from the sun, slightly beyond the orbit
of Mars. Already, these early calculations
began to crack Earth’s Goldilocks facade. Earth
is not slap bang in the centre of the Goldilocks
zone, but significantly towards its inner edge.
42 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
Kasting’s climate model was in some
respects rather basic, simulating a single,
uniform strip of atmosphere essentially
devoid of clouds and weather systems. In
other ways it was quite elaborate, for example
incorporating the sort of positive feedback
effects by which increasing atmospheric water
vapour leads to a runaway greenhouse effect.
It could also replicate many of the climatic
quirks of other solar system planets.
Extrapolating its conclusions, Kasting was able
to chalk in the inner and outer boundaries of
the habitable zone around a wide variety of
stars of different sizes and luminosities. These
have been the gold standard for hunters of
habitable planets ever since.
Until now. At the beginning of this year,
working with Kasting and a few others, Penn
State researcher Ravi Kopparapu updated the
calculations for the first time in two decades.
A lot has changed, Kopparapu points out.
Above all, we now know that water vapour
and CO2 are better at absorbing certain
wavelengths of infrared light than we used to
think. That affects the potency of each gas’s
greenhouse heating. Rerunning the models
produced a simple, unambiguous result: for
a planet like Earth, the habitable zone around
all types of stars lies slightly further out than
we had assumed (arxiv.org/abs/1301.6674).
That has knock-on effects as we search for
promising habitats around other stars. A few
previously discovered extrasolar planets have
been struck from the list, whereas others are
beginning to look more promising (see
diagram, right). It also enhances the prospects
for life around the small, cool “M-dwarf” stars
that are the most prevalent in our immediate
neighbourhood, shifting their habitable zones
outwards towards the sort of distances where
most small, rocky planets have so far been
found. “It looks like nearly half of all M-dwarfs
should have an approximately Earth-sized
planet in their habitable zones,” says
Kopparapu. As new planet hunts focusing on
M-dwarfs start off over the next few years,
we should expect to find at least three or four
possible Goldilocks worlds right next door.
Teetering on the brink
For the original Goldilocks planet, however,
the implications are much murkier. The inner
edge of the solar system’s habitable zone
moves outwards from 0.95 AU to 0.99 AU.
In other words, were Earth just 1 per cent closer
to the sun, its water could begin to steam off
into space as a moist-greenhouse effect kicks
in. Rather than being at a comfortable distance
from the edge of the Goldilocks zone, we are
teetering on the brink.
That portends an alarming future. As our
sun ages, it is fusing hydrogen at higher and
higher temperatures and becoming more
luminous, pushing the inner edge of the
Goldilocks zone outwards. “It suggests the end
could come sooner than we thought,” says
Kasting. Earth could technically begin to lose
water “as early as tomorrow”, he says. More
likely is that we can lop a few hundred million
years off Earth’s generally accepted remaining
habitable time of a billion years or so.
Raymond Pierrehumbert, a climate scientist
at the University of Chicago, remains
sanguine. Although he acknowledges that the
calculations are useful for establishing
reference points for habitable zones, he thinks
the prospect of imminent desiccation is a
mirage that reflects the model’s deficiencies.
“Most of what it leaves out arguably makes
a planet more habitable, not less,” he says.
Take the effects of clouds. In atmospheres
with amounts of water vapour close to the
moist or runaway greenhouse limits, clouds
are more likely to form at lower altitudes,
reflecting more sunlight back into space and
cooling the surface beneath. In fact, it is hard
to know exactly how an atmosphere that is
perhaps 50 per cent water will behave. “A big

rainstorm could make you lose half your
atmosphere in one area,” says Pierrehumbert,
and that might suck in more air from all
around, changing the dynamics of the entire
atmosphere.
Such oddities, paired with water vapour’s
tendency to amplify other sources of warming,
mean that some of the most resilient Goldilocks
worlds may be those with only trace amounts
of water. Astrophysicist Sara Seager at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
her colleagues have been modelling “desert”
planets with insufficient water to support
global oceans or a steamy atmosphere. They
conclude that a desert planet with just 1 per
cent atmospheric water vapour could
maintain habitable surface temperatures as
close as 0.5 AU to a sunlike star, well inside the
orbit of Venus (arxiv.org/abs/1304.3714).
Kasting, Pierrehumbert and their colleagues
have recently secured NASA funding to jointly
develop a fully three-dimensional climate
model, one that will build in more robust and
realistic cloud feedbacks and hydrological
cycles for a wide variety of potentially
habitable rocky planets. Other groups, notably
those of François Forget at Pierre and Marie
Curie University in Paris, France, and of Jochem
Marotzke at the Max Planck Institute for
Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, are also
on the case. “Understanding full atmospheric
circulation and its effects on clouds and water
vapour is the real frontier we’re all moving
toward,” Pierrehumbert says. “This is what will
ultimately have the largest effect on drawing
the habitable zone’s boundaries.”
Yet at least in Earth’s case, the greatest
uncertainty may now lie with us humans.
Thanks to our burning of fossil fuels, the
atmosphere’s CO2 content is currently crossing
the 400 parts per million threshold, up from a
pre-industrial average of 280 ppm. In its most
recent consensus report, published in 2007,
the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change pegged the most probable
eventual warming from a doubling of CO2 –
a level we are likely to reach in the second half
of this century – at 3 °C.
Compared with the fate of Venus, that
sounds innocuous. But this temperature rise
is roughly equivalent to shifting Earth’s orbit
inwards by 1 per cent, to 0.99 AU – precisely
where the habitable zone’s inner boundary lies
in the latest model. Might further greenhouse
emissions push us over the edge, eventually to
follow Venus’s destiny?
Various studies in recent decades have
”In Earth’s case, the biggest uncertainty in
habitability may now lie with us humans”
The shifting zone
A star’s habitable zone is the region around it in which an Earth-like planet can have liquid water. New
calculations have shifted that zone outwards, altering our view of the habitability of many exoplanets, and
putting Earth at risk from an ageing sun sooner than we thought
Old inner boundary Old outer boundary
New inner boundary New outer boundary
7000K
Habitable zones also shift
outwards over time because
Surface temperature of star
stars heat up as they age
Our sun Venus
5800K
Earth Mars
Kepler 22b
Tau Ceti f
Kepler 62e HD 40307g
Kepler 62f
Gliese 667Cc Gliese 581g
Gliese 581d
3000K
200% 100% 25%
Starlight intensity at planet compared with Earth today
(Starlight intensity depends on both the star's surface temperature and the planet's distance from the star)
concluded that this outcome is highly levels of atmospheric CO2 in the remote past,
unlikely. Even if we managed to burn most of Earth hasn’t left the habitable zone,” says
the planet’s economically recoverable fossil Goldblatt.
fuel reserves, not merely doubling That’s probably down to Earth’s carbonate-
atmospheric CO2 but increasing it by a factor silicate cycle. This feature appears to be
of 8 or 16, the worst outcome would be only unique, in the solar system at least, thanks to
a moderately moist greenhouse. our planet’s singular combination of oceans
and tectonic activity. As rising temperatures
start to steam water from the oceans,
Apocalypse no increased rainfall washes more CO2 out of the
In work yet to be published, geochemist atmosphere, ultimately sequestering it in
Colin Goldblatt at the University of Victoria in rocks for many millions of years before it is
British Columbia, Canada, has revisited the eventually burped back out by volcanoes.
question using the same updated information It is Earth’s natural temperature regulator –
on greenhouse-gas absorption that was used and perhaps its greatest claim to be the best of
to revise the habitable zone boundaries. all possible worlds. It could also, ironically, be
His conclusion is that if Earth’s present-day life’s ultimate undoing, perhaps even before
atmosphere were to enter a very hot and moist the sun would otherwise become too bright
greenhouse state, the extra water vapour for comfort. According to calculations
would absorb more infrared sunlight than performed by Kasting and his student Ken
previously appreciated. That could reduce Caldeira in 1992, perhaps a billion years from
cloud and ice cover, further increasing heat now Earth’s interior will have cooled enough
absorption. In turn, that could trigger a to substantially reduce volcanism, slowing the
runaway greenhouse – but only if we also carbonate-silicate cycle and leaving so much
chose to use the energy from all the Earth’s carbon locked in rock that Earth’s atmosphere
coal, oil, and gas for no other purpose than to will cease to support most forms of
cook up even more CO2 from limestone. photosynthesis (Nature, vol 360, p 721).
That reassurance does nothing to lessen Till then, though, is life on Earth safe? Given
the shorter-term impacts of climate change our vast uncertainties about how climates
on human society in the coming decades and work – and now even about Earth’s position in
centuries. But palaeoclimate records suggest the Goldilocks zone – Goldblatt reckons it is
that, over scales of hundreds of millions of probably unwise to take too much for granted.
years, our planet is remarkably resilient to “It’s like playing tag on top of a cliff on a foggy
changes to its thermostat. “Despite high day. No one’s fallen off yet, but you don’t know
how close the edge is.” n
Lee Billings is a freelance writer based in
New York City
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 43
T
HE planet is in crisis. The stench of
death is everywhere as whole branches
of the tree of life are pruned almost
to oblivion – and all because of the waste
gas pumped into the atmosphere by one
incredibly successful species. Welcome to
Earth, 2.4 billion years ago.
This was arguably the most tumultuous
episode in life’s history. It had been thriving
for well over a billion years when a new kind of
cell appeared on the scene, one that harvested
the sun’s energy using a process that generates
a highly toxic by-product – oxygen. These
cells were soon growing in such unimaginable
numbers in the primordial oceans that they
transformed Earth’s atmosphere.
At the time, this was a catastrophe. The
rise of oxygen may have wiped out a greater
proportion of life than in any other mass
extinction. But the very property that makes
oxygen so dangerous – its high reactivity – also
makes it a rich source of energy. Life soon
started to exploit this, including, of course,
our animal ancestors.
In the past decade, our view of this crucial
episode has been turned upside down. The
textbooks will tell you that oxygen levels
began climbing soon after photosynthesis
evolved, but we now know that some cells
Dawn of the
water eaters
Ripping water apart to release oxygen is incredibly
hard, but we wouldn’t be here if life hadn’t learned
to do it. Colin Barras has the scoop
44 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
started photosynthesising as long as 3.4 billion
years ago, long before oxygen levels began to
rise. The question is, why did it take so long for
them to start pumping out oxygen?
At its heart, photosynthesis is about
harvesting the sun’s energy. Plants use this
energy to make food, by building chains of
carbon from carbon dioxide. The process
produces sugars that can be used as an energy
source or to make more complex molecules,
from proteins to DNA. But contrary to what
you might expect, it does not necessarily
produce oxygen. In fact many bacteria turn
light and CO2 into food without producing
oxygen. What’s more, recent discoveries
suggest they have been doing so for nearly
as long as there has been life on Earth.
In 2004, Michael Tice and Donald Lowe,
both then at Stanford University in California,
were studying rocks in South Africa that
formed in shallow water 3.41 billion years ago.
They found fossil structures rather like the
microbial mats formed by photosynthetic
bacteria today, but no sign that any oxygen
was produced (Nature, vol 431, p 549). The
most likely explanation, they think, is that
these cells were carrying out anoxygenic
photosynthesis.
Since that discovery we have actually come
 These photosynthetic
bacteria produce sulphur,
not oxygen

face-to-face with some of these early

photosynthetic microbes. In 2011, Martin
Brasier at the University of Oxford and
colleagues discovered fossils of individual
bacterial cells in rocks that formed 3.43 billion
years ago, in what is now western Australia
(Nature Geoscience, vol 4, p 698). “They
occurred in a well-lit intertidal or supratidal
setting,” says Brasier. The chemical make-up
of the rocks, along with the plentiful light,
strongly suggests that some of the cells
photosynthesised without producing oxygen.
It may seem surprising that anoxygenic
photosynthesis evolved so soon after life
itself – the earliest fossils we know of are only
slightly more ancient, at 3.49 billion years old.
But Nick Lane of University College London,
who studies life’s origins, thinks that once
cells capable of living on chemical energy had
evolved, it was not a huge step for them to
start exploiting light energy instead. “Really,
light just gets electrons flowing through the
same equipment,” he says.
For researchers like Lane, the mystery is
instead why it took so long for the oxygen-
producing form of photosynthesis to evolve.
It may not have emerged until around
2.4 billion years ago, perhaps a billion years
after anoxygenic photosynthesis appeared.
Given the advantages of oxygen-producing
photosynthesis, why the delay?
Photosynthesis has two main steps. In the
second, electrons are added to CO2 to help
convert the molecule into sugars. The first
step is getting the electrons. They are stripped
from a source molecule and used to generate
an electrochemical gradient that powers the
second step.

The billion-year delay

In oxygenic photosynthesis, the source
molecule is water. Removing electrons splits
water molecules into hydrogen ions and
oxygen gas. The hydrogen ions and electrons
play a key role in turning CO2 into sugars. The
oxygen, though, is an unneeded by-product.
MICHAEL MELFORD/National Geographic Stock

In anoxygenic photosynthesis, different

molecules provide the electrons. One of the
most common donors is hydrogen sulphide.
Splitting it generates sulphur as a waste
product instead of oxygen. The advantage
of hydrogen sulphide is that it is very easy
to remove electrons from, or oxidise. It was
also common in the early ocean, but probably
got used up quickly in surface waters where

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 45

anoxygenic photosynthesis took place.
The great advantage of using water as the
electron donor instead is that there is an
endless supply of it in the oceans. But there
is a big drawback, too. “Water is incredibly
difficult to oxidise,” says Robert Blankenship
at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri.
We’re still struggling to do it: researchers have
been trying for decades to develop cheap,
energy-efficient ways of splitting water to
produce hydrogen gas for fuel.
So it makes sense that photosynthesising
bacteria first exploited easy-to-oxidise
molecules before switching to water. The
conventional view, supported by Blankenship
and many other researchers, is that oxygenic
”Bacteria have been photosynthesising for nearly
as long as there has been life on Earth. So why did it
take a billion years for them start making oxygen?”
photosynthesis gradually evolved from the
anoxygenic version through a series of
intermediate steps. But over the past decade,
John Allen at Queen Mary, University of
London, has devised an alternative scenario
that is almost deliberately implausible. “This
process has to have happened by accident,”
he says. Only that can explain the billion-year
delay, he argues.
Any scenario for how oxygenic
photosynthesis got started has to deal with
four significant facts. Fact one: there are two
related but distinct types of anoxygenic
photosynthesis. Some bacteria have what is
called a type-I reaction centre, which takes
electrons from sources like hydrogen
sulphide and sends them down a one-way
street: each electron is used just once. Other
bacteria carry a type-II reaction centre that
recycles electrons internally, making them
less dependent on an external electron source
(see illustration, above).
Fact two: oxygenic photosynthesis
involves a type-I and a type-II reaction centre
working in tandem. Fact three: even though
cyanobacteria have both reaction centres,
it is only the type-II centre that splits water
and generates oxygen, at a site that contains
four manganese atoms arranged around a
calcium atom. Finally, fact four: anoxygenic
photosynthetic bacteria that have a type-II
reaction centre lack this cluster of manganese
and calcium.
Blankenship thinks it is the final two facts
that are most important and point towards
a simple scenario. The type-I centre evolved
first, he thinks. Then the genes encoding its
46 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
machinery were acquired by another group
of bacteria – gene-swapping was and is rife
among bacteria. In this group, the machinery
gradually became modified, forming the
first type-II reaction centre. Later, the
descendants of these bacteria began to
incorporate metal atoms into it. Eventually
they arrived at a configuration that included
four atoms of manganese and one of calcium.
They could now oxidise water and perform
oxygen-generating photosynthesis using
just a type-II reaction centre.
Only later, claims Blankenship, did this
group’s descendants acquire the type-I
machinery via gene transfer, giving rise to
cyanobacteria. So Blankenship thinks it is
just a coincidence that cyanobacteria have
two different reaction centres.
This scenario makes one clear prediction –
there were once bacteria that generated oxygen
through photosynthesis, but were distinct
from cyanobacteria. They would have been the
missing link between the anoxygenic bacteria
with a type-II reaction centre – including what
are called purple bacteria, alive today – and
the oxygen-generating cyanobacteria, so
let’s call them “indigo” bacteria. No indigo
bacteria have ever been found, though.
Instead, Blankenship and others have tried
to show that they could have existed.
Perhaps most significantly, a team at
Arizona State University in Tempe has tried to
turn a purple bacterium into something like
an indigo bacterium. The researchers
modified the purple one so it could bind a
manganese ion to its reaction centre and use it
to react with molecules containing oxygen
(PNAS, vol 109, p 2314). It’s not oxygenic
photosynthesis, but it’s a step towards it.
Marine disaster
Even if biologists do one day engineer an
indigo bacterium in the lab, though, this
wouldn’t prove they could evolve naturally.
And to Allen, the gradual evolution scenario
cannot explain all the facts. Why would such
an apparently simple sequence of events have
taken up to a billion years to occur? Why did
oxygenic photosynthesis evolve only once,
in cyanobacteria, as far as we know? (Plants
acquired the ability to photosynthesise by
allowing cyanobacteria to live inside them –
their chloroplasts are descended from
cyanobacteria.) And why do all cyanobacteria
have both kinds of reaction centres?
Allen also thinks the type-I centre evolved
first. But from there, his scenario is very
different. Allen thinks that early in their
history, these bacteria experienced some kind
of genetic glitch which duplicated the entire
set of genes for making a type-I reaction
centre. The spare copy was free to take on a
different role, and it evolved the ability to
recycle electrons – the first type II reaction
centre. Having two distinct reaction centres
allowed these “proto-cyanobacteria” to
thrive in a wide range of environments, Allen
proposes. When there was plenty of hydrogen
sulphide, they used their type-I reaction
centre. When hydrogen sulphide ran low,
the bacteria switched to using their type-II
reaction centre, recycling the electrons they
had gathered.
Then one day, disaster struck: some proto-
cyanobacteria drifted into a shallow marine
environment rich in manganese but poor
in hydrogen sulphide. The bacteria duly
switched to a type-II reaction. But when
ultraviolet light hits manganese it strips
off electrons, so there were actually plenty
available – and these electrons quickly
clogged the cyclic type-II reaction centre.
The resulting manganese ions would have
reacted with water to form manganese
oxide, but there was plenty more manganese
around, producing more than enough
electrons to kill the microbes.
Well, almost all of them. One lucky proto-
Plants can harvest light
only with the help of
symbiotic cyanobacteria
Three ways to harvest light
There are several forms of photosynthesis, but only one makes oxygen as a by-product

Take electrons from Recycle Take electrons

hydrogen sulphide (H2S) electrons from water

Light
CO2 Sugars CO2 Sugars
Light
Light
I I
II II
Energy

e– e– Energy
Type I Type II
e–
reaction reaction Manganese cluster
centre centre
H2S H2O
S

O2

Done by Green sulphur bacteria Purple bacteria Plants, algae, cyanobacteria

Advantage H2S is easy to split No electron source required Unlimited supply of water

Disadvantage Supply of H2S is limited Provides energy only. Other reactions

Water is hard to split
needed to turn CO2 into food

cyanobacterium survived, Allen suggests,
because a mutation wrecked the switch that
turned on only one kind of reaction centre at
any time. With both kinds in action together,
electrons from the manganese could flow
through the type-II centre before being
siphoned off by the type-I centre, preventing
a blockage. In other words, the two reaction
centres would have been working together,
just as they do in cyanobacteria today (FEBS
Letters, vol 579, p 963).
But how did the descendants of this
bacterium go from getting electrons from
Frank Krahmer/getty
manganese to getting them from water?
Well, in a way they didn’t. To this day
manganese provides the electrons needed
for photosynthesis in all plants. However,
the electrons now come from a cluster of
manganese atoms within the type-II reaction
centre, and this cluster has a remarkable
ability – after it has given up electrons, it
steals others from water molecules, splitting
them apart and liberating oxygen.
Once early cyanobacteria had evolved this
kind of type-II centre, they needed only trace
amounts of manganese. They could then
spread from manganese-rich environments
and start exploiting the abundant CO2
superabundance of manganese oxide in rocks
that formed, significantly, in the absence of
oxygen. Not even ultraviolet light could have
generated manganese oxide on the scale
found in the rocks. This leaves photosynthesis
as it existed in Allen’s proto-cyanobacteria as
the only plausible scenario, the team told a
meeting in December.
“It is big news, hugely exciting – and spot
on for John’s hypothesis,” says William Martin
at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf,
Germany, who studies early evolution. Martin
is a supporter of Allen’s scenario, and has
been working with him to gather supporting
evidence. But Blankenship is sticking to his

available at the time, with the help of an
unlimited supply of water and sunshine.
Soon immense numbers of cyanobacteria
were spewing out enough oxygen to transform
the atmosphere.
If Allen’s hypothesis is correct, proto-
cyanobacteria had to stumble into a highly
unusual manganese-rich environment and
lose control of a key genetic switch at the same
time. Allen agrees this is improbable, but this
could be why oxygenic photosynthesis took
a billion years to appear. “The way I look at it,
it was only a matter of time until one of these
bacteria had two accidents at once,” he says.
Remarkably, there is now hard evidence to
back Allen’s idea: we’ve found one of those
rare manganese-rich environments.
Woodward Fischer at the California Institute
of Technology in Pasadena and his colleagues
have been studying rocks laid down in what is
now South Africa just before levels of oxygen
began to rise. In one spot they found a
guns. He describes his many discussions with
Allen and Martin on the origin of oxygenic
photosynthesis as “very spirited, yet friendly”.
What would settle the debate once and for
all is the discovery of living representatives of
one of the proposed intermediate forms –
either indigo bacteria or proto-cyanobacteria.
Surprisingly, Blankenship and Allen are both
confident that their respective organisms
still exist somewhere in the world. “You find
specialist environments today that correspond
to typical conditions 2.4 billion years ago,”
says Allen. “It’s not absurd to think that these
microorganisms are still out there.”
Whatever the ancestor of cyanobacteria
turns out to be like, we have reason to be very
grateful to it. “This organism – maybe by
accident – was hugely important,” says Allen.
“Quite simply, it changed the world forever.” n
Colin Barras is a freelancer writer based near Ann
Arbor in Michigan

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 47

CULTURELAB

An unholy alliance
The first environmentalists would have abused nature to wage war, finds Fred Pearce

The Congressman who proposed

Arming Mother Nature: The birth of
the radioactive “death belt”
catastrophic environmentalism by
in Korea was Albert Gore, father
Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Oxford University
of former vice-president and
Press, $29.95
climate-change campaigner
I HAVE often Al Gore.
wondered why On the other side was Herman
NATO holds Kahn, who developed post-
environment holocaust doomsday scenarios
conferences. Now for the Pentagon-backed RAND
I know the answer. Corporation and was possibly
Back in the 1960s, the model for Dr Strangelove
the Western from the “Bland Corporation” in
military alliance coined the term Stanley Kubrick’s 1967 film. Kahn
“environmental warfare” and for was an environmental optimist,
years actively considered how to and fiercely critiqued The Limits
wage such wars. More than that, to Growth.
argues Jacob Darwin Hamblin in Military scientists were good
this startling account, much of at their jobs. They theorised about
modern environmental thinking
originated with the scientists “The original doom-
and military strategists during mongers were not
the dark days of the cold war. sounding the alarm they
And you thought the first were riding into battle”
Kenneth Garrett/NGS/Getty

environmentalists were muesli-

eating, sandal-wearing hippies? a “nuclear winter” before Carl
Far from it, Hamblin says. Before Sagan popularised the idea in the
them was a generation of scary 1980s. They considered how NASA
Dr Strangelove types, “scientists, rockets damaged the ozone layer,
military leaders and politicians and let others pick up the Nobel
who believed they would have to prize for research published years
manipulate and exploit nature” Cherishing nature was a spin-off from underpinned many claims in later. And early post-war research
in a war against the Soviet Union. the desire to turn it to military ends Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring. into climate change was largely
The original doom-mongers Earlier Charles Elton, the British funded by the US military.
were not sounding the alarm; thinking are far closer than we ecologist who alerted the world to As news editor at New Scientist
they were riding into battle. might imagine: without the the perils of alien species, began in the 1980s, the first reports I
During the Korean war, US cold war, we might not now be his 1958 book, The Ecology of saw on climate change came not
advisers considered spraying gripped by fear of environmental Invasions by Animals and Plants, from environmentalists but from
waste from plutonium catastrophe. with the observation that “it is the US Department of Energy.
reprocessing across Korea to Seminal environmental texts not just nuclear bombs and wars Scepticism about environmental
create a “dehumanised death are often stuffed with military that threaten us... this book is fears is more popular today in
belt”. In their view, a third world metaphors and Pentagon-funded about ecological explosions”. much of the US. Hamblin argues
war could involve using H-bombs research, notes Hamblin. Paul Hamblin’s stories of individuals this followed the fall of the Soviet
to trigger earthquakes; millions Ehrlich chose the title The on the front line are equally empire, when the US military
of tonnes of soot to melt the Population Bomb for his 1968 telling. MIT’s Jay Forrester lost its interest in controlling
Arctic ice cap; and spraying bestseller, airing concerns about modelled defence systems for the the environment. The Faustian
yellow fever across Soviet cities. overpopulation that were fodder US military before constructing pact dissolved. And that, to say
Hamblin’s case is that the for national security scenarios the model behind the doomsday the least, is another surprising
links between such military years before. Research into analysis in the Club of Rome’s 1972 message from this thought-
fantasies and environmental chemical and biological warfare book, The Limits to Growth. provoking book. n

48 | NewScientist |8 June 2013

 For more books and arts coverage and to add your comments, visit newscientist.com/culturelab
Being human
Is it enough to say that our brain sets us apart from other species?
Kate Douglas is unconvinced
Kagan has an interesting angle.
The Human Spark: The science of
A life spent investigating how a
human development by Jerome Kagan,
fertilised egg develops into an
Basic Books, $28.99
adult human being provides him
WHAT is it that with a rich understanding of the
makes humans mind and how it differs from that
special, that sets of our closest animal cousins.
our species apart Human and chimpanzee
from all others? infants behave in remarkably
It must be similar ways for the first four
something to six months, Kagan notes.
connected with It is only during the second year
intelligence – but what exactly? of life that we begin to diverge
People have asked these questions profoundly. As the toddler’s
for as long as we can remember. frontal lobes expand and the
Yet the more we understand connections between the brain
the minds of other animals, sites increase, the human starts
the more elusive the answers to to develop the talents that set
these questions have become. our species apart. These include
The latest person to take up “the ability to speak a symbolic
the challenge is Jerome Kagan, language, infer the thoughts and
a former professor at Harvard feelings of others, understand
University. And not content with the meaning of a prohibited
pinning down the “human spark” action, and become conscious
in the title of his new book, he of 0their own feelings, intentions
then tries to explain what makes and actions”.
each of us unique. Becoming human, as Kagan
As a pioneer in the science describes it, is a complex dance
of developmental psychology, of neurobiological changes and
Piotr Malecki/Panos
psychological advances. All
newborns possess the potential
to develop the universal human
properties “inherent in their
genomes”. What makes each of us
individual is the unique backdrop
of genetics, epigenetics, and the
environment against which this
development plays out.
Kagan’s research highlighted
the role of temperament, which
he notes is underpinned by at
least 1500 genes, affording
huge  individual variation. This
variation, in turn, influences the
way we respond to environmental argues that in today’s world,
factors including family, social
class, culture and historical era.
But what of that human spark?
Kagan seems to locate it in a
quartet of qualities: language,
consciousness, inference and,
especially, morality. This is where between our moral imperative
things start to get weird. He would and Western culture helps explain
like you to believe that morality
is uniquely human, which, of
We diverge profoundly from our
chimp cousins only in our second year
course, bolsters his argument.
Unfortunately, it also means he
has to deny that a rudimentary
morality has evolved in other
social animals whose survival
also depends on cooperation.
Instead, Kagan argues that
morality is a distinctive property
of our species, just as “fish do
not have lungs”. No mention of
evolution. So why are we moral,
then? “The unique biology of the
human brain motivates children
and adults to act in ways that
will allow them to arrive at the
“Unwittingly, we have
created an environment
in which the human spark
is fading”
judgement that they are a good
person.” That’s it?
Warming to his theme, Kagan
where traditional moral standards
have been eroded and replaced
by a belief in the value of wealth
and celebrity, it is increasingly
difficult to see oneself as a good
person. He thinks this mismatch
the “modern epidemic” of mental
illness. Unwittingly, we have
created an environment in which
the human spark is fading.
Some of Kagan’s ideas are even
more outlandish, surely none
more so than the assertion that
a declining interest in natural
sciences may be a consequence of 
mothers becoming less sexually
mysterious than they once were.
More worryingly, he doesn’t seem
to believe that humans are subject
to the same forces of evolution
as other animals.
Nevertheless, Kagan grapples
manfully with the complexity
of what it means to be human,
and has a magnificent disregard
for orthodoxy – questioning
everything from attachment
theory to the belief that animal
emotions are comparable to
our own. As a result, The Human
Spark can be infuriating, but it is
never boring. n
8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 49
 RECRUITMENT email recruitment.services@rbi.co.uk
UK tel +44 (0)20 8652 4444
UK fax +44 (0)20 8261 8434
To apply online visit
www.NewScientistJobs.com ADVERTISING US tel +1 617 386 2190
US fax +1 617 397 2805
US email nssales@elsevier.com
Calls may be monitored or recorded for staff training purposes

Resolution of
,QÀDPPDWLRQ"
WE SHARE YOUR
METICULOUS APPROACH
Immuno-Inflammation
Do you want to be part of a team that’s driving change in the
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find treatments for the supposedly untreatable across II.
To find out more about Immuno-Inflammation at GSK please visit
www.gsk.com/researchcareers

50 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 www.NewScientistJobs.com

We’re expanding our business

And your horizons
BG Group is a world leading exploration and production organisation, with an enviable
portfolio of existing assets and future projects, across more than 20 countries. With
some of our largest projects coming on stream over the next two years and with our eye
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BG Group is a highly technical business and our Exploration & Developments functions
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To register your interest, please visit our careers website and post your CV against job
reference ADV1437 (Development roles) or ADV1438 (Exploration roles).
BG Group values diversity and is committed to equal opportunities; applications are welcome from
all suitably qualified candidates.

A world leader in natural gas www.bg-group.com/careers

The golden age of vaccines

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 51

 SKA Organisation:
20 recruits to help shape
the future of Radio Astronomy
The Square Kilometre Array will be the world’s largest and most Currently recruiting for:
sensitive radio telescope.
+ System Engineers (7 roles)
Scheduled to begin construction in 2017, thousands of linked radio
wave receptors will be located in Australia and in Southern Africa.
+ Project Managers (5 roles)
Combining the signals from the antennas in each region will create + Project Controller
a telescope with a collecting area equivalent to a dish with an area + Configuration Manager
of about one square kilometre which will address fundamental
+ Product/Mission Assurance
unanswered questions about our Universe.
The Square Kilometre Array is a global science and engineering
+ Power Engineer
project led by the SKA Organisation, a not-for-profit company with its + Domain Specialists (2 roles)
headquarters at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Manchester, UK. + Deputy Director-General
SKA Organisation will lead the SKA system design and oversee the
+ Head of Policy Development
detailed design being undertaken within the globally distributed SKA
work package consortia. + Executive Officer
To accomplish this goal the SKA Office is employing highly qualified
scientists and engineers, project managers and system engineers.
We are seeking outstanding individuals for the roles listed.
Benefits of employment include a generous company pension
scheme, 30 days holiday per year plus UK public holidays and
assistance in relocating to the UK.

For further information about any of our vacancies Closing date for receipt of
and details of how to apply please visit our website: applications:19th July 2013.
www.skatelescope.org/people-contacts/jobs

Exploring the Universe with the world’s largest radio telescope www.skatelescope.org
 www.NewScientistJobs.com

BioFocus is a leader in complex biological assays, high-throughput screening

and integrated drug discovery approaches to develop novel drugs. Within
our established biology group, at our state-of-the-art research site near
Cambridge, we are expanding our high-throughput screening department and
are currently recruiting for ambitious scientists with relevant experience.

Group Leader
High-throughput screening CRP-781

You will be
• Leading the development, optimization, validation, implementation,
and execution of high-throughput screening projects
• Interfacing directly with clients and our business development team to
understand project needs and deliverables and define appropriate
project strategy
• Managing a team of scientists working on multiple projects
• Monitoring and troubleshooting assay quality and performance
You will have:
• Expertise in high-throughput screening to progress hit finding projects from
conception through to validated hit delivery
• Relevant industrial experience of managing a team to deliver projects to
specified timelines in a HTS or cross-functional drug discovery setting
• A PhD in Biology or related discipline and a background in in vitro assay
development and application. Expertise in enzymology would be an advantage

Scientist and Senior Scientists

High-throughput screening
(permanent and temporary positions) CRP-838

You will be
• Developing, optimizing and executing in vitro biological assays for
high-throughput screening for small molecule drug discovery projects
• Part of a wider team, interacting with external client project teams
• Monitoring assay quality, troubleshooting issues and contributing to project
delivery through lab-based activities
You will have:
• Excellent, demonstrable team working, communication and organizational
skills with the ability to handle multiple tasks
• A degree or equivalent in life sciences and experience of assay development
and high-throughput screening in an industrial laboratory setting is preferred
• A knowledge of automated laboratory equipment
• Good data analysis skills and a willingness to work flexibly across
target classes

For all these positions...

We are looking for suitably qualified and experienced individuals with strong
communication and presentation skills, a collaborative attitude and the
ability to work well under pressure and meet critical timelines.
You must have the right to work for any company in the UK.
To apply, please visit the careers page of our website to apply online.

No agencies www.biofocus.com

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 53

 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
one of the most fertile and fastest growing areas of research
and development. One area in which this is most apparent
is genomics, where vast amounts of data are generated
and a range of bioinformatics resources are used. The NHS
is utilising advances in this area in day to day diagnostic
testing and management in order to provide the highest
quality in patient care.
Healthcare Science is one of the most exciting and dynamic
areas to work within the NHS.
Join a unique team who are inspired to apply their exceptional
scientific knowledge and skills to the prevention, diagnosis
and treatment of disease and the rehabilitation of patients.
Excellent training opportunities are offered within this
national postgraduate training programme located in
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
for a fully funded part time vocational master’s degree.
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

Cures don’t just happen.

They demand collaboration. Dedication. Talent. Teamwork.

Job Opportunities – Computational Biology

The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric
Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) is the largest investment to date aimed at
understanding the genetic origins of childhood cancers. PCGP is establishing
an on-site, Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certified laboratory
at St. Jude. This lab will use next-generation sequencing (NGS) to evaluate
samples from St. Jude patients and will explore the optimal way to use this
data in patient care. To support the clinical genomics initiative, we are
recruiting for multiple positions in the Computational Biology Department.
The Computational Biology Department has a well-established track record in
developing and delivering state-of-the-art computational methods for analyzing
NGS data and for producing high-impact publications in top-tier journals. We
are looking for highly motivated and talented bioinformatics scientists and
engineers to work on competitive projects and solve challenging problems in
genomic and epigenetic profiling of pediatric cancer for both research and
clinical applications.
To learn more about current job opportunities and to apply, visit www.stjude.org/jobs

Ranked in the top 10 best places to work in academia by The Scientist yearly since 2005.
Named the nation’s No. 1 pediatric cancer care hospital by Parents magazine, 2009.
www.stjude.org/jobs Named the nation’s best children’s cancer hospital by U.S. News & World Report, 2010.
Named to FORTUNE magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For yearly since 2011.
An Equal Opportunity Employer — © 2013 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital-Biomedical Communications.

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 55

 ACADEMIC email recruitment.services@rbi.co.uk
UK tel +44 (0)20 8652 4444
UK fax +44 (0)20 8261 8434
To apply online visit
www.NewScientistJobs.com OPPORTUNITIES US tel +1 617 386 2190
US fax +1 617 397 2805
US email nssales@elsevier.com
Calls may be monitored or recorded for staff training purposes

University of East London

Biosciences Alumni
Masters in Environmental Technology Are you a 70s, 80s or 90s HND, BSc, MSc or
Currently recruiting for October 2013
PhD UEL biology/bioscience graduate?
This world-leading Masters is an established route to a successful career in
environment and sustainability. The 1 year course provides the highest standard of
knowledge and skills development at one of the world’s leading universities.
If so, join us at our alumni event:
Applicants come from a wide range of backgrounds including sciences, social 7.00pm, Tuesday 25th June
sciences, humanities and business. Institute of Directors
The first term provides interdisciplinary training in environmental science, 116 Pall Mall
economics, law, policy, and technology. London SW1Y 5ED
The second term is a choice of specialist options that meet your career aspirations.
Options include: The evening will include a networking
• Ecological Management – natural resource conservation and management.
reception with drinks and canapés,
Global in scope, problems are tackled in a way that can be tailored to local or giving you the chance to catch up with
regional conditions. other UEL bioscience graduates and find
• Pollution Management – focuses on interactions between environmental science, out where their degrees have taken them.
technology and policy. Local pollution issues are studied within their regional and
global context. If you have stayed in contact with other
• Health and Global Environment – focuses on the relationships between UEL biology/bioscience graduates, please let
environmental quality and human health. them know about the event!
• Other available options include: Water Management, Global Environmental
Change, Environmental Economics, Energy policy, Environmental Analysis,
and Business.
The final term is an individual research project that may include desk, field or
laboratory research. Collaborating organisations have ranged from consultancies to To find out more and book a place,
the United Nations. email: alumni@uel.ac.uk
Over 3,000+ students have graduated since 1977. Using this international alumni
network, 85% of graduates find degree-related employment shortly after course
completion.
A small number of departmental studentships are available. For more information
please email: enquiries.env@imperial.ac.uk or phone +44 (0)20 7594 9347 or see
our webpage: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/environmentalpolicy/teaching/msc

56 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

 www.NewScientistJobs.com

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,
microarrays and protein/peptide mass spectrometry. This is achieved through consultation on research projects, provision
of data analysis and visualization tools and resources, and training.
This is an exciting opportunity to apply and develop your skills in support of cancer research projects that span a wide
range of applications including gene expression profiling, ChIP-seq analysis of DNA-bound proteins, and cancer genome
sequencing to identify SNPs, indels, copy number aberrations and structural variants.
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.

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 57

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

58 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013

STUDENTSHIPS, email recruitment.services@rbi.co.uk
UK tel +44 (0)20 8652 4444
UK fax +44 (0)20 8261 8434
COURSES & EVENTS US tel +1 617 386 2190
US fax +1 617 397 2805
US email nssales@elsevier.com
Calls may be monitored or recorded for staff training purposes

TRAIN TO TEACH PHYSICS AT AN

‘OUTSTANDING’ INSTITUTION
Edge Hill University is based on an award-winning campus near Liverpool
and has a Faculty of Education rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

We offer two specialist Physics-related PGCE programmes:

PGCE Secondary Science (Physics)

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edgehill.ac.uk/pgce Search for Edge Hill

8 June 2013 | NewScientist | 59

 FEEDBACK
PROGRAMMERS at a Famous
Web Search Engine are forever
trying to find new ways to be
helpful – and to keep us coming
back. Clive Jones was recently
looking up exchange rates
between the British pound and
the US dollar. He discovered that
if you put a figure and a currency
in the search box, the search
engine makes “a decent stab at
providing an instant conversion
without the need to select a
website and search around”.
Later, he accidentally typed
“pound pound dollar rate” into
the search field and received the
result: “1 British pound pound
U.S. dollar = 0.677349486 kg U.S.
Dollars2”. After studying this, Clive
says he “can only conclude that
they have attempted to provide
the weight of a pound of dollars”.
What the intriguing unit the
Paul Mcdevitt
kilogram-dollar-squared might
represent continues to elude him,
though, as it does us.
Brian Robinson sends us a photo of a
large sign outside a showroom in what
he describes as “rural Virginia”. It says:
“Antique tables made daily”
60 | NewScientist | 8 June 2013
Ignoring Clive’s warning that
we were in danger of opening
the floodgates of permutation,
we tried “euro euro dollar rate”,
which wasn’t recognised as a
currency conversion; then
“euro pound dollar rate”, which
we were informed was “1 Euro
pound U.S. dollar = 0.584544487 kg
U.S. Dollars2”.
Something similar happens for
yen. Disappointingly, “blue whale
pound dollar rate” gives the usual
selection of links, many to pages
that do not mention whales. One
links to the news, attributed to
Fox, that “Trillion Dollar Coin
Would Equal Weight Of 89 Blue
Whales” – taking us into the outer
reaches of fiscal strangeness.
OUR “missing floors in buildings”
theme has inspired readers to
send us stories about buildings
around the world equipped with lifts
that miss out certain floors (4 May).
For more feedback, visit newscientist.com/feedback
Now Alan Chattaway sends us the
strangest one yet.
“Here in Vancouver, Canada, one of
our tallest buildings has four missing
floors,” he says. “The One Wall Centre
is so narrow that it would have
swayed in high winds or earthquakes.
To prevent this, 400 tonnes of water
are on the roof to increase inertia,
and four floors below are filled with
concrete cross-bracing.”
Alan concludes that “the missing
floors may not be obvious to those
using the elevators”. We think this is
just as well. The knowledge of all that
water and concrete just above your
head when you reach the “top floor”
would not be reassuring.
INEVITABLY, Feedback readers
have sent in further responses to
our mentions of the T-shirt slogan
that there are “only 10 types of
people in the world: those who
understand binary and those who
don’t” (16 March and 11 May). John
Hartley suggests an alternative:
“There are {{},{{}}} types of people
in the world – those who
understand the construction of
ordinal numbers in axiomatic
set theory, and those who don’t.”
Feedback’s resident
mathematics guru agrees.
The symbol “{}”, he explains,
represents the empty set, which
has no members; and {{}}
represents the set whose single
member is the empty set – which
is how we get to “one” in set
theory. And so on to “two”, and
the rest of arithmetic.
All of which may well be true.
However, Feedback suspects that
the market for this T-shirt will be
somewhat smaller than that for
the binary variant.
AS HE was about to send a parcel
via myhermes.co.uk, Tim Walker
decided to check first that it wasn’t
too big or heavy, so he clicked on the
link to “check parcel size”. Here he
was presented with the statement:
“max volume up to 225cm.”
He had a bit of a struggle with
“max volume up to”, wondering how
it was possible to have more than one
maximum, but decided to treat this
as mere tautology. But this still left
him with a one-dimensional volume,
leading him briefly to wonder how
many one-dimensional parcels
you can fit in a three-dimensional
delivery van.
He assumed, of course, that they
had omitted “cubed” after “cm”. Then
he noticed that the website includes
a handy “UK volume calculator”, so
he decided to check if its definition
matched the one he knew. He put
in “10 cm” for parcel length, parcel
width and parcel height, hit “calculate
size” and was given a “combined size”
of “50cm”.
A SIGN in Roger Calvert’s local
ASDA supermarket proclaims
“Tried, Tasted and Chosen by You”.
The two displays it refers to, Roger
tells us, are for liquid laundry
detergent and plastic bin bags.
FINALLY, Feedback frequently does
a double take when a disembodied
voice on London’s Underground
admonishes passengers to “take all
your belongings with you” when
leaving the train. Would they really
appreciate us wedging the doors
open while we unloaded 1000 books,
the cast-iron cookware and the
shelves they sit on?
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
Bag breakdown
I found this plastic shopping bag,
which was full of other plastic bags,
stored in the bottom of a wardrobe
(see photo). Though the bag is
labelled as “100% degradable”,
I wonder why it should start to
degrade in the absence of light or
moisture, and especially why the
red parts should degrade first.
n It looks as though the
questioner has an oxo-degradable
bag. These bags decompose by
oxidation, which can proceed
in the absence of sunlight or
moisture. A metal, usually
manganese or iron, is added to
the bag to catalyse the natural
oxidation process, which simply
chops up the polyalkenes that
make up the plastic product into
shorter-chain molecules.
But when plastic finds its way
into the oceans, this process
makes the pollution less obtrusive
but still results in a plastic soup
of microfragments, typically a
couple of millimetres in diameter.
Toxins and persistent organic
pollutants stick to the
microscopic particles, which are
consumed by zooplankton and
filter feeders, such as mussels.
Persistent organic pollutants
(commonly called POPs) therefore
enter the food chain and become
concentrated by the time they
reach the flesh we eat. Plastic
floating in the oceans can also
carry alien species to new habitats
and can kill marine life entangled
in it. To its credit, oxo-degradable
plastic does reduce this ecological
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Mike Follows
Willenhall, West Midlands, UK
n Many plastic shopping bags
are made from polyethylene.
The thinner bags tend to be high-
density polyethylene and the bag
in the photograph appears to be
one of those. Polyethylene is a
hydrocarbon and is hydrophobic,
so it cannot be printed on in its
raw form. The surface must be
treated so the dyes will stick.
Corona treatment is often used,
usually just after the polyethylene
film is produced and before it is
made into rolls. Corona treatment
uses a high voltage to create a
plasma, or “glow discharge”,
that breaks the long polymer
molecules and partly oxidises the
surface. This tends to separate
charges in and around the surface
molecules, making them polar,
less hydrophobic and so able to
accept printing. Corona treatment,
however, starts the degradation
of the polymer itself. I have also
noticed that printed plastic
shopping bags tend to degrade
quicker than non-printed bags.
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Your correspondent notes that hitting the Earth would contribute
the bag is labelled degradable so it at least 60 kilojoules for every
is possible that a low level of iron, gram of its mass. If that heat were
manganese or cobalt stearate has confined to the colliding object,
been added to aid degradation. it would heat it to thousands of
These can work by thermal degrees. This heat did not have
degradation: light is not necessary, time to radiate away as the planet
but a warm environment helps. grew, so the result was a hot Earth.
It is not possible to tell what dyes Besides this, the Earth produced
were used, but the red colour heat through radioactive decay.
must contain either an organic Early on, the amount of heating
or metal-based compound that per unit volume was greater than
accelerates the degradation. at present. Today, heating is almost
Greg Cash
Senior research fellow, polymers “The initial heat of the Earth
University of Queensland, Australia was caused by the collision
of smaller objects that
Hot youth came together to make it”
All of the radioactive elements that all due to the decay of uranium-238,
made up the early Earth started out thorium, and potassium-40, in
in the hot ash of ancient supernova roughly equal measure. But
explosions. This means they have 4.5 billion years ago, the amount
been working through their of uranium-235 was close to the
half-lives for at least 5 billion years amount of uranium-238 we have
since our planet was born. How much today (instead of being a minor
hotter was Earth’s interior then? component) and uranium-235
What would the heat from nuclear produces heat much faster than
reactions mean for tectonic activity uranium-238. There was also about
and the evolution of life in our 13 times as much potassium-40
world’s feverish youth? (Continued) as there is today. The presence of
these nuclides helped to heat up
n The initial heat of the Earth was the interior of the Earth during the
caused by the collisions of smaller first billion years of its existence.
objects that came together to Eric Kvaalen
make it. Gravitational attraction Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
accelerated objects towards each
other, and when they struck their This week’s question
kinetic energy converted to heat.
As time went on, the amount not his cup of tea
of energy contributed by objects I like drinking tea, but my husband
falling onto the proto-Earth hates it. Are we tasting the same
became larger as the planet and flavours? If so, why the difference?
its gravity became larger. Towards Patricia Lloyd
the end of the process, any object Cardiff, UK
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